Favor Points or FP is a valuable commodity in the game. Players can use FP in the Oracle page to purchase perks like refills, name change, Generals, items etc. Most people look to get new Generals that can help them in their play. Treasure chests contain some of the best Generals available but they are a gamble; one can spend a lot of FP in there and not get a single General, let alone the one they want.
Castle Age offers an alternative options to non-gamblers in the form of the "monthly" specials. Unlike the chest, you can pick who or what you want to get. The Generals offered are mostly weaker than the ones found in the chest—an acceptable trade-off to get a guarantee. These Generals set are released monthly and as such, there are already a lot of them available. A lot of people ask for advice on who to get so they could get the best General that would help them the most in their game play.
This page will analyze these monthlies: what they do, how they are used, and other factors that can affect the purchase. It aims to help guide players to make the best choice for their FP investment. More data about these Generals are available here as well as their own pages.
Please note that Memnon is not included since he cannot be purchased at this time and the developers made it clear in their Twitter account that they have no plans to make him available again.
Top Prospects[]
These Generals have very good abilities and you should consider buying them first, before the others. Keep in mind though that their utilization depends on your play style. So, even though they are worth 30 FP, it may not be your 30 FP.
| General | Why buy? |
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Physical Pierce +50. When fighting other players, Physical Pierce is one of the most important attributes to attend to, as it increases your chances to win (see more HERE). Even though Guinevere is a better general overall, Annika is still a nice have. Good generals to Ally with: Aesir, Brakus, Feredir, Frost, Guinevere, Kanbe |
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Physical Resistance +55 The flip side of Pierce, Resistance helps keep you safe. When you are defending Resistance stops damage being done to you, and negates Pierce directly. When defending you want your Resistance as high as possible, making Katherine a great choice for your logging off general. Good generals to Ally with: Vanathan , Vanir , Kendra , Ravendor , Zolthar , Erynion |
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Divine Power 20 Kanbe is the only Monthly general with Divine Power. The nice thing about Divine items is they count even if you don't have them equipped. You could buy Kanbe and throw him in your inventory and never touch him again, and still benefit from 20 Divine from your generals slot. He's not a bad general himself, though. With Earth and Physical Pierce, he could be quite useful. |
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Recharge 15 Stamina up to your max once per 23 hours. Who couldn't use more Stamina? Zin's ability is remarkable. She adds 15 more Stamina to the amount you regenerate each day. If you use her daily, in a 30-day calendar month, she will give you an extra 420 Stamina. You have to activate her ability manually by hitting other players or monsters to get it. Be sure that your current stamina count has enough room to recharge 15 more before using her ability, otherwise it'll be wasted. Unfortunately, her ability does not transfer in an Alliance, meaning she needs to be a primary. |
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+5% Critical Chance Monster crits are perhaps the most important attribute in monster hunting. Each crit does 2x-3x damage. While Divine and Resistances reduce damage, anything afterward is subject to the critical hit. Needless to say, this makes increasing your Crit as much as possible a good thing. Dolomar is the best non-chest general for Crits. Good generals to Ally with: |
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Monster cleave % There was a long debate for a while comparing Barbarus and Maalvus. Some would point out that a critical hit would likely do far more damage then a set amount of bonus damage. Others would point out that you can't trust on a Crit that may or may not happen. Oddly, it was the General Alliances that settled the debate. Simply put, Crit percentage stacks, meaning if you put another general in alliance with Maalvus, they'll only add a percentage of their crit to him. If you put Barbarus anywhere in the alliance, he'll add his full Cleave to the attack. While he may not be the best choice for your primary general, Barbarus is a great addition to your monster-hunter alliance. Barbarus is a member of the Ravager Archive and as such, provides a +5 bonus to your Attack. |
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Bonus attack to monsters Consider these two carefully. Sahar has a (slightly) better bonus. But if you happened to get the Dragon Form spell from the 100v100 league a while back, then Sorkan has a better Crit %. Good generals to Ally with: |
