Battle Camp Officially Global! BEST NEW GAME!

Alright, so today Battle Camp is officially available for Global Download! Not only that but it seems like the Apple App Store has jumped on the bandwagon and featured Battle Camp as a BEST NEW GAME.

Now, for those unfamiliar, Apple is pretty picky about who makes their BEST NEW GAME list, so this is pretty insane for an unheard of company to make the list.

The reasons it probably made the list:

1) Full virtual world with avatars + monsters that follow you around
2) Raiding
3) Global Chat/Troop Chat/Messaging
4) Troop Halls
5) Troop Pets
6) Mosaic (This is an easter egg that I am completely addicted to, it's a board game I play with people while my energy recharges)
7) Match 3 Combat
8) Synchronous PvP (Yes, this is INSANELY fun)
9) Huge story and progression
10) Or in other words, it's a freakin MMO.

Overall, the game is insanely fun and the company behind it has really raised the bar on what should be expected.

The downsides:

1) Graphics. Personally I've said it again and again, Gameplay > Graphics. But the art style lacks the sex appeal of other games.

2) Paying players have an advantage. Sorry, but I think we're in a world where that's just a case in games. You can watch videos or do 'Tapjoy' functions to earn gold though like F2P MMOs did. Also they are adding daily logins + trading in the next patch so that should help. Overall, where other games are taking away ways for players to earn things, they add ways.

I really can't say I've had more fun playing a mobile game than I have playing Battle Camp, and their constant updates/changes keeps it really interesting to me. That and the fact I get to wander around showing off my awesome pets + costumes and can solo carry newbies through easy raids.

The game is still VERY new, but honestly it reminds me a lot of Warcraft, it's always adding content.

Download it at: http://bit.ly/BattleCampApp

Battle Camp Update

Ok, so the previous date of the 14th got changed. It will be released the 18th of this month atm.

Apparently the push back was so they could add a bunch of languages for the Global Release rather than add the languages in future patches :(

So, there have been a few questions posed on some different sites.

1) Will you get your ass handed to you by people who have been playing?

- Absolutely. There's a huge advantage to being part of a BETA. I've BETA'd a lot of games and it always gives me an edge, it's one of the only perks they get. The upside though is that improving your team can be done pretty rapidly to the point where you can compete. If you're good the edge they gained can be caught up in about a month of normal play.

2) Is it P2W like Rage/Marvel

- Yes and no. Obviously all games have a pay process, they have to make money and expecting them not to is just silly. The real question is are they greedy about it? The answer to that is no. Players earn rare spins in events just by earning trophies/participating. Players also can ask friends to send them a recharge for their energy. Finally, they do have stuff where you can watch ads to earn coins. 

Do paying players have an advantage? Yep. Not going to avoid that anywhere really, but the nice part is that you can catch up and they are regularly adding ways for players to earn stuff rather than take away those opportunities.

3) Are you going to make a fan site for it?

- Maybe. I've been busy (14+ hour days) constantly lately.

4) Any tips for newbies?

- Stay in Camp until you have a full team of Rares. Camp Rares only require 2 pieces to make vs 4-6 as you go through. Although they're weaker than other rares they will help you farm the other rares faster.

- Special monsters give way more XP than other monsters. Use your normal monsters to level a special and then feed that one to a Rare. You'll level much faster and spend a lot less stone leveling.
 
- Find a Troop that Raids regularly. The Beginner Raids aren't super hard (my player can solo the entire first raid in a day). You get a piece of a Super Rare monster for winning raids so it's the best way to power up fast.
 
- Participate heavily in events. Pretty much all players win something, but also you gain rewards by earning trophies. You can also find Event Tokens that carry over to other events and can be used to be traded for event monsters/costumes/trophies/stone.
- Play through the entire story. You get experience boosts/stone/monster grabs.

- Be active. A lot of troops are willing to take friendly active members even if they are weak because they know that they can carry them through raids and power them up quickly.

Finally, here's a piece of Battle Camp art I put together:

Where has Lucarda Been?

After four months of being MIA I'm back, unfortunately I just don't have time to keep up on Rage of Bahamut and all the best strats anymore. The truth is I found a game that has pretty much everything I could ask for in a mobile game.

While Rage of Bahamut was fun for a while, the game I'm currently playing is a hell of a lot more fun. The game is called Battle Camp! I've been in the beta and helping with the game for the last several months.

I haven't been writing about it while I was playing because I didn't want to get in trouble but now that it's about to launch I figured I'd let my readers know about it first.

So, what makes Battle Camp so much better than Rage of Bahamut?

Well, let me tell you my experience with it.

I first entered the game and opened the game and began designing my character. At first I thought, wow I can choose from five looks, then I noticed the customize button. It was there I found out that I could make my character appear thousands of different ways. I wondered how much it cost for the various vanities and I was shocked to find out nothing. The amount of customization a player can do for their character is just absurd.

So, after completing my character I entered the game. The combat system is like Puzzles and Dragons (for any who have played it). This is just a grossly better system over the TCG model. All of the movement and gem matching was seamless and I found being able to determine my attacks with a combination of skill+monster stats really refreshing.

At this point the similarities to Puzzles and Dragons ended. My avatar was in a zone in the world and immediately story dialog came up and began sending me on various quests. The amount of story+quests in this game borders on full MMO status. The story is also funny with tons of puns if you read to catch them.

So, what next? Farm, farm, farm for monsters which I always find to be a fun part of a game. Farming in Battle Camp isn't nearly as brutal as it is in Rage. I spent about 5-10 minutes and hour playing trying to gather up pieces of rare monsters. As I gathered more and more rares I ended up joining a Troop (Battle Camps version of Guilds/Orders).

That's where the game started getting really addicting. The troops have built in chats, raids that players can do, and troop pets for the team to raise (plays an important role in one of the events). Ultimately through raiding with the rest of the troop I was able to accumulate a bunch of higher rarity monsters and evolve them. After that it's just fun to watch your damage cap rise and rise in raids.

Now, that's not all there is to do otherwise I would have been bored already. Much like Rage there are several events. There are Troop Wars which pit troops against each other (sort of like Holy Wars but different), there are Raid Events where the troop gathers items together to battle unique raid bosses, and also a dungeon event where players battle their way through waves of challenge mode caves to earn tokens and battle a boss. All of the events are extremely fun and each has their own unique story.

PvP deserves a special mention because it's real head to head. Players battle against other live players to see who is more skilled on the board as well as who has the better monsters. Obviously monsters give an edge (sometimes insurmountable, sorry commons don't beat epics unless the other guy forfeits), but the cool part is that I have on a regular basis crushed people with pets much rarer than mind. The reason? Because skill players a role.

Overall, I'm sure I'm forgetting about something but I figured any of my readers deserved to know why I haven't been commenting/playing Rage of Bahamut. I would love to see you all in Battle Camp though.

It is on iOS only right now with an android version scheduled later this year. It doesn't get released in the US until the 14th but if you want to get in early Canada is one of the beta countries so you can download it in the canadian app store.

