General of a Ruined Land is a trial event. Signature units from this event are rewarded after the event’s conclusion, whereby their growth are determined by the number of stars scored, with a maximum of 27 stars available. Side rewards are also given alongside the units whereby these are usually in the form of spirits/armors/demon crystals. This event rewards 2 signature units; an assassination archer and an advance guard.

The Units: Ayaka Archer Xiao/Lost Kingdom General Shuuka

Both archers and advanced guards aren’t new units into the game. Players should be very familiar with what archers do at this point now, but those without Uzume will be experiencing their first Advance Guard in Shuuka. Xiao is a Gold archer that is just about as ordinary as an archer would be, except that she runs a rogue skill in Assassination I which is unique I would say, but not that impressive overall.

Advance Guard is a melee unit that is more of a support based role than a fighter class despite their multiblock capability. The class itself grants cost reduction for all your units when they are deployed from 1-3 UP depending on their state: pre-CC, post-CC, post-AW. Because of their relatively squishy defense and low HP for a multiblocker and their ability to work like a Samurai in terms of cleaving attack only available after AW this is a pretty late developing unit class, of which their potential only shines after some level of investment. Skill wise Shuuka grants an attack buff to all units on the field for quite some duration, further signifying that this unit is a support based melee unit rather than a designated fighter. The duration increases substantially for each skill level increase so it is highly recommended to max her skill levels up which by theory is both easy and difficult for certain players. Post Awakening Shuuka is given more monk-like buffs with the evasion passive and cleaving.

Map Preview:

General of a Ruined Land runs 9 maps of which 2 EX and 2 G tier maps are the important maps to note. Monster wise most are already familliar faces such as black goblins, goblin riders, gargoyles, mummies, sandworms to name a few and the assorted demons/ONI although notably there is a new variant (blue) that runs higher attack speed than the others. There is also the introduction of the minotaur clone, a new boss-tier enemy that players will also face in future events and it is probably good to know how this monster works.

The minotaur clone as mentioned is a series of minotaur monsters of which only one is the true form. For this event there are a couple of minotaur clone variants but they work the same whereby only one is the true form that can only be attacked, lose HP and killed. The other clones remain invincible when this true form is not killed, and will not take any damage despite being a shared clone. Fortunately though just like how clones work the true form itself hits like a truck but its clones aren’t that strong and can be easily dealt with standard HA blocking setup, but you will still want to kill the true form as soon as possible if you don’t have a strong heal pool and strong tanks.

Another challenge for this event is the early UP cost. Given that the signature unit involves an Advance Guard and Shuuka is usually pre-deployed in some maps this contributed to the map designers introducing pretty heavy rushes early, such as a train of extended ONI rush. There is also the desert maps that run attrition mods with early sandworm movement followed by an extended ONI heavy hitters forcing you to deploy early melee units at 50% HP and quickly sustain them up with a proper heal pool or risk losing units. Parachuting techniques aren’t too useful in this event, so in terms of strategical variety you have limited options of types of units to use.

Team Preparation:

To deal with the minotaur you need a pretty substantial heal pool, so 3 healers are usually the go-to, preferably an Awakened Iris as well for the desert maps as well as sustaining multiple clone damage. 3 HAs are also the better options although 2 can be enough, then build a couple of high HP units like Bandits to work as diversion units to either block the clones or clear out some squishy monsters that can pose a threat of overrunning your multiblockers causing them to leak monsters. Assorted magic and physical DPS are also needed to deal with the different monster variety where some has higher MR and others with high defense; utilize your archers/mages for this, although having a couple of vampire hunters and ninjas can also greatly help contributing to the damage department.

For the minotaurs, if you have a strong heal pool running units like Avengers/Princesses can work wonders against the true form, otherwise playing the safe sustain game is a more holistic approach. Regardless of how you deal with them this will usually require either very good heal pool or deft fingers in swapping tanks, so for players catching up to the event prioritize getting your healers first if you plan to use Protections.

