Best Of

There still seems to be a lot of confusion as to how the new Adaptive EQ rewards actually work. Most of the confusion surrounds one of three basic areas: how are rewards earned, how much am I supposed to get, and how does prestige affect rewards. I have carefully investigated all three, here's a primer for everyone still uncertain. Note: for those that do not want all the detailed explanation, there's a summary at the end.

First, all EQ rewards are now milestone-based. That means you don't explicitly get rewards for completing or exploring any of the maps. Instead, there's a special reward you can earn called Etherion. Each Etherion earns you one point in the EQ milestone reward track. There are ten milestones in the EQ reward table for Contender through Thronebreaker, and sixteen total milestones in the EQ reward table for Paragon and Valiant. It takes 24 Ehterion to reach milestone 10, and 30 Etherion to reach milestone 16.

You earn Etherion by completing paths. Each path in Classic earns one Etherion. There are 24 total paths in Classic (two maps with three paths, two with four, and two with five) so if you only do Classic paths and you fully explore all of Classic, the maximum possible rewards you can get at any progression tier is milestone 10 - and all the milestones below that (these are normal milestones, not peak milestones, so each one you reach grants you those rewards immediately). From Contender through Thronebreaker, that is all you can do.

Paragon and Valiant have an additional option, they can choose to do Elder difficulty. The way Elder difficulty is pretty simple. There are six Elder paths, each one corresponding to one of the Classic difficulty maps. For each Elder path you do, the game automatically flags that Classic map as fully explored, and awards you any remaining Etherion from that map. You also get one bonus Etherion.

Let's say you did one completion run of Classic (which you need to do to unlock Elder). That would mean you would have six Etherion (one from one path on each Classic map). You then unlock Elder, and do the first path of Elder. Upon completing that first Elder path, the game flags Classic map 1.1 as explored. You had already done one of the paths, so there were two left. They will now be flagged explored as if you did them (you can actually go back and see the map will show 100%, even though you only did one path) and you would get the two remaining Etherion from that map. You'd also get the one bonus Etherion from completing an Elder path. So now you went from 6 Etherion to 9 Etherion (6 from Classic completion, 2 from autoexploring Classic 1.1, and 1 from the Elder completion bonus).

If you fully complete Elder, you will automatically get all 24 Etherion that you would have gotten from Classic exploration plus 6 bonus Etherion for a total of 30. This would max out the EQ milestones and get all possible rewards.

Note: there is no additional benefit to be gained by doing additional Classic paths. Regardless of how many you do, doing the corresponding Elder path just flags all remaining paths that haven't yet been done as explored. So since Classic 1.1 has three paths and three Etherion, you can only ever squeeze three Etherion from that map, plus the one bonus from doing the Elder path associated with that map. If you fully explore Classic and *then* do Elder, you'd still get four total (three from the Classic map, one bonus from Elder). Elder will flag all uncompleted paths as explored, but since they are all already explored, this will do nothing extra. So don't do more than one Classic path per map if you intend to do Elder. There's no benefit at all.

All Elder does is auto-explore Classic, plus give you one more Etherion per path. That's why doing Elder generates more rewards. That is the *only* reason Elder generates more rewards. Doing Elder gives you the ability to earn more Etherion which allows you to complete more milestones and thus get more rewards.

The EQ reward screen shows either Classic or Elder rewards depending on which button (at the upper left) is selected. For progressions lower than Paragon, Classic is the only option. For Paragon and Valiant, you can see Classic or Elder rewards. The total rewards on that screen are the summary of all the milestones you can possibly get if you do the maximum possible. For Classic, that is fully exploring Classic which gives a total of 24 Etherion. That screen shows a summary total of all milestones up to milestone ten (24 Etherion). If you select Elder, the summary shows the total of all milestones possible which is all milestones from one to sixteen (30 total etherion). The two screens are different because Elder shows the additional rewards from milestones 11 through 16. That's the only difference between the two. Both show maximum possible rewards if you explore Classic, or fully complete Elder.