If you do decide to join me in game please use my referral code! And as always, IGN Lucarda.

p8cgzp

Dragon's Awakening

Dragon's Awakening is a variation of two different events and I have to say it's pretty interesting. Rage of Bahamut combined the standard raid event with a grow your pet event. So, what to do?

Raid Aspect

The raiding is the core aspect of this event. This means that the best way to do well is to purchase raider cards. The additional damage they do just can't be understated. Ideally you will stack three of them and participate heavily. This will normally be enough to net a nice reward.

Donation Aspect

The secondary aspect of course is feeding your dragon for rewards. The items you feed the dragon can be anything from your normal rares/hr sitting around to the random event cards and berries that appear. The key though is you'll be actively donating.

The Cycle

The interesting part of this event and what I want to touch on most is the flow/cycle. This event is tailored to help get rid of some of excess cards on the market and help the economy (now it won't really work but I'm not going to spend time discussing it here) as well as allow people to feel like they are getting something while doing it.

A player will begin by going through quests which will lead to downing raid bosses. After these two tasks are done the player will figure out what to donate to their dragon and do so. Now the fun part here is the player will then have (hopefully) shards/rewards that give them the ability to go through another series of quests and raid bosses to get more stuff to donate to their dragon.

The reason I like this shift is that this extra stage not only helps newer players contribute but it also offers a longer period of entertainment per session. This may be annoying for some who just want to log on and get their stuff done before logging off (me) but it's really enjoyable for new players, and if there's one thing the game needs its a stream of new players.

Tips

• Don't waste HP buying cards to donate. I know it's the purpose of the event but realistically you're not likely to get ahead that way when you could do missions and battle raid bosses with that HP.
• Get Raider Cards ASAP. They may sell for a lot at the start but the time you spend using them and the HP you save is increased the longer you have one.
• Help by attacking your Order's bosses.
• Events like this are a great time to skill up cards.
• Events like this are a great way for newbies to stockpile rupies.
• Have fun and try not to play until you burn out.

Farming Games

So, I have a friend who really enjoys Farming Games. Of course it's a girl and she pointed out immediately to me how TCGs were an equally pointless and time wasters. Of course I pointed out to her how at least what I played had competitions.

Now, I'm not one to Judge, unless you think any (main) Final Fantasy after X was decent, then you're a naive twat with no sense of good storytelling and gameplay who only has a hard on for graphics. But, I would say that TCGs are significantly more interesting than farming games.

Farming games generally are purely single player with no interaction where you plant, plant, plant, log. Then you come back four hours later, see your crops grow and click harvest, harvest, harvest, sell, sell, sell, plant, plant, plant, log. But this cycle is the same, constantly.

It's the equivalent of playing Rage of Bahamut for the quests. Nobody is going to sit there running 4-4 over and over again as an entire game.

Maybe somebody can explain it to me, but I don't see why anybody would want to play a farming game. There is no depth, no events, no competition. Your competition is literally who can grow the most wheat? The sheer premise of a farming game standing on its own is absurd to me.

How we can make "farming" work

Now, I'm not anti-farming. I'm just anti-farming as an ENTIRE GAME. If in Rage of Bahamut I could plant seeds that grow HP for me, I would do it, and I think that's the key to farming in games.

I feel that farming makes a lot of sense when you are farming for a resource you can use. It also gives players something extra to do during there downtime. The biggest problem with farming games is you're farming for the sake of farming. You get wheat to sell to buy seeds to get more wheat to sell.

But if your Guild in Rage of Bahamut had a communal farm where players could daily come and plant and tend for a communal HP or something, that would be interesting. Is this a perfect idea? No. But it's a start, and I'm sure several people are already intrigued at the concept.

World of Warcraft even introduced the farming aspect of their game in Mists of Pandaria. Overall, the idea of merging the 'farm' aspect of games into another, makes both types of game a bit stronger. Ultimately, Rage of Bahamut (as well as other mobile games) could benefit greatly by absorbing other concepts into themselves.

Pirate Maidens...is this serious?

I downloaded a game called Pirate Maidens to begin with...knowing full well it was. For work I need to be well versed in a huge variety of mobile games. And when I come across a game with a name like Pirate Maidens...I just can't not download it.

Now, I'll begin by saying...this just isn't a good game. I didn't expect it to be. The reason I felt like talking about it though, is it did make me laugh my ass off, and it did have some neat aspects.

So, what about it made me laugh?

Pirate Maidens is about collecting scantly clad female pirate cards. Obviously the game is designed around the titillation. So, when I collected the first card and there was an option to click a button and hear the character describe themselves, I cracked up. That's right, when you collect a card, you click a button and (In Japanese) the card tells their story.

I couldn't help but think to myself...some game developer decided that hiring voice actors to say the dialog for each of the cards was going to be the ticket that made this game a winner! I actually called my fiance over laughing to say 'hey, hey, look at this', and she was cracking up.

So, maybe the feature does its job, because I wouldn't even be talking about Pirate Maidens if it wasn't for that feature.

The game doesn't do everything bad

Pirate Maidens actually put a lot of effort into trying to build a story around the game. Of course, any story is weakened when being told by big breasted pirate women. But, I felt it was interesting that in their story mode, they actually decided to have a story, which is something to applaud.

Another feature I thought was interesting was that occasionally a pirate NPC would pop up and you'd battle them. After beating them you had the option to try to convince them to join your crew. You could use an item for 100% chance of winning them over, or you could take the 10% chance you seem to have to get them. Still pretty neat though.

What they should have done

Had they taken an approach of have a pirates vs marines vs merchants type scenario and had male and female pirates/marines/merchants as well as monsters they might actually be a competitor. People love pirate stuff like they love ninja stuff and fantasy stuff.

Now, it's easy to look at a game and say what they could do better, but this is one of those rare instances where I look at something and think...seriously? Somebody pitched...lets have a TCG filled with a bunch of ecchi big breasted pirate woman. Then somebody came in and said...you know what would be awesome? Lets have them talk! And then somebody high up said...THAT'S A GREAT IDEA!

And even now, I'm laughing my ass off picturing the meeting where this game got a yes.

I know, I know

I know that I've been extremely bad about posting lately. And honestly, I would like to post more but between family and work deadlines I spend the little free time I have playing videogames to unwind a bit.

To give you an idea of what takes up my time:

Work about 50+ hours a week at the moment to hit deadlines.
Play Marvel War of Heroes
Play Rage of Bahamut
Play a Mobile Game in Development
Play a New Mobile Game every week - Currently breaking down four different mobile games and what makes them successful. Have also tried ayakashi, Immortalis, Arcane Empire, Galaxy Empire, D.O.T. Pantheon of Legends, KaW. Etc.
Recently I've played: Vindictus, Dragon Nest, Atlantica, SMITE, Tera Rising, Path of Exile, Aion, C9, Allods, Raiderz, League of Legends, Pirates 101, Firefall. And that's just the tip. Each time I play these I generally write a review of it.
Write other articles
Family Time
Watch a couple movies

So, sometimes I get a little burnt out. Obviously updating my best decks lists would be helpful, but it's also the most boring and asinine task on the site. Especially considering that new cards are releasing so fast that the data immediately goes out of date.