Other Important Stuffs:

1)Weird Combos, not so Weird Buffs
Xiao’s design is weird for an archer, for this is the period of time where Aigis developers somehow became strong fans of assassination design and decided that assassination should be something applicable to almost every unit class in the game until they realized how anti-strategic assassination is and nerfed the design to oblivion, directly destroying event units that run such design especially the melee ones. Xiao as a ranged unit still suffers, although the fact that she is ranged and runs decent attack speed would mean that assassination as a skill on her is still viable particularly against moderately buffed monsters like assorted Heavy Infantry and Red Gargoyle, although the flat duration across skill level is the big part of where her suffering came. At best she can fill in for a third-archer spot, but that will not last long assuming Rita is coming sooner or later.

Shuuka on the other hand is a bit like Len; she can still be pretty good in some scenarios. Putting Uzume aside, this unit is going to be one of those buff units you will need in future content where megabosses are present and you need every single buff you can muster to deal with that one big fat boss blocking your way to achieving 3-star in a mission as a free player. Otherwise Shuuka works more like a Monk-Samurai hybrid as you invest in her; the evasion she gets from her AW passive is only applicable to herself turning her into a monk-like unit, but of course she gets the multi-hit cleaving like a Samurai as well. Relatively low HP means she is just as squishy, so utilize her more towards a support role is the better option rather than having her to deal with most of the fighting. Overall as a unit she won’t last too long in your composition; once better buff units start rolling out she will go down the pecking order and eventually be benched, but comparing her to other event units’ fate she is still not so bad.

2)The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Aigis Version
If you are a fan of this literature or you have played KOEI’s famous franchise, played Aigis DMM version and knew how the Spotlight unit fare you will not miss the close similarity of this event’s multiple units to the story between Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu in one of the most inspiring strategical duel and partnership.

It is highly likely that Nutaku will not run the same spotlight unit for this event; Crouching Dragon Strategist Aisha is, and still is, the most broken unit in Aigis history. Unfortunately for being a loli character, Nutaku’s players most likely will miss the chance of using this extremely overpowered Black, a close adaptation of Zhuge Liang in terms of her sprite, design and even her title (Crouching Dragon is a specific reference to Zhuge Liang, the widely acclaimed greatest strategist in the era according to the novel).

In particular, both Xiao and Shuuka is overwhelmingly similar to the visual adaptation of Xiao Qiao and Zhou Yu in KOEI’s fanchise; Xiao Qiao is usually depicted in pink/orange depending on different Three Kingdoms/Dynasty Warrior games, while Zhou Yu is famously drawn in red costumes throughout, also strongly influenced by the fact that his serving dynasty is usually represented with red in both game series. There are also other evidence that tells of the similarity; In Three Kingdoms Zhou Yu is portrait-ed as a passionate yet proud strategist and frustrated for being second-best to Zhuge Liang, and players will be able to notice this personality in Shuuka through event conversations. In Aigis, Shuuka is the general of a kingdom; in Three Kingdoms Zhou Yu is a general and strategist for Sun Quan, the founder of Wu Dynasty after his death.

3)Event Farming
This is a pretty good event for silver unit farming considering the quality of the drops and the relatively low stamina/charisma cost per run, more so when this is a 2-week event. With the exception of Witch, the other important Awakening/CC fodders are available here: Soldiers/Archers/Rogues/Valkyries/Mages/Pirates/Heavy Infantry to name a few. Platinum/Black spirits are also up for grabs here, while the 2 G tier maps run similar completion bonus in Tin Can and Rainbow Spirit.

Also note that you get side rewards for hitting multiple star tier in this event like the past Collection event. This gives you spirits/demon crystals/gold armor and tin cans as well as a Rainbow Spirit, so you can net 2 Rainbow Spirits overall for one event alone. The highest tier required to get every reward is 24 stars, so players who decided to spend on protection do note that you don’t necessarily have to 3 star every map to hit this target so that you can safe unnecessary SC spending for this event, especially considering the fact that both units are not going to be good long term investments anyway.

