Greetings Captains! Hopefully your battles in Season 6 are going well. The first Conquest is just behind us, but there’s always a battle raging in the arena!
We’ve discussed arena tactics and team composition in the past, but today we’re going to talk about the shifting landscape of teams in PvP within Eternal Paradox. What may work in one season may not in another. You’ve got to be in touch with the meta strategy to really be competitive within the arena.
Arena Meta
The arena meta is somewhat flexible. Unlike other games that have shifting rulesets, Mercenaries are pretty consistent in their abilities in the arena. You can reliably assume that your team from last season will fill about the same role in the next, and battles themselves don’t really change.
There are, however, a few reasons that the meta strategy shifts over time. First, there’s season features. Each season, three Mercenaries have a huge boost to their stats. This makes them exceptionally suited to winning in the arena.
In the case of Season 6, Laila, Laction and Bianca are all boosted for the season.
That 100% bonus is pretty significant. For Bianca, that represents more attack than she’ll get from a 7* Weapon. Laction has incredibly powerful crits this season as well, and Laila’s boosted HP makes her shields a HUGE factor in arena combat.
In addition to these seasonal buffs, there are also the season special features that can influence the balance of power within the arena.
In season 6, this means a significant attack speed boost to all water mercenaries. Definitely more in favor of Bianca and Laila here.
Team Evolution
While the abilities of Mercenaries are consistent from season to season, the buffs and features of each season combined with the appearance of new Mercenaries can slowly shift what teams are popular.
In season 1 and 2, you were very likely to see a lot of the following strategy at the top levels of arena combat:
That fast Val meta is definitely still around. As more Mercenaries are introduced though, new strategies arise to combat the reigning teams.
Just a few seasons ago, you were far more likely to see battles that started like this:
When Jin Ryu entered the battle as a new Mercenary, his leader skill with a full team stun after their first hit changed the arena meta entirely! This strategy is still incredibly useful, but the evolution of the game has also brought new tactics.
The Laila Meta
This season Laila has 100% increased HP. She also has this monster of a leader skill. It definitely gains more power from that seasonal buff:
So right away at the start of the battle, your team gets a shield as big as Layla’s health and almost guaranteed evasion from attacks. That’s big. The one hit KO Val strategy is stopped in its tracks entirely by this gambit.
Throw in Laila’s ultimate skill on her first move, and you’ve got an even bigger defensive bulwark. Even if you’ve chiseled away that shield to damage one opponent, they’re getting a full heal. That’s not even mentioning the two hit barriers or the debuff immunity – that puts a serious limit on strategies like Alex’s bombs or Laction’s stacking debuffs.
Suddenly, the meta starts to look a lot like this:
It’s not impossible to fight to victory against a Laila team with a different team composition, but the fast KO strategies of previous seasons have definitely been slowed down.
The rise of Laila makes a lot of other Mercenaries useful in ways they weren’t before. Lucas or William’s shields can refresh or match up to Laila’s, giving you as much endurance as your enemies! Getting a sleep or stun across with Zarkhan or Wang could stop Laila’s ultimate skill before that second set of shields… in fact, why not hop in with Camilla and just silence everyone from the start?
Fighting for Victory
The arena is calling, Captains! How will you fight in this season’s meta?
Get out there and try different combos. See what works with this season’s popular teams. Who knows? Maybe you’ll find a new OP combo that dominates everybody!
A new battle begins… will this conflict lead you to glory or ruin?
Really that’s up to you. In this war, so much depends on how good of a start you get. While we’re all anxiously awaiting Elysium to open back up to Captains, let’s take a look at some of the best ways to get a great start when the servers open back up for Season 6!
The first week of a season is the absolute best time to get involved in Eternal Paradox and the fight for the ring. Eyeing that 1m+ pile of $ETIME that just got distributed to players at the end Season 5? The battle for the next set of rewards starts today!
Eternal Paradox is a team game. While you could play a whole season solo if you really wanted to, there are some things that you just can’t do on your own.
Conquest, Followers of Doom (pictured above), Guild Festival, Guild Arena… there are tons of activities in Eternal Paradox that are only for guilds… don’t be shy. Join a guild!
The sooner you get into a guild in a season the better. Every support that your guild provides decreases building or research time by 2% of the remaining total. That adds up! Even before 20+ guild member supports are possible with guild research, a -20% time to your buildings can make a HUGE difference when you’re starting out.
