• As of 3.3, in any explore battle, and any PVP battle outside Guild Wars, there is a small (roughly 3%) chance that a single troop will be randomly replaced with a Gnome. These random replacements will always have a little loot bag at the top right of their troop card (in case you come across some wag who filled his/her PVP defense team with the little bastards).
  
  
• Gnomes have a 30% chance to run away whenever they cast their spell, so destroy them before they get a chance. When you defeat a Gnome, you earn a bonus prize at the end of the fight. This can be as little as 2 minor traitstones, or as big as multiple gem/event keys. What you really want, though, is a Vault Key.
  
  
• A Vault Key allows you to play the Vault minigame. In this you face Cedric Glitternuts Sparklesack and three regular Gnomes. Each troop drops a sweet prize at the end, which could include a copy of Cedric, Gnomes, or the Valraven troop (more on Valravens in the next section).
  
  
• Grundulum note: I DO NOT advise you to spend your Vault Keys right now. In the chaos surrounding the release of 3.3, the appearance rate of Gnomes was increased, but their reward tables were changed to avoid unbalancing the economy. Unfortunately, both Gnomes in the wild and those in the Vault use the same loot table, so this change also meant that the Vault got much shittier. My hope is that by 3.4--due soon--the devs will have rectified this mistake and made Vault Keys as powerful as they were originally intended to be.
  
  
• Finally, one weekend a month will be a Vault event. During this time, Gnomes appear roughly once every 10-15 battles (I'm not quite sure what the chance is, but it's significantly higher than normal). The drop tables don't change, but this is a great way to pick up some free stuff by exploring or doing PVP. Two minor traitstones isn't that special, but pretty much all the other Gnome drops are useful for anyone who doesn't already have Dawnbringer.

• Every third week (for now), Zuul'Goth attempts to break through some portal or another into the world of Krystara. We must prevent this with a mind-numbing and seemingly endless grind.
  
  
• At the start of the week, and at each new day, you get four sigils. Each one allows you to start one battle in this mode. In Raid mode you must build your team out of troops from a single kingdom, and any Hero weapon you want (this becomes important later). You then fight ten battles against mooks and then a series of battles against Zuul'Goth and three randomly-selected troops with a particular theme.
  
  
• You earn points for the guild by doing damage to Zuul'Goth. Points are redeemed for cool prizes as the guild passes certain thresholds. Only damage to Zuul'Goth (life or armor) counts, and you earn these points regardless of whether you win or lose the battle. If you win, all enemies go up five levels (which means all of their stats increase by five). If you lose, you repeat the battle at the current level, but a new slate of troops is drawn.
  
  
• There is a roughly 25% chance that a Valraven will appear in any given battle. Just like the Gnomes, it will have a loot bag next to the troop icon, and just like the Gnome you want to kill it before it can cast its spell and flee. If you do, you earn two additional sigils to be used in Raid mode. IMPORTANT NOTE: if you kill a Valraven but lose the battle, you do not get the sigils. This caught many people off-guard when 3.3 went live.
  
  
• Raid mode (and Invasion mode, and the Bounty event below) added a new shop to the game. Buy stuff with gems to get more battles in Raid mode, or get copies of "Boss-killer" troops that do bonus damage against troops with the Boss type. There is also a weapon at Tier III in the shop, but they have all been garbage that is vastly worse than the weapon I will recommend below.
  
  
• Grundulum advice: If you are an early-game player, buy until you get a single copy of the boss-killer troop. The 3x damage against bosses will help take down Zuul'Goth. Don't feel obligated to buy additional Tiers, since this mode was designed as gem sink to encourage players to buy gems for real money. Regardless of where you are in the game, use the Mang hero weapon (available at 40 red and 40 brown mastery, IIRC) on your Raid team. The ability to strip all armor from Zuul'Goth--and increase your Hero's attack by that amount--is completely unbalanced in this game mode where the stats scale almost arbitrarily high. One cast of Mang in the late stages of this mode is 200+ damage to Zuul'Goth, so even if you get trounced after that you've still done a good amount of damage toward the guild's total.

• Invasion mode is just like Raid mode, with a couple of wrinkles.
  
