God's descent hints

There are 2 things I don't like in God's descent. The first kill bonus: the event begins at 1:00 am CET, so unless you are an archer who don't need sleep, you don't have a chance there.  Also, the fights take too much time. You can keep fighting all day to get some gold and star sands. 

Anyway, all should do it to some extent for the final reward, so here are a few hints to make it easier.

• Your attempts regen only while you online, and only if you didn't buy attempts in the last 10 minutes.
• You get one attempt once every 10 minutes of the hour (so at X:00, X:10, X:20 etc). But if you begin buying attempts, you stop regenerating attempts! To maximize attempts for a single fight, collect 5 then wait 5-7 more minutes, and begin.
• If you can't kill the boss in 30 minutes, you can use balens to extend this time - green cross bottom right corner of boss picture. (Although you can get pretty far without balens, so I recommend this only if you go for the top 2 ranks).
• If the reset timer expires during fight, and you are going to finish the boss, no worries, he won't heal up mid-fight.
• You get points for each fight even if you don't kill the boss. However, if your boss HP resets to maximum, you wont get more points until you beat him again. So you have to advance with bosses to advance your rank.
• World boss mode. These bosses use the same combat routines like world boss. So you can use double attacks, and the early ones (lvl 50-60) are very suspectible to crits. I changed to will destroyer at boss19, I woss dealing significantly more damage there with it.
• Formation. Early on, it's better to stand in front, so your troops deal damage for the entire fight. Later on (boss 19+) better if your troops stand in front and win you a few rounds.
• Starting rage and sylph state. If you failed to kill the boss, you start at normal starting rage and 0 sylph state.
• If you killed the previous boss, next fight you begin with the rage and sylph state you finished with.
• Healing. Early on, don't bother about healing. If you die, just use the next free attempt.
• Use slow skills (thunderer, deep freeze, mire rune) to extend the battle. Use offensive runes (bleed, rage) and astrals (enhanced deflection).
• Sylph. Just use your best damage sylph (Gaia, Hades etc) except when you face a boss which is the same element, then use your second strongest sylph.

July big spender

A big spender event went live today. It is the exact copy of the June big spender event, they did not change anything. So just check my June analysis, the same applies here.

Conclusion: if your fate is not maxed out, you can get an okay (25%) bonus here if you spend at least 200 USD. But wait at least 1 day! Some more sale might come up, and you might spend some balens as well in god's descent. Also, the question is, if there is something to spend so much balens on. The obvious choices:


Imperial chests. You can read in detail about the imperial chests here. In short, probably the worst and greediest event is running currently in Wartune's history. It completely relies on people spending mindlessly on something which they desire much. If you need Apollo/Hades, AND are willing to spend a lot of money to collect enough shards for evolve, hope you were patient enough to wait for this big spender (I told you it's coming). Now you will be still ripped off, but at least 25% less :) If you dont have 400 bucks to get it for sure, but want to gamble some money: set your limit first, and stick to it!

Crypt keys to advance your dragon soul. I wrote about this in my previous article about Dragon soul, I don't recommend spending a large amount of balen on this, but to reach the next bonus pack together with other spendings its okay to buy a few.


God's descent. If you want to get far, you might spend some balens here (but not too much!). So do god's descent, jewel hunt etc. before you spent on anything else, so you dont spend a balen more than necessary.

Don't even think about buying mount whips, mahra etc. and other crap which is for sale. These are sold for 5-10 times their real value. And take me as an example. I never spend a cent on soul crystals and mount whips. Now my soul engrave is maxed out, and my stable is halfway to level 8. (Too bad the 70 free imperial chests I could claim for lvl 6 and 7 upgrade gave me nothing rare.) Just be patient, and use stuff only when you get bonus for doing so.

Dragon soul optimization

Dragon soul is a new addition to the game. Besides giving some stat bonuses, it is supposedly something which is a prerequisite for other things when you max it out. So it would be important to know how much time you need to max it out. I would like to give you some help with that.

Dwmedia wrote a few things on the Wartune forum, for which I am very thankful. So let's suppose the following, based on what we have now:

Dragon soul have 20 levels in total, which needs an approx. total of 900 dragon essences.
In Nirvana NM, we can get 4 essences per run. In lych, you get essences for minis as well, but only 1 per boss, so I assume Nirvana is still better source (if you can do it).
The second resource costs balens: you have to run the necropolis. You get dragon essences depending how far you get:
lvl 5 = 1 x Essence 
lvl 10 = 2 x Essences
lvl 15 = 3 x Essences
lvl 20 = 4 x Essences
lvl 25 = 5 x Essences
lvl 30 = 6 x Essences
I'm at lvl 20, so I get a total of 10 Essences per run.

