Well the 19th heroic race has begun and runs for the usual 11 days. Info on race and rewards HERE. As with all previous races remember you have to REACH LAP 5 in order to qualify for the race rewards regardless of whether you are in first place or eighth place. For more info on qualification see HERE. Check HERE for node/lap requirements and pool times. Good luck!!

Some tips to help you race smartly and productively.

HEROIC RACE TIPS AND GUIDE

You are in a group of 8 players. To get the new dragon you must qualify by reaching lap 5 at least and be 1st in your race. However, there are prizes for runners up.
You have 10 laps, 50 nodes. You do not have to complete all of this but if you do Lap 11/12/13 and so on are exactly the same as lap 10
There are pools and wait times but they do NOT begin until lap 9, node 2. Check dragoncityguide.net for details of the lap and node you are on. We recommend checking each time you begin a new node.

For breeding: Breed Terra and Terra (fastest combination) with low level parents, You can also breed sea x Poseidon, sea x sea or other basic dragons with at least one parent level 14 or less.

For hatching: Breed any combination above. Hatch and place. We found out that on pc or puffin buying terra eggs and placing them works also and is the quickest thing. For some players it also works to sell the eggs from the hatchery.

For feeding your dragons: Feed one of the hatches you did or breed another terra and terra to feed to level 7, then sell.

For collecting food: Grow the cheapest food and collect after 30 seconds. Repeat this until you have collected the full amount of points.

*For collecting gold: Go to a habitat that earns gold relatively quickly. Tap on the habitat. Tap on the collect gold button until you have collected your full amount of available points. Even if you collect 25 gold repeatedly, you will get the items. It makes also sense just to collect gold when it is needed for the race. Then you will get an item from almost each habitat. If you have the Midarian Tower completed, activate when it is available to replenish your gold production more quickly.

League battles: Fight ONLY the number required for your current task! If you run out of league battles, check the pools and wait times for the rest of your node tasks. If the waits are longer than your next league battle refill and you can afford to wait (nobody is gaining on you) then wait. Also, if your league battles take many gems to refill and it's only going to take a few gems to skip the rest of that task completely, buy the task out with a few gems.

PRO TIP: To avoid loosing progress when you are ready with everything, visit a neighbor or the Ancient World and return back to your islands to save the progress before you leave the game.

NOTE: Just because a racer is speeding along through the race does not mean the racer is a cheater or a hacker. There is a time delay with the animations of racers based on timer differences of when you last logged in and the progress racers have made. There are also many racers who choose to use gems to shorten their wait times to gain progress. Before accusing racers of being hackers or cheaters be sure this is not normal racing as opposed to what you assume is a cheater or hacker. If you feel the racer(s) is a hacker or cheater, report it through the support link within the game. Give the Customer Service department as much info as possible for them to review to determine if this is a legitimate racer or hacker.

The times and pools can be seen on dragoncityguide. It seems so good that I am wondering if it's true. Whenever there are PvP battles, only 1 win is required. The pools start on lap 9, and from lap 10 the total completion time is 2:20 hours for a node. No node requires more than 2 laurel wreaths or roses.

However, there are heavy fight requirements and we don't see the wait times. On lap 1 the wait time was 10 seconds, lap 2-lap4 the wait time is little less than 10 minutes except the last fight - we have to wait for 2 hours (I prefer to pay a gem to skip it). It is still better to do something else 10 minutes while waiting than breeding terra dragons :).

Something else I have noticed is the increased gem cost for completing an objective, e.g. 5 gems for the last laurel wreath/rose, 11 gems to skip the last 3 fights, etc.

I start to fear they were serious we could complete 20 laps to get all possible rewards.

Here are my quick thoughts after a skimming down the guide at the Dragon City Guide dot Net.

