Dante's Alliance Wars Primer (with Video from Beta)

Alliance Wars

Introduction

Alliance Wars is a group effort where two Alliances are pitted against each other. Each alliance member sets a defense and then goes about attacking the other alliance’s defense. You get points for killing enemy heroes when attacking and whichever alliance has the most points at the end of the War is the winner.

Each War will have a 24-hour preparation period to set defenses and then a 24-hour period of the actual War (i.e. when you attack). Each member will get 6 War flags; 3 at the start of the War and 3 at the 12-hour mark. You can hold all 6 if you want until the end, you don’t lose any of them if you haven’t attacked (i.e. there’s no penalty in lost flags if you can only jump on at the end). The 24-hour period is crucial for mitigating start time across time zones so that one alliance isn’t favored over another.

NOTE: This document is meant to explain the mechanics of how Alliance Wars will work so you can be prepared ahead of time and not spend your first War wasting time figuring things out. This is NOT a strategy document, more like a basic How-To manal.

Heroes Needed

Each of your heroes can only attack ONCE during the entire War, so each attack needs to use different heroes. Note that each hero is unique so if you have two Grimms for example, you can use each of them once. Given that you can attack 6 times, you will need at least 30 heroes to field 6 full attacking teams. The heroes you use for your defense team can also be used once each to attack just like any other hero. If you don’t have 30 heroes, just hang onto a few 2*s that you get from training camps or farming.

Scoring

The scoring is handled this way – A fixed amount of points for each alliance (same for all alliances) is distributed between the members of the alliances depending on the strength of each member (Dante’s editorial note: I believe this is calculated on strength of the defense team you set). Per SGG “Defeating stronger heroes are worth more points than defeating the weaker ones”. I’m not sure if this is based on the “power” rating or by hit points.

You get bonus points for defeating an entire team (i.e. it may pay to go after a defense team with only 1-2 members left). Whether you chose to attack a full team or a smaller team is a strategic choice you’ll need to make in real-time based on what heroes you can bring and which you think will give you more points.

First Alliance War – Getting Started and preparation time

There is a “preparation phase” for 24 hours prior to the War starting. The first thing you’ll do during the preparation phase of your first alliance war is set your defense. This is exactly like raid defense – 5 heroes, with the middle tank, 2 flanking heroes next to the tank, and two heroes in the corner. Note that when the preparation phase ends, you cannot modify your defense team anymore as the War has started. To participate as an attacker, you must set a defense team. Your defense team in the next War will auto-populate with the previous defense team heroes, so if you want the same defense, you don’t need to do anything, though you can modify it at any time during the preparation phase.

Now in regular raids, the defense is reset for each raid (i.e. all 5 heroes are at 100% health). In Alliance Wars, the defense team does NOT heal between getting attacked during the current War. So if a particular player’s defense team is attacked and the tank is killed and hero 1 is 50% left of health, then when the next person attacks, the attack will start with the tank dead and hero 1 at 50% health. If the defense has a healer, it can heal itself. Status effects (DOT, blind, etc) will be removed. Alberich can resurrect heroes killed in previous attacks.

The only exception to this is if a defense team is completely killed. When that happens, a reset timer is started and when the timer expires, the defense team is completely revived and can be attacked again. The timer starts at 1 hour and if that team is completely killed a second time, the timer goes to 3 hours, and then 6 hours, etc.

The War begins! Attack!

Once preparation time is over and the war begins, you’ll see each player and their defense team lined up on either side of a river. You can scroll up to your opponent’s side and you will see each of their player names with their defense team in small icons with green health bars. To view their team in more detail, click the “Info” button on that team. When you find one you want to attack, select the attack button.

A team selection screen will pop up and you’ll be able to choose from all the heroes that have not yet attacked during the current War. Choose your 5 heroes then attack.

