So you want a stronger deck?

THEN LEVEL YOUR SKILLS!

One of the most absurd things to me is people who complain about how weak their decks are and they never level the skills on their cards. A player will spend a hundred HP on a new final form card that increases their deck from 80k to 82k but they won't increase their lead card to skill 10 which would be an 8k bonus on an 80k deck. 

Especially now with the changes to skills its more important than ever to level the skills on your cards since leveling them also increases the chance to activate. Most high level fights are decided on who gets more or better procs than the opponent, not by a 2k difference in card quality.

Here's simple example. Five skill 10 Nightmares, an outdated card vs lets say five skill 1 Dragonewt. (For this example we're going to ignore the fact that the chance to proc 2 is reduced since they are the same card, just like I'm ignoring the fact that you would normally use two Trow wings with either of these)

Nightmares go from a 75k base to 92k if one procs. 

Dragonewts go from  87k base to 93k if one procs. 

Nightmares go from a 75k base to 109k if two proc.

Dragonewts go from 87k base to 99k if two proc.

Now, you can argue that Dragonewt only has an 8% buff and that's doing it. So lets play pretend. Lets pretend Dragonewt has a 13% buff like Nightmare. 

Dragonewts go from 87k base to 98k if one procs. 

Dragonewts go from 87k base to 109k if two proc.

So, Dragonewt would manage to tie up to Nightmare. A Nightmare deck that would have 12k less base stats and the best it could do is tie up with Nightmare at higher skill levels.

So remember, next time you're looking at spending your HP on that next level of card, take a look at your deck and the skill level of your cards. Chances are, increasing your cards to skill 10 will increase your deck power a lot more than just getting better cards.

5th Card Evolutions

Bahamut, Odin, Jeanne D'Arc, Lancelot, Ancient Elf, and Tiamat.

Literally one day after I post in comments that people have been talking about this forever and they still haven't brought it over...they bring it over.

Fortunately at this moment the cards that can evolve into five seem to be restricted to SR and up. Now, the question I pose is, is it worth it? As far as I can tell, kind of. Although the stats only increase by 1500 or so, you have to consider a player doing this probably already has the 4max version of the card. For the price of one more of them they can increase their power.

Its up to each individual player, but given the current selection of cards that can be increased, I would only consider Lancelot.

So how does this effect you?

Chances are it doesn't. The cards chosen at this moment will offer mild increases in very high level decks. Most players have decks primarily composed of HR and many of those same players have opted to skip SR and move into SSR.

What these changes have done for players who are moving up is allow them to invest into an SR and eventually bring it up to just under SSR power levels. In essence these cards are becoming SSR 2.0 not legends. All of the other true legends outclass them.

Are these changes good or bad?

Good. As long as they don't try to apply it to every rarity and keep it for the highest. This fifth evolution offers players something that bridges the long and expensive gap between SR and SSR.

Personally, it's something that I don't intend to engage in because I don't see the point on spending a bunch of HP to create a Legend card that doesn't have a Legend buff. If they increased the buff power on the fifth card, I think it would be worth it. 

So, recap. You get about 1500 additional stat points from what I've seen and no increase in buff power. Is it worth it? In my opinion not really.

New Decks Incoming

Personally I did some experiments using two of the same card and didn't notice a huge shift in Proc rate when one was highly leveled. I don't know if anybody else has experienced different yet. With that in mind though and for reasons I listed previously, my decks will probably each switch by one card. In some cases I may swap a couple of cards.

This is not to say stacking the same card isn't viable. After all, we technically stacked the same card in the top three spots in order to improve our chances of a two proc of good skills. We were not stacking three because we thought all three would proc regularly. With the changes, two will still proc often. But by swapping one card out, we can make two proc even more often.

Now, the way the decks will shift will still remain within their rarities. Ideally though these changes promote the use of a card of a higher rarity as leader. For example, Clay, Clay, Clay can now become Achilles, Clay, Clay and experience a very large increase in proc rate. This would be an ideal, but because of the way I list my decks, it won't be noted like this. Instead, Clay, Clay, Clay might become Clay, Clay, Master Archer.

Finally, these changes greatly increase the viability of having an anti realm deck for each realm where only the topmost card is a debuffer. For example Master Samurai, Clay, Clay for an anti demon deck. High Alchemist, Clay, Clay for anti God deck. Since anti realm cards are cheap and effective it makes purchasing a debuff card for each realm viable.

So, expect changes to the decks. Ideally you just want to swap the leader card to a higher rarity card for the best results.

Bazaar Scamming

So, I recently learned how severe this issue was a few days ago, when somebody who was trading between games got screwed out of two Jorms by a player named Pumpkincook (people like him ruin games), no idea if it was a main. I debated on not posting this since I know how bad things get when people see easy ways to gain, but on the other hand, if this issue becomes horribly awful, maybe Rage will fix it.

There are two ways that I have noticed that players use to try to scam other players.

Tricky Listing:

The first is Tricky Listing. This method puts a very nice price in HP on a card, then proceeds to place enough rupies to force the next listed item to the next line. The idea behind this is a player sees a really good price and buys the card quickly before he loses out on the deal, hopefully not noticing the extra item on the line.

An example of this would be listing a Claymore Maid for 10HP, 1000 Rupies, then Claymore Maid again. This way the player is paying 10HP for nothing. Another way of doing the trick goes like this. Maxed Claymore Maid, 5HP, Claymore Maid, players are so desensitized to seeing a maxed card and 5HP, they don't think to look for that third card. Their brain is registering, "Yes, I need to give a Claymore and five HP" but fails to recognize the seller is asking for two Claymores.

This method does not work very well, but if you search the bazaar you will see listings like this everywhere, especially in high level cards where players will try it constantly. It's similar to the rupie trade scam in that you are trying to get the player focused on a number and cause them to ignore an important fact long enough for them to click accept.

Bazaar Hawking:

This one, is the really dirty birdy of the two. Players are now playing multiple TCGs and trading cards from Rage of Bahamut for another card games cards can be tricky. It's honestly hard to find players that are trustworthy enough to do this with, after that, it's tough to work out the mechanics. I will give you an example using Marvel War of Heroes and Rage of Bahamut.

A player wants to trade his Ultra Rare Spider-Man from Marvel for a Batraz in Rage of Bahamut. This guy sends his Ultra Rare Spider-Man to the guy in his Alliance purchasing it. To get the Batraz in Rage, the player places a Goblin at the auction house with a buyout of a Batraz and 157 rupies. He then lets the player know he has listed it at the auction house, the player searches for it and purchases the goblin, thus giving the Batraz to the player. This is how it should go.

Now, what I would like you to do is search the AH at this moment for normal cards. You may notice something interesting. Do you see it?

When a low level card is listed with a high level card as a price, there are clones of it. To use our example above, there won't be one listing of a Goblin for a Batraz and 157 rupies, there will be three of them. This is bazaar hawking. Players search for trades like these and put up identical trades hoping that the player only sees theirs and does the deal.

This is theft pure and simple, and it's wrong. Its the same thing as accepting and keeping another persons UPS package. Actually worse, because you would be looking for good packages, running outside, claiming to be that person, and taking the package. It's just absurd and wrong.

How to fix:
Tricky listing is a lot like the Rupie scam. If you fall for it, you fall for it. Realistically, you can protect yourself from it by just being observant.

For bazaar hawking on the other hand, there is no suitable protection. This could be easily solved if a player were allowed to see the name of who they were purchasing from right before making the deal. Currently the only way to be sure to avoid the issue is to wait two weeks or work within complex trade networks and middlemen who charge fees for the services (I have a friend who makes quite a bit doing this). Unfortunately, waiting two weeks is forever in these games and most buyers/sellers aren't willing to do it.

No matter what, it needs to be addressed. It is blatantly an attempt to steal from other players and shouldn't go unpunished. In the meantime you can add an extra layer of protection on your bazaar trades by enhancing a card to random evo, level, % xp.

** Although I do call out pumpkincook, I don't want people calling out scammers on my site. The list ends up long and trolls start listing people that aren't actually scammers to mess things up. They never work out. Any post calling out other scammers will be deleted. **

Shameless plugs

Plug #1

Just created a facebook account under Lucarda Nuoct. Honestly, I haven't used facebook since..I think the last time I was actively on it was 2006, but I am told that I should have one again. Currently I have zero friends though since it is completely new.

Feel free to add me, chances are I will become addicted to some facebook game and start writing guides on those as well. I heard the marvel one is pretty addicting.

I will warn you, although I'll probably use it to update when I finish stuff, chances are I will post stuff I at least find fun, even if it is inappropriate. So if you're sensitive, I'm probably not the friend for you.