• Pools start at Lap 9 Node 2.
• All nodes that has PVP only requires 1 win
• The most Breeding and Hatching requirement I saw is 2.
• Race Fight or Encounters are quite a lot and I think this will be the slowing factor unless players use gems. Once Node requires 12 Encounters, one with 10, about 5 has 9 and there are 8s, 7s, 6s, 5s and 3s
• Also for the Encounters, I have completed Lap 1 Node 5 and Lap 2 Node 5 and the waiting time for each is just 10 minutes except the last one which is much longer. My advise is, if you are on a Node with Encounters and your Spin is available, complete the other items and finish all the Encounters with short waiting time and do the spin.

Just hit lap 4 and have not used my spin yet, I think I will use it once I get to the last of the 8 fights. Based on the previous two comments I am excited that pool times do not hit until lap 9. Yay I may actually get to lap 15 this go around. And no I am NOT going for lap 20, ensuring Hi Portal is my only goal for this race. @pounawea so far I am liking the re-balancing of this race.

Lap 18 has 200 Dark Tokens for expansion. So, why not aim for Lap 20. Anyway, the Epic Pack has gems as well.

Wow, SP has indeed listened to the feedback. I am impressed. Thanks SocialPoint!

Yay! This race so far doesn’t feel like a slog. I reserve the right to tired of it all after another few days.

I real wanted the King Kong dragon (whatever the real name that is what my kid calls it) and I’ll spend a couple of gems to buy out a last fight happily if I don’t have 32 breedings on the horizon.

@Pounawea please let the team know that I cannot moderate the forums for the next 11 days because I am GLUED to my tablet with all these nodes with the 10 minute wait times for the fights. Now I am not complaining too much because this is easier than those tedious breedings and hatchings but if my tablet burns out someone in Barcelona is replacing it....IJS.

@Nynaevelan said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

@Pounawea please let the team know that I cannot moderate the forums for the next 11 days because I am GLUED to my tablet with all these nodes with the 10 minute wait times for the fights. Now I am not complaining too much because this is easier than those tedious breedings and hatchings but if my tablet burns out someone in Barcelona is replacing it....IJS.

You're overexaggerating, I am sure

Starting with lap 10, there only one fight series per lap, and that even that is just 5 rounds (so you only have 10-minute waits for three rounds - 2nd, 3rd, 4th - because the last one has a longer wait). So assuming you go for lap 20, you'll only have 10 intense 30-minute series after you make to lap 10. Not that bad, huh?

As to the first laps, they've always been more interactive with shorter waits or no waits, lots of breeding/hatchings, etc. So I do think this is a very welcome change in heroic races. You can either spend more time, or accelerate the fights for a still reasonable fee - to the tune of 3-8 gems per node.

And aside from that, I think this race is much more friendly and fair to the people just starting out. In my first heroic race I had to spend some insane amount of gems to skip the PvPs because I didn't have any heroics myself and didn't even had legendaries yet - yet in PvP I faced mostly cat 5/9/10 dragons. Even with Winstance, I was usually able to get at most 1-2 trophies per node, and had to buy out the rest.

@Stilor said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

@Nynaevelan said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

@Pounawea please let the team know that I cannot moderate the forums for the next 11 days because I am GLUED to my tablet with all these nodes with the 10 minute wait times for the fights. Now I am not complaining too much because this is easier than those tedious breedings and hatchings but if my tablet burns out someone in Barcelona is replacing it....IJS.

You're overexaggerating, I am sure

Starting with lap 10, there only one fight series per lap, and that even that is just 5 rounds (so you only have 10-minute waits for three rounds - 2nd, 3rd, 4th - because the last one has a longer wait). So assuming you go for lap 20, you'll only have 10 intense 30-minute series after you make to lap 10. Not that bad, huh?

As to the first laps, they've always been more interactive with shorter waits or no waits, lots of breeding/hatchings, etc. So I do think this is a very welcome change in heroic races. You can either spend more time, or accelerate the fights for a still reasonable fee - to the tune of 3-8 gems per node.

