Dark Moon - The Ultimate Team Building Event - Rise of Firtborn Elite (Formerly Iron Throne Elite)

Dark Moon has arrived and it is quite the event. It is still in Beta so we expect to see changes, however, we are here to cover everything you need to know about how the event is running now! We heard your questions and we are here with all the answers that we have gathered over the first few days of Dark Moon.

What is it?

Dark Moon is defined by Netmarble as the following:

Dark Moon – Sanctuary Scramble is a long-term battle content in which all the Alliances and Lords gather to fight for control of Dark Moon.

During the Dark Moon – Sanctuary Scramble period, the Alliance that first reaches the target point by completing various missions will conquer the Dark Moon.

It’s still in Beta!

The First Dark Moon is in fact still a Beta version. On the forum, it was indicated that developers will be open to feedback to ensure a more complete version of the event when it “officially launches” at a later date.

The Objective

The Objective in Dark Moon is to be the first team to reach 15,000 points within the time frame allotted. If no teams are able to complete this goal then the team with the highest score will be declared victorious.

From the Beginning

In order for your team to participate in Dark Moon, an R4 or R5 must enlist you. Much of this event is driven by your R4 and R5 Team so having a sound strategy and being able to communicate it to your team in a way that allows them to delay gratification (the natives do get restless) is very important. There are times during the event where it will seem to move slowly and that can be frustrating if your team does not understand the goal you are working towards.

The requirements for enlisting Dark Moon are

1) you must be in an Alliance

2) the Alliance must consist of at least 5 members.

Entering Dark Moon

You are able to enter Dark Moon two ways:

You can enter from your Events page
You can enter through the World Map (the Dark Moon lurks behind True World.

For the Beta Dark Moon, there was no cost to enter Dark Moon, however, we do not know if this will change when the event is released again.

When you first enter the Dark Moon you begin at a territory at the border on the map. In order to move from Territory to Territory, you must first conquer and then settle your Territory. You can then move to connected territories. Each unowned Territory will have neutral troops inside it that help count towards Alliance and Inferno Events. The goal is to advance towards the center while obtaining the different tiers of 7 different objectives. At the center, you will find the Imperishable Fortress where you are able to gain even more points.

We will discuss these objectives shortly however, before we dive into that let’s talk about Troops, Buffs, and Signets.

Signets

You Can purchase signets, troops, and buffs in the Signet shop. Every Day each player will receive 10 free signets (which is equal to 1000) and can purchase up to 100 more using Food, Stone, Silver, Wood, Iron, or Gold.

Troops

You do not bring any of your own Troops to Dark Moon. You must recruit Mercenaries in the Signet shop. You can have up to 100 million at the same time these consist of T6- T7 Strategic Troops.

Buffs

Buffs can also be purchased in the Signet shop and these buffs are huge! We heard players ask several times where to equip these. By going to the battle buff page where you would typically equip buffs and scrolling all the way to the bottom you will be able to find these buffs and equip them.

The Objectives

We want to take a closer look at the 7 different objectives and what exactly they are and how to obtain them. Note that for each tier of these objectives you gain rewards that are valuable to help the growth of your city and Dark Moon Coins which you are able to spend in the shop for even more valuable rewards.

Objective: Kill Troops

There are Five tiers at this event. You are able to kill troops in PvP by attacking another player’s base or by killing troops in the Territory Tower or Temple you are trying to win. Killing other player’s troops will also give you points towards Inferno and Alliance events as well as the overall objective.

Objective: Kill Neutral Troops

You will find Neutral Troops in unowned Towers or Temples. Killing these troops will also give you points towards Inferno and Alliance events as well as the overall objective.

Objective: Rank #1 Counts in Alliance Event

This is just what it sounds like, you must gain rank 1 in alliance events to obtain this objective. This equals a lot of killing!

Objective: Accumulative Conquest Points

Every time you take over a territory you will earn Conquest Points. The goal of this objective is to get your Conquest Points up and you can see how much you will earn from each Tower or Temple by clicking on it.

