Gaarawarr's Guide to Event Planning - Year 4

Last Updated: Initial Post - December 25th, 2020

You can find all of my Idle Champions guides here.

Epic Games Creator Code: GAARAWARR

(Scene: Interior of a well-kept inn, fireplace roaring in the background. Camera pans from fireplace to the comfy chair next to it where a dwarf is seated.)

Hi all! My name is Gaarawarr and you may know me from my Event guides. You may even find them helpful when in an Event. However, having good information during an Event can only help you so much. To truly slam dunk an Event, you need to properly prepare for it too. That's what I'm here today to discuss.

I know what you're saying right now. "But Gaarawarr, how can you prepare for an Event when you don't really know what new content will be added?" That's a good question and I'm glad you asked. While we don't know everything about an upcoming Event, some things about Events never change. By preparing for those, we give ourselves a large advantage towards completing everything a new Event may throw our way.

Let's hit some of the basics about Events before we dive into the strategies that will help you go from Arkhan't to Arkhan! From Zorbu to Zorcheer! From Delina to Deliya! Yes, I'm still going with these. From Barrolose to Barrowin! You get the idea.

##General Event Information

• Unlike regular missions, Event missions cost Event Tokens to attempt. You won't be able to start the Event missions until you have enough Tokens to pay for one.

• You earn Event Tokens at a fixed rate and in any campaign. This means you'll earn the same amount of Tokens whether your game is open or not. (Roughly 1 every 25 seconds.) The overall total of Event Tokens you will earn passively during the Event is roughly 41,460 give or take a few based on CNE's math. Make sure you don't do any missions before they show as Easy otherwise you may waste your Tokens.

• You'll have a chance to earn three Champions with each Event. You'll have access to the three most recent Event Champs. Unlocking other Champions from past years is possible, but requires accessing them via a Time Gate. I recommend unlocking all three Event Champs and trying to gear them up roughly equally for use in the future.

• Events start everyone off at zero Favor. Due to this, you'll need to manually click, or have Familiars click, on the field to damage enemies during the start of your first mission to make sure your lone Champion isn't overrun.

• Even if you complete the Champion Unlock Adventure you're on, you don't necessarily want to hit "Complete" right away. You want to continue on and try to earn as much Favor as possible. This is due to the Token cost of Unlock Adventures/Free Plays. Treating each one like a Favor run helps you stay efficient with your Token spending. Variants are horrible for farming Favor though, so you can close those once you hit the goal.

• Important: Whatever you do, don't spend lots of time sitting at a wall during an Event unless you're waiting on Tokens to start your next run. Time is your enemy (the past it threatens...) and you need to run as many Free Plays as possible to maximize your Favor and complete all the Variants on the first try.

• Once you have completed all the variants and no longer truly need to farm Favor other than for the conversion bonus, you can just run Free Plays to 51 and then complete the run to get an Event Champion Chest, either Silver or Gold randomly. This is the best way to gear up your Event Champions as normal Gold Chests from other campaigns don't contain gear for them and you're limited to three Gold Chests (and some Silver Chests) in Time Gates to gear them up until their Event returns a year later.

• New players can fully complete Events if they know what to do. Make sure to check for a guide to the specific Event to review when it comes out and don't hesitate to ask questions. The rest of us are here to help you succeed!

• Once more for the people in the back: It's usually wise to not attempt the mission Variants until they show as Easy difficulty. The difficulty rating is based off the Favor you have accumulated and while it isn't an ideal indicator of difficulty, it's a decent starting point. I highly recommend waiting until a mission shows as Easy before starting it so as not to waste your Event Tokens. This is the single-biggest factor in using Tokens efficiently as a newer player.

• Once you've earned your Event Champions and gear for them, the rewards for your hard work aren't over. The other major reward from Events is a conversion of Event Favor into the main campaign of your choice. This is why, even if you've finished all the variants, it's still good to do deep runs to gain Favor in the Event. You can use the following table to see if it's worth it to you to keep doing runs based on how much Favor you're getting with each one. As you get more Global Blessings, Patron Perks, and better gear on your Champions, you'll be able to get higher and higher conversion percentages.

Here's a quick example of the conversion breakdown from Event to main campaign. The percentage is multiplied by the total Favor you have earned in that campaign, including what you've spent on Blessings. There is no need to reset Blessings when converting Favor. There is no cap that I'm aware of to this conversion; the start numbers and end numbers are just examples but continue both ways.