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Increase Whirlwind damage % Whirlwind has rapidly become the most important skill to Warriors, and Attilius adds directly to the amount of damage that can be done. Good generals to Ally with:
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Increase Poison damage Poison is possibly the way that Rogues do the most damage in Guild battles. 35 (+ rune) damage over 5 rounds = 175 damage off a single hit. Aethyx raises that to 45 damage over 7 rounds, or 315 damage. A massive upgrade! He gets better if you increase his levels. Even if your opponent's guild is full of Clerics, they are forced to spend Dispels on your super-potent poison rather then on hitting you. Win-win. Good generals to Ally with: Deshara, Butcher, Elyvita, Deianira |
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Increase Mage passive damage The joy of playing Mage in a guild battle is doing damage to the entire tower at once. Muse simply adds on to that damage. Whether cleaning up from a Cleric passive, or plinking away at a target you can't damage directly, Muse is endlessly useful. Good generals to Ally with: Alexandria , Anya , Ephraline , Deianira, Syren
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Increase Cleric passive healing If the joy of playing mage is damage, then watching your tower power up as an opponant bounces off you is the joy of playing a Cleric. Even better, as a passive ability, this healing can happen while you are out of coins or even during those odd guild battles that happen while you are asleep. Good generals to Ally with: Sanna , Tefaera , Deianira , Daphne |
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Reflect damage in Guild Battles One of the problems with Guild Battles is that most of the time is spent out of coins, staring at the screen. Daphne helps make those periods a little better, bouncing some of the damage taken back. It's probably not going to win you any battles, but filling the third slot on your defensive build with Daphne can't hurt and might inspire a few giggles... |
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Randomized damage in Guild Battles Tyxeros has a unique ability - instead of your normal damage, he gives a random amount. For most battles, this is a pretty useless ability, however, once you are stunned, he becomes quite useful... his ability is not lost or halved. This gives you a good chance to rack up a few wins when you are beat down and there are no clerics in sight. |
Good Prospects[]
These Generals' abilities are not as good as the top prospects. But they deserve a look or two for those who are not chest gamblers.
| General | Why Buy? |
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If you are at a particularly higher level, Annika would be a better candidate. But he is still useful to players who own Annika, as they can be linked through General Alliance to give her a boost to Physical Pierce. |
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Similar to Aesir above. If your level isn't high enough to buy Katherine then Vanathan is a good candidate. But even if you already own her, Vanathan can still bost her Physical Resistance through General Alliance. |
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Same case as with Vanathan, although the General Alliance boost she can supply to a player who already owns Katherina and Vanathan through General Alliance is much less However, depending on your stats allocation, it might still be worth it if you don't have a better General to use as Katherine's second General Alliance link. |
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Ability-wise, she is in the same league as Kanbe, but she has weaker stats and no Divine Power. Her Water Pierce, however, can be very useful against some monsters. She can also be useful in PvP against an opponent with Fire Resistance. Take note that Frost's ability does not trigger while defending. |
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Mini-Ambrosia. Currently, we have 152 generals (so, +30 Def at the highest). Her potential increases as long as there are Generals to collect. She will not trump Ambrosia, though, but assuming you can not or will not get Ambrosia or other better defenders (like Halcyon), Suri may become powerful to some players in the future. She is a very long term investment though. It would take 115 Generals for her to beat Celesta's PvP defense bonus (130 to beat Dante in Fortifications). If you have that many Generals, you probably have someone that can offer more than 22 defense boost. Her real competition is Ambrosia, Corvintheus, Aurelius and Halcyon since they are the only ones who have no limit to their defense bonus. |
