Review [Issue 33] Bad Combos: Myth or Reality?

Kevred · March 2, 2015

Bad combos. The turret/hull matches no one wants in their team. The one's who users are called noobs. The ones we cringe at. However, Tanki is supposed to be a balanced game, and balance’s synonym is equality, which in turn means “nothing worse than the other”. This rule applies to maps, turrets, hulls, and chest hair, so why not combinations?

For the first time ever, the devs have ‘officially’, unwillingly or willingly, denoted a combination as not suitable for battle. I’m talking about Vulcan/Wasp of course. Them saying Vulcan goes on medium and heavy hulls gives a clear indication of it. In addition to the aforementioned, Ricochet/Wasp and Firebird/Mammoth will also get a test drive.

PS: In this arduous journey to the center of the gameplay, I am accompanied by my loyal ~~servant~~ friend,

@CombatCat2. I’m going to go ahead and say that without his incessant complaining, I would’ve never been able to keep going forward, and my keyboard wouldn’t be smashed to pieces in extreme annoyance.

Without further a due, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a special eeeedition of…Tanki Online Mythbusters! No rights reserved

Wasp/Vulcan

The die-too-fast

It is common knowledge that weapons with high DPS such as Vulcan or Twins should go with stronger hulls. So what would happen if we put the king of DPS on the lightest tank around? An explosion? A server crash? A tall Fen-Harel from a parallel dimension? Read on to find out.

Day ONE

Silence CTF, 15 minutes, summer day. The best battle till now. Note to self: if CombatCat2 (hereafter referred to as ‘CC’) gets top score with a combo, it’s proof that combo isn’t as bad as it looks.

Now, if you read those two lines and immediately charged into Tanki with Vulcan/Wasp, you’re bound to call me a liar after a few minutes. Even with Mammoth, Vulcan isn’t made as an offensive weapon. And with Wasp, defensive is crossed out too. There’s not much difference between middle fielder and attacker in Silence, so what was left? S as in Support.

Granted, one of the most obscure gameplay styles known to but a few tankers to whom Isida has no more secrets. Here’s the “official” definition of support:

“To give aid or assistance to your teammates.”

Which, when applied in the battlefield, turns into

“Use your teammate as shield and tell the enemy he’s tastier than you.”

Consequently, while the enemy Hammers and Thunders are busy blowing a Mammoth up, you can stay in back and put Vulcan’s convenient long range to good use. Another, maybe slightly less known asset is the fact that, out of all the guns, Vulcan is the one you notice the less when being shot by it, especially if your sound is turned off. Think about it, you don’t notice your health decreasing until it’s gone.

The expression “less than a bug” is commonly used to describe when you’re nothing compared to your enemies. But a bug is also small and inconspicuous. With some skill and tricky manoeuvring, I managed to get some kills without dying.

The trick is to wait for your allies to launch an offensive, then follow in their wake. If you’re lucky, you can even get some nice kill steals. Long story short, united we stand, divided we fall.

Worked very nicely, entertaining to use. Definitely try it out for yourself.

Day TWO

Next on the list (not like I had a list) was a Stadium DM. True, the open space and relative lack of cover was useful, but I spent most of time serving as target practice for Rails. With my Wasp, I barely had the time to deal about 5 damage before I was blasted to bits.

Overall, Vulcan/Wasp performed rather poorly in DM (since there isn’t any ally shields). If my kills weren’t stolen, they were non-existent. Now, I have absolutely not the slightest parcel of an idea of how I got this more-than-decent score. (Plus, they were way higher ranked.)

Now it's time for the famous uber-popular Polygon CP. For no reason in particular, Vulcan/Wasp seemed to have forgotten how to fight. Camping on the higher plateaux of Polygon was worse than I thought, for I was always kicked out by bigger meanies who wanted my spot. On ground, if I was shooting at an enemy and that same enemy happened to hit me on the side with his turret, I’d end up upside down. But hey, it’s Wasp we’re talking about. Even though the middle provided a huge target, the location you’re at when shooting at it usually was somewhere dangerous.

All in all, Vulcan/Wasp is heavily dependent on team-mates to succeed.

CombatCat2's opinion:

Wasp/Vulcan is an…..interesting….combo. I actually could find ways to make it work decently. CTF was probably the worst. Even putting aside the fact that I was listening to Kev telling one of his stories, I struggled to make it cooperate. I did manage to get 1 flag capture, but it was very difficult, and it also wasn’t easy for me to get kills, which probably isn’t surprising.