Event Favor Total	Main Campaign Conversion %
1e07	70%
1e08	80%
1e09	90%
1e10	100%
1e11	110%
1e12	120%
1e13	130%

Note: Numbers are in Scientific Notation for ease of reference. You can switch your UI to show Scientific Notation by hitting the Y key or selecting it in the settings. After you get out of normal number range, this is the best way to easily see your progress.

 

Before You Buy Chests from the Store

If you plan on buying Gold Event Chests with real money from the store (which is a great way to support the game!), keep this in mind:

• Be sure you buy any Gold Event Chest Packs before opening any earned Gold Event Chests as you're guaranteed a Golden Epic with your real money purchase. When you flip the Golden Epic card, close out of the Store and verify it on your Champion, then go back in and open your other Chests. This way you're guaranteed to get other items when you open your Gold Chests instead of just duplicating that one on accident.
• You get buffs when spending real money based on how much you spend. Plan your purchase in advance!
  • $5 - Empowered Power Boost - Increases the damage of all Champions by 100% (lasts 1 day)
  • $10 - Empowered Power Burst - Increases the damage of all Champions by 300% (lasts 2 days)
  • $20 - Empowered Faith - Increases all Favor earned from Resets by 50% (lasts 3 days)
  • $50 - Empowered Clairvoyance - Increases all Gold found by 100% (lasts 4 days)
• Getting multiple of the same purchase amounts adds to the duration of the buff. All buffs stack with each other.

 

Note: Every $10 spent in one transaction gets you a guaranteed Shiny item! Keep this in mind as well as those can greatly increase the power of your items and thus your Champion.

 

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OK, now that we've gone over the basics of what to do during an Event, let's dig into your Event Planning strategies to maximize those Event gains! Fully completing Events quickly and efficiently is based in snowballing your Favor early to gain momentum and continue rolling through the variants and deep into Free Plays. Here are the things I've found to be effective over the first three years of studying Idle Champions Events.

 

##1. Start Saving Early

Not only is this a great recommendation for real-world financial management, it works well in Idle Champions also. Specifically in regards to Bounty Contracts and Silver Chests, but also in regards to Potions.

If you're a brand-spanking-new player still missing even White gear for some of your Champions, go ahead and open Silver Chests when you get them. However, if you can spare them, their best use is during Events to get you a jump-start on the Favor snowball that is the Event grind.

Bounty Contracts give you Gold based on an amount of time. Since Event Tokens are granted based on time as well, Contracts give you both a Gold boost and Event Tokens! This makes saving Bounty Contracts the single-greatest advantage you can give yourself for completing Events and gearing up Event Champions.

Potions can boost a variety of things to make runs to your wall faster and farming at your wall more efficient. Setting some aside to use during Events is a great way to ensure you fully complete an Event. I like to hold my Epic ones for my last run or two after I've already pushed as deep as I can and time them with a Weekend Buff. This maximizes their effect and my gains.

 

##2. Learn to Recognize Your Wall

This is one of the more important things to learn as a new player in Idle Champions. Your "wall" is the level you can reach and farm at without your group dying and where, while you'll gain a lot of Gold here, it won't be enough to level up your Champions to major upgrades quickly to push deeper. If you have to sit at this level for 5 minutes or more to get a major upgrade for your Primary DPS, you've definitely walled. While you can sit here and farm for a while (30-60 minutes), utilizing a method to push further and farm, even if only for a short time, can make you far more Gold.

 

Maximize Efficiency in an Event

 

There are a variety of ways to push past your wall and go deeper to farm. Events are time-based, so efficiency is more important than ever. So, how do you maximize usage of items to farm as efficiently as possible? I use the following method on my very first run to get the biggest snowball possible. This allows me to finish all Event objectives in just a couple days and spend the rest of the Event doing gear runs and maximizing my post-Event Favor conversion.

 

• Silver Chests: Once you're at your wall, open a Silver Chest and level up your Champions. Repeat this until you can get past your wall, then repeat at each new wall you encounter until you're out of Silver Chests. This step-by-step approach is because the Gold in Silver Chests is based in part on how far you've progressed, so this helps you get the most bang for your buck.

