September 2019 Community Day Guide

The third Wizards Unite Community Day is coming up soon! Ready your wands, and read on for details about the event as well as tips on how to prepare and make the most of it.

For those who don’t know, Community Day is a 3-hour event, typically occurring once a month on a Saturday or Sunday. September Community Day is scheduled for Saturday, September 21st. There are three separate times for the event, depending on region, which are:

Asia Pacific: 1:00 P.M. to 4:00 P.M. AEST (UTC +10)

Europe, Middle East, Africa, and India: 10:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. UTC

The Americas and Greenland: 11:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. PDT (UTC -7)

During those three hours, players benefit from a handful of in-game bonuses. This Community Day, the Mysterious Artefacts family and Exstimulo Potions will be the focus. The bonuses are as follows:

• Increased Mysterious Artefacts Traces on the Map, including Rare Traces

• Increase appearance of Hagrid’s Umbrella, the Weasley Clock, Mirror of Erised, and Time Turner Encounters

• All Exstimulo Potions will have increased effect in Combat and Encounters

• All Exstimulo Potions brew times will be reduced by 50%

• All Exstimulo Potions Master Notes will decrease brew time by 50% instead of 15%

• Spell Energy will appear on the Map

• Increased Spell Energy from Inns

Players will also be able to claim a Free Store Pack during the Community Day hours. The content of this pack have not been released yet, but players should note that, unlike previous Community Days, the Free Store Pack will only be claimable during your region's Community Day hours.

Update: Here are the contents of the Free Store Pack:

• 3 Strong Exstimulo Potions
• 9 Bitterroot
• 12 Snowdrop
• 2 Re'em Blood
• 5 Abraxan Hair
• 1 Tonic for Trace Detection

Community Day in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region has just ended. Here are some quick bits of information shared by players there to help those in other regions:

Foundables

• There was a bug when using a Potent Exstimulo in Hermione's Time Turner Encounters which caused the game to crash when Tracing.
  • This was reportedly fixed during Community Day in APAC, but if it reoccurs, the best solution is to only use Strong or Basic Exstimulos in these Encounters.
• As a result of the above bug, Community Day in APAc was extended 30 minutes, until 4:30pm AEST (UTC +10)
• Players have reported seeing Hermione's Time Turner "everywhere," so it seems the boost in rare Traces is indeed significant, at least for some players.
• Pensieve and Philosopher's Stone did not appear to be boosted.
• Depart rate on Foundables seemed very low.

Spell Energy

• Spell Energy on map is 1-5 Spell Energy per pick up. Players may need to download the latest assets to be able to see it on the map.

Ingredients

• Some players reported finding lots of Erumpent Horn on the map during Community Day. 

Potions

• Exstimulo effectiveness boost was relatively modest.
• Brew time for Exstimulo potions was reduced by 75% rather than 50%. With Master Notes, this means that the standard brew times are 15 minutes, 30 minutes, and 1 hour.
• Potions put into the queue before Community Day ends do indeed get the reduced brew times. Potions queued before Community Day starts do not get reduced brew times.

There was also a special Community Day bundle available for purchase in Diagon Alley. It costs 200 gold and contains:

• 3 Potent Exstimulo
• 1 Tonic for Trace Detection
• 10 Spell Energy

With the reduction in brew times for Exstimulo Potions, the bundle is only a discount if you are missing all of the ingredients for a Potent Exstimulo and the Erumpent Horn for Tonic for Trace Detection.

If you are missing all ingredients, it works out to a value of 271 gold (72 gold * 3 + 55 gold)*. In most cases, you will likely have at least most of the common ingredients for both potions, in which case the bundle is bad deal. 

If you really need Spell Energy, it is better to buy the pack of 50.

*During Community Day, Potents cost 6 gold to complete in the standard cauldron plus 66 gold for all ingredients. The cheapest per unit cost of Tonic for Trace Detection is 55 gold, from the 4-pack. Spell Energy was given 0 value because it is available for free on the Map.

While this Community Day should be relatively accessible to any players without much preparation,  may not seem like much on the surface, players can still make the most of the event anyway. Here are some key tips to help you prepare:

Stock up potions

Make the most of your cauldron and potion storage! With Exstimulo effectiveness increased and more rare Traces showing up, players will want to bring as many Exstimulo Potions as they can—and ingredients to keep on brewing more throughout the three hours! We'll get to brewing in a moment.