I did better in TDM, quite possibly because I insisted on it being one of my favorite maps: Iran. It started slow, many more deaths than kills, but it slowly got better, which might be thanks to a few drop boxes. Double damage works great paired with Vulcan, even against Kev. I ended in 3rd place on my team, with a D/L above 1.00, even though I was on the losing team.

I found DM to be even better yet, but it may have just been the match I was in. It was on Island, and there were a ton of ricochets. I did a lot to them, especially when the double damage boxes came. But even without the boxes, I managed to grab some kills.

Wasp/Vulcan wasn’t a good combo for me, but I can see how some people might be able to make it work. Extremely aggressive players (like me) will struggle with it because of Wasp’s lower health, and Vulcan doesn’t really do enough damage to rush into a horde of enemies and come out alive. Wasp/Vulcan should be used more for medium range combat, as it didn’t work at all in close range, and struggled at long range. It can be a powerful tool in the right hands, but it wasn’t in mine.

CTFs: 8/10

TDMs: 9/10

DMs: 6/10

CPs: 5/10

Total: 7/10

Verdict: Myth

Sacrifice thy teammates f'r the good cause, and the heavens shall reward thou with a high score!

Ricochet/Wasp

The Unstable

Take Ricochet, a gun with infamous recoil. Mount it on Wasp, the lightest hull around. Done? You just got yourself a combo that spends more time flipped than not. Getting a decent score with this combination seemed to be a difficult task…

Day THREE

…Which is exactly why we joined a drug war, equipped as if for some parkour. As expected, we had to endure quite a bit of “haha noob”, “lol u noob”, “get out noob”, “gold bill pls admin”, “lol”, “flag bhind the bulding” and “hi kerved”, to name a few. However, I’m proud to say we kept our cool, and did not go completely haywire (except for the smashed keyboard bit. But that doesn’t count anyways).

The Polygon CP displayed a weather suited to getting wrecked with Rico/Wasp. Clear blue sky, beautiful landscape, relaxing sounds of explosions and screams, perfect day. Gameplay-wise, I obviously refrained from going to the middle. I mean, it’s not because I’m doing something stupid that I am stupid. End of conversation.

Back to topic, it was actually quite “fun”. Normal gameplay with Wasp proving a bad strategy (Zipping around the battlefield whilst shooting-on-the-go isn’t something Ricochet excels at), I gave camping Shaft-style a try. It wasn’t too shabby, but most of the time I only managed to get a few hits on enemy tanks before they moved out of my line-of-sight.

At that point I felt I got enough of Polygon, so I switched to Fort Knox TDM. Close-rangers were an unwanted hassle.

The other turrets rarely hit me, Ricochet’s high knockback proving itself rather useful. However, Firebird/Hornets acted like cats to a mouse. Consequentially, staying inconspicuous was a must, for as soon as your cover is blown you’re a sitting duck. Of course, attempting to prove that lead-firing Rico on Wasp isn’t that bad is a lost cause, so instead I mainly focused on more creative gameplay styles. Ambushing didn’t turn out well, even the element of surprise unable to make up for Wasp’s simply desperate health.

After quite a few fails, I guess you can say I invented a new gameplay. I’m too lazy to come up with something creative, so I’ll name it “the mobile turret strategy”. It consists of something similar to Railgun’s peek-a-boo. Camped at someplace more offensive than Shaft spots, and switched places every time I was spotted. Even though it felt like a poor tactic, my 2^nd place in the scoreboard proved me wrong.

PS: A Gold Box actually dropped. It would’ve been great writing juice if I caught it, but unfortunately my Wasp wasn’t strong enough to push that Hunter. Blame Newton.

Next up was the Serpuhov CTF. Charging into the heat of battle, plasma blazing, usually resulted in high chances of winning the TWR Lowest D/L ratio record. Middle fielder wasn’t too great either, puny health ensuring I was less dangerous than a bug to my enemies. Long-ranged Railguns were a pest. I was confined to the sides of the map by enemy Thunders and Smokies, who, combined with the lightness of Wasp, were devastating. I tested (and failed) relentless times until I finally fought with a peculiar gameplay style.

It’s basically just the “mobile turret” adapted to team matches. I lurked in the non-existent shadows, hiding behind props and bushes, patiently bidding my time. As soon as some poor meanie had the misfortune of passing near me, I jumped out of nowhere and pound him to death before disappearing again as fast as Fen when he sits behind his desk in the classroom. An obvious downside is the sheer boringness when no tanks are in sight. Or when a Gold Box drops, you don’t notice the notification because your sound is turned off, and you’re left waiting behind a building like a complete doofus.

