Complete Guide to Cradle of Chaos
Being unlocked when you reach level 80 in game, CoC is one of the last unlocks in your AoM journey. Here you will face off against strong factions for good rewards.
Seasons
- CoC has different seasons each time it comes around.
- Currently 4 seasons (1-4) are available in the rotation.
- With 3 normalseasons (1-3), and one hard season (4).
- Starting from season 1, the current rotation is 1 normal season continued by one hard season (1-4-2-4-3-4).
In each season you will explore three Regions of the Cradle of Chaos in succession, with 7 levels per region, and 5 missions/fights per level.
Each Region has specific effects that affect the characters’ abilities. Levels and their Regions are arranged in order of increasing difficulty (contrary to missions that do not vary in difficulty).
Important: each hero can only be used once per level! (5-25 unique heroes required to complete a level because full squads are not required to start a mission).
Example of the 3 regions on season 3:
When referring to an individual region, level, fight people write the number of the corresponding region, level, mission.
For instance, if I want advice on the 3rd mission of region 2, level 1, I will ask advice on mission 2.1.3. This makes it easier to communicate without writing the names of the seasons, levels, etc.
Rating
You’ll receive rating points for completed missions and levels, as well as additional rating points for your “completion speed”. The fewer turns are used, the more additional rating points you will receive.
Each fight has a maximum of 400 rating points, 200 for completing the fight and 200 for speed (you lose 1 speed point for every turn your heroes play).
Additionally for completing a level you earn 2000 extra points, for a grand total of 4000 max points per CoC level. Your total rating will be used to rank you against other AoM users.
After the end of the season, you will receive bonus rewards depending on your rank, and all mode progress will be reset. In the next season you will be able to get rewards again and fight your way to the top of the leaderboard. Note: newer players should not worry too much about the leaderboard, as end of season rewards for tiers below top 100 do not vary greatly.
Bonus tip: For early levels if you have strong enough heroes using just 1 strong hero with a good AoE ability might be enough to 1 shot a level. This will net you more rating points in the end as you will not waste turns on high speed non AoE heroes.
Energy
To start levels you will need Chaos Keys (6), which are restored over time (max 24, 2-hour cd per key).
You can also use Keys to replay an already completed level to improve your rating, or to replay a specific fight as well, but no more than 15 times. The replay cost will increase after the 1st and 5th replay.
Rush Mode
You can use Rush to instantly complete the mission and get points. What rush mode does is start the fight and instantly play it on auto.
The first mission Rush is free, but you will be charged gold (25) for each subsequent one. With every Rush a penalty is deducted from the overall mission score (-100 points).
Rewards
Main rewards come from completing each level in each region. Individual regions have a signature reward from the most given item in that region. Harder regions have better rewards, for instance regions 2 and 3 have Chaos Prisms available as rewards. Additionally, you will get some from the end of season rewards.
Example of rewards for a normal difficulty region 2:
Example of end of season rewards, not that important unless you achieve top 500:
Currency (Chaos Crystals)
CoC has its own currency (like raid, clan, etc.), obtained by completing some levels. The currency can be used to unlock the Chaos summoning chest (Hero summon section). Each chest costs 2000 chaos crystals and has 2 shard drops. One 1-5 shard drop, and one 25-100 shard drop.
Best Squads for Normal Seasons (1-3)
Even though most of the time using buffed factions is the best strategy, the first 3 seasons can be brute forced with some factions when they have a high enough level. At the point of writing, I have been able to brute force using the squads listed below on level 80-89, equipment 12, and 4-5 arcane stars. Using equipment 12 instead of level 90+equipment 13 forces you to restart multiple times some fights though. From 5 squads on level 90+equip 13 you will be able to brute force with ease.
