Elder Priorities

The briefing 

New elders:  Spend faith and/or make teams to:
do your daily directives and complete [Operations],

Keep earning and saving  [KoE] (save 2.6 million), [Credits] (save 80 million), [VM]s (wait for sales), [Argents] (wait for sales) and [Trophy Booster Stars]* to get boosts in rank and skills,

Earn and spend [Transform] for new classes, [Cognition] in Hall of Elders (in AELION Orbit starting with Mercy), [Eidoi] for Invasion Atlas, Start your Terra and Thea adventures to earn Ether (Terra skills) and Alerium-9 (Thea skills),

Finish your [Bastion quests] for all the symbols,

Your Hall of Travels with your [Divine Deeds].

To prepare for end-game content: ask strong players their schedule to do Ingar Tests, Distortions, the Invaded region "Cog Farm" quests, Trava, and Chava.  Join them whenever you can to earn then use Exoskeleton parts and pieces, Avatar Trophies, Cognition, and other valuable drops.

*Save your Trophy Booster stars til you have 57, then buy three or more cheap Might cards from Hall of Trophies, then pop all the Stars you saved,  That will unlock Trial ranks and then Nightmares. Then your game triples in size and complexity again.

Trial Rank Elders

Now upgrading your gear becomes worthwhile  as you gather current generation items from your trials and nightmares. Completing your [Invasion Atlas] and [Operation] daily becomes possible

Always relatively useless:  Story quests part 2 and 3. Hostile Territories.

The Deets:

Still true:

 Daily or more often, have fun, be a friend, and check and handle F9, 9, L, N, B,  Invasion Atlas, Y > RECENT,  K >ToK, >Cath, >ToD,  Shift K. Choose what incidents to run and gain prizes from: Panth events, Ops, Dirs (with Catch-up or good loot. Use God form on Groups. Stim grey dirs for better prizes). Look for and give /invites.

Cognition

The brief

 Spend [Cognition] in the Hall of Elders (in Orbit in the Capital) for permanent buffs. When you unlock your Elder, that's the only place you can spend it. "Cog" comes from Directive rewards, most invasion missions (Distortions, Training Avatar, Champion Avatar) and can be farmed in the Invaded Region.

"Cog Farming" the invaded region takes several strong players. New Elders can join. When Final Report bosses spawn, be near one, go god then elder god (do the "god" command twice, spending about 700 faith),  hit the thing, and survive til all are killed. Spend the resulting [Greater Divinity Development] points to fill the Aspect of Mercy tab first.

 The details: 

 During Cog Farm, players in an invaded region complete personal quests and two region-wide quests to build "resistance" to 100%, which causes four special bosses to spawn. If all four of those "Final Report" bosses are killed within a few minutes of spawning AND you damage one while in your elder aspect god form (alt-C after you are in divine form) AND you survive, you get a hefty cognition reward.  The new abilities you must use consume about 700 faith the first time you try. The resistance drops to zero and players can repeat the cycle.

Before you try cog farming in a new invaded region, go there and
 1) interact with all the map-marked NPC's fully
 2) visit all teleport points to unlock them
 3) find the allied Camps and enemy Bases that are named on the map  
 4) Find routes to each of them.
 5) Locate at least one of the four boss' spawn points and how to get there. They are NOT named on the map; their location is only shown when they spawn. 

You need three skills to cog farm:
  1) when the Invaded region says "Final Report" (happens when players compete regional "camps", "rituals", "missions" and raise the "RESISTANCE" to 100%), you need to be at a spawn point.
  2) When your opponent spawns, go god or be that already, then go elder, using the same command twice: the default is Alt-C for god then Alt-C again for elder. 
 3) left-click hit your opponent at least once quickly, often as you like, then
 4) stay alive until all of the Final Four are dead as the rest of the farmers kill them. If all that happens, you get the cognition and usually a pop-up confirming it. 

  Get verbal guidance with your first few cog farms using Discord voice chat. Pay attention to region chat and cog channel chat.  When leaders stay "stop", heed them.  While most of the farm is easy and obvious. the crucial 5 minutes of summons, traveling, assuming Elder form, boss spawning and slaying when everyone plays a part can be bewildering and expensive:  a complete 4 cycle hour cog farm session would cost  2630 faith before discounts.

   Anyone can start a Cog Farm anytime.  It demands coordination, strength and speed from at least two strong speedy players, easier with more. Players with invaded region for their directive can easily complete the directive during the farm:  camps, rituals, random bosses and cog bosses offer lots of resistance (30-50%) and directive (8-30%) progress.

  In NA server, OS runs Cog Farm on Tue and Fri at 5 Pacific time. Every elder god on the server is welcome to join them and the "Cog Farm channel" so you can see when farms happen. They use OS Discord https://discord.gg/nbMHsEpP voice chat rooms for verbal guidance.  Chat channels include sign up and duty assignments to ensure the complicated Farm happens smoothly. Cog Farm leaders (both in OS are named Pickle lately) coordinate three or four cycles in the course of the cog farm hour. Sometimes a season achievement needs rotation among assignment, we'll rotate you thru the forts to get it.

-------------------------------

When you gather enough cog, you gain a [] token.  Spend it right away in your K>Capital>Orbit>Halls of Elders.  First, fill all the spots in the Aspect of Mercy (middle green) tab.  The buffs there discount and lengthen your Elder form, those abilities, and a few buffs for support classes.  On completion, you gain 10 [] each week.

After Aspect of Mercy, then what to fill next depends on your main class type (if you have one) or scatter your coin for every-day buffs then fill the rest.

See also:  Elder God abilities