Territory Wars Update

So, that was a little easier than I expected. At the moment, we've rolled over the entire enemy territory. Our opposing guild, however, still has nearly 18 hours to continue attacking our defenses, so it's not entirely over yet. Right now, we just sit back and watch the map burn:

Good work, everyone!

Territory Wars Are Here!

So we've just under 24 hours left to prepare for the new Territory Wars event. I prohibited all defensive deployments in lieu of actually having a battle plan! Which we now have. All map grids are now unlocked and ready for you to set defense squads!

When you look at the battle map, inspect the Commands on each grid. This is crucial so that you deploy your squads in the right places, otherwise the other guys are going to roll right over us!

The basic battle plan is simple. But, since this is a blog and, like, you know, very public, I won't be airing the plan here. Suffice it to say, however, there is one in place. Just follow the Commands, and we should be good. If you have any questions or ideas about how we can make some changes for the next time around, definitely let me know!

Good hunting.

Dark Side Territory Battle Bug

Hi all. Listen, there's a situation developing that concerns the current DSTB, and I thought to let everyone know. Apparently, there's some sort of bug that allows for a major exploit with Platoons and, what's more, you could easily take advantage of the exploit without realizing it. Honestly, I'm unsure of the details, but the devs are aware that there's a problem and issued a very stern warning earlier today.

I wish I had good news, but, at the moment, please DO NOT fill Platoons at all. Just ignore them. I'm sure that after this DSTB finishes, the problem will receive a hotfix. Until that time, though, they're threatening to ban those players who take advantage of this exploit, as per the linked forum post above. Platoons ain't worth it, folks! You can read the player thread on this issue in the forums here. In the meantime, good hunting.

Artist of War Legendary Event: A Few Notes

I'm sure a number of you have worked on the development of your Phoenix squad with an eye on obtaining the very meta Grand Admiral Thrawn. It's tagged as an extremely rare event so, since it doesn't come around often, I thought I'd jot down some notes for everyone who hopes to finish the final tier.

First, I did my homework well before this event started. By all accounts, a well-geared and modded G8 Phoenix squad should have been adequate to beat Tier 7. I read that using Sabine rather than Zeb would make the final tier harder, but not impossible. I'm here to tell you that's no longer the case. So, heads up.

The first time this event took place, Phoenix characters didn't have Zeta abilities. It's my speculation, as well as many others on the forums, that after the Zeta rework the devs decided to make the final tier, at least, much harder to beat. Which means that using Sabine rather than Zeb is now impossible. Or nearly so. I mean, I tried 50 times and was ABSOLUTELY murdered at every turn. I only have Zeb at 6*. Thus, I only have Thrawn at 6* as well!

Here are the specs on my Lvl 85 7* squad:

Hera (Leader), G8, all Omega, Arena Mods (including +30 Speed Receiver)
Chopper, G8, Omega Unique +, Arena Mods (including +30 Speed Receiver)
Bridger, G9, all Omega, Arena Mods (including +30 Speed Receiver)
Kanan, G8, all Omega, Arena Mods
Sabine, G8, all Omega, Arena Mods

Now, if you want to obtain Thrawn at 7*, then my advice is to make sure the entire squad is at least G9 and that you run Zeb instead of Sabine. Use your best Mk 5 mod sets, especially Health that grants extra Protection on Kanan and Chopper, both of whom will Taunt to control enemy actions. Zeb's ability to not only Stagger but also Stun is absolutely key to keeping the enemy at bay while you chip away at their defenses. Since we won't see this event again for quite some time, I personally plan to also Zeta Kanan's Total Defense (Special) ability, which, among other things, grants Phoenix allies Defense Up for 3 Turns, as well as grants Kanan and a target ally Foresight and Protection Up (40%) for 2 Turns. If these steps don't get the job done, then I don't deserve Thrawn at 7*!

Territory Wars & Battles Update

As some of you may know, SWGoH is introducing a new event called Territory Wars, which pits guilds against guilds. EA released an update to the game today, so it's my advice to download that update as soon as it's available. What's more, EA will be releasing a series of smaller events to prepare for the new TWs, which they call Prelude to Territory Wars, on November 22.

And that's not all. Prior to the first Territory War release, we'll be engaging in the first Dark Side Territory Battle called Imperial Retaliation. This starts November 23 and ends on the 28th, when the first Territory Wars event begins. For a recap of all this, you can read about this schedule of events in the forums here. You can find an overview of Territory Wars in the forums here, as well as guild specific info in my post on TWs here.

