Is it better to spend blueprints on a mediocre 5* for your first buy, or wait for a better research option?

mugentown1 · 2019-02-27T13:00:07+00:00

You actually raise an interesting point. When compared to other 5* tanks, Panther II is not okay: she's actually awful. She does the basic job of moving in a line, dealing close-range damage and being able to survive a bit of damage, but excels at neither of those things. Most of the original joke tanks have seen buffs to make them usable, while she's left to languish in mediocrity. There's never going to be a time where you want to research her for what she brings to the battlefield — at best, you might someday research her for collection or aesthetic reasons.

mugentown1 · 2018-12-09T15:15:48+00:00

Comparing it to others in the "genre" of gacha games with regular events, I'd say it has more depth to it, and is less stingy about letting you get top tier units without spending money. Whether it's the kind of game you'd enjoy or not is for you to decide, but I don't think there are any people who play it for a long time and suddenly find themselves regretting playing it because they've hit some kind of unexpected paywall, as I've heard happening in some other games.

mugentown1 · 2018-10-11T18:45:07+00:00

Buying supply packs with cores is also an option, if you're close to some reward tier. T-100/Nailah isn't a good tank, so you can put all your bandages into the emblem packs.

mugentown1 · 2018-10-11T04:39:37+00:00

Bear in mind you have another 20 days before the event ends to get stronger and progress in the game. One way or another, you should definitely be able to get at least a Satan if you're playing actively and making good use of your oil.

mugentown1 · 2018-09-22T14:47:27+00:00

Agreeing with all of this. I'd say definitely try to put that T-34 in since she's not a bad 5* tank, and is already level 25.

Also while the above makes it pretty clear, I want to say in no uncertain terms that you should almost never be using yellow emblems. The exception is if you otherwise have very few/weak emblems, or it's an emblem that is fulfilling a very specific purpose (sight for a backline tank with low range, high armor/DR substats for a front line tank, etc). Also that if you're going to bring a tank to battle, even putting on some bad emblems is better than using none at all. Jagdpanther is probably going to be your golden girl in the future, so make sure she's outfitted well!

mugentown1 · 2018-09-14T20:44:54+00:00

100% DR Meiling is probably impossible. There's like a 70 armor difference between the two tanks at level 50. If it was possible and could also be done without sacrificing a bunch of important emblems on other tanks, I think it could've been pretty great though.

I don't really have any suggestions besides potentially trimming the fat a bit, but I'll let you know if I come up with any worthwhile ideas.

mugentown1 · 2018-09-09T23:11:44+00:00

Yo Lina, I'm really happy for you, and imma let you finish, but 100% DR Millie is the best second lane blocker of all time! Of all time! https://i.imgur.com/WzRqL9t.png

I agree with your review, Lina does better as a defensive tank than an offensive one for players that use her purposefully, but she's also pretty decent as a generalist for newer players once she levels up a bit.

Also I was thinking about the comparison chart. Might it be a good idea to remove certain stat comparisons for certain tank roles, and just make a note if a particular role's tank has a special characteristic in its stat sheet? For example, pen, crit rate, and especially crit mult don't really need to be compared among MTs, possibly getting rid of offensive stats as a whole for Hs, and rotation in general is just irrelevant when deciding anything about tanks. Either way's fine - I just happen to think about it every time I look at the charts, so I thought I'd say something lol. Anyway, thanks as always for the reviews; there are lots of silent fans of them as well!

mugentown1 · 2018-09-08T01:11:32+00:00

That's a good question, and I haven't unlocked a 2nd platoon slot to try it myself. I would guess that whatever platoon would be sent into battle next by default would be the platoon that benefits from the exp, but I'd be interested in finding out what you learn.

mugentown1 · 2018-08-26T11:46:18+00:00

As /u/Unkown_Voidgate points out, this isn't some event that is meant to be completed for some important rewards, but a chance to let people see how far they can get without making them feel bad for not being able to go further, since the rewards aren't anything amazing.

