To HoH or Not to HoH: Wind Neostone Agent

As with every Hall of Heros (HOH), the question on everyone’s lips is always “is it worth it?” 

A loaded question at best, every HOH is arguably “worth it” if not for the addition of a shiny new, 4 star for your team, then in the potential for free skill ups (saving those pesky Devilmon for rarer things that need them); and at the very worst, you have free 4 star fodder for your six-starring pleasure.

So is it worth it for game play? Yes.

Is it worth sacrificing a sizable amount of sleep and a good portion of your weekend to do so? Well, depends entirely on you. Hot date or weekend vacation? Not really worth missing out on. Binging Netflix in your jammies---arguably worth missing out on.

So for those of you who are Neostone Agent challenged; what makes Olivia worth obtaining as a monster?

Her Stats Are Pretty Good

Well, her stats for one. Once awakened, Olivia has surprisingly well balanced stats, boasting one of the highest base HP for support types at 10,380 at level 40, and a base Defense nearly as high as some Defense types at 604. Her attack and speed aren’t bad either at 681 and 104 respectively. This gives her sizable flexibility in terms of builds and utility, though it doesn’t make her a star for any particular role.

Link: http://www.summoners.info/summons/wind-neostone-agent-olivia/

Her Skills Are Really Good

Her skills also translate well for multiple strategies. Her first skill boasts a multi-hit and glancing debuff with 50% chances each hit at max skill. This makes her viable for most PVE boss-facing situations and some PVP situations where facing deadly nukers such as Theomars. Of course, if you have Chasun or swear by Shannon; this might not mean much to you.

If that hasn’t peaked your interest, her second and third skills are far more promising. With 2 turn Cooldowns at max skill, her second skill “Briefing”, promises to cleanse negative effects from allies and, more importantly, completely fill their Attack Bar (ATB), making her an excellent pair for units such as Verdehile, Basalt, Hwa, Bernard, Spectra, Chasun, or any other healer or support type that can either boost your team or halt your enemies. On violent, this has the promise of creating a very annoying, very effective chain of ATB boosts that can paralyze your foes.

Lock down, has more niche potential, but given the complete change in trends due to Rift Raids; promises to pair beautifully with defensive nukers you’ll probably already have such as Copper, Tractor, or Glinodon who can benefit from the defense buff and her Guild War centric 33%  universal defense lead skill. It’s 25% per hit ATB decrease also makes it well suited to any situation that requires an ATB decrease such as running ToA hard (can you imagine how well she pairs with Basalt yet?).

Overall, Olivia looks like a welcome addition to any starting team, and a solid one for specialized teams. Though her utility looks better suited to Guild War and ToA and ToA Hard; her skill set and stats are varied enough to make her viable in places such as lower level Raids, Necro Auto, limited Dragons, and Giants B10 teams.

For more of an overview of where she could stack up, see below.

Recommended Build: Violent Revenge; any combination Speed, HP and Def (attack also possible but not suggested).

Link: http://summonerswar.co/wind-neostone-agent-olivia/

She's Great Lots of Places (especially in ToA Hard)

Guild War- High Utility

With a 33% universal, defense buff in GW, an ATB Fill , glancing, and ATB Decrease, Olivia has great potential for pairing with defensive nukers and even common nukers in Guild War. Given sufficient speed (or a speedy team mate such as Bernard), she promises to pave the way for your team’s nuking needs. Or if you want to be slow and tanky, pairing with units such as Tractor has a lot of potential as these units are liable to survive hits from everyone but Lushen or Katarina.

ToA Hard – Moderate to High Utility

As anyone whose attempted TOA Hard knows, ATB fills, ATB decrease, and glancing debuffs can be the fine line between success and failure. As with any unit capable of producing those effects, Olivia is a solid addition, though her unique combination of all three makes her especially well-suited to pairing up with units like Spectra or Basalt, especially if max skilled and on Violent.

Arena –Moderate Utility

While her lead skill won’t work here, her ATB Fill, Glancing, ATB Decrease, and Defense buff make her a very valuable team member for any AO; though her use in AD  has the potential to be great; it is limited due to poor AI. Olivia  and Verdehile combinations are expected to work well, as are Olivia Theomars combinations. But really, she can work anywhere you can use an instant ATB fill and don’t want to bring a squishy Teon or Konamiya.