• Bounty Contracts: Wait until you've opened all of your Silver Chests and are now at a new wall, then follow the same rinse/repeat method as with Silver Chests. Bounty Contracts generate Gold based off your Gold Find and Group DPS numbers similar to offline Gold gain. So it's important to make sure you've maximized your Group DPS/Gold Find before opening. Those factors don't affect the Event Tokens though, as those numbers are time-based and thus fixed. (Small Contract = 72 Tokens, Medium = 576 Tokens, Large = 1,152 Tokens)

• Potions: Potions of Clairvoyance boost your Gold Find while Potions of Giant Strength boost your Group DPS. These two potions most directly affect what you get out of Bounty Contracts so if you're not using Epics, wait until you're at your last wall to trigger your potions and then start using Bounty Contracts step-by-step. Once you've used up all of your Bounty Contracts, Potions of Fire Breath and Potions of Speed will help you both push further and farm quickly and efficiently, maximizing the Potions of Giant Strength and Clairvoyance you have active. Remember, potions of different size stack, so if you're going to do an hour of potions at the end of a run, you'll want at least 1 Large and 4 Medium potions of each type to be efficient on top of an active Epic. People tend to run out of Smalls fast, but if you have some and want to use them in the stack, go for it.

• Weekend Buffs: Each Event spans two weekends, meaning you get two different weekend buffs for various Champions. While I definitely recommend using potions to maximize gains on your initial farming run if you've got them to spare, waiting to do deep farming runs until the first weekend buff goes active can truly maximize your Favor gains. It should allow you to go deeper in your runs than you'd achieve with potions alone. Once the weekend is over, you can go back to regular campaign stuff, whether completing content or doing gem grinds, then when the next weekend buff kicks in you can farm Favor in the Event again. (Keep in mind, sometimes it may be more beneficial to you overall to use the weekend buff to farm Favor in a main campaign. This is a decision you'll have to make for yourself.)

 

Note: If you know you're going to use an Epic potion, go ahead and pop it at the beginning of your run to increase efficiency. I recommend only using an Epic if you know you're going to use stacking potions of all kinds later on in your run, again, to maximize efficiency.

 

Keep in mind, you can also apply these tips to the main campaigns to maximize Favor gain there as well. These are great ways to push deeper and continue to farm Favor when your normal gains have dropped <10% per run without using these methods. Just make sure to set aside some items for Events as well! I save all of my Silver Chests and Bounty Contracts to use during Events. This lets me focus on farming Favor in main campaigns using potions only, which I find works very well.

 

##3. Know When to Reset

Whether you're farming normally or farming with potions, you need to learn to recognize when it's time to reset. There will always come a time when, even though you're still raking in Gold, it's become inefficient to continue.

How do you recognize this? You have to keep an eye on the Favor increase percentage indicator you can see when you hover over the "Complete Adventure" button in the UI. Checking this regularly as you farm will give you an idea of how quickly it is increasing...or how slowly. When the increase starts to really slow down, you know it's almost time to reset and put all that new Favor to use on a new run.

A good rule of thumb is to not spend more than an hour farming at your deep wall, regardless of the method you're using to farm there. This may vary for you as some may maximize their efficiency in 15-30 minutes, while others may slow-farm for 45-60 minutes. This is why it's important to check that Favor gain percentage often so you can learn how to judge when it's best for you to reset. This will help you in your main campaigns as well as Events, but due to the limited time available in Events, it is super important in them.

 

##4. Blessings to You and Yours

While most of the Blessings you earn in the main campaigns don't apply to Events, the Global Blessings on the right side of the UI apply everywhere. Earning these Global Blessings should be goals for you all the time, but if you're close to a Global Blessing and an Event is coming up, completing it before the Event can help you out greatly.

Here's a list of the Global Blessings that can help you during Events in the order of their importance.

 

Newer Players

• Tier 1 - All Campaigns: This is a straight double-damage increase to all Champions across all campaigns, Events, and Time Gates. These should be your first goals as a newer player, specifically in Helm/Kelemvor/Torm, due to the way they'll help you progress quickly through all areas of the game. These are the most impactful Blessings for Events.

• Tier 2 - Kelemvor: This increases the Favor you earn on each Event run by 25% on reset. This is a big deal and is a good Blessing to buy as an Event is about to start. You can always reset your Blessings after the Event is over if it took all your Favor to buy. That way you don't limit your progress in that campaign. Once you can easily afford it without it limiting your progress, buy it and keep it.

• Tier 2 - Helm: This increases the Gold dropped by Humanoids only, so is of limited scope but if the Event adventure is filled with Humanoids it can get you a nice increase. This is another buy for the Event/reset after until you can easily purchase it option.

Veteran Players

• Tier 3 - Helm: This one you only need to pick up if you've got a lot of Epic gear (Purples). The more you have, the more it helps, which is why it's a veteran option only. Don't worry, you'll get there.

