I did it all for the LULZ!

Initial thoughts and tactics on Rise of the Warlords

By:Jon Irwin   &   George Argyropoulos

a/k/a Specs    &    a/k/a Dragon_Bane  

George:

Lets start with the really good news:

Players one and all bemoaned the psychedelic floating mortar. Before Tuesday's TFC show, Kixeye announced that they had revisited the mortar due to our feedback.

I immediately got some "fan" mail accusing me of 'ruining it' for everyone in sharing my Vanquisher tank use in a previous article. As I said to them, and on the show, 'Wait and see, you might be pleasantly surprised". The change was not to punish the tactic, the tactic showed the over-exaggeration of the mechanic, at least in my opinion.

I'm hoping everyone is. While the new range of 160 is 10 more than my initial guess, the reduction in damage from 100,000 to 1,500 should have everyone doing S sets sending a big 'Thank You' to Kixeye for doing a very reasonable adjustment. This should also start allaying some of the concern that 'Kixeye never listens".

Additionally, there are no Psychedelic floating mortars in the A sets. That all said...

Time for the cold hard truth of this raid...

Jon:

I want to start out with the following statement.


I am not happy that the Tier 5 targets have reduced points for those level 80+. This opinion was passed on, and I am not sure they will change it for this raid. While I can understand it from a business point of view, and I was ready for this raid. I do not like it from a player’s point of view. It is not like these targets were able to be done without substantial downtime for repairs (I could do a complete set in a single run for 6 hours of damage) for the single set I did. This reduced points would have resulted in 4.2 million points a day and 16.8 million for the raid for zero coins.  No, that did not sit well with me as a player. I do not mind grinding, but there has to be some reward for spending most of my entire day on the game hitting targets. 4.2 million points per set every 6 hours is not rewarding for a non-coiner.

George:

As you can see from this little tidbit, we have some transparency issues. I have serious concerns with this because of three things:

1. A sets have always been top tier targets for top tier players. There should never be a punishment for hitting the targets designed for your tier of play, let alone a 70% penalty. The ability of a Hellwraith fleet is not 70% more effective for a level 81 player over that of a level 75 player so why does the 81 player lose 70% of their points?

2. While most top-tier players moved to the S targets, that tier is slated to change to a 2 target set. With the nearly doubling of cost for this tier already over what we have seen for most of the year, adding another similarly damaging target will essentially quadruple the cost most players have associated and come to expect, from the S tier, while concurrently adding more time to complete. These targets were never supposed to be a grind- quite the opposite in fact.

3. We were JUST told in game that communication was a 'thing' and was a priority. Clearly, it is not. Kixeye has, besides the forums, several outlets they can reach out to now. They did not.


That said and out of the way…

Jon:

So, with that in mind to get my raid done in a decent time and save my ass from being sore sitting in the chair. I had to tackle the level 100 targets, which filled me with dread after dealing with that single Tier 5 set I did at the start.

I used the same tactic I did during the Time Limited Campaign, and tackling the 100s on the map for that one preview we had recently. I took a gun boat lead into the target to absorb the first volley of Smart Mortars that do quite a bit of damage. This tactic gave me about 40 seconds to get to the big mother reaver and take it out. The next step was to take out each of the hulks. With those four targets taken out, the missiles/mortars were removed from the target. Now this might not seem smart to those reading, but it did help.

You can do these targets a couple of different ways. One you can take my approach which is to take each section of ships one at a time.  This tactic results in less roving scouts, and more driving. You can also send a hell wraith to each of the mortar tossers at the start of the battle. This tactic will activate all the scouts, but you can take out the mortar throwers in the first minute giving you less damage over all. You will have a harder time with the timing of the cavitator fields, though.

The level 100 is doable and the most it cost me was 15 coin per 100. While not great, it is not nearly as bad as my fears were going in. Using the second tactic I was able to do the taget in one go at a cost of 7 coins with no crew.

I will contribute some of that lowered cost to the fact the killer hunter mortars (that is what they call them) have a reduced range for the remote targeting. I peg it at around 500 range, as opposed to the 2000+ they had in the preview of these targets. I am not 100% sure on that range as I cannot see clearly trying to dodge the scouts and drones, but the best guess is based on seeing the hunter killers blow up in midair while I am still approaching the targets. It looks like they are on a 90-second timer as well. Cannot be 100% sure on that and I am going to try to catch it on video if I can get EZ vid working.

Build

The other thing I will contribute my lower costs is to the fact the Hunter Killer morts are doing less damage than they were. Instead of killing an HW in a two dives, I am surviving almost the entire target with all four. This lower damage on those mortars is a key to the lower costs. It still takes me one full fleet and a partial, but far better than my fear going in.

