Basic Gear and Gem set-up illustrations

Posted on July 16, 2015 by beardmonkey

I have noticed a trend on Line in the last few weeks, and I feel stupid for not doing this sooner. It’s really simple: A picture says more than a thousand words. And over the past few weeks, I have seen plenty of illustrations/pictures that depict certain elements of the game, as a short guide so to speak.

And if we look at gear and gems for example, I have articles on Best gear Sets, where and how to use Gems, which gear attributes go where when…and then we have Hero Skills going in the mix as well….

And although they are good reads to get familiar with he material, it’s mostly text and not suited for quick referencing. And while chatting such as in Line, it is much easier to give a picture than explaining it word by word every time. So here below the fold I have posted some illustrations for basic gear/gem set-ups. I know other versions are also around, but hey, I like some photoshopping and I like it to be available on the site.

Feel free to download them and share them on for example Line, whenever a tournament starts again and people start asking the same questions.

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Hero Skills: When to use which?

Posted on June 17, 2015 by beardmonkey

Hero Skills have been released for a while now, with even a new batch of offensive Skills released recently. But which skills are best in certain situations? In this article I while detail a number of situations and sketch a number of ways on which Skills are most useful in each. Some are very straightforward, others require some more thought. In the end, this will not be a long or difficult read, but could be helpful to some…

1. Types of Skills
2. Attacking general
- 2.1 Attacking wall/advanced
3. Defending
- 3.1 Defending wall/advanced
4. Campaign general
- 4.1 Boss level double-tap
- 4.2 Advanced campaign set-ups
5. Mining
- 5.1 Mining warfare
6. Resource production
7. Final words

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CHS: The double-tap

Posted on June 4, 2015 by beardmonkey

For most levels in campaign, attacking them is straightforward. You select an army and hero to attack, attack, and presto….you either win or lose. Whatever the case, the next time you attack that camp, the camp has been reset and all Goblins are there again.

But on the boss levels, this is different, and losing on those maps will leave the remaining Goblin force waiting for you for the next round of combat. How many Goblins still stand is indicated by the boss health bar when you click on the level.

It is been long known that finishing off the boss levels in multiple attacks also gives (potentially) much higher High Scores, if done properly. But not many people know how or why this is. In this article, I will provide some information on why this is and how can you can figure out your best attack pattern.

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Best Sets lists and how to use them

Posted on June 4, 2015 by beardmonkey

While I used to post a screenshot of the top 30 offensive and defensive gear sets with the Best Sets article, I have now provided a link to a zip file which contains the two spreadsheets I use for that, containing all of the hundreds of possible gear combinations. In order to work with it or understand them, I will provide here a short explanation of what each number represents, and how you should use it to compare gear.

1. First off: Division, Gems and random rolls
2. The numbers explained
3. Using the list effectively

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Update 12.4: New Skills/Hero lvl/buffs/troops…

Posted on June 2, 2015 by beardmonkey

Update 12.4 hit the stores a few days ago. And like most updates, it added quite some new features/additions to the game, or showcased what is to come shortly. In no particular order the updates are:

3 New offensive Hero Skills: Spearhead II, Bullseye II, Close Quarters II. Their information has been added to the Hero Skills article.
Permanent debuffs added, in addition to the perm buffs. Weapon Disarm (attack debuff) and Armor Exposure (life debuff) items function in similar fashion to BC/SW.
New T4 wall troop: Stone Sheperds (elven) / Gates of Erebor (dwarf). Apparently they are set up as equivalent to Stone Giants for Wall Troops, with massive health, although first testing showed inconclusive results. At the moment, only six can be trained once. Adding to the Wall Troop article as soon as more concrete info comes out.
New Tactical Troop: Enchanters. A new troop sporting both high defense and offense stats. Although not shown anymore, lvl 120(!) is needed to train these. More info will be added to the TT article as soon as more info becomes available.
Increased player lvl. There is good reason to think (see above) it won’t be long before the player level cap is raised from 100 to at least 120, to train the Enchanters.
Increased Hero lvl. Another cap raised is Hero lvl. A glitch a few days ago enabled players to level their Heroes beyond 250. This was then revoked, but with the update it is now official: Hero levels now go up to 280!

So that’s it for now. Let me know how you feel about the new stuff, or share any information you might have 🙂

New Hero Skills!

Posted on June 1, 2015 by beardmonkey

A small addition to the Hero Skill library came today (I presume as I just noticed), in the form of level II versions of the offensive skills: Close Quarters, Spearhead, and Bullseye. All three Skills seem to follow the same pattern as their defensive level II counter-parts, in terms of Skill % benefit and upgrade costs. Full information on the new skills will be added to the Hero Skill article asap.

Were Scrolls removed from Extra-ordinary Mines?

Posted on June 1, 2015 by beardmonkey

Lately, I’m having trouble mining Scrolls from extra-ordinary mines. I know mines have undergone some changes, most notably in the number of Tokens, but I want to know whether I’m just really unlucky, or if Scholar Scrolls have really been removed from them. Please let me know if you still find them in mines..

