Alliance Boss Battles: All you need to know

THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUGLike mentioned in my post on update 9.1.0, it brought to the game the exciting new feature of Alliance Boss Battles.

At the time of writing that piece, the feature had not been fully implemented yet, but it has in the mean time, and it is such an addition it merits its own article. So here, I will lay out all the necessary information you need about this feature.

>continued

So, what are alliance boss battles?

Basically, boss battles are prolonged battles which, for individual players, work similar to normal campaign maps; You click one, enter hero and troops, apply buffs if you want (you shouldn’t), press attack and voila. Difference is that you most likely will not kill the boss. In fact, you’re not meant to defeat them on your own. All alliance members can place an attack on a summoned boss, with any number of troops, to have a chance to get loot from him. Once he is killed, loot goes to the summoner and all players who attacked.

And the loot is basically what you do this for, if not for teamwork. Similar to the Swift stones (troop training times buff) and artifacts I-X (defense/attack buff), a new fourth category of buffs has appeared at your city guardian: Gatherer stones, and they buff resource production.

battle listWhere do I find the battles?

You can find ongoing boss battles in your normal campaign screen. Press it and you will see a Boss Battle button on the top right. Pressing that will give you the list of open and defeated bosses, a claim rewards button, and options to attack a boss and get more info on a battle. Each battle has a named boss, which are all familiars from normal campaign maps. They have a certain level which corresponds roughly to the level of the campaign map from which they spawned. In the middle is stated who spawned the boss and who killed it (if it is defeated of course). To the right you can see how many alliance members already attacked it. This excludes the summoner.

How do these battles work?

boss infoYou can enter or participate in a battle in two ways: spawn a boss yourself or attack an open battle yourself. As mentioned, attacking a boss works out the same as any attack in the game; press attack, select hero/troops/buffs and go at it. If you choose to attack an open boss, be selective. Look at your current level of guardian rss buff, and attack the bosses that net you the stones for the next level. This becomes quite apparent once you realize you can only attack one boss every 4 hours!! 

You can also press the little “i” button to bring up current state of affairs on a particular battle. Once opened, it looks similar to a normal campaign level screen. The boss is shown, along with the number of troops left.

All alliance members can have a chance to attack him, and once defeated, all participants get rewards. It is therefor important, especially with the first lower bosses, to attack with small forces, so they aren’t defeated before everyone has had a chance to fight. Once it is time to finish a boss, go at full strength if you feel the need and haven’t participated in that battle yet. Note that boss battle last up to 7 hours max! So kill within 7 hours or no rewards!

Don’t worry about sending large armies in this case; even if you do not defeat the boss in one attack (because these buggers are hella strong), you will not lose a full 100k t1 army on an attack. I attacked a lvl 120-160 with 100k t1, and killed a few hundreds, but also only lost something like 1k troops. So the game is specifically designed to allow and necessitate even multiple attacks from more members.

Troop wise, the enemy seems to consist of T4 mounted units solely, but they are stronger than one would expect normally. As an example, I attacked with a tiny wave of 20 T5 once, against one of the lowest bosses, and killed zero enemies. That is using a 220, though no runes. This normally doesnt make sense, so I’ll say again, there is some different math behind these fights…

How and where do you summon the Bosses?

campaign mapIf you want to go the other route and summon, all you have to do is play campaign maps. Boss summons are random events which happen when attacking certain campaign levels. So far, my alliance has stuck to Clearing the High Pass, Avenging Moria, and Mirkwood, all with confirmed summons. I wasted a fair deal of stamina on Necromancer but got nothing.

Once summoned, that particular level’s boss can only be summoned again once the old one is defeated. Within a campaign map, all parts and all levels can summon. I have had summons from the boss levels on Avenging Moria part 3, and from the very first level on part 1 of Clearing the High pass.

Unlike attacking existing battles, summoning can be done as long as you have stamina points, no 4 hour cool down. Of course the assumption here that that level’s boss hasn’t been summoned yet by someone else.

Who can summon the Bosses?

Anyone! As long as that boss isn’t summoned yet, everyone can attack the campaign maps in order to have that chance summon.

What are the rewards?

As mentioned, the primary rewards come in the form of chests which contain a certain level of gatherer’s stones, which you can exchange for Guardian buffs in the Guardian himself. Once a boss is defeated, you can claim the reward, and the chest will appear in your inventory along the other chests in your possession.