But, how often do I need to tell people how to do well in Holy Wars? Or how often do I need to tell people if they want to do well in an event they need to find a way to get event cards? If they had truly new event I would be excited and write all about it.

Now, I could write a cost benefit analysis one paying players vs non paying players. That's the only recommendation that's come recently that intrigues me, but since I don't pay it would be pure speculation. With the current economy though I'm not quite sure why somebody would pay.

Now, somebody might say "Well, if you had time to write this, you could have written about something more insightful." This doesn't take a lot of energy to write and = I think it's worth letting people know that I still look at and read the site and the only reason I'm not posting as often is because Rage hasn't really been doing anything worth writing about.

So, in an effort to post more often, I'm definitely going to post about things that may not be directly related to Rage of Bahamut but do relate to games. Starting Monday and going forward, I'm going to be posting the following:

A look at the Mobile Game Pirate Maidens - Focusing on how the concept made me laugh my ass off.


A post wondering what in the world is the appeal of farming games

The following week:

Hopefully Rage does something noteworthy, and if they don't a list of noteworthy things they should consider doing.

A rant about girl gamers.

The following week: I haven't thought this far ahead.

What can I say about Holy Wars?

So, I was going to do a Holy War post before the war, but Honestly...what can I say that I haven't already said during previous Holy Wars?

By now most people know that defense leaders are pretty much useless against the power of chains and shingeki. Obviously you should try to gain points in every battle for medals. You should coordinate for maybe one mammoth war a day rather than burn your members out on constant wars.

There just is really only so much I can say about Holy Wars. They have blatantly become who can spend the most HP. And before people say they always have been...they didn't always feel like that.

They felt more like you had to pick the right player to attack (because some you could beat and some you couldn't). They felt like having everybody use the same card confused the enemy. It felt like defense/attack leaders served a purpose.

I can tell you right now there are orders out there considering doing away with def/atk leaders because they only serve to offer a point bonus.

Overall, I just don't really have a lot to say about current HW, so I'm sorry.

So, instead, I'll post how I would fix HW in Rage of Bahamut:

The idea of players having a sort of super saiyan mode (shingeki) is good. But I think that it should be accounted for each player and possibly tied to realm. Demons would get Attack Power Bonus, Gods could get a Defense Power Bonus, and Man could get a mixed bonus. When activated the player has five minutes of it. Move the ability from 'leader hits button, we zerg' to more of a 'player won 20 times, they got their limit break' type feel. The player would get a 50% bonus to HW points while in their 'Limit Break' mode. The potency of the ability could be increased every time you activated it. This moves away from those group buffs.

Return Defense leaders to their previous position. They are defenders and should act as such. Or if you want other players to remain attackable. Give all players a 50% boost to defense while a defense leader is active. This will make people think again about who they attack and bring some glory back to the defense leader.

Increase wall health. Lets be honest, walls are too easy and meaningless in their current form. If that had about 5-6x the health though, they would serve more of a purpose and breaking them down would seem more of an accomplishment.

Remove the ability to burn tons of HP in a single attack. It makes it fell like war is about spending HP and it should feel about which team is better built. I understand that HP should be apart of it, but the main reasons HW don't seem worth the trouble is because of the heavy HP expenditures.

Finally, stop trying to design an event on how you can make more money. You may make more money from some players, but you lose players. And although you may not value those players who don't spend money, if one of your paying players is friends with them, you're likely to lose them.

Lets simplify that thought that for you:

Payer - Non Payer - Non Payer - Payer - Non Payer - Non Payer - Non Payer - Non Payer
 
So, non payers 2, 3, and four leave. They find a new non Rage/Mobage game. They are still good friends in LINE with the two Payers and say 'hey, we're having a blast with this new game'. Payer tries it and says, damn, screw mobage, I'm playing this.

That's my post/rant for this week. 

Rage of Bahamut One Year Evolution

Rage of Bahamut has been out for right around a year now and I just wanted to write a small piece on the evolution of the game since it first launched so people can really think about the difference in the game now from what it was.

Trading: 

When Rage of Bahamut first came out there were no limitations on trading. Players could trade with anybody they wanted whether they were a random player or team member, and without a two week wait. The results of this was many high level players would look for new players and offer them Treasure High Rares of their alignment for the true High Rares the lowbies pulled.

Players would post in forums offering 2-3HP per Treasure High Rares claiming they were using them to skill up their cards when they were really using them to trade for High Rares worth 20-30HP each.

With no Bazaar players were stuck posting on forums and scouring forums for people who had the card they wanted or even to get the estimated value of cards. Every other post was somebody wondering if X trade or Y trade was fair.

Then players started to offer trades of 150 Rupies for a card somebody was selling for 150HP, and some people who were in a hurry or just not very aware would make the trade only to rage on forums.

Despite random exploitation and people creating 100s of accounts to get LCPs to trade with their main account...card values were steady with the least expensive HR being about 12-15HP and the highest valued ones hitting upwards of 45...65 when Claymore Maid and Apsara were released. For almost half a year the economy was stable despite random exploitation, which when you think about it...is pretty amazing.

Then Rage suffered from rampant server hacking and card theft after which they stopped trading for three weeks and implemented the Bazaar system. Lowbie players were so happy at first and started stammering off how great it was that cards would no longer have their 'inflated' values. And for weeks as prices dropped again and again players claimed they were leveling out to their 'actual values'.

Finally, we've dropped further than even I predicted with pretty much all HR being values at 1HP each. Amazing after months of stability amidst rampant exploitation that the prices could stand steady, but so quickly after Bazaar implementation they could fall so low.

So, After half a year of holding value and community growth, Rage of Bahamut implemented limited trading causing a severe economic collapse.

Raid Events:

I'm not going to address the elimination of CW Quest Events like Tears of the Moon, nor am I going to spend time discussing the changes to Holy War...although we could always rant there.

Instead, I'm going to talk about the evolution of the Raid Event:

Early Raid Events: Players Received cards for hitting the boss if he was taken down. Players received points based on their damage done. There were event cards that did additional damage as well as cards that blocked attacks.

Oldest Raid Events: Players could just hit bosses and gain cards for participating and gain HP by proceeding through quests or defeating a certain number of bosses. Players would pool their HP to purchase damage cards for the event bosses.

Old Raid Events: Raid Events stayed the same until after the economy changed. Players were given shards that could be traded in for chances at HP/CW/Cards. Players who had good raider cards could actually gather a lot of shards and profit pretty heavily. Players bought quite a few event cards, shared them with friends, and participated pretty heavily. Hard bosses appeared based on how many points you've accumulated. Overall, virtually the same as the earlier system except with shards that allow people to earn HP and CW instead of just R, HN, and N cards. This was a pretty good time.

Current Raid Events: Rage changed over their events to require players to have three event cards instead of the one most players were gathering. They also changed the system to require a resource that gave three attacks (To offset the 20 single card attacks people were doing). Fewer shards are given out overall. Players need to kill three weak bosses before they unlock the bosses they want. I hate this system. I know some people like it, but to me...it's hard enough to profit off of the event without having to invest in 3 Raider cards as well.

But most importantly...all the events had pretty much a two to three week break between them. It was astounding. We had time to recoup and build before the next event. It was a nice system.