Download the Gear set lists yourself

Posted on May 27, 2015 by beardmonkey

So I have been thinking. In the previous update, I stated the top30 images of best sets would follow tomorrow. Not so. Instead, if you follow the link given below, you can download a RAR file containing the 2 spreadsheets with processed gear combinations, one offensive and one defensive.

Now you can look at the full lists yourself, play around, adjust the numbers for your specific random rolls, whatever, it is up to you. I just hope somebody has some use for it…The link will also be added to the Best Sets article.

Link for the spreadsheets

Best Sets updated

Posted on May 27, 2015 by beardmonkey

Finally the Best Sets article has the level 2 Legendaries added to it. As I predicted, the best sets are pretty much identical to those before, just with the level 1’s swapped for levels 2. Remember this for when higher levels are announced and the article isn’t updated immediately (assuming the trend from 1 to 2 continues in 3). The top 30 images will be added tomorrow.

Hero Skills updated

Posted on May 27, 2015 by beardmonkey

I have just released an updated version of the Hero Skills article. Although it was put out pretty soon after Hero Skills were released, no major updates have followed, leaving much of the diagrams on Skill overview and Upgrade costs empty. Took a while for me to realize this, so there you go. Only a few numbers are still missing, if you happen to know them, please leave a comment.

Next up is the Best Sets article. I am putting the new gear ** in my spreadsheets and will probably update the article tonight when I have time. Stay tuned and happy Hobbiting!

Best Sets and Legendary level **

Posted on May 20, 2015 by beardmonkey

I know one of the articles desperate in need for an update (again) is the Best Sets article. Although containing all level 1 Legendary gear, the level 2 upgrades haven’t been included yet. Now I have two things to say…or three basically, if you count “I’m gonna do them don’t worry“.

First, because ALL the new gear is basically just the level 1 Legendary gear slightly improved (not even basically actually, just fact), I still believe the Best Sets article at the moment is still relevant enough to use, at least as a starting point. I honestly do not expect any major changes when adding in the level 2’s.

That said, I am gonna update them, but as I have been away for some time, I’m not 100% sure which level 2’s have already been introduced. So what I am asking here is to describe in the comments what pieces have been released, and there base stats and specific Hero bonus. The four bonus attributes are already covered in the Hero equipment article, so I don;t need that, unless you find errors in them of course.

Thanks for being patient and see you soon with an updated article.

Battle Mechanics V: Conclusion

Posted on May 20, 2015 by beardmonkey

Welcome once more to the final part in this series for now. Warning up front: This article will not contain (much) new information, but will serve, as the title implies, as a conclusion on the previous parts I-IV, summarizing the findings, and perhaps serving as an easy reference piece. So let’s go over what we covered in the previous parts.

Other parts in this series:

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Battle Mechanics IV: Diminishing Returns and how to deal with it

Posted on May 16, 2015 by beardmonkey

Welcome to the fourth installment in this Battle Mechanics series. In this part, we will once again take a closer look at Diminishing Returns, how it works, and how it influences our choices for gear and Gems, following the formulas we arrived at in parts I, II and III. Diminishing Returns (henceforth DR) can be a tricky subject, but once you understand how it works it is actually pretty easy to work with.

Other parts in this series:

1. The concept behind DR
2. DR visualized
3. DR and distribution of buffs and debuffs
4. Should you always balance buff and debuff?
5. Conclusion on choosing gear with DR in mind

Continue reading →

Battle Mechanics III: Why your opponent doesn’t matter

Posted on May 13, 2015 by beardmonkey

Welcome to part III in this Battle Mechanics series. In part I and II, we constructed the basic battle formula with buffs and debuffs, focusing specifically on gear buff and debuffs. Now it is time to chose the optimal set of gear. But before we get to that, we consider here our opponent. Many people still tell me that I have to take into account the opponent’s gear when choosing my own, in the sense that (usually), if an opponent has mostly debuffs, I should aim for buffs, and vice versa.

In part IV, we are going to (for the last time hopefully) discuss our own gear choices, taking Diminishing Returns into account, but here in part III, I will first briefly detail why you should never look at your opponent’s buffs and debuffs distribution.

Other parts in this series:

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Absence and update on Tokens and more..

Posted on May 5, 2015 by beardmonkey

So it really has been a while since I have been active. I already explained some of the reasons in earlier posts, but right now I have been of the game and site for some weeks almost completely. Personal life took a front seat and already narrowed the available time to play the game, but also the game itself hasn’t been as fun to me as it used to.

In essence, with all the new features and additions and content being dropped in a small time frame over the past months, this game for me at least, needs too much time spent per day for players to be competitive. For me, even with this site, this still remained a mobile game to me, which I play(ed) on my phone for some time a day, but definitely not hours on end (I know many of you do though).

On of my older articles detailed a set of 10 daily things to do in the game, but such a list today, with all the new features would require a lot of time if you want to stay ahead of the game and competition. Acquire gear, farm Tokens, Hero Skills, Mining, endless batches of tournaments…I can’t just pick up the game for an hour a day and expect to be competitive in any sense, and I find that frustrating. Sure there were always times, like during tournaments, when more time and effort was required, or if you wanted to farm a lot of Smaug tokens, but there were also stretches of time when less time was needed.

