Arena of Honor

This guide covers everything on a need to know basis on the relatively new event, Arena of Honor (Otherwise known as AOH) as well as including different types of strategies or gameplay to increase your chances of winning.

General Introduction

Arena of Honor (AOH) is a relatively new event in which players can team up with other alliance members or friends (A team of 5, no more and no less) or can play and fight as a lone wolf. Whether you are registering with or without a team, you would be assigned into a faction which would consist of 5 to 10 players and each arena(battlefield) would consist between 3 to 6 factions. The goal is to gain the highest amount of points possible. Every weekend, players would gain 1 Glory Entry Ticket which would allow them to register for AOH. There are 4 main phases in AOH: The Registration, The Matchmaking, The Preparation, The Battle. All together these phases takes 1 hour and 30 minutes and there are up to 4 matches available to play AOH.

The Registration phase allows members to register themselves as a team or alone. This phase lasts for 30 minutes.

The Matchmaking phase allows the game to sort the players into different arenas based on their team or solo score rating and from there, match them into a faction of the battlefield so all factions would have a similar score rating when fighting. This phase lasts for 5 minutes.

The Preparation phase allows players to enter the map and to place their castles on their faction's grid. Once you have entered the battlefield, if you are in fervor, you would gain a truce which would last til the end of the battle phase. This phase lasts for 5 minutes.

The Battle phase allows the event to start in which the factions begin to fight each other to have the highest amount of faction points by the end of the battle. This phase lasts for 55 minutes.

The Battle (Stage by Stage)

00:00 (the start of the battle phase)

Once the preparation phase is over and the battle phase has begun, 2 types of buildings would be instantly opened up, the Opening Strongholds and the Clan Castle.

Strongholds (First Capture + 200, Generate +10/min)

These buildings, located in in front of the faction grid but behind the clan castle, has an occupation of 2 minutes. Once occupied, the strongholds can transform into Offensive Camp, Defensive Camp or Trading Posts. Offensive Camps are able to form rallies every 2 and a half minutes. These rallies allows a chance to capture enemy Clan Castles which would allow the faction to gain more points, but more on that later. The Defensive Camps send troops into the Clan Castle to protect it against other rallies coming from enemy clan castles. The amount of troops stacks and similar to the Offensive Camps, send a march each every 2 and a half minutes to protect the Clan Castle. Trading Posts help passively gain more points. These 3 different types of buildings can also be upgraded by being reinforced by players. When the Defensive Camps or Offensive Camps gets upgraded, they send more troops as well as use Tier 5 troops when fully upgraded (maximum level: 3). When the Trading Posts gets upgraded, they have a higher points production (maximum level: 3). To choose one of the 3 different types of buildings, press the "+" and you can select from there.

Clan Castles (First Capture +400, Generate +200/min)

Clan Castles are one of the most important buildings in this event. This building is a must have in order to use Offensive Camps or Defensive Camps. Highly recommended that each faction has a designated player to send a Lord Expedition march to the faction's Clan Castle. A Lord Expedition march allows the Clan Castle to gain the stats of the player as well as the player's lineup which is needed as a Clan Castle with no Lord Expedition march has auto filled commanders that have no synergy and can be very weak.

Example:

To send a Lord Expedition march, the player must click on the Clan Castle than select Lord Expedition, then choose their desired lineup to be used. Do note that once the Lord Expedition march has been sent and entered the Clan Castle, it cannot be recalled. If it is recalled, the Clan Castle entirely would be disbanded, allowing enemy Offensive Camps to take the Clan Castle.

05:00 (5 minutes into the battle)

Now the second line of Strongholds (located in front of the Clan Castle) begin to open up, as well as 1 Altar.

Altars (First Capture +200, Generate +10/min)

Altars take 2 minutes to be occupied. Once occupied, the altar offers 3 buffs in which the player who had occupied the altar can choose one (to select the buff the altar can give, press the golden glowing icon and the bottom of the screen). There are 4 different types of buffs the Altars can offer: Offensive Camp Boosts, Defensive Camp Boosts, Region Boosts and Personal Boosts.