Looks like a busy week!

Update: Here's a link to the latest SWGoH Version Update. It's extensive. A highly recommended read, as it covers quite a bit of what's to come in the near future.

Guilding 101, Part 2: Daily Activities

Some time ago, Ryer wrote a post titled "Guilding 101," which outlined how to Produce Raid Tickets by spending energy. Today, I'd like to continue the 101 theme, so to speak, by writing a walk-through of how I usually take care of my Daily Activities, which, of course, includes reaching the Personal 600/600 Daily Raid Tickets goal. And by "usually," I mean I'm usually crunched for time during any given day, especially when running alts while, say, overseeing Territory Battles, too. So, your fearless guild leader wants to show you how to do practically all of your dailies in roughly 5 minutes!

The main key to speed is to structure a routine that you'll fundamentally repeat each day. So, I check Guild Activities first thing when I log in:

This screen lets me know where I'm at. For example, it looks like I hit 318/600 before I finally went to sleep the night before. I'll also note that the Next Activity is Hard Mode Battles. Like in the game of chess, thinking ahead in SWGoH will help you plan. After I've made my 5 second mental note about tickets and the next Guild Activity on our slate, then I work the room.

The first table I visit is the Squad Arena. Sometimes, I'll play an arena battle manually. At other times, I'll let Auto Battle do the dirty work. Since I'm crunched for time, though, I usually enter a battle then immediately Forfeit, especially if I haven't dropped from Rank 280 to Rank 500 overnight! Even when you Forfeit, you're given credit for entering the battle. Later on in the day, when I find the time, I'll manually play a few. And, as we'll see, I'll do the same in the Fleet Arena, but we're not ready for that yet.

The next step in my routine is to pop a free Bronzium Data Card in the Store, as well as buy gear with credits in Shipments. Then I hit my first two Daily Challenges. Because of my level, I can quickly Multi Sim these battles and go about my day. Even if you don't have access to Multi Sim yet, I highly suggest you manually sim Daily Challenges.

Next, structuring a routine is made simpler for me by having a main project to work on. For awhile, that project was gearing and modding my Phoenix squad while leveling them up to 7*. When I finally had a 7* squad, my new project was to do the same with the CLS squad, which is comprised of the 5 characters necessary to earn Commander Luke Skywalker. To date, all the characters are well geared, modded, and leveled to 7*, save for Old Ben who still needs a handful of shards. So, my next daily project is to power up a Nightsister squad. Ladies and gents, I give you the very handy-dandy Inventory filter:

Because my inventory is cluttered, I'll use the character filter to show me only Nightsisters:

So far, not a bad group of characters. But not great, either. When I finally reach this screen, the first thing I do is hit LS Hard and DS Hard nodes for shards. In this case, it's Talia for LS and Old Daka for DS:

 Because my Acolyte is still wobbly, I'll spend my Cantina Energy on her shards:

I Sim all of these battles. Next up are Mods. As you can see above, I'm currently working on modding Mother Talzin. When I finally have her at 6*, I'll then level her to 85 and start to use her in GW. For now, though, I'll take a look at what I've got in my Mod inventory, since I just spent all my Cantina Energy:

Hmph. A lot of nothing I need! So, I quickly nudge one of these Mods from Lvl 1 to 2, then go about my next order of daily business. Namely, it's now time to visit the Ships table, where I'll sim daily Ship Challenges. I'll also enter and forfeit a Fleet Arena battle as quickly as possible. Now that I've done the minimum for Ships, I head over to Galactic War and Auto Battle my first node at 4x speed with a predetermined suicide squad. 

What's a suicide squad, you ask? Well, it's a squad that might win, and it's also a squad that you care absolutely nothing about. Valar morghulis, baby. Let them die. Just as long as you ultimately win the battle posthaste. Such squads are excellent, by the way, for the final two nodes of GW. Send in a suicide squad to die. Who cares?! They'll soften up the enemy before you enter with your main squad. This strategy tends to work like a charm. 

Anyway, at this point I'm 600/600 on my Daily Raid Tickets since I started with a bump from the day before. The only Daily Activity that I have left to finish is my second Squad Arena battle, and I've usually about 4-5 minutes remaining on the refresh clock. Yes, everything I just outlined took less than 5 minutes! 

And, while I'm waiting for the Squad Arena to refresh, I'll do other things. 