And that is no more. Putting Tokens in mines might be a solution to the auto-bots, and in theory even spice things up a bit, but in an active server, mining can be frustrating and requiring attention for quite some time. I want to play this game on the side, not spend hours a day just to keep up.

But there are more things that are bothering me. Especially the pay-to-win model Kabam enforces is failing to keep me interested. I started out not spending a dime on the game, and for a year, that wasn’t necessary. Once I became a member of a top Alliance, I did spend some, and it felt good, but that feeling didn’t last. Spending, in my humble opinion, should of course give spenders an advantage, but not make them better or nearly unbeatable in every aspect of the game. Spending to get your hands on the first level 8 Artamir gems and Legendary gear made you invincible basically. Right now things are evening out again as most players acquire these items themselves, but the process will repeat.

Ugh, this probably sounds whiney to most, but I just want to explain my absence a bit. Given this site it should be clear I loved this game, but it slowly fading, which is really sad, because especially the team members/alliance play is what makes this game great.

So that said, I will slowly resume putting out articles and updating older ones, such as on the Hero Skills. I will try to keep up to date with new features, and hope I can find both the time and motivation to really start playing again….

Battle Mechanics II: Separating the Buffs

Posted on April 3, 2015 by beardmonkey

Welcome to the second part in this Battle Mechanics article series. In Part I, we constructed the basic battle formula, showing the relation between attack and life, and buffs and debuffs. Although we could go from there into other territory, I feel this second part is needed to avoid any confusion afterwards. In this part we will look at the different types of buffs and how they (possibly) interact.

Other parts in this series:

1. Recap
2. The different Buffs
3. Difference between additive and multiplicative
4. What matters in the end

Continue reading →

Battle Mechanics I: The basic Battle Formula

Posted on April 2, 2015 by beardmonkey

Welcome to the first in a series of articles on some basic battle mechanics in the Hobbit | KoM. In this series, we are gonna look at how combat in KoM basically works, and how it affects your gear choices. In this first part, we start of with looking at the basic battle formula, and work from there towards choosing the best gear set-ups, emphasizing primarily the reasons behind the sets such as given in the Best Sets article.

Other parts in this series:

1. The basics
2. Adding in buffs
3. Adding in debuffs
4. Rewriting and final formula

Continue reading →

Tokens removed from Smaug: Big mistake or change for the better?

Posted on March 25, 2015 by beardmonkey

As many of you know Kabam has been battling with auto-clickers/bots for some time now. These programs/bots enabled certain players to constantly and relentlessly attack Smaug faster and longer than humanly possible, giving these players thousands of tokens or massive Goblin kills, and the benefits that come with that.

Of course this was seen by both Kabam and the majority of players as being unfair, so action was decided upon. But the problem proved tricky and a neat solution difficult, although the suggestions on the forums and other places were plentiful. Last week, we were presented with the not that great (to put it mildly) limit on attacking campaign, where after a certain number of attacks players had to wait a cool-down period to be able to attack again. Reactions weren’t that positive understandably, and the changes would also break tournaments such as GK and BK, and possibly even CHS. So from the start this would be temporary.

Today we received an email from Kabam about a more permanent change to Tokens and Smaug. Tokens drops will be limited in the Smaug campaign map, so the old way of getting them is gone. Instead, Tokens will be added to the Calendar, Moon Rune and Goblin Caverns/mines. Also Kabam stated that the daily amount of obtainable tokens would be the same as before, but seeing as it was dependent on effort instead of availability, I have yet to see how this plays out.

Although I agree the botting needed to be stopped, I’m not too happy with these changes at all. Again, non-spending casual players are going to be hot hardest. The Calendar will likely contain limited amounts of Tokens. The Moon Rune is too irregular in timing to provide a constant income of Tokens. Mines will most likely be dominated by the bigg buff players.

And I have seen better suggestions put forward as well. One of those was to have a random element put into Smauging, like a randomly location-changing button in the process. These kind of solutions would eliminate most if not all of the auto-clickers as well it seems to me, while maintaining a nearly identical experience for normal players.

I never was a huge Smauger. I was happy to have the time to farm 30 Tokens a day, and that already helped a lot in keeping up to date with all the new features. I just hope I am being overly negative here and things will be better than what I expect them to be, but I also want to know what you think of the new Token changes, so of course, a poll (multiple answers possible):

Legendary Gear II: Kabam needs to slow down

Posted on March 25, 2015 by beardmonkey

So, the second the last pieces of Legendary Gear I have been introduced, Kabam has introduced the level II Gears already on their forum, and a level II piece as the prize of the current Masters season 2. And all I can think is: Slow down! The rate of introducing new content and features is in my opinion way too high at the moment.

People haven’t gotten a normal chance to catch up with even level I gear and level II is already introduced/foreshadowed? Why not wait with this for a month or 2 (at least)? This way the game is becoming really unattractive to non-spenders, and even to people like me who spend a little (really not that much) it is getting hard to keep up, certainly not helped by the near constant premiums and the changes to Tokens on which I’ll post shortly.

