Maximising the Global Challenge Bonuses

Last weekend, as part of the Wizards Unite Fan Festival Global Challenge, witches and wizards around the world collected and opened over 4 million special Dragon Egg Portkeys, unlocking a week of global bonuses. Read on for tips and advice on how to make the most of these special bonuses while they last.

The four bonuses started Monday, September 2 at 10:00 PDT / 17:00 UTC and run until Monday, September 9 at 10:00 PDT / 17:00 UTC. Here are all the bonuses:

• 25% Wizarding XP Bonus 

  • This only applies to the base WXP on Encounters. 

  • It does not apply to Portkeys, Fortresses, or any cast bonuses (like Great cast bonus).

  • Brilliant Foundables are not included.

• ½ Portmanteau Walk Distance

  • When starting a key during the event, the distance will update to half complete.

  • If the bonus doesn’t show, exit the Portkey screen and check again.

• ½ Potion Brewing Time

  • This only applies to Potions started after the bonuses began

  • Some players experienced the bonuses only appearing on Potions queued after the event began

  • The bonus is expected to only apply to Potions started (not queued) before the event ends

  • Gold Cauldron brew time is reduced by a further 10%

• 2x Dark Detector Duration

  • These last 1 hour

Wizarding XP

First of all, if you’re looking for Wizarding XP, these are not the bonuses you’re looking for. The bonus is small (+25%) and only applies to a small portion of available XP. For players who typically can get Great casts, the bonus works out to closer to only 10-15% WXP per Trace. 

Save your Brain Elixirs for a better event—like Saturday’s Day of the Dragons, or the next Community Day. (September Community Day has not yet been announced.)

Of course, if you’re burning through Portkeys with the ½ unlock distance, you might want to use a Brain Elixir when you have eight Portkeys ready to open, but the WXP bonus won’t apply, so only do it if you feel you have Brain Elixirs to spare.

Brewing

This bonus is the single best Potion bonus so far in the game. Even Community Day only offered a 33% reduction in brew time, and only for healing potions. With ½ Portkey distance happening at the same time, players can also keep collecting rare ingredients to keep up with the increased brew speed.

If you’ll only spend Gold in one place this event, this is where we’d recommend it. Even players on a tight budget can likely spare some coins from Daily Assignments to rent a Gold Cauldron and maximise brewing. 

Portkeys

If you were looking for an excuse to get walking, it’s here. As with Potions, this is again the single best Portkey bonus so far in the game. The rewards per km are effectively doubled (as in you can get twice as many Portkeys unlocked in the same distance). 

That means more Family XP, more chances at rare Fragments, more ingredients (especially Portkey-only ones like Unicorn Hair), and more Wizarding XP. Lace up those sneakers and get walking!

Dark Detectors

If you like using Dark Detectors, the extended duration is nice, but this bonus is nothing we haven’t seen before, and it hasn’t really come with any additional reasons to use them.

Unless you’re desperate to get rid of them or just want to use them to find other players (by signalling to them where you are), save them for a more relevant event.

One of the primary “endgame” goals for Wizards Unite is completing the skill tree and being able to defeat the toughest Fortress chamber, Dark V. The only way to reach this goal requires a great deal of play time at Fortresses to collect the red Spell Books necessary for completing the skill tree. 

For those players working toward this goal, this week’s bonuses offer an excellent opportunity to push harder Fortress battles for more Challenge XP. While none of the bonuses are directly related to Fortresses, the Portkey and Potion bonuses together make it easier and faster to gather up the resources to keep pushing harder Fortress levels.

Stock up some potions, grab your friends, and do as many Fortress runs as your brewing can keep up with.

And if you don’t have a group to play with yet (soloing is fine, but rewards increase significantly when battling with others!), be sure to check out the official community map to find others in your area who might want to join you for some Fortress runs.

With all these bonuses, the temptation to spend gold is probably pretty strong for many players. Here are the best ways to maximise your gold during this event:

The Gold Cauldron

If you only want one place to spend your gold, our top recommendation is to rent the Gold Cauldron for 3 hours (15 gold), brew up some smaller potions, and throw a Potent Exstimulo or Brain Elixir on the end. 

If you have time to check in on your potions (tip: use alarms so you don’t miss it), you can brew 4 healing or basic exstimulo potions with master notes, pay 1 gold to complete one with about 9 minutes left on it, and squeeze in one extra potion (like a Potent Extimulo or Brain Elixir) on the end.

That’s 16 gold for 4 healing or basic exstimulo potions and a Potent Exstimulo or Brain Elixir, all in about 6-9 hours. 

Of course, if you’d rather just set it and forget it, renting for longer periods is also effective, though slightly less cost effective than the 3-hour rental.

Silver Keys

While players on a budget might prefer to save their Silver Keys for a bonus that increases rewards per Portkey, players with a bit more Gold to spare will likely want to buy more bundles of Keys to get the most out of this week’s bonus.

Prioritise 10km Portkeys, maybe 5km ones if you have keys to spare, and if you’re feeling as rich as a Malfoy, feel free to put them on 2km Portkeys too.

Vault Capacity

Of course, if you’re brewing tons of potions and opening loads of Portkeys, you might find your storage getting a bit cramped. If you haven’t invested much in your vault capacity yet, be sure you can make the most of the bonuses by increasing your Potion and Ingredient capacity.

(And if you think you’ll want to increase your Spell Energy more still, grab the Vault Expansion bundle to save a few coins on all three.)

All in all, there is a lot to take advantage of this week, especially with Potions and Portkey bonuses being the best bonuses we've seen so far.

Be sure to also check out the Day of the Dragons Guide for tips preparing for Saturday's event.