Plug #2

http://misfitgamers.com/

I've been working on a site to write more broadly about video games. Let me know what you think. What you think it needs, if it's dumb, good, etc. Any advice/criticism is helpful. Game blogging is competitive as hell and I want to build something cool. Keep in mind, I didn't write every article (a vast majority though). Some of them were written by friends who may submit when they can but are good writers and gamers. Primarily, the idea for the article on the 10 hottest male video game characters was not mine, I merely voted in it and established the only two final fantasy character rule because it was getting out of hand.

Anyway, let me know what you guys think.

Sometimes...

Sometimes aspects of this game really confuse me. Maybe it's because of the way I process thoughts.

1) Announcement is made that same card proc's won't be as beneficial as before.

2) Several cards released that have high base stats and buffs to two realms instead of one.

3) Cards released sell for 8HP each.

Pretty much the exact order in which this happened. Take the Demonic Knight for example. I understand quite a few of them are on the market, but this card brings roughly 10% of a buff to the table at 17111 attack. Mad Hatter I believe hits about the same attack with the same buff.

Lets look at this from a full deck standpoint:

NM, Demonic Knight, Mad Hatter, Trow, Trow

15k+17k+17k+19k+19k

13% buff + 10% buff + 10% buff. All with no reduction of proc love because all cards are different.

VERSUS:

NM, Dragonewt, Dragonewt, Trow, Trow

15k+18k+18k+19k+19k

13% buff + 8% buff + 8% buff. With a slight reduction to the second Dragonewt proc potential.

Final Scores: 

87k + 11.3k + 8.7k + 8.7k = 115.7k on the first deck.

89k + 11.5k + 7.1k + 7.1K = 114.7k on the second deck.

In a two card proc situation the Dragonewt deck is 500 damage more. But lets also remember that deck one gets the additional chances to proc from using different cards.

This isn't exclusive to those cards (I actually appreciate the reduction in price so I can buy them cheaply). It also has to do with the other cards that offer high stats and two realm procs.

This is kind of just a rant on how sometimes I don't why certain things happen in the game. The only way I can explain the Demonic Knight/Hatter situation is the market was flooded with Dknights, then Hatter was released and although there were few of them, it's in direct competition with Dknights and nobody will buy it unless its the same price. But that doesn't explain the prices on some of the other cards on the market.

It just goes to show you how unstable things are in the game at the moment.

Just a quick rant.

Oh yeah....and I was right about the event being a raid event. Ha!

Not so Silent Night

 **DISCLAIMER, THIS IS AN EDUCATED GUESS ON THE EVENT TYPE, IT IS VERY WELL POSSIBLE IT COULD BE A QUEST EVENT LIKE TEARS, MY PERSONAL BELIEF THOUGH IS THAT IT WILL BE A RAID EVENT**

Well, tis the season for another event, and this time it will be a stamina/hp event. It appears from the description that this event will follow the format of the Blizzard of the Crystal Castle. My reason for saying this is the words 'Collect as many boxes of toys as you can, and you'll get rewards based on your ranking! you can even get Boss Takedown Rewards and rewards for choosing the right paths!

The takedown rewards and the gathering of presents mirrors the take down rewards and gathering of shards from the Blizzard of the Crystal Castle. Also, since they can introduce new cards for boss damage during these events, they tend to be most profitable for them.

Now for those who don't know the event will follow a simple format.

Quests:
Players will progress through quests and randomly instead of a chest, a boss will spawn. A player is given a certain amount of time to destroy that boss. In this case, Ogre Santa and I'm sure the Wight King will make appearances. Players will receive rewards based on how much damage they do to the boss, these rewards are going to be presents and points. Presents can be traded for cards or items, similar to white/blue/pink/gold shards in Blizzard of the Crystal Castle.

Every five quests players will also have a normal quest boss to deal with. This boss will normally yield rupies and personal clear water or holy powder. Before you reach the boss you will have to choose a path, if you choose correctly you move to the boss, if you choose incorrectly you must go back to the previous quest.

Bosses:
The bosses summoned have varying degrees of health. During the last half of the event I'm sure we'll see the Wight King who will have a very large health pool. Players attack the boss using their attack deck, the more powerful the deck, the more damage. Using event cards with boss damaging skills also increases the overall power of the deck significantly and is very necessary for players who wish to perform well.

Upon taking down the boss, players are rewarded with presents. The presents can then be traded for items. The presents and points you receive are based on: Discovering the monster, damage done to the monster, critical bonuses at 66% and 33%, takedown bonus for killing him, and most damage done. Because of the critical bonuses, it is recommended that you attack every boss that appears at least once since you will be eligible for those bonuses regardless of how much damage you do.

Ranking Highly:
The best way to rank highly is going to be to pick up event cards early. The nice part is if you grab those cards early you can do heavy damage and receive a lot of presents while spending a smaller amount of HP. If this event functions like the previous, HP will be a possible reward from the presents. This means the you can do enough damage you could feasibly cycle through bosses by gaining the HP you spend back in presents.

You can also share cards with members of your orders if you are in different time zones. I know several players that did very well renting out their event cards to players for a few hours who then pounded through bosses to gain shards and points.

Overall though, the best results will be for people who participate heavily. Being on regularly to attack every boss once will yield strong rolling returns.

Odysseus and Zhuque:
If I recall, Odysseus's skill is called Ogre Slayer and he does a big boost to damage against Giants. Much like Ax Masters skill proc'd against Crystal Dragon because he was a dragon, it's fair to assume that Odysseus's skill will proc against Ogres. It might be worth picking up a couple.

Zhuque on the other hand confuses me because he only states that he does additional damage to Wight King in 'the puppet master'. This leads me to believe that he will not do additional damage to the Wight King in this event.

In both cases of these two cards I could be wrong, but given their low current prices, they would be worth picking up before people realize it. 

New Skill Proc

Fancy my surprise when I woke up and found out a week after updating my decks, a task I was putting off, the skill system will change.

There is a lot of concern about how this is going to mess up decks in Rage of Bahamut. For those who don't know, leveling a skill on a card will now increase its chance to proc as well as its power. On top of this, cards with the same skill are less likely to go off.

For example, if Claymore Maid 1 goes off, Claymore Maid 2s chance to proc will be reduced, if both still go off Claymore Maid 3s chance will be reduced again.

Now, assuming all proc rates remain the same outside of these changes this won't be that big of a deal. I'm wagering that if one goes off it will decrease the chance of another one going off by 10%. Assuming both top cards are skill 10, this balances to the same chances during a two proc since you will gain 10% chance by skilling it to 10. The chance of a full on three proc occuring is reduced by 10% overall.

So don't go freaking out throwing all your Apsara/Lancelot defenses out yet. If they work in 10% drops, which I think would be most logical, not much is changing.

What does change...

Is the fact that certain card set can be improved upon. For example, people who chose to do Four Dragonewt Princess will find that their deck that was marginally stronger than 1NM, 2DP, 2Trow, is now marginally weaker since the odds of that fourth or fifth cards skills going off are now in the gutter.

A Sleipner running pointman on an Apsara deck is significantly improved from five Apsara because Sleipnir will go off 100%, the first Apsara will have a 10% increased chance to go off, and the third ones chance will remain the same as before (10% for skill up, 10% decrease since other Apsara proc'd). A King Arthur running point on Lancelot is a significant improvement for the same reason.

If you look at it a certain way, the game is buffing people who use different cards by increasing their proc chances and only giving a 10% debuff to proc chance on people stacking cards. They are also giving players reasons to buy SR cards.

Some examples:
All of these examples are figured assuming the buffs are 10% at skill 10 and the debuffs are 10% per proc. For the two card examples, the first card will always go off and the % will be listed for the odds of the 2, 3, 4, 5 spots going off. For the three card examples the first and second card go off and the % will be listed for the odds of the 3, 4, 5 spots going off.

Five Apsara looked like this as far as procs go:

100%, 70%, 50%, 30%, 10% (I can't remember exact percentages)

Now it will look like this if all cards are skill level 1 and only two will proc:

100%, 60%, 40%, 20%, 0% (10% hit from before)

It will look like this if all cards are skill level 10 and only two will proc:

100%, 70%, 50%, 30%, 10% (0% hit from before)

Now, the odds of all three proccing at skill 1:

100%, 60%, 30%, 10%, 0% (20% hit from before)

The odds of all three proccing at skill 10:

100%, 70%, 40%, 20%, 0% (10% hit from before)

What you should pull from this is that when cards are at skill ten, the nerf is a 10% decrease that three cards should proc. Low skill level cards are nerfed quite a bit in comparison.

Lets use the same example, but with our new deck, Sleipnir is the leader and all cards are skill 10. This will be for two to proc.

100%, 80%, 60%, 30%, 20% (10% buff with increased chances of two proccing all the way through)

For three to proc:

100%, 80%, 50%, 30%, 20% (10% buff still)

Now for the most fun. Andromeda, Sleipner, Apsara, Apsara, Apsara. All skill 10. Chances of three proccing.

