The Definitive Guide To Building A Monster Toon On A Budget; Volume 1

The Hanzo Ninja Clan School Of Anything Goes Martial Arts Presents:

The Definitive Guide To Building A Monster Toon On A Budget; Volume 1

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Some of you already know the techniques I'm about to explain, either through me, or 2nd hand through those I've told in the past. These techniques are what allowed me to become a top toon in just a few months, and becoming a top 3 toon in under a year. There will be some folks that are going to be upset with me for sharing this info, but I feel like enough folks know already, that it isn't a huge secret anymore. Furthermore, if the average level of play improves across the board for all players, it will force top toons to improve and create more good competition for everyone. The weaker toons will become stronger and have a fighting chance, and the stronger toons will have to fight harder for their wins. While this may seem bad for a few players, myself included, I feel it will be good for the overall game as a whole. Seeing Hard Left Hook's performance thus far in the 1st Draft Wars is what convinced me this knowledge is good for the community and the game, as a whole. Sorry, Frank.

1st and foremost, you want to build a strong base deck for your powers. This chapter of the series delves into that, while future chapters will delve into raiding, gear, and skill point allocation. But those chapters will simply help you make the most of what is learned in this Volume.



The biggest trick in the game currently is Super Charges (from hence forth reffered to as sc). Depending on where you get them, they can cost as much as 80 MP each, with the store being the highest purchase cost. They can also be found at a discount in the Black Market in patrols, or won for free in raids and climb events. I'll go into how to quickly and even cheaply collect sc in a future volume. For now, just understand that sc are THE MOST IMPORTANT part of powering up on a budget.

SC add 1 point to a cards stats relevant to the type of sc used. Each different card you have has a limit of 150 sc per stat. So each card can add 150 att sc, 150 def sc, and 150 move sc. That's 450 sc per card to fill them. The beauty of sc is that the sc bonus to your power card will go to every card you have that is a duplicate. So if you have 4000 of a card and an sc hits it, you just went up 4000 points on that stat BEFORE tiering, sp and gear bonuses. Each sc goes to a random card when used. So there's no telling which card it will go to. But by limiting the number of cards it can land on by limiting your number of different cards and maximizing the total number of cards you want them to land on, you can create a lot of control as to where the sc do land.

Now let's go into that concept some. Your chance of sc landing on a card are 1 in however many cards you have. So if you have 5000 cards your odds of hitting any one specific card are 1 in 5000. But if you have duplicates, those odds are multiplied by the number of copies. If you have 3000 of card A, 1500 of card B, and 500 of card C, you have a 60% chance for card A to get the sc, 30% chance for B, and 10% for card C. If the sc hits A, you gain 3000 pre bonus, pre tier addition to your stats. But if it lands on B, you only get 1500. If it lands on C, you only get 500. If it lands on a card you have one of, you only get 1 measly point. So limiting the amount of different cards the sc can land on can make the difference of spending as much as 80 mp to gain 1 point vs gaining a few thousand.

Now, the trick to making this happen is choosing 3 cards, and 3 cards only, to build your toon with. 1 att card, 1 def card, and 1 move card. You want all other cards to be duplicates of these 3 cards. By doing this, you guarantee to make the most of your sc. You can add other cards later, AFTER you fully sc these 3 cards. This insures you get thousands of points for your sc instead of just a few. Please note, you will still have to keep 3 of each card you want to use for Atlas.



Now the question becomes which cards to choose. That answer will be dependent on you and your resources like time and money. There are a couple basic guidelines to which 3 cards you should pick, though. 1st, it has to be a card that you can EASILY get an unlimited number of. So you don't want cards that are hard or slow to get, or cards that are limited to a finite number. Let's go into the pros and cons of each to determine which is right for you.

Bux cards are the cheapest, fastest way to power up this type of build. It's not my preferred choice for a number of reasons, but it isn't entirely a bad one. It's just that, with this information now out, it's the bottom rung technique. Bux cards just don't start off as strong as their Crystal and MP counterparts. Furthermore, they require a deficit. So you have to find a way to maintain that deficit and that takes earning bux. Depending on which bux cards you use, that deficit can quickly become too much to handle normally, forcing you to play at a much weaker rate than you would want to run during tournament. Luckily, there's an Atlas Perk, War Profiteer, that allows you to erase your deficit during wars. That Perk is MONSTEROUS for Bux toons. So if you go this route, be sure to get 2 stars on that Perk. The biggest pro to this choice is Bux cards are quick and easy to acquire. The biggest con is the deficit. But again, during wars, that deficit can be negated with a Perk. This option is best suited to free and budget players with little time.

Crystal cards are the next option, and my preferred one. Store bought Crystal cards are limited, and cost Crystal to acquire. This is a very bad choice. Crystal cards won in Fight Club (fc) are slow to come by, and not worth the time it takes to acquire. These cards are best sold to tier others. Crystal cards from raids are as abundant as you are able to do raids. They also don't cost any crystals to acquire, which you'll need for tiering. Furthermore, many raids also drop sc, speeding up your sc acquisition for free. This is what my deck is primarily made of. I suggest it for any player with enough time to raid regularly. Once your deck is full, you can slow your raiding down to 1 raid per level.

