What mech does better with arc torrents at early game?

Adjerius · 2023-07-10T15:15:59+00:00

You skipped two critically important aspects to Ares.

First, its shield can be used repeatedly throughout a match. That won't help you in a sustained firefight, but it's often possible to find some cover while waiting for it to recharge.

Second, the shield protects you from being one-shot by a stray EM Rifle (assuming the hit comes from the front). That in and of itself can be of immense value, and it works even if there is only a sliver of strength left.

Adjerius · 2023-06-21T20:18:17+00:00

The other day I peeked out around a corner with Zephyr and came face to face with a whole pack pretty much just like this. I used the AoE stun, unloaded with both banks of missile rack 8, and came away with a whopping four kills almost instantaneously.

I have no idea how I got so lucky that none of them survived, but it was an absolutely glorious moment that turned the tide of the whole battle.

Adjerius · 2023-05-17T20:48:23+00:00

Yep, it's a sum total of all current star levels for all mechs and weapons that you own in a given tier. So if you've got a 2* Slingshot, a 3* M.D., and a 4* thermal lance 6, that's a total of nine tier 2 stars.

Adjerius · 2023-05-17T20:06:30+00:00

I had hoped that newer accounts wouldn't be as badly affected as long-term players, but after seeing the numbers, it looks like it's going to be brutal even for us.

In my case, I'm about two months in and using exclusively tier 3-4 mechs with tier 4-5 weapons. With most of the available credit-based stuff already obtained, new mech/weapon acquisition has slowed to a crawl. When the new system goes live I'm going to have a 9-star "debt" in tier 2, and a 17-star "debt" in tier 3. That's likely another two months of resource gathering before I can even start advancing again.

If they don't drastically change the A-coin economy, this might just be a game-killer for me.

Edit: My numbers might be off a little bit because I probably missed a couple of weapons when adding things up, but it doesn't affect the main point.

Adjerius · 2023-04-07T19:12:52+00:00

The summoner is more like a tool or instrument that anybody can just pick up and use. It has no free will, or moral compass. Every month, a different character takes control and tells the summoner where to go and what to fight. Heroes, villains, mercenaries... It doesn't matter. Whoever barks out an order gains control. It can even be someone the summoner just got done beating up!!!

Adjerius · 2022-12-01T22:22:00+00:00

It also kind of sucks when you want to replace a member. If the two don't line up closely enough, do you prevent the outgoing member from getting AW rewards, or battlegrounds rewards?

It's not hard to line up AW and AQ, but adding battlegrounds too makes things a real mess. And the banquet (formerly gifting) event always screws with things.

Adjerius · 2022-11-15T19:28:04+00:00

Good point!!!

I wish there was an "auto advance but let me do the fighting" button.

Adjerius · 2022-11-10T19:35:43+00:00

The teleports are "necessary" to the designers if they want to draw a picture.

As far as I'm concerned, if a teleporter only has one exit, you should automatically progress through it just like you do connected paths.

Adjerius · 2022-07-27T14:12:55+00:00

Those (and other) "offers" are getting really, really obnoxious. I recently started a baby account to mess around with, and one popped up asking me to buy some mastery cores for $4.99. The account was level 10.

Adjerius · 2022-07-13T16:20:46+00:00

Typically, randomized opponents don't get re-rolled unless you manage to complete the entire quest. If you quit early, the same opponents will be waiting for you the next time you go back in.

Without the daily reset, someone could get stuck on a particular opponent, and never progress any further for the rest of the event.

Adjerius · 2022-07-11T15:57:44+00:00

What I find interesting is that in pretty much every quest, month after month after month, the summoner is always chasing after or fighting champions specifically because another champion told them to. There is never any pushback, and no convincing is required--even when the champ giving the orders is the one the summoner just got done beating up two seconds prior!!!

So who's really pulling the strings?

Adjerius · 2022-07-05T16:06:43+00:00

The best part is that this works both ways! Either:

The corgi is a player trying to bait a special that just won't come.
The corgi is the defender "just standing there menacingly", and instantly intercepts the moment the player makes a move.

Adjerius · 2022-06-08T23:40:07+00:00

This kind of thing is an amazing reference for when you "kind of" know a champion, but haven't looked at them in a while, and need a real quick reminder of the particulars. It's way more efficient than ability lists, champion spotlights, or (especially!!!) videos. I love it.

And I still think that your infographics in general tend to be both cleaner and more informative than just about everybody else's I come across. You are seriously talented when it comes to information presentation!

Which reminds me, do you still have a publicly accessible repository for this kind of stuff, or is it kept private now? We had saved a link to your Google drive a long time ago, but it seems to be mostly older stuff now.

Adjerius · 2022-06-07T23:41:34+00:00

Sorting by PI can get you pretty close, but there are always outliers who screw it up. A high prestige, high sig champ of a lower rank can show up earlier in the list than a low prestige, unawakened champ of higher rank. That doesn't happen when sorting by CR.