Ok, there are the following options:

1.) Collect essences only from MPD. In this case, I need 900 / 4 = 225 days to max out dragon soul.

2.) I get an average of 1 free crypt key from using skeleton keys and rolling the guild wheel per day. If I use these to do a necropolis every 3 day instead of using it in catacombs, I need 900 / 7.3 = 123 days.

3.) If I buy 2 crypt keys and do necropolis every day, I need 900 / 14 = 64 days (9900 balens, ouch).

The question is, when do I need my dragon soul maxed out? As we have seen, Proficient City is much slower at adding content than 7Roads. So it can be anything between 2 and 5 months. My guess would be 3 months (but really, no one can tell).

Conclusion. If you are pretty ahead in necropolis (level 20 or further), and dont want to spend 10k balens on some blind shot, you should stop using crypt keys in cata and start using them in necropolis. If you are not so ahead in necropolis, try to get a bit further (warrior's call helps a lot!). I wouldn't recommend buying a large amount of crypt keys now. We don't know much yet, maybe the numbers are different, maybe we have more time, maybe there will be a crypt key sale, and definitely there will be a big spender event soon. Just wait, and do necropolis for free when you can. Patience always saves a lot of balens.

Overlord Descent analysis

Before going into details, we have a few questions: do you need Hades or Apollo? Do you need divinity shards to evolve Hades or Apollo? How much are you willing to pay for  these?

I already mentioned earlier that assigning a value to Hades or Apollo is very difficult. You can find a detailed calculation of Hades value here. It's approx. 8000 balens. Apollo is more widely used than Hades, but it was also more easy to get (previous event the cost of Apollo was about third of the current!!) So for simplicity, I set Apollo's value to 8000 as well.

If you don't need Apollo or Hades, you will just change them back for 1125 imperial shards, 1000 soul shards and 400 mount whips. In this case, Apollo/Hades worth only 1300 balens for you.

Divinity shard is a new item. You need 500 to evolve your Apollo/Hades. I think that most of you cashers need this item. Question is: how much balen would you pay for the 500 divinity shard to evolve your Apollo / Hades? For me, 10k balens is the absolute maximum. So to me, 1 divinity shard = 20 balens. Set your own limit and calculate with that.


Ok, now let's see the balen value of Imperial Shards:

Imperial Shard x1 for 10,000 Gold: 0.2 balen / shard


Imperial Shard x5 for 10,000 Kyanite: 1.3 balen / shard


Imperial Shard x50 for Mount Training Whip x25: 1 balen / shard


Imperial Shard x50 for Runestone x25: 2.5 balens / shard

Imperial Shard x100 for Divinity Shard x20:  4 balens / shard


Imperial Shard x2250 for Apollo Seal (Blue) x1: 3.5 balens / shard if you need apollo; 1.1 balen / shard otherwise



Imperial Shard x2250 for Hades Seal (Blue) x1: 3.5 balens / shard if you need apollo; 1.1 balen / shard otherwise


Not looking very good! Your best exchange is divinity shards - but of course, only if you are willing to buy enough to get all the 500. To get 500, you need to buy an average of 800 chests (which gets you 2000 imperial shards = 400 divinity shars, 8x rare loot: 10 divinity shards = 80 divinity shards). If you are lucky and you get an apollo/hades you don't need from the first 400 chests, you can exchange it back for 1125 imperial shards, in that case 400 chest is enough. So depending on luck, you need to spend 15-30k balens!!! 

Buying Apollo / Hades for shards is not looking good either. If you are not lucky (and happened it to a lot of people in previous gambles) you need to buy 900 chests! 36k balen for something that worth 8k balens.

