User blog:Fairingrey/Thoughts 5-6-14: FAW events and Ranking

Intro
Hey guys. May★ here. More information in my userpage. Feel free to take a look at it.

There's been a lot of talk about ranking. Maybe how to rank, how to get senders or how to lose a lot of your time during the day multitasking like a zombie in front of your phone or tablet. Recently, with the first two element UR ranking buffers by nubee, people might be taking more of an interest in it now. After all, how else are you going to get UR buffers other than cashing out like a crazy? Or being extremely lucky, but lets not talk about that.

Before we start, however, let us all acknowledge the fact that we were once newbies in this game and that we once began somewhere. And let us reminisce of those times where we'd be pretty overjoyed at getting our first event HSR or decent AWK card. So even if right now you think ranking is nigh impossible, give it a month or two and put a lot of work into catching up with the game. Maybe not everyone began in the same ideal situations, but surely it took effort to get to where you and I are in Valkyrie Crusade right now.

Anyways, I've seen this from time to time the questions about ranking. How do you get into top 300? top 50? What kind of mechanics do you use? Where do you find senders? And maybe that's what I'm writing about to answer. I'm detailing my thoughts about how ranking works for the different types of players that exist for ranking. And maybe it might or might not answer your questions, but I do hope it gives you a little bit of insight if you're somewhat familiar with how the game works. And given, some of this stuff might seem REALLY obvious to you, but I will detail as much of it as possible anyway.

And keep in mind, these are my THOUGHTS about how ranking works. This shouldn't perfectly represent the status quo of ranking.

By the way, I'll add pictures later if I feel I want to later, so you can be aware of that.

Materials
There are a number of ways you can rank, but as far as the general consensus goes there are a bunch of trade materials required. So let's see. If you lack any of these things, you will probably have a considerably tougher time ranking than other people do. That's what I can claim for sure. If you're a free player, just save your jewels for yggs and MS. The game tosses jewels out like candy. Don't be impulsive and go spend on summon because I'm pretty sure 97% of the time you will get crap. 97% of the time, all the time.
 * A good FAW subdue team. A very good one, preferably. The better your team composition is, the faster you're in and out of FAWs. And please, for love's sake, don't lie about your FAWK status when you put FAWpls or FAWK in your name. Nobody smart enough is going to believe that you're a FAWK when your peak rank is somewhere in the 6000s and you lack a single yggs in your kingdom.
 * The term FAWK itself I find is rather umbrella: it is only a sign that one has a good FAW subdue team since FAW subdue chances are NEVER perfect in any battle given the power of witch AoE skills. So take that with a grain of salt whenever someone says "100% kill rate".
 * 2 or 3 yggs. Preferably 3. Having bp spare is a must. You get more sleep without worrying about your bp hitting the cap sooner than later, and you get more BP out of your swords and twitter BP everyday.
 * A Magic School at level 3+. Preferably. Unless you're a MAD ASSISTER. More info in the section concerning it below.
 * Free time. More is better. I'm not telling you to slack at your job or postpone your studies, but your free time if you want to seriously rank is probably going to go into the game plus whatever else you do in your spare time for leisure if you're good at multitasking.
 * Schedule micromanagement according to your senders' peak hours and the time you have can also reduce the time required to spend racking the points for rank tallies, so just be aware this can vary from person to person. I might write more about this.

So then, we've got down what you need. Maybe you're just one of those players that lurk around at peak rank 900-1600 and never have quite put your ALL into the game, but you sure as heck have all of these. Awesome.

Basics
FAWs are short for Fantasy Archwitches, and they have a limited chance of appearing after every subduing of a regular archwitch that has a level greater than or equal to 50. Battles are free on the first try, but cost a single bp each try after.

Not going to go into the mechanics of how to subdue them since there are posts elsewhere about team composition that describe much better what kind of teams you can pick going into these battles. But either way, if you've played this game for long enough, you've probably seen one of these poor superpowerful maidens being turned against their will to slap your beautiful maiden valkyries (dorky backstory in area 5-5 you can read later).

Types of Rankers
There are 3 types of rankers that I will classify as the following: Backsender, Assister, and Leecher. A person doesn't have to be just any single one of these types. Heck, a lot of times rankers will crossover into any 2 or all 3 of them.

Backsenders
So backsenders are liked. They're probably the most popular among the top 300, and they all like each other. The word I use, 'backsender', is just a term that I've derived from the verb phrase "sending back", so a backsender is one who sends back when you send him or her FAW. You can call it a pseudoword, but I believe there holds some meaning in it, and thus we'll call it that.

And I'm a backsender. Yay.

What they do

 * Find their own FAWs by subduing their own AWs in the event map.
 * (optional) subdue their FAW to half or 1/3rd HP
 * Flee/lose the battle and send to reinforcements: Alliance, 3-5 other backsenders, and/or maybe helpful sender(s) in return.