Objective: The number of owned Territories

This objective requires you to take over a certain number of territories. To achieve this goal you must hold that number of territories. If you drop territories you will not see your score increase until you reach the max number you had held at one time again (for example, say you hold 23 territories and you drop down to 22 you must then build back to 23 and then conquer a 24th territory before your score will increase).

Objective: The number of owned Alliance Signets

This objective is similar to the Territory in that you must own that number of signets at the same time as an alliance. So while you may have spent more than 100k Signets you will not achieve the goal for 100k unless you had that many at one time. There is something to be said for allowing your Signets to build up to reach these goals, however, at the same time it slows your progress on the other goals.

Objective Imperishable Fortress Accumulative Conquest

This requires you to hold the Imperishable Fortress for a certain number of hours in order to obtain the different Tiers of this goal. In beta, we saw AVE be the first alliance to start meeting these goals and eventually win.

Looking at the objective as a whole

What is great about the objectives is that as you meet the different tiers your whole team is able to obtain some great rewards. These go to your whole team and so you really need to have the ability to encourage your team to look past the immediate (the inferno and alliance events) and focus on the bigger picture. As you focus on the bigger picture the gaps will be filled in because in order to achieve the bigger goals you will in the process hit the smaller goals. This event is truly a team event and your team must work together to allow the whole team to excel.

We took the points from the different tiers and saw that there were 20,250 points available on the board. Only 15,000 are needed to end the event. This means that knowing where the points are and how to prioritize is important we can see some of that in the table below.

The Basic Mechanics- How it Works

Welcome to Dark Moon Mechanics aka how this stuff works. Please see our friendly alliance territory… Pretty right? Great alliance in that picture too.

In each territory you are going to find either:

A Magic Tower- These territories provide Alliance Signets and Buffs
A Dark Moon Temple- These Territories provide an increased number of Alliance Signets and higher level buffs.
The Imperishable Fortress (this is like the capital of Dark Moon)

You can see the Territories you own and the benefits you are receiving from them by click Alliance Status.

To Battle We GO!

In order to declare on a Territory, you must have enough Alliance Signets and own a Territory adjacent to the tile you are declaring on. We mentioned above that you get these from Territories owned. Every 20 minutes each territory will give you an allotted amount of Alliance Signets. The amount given is based on the level and whether it is a Temple or Tower. However, here is the catch as the number of territories you own increases and the level you are hitting increases so does the cost to declare war on a Territory. There then comes a need for a strategy on whether or not to drop territories to decrease your costs.

Deciding what Territory to Declare on

Choosing a Territory to declare on is important and the choice comes down to your objective. Are you one of the bigger alliances who are fighting their way to the Imperishable Fortress? Or are you a smaller alliance that just wants to achieve as many tiers of the objectives as possible and complete Alliance and Inferno Events to get as many coins as possible? Where you declare is going to be dependent on your goals and the objectives you are working towards. If you have finished your PvP troop kills then you will want to declare on unoccupied territories to work towards your Neutral Kill goals.

Declaring War

Only an R4 or R5 is able to declare War. When you declare War on an unoccupied territory you are able to go in and begin the fight right away. However, if you are declaring War against another alliance there is a five minute waiting period. You cannot teleport into territories you do not own unless you have declared war and are in the War Period which lasts 15 minutes. Once the 15 minute Battle is over there is a 5 minute settlement period. After this, you officially own that Territory and can declare war on the adjacent tiles.

What if the Chain gets broken?

If your Chain gets broken your Territory will be considered isolated and the number of benefits you are receiving will decrease drastically. At this point, you have the option to abandon that territory, accept the decrease, or rebuild your chain back to that territory.

To The End

When an Alliance completes enough of the event to obtain 15,000 points they win and the event ends for everyone. We know there is so much more that still needs to be covered when it comes to the Dark Moon this event was definitely a favorite and a blast for all who participated! We plan to keep playing and keep bringing you more strategy when they release the final portion! However, in the meantime let us know what questions you have that we have not answered and we will work on addressing those in future articles!

What’s Next?

Do not miss out on so many articles and video’s on our site with a ton of information! Are you looking for more information on gear? We provided a ton of links earlier in the article. However, we have more!