Now it's back to Ships, specifically to give the Fleet Arena Store a peek to see if there's anything I need. While I'm there, I'll scroll through the header bar to see if there's anything I need in any of the other stores. Since I just used all my Cantina energy -- and because Nightsisters are my current project and I need Old Daka shards -- I'll check the Cantina Battles Store first, then the Guild Store, and so forth down the line. Once that's done, it's time to check in with Guild Exchange, which, surprisingly, many players tend to overlook. 

While I'm at the Guild table, I'll also check in with the current Pit Raid and/or Tank Takedown, if only to see how badly Budder is kicking all our asses! I'll manually play these battles later on in the day or evening when I find the time. If the Squad Arena clock hasn't refreshed yet, I'll visit the Events table to give a gander. Endor Escalation Heroic Battle? That's a big nope on the Murder Bears for me, thanks! 

The next and final step is to take care of that second Squad Arena battle and finish my dailies for the day. Aaaand here's the Prize Box:  

Now, multiply the rewards in this box by 7! Completing Daily Activities every day of every week not only helps the guild produce Raid Tickets, but it lines your pockets, too.

And, at this point, I can take my time, go get eaten by the Rancor in a Pit Raid, kill my way through GW nodes, get blown to space dust in the Fleet Arena, and so on. Maybe I'll spend some time examining my Ships to determine the next ship I want to level up, or maybe I'll revisit my Nightsisters to see if I can spend more energy on gearing them up. At this point, my dailies are done and I can take my time to wander around and do whatever, whenever. While some lower level players have slightly different Daily Activities requirements -- leveling up a ship each day, for example -- the premise is essentially the same: Set up your own routine and find about 10 uninterrupted minutes a day to follow it. A cake walk.

Territory Wars Coming Soon

My title says it all, folks. Yet another added event, Territory Wars pits guilds against guilds on both offensive and defensive fronts. The devs explanation of this new feature, which you can read about in the forums here, reads a bit like an expanded and more complex version of the Squad Arena. This means, of course, that our guild will go up against another guild of relatively comparable size and strength. Like Territory Battles, rewards will be evenly distributed among all of us, so this event presents yet another opportunity to work as a team.

So, to prepare for this new guild v. guild TW, I advise everyone to take stock of their best squads. Make sure they're all leveled, geared, and modded up. As far as mods go, I posted awhile back on modding Ahsoka Tano (Fulcrum), which might help you make decisions for your own characters. You can find the post here. Please do give it a read when you have the time.

If you aren't already aware, you can prep squads in GW. Go to Select Battle, then Select Squad. You'll then see your Squad Management screen, which presents you with an overview of all squads you've constructed, if any, to date. It's very, very useful to immediately get a sense of your own inventory depth as it's organized into individual squads.

I also suggest that you revisit all your Squad Leaders. If they have a Zeta ability, then you may want gear them up to Zeta sooner rather than later to give them an edge over competing guild squads. It looks like I'll be using my alt much more frequently now for these TW events, in fact. My Zaul Sith squad should do well in defense of our territory! I plan to post on choosing squad Leaders in the near future.

This new event looks like it's going to take some preparation on our part, or else we'll get wiped off the map! So, if you're not already on LINE, I highly recommend you join us. No need for you to be a chatty Cathy, but, considering the smaller size of our guild, using LINE to communicate and coordinate should give us an edge.

Good hunting, everyone.

A Story About Alts

As most of you know, I run an alt account under the name Zojj. I've done so for awhile now, and Alpha recently asked if I'd post about setting up an alt, so here we go. I'd first like to talk about why I have an alt account, then about how to start one.

First things first. Here's the squad that my alt runs in the Arena, as well as through GW nodes:

This Zaul (Darth Maul with his Zeta Leader Ability) Sith squad is fun to play. I can mostly breeze through GW and it's interesting to see how much more powerful squads encounter problems with Zaul's Leader Ability in the Arena. Why am I bothering to show you this, you ask?

Well, the first reason that I started an alt account was to experiment with characters and abilities either before I invest with my main, or to take a different route than my main. With this game, unless you pay through the nose, you won't be able to really max out all the factions and/or many of the different characters that are available.

So, with my main I went all in when Darth Nihilus came out. He leads my main Sith squad. With my alt, I get to have a lot of fun with Zaul, too. And, after using only a 5* Sith Assassin regularly in the Arena, I can tell you that she's killer. Eventually, I'll invest in her with my main.

