Mastery Points

[burbman]

@grimmjow – Mastery earned per minute played is essentially equal between SRC and KPC

[GrimmJow]

@burbman,

Oh ok ^^”. Thanks

[Anonymous]

So, I ran some more KPC vs. SRC comparisons, and I have come around a BIT to @bubbley and @pointless way of thinking. A couple of the combos that @bubbley suggested DID achieve a slightly better mastery-per-minute rate at KPC than they did at SRC.
That’s with me paying close attention and starting new runs as soon as the old ones ended. What that means, is that if you’re the sort of person who doesn’t pay close attention while runs are ongoing, the KPC advantage would be more pronounced, because a delay between runs would affect SRC’s mastery output more.
That being said, I believe most combos do not allow fast enough autoplay runs through KPC, so it’s rare that it will be the better option if you do tend to start new runs very quickly after finishing each run. And even for combos where KPC is better, it’s only slightly so.
In conclusion, I’m going to stick with SRC, because I don’t have the patience to figure out if the classes I’m trying to grind on a given day are among the groups that can take advantage of KPC. But if you know you’re only going to do one run every five minutes or more (and assuming you don’t need snouts), KPC is better.

[Pointless]

@poptimus I am in no means a pure proponent of KPC over SRC, just in certain situations it can be highly beneficial. As you (and many others) say, the Snouts from SRC can’t be ignored when factoring all Mastery sources into the equation. If you need the coin for the Dojo, SRC is better, hands down. If you want to Mastery up certain classes, regardless of Team composition, then once again, SRC is probably the better option.
If you are careful and have certain Classes in mind, ones you can build the proper Team around, then KPC can be more rewarding. It definitely takes more thought to compose an autoplay Team to run this castle. The presence of both Porky and Ironclad Pigs, representing opposites in terms of damage output can easily result in the aforementioned buff over buff cycle.
Your overall summary is correct, all being said, and one that may not have been considered by some: unless you are on top of the autoplay and immediately restart the level, any comparison between Mastery per minute is moot. Go for the castle that rewards your need the most.

[Anonymous]

@pointless
I should know that; I’ve seen you talk about grinding SRC plenty of times before. But anyway, to the rest of what you wrote, well put! :)

[RedYoshi45]

As I already announced beforehand, I did a few tests on each castle to see which one is the best to grind at on my game. My emphasis lays on the word “few”; my sample size is only 3, and even that takes forever to do already. I did all battles with an M10 Elite Paladin w/Dragon, M11 Wizard w/Mana, and M10 Capt’n.

My winner is SRC if you wanna focus only on snouts or on snouts & mastery, because it has the biggest snoutling output of all castles and there are no barriers for auto-play making it the quickest castle to auto-play,
and KPC if you wanna focus only on mastery because it gives by far the biggest mastery output, even with the high amount of time it costs and the potential risk to lose the battle due to constant buffing and Prince Porky knowing no mercy.
However, CPC can be an alternative and it’s quicker to clear on auto-play than KPC and the quickest castle on manual play; it gets interesting because I saw Wealthy Rogues appearing throughout the several battles I had; one in Wave 1 and one in Wave 2. (The snoutling and mastery data, however, has been collected without a single of them appearing. They spawned when I was doing my manual play runs.
Funnily, MC is the best place to go for materials, because you get 3 stones as the jackpot which are craftable into ore and then metal bars; second would be CPC for a chance of 1 wood or 1 seashell, the other castles offer no material you can improve (Skulls, Seastars and Paper are all Tier 2 enchantment goods).