Conclusion:

Archer is meh, Advance Guard is well, meh in the long run. By the time this game hits the point where megabosses run rampant there will probably be more than enough free buff units introduced into the game to get things done then completely relying on Shuuka’s buff. The event itself is not too strategically demanding, but you will want a strong heal pool, good ranged damage, 2 heavy tank sponge and a single daredevil to get things done. Otherwise a pretty uneventful fortnight.

Note: I will be celebrating my first year anniversary of Nutaku Aigis in a few days time. In conjunction with this I will be doing a Q&A as well as sharing some of my thoughts going into the second year with Nutaku Aigis either in a blog post or a video depending on available resources. You can start mailing your questions to the following email: vpgamesaigis@gmail.com, or direct message me on Twitter: twitter.com/vp_game. Do note that this is not an AMA; I will be answering Aigis-related questions mostly, but other questions like video guides, streamers, other games that I have played or will play such as Kanpani and Flower Knight Girl is also welcome. I won’t be answering questions that are personal though. Your information will also not be disclosed; if you see your questions answered you will know your questions are being answered, others won’t know who asked the questions.

Oni-Possessed Swordswoman is a farm event, where the signature unit is rewarded to players in the form of map drops. The overall state of the signature unit is dependent on luck in getting necessary copies to skill upgrade and cost reduce. This event rewards players with a Platinum Samurai.

The Unit: Swordswoman Maple

Maple is a Samurai, a class that deals damage to every unit they engage. This means that Samurais can hit multiple enemies depending on their block count, usually 2 increasing to 3 after Awakened. Maple is a burst Samurai; Her attack scaling is pretty steep, that is to say she receives a substantial attack boost after Awakening surpassing her peers of the same class, but at the cost of reduced attack speed. Unlike other Platinum Samurai, Maple is the only Platinum Samurai that has no attack built into her affection bonus; she gains pure HP instead. Her skill gives her an extremely short steroid of attack boost that can double or triple depending on skill level, but suffers a period of paralysis for about 15 seconds after the skill expires. Post Awakening Maple gains an extra block but will also cost more to deploy. This puts her value as a mid to end-game anti-rush unit since she can clear better as well as dealing with stronger rushes.

Map Preview:

Oni-Possessed Swordswoman runs 5+1 maps, of which a couple of new monsters looking to make a debut here. Apart from the usual goblins, wolves and assorted heavy infantry, you will also get to fight knights, heavy cannoneer and a shadow-like monster (will just call them black shadows for referencing purposes). Then there’s Maple herself.

As far as I can recall, this event isn’t God tier in terms of difficulty, but there are a couple of challenges particularly over the last 2 maps. The first and foremost is Maple when she is on skill activation mode in map 5. Maple at this stage hits like a truck, coupled with the early heavy infantry extended rush from multiple directions mean that your UP management is crucial to ensure success here. There is not many who can take more than 2 hits without healing support from Maple, and getting a Heavy Infantry to hold her means that the necessary UP has to be generated earlier. You will be looking for a lot of low-cost units to ride the early game for this map, then concentrating mainly on taking Maple down.

Despite the title of the event named Oni, you will only experience strong Oni presence in the G tier map with the ghost Black Onis showing their faces. While not as beefy as they are in previous events these still hit pretty hard, and with the ghost nature they are capable of walking through ranged slots so knowing their pathing is important. The Black shadows also exhibit such property. These shadows themselves is another challenge as they function similarly to the sandworms in Desert maps; the monsters remain burrowed and untargettable until they engage with a unit which forces them to surface. The difference here is these shadows can travel through ranged slots unlike the sandworms, and so you will have to play the maps cautiously in determining which range slot is safe and which isn’t. The heavy cannoneers are more of a nuisance than a threat, again smart deployment order and positioning will render this monster ineffective.

Team Preparation:

Healers, tanks, magic DPS and some physical damage assisted with assassinations are the viable options here. Considering the number of mini-rushes accompanied by multiple heavy infantry and wolves, having good witches and mages will certainly contribute to your clearing as well as slowing of monsters in these maps. Also keep a few low cost melee units that can be used in UP tight situations, as well as a couple of strong multiblockers to serve as the main frontline. Players who have Claudia or other Princesses will find these units very useful as well.