100%, 80%, 60%, 40%, 30% (20% buff to proc chance)

Overall:
This is a fair balanced change. This buffs people who use cards in different realms and is only a slight nerf to people who stack all of a certain card. This will increase the usefulness of SR and SSR as well as the usefulness of cards that have the mixed realm buff like Hamelin. This change pleases me because I think it is a fair and balanced change.

Now, I will be greatly displeased if the percent chance goes down by something like 20-30% because then it's just over the top. If it is the decks will look something like Card 1: Best buff, Card 2/3: Second best buff in realm, Cards 4/5 Wing cards and you'll just do all math based on two buffs.

Marvel War of Heroes Update

Just figured since I have time tonight I would do an update on Marvel War of Heroes. Outside of the fact that trading kind of sucks, the rewards are a hell of a lot better. This is partly because they had control on the Power Packs (Hp equivalent) at the start of the game, unlike Rage of Bahamut. We can assume they learned from previous mistakes and all PP are bound to new accounts.

This of course means that players need to have some luck or buy PP from people who pay to play the game. It also means that for the current event I am in line for two SSR (equal to SR in Rage) without spending a dime. Maybe the fact that the rewards in Marvel War of Heroes are so good is why I'm so sour about the rewards in RoB. I am able to stay competitive because nobody has a HUGE amount of PP and being smart about attaining cards and PP goes a long way.

Overall, I can say I'm pretty pleased with the game. Everything isn't out of control like in rage where players spend a thousand HP in order to get one of the poorer S Rares.

The game is actually releasing cards regularly which is pretty nice and a lot of cards won during a previous event are boosters for a following event which helps players rise in ranks. What they did last time that was really cool was the mid tiered rewards were booster cards. This meant players who who did okay in a previous event got a head start for their good ranking.

If you haven't looked at it yet, it definitely deserves a look, and if you have seen it before, it's worth checking back into.

If you do try Marvel War of Heroes, make sure to use my referral code

q w y 7 0 1 6 7 9

Holy War Prizes

There has been a lot of debate lately about the prizes this Holy War and whether or not they are worth the expenditures. I have always noted that Holy Wars are the only events that I truly believe are worth the trouble. Currently, I can no longer say that.

Now, I want to say I still will spend over 200HP by the time this Holy War is over, knowing full well I doubt I will receive adequate payout.

Order Prizes:
Ok, this will be a bit of a rant about some major bullshit. An order can push to achieve #3 ranking, and only their top 10 people will receive a Lord Arthur? Wow, this is the most bullshit thing I've ever heard. In an order that achieves #6, only the top player will receive Lord Arthur. The rest will receive Gawain, a card that is grossly overshadowed by Batraz and Lord Arthur.

From personal experience here, my order will break top 100. We will all receive Tristan, a shit SR, Dark Angel Olivia, a card that is already outpowered by a lot of other cards. And a single H Rare and up. Rough value, under 150HP. The devil queen will probably still be worth quite a bit, making it barely worth it. Now if you drop to 151 rank somehow, it's quite the kick in the nuts.

This game has over a million players. Lets say about 30 active players per order. That means roughly 9000 player could be in the top 300. That means less than 1% of players receive these rewards. If the game has 500,000 active players, 2% receive these rewards. Even if the game only has 100,000 active players less than 10% receive these rewards.

It is just absurd to me because as the number of players gets higher, the number of top ranked prizes should increase, no decrease as it has done this time.

Personal Prizes:
Top three get KA...yeah. .000003 of the player base gets the top reward. Oh wait, that moves all the way up to .00003 if there are only 100,000 players. The absurdity of this astounds me. The worse part, lets say you manage to break into the 20th spot. You get Gawain, DQ, and an SR on UP Pack. How much HP do you think it takes to hit that? Now, at the moment of writing this, two days left, the 20th person has over 1,500,000 points. Lets say he's getting 300 points per attack and can attack five times per HP. The math here is pretty simple, he would have needed to spend roughly 1,000 HP to hit this point, with two days left.

His reward? A Gawain, a DQ, and an SR. Just....wow.

Win Prizes:
Wow, 50 wins nets you two Dark Angel Olivia, and one Demonic Knight HR. That means if an order commits to spending over 50 hours over a four day period to winning matches, they get a single HR and two crap SR that are about as powerful as a High Rare.

Overall: 
I understand that this game probably only has 100,000 active players, each with 10 or more fake accounts powering them. But even if we wanted the top 1% of orders to get the reward, that still means top 30-40 Orders should be receiving Lord Arthur. 

The amount of HP necessary to hit these levels is always increasing, and if the prizes don't increase in value, pretty soon nobody will be participating in events. As it stands a very small percentage of the play base participates in stamina events, there is no reason to take what used to be the event that paid the best and ruining it with crappy rewards.

All they need to do is say they want 1% of the players to have KA, 10% of the players to earn Gawain, 10% of the players to earn tristan, 20% of the players to earn HR, 20% to earn a rare, and blow to get rough prizes.

Assuming those numbers and roughly 3000 orders in the game. The rewards should go, top 30 KA, 31-300 Gawain, 301- 600 Tristan, 601-1200 HR, 1201-1800 Rare, anything under 1800 gain what's left.

That is assuming the game only has 100,000 active players!

Those are my thoughts.  

 

Holy War Prep

Honestly, this post may seem like quite a bit of common sense, but you would be surprised how many people don't prepare for Holy Wars properly. This post will be short, it will also be blunt.

1) Stop buying damn cards for your deck and save your damn HP. You think that adding that 5k damage/defense to your deck is more important than having HP to spend during HW? If your deck isn't up to par yet, tough luck, attack weaker opponents. One card probe peoples defense before attacking. What you don't do is leave yourself with thirty damn HP right before HW you anchor.

*If you are a new player and 30HP is a lot for you, it's understandable*

2) Liquidate. Do you think getting HP for your cards is hard now? Who do you think is buying during HW? Not people paying a premium I assure you of that. If you can't get HP for them, get CW for them and trade CW for HP.

3) Know how Holy Wars work. With all the damn information out there, there is no reason for you not to know how Holy Wars work. I don't care if you're new, you should still know when it is and isn't alright to start a battle and not to attack players before the wall is down because you lower their point value. You sure as hell shouldn't start a battle if your defense leader has no points from the last war. (Happened 3x to my order in marvel war of heroes when some asshat would declare with our defense lead at 30 points)

4) Have your orders full. You don't get bonus points for having open slots.

This has been a short post on prepping for Holy Wars. Pay particular attention to point number one. Good luck and have fun!

Best R/HR December Update

Alright, so I sat down and forced myself to do go through my Best R/HR posts and update them. The Best R/HR Man, Best R/HR God, and Best R/HR Demon decks have been updated.

Man:
-Rare attack added High Gunner as wings
-Rare Defense added Castor as wings
-High Rare attack had no changes since it's claymore
-High Rare defense placed Master Astrologist as wings. I like it more than Captains.

God:
-Rare attack swapped completely to three *Corrected: 1 Agni and 2 Centaur** and two Reshef.
-Defense remained the same
-High Rare attack swapped to Trow and four Sword Valk despite my hatred of Trow in the top spot of a god deck.
-High Rare defense doesn't change (come on, 5 Apsara aren't going anywhere for a while.

Demon:
-Rare attack stayed the same since oddly no real offensive demon cards were released in rare.
-Rare defense deck changed to three Jack-o-lantern and two scorpio/manticore. Also recommendation to use Destroyer Golems if you can find them as wings.
-High rare attack swapped to NM, Dragonewt, Dragonewt, Trow, Trow. Primarily because I don't think it's worth paying all the extra to run three or four Dragonnewts.

So, these decks should be running current unless I missed something. Most of the cards Rage added it seemed were cards that were close to being top notch cards but hit missed the mark. Neko for example had 18+k attack but failed in the buff department. Xuanwu was released in gods but is slightly worse than Apsara.

Calculation Question

Previously I believed that attacks were calculated first and defense was calculated second. If this occurs its actually equalizing debuffs by making them closer to their buff counterparts.

For example:

If 100,000k attack vs 100,000k defense. Attack debuff and Defense buff. Attack 20% defense 25%.

Attack hits defense for 20k, bringing it down to 80. 80k with a 25% boost is 100k. Equal.

If buffs and debuffs are solely calculated base stats, not in turns then the math looks like this.

The buff gives 25k, the debuff takes 20k. End result is 100k vs 105k.  Percent is king.

Now recently a poster has been pointing out this math. Normally the cards aren't so close in stats that I need to worry about the difference between buffs/debuffs being the deal breakers on what makes a card the best, but there are a couple instances where it occurs.

