Haha, I know the subject is really weird. While you play Wartune, you are supposed to play Wartune, isn't it? Well, the core of the game is a large number of repetitive daily quests, which you have to do each day. Some of these - including dimensions, archeology, MPD, arena, DI (if you do it) - is just a mindless grind, and you can do something else on your second monitor/computer meanwhile.
Of course the best course is talk to your family, wife, kids etc. meanwhile :) But you can also watch films - think I burned thru a couple of seasons of several series while I did these grinds in the past half year. But lately, I play while I play.
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| (That's me on the left) |
I was always a fan of "trading card games". Back in the old times, I was national champion from Magic: the gathering, been even twice to Seattle, the world championships. And I am the proud co-designer of a unique trading card game, "Hatalom Kártyái" (Cards of Power), which is more poplular in Hungary than Magic.
Also, I have big respect for Blizzard as game designing company, so I recently tried their card game, Hearthstone. It's as addictive as other Blizzard games, and it's also as simple (and kind of primitive) like those as well :) Poker is a pure mindgame compared to HS, HS is just like... rolling dice, and whoever rolls higher wins. Still, somehow it is fun (unless I lose :)) so perfectly completed the grinf of dimensions.
So guys, what are you doing while you wait in the Arena for the next opponent? Or grind dimensions, archeology etc? Or it's just I'm just hyperactive that I need to do something else meanwhile?
I know some of you expected a more scientific blog entry from me, but honestly, lately really nothing is happening in the game :( the events are very repetitive, and constantly nerfed, hard to analyze chests / rewards because it's the exact copy of the previous ones. Also, I am going for holidays tomorrow morning for a week, so not only I can't post another entry meanwhile, I will have only very limited internet access. And as Wartune is now (each time you log in, it downloads the complete game) prolly I can't play much either :( I wish you good, prosperous events while I'm back! And may Odin help you to resist the urge to recharge :)
This is something I promised earlier, an overview of my Wartune character, Fairlight. I play the game since 3 years, and I play it a lot daily, usually 4+ hours. Also I spent a significant amount of money on balens, 100-150 USD a month, sometimes even more, way too much for a game. I also tried to optimize my play whenever possible, both optimizing spendings (to get the most BR for my balens) and other strategies (like accumulating resources and trying to use them in the best moment, choosing the best rewards when multiple choices etc).
I was drawn into the game by a friend of mine, who spent like 200 USD in total. He said, "I just want to spend an amount I won't regret when I stop." He stopped long ago, then restarted some month later on a new server, completely free. He was a top player even so, until a merge happened, when he stopped finally. I never forget another thing he said, actually the first thing he said about Wartune. "This game is really weird, you can spend ANY amount of money on it." Which would have chased away me at the start, but it didn't - actually, I thought it would be a real challenge to compete with heavy cashers.
With my character, I was in top most of the time. Not 1st always, but in top3. There is an amount of money you can't counter with skills and time invested. After each merge, we got a bigger spender, but each time I was always able to catch up with him, slowly. The game is all about patience, and I envy those who spend only 10-20 USD a month, or even nothing, and can find the fun. I always used to say, if you don't spend anything, you will be just a punchbag, and wish for things all the time you can never get. Also, I think it is okay to spend on a hobby, which is fun for you, and you spend a lot of time on it each day. The amount you can spend on this game should be something you can afford, and something you are not ashamed to admit to your friends and family :)
Character stats
When building my character, I always prioritized ATK. Thats the first thing to be maxed for holy forge and stables, and thats the stat which I always pump with at least an MATK scroll, using my never-ending stockpile of crypt tokens. The game is all about damage.
The second highest priority stat for me is defense. Since we reverse-engineered how combat works in Wartune, the reason is obvious. Hit points, it's importance is lesser, although it gives now the highest BR - due to a bug with eudaemon BR calculation (if it is still around). Critics and blocks, I always keep saying the effect of these are capped, and there is no point in improving them beyond a level, because the gain will be only almost invisible. But I also know a lot of people don't believe me. Well, everyone can find the fun in the game his own way, be it colorful mounts, cute clothing or high crit, I will not argue.
Resists
About resists, I have all level 12 gems. I do not believe that there will be a level 12 event ever, and they give too much advantage anyway to wait. I use a mixture of all 6 resists, dark and light prioritized a bit more, since Hecate/Odin is more common as the other sylphs. The stats could be higher if I would bother more about dimensions, but usually I have only 2-4 (one expert and the rest int). Please note that now you can play around with resists to get higher BR - if you have an expert dimension for fire, equip 6 fire resist gems and you will have a lot more BR.