Giants – Moderate Utility

Being a wind element and capable of glancing hits, Olivia is just about as well suited for Giants B10 teams as anyone else. Her multi-hits actually will hurt your team in most cases, but her defense buff and ally ATB fill has good potential provided the AI chooses the right person to buff.

Dragons – Low Utility

Wind elements have a high disadvantage in B10 and unless packed with resist, Olivia is likely to get her Defense Broken and killed. However, her ATB fill could still make her viable for those that don’t have Verdehile or Megan to draw on.

Necropolis – Low Utility

With two multi-hit attacks (skill 1 and skill 3 strike twice), she’s a viable necro option, though unlikely to help much in auto teams above B8 due to lack of suitable debuffs and buffs. Her attack bar fills, also don’t work, and there are few negative effects to cleanse.

Farming

Despite having fairly high attack, Olivia is not recommended to use as a farmer. Highly supportive skill sets mean even though you probably can find a way to farm Hydeni or Aiden Hell, you probably shouldn’t bother.

For more you can check the web; Youtube especially has a few videos of Olivia doing amazing things like beating several ToA Hard floors. 

Now good farming all!

Serefina's Summoner War Research: De-Mystified

Alright, so a lot of you who know me in game and out tend to ask me, "what do you research anyway?". So to explain that, I've put together a quick little presentation that explains how Summoner War summoning works on a very basic level, and what my research aims to do.

I originally wanted to update this deck (as it was made prior to the 2015 full year analysis), but my PC is still out of commission and I'm stuck with what data exists in my old laptop. That said, keep in mind the graphs and charts aren't fully reflective of current summon trends, though much of the conceptual implications remain true. I'll be updating these after I fix my PC once and for all.

How Probabilities Work and What That Means for Random-Chance Based Games

That means that the odds of getting a specific monster or star grade in Summoner's War should not be impacted by what you summoned before, the number of scrolls you used, or what monsters you have. There should be fixed odds that distribute themselves in a random fashion that follows a normally probabilistic distribution over time (Guassian curve anyone?).

Of course that doesn't mean outliners, or unusual occurrences such as high levels of duplication can't occur; it just means it's really unlikely. Kind of like winning the lottery---or getting pooped on by pigeons three times in a year.

WOW! 0.000095%? So why the hell did I just get five water harpies in a row when I summoned? Shouldn't that rate be stupid low? That's bonkers!

Well, yes. That's assuming the RNG is truly random, rates aren't weighed, and there are no controlling factors programmed in, but do you really think a game company isn't going to add some controls for challenging game play if not profit?

The RNG isn't Truly Random

 Now cosmic noise methods and those like them are really, really expensive. So you can bet Com2us isn't shelling out dollars for it. However, not being truly random might not be a bad thing. Adding weights or controls can keep you form getting extreme situations such as everyone getting Camilla or no one getting Camilla ever. Extreme situations are bad for profit. They're also demoralizing; but with real life and things like clicking banner ads or dying by falling air conditioner (or pianos), these sorts of situations can and do happen.

What Summoner Rates Would Look Like with No Weight

Well gee, doesn't that look strange? Shouldn't I, you know, have like, 20 5* by now because I've used like, 1000 scrolls if not more? Yes. Yes you should if the rates weren't weighed. But rates are in fact weighed. That means, Com2us is essentially saying hey "people are going to get a 4* ten times more often than a 5* and a 3 * 20 times more often".

To go back to the marbles example; it's like being handed a bag of marbles that can contain red, green, or blue marbles, but Com2us is filling 10 bags with evenly distributed marbles, 20 bags with mostly green marbles, 30 bags with mostly blue marbles, and 40 bags with mostly red marbles, and you get handed a bag at random. The odds of getting a bag of mostly red marbles is much higher, and within that bag you have a 50% change of getting a red marble.

So...if its based off an algorithm with weights, does that mean we can figure out the algorithm?