  
• First, there is literally no story reason given why we're doing this. Second, the goal is to kill towers, not do damage to a target. Third, you are restricted to troops of a particular type (Beast, Divine, etc.) rather than from a single kingdom. Fourth, the shop includes "Siegebreakers" rather than Boss-killers.
  
  
• Valravens can appear in the early stages of Invasion mode, just like in Raid mode. However, they can never replace a Tower or Zuul'Goth; so once you're facing four towers at once you'll just randomly be awarded two sigils if you win a fight that was flagged as "Valraven should have appeared".
  
  
• As with Raid mode, Mang is extremely helpful. Unlike Raid mode, it isn't mission-loving-critical to succeed. The fact that your Siegebreaker can immediately do 3x-5x damage to towers, without having to fight through three mobs, makes them much more useful in this mode. You could even build your team with a Siegebreaker ahead of Mang, so that by the time the towers inevitably kill your first troop you've got a super-powered hero ready to rain the smack down.
  
  
• Grundulum advice: as before, early-game players should buy a single copy of the Siegebreaker troop for the triple damage against Towers. And like in Raid mode, Mang is super useful.

• One weekend a month is designated as a Bounty event. A new minigame is selectable from the "Games" menu, which you typically have to scroll all the way to the right to see.
  
  
• The goal of Bounty events is to earn points by winning battles. All battles are worth between 10 and 200 base points, with later battles including troops at higher level. If you include "bounty-hunter" troops on your team, you get bonus points depending on the upgraded rarity level of the troop (rare gives a 2x multiplier, ultra-rare a 3x, ..., with mythic worth a 6x multiplier). In addition, one troop each event is designated the Bounty Captain, whose multiplier is doubled, for up to a 12x bonus for having a single troop present.
  
  
• You need to win the battle to get the points, but you get the multiplier regardless of how many/which troops survive to the end. So don't stress out over keeping that Parrot alive. You also aren't obligated to use four bounty-hunter troops, though it's recommended at the early stages for the bonus points. Unlike Raid and Invasion modes, you are not forced into a more difficult battle each time you win. You're allowed to hang out at stage 10 the entire event and never touch 11 if you think that's what will earn you the most points.
  
  
• You get four sigils a day, as with Raid and Invasion modes, and Valravens will appear for a chance at two more sigils. Enemy teams are not random, unlike Raid and Invasion modes. You will always face the same four troops at any given stage, modulo a Valraven appearing.
  
  
• There is yet another shop where you can spend gems. Each tier gives you sigils and random bounty-hunter troops. Each tier after the second gives you at least one copy of the current Bounty Captain.
  
  
• Grundulum advice: you don't have to buy tiers to do well in this game mode. The 12 sigils (which are roughly doubled if you catch every Valraven that appears) are enough to climb reasonably high on the reward list. I personally recommend you buy at least to Tier III, though. This gives you quite a few more sigils, an upgraded Bounty Captain, and a handful of troops that you can use to score more points. You basically can't get to reward 20 unless you're some combination of end-game and/or willing to spend all the way to tier 6 (assuming nearly perfect play) or 7 (if you get unlucky and even two Valravens escape).
  
  
• Grundulum advice for late game players: if you can average a x18 multiplier across all your battles, and can consistently win level 20, then each tier you buy after the first is one additional reward rank at the end. Tier VI gets you to Reward 20 with perfect play, Tier V gets you to Reward 19, and so forth. If you choose not to spend to Tier VI getting the Bounty Captain to mythic, though, you're looking at using Orbs of Ascension to cover the difference. I've been using the following team this week, which lets me consistently win at stage 20: Ice Wraith(mythic), Infernus***, Bard*** with Dawnbringer, Pharaoh Hound(mythic). This is a x18 multiplier exactly, but I got unlucky and had two Valravens escape, leaving me one battle short of Reward 20 once I got through all my sigils. Looks like I'm buying Tier VII!

Grundulum fucked around with this message at 16:06 on Apr 15, 2018

Annointed fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Apr 17, 2018

Annointed fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Apr 17, 2018

Ultimate Mango fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Apr 20, 2018