Volume 2
Raiding For Power & Profit:
Part 1
25104When this game 1st started, it was very limited in how you gained power. To be competitive, you had to spend a lot of money on MP. MP were slow to acquire and needed to buy MP power cards and gear. The difference between pay-to-win and play-to-win players was so great, that free and budget players really only had one option if they wanted to be competitive, the slow level. Because the majority of players aren't whales, this created an environment where players would level camp, creating congestion at the lower levels and very thin upper levels. The higher and faster a player leveled, the more expensive it got to maintain at a competitive level.
But the nature and environment of the game has changed greatly since those early days. Raids gave players a means to build a strong and competitive toon for little to no money. Raids give players ample opportunity to gain powers, good gear, consumables, Bux, Crystals, and MP. In the case of Shadow Krampus, Skelanimal, and Yeti raids, you can also get the coveted Supercharges (SC) discussed in Chapter 1. There are now free and budget toons successfully charging the upper levels thanks to the advent of raids and SuperChargers. But some folks seem to be able to get more from their raids than others and we're going to discuss how and why.
While most of you know the basics, I can't assume everyone does, and so I will be explaining as though you are new to raids.
Raid rewards can be found near the bottom of the raid screen and relay the odds to acquire a particular
Fortunately, that % becomes cumulatively higher each time you multiply it. So the 1st 88,888 damage you do only gives you 1% odds, but provided the raid is successfully completed, the 2nd gives 2% odds, the 3rd gives 3% odds, and on and so on.
For a prize that gives 3%, it would be 3%, then 6%, then 9%, etc. You could try to get to 100% but raids just don't have enough hit points to do that for the top prizes.
Now, unless you do manage to create a cumulative rate of 100%, there's no absolute guarantee that you'll land a specific prize. A decent alternative is to aim for a sum of your cumulative rates at over 100%.
By this I mean to add all your roll %'s together. So, 1% + 2% + 3%, etc. At 1% odds, it will take doing the 88,888 damage 14X to get over 100. This won't guarantee getting the prize, but it shifts it heavily in your favor. But that's 1,244,432 damage! And it's still no guarantee. Just because cumulatively it exceeds 100, it's still a 1%, then 2%, then 3% odds all the way up to 14%. You can still get bad rolls on each of those 14 rolls. At 14% and under, the odds are heavily against you on each roll. But with 14 attempts, the odds start to fall in your favor, at this point, to hit at least one of them.
Again, there's no guarantee unless your last roll is better than 99%. So don't be too disappointed if you don't get the specific target prize you're looking for on any one given attempt. You might go 3 raids and not get it. Then again, you might go 10 raids and never miss. As you hit these damage marker goals and your toon becomes stronger and more efficient, you can increase your cumulative damage until your success rate per raid makes you comfortable with your odds.
Personally, I like to do around 16 to 20X the damage it costs per roll. So for me to aim for the leg gear on a particular Krampus raid, it requires between 1.6 million damage and 1,777,760 damage. I almost always get every prize. Now, for most of you, you might be looking at those numbers and thinking they're a bit overwhelming. Like everything when it comes to building your toon, it's going to take time and effort to get to where you consistently and efficiently can hit those numbers. But there are paths to make it easier.
Let's discuss them.
It costs 5 energy points to hit a raid 1 time. As a brand new toon, you only have 10 energy points in your energy bank. That's only two hits. But you do get 1 point of energy per minute as long as your energy bank isn't full. So you could come back every 10 minutes and do 2 hits, but this would be ridiculously time consuming. Furthermore, you lose any energy you would have gained while you are afk, after your energy bank is full. So if you're gone for an hour, you just lost 11 attacks.
Luckily, there are ways to increase your energy bank limits. One way is to build your league HQ so that it provides more energy. You can add 10 energy to the energy banks of everyone in your league by building a Cafeteria and increasing the level to 5. This will be costly in Bux, Crystals, and MP. I advise creating utility alt toons whose sole purpose is to gather resources for this purpose. Another way to increase your toon's energy bank is through expending Skill Points, of course.
