The New Deal: War Robots New Starter Guide (Part 1)

 

With every update of War Robots, changes are made to detail in the game as it is the developer’s goal to deliver a rewarding experience to new and experienced players alike. In my previous article where I gave an analysis of the changes the July ’17 update brought and how it could change the War Robots battle-space, I surmised that the changes will bring about mech builds which would be particularly attractive to a new player or a new account who initially would be low on resources. Soon after the release of ver. 2.9.3 on iOS I decided to put my ideas to the test with a brand new account, utilising the changes to the game over successive iterations. The results were rather pleasing, enough to recommend as a starter guide to a new player or a player wishing an additional account. Let us begin.

Step 1. Find or Help a FB friend.

As much as we love to despise Zuck’s Harvard attempt to creep on females (read: Facebook), it is a tool that War Robots players have used to connect and play War Robots with friends. With the introduction of Influence Points the use of Facebook can give a starter account a huge early advantage.

Call to Arms is a feature that allows an existing player to introduce a new player to War Robots with a gift of a mech.

Hey there, Friend…can I interest you in a mech?

Although the mechs available are mostly superfluous to experienced players compared to what is affordable in the early matches, they provide an overwhelming advantage amongst your peers. I wanted to start with a mech with longevity and with that in mind I paged my fellow Aurora Nova members in search of a…Griffin.

One of these things is not like the other…

Perhaps the Alpha and Omega of silver currency bots, it brings overwhelming firepower and health pool to a fledgling hangar. With a quick weapon swap with the starter Destrier and a purchase of a single Molot, I had my start- and what a start it was!

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My fellow starters didn’t know what hit them. Is it an unfair advantage? Perhaps, but don’t worry, you’ll be leaving them behind within a couple of games and soon be a forgotten horror.

Step 2. Austerity in Procurement.

With the exception of 3 disconnections the next 49 games was simply lossless, on top of the charts, given the swath of early tasks completions, level raises and awards of 5 or 10 Au, 4th slot game within 20 games. Although I was well remunerated with gold and silver I refrained from purchasing any bots or weapons that would eventually be sidelined, the single Griffin proved more than enough to hold the fort until more heavy bots could be bought

Aside from upgrading the lowest levelled weapons first, here is a quick list of my chops and changes.

1. Replaced Molots with Punishers on the Griffin, yet kept the Molots and continued upgrading. In the lower tiers, the six gatlings is effective as both a CQB and midrange build. The Destrier with pins was used to round up beacons after the Griffin had destroyed over 75% of the enemy.
2. Continued with 2 bots in 3 slots until a 2nd Griffin could be purchased. For those wishing to spend, the initial 24hr Silver, gold and premium deals will get to there even faster. 2nd Griff became the Molot Gunship Griffin, giving me a mid to long ranged option to fall back on.
3. Ok, this doesn’t come about every day but the Independence Day Event gave me a Leo, equipped with Punishers and a Thunder it became part of a 3 bot, 4 slot hangar. Although the Punisher Griffin has a phenomenal damage output it can be quite vulnerable in extended CQB engagements, the Leo allowed me to trade toe to toe with increasingly well equipped adversaries.
4. Lastly it was time to build the stalwart mech, the Russian Death Button Griffin. Ver 2.9.3 reduced the rate of fire for both Pins and Tulumbas yet the effects turned out to be almost imperceptible, if anything it helped new players land more rounds accurately. 3 years in and still dangerous the RDB completes the quartet to settle in for the long grind to 5th slot. With a load out at level 5 stock, it was handy for dealing with new players who purchased a Gareth.

Does this look exactly like your early hangar? Most probably, however instead of gradually replacing weapons with alternatives such as Magnums, Tarans or for the spendthrift Orkans and Aphids, I’ll be sticking to my guns so that every upgrade I make will stay in my active hangar, maximising the dividends of a speedy progression.

3. Leveraging the changes in 2.9.3 (or slightly broken 2.9.2 for the Android crowd)

As previously stated, my initial 4 bot hangar would not be too dissimilar to the path many have taken. In the previous iterations of War Robots however, continued investment in the current arsenal faced diminishing gains i.e. somebody will a heap of plasma or worse a British shield bot will promptly end you. Along comes ver. 2.9.3 and with it a 25% & 20% increase in damage per second to Punisher Mk2 and Molot Mk2 respectively, the single pack variants although not as well endowed received at healthy 15% boost nevertheless. A 2.9.3 Punisher Griffin packs 21% extra Damage Per Second compared to the same mech in 2.8, it is the equivalent of a bot with weapons 2 levels higher.

How does this austere hangar fare moving up the ranks? I tend to dislike using capitals to expatiate, but taking a page from POTUS…VERY WELL…#MakeGunsGreatAgain.

I’ll let the scoreboard do the talking.

It worked in Bronze:

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It worked in Silver:

Enough to trump a tanker/fader with an ridiculously overpowered hangar on my side. I mean seriously, some of my friends play a similar levelled hangar up in Expert 1 and even Masters (Looking at you, Ubiond, Sprinting Goat)

Enough to deplete and defeat a Tanker on the other side, plasma or not, Lancillot or not. Some of these guys literally have all the gear with no idea, not surprised they resort to cheating to win.

Moving up to Gold, victory is not nearly as assured facing the iOS’s Tanker Wall (Silver in Android) rife with overpowered hangars and the new matching making algorithms mixing gold tier player right up with diamond 1 players.

But the Old Faithful six-packs and ma deuces still rose to the challenge three quarters of the time.

Now that July has come and gone, how are The Guns of August doing?( by the way, a very sobering read, this book may have event spared the world of an all out US/Soviet confrontation)

Now in Diamond tier, the rapid rate of ascension through the tiers have outstripped the pace of weapons upgrade and we all know how much WR’s match maker loves a 50% win rate right? The win rate is has now normalised, winning with a golden stipend is no longer a sure thing, like FDR’s New Deal, there will always come a time when even the most meticulously planned roadmap begin to stagnate. That said, it still performs and still viable as the results show.

As of time of writing the implementation of the New Deal is about half way to attaining the 5th slot, soon enabling the addition of a dirtier, deplorable yet undeniably effective build, which conveniently enough as also been buffs in WR ver. 2.9.3. And so the march continues…

End of Part 1 – I intend to continue documenting this profile adhering to the current build all the way to it’s limit, where that will be? Time will tell. 

Part 2 – Gunplay. Here in Part One I have described my upgrade path and it’s results, Part 2 will focus on tactics maximise the performance of this build. Till then, Ciao!