u/InteRest_LEtuCe2467

The stake weapon family doesn't have the best reputation for damage. And, with a burst damage of a little under 20,000 at MK3, according to the wiki, it's in the 3rd quartile for burst damage on Adazahi's weapon DPS worksheet. That supports its low end tier ranking for damage.

But, cycle damage is listed on the wiki at 16,333 for MK3. That's not a top tier amount of cycle damage for a heavy weapon. But, its also not a low end level of cycle damage. As well, the short cycle time of 1.2 seconds makes it seem reasonable to give a bit more weight than usual to the cycle damage, compared to the burst damage.

These weapons are only useful at very short range, which is a noteworthy drawback. But, bypassing energy shields is very helpful against shoggoths, duxes, dagons, and the like. These weapons are probably not in line to be nerfed in the near future, as well. The extra aegis shield from the weapons seems like a perk, but I'm not sure how helpful it might be in practice.

If the wiki information is accurate, then could a shen lou armed with a stake and two spikes perhaps do some decent work clearing out some kinds of campers and mid-range damage dealers?

At this point I really hate shoggoths and I'd love to be able to field a solid option for taking them out. I'm also trying to plan ahead for the next overpowered robot with lower end durability that is made stronger with a hefty aegis shield.

https://preview.redd.it/wuyy4p43plmh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=f9d6afa06c8681a85fd574e646512c2da4bd1a6b

https://preview.redd.it/wyi70mx7plmh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=f65548f4a1d9fd7142d093420b648c95ea69166a

https://preview.redd.it/5n4zsvl9plmh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=e7f89fef32e8debc15667bf2b041d36f4c0c8f0c

https://preview.redd.it/o2qihs1cplmh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=dec5b145057ac55ce8e844ae181f0bae33679c92

I'm finding that part 1 of mission 5 this week in extermination mode is posing more than the usual level of challenge with survival for my bjorn. Its set in canyon and there seem to be more of the heavier hitting robots of various types than I'm used to seeing, with a lot of lockdown and damage over time being directed at my bjorn. Those are posing the main challenges. I'm finding it particularly challenging to plot out a good route because moving across open terrain for a noticeable distance usually leads to my bjorn getting hit from all over and taking heavy damage. I tend to cross over the map instead of moving around mostly toward to the edges, not sure if that might be contributing to problems.

My bjorn is as per the screenshots. The main thing left to work on is further developing pilot skills. I also have a nearly maxed luchador and I'm pondering that as an alternative to the bjorn in these kinds of maps / situations, once its maxed.

I'm not sure how to best move around canyon for this mission and I'm also wondering if spending time learning how to get my luchador through this same mission might be a better use of time.

As a kind of potential wildcard, I got an ultimate kisten last season from open data. Not sure if its worth developing and using for extermination mode. It will probably go on my luchador because the range of its other weapons matches a bit better with the UE kisten on the luchador than it would on my bjorn.

Thank you in advance for any insights offered.

Potential synergies for particular robot and drone combinations seem fairly well understood and well documented. But, possible synergies between particular configurations of mothership types, mothership turrets, and/or titans/robots seem to generally not be as clearly mapped out.

It is possible that there aren't any impactful synergies across the various possible configurations of mothership types, mothership turrets, and/or titans/robots. That seems unlikely, though.

I lack the experience needed to with confidence draw up a list of meaningfully impactful combinations. But, I can list a small number of hypotheses about combinations that can serve particular purposes to get a discussion started. There are probably much-too-broad brushstrokes in what follows and the various errors, omissions, and relevant conditionals can be pointed out by those with more knowledge and experience.

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Anti-control, avoid / limit incoming damage - bifrost mothership, turrets: lifesaver, anti-jamming, positive energy recuperator
- Helps with neutralizing a lot of negative conditions, plus lifesaver can help for getting the few seconds needed to get to cover and/or to finish off an enemy or two. Plus, lifesaver can give bifrost a chance to stack up some defense points that can't be mitigated before coming out of stealth. A stealther mothership equivalent would probably drop lifesaver and add something else instead. Particularly effective when escaping / repositioning, when brawling, when camping and facing down base invaders, and for assassin robots looking to clean out campers hiding in the back.
- One variant could be to choose durability extender over positive energy recuperator and to keep using the mothership when it becomes available to make an early robot / titan drop into a stronger and stronger force that can last a long time in a match. Repeatedly adding more maximum and current durability may help noticeably on maps where close quarters fights tend to be particularly frequent and intense.