Day FOUR

Unfortunately I was unable to obtain much information from this TDM. Fort Knox was crazier than a crowd listening to Hog singing “Let It Go”. When I joined, some gears in people’s minds popped and soon the battle was crowded with Ricochet/Wasps, and you couldn’t move two steps without being hit by a dozen fluffy orange balls. It was a true “ricopalypse”, as put by Shadow-what’s-his-name . You see kids, that’s why revealing too much information on the chat is dangerous to you.

Highland DM was our next stop. Again, I used the

"Mobile Turret"

strategy, and my score was quite decent. Do note that I’ve made a whole lot of alliances with people, and it was worse than the Hunger Games. No matter where I aimed, I always ended up hitting an ally. As you may have guessed, the alliance didn’t last long. Fellow ~~butler~~ friend @DarkShadow916 “accidentally” hit me, and soon it was a free-for-all bloodbath. My favorite type of bathing, just saying.

CombatCat2's opinion:

Honestly, I never really thought of Wasp/Ricochet as a bad combo...until now. Maybe it was because I have both M0 and Kev insisted on no protections, maybe because I'm not the best player, but either way, but Wasp/Rico a great way to get killed...over and over...a lot.

I didn't do much CTF with it, but let me say that you can't cap a flag with M0 Rico/Wasp. Even cutting out Kev's smack talk, CTF was probably the worst with Wasp/Rico for me. I had better "luck" in TDM, still failed, but better. Even my favorite map, Fort Knox, couldn't save me this time. Then there was DM. I did the best and worst here. I got considerably more kills, but died a never-ending death.

I struggled greatly to find a decent tactic with this combo, mostly because I died some ten thousand times. Railgun did most of the damage in CTF and TDM game modes, and of course Kev’s Ricochet took a few of my nine (million) lives. DM had a variety of threatening turrets. Thunder was a major killer, Firebird was another lethal weapon, and Railgun was (as always) a fear machine, but the big threat was druggers. Apparently Thunder + Double Damage = major death (there’s your math lesson for the day). I couldn’t find a way to get past the long-range high-damage turrets. My wasp was too vulnerable and my tactics too aggressive. Maybe Kev found something that worked, but I for sure didn’t. All in all, Wasp/Ricochet is definitely not the best combo of them all.

CTFs: 6/10

TDMs: 7/10

DMs: 5/10

Total: 6/10

Verdict: Myth

If thou lay-to it correctly, thou can perfectly lay-to ricochet/wasp in hurlyburly and acquire an agreeable score. As long as thou don't charge into the foe base such as Sir CC, thou'll be in one piece. Most of the time.

Firebird/Mammoth

King of Boring

Renowned as “Worst Combo Ever”, “super-duper-super-super-super […] boring”, Fire/Mammy has quite some titles. Even my little sister would understand why this combo is bad. Firebird’s burn needs a few seconds of firing to activate, and a few seconds is something Hornets on nitro don’t give to “bunkers on tracks”.

PS: A minute of silence for 100 crystals, used to buy the ‘Orange’ paint. May they rest in peace in Tanki heaven. Or respawn. That’d be great. :3

Day FIVE

My first impression when I joined a Noise CTF was .

In my “fat orange blob” (thanks @EpicTroll99), I felt like the 2015 Phileas Fogg going ‘round the world in 80 ~~days~~ centuries. First things first, I tried attacking. After climbing a few ramps (I was on blue team), the battle was over since two years.

Slight exaggeration. Still, the battle was…monotonous. The opposite team comprised a few Railguns, and I was defenceless when pitted against them. After miserably failing a few attempts CC style, I decided to defend, and see how that went.

I received less deaths, but it was even more dull. I could’ve gone AFK for an hour, I’m sure no one would’ve noticed. Why? Noise is renowned for the extensive number of defenders on the blue side, and I only received one or two points per enemy jumping into the mass of blue defenders (quite foolishly, I must say). So, my gameplay basically consisted of pressing spacebar.

I ended up playing ambush-style, which was better but still worse than Hog’s interpretation of “Monster”.

The results were unsurprising.

*Note that this is the results of the next battle, but it it similar the the results of the previous one.

Although the Noise CTF was a 5-star hotel compared to the upcoming Cross TDM.

First of all, players took an eternity to arrive, and it was mostly just me VS CC, which often ended up in something similar to one of the infamous Comic Captions pic.