Now, let's see if it worth gambling (ie., buying just a few chests and hope to be lucky):
Imperial chest value (calculation as usual):

Imperial Shard x5 (50%): 0.5 x 20 = 10 balens
80,000 Gold: 0.12 x 1.6 = 0.19 balen
Mount Training Whip x2: 0.12 x 4 = 0.48 balen
Fate Stone x2: 0.12 x 20 = 2.4 balens
Soul Crystal x20: 0.12 x 10 = 1.2 balen
Soul Crystal x500: 0.01 x 250 = 2.5 balens
Divinity Shard x10: 0.01 x 200 = 2 balens
Hades (Blue) x1: 0.001 x 8000 = 8 balens (if you need Hades)
0.001 x 1300 = 1.3 balen (if you don't need)
Apollo (Blue) x1: 0.001 x 8000 = 8 balens (if you need Apollo)
0.001 x 1300 = 1.3 balen (if you don't need)

If you need both Hades and Apollo and fate stones:
Total value: 10 + 0.19 + 0.48 + 2.4 + 1.2 + 2.5 + 2 + 8 + 8 = 34.77 balens

If you need only Apollo or Hades:
Total value: 25.67 balens

If you need neither Apollo nor Hades:
Total value: 18.97 balens

As you see, the only case when you should gambe buying a few chests is when you are a relatively new player, and need both Apollo and Hades. Still, this is an extremely bad value chest compared to previous ones. (But even if you buy, do not do it before the big spender event goes active!)

To others, who look only for Divinity chests: a game company is trying to charge you 300 USD just for a few colorful pixels. Don't be a fool, don't fall to it. It will be cheaper soon, and if not - let the few whales play out their Aegis in the CW finals, it doesn't mean a difference elsewhere if you have it or not. Certainly not for so much money. Now I go back play Doomlord, at least not getting scammed there...

DO NOT BUY.

Beam of Light exchange

The Beam of Light even is over soon, so here is my opinion on what to exchange them for. 

50k kyanite worth approx. 33 balens, so here you get 6.6 balens per Beam.


40 crystals worth 16 balens, so here you get 1.6 balens per Beam.


2 Fashion cores worth 540 balens (usual sale price*), so here you get 41 balens per Beam.
* Please note that with the recent Violet exchange event, you could get Fashion Cores even cheaper.

40 sepu worth 200 balens, so here you get 10 balens per Beam.

A cloth worth 300 balens, so here you get 10 balens per Beam.


A wing is sold for 1600 balens (I dont say it worth that much) so here you get 20 balens per beam.


A +40 mount worth 8k balens, so here you get 40 balens per Beam.



There are a few things you can notice. Even without doing the usual math, you would think that Sunshine Pack's value is far above 35 balens. Well: it's exactly 42.41 balens, but that's just an average value, and suppose that you bought 500 chests and got exactly 1 Cloud Sailor. If you were unlucky and don't get a sailor, your average value will be only 26.41. So although it looks great, it's not so. (you can bet 7road employs a few really good mathematicians).

Second is about the Fashion core. We can say that the Fashion core's value was simply reduced from 400 to 270. This was a logical step, since now you need a lot more for clothing refinement. At 400 apiece, it didn't worth it. At 270, it was okay if we still say we are willing to pay 10 balen per +1 BR. However, there was a violet box exchange recently. Based on Cosmos statstics, you could get 3.5 violet essence per box, so 1 essence cost 7 balens which means 1 Fashion Core cost only 140 balens. If we suppose the Volet exchange event will be back in the future, the Sunshine Packs worth even less.

Thirdly, do not forget about my previous post on prices getting cheaper and cheaper. This event was a fine example. Mount and cloth was cheaper than before, boxes were better value. Let's hope this trend keeps up :)

Conclusion: if you were a casher, you should have gone for the Cloud Sailor, it was a good buy. If you are a free player, you should definitely exchange your Beams for Fashion Cores. I do not recommend buying cloth: the glistering set is sold for 900 balens just 2 months after you could get them for expensive event pieces. These will be for sale soon.

A deadly trap

Today I wanted to write about a deadly trap which many players don't recognize.

The trap has 3 components.

1. 

   Exponential resource cost. The higher you want a skill / resource / ability, the more it costs. This is normal in any game: it helps keep the balance so top players do not get 10 or 100 times more powerful than others. In Wartune, every astral level costs twice more than the previous one, resists and will crystals cost 3 times more than the previous level, advancing a gem to the next level costs 4 times more than the previous one etc.

2. 

   Exponential balen cost. Unlike in other games, in Wartune, buying more of something often costs more instead of getting a reduced price. For example, using the second, third etc. gold and daru alchemy on the same day costs more and more. Same for wheel of fate rolls, or flipping a card from the same table on wishing wall.
   
   
3. Decreasing gain. In Wartune, combat has a random factor, your damage can be +/-10% of your basic damage. So if you meet another player, who is only 2% stronger than you, you can still often beat him. If you have a BR of 50.000, improving your BR by 5000 more will make you 10% stronger and you will beat him all the time. On the other hand, if your BR is 200.000 and your BR improves by 5000, you will be only 2.5% stronger and will still often lose vs a 195k guy. So the more BR you have, the less each BR you gain counts.