Move quickly across the map and/or do burst damage - frederick mothership, turrets: damage enforce, positive energy recuperator (avoid lockdown), lockdown.
- Really strong for mobile robots that do high damage and/or that provide strong support for allies. Particularly helpful in the hands of players who are very good at reading when and where to apply their efforts in a battle.

Direct enemy damage / defeat - thor / keel motherships, turrets: lockdown turret, sonic bomb (grey damage), damage enforce
- Mothership kills, locking down enemies, pushing campers out from behind cover to limit incoming damage from the mothership being used. Might be quite helpful for sniper and assassin robots given that getting enemies from out behind cover and/or locked down can lead to quick kills.

Extermination mode, healing grey damage - paladin mothership, turrets: lifesaver, enhanced aegis protector, durability extender or damage enforcer
- My own paladin mothership is quite low level, not totally sure of the mechanics here. Maybe this is wrong. Still, this seems helpful for missions that require using only 1 robot or up to 2 robots / titans and that don't have a particularly challenging time limit. Can be replaced with stealther / bifrost, both of which don't offer grey healing, but both of which reduce incoming damage by enough to still improve survivability quite a bit.

Extermination mode, dealing damage - thor / keel / sekhem motherships, turrets: lockdown, sonic bomb, enhanced aegis protector (thor, keel) or for sekhem substitute damage enforce for enhanced aegis protector
- Helpful for missions that require doing very high damage or rapidly defeating many waves of foes.

I very recently won a scourveil in a giveaway and I just noticed it in my drone collection a little while earlier. Now I'm pondering what to do with it.

I don't have the stealther mothership and I don't yet have a lifesaver turret. So, I can't do the "double heal" thingamabob. So, I'm thinking of putting it on a stealth robot, which right now would be either my imugi or a loki that I would build in the workshop.

I could put it on my imugi to make it more survivable and a better beacon runner given that scourveil is currently a straight upgrade over a kestrel drone for healing and speed. On the other hand, I could put it on a loki, in which case the scourveil's kinetic shotgun can drive enemies nuts while I stay in stealth *.

I often fight from longer range with my imug and would probably feel comfortable getting closer with a loki on a more frequent basis? Maybe? Not totally sure, I've only seen videos of a loki and never actually played one.

* My response given further down explains why this was struck out.

Any suggestions would be most welcome and appreciated.

My ammit usually does well in extermination mode. But, sometimes it struggles to get all the needed damage done in the time available, depending on the map, the time available, and other mission details. So, I'm considering upgrading a mid-range bagliore (received for free last season) for use in extermination mode missions that require very high damage totals to clear at platinum.

My initial thought was to use 4 decay weapons. But, I don't recall seeing that particular weapon configuration on any video I've seen of a bagliore clearing extermination mode missions 4 or 5. Is decay a bad choice for the bagliore for extermination mode? If its reasonable then I lean toward giving it a go to see how things unfold. If its a bad choice then what weapon(s) could be a good choice?

My bagliore is MK2-1 at the moment and I can get it to MK3 in about 4-6 weeks (sooner if I'm lucky) if I get a chance to use 40% upgrade discounts. I have a level 12 armadillo drone to support my bagliore and the nova light pilot. I have a choice to make between a moderately leveled up keel mothership, a maxed out bifrost mothership, and a newly acquired lvl 14 paladin mothership that currently has some charge speed upgrades, but no other upgrades. In the short term and long term, which of these three motherships seems most likely to help the bagliore succeed? Is there another mothership that might work noticeably better than any of these?

Watching videos of the bagliore in extermination mode makes using it seem quite straightforward. But, I'm guessing that the apparent simplicity hides some complexity connected to positioning, movement, and responses to the presence of particularly troublesome opponents. Any tips some might have about how to effectively use a bagliore in extermination mode would be most helpful and appreciated. Thank you in advance.

A new video put out by a prominent War Robots youtuber unfortunately contains quite a bit of misinformation about extermination mode. The opinions expressed make extermination mode sound a lot harder and a lot more time consuming than it is. Its the kind of misinformation that is likely to cause newer and F2P players to avoid it.

Newer and F2P players getting discouraged about trying extermination mode is a most unfortunate occurrence because they are the ones who benefit the most from playing it. The returns on resources invested toward getting your hangar strong enough to consistently clear at platinum level for 4+ missions per week are repaid many, many times over. This makes extermination mode one of the best pathways newer and F2P players can follow to build a stronger hangar.