Pros

 * No reliance on other comrades unless their comrade FAW helpers are all sleeping. Which sucks, I guess, but I won't excuse the case of this happening, even if it's a rarity.
 * Play on own time schedule as a result. Whether it's throughout a whole day or it's only a good portion of the day, a backsender can choose when he/she has the time to play and backsend to other backsenders that send back FAW. This falls in line with not relying on comrades.
 * 90-100% BP optimization. None of the BP between backsenders is wasted on assisting regular AWs like an assister's, so all of the BP is spent towards finding FAWs.
 * Comrade list stability. Comrades only have to be pruned every so once in a while compared to assister comrade lists.
 * Popularity. Senders in the upper echelon of levels (level 60+) that can subdue their own AWs usually want to add these people.
 * Drops. More, and better. You get the guaranteed ace on your regular AW drops, and you can choose to secure your own ace in your own FAWs if they're nice enough to not AoE you.

Cons

 * You only get to pick 5 people outside of your alliance. I know, some of us experience favoritism. I do, especially.
 * High requirements: Preferably the most ideal kind of backsender has a lv 6+ MS with 3 yggs and maxed/almost maxed temples. It takes time and/or money to get these things.
 * Refresh time, all the time.
 * Don't forget it can be stupid boring to traverse the map even if you're the priest of your alliance with a LV 10 Magic School. Trust me, I'd know.

Assisters
Assisters are the probably the second most popular types of senders, and for good reason. If assisters didn't exist, then newbies would have a pain in the ass trying to get ANYWHERE within this game, so props to them for doing the job we backsenders don't do very often. Or don't want to. Maybe some of us can, but then we're just too lazy and want dedicated senders. Whatever the reason is, they're needed. And they're awesome for helping out.

And sometimes I help out too, although it's only one person. Young gal by the name of emi★. I believe in her ability to get to backsender status. Her habits are cute, and it makes me smile.

They can also be called Cleaners.

What they do

 * Use their BP solely on assisting newbies that can't kill their own AWs yet.
 * In return, they get the FAWs that appear from the newbies' AWs.

Pros

 * Goodwill. Largely goodwill. Thank you, assisters, for being our caretakers. Helping newbies graduate!
 * DOESN'T NEED A MAGIC SCHOOL. Fine, I will admit, 1-3.5k jewels can be a lot.
 * Doesn't have to spend time in the event/campaign map.

Cons

 * ~40-70% BP optimization. Depending on the sender and his chances of killing his own AWs (which can vary), usually 2 BP is spent in an attempt to find a FAW, and 1 if the sender can kill it by himself. Some are rude enough to not send back the FAW back to you at times, but that's a rarity.
 * Reliance on sender activity. You can't quite pick when you want to farm, you just have to hope your senders want to feed you stuff.
 * Less good drops. You're not guaranteed aces on regular AWs and FAWs that aren't sent to just you.
 * List pruning. Comrades are more susceptible to go inactive or stop sending to you once they've graduated to assister or backsender status. It's a shame it happens, but it happens.

Leechers
The name says it all.

I will admit, all of us have some leech in us. But dedicated leechers are selfish meanies.

What they do

 * Leech.
 * (optional) Self-feed.

Pros

 * Relies on senders alone to send to them, without returning the favor.
 * Gets all the points from their own stuff if they self-feed, and then the rest from senders.

Cons
I would recommend to anyone that's trying to rank to either be an assister or be a backsender, depending on who's available to comrade.
 * Doesn't return the favor.
 * Unpopular except among regular senders that just want their FAWs killed fast.

Types of Senders
I'll keep this short. By the way, I won't detail the ways how you can find these senders, because I do believe it's a part of a ranker's duty to make themselves a part of the community. And making yourself a part of the community helps you easily fill out your comrade list with other potential comrades.

What they do

 * Send AWs to assisters.
 * Send FAWs to the assister and other killers.

Pros

 * They're plentiful. And everywhere. They're easy to find in the community here and there.
 * Very possible graduation to regular sender.

Cons

 * Susceptibility to quitting the game early.
 * Might not be very active.
 * Might lack a magic school, so sends can be very spread out throughout a day or until their vit refill.

Backsenders
See above.

Pros

 * Usually very active. Will send back rather often when they're on.
 * They're FAST.

Cons

 * They're FAST.
 * Their sends disappear FAST.
 * Can send on skewed ratios depending on favoritism.

Regular Senders
Regular senders are great.

What they do

 * Subdue their own AWs.
 * Send FAWs to backsenders or other killers.

Pros

 * Can be decent active to very active. Often positive about supporting rankers, and will encourage you by sending stuff.
 * They don't always look for anything back. Some of them just want their stuff killed fast. And some don't even care who kills them.

Cons

 * Depending on who they're comraded with, their stuff can either disappear fast, or not so fast.
 * These people can be difficult to find in good number at times.
 * Might graduate to ranking status. They're susceptible to graduating to backsender or assister status once they have a decent FAW subdue team.

Closing
Anyways, this is all I'll post for right now. My views on the whole debacle can be a little skewed, but I hope this has answered some questions. There might be more in-depth things I can write about later about serious ranking strategies, but this is just the base to begin with.

Thanks for reading! Any questions or comments can go down below if anyone cares to read through this whole thing or ask a seasoned multitasking college student some questions. Have a good one guys, and may you all get some awesome drops.