The Game Runs Two Different Fights
Troop Battles
PvP, rallies, world map attacks. Your troops are the base damage. Heroes, equipment, research, your vehicle, and faction bonus all multiply what the troops provide. The combat report shows you exactly where your power comes from — source by source, percentage by percentage. This is where wars are won.
Hero Battles
Adventure, PvE content. Shared damage pool + individual skill multipliers. Equipment allocation matters differently here. Covered in the second half of this page.
A third system — Dark Zone Ops — exists too. No troops, completely different rules. Not documented yet.
Why does this matter? Because most players invest based on what looks impressive — hero star-ups, exclusive equipment, high-level gear — without knowing which engine that investment feeds. The combat reports below show exactly where power comes from in each system, so you can invest where it counts.
Every Answer Is in the Report
The Summary
Top of the report. Shows both sides' troop counts, troop tiers, and the outcome. This is where you see the raw numbers — how many troops each side sent, what tier they were, and who won. The troop count here is the base that everything else multiplies.
Troop Buffs
The revealing section. Shows every buff source — Heroes, Hero Equipment, Technologies, Mod Vehicle, Hall of Honor, Decoration, Alliance Techs, Faction Bonus, Game Season — with exact percentages for both sides. This is where you discover where your power advantage comes from and where you're falling behind. Every number on this page comes from this section.
The Combat Log
Round-by-round damage record. Most players never open this. It shows exactly how damage changes over time — the degradation pattern, when hero skills fire, and how momentum builds. This is where the 10-round skill cycle and damage degradation patterns were discovered.
Want to know which hero skill to prioritise? The combat log shows when skills fire and how much they contribute. Want to know if your Mod Vehicle investment is paying off? The Troop Buffs section shows its exact percentage. Want to know why you lost? The answer is in the report — you just need to know where to look.
Four Battles, One Pattern
CK vs NKS — What Outpowering Looks Like
CK sent 8,822 T9 against NKS's 15,041 T6. Despite having fewer troops, CK's tier and buff advantage was overwhelming. Battle ended in 6 rounds.
27:1 damage ratio · 6 rounds · T9 vs T6CK vs Dinhthai — The Buff Breakdown
CK's 21,833 troops (mixed T8/T9) against Dinhthai's 7,605 T9. CK had 2.9× the troop count. Dinhthai had a better Mod Vehicle. Troop count won. This is the report used for the buff analysis below.
780% ATK vs 590% · 11 rounds · Troop count decided itCK vs Calderon — The Golden Report
CK's 8,726 T9 against Calderon's 7,164 T10. Calderon had better gear, a better vehicle, and higher troop tier. CK had 22% more troops. CK won in 21 rounds. This is the proof that troops beat gear.
More troops + decent buffs > fewer troops + better gearCK vs Giant Mummy — The Long Fight
CK's 45,000 T8 against a 40,000 T10 Giant Mummy. Nearly matched. 31 rounds — long enough to see the skill cycle fire at Round 11 and again at Round 21. This report confirmed the 10-round pattern.
31 rounds · Skills at R11 and R21 · Confirmed skill cycleWhere Your Power Actually Comes From
Troop battles are a multiplicative stack. Your total power isn't the sum of your bonuses — it's the product. Base troop stats × Research bonus × Hero bonus × Hero Equipment × Mod Vehicle × Faction Bonus × everything else. Each layer multiplies everything before it. A 10% improvement in any one layer gives you 10% more total output. But a 10% improvement in every layer compounds dramatically.
The screenshot shows the actual Troop Buffs from the Dinhthai battle. Every percentage comes from the game's own reporting. This is not theory — this is what the game calculated.
ATK Buffs — Source by Source
What the Data Shows
Hero Equipment is the largest gap. 122.3% vs 33.1% — an 89.2% difference. This isn't hero levels or star-ups — it's the gear you equip on them. Notice: in troop battles, hero equipment is pooled into one number. The game doesn't care which hero wears which piece. It sums it all and applies it as one buff. More on this below.