Card Releases:

When Rage released we might get a few new cards a month. It was astoundingly slow actually. Players would spend their time trading for cards like Ifrit and Nightmare knowing they had just enough power. When new cards were released it was normally the result of an event and players tried to get them to help through the event. When Claymore Maid and Apsara was released it was amazing.

Then a couple card packs came out and players were pretty psyched at the options. Then it seemed like a new card pack was coming out weekly...because they were. Now, it seems like every time I log on I have to deal with 30 seconds of load time while Rage tries to get my psyched about cards while I know ten new ones with be out next week.

Either way...card releases used to be special.

Anyway....

That's it for my nostalgia? Why don't you tell me when you started and what you remember and what's changed since you started?

Sorry for Delays

Sorry for delays on posts. I've been working on a lot of projects for work as well as other sites so I haven't really had time to do some of the things I've been wanting to do.

This month I plan on working on:

Updating my Best Decks Posts
A post on the evolution of Rage of Bahamut over the last year

Plus. If people post for stuff they're wanting me to write about I'd be happy to take any into consideration. As I said, I've been really busy but I'll try to commit more time this month to get some interesting stuff up here. 

Thanks for the patience.

Rage of Bahamut Essential Guide eBook

Hey everybody,

As many of my regular readers may know I published an ebook recently on Rage of Bahamut. So far sales have been pretty solid and I've gotten a lot of great feedback about it. I want you all to know that I really appreciate everybody who supports the Rage of Bahamut Guide. So, thank you for your purchases!

If you weren't aware of the guide, you can purchase it by clicking the icon below. It's also available on Amazon. (If you buy it on Amazon please leave a review...preferably a good one)

I have had people tell me to make a hardcover version, but in this day of digital information it just doesn't make a lot of sense. Especially if I can't add a bunch of pictures licensed to Rage. (Although personally I feel that Rage should make a published guide of all their card art for people to purchase)

The fact is, Rage is going to be around for a long time. Their art selection beats the crap out of a lot of their competitors, the depth of evolution is just interesting, and the frequent updates (I would argue too frequent) make it one of the most active TCGs on the market.

It's still probably one of the best ways to spend time on my Razr. So, thanks again to those who purchased and anybody else who wishes to help support my site, thanks!

In this guide you will find:

• The most important basics of Rage of Bahamut
• How to choose a realm
• Best ways to move up the ladder of card rarities
• Tips for succeeding in events
• The most powerful deck combinations
• How to generate HP so that you can buy that SR card that you’ve always wanted
• Techniques for building a top Order from scratch
• Proven strategies for assigning and using the different Holy Wars positions to your advantage

You already know everything?

Chances are, you probably know a lot, but even I have to go back and look stuff back up. I am constantly bouncing around my own notes to actually answer questions that people post in comments on my site. It's always great to have a well organized resources.



Why should you buy it?

I can think of two great reasons to buy it. One, to help support the Rage of Bahamut Guide Blog which I update more than any other Rage site outside of the wikipedia. And while top ranked orders, forums, guides, etc. keep the secrets to doing well to themselves, I share them with everybody.

Two, because its a great quality guide with everything you should need to know to do well.  

60-Day, No-Questions-Asked Money Back Satisfaction Guarantee
 
If you’re not satisfied with Rage of Bahamut: The Essential Guide just let us know, and we’ll refund your money in full. We made a great product and we're convinced players will be happy with it.

FAQs

• Can I read this guide on my computer?  Yes.  Those who purchase this guide will be sent a PDF version of the guide.  This PDF version is suitable for reading on a computer via Adobe Reader as well as many other PDF reading devices.

• Can I print the guide?  Yes.  Once you download the PDF version, you can print it for your personal use.

• Is there a hard cover version?  Unfortunately not — we only do eBook guides at this time.

• Got questions or Need help?  If you have any problems with the purchase or the download, simply contact our friendly support staff.  Please include your PayPal email address (if you have already made a purchase).

Disclaimer:  This product is not an official guide.  The copyright to Rage of Bahamut belongs to © DeNA and © (C)Cygames, inc.

Stampede of Goblins

So, Holy War is over and the next event announced is the Stampede of Goblins. This event will follow the new 10 card structure of Raid Events with a little bit of a twist. Rewards are dished out twice during the course of the event.

How Stampede of Goblins will work:

Players will complete missions to summon bosses. Once three different types of bosses are defeated the door to the Goblin Lair will open. Opening the door to the Goblin Lair will allow players to access more powerful bosses for a limited time. These bosses will allow players to gain higher ranking much faster, so opening that door is important.

Combat

Much like the previous event, Stampede of Goblins will be using a 10 card system. This means that to do the best you will need to have 7 strong cards and 3 Raider cards. Each time you attack you will use one of the combat resource, AP, of which you will be allocated 6.

Players can also use HP to do powerful attacks on enemies. As you defeat bosses you will gain Anima which will count toward your points as well as resources that can be traded in for cards, hp, cw, etc.

Rewards changes

Now, the rewards at the end of the event have stayed the same, but the event structure has changed by adding rewards to the middle of the event. The rewards in the middle of the event are made to help players compete during the 2nd half of the event.

This change is interesting because the length of the events has long been something that players have disliked. This mini reward in the middle gives players a shorter point to aim for, and the rewards will help them compete in the second half. It's kind of a nice break from having to push for two weeks.

It's also benefits mobage by making sure players are active early on. The earlier they are pushing for rank, the more HP they will theoretically spend.

The only thing I would hate of them to do would be to have the rewards at the halfway mark be weak event cards. Since these are supposed to be rewards for doing well, I feel that the reward cards should be decently strong. 

Overall:

To do well during this event it's important to get raid cards and time your attacks. Since every attack will be using 1/6 of your total resource, it's important to ensure you're not overkilling too many bosses. Being able to calculate out your damage so you get the most bang for your buck is really important.

Outside of that, you need to open gates as well. Don't use HP before you open a gate. Since only one type of a gate boss will appear at a time, you want to demolish one, then do missions rapidly to get another up. Also, hit everybody's gate boss once for the critical bonuses.

Anyway, good luck and have fun!

Holy War...what number is this?

I'm so annoyed that I don't even want to pick up my phone and log in to look. So, right when I was beginning to get my faith back that Mobage was going to scale rewards properly they took it my faith and bashed it against a rock.

The least they could do is send us all some lipstick so we can make ourselves pretty before they fuck us. Come on.

Just looking at the prizes was so discouraging that I'm wondering why I'm participating. In the end, I participate for my Order, but for those who don't have a good Order...what's the point? To gain some HR that are worth about 1HP each? For the LCP that will probably yield rares worth a combined total of less than 1HP?

Every week they release a new 'mystery box' to push card art and more powerful of the same cards as before. Every other week they alter between Raid Events that are getting progressively worse and Holy Wars where the payout for what you spend it just awful.

Now that my rant is over:

I've heard a lot of Orders intend to just wait until the last day to participate at all. This way they will be matched up against weaker players and they won't have to spend all weekend playing. Fortunately Shingeki and Chain Bonus allows players to accumulate points so quickly that its possible to attain a solid rank doing this. If you're a weaker Order and were counting on a last day push, I would recommend doing it the day before last.

