More on critical

Finally, I found the time to do some more testing. An archer friend with 8600 crit was kind enough to help me out on this. In short, I figured out a few things:

- Crit is not superior to ewd for a mage even with very high critical.
- The +20% crit rate for an archer (both in passive skill and in active skills) is not really 20%
- Enchanced illusion got nerfed, and is quite useless now.
- Guardian angels works good, on the other hand.

If you want to know more, read the full arcile here.

Maximize gain from Jewel Hunt

I already mentioned in my Optimize play time article that Jewel Hunt is an excellent reward / time invested activity. You can get a lot of fate stones here, which can give you a decent BR increase. This is one of the few activities in Wartune where you should spend balens - just do it wisely!

First of all, you have to understand how Jewel Hunt work. Of course, you understand the game, but you have to know how the rewards work.

If you complete 3 in a row, you get 10 points and a "common" treasure. it is either a refinement lock, a level 1 gem, or a few soul crystals (amount depends on your Jewel Hunt level). The average value is 1 balen, not the best deal (for complete list of item values, see this article). If, with one movement, you get two or more triples, you get a common treasure for each.

If you complete 4 in a row, you get 20 points and an "uncommon" treasure. This can be a mount training whip, 2 refinement locks, fate stones and soul scrystals. At level 13, I get 2 fate stones or 6 SC, at lvl 17, 4 fate stones and 7 SC. So the value of this depends heavily on your Jewel Hunt level, can be 6-11 balens or even more if your JH level is 20+.
So please note that getting 20 poins with 4 is not the same as getting 2x10 points with 2x 3 in a row. Same points, but much better treasure.

If you complete 5, you get 50 points and a "rare" treasure: a lvl 2 gem, 2 mount training whip, fate stones (double the uncommon number) and soul crystals (16 at lvl 13, 19 at lvl 17, guess the amount for lower and higher levels).  This is also the best treasure you can get. If you complete 6 or more, you just get a combined treasure of the above.

So what's the best strat for maximum gain?

1.) Always check if you can complete 5, there are 3 possibilites (and their rotated versions):

2.) If you can't finish 5, look if you can make one in 2 moves. Doing a move which gets you no point at all then completing a 5 is always better than doing 2 x 3, or even, a 3 and a 4.

3.) Check if there is a 4 you can finish.

4.) Check if there is a movement which finish 2 or more 3's at once.

5.) If you can do nothing just a single 3, look what the table is going to look like after you do it. Try to choose one which gets you into the best situation.

When to use the get help option?

Get help can remove any number of stones from 1 to all. It can get you 20 points or 500, so it's a pretty random thing. When to use it?



1.) Use it when you are stuck (no moves left) or you have a pretty bad table (only one 3 and then you don't se how to go on).

2.) If you used all moves, use get help anyway BEFORE you consider adding more moves for balens.

Chest values

The first chest worth about 70 balens without the Jewel Hunt shards. You can change the shards for a temporal mount (you want to buy it only once, to increase the maximum number of whips you can spend) or a "sylph resource pack" which contains either sepulcrum, mahra, sylph xp scroll or gold. Be warned: this is the usual wartune scam. From 15 packs, I got one sepulcrum, no mahra, the rest is sylph xp scoll and gold, so the shards are nar worthless.
Nonetheless, this chest is free, you will always get it from 20 moves and get help.

The second chest worth almost 200 balens. So even if you need to add attempts once for balens, you should do it. If you follow the above steps and have good practice, you prolly never need to add attempts more than once to reach the second chest.



The third chest is tricky. It worth approx. 300 balens, but you need at least 30-40 extra moves to reach it. At level 17 Jewel Hunt, I earn an average of 5 balens per move. So if I can get to the third chest in 30 moves, it worth it. For 30 moves to be enough, you need at least 950 points. So if you have jewel hunt 15+, at least 950 points after you claimed the 2nd chest, and are willing to spend 450 balens, only then go for the third chest.

Fourth chest. Don't even think about it.

How combat works

In a game like Wartune, I always want to know how combat works. It helps me to make the most optimal decisions. A game with so many players, you would think there are precise figures on webpages, which show you how crit, dodge, and defense work. To my disappointment, I realized that even if someone figured how things work, he kept the information to himself.

So I made some testings myself. Dueled 2 characters for like 20 fights, using lightning bolt only. Noted down the results. Then changed only one aspect - like added some crit, or removed an astral etc. And learned a few things.