Faction Bonus is the biggest free multiplier. CK's 69.7% vs Dinhthai's 18.3% — a 51.4% gap. This comes from running a single-faction army with 3+ same-faction heroes. CK chose Fighter, but any concentration strategy — Riders, Shooters — generates this bonus. It costs nothing except commitment to one faction.
Mod Vehicle is where Dinhthai won. 228.7% vs CK's 196.2%. They invested heavily in their vehicle. But one strong buff source can't compensate for weakness across multiple others. The multiplicative formula means breadth across all buff layers matters. The product of 6×5×4 = 120 beats 3×3×10 = 90.
Technologies are close — not the differentiator. 155.1% vs 140.0% is only a 15% gap. Both players researched. Technology is the baseline — necessary but not where you separate from opponents.
The Full Picture — All Stat Categories
| Stat Category | CerealKiller | Dinhthai | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Troop Total ATK | 780.7% | 590.0% | +190.7% |
| Troop Total DEF | 738.2% | 614.9% | +123.3% |
| Troop Total HP | 127.1% | 55.0% | +72.1% |
| Troop Total DMG | 136.3% | 90.0% | +46.3% |
The pattern holds across every stat category. DEF breakdown: Hero Equipment (120.4% vs 53.1%) and Faction Bonus (75.6% vs 21.1%) are the biggest gaps again. HP advantage: Hero Equipment (88.6% vs 33.4%). The story is consistent — the two areas where CK invested most heavily are where the largest gaps appear. Depth in a few areas compounds harder than breadth across many.
Better Gear Doesn't Always Win
The Calderon battle is the most instructive combat report CerealKiller has. On paper, CK should have lost. Calderon had T10 troops (CK had T9), a stronger Mod Vehicle, and better equipment stats. But CK had 22% more troops — 8,726 vs 7,164. That was enough.
Look at the stat overview: 806% ATK vs 775%. Close. But the Troop Comparison bar tells the real story — CK's 8,726 troops vs Calderon's 7,164. The fight went 21 rounds. CK won. Not because of better heroes or better gear. Because of more troops.
This is the core insight of the entire page. Troops are the base. Every buff — Heroes, Equipment, Technologies, Vehicle, Faction Bonus — is a multiplier that acts on that base. A bigger base with decent multipliers beats a smaller base with better multipliers. 100 troops × 5x buff = 500. 80 troops × 6x buff = 480. The troops won.
This has practical consequences for how you spend time and money. Fitting more troops into each APC, training more troops, upgrading your troop capacity — these aren't boring infrastructure tasks. They're increasing the base that everything else multiplies. Heroes are important. Equipment is important. But they're multipliers. Without the troops underneath, they're multiplying a smaller number.
The priority: Troop count and troop tier are the foundation. Build more, train more, upgrade the Camp to unlock higher tiers. Then stack multipliers on top. Not the other way around.
What Happens Round by Round
Most players never open the Combat Log tab. It's the round-by-round damage record — and it reveals two patterns that change how you think about hero investment.
Pattern 1: The 10-Round Skill Cycle
Across all four combat reports, the same pattern appears: hero active skills fire at Round 11, then every 10 rounds after that (Round 21, Round 31, etc.). Rounds 1 through 10 are pure normal attacks — troops exchanging blows based on buffs.
The practical insight: In most troop battles, the normal attack rounds (1–10) determine the outcome before skills even fire. The NKS fight ended in 6 rounds — skills never activated. The Dinhthai fight ended at Round 11, with skills delivering the finishing blow to an already-decided fight. This is why troop buffs — which affect every round from the start — matter more than hero skill levels for PvP outcomes.
Pattern 2: Damage Degradation
The combat log shows something the game never explains: damage decreases every round as troops die. Fewer troops = less total damage output. And the losing side degrades faster — creating a compounding advantage for whoever starts stronger.
CerealKiller's Degradation
Barely noticeable. CK's troop losses were minimal each round because the buff advantage meant taking less damage. The damage output stayed nearly flat — consistently high pressure every round.
Enemy Degradation
Significant. The enemy lost troops faster, which meant less damage output each subsequent round, which meant losing even more troops. This is the death spiral — once you're behind, you fall further behind every round.
