Faction Battle

Faction battle is a cross-server event that begins the 20th of every month.

## Battle

The faction battle is divided into three parts: Point contest, helper recruitments, and tournament battles. The point contest comes first and lasts for 4 days, then the helper recruitment and tournament battles follow daily until done.

### Division

The divisions are based on server age. The means servers of roughly the same age are grouped together and often follow each other numerically (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...).

### Schedule

The schedule is shown below. Note, dates are the day of the month and the time given in local server time. Such as the 24th of the month at 18:00 server time is given as "24th at 18:00" for brevity.

We will discuss the phases of each of these battle types below.

## Point Contest

The point contest is a contest which all guild member can participate in daily. They can challenge members of other factions and earn points that go towards their faction's ranking.

Losing a battle has no affect on a faction's points. Up to 6 additional challenges can be purchased for 10  each.

The top 16 factions with the most points move onto the next phase, the Eight-finals.

### Point Increment

Winning a certain number of fights increases the amount of points earned in each fight. It is advised to avoid battles which cannot be won or to lose early on in the day to lower the overall fight difficulty in order to guarantee the most amount of points earned that day.

### Rewards

There are prizes given for each individual battle as well as total points earned during the points phase.

## Helper Recruitment

Helpers can be recruited from a server's members whose faction did not qualify for the finals. They can help during the Finals phase and earn points for the faction.

## Finals

The finals phase happens over 4 days, starting the 27th of the month.

### Preparation Phase

Prior to the start of the battle, faction leaders can assign people as defenders. It is advised that leaders plan according to faction member availability. Those who are going to be offline should be assigned to defense.

### Battle Phase

This phase begins at 20:30 and lasts for 15 minutes (until 20:45) each day of the finals.

#### Buff

Anyone in the faction can activate a faction-wide buff up to 4 times. The 4 times maximum is per faction per battle. It costs 500  for each buff.

#### Joining

When entering the event, the player is presented with a choice to "Join Defense" or "Join Attack" (see Figure 1). If the player does not choose a team to join (attack or defense), they will not participate in the fight.

Helpers are treated as regular faction members during this phase.

It is advised to generally try to even out the number of attackers and defenders, but having particularly strong defenders or attackers may mean heavily investing in one side or the other. Players can choose to move to another side (attack or defense), but there is a one minute cool-down for doing so.

#### Battle Queue

The battle queue is important for winning. The battle comes in waves rather than one-by-one. The table below shows some easy-to-view statistics which we will discuss in detail below.

 Defense Team

Notice\*: the game has updated the mechnics. Now players must be online to join in the battle, but players embattled by faction leaders will not be affected.

#### Attack Team Mechanics

There are a maximum number of 999 attackers allowed. All attackers must be online and stay online during the Battle phase. Those defeated while ATTACKING go to the end of the queue.

The queue works as follows: You have Attacker 1 vs Defender 1. If Attacker 1 loses the fight against Defender 1, Attacker 1 goes to the end of the attacker team's queue and their ally takes over, initiating a battle between Attacker 2 and Defender 2.

You have Attacker 1 vs Defender 1. If Attacker 1 loses the fight against Defender 1, then Attacker 1 is too "exhausted" to carry on fighting and their ally takes over. This starts the battle between Defender 2 and Attacker 2. Attacker 1 can no longer fight for the round whether they win or lose.

If the attack team defeats all members of the defense team, the last attacker fights the boss for a few rounds and then the defense team is revived. So, if Attacker 1 defeats Defender 10 who is the last living member of the defense team, Attacker 1 then damages the Defender Boss similar to a Faction Instance battle. Afterwards, all defense team members are revived and Attacker 1 will begin a fight again with Defender 1.

#### Defense Team Mechanics

There are a maximum number of 20 defenders allowed. Defenders do not need to be online or stay online in order to continue participation in defense. Those defense team will be revived after the faction boss is attacked, restarting the defense queue.

The queue works as follows: If Defender 1 wins the battle against Attacker 1, Defender 1 then fights Attacker 2. Defender 1 can fight up to 5 players before they become "exhausted" and faint (as if they lost the battle). Attacker 6 (the 6th attacker Defender 1 faces after victorious 5 battles) automatically scores a "win" for their team.

When all members of the defense team have fainted or lost, the attackers get a chance to attack the faction boss. After the faction boss is attacked, the defense team is revived and the queue starts again.

You want your strongest people at the top of defense (the first to be faced), generally speaking.

#### Winning

Winning a battle earns points for the faction and faction credits for the individual. Losing a battle does not deduct or earn any points.

The first one to defeat the enemy boss is declared the winner. If the time limit runs out before the boss is defeated, then the winner is based off of the number of battle points earned during the finals phase. If there is a draw between the points, the higher ranked faction is the winner.

Note, the "Faction Battle" chat is used by both factions in the fight. Use "Faction" chat to coordinate with your own faction.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Information on battle queues provided by Austyn [SEA-S42]
2. ↑ Credit to Bloopbloop [NA-S130] on discord for Figure 1.