Anyways, the Gears II have been added to the Hero Equipment article, although the base Attack and Life values weren’t given yet on the forum. They will be filled in and taken into account in the Best Sets article when they are truly introduced into the game, which I hop isn’t too soon. That said, the Gear II is pretty unimaginative, basically being level I Gears with the 3* attribute changed to a 4* one. So expect little changes to overall Best Sets in that regard as well…

Masters Season II tournament series

Posted on March 20, 2015 by beardmonkey

The Masters Season 2 has officially begun. The series of events spans the entire remainder of the month of March, consisting of both individual and alliance based tournaments, in which special items to track progress can be won. Also, prizes will consist of special items that can be traded in in the Sage Tower for various prizes, giving the players freedom to spend their earnings on whatever prize they need most! In this article I will provide all known information about the tournament series 2 as it plays out.

1. Series in a nutshell
2. Schedules
3. Sage Tower trade-ins
4. Season 2 prizes
- 4.1 Alliance prizes
- 4.2 Individual prizes
- 4.3 Cross-world Alliance prizes
- 4.4 Cross-world individual prizes

Continue reading →

Upcoming Battle Mechanics series

Posted on March 19, 2015 by beardmonkey

As I have noted on some occasions, I am in the process of writing a series of articles on battle mechanics, buffs and debuffs, diminishing returns (DR), and gear choices. Although most of the topics have been touched upon in other articles, sometimes partially, questions about how buffs, debuffs and DR work are still coming in almost daily. So to give you some idea of what the articles are gonna be about, here is a small preview:

I. The basic Battle Formula

In this article I will start off with the most basic maths and theory behind combat mechanics, specifically the basic battle formula, dealing with the relation between life and attack, buffs and debuffs.

II. Separating the Buffs

In the second article we are gonna go further and look a little bit into how the different buffs interact, multiplicative versus additive buffs, and how they effect our gear choices.

III. Why your opponent does not matter

In the third article we will look at the common misconception that you need to take into account your opponent’s gear, and see why this is wrong. This will in the end give us the formulas needed to see how your gear scores.

IV. Diminishing returns and how to deal with it

With the basic formula(s) established in the previous articles, we can look into diminishing returns, what exactly it is and how it impacts your gear choices. Math will be provided to make things very clear once and for all, as this topic keeps returning in questions and comments.

V. Wrap-up (optional)

This article is still optional at the moment. If written, it will be a conclusion to the previous articles, and sum up how you ultimately chose your gear and calculate its effectiveness.

All in all, the individual articles might not be that long, but neatly separated into individual parts I think this should answer any and all questions concerning gear, buffs and debuffs, and diminishing returns. Stay tuned and I hope you will enjoy them.

Last Legendary I gears added

Posted on March 19, 2015 by beardmonkey

The last remaining level 1 Legendaries have been introduced and added to the Hero Equipment article: Thorin’s Fur I, the One Ring I, and Smaug’s Scale I. All three are top notch items, which will mess up the Best Sets rankings, so expect changes there today as well!

Don’t buy Knowledge Crystals!

Posted on March 19, 2015 by beardmonkey

With the introduction of Hero Skills I wasn’t quite sure how much of a potential money grab this could turn into, but now that I have it on my main server I can tell you: DON’T BUY KNOWLEDGE CRYSTALS! Here’s why:

Continue reading →

Changes to Best Sets article

Posted on March 11, 2015 by beardmonkey

The Best Sets article has been a long standing favorite among my visitors. While it was rather straightforward to come up with the lists when we had full sets of gear, the introduction of all the new unique Legendary gear I items made it more and more difficult, as the possible combinations of gear and their buffs and debuffs grew more and more as well…

Continue reading →

Hero Skills: All you need to know!

Posted on March 7, 2015 by beardmonkey

Please note more information will follow once available.

The latest addition to the game has been Hero Skills, a game-feature that will allow you to enhance your heroes with special skills that will help in a range of areas, from combat, to resource mining, to gem mining, and even allowing you to revive troops lost in battle. Skills are first unlocked, or learned, in the academy, with special items.

Once known, a skills can be learned by a hero and upgraded further. In this article, I will detail all there is to know about this subject!

1. How to learn new skills
2. Giving skills to Heroes
- 2.1 Free enrolls
- 2.2 Enrollment scrolls
- 2.3 Skill Books
3. Upgrading Skills
4. Unlearning/deleting Skills
5. Available skills
- 5.1 Skill upgrade costs
6. Skill dependencies and unlock costs
7. Enemy’s Skills

Continue reading →

Update 12.2: Box sliders and Hero Skills!