And aside from that, I think this race is much more friendly and fair to the people just starting out. In my first heroic race I had to spend some insane amount of gems to skip the PvPs because I didn't have any heroics myself and didn't even had legendaries yet - yet in PvP I faced mostly cat 5/9/10 dragons. Even with Winstance, I was usually able to get at most 1-2 trophies per node, and had to buy out the rest.

No I am not, i have been at work for the last 7 1/2 hours and i have been logged into DC for most of that time. I just got to lap 6. Now while I am working in between fights I have already did 8 nodes with fights in them and that is not including all the other laps. And I am not sure what you consider intense but leaving my tablet logged in while I wait during those 10 minute intervals still drain the battery whether I am doing anything on it or it is just sitting there with DC open.

PS I am not going for lap 20, I am stopping at 15. This is going to burn me out just as much as the previous races and I do not see me wanting to go for those dark tokens or that EPIC card pack, especially since I doubt it will have any of the 3 epics that I am missing.

My race is already a loss, got 2 big gem spenders so I’m just gonna play & not worry about winning.

@SilverWolff said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

My race is already a loss, got 2 big gem spenders so I’m just gonna play & not worry about winning.

It should not be much difficult to reach lap 15. So it is not important where your opponents are. You can still get the two Heroics.

@Nynaevelan said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

@Stilor said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

@Nynaevelan said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

@Pounawea please let the team know that I cannot moderate the forums for the next 11 days because I am GLUED to my tablet with all these nodes with the 10 minute wait times for the fights. Now I am not complaining too much because this is easier than those tedious breedings and hatchings but if my tablet burns out someone in Barcelona is replacing it....IJS.

You're overexaggerating, I am sure

Starting with lap 10, there only one fight series per lap, and that even that is just 5 rounds (so you only have 10-minute waits for three rounds - 2nd, 3rd, 4th - because the last one has a longer wait). So assuming you go for lap 20, you'll only have 10 intense 30-minute series after you make to lap 10. Not that bad, huh?

As to the first laps, they've always been more interactive with shorter waits or no waits, lots of breeding/hatchings, etc. So I do think this is a very welcome change in heroic races. You can either spend more time, or accelerate the fights for a still reasonable fee - to the tune of 3-8 gems per node.

And aside from that, I think this race is much more friendly and fair to the people just starting out. In my first heroic race I had to spend some insane amount of gems to skip the PvPs because I didn't have any heroics myself and didn't even had legendaries yet - yet in PvP I faced mostly cat 5/9/10 dragons. Even with Winstance, I was usually able to get at most 1-2 trophies per node, and had to buy out the rest.

No I am not, i have been at work for the last 7 1/2 hours and i have been logged into DC for most of that time. I just got to lap 6. Now while I am working in between fights I have already did 8 nodes with fights in them and that is not including all the other laps. And I am not sure what you consider intense but leaving my tablet logged in while I wait during those 10 minute intervals still drain the battery whether I am doing anything on it or it is just sitting there with DC open.

PS I am not going for lap 20, I am stopping at 15. This is going to burn me out just as much as the previous races and I do not see me wanting to go for those dark tokens or that EPIC card pack, especially since I doubt it will have any of the 3 epics that I am missing.

Well, if you haven't counted, you don't have to do everything on day 1. The race ends on the next Sunday, not this one

They say on FB that the wait times between the fights are 10 min on laps 2-6 and 20 min on laps 7+ (lap 1has 30 seconds). On the laps 2..6, we have fight series of 5, 7, 8, 8, 4, 8, 9, 9, 9, 3 rounds. But since you don't have to wait for the first (obviously) and the last (who isn't going to spend 1 gem to buy the node at this point?) round, this gives (3+5+6+6+2+6+7+7+7+1)x10 = 500 minutes.

On laps 7..9, similarly, we have 7, 10, 9, 9, 12, 10 rounds - or (5+8+7+7+10+8)x20= 900 minutes.