Other things that came to my attention:
– Whenever there was an enemy with Dodge, all birds kept buffing until the rage chilli was full. Then, it was usually Red who attacked (much to my frustration as I was sitting next to the phone watching what auto-play does). I tried DPC with my Venomous line-up once and they kept buffing too. (?!?)
– Whenever there was an enemy with Ironclad (like the Royal Guard at KPC), only Wizard attacked, Elite Paladin and Capt’n both buffed. Wizard had the highest damage output (1703 per attack versus 1474 and 1379); it makes me wonder if there is some sort of cap under which all birds will buff even though they’re able to attack?
– On my final run of KPC, Bomb didn’t survive the constant buffing and PP’s attacking, and my other 2 birds ended up VERY low on health too.

[Pointless]

Exceptional table, our Student of Gaming :)
I am almost complete on my runs through KPC and SRC, auto vs manual, so we’ll see where our data align.

[angryde]

@smwforever45 Excellent work, Yosh! Thanks so much for taking the time to generate that data; and for presenting it so sensibly. A great resource for newbs + olds alike :-P *Applause*

[datguygamer]

@smwforever45 Phenomenal data input, Yoshi. Nice work, man.

[RedYoshi45]

Is it really THAT good? I only did 3 runs each… possibly way too low to have reliable data XD

[Napoleongl]

@smwforever45
The table is really good! The small sample is the one and only problem with it and that’s easily fixed by running a couple more runs.
Even though you would need about ten times the sample size to start making any conclusions, small samples usually “shows what way you are heading”.

[Pointless]

I am still finishing KPC vs SRC, manual vs auto, which a much larger sample, but still not significant (as timing auto means watching auto, which is painful to say the least…). Will hopefully post results soon, but today is rather busy, we’ll see…

[Pointless]

Here are my results, very telling and I think may sway some people. I have ignored Snouts completely, as there is no question that SRC is the better choice, if you need them. This is purely about Mastery.

Team composition, which makes a big difference for both auto as well as manual play. I chose Classes that I am wanting to Mastery up, not my preferred ones, which would give different results, but was consistent in these Classes throughout, so a relative comparison is valid. I did give some thought to the Classes, as KPC can be problematic without such preparation. My purpose playing manual was to clear the castle as quickly as possible, without regard to score or stars, as Mastery was my focus.

Wizard (Twin Lightning L62/E10)
Witch (Sweet L62/E10)
Spies (BEEP! L52/E10)

50 runs through manual, 20 through auto (all I could handle and still have some hair left).

KPC manual
Average clear time: 2:09
High time 2:18, Low time 1:58
Average Mastery: 71.5
High Mastery 126, Low Mastery 28
Mastery/min: 33.3

KPC auto
Average clear time: 2:55
High time 3:19, Low time 2:38
Average Mastery: 70.0
High Mastery 98, Low Mastery 21
Mastery/min: 24.1

SRC manual
Average clear time: 1:50
High time 2:03, Low time 1:39
Average Mastery: 43.7
High Mastery 77, Low Mastery 13
Mastery/min: 23.8

SRC auto
Average clear time: 2:12
High time 2:35, Low time 1:57
Average Mastery: 37.1
High Mastery 70, Low Mastery 21
Mastery/min: 16.9

Conclusions:
I think many people think KPC is much harder to clear efficiently than it is in reality. About 20 seconds (manual) and 40 (auto) longer than SRC, representing a 17% increase in play time for manual and 33% for auto.
The Mastery payoff is significantly more for the time investment, being about 50% more, both manual and auto, for KPC over SRC.

[RedYoshi45]

For myself at lower mastery and lower stats than you, KPC is harder to clear because after King Pig and Wizpig are gone, Prince Porky is still left with about 1/2 of his HP and then the great buffing starts. Auto-playing KPC takes about twice as long as auto-playing SRC at my point of the game, which almost nullifies the advantage KPC has, sadly (see my figures above).
Dodge makes all birds buff consistently, no matter which classes you choose. Rainbird will buff exactly the same as Wizard, Druid will buff exactly the same as Witch, Samurai will buff exactly the same as Paladin. It’s weird.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I just used the same combo of birds/sets, and SRC is still unequivocally better for mastery for me too. My Wizard, Witch and Spies are all M12, and the sets are a mix of L52 and L62, at varying levels of enchantment. My average clear time on 10 auto play runs each was 2:38 for SRC, vs. 5:32 for KPC. My mastery/per run was a little higher in both than yours, but you had a much bigger sample, so using your mastery/run averages instead of mine, it works out to something like 12.5 mastery/minute at KPC, vs. 15.2 at SRC.