Momentum compounds. The player who deals more damage in Round 1 kills more troops, which means they take less damage in Round 2, which means they kill even more troops in Round 3. By Round 6 or 7, the losing side's damage output has collapsed. This is why close fights go long (Calderon: 21 rounds) and lopsided fights end fast (NKS: 6 rounds). The degradation curve is linear, but its effect is exponential.
Your Vehicle Is Doing More Than You Think
In the Dinhthai battle data, the Mod Vehicle contributed 196.2% to ATK alone — and Dinhthai's was even higher at 228.7%. That makes it one of the single largest buff sources in the entire stack. Yet most guides barely mention it.
The APC has 6 equipment parts, each contributing ATK and DEF bonuses. These come in two flavours: Siege bonuses (active when attacking cities) and Field bonuses (active in open-world PvP). On top of individual parts, you get Set Bonuses for equipping matching pieces:
Set Bonuses: Beehive-I = +15% DMG/HP. Sandworm-II = +10%. Sandworm-I = +5%. These are multiplicative layers that stack on top of the part bonuses. A complete set with good parts is how you reach 200%+ from your vehicle alone.
The Mod Vehicle is the one area where Dinhthai beat CerealKiller — 228.7% vs 196.2%. Dinhthai invested more here. But it wasn't enough to overcome CK's advantages in Hero Equipment, Faction Bonus, and raw troop count. The multiplicative formula means a single strong buff source can't carry you if you're weak in other areas.
The takeaway: Your vehicle is probably your least-optimised major buff source. Most players underinvest here because vehicle parts don't feel as exciting as hero star-ups. But the combat report data shows it's contributing more to your total power than almost anything else. If you're looking for untapped gains, check your APC.
It Doesn't Matter Who Wears What
Look at the Troop Buffs screenshot again. See the "Hero Equipment" line? It shows one pooled percentage — 122.3% for CK, 33.1% for Dinhthai. Not per hero. Not broken down by piece. One number.
In troop battles, all hero equipment bonuses are pooled. The game sums every piece of equipment across every hero in the formation and applies the total as one buff to your entire army. It doesn't matter if your best weapon is on Hero A or Hero B — the bonus goes into the same pool either way.
This is different from hero battles (Adventure/PvE), where equipment allocation affects individual hero normal attacks. In troop battles — the ones that matter for PvP, rallies, and world map fighting — the only thing that matters is the total equipment quality across all your heroes. Put your best gear on whoever you like. The troop damage will be the same.
Practical implication: Stop agonising over which hero gets the Slayer for troop battles. Instead, focus on upgrading equipment across all your APC heroes. Six pieces at Lv.5 contribute more to the pool than one piece at Lv.10 and five at Lv.2. The total matters, not the distribution.
Even Your Heroes' Skill Damage Draws From the Pool
Equipment pooling could be dismissed as a UI simplification — maybe the game just displays a total but calculates individually. The combat log at Round 11 settles it.
Two heroes in CK's formation both have Rain Fire. In the Calderon battle, they fire at Round 11. The damage? 47,760 and 47,760. Identical — to the digit. Two different heroes, different equipment loadouts, same skill, same damage output.
This wasn't a fluke. In the Mummy PvE fight, Rain Fire at R11: 88,999 and 88,999. At R21: 85,982 and 85,982. Three skill rounds, two different battles — identical every time.
Fire Barrage and Go Rex Go! are different skills on different heroes — they also dealt identical damage every time (55,080 each in Calderon, 102,640 each in Mummy R11). Even from the enemy side: the Giant Mummy's five Crushing Blow activations all dealt exactly 48,378 at R11, dropping to exactly 36,832 at R21.
The pool is real. Skill damage = Pooled Troop Base × Skill Multiplier. Different heroes, same skill multiplier = identical output. The only way to increase an individual hero's skill burst is to raise their skill level or star-up — not change their gear.
Three Types of Hero Skill — and Only One Uses Books Well
Each hero has three skills that take Orange Skill Books, plus one talent that doesn't:
Active Skill — the burst at Round 11. Tristan's Rain Fire sits at 2668% attack. Guy's Blade Storm at 2586%. These are the numbers you see explode in the combat log. Each book level adds roughly 40 percentage points.