- Guardians of order (Goo)
- Cloud Wanderers (CW)
- Firestorm Squad (FSQ)
- Assassins guild (AG)
- Vans of the northern peaks (Vans)
- Knights of the council (KoC)
- Renegades
- Orks
- Druids
There are multiple other useful factions/heroes in case you want to compete for higher scores/ranking. But, for brute forcing the first 3 seasons without overthinking, the factions listed above are, in my opinion, the easiest ones to do so (descending order).
Best Squads for Hard Season (4)
Season 4 requires a bit more planning. In general, above squads should also be useful but the level requirement to complete each region is much higher than the previous ones. Here, using the region-specific buffs is important. Brute forcing might not be as possible as before.
Cradle of Chaos (CoC) Buff / Debuffs
Regions are in increasing order for each season.
As stated at the start, each region in each season has a different set of unique effects for different factions. This will help you clear missions with weaker squads if the corresponding squad is currently buffed. On the contrary, some squads are also nerfed in different regions. Most of the time you should avoid using nerfed squad members unless you want to abuse a particular passive ability from a hero. At the end of the guide, you can check specific % buffs/debuffs.
Cradle of Chaos buff (⬆️)/debuff (⬇️) guide. Regions are in increasing order for each season.
Season 1:
- 🟡 Warped Valley
- ⬆️ Increase in stats: Wild Elves, Dwarves, Orks and Kobolds.
- ⬇️ Decrease of stats: Barbarians.
- 🟣 Frost Peak Region:
- ⬆️ Increase in stats: Druids,Wild Elves and Orks.
- ⬇️ Decrease of stats: Archons and Barbarians.
- 🔴 Heart of Chaos Region:
- ⬆️ Increase in stats: Wild Elves, Druids, High Elves, Kobolds, Renegades and Orks.
- ⬇️ Decrease of stats: Beastmen, Archons and Barbarians.
Season 2:
- 🟡 Quagmires of Chaos
- ⬆️ Increase in stats: Ra’Archne, Demons, Arekhon Undead and Orks
- ⬇️ Decrease of stats: Wild Elves
- 🟣 Madness of the Goblins
- 🔼 Goblins, Arekhon Undead and Orks are strengthened.
- 🔽 Wild and Dark Elves are weakened.
- 🔴 Darkness and Chaos
- ⬆️ Increase in stats: Ra’Archne, Demons, Goblins, Arekhon Undead, Orks and Renegades
- ⬇️ Decrease of stats: Dragonkin, Dark and Wild Elves.
Season 3:
- 🟡 Sands of Doom
- ⬆️ Increase in stats: Knights of the Council, Witch’s Coven, Beastmen, Children of the Forest.
- ⬇️ Decrease of stats: Archons.
- 🟣 Mourning and Ruin
- 🔼 Witch’s Coven, Beastmen, Children of the Forest.
- 🔽 Archons, Dark Elves.
- 🔴 Wrath of the Sea
- ⬆️ Increase in stats: Witch’s Coven, Renegades, Knights of the Council, Beastmen, Children of the Forest.
- ⬇️ Decrease of stats: Ra’Archne, Archons, Dark Elves.
Season 4:
- 🟡 Fallen Stronghold
- ⬆️ Increase in stats: Orks, Knights of the Council, Dark Elves, Goblins, Beastmen
- ⬇️ Decrease of stats: Renegades, Archons, Ra’Archne
- 🟣 Caves of Nightmares
- ⬆️ Increase in stats: Ra’Archne, Assassins Guild, Renegades, Druids, Children of the Forest
- ⬇️ Decrease of stats: Dragonkin, Cloud Wanderers, Beastmen
- 🔴 Cradle of Chaos
- ⬆️ Increase in stats: Witches’ Coven, Vanir of the Northern Peaks, Archons, Guardians of Order, Renegades
- ⬇️ Decrease of stats: Orks, Assassins Guild, Druids
Specific Buffs per Faction per Season per Region
(This can also be seen in-game by entering a region and clicking on region effects button at the upper left corner).
Thanks for reading the guide, I hope it was helpful to you!
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