Mp cards cost a lot. At my level, there's nothing cheap about trying to fill my deck with over 15000 cards. Furthermore, store bought cards and most Shuffle cards are limited in number. Once they sell out, you can no longer take advantage of already placed sc on future growth. Once this happens, it will take another 450 sc to build up a new card. Unless you're super rich, this kind of process is probably outside most of your guys reach. If you do decide to buy MP cards, and realize you will be collecting another 450 sc each time you start the process over, be sure to buy as many as you can at 1 time. For the purpose of pure power, Challenge cards and AMP Den cards are a solid choice. The 1% Shuffle cards that are unlimited are still going to be expensive to acquire in large numbers and then tier. MP cards won through competition and game play come far too slow to make them viable choices. Raid MP cards are a viable option, but do still cost MP to tier. I advise to go after the ones that are more common. This path is best suited for those with a large budget in line with the likes of Avenger, Super Rakly, and Skelanimal.

Another option, 1st brought up by Daryl Danforth /Zombie Ex-Girlfriend, is to use Bux cards for 1 stat, Crystal for another, and MP for the last. This will certainly ease your resource gathering efforts, but leave your toon somewhat unbalanced in their stats. With Move being the most important base stat, it's probably best you used your strongest card (MP) for that.

Once your 3 cards are fully sc'ed, with 450 sc each, you can either stop trying to acquire sc and put those MP towards things like gear and consumables, or you can pick out other cards that you can start scing, which will make a stronger card later, but are harder to get. Use these to supplement the power of your base deck. They could be your Atlas cards, for example. They could be the new patrol cards, Serpents Strike, Eagle Eyes, and/or Wings of Night. They could be the 1% Shuffle cards. They could be the AMP Den cards. Just be sure you buy the max possible if you go this route, since they are only available for 1 month. All of these choices are good to SUPPLEMENT your base deck with. If you plan on going this route once finished with your base deck, and you already have your expansion cards in your deck before selling off all your cards, consider keeping them. It will slow your the rate of your sc growth on your base deck, but be more beneficial in the long run. Do factor in tiering as well. In many cases, a fully tiered, fully sc'ed Crystal or Bux card is stronger than a fully sc'ed MP card that isn't tiered.

Once you are satisfied with your deck, you can now start using those valuable MP you were spending on sc to gather gear. Obviously, the Shuffle is your best bet for great gear. Be sure to sell any cards you get from the Shuffle, that you aren't using in your deck. Then use the MP from selling those to spin the Shuffle some more. Rinse and repeat. Your acquisition of good gear will now come much faster. The cards you sell will cost too much and take too long to be as strong as your base deck cards anyway, and will only hinder your growth progress.

This is THE most valuable information on solid toon building in the game. This is the information that starts free and budget toons on their path to beating the big budget players. Here's the catch 22 though. They all know it too now. Still, it's one helluva game balancer to level the playing field.

In our next volume, we will be going into raiding and how to get the most out of it. Good luck heroes and villains. I hope I've made your path to power that much easier to accomplish and your goals that much closer within your reach.

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The Hanzo Ninja Clan Presents: Crystal Acquisition

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For those who really follow the HNC teachings, you already know the value of raiding and crystal cards. About 80% to 90% of my cards are crystal cards from raids, and my toon Neo is a top 3 toon. When I have time, I raid like a madman, though, to be honest, lately, life has not provided me that time. I'm still about 550 cards shy of a full deck. But raiding, and following my guidelines, should get you a lot of power.

Before my leaguemate Mike "The World Serpent Jormurgandr" Gibbon passed, he asked me how I was able to collect enough crystals to tier so many cards so fast. Some of the answers were obvious. Do Fight Club. Do patrols and missions. Do your dailies. Etc. But there's 2 factors a lot of folks seem to miss.

For 1 thing, the crystal multiplier cons are invaluable to a free/budget player using my systems. I know they cost MP or bux, but they are well worth it, and combined, multiply crystals by 3x. That can be huge if you plan out a crystal run, where you do as many as 3 full Fight Clubs at 1 time, collect your dailies, and run the right patrols. Even some bosses give crystals.

But here's one everyone seems to ignore. I admit, even I often pass it up due to the tediousness of it compared to other methods. Fortunately, you don't have to choose between methods. You can do them all. And this particular method can net you quite a bit of crystals on top of your other methods.

What is this method so many seem to ignore? Their friends list. If you go to your friends list, you can click on them, collect their crystals, hit the back button, and collect from the next. Now, in order to do this, you will need to enter the game from the main link. If you entered using a raid link or something similar, hitting the back button will take you back to the page where you clicked the link. So be sure to enter from the main login page when you use this method.