A specific point of confusion is that some people think that doing Elder gives you all the rewards in the Classic screen *and* all the rewards in the Elder screen. This is false. Classic shows all possible Classic rewards. Elder shows all possible Elder rewards including the fact that you automatically get all Classic rewards. It is the total possible rewards for doing Elder.

Finally, how does Prestige affect rewards. There seems to be come confusion around the preview buttons. At the lower right are two selectors, one for Progression and one for Prestige. These are preview selectors that allow you to see what your rewards would be if you were at that progression and at that prestige. For every player these selectors show the same progression and prestige options with one exception: the player's current progression and prestige are always listed as an additional option. So you can see your rewards, and what rewards you could get if you were some other progression or some other prestige.

The confusing part is some people think those preview options are the *only* options that exist. In other words, if you're a Valiant at say 27100 prestige, there is no benefit to getting higher prestige until you go all the way up to 28500, because there are no preview options in between. This is false. In fact, EQ rewards increase more or less smoothly with prestige. Increasing prestige by any amount will increase your rewards by a corresponding amount. Now, some rewards only increase by certain amounts. There's no way to get half of an AG crystal, for example. So some rewards only increase in jumps. A lot of shards and fragments only increase in multiples of 100 or 500. Also, some rewards have maximum caps, which means above a certain prestige they will no longer increase at all. But taking that into consideration, any prestige increase will increase your rewards. EQ rewards do not have "tiers."

For example, my current prestige is 26480. This is in between "tier" 8 (25900 prestige) and 9 (27100 prestige). Note on my screen, my own prestige is numbered "9" because it falls between 8 and 9, so its number "squeezes" in between, and all other values are bumped up one number. There are 40,300 T7 Basic catalyst fragments awarded for Elder completion at 25900 prestige and 41800 T7 Basic fragments at 27100 prestige. At my prestige, which is in between those two at 26480, I get 41,000 fragments. My prestige is in between the two "tiers" and my rewards are also in between those two prestige values.


To summarize:

- EQ rewards are awarded in milestones
- You get one point per Classic path.
- Doing the corresponding Elder path awards all the Classic points plus one more.
- The reward screen shows the maximum possible rewards if you do the maximum possible. This is full Classic exploration if the button is set to Classic, and full Elder completion if it is set to Elder (Elder only exists for Paragon and Valiant). The reward screen is just a summary of the milestones. It is not extra rewards.
- Rewards scale with Prestige. Scaling is not limited to the prestige listed in the preview options. Higher prestige in between listed options will generate more rewards in a roughly continuous fashion.


Further clarification:

- Elder has higher rewards because Elder paths give bonus Etherion, which means you can earn more milestones. This is the only reason Elder has more rewards. Elder milestone rewards are identical to Classic milestones. It is just that Classic exploration alone cannot get them all.
- The Elder rewards shown in the reward summary screen are not on top of Classic rewards. Classic shows all possible rewards if you explore Classic. Elder shows all possible rewards if you complete Elder. This already includes the fact that doing Elder awards all the Classic milestones as you go.
- Increasing prestige improves rewards even if you cannot "reach" the next tier shown on screen. Those are just arbitrarily selected preview options. There are no actual prestige tiers.
- EQ rewards are awarded as you reach reward milestones. This happens as you complete paths. You do not need to claim EQ rewards. Individual milestones shown in the reward milestone screen award as you reach them. There are no special "completion" or "exploration" rewards for EQ any more.

I've seen some people be disappointed by pulling Spidey Supreme from the Titan crystal, so I figured I'd show off some of the things he can do. He's a pretty amazing champion and well worth ranking up. I took mine up to r4 personally and have been pouring sig stones into him.

I have a few fights to show you. Two are from 9.3, one is EOP Hercules and one is a Battlegrounds fight against Serpent.