[Pointless]

You need a heavy AoE presence to run KPC effectively, as buffing is the norm vs Porky. I probably could have run even faster times substuting Witch with a Red using Dragon Breath. Of course, Level, Mastery and equipment will make a huge difference, but with all equal, in my case, I can achieve substantially better Mastery rewards using KPC.

[Anonymous]

New secret to KPC: Thunderbird

That is all

[GrimmJow]

Hi,

News : M15 need 50k, again like M10,11-12

Sigh…

[datguygamer]

@grimmjow Well honestly that’s just a 500 point increase than what it was before; 49.5 to 50.

[RedYoshi45]

At long last!!! My first M12 class!!!

Also, I can confirm that M12 -> M13 is indeed 32,500 mastery points.

My next classes to level up will be Lightning Bird (9 -> 10), Witch (6 -> 7) and Bard (8 -> 9).

EDIT: Updated my empty Mastery Ranks Excel table for everyone to use:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jba553055ogi16b/ABE%20Mastery%20Ranks_empty.xlsx?raw=1

[burbman]

Elite Sea Dog just passed from M13 to M14. I can now confirm that the requirement from 14-15 is 50,000.

[RedYoshi45]

After the rank-ups due to the event mastery, I can conclude my new rankings:

9—9—10-9—10-X
10-10-9—12-X—X
9—9—9—9—9—7
9—9—9—10-X—9
9—9—9—10-X—9

Today’s rank-ups:
Wizard (11 -> 12)
Lightning Bird (9 -> 10)
Elite Mage (9 -> 10)
Elite Bard (8 -> 9)

Next rank-ups:
Guardian (9 -> 10): 3975 to go
Rogues (9 -> 10): 5821 to go
Princess (9 -> 10): 7731 to go

Important classes:
Elite Paladin (10 -> 11): 22647 to go
Wizard (12 -> 13): 27454 to go
Witch (7 -> 8): 14975 to go
Capt’n (10 -> 11): 24989 to go
Spies (10 -> 11): 8230 to go

[Atom]

My current rankings after the event:

12-12-12-12-13-12
12-12-12-13-12-11
12-12-12-12-12-10
12-12-12-12-11-9
13-11-11-12-11-8

Next to rank up will probably be Sea Dog and Rogues

[RedYoshi45]

While I was auto-playing KPC for some extra mastery, I discovered two things that might interest you guys!

1. Enemies with Ironclad are attacked if the bird can deal 2x more damage than the Ironclad limit says.
The chieftain in Wave 2 was shielded from damage lower than 760. My M10 Elite Paladin does 1474 damage which is slightly lower than 2×760; thus he buffed instead.
My M10 Spies do 1616/665 damage, so the target takes slightly more than 2×760 damage; enough for the AI to attack. Same with my M12 Wizard at 1788 damage.

2. Upon defeating Wizpig and King Pig in Wave 5, Red and Blues started buffing. However, as long as no bombs were on the field, Chuck kept attacking Prince Porky and did not buff,despite his attacks being way stronger than Dodge’s limit of 839. His attacks were stronger than 2×839, at that, while Blues’ and Red’s attacks were below that.
When my Wizard was at M11 still, his attack was weaker than 2×839 and he buffed; now it’s stronger than that and he attacks.

Could it be that auto-play IGNORES Dodge AND Ironclad completely once a bird can deal 2x the limits in damage?

[datguygamer]

@smwforever45 Shh, don’t say it out too loud or it may get “fixed”.