Location of Crystal Siege
How does Crystal Siege work?
The premise behind Crystal Siege is more straight forward than most events. Every four hours you'll compete against another troop during a 1 hour match. Each troop will be presented with two crystal guardians and a crystal to progressively battle against during that hour.
The crystal guardians are randomly selected from the five game elements, and each troop is likely to face a different combination. The final crystal will take the same element as the second guardian.
Your troop will begin battling against the first guardian (30 million health) for 1x trophies (1 trophy per 1000 attack damage). If you have time remaining, you'll then progress to battling the second guardian (100 million health) for 1.5x trophies and lastly the crystal itself (unlimited health) for 2x trophies.
A special thank you to Nickakins for the above health calculations.
An overview of the event screen, showing the first guardians and crystal but incorrectly not showing the second guardian in the middle sections.
Each troop will work through their guardians and crystal on one side of the event screen, designated by your opponents troop flag. As each guardian is defeated, it will disappear from the event screen.
Our first guardian is water, second is wind, crystal will also be wind
As we defeat each guardian, they disappear from view.
You can click on the Ranger that is standing between the two troop flags at the base of the event screen to see how many trophies each troop has at any given time during the match.
The current trophies of both troops can be seen by clicking on Wild Child.
After the hour ends, the troop with the highest amount of trophies earned will receive twice this number of troop trophies, and the losing troop will receive a 25% reduction of this number as their troop trophies. Every match you'll be assigned to play against either the troop next to yours on the tier charts of troop trophies (they'll either be one troop ahead or behind your troop trophy tally).
Note that if you click on a guardian/crystal that your troop hasn't unlocked access to, or belongs to the opponent troop, you'll see the message in the screenshot below.
Message pops up if you click the wrong guardian/crystal
How do I tell which element the guardian is?
Over time, you'll come to recognise the appearance of the five guardians. Mostly they look like the element they're representing in either colour or style (wind guardian has wings and is yellow, for example). Screenshots of the five guardians are shown below.
Fire Guardian (left) and Leaf Guardian (Right)
Water Guardian
Rock Guardian (left) and Wind Guardian (Right)
How do I tell which element the crystal is?
If you're coming into a match late and your troop is working on the crystal, you may need to ask your troop which element the second guardian was as the crystal will take on the same element. (Our troop posts a message in troop chat detailing the elements we're facing each match. We do the same in troop wars as the troop flag is also the same element as the troop pet, which disappears after you defeat it).
Alternatively, once you commence battling the crystal, the colour of the health bar will indicate the element type.
Crystals of different elements: fire (left) and leaf (right)
What happens when I battle?
As per most Battle Camp raids, clicking on the boss your troop is working on will give you a information screen. This shows the percentage of the boss that your troop has completed and gives you an energy slider to choose how much energy you want to use at one time.
Battle Information Screen
The three zodiacs shown will receive a 25% additive bonus to their base attack state.
Note the warning message that you must make sure you have more than 60 seconds remaining in the match (plus loading time at the start and end of the battle) otherwise you risk losing your energy with no damage done.
Inside the battle, you'll have 60 seconds to do as much damage against that boss as you can. The boss will do a small amount of damage each turn but their is no danger bar to be concerned with.
Battling the rock guardian (left) and water guardian (right)
How do I use Event Monsters?
Event monsters can be spun for 50 gold through either the event grab in the main store, or by randomly being chosen for a lucky grab (with 3x increased drop rates) after battling within the event. Note that both options may only win you a special or a regular monster of any rarity, including rares.
Event monsters only receive their attack bonus against the element of guardian/crystal that they are strongest against. Clicking on any event monster in your inventory will let you know which boss they have their bonus against - it's written in small writing in the blue section below your monster's image.
Water event monster (left) has bonus against Fire boss
Rock event monster (right) has bonus against Wind boss
Water Boss - use leaf event monsters
Leaf Boss - use fire event monsters
Fire Boss - use water event monsters
Rock Boss - use wind event monsters
Wind Boss - use rock event monsters
The event bonus applies to the base attack stat of your event monster and is additive to other bonuses. For example, if you have an event super with +500% bonus against your current guardian, and it has lethal as a passive for +55% bonus, and your have a zodiac match on a guardian for +25%, the total bonus that your monster has is +580%.
End of Match Individual Trophy announcement
After the match ends, you'll soon be presented with an individual results screen that looks like the screenshot below. (Your troop result is shown at the top as the Victory image for a troop win, or Defeat for a troop loss).
The top line shows you how many trophies you personally are being awarded in total for the match that has just finished.
The next three lines list out the actual damage that you did against the first guardian, the second guardian and the crystal. To convert this damage into trophies: first divide each number by 1000 (or ignore the last 3 digits); then multiply that number by the trophy bonus (1x for first guardian, 1.5x for second guardian, and 2x for the crystal damage). The sum of these numbers should add up to the total trophies shown in the top line.
If by chance you earned the most trophies in your troop during that match, you'll receive an additional 20% bonus trophies, as indicated by the number in the last line. (To calculate this, take the sum of the three sets of trophies you calculated in the above paragraph and divide by 20 to get the number shown on this line. Add this number to your original trophies calculated and it will now match the total trophies shown in the top line).
Another thank you to Nickakins for correction my maths for the bonus trophies, and for providing the second screenshot on the right above.
How to win crystals?
The daily event goals can be seen by clicking on the goals button on the upper right hand side of your screen. Each day of the event (counted as 24 hours from the event starting time) will reward you for either the number of guardians that your troop defeats or the number of matches that your troop wins. In the August 2016 event, completing this requirement 1 or 2 times will grant you VIP points, 4 times gives your troop 10 gold each, and 6 times will earn your troop a crystal each (appears in your inventory).
Complete the 6 Daily Event Goals to win a crystal
Crystals can also be won through reaching certain trophy levels ('benchmarks"). These can be seen by clicking on the event "E" in the top right corner of your regular screen and scroll down to the section titled "Trophy Rewards".
Crystals can also be won by reaching different amounts of trophies
Troop Strategy
This is an event that does rely on an unusual element of team work within each troop. With the graduated trophy bonus, it may be tempting for players to try waiting until their troop mates defeat the earlier guardians so that they can gain the maximum bonus against the crystal. However, for the remaining troops, keep in mind that if your entire troop is waiting for the higher bonus, you may be caught not achieving that level if players aren't willing to hit early. This may however be a useful strategy for troops with specialised element event monster teams, or big spenders.
If your troop has a strategy they're willing to share, please feel free to add it in the comment section below.
What does the future hold for Crystal Siege?
Battle camp has indicated on their facebook page that they're intending for crystal siege to join the regular rotation of events. Indications are that the event monsters will be recurring in the same manner as Dominion.