The real deal, for newer & F2P players ...

Missions 1 & 2

To clear missions 1 & 2 in extermination mode you can use a fairly sturdy MK1 robot, a specialization tree that allows for a healing active module, and weapons with fairly minimal upgrades. For more experienced players even a MK1, level 1 robot and a single weapon with minimal upgrades (or even just a robot's built in weapon, sometimes) can be enough to fully clear both missions (I've seen videos of that, they are out there).

Within one to three months of starting the game many players can be clearing these missions anywhere from silver to platinum level, depending on how much effort they spend learning how to clear particular missions. Doing just this every week provides keys, power cells, gold, and platinum that speeds up upgrades and helps in other ways. These missions take little time to clear.

Mission 3

This is the first noticeable bump in challenge level and complexity. After you're clearing missions 1 & 2 consistently at platinum level, you may struggle with mission 3 for a little while. This is a very rewarding mission to clear at the platinum level on a regular basis, though, because the platinum this mission provides helps you strengthen your titan(s) at a noticeably faster rate.

For mission 3 and above you need robots distributed across two hangars, instead of just one hangar. So, there's a flat requirement of needing to spend 1,000 gold to buy a second hangar. That's a low bar, though, and a handful of weeks clearing mission 3 at gold level or higher will more than pay back the initial investment of gold to open up a second hangar. Longer run returns on the 1,000 gold spent for a second hangar are way, way higher than that.

There's also the hassle cost of moving a couple of robots / titans between hangars and maybe also a drone or two, to get ready for mission 3 and above. Setting and resetting specializations for extermination mode and then for PvP once again is part of this process. In my experience, the "switching costs" to get ready for missions 1 - 5 take about 1-2 minutes to set up and about 1-2 minutes to switch back for PvP modes. I mention this because the video I watched earlier claimed it could take about 30 minutes to reconfigure your hangar for extermination mode. FWIW, that has not been my experience at all.

There are a lot of choices for robots and weapons that can work for mission 3. There is help both on youtube and in the different WR subreddits that can be found via searches. As just one data point, within 4 months of starting war robots I was sometimes clearing mission 3 at the platinum level and that has become more consistent over time.

As a brief aside, I'm both fairly new and F2P, plus I didn't even have resources from ads for about the first three months I played war robots. Plus, my aim really sucks^. So, there is clearly a fairly low bar to clear to start completing mission 3, which is mainly about investing in upgrades for the robots you choose to use for mission 3 and being persistent at learning how to clear the missions that show up.

^ My son switches between teasing me and shaking his head when he watches me play because his aim is much better than mine. I recently tried out the novice "dynamic" VDIM benchmarks on Aim Labs to try to get a better sense of how much work I need to do on my aim and after several rounds my high score was in the bottom 3% of the 200+ people in the list when I tried it. When I say that I suck at aiming, I am not exaggerating.

Missions 4 & 5

Missions 4 and 5 have the most enticing rewards, with up to 2 upgrade tokens, 500 black market keys, a lot of power cells, and a noticeable amount of gold. They are also the most challenging missions, they take the most time, and they take the most investment of resources before you can consistently clear them at gold or higher level. If you don't like the time they take then you can stop at mission 3 each week and still profit a lot from extermination mode. Another approach can be to slowly build up to being able to clear missions 4 & 5 over time, as your hangar gets stronger and stronger.

In my case, I put extermination mode investments ahead of PvP for the first several months. The result was that toward the end of month six or somewhere in month 7 (I forget at this point) I got my first full clear at the platinum level for all five missions. I haven't done that every week since, as there's more I still need to learn, my aim needs quite a bit of work, and my hangar isn't quite there yet either. But, my hangar is probably suitable for about low end champions league, at best, and nowhere near being a top end hangar. And, I'm still clearing 4+ missions per week (and sometimes all 5) at platinum on a regular basis. So, even for missions 4 & 5 the bar is lower than probably many believe for being able to clear at silver and above.

As per the thread title, I'm debating making decay / hazard in the workshop for my MK2-1 Nuo or upgrading my shantak / urhag x 2 weapons that I received through data pads.

As one factor that has me leaning toward decay / hazard, I expected severe nerfs to the boom weapons and those happened; I'm a bit leery about shantak weapons given that I'm anticipating something similar will happen to them, and perhaps moderately soon. I also have a mild aversion to playing broken weapons and the shantak weapons seem pretty broken these days.