Once some people joined, the upper arch of Cross became unsafe for me, due to younger Wasp/Thunders and XPs beating up this ol’ Mammoth. I was resigned to the lower houses, trying to spawn-kill some joining tanks. That didn’t turn out too well, Cross’ large open bases enabling them to back off while mockingly watching my desperate attempts to even scratch their hulls.

No science was involved in the creation of the statement "scratching a hull with fire."

The bottom of my hull took quite some mine blasts in that battle. Well, so long as to have a hull destroyed by mines, might as well be the one I never use.

I was last on the scoreboard. No surprise.

With these rather negative results, Mammoth/Firebird’s last hope was now lying in a Polygon DM.

Day SIX

Me, with my unexperienced mind, I was thinking, “heh, there’s always those fat Mammies in those fat Polygon DMs during a fat drug war, right?”. Little did I know, drug wars were no longer. Plus, I conveniently forgot the fact that I was on an “article mission”, and that drugging was a no-no.

Polygon DMs being more popular than Cross TDMs , the battle became full rather quickly. Now, this time there was no alliance. Maybe. Kind of. Yes, did form a team comprised of me, her, CC and a bunch of other ‘dudes’. But I was ~~completely out-of-my-mind~~ annoyed about the sheer lameness of my performance with this boring combo, and respecting an alliance wasn’t the top one thing I preoccupied about. What more, CC was way ahead of me in the score table, which shocked me to the core.

I was completely, entirely, fully, totally, utterly, wholly helpless against everyone single other tank in the battle, even Mr. OtherMammoth/Firebird. I spent about 9/10 of the time respawning or driving. The other 1/10 is the time I spent getting frozen to death or blasted to shreds.

Don’t use Mammoth/Firebird. Unless you want to learn the definition of “boring” the hard way.

CombatCat2's opinion:

I have never hated Mammoth more. Even with both M1, Mammoth/Firebird greatly failed me in TDM and DM modes. TDM was….well….it was awful. I couldn’t get close enough to the enemy to attack. A lot of Hornet/Thunders and Hornet/Railguns could kill me from a safe distance. And of course Kev’s map choice didn’t help me at all. Cross is not my map. DM was….better. Again, I couldn’t get close enough to kill most of the time. However since there were more people to kill, I could deal a bit more damage.

I did, however, do exceptionally well in CTF. Of course the start of the battle wasn’t the best. Since Kev created a new battle for each of the matches, it always started as 1v1. Mammy/Fire vs Mammy/Fire kinda sucks. And capping a flag with Mammoth is extremely agonizing. Well, maybe not so agonizing since Kev couldn’t stop me (for once). Once there was enough people that I didn’t have to try to attack with an extremely slow tank, I could play some marvelous defense. Sitting on the flag, burning everyone who passed to a crisp. I did better than Kev, which is a big deal since I could finally get him back for all the smack-talking I get, and I claimed first place on my team, which won.

Honestly, Mammoth/Firebird is a rather good combo, if you can bear not going anywhere and aren’t aggressive (to an idiotic level) like me. Defense in CTF will be successful in most cases, but be cautious of DM and TDM modes.

CTFs: 4/10

TDMs: 5/10

DMs: 5/10

Total: 5/10

Verdict: Reality

Boring

~~Finally done! Now I can get back to my Halo now!~~ So there you have it! Three combos, three adventures, three general failures, two opinions, one kid and one cat. Feel free to comment below the signature about your personal experience with the combos, the article, or how bad CombatCat2 is(he's going to get me back on this). Blah blah blah, everyone knows Brute and Grunt butt-kicking doesn't wait, so CYA!

Edited July 30, 2017 by Hexed

jazz20 · March 27, 2015

The firebird-mammoth combo get's much better once you get m2 fire m2 mammoth. Until then.....avoid using firebird :P

LeIouch_Vi_Britannia · March 27, 2015

Great article meister K!

And great avatar 2 .-.

CombatCat2 · March 27, 2015

PS: In this arduous journey to the center of the gameplay, I am accompanied by my loyal servant,

@CombatCat2. I’m going to go ahead and say that without his incessant complaining...my keyboard wouldn’t be smashed to pieces in extreme annoyance.

Feel free to comment below the signature about your personal experience with the combos, the article, or how bad CombatCat2 is(he's going to get me back on this).

I'll be crying in the corner if anyone needs me.