Let's start with the last one. I really like that fight since Spidey manages to defeat Serpent without allowing Serpent to throw a single special attack. The reason is that Spidey reduces his opponent's power gain by 33% for each unique buff on them, and Serpent has quite a few. Meanwhile, Spidey himself gains all of the power that he blocks the opponent from gaining, meaning that he gets to throw a lot of specials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDipf-uRX-A

The next fight comes from 9.3. There's a Scourge path that reduces your combat power gain while also giving the opponent regen, none of which bothers Spidey. He will still gain a ton of power passively and the regen on the opponent just fuels him. He can reduce the potency of those regen buffs by 95% in order to make them essentially useless for the opponent, while simultaneously copying them for himself. Additionally, a steady supply of buffs on the opponent keeps Spidey going without his damage phase ever ending.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az-WdVSEjso

Third up is a boss fight from 9.3 against a Heimdall. I really liked this fight because the nodes and Spidey's abilities work together to create magic. The two most important nodes to keep in mind are "Counterpunch" and "Powerful From Afar." They make Heimdall gain Unstoppable buffs whenever you strike into his block and gain power whenever you're far away from him, respectively. However, like I said before, Spidey can block out power gain and gain that power for himself, so "Powerful From Afar" just empowers him.

The "Counterpunch" node, however, is where the real fun begins. The reason is twofold: Spidey's bursts of damage from his SP2 can trigger even through block, and Spidey phases whenever the opponent gains an Unstoppable buff. What this means is that Spidey can safely throw his special into Heimdall's block, have all damage pass through it without issue, but then phase out of danger when Heimdall tries to punish you after triggering those Unstoppable buffs. Meanwhile, all of those short-duration Unstoppable buffs trigger Mystic Dispersion and grant Spider-Seal buffs that keeps Spidey going.

There is a cooldown before you can phase again - it's important to keep this in mind, or you will get punished - but for the most part, it's a very safe fight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg5KLGc2vpQ

In this next fight, I wanted to show off just how powerful Spidey Supreme's pseudo-immunity to ability accuracy reduction is. He isn't fully immune to it, but almost. The two things I've seen fail are his dexes (against Domino) and his stuns (against Red Skull). However, the rest of his abilities are immune to ability accuracy modification, meaning he can take all kinds of fun fights.

Enter EOP Hercules, the master of messing with your ability accuracy. Not only does Hercules' own Infuriate mess with your AA, he has a couple of nodes that does as well. "Mystic Ward - 3" reduces the attacker's Nullify ability accuracy. Normally. Spidey doesn't care. "Shake & Bake" reduces the attacker's general ability accuracy by placing indefinite Concussions on you every 10 seconds. Again, this can mess up your dexes and your stuns, but other than that, Spidey doesn't care.

All of this basically turn off the most annoying parts of this fight. Couple that with Spidey's ability to, again, shut off Hercules' power gain from the "Recharge" node and gain that power for himself, and Hercules doesn't stand a chance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyWQc-Yc6d4

All in all, I hope you got something out of this little showcase of a champion I've seen described as "the worst champion in the Titan crystal" here and there. As some closing words, I figured I'd list some other uses for the various abilities I went through in the clips above:

* His pseudo-immunity to ability accuracy modification helps him against all kinds of champions and nodes. He doesn't really care about glancing, for example. Champions like Maestro, Sersi and even Storm (Pyramid X) becomes significantly easier to deal with when your abilities don't fail against them. I've even defeated Dominos in BGs with him.

* Obviously his ability to stop power gain is immensely useful in all kinds of situations and against various champions that gain power. If they have enough buffs, he can even reverse their power gain (like you can see in the Serpent fight towards the end).

* Automatically phasing out of danger whenever you place a Spider-Seal buff on the opponent or they trigger an Unstoppable or Unblockable buff is such a good safety net. While it goes on cooldown whenever a Miss is triggered, Unblockable buffs activate the phasing regardless of cooldown. This can be incredibly useful if the opponent has, say, Unblockable special attacks. You can just phase through them.

* Something that I didn't focus much on in any of these clips is Spidey's ability to copy buffs. If the opponent gains Fury, Precision, Cruelty, Armor Up, Pierce or Regeneration buffs, Spidey can copy them for himself as well as reduce the potency of those buffs for the opponent. This means that Spidey can heal insane amounts against champions such as Gorr or Hulkling, or do incredible amounts of damage against someone like Aegon by copying all of those Fury buffs.

I hope this was useful!