Now the actual attack will behave exactly like a raid – the attacker uses gems to do damage and build mana. Defense teams gain mana each turn as well as via gem hits. BUT, there’s a critical difference here: because in a real war, the defense typically has the advantage of a fortified position, so here the defense has a Revenge bar located at the top of the screen. The revenge bar fills a little each turn and when it’s full, it unleashed a barrage of arrows at the attacker. It does 25% damage of the attacking heroes full health in damage. NOTE: the fewer defenders left alive, the faster the revenge bar will fill. See below for details

Once the War is over, whichever Alliance has the most points is the winner!

Below I have a 13 minute video of me running through this in beta along with some non-great attacks (I was in a hotel room rushed for time on a work trip).

EDIT : as of march 6th update, the revenge bar fills like so:

5 defending heroes alive: 7 turns (fills 1/7th each turn)
4 defending heroes alive: 6 turns (fills 1/6th each turn)
3 defending heroes alive: 5 turns (fills 1/5th each turn)
2 defending heroes alive: 4 turns (fills 1/4th each turn)
1 defending heroes alive: 3 turns (fills 1/3th each turn)

EDIT: also as of march 6th, team bonus kill points are restored (was bugged last War). For finishing off a defending team, you now get 100% point bonus of the team. I.E. if a team is worth 34 points, wiping the team gets 68 points. For example, if that team is worth 34 points and you kill 4.9 heroes (leaving 1 hero with just a few hp), you will get 33 points. When someone comes along and kills that final hero, they will get 35 points and then the defense will start the revive time.

EDIT: as of march 6th, the revive time for a defense team total party kill is now 6 hours instead of 5 and increases 2 hours each for subsequent kills. I.E. if your team is wiped, it revives in 6 hours. If it’s wiped a 2nd time, the timer is now 8 hours.

68 Likes

Here’s a video of my attacks from the beta a few days ago. Hopefully seeing it in action will make things more clear.

37 Likes

Great primer, @Dante2377! A minor addition: as you note, a wounded team keeps its HP, but all status effects (buffs and debuffs) are cleared.

9 Likes

Do you find out who the opposing alliance is during the prep phase, or do you only find out once the battles start?

2 Likes

DYes, you see the opposing alliance name at the start of prep. You only see opposing defensive teams as they are posted.

Pro tip: if someone has five Aifes defending, he’s probably going to change that before the war starts. :wink:

7 Likes

That was interesting thanks! I’m assuming Aeron is future HOTM?

1 Like

Thanks for sharing! Those revenge attacks are brutal.

The 2 new heroes look cool.

thanks i’ll update that part.

Thank you for posting this information! Looking forward to playing! How do you like the 2 new heros?

All should know that alby can resurrect heros that died in previous battles.

Also, not sure your revenge bar segment was clear. Revenge is based on defense teams’ strength. The way you had it, one could read that it takes 25% of attackers health.

3 Likes

Yes. Healer with an interesting special.

Really looking forward to this! Finally a use for all my old saved hero’s. Thanks for posting

Wait, it does take 25% (or previously 34%) of health; this was standard across every single team I attacked and didn’t vary at all.

Where did you see that it was different dependent on the defensive team?

Thank you for this @Dante2377 ! Very well done! It will be a great help to explain the alliance wars to everyone.

With your permission, I would like to translate this into German for the non-English speaking of the German players and post the translation under foreign languages… would that be alright?

5 Likes

Great work indeed.
A question: SG are ok to show previews of the new heroes?

Wonderful presentation Dante. I like the sounds you do over the battle…the uuhs and ahhs :laughing:…reminds me of myself if losing

1 Like

Revenge is enough to wipe out my teams in 2 shots. Ifnit onlybtook 25% of my max health, it would take 4 revenge hits (not counting other hits)
I definitely lost bringing 3 dark heros against a lone yellow as i only got 4 rounds or so trying to build specials

It is not officially against the rules to show new HOTM.

Players should be aware however, that HOTM stats can change while testing in Beta. :wink:

Yes, but in addition to the revenge bar, the defense team is also using its specials and slash attacks.

@Witch - go for it, translate away!

Thanks @Dante2377 ! Done and posted under foreign languages

1 Like