Edited March 27, 2015 by CombatCat2

Cor7y · March 27, 2015

Mammoth + firebird =

Edited March 27, 2015 by Cor7y

genak138 · March 27, 2015

I know the reason you rated Fire/Mammoth as reality. You didm't do a Polygon CP. When it's in a 1-point CP map, it's awesome. But any where else, it does do as badly as you said.

M1-A2 · March 28, 2015

Firebird/Mammoth

King of Boring

Renowned as “Worst Combo Ever”, “super-duper-super-super-super […] boring”, Fire/Mammy has quite some titles. Even my little sister would understand why this combo is bad. Firebird’s burn needs a few seconds of firing to activate, and a few seconds is something Hornets on nitro don’t give to “bunkers on tracks”.

PS: A minute of silence for 100 crystals, used to buy the ‘Orange’ paint. May they rest in peace in Tanki heaven. Or respawn. That’d be great. :3

Day FIVE

My first impression when I joined a Noise CTF was .

In my “fat orange blob” (thanks @EpicTroll99), I felt like the 2015 Phileas Fogg going ‘round the world in 80 ~~days~~ centuries. First things first, I tried attacking. After climbing a few ramps (I was on blue team), the battle was over since two years.

Slight exaggeration. Still, the battle was…monotonous. The opposite team comprised a few Railguns, and I was defenceless when pitted against them. After miserably failing a few attempts CC style, I decided to defend, and see how that went.

I received less deaths, but it was even more dull. I could’ve gone AFK for an hour, I’m sure no one would’ve noticed. Why? Noise is renowned for the extensive number of defenders on the blue side, and I only received one or two points per enemy jumping into the mass of blue defenders (quite foolishly, I must say). So, my gameplay basically consisted of pressing spacebar.

I ended up playing ambush-style, which was better but still worse than Hog’s interpretation of “Monster”.

The results were unsurprising.

*Note that this is the results of the next battle, but it it similar the the results of the previous one.

Although the Noise CTF was a 5-star hotel compared to the upcoming Cross TDM.

First of all, players took an eternity to arrive, and it was mostly just me VS CC, which often ended up in something similar to one of the infamous Comic Captions pic.

Once some people joined, the upper arch of Cross became unsafe for me, due to younger Wasp/Thunders and XPs beating up this ol’ Mammoth. I was resigned to the lower houses, trying to spawn-kill some joining tanks. That didn’t turn out too well, Cross’ large open bases enabling them to back off while mockingly watching my desperate attempts to even scratch their hulls.

No science was involved in the creation of the statement "scratching a hull with fire."

The bottom of my hull took quite some mine blasts in that battle. Well, so long as to have a hull destroyed by mines, might as well be the one I never use.

I was last on the scoreboard. No surprise.

With these rather negative results, Mammoth/Firebird’s last hope was now lying in a Polygon DM.

Day SIX

Me, with my unexperienced mind, I was thinking, “heh, there’s always those fat Mammies in those fat Polygon DMs during a fat drug war, right?”. Little did I know, drug wars were no longer. Plus, I conveniently forgot the fact that I was on an “article mission”, and that drugging was a no-no.

Polygon DMs being more popular than Cross TDMs , the battle became full rather quickly. Now, this time there was no alliance. Maybe. Kind of. Yes, did form a team comprised of me, her, CC and a bunch of other ‘dudes’. But I was ~~completely out-of-my-mind~~ annoyed about the sheer lameness of my performance with this boring combo, and respecting an alliance wasn’t the top one thing I preoccupied about. What more, CC was way ahead of me in the score table, which shocked me to the core.

I was completely, entirely, fully, totally, utterly, wholly helpless against everyone single other tank in the battle, even Mr. OtherMammoth/Firebird. I spent about 9/10 of the time respawning or driving. The other 1/10 is the time I spent getting frozen to death or blasted to shreds.

Don’t use Mammoth/Firebird. Unless you want to learn the definition of “boring” the hard way.

CombatCat2's opinion:

I have never hated Mammoth more. Even with both M1, Mammoth/Firebird greatly failed me in TDM and DM modes. TDM was….well….it was awful. I couldn’t get close enough to the enemy to attack. A lot of Hornet/Thunders and Hornet/Railguns could kill me from a safe distance. And of course Kev’s map choice didn’t help me at all. Cross is not my map. DM was….better. Again, I couldn’t get close enough to kill most of the time. However since there were more people to kill, I could deal a bit more damage.

