Guide [Issue 35] Choosing a Paint

[Pathfinder 1,690]

So many guides have been written about choosing the best turret, and best hull for your particular style and niche in the game, that it is often forgotten that there is a third key element to any successful combination. Paints are absolutely essential, giving you significant protection from multiple enemy weapons. However, as with turrets and hulls, your paint selection must fit your styles and combinations. Just as certain turrets or hulls are great and indeed worthless in particular maps, paints are often misused, mismatched with the user's combination choice and current map.
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What to choose

From my own personal experience, the most important factor is definitely the map you are playing in. There is often some misconception and some debate over whether it's your combination or the map that's more important, but for me it's definitely the map.

While it's true that if you are using a short-range weapon such as Firebird or Freeze, that you will have to get in close with the enemy, this does not mean that short-range protection paints are the best. The most important consideration to make here is what the enemy is using. For example, playing on a large map like Kungur with the combination Firebird-Wasp, enemy Railguns, Thunders, Shafts... The long range weapons will be your largest threat. If you get in close, will you need the close range protection? The important thing is getting in close in the first case!

In general, larger maps favour the longer range paints, and smaller maps favour the shorter range paints. Extra considerations include the structure of the map too however. For example, on a map like Lost Temple, being a large and also relatively open map with plenty of sniping spots, Shafts, Railguns and Thunders will be your main concern. Therefore, something like Corrosion, Digital, Blacksmith, Winter or Prodigi would be decent, with pretty much any combination you use. On a map like Düsseldorf, although it is a large map, it is relatively closed, with plenty of buildings acting as obstacles. Here, I would recommend a paint like Clay, or Hohloma. Ricochet would be a potent threat with the flat buildings to bounce projectiles, as well as the longer ranged weapons that are Smoky, Thunder and Railgun. Although large, Shaft cannot fully be utilised to its full effectiveness.

But, say you are now playing a medium-sized map like Silence, where almost any weapon is usable. Now there is no clear optimum choice. What now?

The next consideration is now your role in the battle. What you are likely to be doing, and where you will be going, is now the key factor determining the weapons that are likely to be the biggest threat. For example, aggressively attacking in a medium map often involves taking on short range paints like Twins, Freeze, Isida and Firebird. Thus, bringing a paint such as Atom, Rock, Zeus, Lumberjack, Taiga would all be reasonable choices, whatever the combination you are using. Of course, it is important to keep your team diversity. If all your attackers are using short range paints, you might be weak to a defensive Smoky or Thunder, for example, in which case something like Rustle might be handy.

To summarise:

• Identify the map size
• Identify the map structure
• What role will you be playing

What paints to buy

Now we have looked at what paints are generally best for your situation, we need to look at what is best to buy. No single paint is completely universal, so you will have to pick a range of paints for your garage.

I won't bother talking about paints below the Brigadier unlock rank, because of course every one will be outclassed by a higher rank paint.

There are two types of paint I don't recommend.

It is because of the reasons above that I firstly do not personally recommend the non-specialised paints. By this I mean paints that give you protection from turrets at multiple ranges, such as for example, Picasso. The description for such paints describe them as 'all-rounded paint' or 'useful for all situations'. If you are looking for a single paint to cover you for everything, then perhaps something like this is best. There is no particular scenario where you are likely to deal with Freeze, Thunder, Railgun and Shaft simultaneously. If you are using this paint in short range, a short-range specialist like Zeus will outclass this paint. If you are using this paint in long range, a long-range specialist like Prodigi will outclass it too. In different situations, specialist paints will rule the field. It is true that any paint has the potential to be the best in a given scenario - if the enemy was using an equal balance of these four weapons say, then Picasso would obviously be the best choice. But, there will be more scenarios where a more specialised paint is more ideal.

Further examples include:

• Hive
• Graffiti
• Jade

Note that I don't suggest these paints not because they can never be useful, but because I believe in general there are more useful paints to own.

Here are some of my recommendations:

Lumberjack is the king of short-range paints, offering protections that almost halve the amount of damage done by the three shortest weapons in the game. On small maps, this paint will give you a significant advantage, and if you force the enemies to have to use a weapon that is not ideal to the map, your team will have the upper hand.

Zeus and Rock are also very effective short-range paints, although slightly longer range than Lumberjack. Rock in particular gives substantial protection against three very strong, and common CTF weapons that are Freeze, Isida and Twins, and also has the highest total protection of all the paints in the game. The 15% Hammer protection is not as significant but it still handy, allowing, for example, a Viking user to survive one more hit from Hammer.

Although Taiga has more of a spread of protections, notice that the protections are all from weapons of a similar range: Firebird, Isida, Twins and Ricochet. This makes Taiga a very good short-medium range paint as well.

At longer ranges still, Clay is a very good choice, offering protection against three longer ranged turrets. Ricochet, Thunder and Railgun are all weapons that are devastating at medium-long range.

The second type of paint I don't recommend is those which have overlapping protections with a stronger paint, especially if you plan to MU your paint. Here are some of my paints I don't recommend:

• Cherry - outclassed by Africa
• Irbis - outclassed by Rock
• Emerald - outclassed by Clay
• Inferno - outclassed by Zeus

For example, if you owned a well upgraded Rock or Clay, would you use Irbis or Emerald very often?