So, I decided to search for the information I needed. Unfortunately it was a complete pain in the ass and I didn't get a pure answer on it, but I did find something interesting and I'm curious if anybody can verify it.

I pulled this from the wiki, it was posted five days ago:

************

Skill Stacking Test -- TylerDurden (talk) 11:48, 30 November 2012 (UTC) -- TylerDurden (talk) 11:48, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I ran a test to determine if a buff from a defender would be calculated using the deck's base value (outcome 1), or if it would be calculated using the base value with debuffs applied (outcome 2). To do this, I created a scenario with two simple cards using "all" skills. The defense card has one single defense point higher than the attack card. Both players are using non-realm cards and have no other bonuses applied.

Attacker
Card: Goblin Fighter (R)
Attack: 2866
Skill: [Rage] Medium hit to foe's DEF (all)

Defender
Card: High lancer
Defense: 2867
Skill: [Lightning Lance] Medium boost to DEF (all)

If outcome 1 is true, then the defense value should be identical and the defender will win. If outcome 2 is true, the resulting defense value should be slightly lower, and the attacker should win.
In the test, the defender won proving that the defender's buffs are not calculated using the debuffed base value.

*************

Now, if this information is correct, it definitely ruins any thought that a 20% debuff is equal to a 25% buff, and assures that buffs are king. If anybody can verify or refute this information I would be curious. It would really help in me creating accurate decks for best decks.

Thanks for any help people can offer on the subject.

Best SR Decks December Update

Today I went through past posts and updated the Best SR Man, SR God, and SR Demon Posts.

The changes I made are as follows:

Man Realm:

Achilles listed as the best offensive SR for Man.

Lancelot remains the champion of defensive SR.

God Realm:

Three Haniel and Two Thor make up best offensive deck and I also mention the viability of Sephirot as a contender to Haniel. Given the way buffs/debuffs work he is very close to Haniel.

Defensive Deck was swapped over to Sleipnir x5. I also mentioned here that he is only a mild increase over Apsara and not necessarily a card to jump all over since Lancelot is still better.

Demon Realm:

Added a comment on the defensive deck I have listed. Reasonably people should remain 1 Wraith, 4BM instead of moving into SR defense cards for Demon at the moment. If they want to improve their deck past that I would recommend 1 Wraith, 2BM, 2 Death.

Tomorrow I will be updating all the Rare/HR Decks to reflect new cards.

Thanks for reading.

How to Create a Strong Order

A lot of people get frustrated at their order. They find themselves contributing more than their fair share and their order leader doesn't kick the inactive members or those being carried. It can be a frustrating position especially if you don't have the time to start, recruit, and run an order.

When done properly an order leaders job is easy to accomplish and runs smoothly, if done improperly it can seem like an uphill battle of losing a great member for every new great member you get.

Well, it isn't as tough as it seems. Oddly it parallels running a business quite a bit. First this will be a guide on how to create a good order from the start. The second part will list ways to improve or maintain a strong order while keeping it fun.

First Steps:

To begin with creating an order its important to understand that with the high amount of recruits needed in high end orders, there is little reason for somebody strong to join yours. In fact, there is pretty much no reason for somebody to join yours. Understanding this is important because it helps you appreciate the members you do get. When I see new orders with three members trying to recruit people with 85k+ and required to spend 200HP, I laugh.

When creating a post on a forum for Order recruitment it's important to hit on certain things. Everybody is putting 75-90k base as a requirement. This means that there is a huge pool of players below 75k base who are strong active players not being given a chance. These players are probably pretty annoyed and discouraged and will appreciate an Order looking for members in their range. As these players ramp up in power, they will be more likely to stay. An 85k+ member will jump ship the first time you perform poorly, keeping you in a vicious recruitment cycle. Nothing is much worse than always having to look for strong members because your strong members keep jumping ship. Eventually people will pick up on this and just not want to join.

As people join your order its important to create a welcoming atmosphere, especially as a newly created order. You do this by answering questions as they ask them and participating in chat. (Something I don't do, but I'm not the leader :P) By doing this you foster an environment of participation and as new members ask new questions, lots of people participate. An order with no messages is bound to have people leaving.

Events can make or break a new order. A player a while back posted a comment, I can't remember where and there are a lot of places. He mentioned that sometimes spending the extra HP during a Holy War, even if you won't make it back in rewards, is worth it because it increases your rank allowing you to recruit stronger players. Your first few events should be run with this mentality. It increases confidence in the members that are there, and increases your chances of easily picking up strong members down the road. (it's inevitable that some of your members will leave or become inactive, keep an eye open for these and replace as needed). If you're serious about making a strong order you will push the first couple events.

If your first event goes well, chances are you will retain strong members and can purge inactive members. If first event goes poorly, you may have a lot of recruiting to do as people jump ship but its important to find out why you did poorly. Post in chat and ask who spent what, who wasn't able to participate, etc. You do this to check for participation and effort. If a guy with a rare deck with 50k attack and defense spend all 20 of his saved HP but didn't do well because he could only attack once, that's significantly different than the guy with 75k who bought that SR card before the event leaving him with 30HP to spend. You want people who want to get stronger as a group.

Finally, make sure you have outside chat apps like line or palingro. Its necessary for quick communication since the in game chat is so limited. It also builds community.

How to Improve/Maintain an Order:

If your order is strong, chances are it maintains itself unless a big hitter quits the game in which case you have a list a mile long of replacements. If your order is new or mid ranked it can be tough to maintain quality membership.

Don't be a dick:
Do not complain or rage at your members for not doing enough. Remember you are a leader and this is a game. People get treated like shit enough in real life without having some faceless turd bitch at them. Keep your criticism positive. Don't talk about what they didn't do, talk about what they can do. Chances are people know when their decks are weak or they didn't contribute enough HP. Let them know how they can make more HP, how they can improve their deck, and what times you will be pushing for attacks. It will cut down on drama, and increase your orders respect for you.

Participate heavy:
Not only in events, but in conversations. An order that talks a lot, generally maintains members. People build connections and feel bad for leaving. It's a comfort thing.

Wtf happened to contests?:
Back in the days of Ultima Online guilds ran contests/events regularly. As games progressed it seems that the need for contests has disappeared. Instead of focusing on community, games focus on progression, gear, ranks, whatever it is, it really is a shame. Contests and events within an order though are still one of the best ways to build community.

Pay attention!:
I had an order on my alt account that didn't notice that 12 members were completely inactive for over three weeks. I had an Alliance I recently left on Marvel that had six accounts that were level 10 for a week. Your order members notice things like this. They notice people who don't contribute, they notice people that aren't playing, they notice that you don't notice. It makes you look like you don't care about your order, and if you don't why should your members?


If anybody else has any other tips, I'm sure people would be happy to hear them. That's all I have though.

Upcoming Posts

Honestly, I'm really addicted to a computer game right now and I have some work to do on some other things so I'm not going to make a full on post today because my upcoming posts actually require a decent amount of work but I'll give you an idea of some of the upcoming stuff.

-Updates to all of my Best Deck lists. Although I have been band-aiding them occasionally a decent update is needed.

-New cards released. This post will focus on several of the new cards I've been ignoring as they've been released. (I tend to only notice cards that are new leaders but there are a lot of very viable mid level power ones)

-How to create a successful order and/or improve a current order. It's not as easy as 'add stronger members'

Those are three but not necessarily in that order. I'll definitely get 1 or 2 done this week, just not today.

Blizzard of the Cystal Castle

Well, I was partially right on the Blizzard of the Crystal Castle event in that it was a boss attack event, but the variance is worth talking about.

Where other boss attack events like The Puppet Master were based purely on attack damage done to bosses, this event is based on items attained from the boss to determine ranking. Also the way rewards are distributed is different from the previous event.

Oddly, this event is based off of Marvel War of Heroes Avengers event. Considering both games are Mobage, it's not surprising to see a crossover.

So, on the questing aspect of the game I will note there is a resurgence of the 'pick your path' before a boss. This is barely worth mentioning, but is a difference from puppet master events.

The battle aspect of the game is what changed significantly. Previously players were rated purely on the damage they did but this event is based on frost shards collected. The amount of frost shards you gain are based on a couple factors.

Reasons to get frost shards:
1) You discovered the boss
2) You dealt the killing blow
3) You did enough damage to be considered an MVP
4) Damage done (amount of shards increase with amount of damage done, exact ratio unknown)
5) Big Hits - This refers to a bonus that appears randomly for me. I get bonus shards that I can collect even if the boss isn't dead yet. I assume this is a bonus paid for heavy damage.

The overall amount of frost shards gathered will determine your personal rank as well as your orders rank.

Now, on the topic of Snow Crystals.