I have also heard of several Orders going for the victory badges/gold coins and pushing with those in mind. This probably isn't a bad strategy but it's a high risk one because while some players may profit doing it this way, others might lose their ass depending on how much luck they have. But it's not a bad strategy.

Finally, A LOT of orders are opting not to participate. This is normally all talk since they will all generally spend at least 20HP or so just because. If you don't feel you can have fun in this HW, I recommend that you limit each member of your Order to something like 20-30HP each. You won't rank high but you may still get something decent in card packs and enjoy yourself.

Lets Talk Holy War

Alright, so after reading over the rules several times I've come to a conclusion. The new Rage of Bahamut Holy War set up is awesome.

Now, pretty much everything is the same as what it was last war in regards to skills. The major difference is that once an Order declares war, they are declared for the entire day.

At first I was pretty stumped. I re-read that change over and over again thinking....no....that can't be right. That's...unfair. It takes all planning out of the war. Then it sunk in.

When my Order went to war...we won. It was never a question on who was going to win, it was a question of how many points we could accumulate in that time. I think we only went to war 6 times in the last Rage of Bahamut Holy Wars and ended up just over 40. In the end, it didn't feel like a competition, but a match on who could spend the most.

Not only that, but it made it difficult to properly match Orders, but if all are in the 'war' pool, they can be properly matched up.

The Schedule ET:

Day 1:
3pm - 430pm
6pm - 730pm
830pm - 10pm

Day 2: 
1130am - 1pm
3pm - 430pm
6pm - 730pm
830pm - 10pm

Day 3:
1130am - 1pm
3pm - 430pm
6pm - 730pm
830pm - 10pm

Day 4:
1130am - 1pm
3pm - 430pm
6pm - 730pm
830pm - 10pm

So, now this schedule might not work for you. Actually, it won't work for a lot of people, but with the ease and speed of point accumulation, all it will take is a couple wars to get your proper rank.

Advantages of the new system:
-Players can be matched up properly
-Players can't just wait to stack all their players to win a war
-People who wait til the last day to push...might end up royally screwed
-Players aren't held to an absurd time commitment

Disadvantages:
-Fewer wars overall
-Times might not work for players

Overall: I love the change. The pros grossly outweigh the cons for me. Matches that are more competitive are great. People will be more likely to be matched up against people of their rank and as a result it will be harder to win 100%. Also, it removes that feeling of 'is my order at war?' and checking constantly only to find out you missed the big one.

How to do well:
Plan around your team. The same theory for winning from last time holds true this time. Stacking chain and Shingeki will make your attackers pretty much invincible. The only difference is this time you are given the schedule of WHEN people need to be on.

Now, obviously you shouldn't require people to sit through 15 matches. That's more time in a four day period then what I used to spend pushing heroic content in Warcraft. It's just too much. But what I would say is set one match each day that you can have at least 75% of your order on for. Four huge wins, and maybe 2-3 small wins during slow times is what you should aim for.

The key will be winning the matches you commit to because it becomes even more important than ever. Calling it quits and rescheduling when you are grossly outgunned plays a role as well. Remember, adaptation to bad situations will help get you further in the longer run. It sucks to blow 1000HP on battle only to end up losing. It would be better to call it quits when you're 100HP in and save that 900HP for a match you can win.

So, good luck, have fun.

Rage of Bahamut The Essential Guide

Hey everybody,

You all know that I've worked pretty damn hard to compile a massive index of information for Rage of Bahamut and do my best to offer insights into the game. Well, recently I've been working with Jack Kieffer to develop a massive guide for Rage of Bahamut.

This is the most comprehensive Rage of Bahamut guide on the market with all of the information that I've amassed in my time playing, without resorting to hacks, cheats, scams, etc. I'm very proud of Jack and myself for putting out a great product.

For a limited time it is on sale for 9.99!

In this guide you will find:

• The most important basics of Rage of Bahamut
• How to choose a realm
• Best ways to move up the ladder of card rarities
• Tips for succeeding in events
• The most powerful deck combinations
• How to generate HP so that you can buy that SR card that you’ve always wanted
• Techniques for building a top Order from scratch
• Proven strategies for assigning and using the different Holy Wars positions to your advantage

You already know everything?

Chances are, you probably know a lot, but even I have to go back and look stuff back up. I am constantly bouncing around my own notes to actually answer questions that people post in comments on my site. It's always great to have a well organized resources.



Why should you buy it?

I can think of two great reasons to buy it. One, to help support the Rage of Bahamut Guide Blog which I update more than any other Rage site outside of the wikipedia. And while top ranked orders, forums, guides, etc. keep the secrets to doing well to themselves, I share them with everybody.

Two, because its a great quality guide with everything you should need to know to do well.  

60-Day, No-Questions-Asked Money Back Satisfaction Guarantee
 
If you’re not satisfied with Rage of Bahamut: The Essential Guide just let us know, and we’ll refund your money in full. We made a great product and we're convinced players will be happy with it.

FAQs

• Can I read this guide on my computer?  Yes.  Those who purchase this guide will be sent a PDF version of the guide.  This PDF version is suitable for reading on a computer via Adobe Reader as well as many other PDF reading devices.

• Can I print the guide?  Yes.  Once you download the PDF version, you can print it for your personal use.

• Is there a hard cover version?  Unfortunately not — we only do eBook guides at this time.

• Got questions or Need help?  If you have any problems with the purchase or the download, simply contact our friendly support staff.  Please include your PayPal email address (if you have already made a purchase).

Disclaimer:  This product is not an official guide.  The copyright to Rage of Bahamut belongs to © DeNA and © (C)Cygames, inc.

Rage of Bahamut Guide Release Tomorrow!

So, for a while now I have been working with my friend Jack Kieffer at coolgizmotoys in creating a compendium of Rage of Bahamut information in a well organized book. Obviously I've been writing about Rage of Bahamut for a long time and amassed an absurd amount of knowledge on the game.

Rage of Bahamut still is the best Android/iOS based Trading Card Game on the market and there aren't any signs that will change soon. Even when we grow frustrated with Mobage we know that it still is the best TCG on the market.

Now, Jack wanted to price the guide at 19.99 but I recommended that for the first week or so we sell it for half off. So, tomorrows the launch day and I appreciate anybody who helps support my endeavors here with a purchase tomorrow! If you hate the guide, it will have a 60 day money back guarantee, but we worked our asses off on it so hopefully you like it!

New Card Releases

Yesterday when I logged on and saw that Hector and Echidna were released, I started to think about how many recent card releases we have had. I used to collect football cards when I was younger and there were a lot of duplicates, re-releases, special editions, etc. As a kid, one of the things that always held true, they stopped making the old cards when they released the new cards.

I think Mobage could learn something from this. A lot of the fun of card collecting games is having cards or archiving cards that other people don't have. When I look at Empusa for example, she was just a high normal card with titillating artwork, but sells for quite a bit because she was discontinued ages ago.