While predicting the algorithm would be nice; it would require way too much data and some serious hacking skills to do it. Much better to just make broad estimates, play for enjoyment, and most importantly, make the best of what you got. Summoner's War does a pretty good job of providing "free" monsters that can do almost everything needed when combined correctly. It just takes a lot of skill and strategy.

Besides, getting everything you ever wanted would get boring anyway.

What Serefina's Analysis Does

What Summoner's War Summon Rates Really Look Like

When I say lightning, I mean getting those sparks from an uncommon or mystical scroll. Using a combination of survey data (thanks everyone who fills out my questionnaires), Youtube Data (it's a pain in the neck to log all those 100 scroll summons but it helps a lot!), and uncommon scroll tests (which is why I never have any); there have been distinct patterns for when you get lightning.

It's not so much a, lets use 100 scrolls thing, more of a "after this content update, I'm getting  lightning within my first 20 scrolls". Which means spamming really doesn't help after you pass this threshold. However what that frequency will be seems to change every time they add more monsters as you'll see later on.

Elements Like to Reoccur on Certain Days

Though lightning frequencies might be hard to log unless you're as crazy as I am; predicting day of week skews takes little more than observation once you know to look for it. After a major update, you'll notice that certain monsters (like wind hell lady's on Monday's) occur a lot more often on Monday than Sunday. The same seems to hold true for Ifrit, suggesting there might be some sort of implication day of week has. Or it might be something to do with how date affects CPU Clock.

This is actually only from 12/1/2014 through 6/10/2015, so it's a bit outdated, but I'll get you guys similar charts when I finish my analysis. You can also copy and paste the database data into excel and create this chart yourself if you are data-savvy.

Time Affects Summoning

Now this is where things get dicey. When looking at individual days and individual hours, we see a lot of skews; especially weekend skews. However as with the days when LD and Mystic scrolls are given as rewards, or the first three days when ToA resets, there can be a large influx of 5* due to everyone and their mother summoning at the same time.

That suggest that there are distinct player behavior factors that influence dates in the sample, but it doesn't completely discount the hypothesis that date or day or week may also be controlled in the game's coding.

As with the previous observation; we can see that content addition seems to spike 5 Star Summon volumes likely due to player behavior. While the code may or may not be "jacked up" to increase odds, players are more likely to summon when new content is added as it provides immediate incentive, which may explain the trends you see in the abridged graphs.

However, on a week over week basis we see a lot of these trends continue, suggesting that there is some sort of basic population control based off total volume of summons or number of summoners that keeps everyone feeling like they have a chance to get their very own Dark Oracle.

That means most weeks will see roughly the same volume of 5 Star summoned, and that weeks that start off high will taper, while weeks that start off low will see more towards the end of the week.

Of course, behavioral factors cannot be discounted, and can be argued to be the true underlying cause.

Summary of Findings

Complete Newbie Guide: Updates!

The Complete Newbie Guide to Summoner's War has been updated! Though there's still plenty of good stuff to be added the guide now features:

• New Best of 3 Star Monsters (updated for Lizardman, Mammoth, Frankenstien, and Elven Archer updates) and now has some build updates.
• Introduction to ToA has been added with asection explaining what ToA is and how it works 
• Arena & Glory Point Shop now features information about buildings.
• Dragons now has a very short guide. More information will be added when I can figure out some early to mid game dragons teams.
• Necropolis now has an introduction and a few examples of farmable multi-hitters.

Please feel free to review and suggest any changes. 

Advanced Runeology: Attack vs Crit Damage

It's a common question; how do I build my nukers? Most people will ostensibly advise Rage/Blade and similar combinations with 2 and 6 slots being attack, and the 4 slot Crit Damage, but while these well-intentioned summoners are not wrong, per se, there's a lot more to the old adage.

So let's have a look at how Crit Damage and Attack stack up against each other assuming the same base attack (whether its your true Base or Base plus multipliers doesn't matter as long as your starting point is fixed). Here I've assumed a Base Attack of 100.

At first glance, Crit Damage looks like a sure winner. You start off with an added 50% and given Crit Damage multiplies your base attack damage even more, it's a sure win. Right?

Wrong. Because that nifty little chart there doesn't take into consideration that you have to actually land a critical hit in order to do Crit Damage.