So if you want to know how combat works in Wartune, which is better, crit or will destroyer, how good is block, what does resist and reduce resist do... continue reading here.

Everything about sylphs

I finished my page, where I collected all the secrets about sylphs. You won't find there listings of sylphs skills, resistances. There are many pages which do that. I wrote here about tricks which many players don't know. If you like it, please share the page and the link of my blog :)

Warning: the info which follows below is for only hardcore competitive players.

Click here to read the full article only at your own risk!

Wartune big sale analysis

There is a big sale event in Wartune. I help you decide if it worth spending or not.

Whenever a sale event is running, you should decide 3 things:
1.) what is the worth of the bonus packs (ie. how much discount you get).
2.) is there anything worthwhile to buy.
3.) you still stay in the spending boundaries you set for yourself.
Big sales are nothing just a psychological marketing trick. Don't buy just because you feel you miss something. There is always another sale.

To determine the worth of packages, I use this article.
For value of clothes, I calculate with the standard shop value of 400 balens, 2000 for wings.
Please also note, that the average discount for recharge promotions, sales etc. is 20-25%. So you should consider buying if you get at least that discount.

Pack value of pack: 70 balens.   Total discount.  3.5%. Isn't worth it.

Pack value of pack: 325 balens. Together with the previous, you get a total pack value of 395 balens. having spent 5000, your total discount is 7,9%. Isn't worth it.

Pack value of pack: 598 balens. Together with the previous ones, you get a total pack value of 993 balens. having spent 10.000, your total discount is 9,9%. Isn't worth it.

Pack value of pack: 4900 balens. Together with the previous ones, you get a total pack value of 5893 balens. having spent 20.000, your total discount is 29,4%. Sounds okay IF you are willing to spend 200 (!!) USD (usually a full year subscription for a 3D mmorpg, and you can be a champion in the other browser game Doomlord by spending that much).

Pack value of pack: 2896 balens. Together with the previous ones, you get a total pack value of 8789 balens. having spent 30.000, your total discount is 29,3%.Any honest merchant should give a bigger discount if you spend more :( Especially, the clothes are poor quality. I don't recommend going this far.

Pack value of pack: 5114 balens. Together with the previous ones, you get a total pack value of 13903 balens. having spent 50.000, your total discount is 27,8%. Even worse than the previous one. The reason for this, because they know the whales buy it anyway, and us mere mortals don't.

Now let's see if there is anything worthwhile to buy?
There are a few reasonable things to spend balens on:
1.) You can buy some treasure maps in advance (until all your crystals are level 4, it worth buying an orange map each day, if everyone in your group does the same).
2.) You can buy some crypt keys too to open up 1-2 shields.
3.) Jewel Hunt now worth going until points 1600, you can spend some balen on this for these 3 days.
4.) Personally, I have some sylph skill I didn't buy, was waiting for a similar event.
5.) You might consider buying some fashion cores for clothing refine (but it worth ONLY if you refine an S cloth, with only 1 star).
6.) You shouldn't buy: mother's love pack (sold for 39 balens, worth only 25.68 balens, see sample calculation here, And for god's sake, don't buy rune pack either, it's a very bad deal.

So calculate for yourself, how much you can spend reasonably. If you think you can spend 20.000 balens on buys where you get at least +2000 BR, AND you can spare so much money, go ahead. Otherwise, ignore big spender.

One final note: you should wait with most of your purchases until the last day. You never know if they add a recharge event or something else which can make this look better.

Cloth identification and sky trail

 Today's patch added the following changes to the game: cloth identification, sky trail and change in jewel hunt. Below follows a BR / balen evalution of these changes. 


Cloth identification. 
 First, you should identify all clothes you have. Order doesn't matter, it costs some gold, but in a few days at most you will identify all.
Refine is more tricky. You should follow this order until you run out of fasion cores (hopefully you saved up a lot from the Spire):
1.) refine all S clothes once.
2.) refine all other clothes once.
3.) refine all 2 star S clothes until you get more stars.
4.) refine all 3 star S clothes and all 2 star other clothes (about the same gain) until you get more stars.
I do not recommend refine 3+ stars A-D clothes and 4 stars S clothes. It just gives very poor BR for your balen.
Also I do not recommend buying fashion cores for 400 balens. There will be a sale eventually, just wait for it.


Sky trail.