For the X tier map running assassination strategies can be your main direction so having good rogues, or at least rogues with skill levels pumped into them and a bit of cost reduction can be very handy. Also despite quite a number of the monsters being heavy infantry, majority of these are the softer side of the family, the light blue type which isn’t too heavily stacked in defense, so high attack archers or vampire hunters can still hurt them substantially. Overall there isn’t too many surprises about the maps except some fancy black shadow movement and cannoneers being annoying, and as usual new players coming into the game recently will find some of the maps pretty tough to deal with particularly map 4 onwards.

Other Important Stuff:

1) The Story of Maple (Not MapleStory)
As usual with farm event units they can be very binary with most of them ending up on the sorry side of things in terms of overall usefulness and up time, and Maple is unfortunately the majority here. Firstly Maple’s overall look is pinging the obvious signal; she is extremely reliant on skill levels, where we are talking about 100% damage increase and skill duration between level 1 and 10 which is huge. The problem however is also on skill levels, where maxing level 10 is almost impossible for a free player approach due to luck factor, so you have to consider SC spending and so comes the question of whether she is worth the splash of cash.

There are 3 reasons why Maple’s story is a sad one: She is a Samurai, she suffers paralysis after skill expiration, developers decided to destroy her with a pretty crazy Skill Awakening. Firstly, as a Samurai Maple is probably in a better position when compared to other Platinum ones; Samurais generally are hard to use due to their high cost despite being a multiblocker and runs good clearing properties since there are always better alternatives when it comes to dealing with situations they excel in. Maple runs the benefits of being cost reduced significantly in this regard as a farm unit but her overall kit isn’t as good as the summon-based Samurais such as Shizuka. This also means that unless you get to CR her and use her as a Samurai like how you would use Akane without consideration of skills then she is still viable stat-wise, but then it is still an inefficient unit overall when compared to other alternatives, which is the sad story of all Samurais to begin with. Also note that this is a pre-buff Samurai, so they will be at a weaker state for now unless developers ninja the buffs in.

Maple’s paralysis post-skill expiration is another big problem for her. While some DMM players may make a case that post-skill expiration paralysis isn’t too big of a bad thing considering Awakened Prince skill exhibiting similar issue, the skill duration and multiplier of both units are far too big to consider the comparison as being a fair one. Unlike Awakened Prince whose skill duration spans way longer than his paralysis timer, Maple has a longer paralysis period than her skill duration, in other words you can say that Maple is a lazy Samurai that takes longer rest after a short period of hardwork. Maple’s paralysis is also the type that reduces her block, so she will actually leak monsters during paralysis which is of course very bad in most scenarios.

Then again when you look at Maple’s skill serving as a short term steroid and how other unit classes like Bandits exhibiting similar build structure yet doesn’t suffer too much from the steroid gain you’d think developers will try to buff Maple a bit more in the form of Awakening and Skill Awakening. Instead they increased her attack further, but dropped her attack speed so her overall DPS gain isn’t too substantial, then slapped her with a Skill Awakening that further reduces her block count for another 100% damage boost as if her paralysis weakness is not enough. It almost felt like the developers decided that 2.8k attack for 10 seconds is overkill for a Samurai so they will have to balance her into a Bandit build instead, yet forgot that as a Samurai her cost is much higher than an average Bandit if not min-costed and the paralysis that follows after. For paralysis reduction mechanics you either run Liana’s skill which means you are tying Liana’s skill to Maple’s or reduce the timer by running the respective Awakened healers with the paralysis timer reduction passive. Either ways this is too much of an investment for a unit of this calibre, more so for the latter case when the paralysis reduction effect can only take place when the healers actually heal her so the paralysis reduction effect is generally minimal since at paralysis she don’t usually take damage thanks to the paralysis mod itself causing her to not engage in melee.