Sylph
As you know, I have the Odin (thx again to those who donated). Took me a lot more time collect than for others, since I get all the materials for free, and saved up adv. mahra and sepu for 8-10 months. But now I have a 4-moon Odin. SA friend asked if I didn't collect the materials in advance, what sylph I would make now. And I answered, Frigga. Odin has some higher stats, but since it was first, people have higher resist against it. Also, I consider the Frigga skills a bit more versatile: aoe heal, aoe awaken drain, and aoe absorb shield, cool stuff, while Odin have only one skill which affects ALL opponents.
But now I have Odin, and I'm happy with him. I'm already collecting materials to make red equipment when I have finally enough adv. mahra to make my Odin red (still a lot of time).
My current sylph is far the top on our server, also I made the furhest in sylph expedition (boss 47).
Eudaemon
My top eudaemon is an archer, since that was an obvious choice for a mage at start. Leveling up and building war emblem is not a problem for eudaemons, but equipment takes a lot of time, if you don't want to spend balen there. Wind ranger is better now that archer, but I just don't want to build equipment again for it. Too bad you can't switch equipment here like with sylphs. But I don't give so much importance to eudaemons anyway, they are just "chaos rune magnets", often it's just easier to leave them home.
Mounts
For me, the top priority was always to get as many mounts as I can. This is the thing where I spent balens mostly. Everything else, from soul crystals, sepulcrum, eudaemon items to cloth sets, I never spend balens, because you can get them for free eventually. But the mounts are still mostly casher-only items. And that's why I was a bit sad when I read that with an exploit, some players could get all mounts for free.
Mount whip is one of the very few resources which is designed well. You can get a fair amount, and you can spend an unlimited amount. So ToK is one of the few events still worth grinding daily.
Of course I try to collect cloth as well, especially sets which give title. Fortunately, most of these you can get for free.
Battle Rating
As you can see on the above screenshot, my current battle rating is 6.73M, this is without any buffs, just academy bonus.
That's it, I guess... about the future: I'm not too optimistic. I decided to stop spending, and I don't think anything will change that. The devs can't fix the cache since a half year, the game keeps reloading everything, it's at the edge of being unplayable. They keep nerfing everything. Just check the late resist crystal event, I couldn't do even two level 11 crystals, using all I collected since last event.
And now they moved all main championship preliminaries to Tuesday - the day, when I can't be in front of the computer. I will not stop, no worries. I keep grinding, just while I do dimensions, archeology, arena - but meanwhile, I just play something else on my second monitor, like Doomlord or Hearthstone. I still hope one day they at least turn caching back on, that would help a lot :)
Hello all. I did some testings with Odin today, but it goes damn slow, need a lot of data. So just a short entry until I'm done, about Tower of Kings opponents, which are from the top players.
Lately I know I was heavy on critics towards the game devs, but with a reason. They did a lot of effort to ruin our fun. But actually, some players have the power to make the game even more miserable for all others. And these are the top players, who are chosen as ToK shadow opponents.
With the recent changes, ToK became really much easier. Even when all 4 sport Odin, we can streak through it easily, at least with our BR. But when someone have Frigga... then its impossible, or takes so long time so its no fun at all, so we do hard instead. But lately, hard is Frigga-infested as well, and when there are 2, hard is impossible too.
So here is my message to Mennoly, Darkdayz, Iceade and anyone else who think it is fun to park a Frigga in ToK. Most of you top players think the goal of this game is to have as high as BR as possible. But you are wrong. The goal is to have the respect of others. You can't achieve respect by spending truckload of money and behaving like an ass. You can have respect by being strong AND being nice at the same time.
If you spend 100.000s of USDs to be hated by everyone, then you just wasted all that money. So don't be like Mennoly who is always with Frigga in ToK. Be like Quorax who is always nice and brings Odin.
As usual, here is my summary of what's good and what's bad in the Wartune 5.5 patch. I had some days to try out everything so I hope I will not miss anything.
Good features
Selling eudaemons
You can sell your eudaemons. Finally! And that's the end of good features :(
Bad features
Knighthood
I already wrote in detail about Knighthood and Tatoo requirements in my previous post. The concept itself - giving better, improved skills, new talents and extra stats if the player reaches a specific tattoo total - could be good. But the requirements are impossible to fulfill without spending thousands of dollars, and the knighthood skills, although stronger, include some heavy nerfs, like taking away healing from mages. Not to mention new talents costing hundreds of thousands of balens. All in all, this is a bad feature.
