ANB Gold League #15

[WarriorSeven]

The devs want to start Gold before War Supplies this round. Oh, well ... so much for schedules.

Not intending to compete this time nor use a lot of gems, instead focusing on improving my warrior gear. I had to sacrifice my previous main after losing track of Pythia sequence (grrrr...). In doing so, I had to forfeit two CT'd L77 weapons (double grrrr...), painful but necessary (but I did get 2 CE's to soften the pain).

Lesson: Keep track of your Pythia sequence, with a backup to paper!

This may be my tactic going forward, taking a much more leisurely approach during Gold to focus on replenishment.

P.S. -- Starts at 17:00 UTC today!

GOOD LUCK TO ALL!

[Tolimar]

I know this early in the ANB, this is a fleeting moment, but at 2:55 in, both CTs snagged and 2 77s that I actually need for my Main transformed. I may be finally getting the hang of Eternium. I learned something valuable that I am going to pass on to those of us that play mobile, specifically iPad. I have read numerous posts from players who say that they end up charging into a targeted group of Mobs, rather than attacking, resulting in instant death. This has also happened to me, frequently in the past, less so recently because I finally figured out why this happens. My new strategy, which has worked well for me, is to cast Magnetic Trap on the group of Mobs I wish to attack, after approaching from a distance. Once the group is in the MT circle, tap your one tap primary attack in the middle of the group. The key is a very light, quick tap. If you tap too hard or hold it down too long, you will rush to the point you targeted and most likely die, unless you can tap and sign your way out of it with attacks and abilities. You can recover so don’t give up if you get surrounded. I have also found that trying to use potions or apples is less effective than using attacks and abilities. I have found that if you keep your distance, once MT is cast, your primary attack is often enough to dispatch your enemies, even Chargers and the other powerful enemies. If the trap starts to break, you can recast, and/or use additional attacks and abilities. I use Explosive Shot as my primary attack, and Rapid Fire, Heatseekers, and Magnetic Trap. Lethal Shot is up as my Secondary Attack, but I rarely use a two-finger tap. Let me stress two points: First, this is a relatively slow, stealth strategy. This is not a BH whizzing through the map in 30 seconds that we have all seen videos of. Second, and however, when you get to the final Boss, you had better move because none of them are going to stand there and let you MT them and just attack them into oblivion. Also, I think this strategy works best if your strength is somewhat equal to the enemies you are fighting. If you vastly overpower them, you can charge in with guns blazing. But you can prevail against stronger enemies with this, slow, deliberate, careful approach. I hope this is useful. Good fortune to all in this Gold ANB!
Sorry for the image quality, not very proficient at image editing. Any tips on resizing images with free apps? Thanks.
Update: Woot! Finally managed to get a good quality image. Of course, I’ve dropped down since, but it was nice being there for a bit. I’ve got just over an hour of playtime left. Finished Trial 115, then spent a good amount of time farming and crafting. Finally got some decent damage on my guns, a level or two upgrade on some items. Crafted a 77 BoM with the bonus on Lethal Shot, my secondary attack, so not totally useless. Hit that crafting wall where the cost in gold and materials just isn’t resulting in enough high level crafts. So I’ll run the rest of the clock for my final push. Gold and Exp boosters and tavern items up to run out the clock. I should be able to finish 120, but think trying to reach 130 will be a bloodbath. Good luck to you all and thanks for your help.

[Ozymandius]

One hour into Gold ANB. I decided to use one of my main accounts, so I could collect the Season rewards. I made an error on my Antikythera predictions by accidentally crafting one piece while still on PC while switching back and forth between platforms. I had to go back to mobile and craft another series of three crafts to get the new predictions. Once again, the predictions were dead on accurate with a level 77 BoM with a Heatseeker bonus on my 19th craft, which I CT'ed. Even though my weapons are fairly low level, I still managed to complete TL105 in 2:14. If that time holds, I may go back down and farm TL100 for a while longer. Mostly just saving up materials to craft better weapons. So far there are not a lot of BH in Master's League [only 469, though some players could be dual classing].