There are 6 different Offensive Camp Boosts, 4 of them increase certain troop type stats of the rallies coming from the Clan Castle. The Deployment Speedup boost allows the rallies coming from the Clan Castle to hit quicker, reducing the amount of time the opponent has to reinforce their Clan Castle. The Clan Castle Offensive Boost acts as a Total Attack stat and increase the Total Attack of the rallies stats.

Defensive Camp Boosts are the same as the Offensive Camp Boosts but there are only 5 types as there is no deployment speedup and total attack boost.

Region Boosts are boosts that are only applied when fighting in the faction's region as shown in the screenshot below.

The 5 different types of Region Boosts are Total Attack Boost, Total Health Boost, Total Defense Boost, Gathering Speed Boost and Point Yield Boost. For the Gathering Speed Boost, it decreases the amount of time it takes to gather all the points located in the Mine. Point Yield Boost allows the point production rate of the Trading Posts to be increased.

There is only 1 type of Personal Boost available that the Altars are able to give which is an increase in healing speed which reduces the amount of days it takes to heal the player's troops.

10:00 (10 minutes into the battle)

6 more Altars would open up.

15:00 (15 minutes into the battle)

4 more Altars would open up and the Sept of the Seven would also be open.

Sept of the Seven (First Capture +300, Generate +50/min)

After occupying the Sept of the Seven building for 3 minutes, the Sept of the Seven would increase the faction's healing speed by 100%, reducing the amount of days needed to heal the troops.

20:00 (20 minutes into the battle)

The rest of the Altars (5) would be opened as well as the Dragon Pit and Mercenary Camp. Keep in mind that this is out of the faction's region so all players from different factions are able to attack or rally the Altars, Mercenary Camps and Dragon Pits.

Dragon Pit (First Capture +300, Generate +40/min)

After occupying the Dragon Pit for 2 minutes, it automatically adds dragons to the marches from the Offensive and Defensive Camps which is quite good as it allows the Camps to deal more damage / improve the defense.

Mercenary Camp (First Capture +300, Generate +40/min)

Similar to the Dragon Pit, after occupying the Mercenary Camp for 2 minutes, it automatically adds a marching skin to the marches from the Offensive and Defensive camps which improves the stats as well as the marching speed.

25:00 (25 minutes into the battle)

City of Glory (First Capture +1200, Generate +300/min)

The City of Glory opens up. This is the most important (and toughest to capture) castle through the entire arena. The City of Glory has 2 unique skills which can quickly turn the tables and add a lot of points to the faction who occupies it. This castle is able to cast marches as well as steal points from other factions.

Every 2 minutes, troops would be sent from the City of Glory to all the factions (except the faction which occupies City of Glory) and attempt to take 2 of the strongholds belonging to each faction and this would continuously happen even if no faction occupies the City of Glory.

The City of Glory also steals 20% of all the faction points which can quickly turn the tables in a tight situation. Occupying the City of Glory can give the faction a high chance of being first in the arena.

30:00 (20 minutes before the battle ends)

Mine (Total Points: 16000)

The Mine is somewhat similar to the mine in Alliance Conquest. Instead of getting more points based on the number of participants, it is based on the number of troops inside the mine. Every 1000 Tier 4 troops is able to gain 1 point per minute from the mine. This would mean that it would take 3.2 million Tier 4 troops to completely empty the mine within 5 minutes. Once the Mine has lost 16000 points, the Mine would have no more points left.

35:00 - 50:00 (15 minutes of fighting til the battle ends)

Also do note, if anything from the blue diamond shop has been bought but not used by the end of the battle, it would give a full refund on the items not used.

Tips & Tricks

These are a couple of Tips & Tricks which can help you and your faction win the event.