(If you would like to know more about resource-gathering utility alts, feel free to ask me for an article on the subject, or even to explain it directly.)
HQs have a lot to offer. I have 5 I built mostly for free, though I really only use 2. One, I use for going
You now have 20 energy in your bank. You've now doubled your energy bank, but that's still only 4 hits. You're going to need to find a way to increase it further. That's going to require skill points being allotted to your energy stat. The more budgeted your toon is, the more skill points you are going to want to put into energy. BE FOREWARNED THOUGH! Any points you put into energy CANNOT be respec'd should you decide to change course later. I only have 100 skill points in my energy stat. But with my base energy of 10 and my HQ included, my bank goes to 120. This allows me 2 hours before my energy bank is full. Some other players like to go as high as 200 energy or more in their energy bank. I don't advise going higher than 200 tops on your energy bank max though, and we'll discuss why in a bit. Remember, you can't change your mind later and respec those points into other stats.
Now, if you have all the time in the world and can sit there all day clicking attack every 5 to 10 minutes, you might be wondering where the value is to adding a bunch of skill points to energy. After all, you'd only be losing energy when you're sleeping. But one of the keys to successful raiding is MP energy refills. These cost 5 MP each time, no matter how much energy is added.
If all you have is 10 to 20 energy in a full energy bank, you're spending 5 MP for a measly 2 to 4 hits. But if your energy bank is at 200, you'll now get 40 hits for that 5 energy. The less MP you want to spend raiding, the more skill points you'll want to put in energy....... up to a point.
MP energy refills cost 5MP for each refill, up to 200 energy. So, if you have 201 for an energy bank, it will cost you 10 MP, but only 5 for 200. As you level, the number of times you can buy MP energy refills increases. At the Character Level wall, I can currently buy over 130. At 120 energy, that allows me 24 hits X 130 refills for 3,120 attacks from refills alone. At 200, that becomes 40 hits X 130 for 3,900 hits. That's a huge improvement in your overall raid damage no matter how much or how little damage your toon actually does per hit.
You might be thinking MPs are too valuable to spend in energy refills, but, through the process of raiding, you can actually net a surplus of MP. MP raid cards and gear can be sold to fund your refills. The legs from a Krampus sell for 80 MP. That's 16 refills. The core from a Skelanimal raid sells for 100 MP. That's 20 refills. Add in all the rest of the prize gear and cards you can sell and financing your raids starts to get more and more reasonable. Personally, each day I raid, I refill over 130X for free just off selling my prizes from raids and from missions, patrols, and climb events.
On top of increasing your energy bank, you can also increase the number of hits you can get in by using consumables. There are cons that give you energy directly, like the More-fun Bar gifts your friends send you each day. There are also cons that increase your rate of acquisition like the the Liquid Learning cons. Those cons that increase the rate of acquisition can also be stacked, provided they aren't the same con. So if you put 2 different +100% energy cons on, the 1st will increase your energy acquisition from 1 per 60 seconds to 1 per 30 seconds. The 2nd will increase it from 1 per 30 seconds to 1 per 15 seconds. Using seasonal cons in my stacking, I have gotten energy acquisition rates to 1 per second. That means every 5 seconds I had another hit. There is also a perk set which will allow you to consume more consumables per day.
One last way to gain energy is simply each time you level, your energy bank refills. If your energy bank is at 200, that's 40 free hits each time you level. That extra energy also gets to the next level faster, giving you more energy faster. So, provided you're willing to level, that becomes another resource for energy.
Now, when it comes to raiding for profit, the smaller raids give better equity for energy spent. So start with Yetis and build your way up to Krampus raids. Furthermore, try to get in all the damage you think you'll need for your target prizes. To get all the prizes, you need to do around 1/3rd of the total damage needed to complete the raid. So that you aren't competing with others and falling short, make a raid team with 1 or 2 other friends and don't share until you each get in all the damage that you each want. This buys you the time to comfortably raid.
The next order of business for improving your raiding is increasing your damage. I will be explaining this in our next volume.
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