The advantage to running on main account after using the new account for the last event is that everything is so much easier with higher level gear. I was stuck with mostly level 71 stuff in Silver. Very different running with better gear...

[kysner]

Doing stormcaller this round

[WarriorSeven]

Zap seems to be very popular these days, especially if you're a mobile-only player.

[Tolimar]

Gasp… just finished 120, 122, and 123. It was a rout, an utter bloodbath! I have disgraced myself by the ridiculous number of deaths I had to endure. I will push on to 124, but not now, I’m not ready to face Garm… must… tend… these wounds… (Tolimar falls to the ground, blood gushing from his many gaping wounds, the ones that weren’t charred shut by the fires of the Broken Dragon).

[Poppy]

Tolimar , that look so cool!
I died 20 times with that dragon. I still don't know the difference between Gram and The Broken Dragon, wasn't it the same dragon? and don't even mention Elban ugh!

I don't have experience enough to switch Hero type, just got familiar with Mages's way of playing, will stay on for awhile

Interesting about leaderboard, Gold ANB has a smaller group? Mine was only 245 players which guarantee to get 1 Medal of Heroism (Top 250) if you were the last person on the board

I reach 2nd CT, manage to get;
= 77 Tomes, CTed it, depleted all of Shadow essence. (Power and Ability Rate are the bottomless hunger lol)
= 77 Helm while doing XP/SG Set on 2nd tried, not sure if it was lucky or not (heh) since it was not a push version. Not yet CT, waiting to see if I get a difference 77 Push gear since I cannot craft more Push Helm version now, otherwise I will CT it and keep as main hero farming gear
[Updated] Got 77 Boots (push version) YaY!!!
I have 2.30 hrs left, will see. Continue farming.

Updated 5/25: Finished with TL129, so close to get 20 Glory
Luck to you all

[Tolimar]

Welcome to the game! There are two different dragons: The Broken Dragon, she (yes, she is female) appears in the last level of Act 1, The Broken Dragon. She also appears in Trials that end in 2 and 7. The other Dragon is Garm. You will find him in the Act 4 level called Dragon’s Crag. He also shows up in Trials ending in 4 and 9. Both can be nasty pieces of work, especially as you advance in Trial levels! Don’t get me started on Elban. You will meet him for the first time at the end of Act 3 in The Crucible of Mawrth. He also can be found in Trials ending in 3 and 8. He is very difficult to defeat until you learn his signature moves. Watch out for his ability to Drain Life, run and try to pull away if he snags you. And don’t let him crush you from above with his Devastating Attack. Magroth shows up first in Act 1 at The Severed Mountain, and in Trials ending in 1 and 6. The last Boss is Kara. You will find her in charge of The Underworld, the last level of Act 4, and in Trials ending in 5 (and 0). Some say she is easiest to defeat because her moves are most predictable. You have met them all since you have made it to Trial 110 and got both CTs. Great job! My first character was a Mage, but I made many mistakes with him and ended up switching to a Bounty Hunter. I used the advice in the forums and from the Veteran players, who are always happy to help. You will do A LOT of farming, especially if you craft during regular gameplay outside of ANBs. Once you get your Mage well-equipped, you will find that crafting is most productive during ANBs, and almost a complete waste of time and resources otherwise. Good luck finishing this ANB, you have certainly done well for a Gold ANB. Keep Pushing!

[WarriorSeven]

Wonder if the devs run out of ideas with two dragons ... really? Isn't one enough? And they hardly even fly! Come now -- no giant spiders, flesh-eating ogres, or poisonous hydras waiting in the wings for their big break in Eternium stardom?

Who's in charge of casting?

[Guest]

WarriorSeven Trials used to only have the one Dragon - The Broken Dragon, and she used to have different attacks too. The Giant Xenodon from Act 3 used to be in the Trial boss rotation but got replaced by Garm when Act 4 came along. Iirc the boss from City of Malador was in the rotation too but got shoved out by Kara. Maybe things will change in the distant future if Act 5 comes along...

Edit: This was meant to be a comment to #6, was getting a billion server response errors and I somehow created a new post ><. Back to hiding under my rock, technology is not playing nicely!