Archeology
Aside that this feature is stolen 1:1 from World of Warcraft, this could be a good feature, but it is messed up like everything. First of all, 30 attempt per day, its 15-20 minutes, mindless, boring grind, increasing game time unnecessarily. Second, the rewards have some good things, but the majority you get for your time is still daru, soul crystals, epic armor shards etc. Without the total junk rewards, and attempts you can collect up (like with great card hunt), this could be an okay feature, but as it is, it's one I don't like.
General wilderness changes
Along with the addition of archeology, the graphics and size of the wilderness maps has changed. They put a lot of effort into redrawing the graphics - but still they did not put any effort to ensure that flying mounts can fly over it, making movement incredibly clumsy over there. Also with decreasing the map size, weaker players can no longer hide from plunderers in far corners of forgotten zones. So players constantly have to buy goat for their gold, then change back when they need the money. This is such a dumb, brainless change. But at least you don't have to buy the spirit covenant anymore. You can find the bosses with one light, so no need for boss radar, and auto farm is now bugged beyond recognition, so spirit cove is a no-go.
Farm changes
I think there were some good intentions with the farm changes, but it didn't go well in the end. Energizing friends farm goes faster now - too bad no one will bother doing it anymore. Now the farm is taken into 3 separate parts. If you invite someone for bonfire, he will no longer be able to energize your tree, revive your farm and do your animals meanwhile. You can't do this either while waiting at your own farm. Also now it's much harder to find things and notice when you need to do something, you will miss revitalizing your marriage tree even more often.
Cloud city and item changes
Many things went to new places. The Henna lab icon disappeared, and went to a building - now it is much more likely that you will forgot about it. And now you can't do it while blitzing, or while waiting the others in spire or tok lobby. The same goes for great card hunt, previously I could do it while in a farm, no more.
World Boss nerf
There is no longer gold reward for high damage in World Boss. It utterly amaze me how they can spend time to nerf something, make it worse for the players, and unable to correct a sngle number, maximum HP of World Boss which is a problem since many months. Servers killing WB in 1-2 rounds, all other source of gold removed from the game... If you don't have a few alts to plunder each day, you can't even pay for your blitzes anymore :)
Other features removed
Several other features have been removed, like maps, thieves etc. If this would have made the game loading ANY faster, I would welcome these changes. But as always, with each patch, the game is more laggier, takes more time to load. Since 5-6 months, they still did not turn on caching, every time you start the game, it download every data from their server. This is such a big problem by now, everything else fades by it, the game is unplayable now.
Sadly, each patch is making the game worse than the previous one. And while the patches just add more bugs and never fix any problems, he devs are always busy to add more nerfs. For example, check out the eudaemon diamond synthesis coming up tomorrow - it get the same insane nerf like normal gems. There is no longer unlimited component for the event, you can make each gem only once per day. Which means, this event is not doable anymore, like divine soul synthesis, it is effectively "out of order". Same for the eudaemon material events, you no longer get back 25% of what you used :(
Return Player extravaganza is running now, they try to lure back players who quit - but they can't lure them back by offering some items. Whoever has quit is not interested in those. The only way to bring back some would be by fixing the problems, and undoing nerfs - but thats not gonna happen. Right now, my advice is, do not recharge anything, regardless how good offer you see. The game has reached a point where is is unplayable. In the past year, the devs made it apparent they don't care about your opinion - then show them they wont get their salary until they change their way of thinking.
Originally I wanted to write a full analyis of the new Wartune patch, but the Henna-Tatoo-Knighthood topic itself will fill a full entry, so I will continue with the rest only in my next post.
When they added the Tatoo system with the last patch, at first glance it seemed a small stat bonus, nothing special. But these stats are adding up, and as we learned from a Russian test server, can go up to +5000 stat per slot! That's pretty powerful, making Tatoo the next Holy Forge, being able to increase your attack and defense by as much as 20-30 percent. But hold on for a minute, and let's make the math.
On average, 100 henna gives you +5 stat increase. You earn 300 henna per day, so you can get +450 stat per month. To reach the maximum 40.000, you need almost 8 years. "Fortunately" we have advanced henna as well, which can give you something like +30 stat increase per 100 adv. henna used. Too bad that advanced henna is a purely cash item currently. And it's sold super expensive as usual - based on the stats given and BR for balen value, 100 adv. henna worth aprox. 100 balens. But the shop sold it for 500 balens, at 5x price. So far, I just said, who cares, ignore this new way to waste money in the game - it's so expensive, only the heavy whales will buy it, and they are already too strong compared to the rest of the players, it won't make any difference.