Normal Attack — what fires every round (R1–R10, R12–R20, etc.). Tristan's Rapid Fire is 343% attack. Each book level adds roughly 4 percentage points — about 10× less per book than the active skill.
Passive Skill — a permanent buff that feeds the troop pool. Tristan's Training Expert adds 29% to all Fighters' DEF. Francis's Heart of Steel adds 14.5% to Fighters' HP. Some passives boost ATK instead. These go directly into the Troop Buffs number.
There's also a fourth type on some heroes — Progression Skills like Guy's Samurai's Gift (idle food from Adventure). These have zero combat value.
Skill levels are capped by star tier. At 3★, max is Lv.15. At 5★, max is Lv.30. You can't use more books than the star allows — which means starring up unlocks more book investment, not the other way around.
Where to Spend Skill Books
Orange Skill Books are scarce — you mine and farm for them. The cost per level escalates. So where do you get the best return?
If the hero's passive boosts ATK or Damage: books on the passive first. It feeds the troop pool that everything multiplies from — every round, every battle, every troop. That's the highest leverage because it compounds through the entire buff stack.
If the passive boosts DEF, HP, or is non-combat: books on the active skill. Each level adds ~40 percentage points to a burst that fires at R11/R21/R31. In long battles, that burst is a significant share of total damage.
Normal attack skill is last priority for troop battles. Each book adds ~4 points vs ~40 for active — 10× less per book. Normal attack levels matter more in hero/adventure battles where heroes fight individually.
Honest caveat: This recommendation is based on the combat log proof (pooling is real), the hero card data (skill % and scaling rates), and the damage ratios we measured across three skill rounds. We haven't confirmed the exact formula that maps a hero's skill % to combat damage — some skills outperform their percentage relative to others in ways we can't fully explain yet. The directional advice (passive pool buffs → active burst → normal) is sound, but exact priority between two specific skills on a specific hero may vary.
Two Things That Surprised Us
Requiem doesn't deal damage. It grants Shield effects instead — and it's the only skill we've seen that re-activates every round after R11, not just at R11/R21/R31. It's a persistent defensive buff, not burst. If Requiem is on your formation, its value is keeping troops alive longer (slowing degradation), not adding to the burst round.
Eagle Strike degrades faster than other skills. Every other skill lost ~3.4% damage from Mummy R11 to R21 (matching normal attack degradation exactly). Eagle Strike lost 16%. Something in Eagle Strike's damage formula interacts with a variable that degrades faster — possibly an armour-penetration component. We don't know the cause, so we're flagging it rather than guessing.
When the Rules Change
Normal Attacks Use Individual Stats
Between skill activations, heroes auto-attack using their individual stats. Here, equipment allocation absolutely matters — but only for hero battles, not troop battles.
ATK gear (Slayer + Helmet) goes on your best Striker — maximises normal attack damage between skills.
DEF gear (Armor + Boots) goes on your best Tanker — keeps them alive in front row so Strikers stay protected.
Look at the real stats on a maxed D5-Slayer: Hero ATK +4,800, ATK Bonus +19.20%, Troop DMG +12.80%, and Troop Capacity +28. That's one piece of gear providing three layers of benefit. In hero battles, putting that on a Tanker wastes the ATK — their normal attack damage is role-capped regardless.
The Skill Multiplier Decides Hero Damage
All 4★ heroes at skill Lv.20 = 2166%. Evans at 5★ Lv.20 = 2586%. Darian at 5★ Lv.25 = 2793%. Same shared pool, wildly different output — entirely from the multiplier.
Your Team Has a Front and a Back for a Reason
Strikers in the front row is a common formation mistake. Their HP pool is roughly half a Tanker's. One early Striker death collapses your formation's total damage output. Keep your damage dealers protected behind heroes built to absorb hits.