I did, however, do exceptionally well in CTF. Of course the start of the battle wasn’t the best. Since Kev created a new battle for each of the matches, it always started as 1v1. Mammy/Fire vs Mammy/Fire kinda sucks. And capping a flag with Mammoth is extremely agonizing. Well, maybe not so agonizing since Kev couldn’t stop me (for once). Once there was enough people that I didn’t have to try to attack with an extremely slow tank, I could play some marvelous defense. Sitting on the flag, burning everyone who passed to a crisp. I did better than Kev, which is a big deal since I could finally get him back for all the smack-talking I get, and I claimed first place on my team, which won.

Honestly, Mammoth/Firebird is a rather good combo, if you can bear not going anywhere and aren’t aggressive (to an idiotic level) like me. Defense in CTF will be successful in most cases, but be cautious of DM and TDM modes.

CTFs: 4/10

TDMs: 5/10

DMs: 5/10

Total: 5/10

Verdict: Reality

Boring

I agree that gameplay with this combo is, shall we say, dull to say the least in a normal match.

However, I've seen it used to a fantastic degree of success. This combo has its merits in extremely small maps (i.e. Island and Ping-Pong) no matter what gamemode.

I have had the unfortunate experience of going toe-to-to with an M3-M3 Variant of this combo in a Ping-Pong match. Needless to say, with no where to run, my team and I were... toast.

While it can be useful in certain situations, I do agree that Firebird Mammoth is not exactly the best combo.

Fantastic article! Keep up the good work! :)

Edit* It seems EpicTroll ranked up to major between the time of you posting and my writing this. Congrats!

Edited March 28, 2015 by M1-A2

liverpoolaum · March 28, 2015

nice

r_vik_unbeatable0 · March 28, 2015

I agree with combatcat I ued m1 fire and mammoth on highland 1v1 and I failed the enemy had m0 rico but I was still destroyed because he could attack from a safe distance.

mammoth with fire on ping pong however is different because the map is so small the enemy cannot hide as easily.

r_vik_unbeatable0 · March 28, 2015

I big maps the only thing worse then fire and mammoth is shaft and wasp

Kevred · March 28, 2015

I agree with combatcat I ued m1 fire and mammoth on highland 1v1 and I failed the enemy had m0 rico but I was still destroyed because he could attack from a safe distance.

mammoth with fire on ping pong however is different because the map is so small the enemy cannot hide as easily.

Trust me, even if Freeze+Mammy in Ping-Pong is against a Hornet, it still miserably fails. I'm talking from experience.

aquafurgle1 · March 28, 2015

hehe 1st with m2 fire m1 hornet.. much better than fire mammy

r_Firingsniper0 · March 28, 2015

Mammoth Fire in Hill

Fire's good in any hull.

EpicTroll99 · March 28, 2015

Ricochet/Wasp

The Unstable

Take Ricochet, a gun with infamous recoil. Mount it on Wasp, the lightest hull around. Done? You just got yourself a combo that spends more time flipped than not. Getting a decent score with this combination seemed to be a difficult task…

Day THREE

…Which is exactly why we joined a drug war, equipped as if for some parkour. As expected, we had to endure quite a bit of “haha noob”, “lol u noob”, “get out noob”, “gold bill pls admin”, “lol”, “flag bhind the bulding” and “hi kerved”, to name a few. However, I’m proud to say we kept our cool, and did not go completely haywire (except for the smashed keyboard bit. But that doesn’t count anyways).

The Polygon CP displayed a weather suited to getting wrecked with Rico/Wasp. Clear blue sky, beautiful landscape, relaxing sounds of explosions and screams, perfect day. Gameplay-wise, I obviously refrained from going to the middle. I mean, it’s not because I’m doing something stupid that I am stupid. End of conversation.

Back to topic, it was actually quite “fun”. Normal gameplay with Wasp proving a bad strategy (Zipping around the battlefield whilst shooting-on-the-go isn’t something Ricochet excels at), I gave camping Shaft-style a try. It wasn’t too shabby, but most of the time I only managed to get a few hits on enemy tanks before they moved out of my line-of-sight.

At that point I felt I got enough of Polygon, so I switched to Fort Knox TDM. Close-rangers were an unwanted hassle.

The other turrets rarely hit me, Ricochet’s high knockback proving itself rather useful. However, Firebird/Hornets acted like cats to a mouse. Consequentially, staying inconspicuous was a must, for as soon as your cover is blown you’re a sitting duck. Of course, attempting to prove that lead-firing Rico on Wasp isn’t that bad is a lost cause, so instead I mainly focused on more creative gameplay styles. Ambushing didn’t turn out well, even the element of surprise unable to make up for Wasp’s simply desperate health.