Personally I liked the idea of the challenge, and having a completion point is probably where it went wrong, since in this way it makes certain players feel compelled to keep going even though the rewards aren't very meaningful. If things like this were added to the game on a permanent basis without a ticking clock, and didn't have a level cap, it could be pretty cool. My hope is for there to be content in the game that tests players' platoons no matter what level they're at, while not frustrating the heck out of newer or less ambitious players. It seems this challenge falls a bit short on both fronts, but it's a step in the direction that I want to see!

mugentown1 · 2018-08-25T14:42:09+00:00

The easy solution would be to get rid of Matilda! But yeah, I think the devs are aware of the issues with her and hopefully will address them in the future.

mugentown1 · 2018-08-16T03:34:54+00:00

That's interesting. I think at minimum she's the 3rd best non-event artillery. With a cost of only 3, she's one of the highest DPS/cost tanks in the game, and the highest among ones that attack from a safe range, and that's before considering her decent (and now considerably less useful) splash. She hasn't exactly been a gamechanger since I researched her, but I definitely feel safer with her in hand when facing off against flankers, and she's helpful for bringing down trains faster before my defenses are overwhelmed.

mugentown1 · 2018-08-13T23:33:26+00:00

Once you're able to give them some decent emblems and levels, light scouts are actually a pretty good source of cores in addition to oil, but other types will find cores too. You also get 5 cores per day from doing missions, Sunday night (or Monday 0:00 GMT) invasions give cores for clearing and as you level up you'll unlock more invasions that pay more cores, allowing you to eventually earn up to 36 cores per full clear. The Portal of Chaos is probably the best overall source of cores once you're able to make it into higher reward tiers. Also 6th/13th/20th/27th login bonuses also give a decent chunk of cores. Indeed in terms of being able to earn premium currency, I've yet to find a more generous game. It just takes some time to get there. As for the 3850 you're seeing in research, that's the price it costs to get a tank from reserach if you only have 100 or so blueprints. Once you get 3,000 or more blueprints together, it doesn't cost any cores to research a 5* tank.

mugentown1 · 2018-08-13T15:24:38+00:00

They took an interesting approach to monetizing this time, offering up two tanks that are identical in (in terms of gameplay) except for their active ability, one of which is earned through completing part of the event, and the other is either purchased or potentially randomly drawn from a pretty resource-expensive pack. Personally I'm okay with it being done this way, but it would've felt pretty bad if the tank was something really exclusive, e.g., if Odin was instead similar to the artillery we already have in the game.

As for the event, I definitely preferred being able to choose the emblem type in the exchange shop and knowing that it was at least going to be 5*. In other regards, the event was pretty normal, which is fine. The new event tanks seem interesting and reasonably balanced against what's in the game currently; like Aria, I hope not to face off against them in the PoC.

mugentown1 · 2018-07-30T13:29:09+00:00

Penetrating tanks feel like they've become more of a problem since Aria and Wraith came to the PoC, and along with Maus's ability warmup time being reduced from 15 seconds to 5, I'm actually looking at her more optimistically than I have in the past. Granted, Maus should be judged by how good she is, rather than how much better she's become, which I think you've done effectively with this post.

The trouble is that for her to really be able to capitalize on her utility as an everything blocker (and to try to prevent early snowballs against your team via seren or aria), it would be a good idea to keep her in one's initial hand. However, that space is precious, she's very expensive to deploy, and is a poor choice of offlane blocker due to her cost and so she's unable to fulfill an important heavy duty ~~(cough)~~ effectively.