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| Tatoo of Quorax |
However, the current patch added a new feature, "Knighthood", the next step after Class Advancement. And it's prerequisite is +12000 total tatoo stats! Something you can reach in 2 years - or immediately, if you are willing to cough up 2000 USD for the advanced henna. Which only one player, Quorax did so far on the European servers. I say, do not worry much about this. You don't have to wait 2 years. Henna will be inflated like everything else in the past 3 years. First, they sell it at gold price to cashers. Then they will start to give more and more in gift packs. Then they reduce prize, and finally, we shall start getting tons of it as a free reward for some new event. Until then, just keep collecting the free henna, and don't even think about advanced as long as it's prize is not reduced to 1 balen apiece.
It is a pretty unfortunate thing to add a complex system to a game, which is available either after 2 years, or if you play 2000 USD. The devs obviously didn't do their math. But let's put aside this prerequisite, and check what Knighthood does actually.
The main feature is that both your skills and talents are replaced completely. Hold on... I lose all my skills? All my talents? No more Thunderblast? No more Restoration? I hope they give something really good instead.... Well, they do. For a mage, you can choose between 2 path, Arcane and Restoration. You can even have free switch between the two, but for that, you need 16000 total tatoo, not 12000. There are 2 basic skills which apply to both paths: one is an improved version of lightning bolt (more damage, more rage) the other is an improved version of Rain of Fire (more damage). But the bigger deal is that these skills give you a permanent passive bonus of +20% MATK, +20% HP and +30% MDEF. Thats a real kickass bonus, more than you get from all your tatoos (even when those are impressive too). So when you reach Knighthood, you will play in a different league, you will become a god.
About the rest of the skills: the additional arcane skills are great too, nice delphic, nice big aoe, cool passives like one which reduces the opponent's resists, the other reduces their awakening points. However, the restoration skills suck at first glance. Instead of restoration - which usually heals the caster to max hp - you get a skill which heals only 10% of your max HP at level 1. Same for the "big" group heal, restores only a percentage. Complete useless as long as Tritons and Blessing of Light exists. Even the new suntoria is a pale version of its previous version. Sure there are some passive mini-heals, but the fact is, mage loses it's ability to heal when reaching Knighthood. So this is also a nerf, disguised as a boost.
And what about the talents? I remember we were grinding XP for months to max out holy seal level 99 and the rest of the talents. Some (ok, most) talents are pretty useless, but there are some which are real good. Direct 14% damage decrease, 30% reduction in rage cost, extra heal for Restoration (wait, heal is no more), and Thunderblast slowing 100% chance (wait, Thunderblast is no more). These talents will be all GONE. And what you get instead? Some cool new talents: increased resist, resist reduce, tenacity, intensity, influence (although I wonder how can I use influence when I don't have frost bolt anymore, or any other skill which could stun, lol). But each level cost (bound) balens, the more talent points you have the more it cost. The total can be several hundred thousands :)
You can see a full video on youtube about the new mage skills and talens, thanks to chillin and wartunenewsfeed for making it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTrgb4Yb_ic
There is one more thing, you can upgrade your equipment further in the new mpds after you do Knighthood. It's a cool thing, too bad not available to 99,99% of the players either.
So what I think, this knighthood thing is messed up. It's something like, "Hey guys, business is not going as we used to. So please, please, give us 2000 USD, in exchange, we will give you 50% increase in your BR. You will be stroooong. (ok, we will nerf a few things, like healing and stun, but you didn't need those anyway)."
So I think Knighthood requirements are too steep. They should be lower, and they should add extra talent for pumping up your henna total (and not selling it for ridiculous balen prices). Also I don't see the point of replacing the skill system, they should have just boosted the old skills to additional levels. Fight is decided in sylph phase anyway, I don't see much point in totally revamping the skills, people will be angry losing the old skills they used to. Don't fix something that is not broken!
I usually enjoy Class Wars in Wartune, for several reasons. 1 vs 1 is still fun and challenging, and lag is not a problem there, like in 4 vs 4. This is the epic championship, the final test which makes sense to all your character development. Strategy and fast decision-making is equally important. It's the same event as the championships in Doomlord, you are doing it more for the glory than for the reward.
