Contributor: Pipi
Table of Contents
Introduction
Hello Adventurers! This guide will go over the basics of the Abyssal Expedition event, and is primarily targeted towards beginners and people who are new to this event. It will go through the core mechanics of AE, and explain the basics of how they work.
What is Abyssal Expedition?
In Abyssal Expedition (also known as AE), you work together in a 70 man group called a militia. The ultimate aim of this event is to raise the strength of your units and progress through a unique area, working together to defeat enemies and take down the final boss. By completing quests and ranking up, you can receive new bonuses that increase your strength and rewards.
Tiles and Settlements
Each tile on the map can be attacked and taken over by defeating the enemy team on that tile. These enemies grow stronger in various ways as you get closer to the final boss. The strength of each tile is marked by the Tier, from 1 to 8 (t1 - t8). As the tier increases, the number of fights increases, and the strength of the enemies will also increase. The power of the enemies can be seen next to the “enemy formation” text, and the number of fights is directly above the attack button. Starting from t5 settlements there will be 2 fights, and for t8’s, there are 3 fights. Units used in the first fight cannot be used in the second, so having a fellow militia member take down the first fight for you can make t5’s and above much easier to defeat.
By taking over a tile next to one that is owned by a militia member, the two tiles become “connected”. Tiles can only be attacked if they are located directly next to a tile that you own, or if they are next to a tile that you are connected to. After being connected to a tile, you can attack other tiles that are much further away without having to travel all the way yourself. Spreading out and linking up with your fellow militia members is an important factor to succeeding in Abyssal Expedition.
There are also different types of settlements in Abyssal Expedition. Path tiles and Settlements. Blank tiles are known as path tiles, whereas tiles with buildings on them are known as settlements. Both types of tiles have stronger versions which will be harder to defeat but give bigger rewards.
There is a set limit on the amount of tiles you can own, as indicated by the 20/25 text in the picture above. This limit increases as you complete quests and rank up. If you hit the limit, then you must abandon some of your currently owned tiles in order to take new ones. It is important to make sure that you are always connected with your teammates and do not disconnect with them so that you can progress further into the map.
Heroes and Stamina
The amount of heroes you can use is limited in Abyssal Expedition. You will initially start out with 10 hero slots, but as you rank up this number will increase. You can assign heroes to each slot, and they will be given 60 stamina to start with. Stamina is required to attack settlements and path tiles. Attacking a tile will cost 12 stamina for each hero used in the fight.
There are three stars that can be obtained in each fight by meeting certain criteria during that fight. Each star given will recover stamina on your heroes. By getting 3 stars on every fight possible, you will be able to save more stamina and therefore be able to attack more tiles. If all of your heroes die during a fight, then they will lose 12 stamina and gain zero stars. The damage done to enemies will be saved, but it is an extremely costly loss of stamina. If a fight seems like it will be a loss, then you can click retry to save stamina. Retrying a fight will cause your heroes to lose 1 stamina as opposed to the 12 stamina lost from wiping. Every hour, heroes that are slotted in will gain 4 stamina. Keep in mind that stamina is not saved on the slot that a unit is in, but rather the unit itself. Simply put, if you remove a hero from a slot, then all of their stamina will be wiped as well.
Blessed Essence and Relics
Taking over a tile will cause it to start generating a certain amount of Blessed Essence for you every hour. Blessed Essence can be spent in order to buy relics for your heroes. These relics give your heroes massive power boosts and will allow you to defeat stronger heroes. The amount of stamina being generated each hour can be seen next to your current tile limit.
Each class in the game (might, fortitude, celerity, sorcery, sustenance) has relics that can be bought/equipped to boost the heroes belonging to whatever class you upgrade. When 6 relics are equipped for one class, you will have the option to upgrade the core relic for that class. This will raise its level by one. The max level for a core relic is level 5, and getting a core relic to higher levels not only allows you to buy stronger relics for that class, but also gives you new passives that boost the strength of your heroes even further. It is recommended to focus on upgrading only one or two classes so that those heroes can capture higher level tiles.
Ranking Up
By completing specific missions in AE, you can rank up and receive several bonuses. The missions consist of tasks such as taking over a certain amount of tiles, or defeating the final boss once. Ranking up gives bonuses such as increased tile limits, and an increase in the amount of units you can use.
It also gives rewards that can be used outside of the event, such as stargazer cards, elite hero stones, and summon scrolls. Completing these missions is key not only to increase your power in the abyssal expedition event, but also to get great rewards!
The Map
This is the latest version of the Abyssal Expedition map, but it may change for upcoming AEs. In this version of the map, the militia is split into two groups, the left side and the right side. Both groups move forwards until they finally reach the center and connect up to kill the final boss. At each of the yellow boxes on the left image, there are mini-bosses that must be defeated in order to progress further.
As you progress further forward, you will eventually reach the final boss, which must be defeated in order to get max rewards in this event. Staying connected to your militia members and moving forward whenever bosses are taken down is extremely important to prevent falling behind. If a player stays behind in the starter zone while their militia moves forward to the final boss, then that player has to spend large amounts of stamina trying to get far enough to catch up and become connected again.
Boss Mechanics
Both the minibosses and the final boss in AE have additional enemies that must be defeated called “defenders”. In order to fully defeat a boss and move into the next zone past it, the defenders must be defeated as well. If the boss is killed but the defenders are left alive, then players will not be able to move past the boss tile. The number of defenders that must be defeated varies between the different bosses.
The bosses in AE always have a set of 4 abilities, and a health bar that is shown at the top of the screen. The bosses have been known to change their abilities after meeting certain conditions, such as with the Ainz and Albedo boss. In that particular case, killing one of the two bosses would make the other enter an enraged state, becoming much more difficult to kill.
The final bosses in AE cost 48 stamina to attack. Stars are not obtainable from these attacks, meaning your units will always lose 48 stamina from each attack. However, if you notice that an attack has gone bad and will do very little damage, then you can retry the fight. Pressing retry during a boss attack will cause 4 stamina to be lost instead of the 48 stamina, but it will also completely erase all the damage that was done to the boss during that specific attack.
Immediately after killing the final boss and its defenders, the boss will enter a respawning period. The boss will take 24 hours to respawn, and will respawn only 4 times. In total, the AE final bosses will have 5 lives. Everytime the boss is killed and revived, it will increase its health.
- 1st life : 32.4B health
- 2nd life : 90B health
- 3rd life : 180B health
- 4th life : 360B health
- 5th life : 720B health
For players simply looking to rank up to prince, killing the 1st life of the final boss will be the main goal of AE.
The Leaderboard
For those who are strong enough to place in the top 100, the leaderboard is another source of rewards, giving items such as frames and guild decorations. The rankings are ordered by damage dealt to the final boss. After the fifth and final life of the final boss has been defeated, no more damage can be dealt. As a result, a guild's position on the leaderboard is “locked in”. From there on, the rankings are ordered by time, and how fast the guilds can reach this point.
Even for guilds who are not in the top 100 however, the leaderboard is still a useful resource because it can show the total boss damage dealt by you and your fellow militia members. Damage dealt by specific members can be checked by pressing the icon with 3 bars next to the militia’s name. By going to the resources tab, you can also see the amount of blue essence militias and specific members have generated.
A Final Note
Some of you may have noticed this, but this guide does not contain any information about the meta units, classes, and boss teams to use for AE. Why? Simply put, these things might change at any time, and we have seen this in previous iterations, such as the mage meta of the Ainzbedo AE, or the izold meta of the Gouldous AE. Due to this, only core mechanics, which would stay relevant even if the meta changes, were put in this guide.
Thank you for reading this guide!
- Pippi