Now, you might be asking just how lucrative is it? Well, I only have 430 actual toon friends in my friend list. The rest of my team is made up of hired henchmen. That's the equivalent of only a level 430 toon, despite my toon closing on lvl 1100. So it's not like I have a ton more toon friends in my list than most of you. Many of you actually have more. But after using all my crystals to tier cards, I was down to 3. I went to my friends list, and in about 45 minutes, I collected another 2745. That's a huge chunk of tiering. I get between 5k and 6k for doing 3 Fight Clubs. So this is pretty big, if you want to take the time.

1 way to insure a good haul is to create as many dummy accounts as you can. These are like cash cows, but for crystals. These dummy accounts can ONLY have one friend, no matter their level, and that single friend is YOU. This allows you to accumulate crystals on them that NO ONE ELSE can collect. This maximizes your yield when you do collect from your friend list, as well as gives you quick access to high crystal volume friends for when you only have a little time to collect. Just scroll to where they are at and start collecting.

Good luck, heroes and villains. For those of you who follow me close, you know how valuable those crystals have become. Use every method you can to acquire them until your deck is fully crystal tiered.

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The Hanzo Ninja Clan Presents: Just Do It!

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Some folks like to tell others it's money that wins the game, or high levels, or any number of things, depending on their perspective. The truth is, success in the game is the result of many things, not just 1. Not every option will be available to every player nor is each option as crucial as some may believe. The key isn't which options you use to power your toon as much as how much you exercise those options.

As most of you know, I have spent a large portion of my time here teaching others how to improve their toons. Even my biggest haters that tell folks not to listen to me and think they are better than me, learned from me. I honestly used to get a lot of $#!+ for teaching others. But those of you who remember me from SHC know I have always had a place in my heart for the little guy. I've always enjoyed showing those that think they can't, that they can. Some players, ones that reached out to me and became friends despite not being affiliated in game and possibly even being on opposing teams, garnered personal attention from and access to me, and have managed to reap the benefits. My personal favorite Podwan is Princess Sarai, by Reggie Brumsey.

Reggie was already running a couple well known budget toons before I taught him some of my tricks he used to create Sarai. He totally fit the bill for me when it came to picking a Podwan. He checked off all the checkmarks. He was a budget player. He played with enough dedication to be just below the big spender whales despite not spending a fraction of what they did. He enjoyed the game and always sought to improve despite not being one of the uber elites. Win or lose, he was having fun. And he stuck by his friends. He's been with Brute Squad since it started. And honestly, he's one of the most humble and likable players in the game. I am glad I took a chance on him, because our friendship has been just as valuable to me as my knowledge has been to him. And the results of my knowledge and his efforts are undeniable. One just needs to look at the pic provided that shows him beating a VERY EXPENSIVE toon from my own league, that also happens to be a good bit ahead in levels as well. Lvl 674 Sarai vs lvl 938 Magnificent Punlork. I'm not going to lie. Despite him beating my leaguemate, that gets me excited and certainly makes me proud of the part I played in Reggie's Sarai project. Sarai should get all of you excited too. She's proof that you can do it too. She's proof it isn't as much about money or levels as it is about knowledge and the players themselves.



My toon Neo Hanzo is a far cheaper toon than many of those he beats, and most of the money spent on him was to power level him from a lowly micro level 20 to hitting the level cap in under a year, so that I could replace OG Hanzo with a better designed toon as fast as possible. For example, over 60% of my hero's friendlist is hired henchmen. I have only targeted 3 Shuffles in that time, to hunt specific gear that went with his build. The vast majority of his card deck is free cards gained through game play. Only about 10 to 15 % of his cards are bought MP cards, though the ones I did spend MP to acquire are damn good ones.

There are 3 factors that build a good toon. Money and time are the most well known, but not the most important. Knowledge is the most important. Knowing where to spend your money and how to spend your time is what will determine how well that time and money is spent. The 1st two certainly help, but it's the last one that will make the real difference. So don't listen to the naysayers or the excuse makers. Don't listen to the ones complaining that they can't. Listen to the ones doing what the others say can't be done.

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The Hanzo Ninja Clan Presents: Take Me To Your Dealer

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The Black Market has some interesting changes, as of late. In the past, it was a rare shot at getting one, and even when you did, there was no guarantee that the 1 ware it offered would appeal to you. But now things have changed to give players more opportunity and chance to acquire the Black Market items they seek the most.

For 1 thing, BM wares have increased from 1 option to 3. With 3 options, you're more often than not going to get at least something you like. Furthermore, you don't have to choose, either. You can buy 1 of the choices, 2, all, or none.

Remember though, that BM wares sell for MP. So this new change is very much in favor of pay players. Still, MP now flow in this game for the dedicated play to win player. So these wares certainly aren't out of reach for the free/budget players. But if you want a shot at the BM wares for no cost, there is a new, but difficult, option to do so.

