Smoky/Wasp: The One Combo MU Meta

[kaisdf 3,320]

AWC Tournament week 2:

 

 

"Tweezers is a noob reporter"

 

 

 

 

Let me set the scene

 

So, a while ago, I created an account to play with a friend. I played to about Staff Sergeant, then we gave up. Having named it @IAmTheOneAndOnly (M3M3s for days, I know), I decided to go back to it. This left me with the question of what to do with it besides being badass as usual. Having just got Smoky M2 on my main and loved it (like omihgawd its bæ), I decided to follow the Smoky M1-Wasp M1 10/10 route, to rush some late game M2s.

 

I did have to rush the next three ranks, for which I highly recommend Hornet and Hammer - no Mus needed - a strong, fast combo that is unstoppable with a Double Damage (each full reload gives 3 easy kills). It works for almost any mainstream map, as long as there is decent cover and some twists and turns.

 

​

An excellent battle, not such a high kill count, but, with the complete control of almost every Double Damages in the map, I capped about 8 of our team’s ten flags, meaning I got over 1,000 xp in a single 15-minute battle. You can tell from this that with my exceptional xp/hr (more on rates later), unlocking Smoky and Wasp M1 didn’t take long :P.

 

With just a little control of drops, and nubs on the enemy team, it really isn’t hard to get over half of your team’s entire kill count, and show off just how cool you are.

​

 

My experience with it

 

Well, certainly in the early ranks, it paid off… I had some fantastic early battles, with total, utter destruction in my wake.

 

Don’t believe me? This was one of my first battles:

No drugging, or camping - in fact I capped several of the flags. I took advantage of the beginning wave of supply drops to rack up 57 death-free kills. I then got totally ambushed by a firebird and was downed. At a 67.00 D/L, my focus waivered and I died again, about 20 seconds before the end of the game.

 

 

Having played against people who use it on my main account, I have realised how much of a pain it is to fight against. And let me tell you, using it is fun. Very fun. I chose Hornet instead of the other popular choice of Titan because I personally prefer fast, nippy hulls. I would rather be able to whizz around, capping flags and control points, than to sit in one place and get consistently high D/Ls, but have no fun.

 

Now, to stop me from rambling on too much about all my stupendous victories battles, I will explain my process of buying it, then analyse it and give tips in case anyone wants to follow in my footsteps.

 

Buying it

 

There are two methods of buying Wasp and Smoky M1. Buying the items separately for 13 100 and 11 000 respectively, or buying the Savage kit for 19 640 crystals. There are advantages to both methods: if the kit comes up, then it is cheaper than both items, and you get the Ocelot D-D module (15% against Isida and Hammer, which can be useful early game.) The advantages have now been lessened by the removal of discounts on kits and the loss of the free supplies.

 

The advantage to buying the items is that you can get them at full price whenever you want, or wait for a sale of (I recommend) at least 40% and get them for considerably cheaper. I managed to snag both items in the Christmas/New Year’s 50% sale, because Savage didn’t come up in time in the kit rotation (the kit, not that pro Reporter).

 

As for Mus, thanks to the super cheap, super effective Hornet/Hammer combo, I had a large number of crystals stockpiled, and as soon as the first 50%/70% sale on MUs came around, I got both Smoky and Wasp to 10/50. Next sale, I bought the £2.50/€4 shop kit that gave me 20k crystals I got 15/50 Wasp, and with my newly acquired funds, 25/50 Smoky. In other sales, I got 16/50 wasp, and 36/50 smoky. Thanks to the “10 MUs for M1s” update, I got 4 free steps, taking me to 8/10, which is where I am currently.

 

Analysis and Tips

 

And now the conclusion. The section for lazy nubs who couldn’t be bothered to read the full article. The idea behind the one combo MU M2 meta is interesting. Thanks to the 10 MUs update, it now costs the same to MU as it does to just buy the M2 when it unlocks. (Though with sales, you can get 50% off the unlocked version, but only 25% off when MUing.) For MUing to be viable (and I'm talking about any combo here), there needs to be enough time between finishing the MUing and the items unlocking in kits/alone. This means that you need to choose some late rank M2s, like Smoky, Twins, or maybe Firebird. An M1 combo unlocked around Master-First Sergeant can usually be fully MU’d by around WO5 (I saw a fully MU’d Smoky/Titan at WO5), depending on how high your crystals/xp rate is (yes, I will get to these rates, shuddup and gimme a chance).

 

​

Pros - mainly related to the Smoky/Wasp combo

 

You unlock it 400k xp early

• You have some OP late rank M2s, roughly 400k xp before anyone else will have them, and in the case of smoky, it is OP even when you unlock it, let alone 7-8 ranks early. The reason Smoky is so good, is that with a Double Damage, it 2 shots all light hulls which are the most common hull. Also, it can shoot more than twice as fast as a railgun, so it is a highly effective counter for one of the most popular turrets.​

Very OP, especially in early game

• (see previous point)

(I find it) fun

• This is an important point - since you only have one usable combo, you have to be able to tolerate playing with the same combo for all the ranks between unlocking the M1, fully MUing it, and being able to buy something else. Luckily for me, I love the Smoky/Light hull combo, so it is no problem for me

​No worries about what to buy

• Often one can have the problem of “Should I buy this? That? That in a kit and then that in a sale? With this, you never have to worry because you never have enough money to buy anything else anyway

​

​Cons

Monotonous gameplay

• ​As I said, you only have one combo you can use at any point... If you don't like it, then tough luck..

