The AC24 Challenge - Stage 3 - It's Dragons Time!

If you've followed my progress so far, you know I've already made some great advancements on my account, starting with the most impactful one regarding my "Lineup & Synergy", followed by some nice upgrades that, at least on paper, didn't quite have any impact when testing my "Weapons & Advisers".

Now I thought I had about one more month before AC starts, but after the last game patch I had a feeling the date was bumped up a bit. After asking around, it seems AC was indeed moved up by about a week, so it's time to speed up the rest of my upgrades.

With under three weeks to go and a lot of things still left to do, it's time to squeeze whatever I can out of this account.

This round I'll be looking at something I expect to have a significant impact on my performance: Dragons.

Now, I may have slightly unrealistic expectations from this part, since I'm basically upgrading a single "thing". But dragons are kind of a thematic anchor in the Game of Thrones universe, so I want to believe they are also one of the strongest single things you can upgrade in this game.

Obviously, I'm not talking about having a level 80 Sapphire sitting around, so let's see what I can actually do with what I have.

When I started this challenge, my expectations for the dragons were relatively simple. I wanted to get both of my PvP dragons to max level and unlock all 8 skill slots.

That's it! That was the baseline. Anything beyond that would be a bonus.😊

Now it's time to see what I can actually accomplish with the resources I have available.

So let's start with the levels.

I should have enough food for the growth, but the Wheel hasn't exactly been kind to me, like... ever.😡I don't have all the Blessings required for the final level upgrades, and I still need additional hits to unlock the last skill slots.

And that's not all. I still need more actual skills for both dragons, but that's a separate feature, better than the dreaded Dragon Wheel.

Thankfully, at some point in the past a great addition was made to this Wheel in the form of guaranteed rolls using Wish Coins.

I've been building up a decent stock of them over the past few weeks, but I already knew I wouldn't have enough for both dragons.

So I had to make a choice.

And I choose you: Shadowmoon!😏

She should be the stronger dragon between the two, so I decided to invest my Wish Coins into her. This is the last week I need to farm the required Wish Coins I need to guarantee both her remaining skills, and while I'm rolling for them, I'm also hoping to unlock the remaining slots needed for the level upgrades. Two birds, one wheel!😅

I've been doing Dragon Rallies for quite some time now, preparing for the day I would finally have enough resources to unlock both slots on Shadowmoon. So let's see how it goes: https://youtu.be/ljioUkQ8brk

To be honest, I did have a bit of an internal debate over which dragon to prioritize, knowing I could realistically only get enough Wish Coins for one of them. In the end I chose Shadowmoon for the long run, but I'm still not completely convinced I made the right call.

I'll come back to that. But 1st, the good news: After spending some quality time with the Wheel, I finally got all the secondary tiles I needed to upgrade both dragons to max level.🙌

I was a bit worried I wouldn't get the remaining hits, but I got lucky... Well... lucky that I had a shit ton of Blessings to keep spinning until they finally rolled. The Wheel itself was not exactly generous this time either.

But anyway, now that the path to max level is open, it's time to feed and upgrade my bad boy and girl. In case you haven't picked up, Darkfyre is a boy and Shadowmoon is a girl.😂 😅

Let's start with Darkfyre. Things go smoothly here. I barely have enough essence to trigger the upgrade past level 75, but I make it and Darkfyre is soon sitting at level 80.

Then comes Shadowmoon. And this is where the problem I had already started worrying about finally appears.

I can feed Shadowmoon up to level 75, but I don't have enough Shadow Essence to get her past the checkpoint. Even with R2W currently running, I simply don't have enough to push her to level 80.

That's... a bit... concerning. This wasn't part of my original plan.

That really sucks and it already feels like it's raining on my dragon parade, but at least I now have the skill slots open...

The next question is: what do I put in them?

After a previous discussion with my "guidance counselors" in N0X, I worked out a priority for my skills.

The consensus was pretty clear. Starting with my existing three core skills: Reinforce, Reroute and Enraged, I should add the new Army Damage skill and the Tear/Assist mini synergy. Army Damage is a bit expensive for my liking, but apparently it's good stuff.