There are three types of Snow Crystals: White, Blue, and Pink. White Crystals can be exchanged for the lowest rewards, it takes 10 to receive a reward. Blue Crystals can be exchanged for the middle tier of reward, it takes 5 to receive a reward. Pink Crystals can be exchanged for the highest tier of reward, it takes 3 to receive a reward.

White will produce randomly one of the following:
Cure Water (Personal)
Holy Powder (Personal)
5,000 Rupies
10,000 Rupies
500 Friendship Points
1,000 Friendship Points
5 Frost Shards
10 Frost Shards
20 Frost Shards
Random Card
 
Blue will produce randomly one of the following:
PREMIUM CP Claim Ticket
Frost Knight Card
Cure Water (Personal)
Holy Powder (Personal)
10,000 Rupies
20,000 Rupies
1,000 Friendship Points
2,000 Friendship Points
10 Frost Shards
20 Frost Shards
50 Frost Shards
Random Card

Pink will produce randomly one of the following:
HR & UP CP Claim Ticket
PREMIUM CP Claim Ticket
Archangel Queen Card
Devil Queen Card (ABOUT DAMN TIME THIS CARD MADE AN APPEARANCE)
Frost Knight Card
Cure Water (Personal) x 1
Holy Powder (Personal) x 1
20,000 Rupies
100,000 Rupies
1,000 Friendship Points
3,000 Friendship Points
100 Frost Shards
250 Frost Shards
500 Frost Shards
Random Card

Some Extra Notes:
1) If you wish to maximize your points, try to attack bosses with huge health pools that have high combos running. This will result in more damage and thus more crystals.
2) If you use a card that is not fully enhanced during an attack, it randomly gains experience (not really useful but wierd)
3) Individual rewards are far superior to order rewards. As a result it is probably worth it for your order to hold off on spending huge amounts for a better order ranking. If individuals want to gain high ranking let them, but don't require it of your members, better to have them ready for Holy Wars.

Finally:
Sorry about the first mispost of Crystal Castle. I didn't expect them to change the way the event ran versus previous times.

Marvel War of Heroes

Some people may have noted that I was going to do a review of Marvel War of Heroes and after playing for a couple weeks I'm ready to do an analysis of the game.

I decided I would do this in a manner where I would just compare certain elements to Rage of Bahamut. Most people who play Rage of Bahamut understand how a trading card game works and will find a lot of the aspects pretty similar.

For example, stat distribution and questing are identical to Rage of Bahamut. The HP/CW/Magic Circle are also in the game in the form of Energy Pack/Power Pack/Shield Barrier. Overall, there are a lot of things that function similarly that should be no surprise to people who have played Rage for some time.

Now, for the things I find really good about it.

1) Marvel

This is a no brainer for me. The marvel universe is filled with interesting dynamic characters. Rage of Bahamut may have monsters and scantly clad women, but Marvel has Wolverine, Moon Knight, and Iron Man.

2) Two card Evolution

In Marvel its called fusion but it's the same thing. I've always been opposed of the four card evolutions because they are needlessly complicated. Marvel only requires two of the same card to be combined. The same 5% and 10% rules are there though. A cards mastery level though will also mess with the final numbers.

3) Resources

Resources are the treasure of the game. Each resource can be completed three times. This is awesome. The first completion nets a rare card, the second completion gives an enhancement card (equivalent of angel), and the third card is a second rare same as the first. This helps a lot in players starting their decks and makes a lot more sense than one treasure completion in Rage.

4) Mastery

I found this a little confusing at first but once I figured it out I liked it. Every card has a mastery number. It starts at zero and once maxed the card will gain something around 37% of its base stats. So if a card begins with 1000, it will get a bonus 370pts once maxed. 10% of this can be carried over to the final form as well. The final form once mastered also gets the boost. For high level cards this boost can be over 1000.

5) Team Combo Boosts

This is by far my favorite feature of the game. If you have certain heroes or villains together they will get an additional skill bonus even after their skills go off. Wolverine and Captain American for example have a chance to proc Super Soldier for an additional attack boost. So when creating decks players not only need to look at the normal skill boosts and stats, but also try to maximize for bonus buffs. My only disappointment in the system is certain buffs that should exist. For example there is a buff for Wolverine, Human Torch, and Ghost Rider for "Bikers Association" or something like that, but they couldn't do a buff for Wolverine/Sabertooth called Weapon X or something?

What I find really bad about it?

1) Trading

Currently trading follows the same two week rules as Rage of Bahamut and there is no bazaar/auction house yet. This makes trading a huge pain in the ass. You pretty much have to do it within your order/team. This is partially do to the game just recently releasing.

2) Power Packs/Energy Packs

Currently the HP/CW equivalents are only personal. I imagine the devs are waiting until they're ready to release the AH to release the Packs because they don't want the market flooded with them before trading is really allowed, but it's frustrating for a player like me who like to trade to be so limited over all.

That's all I really have to say that I don't like about it other than some random things I'm going to rand about now.

RANT:

I hate it when game developers like Mobage pick up a contract for Marvel and you can tell the people creating the game are not fans of the series. Not only that, they are only informed to the absolute minimum. It's probably one of the things that pisses me off most. There are HUGE gaping flaws in card quality for characters and although there are cool card combos, the developers seem to just be creating them randomly.

Franklin Richards is my primary example. When I saw him as a one star normal quality card it just screamed to me that the game developers said "oh, it's a kid, he can be low level." They completely ignore the fact that Franklin Richards is an Omega Level and was born one. Considering he's part of a group of under ten (can't remember the exact number) mutants that are considered to have extreme powers, I think he deserves a little more than a 'common' ranking. He doesn't necessarily deserve Ultra Rare quality rankings (for several geeky reasons I won't mention) but he at least deserved to be a damn rare.

Besides that, they use the same heroes in different rarity tiers. There will be a basic level hero. Then it will be (insert modifier here) hero if you get the rare version of it. For example there's Wolverine, then there's (Adamantium Claw) Wolverine. Last I checked all the other Wolverines (in the game) have adamantium claws too. I would have been impressed if there was a (Bone Claw) Wolverine. I understand using a modifier once but in some instances they do it three times just to reuse popular heroes. I think there may be a Spiderman in every damn tier by the time they're finished.

When they make a game like Rage of Bahamut where they can just pull random names and develop the lore themselves, I don't have issues. But when you are playing with a universe that already exists, get shit right. Hollywood and television bastardize enough Marvel stuff without videogames joining in.

END RANT

Finally, if you decide to join Marvel War of Heroes, please use my referral code:

q w y 7 0 1 6 7 9

Thanks!

Crystal Castle

 **PLEASE SEE BLIZZARD OF THE CRYSTAL CASTLE FOR BETTER INFORMATION**

Well, looks like the next event has been decided and it will be Crystal Castle. The event is set to run from November 22nd until December 4th. This event was probably popped in because they didn't want to compete with an actual Christmas event they intend on running and didn't want to have a Holy War on the upcoming Holiday weekend. Personally, although I want Holy Wars to get here, I think they made a smart decision.

Chances are it will be followed up by an almost immediate Holy War which will then be followed up almost immediately by a Christmas event.

The event will follow the same structure as Roar of the Dragons and The Puppet Master. This means players will have to progress through quests and random monsters will be generated that players need to defeat. The power of the monsters will increase and there will be rewards based on defeating a certain number of monsters as well as rewards at the end of event for ranking based on damage done to bosses.

Since this event is based on killing bosses, HP is far more valuable than CW. Players will want to participate in every boss that is up because you will receive cards for participating and no matter who summons the boss your damage done goes to personal and order ranking.

Things to note:

1) You have one hour once the boss is summoned to defeat him.

2) Allies summoned will be from both order and fellows. Keep them separate.

3) The more damage a player does to the boss the more rewards they will receive.

4) Event Skill cards are made to do well, use them if you can afford them. *I don't believe there are any for this event other than previously released boss damage cards*

5) Huge amounts of skilled high normals are rewarded during the event, it's a great time to skill up your main cards.

6) Always help kill other peoples bosses if you're invited to, work together and share in rewards. 

7) There is an order rewards based on the number of bosses defeated, better rewards at higher tiers.
8) Individual ranking is calculated by overall damage done to bosses.
9) Order ranking is calculated by overall damage done by all members of your order to bosses.

*Sidenote* If you plan on blowing a ton of HP on this event, be warned that you will probably need to try to liquidate your rewards quickly in order to have HP for Holy Wars. For some extra tips read The Puppet Master Guide all the information pretty much carries over.

Alternate Accounts

A lot of people will note that I've mentioned that I have multiple accounts. Some people frown on this saying it's unfair, others accept it as part of the game. Both are kind of right.

It used to be people would make 100s of accounts the day a referral card was listed, level them all to 10 using some sort of bot, then trade all the resources to a main account. This was shady. I don not condone or support such activity because it's game breaking.