The above 3 components is multiplied together, and creates a really nasty result. While your BR was 50k, your fate was 1 and you rolled the wheel of fate 2 times each day (costing you 30 balens per day), you gained +400 BR (nearly 1%) for about 400 balens. When your fate is 15, your BR is 120k and you roll the wheel 10 times a day, you gain +400 BR (0,3%) for 20k balens. So you spend 150 times more for the same result!

This is a clever trap, built with the purpose so people who spend MUCH more can be just a bit stronger – so the competition remains, and the moderate spenders don't quit. I know people who spent 1000, 2000, 5000, 10000 and 20000 USD on the game, and are in a similar BR range (160-180k) each has a chance to beat the other (and the one who spent more has not necessarily higher BR).

For this reason, it is particularly important that every time you spend balens, you double-check how much BR you gain from it. I set a rule for myself, never spend balen if I get less than +1 BR for every 10 balens spent – but actually, if you are clever, you can get even better deals. Recharge only when there is a recharge bonus, and spend only when there is a spend bonus can help you in this. Also, the more BR you have, the more careful you have to be. After a while, even 10 balen for +1 BR gets too expensive. Especially, since there is factor 4:

4. Price reduction. Games like Wartune has a relatively short lifespan. This is for the following reasons:

1. Wartune is a highly competitive game. Players who can be 1^st keep playing. Many of those who fell behind quit. If you are the top of your server, you want to advance your rank in cross-server. And the longer the game runs, the harder to do this. Eventually, there is no point in starting a new character if you ever hope to be in top100 in cross-server.
2. A game lives as long as it can keep it's current players and can get new ones. They can get new ones, but due to the above, few of them will be hard, addicted cashers like the old players. And keeping players is hard too, they lose interest, there are too many games around.
3. After a while, it is simply more profitable to make a new game, with fresh new top lists and new content than trying to keep happy the more and more unsatisfied crowd.

Where does the above lead? You prolly guessed it: before or later they begin reducing the prices. So people who already spent a ridiculous amount will say: „damn, I bought this one for 1000 USD, now I have to buy it for 500 too or I made a bad deal.” Also, at reduced prices, people who thought the previous price too steep, might begin paying and buying. So prices WILL begin dropping. We already seen that, fate stones, sepulcrum, mahra, fashion core, gems are getting cheaper and the rest will follow.

Conslusion. Whenever you want to pay, keep in mind: It will be cheaper and cheaper, and the more you spend the less effective it will be. The faster and the more you buy, the less BR you gain. So buy only when its a really good deal, and you are really getting ahead of the others. Skip gambles, skip packs when something useful is bundled with something useless, skip things which you can get for free and where development cost is getting exponentially higher. Be especially suspicious when they want to sell you something brand new what you can't even convert into BR :)

Greetings from Italy

Here is a greetings from Italy to all Wartune players! I'm spending my holidays near lake Garda. A beautiful lake, surrounded by mountains and ancient cities, there are many things to see. I am tasting the pizza everywhere, and trying the rides in the local amusement parks (to the left), but not necessarily in this order :)

I try to keep up-to-date with happenings in Wartune as well. I have seen they had a decent big spender event recently, 300 will crystal in itself worth almost 5k balens. Items which give % bonus to your stats (will crystal, resist crystals, god's blessing astral etc) are more and more useful as BRs rocket skyhigh. I will write in more detail about this soon.

They are not too bright sales-wise, though. The God's gift chest sale end just before the big sale, and they give a tiny recharge event just after it. If it would be reverse order (recharge event first, then a good sale combined with big spender) they would have much higher income.

About the current 500 balen recharge event, I recommend that you do it. These are always good.

• 500,000 Gold (worth 10 balens)
• Crystal Shard x200 (worth 80 balens)
• Crypt Key x2 (worth 150 balens)
• Mount Spirit x1 (worth nothing)
  

240 balen bonus on 500 purchase, almost 50% bonus, a good offer.

Also the unlimited gem event is cool. As a guild master, it was painful to get kicked from my guild with a 850.000 contribution history, but I had no other way to make room for the 40k soul crystal and 7k mount whips I ended up with after upgrading all my gems. Next SC event I hit 80 soul engraving finally. Mail vault is really clumsy, looking forward to stacks of 9999 items added.