Posted on March 7, 2015 by beardmonkey

So a rather late message on the newest update 12.2, which hit while a was on holiday, but too good not to mention anyways. This update brought some very cool changes to the game-play and added a completely new game aspect as well: Hero Skills. Starting with that, here are all the changes from the newest Hobbit update:

Continue reading →

Back from my holiday

Posted on March 4, 2015 by beardmonkey

He people, just a short message here to let you know I got back from a week of skiing, hence why it has been quiet on this site. I had a lot of fun, the snow was good, the weather reasonable to good, as were the slopes. So now that I’m back, it is time to catch up. We have a new update with some very promising and long awaited for changes, new Legendary gear, and I will continue writing an article set on buffs and debuffs. But first, I need to respond to a LOT of comments you made over the past week, so first things first! 🙂

Tournaments: Alliance Boss Kill

Posted on February 17, 2015 by beardmonkey

The Alliance Boss Kill tournament got introduced shortly after the introduction of Alliance Bosses on the campaign map. During normal play, the Bosses can be summoned and killed to receive rewards including Vala Stones, gear, Valto runes and Gatherer Stones to level up your City Guardian. During Boss kill tournaments, you get points for killing the bosses. It is a pretty straightforward principle, so this article wil not be that long or complicated.

1. The basics
2. Scoring
3. Tactics
- 3.1 Go for the highest Boss(es) only
- 3.2 Use you attack Hero/gear
- 3.3 Set your timers
- 3.4 Spending can seal the deal
4. Conclusion

Continue reading →

Small update

Posted on February 16, 2015 by beardmonkey

I finally got around to making some updates on a few articles. I added the Series prizes to the Master Season article, updated the Best Sets article (not text though yet), added Oakenshield 1 (best defensive shield atm) to the Hero Equipment article. Furthermore Im working on a GK tournament article and one or more articles going a bit more into battle mechanics.

That being said, I’m finding I’ve had little time for the website over the past weeks, and next week I will be skiing so don’t expect anything from me during that week. Also, because Im rather busy, some mails and comments might go un-replied (?), sorry for that.

Sincerely,

BeardMonkey

Master Season 1 TK tournament delayed

Posted on February 15, 2015 by beardmonkey

Just a short message for all of you wondering: Yes the planned TK tournament in the schedule for Masters Season 1 week 1 (Sunday) has been delayed. This event is supposed to be held on all uneven servers but hasn’t shown up yet. People have asked mods on the Kabam forums for clarification, but it seems an answer will follow tomorrow…

Masters Season 1 tournament series

Posted on February 10, 2015 by beardmonkey

A new series of tournaments has been announced by Kabam: The Masters Season 1. The series of events spans the entire remainder of the month of February, consisting of both individual and alliance based tournaments, in which special items to track progress can be won. Also, prizes will consist of special items that can be traded in in the Sage Tower for various prizes, giving the players freedom to spend their earnings on whatever prize they need most! Considering the name, there will likely be more Master Seasons in the future. In this article I will provide all known information about the tournament series 1 as it plays out.

1. Series in a nutshell
2. Schedules
3. Sage Tower trade-ins
4. Season 1 prizes
- 4.1 Alliance prizes
- 4.2 Individual prizes

Continue reading →

Why the new Gems will mess up gear choices…

Posted on February 7, 2015 by beardmonkey

One of the most popular articles on this site is the Best Sets article, describing which sets of gear are most useful for attacking, defending, and for campaign/CHS. At the moment, this article is still very useful, but pretty soon, it will be completely rendered useless. Why? The new Gems. In this article I will explain why this is the case and how gear will be chosen in the near future…and why this makes me think the new Gems stink….

The new way of selecting gear
Why will gear selection change? The old situation
The new situation: The new Gems
The new “best” gear
An example with Replenish and Void gear
Does diminishing returns not factor in at all anymore??
What did I leave out

Continue reading →

Input needed on Debuff mechanics

Posted on February 7, 2015 by beardmonkey

In relation to Hero Equipment and Gem Embedding, I wanted to do a piece on how to balance buffs and debuffs. For that of course, we need some understanding of the “Battle formula”. Now for attack and life this is rather straight forward, something like:

Troops killed = (Life*life buff) / (Attack*attack buff)

But the debuffs factor in in some other way, and I would like one of you to fill me in on how, as I cant get my head around it for some odd reason, while my instincts tell me the math cant be that hard. Problem with debuffs of course is that they cannot reduce attack or life of the enemy to zero. So while 100% attack buff doubles your base attack (+100%), a 100% debuff will not reduce base attack or life to zero. So how does it fit in the equation? My guess from the above here is that buff and complementary debuff do not interact directly, like:

Troops killed =
(Life * (life buff(?)life debuff))
(Attack * (attack buff(?)attack debuff))

But more something like:

Troops killed =
((Life * life buff)/(1+life debuff))
((Attack*attack buff)/(1+attack debuff))

So in short, any help on this would be appreciated. Some time ago, someone either commented here or sent me an email with some info on this stuff, but I cannot find it anymore….Thanks in advance!!!

Some new Hero Equipment

Posted on February 7, 2015 by beardmonkey

Some new level 1 Legendary gear has been introduced the past weeks, which I have now added to the Hero Equipment article. These include the Beorn Axe, Bilbo and Gandalf Cloak, Sting, Radagast Staff and Elrond Ring.