Experimentation works with Ships, too. I can see what ship combos work well together before I invest with my main. When I started my alt, that was much easier to do at a lower level, but, even at Level 85 now, the premise is the same. My alt's Ships are terrific because I experimented with DS ships first, building around Darth Maul, Darth Vader, and Boba Fett. Eventually, I'll do so as well with my main.

In short, alts are good to:

1. Experiment with alt Characters and Abilities
2. Experiment with alt Character Combinations / Synergies
3. Experiment with alt Ships and Ship Combinations / Synergies
4. Power Up Raids, Tank Takedowns, and Territory Battles
5. Give Rare Gear to Main through Exchange

Now, truth be told I recently started a second alt. Yes, you heard that right! I've got TWO alts. When I started Zojj, I was still learning the game. And, while there's still room to pick up a trick or two, I know its mechanics now pretty well. So, here's my second alt:

Why did I start this alt when I already had one? Well, tbh it was just super FUN to start completely from scratch again. I've a full 7* Phoenix squad with my main, but it has been terrific to build this squad up and fight with them incrementally, slowly leveling up. And they really kick ass. With my main, I couldn't use ANY of these characters until they were 6-7* and at least Gear Level 8.

What's more, I've used this particular squad combination with my alt for awhile, and I now know just how effective Zeb can be. My main Phoenix squad uses Sabine Wren instead of him, and I've since started developing Zeb in earnest.

Will I start a Sith squad with this alt? Probably not. For a primary DS squad, though, I started with these ladies:

By the time I'm high enough level to participate in the Defense of Dathomir event, I'll have all the necessary Nightsisters bulked up. For now, this squad cruises through GW, and they're incredibly fun to play. Interestingly, when I finally unlock Nightsister Zombie and Spirit, I should be able to use them right away. While only at 2*, if leveled, geared, and modded smartly they'll be good to go. I can't do that with my main. Or even my original alt.

So, one of the advantages of starting an alt is that you can use less powerful characters right away. They can have an impact. We recently were gifted a 4* Kylo Ren, for example, and it was basically useless for my main and for my original alt. But, my 2nd alt is only Level 67, where a 4* character is SO USEFUL. In fact, on the heels of the latest Kylo / FO events, I've already formed the backbone of an FO squad that looks like it'll be killer when leveled, geared, and modded right. If it indeed plays well at the lower levels, I'll definitely consider developing the same FO squad for my main.

The idea behind alts is really pretty simple, at least for me. First, everything's a theory until you actually try it out. It's no coincidence that the word "experiment" shares the same root as "experience." Alts can help you figure out what moves you want to make with your main. And secondly, well, developing low level squads and slowly building in power is a lot of fun, especially since I now have a firm handle on game mechanics. I'm not squandering resources as I did with my main and, even, my original alt at times.

As for how to create an alt, that's fairly simple too. I can only speak for iPhone/iPad users, though, although the premise should be similar for other platforms. The first thing I had to do was create a new Apple user ID. A quick Google search will help you through that process. It's cake. Once you have a new Apple ID, then:

1. Close out the game. Double-tap your Home button, select the SWGoH page image, and swipe up. In technical terms, this will restart the client when you next open the SWGoH app.
2. Go to Settings
3. Tap on Game Center
4. Sign out
5. Sign in with your newly created Apple ID
6. Close Settings
7. Open SWGoH

Now when you open the app, the game won't recognize your new Apple ID and will assume you're a new player, thus starting you off at the very beginning. Trust me, doing all the training exercises for newbs is hilarious! When you want to access your main again, just sign in with your original Apple ID and, voila, you'll switch back.

Have fun!

Another New Character Soon

For those of you who have worked diligently on a First Order squad, the news of a Kylo Ren (Unmasked) should be exciting. From what I understand, this new Kylo is a Tank with taunt and health renewal abilities. You can read all about this character, as well as other new FO releases, in the forums! Good hunting, everyone.

Upcoming Rey Event

When they changed Rey's name officially to Rey (Scavenger) you kinda knew something like this was coming. What makes me a little nervous is that this event is dubbed "Hero's Journey," akin to Farmboy Luke's event to earn Commander Luke Skywalker, which means that the squad likely required to unlock the new Rey character will need to be fierce. And probably Resistance. You can read up on this event in the SWGoH forums here. Personally, I wish they had released the exact requirements now so that, if we want to do more than just participate -- you know, like actually unlock a usable character -- then we could start focusing on the necessary squad. Knowing EA, we're all going to need Vet Solo and Chewy, as well as BB8, to finally unlock this one.