With the awesome addition of cheaper ephemeral crafting, it's now even more important to plan ahead and save gems for the next ANB.

The only differences to bronze, silver, and gold events is; the reducing play timer (12, 9, and 6 hours respectively) making Celsestial Transforms (CTs) harder to obtain without exorbitant gem expenditure; and the cuttoffs for medal rewards. Check out the ANB FAQ for more details.

We currently have a schedule to plan around:

Originally posted by Travis | Support Mgr.
There isn't a set schedule yet. The current flow is as follows:
  • Bronze
  • Week off
  • Silver
  • Week off
  • Gold
  • Week off
  • Casual (War Supplies)
  • Week off
  • Bronze
The schedule may change, depending on how the metrics look and player feedback.
It is important to establish goals for each event based on availability to exhaust the event timer over the duration, and gem budget.

Knowing how many gems you intend to use gives you a goal to accumulate. The event timing is not consistent, so best to save according to your goals and only use elsewhere in surplus.

For unfamiliar players, or anyone with a schedule that may prevent them from reaching trial 80, there are several possible goals for any event in order of priority as follows:
  1. Craft a level 77 item for each CT obtained and transform these. They will be reverted to a non ephemeral item retaining it's celestial attribute buffs and CT when ending the event.
  2. Complete trial 80 for first CT
  3. Complete trial 100 for second CT
  4. Utilise the additional 50% XP bonus (incorrectly shown as 100% in the event description) to farm XP. This buff can be increased further using the improved XP buffs only ephemeral jewellery can provide. It is possible to reach over 2000 CP in a single bronze ANB!
  5. Push trials in the final hour or so of gameplay to maximise medal rewards.
  6. Take advantage of greatly discounted hero expansion gem costs to develop a main hero for each class. If unfamiliar with any class, best to do this during bronze events to make sure you can still attempt goals 1, 2, and 3, and/or have some practise.
If you are new to the game consider whether or not you are ready before committing to the first 3 goals. You might be better off using your first ANB for practise and focusing on goals 4 and/or 6, preserving gems for the next event when play experience can prevail.
  1. Have you maxed Crafting Mastery?
  2. Do you have crafting recipes for build?
  3. Are you confident?
ANB events are most essential for end-game, so if already hooked on Eternium expidite planning.

All the participation goals can be simplified to the first step.

Unlock trial 80 with as little timer used as possible.

If you can get to trial 80 within 1-3 hours of gameplay you're set.

The longer you can utilise idle ability research without using play time the more efficient a run will be.

Given that celestial items keep near perfectly improved attributes when ending the event, there is more value in crafting two level 77 items than additional medals gained by pushing the leaderboard, unless you don't need anymore.

Weapons have the greatest impact on seasonal leaderboard pushing, so it's best to try crafting these if not yet acquired.

If crafting a lvl 77 weapon already possessed in main account, consider keeping it anyway and repurposing for a gold/XP farming gear set. Reforging a celestial attribute will become near perfect when the game is restarted.

The way to maximise your time and efficiency is to earn XP improving your CL as quickly as possible.

If you want to work out precisely which trial will award more XP as a factor of time check out discussion on this reply below.

The most efficient method of gaining XP is to farm the highest trial you can spawn the boss after 30 seconds and abandon. This sacrifices loot, so more gems need to be spent on materials and ability researching.

When killing bosses the most time you can spend farming trial 80 or above the better, as all loot will be legendary and at least 1 GBoL will be gained.

Considering your goal is XP, depending on your build and ability to do so, do not forget to continue to draw mobs after you spawn the boss to kill them during the final fight.

Getting at least one legendary crafting crate is highly recommended when reaching lvl 70 providing you have the recipes needed.

This accelerates growth immensly, as it allows you to craft a significant amount of gear that can gain you CP much quicker, and begin farming trial 90 for more MoTs sooner as the odds for set gear increases the most at this point of trials.

Gold for gems is not very efficient, so during Bronze and Silver events there is enough time to do 1 or 2 gold boosted runs for crafting and transmutting essences.

Once the event period expires consider the benefits of not ending too soon - perhaps you don't yet have suitable level 77 items for your main account to best utilise CT(s), or could not attain them by circumstance.
  1. Spending remaining gold crafting jewellery utilises additional temporary stash until acquiring needed stones in your main account for fusing.
  2. Although gear is no longer ephemeral and cheap, material crates purchased with gems (in the indefinate future) can be used to achieve the primary goal.
  3. If doing speed runs to earn gems faster more character slots for ability upgrading idle characters can be utilised by keeping a main hero in the event until needed.
  4. Discounted character gems costs continue until the event is ended manually, so gems can be prioritised on things that help the run initially if keeping the hero.
  5. It's just cool having more than 5 heroes . Your friends list will be jealous.
There is only a certain number of event heroes you can keep before getting issues with menus due to overlapping icons.

The toughest part of planning is working out a gem budget and how to reach it. Check out the resource guide on how to earn and spend gems efficiently.

Below are some pointers where you can save gems during ANB if on a limited budget:
  • Adding sockets to ephemeral gear is inefficient. Update before ANB gold 4 should rectify this.
  • A third research slot is effective but not neccissary.
  • If highly available during the event period there's no need to boost ability researching as Books of Learning can max your primary abilities.
  • Don't overlook 200% XP boosters. They are cumulative with gear XP.
  • The default companions are acceptable.
  • All bets off for gold ANB. Every second is precious.
Bare in mind with enough practise it's possible to reach trial 100 without gems in Bronze and Silver events.

So gems can either perform 3 functions at that point; save you time; enable you to compete for more medals; or purely to take advantage of the additional XP gains.

If competing for medals consider their worth before blowing your gem stack.

Feel free to discuss your plans for the next ANB event or ask an expert in this topic.