If you want to be a little more bold, or you just don't want to fork over the MP, you can opt to fight the Dealer. The Dealer is a demonic, or ghostly apparition that brings you the BM wares offers. By opting to fight (assault and attempt to rob the Black Market merchant, because you're a hero......... wait..... wha????) you go into the duels screen against the Dealer. If you win, some or all of the BM wares are awarded to you, potentially along with MP.

Not a bad gig. But don't take it lightly. The Dealer's core is both unknown prefight and changes between fights. And this NPC is TOUGH, and it gets a LOT tougher each time you beat it. All the top players agree that he's a challenge they lose to far more than they beat.

For the free/budget player that rarely spends on the BM, it's still worth a shot. Worst case scenario, you haven't lost anything. Best case scenario, you get some good stuff the big budget players pay for, and some MP you steal from a Dealer......... And who knows at this point? It's possible losing to the Dealer makes future tries easier?



For the bigger budget players, I feel that this NPC is far too tough to gamble with. It's best to go ahead and just spend the MP for what you want. On the off chance there's just nothing that you just got to have, then go ahead and roll the dice on a fight against the Dealer. He's definitely one of the tougher NPC in the game to test your mettle against.

Remember to use your patrol cons to increase your odds of running into the Dealer further. Maybe we can even convince Justin to let our Oracle buildings and Seeing Eye cons give us a glimpse of what these Dealers are working with. One can hope.

Good luck heroes and villains.

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The Hanzo Ninja Clan Presents: Power Patrolling

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Some new changes to patrols have players buzzing! For the high rollers, the Black Market now gives you 3 items to choose from. And you don't have to choose! Buy 1, 2, 3, or none! For the free and budget player that can't liberally afford to spend MP on the Black Market, there's now the option of fighting the Dealer to win some or all of the offered items, along with some MP! Be forewarned, this guy isn't a walk in the park and results have varied greatly, even for the same player. Being new, it's still anyone's guess if there's a rhyme or reason to defeating this new NPC, the Dealer, but theories are being tested. It does seem that he gets more difficult the more times you beat him.



Also, 3 new power cards have hit the streets and made doing patrols more worthwhile than ever! These cards have a low resell value of only 2 MP, but compare to some of the best cards in the Shuffle! 1% Shuffle power cards that are comparable generally sell or tier for around 50 MP, give or take, giving them a value of around 150 MP. To fully tier, they will cost around 200 MP. By comparison, these new patrol power cards only cost 10 MP to tier each lvl, 40 MP to fully tier. That's a HUGE comparable savings!



So let's say you rolled the Shuffle from a won Shuffle free spin and got an Agent Nova card, and at the same time pulled one of the new patrol cards. It will cost 40 MP to tier the Agent Nova card each level, for a total of 160 MP. But if you sold the Agent Nova card for 40 MP, it funds tiering the patrol card to lvl 5, and has 4 more stat points than a tier 5 Agent Nova that would cost you an additional 160 MP. Furthermore, being patrol prize cards, they are not limited in the number you can acquire.



Good luck in your hunting, heroes.

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The Hanzo Ninja Clan Presents: Power Leveling

So, you're thinking about packing on some levels. Maybe you want to gain a level advantage over an opponent during League Wars. Maybe you want to push to the next gear slot. Whatever your reason is, you've decided it's your time to roll. You've seen other players fly up the levels in very short order, but perhaps aren't quite sure how.

First off, power leveling isn't commonly recommended. It puts a lot of levels on that need to be filled with powers and possibly more gear. In a lot of events, overall power is pushed to the side in favor of power for one's level. So before you decide you want to power level, make sure it's not a bad idea first. Most successful power levelers are fairly big budget toons. They are able to offset the quick addition of empty levels by buying power and gear cards to fill them. Others may have a back stock of cards that allow them to keep their decks and gear filled even before they add those new levels. Whatever you do, make sure you are able to fill those new power and gear card openings as quickly as possible, or else suffer being weak for your level until you do. For every level you gain, you will also have to add fifteen cards to your deck; 5 Att, 5 Def, and 5 Move cards. A dedicated power leveler can pack on 40 levels in a day fairly easily. That's 600 powers they will need to acquire just for that one day's worth of power leveling. And that's just for one day. Multiply that by one week and we are looking at adding 4200 powers to fill your deck. Then there's tiering........... So, all in all, is it worth it? For the average player in the average scenarios, the answer is probably no. But in certain niche instances, like post sign up pre League Wars, or to a player that has the want and means to build a toon fast, or someone building a utility alt, it can be a very handy tool. But how do those guys manage those insane leveling feats?

First, you need to identify where and how you can get experience as efficiently as possible. For example, raiding gives you an experience return ratio of 1 exp point per energy spent. Meanwhile, most Missions do 2, 3, or 4 exp points per energy spent. When it comes to fights, the higher level toons you can beat will provide more experience than lower level toons IF you can beat them. Furthermore, fighting someone in a regular duel usually provides a lot more experience than fighting them in a King of the Mountain/Climb event. So picking where you farm exp points is important.