That is, for laps 1..9 it is 1400 minutes total wait - or just below 24h.

On laps 10+ we have 5 rounds on each lap - or 3x20=60 minutes, but these are running in parallel with 2 hour wait for gold on the same node. Laps 10+ have 540 minutes (9 hours) total wait time per lap.

If you only aim for lap 15, you need 24+5x9 = 69 hours out of 264 hours of this event. Even if one plans to go all the way to lap 20, that's 24 + 10x9 = 114 hours. Don't you think that's more than enough leeway so that one doesn't have to fret over losing a few minutes if you miss the time to fight?

TL;DR: Do not worry, you'll get where you want to even if you let your tablet sleep for a while

I am going to reach Lap 20 because....

... why not?

@Pounawea and @Bex101 after last month, the team needs to see THIS thread. I think it is pretty safe to say the changes made have made the Dragon City Community pretty happy. Even I am giving this race a good try. I still have a pretty active race, but this time I seem to have gotten matched up with more people in my time zone. Not that it really matters much because now, reaching lap 15 seems a bit more doable.

So Thank You Dragon City Team, for listening to the Community!

@LilCricketPa said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

@Pounawea and @Bex101 after last month, the team needs to see THIS thread. I think it is pretty safe to say the changes made have made the Dragon City Community pretty happy. Even I am giving this race a good try. I still have a pretty active race, but this time I seem to have gotten matched up with more people in my time zone. Not that it really matters much because now, reaching lap 15 seems a bit more doable.

So Thank You Dragon City Team, for listening to the Community!

Well said.

Ending the night on lap 7 node 5. Surprisingly I am in my normal first day position but the race doesn't seem as frustrating or tedious since the fights are easier to get than the breeds and hatches.

@Nynaevelan said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

Ending the night on lap 7 node 5. Surprisingly I am in my normal first day position but the race doesn't seem as frustrating or tedious since the fights are easier to get than the breeds and hatches.

Told ya! And given the shorter wait times on further laps, it should be possible to get to lap 20 without sacrificing one's life in the process

Hi im new to this heroic race thingy. Im currently in lap 7 and the wait time for battling dragons became a little over 19 mins, from over 9 mins from lap 6 below. I just want to ask if that wait time of 19 mins gets higher for laps above 7 or nah? Thanks for answers.

The Race Fight (Encounters) at Lap 7 Nodes 4 and 5 had an increase of minimum waiting time to 20 minutes. Other Nodes before this were 10 minutes.

id also like to ask if it is ok just to reach lap 15 and not actually finish it in order to get the high portal?

@Stilor said a the wait time for laps 7-10 are 20 minutes. I can confirm only for laps 7 and 8. In 2-3 hours I should reach lap 9 and I may update my post.

If you reach lap 15 (i.e. complete lap 14 node 5) you will get the high dragon after the race end no matter if you have finished first or last in your race. Reaching lap 15 guarantees the big reward.

@Nynaevelan said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

@Pounawea please let the team know that I cannot moderate the forums for the next 11 days because I am GLUED to my tablet with all these nodes with the 10 minute wait times for the fights. Now I am not complaining too much because this is easier than those tedious breedings and hatchings but if my tablet burns out someone in Barcelona is replacing it....IJS.

Hi @Nynaevelan!

jejjejeeje

@Nyn 's tablet in few a days...

@LilCricketPa said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

@Pounawea and @Bex101 after last month, the team needs to see THIS thread. I think it is pretty safe to say the changes made have made the Dragon City Community pretty happy. Even I am giving this race a good try. I still have a pretty active race, but this time I seem to have gotten matched up with more people in my time zone. Not that it really matters much because now, reaching lap 15 seems a bit more doable.

So Thank You Dragon City Team, for listening to the Community!

They will be happy to hear that @LilCricketPa! I'll pass your feedback along to the rest of Team.

