The Art of The Set Bonus

The introduction of Set Gear and the Set Bonus Research Tree has significantly increased many of the boosts available in Game of War. If you want even the slightest chance at controlling the wonder, you'll need these.

Here is a quick breakdown explaining the Set Bonus, with some specific examples of some of them. First, it’s important to define the terms we will be using frequently:

Set Gear: Specific Hero Gear Sets with a specific theme. Theme examples are: Research, Troop Training, Defense, Production etc.

Base Set: the first five pieces of a specific Set. Includes Helm, Armor, Feet, Weapon, and one Accessory.

Full Set: Base Set plus two additional Accessories.

Base Set and Full Set Bonuses

Each Hero Gear Set (from both Regular and Core Gear) provides both a Base Set Bonus and a Full Set Bonus. These Bonuses are inherent in the Gear: once you Craft the Gear, you get the Bonus. The size of the bonus depends on Research and Hero Skills.

Specialized Set and Full Set Bonuses

There are also Mystery Special Base Set and Full Set Bonuses for each Set. Mystery Recipe Bonus Boosts apply to Core Secret Recipe Sets only. According to MZ’s description, the “Specialized Set Bonuses are complementary bonuses that are unique to each Set’s theme.” These Bonuses are dependent on the completion of specific Research in the Set Bonus Tree. They are random and can be reset to better suit specific needs. The Magister Set, for example, can be reset to give Stone, Wood, and Food Production Boosts, to name only a few.

Set Bonuses Dramatically Increases Your Gear Stats

The Set Bonus dramatically increases your possible boosts. For example, I’ve seen Research Boosts from the Magister Set as high as 470% (including the MZ special event boosts). I have also seen total attack boosts (specific troop attack plus troop attack) over 3900%...outside of special MZ bonus boosts. Obviously, this gives HUGE advantages to players with Set Bonus research completed. I have seen power drops up to 198.9 million power in a single hit…with suits only in the 3700% range. That is 5,544,986 T4 killed in a single hit!

Here is an example of a Dragon Suit with a bonus of 3904%:

There are a few other factors, however, that influence these Bonuses:

1. Set Bonuses require Legendary Gear: one Epic piece nullifies the entire Bonus (I have tested this).
2. Hero Level and Skill Point allocation: Skill Points applied to Base Set Bonus or Full Set Bonus increases the amount of bonus stats you receive. The Full Set Bonus branch of the Hero Skill Tree is unlocked at Hero 60.

Note: If you have 6/7 Legendary pieces of a Set and Set Tree Research completed to that point, your hero will glow gold for other people. It will not glow gold in your Hero view.

After a lot of experimenting, I think I’ve been able to figure a few other things out:

• If you have multiple Sets of the same Gear, they will have the same bonus.
• If there is a way to predict the Bonus (remember that it is random), I haven’t been able to figure it out.
• You can reset the Bonuses an unlimited amount of times. This gets expensive! Resets for the Set Bonuses can be purchased with gold or with Loyalty Points from the Alliance Store. Athena also gives resets in her Gifts fairly regularly.
• There are some surprise Bonuses: after a few resets, I got Research Resource Reduction bonuses on my Magister Set.
• If you find a Bonus you like on a Core Set, you will have the same Bonus on the next set of those specific Cores you Craft (at least, that has been the case in my experience), BUT you must always have a set in your inventory with bonuses you want. If you use up what you have then you will not get the same special set bonus when you craft your next set.
• These Bonuses do not appear in your Hero Calculator. At least for the additional Attack Bonuses seen in the link above, they won’t be added until after you equip the Gear.

If you have additional insights or questions on Set Bonuses, please post in Comments below!

Game Analysis article contributed by CREED XS.