Now, analyze where you can gain experience from not immediately obvious sources. You gain experience from doing your Daily Login and Daily Missions. You gain experience from Boss fights, found on both the Missions and Patrol pages. You want to have these ready and save these for when you start your experience run sessions.

Next, you want to figure out how to multiply the exp points you do gain. One way is by building an HQ and build up the Training Grounds building. This can increase your exp point gain by as much as 13%. Combined with other methods, this can end up packing on exp points fairly quickly.

Cons are another big focus. There are many, many cons one can use when power leveling to increase their exp point gain. Some, like the 3 versions of Liquid Learning, can be found in the store regularly. Other cons, like the Cogitator, Weighted Clothing and others pop up from time to time in the store as well. So keep a vigilant eye out there. Who knows what goodies might appear there from day to day. Experience cons can also be found doing patrols, both as a reward and in the Black Market. Some patrols, like Detroit, are more prone to give exp cons.

One special experience con you should consider are holiday cons. These come in the form of Christmas or Birthday cards, Easter eggs, and the like, and are mined by searching various pages in the game during special events. No two of these cons are the same. And because you can stack any cons that aren't the exact same con, you can stack ALL of these for a super fast, short but sweet, power leveling session. Combined with your other experience cons collected, you can hit the stratosphere in no time.

Other cons that help and should be looked into for stackability, are those that give more energy and fights, or increase the rate at which you acquire them. More fights means more experience. Same with more energy. Be forewarned, these cons are best used at the tail end of a power leveling session. This is because you will be leveling so fast, your fights and energy will refresh too quickly to make using these cons worth it, right off. But as your experience gain begins to dramatically slow, and you are now waiting on energy and fights to get to the next level, go ahead and start using these cons too. Just avoid using them when you're going to be filling up your resource banks to full using other means. Another potentially useful game mechanic is purchasing energy refills. These cost 5 mp each time and there is a limit based on your level. Luckily, you're power leveling, so that limit is constantly increasing. Now, for most people this is an expensive and wasteful use of MP. But for a handful of players out there with large energy banks, it can make a huge difference. Now, I probably wouldn't use energy refills to power level if my energy bank only goes up to 30, like most toons. But I do have some toons that have a considerably larger energy bank. One of my competition toons has 125 energy per fill up. 5 MP for 125 energy might not be a bad cost in some people's minds. Even better than that, I have a couple utility toons with well over a thousand energy. At 5 MP per refill, that becomes a really good bargain. To be honest, my largest energy bank, at 1374 energy, can level non stop using mp energy refills, while simply doing nothing but 1 energy Missions, and paying for those refills off the 1 mp Mission rewards that occasionally pop up. That certainly makes using mp energy refills worth it.

Ok, so now you know how to get the most experience per action. Now it's time to pick a date and time. Naturally, you want to pick them based on your schedule. But certain dates and times are better than others. Let's take a look.

At the start of a new game day, the Duels lists reset. If you save your duels that net you the most experience till the end of the day, and then switch on your cons, you can hit those valuable opponents once before the day ends, and again right after the day starts, doubling your access to large, quick quantities of Duels gained experience in the time your cons are active. Most of the top players that power level use this method. Another time to consider is just before noon game time. Consumables usage refreshes at noon. So you can save your cons till shortly before noon, pop your cons shortly before noon, and then burn through those gifts and consumables that provide energy and fights to gain experience. Then, once noon hits, you can immediately do it again with a whole new set of gifts and cons. Both methods allow you to pack as much experience gain into one set of stacked exp cons as possible.

Next, you might want to consider the day. While, again, that's entirely up to your schedule availability, there is now a new semi monthly event that definitely gives you better opportunity than other days. That event is called Item Explosion and allows you to use 10x the gifts and cons in a day as you normally would. That allows you a lot more fights and energy to gain experience points with.

Different experience cons provide different periods of effect. Pay close attention to this. How many cons and which ones you have running will determine how quickly you level per action. If it only takes 5 fights hitting the top toons to gain a level, you lose 9 fights and all your energy when you level. That's missed opportunity. You really want to spend all your energy and fights from leveling up before you level up again. 1st use up your energy. Next use your fights, but pay special close attention to how close or far away you are from leveling, and pick your fight opponents to level you up just as you use your last fight. If you go under by a little bit, that's ok. It's actually better than wasting resources. Just recalculate that into your head for the future and use one of the gifts or cons that add fights or energy to top off to the next level.

Take advantage of your Red Cape cons too. If you don't have any, they can be gotten in the Black Market, or more easily from the Punch Card store found on the Raids page. Without really trying too hard, I was averaging 40 levels a day when power leveling until I got within 100 levels of the level cap. With a red cape, that equates to 1200 mp each power level session. Yes, please!