I already wrote about Class Wars strategy here and here. But strategy always changes with the game, you have to adapt. I was afraid of not doing well enough, because I decided not to pump up my new Odin yet, and I did not even add defensive passive skills for him because I still try to get as far in sylph expedition as far it's possible, and for that I use the suboptimal offensive passive skills. But I can't complain about the end results. In Prelims, I finished 11th, lost only to JBird, Stormy and George7, I could even win vs Darkdays who had several red merged sylphs. But my BR wasn't enough for Warlords Hall, so I fought in Warriors hall during the finals. There, I managed to rank 1st with 13 victories.
Lately, there are many debates how the winner is decided in case of time-out. Some people in this forum topic claim that healing matters, lowest BR wins etc. I'm pretty sure this is not true. Most of my opponents had lower BR, they healed like hell, and I still won. The official rule is that total damage dealt counts, and I believe it, however I don't have complete trust that the calculation is absolutely correct :) Also don't forget, damage dealt count can do weird things, if your eudaemon dies early on (or you don't even bring it), and you keep damaging your opponent's you might end up winning due to this, even if your opponent is stronger. The same is true for sylphs. If your support sylphs survive much longer than your opponent's, that can be a trouble :)
This time I used an unusual rune setup. I went with chaos+amnesia, instead of my favorite, guardian+healing rune. Chaos is a good choice since long in CW, you can disrupt your opponent for the first 3 round, and against whales, who have strong eudaemons, you can neutralize even a few of his sylph rounds. But I always thought I need either heal or guard rune to survive, or at least to reduce damage. But amnesia is as much fun, if not more. The only problem is chaos/amnesia resist from eudaemons, makes the match even more of a gamble.
Stun is also an important factor still, although most people have maxed out beads of influence. This is because you always have a chance to stun your opponent. And stun is bugged, you usually lose 2 rounds, not one. So if you can stun your opponent just before he sylphs, you have a huge advantage.
During fights, my general strategy was this: open with chaos rune, rain of fire, delphic hell thunder, lightning, frost bolt, awaken, amnesia, aoe sylph skills to kill the opponent's support sylphs, then rage decrease for opponent. Along with my wind sylphs' rage decrease, this was pretty good. I almost never healed, the group heal from my triton was usually enough. My prediction about resist was also correct (who donated and received the hint sheet know what I'm talking about).
All in all, Class Wars is the event where I'm grateful that the majority of players don't read my blog. When people try to keep alive their wind sylph by healing it, I know there is a good chance he will be shooting his own eudaemon even during the sylph phase. Same thing when people try to chaos me when I'm in sylph mode, and my eudaemon is nowhere.
Next coming up: analysis of new patch. Stay tuned!
Wartune always loved to overcomplicate events, mainly to ensure no one can exactly see what's the optimal way to do it, and spend more than necessary. Too bad I'm here to make the math and help you :)
Wartune must inflate things, they must give better and better gift packs for spending money or people will stop spending. Looks like we reached another milestone. But instead of simply increasing the spender gift packs, they added more reward events under "recharge debate". I don't say you should recharge. I just say if you want to, here is how you should do it:
You can get far the best bonus for recharge ratio if you recharge only 40 USD. Simply recharge 30 USD on the first day, then 5-5 on the following 2 days. This way you can get the 20 and 40 packs from Gift pack, the 3000 balens single day bonus from recharge debate, the 3 x 500 bonus from recharge debate chests, the 6000 bound balen from recharge gift, and 3 bonus for consecutive recharge bonus. (If you did an 5 USD recharge yesterday for consecutive, you can also do +5 on the 5th day too to grab the 300 extra beast souls).
If the stuff you get for 4000 balen recharge does not seem enough, you might consider the 100 USD recharge. This is a significantly worse deal in bonus:balen ratio, but still decent. In this case you should recharge 80 USD on the first day, and 20 USD on the next. This way you can grab the first 3 pack from recharge gift pack, the 8000 balens single day bonus from recharge debate, the 2x2000 bonus and the 1x5000 bonus from recharge debate chests, the 15000 bound balens from recharge gifts, and 2 bonus from consecutive recharge. (If you did an 5 US recharge yesterday you might consider doing an extra 5-5 on 4-5th day too).
Going as far as 30000 balens is a much worse deal, even further, not even the dumbest whale should go. Below is my calculation in excel. It contains the major bonuses (recharge gift pack and recharge debate). The recharge debate chests themselves give only a smaller bonus, of which especially the 2nd day is useful, with the divinity soul - the gem and and diamond are not so great. Recharging for more than 3 days counts for consecutive recharge, but not for recharge gift packs, recharge debate or one-time recharge gift.
Column "total bonus" is total balen value divided by recharge. This is the indicator, which is the best ratio recharge.