 

This is one of the main reasons why I generally don't recommend buying the lower tiered paints, ones that unlock earlier than Brigadier. Once you reach the higher ranks, you'll be buying better paints to keep up with the competition, and you'll rarely use them ever again. Owning one or two paints earlier can be a good idea, and earn you your crystals back, but I certainly don't recommend microupgrading or buying too many.

One final note about aesthetics. There will be differing opinions on paints due to players valuing the looks of a paint, and I admit I am one who probably does value the aesthetics a bit too much. I won't be buying Lumberjack soon, even though it is a great protecting paint, purely because it makes my tank look like a shirt. But, if you can, don't forget that practicality is the single most important reason for choosing a paint.

Thanks for reading as always! And I welcome any thoughts and feedback below.

Edited July 30, 2017 by Hexed

[nixonkkdi 10]

Great! I'm Now cleared of Paints! Thx!

[Drey 879]

Good 1!!!

[opidude 437]

Is atom good? Should i get atom or jade? Still wondering what paint to get during sale :P

[Darren4Turbo 4,913]

Great! 

[Pathfinder 1,690]

Is atom good? Should i get atom or jade? Still wondering what paint to get during sale :P

Check my top tier paints dissection from this issue :) atom is alright in my opinion - jade is a bit rubbish if you ask me!

[liverpoolaum 811]

nice

[Head.Hunterz 28]

Thanks for the tips ! My dream paint is Prodigi 

[KUNGLAO3 0]

nice but just to mention that thunder is not good fr snipping cause damage decreases with distance so not such a big threat i maps such us monte carlo

[SwiftSmoky 8,445]

There is one very important thing you forgot, there is a way to save money when buying paints :) For example instead of buying Digital you can buy Tundra for cheaper and upgrade it (Tundra is cheaper than Digital even with the micro upgrades) and still have much more protection for as much as twice less crystals! And at a much earlier rank!

Here's a screenshot of a table from my video, showing some cost and protection details for Railgun defensive paints:

 

And here's the video:

 

[PenguinNEWexp 11]

Nice job, but why don't you make guides for lower ranked paints?

[GorcsevIvan 55]

Nice job, good article!

 

My comments:

1. Check the paints available in kits. A few times you can get those on a discount worth to consider.
2. Lumberjack and Taiga are I think the best lower range protection paints, but it is a pity that the Lumberjack protects against Vulcan instead of Hammer. Then it would be almost perfect. I miss a good Hammer protection paint.
   Taiga seems to be the best for a small-medium map CP game. It's on my shortlist.
3. Although the Zeus is one of the best again the Firebird and Freeze, it has nothing against the Isida and the new Hammer or Rico which is also widely used in smaller maps. Its Smoky protection does not seem to be as useful to me: not so many Smoky out there, especially not on the small maps where you need protection against short range turrets. 
   You wrote you prefer Zeus over the Inferno. Me not. I think the 23% Twins protection is much better e.g. on a Polygon CP than the 50% Smoky. The Firebird and Freeze max. protection of them is equally 50%. But the price!!!!
   The fully MUed Zeus is around 700k crystal compared to the 420k Inferno maxed out. 
   For me Inferno would be the winner.
4. Prodigi is the same way a mix as the Picasso you mentioned, but with Firebird instead of Freeze. I think it is only a matter of taste which one you prefer. Picasso has better max. protection against Shaft, and can provide good protection against Rail and Thunder what is more Freeze. I do not think Prodigi's Fire protection has a big value, but still I prefer that due to the better Thunder and Rail protection.

Edited June 18, 2015 by GorcsevIvan

[Heles 9,220]

Thnx

[wild004 35]

Emerald is still useful even when you buy Clay,

 

it will take at least 150k during sale to mu Clay to 40%+ thunder protection for light hulls.

 

but Emerald is just 72k during sale with 46% thunder protection, and good twins protection like 33% with cheap 1-3 steps mu.

 

so while saving another 3-4 month and wait for mu sale of Clay, it is still wise to buy Emerald for sepcific cases when you need thunder protection most.

[wild004 35]

as @GorcsevIvan said, 

 

your saving is big factor on choosing a paint as well, 

 

most tanki sale happends like every 3 month or 6 month, and average player even in generalismo rank can only save like 300k crystal best, consider there is also microupgrade sale every 2 month also, that can eat up some your crystal savings.

 

 

in general, fully microupgrade a paint can take 1 year time for non-buyers.

 

so I would say, 300k to get 3 paints at start instead one paint with 50% microupgrades, it makes your life much better next 6 month time.

 

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example, if you have 300k for generalismo has no high rank paint,

 

then it is better for him to buy Tiger (88k), Inferno (80k), Clay (125k) and 1-3 steps mu of them.

instead of Clay (125k) and microupgrade to 40% thunder, 41% rail, 50% rico (175k in several mu sales).

 

since you can play all types of maps, long, short and medium, instead stuck with Clay in single type of map for next 6 month

 

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plus,

 

you also need to save some extra for microupgrade your m3 turret and hull. which that will cost at least 50k during each mu sale even with no speed up.

 

unless you're a Buyer or tanki Mod like the topic starter who got free crystal from tanki monthly,  lol

Edited July 9, 2015 by wild004