On the other hand, the shantak weapons are ready to be upgraded right now, with no workshop time needed. I have a lvl 12 solar drone already which I could pair with them, as well. In addition, I already have hazards on my pathfinder and I don't have the shantak weapons on anything else yet. I also may put decay weapons on the bagliore that I received for free this season. And, I like to diversify weapon types so nerfs won't be quite as likely to hit my hangar hard.

Am I being overly concerned about the upcoming shantak family nerfs? If I am, then I'll probably choose them over decay / hazard.

Thank you in advance for any insights offered.

I've been searching for any aim trainer that has practice routines intended to be helpful for war robots. Information about mouse sensitivity ranges that seem particularly helpful for war robots would also be helpful and appreciated. So far I've had no luck finding anything on my own for Aim Labs or Kovaaks. Searching this subreddit also didn't produce any useful results, so perhaps there just aren't any. If that's the case, then I'll try to find something that's as compatible as I can find.

To be clear, I have no interest in any kind of aiming program that aims for me or with me. That's a clear TOS violation for war robots and I don't want to do that anyways. I just want to find a way to work on my aiming skills in general, outside of playing war robots, so I can isolate and work on some of my key weaknesses (steady aim, tracking, and correcting for my own movement).

Thank you in advance for any suggestions and insights offered.

Just tried the new hunting grounds for this week. Mission 5, part 2 was something I've never seen before and it was on the Shenzen football map. I'm guessing that it's completely new because its the first time I saw a mech so large that it could be mistaken for a kaiju. It was a bit confusing at first, but also fun.

Basically, a giant mech spawns, large enough to make the largest titan look small, and it heads in your robot's direction. It starts firing when in range. It will respawn itself to a usual PvP starting point from time to time. Not completely sure of the conditions under which the respawn happens. It looks like you'll need to do very close to a full clear of the mission if you'd like to platinum the mission, which means taking down Mr. "Kaiju" Mech and all or almost all of its hench-mechs. It did quite noticeable damage to my harpy, which has fairly light defenses. I can't say how threatening it might be to a better defended robot or to a titan.

For strategy, at first I tested things out for a couple of minutes while pouring as much damage as possible into Mr. Kaiju Mech. Then I started circling around the map to take out all the hench-mechs and eventually settled on top of the very tall and long structure on one side of the map. It's the structure with an upward arch in the middle. From there my robot and its hawkeye drone had a birdseye view of the ground below. That was a fortunate choice, in the end, making survival easier and allowing a good opportunity to pour lots of damage into Mr. Kaiju Mech.

Mr. Kaiju Mech couldn't go under the structure, and so it had to hang out nearby and hope my robot would stick its head out far enough for it to be a viable target. That allowed positioning so the hawkeye drone could keep firing and my harpy could fire when durability allowed. In the end, no titan was needed. Still, careful management of my harpy's durability was needed to avoid having it get smushed like Godzilla smushing a small freight train.

FWIW, in case it helps.

Just tried the new hunting grounds for this week. Mission 5, part 2 was something I've never seen before and it was on the Shenzen football map. I'm guessing that it's completely new because its the first time I saw a mech so large that it could be mistaken for a kaiju. It was a bit confusing at first, but also fun.

Basically, a giant mech spawns, large enough to make the largest titan look small, and it heads in your robot's direction. It starts firing when in range. It will respawn itself to a usual PvP starting point from time to time. Not completely sure of the conditions under which the respawn happens. It looks like you'll need to do very close to a full clear of the mission if you'd like to platinum the mission, which means taking down Mr. "Kaiju" Mech and all or almost all of its hench-mechs. It did quite noticeable damage to my harpy, which has fairly light defenses. I can't say how threatening it might be to a better defended robot or to a titan.

For strategy, at first I tested things out for a couple of minutes while pouring as much damage as possible into Mr. Kaiju Mech. Then I started circling around the map to take out all the hench-mechs and eventually settled on top of the very tall and long structure on one side of the map. It's the structure with an upward arch in the middle. From there my robot and its hawkeye drone had a birdseye view of the ground below. That was a fortunate choice, in the end, making survival easier and allowing a good opportunity to pour lots of damage into Mr. Kaiju Mech.