Guilds don’t just help you grow though. This is a war game, and there are Captains out there who want to take your stuff. Having a guild tag by your name will make them think twice about whether they want to start something that may be costly on both sides. Your guild mates can also stand by you and help defend when you need it.
While you’re clicking like mad in the first hours to get a solid foundation, don’t forget about rallies. Rallying with your guild to strike some early blows on the Black Sun Cult could give you a big advantage with extra experience and those huge “First Kill” bonuses. Get out there and get some loot from those cultists… the guild that fights together wins together.
Even at low levels a first kill can provide a high amount of resources.
First Order of Business
The tutorial prompts will walk you through the very first things you need to do to get started, but don’t stop there. You need to keep those timers ticking in the early days as much as possible. Don’t worry, once your timers on building, training and research get longer there will be time to slow down and take a breath.
Buildings
Keep that HQ going up in the first days. All your buildings are gated behind that, so make sure you leave yourself room to grow. Prioritize the Academy and one barracks early on… keep all your troops training, but push one barracks higher than the others to get you a concentrated power element to work with.
Note that the Harvester and resource gathering buildings give most of their increased resources at levels 6, 11, 16, 21 and 26. While it can be good to push up your Harvester early on for some extra resources, don’t get lost halfway between 6 and 11! The levels in between provide very little increased production, so consider them a stepping stone to level 6 or level 11.
Research
There are a lot of options to start with on research, but command and resources should be early focuses. Resource research makes all your fortress upgrades more affordable, therefore it’s less beneficial the later in the season you get it completed.
Command increases a wide array of factors, but most importantly it can help reduce your research and building time. Even a 3% decrease in building time can end up meaning hundreds of hours of construction saved over the course of a season… definitely worth prioritizing early on.
Try to save research into Mercenary and Soldier for day two and beyond. These are incredibly powerful boosts, but they won’t do much for you on the first day compared to getting command and resource head starts.
Soldiers
Like we said above, concentrate on one barracks first. That doesn’t mean you’ll neglect the others though… keep those timers running! Choose one to tier up faster than the others but keep every barracks training, even if it’s only training level 1s.
As your army gets to be more formidable and you start advancing a second group of soldiers, don’t be afraid to tier up rather than train. Tiering up a bunch of tier 2s to tier 3 soldiers saves you a massive amount of time in training. Don’t think of your low tier soldiers as waste or fodder… think of them as high tier soldiers who just haven’t finished their training yet!
Later on, you’ll inevitably be creating T1s to keep your high tier soldiers alive. This can wait for now. Don’t bother including T1s in your attacks to protect T3 or T4 soldiers. At this point in the season, your troop numbers are just too small to spare the power. Some of your highest tier soldiers will die along the way, but they’ll be replaced one hundred fold or more by the time first Conquest rolls around… there’s still time to build up your army!
Mercenaries
Choose a group of hunting mercenaries and work on them first. You want hunting synergy here with the barracks that you’ve decided to push upwards first. If that’s your fire barracks, choose four fire Mercenaries. If it’s tempest, choose storm Mercs… you get it.
These will likely be your primary hunting mercenaries for a few weeks if not the whole season, so choose wisely. If you can’t make a whole team with hunting synergy, consider getting creative. Zoe increases the synergy her troop can have in a battle, for instance. Bianca has a command skill that provides an extra flat bonus that can be used to make up for some missing synergy.
Don’t worry about your light and dark Mercenaries yet. It’ll be a while before you unlock barracks for those soldiers, so their war synergy does nothing for you at the start.
Other Tips and Best Practices
Use Up Your Stamina!
During the early days of a season you won’t have a very high maximum stamina. Don’t forget to use it frequently to hunt and do challenge stages. Running yourself dry on stamina is fine… missing out on a few hundred stamina because you were capped out could make you lose ground relative to other Captains.
You have to work your way up to higher level monsters, so make sure you keep pushing yourself and challenging the next tier.
Don’t push too hard though and lose all your soldiers early!
Don’t Forget About Shakram!
Shakram Legions are easy to overlook early on. You’re not getting a ton of use from T1 and T2 captives, and you don’t get experience from them.