To get a better sense of whether or not more Attack or Crit Damage will make your big, scary attacker even more deadly, you need to consider your probability to deal a critical attack, or in other words, your Critical Rate.

So how can we determine what our real damage will be on average? Why, with a little math of course!

Let's start by defining the variables, assuming:

Total Attack = (Attack x (1 +  % Crit Damage))
Probability that You Don't Crit = P(A)
Probability that You Do Crit = P (C)

Then your average damage will be:

Total Damage= [(Attack x P(A)) + (Total Attack x P(C))]

Or in layman's terms:

Total Damage = [(Attack x   Chance to NOT Crit)+ (((Total Attack  x Crit Rate )]

Example:

Attack: 100
Crit Damage: 150% or 1.5
Crit Rate: 40% or 0.4

Total Damage =  [(100 x 0.6) + (100 x (1+ 1.5)) x  0.4)]

OR if you prefer seeing percentages as values instead of decimals...

Total Damage= [(100 x  60) + (100* (1+1.5)) x 40)]/100

Attack vs Crit Damage with Crit Rate 

So let's see how that stacks up now that we are considering how likely we are to strike a critical hit at all.

Holy numerals, Batman! What just happened here?

Following that long red line (Attack) we can see that while Crit Damage wins out almost nearly every time when multipliers are under 150%, , Attack steadily begins winning out over Crit Damage above it from every Crit Rate below 100% (technically it's closet to around 97% but that's close enough to 100% for Summoner's War to not quibble). The key finding?

The same increase in Crit Damage as Attack will always win out----but only when the increase is below 150% and you're running over 60% Crit Rate. 

To clarify more, let's use a real monster example with everyone's favorite, homicidal clown, Lushen!

Assuming you're running 2 6 Star Attack Runes and have no other runes on you, the following damage can be expected.

As you can see from the red highlights in the chart, while initially even abysmally low Crit Rates can deal more damage than pure Attack, as multipliers increase, you need higher and higher Crit Rates to get the same damage output when using Crit Damage vs Attack. At 150% (understandably when Crit Damage looses its initial 50% head start), only 90 and 100% Crit Rates win.

Fatal vs Rage Sets

The implications of this mean that at the 40% increase (the increase you can get from choosing Fatal or Rage) any Crit Rate above 45 will have Crit Damage win all else equal. That means if  can get 45 CR or more and none of your subs are Attack or Crit Damage, you should probably build whatever it is Rage as your 40% set increase combined with the 80% slot 4 increase will give you exponentially more damage than Attack slot 4 with Fatal which will give you that 40% set increase plus 63% from slot 4.

Advanced Runeology: Rune Optimization Tools

Like all grinding-games (especially Korean MMORPG's), you as a player will be presented with a daunting amount of information, equipment options, and character builds. Though Summoner's War has done away with exhaustive gear-grind and gear-raiding, this has been replaced by exhaustive rune-farming that can come together to form a myriad of combinations based off Primary and Secondary stats that only a computer can seem to fathom. Thankfully, Kakaroto and co. feel the same way and have developed nifty tools to make a mind-boggling process a lot simpler.

The Rune Optimizer

What Does It Do?

The Rune Optimizer is a tool that takes up to three stats you want to optimize against and presents you with all possible combinations of builds based off all the runes you have. Once you've chosen from the results, it will point you to where to find those runes, and allow you to lock them and therefore remove them from the consideration set for other rune builds you are exploring.

Originally a highly manual process, Kakaroto has made a nifty tool that uses your PC as a Server and creates a direct feed between Summoner's War and your computer so that all that laborious data needed for the Optimizer is in one neat and user-friendly document.

Where to Find the Optimizer & Parser?

Rune Optimizer Link: http://swrunes.all.my/

SWParser Download:

https://github.com/kakaroto/SWParser/releases/tag/0.94

How to Use the Rune Optimizer?

Now here is the meat of the matter. While our videophiles can watch the YouTube link below, those of us who aren't so video-prone or are trying to hide their not so secret Summoner War addiction from their friends (or bosses/teachers), can look on below for a step by step guide to use this tool. 

Video Tutorial on Using the Rune Optimizer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pfYBcpnMiw

Getting Your Data

Step 1: Download the SWParser from the link above.