[Tolimar]

Spurred on by numerous posts about the way Eternium was in the past, I decided to find out how long I have “technically” been playing. According to the History tab on the Log In screen, my account was “Created 1815 days ago” on my Amazon Fire tablet. Having to go back to school to earn a degree in Useless Mind-numbing Number Crunching to figure out what that actually means, I calculated that I started playing on June 3, 2017. Holy Guacamole, Batman! They couldn’t just say “Created on June 3, 2017”? No, that would be too easy, and they wouldn’t need to program in that little calculator that adds a day every day. Your Development $$ at work. Why is getting from A to B in Eternium often like those math problems you get in school: “A train leaves Los Angeles at 2:10 and arrives in Honolulu at 7:15. How many atoms are there in the known universe?” Hah! I looked it up. One source says around 10^80, which is like 1 followed by 80 0s (don’t ask me what they actually call that number, worse, I cannot fathom how you would even begin to figure something like that out)! But I digress (as usual). When I started playing way back in 2017, I only played for a few days, hours, minutes, I don’t really know. I played as far as “Wailing Peaks” and gave up because I kept dying. I knew nothing about the game and didn’t have the desire to push on. So I was away from Eternium for about 4 years. I came back in April 2021 and decided to put the effort in to learn the game. To make a long story short (yeah, like that will ever happen with me), I have been playing daily for over a year. The only change of note that has happened in the last year is the revamping of the Act 2 levels. So I don’t know anything about Eternium from June 2017 through April 2021. The one thing I can say after grinding steadily for over a year is please please please NEW CONTENT… new Bosses, new Acts, new Trials, new quests, new characters, new monsters, new something please^80! Peace.

[Tolimar]

35 minutes left of playtime for me. Just finished 124 and 125. Needless to say, Garm was, well, Garm. I died so many times, and I really feel no sense of satisfaction or accomplishment to complete a Trial after I rack up the number of deaths that I do. You know how I feel about the way death is handled in Eternium if you have been reading some of my recent posts. Fared much better against Kara in 125, died less than at least one other player, some small comfort but really not much. The tactics that I posted about above in the post with my Leaderboard screenshot do work to some degree, but there are a lot of vagaries about using a touchscreen that make me want to caution you about taking any advice I give. Sometimes my light touch tactic sends me rushing into my targets where I suffer the touch of instant death. I know I am not very skilled at moving and dodging (horrible, actually). I try to improve, that is about all I can say or do. Finishing 125 moved me up to being able to skip 126 and move right into 127, but I think I would rather face Magroth than the Broken Dragon. Maybe if I do 126 I can skip 127 and move to Elban in 128. But I may be at the point that it will be one at a time no matter which way I go. I would like to finish 130, but the clock may run out. If I go 127, 128, 129, 130, and take 9 minutes per Trial, that’s 36 minutes, if I don’t run out of time on any particular Trial(s). At least I have a few days to get my courage back up. Keep Pushing!

[Tolimar]

Why am I hearing “The pumps buy you time, but minutes only.”? I feel like I’m in the same situation. If I have to go one Trial at a time, I need to finish 3 to get to 130. If I’m lucky, I may be able to skip one if I make a good enough showing. But if I finish 126, hoping to jump to 128, and I don’t get to skip over 127, then I think it’s over. So I think my best strategy is to skip 126 and move right to 127. But that means defeating two dragons to get to 130. It’s cutting it close no matter which way I go at this point. As always, thanks for your help and advice.

[Bali_Lenni]

06:07
the magic number revealed
...always inspiring when one scoures through the forums and still picks up occasional info gems on the way..
cheers

[Tolimar]

I learn something new every time I come to the forums. For example, I finally figured out how to stop my character from nattering on about how great the flippin’ forest is while he’s running through the desert. Okay, okay, no long-winded post this time. Tolimar Verbosity slider now set to 0.

[Tolimar]

It’s over. 7 minutes left, timer ran out on 127 twice, finally managed to defeat the Broken Dragon on that third try. Only moved up to 128, so with 7 minutes remaining, I think I will need tremendous luck to finish 128. But I do have 2 CTd items for my Main, I think I learned a lot (I know I have a lot more to learn), and I did rank high on the Leaderboard, even though that is as ephemeral as most things during an ANB. But no complaints at all, this was my most fun and productive ANB yet. Best of luck to you all!