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Adventures With Shadow Krampus

 

The Hanzo Ninja Clan Presents:

Adventures With Shadow Krampus
ID#25104

I can't be positive I was the 1st to encounter Shadow Krampus, but I do believe so. I was driving at the time. I don't recommend others drive and play at the same time, but in my defense, I'm a professional driver, often tasked with multiple tasks like looking at maps, talking with customers on the phone, and driving a large truck through Houston traffic all at the same time. I haven't had any issues in over 2 decades other than getting rear ended a couple times, ironically by people playing or texting on their phones. I also play the game so much, I pretty much can play by muscle memory at this point. But that's me. I still don't advise playing and driving at the same time to the normal driver.
When I 1st encountered Shadow Krampus, I had no idea what I had encountered. It was some new special patrol event. Despite being new, I didn't give much concern to it. I have 2 of the top toons in the game. Pretty much any non PvP aspect of the game is fairly easy for my toons. So I took a quick screen shot and hit "FIGHT", without much thought. He had 100,000 life!!!! Holy cow! Still, he couldn't be that hard, right? Just durable., I was sure. So I sped through the fight to move on and not only didn't win, I didn't even seem to scratch him. I might be exaggerating. It's possible he broke a nail hitting me, but I couldn't be sure with two swollen eyes. In shock, but still driving and unable to give much attention, I took another screen shot to analyze when it was safer to do so.
After getting home, I wrote Justin. For those who don't know, he's the owner and main developer for Heroes Rising and at least one other game. He gave me the skinny but not the fat of this new NPC villain. The skinny being it would be a random encounter found in any patrol, and was for high level players only. Later, through Todd Goode's questioning, we learned it was for level 700+ toons. Justin told me it would be very hard and something for players to work towards and look forward to beating. I told him I would have it beat before the New Year. He told me good luck but that he didn't expect anyone to beat it till well into the New Year, and that it was designed to give even the very best of us trouble. Challenge accepted.
I brought what little information I had to my leaguemates. Before anyone else seemed to have found him, I somehow found him again. Two times in 3 days. In all actuality, with as much as I patrol, that seemed to be the rate I was running into Shadow Krampus from when he first appeared till I finally beat him. Two times every 3 days. This time, I was able to catalog the entire fight. I used a TON of fight cons to beat him. I also had changed up my suit to battle his Supernatural Core we knew he was wearing from the screenshot of the 1st encounter. Oddly enough, instead of 100,000 life, he only had 70,000 life. Even with less life and my toon conned up quite heavily, I got my rear end handed to me on a Supernatural silver platter. Holy cow, was this guy tough!
I took all the screenshots of the fights and shared them with my leaguemates as I also studied the fight feed. I quickly deduced Shadow Krampus was using my own build style against me, but only in Supernatural. That, combined with the change in life made me think he was somehow mirroring the player toon's gear to some degree or another, possibly defaulting it to Supernatural. I went to Justin about my finds to see if I could glean any new insights. He assured me that Shadow Krampus wasn't copying the player toon's suit and had a set suit. I argued, pointing to the fact that he was using my same build style. Justin replied he wanted him to be tough. I then cursed him, telling him that build design is to fight tougher opponents, and Krampus was already the tougher opponent. And while I smiled at the hidden compliment, it still didn't make sense. If his suit was set, why did his life change? "Oops!" said Justin at this new revelation. It turns out that the difficulty level of Shadow Krampus accidentally got tied to the difficulty level of the patrol he was found on. It was supposed to be static......... I blew a bunch of cons against a god stacked deck........
Anyway, Justin fixed the issue. I ran into Shadow Krampus a few more times. His life went down to 30,000. But he was still nigh impossibly hard. I continued to gather screenshots and share them with my leaguemates as well as study them as well as I could myself. A second time with massive cons was attempted and failed. Then, my leaguemate Mike Gibbon beat him. He was the 1st. He built a massive Supernatural Resist suit and put on TONS of cons. Rakly Dominguez was the 2nd, managing to do so with only one con. At this point, I had kind of given up trying. I had already wasted TONS of cons twice for not. The prize ring, while epic, wasn't really something that fit in my build style. So I often just attacked with no thought to it, for awhile.
Next, Michael Brody beat Shadow Krampus. Something had recently changed though. Our toons had just had 3 gear slots added to their suits. This was pretty big. My odds of beating Shadow Krampus had just increased dramatically. I still didn't have faith in my current ability to necessarily beat Shadow Krampus, so I still didn't use any cons. I just built a suit based on what I knew of my opponent. My plan wasn't to win. It was to gain enough new information with the new gear slots added, to determine how many cons it would take to beat him. And then, to my surprise, I simply won without the cons.
At some point between when Rakly got his ring and and I got mine, one other player beat Shadow Krampus, but has not come forth to disclose who they are. I assume it is a member of WMD, but can't know for sure. Whoever it is, congrats. That was a tough fight.
Now, what we know about Shadow Krampus are as follows:
Life 30,000
Supernatural Core and damage.
Poison
Poison Resist
Stat Redux of each type around 35%
Stat Steal of each type unknown quantity
Stun
Stun Resist
Element Resists of 60.2%
That said, those who had the most success relied heavily on Supernatural Resist. He is heavy on stat redux and stat steal. That part will be tricky. I won't tell you how to combat that, because it's also my own style. But I will say you have to find a way to counter his ability to steal or reduce your stats. I advice a multi pronged approach to this problem. Next, you're going to need to be able to do lots of damage. There's a few ways to do this. Poison is a pretty effective one against high life toons, but will still be resisted quite a bit. Plus damage, if you have plenty enough, is almost always a sure fire way to get at least some damage in, provided you can hit him. Auras and Burn are going to be tough to fill enough to be effective against such a high life, high danger opponent, without sacrificing much needed effects elsewhere. He resists base element damage by 60.2%. So dropping your core and hitting him with unreduced X damage may help a lot. My toon has very little Plus Damage. I rely heavily on using unresisted, coreless, neutral X Damage often. I did so when I beat Shadow Krampus as well.
Good Luck, everyone. He's a bugger.