Offensive Camps

Offensive Camps are the best type of transformation you can turn a stronghold into, and here's why:

1. Offensive Camps are the only way to attack enemy Clan Castles. It is also the best way to keep the enemy always focused on their Clan Castle, as if the enemy forgets to reinforce or to put a Lord Expedition march, the offensive camps would be able to capture the Clan Castle.
2. Not only would the Offensive Camps help capture the enemy Clan Castle, it can also allow the faction to gain access to the castles inside the enemy region. This would allow faction to take the enemy Mine and their points as well as the Strongholds (Sept of Seven ability does not stack)
3. The camps will never stop attacking. Even if the faction was able to capture the enemy's Clan Castle and occupy it successfully, the Offensive Camps would still continue to rally other Clan Castles as well as even the City of Glorious which is a good way to bleed a lot of the enemy's troops.
4. Having the Offensive Camps are the only way to earn the achievement, Peerless Dominator

Trading Posts

While I did say that Offensive Camps are the best type of transformation for stronghold, Trading Posts may be a better option for you based on your game play and here's why:

1. Trading Posts are able to build points up passively, so instead of relying on the capture other buildings, Trading Posts are a way to stay defensive.
2. If the battlefield has very strong opponents that offensive camps have little to no chance of killing, having Trading Posts would be more efficient and useful compared to stronghold spaces being wasted.
3. It reduces the stress, since offensive and defensive camps are not being used anymore, there would be no need to worry about Dragon Pit or Mercenary Camp and would allow full focus to be on the City of Glory.

Bringing The Right Troop Type

While you may register as a team, you should always bring 1 million of each troop type and here's why:

1. Factions would consist of 2 teams. So bringing only 1 troop type would affect the efficiency of the team as a player could bring 3 million infantry but the rally leaders would need cavalry. So it is always recommended to bring 1 million of each troop type.
2. 1 million of each troop type, but bowmen. Unless the team has a very strong bow account, it is unlikely to be paired with a very strong bow account. Even if the team does has a strong bow account, it is always best to bring 1 million of different troop types, as keep in mind, the faction would consist of more members. Nowadays, a lot of synergies are able to easily kill bowmen so to have a strong bow account to win defenses and offenses against these synergies can be very hard.

Achievements and Buffs

Buffs

All of the Sept of the Seven buffs has been shown to not be included during the event. This means that army size, total attack bonus and fervor do not affects stats in AOH, as well as, Lord 60 bonuses and HOF bonuses do not take effect during AOH. However, all other kinds of bonuses seem to apply such as the Honor Token bonus, Castle Attributes, Gear, Talents, etc.

Achievements

There are 2 different types of achievements in the event which can drastically increase the amount of points your faction is able to earn.

1. Supreme Conqueror: Capture the City of Glory. Capturing the city would give the reward of fame points (doubled by the amount of factions on the battlefield, maximum points earned: 12)
2. Peerless Dominator: When your faction owns 3 or more Clan Castles, this achievement would be obtained which would give the reward of fame points (doubled by the amount of Clan Castles owned, maximum points earned: 12)

In total, obtaining both these achievements as well as securing first place would result in 54 fame points earned.

Fame Points, Glory Coins and Source of Honour

Fame Points help with advancing your rank located in left of the AOH page. There are a total of 6 ranks. Each rank up results in an increase of boosted base attack for troops as well as an increase in hospital capacity. You can also unlock milestone rewards with each rank up which contains Source of Honor or Glory Coins.

Glory Coins are used as the currency for the event's shop. Glory Coins can be earned from weekly payment, elimination points, healing points as well as your faction's ranking. Glory Coins are also seen as a Milestone Reward for the ranks.The event's shop known as the Glory Shop can be located on the right side of the AOH page.

Source of Honor is one of the most interesting rewards that the AOH has brought to us. Source of Honor, which can be purchased from the Glory Shop (for 250 Glory Coins, maximum weekly limit of purchasing: 12), is used to unlock and level up the newest dragon, Glory.

The Glory dragon is part of the support dragons. Upgrading the dragon would give talent points which can be used to improve troop stats as well as improve the dragon stats such as critical damage, damage protection, damage reduction and so much more. This dragon also introduces a new fighting mechanic to the game, allied troop damage dealt (which at the moment, remains to be unknown on what it does due to slow upgrade of the dragon)

This guide covers everything you need to know about the Arena of Honor event as well as tips and tricks you can use to improve your chances of winning! This is Spartacus007, signing off.