The final numbers: Finished 127 at #29 on BH Leaderboard. Curse you, Elban - until we meet again! Will check Leaderboard just before event ends to see where I finally end up. And now some rest for my weary, battered body…

[UmbraDei]

I had to sacrifice my previous main after losing track of Pythia sequence (grrrr...).

FYI, the "Check Crafts" button below Pythia is nowadays pretty darn good at recovering the order of past crafts, if I can say so myself

[Ozymandius]

You can! +1

[WarriorSeven]

Yes, UmbraDei, that feature is a godsend, and I have used it with great success.

BUT in this case, I simply don't believe I properly tracked my sequence, trying many, MANY scenarios to try to locate the error to no avail. There is also a chance I did craft on PC, and though I don't remember doing that, I'm becoming more and more convinced that's what happened. Running out of excuses for being human.

No matter. I'm in this for the long haul. And ANB's are always opportunities to improve.

[davidz]

That new UI with the buttons make it really nice to use Pythia… thanks!!

[Ozymandius]

Three hours into the event now and still farming XP at TL105. I am down to around 7-8CLs per run, so it is feeling really grindy. Not sure how much beyond 1800CLs I will get. On the plus side, I have completed a lot of runs and have enough salvage gear to craft some decent push gear. I have XG on all of my jewelry and a couple of pieces of gear, so I have not had to spend any time farming gold this event; though I am all set with some nice Assault gear drops if I do need to farm gold. Feels like I am pretty much on pace to end up somewhere near my TL148 threshold. I would feel more optimistic if I can craft better weapons than my current level 74 set. So far, I am have gotten by with only 25 crafts since hitting level 70, so I am guessing there are still a couple of chances to craft a weapons upgrade.

[Ozymandius]

Pushed to TL148 as expected, which turned out good enough for a top 50 finish. Managed to get one weapon upgrade to level 76, though I was disappointed that the CT did not push the damage stat as I had expected [stuck with 2281 even though I have lots of level 76 weapons with 2312]. I had to wrap up this morning in time for Memorial Day cookout, so I didn't have time for a shot at Garm at TL149. Otherwise a very successful event!

[WarriorSeven]

Well, thrifty gem spend for me this round; no sense spending bunches with my lousy play. Made a huge dent at SM to farm a lot of gold for crafting. And it paid off since I eventually got back an L77 WW Axe. Pythia predicted kraft #37 for it. In fact, I counted only 3 prediction "errors" (a record for me) the 2nd, 11th, 12th sequence, and they were only off by 1 level. Gotta LOVE that tool!

Had I made more of an effort to optimize play, I might have medaled. Maybe next time ... but then, I suck ... so, probably not! LOL!

Anyways, I think I just may continue to treat future ANB Golds as opportunities to simply secure good gear (at least one L77 item), grab the 2 CTs, and maybe land some glory. IF I ever get better at this game to climb out of my wallowing in Master League (ffs), I'll start thinking about pushing and medals -- but not until then.

Master. Yeah, right. Master of mediocrity!

In any event, even with my low(ered) expectations, it's still always a GREAT idea to go into any of these ANB events with a targeted gameplan in mind -- and then execute! That alone, to me at least, is satisfying and affords me some sense of accomplishment.

All is not lost.

[davidz]

I used to smoke a pack a day, and then I quit years ago, it was really hard. Now I decided to quit Eternium and found it to be even harder. I disconnected my main account and swear to quit, but here again I’m back for the Gold ANB - just can’t resist that. I didn’t buy any gem so im really thrift with gems, but I got first place in contender league. I maxed craft level again and got a dropped bom with 192 cleave. I opened lily but my bom is still not opened. I got one 77 axe, one 77 dropped belt with WW and almost perfect xp stats. Got 1983 CL. Not bad at all, especially the medal of glory…

[Kristoff]

Not a good week for me ANB-wise with relatives visiting.

Managed to reach TL 130 at the last minute using less than three hours of event time.

Hope the rest of you had fun!