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Gear Talk With Fuma Hanzo

Toon ID: 10950

What a month it's been already for gear, and we're only 2 days in!!!!

Let's recap. If we include last month, a few new Shuffle pieces have entered the arena, as well as a new Sidekick given in raids and as a special award for Trick or Treat Hosts that gave generously. Let's take a look at those 1st, starting with the new SK.

Pumpkin Lord

I'll be honest. Competitively, it isn't an uber piece of gear. It's ok but certainly not a must have. Only a few players got it from the raids. Most that did acquire it got it as a reward for treat gifting during the Trick or Treat event. Let's be real. Most of those guys have better Sidekicks, or at least can afford them. Now, despite not being a Sidekick I would use during serious competitive play, I still had to have it because I'm probably HR's biggest Halloween fan, and it's a pumpkin. One of my Halloween personas is a Jack-o-lantern Lich. But for those who are short on Sidekicks, it's not a bad one either. It's better than most of the SKs one gets from the 50 day login, with Orcus possibly being the one exception. It is also superior to most of the other Sidekicks acquired through AMA or Raids, with Fides and Crimson edging him out only because of their Poison effects. The only other 2 SKs that I can say are better would be E.B. and Werewolf, both of which could be argued to the contrary. Which brings us to our next piece.

Werewolf

I have to say this is definitely one of the best Sidekicks to hit the game. And it is easily accessible to everyone. With a hefty amount of Plus damage, and a healthy dose of Stun and Block Redux, this SK is the gift that keeps on giving. I wouldn't be opposed to filling every SK slot with just multiples of this guy.

OB-1

Another SK to hit the game last month was OB-1. This guy will find more value in limited deck events like Duels, thanks to his +1000 Att. But even outside of short deck events, this SK packs a punch with 20 damage, and keeps your toon healthy longer with his Regeneration abilities. This SK will serve lower levels better than higher level players, but is still great in any toon's arsenal, especially in multiples.

Tribal Goblin 

One last SK to hit the arena this past month was Tribal Goblin. With only 5 stun really going for him, he won't be that useful in unlimited deck fights. However, his 3500 Def will help out very low level toons and provide hard to come by Def stats to any toon for limited deck events. Honestly, unless you just don't have anything else to go for, or are building specifically for Duels, I would avoid this 50 Day reward in favor of others. If you need a SK, take a look at Orcus. In my opinion, Orcus is the best SK from the 50 Day Login rewards.

Grimdark Walkers

These boots are found in the Shuffle. I will do a separate article on the Shuffle, but for now wanted to draw special attention to this piece of gear. With a drop rate of 0.5%, this will not be a common piece, nor will it be easy to get. But if you can, I suggest you do. This is truly an epic piece of gear. It is one of two pieces of gear that should have everyone excited, with the other being the new Raid core we'll be discussing a little later. It provides 4 stats, 2 of which are in phenomenal quantities. With 18% Move and 12 Poison, that alone is enough for me to want it on my toon. But on top of that, it also has Block Steal and a little bit of Life. Honestly, if this were a LWs prize, I would be tripping the Mayor in front of Grizzly Bears to get it.

Frozen Gauntlets

Found alongside Jack's Icy Gaze, the Frozen Gauntlets are found in the Abominable Yetti Raid. These arms offer Move Redux. That means every time that effect goes off, it gets easier to hit your opponent next time. With a healthy dose of Plus Damage and Aura Damage, this arm is always hitting hard, even when it isn't hitting.

Bone Claws

Found in the Skelanimal Raid, these are great for the free or budget player, and even some niche builds. It certainly isn't a bad piece. It gives a nice bit of Plus Damage and 2x Damage, as well as adds % Def, which scales up as your stats do. So this piece is good at any level.