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Sanna's ability is to increase the amount of health to everyone in your gate by 14 instead of 10. She is useful when you are in a gate with several clerics and it is a close fight to not get stunned. Every bit of health matters to every member, and clerics are especially invaluable in those situations. Also, she is one of the few generals whose effect can be noticed in the entire battle gate. If 5 active clerics in the same gate all fought/won with Sanna, that's +20 health to everyone in the gate just from the bonus. The downside is that she is only useful if you are fighting a close battle against a tough/active opponent. If the battle has already been decided (you have no chance to win or the enemy has no chance to win), use Deianira for more damage to speed things up or use Tyxeros if you're trying to farm. If you are healing other members with the Heal ability, Sanna does not help. Sanna is a member of the Devotion Archive and as such, provides a +5 bonus to your Defense. |
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Syren only works with the Mage skill Confuse. Normally, the skill has a 20% chance for a confused target to attack him/herself over the course of 5 rounds, if Dispel or Cleanse is not applied. Syren increases this effect to 30% chance. Syren is a good general to cast Confuse on opponents who like to attack their way out of the debuff. The issue with Syren is that Confuse is already a great stalling skill in itself, enough that coordinated guilds with dedicated clerics will dispel/cleanse it before the inflicted target starts attacking and "use up" his confusion rounds. Unlike Poison, Confuse will block an attack, only give out 50 BAP if the effect triggers and only exhausts its rounds when the confused target uses his/her tokens. This means that the enemy guild mostly has control of the confusion rounds. With dedicated dispellers/cleansers, Syren's ability will not see much effect in most regular guild battles. In Festival Battles, guilds may opt to use Heal instead and just attack out of it. This is where Syren will mostly see more use although mages would also have to decide if they want to spend their limited tokens on using their innate splash damage or disrupting the enemy ranks with Confuse. Although Confuse also works in Guild Monsters, it's a waste of stamina as monsters will not attack back and thus not hit themselves in the process. |
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Health is very important in Guild Battles. Being a Warrior class exclusive, he is a step in the right direction in making the most underplayed class competitive in Guild Battles by being the best Health increaser general. If you have the tools to set up a great Warrior (have Whirlwind, Shout/Leadership, Confidence) and are a serious Guild Battle player, Oberon is a good choice to "complete" your set-up. His ability is only used at the beginning of battle, then switching to another general like Deianira. His bonus will provide you with +250 health. This can take 1(Rogue or a Full-Deck Warrior) to 3(Cleric or Mage) hits to take off. Remember that the health bonus is only counted before the battle starts. If you're playing as a warrior and you want his health boost, you have to have him equipped before the battle. Once the battle starts, your boosted health is applied in the battle and you therefore don't need to use him for the duration of the battle. |
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Polymorph is a powerful skill. It stalls your opponents by blocking their actions for one attack or more if they see the poly and wait for an attack or dispel/cleanse to get rid of it. It also allows your allies to get an auto-win against the inflicted enemy regardless of stat difference. Polymorph boosts the attack power of the caster by 25%[citation needed] and compares if to the target's defense power. If the 125% attack beats the 100% defense, poly is inflicted. If not, poly is resisted. Anya seems to boost this effect to 135%[citation needed], further increasing the success rate of polymorph. Like Syren, Anya's weakness is that Polymorph itself is already a powerful ability. Her 10% boost theoretically can increase the number of people that one can polymorph. But because the calculation is invisible and unknown to many players, her having a significant effect or not is hard to tell. [With the change to +25% boost to attack power, Anya's +10% boost is more effective now]. |
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Alexandria is the mage version of Sanna. Deals 14 damage to the enemy gate at level 4 and is weaker in comparison to Zurran, who does 18 damage. But as her lore text says, she holds a secret that Zurran (owners) would find attractive. Those who have the epic Annihilator Chest mage general will have benefits in purchasing Alexandria even though her ability is the weaker counterpart of him. This is because Alexandria is considered as an item bonus and boosts Zurran's gate damage ability by +2. This gives Zurran a formidable 20 gate damage, granting mages an edge over clerics in guild battles in terms of gate effect comparison. Even without Zurran, Alexandria can counter Sanna in terms of numbers damage/heal. With so many potent weapons in their arsenal, mage players only issue right now is deciding what ability to use against the opposition: Confuse? Poly? Splash? As with guild generals, Alexandria's main weakness is that she is limited in guild battles. She is good for guild monsters if a guild is lacking fighters and plays mages instead of rogues. |