After quite a few fails, I guess you can say I invented a new gameplay. I’m too lazy to come up with something creative, so I’ll name it “the mobile turret strategy”. It consists of something similar to Railgun’s peek-a-boo. Camped at someplace more offensive than Shaft spots, and switched places every time I was spotted. Even though it felt like a poor tactic, my 2^nd place in the scoreboard proved me wrong.

PS: A Gold Box actually dropped. It would’ve been great writing juice if I caught it, but unfortunately my Wasp wasn’t strong enough to push that Hunter. Blame Newton.

Next up was the Serpuhov CTF. Charging into the heat of battle, plasma blazing, usually resulted in high chances of winning the TWR Lowest D/L ratio record. Middle fielder wasn’t too great either, puny health ensuring I was less dangerous than a bug to my enemies. Long-ranged Railguns were a pest. I was confined to the sides of the map by enemy Thunders and Smokies, who, combined with the lightness of Wasp, were devastating. I tested (and failed) relentless times until I finally fought with a peculiar gameplay style.

It’s basically just the “mobile turret” adapted to team matches. I lurked in the non-existent shadows, hiding behind props and bushes, patiently bidding my time. As soon as some poor meanie had the misfortune of passing near me, I jumped out of nowhere and pound him to death before disappearing again as fast as Fen when he sits behind his desk in the classroom. An obvious downside is the sheer boringness when no tanks are in sight. Or when a Gold Box drops, you don’t notice the notification because your sound is turned off, and you’re left waiting behind a building like a complete doofus.

Day FOUR

Unfortunately I was unable to obtain much information from this TDM. Fort Knox was crazier than a crowd listening to Hog singing “Let It Go”. When I joined, some gears in people’s minds popped and soon the battle was crowded with Ricochet/Wasps, and you couldn’t move two steps without being hit by a dozen fluffy orange balls. It was a true “ricopalypse”, as put by Shadow-what’s-his-name . You see kids, that’s why revealing too much information on the chat is dangerous to you.

Highland DM was our next stop. Again, I used the

"Mobile Turret"

strategy, and my score was quite decent. Do note that I’ve made a whole lot of alliances with people, and it was worse than the Hunger Games. No matter where I aimed, I always ended up hitting an ally. As you may have guessed, the alliance didn’t last long. Fellow ~~butler~~ friend @DarkShadow916 “accidentally” hit me, and soon it was a free-for-all bloodbath. My favorite type of bathing, just saying.

CombatCat2's opinion:

Honestly, I never really thought of Wasp/Ricochet as a bad combo...until now. Maybe it was because I have both M0 and Kev insisted on no protections, maybe because I'm not the best player, but either way, but Wasp/Rico a great way to get killed...over and over...a lot.

I didn't do much CTF with it, but let me say that you can't cap a flag with M0 Rico/Wasp. Even cutting out Kev's smack talk, CTF was probably the worst with Wasp/Rico for me. I had better "luck" in TDM, still failed, but better. Even my favorite map, Fort Knox, couldn't save me this time. Then there was DM. I did the best and worst here. I got considerably more kills, but died a never-ending death.

I struggled greatly to find a decent tactic with this combo, mostly because I died some ten thousand times. Railgun did most of the damage in CTF and TDM game modes, and of course Kev’s Ricochet took a few of my nine (million) lives. DM had a variety of threatening turrets. Thunder was a major killer, Firebird was another lethal weapon, and Railgun was (as always) a fear machine, but the big threat was druggers. Apparently Thunder + Double Damage = major death (there’s your math lesson for the day). I couldn’t find a way to get past the long-range high-damage turrets. My wasp was too vulnerable and my tactics too aggressive. Maybe Kev found something that worked, but I for sure didn’t. All in all, Wasp/Ricochet is definitely not the best combo of them all.

CTFs: 6/10

TDMs: 7/10

DMs: 5/10

Total: 6/10

Verdict: Myth

If thou lay-to it correctly, thou can perfectly lay-to ricochet/wasp in hurlyburly and acquire an agreeable score. As long as thou don't charge into the foe base such as Sir CC, thou'll be in one piece. Most of the time.

Firebird/Mammoth

King of Boring

Renowned as “Worst Combo Ever”, “super-duper-super-super-super […] boring”, Fire/Mammy has quite some titles. Even my little sister would understand why this combo is bad. Firebird’s burn needs a few seconds of firing to activate, and a few seconds is something Hornets on nitro don’t give to “bunkers on tracks”.