Mr. Kaiju Mech couldn't go under the structure, and so it had to hang out nearby and hope my robot would stick its head out far enough for it to be a viable target. That allowed positioning so the hawkeye drone could keep firing and my harpy could fire when durability allowed. In the end, no titan was needed. Still, careful management of my harpy's durability was needed to avoid having it get smushed like Godzilla smushing a small freight train.

FWIW, in case it helps.

I'm F2P and my goal with this post is to outline near-to-medium term plans for robot weapons and to request feedback about the extent to which those plans for weapon and robot combinations make sense (or not).

I currently don't have a weapons collection that looks overly coherent because the majority of my robot weapons have been randomly received from data pads and from chests. So, I'm trying to stitch together weapon combinations that suit the robots I have available and that can be effective in-game. The workshop has helped noticeably, though, as many can probably tell from what's below.

Most weapons are (or soon will be) MK1-12, with a handful somewhat above or below that.

First hangar:

Ammit (MK3), Mei Lan, lvl 4 showdown drone, jump unit active module, growler, sport howler, velos, arm L-83

Teth (MK2-1), Bast Neferu, lvl 4 showdown drone, jump unit active module, hammer / mace / cudgel x 2

Imugi (MK2-1), Mao Ling, lvl 12 kestrel drone, phase shift active module, atomizer x 2, quarker
- I experimented with growler / sport howler and realized I need more experience with aiming while flying before leaving them on my first imugi

Shoggoth (MK2-1), Harold Han, lvl 12 solar drone, unstable conduit active module, hwangje x 2, yeoje x 2
- Don't have the legendary pilot or the drone or this robot's weapons. But, I do have this pilot, leveled up hwangje & yeoje weapons, and a lvl 12 solar drone

Pathfinder (MK2-1), Orsted, lvl 12 freezo drone, phase shift active module, hazards

Second hangar:

Nuo (MK2-1), Trommel, makeshift drone for several months, won't have the microchips to do otherwise, eventually Aopo level 12 drone, shield breaker active module, decay / hazard

Harpy (MK2-6), Twins, lvl 9 hawkeye drone, quantum radar active module, cestus / labrys x 2

Sword unit 190 (MK1-6), lvl 1 prime ward drone, shield breaker active module, arm weapons

Also, after I get more experience I'll probably make a second imugi, put it in hangar 2, and outfit it with arm weapons, with Monique as the pilot, and a level 12 webby drone to drop after my titan gets defeated. I'll eventually make a Loki in the workshop for post-titan beacon running, when that might help. Eventually a scorpion will get built in the workshop as well.

I'll need about four more months to collect enough microchips to upgrade both a webby and an aopo to level 12, along with upgrading an armadillo drone to level 12 for extermination mode (I finally got one of these after many thousands of keys were spent on drone chests in the new black market).

PS: I'm going to put a level 12 armadillo drone on the shoggoth for extermination mode. I'm eager to level up his Harold Han pilot in PvP at least for the next few months. On a related note, Aygir reported hwangje / yeoje doing surprisingly well on a shoggoth.

Any feedback is welcome. Thank you in advance.

As per the subject line, I'm wondering how well the flame weapons given out for free last season (Pyro x 2, Inferno x 1) will work for extermination mode on my Baihu Luchador.

My guess is that they should perform fine once they and my luchador are leveled up. But, I'm a bit concerned that they may be hard to aim.

Have others tried these weapons for extermination mode and, if so, how did that go?

Thank you in advance for any insights offered.

With microchips being such a scarce resource for F2P players, it is more helpful to learn about drones by reading than by potentially wasting microchips to find things out.

One question that I'm curious about is whether or not leveling up drones that deal damage will, without fail, increase their damage per hit on enemies. Or, are there damage drones (ie: ward comes to mind) with a fixed percentage of damage to enemies or a flat amount that applies across all upgrade levels for those drones?

I noticed that leveling a whiteout drone from level 1 to level 9 led to EMP damage increasing by several times per activation. I'm wondering about whether or not all drones that do damage scale in a similar way with levels or if the whiteout drone is an anomaly for how far damage scales up.

I'm asking about the "welcome back" bonus for my son, who is currently taking a break from the game.

If somebody claims free rewards without opening up the game, are they regarded as still being connected to the game? Or, is logging into the game and playing it the only marker used to determine when somebody left and returned to the game. Or, is that currently not known with certainty?

On a connected point, how many days does somebody need to be away for the returning player rewards to be received?

Thank you in advance for any insights provided.