They can, however, be your best source of resources in the beginning. Especially with the ‘First Kill’ bonuses, you can get set up with the supplies you need to never stop building if you keep putting pressure on the legion. You don’t need to push up too high, even low level Shakram legions provide a big boost to resources.
Explore!
Exploration points can be commonly neglected early on. You don’t need a bunch of Awakening Stones in the early game, but there’s more than just those in there! Jackpot chests can contain big bonuses like stamina, itemized resources or speedups. Even without jackpot chests, you’ll find speedups and XP potions in the ruins… no reason to waste those points by letting them cap out!
Don’t Be Shy… Get Out There and FIGHT!
Again, Eternal Paradox is a war game. Other Captains have stuff you want – maybe you just go take it?
PK points are probably the easiest thing to just ignore in the early game, but Captains who take a little while to scout out some opponents and launch an attack or two will be set up for success. More resources for you, less resources for the opponent… what’s not to love?
Good Fortune in the Battle!
Season 6 will launch at 5pm PT today, August 6th.
Are you ready for the coming battle? Get out there and fight for the future of Elysium!
Another great battle has concluded… yet another is just about to begin.
We saw tons of action in Season 5. The -30% building time buff certainly changed some strategies and accelerated the rise to power for the greatest Captains! Dark soldiers and Mercenaries were more powerful than ever, leading to some different lineups being used.
The Victorious
The 7-week battle for Elysium tests a Captain’s endurance and planning. While many Captains achieved great things this season, there are always those that rise to the pinnacle of power.
Total $ETIME in seasonal rewards: ~1.1038 million
Battle Power – 20% of Season Rewards
The following Captains dominated the rankings across all aspects of warfare. Their fortresses grew fast, and their forces overwhelmed their opponents with their raw power.
[BTB] HelloWorld
[XII] SydneySando
[DUB] DubstepRod
[F2P] Elof
[XII] NoodleBoy
Arena – 20% of Season Rewards
The following Captains didn’t have to hide behind their soldiers or walls. Their Mercenaries were powerful and their battle tactics sound. They repeatedly demolished their opponents to receive the most AVP throughout all 49 days of play.
[XII] Anti91
[XII] Firstblood
[XII] Bianca
[XII] FirstLove
[F2P] Elof
Conquest – 60% of Season Rewards
The true point of preparing is the battle itself. These Captains contributed more than any other players as they drove their guild toward victory. It should be noted that while we salute these individuals, all members of XII should be congratulated. They dominated the rankings and in the end held the top 32 places within their guild.
[XII] Bianca
[XII] beckoned
[XII] Alp_Er_Tunga
[XII] PasinduDE
[XII] DaniDC
Congratulations to the Only Triple Threat This Season!
Huge shoutout to [XII] Alp_Er_Tunga, who was the only Captain to reach top 10 rank in all three categories!!! (Battle Power: 6th, Arena: 7th, Conquest: 3rd)
Want to see how your score stacked up?
Check out the top 50 for arena and top 100 for Conquest and battle power below:
Season 6 is coming tomorrow, and it will be another epic battle.
In this season, players will finally have a chance to push their Mercenaries beyond their previous limits using the new Breakthrough system. By using additional Mercenary Fragments, players can squeeze even more out of their most elite Mercenaries.
Captains will also be seeing an all-new 5th operational slot this season when their HQ gets high enough!
Here comes Laila! This new water Mercenary specializes in debuffing opponents and buffing allies.
Any returning Captains will see a major welcome back gift this season! Players who played previously but not at the end of Season 5 may qualify for a 1000 Summoning stone bonus at the end of season 6. To get the bonus, players must meet all these conditions:
The account reached Head Office level 10 or higher at any point during Seasons 1-5
The account did not login between the periods of 6 July to 6 August UTC (approximately the last 3-4 weeks of Season 5)
The account reaches Head Office level 20 or higher during Season 6 before the end of the season.
If players meet all these conditions, they’ll receive 1000 Summoning Stones after the start of Season 7.
Make the returning Captains feel welcome! Every member of a guild will also get an extra 100 Summoning Stones for each qualifying returning player in their guild, up to a maximum of 20 (2000 Summoning Stones).
As in the past, expect some celebratory daily extras the first week of Season 6! Make sure you keep up on Discord throughout the first week for daily coupon codes for tons of free resources, Summoning Stones, speedups and more!