I feel that Mobage should start reducing some of the older High Rares and SRs from Rage of Bahamut card packs. I think it would be a good idea to remove cards like Great Spirit, Elaine, Lovely Elf, Master Witch, etc. These cards don't really work in any decks anymore and only really serve as cards to increase somebodies archive. By removing them and adding extra perks for Archive Rage of Bahamut would be giving players something extra to do that's fun.

If Rage of Bahamut started discontinuing cards while adding effects to perks like you get 5 extra points to distribute every 20 Archives (after you cap your card inventory), I think we'd see a lot of active trading which would pump a little more life into the game. It would also help people sitting on tons of 1HP HR cards liquidate them.

The final effect of a change like this would be that a lot of the 1HP HR cards are removed from card packs. This would increase paying customers ability to get better cards, increasing their desire to purchase card packs, because lets be honest, right now even if you get an SR there's a 70% chance you get an SR that nobody wants because it's inferior to newer ones.

These were the thoughts I had when more new cards were released. What do you think about the constant releases of new cards while the old cards remain on the market?

 

Bazaar Improvement

Rage of Bahamut Bazaar Improvement:

Well, it looks like Mobage either listened to their players, or are staggering the implementation of their Bazaar improvements.

For those who aren't aware, Mobage was going to release a Bazaar update that removed players abilities to list a card for one of different rarity. The reason for that type of change was to prevent players from trading cards for real money, between accounts, or between games. Unfortunately that type of ban would also have the side effect in Rage of Bahamut of preventing players from Trading SSR for multiple SR or any similar trade.

Well, Mobage decided not to implement that particular change (at least at this time). Instead, the release carries the other elements that the community had been asking for, the ability to search by specific card, and the ability to sort cards effectively.

So I just want to say, good for you Mobage for listening to players and not implementing a ban on trading between rarities.

General Update

This is a general update since I haven't really been active in responding to comments for the last week, which causes a pretty massive backlog, and I'm sorry for the ones I don't get to, but fortunately many people in the community here are pretty nice about replying and normally right on the money. So I decided I would cover a few quick topics.

1) Sylvan Labyrinth

The amount people have liked this event has varied based almost purely on their luck with bosses and maze flowers. Personally, I haven't been participating heavy in this event since and had no intention to until the second half. The reason is, I plan on using this event to recoup resources as opposed to go for rank (Lost 600HP on HW...QQ).

To do that I am going to count on the better maze flowers in the second half of the event. Also, I have just been doing 6 attacks and saving my resources until the better maze flowers come so I can recharge AP.

The event itself...isn't bad, but I don't like the changes. They've definitely tuned down the rate at which monsters come to up the value/use of CW. On top of this, the fact you need to kill 3 crappy bosses using 3 AP before a decent boss can be summoned is annoying. It's a nice way to get people with heavy attack decks to waste AP on bosses they don't even want to battle.

Personally, I just don't like it, but that shouldn't stop others from enjoying it quite a bit, and at least they made the rewards reasonable.

2) The Economy

I have several friends who quit after the last HW and even more that have been quitting recently. The economy is the prime reason.

Now, I will note that about two days after bazaar came out I noted that the steady decline in prices would never stop under the current system (pat myself on back). The reason is basic supply and demand in a system where there will always be more supply than demand. Once players get to SR, they never need HR again. Once players get to SSR, they never need SR again.

Now the concept I am going over is much bigger with more working parts than I am willing to write, but hopefully it's easy to understand.

In the game, your cards are like stock shares and HP is like money. You buy them, hold onto them, and expect them to hold value or gain value, and sometimes lose value. No matter what though, you expect them to stay close to the value you purchased them at.

As the value of cards dropped, people panicked and sold, causing the price to drop more, causing more people to panic and sell.

Now, everybody in the game has only 2 jobs, stockbroker or farmer. Your ability to make money is purely reliant on your ability to buy/sell/trade stocks. You can also farm your crops and sell them for a pittance if you wish to do that. Most players, are farmers until they gain the money/education to become stockbrokers.

Now, eventually, these stocks all become worth less and less, it gets harder and harder to buy/sell/trade stocks to earn enough to feed your family. Eventually, farming is paying as much as stockbrokering.

Here comes the best part, bills (events) are increasing in price the entire time. So as you make less and less, the 'bills' cost more and more. The only way to make up for this loss is cheat, which many players are doing.

Eventually, you will be farming/stockbrokering everyday and be left without enough to pay the bills if you're honest and only the cheaters will prosper.

What's the big deal?

Well, this is a pretty fun game overall, and I dislike the idea of everything being worth 1-10HP and events costing me 1000HP to compete in. Which is where the game is heading.

So if I'm so smart, how do we fix it?

Well, what we have here is NOT a free market. The market limits people to up to 5 trades a day. If this limitation was removed, Almost every rare would be removed from the market in order to skill up other cards. Many HR would also be removed from the market for the same exact purpose. The ability to sell their rares would give many players decent sums of HP/CW to purchase higher level cards taking some of them off the market.

Those HR/Rare with some value (claymore for example), would probably be purchased and re-listed at higher prices. Eventually they would level. They would never reach high prices they were at before Bazaar when trading required effort, but they would steady themselves. Because, eventually, if they hit a low enough price, they would be purchased constantly for skilled feeders.

As the system stands...it would be prime time for another anime based TCG to come on the market and steal all of mobages market.

I can tell you this. My Marvel War of Heroes site increased in traffic by 40% after HW was finished in Rage of Bahamut.

The Sylvan Labyrinth Updated

Alright, so there have been a lot of changes since the previous raid events and really this warrants a new look.

First, I would like to say that Mobage finally noticed that their rewards had gotten just stupid and they upped the value of them. Woot.

Second, about the decks. The layouts I recommended previously are still more ideal because they will function on the same math, what has changed is the way attack power works in this event and its relation to AP as well as the way boss rewards are distributed.

AP:  One AP is equal to 100 ATK PWR while Six AP is equal to 400 ATK PWR. This means that players probably won't be able to attack every boss once regularly since they will have to be using a minimum of 100AP each time. This change is...understandable, but unfortunate. In attempting to minimize players abilities to one hit farm bosses, they pretty much made it impossible for low/mid levels to accomplish anything.

Regardless, it should be obvious that you ideally want to be against bosses with insanely high health so you can dish out Six AP attacks since they have the best value.

BOSS REWARDS: So, no more critical bonuses. Players earn Maze Flowers (the exchangeable items) based on the damage they do to the boss and MVP. Players earn Sylvan Berries (the point reward) for defeating the boss, discovering the boss, and getting the last hit on the boss.

What this means for players is they won't be able to gather exchangeable items unless they can do mammoth damage to the bosses. Essentially, if you don't have raider cards, don't expect to be able to gain HP through Maze Flower turn ins.

OVERALL: I'm still broke from HW so I won't be participating much in this event. This event is purely tailored toward benefiting high level players who are willing to spend heavy amounts of HP. Between the AP set up preventing players from hitting bosses once and the necessity to do huge damage to a boss in order to gain Maze Flowers...this event is made to make you spend.

On a bright side, awful lot of nice cards in those maze flower packs, I imagine we will see those cards drop nicely in price near the last few days of the event.