Speaking of rare Traces, players might also consider bringing up to 6 Tonic for Trace Detection for Community Day, though for most players, this will likely only be possible by by spending gold.

• Tip: If you don't have Erumpent Horn, buy these in Diagon Alley instead. The pack of four is cheaper per potion (55 gold each) than buying the Horns (60 gold for one potion), and even just the single pack saves 7 hours of brewing.

Unlike previous Community Days, there is no mention of bonus Wizarding XP this month. If grinding Wizarding XP is your thing, feel free to bring 6 Baruffio's Brain Elixir to make the most of all the WXP from Traces, especially higher Threat ones. For those wanting to make the most of limited Brain Elixir stores though, save them for another event when bonus WXP might be awarded.

Finally, if you’ll be playing in an area with lots of other players, consider bringing some Healing Potions and Invigoration Draughts for Fortress battles! 

Gather Exstimulo ingredients

With dramatically decreased brewing times, players will want to brew as many Exstimulo Potions as they can during Community Day. Save yourself the hassle of looking for ingredients during Community Day and stock up on Bitterroot, Re'em Blood, Snowdrop, and Granian, Abraxan, and Unicorn Hairs. Check out the table later in this article to help you figure out how much to stock up.

Premium items

Gold burning a hole in your pocket? This Community Day, there are two main places to spend your hard-earned gold: Dark Detectors and Premium Brewing. More on Premium Brewing below.

As for Dark Detectors, while they certainly aren’t a must, they're a great way to bring in more Traces, potentially rare ones. Best of all, if there are others playing in your area, you'll be able to share those bonus spawns with others and maybe even meet new players when they see your Dark Detector and decide to drop by.

Where to Play

Of course, where you play can make a big difference in how much you can get out of the event. Look for areas with high Inn and Trace density to make the most of the increased Traces without running out of energy. Parks, downtown areas, sponsored malls, museums, and more can all be good places to check out.

Since the event is three hours, make sure there’s somewhere in the area you can rest if you need to take a break. Ideally, that will be somewhere with Inns and Traces, but anywhere you can catch your breath and get some water and snacks (and re-apply sunscreen!) is good.

Players should also be aware that during previous events, landmarked zones (sometimes called "nests") seem to have blocked event spawns. This issue seems to have been fixed with the most recent events, but it is worth having a back-up location in mind if you plan to go to a landmarked zone, just in case.

Be sure to check your local weather forecast as well. If the weather is unpleasant—too hot, too rainy, too humid—you might want to look for somewhere indoors to keep you and your phone safe from the elements.

Other things to bring

Depending on where you’re playing and what the weather is like, you might also want to bring water, snacks, sunscreen, or an umbrella. If you want to play the full three hours, a charged up battery pack (and charging cable for your phone) is also a must. 

Finding a community

It’s not called Community Day for nothing! This is a great chance to try to find local players in your area or take a day trip somewhere else to meet new players and connect with the Wizards Unite community.

The easiest way to look for a community near you is to simply search “wizards unite [your location]” into Google, Facebook, or other social media sites. You can also try looking on the official Wizards Unite community map and forums for players in your area. Check out this article for more information on how to use that tool.

With all of the bonuses related to brewing, Community Day will be a great chance to brew lots of Exstimulo Potions. For only 15 coins, players can rent the gold cauldron for the entirety of Community Day and more than double the amount of potions they can brew. Be sure to check out our Premium Brewing Guides for more on basic ingredient and potion costs (Part One) and the gold cauldron (Part Two). 

Below, you’ll find a charts of all of the brew times (with Master Notes), cost to complete, and overall cost of the potion assuming no ingredients, with the previous cheapest price for comparison (brewed with the Standard Cauldron or purchased from Diagon Alley).

For players with the gold and ingredients to spare, these are the best discounts to brewing we've had so far. Rent the Gold Cauldron, and brew as many potions as you can, paying to complete as much as fits your budget.

For players on a budget, the most economical option is to just rent the 3-hour Gold Cauldron to double your potion output. To get the most out of both cauldrons, schedule your potions to end right at the end of the event, pay 1 gold to complete the last potion in the last ten minutes, and then put on a Potent Exstimulo (or other long potion if you're out of Exstimulo ingredients) to leave brewing.