Same Boost, Rising Cost
Each equipment level gives the same 10% boost, but costs escalate. The same boost at Lv.8→9 costs nearly double what Lv.4→5 costs:
Level all equipment evenly. 6 pieces from Lv.4→5 = 60% total boost for 300 cores. 1 piece from Lv.4→10 costs far more for less total formation impact. Spread beats spike. This applies to both hero battles (individual stats) and troop battles (pooled total).
Only One Star Actually Matters
4★ to 5★ adds +1200% — more than double every previous star combined. And 4★ Tier 3 deals the exact same damage as 4★ Tier 0. Those tier-ups feel like progress but add zero damage.
Focus one hero at a time to 5★. Spreading fragments means nobody hits the +1200% threshold. One hero at 5★ + others at 4★ deals far more total formation damage than all heroes stuck at 4★T2.
Skill Damage Comparison Calculator
Compare Skill Damage
When This Analysis Looks Different
Balanced or multi-faction armies. If you're running two or three factions, you won't see the same Faction Bonus multiplier. The buff math still works — but the concentration layer is smaller, and your priorities shift toward gear and research breadth.
Burst-focused strategies. CK's analysis weights the normal attack rounds (1–10) heavily because that's where Fighter's attrition advantage plays out. If your lineup is built around high-burst heroes, the Round 11+ skill phase matters more than this page suggests.
Different faction mains. Shooter and Rider factions have different stat distributions and equipment scaling curves. The principles transfer — but specific numbers and priority order may shift.
Dark Zone Ops. Completely separate combat system. Nothing on this page applies. Different rules, different strategy. Future page.
What the Data Points To
Troop Battles (PvP, Rallies, World Map)
1. Your troops are the base — everything else multiplies from there. The Calderon report proves it: better gear and higher tier lost to more troops with decent buffs. Troop count × troop tier is the foundation. Build more, train more, upgrade Camp for higher tiers.
2. Buffs are multiplicative, not additive. Every layer — Heroes, Equipment, Technologies, Vehicle, Faction Bonus — compounds with every other layer. This means investing across multiple buff sources produces more total power than dumping everything into one.
3. Hero equipment is pooled — and so is skill damage. Equipment, normal attacks, and hero skill bursts all draw from the same pooled base. Two heroes with the same skill fire identical damage, regardless of gear. The combat logs prove it: Rain Fire × 2 = identical output, three rounds across two battles.
4. Faction concentration creates a free multiplier. Running 3+ same-faction heroes gives a bonus that compounds with everything else. CK's 69.7% vs Dinhthai's 18.3% — a 51.4% gap from a free mechanic. Any single-faction approach generates this.
5. Normal attacks (Rounds 1–10) decide most fights. Skills fire at Round 11 as burst damage, but by then the attrition advantage is usually locked in. The NKS fight ended in 6 rounds — skills never even activated.
6. Skill books: passive ATK/Damage buffs first, active skill second, normal attack last. Passive buffs feed the pool that everything multiplies from. Active skill books add ~40 percentage points per level vs ~4 for normal attack — 10× more per book. Normal attack levels mainly help in hero/adventure battles.
7. Momentum compounds through degradation. The stronger side loses fewer troops per round, which means more damage output next round, which means even fewer losses. Once you're ahead, you pull further ahead every round.
8. Your Mod Vehicle is probably your least-optimised major buff source. In CK's data, it contributes 196% to ATK — one of the largest single sources. Most guides barely mention it. Check yours.
Hero Battles (Adventure, PvE)
9. Normal attacks use individual hero stats. Between skill activations, hero auto-attacks depend on who wears what. ATK gear on Strikers, DEF gear on Tankers. This is the one place gear allocation matters in hero battles.
10. The 5★ jump is disproportionately large. +1200% at 5★ — more than every previous star combined. Tiers within a star add zero damage. Concentrate fragments on one hero at a time.
11. Gear follows role logic. ATK gear on Strikers, DEF gear on Tankers. ATK gear on a Tanker is wasted — their damage is role-capped. Level equipment evenly for total formation impact.
Both Systems
12. Main-faction research feeds both engines. In troop battles, it powers your buff stack. In hero battles, it powers the shared pool. One investment, two returns. This is why concentrating research in your primary faction compounds faster than splitting across three.