Step 2: Unzip the SWParser and open SW Proxy. This will expose your computer's IP address so you can use it as a server.

Step 3: Go to into your mobile/tablet device and search for WiFi/Network Settings in your device's Settings.

Step 4: Search for HTTP Proxy and input the 8 Digit number into Server and the 4 Digit number under port. If in doubt the Port number is explicitly labelled in the Parser prompt and the other number is your server. Include the dots when you input, do not include spaces.

Step 5: Keep the Parser prompt open and exit out of all apps on your device. Re-open Summoner's War and maintain connections until the Prompt ends in "Harvest". By this point your game should be up and running like normal.

Step 6: Check the folder where you unzipped the SWParser file. Check to find a JSON file. Open it in word-pad to confirm that it has correctly loaded. If so, Disable the HTTP Proxy and exit the Parser. If not, redo the previous steps until you've got it. If it has worked correctly, you should have 3 Excel files (Info, Monsters, and Runes) which also have been generated.

Using the Optimizer Tool

Now that your data has been retrieved it's time to actually use the tool.

Step 1: Import your File

Go and open the JSON file. Copy and paste the content into the Import tab on the first page (Shift + Ctrl +End helps select everything).

Step 2: Lock the Runes You Don't Want to Move

Go to the runes tab and use the tabs under Location, to select your monsters and then click the locks to lock the runes you don't want to move. This will remove them form the Optimizer's consideration set.

Step 3: Select the Monster & Build You Want to Optimize Against

As you see in the picture below, you can select a monster and then type of build you want to optimizing against by selecting three-primary stats to focus on. Selecting a slot 2, 4, and 6 will help reduce the number of permutations that must be calculated and give you better results. Depending on the number of permutations this may take a while.

Step 4: Filter Build & Choose Your Build

Once you have settled on a build you like, double click the line and it will prompt you to save,lock, or export your data. Lock it and it will remove that build from future consideration sets. Export once you've got the builds you want to save it to your machine (avoid doing this at the turn of the hour as they clear out data on the 55th minute of every hour).

Step 5: Rinse & Repeat

Continue performing optimizations as needed until you've found what you wanted. If your tool is running very slowly, you can use the original excel version; however it is not as user-friendly. You can download it from the original Reddit post at the tool section located at the top of the Optimizer web page.

The Excel Rune Optimizer

How to Use the Excel Tool

Step 1: Open the File

Open up the Too Many Runes a.0.2 File and enable Macros.

Step 2: Add in Your Data from the SWParser Tool

Assess the data in the tabs. You will have to move around the headers so that they match the examples provided in the BASE sections. Once that is done, copy and Paste the edited 2387598-monsters file into the BASE_MONSTERS tab in the Excel file. Do the same with 2387598-info and 2387598-runes in the BASE_SETS and BASE_INVENTORY sections. If in doubt look at the example data provided in the excel.

Step 3: Run the Macro.

Building Your Dragons B10 Team

Unlike facing giants, braving dragons requires a little more than bravery and a pretty good aim. You need the right tools, the right team, and the right strategy.

Thankfully like all things in this game, that boils down to a few, easily reproducible core strategies that you can change as you need.  

The first is a slow and steady approach that relies on a core team of supportive monsters that ensure your teams lives longer than the dragon, while the second is a riskier, speed based approach  that relies on fast heals and copious DOTs.

So why does this team work? Let’s examine our scaly friend shall we?

The left crystal inflicts continuous damage, quickly eroding your team.

The right crystal acts like an overly-eager support and makes sure the dragon is frequently cleansed of negative effects and covered with immunity.

And the dragon… Well he’ll take a bite out of you if you bully any of his buddies, and constantly jets out blasts of putrid flame that will pepper you with DOTs and deal double damage when he’s irate and wounded.

To avoid a tragic and very messy (or crispy) death, we’ve got to get us our own cadre of friends to help us out.

In a Slow Team that means removing both those pesky crystals before hitting our draconic foe and making sure we've got the competence and courage to stay alive long enough to do it!