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Sentinel/Guardian is a good skill that protects an ally from taking damage by letting a protecting warrior take the hit in their place. This is a good skill for HP tanks and Joan increases the value of the skill further by allowing the effect to take 1 or 2 more hits before it dissipates. The downside of this skill is that it is very selective and very expensive. Sentinel/Guardian is useful but only for players with high max health, around 6000+. If they have virtually nothing in attack/defense stats, they ought to play cleric and cast support spells like Heal, Cleanse and Revive. If they have decent PvP stats, Warriors also have much more useful skills in Confidence and Whirlwind for offense. It also costs 7500 guild coins or at least 30 FP to roll and even more (at least 480 FP) to upgrade. |
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Revive/Resurrect is an excellent skill in guild battles. It is very useful in that any guild whose members have them will always use them in guild battles. Tefaera improves the skill by restoring more health when it activates. It could be useful in making the opposition waste extra tokens to bring the revived ally's health back down below 200 especially if they have decent builds and/or are protected by Sentinel/Guardian. The skill is also very expensive but given its usefulness it's worth the coinage and/or FP (assuming you don't waste too much on failed rolls). However, Tefaera is a victim of her own use. Revive/Resurrect is an already powerful skill and it's true use is keeping allies unstunned regardless of their health count. As long as they are unstunned, they can maximize their token use and could still be nursed with Heal (given enough splash heal maneuvering in the case in FGBs). Extra health restored is useful but not really necessary. As a guild general, Tefaera's only other use is in War as she has excellent stats at this time. |
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While she doesn't have the punch of Muse, or the ability of Syren, Ephaline has the ability to do both add to mage passive damage and add to Confuse. She makes a fine third member of an alliance, though you might want to think of other options. |
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More useful for the Water Pierce, some guild battlers might find his Divine Favor bonus useful. (note: Divine Favor is not Divine Power...) |
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He has an interesting ability... doing more damage in guild battles as you take more damage. In theory, he could turn around a losing streak, pumping out more damage as you take it. His ability adds on to active skills like Whirlwind, so seem every tempting. In practice, however, you tend to take damage when you are out of coins and waiting for a recharge. Most likely to happen is that you'll be sitting fine with the Butcher, then come back with some coins and be dead already. |
Collection Purposes[]
These generals have weak abilities that they are mostly only bought for the sake of buying or collection purposes. Generals with superior abilities are found elsewhere.
| General | Comments |
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Newer monthlies have pushed Kataan to the outdated list. His 22/22 is no longer council worthy and his 24/24 with item bonuses is an expensive deal considering that some generals are equal or better than that even without items bonuses. |
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Illusion/Mirror Image is a gimmick ability. It's there for fun more than a tactical tool. Once the enemy detects and sees through an illusion use, further use would be a waste of tokens. If they can't beat you, you'll be ignored anyway. If they can, they'll pound on you because you are active. Hence, generals boosting the dispel resist are mostly useless. Not to mention the skill can be very expensive to obtain. |
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Wound/Lacerate is a terrible ability. It decreases the max health of an opponent in a guild battle once and it cannot be stacked. The only reasons one would decrease the max health of an opponent is: (1) for fun and (2) if they can't stop the enemy from healing themselves to full. If the latter is the problem, players should use the token for Poison or directly attacking instead of using Wound/Lacerate. The skill is also very expensive for its use. You may want to buy Rafaria for collection purposes but DO NOT BUY Lacerate or do extra chest rolls for Wound. |