In other word, Maple is unfortunately destroyed by developer decisions. She will not be relevant considering her excellence scales after Awakening, and for a unit that attacks multiple blocked enemies you already have a stronger alternative in Princess Anya so Maple kind of lost her unique identity as the game goes on. Not worth the cash splash but you can always get copies of her as experience fodders or simply keep one for the CG, since not many will deny that her art is pretty good overall.

2) Event Farming
If you lack silver units for Awakening farming a couple of the event maps isn’t a bad idea at all, but in many cases you will want to skip this event altogether. Drop rate as a whole isn’t too good unless you find yourself with some great luck in scoring Platinum Fairies then getting those from X tier map and feeding them accordingly with the Maple fodders is also pretty good experience wise particularly during the weekends when there aren’t dailies around to spend the Stamina on. Refer to the wiki for the silver unit drops, the ones of note are Archer/Pirate/Soldier/Heavy Infantry and a couple of other silvers that aren’t too heavily used at this stage of the game.

Conclusion:

Event itself is probably worth doing only for the SC rewards. Maple as a fully publicized complete unit is already sentenced to incarceration by the developers, so not a unit worth the cash to max skilled. Stroll in the park for many veterans, new players will still be able to score half of the maps. Not much to expect from the event overall.

With Awakening coming up tomorrow and a quick glance through some of the conversation around forums and wiki it is obvious that players are looking forward to this content (and rightly so) as well as providing advice to others who have yet to experience this powerful new feature into Nutaku version of the game. This is also evident when I relooked into some of the mails I’ve received over past few months as well as some private messages that the same question is being asked repeatedly: Who should I Awaken first? Is A good? Is B bad?

I won’t say that this is a comprehensive guide, but hopefully it serves as a holistic overview of some of my own reasoning when deciding to awake a unit, some of them being pretty much flukes but others proved extremely useful. If you have not gotten an idea what Awakening is, you can check through my other basics post in this blog: Awakening: What You Need to Know Before Its Here

Who to Awaken First?

Given the amount of resource player managed to accumulate until now you probably will be able to Awake multiple units at the same time, but if you have only 1 shot at this moment then the default go-to will definitely be Archers.

There are 2 strong reasons behind this particular pick. Firstly, no matter at what stage of this game, there is no denying the fact that physical damage DPS is extremely important due to the monster pool generally being trash mobs designed to overrun you causing you to leak monsters instead of killing your units. This means that securing reliable physical damage DPS is a top priority, more so when you need them in almost every daily/event missions except Golden Armor G or to a certain extent A Toast to Men G if you have no Stray, which is the second reason why Awakening archers first is a priority. The difference between not having at least 2 Awakened archers in your composition can be strongly felt as you progress further, so getting two Awakened archers up and running is usually the case for most compositions, although at this stage of the game you will most likely get at least one up first and complete the second Awakening some time later.

Of the current available archers, I would rank the Awakening order as follow:
Nanaly > Spica > Victoria/Bashira > Stray

In deciding between Victoria and Bashira, the bigger question at the moment is stability/burst if you have both, as well as your vampire hunter pool. In many situation Spica’s damage is pretty stable so getting a stronger burst for extreme situations can be pretty useful especially when paired with Spica’s damage boost, but if you already have a strong vampire hunter (Elizabeth for example) to compensate for burst then Victoria will always be the better option for higher damage ceiling. That said, if you are a free player then most likely Spica/Bashira will be your long term Awakened archer duo. As for Spica, I don’t have to elaborate further. Hands down the most important unit to Awake as a free player.

What Next?

Healer, especially the twin sisters of Camilla/Iris. I’d usually put this as third priority behind Heavy Infantry, but considering Chydis’ long absence from Trading Post and the overall growth of Liana’s Awakening being lackluster somewhat boosted Camilla/Iris’ Awakening passive. Having a higher healing power is always cool, but the extra 500/700 instant HP refill to all units on the field upon deployment is extremely critical most of the time to save your early game as well as buying time. While the overall growth of healers in terms of power spikes post Awakening is going to be pretty flat, with no strong black healer at the moment and no Chydis available getting at least one healer awakened can brighten your day.