 Looks like a nice pve event at firt glance, but the excitement will wear off quickly. You have to try to finish off each monster with a big delphic when they are on very low hp so you get the S assessment bonus rewards.
About the reward horn: when you use it, be careful! The second horn used with the same card set cost balens (and no, it doesn't worth it). So better restart after each horn.





 Jewel Hunt changes.

Jewel hunt point limits and rewards have been adjusted. The first chest needs only 300 pts (you will always reach it), the second needs 700 pts - most of the time you need to add 10 attempts to reach it. The second chest's value is 220 balens, so it worth going for it. The third chest is at 1600 points. It worth about 350 balens. You need to add 30-40 attemps to reach it, for 450-600 balens. You also earn goodies worth 300-400 balens while reaching the third chest, so I recommend going for this as well, if you have the balens. Going for the 4th chest doesn't worth it.

In balen values, I used this table. Jewel hunt shards worth 20 balens (you can get a chest in blacksmith synthesis from 10 shards which gives 50% nothing, 50% 400 balens worth). Please watch out, there is a trap here, you can synthetise a +50 mount also - but it's only valid for 7 days!

The gamble factor

I played another Chinese game for a year, called Business Tycoon online. The basic game was good and addictive. But it was a license, and the licensing company couldn't correct any of the bugs in the original code, and even added more and more. Also, the lag was unbearable after a time.

This was the first time I met with the Chinese "you can spend as much as you want" and the "gambles where you don't know the chances but we can change them anytime" game design strategies.


The Chinese gambe factor has one single goal. That you spend MUCH MORE money what you would otherwise.

Take, for example, the last Wartune event. You could get a Hades sylph for 480 King Souls. You need to open 960 chests for 480 King Souls, so that's 960 x 39 = 37.440 balens, aka 374 USD. A ridiculous price, isn't it?  But people say - I still buy some boxes, maybe I get lucky. He buys 100 box - no luck. So he buys another 100 - still no luck. He keeps buying, a classic gambling symptom.

There is rougly 0.2% chance to get a Hades sylph, so you need an average of 500 boxes. That's still less than 960. Some people get it after 10 or 100 boxes. But the forums are full with complaints from people who didn't get it even after opening 600.

Maybe you heard about the classic experiment, where you have 2 options. You either get one million dollars. Or you can flip a coin. If it's head, you get 10 million dollars. If it's tails, you get nothing. The expected value of your winnings is 5 times more in the later case. Still, most people would choose the firs option.

But here, you don't have the first option. You can just keep flipping the coin.


So here is my advice about ANY gambles in Chinese games (not only Wartune).

If there is any kind of gamble, first, try to figure out the chances. Do not rely on what the publishers say. Find players who already played the gamble, and collect statistics from them. When you do have enough information, calculate the expected winnings, and make a decision. You can find a good example of how to calculate it
at the end of this article.


If you are not sure of the chances, or the numbers look bad, do not enter it. Not even if you desire the reward - remember, your desire is nothing just gambling addiction, which is harmful to your health and your wallet. And the item you desire will be available again later on, probably at a cheaper price.

Personally, I never liked gambles in such games. If I want to gamble, I play poker, there I at least know the chances :) In my other favorite game, Doomlord, there are no random packs, and if a chance is included in an event, that chance is always public and reliable. But it is an European game.

Playing smart

In a good game, you have to make decisions. The more decisions, the more complicated the game, and the greater edge a clever player can have.

In Wartune, your decisions are limited. You can make decisions about how much money to spend, how much time to spend, what to upgrade, and what strategy to follow.

1.) About spending money, 

I already wrote in detail in my balen value of items article. Later on, I will write more about this subject. Also, when they make new offers and sales, will try to post entires if it worth it or not. Spending money is not part of playing smart: it's just a test of your wallet and your willpower.

2.) Spending time. 

Time is a valuable resource. You can play wartune 6-8 hours a day, or even more. If you don't have that much time, you have to prioritize what to do and what not. There are also ways to win time. Here is an article about spending time efficiently in wartune.

3.) What to upgrade. 

Some people spent months making their lvl 60 equipment. Some went directly for lvl 70 after 55. Some people upgrade only one sylph with all mahra and sepulcrum, some distribute these evenly between three. Making the right decisions can make you equal with people who spent 10 times more than you. A detailed article on this will follow soon.

4.) Strategy 

can include what skills to use, and in what order during fights (especially important in pvp, like class wars), how to defeat a rival guild during guild wars finals.

Right now, lets see how can we optimize play time. Click here to read the full article.