Chests contain guaranteed stones for the guardian buff. Hourglasses, from the description, look guaranteed as well, but this isn’t the case. Especially lower level chests usually only contain stones. Other items include Vala Stones, which can be donated for the Alliance Shop.

Who gets rewards?

The summoner gets rewards no matter what if the boss is defeated. This is also the reason the summoner does not have to waste an attack on his own summon. For everyone else, participating members get rewards only if and when the boss is defeated, within the 7 hour period.

Although the chests seem identical, it does appear from Kabam communication that the chests of the summoner and the person who kills the boss are actually of better quality compared to those who just place a small hit in.

Where do which bosses spawn?

So far only three campaign maps spawn bosses. Clearing the High Pass parts 1-5 drop Stones 1-5. Same goes for Mirkwood parts 1-5. Avenging Moria parts 1-5 drop Stones 6-10. For each map part, bosses strength is reflected by the boss level of that parts boss map. Below is an overview of the bosses from several parts of the campaign. Missing maps will be included later on.

boss locations

Additionally, the new Lake-town campaign map spawns 210 and 250 Alliance Bosses, which drop chests which have a chance of containing Bard’s amulet and ring, as well as other items such as Orc Ears and Legendary pages. They do not drop Stones for the Guardian as the other bosses do.

Additional notes

  1. Although you can only attack once per 4 hours for free, you can buy an attack for a staggering 50 mithril…..
  2. The stones do not need to be converted in sage tower first.
  3. Higher level stones are currently invisible as long as your guardian is not at that level. i.e. If you need to do Stones 1, that number is shown in the guardian, but here is no way to tell how many level 2 Stones you have until you upgrade the guardian.
  4. Besides the above mentioned Boss battle list in campaign screen, individual boss battles can also be clicked at in the appropriate campaign map part from which they spawn. A new level icon is placed on the map with the timer next to it.
  5. As far as I have seen, there is no maximum to the number of bosses one person can summon. I have personally summoned 4 bosses multiple times, but I do not think there is a max. And no, I’m not wasting stamina refills on summons, even though I have plenty 🙂

So thats all I know so far about Boss battles. If I learn more, I will update this article, and in the mean time, if you have any additions, please comment below…. cheers!!

34 thoughts on “Alliance Boss Battles: All you need to know

    • depends on your gear and level. Normally, one shotting a boss shouldnt be a problem with defense hero.

      However, the 250 boss is rather strong, such that some lower level players cannot kill it in one hit with defense hero/gear.

      In those cases, simply switch to attack gear/hero to kill it, or even rune up. I recommend sending 5k Giants and rest MR, losses from boss battles are always rather small…

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  1. Hey, I was just wondering if you know how the points system worked for the boss kill event? How many points per kill? Does multiple attacks effect the total? Stuff like that 🙂 beardmonkey Is my bible :))

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  2. In boss kill events, scoring is set like gob kill. Bigger bosses will have higher might, hence more points. And forget multiple hits on bosses, as two hits will reduce scoring by half. Not a “boss hit” tourney, only “boss kills” add to score. I’d recommemd top alliances to boot members unable to one hit kill a 250 as boss kill events are becoming common. My buffs aren’t the best, but I can kill a 250 boss without even having to use any runes, and losing no more than 1k master rangers

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  3. Bosses do t follow normal battle flow, where attacker hits first, defender second, until one army is finshed. Its more like jousting, where opponents get one pass, one hit. All bosses are mounted elite, no less. I find that bosses fall particularly easy when sending full waves of master rangers. Attack hero for most attack power for your one hit with smaller players, more developed players can use defense hero with a decent setup, losing very little might. A 250 boss hardly kills 1k master rangers. Also, one hit kills make for far more items. One summon with two people hitting to kill is three chests, where as two summons with one hit kills gives 4 chests. Note: temporary campaigns also have included elite mounted on final camps, resulting in an incomplete kill if you don’t pack a punch

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  4. Do you have any stats on the Alliance Boss kill tourneys? We all know that a boss killed in one hit gives more pts than a boss with multiple hits. But what gives more points : a lv140 Boss with 1 hit or a lv160 boss with 2 hits????