~~Concerning the Elrond Ring I, I am not yet sure whether all (non-random) attributes apply to all troops. If one of you has one, could you please confirm whether this is indeed the case?~~ Nevermind, just confirmed this is indeed the case…

Error in Gem article corrected

Posted on February 2, 2015 by beardmonkey

Apparently, Kabam can be really messy with their communication (who knew, right?). Remember the mail which stated what the Gems would all buff? Here it is:

Seems as if Kabam is confused on what attack and life debuff means, beause as most of you have found out, the Sapphire and Citrine Gems are reversed in effect: Citrine debuffs enemy life, while Sapphires debuff enemy attack. Anyways, I changed it in the Gem Embedding article to reflect the correct buffs and levels now….

Biggest questions concerning World Mergers

Posted on January 23, 2015 by beardmonkey

So with the World Mergers becoming a reality over the coming weeks, there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about how the procedure will go down. For most issues, the FAQs on the forum and the information in my article on the mergers are sufficient, but one question that keeps popping up and is worrying people is what will happen to their accounts/which accounts will be merged/which account should I choose?

People seem to understand what happens between the main account and other accounts, but less so which accounts will be merged and how to decide which account to chose in the merge screen. First off, the picture above is the icon in your city which will lead you to the merger screen where you can select your worlds to merge. It appears for everyone who has an account in a world for which the merger has been activated and it shows a count-down timer for how long it will take to the actual merger.

If you click on it, you are presented with a list of all the ‘merge groups’, the sets of worlds which will merge together. Pressing the ‘select’ button on one of the groups takes you to a new screen which shows on which worlds, WITHIN that merge group, you have accounts.

Simply put what is going to happen, is that for each merge group, the accounts you have in those worlds, and those worlds alone, will be merged together. All other worlds you play in outside of a merge group are unaffected by this, and will merge in another group. If you look at the right screen in the picture above, you see that the worlds Oin96, Vastriel97 and Thorin 98 will be merged, and I happen to have accounts in all three worlds.

By selecting a world in that screen and pressing ‘ok’, I am saying to Kabam that, from these three worlds, the world I chose is my main world with which I want to continue playing. As we know from Kabam’s information, the permanent buffs and city buildings from that world will form the basis of my cities in the new merge-world (Dwalin252 in this case). From the other accounts I will NOT inherit permanent buffs and buildings, but all other items that can be merged, such as chests and items in my inventory. This is all laid out in the FAQ.

Now it happens to be the case that my main account is in world Tinol91. This world is completely left untouched based on the decision I made above. When the time comes for 91 to merge with other worlds (not announced atm), the first screen after pressing the merge button will simply show another merge group from which I will chose 91 as my main world for that group.

So in short, Kabam is forming small groups of worlds that will merge together. WITHIN each group, you select the main account (highest buffs/TKs/whatever) to be the basis of the new merged world, and if you have other accounts in that same merge group, things such as inventory items will be carried over to that main account. In the end, for each merge group you have accounts in, you will be left with one new world to play in. In my above example, my accounts in 96-98 will merge into ONE new account on Dwalin252. I will also be left with ONE account in Bilbo262, as I have accounts in the worlds within THAT merge group. For each merge group you have at least one account in, you will be left with one merged remaining account.

To some this might seem basic and very logical, but I have seen so many people ask questions about this on the forums and in-game, that I thought I might go into this in some detail. For any further questions, feel free to ask!

Information on the new Gems

Posted on January 20, 2015 by beardmonkey

So the new Gems have been announced, and the Life buffing Emerald gems have been introduced. But for the Ruby, Sapphire and Citrine gems, we are still in the dark, although it seems safe to guess they will each buff either attack, attack debuff, or life debuff like the Emerald Gems. Concerning the Emerald gems, I have seen up to lvl IV right now, while the rest of the levels in the Gem Embedding article are hypothetical for the time being. So my question is, if you have any more info on the higher level gems stats, feel free to post them here and I will add them to the article. Thanks!

Update 12.1(.1): Unstable start but new Gems

Posted on January 15, 2015 by beardmonkey

So a few days ago update 12.1 and later 12.1.1 hit the stores. First for Apple and Kindle, and later for Android. Many many Apple users erported highly unstable gameplay, sometimes not even being able to get in-game, prompting many to not update if they had a choice. Right now, the 12.1.1 patch seems to have fixed most problems and all versions are running as stable as we can expect.

In the 12.1 update preview I already posted a list of likely things to be coming in this patch, but now we know for sure. Here are the changes from previous versions:

3D maps can now be toggled (2D/3D), hopefully removing some of the lag with the 3D map.
Heroes in Training position now defend wall and rein even when the city is closed. By far one of the biggest changes, meaning no more free wall TKs unless no Hero is assigned, and the option to simply close during TK without giving away rein troops for free.
Some changes to item orders and unpacking orders. I still hate the unpacking order. Just keep it as it was: add new chests to the bottom and do NOT have the screen jump around….
Two more slots for Oystering Boats. Useful? We’ll see..
And lastly: NEW GEMS! Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald and Citrine Gems are coming. I am confident they will work identical to Artamir gems, but simply have the type of buffs for each gear piece switched around, so it would be possible for example to get Attack debuff on every piece of your CHS gear instead of just the ring…Wil scores go up to 1.5B? Probably. Will it widen the gap between top and bottom players even more? Likely. Will it make TK comps even more tedious as noone is gonna stay open? I hope not….