I DO condone creating however many accounts you will actually PLAY. For most people this is two to three. I myself currently have two, but will be creating a stamina account as my third. I play both accounts regularly enough to be in a top 300 Order on one, and a top 150 order on the other. Neither account is useful during stamina events...QQ.

Each account should be viewed like a business. Starting one from scratch was expensive, but is finally yielding something. To start the second one you should transfer resources to speed up its progress, accepting that although you'll go negative at start it will result in higher yields in the long run.

There are some rules I advise when creating a second account (A non stamina account):

Rule 1: Treat it as a main account.

-By treating the account as a main account, you create value for it. Your actual main account should virtually be on auto pilot leaving time available for the second account. Think of it like a business, once your main building is up and running smoothly, you go to your second to run it and make sure it runs smoothly.

Rule 2:  Do not steal from your second account.

-Do not use HP from your second account to feed your first account. The HP you earn on your second account should be used to progress the account. Sometimes you can take from your first account for your second, but you should never take from your weaker account unless it's absolutely necessary.

Rule 3: Transfer cards, HP, CW over to account number two.

-You will progress faster if you have a decent deck, hp, and cw. I'm not talking about great cards, but for example I had four DK Lucy's sitting around and two full evo rares that went to my second account. I gave the account 50HP and 20CW to start. Because I did this, there was no need for me to spend HP on cards, allowing me to accumulate HP fast on account number two. Also by having a decent deck at a low level and a willingness to blow 50HP on a Holy War, I managed to enter a decent order.

Rule 4: Friend your main account

-This gives you the ability to trade and utilize your bazaar tickets and cards to maximize profits. Pretty self explanatory.

If you do this, eventually you will have two higher level accounts that will get double rewards doing HW and the ability to transfer HP/CW cards between them to help them both.

Stamina Accounts: A stamina account is necessary for stamina based events as well as gaining feeders for your main account. Only a single stamina account is necessary as the events are so competitive that splitting your resources is expensive and difficult. Make sure to leave enough attack/defense for one attack and one defend, otherwise gaining treasures during the event are a pain.

Power Leveling Accounts:  To power level an account the easiest method is to place all points into stamina. I normally recommend getting around 300 stamina. If you push it a lot past you won't be able to drop it down to 150 easily. Use CW to level quickly.

Reallocating points: Hard way is to remove fellows yourself, suffering additional point losses if you do more than one in a day. Easy way is to have people unfellow you. If they refuse just keep sending them stupid trades for being dicks.

Logging in and out: Swapping between accounts on a single device is easily done by force stopping the application and clearing cache. You will be able to log into the alternate account. Of course the account won't be registered.

Registering a second account: I'm sure you have a parent, friend, sibling that has a smart phone or tablet that doesn't play, once authenticated, the account can be accessed from any device. There are other ways but I'm not going into them, they are shady. Google it.

The advantages of having multiple accounts should be obvious.  You get multiple login rewards, multiple HW rewards, extra bazaar tickets, and easy access to feeders. On top of this it's almost necessary in order to have an account that can do well during stamina based events. Just remember, each account needs attention.

Skilling Up Part 3

I was going to update my previous posts on skilling up cards, but after going through charts I really realized that the amount of math I was going to have to do was just too much. Also with the cost variables of certain cards not only as a base, but at certain skill levels vs skilling them youself.

Because of this I'm going to just add another area here about the times when using skilled cards seems to be more valuable.

Personally after figuring in everything, using skilled cards is not something I would do before SSR/Legend quality cards at high skill levels for a couple reasons.

1) Skilled cards cost more to skill up yourself before using. For example, Jean-Baptiste uses the example below of a Rare feeder giving 3.5% chance to skill up an SSR from level 5 to level 6. A rare feeder with a skill of 5 gives 9.6% chance. This means using 10 skill 5 rare feeders will net an almost sure skill up. Unfortunately each rare would cost about 4HP to level to skill 5. Meaning each skill five feeder has a rough cost of 4HP x 10 of them = 40HP to move from 5-6. Using level 1 Rares has an estimated cost of 20-24HP after multiple attempts.

2) Assuming you can purchase the necessary skilled cards for smaller amounts of HP, they still require a long time to accumulate with Bazaar tickets. HR will take five days to accumulate 10 forgoing all other trading.

3) The math is just wonky and I don't wanna do it. 

Now, when I WOULD use higher skilled feeders.

Levels 7, 8, and 9 of SR. SSR, Legend I would consider it. The low percentage chance from the high cost per attempt makes sense to use higher skilled feeders.

Remember that each attempt is its own unique attempt so since the chances technically aren't better each time you fail, making purchasing skilled R/HR in those situations very appealing.

Finally, thanks to all the people who let me know skilling cards before using them to enhance a skill is a viable method. Thanks to Jean-Baptiste for the link HERE that shows a chart of all the % and skill ups.

Skilling UP Posts will be edited

Well, although I said I HATE writing about skill ups. Seems I had been doing it wrong. but not really since I only ever skill up SR cards (HR changed to SR) So there was virtually never any reason to go past High Normals for me.

Apparently through skilling up cards used before hand you can drastically increase the % chance to skill up. I was unaware of this since I primarily use HN in my skill ups and went off the charts I had posted ages ago which don't reflect card skill levels.

So, next Monday I'll do the math on what it's going to take. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Skilling Up Part 2

Continued from Skill Up Part 1

 Skilling high rarity cards poses an interesting predicament. That being that technically you can purchase HR for 1HP on a regular basis, either treasure HR or event HR. Also that you can purchase rares for 1CW each if you look around. But in both cases it is a pain to accumulate large numbers of rares or HR given the limitations of Bazaar tickets. Finally, by purchasing Skilled High Normals you get to purchase a rare for roughly the price of  .4 HP per rare (which is what I consider roughly the cost of one CW) but you can attain them through feeder service. Either way, because of this my math on pricing will be done at the rate of 4HP per 9 Rares. If I use High Rares I will be doing them at the approximate price of 9HP per 9 High Rares.

*SIDENOTE* All my math is done assuming the use of 9 cards, in a vast majority of cases it is beneficial to use 10 cards, especially near the end. The reason for using 9 cards is because in feeder service you are normally only attaining 9 and most people skilling up will just use them instead of waiting for a 10th card.

*SIDENOTE* Thanks to Jean-Baptiste for linking chart and everybody who mentioned skilled cards increase chance of increase. Damn you all as well because it just gives me extra work.

Skilling an SSR (SR evolved into SSR)

Lvl 1-2: 9 Rares yielding 72% chance to skill up - 28% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 4-8HP.

Lvl 2-3: 9 Rares yielding 48% chance to skill up - 52% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 8-12HP

Lvl 3-4: 9 Rares yielding 36% chance to skill up - 64% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 16-20HP

Lvl 4-5: 9 Rares yielding 28% chance to skill up - 72% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 16-20HP

Lvl 5-6: 9 Rares yielding 24% chance to skill up - 76% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 20-24HP


Lvl 6-7: 9 Rares yielding 20% chance to skill up - 80% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 24-28HP


Lvl 7-8: 9 Rares yielding 18% chance to skill up - 82% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 24-28HP.


Lvl 8-9: 9 Rares yielding 16% chance to skill up - 84% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 28-32HP


Lvl 9-10: 9 Rares yielding 14% chance to skill up - 86% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 28-32HP


Final rough price is around 190ish HP on average but can really increase heavily during the last three levels. During this time be sure to pepper in that 10th card. It still isn't worth it as far as I can tell to use HR at this point. The reason is that using it from 8-9 for example would be roughly 30% chance of success but would cost 10HP each attempt. You'll notice at that pricing it's starting to level out on price per percentage, but its close and a string of bad luck at 10HP per pop adds up fast.

Skilling a Legend (SSR evolved into Legend)

Lvl 1-2: 9 High Rares yielding 72% chance to skill up -  28% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 9-18HP

Lvl 2-3: 9 High Rares yielding 48% chance to skill up - 52% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 18-27HP

Lvl 3-4: 9 High Rares yielding 36% chance to skill up - 64% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 36-45HP

Lvl 4-5: 9 High Rares yielding 28% chance to skill up - 72% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 36-45HP

Lvl 5-6: 9 High Rares yielding 24% chance to skill up - 76% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 45-54HP

Lvl 6-7: 9 High Rares yielding 20% chance to skill up - 80% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 54-63HP

Lvl 7-8: 9 High Rares yielding 18% chance to skill up - 82% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 54-63HP

Lvl 8-9: 9 High Rares yielding 16% chance to skill up - 84% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 63-72HP

Lvl 9-10: 9 High Rares yielding 14% chance to skill up - 86% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 63-72HP

Final rough price is about 420HP to max it. Before I went through this step by step I really didn't think I'd come to the conclusion that Devil Queens are way overpriced, but lo and behold. Devil Queens currently running for 130HP each which is absurd. That means that using a Devil Queen mimics the cost of my worse case scenarios using High Rares. Devil Queens should be 50HP each.