PS: A minute of silence for 100 crystals, used to buy the ‘Orange’ paint. May they rest in peace in Tanki heaven. Or respawn. That’d be great. :3

Day FIVE

My first impression when I joined a Noise CTF was .

In my “fat orange blob” (thanks @EpicTroll99), I felt like the 2015 Phileas Fogg going ‘round the world in 80 ~~days~~ centuries. First things first, I tried attacking. After climbing a few ramps (I was on blue team), the battle was over since two years.

Slight exaggeration. Still, the battle was…monotonous. The opposite team comprised a few Railguns, and I was defenceless when pitted against them. After miserably failing a few attempts CC style, I decided to defend, and see how that went.

I received less deaths, but it was even more dull. I could’ve gone AFK for an hour, I’m sure no one would’ve noticed. Why? Noise is renowned for the extensive number of defenders on the blue side, and I only received one or two points per enemy jumping into the mass of blue defenders (quite foolishly, I must say). So, my gameplay basically consisted of pressing spacebar.

I ended up playing ambush-style, which was better but still worse than Hog’s interpretation of “Monster”.

The results were unsurprising.

*Note that this is the results of the next battle, but it it similar the the results of the previous one.

Lol I remember that... You forgot Mammy-Fire in Rio tho, was that ever a disaster!

TriNitroToIuene · March 29, 2015

Well written, Kev, your sense of humour and sarcasm is as fresh and crisp as ever! It's not everyone who can convey important details about the game in such an interesting and witty manner. Hats off!

Kevred · March 29, 2015

I know the reason you rated Fire/Mammoth as reality. You didm't do a Polygon CP. When it's in a 1-point CP map, it's awesome. But any where else, it does do as badly as you said.

Well it might work when enemies are controlling the point, and you can go and fry them all. But once you're in the middle, you're a sitting duck to mid and long-rangers.

genak138 · March 29, 2015

Well it might work when enemies are controlling the point, and you can go and fry them all. But once you're in the middle, you're a sitting duck to mid and long-rangers.

That's when I use the tunnel ;)

EpicTroll99 · March 29, 2015

I agree that gameplay with this combo is, shall we say, dull to say the least in a normal match.

However, I've seen it used to a fantastic degree of success. This combo has its merits in extremely small maps (i.e. Island and Ping-Pong) no matter what gamemode.

I have had the unfortunate experience of going toe-to-to with an M3-M3 Variant of this combo in a Ping-Pong match. Needless to say, with no where to run, my team and I were... toast.

While it can be useful in certain situations, I do agree that Firebird Mammoth is not exactly the best combo.

Fantastic article! Keep up the good work! :)

Edit* It seems EpicTroll ranked up to major between the time of you posting and my writing this. Congrats!

Hehe thanks, ranked Friday, just before this came out, not sure why it was showing me as a captain in the reference in the article :ph34r:

xXx.Real.Boys.xXx · March 29, 2015

Well I must agree that some combo's here are so damn crap. However something like M2 mummy+fire angel is quite good. A Isida on its left hand would be good.

DeathByCupcake · March 30, 2015

The worst combination is easily Isida and Mammoth.

suhas_cool · March 30, 2015

I just caught a gold box in island with wasp pushing a DICTATOR so...

PS: A Gold Box actually dropped. It would’ve been great writing juice if I caught it, but unfortunately my Wasp wasn’t strong enough to push that Hunter. Blame Newton.

tuntematon1234567890 · March 30, 2015

What about Titan Rail? I think its decent on maps like Noise CP if your`e on the red team but who am I to say anything.

Loackie · March 30, 2015

Island and Noise aren't maps mkay. Mammoth-Fire is low tier, but it is totally viable in small and cramped maps.

Dhruv_007 · March 30, 2015

look mate I don't know who you are or when you started tanki but lemme tell you this much.
YOU MISSED THE POINT.
1.Firebird is one of the most OP guns in the game and is all about technique.The more experienced you are the better.
2.What about recoil and pre-fire two main points which make Vulcan so underpowered but OP if perfected .If you learn to pre-fire well enough you will own anyone in your sights no matter how well they're shots are.
3.If we watched more experienced players playing styles it can be clearly seen that near enough any gun used correctly is deadly in its won way

My_Tiger_Psy · March 30, 2015

I love Halo! Haha, great job!

Challenge	Start Date	End Date
1	15.08	29.08
2	29.08	05.09
3	05.09	12.09
4	12.09	19.09
5	19.09	26.09
6	26.09	3.10
7	3.10	10.10
8	10.10	17.10

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