As I tried to explain you on the official announcement for this Heroic Race, we took on your feedback from the previous Race and we wanted to make Vortex a very exciting, fun and more rewarding Race, We really hope that the entire community feels this way.

Have a great day and happy racing everyone!

Wow there are people in the fb groups that have already gemmed their way as high as lap 10 and one person on lap 15. I wouldn't mind getting to lap 15 without having to spend the next week glued to my tablet but I am not willing to give up over 200 gems to do it. Guess I will travel there the normal way. Though I am thrilled that so far I have spent 0 gems on this race, I don't think I have ever never spent gems in the early part of the race.

I spent 130ish but not more than 140 gems from lap 1 to 12 in order to get my very 1st heroic. It was worth it. That pink piglet helped a lot in cushioning gem costs. I want to thank the mods and the community in this game for patiently teaching an occoasionally vexing noob like me. Cheers!

Ps: one may spend 34 gems in order to breeze thru a lap from 10 and above with the same amount of minutes (based on my experience) if you dont want to go thru the waiting time of recharging the pool. This is assuming that you have 2 charges of league battles. If not then you can make that 38 gems (assuming 2 gems for each league battle).

I am on L8N5 with 16 gems spent mostly to skip the last battle of each fight thus sparing 2/4 hours of waiting. 15 gems were awarded for reaching lap 4, i.e. my balance is -1 gem so far.

@ormuzd said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

I am on L8N5 with 16 gems spent mostly to skip the last battle of each fight thus sparing 2/4 hours of waiting. 15 gems were awarded for reaching lap 4, i.e. my balance is -1 gem so far.

That is how I am calculating my costs as well and I am right behind you on node 4.

@ormuzd Do u think i overspent?

@jerekiel said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

@ormuzd Do u think i overspent?

No you are within range of gems spent on races. You should make some of that back if a freebies event pops up or get some of it back with you hit lap 14 with the 30 gems reward.

@jerekiel It really depends of your goals and the time you can dedicate to play. As you can see I am spending very low amount of gems compared to you but I am sitting 90% of my time in front of the PC. The time to accelerate the race for minimum investment is actually the first laps before the pools. Once the pools kick in the costs increase.

yea i kinda agree. My job has no fixed working hours so i tend to rush when ingame since i can be away for days at a time w/o net.

@ormuzd said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

@Stilor said a the wait time for laps 7-10 are 20 minutes. I can confirm only for laps 7 and 8. In 2-3 hours I should reach lap 9 and I may update my post.

If you reach lap 15 (i.e. complete lap 14 node 5) you will get the high dragon after the race end no matter if you have finished first or last in your race. Reaching lap 15 guarantees the big reward.

The waiting time between fights will be 1 hour from lap 10 onwards.

@Bettina-Löffler said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

@ormuzd said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

@Stilor said a the wait time for laps 7-10 are 20 minutes. I can confirm only for laps 7 and 8. In 2-3 hours I should reach lap 9 and I may update my post.

If you reach lap 15 (i.e. complete lap 14 node 5) you will get the high dragon after the race end no matter if you have finished first or last in your race. Reaching lap 15 guarantees the big reward.

The waiting time between fights will be 1 hour from lap 10 onwards.

I haven't reached L10 myself (on L9N1 currently), I just reposted what was said in FB group. But even then, it just increases the lap's waiting time from 9 to 10 hours (because 2 out of 3 hours would still run in parallel with the gold collection wait).

@Stilor said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

@Bettina-Löffler said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

@ormuzd said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

@Stilor said a the wait time for laps 7-10 are 20 minutes. I can confirm only for laps 7 and 8. In 2-3 hours I should reach lap 9 and I may update my post.

If you reach lap 15 (i.e. complete lap 14 node 5) you will get the high dragon after the race end no matter if you have finished first or last in your race. Reaching lap 15 guarantees the big reward.

The waiting time between fights will be 1 hour from lap 10 onwards.