Unfortunately there is a time variable. Purchasing enough HR given the limited number of bazaar tickets would take some time. Devil Queens can be purchased much more easily and quickly.

*FINAL THOUGHTS* Overall I hate the topic of skill enhancement. I find it boring and too uncontrolled to be completely accurate with. Since it deals with percentages I can say that it will cost 72HP to level from 9-10 on a legend card but it could just as easily end up taking 50 attempts and then I get some angry person spouting on how I don't know what I'm talking about. I avoided this topic because it is based quite a bit around luck and only did this post because a few people asked for it. Do NOT expect future posts on skill enhancement unless something new and interesting occurs.

Skilling Up Part 1

Alright, this is mostly theory crafting based on math. If this is not the absolute cheapest way to skill up a card from 1-10 it's pretty damn close. My rough prices are based on number of attempts that should be reasonable based on eyeballing the percentages. I did not use best case scenarios nor did I use worse case scenarios. I estimated somewhere in between. I am NOT willing to start calculating probability of individual events with varying percent chances.

Special Note: No, using 1 card at a time will not yield better results. It is a mathematically fallacy that is proven even more false the more you do it. Some people have experienced success using 1 HN at a time and rave about how it's better. These people are plainly wrong. They got lucky one time and if they continue doing it that way, much like gambling at a casino, it will balance out for their loss.

Skilling a High Rare (rare evolved into HR):

Lvl 1-2: 8 Skilled High Normals yielding 96% chance to skill up - Rough Price under 1HP

Lvl 2-3: 9 Skilled High Normals yielding 72% chance to skill up -  28% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 1-2HP

Lvl 3-4: 9 Skilled High Normals yielding 54% chance to skill up -  46% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 2-3HP

Lvl 4-5: 9 Skilled High Normals yielding 44% chance to skill up - 56% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 2-3HP

Lvl 5-6: 9 Skilled High Normals yielding 39% chance to skill up - 61% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 3-4HP

Lvl 6-7: 9 Skilled High Normals yielding 31% chance to skill up - 69% (giggity) chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 4-5HP

Lvl 7-8: 9 Skilled High Normals yielding 27% chance to skill up - 73% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 4-5HP

Lvl 8-9: 9 Skilled High Normals yielding 27% chance to skill up - 73% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 4-5HP

Lvl 9-10: 9 Skilled High Normals yielding 22% chance to skill up - 78% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 6-7HP

Overall this should normally average out to somewhere around 30ishHP but could get as bad as 40+HP

Skilling an SR (HR evolved into SR)

Lvl 1-2: 9 Skilled High Normals yielding 72% chance to skill up -  28% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 1-2HP

Lvl 2-3: 9 Skilled High Normals yielding 48% chance to skill up - 52% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 2-3HP

Lvl 3-4: 9 Skilled High Normals yielding 36% chance to skill up - 64% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 4-5HP

Lvl 4-5: 9 Skilled High Normals yielding 28% chance to skill up - 72% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 4-5HP

Lvl 5-6: 9 Skilled High Normals yielding 24% chance to skill up - 76% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 5-6HP

Lvl 6-7: 9 Skilled High Normals yielding 20% chance to skill up - 80% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 6-7HP

Lvl 7-8: 9 Skilled High Normals yielding 18% chance to skill up - 82% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 6-7HP

Lvl 8-9: 9 Skilled High Normals yielding 16% chance to skill up - 84% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 7-8HP

Lvl 9-10: 9 Skilled High Normals yielding 14% chance to skill up - 86% chance you will have to try again. Rough Price 7-8HP

Overall this should normally average out somewhere around 40HP but could get as bad as 50+. The last few levels can get particularly bad.

In both rarity classes there is no reason to evolve the High Normals into Rares since the percentage increase is so small and requires four HN.

Best 'Cheap' HR Deck: Demon

This will be a shorter post with less explanation than most of my others. I'm assuming if you're reading this post that you have red most of my 'Best R/HR/SR Deck' posts.

This post takes into account current Bazaar pricing on cards and the power level you get for the deck. The decks I'm using are somewhat gimmicky but I'll explain how I selected these decks. These are assuming 4max evolutions.

Best 'Cheap' HR Deck: Demon-Attack

1st Card: Minotaur - 15.1k attack - Big Hit to Defense (all)
2nd Card: Minotaur - 15.1k attack - Big Hit to Defense (all)
3rd Card: Ark Dragon - 16.9k attack - Big Hit to Gods Defense
4th Card: Ark Dragon - 16.9k attack - Big Hit to Gods Defense
5th Card: Ark Dragon - 16.9k attack - Big Hit to Gods Defense

I can honestly say there is no such thing as a 'cheap' demon deck. For example, Ark Dragon is a sub par Berserker, but costs 2x as much. If you're looking for cheap you rolled the wrong realm. For this deck I used two Minotaur for the two top spots for the debuff. After some math it wasn't worth it to pack in a third Minotaur. All cards are approximately 10-13HP each. The reason I don't recommend 5 Arks and attacking only god realm is because Ark has a lower base than Apsara meaning you'll probably lose more than you win.

Final rough attack of somewhere around 81k with 16% debuffs which is a bit disappointing.

Approximate Cost: 200-260HP depending on prices.

Best 'Cheap' HR Deck: Demon-Defense

1st Card: Wraith - 14.5k defense - Big Boost to Demon Defense
2nd Card: Chimaera - 16.9k defense - Big Hit to Foes Demon Attack
3rd Card: Chimaera - 16.9k defense - Big Hit to Foes Demon Attack
4th Card: Chimaera - 16.9k defense - Big Hit to Foes Demon Attack
5th Card: Chimaera - 16.9k defense - Big Hit to Foes Demon Attack

This deck revolves around the fact that demons are the most regular attackers while maintaining a high base and a sure proc on your wraith. This deck hits 92k defense as well as powerful demon debuffs when you are attacked by demon realm.

Approximate Cost:  200-230HP depending on prices

FINAL ALTERNATIVE DECK-What I would probably do if I wanted to push offense and defense. (what I would really do is pump pure offense and use rares on my defense).

3rd Card: Scylla - 15k/16.3k - Big Hit to Foes Man Atk/Def
4th Card: Scylla - 15k/16.3k - Big Hit to Foes Man Atk/Def
5th Card: Witch Commander - 16.5k/14.8k - Big Boost to Holy War Points

Attack Deck 1st/2nd Card: Minotaur - 15.1k attack - Big Hit to Defense (all)
Defense Deck 1st/2nd Card: Chimaera - 16.9k Defense - Big Hit to Foes Demon Defense

Offense hits around 76k with a full enemy debuff and with some man debuffing. Defense covers for 81k and some demon/man debuffing. The WC will boost points during holy war. Scylla, Chimaera, and Minotaur are pretty much as low in price as they'll ever be with high base stats so when you resell you won't lose much. The way I look at it since the cheap demon realm decks aren't going to break 100k it's better to go a solid attack/defense and have the extra 60-100HP left for Holy Wars.

Total Cost: 340ish HP

The Manor of Illusions

 

The Manor of Illusions just thrust upon us immediately after another CW event finished. Beginning October 31st The Manor of Illusions event will last over two weeks and leave people who just pushed out huge amounts of CW pulling their hair out.

The Manor of Illusions, appears to be based off the Tears of the Moon/Easter Event blueprint. This blueprint revolves around two facets of gameplay. Facet one is acquiring treasure through questing, these treasures are combined to give the player a rare card. Each realm is able to acquire two colors of treasure and must battle other players of opposing realms to gather the treasures they are missing to complete the set.

Aspect two is pumping cure water into questing to move through the manor. Players with accounts holding very high stamina tend to excel at events like this. As players progress though the quests they will randomly attain Pumpkin Cookies that give additional point boosts.

Well, chances are you already know all this and are more curious about the twist on the event because your read the same line I did.

"The Manor of Illusions has many paths to choose! Cooperate with your order to find the right one!"

After much searching only to find nothing I'm left with speculation. I'm left to thought about what they could implement and how they could, I came to a couple conclusions.

Option A) Choose a path and progress down it. Essentially operating under a system where there are several 'wings' of the Manor and some end goal of each wing to gather. Personally I think this would be really pointless, but hell, I thought the fairy in the last event kind of was too.

Option B) Stick with me here, this is a long one. The pumpkin cookies that people accumulate during the event are going to be responsible for giving points for order ranking. Its possible they set up a system where gaining a certain number of points in a specific tower gives a certain number of bonus cookies at specific tiers for the order. This would encourage people to push certain 'wings' as a tier.