Cleanser: The one guy (or bird) you can’t live without. Whether it’s Konamiya with his constant use of “Peace”, Fedora with his buff, or Veromos with his passive, you need at least one (and often two) of these guys to keep you from falling prey to numerous dots courtesy of both Dragon and his jerk friend, left crystal.

Immunity: This guy can be the same as your cleanser (as in the case of Delphoi) or he can be an overly-ambitious buff spammer like Draco on violent. His role is simple: keep everyone covered with immunity so nothing lands. If you’re running a non-immunity cleanser like Konamiya, you will want one on the team. If your Veromos is swift and slow, that goes for you too.

Healer: If you haven’t learned by now, every team needs a healer (except maybe in arena AO but that’s another matter entirely). For facing the dragon you’ll need a dedicated healer to patch up all those burns and bites so you can keep on striking. As a result, you’ll likely want to lean towards a tanky or speedy AOE healer like Ariel or Belladeon (built with lots of hp or def) rather than something less stocky like Colleen or Hwahee. Chasun works well in this sort of team, but often will require additional support as she will be heavily targeted and you probably won’t have the Violent runes needed to keep her on her feet.

Reviver: Unless you're bringing a pair of fantastic healers (or an Ariel) you will probably need a reviver to save your sorry self when the crystals, baby dragons, or raging golems decide that your healer looks tasty or your Dot dealer would look better as a rug. 

Dot: As for any great foe, you need a dot dealer. Though you can technically replace this with an enemy HP based attacker like Spectra or Sigmarus, or you can run a powerful nuker like  Khali (who actually works pretty well) or Theomars, it will take a lot more turns and is likely to lead to failure in a slow team. Veromos fills this role nicely due to his dual use, but other possibilities exist in monsters like Baretta and Hermos.

A fast team, however, operates under an entirely different principle. 

You'll need a dedicated speed lead like Verdehile or Baretta, a fantastic speed buffer (pretty much Verdehile since Bernard will be eaten alive), a buff remover (like Megan if your Belladeon isn't consistent), an AOE healer, and a reliable cleanser or immunity giver to stand a chance.

Since much of this team is repeated, I'll focus on the new guys.

Speed Leader: If you aren't running Verdehile, you're probably not going to be able to do this, but crazier things have happened! In either case, you'll want your speed leader to fill in one of the roles on your team so Baretta as your lead and Dot is a very viable option.

Speed Buffer/Attack Gauge Booster: Sorry Bernard, you're the wrong bird for this joint. Ideally, you'll be running Verdehile, but if not you'll likely be looking at monsters like Wayne that have an elemental advantage in B10 or those that fill multiple roles like Megan who will fill your attack gauge, keep you buffed, and remove that pesky immunity, or Kahli who will act as a nuker and second DOT dealer to help you along. 

Speed Debuffer Option:

You may also choose to use a speed debuffer such as Spectra or Hwa who will also work as additional damage, but you will need to bring someone who can boost your team or keep them well buffed (like Megan) along for the ride.

Buff Remover: While a well built Belladeon will be able to fill this role (and therefore free it up for more healing, buffing, or damage) you will likely need a dedicated monster for this. Popular options include the much mentioned Megan, a fantastically built Serpent (wind can be extremely good), a well built (and usually Vampire) Geoffery, or something like a Xiao Lin (or any of the Kung Fu Girls) or Aegir who can steal effects.

Healer, Cleanser, Immunity, and Dot follow the same pattern as in the first team.


Need more monster options? 
Check out this nifty tool to find more monsters that fit these roles.

Searchable Monster Skill Database- http://sw.toolshack.ch/

SW Research Results June 2015 Edition

This is a study I ran a few months ago on the data I collected from various databases, but since I'll be running a new one and there are new guildmates who've probably never seen this before, I wanted to give it a home here.

Ta-da! Presenting Serefina's first Summoner War Summon Times Infographic! All the information you know and love in an easy to digest format for the less-statistically savvy or the visually inclined!

New one is in the works, but Serefina's got a life to live too!

Note: 
Population estimated based off of 20 Million Downloads, 3.3% digital app retention rate, revenue distribution between Com2us Domestic and Global profits, and medium estimate of 20 scrolls summoned per user per month. 5 Star population further estimated based off 0.5% calculated rate.