George:

I did not try the A set. Nor the B. Nor even the C. Because of the type of raid, and the desire to mitigate all top water fleets, this raid is a grind regardless of the tier you choose. I chose the S targets this raid (again). For the damage and time investment, it seems the only logical choice. Unfortunately, since I am a lazy pirate, and I did not fully rank my subs, I take more damage than I should be and likely it is costing me in time (and coin). After speaking with Jon about this, I can absolutely attest a lot of my damage could be mitigated by ranking up and if I was fully ranked I am fairly sure I could do this in one fleet.

For these targets, I use the split blitz tactic. This means I send one sub to each mortar chucking hull in the target. This does activate all the ships, and you do have to drive pretty well if you want to take advantage of this. I AM still annoyed at the psychedelic mortars, even with the nerfs, it is just damage that a player just can't mitigate. We already have that with the deathsplosions. It was an attempt to further ensure no surface fleets were used and that was countered the second time I went into the target. Sorry, not sorry. Please get rid of it.

I have found that since it takes me a full fleet in the initial hit, I take out those first mortar chuckers and then I stack my subs up. At this point, if the target has stacked the scouts up, I target the lead ships in the stacks, or, alternatively if they are spread out, I just go around and target hulls individually- the goal is the same- lower the health of every ship to past half health. This allows me to die and have the target set up perfectly for one HW to come in and clear the target.

As I said, I did not get around to trying the smaller targets. Thankfully, Jon DID take the time...

Jon:

This advice is going to be geared towards those that are struggling and do not have Hellwraiths yet. My alt player base is level 44 and has the good fortune to have spectres and the Charon torps. He was able to Tier 3 targets. It is going to be a grind, but if I feel up to it, I can at least get him 3 million points this raid.

Now I know what you are saying, great Specs but what should I take for so little points? Well, to be honest, that depends on your needs at the time. It is almost guaranteed that tigers will be available each month of this raid cycle. So, you could save yourself some time and get the Tigers and all the stuff below it this month. This move will allow you to either try for the Hellwraith by December raid or take the other prizes on the other side each moth adding to your list of Blueprints.

For me, I am leaning towards the Heavy Cruiser. I need a better tank for my Forsaken Mission fleet, and while I am on number three DNX, I still need something more hearty to help me in that endeavor. So, I will take the Heavy cruiser for that reason.

Final thoughts:

George:

One of the things a lot of players do not realize is that you can offset the Twister’s ‘dumb fire’ aspect by closing the distance to your target. With good driving and timing, you can get through all of the scouts and start killing several before your fleet dies (or if you are more patient than I, perhaps even finish the target with that one fleet).

Quite honestly, this raid has very clear delineations between the have crowd and the have-not crowd. If you do not have the Hellwraith, you are going to have a hard time of it, and likely not to get better in the coming months. While I love the concept, I do not think the execution was as precise as intended. This is simply not a fun raid style. I do blame that on the insistence of designing the preclusion of surface fleets rather than simply barring them from the targets.

That said, as for prizes, if you do not have the Hellwraith, try and get it. As I said, it is going to be a hard boring 4 months. Additionally, as I mentioned in this article, these targets are likely to become our uranium targets (for at least 8 months) and as such, the HW also becomes a chore saver later on in the game.

Additionally, keep this in mind: Expect the A set to get harder and include the psychedelic floating mortars next month. As I mentioned in another article, I would MUCH rather have Kixeye eat an easy raidset rather than alienate more players. Sadly, I do not think they are listening yet. I was 'sold' an advantage at a premium price last raid (4x the price actually). I truly despise its mitigation already, never mind the future mitigation that seems planned. Anyway...

The Fury... I loved it in the preview server. A lot of players are planning on using it in their guard, many are planning on using it as a spotter or tank and a few would love a 5 fleet set. So far, from what I've seen I love it.

The special, in doing the math, and as we discussed in a TFC show, does better DPS-wise than BS3. This is enough for me to want to grab it for the toolbox.

The weapon seems like a very well-balanced weapon for the hull to which it is intended. ;)

I do not want to take away from the fact that I really do love the idea of this raid. I love subs, or at least how they were. I am just very concerned at the knife-edge that this raid style has brought us to.

Jon:

Tier 5 is there for those that cannot hit the Tier 6 targets. While the reduced points suck for us, players 80+. It might be the best choice you have due to your available technology. You will still get 1 million more points per target over the Tier 4. This point reduction will require you to hit 17, and a partial of Tier 5 sets to get 30 million points. Compare that to 43 sets of Tier 4 for the same points.

It is a daunting task for certain, and while I wish they had not neutered us in the Tier 5 targets, the best we can do if we want to do the raid is hit what we can and do it within our budgets.