I haven't reached L10 myself (on L9N1 currently), I just reposted what was said in FB group. But even then, it just increases the lap's waiting time from 9 to 10 hours (because 2 out of 3 hours would still run in parallel with the gold collection wait).

I think it is no problem to reach lap 15. This was just an information.

Has anyone created or seen one created in any of the facebook groups a timeline of which laps need to be completed by specific days for those that are going for 10 laps? 15 laps? 20 laps?

@Nynaevelan yes

I'm on 8th lap and 6th place, but I'm not mad. So much less rage inducing when I don't need to dedicate 30+ minutes grinding materials. Anybody got a good schedule for reaching Lap 15 by the end of the race? Just wondering when I should start spending gems.

I got something useful out of the free spin. Finished L7N5 when I still had 1 breed, 2 hatches, and 9 fights. I hardly ever get more than 1 item out of the spin.

Wow, I said no more hr races after excruciatingly painful last race (I did get new hr but no way to reach 12) but after checking this one - could not pass - should be OK to reach 15. Seems like sp redeemed themselves - almost still feel the pain from last but hopefully this hr dragon will sugar coat the pain.

Not liking the battles.

From all the heroics i've done since March last year, i can't find any complaints for this one. I haven't spent any gems and my competitors are pretty weak.

@Dragonista said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

I got something useful out of the free spin. Finished L7N5 when I still had 1 breed, 2 hatches, and 9 fights. I hardly ever get more than 1 item out of the spin.

Wow. I also always get one item.

@goldrushdc said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

I'm on 8th lap and 6th place, but I'm not mad. So much less rage inducing when I don't need to dedicate 30+ minutes grinding materials. Anybody got a good schedule for reaching Lap 15 by the end of the race? Just wondering when I should start spending gems.

I don`t think you have to spend gems. Waiting times are not as long as they were in other races. I only finished nodes with fights for 1 gem instead of waiting for the last fight. That saves much time.

@Bettina-Löffler said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

@goldrushdc said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

I'm on 8th lap and 6th place, but I'm not mad. So much less rage inducing when I don't need to dedicate 30+ minutes grinding materials. Anybody got a good schedule for reaching Lap 15 by the end of the race? Just wondering when I should start spending gems.

I don`t think you have to spend gems. Waiting times are not as long as they were in other races. I only finished nodes with fights for 1 gem instead of waiting for the last fight. That saves much time.

Same here, so far I am 0 gems spent and just started lap 10, node 2.

At lap10 the fights go from 20mins to 1hr timers, but the gem cost is still 1gem to skip which is a nice thing. Whilst I am in the lead by 2laps I will spend some gems on the fights to gain some distance and time between me and my competitors.

I am REALLY liking this format!!!!! It is much more fun and relaxing that previous races.

Even with 20 minute wait times between, the fights are better than the hours spent breeding/hatching/selling 1 minute dragons. Feels like I'm actually doing something rather than just spinning my wheels.

I just finished Lap 8 with a goal of getting to Lap 15.

@TeamTerrier oh hi kathleen!

A little help for the race. Here is a spreadsheet for lap 9 and 10 made by Pigeona Aurovia.

can someone post a screenie of their set up/arrangement of their habitats, farms, breeding areas, hatchery, etc. for this event? I have my own arrangement for ease of clicking. Im just curious how you guys did yours.

@jerekiel said in Hi Vortex Heroic Race for High Portal Jan 1, 2018 to Jan 22, 2018:

can someone post a screenie of their set up/arrangement of their habitats, farms, breeding areas, hatchery, etc. for this event? I have my own arrangement for ease of clicking. Im just curious how you guys did yours.

I am not sure what you mean, I don't change my islands for the races. Though I will say I have my mountain, tree, hatchery and 2 kindergartens on one island for breeding ease. My farms are also on my second "city" island. The only changes I made was to move my habs from being so close to the portal to avoid accidentally clicking it.