Option C) It's meaningless and will operate the same as Easter/Tears. The only difference being that players accumulate pumpkin cookies as they go to increase ranking.

**EDIT: Apparently it's just before you fight a boss you need to guess the right option in picture game. The wrong options are marked by order members who chose wrong. If you guess wrong you need to do the previous quest over again before fighting the boss, thus costing you stamina**

By the way, since there won't be a card released that helps during this event I'm going to make a little prediction.

I PREDICT that before the end of this event there will be an item sold in store that gives people an additional % chance for pumpkin cookies.

Anyway, good luck. And advice for the future. Build a stam heavy alt account, because they are really pushing these events.

Also, if you are unfamiliar with events like this, feel free to read:
Tears of the Moon
The Castle in the Sky

Sorry For Delays

Sorry for Delays. Been really busy.

Upcoming Posts in probable order:

-Best Cheap Demon Deck
-The Importance of Alt Accounts and How to get them/optimize them
-Proper guide on leveling up card skills

Future in no particular order:

-Why you're a bastard for spending that 50HP right before HW
-How to run/create/join a successful order
-Marvel War of Heroes TCG review (Coming free with a huge rant on why Franklin Richards should NOT be a common quality)
-Final Fantasy Series Rant
-Best Overall SSR cards
-Best bang for your buck SR/SSR
-Buyer Beware (A guide on how to screw yourself on the bazaar)
-A large rant about where MMOs are screwing up

I'm thinking Demon Deck Tuesday, Alt Accounts Wed, Skill Leveling Friday. Anyway, just wanted to keep people in the loop.

Over 500,000 Views!

As of this morning I noticed that my website had surpassed 500,000 Views!

I appreciate everybody who reads my blog on Rage of Bahamut. I know a lot of people message me in game and a lot of times don't get a response so I'm taking my time hear to let you know that I do appreciate my readers. I generally don't respond in game because I hate the typing interface, or I just didn't notice it until days after you posted.

If it weren't for the two week trading ban and the horrible debacle that was the payouts on my last contest I would do another contest. Those who played know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, keep reading I'm always hoping to contribute more and more useful information to people. I want you to know no matter what country your from I always want new readers and I don't penalize for poor English skills.

Obviously at this point people are probably coming to the realization that we are pretty close to hitting a wall of information where there isn't much more that I can teach you. After all, there are people who read this site who actually have way better decks than me! (Disclaimer: I do split my HP between 3 accounts and none of which are stam heavy accounts, otherwise I could have much more powerful decks but hell, I love stacking my HW rewards).

In regards to that there may end up being some postings that occur in the future that aren't completely related to Rage of Bahamut. Don't worry, they won't be more posts like my Work from no home post. I know that making money online isn't the reason people read a gaming blog. Besides, that's the only online money making system I've found that's legitimate (and it's still kind of hard).

But I will probably post some random news related things that I hope my readers will contribute in relating to incoming games and things of that nature. I'm hoping to add some gaming reviews and open discussions on games.

And example of this would be if I made a post on Final Fantasy 13 and pointing out the last decent Final Fantasy game was X and what the creators have to get back to. Or if I made a post about the top Five Hottest Video Game women and why. I will still continue to add Rage of Bahamut content, but these posts might be added in between updates.

Now, at this points I would like you to let me know if this is something you'd hate or stop reading because of. If it is and I get an overwhelming negative response, I won't do it. I want to keep my readers, but I want all my readers to understand as well that I want to give them enjoyable content and Rage of Bahamut doesn't change enough to warrant a new post every three days.

Anyway, there was a tangent. Once again, thanks for reading! I appreciate all the fans I have for this blog and I appreciate all the messages you send me in game, even if I don't reply to each of them!

Best 'Cheap' HR Deck: God

This will be a shorter post with less explanation than most of my others. I'm assuming if you're reading this post that you have read most of my 'Best R/HR/SR Deck' posts.

This post takes into account current Bazaar pricing on cards and the power level you get for the deck. The decks I'm using are somewhat gimmicky but I'll explain how I selected these decks. These are assuming 4max evolutions.

Best 'Cheap' HR Deck: God-Attack

1st Card: Mayahuel - 15.2k Attack - Big Hit to Defense (all)
2nd Card: Mayahuel - 15.2k Attack - Big Hit to Defense (all)
3rd Card: Mayahuel - 15.2k Attack - Big Hit to Defense (all)
4th Card: Elder Homunculus - 16.7k Attack - Small Boost to Damage to the Boss
5th Card: Elder Homunculus 16.7k Attack - Small Boost to Damage to the Boss

There are a couple alternatives depending on HOW cheap it really needs to be. This deck offers 24% worth of debuffs to the opponent but useless wings. I've seen Elder Homunculus go for as little as 5HP each since the end of Puppet Master. A better quality alternative that averages 8-12HP each is Qinglong in the last two spots. This way when the fourth card procs you're not left with something useless. Finally you can pop in a principality but I'm trying to use cards that are under 12HP each for these decks and the lowest I tend to see it is 15HP on average.

This deck hits 79k attack and offers up to 24% debuff, not bad for the price.

Rough Cost of the Attack Deck:  200HP

Best 'Cheap' HR Deck: God-Defense

1st Card: Cybele - 15.2k Defense - Big Boost to Defense (all)
2nd Card: Cybele - 15.2k Defense - Big Boost to Defense (all)
3rd Card: Cybele - 15.2k Defense - Big Boost to Defense (all)
4th Card: Ilmatar - 16.7k Defense - Big Hit to Gods Attack
5th Card: Ilmatar - 16.7k Defense - Big Hit to Gods Attack

There are a couple different ways to work this deck as well. Shield angel could be placed in the top three spots for a bit of an up charge. Qinglong can also be used in the last two spots but would drop quite a bit in stats if you do so.

This deck hits 79k attack and offers up to 24% buff, not bad for the price.

Rough cost of the Defense Deck: 200HP

A NOTE ON QINGLONG: He drops about 800 damage offense but his proc balances him out offensively. Defensively you lose 3k but you save about 50HP and the loss is lower if Qinglong procs.

Overall these attack and defense options cost under 400HP, under 350HP if Qinglong is used, and provide some solid bang for the buck.

Best 'Cheap' HR Deck: Man

This will be a shorter post with less explanation than most of my others. I'm assuming if you're reading this post that you have red most of my 'Best R/HR/SR Deck' posts.

This post takes into account current Bazaar pricing on cards and the power level you get for the deck. The decks I'm using are somewhat gimmicky but I'll explain how I selected these decks. These are assuming 4max evolutions.

Best 'Cheap' HR Deck: Man-Attack

1st Card: Berserker - 17.2k Attack - Big Hit to Demons Defense
2nd Card: Berserker - 17.2k Attack - Big Hit to Demons Defense
3rd Card: Berserker - 17.2k Attack - Big Hit to Demons Defense
4th Card: Berserker - 17.2k Attack - Big Hit to Demons Defense
5th Card: Sektor - 16.5k Attack - Big Boost to Holy War Points

This deck is gimmicky but serves a couple awesome purposes. I'll first note I use Berserker over Master Samurai for pure cost aspects. Each Master Samurai is normally about 3-4HP more than Berserker for a grand total of 800 more attack at the cost of 48-64HP. If M.Sams and Zerkers are going for the same price, go M.Sam.

Total attack of this deck is 85k unbuffed and takes down demons defense huge. If a player is up against a demon defense and is using this deck, they will tear up almost everything. Finally, why Sektor? It gives you a boost to Holy War points. This means during HW you can just swap it to your front card, reducing overall deck cost.

This deck is gimmicky because it requires you to only attack demon realm players and now and then you will simply lose because a demon player will use alternate realm defense like 5 Apsara.

Rough Cost of the Attack Deck: 200HP

Best 'Cheap' HR Deck: Man-Defense

1st Card: Paladin - 15.2k Defense - Big Boost to Man Defense
2nd Card: Captain - 17.2k Defense - Big Hit to Man Attack
3rd Card: Captain - 17.2k Defense - Big Hit to Man Attack
4th Card: Captain - 17.2k Defense - Big Hit to Man Attack
5th Card: Captain - 17.2k Defense - Big Hit to Man Attack

This deck should look familiar with on variant. It is the best HR man defense deck with extra Captains. Why? Because one does not simply make a man defense deck without Paladin. Paladin is such a cheap card for the power that it can't be ignored. Using extra Captains saves about 100HP but really players should always aim for three Paladins and two Captains.

Rough Cost of the Defense Deck: 300HP


Overall Advantage of having both: Will burn through Demon Defenses like you're rocking four Claymore. Will be able to point boost during HW. Defense will boost up to 95k at skill level one and will still bring utility against Man Attackers. For an overall cost of 500HP it's pretty tough to beat.