• Tier 3 - Tiamat: While hard to achieve, it's a nice damage bonus once you've done the entire campaign, Patron Variants included.

• Tier 4 - Torm: This starts you off with 2500 Event Tokens at the start of an Event. It only works if you buy it before the Event starts. This is an incredibly expensive Blessing to buy so is really only for veteran players. Again, you can buy it before the Event starts and then reset your Blessings after the Event ends if buying it destroys your Favor. Only keep it once its cost is negligible to your overall Favor.

 

##5. Get Perks from Patrons

This is more for veterans, but I'm including it in here as I did with the veteran Blessing options so you know what you're working towards as you progress.

Patrons are part of the "end-game" content in the game as their requirements limit your available Champions and make variants even tougher than before. The rewards are more power though, so it's something you definitely want to work toward as you can afford it. As with Blessings, you're aiming for the Global Perks on the right as the others only matter when doing Patron variants.

Here's the ones that can improve your results in Events (and the main campaigns for that matter):

 

• Tier 1 - All: These both double the damage of all your Champions, so are must-haves when you're able to pick them up.

• Tier 3 - Mirt: This increases the damage of Neutral Champs (It can be either the Lawful/Chaotic axis or the Good/Evil axis). If your Primary DPS meets this qualification, pick this up. If not, ignore it and move on to the following option.

• Tier 3 - Vajra: This increases the damage of Champs with a CON of 14 or higher. If your Primary DPS meets this qualification, pick this up. If not, ignore it and move on to the following option.

• Tier 3 - Strahd: This increases the damage of Champs with a INT of 13 or higher. If your Primary DPS meets this qualification, pick this up. If not, ignore it and move on to the following option.

• Tier 4 - Vajra: This increases all Gold found. This is a must have Perk once you can afford it, for the obvious reasons.

• Tier 5 - All: As with the Tier 1 Perks, these are must-haves once you can afford them. This will take a lot of work and is definitely a long-term, end-game goal, but it's good to keep your eyes on the prize.

 

##6. Get Familiar

There are a couple ways to use Familiars in Event runs to maximize your efficiency.

Initially, having 1-6 on the field of battle clicking on enemies can help you move quickly through the lower levels. Each one clicks 5 times per second, unless you're clicking something with segmented health or armor, then it's only once every five seconds no matter how many Familiars you have on the field.

Leveling up your Click Damage early on keeps you moving quickly with Familiars, but only to a point. You start losing efficiency when the Click Damage level is equal to the mission level. In Events, you can stay efficient for a bit longer, but it's generally a good idea to stop investing in Click Damage at that point. For example, if you are on level 56 and your Click Damage is at level 54, you can stop buying Click Damage.

Another way to increase efficiency is to move up to 4 Familiars to your Ultimate bar. Each one will fire off 1 Ultimate every 30 seconds which gives you nice wave-clear and will usually be your primary source of damage for a while as you approach your wall.

Finally, putting a Familiar on your Primary DPS will automatically level them up as you can afford it. This is great at your wall if you're AFK often as it speed up wave-clear and may let you push deeper when you check in on the game. Depending on what's limiting your progress, either your DPS not killing fast enough or your Tank(s) dying, you can set a Familiar on whatever is going to help you the most, or both if you can. I set my level-up setting to UPG when doing this before they're at the soft-cap for upgrades, then I switch it to x100 and only put a Familiar on my DPS to keep the damage dribbling in.

 

##7. When in Doubt, Shout

If you feel stuck in an Event, or just want to see if your formation is optimal, don't hesitate to ask the community!

Lots of people tend to post formation suggestions in my Event guides, on reddit & Steam, and there are also discussions on the Idle Champions Discord. If you have formation questions, be sure to include a list of all of your Champions and a general idea of what gear they have. Formations are incredibly dependent upon Champions and their gear, so they are never one-size-fits-all. Treat any formation someone posts as a suggestion. Try it, study it to learn why it works, then try swapping in other Champions you have to see how it affects things!

Learning how to build formations is one of the best skills you can have in the game and Events are constant tests of your knowledge. Embrace it!

 

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While everything we've reviewed here will help you complete Events and maximize your gains in them, these tips can also be applied to your regular game-play. That's one of the things I like most about Idle Champions Events: they're mini training grounds for the game's core concepts. There aren't many games out there that utilize Events this way, let alone so effectively. Treat each Event as a place to learn something new about the game and then you'll truly maximize your gains!

Have fun!

~Gaar