And during the discount event, I actually managed to get all three. Well... barely: https://youtu.be/2aSsQYNiZiY

Unfortunately, Legion Building didn't make the cut. That would have been particularly nice for this Rally Lead challenge, but I had to get creative with the Ancient Dragon Skill Fragments and prioritize the skills that are more universally useful in PvP. Legion Building can wait for the next discount event.

With all eight slots now unlocked on Shadowmoon, I can finally put together a pretty respectable skill arsenal.

Darkfyre is still missing his final slot, so the Red Defense skill will eventually be moved over there.

But now I have another problem. Despite being one skill behind, Darkfyre actually has the higher power rating compared to Shadowmoon? Hmm... that can't be right? I thought she would be stronger...

Even after giving Shadowmoon a few Advance upgrades, she's still not quite matching my first dragon. Probably because my bad boy Darkfyre is max Advanced? Hmm....

At this point I think I've squeezed about as much as I can out of the upgrade phase.

There's only one thing left to do. Let's test them!

I'm still a bit optimistic about the outcome. Similar to the Hector vs Drake debate, I'm expecting one dragon to pull significantly ahead of the other once I start testing them properly.

And unlike the Weapons & Advisers phase, where some nice upgrades somehow managed to produce absolutely zero progress on my Strongholds, this time I'm bringing significantly stronger dragons, more skill slots and better skills. Surely this has to move the needle!

Right? RIGHT?

So let's find some real targets and kill some Rebel Groups.

Except...

My brand new level 80 Darkfyre fails to impress.

After ten kits against the level 403 group, I get a mixed bag of reports. Some are decent. Some are garbage. But that's how the Female synergy works.

The important part is that none of them gets me past level 403... Great start...😡

Okay. No worries. Maybe the in game power rating isn't telling the whole story. Shadowmoon is still level 75, but she has more skills!

So I prepare a new preset, move all the good skills over to her, switch my lineup to use Shadowmoon as the main dragon...

And go again. Hit after hit after hit, I'm greeted by the same message in my reports: Defeat.😭

The casualties move up and down, but the overall performance looks remarkably similar to Darkfyre.

Unlike the Drake vs Hector testing, where the difference between the two commanders became obvious depending on the matchup, the difference between my dragons seems to be marginal.

And that's not exactly what I wanted to see today.😶

At this point, after two separate stages of upgrades, I haven't moved the needle on my Stronghold progression at all. That's disappointing... to put things mildly.

I start looking around to see if there's anything else I can throw at this part of the challenge, but I quickly realize I've squeezed pretty much all the juice out of the Dragons.

There's no hidden dragon upgrade sitting in my inventory or in any event shop that's currently up. Nothing waiting to save the day.

Shadowmoon is also going to have to wait another three months before the next R2W event gives me the opportunity to push her to level 80. By then I should hopefully have more Ambers to improve her Advance level as well.

Another compromise I didn't have in my original plan.

So here we are. I'm now well past the halfway point of my Rally Lead Challenge, with less than two weeks until AC starts, and I've got two major upgrade pillars left.

The Dragon phase looked promising on paper. At least I got some marching speed and 5k passive army size from Sapphire's Agile skill. And that translates into some nice Active buffs, that will be very welcome to this specific challenge.

I also got an upgrade for my Glory Dragon, but this stage is rather useless as there are no passive buffs unlocked until Ancient so I need to get ~700 more Essence for it to become a tiny bity useful.

So in reality... after a lot of "work", a lot of "resources" leading to several meaningful upgrades... I get... absolutely no movement on my Stronghold benchmark and my power level seems to remain stagnant, yet again.

The only pillar so far that has delivered a spectacular increase in actual performance remains the lineup. That's not exactly encouraging when I'm running out of time.

But there's no point crying over spilled dragon milk.😅The next stage is already waiting for me: "Lord", aka Gear & Badges.

And honestly, I'm already expecting this to be the weakest growth sprint of the entire series. But let's see if I can squeeze something useful out of it anyway. Because after that comes the final stage, the "let's throw everything I have at the account and pray something sticks".