Finally: Troop attack orders updated…

Posted on January 14, 2015 by beardmonkey

Phew. Finally! I didnt like doing it, but I figured out all the new troop attack orders and updated the graph that goes with the article. I had to figure out the orders for the new Lake-town troops, and of course update all the orders for the older troops to see where those two figured in.

In short: For the Lake-town troops, the order is identical to the normal Tier 1 to 5 troops. The Pikemen are mostly found near the front of the other’s attack orders, while Longbowmen stay at the back, as their descriptions hinted.

Master Rangers‘ order simply adds the Lake-town troops in their normal positions, but switches Mammoths and Longbowmen in the back.

Stone Giants remain largely the same as Tier 1-5, with the biggest difference being the Pikemen moving more to the back of the queue.

Lyncean Raiders‘ attack order was already a bit messier, and the Longbowmen are now killed before Woodsmen even, while again the Pikemen move back to behind T1.

Woodsmen place the Longbowmen back at the back of the line, while again the Pikemen are staying away from the front.

So once again, take your advantage with this information for TKing, and let’s hope Kabam does not release more new troops any time soon….

First batch of updates are finished

Posted on January 8, 2015 by beardmonkey

So I promised to update you people on what updates I managed to do, so here it is. I worked as said primarily on the smaller articles to get that work out of the way, but also focused on all the new gear that was still missing from this blog. Here are the update articles:

Hero Equipment. All new gear added (I hope)
Best sets. Update with newest gear.
Alliance Boss Battles. Updated with Lake-town bosses
Alliance Shop. Added some more Alliance buff levels.
Gem embedding. Added the newest levels Gems.
Attack report spreadsheet. Added the new Tacticals.
Inventory overview spreadsheet. Same thing.
Sage Tower actually didn’t need changes 🙂
Lake-town article. Finished missing info, nothing major

Right now the priority is figuring out the new Attack orders of all troops. That will be finished over the weekend. After that I will update the Smaug article and also work on finding the new attack and life modifiers, which were changed, and update the articles relevant to that.

Thanks all for your patience for now and see you soon!

More info on coming January update (12.1)

Posted on January 7, 2015 by beardmonkey

Besides the news about the coming World Mergers, Kabam also released some more info about other changes coming in the next update:

There are a number of popular requests making their way into the January v12.1 update

– 3D World Maps will now be optionable via an on/off toggle in the settings menu
– Incoming Attack Alert Icons will be added to the “My Cities” view
– Two new City tiles for Pearl Boats will be added to Lake-town
– The Battle Cry and Shield Walls cap will be raised to 150 (from 127). This will be the final amount of these items that can be applied per player.

So Lake-town is going to be slightly more useful, and all those extra perm buffs 😦 can be put to use now, for the select group who have them.

World Mergers: All you need to know

Posted on January 7, 2015 by beardmonkey

Yes they are coming: the World Mergers. Players going inactive means many servers are slowly dying out, which is bad news for active players. Luckily Kabam has come up with a solution: Merge a few relatively inactive worlds into one more active one. But this will of course have some consequences, especially for players playing in multiple worlds. I do not have all information yet, but Kabam has made an excellent post on the forum with a lot of useful information. For completeness I have copied the contents of that post below, and will amend any info I find that is not in there.

I urge all players, but especially those with multiple worlds to read it carefully and start preparing! Any questions? Feel free to ask in the comments and I’ll try to answer. The forums are of course also a good source for additional info, so check them out as well!

The following list are worlds that are confirmed to be merging with each other. Part of this information is taken from this website (hob-assist.com/), which also has timers running down showing when exactly each merge will take lace! Be sure to check them out! Merger list and Kabam info below the fold:

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So I’m back, finally, time to catch up

Posted on January 6, 2015 by beardmonkey

First of all, happy new year’s to you all!! Second of all, wow! I had planned to do so much in the past two weeks, that seeing the fact I didn’t do much at all here is both depressing and good, as it meant I had an awesome time with family and friends over the holidays!

But, it is time to catch up, finally. I went through the posts index to check which articles needed updates and was appalled by the number that need updates or additions to be frank. Starting tonight when I get home I will start with the list and see how fast I can get rid of it. I will start with the ‘Quick wins’ and do the most intensive articles last. Here’s the list of articles in roughly the order I will tackle them:

Hero Equipment. So many new gear, so little to be found here 😦
Best Sets. Because some of the new gear is better than the old.
Attack report and Inventory overview spreadsheets, for the new Tacticals.
Gems article, for the addition of the lvl 7 and 8 gems.
Alli Boss Battles for the Lake-Town bosses
Alliance Shop, for higher levels of the buffs
Lake-town article. Some unfinished parts need work
Troop attack order. This one actually has high priority but I need some time to work this out.
T1-5 attack/life modifiers. Because Kabam seems to have changed the attack/life values of these troops without me knowing….
Tactical Troops article. For the same reason as above but also with the Lake-town troops.
New Smaug. Additional info on drops and percentages
Items list. Quite some new items but not completely sure I wanna add them. I regret this article.
Sage Tower article. for the new trades that were added

That’s it for the existing articles, but like that list, the list of planned new articles also grows:

The Tournament series articles….still
Farming Smaug Tokens article (should be small)
Bug/Improvement list article (should take a while)
Legendary books/heroes article
Article on superstition and chance in this game
An updated article on the troops discussion, as people requested it
Maybe something on Training Tacticals, just for completeness…

Given the above, please feel for me and have patience. I’ll try to update your most beloved articles first but as you can see, there is a lot to do 😉 See you soon and thanks for tuning in!