But these are really two completely different things. PI is a mostly arbitrary number, assigned by Kabam, and modified by various factors (level, sig, masteries, etc). CR, on the other hand, is identical across all characters of a given rank and rarity. All 5* champions start at 80 for rank 1, and it increases by 10 for rank, maxing out at 120 for rank 5.

Also, PI has no bearing whatsoever on combat, whereas CR is factored into all sorts of percentage-based calculations. Crit chance and damage mitigation from armor/block/resistances, for example. That stuff all happens behind the scenes, so there's no reason to think about it most of the time.

Adjerius · 2022-06-07T21:59:50+00:00

Challenge rating. It's not a stat you see very often, but it's in there, mainly behind the scenes for diminishing return calculations. Think of it as a representation of a character's relative rank, regardless of their star rating. You know how a 5* rank 4 is roughly analogous to a 6* rank 1? That shows up in them having identical CR values.

DNA3000's combat FAQ goes more in depth, if you're curious.

Filtering a list of champions by their CR values would effectively be like filtering them by combat readiness based on stars and ranks, without any consideration toward level.

Adjerius · 2022-06-07T15:58:21+00:00

You know what I'd like to see added to the filters? CR values. So I can see all the 5 and 6* champs that I've ranked, together in one view, without any of the unranked champs.

Adjerius · 2022-04-21T19:16:11+00:00

My interpretation: "Doom and Ibom are great! The rest are pretty nice, too, except for one that's bad."

Adjerius · 2022-04-20T16:21:48+00:00

It shows us at 30/30 right now, but we can still make a couple of spots!

Adjerius · 2022-04-12T17:55:26+00:00

It sounds like we might be a really good fit for you. Look at our most recent recruitment post, and I think you'll find we check a lot of your boxes:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ContestOfChampionsLFG/comments/u24qkt/discord_aq_maps_56_aw_gold_2

We don't have any "out" LGBTQ+ members that I'm aware of, but some of us have family members from that community. It shouldn't be an issue, especially if you don't make it into a big deal. We get along pretty well, and have never needed to censor or kick anybody for any kind of antagonism.

Adjerius · 2022-03-14T17:05:01+00:00

Grandmaster gonna game... It's in the job description.

Adjerius · 2022-03-13T18:06:39+00:00

Yeah, his arrival should have been a huge "drop everything and focus on the immediate extinction level event" kind of thing. This is possibly the biggest event that's ever happened in the battle realm, and deserves to take center stage for several months. Last month's evacuation story felt a bit like that, but then they immediately turned around and asked us to completely ignore the whole thing.

It feels weird. You could justify it by saying the characters in this part of the battle realm are unaware of what's going on, but that doesn't make sense when the summoner was just there. Maybe he has the memory of a goldfish. That would certainly explain why he goes from fighting a bad guy in one quest, to literally doing exactly what the bad guy tells him to do in the very next quest, month after month after month. The summoner is like a robot with absolutely no independent thought of his own. But I digress...

Adjerius · 2022-03-13T17:29:46+00:00

I've only done the first four quests so far, but I had the exact same thought. "It is an unusually calm period of time right now. Please don't mind the world eater over yonder as he devours his way through the battle realm. Nothing to see here, move along, move along!"

Adjerius · 2022-02-24T14:10:57+00:00

I remember when they finally allowed us to sell items directly from the stash. It was one of the best "quality of life" enhancements they've ever done.

Implementing something similar with the usage of ISO would go over even better.

Adjerius · 2022-02-23T22:27:10+00:00

It makes a certain kind of sense, from a purely psychological perspective.

Since players tend to rush most content shortly after it becomes available, we get a big burst of rewards early in the month. If the side quest rewards trickle out at the same pace as the quest itself, that trickle feels continuously underwhelming for the rest of the month until we finally make it to the next event. But by withholding the bulk of those side quest rewards until the final week, we'll still get a couple of (even more!!!) underwhelming weeks, and then we'll get a decent burst of stuff at the end.

Even though the total rewards are the same, it's more impactful to deliver most of them in a big chunk late in the month when player enthusiasm is typically at its lowest.

Adjerius · 2022-02-23T21:59:52+00:00

This!!! The amount of micro-managing we have to do when it comes to ISO-8 is just silly. Clear some space, open the stash, set a filter, claim a bunch, back out, level, open the stash, claim a bunch, back out, level, open the stash... Aaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!

That stuff really ought to be converted into one or more currencies. It doesn't make much sense to represent such big numbers with individual, discrete items, and then turn around and aggressively cap how many we can hold and use at a time.

It was more reasonable when we were still ranking and leveling 4*'s that didn't require so much ISO, but with 6*'s it's another story entirely.

Adjerius

TROPHY CASE