The Sylvan Labyrinth

**REFER TO THE SYLVAN LABYRINTH UPDATED FOR CURRENT INFORMATION**

So, it seems that Rage of Bahamut may really be ending CW events or at least making them extremely rare. Many may see The Sylvan Labyrinth as a 'new' event, but its merely a re-packaged raid event.

You will quest and summon bosses the same as usual from the sounds of it with a twist, instead of your normal five card deck you are utilizing a ten card deck. Players will also have access to a "break gauge" which they can activate using their ATK PWR which will deal major damage.

The Sylvan Labyrinth Ten Unit Decks:

Players will be expected to put together groups of ten cards. The decks are made up of two 3 Card Units and one 4 Card Unit. Only the Unit Leader Skills will activate.

So, what's this mean? Congratulations, you now need to buy 3 Raider cards to do well. Ideally, you would probably use 3 Highly Skilled Raider cards and behind them 7 of the highest damage cards you have.

Placement should be your group of four should have all your highest damage cards along with your best Raider Card.

Your second deck, whichever 3 Card Deck you decide on should then have your following 3 Highest damage cards with a Raider Card Lead.

Your final deck will probably be made up of your best leftover cards, probably defensive cards.

The reason you don't balance your decks is because your Raider Cards will multiply damage. By ensuring your highest damage cards are with your best Raider Cards you ensure your highest base will be multiplied by your highest multiplier.

An example of this would be having a deck of:
1 Raider Card that multiplies power by 10
1 Raider Card that multiplies power by 5
1 Raider Card that multiplies power by 2
3 Cards with 20k attack
2 Cards with 17k attack
2 Cards with 15k attack.

Example 1: We will balance the decks.

Deck One: Raider 1 - 20k, 17k, 15k
Deck Two: Raider 2 - 20k, 17k
Deck Three: Raider 3 - 20k, 15k

This damage output would look something like:
Deck One:  520k
Deck Two:  185k
Deck Three:  70k
Total: 775k

Example 2: We will stack it the way I recommend.

Deck One: Raider 1 - 20k, 20k, 20k
Deck Two: Raider 2 - 17k, 17k
Deck Three: Raider 3 - 15k, 15k

This damage output would look something like:
Deck One: 600k
Deck Two: 170k
Deck Three: 60k
Total: 830k

As this shows, stacking your decks in this manner should result in the highest output.

The Sylvan Labyrinth Raider Cards:

Rare: Elder Spartoi Soldier - Med/Small Boost
High Rare: Lunar Werewolf - Big/Med Boost
S Rare: Kitsune Yuel - Big/Med Boost
SSR: Moon Al-mi'raj - Great/Big Boost

I assume halfway through the event we will also see a new Raider Card with a Massive Boost. Also note, that each skill has a boost to the corruption and a boost to large bosses, I assume the large bosses are the ones that the game refers to as the 'rare' bosses which will occasionally be summoned.

Attempting to do well with minimal costs in Sylvan Labyrinth:

**CHECK UPDATE FOR PROPER INFORMATION**
The key with any raid event is to get Raider Cards or even prior to the event. This way you are able to down bosses using less ATK PWR. Since previous events had Personal HP and cards like DQs as possible rewards from the 'shards' gained from defeating bosses, gaining more of them by using less HP increases your chance of balancing. Ideally, you would want to gain more HP than you are spending on the event.

Now, if you're not interested in rank, but are interested in gaining resources, just hit each boss you see once. This way you are eligible for the critical bonus 'shards' which can be traded in for items. If you get lucky you can profit pretty decently doing this.

Thats about all I have for this event for the time being. I'm unsure at this time if mobage has changed anything else, I am also kind of curious as to the HP cost of your 10 card attack deck.

Quick Note:

**THIS DOES NOT WORK :( **
If you are able to attack a boss using only your core group without a penalty on the ATKPWR used, it would be best. Actually, even with a pretty significant penalty is given, it still may be worth it if you only have one great Raider Card. Since I have no idea what the ATK PWR costs will be, I don't know how well this would work.

Bazaar Changes

Rage of Bahamut

 

Thank you for playing Rage of Bahamut.

In order to improve your overall user experience and prevent inappropriate Trading within the game, we will be revamping the Bazaar system. Please note that the change will be effective Feb. 4th, 2013 (ET). Changes include the following:

1) Registered/Non-Registered Users
- Only user who performed Device Registration may now make use of the Bazaar system. Non-registered users will not be able to utilize the system.

2) Search Function
- You will now be able to search for Cards using Card names.
- You will still be able to search via filters.

3) Selling Cards on the Bazaar
- When selling a Card for others on the Bazaar, you will only be able to request Cards of the same rarity on your Bazaar WishList. For example, if you are selling a High Rare Card on the Bazaar you may only request High Rare Card(s).
- Due to the above changes, we will be adjusting the Guidance section for the Bazaar.

4) Trade/Gift Limitations of SSR+ Cards
- Any newly added Cards that are SSR or Rarer will now only be Tradable for up to 10 days from the release date. Once the 10 days have expired you will no longer be able to Trade the Card, and must sell and/or purchase it via the Bazaar.
- Please note that the above does not apply to Cards whose Rarity reaches SSR at final evolution.
-You will only be able to Gift Cards that are Rare or below.

5) Trading Restrictions for Items
- Previously, the Trading rules required you to be either a Fellow or in the same Order for 2 weeks. Please note that this duration will been extended to 30 days when Trading Items.
　　- Under the new rules you must meet the requirements below to Trade/Gift Items:
　　- You are a Fellow and/or in the same Order as the other user
　　- Either and/or both of the following:
　　　　1) You have been a Fellow with the user for at least 30 days.
　　　　2) You have been in the same Order for at least 30 days.

 

My views:

1) Don't really care ab out registered users. Whatever.

 

2) Search function, finally.

 

3) Wait?..What? Great, no more down/uptrading guys. Yeah, people weren't limited enough.

 

4) For those who are wondering why this is a rule...it's to limit a person who maybe had 500 accounts from being able to transfer SSR to his main account. Of course these accounts can still just sell the card for HP on the bazaar and transfer that. Still dumb because it solves nothing but adds another limitation on a heavily limited trade system.

 

5) This is directly related to point four. Ideally, if you cannot trade the SSR with your main account you would sell it for HP, this makes it more difficult to get that HP to your main account. 

 

Honestly. Points 3, 4, and 5 are just stupid. They solve nothing. I have already thought of how to work through all of it. Player has all alt accounts linked to each other in some network. Each account sells their cards on bazaar for HP. Since the alts are long term friends, all HP goes to one main account. Finally, your main account sells a HR for the price of all the pooled HP. 

Regardless, Mobage have handled controlling exploiters horribly from the get go, and their new changes just prove again that they have no idea what they are doing in regards to them.

 

Holy War Post War Update

Well, the war is over for me since I've run through 600HP this war and I don't have time to recoup before my Orders last battle. Overall, we will be ranking around rank 40 (hopefully under) with our efforts. To give people an idea of what it takes to meet this rank I decided to write this.

Every member of our order spent 300+HP, mostly during full Shingeki+Combo bonuses while using at least the small point boost cards. We only attacked Order Leaders, Vice Leaders, Attack Leaders, Support Leaders so we always got those bonus points, after five were dead they reset and we repeated. We have members in our order that spent over 1000HP carrying members who could only afford spending around the 300. These same members sold their cards from coin packs to earn more HP to spend as they went.