News/update

Posted on December 17, 2014 by beardmonkey

Well sort of. First of all, I just released two new articles on the new Lake-town campaign map and how to get Bard’s gear, which drops from that map. So go ahead and read those first :). Secondly, the holiday season also meant for me I had to take some time away from the blog and spend it on other things, which is not a problem, but simply means I need to catch up with a few things here at a later moment in time.

Some of the older articles need some brushing up, I need to add all the new gear (Thorin’s Fur, Bilbo’s cloak etcetera), and I still have a list of articles to write altogether, such as the series about tournaments. I hope to have some time in the coming weeks to write and update some of these, and otherwise it will be January for most of the major articles.

Im also planing on partly overhauling the Hero Equipment AYNTK article, as the gear list at the bottom is getting rather unsightly and starts to deserve its own article and a make-over. And then we also have the Legendary Heroes with Legendary gear, which im still not sure should be with the other gear or in a separate article as well….

Ooh, and I am going to see the Hobbit movie this Friday as well, and probably will want to write something about it…

Enough to do, and so little time. Alas. I wish you all happy holidays and much fun and joy for Christmas and new year’s eve!! Thanks for reading.

Hero Equipment: How to acquire Bard’s Gear

Posted on December 17, 2014 by beardmonkey

With the new Lake-town campaign map, players have the opportunity to farm the levels for Bard’s gear or get them from the new Alliance Bosses. But unlike other drops, the gear requires other gear to be farmed before it becomes available in most cases. Just like with constructing some buildings, you need to work your way up if you want the complete set of Bard’s gear. Below is an overview of the dependencies of all pieces of gear, where and how you can find them, and how to complete the Bard’s set.

Continue reading →

New Campaign map: Lake-town-Along the Shore

Posted on December 17, 2014 by beardmonkey

Today a new campaign map was released, continuing the Lake-town themed updates lately: Lake-town: Along the Shore. It is a rather short map, consisting of only 2 parts, comprising 10 maps total. Rewards for the map parts are pretty nice, with a lot of resources to be farmed from the two boss levels. Of course, the might of the Goblins also increases exponentially, so the boss levels stick out at 7.2m and 14.4m might (!). Numbers we are used to see from temporary maps, but this one seems permanent.

Other features include:

2 new Alliances Bosses, which drop some awesome items including Bard’s gear
Drops for Bard’s gear in the campaign maps

The two map parts spawn a 210 and 250 Alliance Boss, which drops Lake-Town Advanced chests, containing the following items:

Besides the Bosses, a number of levels also offer possible drops for Bard’s gear. Bard’s gear is a new set of gear aimed at Bard, the new Hero in Lake-town. The gear can be farmed/unlocked sequentially by going through the new campaign, killing the Alliance Bosses, and trading in Sage Tower. For many of the drops in campaign, you need to use Bard to attack and equip him with his gear you already have unlocked. A post about how to acquire the full set can be found HERE.

The info for this map has been added to the Campaign map which you can find HERE.

Lake-Town 5th City: All you need to know

Posted on December 2, 2014 by beardmonkey

Lake-Town is the new expansion city to the Kingdoms of Middle Earth that was released late November, and which will be available to everyone after the 4th of December for free! Unlike the 4 older cities, the style of the city matches that of the human Lake-town from the movies, instead of the familiar Elven or Dwarven theme. Although a lot in the city will seem familiar, some key differences with regards to gameplay and buildings also come with the 5th city. In this article I will sum up all available information on this newest city.

1. The Basics
2. The Buildings
- 2.1 Familiar Buildings
- 2.2 The new and changed Buildings
3. Construction
- 3.1 Lake-Town architects
- 3.2 Pearl and Lake-town architect full overview
4. Oysterboats, Pearls and Tactical training
- 4.1 Pearls
- 4.2 Oystering Research
- 4.3 TT training
5. Heroes
6. How to start with your City construction

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Bard’s gear added

Posted on November 29, 2014 by beardmonkey

So Lake-Town has been among us for a few days. I’m working hard on getting all the facts straight, and will put out an article as soon as possible which I will update the coming days, but not having the 5th city myself makes it no easier I’m afraid.

What I do have is some preliminary info on the Bard’s gear that is coming out shortly, mainly through information provided by user Marcel. Find this information at the Hero Equipment article here!

City Buildings: the City Guardian

Posted on November 27, 2014 by beardmonkey

As soon as you open your city, it’s there: The City Guardian. A large statue in the middle of your city, seemingly more decorative than functional. But the City Guardian actually functions as a protector of your City, providing very useful buffs that will certainly help even the most experienced players. In this article, I delve a little deeper into the Guardian and give an overview of how it functions.

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