Corruption Season - Relics and Branch Preview

Hello Dragon Masters,

Recently, we have shared bits of information around Relics: a continuation and evolution of the existing War Dragons runes and glyphs system. This post will provide details on what relics are and hope to accomplish and all of the new systems put in place to support them.

Relics will launch in full on March 15, 2023 with the weekly event content update.

Pictured Above: A first look at the relic art for this season

THE STATE OF RUNES

Runes are a valuable part of power in War Dragons. Runes can enhance and stretch your tower and dragon abilities to new heights, often providing that edge that differentiates one player from another.

Although this power is useful, player feedback has been that runes are lacking in personality and can feel like a necessity rather than an interesting and engaging part of the wider War Dragons story and player experience.

WHAT ARE RELICS?

Relics are a stronger form of runes. One relic can provide a player with up to 3 abilities or buffs (up from 2 for runes). Relics have their own slots and a player can slot in 3 relics on any tower monument or dragon. This means that relic power is incremental and will not replace any of your existing runes or glyphs.

For the most part, relics behave similarly to runes: they are equipped in the same UI using the same mechanics, an can be viewed and salvaged in the Rune Vault, and can be leveled up to achieve maximum power in a familiar way. They will rely on buffs the same towers and dragons runes have already, but with the most power we have seen in War Dragons.

A few more details:

• Relics and the corresponding relic dust used to level them up will be unlocked via a relic-specific season branch
  • This branch will not cost sigils, but relic keys obtained via event prizes
• A new relic chest, which will be introduced later in the season will be a way for players to supplement their relic keys
• Relics will have three levels of power: bronze, silver, and gold and have corresponding relic dust (used to level them up) and seasonal keys to unlock

RELIC BRANCH AND KEYS

A new seasonal branch will consist of four rows each having a relic and the relic dust required to level up that relic in the nodes following it.

• The first row will consist of the bronze relic and it’s bronze relic dust
• The second row will consist of the silver relic and it’s silver relic dust
• The third row will consist of the gold relic and it’s gold relic dust
• The fourth row will consist of legacy relic dust. This legacy dust will allow players to level gold relics to legacy levels for additional power.
• There will also be nodes at the end of the branch to trade spare Corruption relic keys into rubies.

Legacy relic keys will only be available in the new relic chest and in future value packs.

To unlock all nodes in the relics branch a player will need 100 bronze, silver, and gold relic keys and 30 legacy relic keys.

EVENT PRIZING UPDATES

Bronze, Silver, and Gold relic keys will be added to event prizing. These will be tied to the season and not transferable to following seasons.

Major Events

• Rank 15: 10 Bronze Corruption Relic Keys
• Rank 25: 10 Silver Corruption Relic Keys
• Rank 27: 5 Gold Corruption Relic Keys
• Rank 30: 5 Gold Corruption Relic Keys

Minor Events

• Rank 15: 5 Bronze Corruption Relic Keys
• Rank 25: 5 Silver Corruption Relic Keys
• Rank 30: 5 Gold Corruption Relic Keys

We want players to feel rewarded for their deep engagements in events with power that can be used toward towers and dragons. Bronze prize levels should be achievable for a majority of players, but silver and gold event tiers will be reached by only the most dedicated flyers.

For players that want to reach 100 keys, they will need to utilize some combination of event engagement, relic chests, or value packs. We understand that this can be challenging for players, but we believe that a season’s worth of events and event prizes should equate to most of the keys required to unlock the season’s three relics.

Any extra keys a player acquires can be redeemed for rubies in a repeatable node at the end of the relics branch. These keys are tied to the season and cannot be used in next season’s relics branch.

RELICS CHESTS & IAPS

A relics chest will be introduced to the treasury during Fortification on April 12, 2023. This chest will drop bronze, silver, gold, and legacy relic keys.

• One out of every 10 relic chests will guarantee 1 gold relic key
• One out of every 100 relic chests will guarantee 1 legacy relic key

Adding the relic chests will also introduce relic value packs that’ll allow players to purchase some or all of the new currencies needed to unlock the rest of the relics branch.

Here, players can accelerate their progress in leveling up their relics, catch up if their key collection has fallen behind pace, and/or unlock legacy levels to help their relics achieve maximum power.

RELICS THEMSELVES

I will leave the specifics of the three new relics as a surprise for Wednesday’s release, but rest assured they will be essential to building the strongest War Dragons base we’ve seen yet.

A couple notes on how we are thinking about relics:

• The Corruption season will offer 3 tower relics; dragons relics will come in the future
• We plan to have 3 new relics in each new War Dragons season moving forward
• For the most part, relics are not meant to be salvaged. A trivial amount of relic dust will be refunded for salvaging them
• Relic dust is useable across seasons, though we would advise against saving it for later since it will be an extremely scarce resource
• Looking forward, If players feel like they are missing out on relic content from season to season, we will investigate ways for players to acquire previous season’s relics in other ways