In the end, our Order will have spent about 20,000HP to achieve top 40 (assuming we hit it). This means we will have spent an average of 520HP per person. The rewards for top 40 equal roughly 400HP and hopefully we can earn 200HP in silver coin rewards as well. If we each spent 520HP we would be hopefully earning 80HP in profit from the entire experience. We won't even be eligible for Order Victory awards because we only fought about 6 wars. My individual reward for spending 600HP will be in the 1000-3000 bracket which is worth about 10HP.

Now, if we miss top 40, our prizes will be worth about 150HP each and we will be losing our asses.

Now, here's the interesting part. If I took that same 600HP I spent, purchased 8 Raphellias, combined them into their final forms, waited two weeks, I could probably easily sell them for 1500HP. Or, I could have purchased Devil Queens at 70HP each and sold them for 120HP each in two weeks for, 960HP.

This means that under pretty much 100% of scenarios I could make more HP taking advantage of low Holy Wars trading prices than I could actually participating in Holy Wars.

So why do I do it? Because it's more fun that playing the game like an auction house.

The moral of this story is Mobage needs to take another look at their reward structures because at the moment, it's so unbalanced that it favors people never participating. This means most players will stop participating in events which just leads to ceasing to participate at all.
 

Update on Multiple Accounts

According to an email from Mobage, the number of players being banned seemed high since they didn't do December bans from the Holiday. This same player who was emailed addressed the fact that he had accounts on different devices in which Mobage responded that after a quick lookup they could tell he had X accounts on that IP and that it wasn't an issue.

Although the email didn't give specifics they did mention that members of one particular order were found to be sharing devices but most were linked to massive amounts of feeders, in some cases over 1000 feeder accounts.

The issue apparently is not on multiple accounts and there is no set policy on multiple accounts. Instead the problem is when people use multiple accounts to EXPLOIT the game. For example, having 30 feeders to support ten mains is.

That being said, a player who has authenticated his accounts on his personally owned devices, probably won't be punished.

Decided to update people at the urging of an Order mate.

Holy War Changes and Strategies

I'm sure people are wondering how the addition of Position Skills and Skill Chains effect Holy Wars and the strategies players use. Before I move to them I would like to point out the other important changes. I'm not going to discuss all of them nor all their facets, just the pertinent ones.

1) Changes to Holy War Points Received - High minimum points from lower level players, higher minimum points when attacking users with lower DEF PWR.

This change is directly used to combat the lockout strategy since even at lowest DEF PWR they will pay more points. The strategy itself will still be viable since the increase will probably be slight.

2) Full-Force Attacks - Players can use up to 3HP to do up to 3HP worth of damage and gain 3HP worth of points in a single attack.

This ability is going to cause some shit to go down. Rage of Bahamut introduces and automatic weapon. I can attack 3x per HP, and I can burn 3HP isntantly? That's 9 attacks per click. I imagine we will see quite a few last minute power explosions when coupled with the bonus from the Skill Chains and Order Leader Skill.

Skill Chains:

I will address this change first because it is extremely simple and should happen naturally in most cases. Players just need to keep attacking until the skill chain is capped. While the bonus is active you gain 10% ATK, and when the number increases you can attain up to 50% bonus. This makes it more important than ever for a lot of players to attack constantly and remain active. It would be awful to lose a chain bonus.

I do have a thought on this since it doesn't mention whether or not attacking the castle or a wall will gain the bonus nor does it mention the amount of attack required. I think it might be possible to gain a high chain early on by simply attacking the castle with a low power deck. This is a theory though since we have yet to see how it implements.

Position Skills: 
Some things to note on position skills are that skills of the same type cannot be active simultaneously skills require SP to use, skills have cooldowns based on the power of the skills.

Order Leader: Shingeki
By far the best skill, the Order leader bonus can be activated when a player gains 1000 SP and will last a full 10 minutes. The cooldown of the skill is 5 minutes. This bonus increases players ATK by 20-25% and the points received by 50-60%. 

Vice Leader: Braveheart
This skill is a baby version of Shingeki and cannot be active at the same time. It costs 500 SP and will last 5 minutes. The skills effect increases ATK and DEF by 10-15% and the points received by 20-25%.

Attack Leader: Warcry
This skill will decrease an opponents defense for a SINGLE ATTACK by 30-45%. It costs 60 SP and should be used ONLY WHEN THE ENEMY DEFENSE LEADER ACTIVATES PHALANX.

Defense Leader: Phalanx
This using this skill properly will be able to make or break orders. It will increase the defense leaders defense by 30-40% and when activated only the DEF leader can be attacked until he is either defeated or 6 minutes wears off. It costs 300 SP. Obviously Attack Leader's Warcry negates the bonus, making attack leader presence mandatory. 

Support Leader: Boost
It's an HP. Should be saved for attack leader or defense leaders. It increases the ATK/DEF of a member by 300-350 ATK/DEF PWR. The cooldown ranges from 3 minutes to 100 seconds and consumes 50 SP.

Support Leader: Magic Shield
This is the second skill available to support leaders increasing DEF. I...do not get this skill. The way its phrases makes it simply appear pointless no matter what. 

Regular Members: Yell
This skill is why you'll want a lot of members on simultaneously. It appears to have no cooldown and increases the ATK and SP of a player by 10-30 ATK/SP.  SP consumed is 30 SP, but if you're not a leader you're not using it. 
 

Now lets talk strategy:
So, how do these skills effect strategy? Well, it all depends on how easy it is to generate SP and whether you want to win or you want to go for mammoth points. I assume most people want mammoth points.

The way I see it, early on players should be attacking to increase the chain as well as generate SP which they should be sending to the Order leader. Once the chain reaches maximum power, and the order leader uses Shingeki, the team should go to down burning through Full Force attacks to maximize the point boosts of the chain as well as Shingeki. Once this is complete, players tone down, send SP to the order leader as they generate it by keeping the chain going until they can repeat the process.

Now, some players may be thinking...doesn't it makes sense to have two defense leaders alternating Phalanx the entire match? Absolutely...depending on how much SP we generate per attack that we can send to them. Each Phalanx costs 300 SP for 6 minutes. This means an order could have 18 minutes of defense in exchange for the same amount of SP that would earn 10 minutes of offense for the order leader. I DO NOT RECOMMEND PUSHING DEFENSE. The primary reason is because Phalanx ends when the defender is defeated. This means you could potentially spend 300 SP for one minute of defense and mitigating no points from the enemy. Instead, you could save that to eventually gain 10 minutes of bonus points and damage. 

So, if you shouldn't alternate Phalanx, how should you use it? I recommend using it on the home stretch, the last 6 minutes of the match to protect your lead or give you time to gain one.

I think with skill chains, full force attacks, and shingeki, players will be able to accumulate very large numbers of points very quickly. Because of that, 6 minutes of defense that an attack leader can break by combining his teams shingeki, morale boost, and warcry...doesn't seem like a good value. 

But hey, I'm an offense guy.