Ranking order:
Camilla > Chydis > Liana > Iris > Fedora > Robert

Despite Fedora’s higher heal ceiling, high chances you won’t immediately max an Awakening unit’s levels due to the extreme demand of experience fodders required. At this stage of the game picking strong Awakening passive is more crucial than a maxed stat ceiling so keep that in mind when deciding further awakening options.

Further Awakening

Heavy Infantry. Especially with Nutaku’s maintenance day being Tuesday meaning that you will have to wait for at least a week before you can Awake your archer getting HA Awakened early is a more appealing option, more so when considering Deina’s Awakening Gem mission is in my opinion the easiest mission out of the currently available ones. This completes the core HAT that generally fills your composition heavily and most importantly being highly useful in your quest on getting the other remaining Awakening Gems from the daily missions. Heavy Infantry Awakening will be your answer to majority of the upcoming megabosses that deals heavy physical damage as the game develops.

Ranking order:
Gellius > Deine > Bernice > Garrett

Why Gellius? The problem with Deine post Awakening is her cost. Despite her raw defense stat boost her cost also increases by 2, which is a huge No-No since the last thing you need is a min-cost 26 Heavy Infantry(29 at vanilla cost)*. Besides, she gains no extra defensive option with her skill, and her skill is also a huge problem when dealing with hybrid rush/boss situation. Most importantly, for 23/26 cost Gellius at lv5 skill activation gains double defense bonus. In a scenario without extra buff options Gellius would outshine Deine both in physical/magic defenses due to her superior defense/HP as well as 10% magic damage reduction post Awakening, and his skill lasts pretty long with pretty short cooldowns.

Your subsequent Awakening units should focus on getting at least one single blocker, preferrably Princess as well as ranged magic damage DPS ie. Mage/Witch. This rounds up your basic composition, but overall you want to continue filling Awakening units into your team. Target to at least get 1-2 units Awakened every month, more if you are a cash player. Also if you have units like Cellia it is also good to Awake her; she is a pretty decent single blocker to begin with, and having a tiny boost on Spirit drop rate is always a good thing.

Other Tips:

I have no recollection if I covered this in the other basics post, but here are a few options you can consider performing awakening once your core is built:

1)Awaken units that can provide strong utility to your overall composition. If your composition runs a lot of archers then getting Spica’s Awakening gives you a lot of damage output. If your composition lacks ranged melee units and you happen to own Sybilla then getting her Awakening gives you another ranged melee at your disposal. Always Awake units that provide strong boost to your setup.

2)Awakening takes up a lot of resources. During your early stages you will most likely not have enough to completely max out multiple Awakened units; they just cost too much to level to 80/90/99. Regauge your priorities: You want to Awaken units at every opportunity, but also only break even or level them slightly above max CC state then just leave them be for a while. CC should still be your main priority; for free players this mean skipping certain events entirely, only getting the event map SCs to further develop your team rather than mincost/maxskill every event unit available.

3)Because of how big of a resource sink Awakening is it is also a good time for you to start remembering several experience gauge to prevent waste of experience fodder use and Gold. This is due to the fact that while Desert fodders give pretty good experience with the experience-specific units the overall net gold gain from the maps is atrocious. I personally use a list where I only start feeding 8000 experience when units are around the 60 marks: 60 for Gold Post Awakening, 61 for Plat Pre/Post Awakening, 62/63 for Black Pre/Post Awakening. By utilizing this sequence I have a fixed expenditure to budget my spendings per unit and can decide whether I have extras to max out a Post Awakening unit or not as well as saving upgrade costs for the upper levels to prevent experience overkill.

Conclusion:

Awakening is a pretty big content, and also a learning process. You will lose some resources as you perform your first Awakenings, but practice makes perfect, and in no time you will find yourself commanding a pretty nice variety of strong units that can perform various combos when used strategically.

*Updated Deine’s cost error as noted by Neko, although it still doesn’t change the priority order.