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Same as Rafaria above. Fortitude is a "one-time Heal" that also extends the max health of the target. It's nothing special and you could use Heal and ignore Fort. The advantage of the latter is hardly noticeable anyway. Also saves time switching powers if you own either Cleanse/Dispel or Resurrect/Revive. Shivak is an excellent add for use if building a quester in guild battles as a cleric. As Shivak is leveled, he provides both fortitude and heal boost to the tune of +80% and always at a loss ( as you will always "loose" to other guild members that you are trying to heal). There will always be a chance that you will win, and that +80% really comes into play. It can mean a lot of use for otherwise useless in a guild battle and should always be used over heal. |
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Boosting only one slot in war is weak when there are generals that boost all seven. Could be useful in Lion's Rebellion as Aurelius (unknown stats, equipped with heavy gear) can be seen to be moving to the second war slot if you use Tactics. If you are losing, maybe Azalia can make a difference. Even then Adriana should be enough to red-cross the rebel. |
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A stronger version of Zarevok/Elin. The boost makes Therian a good monster hunter general but with the way monsters are nowadays (Next Generation 2-bar, Guild Monsters), you're probably be better off with Maalvus, Dolomar and/or Deshara if you don't have anyone better. |
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Gawain is the "brother of Phaethor". His bonus is weaker but you can do it more times before the cooldown is set. The sad thing is that +10 attack is small and compared to Aesir, Frost and Elora (who are also monthly generals) who give better attack bonuses and have no cooldown, Gawain is a joke. |
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A general boosting 2 stats is not good since the stat additions are split which makes the overall effect weak. There are arguments that Azul is for Guild Battles as his boost is half of what the Warrior Class offers. Still the +5 to both stats most of the time will not make any difference at all. Azul is a member of the Allies Archive and as such, provides a +7 bonus to your Attack. |
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Another multi-stat boosting general. Lailah seems to be ideal for fortification as she boosts Defense and Energy. However, the additions are weak that she won't take Dante's spot (if you have no better ones) as your repairman/healer. |
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Another multi-stat boosting general, and the worst of the three. As opposed to Lailah, Gorlak is for offense as he boosts Attack and Stamina. The bonus he gives is pathetic. |
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Well now...this general doesn't boost just 2 stats, she boosts all 5 (Energy, Stamina, Attack, Defense, Health). Sounds impressive but suffers the same fate as the other multi-stat boosting generals. CA's general system just doesn't "need" this type of generals unless the additions are heavy enough to take the role of 5 or even just 3 generals. However, if you buy her items that give +4 stamina, she may become a good level up general, with +4 energy and +8 stamina upon level up. That is equivalent to +20 skill points. |
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Fenris boosts player attack. His bonus is equal to that of Nautica, a gold-bought general. Fenris is a member of the Allies Archive and as such, provides a +8 bonus to your Attack. |
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Same with Fenris but with a little twist to her own stats. Still no better. |
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Defense version of Lyra. |
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Equivalent to Kaiser in terms of ability. But inferior everywhere else. Slayer is a member of the Allies Archive and as such, provides a +8 bonus to your Attack. |
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With the release of Aesir, Elora's weak +15 bonus is no longer attractive. |
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With the release of Dolomar, Kaiser has become obsolete. Not even his Backdraft combo could warrants a purchase now. He is faster then Dolomar to level up. However Dolomar takes over 6,002,500 to get to level 50 with stats of 248/154 critical bonus of 15%. Kaiser is a lot cheaper to level up and at will be Level 60 at only 3,481,000 experience and have stats of 396/235 and a critical bonus of 15%. Thus while Dolomar is the best critical general initially, Kaiser's cheaper cost to level up makes him better in the long run... assuming you want him to be your primary general. |
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Aria was a queen of leveling before Godric came out. |
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Another former queen of leveling. Though not as outdated as Aria, she still looks pretty weak nowadays. If you prefer stamina over energy, Minerva gives +6 without any penalties. If you have no problems with an energy "penalty", she is dwarfed by Solara. Also out done by the free (for some) general Kilgore or Leon Ironhart. |
Final Words[]
If you would like to offer your insight on these generals and maybe their items, please make your ideas heard (or read) by writing them in the discussion area.