Here's what you can get out of each cauldron during the 3 hours and the ingredients you'd need to brew them:

Standard:

• 6 Basic Exstimulos + 1 Potent Exstimulo at the end, OR

• 3 Strong Exstimulos + 1 Potent Exstimulo at the end, OR

• 1 Potent Exstimulo and 1 Basic Exstimulo + 1 Potent Exstimulo at the end

Gold:

• 7 Basic Exstimulos + 1 Potent Exstimulo at the end, OR
• 3 Strong Exstimulos and 1 Basic Exstimulo + 1 Potent Exstimulo potion at the end, OR
• 1 Potent Exstimulo and 1 Strong Exstimulo and 1 Basic Exstimulo + 1 Potent Exstimulo at the end

Tip: Based on previous events, players should likely also be able to get the 50% brew time (but not 50% Master Note effectiveness) on any other potions queued up before the event ends, so be sure to throw in three more to get the most of the bonus!

• Note: an earlier version of this article incorrectly showed the brew times for the Gold Cauldron due to a calculation error. This have since been corrected, including the potion configurations above and ingredient estimates below. Thank you to u/jullevi92 for pointing out the error.

Ingredients

To help you estimate how many ingredients you'll need to stock up, here's how many ingredients you'd need to maximise your brewing with any of the above options, whether you plan to only use the Standard Cauldron or will rent the Gold Cauldron as well:

Standard Cauldron

• 10-13 Bitterroot
• 5-7 Re'em Blood
• 12-19 Snowdrop
• 1-6 Granian Hair
• 0-3 Abraxan Hair
• 1-2 Unicorn Hair

Standard plus Gold

• 21-27 Bitterroot
• 11-17 Re'em Blood
• 25-38 Snowdrop
• 1-13 Granian Hair
• 0-6 Abraxan Hair
• 2-5 Unicorn Hair

Of course, if you have more ingredients, you can also pay to complete even more potions. The bonus time may also apply to any Exstimulo Potion queued before the event ends, so be sure to throw more on if you have ingredients, just in case.

While the official bonus announcement only mentioned some of the rare Mysterious Artefacts Foundables (and, uh, the Weasley Clock? okay), the event is still a key opportunity to work on completing the Registry.

Plus, the overall increase of Mysterious Artefacts Foundables should provide a good opportunity to work toward ranking up and earning more Scrolls and Runestones. 

Players hoping to prestige some Mysterious Artefacts pages on Community Day should keep in mind that not all Mysterious Artefacts Foundables will appear on the map. Why? Because, simply put, not all Foundables appear in Trace Encounters at all. Some are only available in Portkeys or Fortresses. 

The good news is that all Foundables on the Room of Requirement II Registry page can all be found in Trace Encounters, so this will be a good page to focus on. In fact, Hagrid's Umbrella, one of the confirmed event spawns, is typically the rarest on this page, so this Community Day will be a great chance to complete the page.

The second page, Dumbledore's Office, only has one Foundable not currently found in Trace Encounters, the Sword of Gryffindor. Those eager to prestige it on Community Day could prepare for Community Day by using Mysterious Artefacts Runestones in Fortresses in the hopes of collecting all 15 Fragments before then. 

However, it should be noted that neither the Philosopher's Stone nor the Pensieve have been confirmed yet as event spawns, so this page may not be any easier to complete during Community Day.

Of course, it's also possible that these two rarer Foundables will appear on the Map more during Community Day, so there's no harm in trying to complete the Fortress Fragments ahead of time just in case.

The final page, Room of Requirement III, contains two Fortress-exclusive Foundables, but its rarest Trace, Hermione's Time Turner, has been confirmed as an event spawn.

It therefore could prove easier to prestige during Community Day than the previous page, depending on just how often those Time Turners show up—and if you have a chance to finish the Fortress-exclusive Foundables (Cursed Opal Necklace and Sirius' Flying Motorbike)ahead of time.

To summarise, here’s a list of everything to bring on Community Day:

In-game:

• Full Spell Energy
• As many Exstimulo Potions as you can
• Lots of Ingredients for Exstimulo Potions (see above for a rough breakdown)
• Up to 6 Tonic for Trace Detection (optional)
• Up to 6 Baruffio's Brain Elixir (optional)
• Placed images for Fortress-exclusive Foundables (optional):
  • Sword of Gryffindor
  • Cursed Opal Necklace
  • Sirius' Flying Motorbike
• 15 gold to rent Gold Cauldron, plus more gold to complete potions (optional)
• Dark Detectors (optional)

Other:

• Water
• Snacks
• Sunscreen
• Umbrella
• Battery pack
• Phone charging cable

Be sure to double check that you have everything you need before heading out for this month's Wizards Unite Community Day!