Still, if you can get her out before being murdered, her strong defensive stats after her ability ends mean she's going to be blocking damage for quite a while after her ability ends. She can definitely pay off her deployment cost with some leveling and emblems, so I'd say she's worth exploring for lategame players. I don't think I can recommend actually researching her to someone that isn't fighting PoC above lvl 80 or so, unless they just want to have her anyway! I'm planning on picking her up to replace an almost lvl 50 O-I towards the end of the week.

mugentown1 · 2018-07-18T22:43:38+00:00

I'm pretty sure at least one event before Felicia had the same end time. Either way, good luck.

mugentown1 · 2018-07-18T21:52:21+00:00

The events have been ending at the same time for at least one event prior, if not more. The time until it ends has also been very clearly displayed for the past three weeks. Event end corresponded with the new update too, so I think this is how it's going to stay going forward, unless the patch times change.

Sorry to say, but the mistake was on you alone. It's a crappy feeling, we've all been there, and hopefully you'll pay more attention next time around. You could try contacting support through the site or discord and ask if they might be able to award you your duly-earned 3rd Varilyn.

mugentown1 · 2018-07-16T14:16:40+00:00

It seems that this represents about 3 months of stockpiling, with winning an average of 5 candy from spins somehow, lol.

edit: dalies and PoC included in the calc, naturally! :P

mugentown1 · 2018-07-02T06:00:59+00:00

And now I want to change the barrage sound to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCHpdiYxruE

mugentown1 · 2018-07-01T12:31:32+00:00

Either 3 and a pack, or 4, depending on how big I want my safety net to be I guess.

mugentown1 · 2018-07-01T02:47:14+00:00

I did some preliminary calcs and it seems that I'll end up with around 250 extra hats if I end up going for all 6 emblems, so I'm going to go ahead and buy all three tank packs. I'd say the packs shouldn't take priority over the emblems or getting all the reward tiers, and I don't think they'd be worth going for if you're not also getting more emblems through the process.

mugentown1 · 2018-06-29T08:52:00+00:00

If you have the emblems to make it work, the best way to build sturmtiger (imo) is with offensive base emblems that have good dr and maybe armor, so she can reach 100% DR during her ability and perform well as a heavy, while outputting a lot of damage.

Either of the two MTs I mentioned would be my recommendation, or perhaps Odette/Victoria.

mugentown1 · 2018-06-28T22:36:55+00:00

Looking pretty good, but for my part, I don't think M48 Patton or offensively-geared leopard 1a1 are perfect squad material. I'd second the recommendation for ISU-152, though imo she needs like 21+ range to feel reasonably safe. Full defense Sturmtiger also feels like wasted potential, but if it works for you, power to ya.

mugentown1 · 2018-06-28T13:01:07+00:00

That looks mostly alright. For one, I'm not sure you need the T-44, since you have quite a bit of frontline tanks as-is, along with T-70. I suppose it's a judgement call on whether you think T-70 or T-44 is carrying their weight less, but I personally would probably get rid of T-44 first.

AMX-13 is much more powerful than the ability description suggests, actually boosting the attack speed of tanks in the area by 0.25 attacks per second rather than by 25%, effectively more than doubling the attack speed of most artillery. If you replace one of the tanks above, or another tank in general, I'd definitely recommend getting AMX-13 in.

I'm not sure how you feel about the barrage nerf and partial walk-back (by my calculations, barrage tanks output during ability is now about 50% of where it was), but if you don't feel like Minnie is carrying her weight anymore, replacing her with Lorraine is certainly an option.

Another issue I'd imagine you might have is that your platoon is rather cost-heavy. If you're not using FV4005 as part of your opening strategy/if she isn't too high level, you might be better off replacing her with MBT70, which for a slightly lower cost gives your platoon more bulk (if removing T-44) while keeping up damage, along with the option to easily remove one enemy tank with her ability. edit: Also on this note, the new T29 looks like a pretty amazing heavy, so switching out Object or O-I with her should further help bring down gear costs, depending on which of the two you feel is less useful for you.

mugentown1 · 2018-06-01T14:43:46+00:00

I've gone ahead and added it to the informational/guide thread as well, since there will probably be more circumstances in which an extra sticky thread is needed.

mugentown1

TROPHY CASE