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    • as far as I know, number of hits doesnt matter? When the boss is killed, a number of points is awarded based on boss level, so multiple attacks just waste attacks. Exact numbers I do not know yet Im afraid…

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  5. Looking for info on the quality of rewards in new gear upgrade drops from bosses when comparing a 1-3 player takedown vs. unlimited player takedown… Is having every ally send a cart a worth while endeavor, or does it just reduce the quality of the drops?

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      • in my experience there seems to be no correlation to number of attackers vs quality of drops. gotten good stuff from 5 attackers and crap from 5 attackers and even gotten good stuff from 20 + attackers

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    • Drops don’t change regardless of how many ppl attack the boss but naturally the less hits it takes means more chests for your alliance.

      You can only hit every 4 hours, so If your whole alliance hits the same boss and only then someone kills it each of your alliance members only get 1 chest every 4 hours.

      If all your alliance members insta-kill the boss and immediately spawn a new one, it results 2 chests for everyone. One for killing, one for spawning.

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  6. Hey Beardmonkey, great blog very helful I have spread the word in my alliance :-)…..was just wondering if you guys have a system in place for hitting a summoned boss…because of the new update and good chance of snagging val runes for upgrade on gear ,we were trying to get some kind of group hit with max numbers to share prizes but dont know what that number is , I did notice in 1 of the comments above you said it may take diff math compared to the usual is there any update on that…..thanks hairtrigger……..ps sorry I posted this in wrong place at 1st…

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  7. What is the exact benefit of the gathering stones? Yes, resource production is suppossed to increase but I don’t note a descernible difference. I also have minimal w, s & o fields(no wilds). Plus, my food production in my 3 “food” cities is just to “break even” (so my troops don’t gobble up all of the food I put there). What I’d like to do is to increase food production so I can reduce the number of farms. That should then allow me to increase my idle population and increase the number of troops I can train. Yes, realize what I am doing is unconventional. but, am I wasting time on obtaining gathering stones?

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    • honestly no clue, but I wouldnt see why not. The ‘alliance’ part is attacking with more than one member, but individuals can summon, so my best guess is you can also without being in an alliance…just need to make sure you can finish the bosses on yourself, which is gonna be impossibly hard after the first few levels.

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      • You can by making up a name for yourself as an alliance of one that way you can also participate in alliance events (not that an alliance of one is going to get anywhere) by it lets you see how you are making out against the big boys

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  8. I have attack the bosses up to lvl 100 im assuming thats what the number by him means but anyways up to 100 and killed the boss in one attack. The other player above in comments is right mounted is what they are so i send range and foot t5 t4 t 3 everyone i have up to musterfield limit

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  9. If you send all foot you can decimate lower level bosses in first strike. T5 with any lower tier for a buffer and youll have minimal loss

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  10. why is it that I can send a load of troops that should decimate the boss as a second attacker and he kills many but leaves thousands standing? how do we both “walk away” from the fight

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    • I dont have a straight answer, but know for sure there is some weird math and/or mechanics behind these battles. As you state, if you send a large enough army, you both walk away with troops surviving. Plus, it is almost impossible to kill even the smallest of bosses in one attack.

      My explanation is simple. Firstly, they have made these units hella strong, as to make it somewhat of a challenge (far beyond standard tier 4 strength). Secondly, I am convinced KABAM made this so that you, under normal circumstances, cannot defeat a boss in one go. Whether that is due to the math inherent to the mechanics, or whether it is simply a maximum of units you can kill, I dont know. And I’m not sure if we’ll ever find out exactly how this stuff works…

      The set-up is that you bring these bosses down together in a group effort, and the way it is set up here, they accomplish just that…

      Hope that helped.

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      • Yeah it does thanks. My alliance sent a couple attacks at a boss and by the time I hit he was 12 killed about 1k of my troops left 3k standing and left with 4. We were all shocked.
        Your explanation is the best I’ve seen so far

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      • the small bosses can be killed with only one attack, just send 20k T1 additional 100K T5. I do not play in an Alliance, so I had to figure out how to get it done 😉

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      • I think its like there’s only one round of attack/defense so all teamates can attack at least once and as you say the boss will survive, in most cases, a single attack.
        Therefore was wondering how much HP a mounted elite could have…

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