Bone Bound Chest

We don't get a lot of choices when it comes to cores, so we usually take what we can get. But this is no mere filler piece. Found in the Skelanimal Raid, this is, without a doubt in my mind, THE best core in the game. It breaks away from traditional resistance, only resisting Physical, and only for 20, but holy cow are its other stats are sick. At 18% Block Steal, this can quickly turn a fight around by flipping the script on your opponent when it comes to stats. Furthermore, the 12 Poison is HUGE. Coupled with the Grimdark Walkers mentioned earlier, and now you're running 1 in 4 odds of poisoning your opponent, each hit. And once they're poisoned, unless they have the proper counter measures, they have 10 steps to figure out how to beat you or they're dead. Even alcoholics get 12 steps.

AMA Scrapyard

Another big addition this past month was the switching out of AMA gear with a fresh new set. I have to say, I'm really impressed with this batch of AMA options. Aside from gear and a new card, Raid Tokens can also be found there. Now, before we move on, AMA gear will rarely make it into a pay player's arsenal. So my value for them diminishes greatly from other sources of gear. Still, there are some nice pieces in there, and for some of you, they may be your best options. That said, you might find more value in these than I do. Let's take a look, shall we? Just remember, I am measuring all gear against all other gear. So MP gear will usually always get a better critique, while "free" gear will ofen get a worse one.

Lives Counter

Poison has long been considered OP, especially against toons that put a lot of skill points and gear into Life. For a long time, there has been little in the way of countermeasures. The Lives Counter fills this role on a budget by providing an MP free option to resist Poison. It is further made valuable for high life toons, those most prone to have poison used against them, by adding 4% Life, a stat that only continues to improve as a toon's base Life stat improves.

Obsidian Ring

The Obsidian Ring brings a new option to Stun Resist. Previously only found in 3 head gear, 1 crystal core, and 1 Mission/Patrol leg, having one in the very versatile position of a ring slot brings more versatility to your builds. The resist is only 8, but you have 10 ring slots to work with at current max limits. Add in the +4 Regeneration and this isn't a bad ring to fill out one's Stun Resist needs. This ring also plays well in limited deck events thanks to the 1000 Def it provides.

Keradon

This Sidekick is 1 of 3 in the AMA store right now. It does provide constant residual damage in the form of 7 Tech Aura. To be completely honest, this is a budget player's SK. I would get it only because I had extra AMA and needed to fill a Sidekick slot. The 2X Dam is nice, but imo, if one wishes to include X Damage, they should focus on 3X. 2X Damage should only play a part as extra insurance that some kind of damage multiplier will go off if the 3X fails. It still might make for good use among lower level players that can more easily accumulate useful quantities of 2X damage than they can 3X, but imo I would go after the 50 Day Login Orcus before I went after this one.

Red Ant

The only thing that maes me turn my eye to this SK at all is that it is Mental, and as far as today goes, the Mental SKs are few and far between. The initiative is negligible. It does decent damage, but unless you just need a Mental SK, there are plenty of better options.

Shocklite

While I am a fan of 3X Damage, at a mere 2% proc rate, it doesn't do much to move the likelihood of your 3X going off. Even if you put 5 of them on, that's still only 10%. That's a lot of space for 10% 3X Damage. It does add an additional, but minor Plus Damage of 6, but even that doesn't help make this much better.

Chainmail Kilt

For a non MP piece of gear, this really isn't that bad. It does have some good use, just not in lieu of other options. The combined Initiative and Disrupt Aura do give it value, despite the Move modifier being fairly low. Being a blanket Aura resist, it has broad value, usable against more opponents than specific Aura type resists. I think this piece can find use in any player's arsenal.

Coil Helm

For a "free" gear, this one certainly is nice. It packs a solid amount of Plus Damage for a "free" piece. Add in some decent Def Redux and this piece is really effective for the cost. Alot of MP monsters will pass this one up, but if you're not one of those, I suggest adding this to your arsenal. Not a premier piece, but definitely has value in niche uses.

Silver Hook

ARRRRRRR!!!! You know a former Pirate King is going to love anything to do with Pirates. But even if it was the Wristwatch of Mr. Magoo, I'd still like this arm. This arm provides a healthy dose of Def Redux AND a healthy dose of 3X Damage. That alone has me looking at Justin and crew with the thought they had me and my build style in mind when they created it. Add in a little Plus Damage and this gear is over the top. I can definitely see it being a staple in many player's builds, mine included.

Steal Greaves

This piece is missing a staple in legs, Movement. But what it's lacking, it makes up for in a very high Def modifier, and phenomenal Mental resist for a "free" piece. I won't say I would put it in regular use, but against specific opponents, that high a Mental resist could come in handy in a leg slot. I will likely add a few of them to my arsenal, just in case an opponent with heavy Mental Damage gets a little too hard to beat. I do think this one should be in everyone's arsenal if they can afford it, but only as an option and only after they have acquired those gear pieces they will be using regularly. This is a niche piece, but a good one.

Well, I hope this Gear Talk has been useful to you. I will discuss the Shuffle further next week. Till then, keep grinding!

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