Never have any cash

• Constantly buying the next level of MU means that you never have more that 20k. Though this doesn't really matter, you never get the morale boost and the wonderful feeling of hitting 100k (or even 50k...)

Not good for single point CP

• A problem with going for a light hull (the lightest hull, in fact) is that it is designed to never have to get too close to enemy fire. In CTF, you can nip straight in and straight out of the enemy base and be fine. The problem comes when you have to sit still in the middle of a map capping the one and only point, while everyone else is trying to kill you.​

The vital tips ​if you wanna be a copycat mult

 

​Choose a good combo to MU

• As I said, if you are doing this, this is important. There is no point MUing Freeze M1 to M2, as it first unlocks at WO2. Another advantage of choosing Wasp /Smoky, is that there is an M1 and an M3 kit, but no M2 kit, meaning that MUing is the only way to get the combo early. That is a disadvantage of MUing Smoky/Titan, because there are kits for it at all 3 levels, meaning you only really get it about 4 ranks early.

• Good Options are Viking/Twins - get Corsair early on, but there is Minotaur; Smoky/Wasp or Smoky/Titan; maybe Fire/Wasp

ALWAYS WAIT FOR SALES

• A point I really cannot stress enough. With six years of Tanki experience, my three main pieces of advice: always wait for a sale, don’t buy pointless items, and only go past the first MU if you are planning to go all the way.

​Don't buy paints

• If you do buy paints, choose a paint that is cheap, and you like the look of. At 1^st Lt., I bought the Swash paint in a 50% sale for about 6k crystals, and then used it until Lt. Colonel when I bought the snowflake bundle, and used that paint.

The MU rework

• ​I feel this is something I should point out, as it is a somewhat significant change. The update is pretty new, so metas have yet to be dreamt up. So far, sales seem to have been pretty prevalent, though only a low sale. Personally, I'm waiting to see if we get a sale of more than 30% before getting my final two upgrades.
• ​The increased cost and quite frequent sales are very helpful, by the time you earn the necessary crystals, another sale comes around.
• ​A new effect of this update is that you should avoid buying speed-ups AT ALL COSTS​​

And now, a tiny little unimportant footnote about rates, as well as a small gallery

 

There are three main rates in Tanki that you need to think about.

 

 

KD (aka D/L) - How many kills you get for each of your death. To find out, divide your kills, by your deaths.

• ​On @IAmTheOneAndOnly, I aim to finish battles with a D/L of 3 or higher, whereas on @kaisdf, I aim for 1.5 or higher, as battles without buyers or M3s are almost non-existent...

XP/hr - how much XP you get per hour. Pretty simple really. This can be found out on your ratings page. For example, getting 1,000 XP in every 15-minute battle is a rate of 4,000 XP/hr, which is very high.

• ​At low ranks, I aim for 3k-4k xp/hr, which is 800-1000 xp in each 15-minute battle. Generally, you should aim for at least 1k xp/hr. Less than that and you are a mult who would be better off outside need to start drugging and do something about it.

 

Another early battle which demonstrates a good xp/hr, and a good d/l, along with mediocre crystals per xp. Ignoring bonus premium xp, I have almost exactly 900 crystals for a 900 score.

Crystals/XP - this is a little less common (in fact I like to think I invented the idea :P). Also quite self-explanatory, basically it is how many crystals you get for the amount of XP you get. Ideally you want to get >1 crystal per experience point. Playing in normal battles without missions you usually get about 0.3 crystals per xp (meaning a 300 score gives 100 crystals). If your crystals/XP is too low, you end up being high rank with no good equipment.

• At the rank of 2^nd Lt, when I was saving up for other M2s, I earnt 45k crystals with only 15k xp. At high ranks, I highly recommend (winning) Poly CP XP/BPs, which usually give 1.5 crystals/xp

​

A high-ish rate of crystals per hour (~1.25). I joined at about 50-90 to them, and then we fought back and got stuck flipping the point constantly and so it took about 45 minutes to advance from 123-123 to 180-180. At 240-240, we started pulling ahead, and earnt the final 150 points in about 10 minutes. The whole battle was probably around 1.5-2 hours

​

Some good moments on my alt:

 

My Iron Days Newspaper special contest entry. The joy of being an alt, finish 1^st missions are very, very easy.

My Valentines’ day entry. I did have to drug a lot to finish 1^st, considering the person in 2^nd was drugging heavily with Keeper kit, notorious for good D/Ls.

​

Edited January 30, 2018 by kaisdf

[Crip 4,735]

Approved!

 

 

Edits:

- Changed font to Trebuchet MS, size 14.

- Corrected 2 typos.

- Rephrased 1 sentence.

- Capitalised several hull/turret names.

- Removed indents.

- Made font size consistent.

- Edited title.

 

Interesting. It's nice to hear about other peoples' experiences using 1 combination. Well-written, though you could possibly be more formal at times.

 

I forgot there's a Savage kit, Tanki must have named it after me...

[etha2007_awesome 44]

Nice! Btw I think I'm this topics 6th viewer :)

[kaisdf 3,320]

Approved!

 

 

Edits:

- Changed font to Trebuchet MS, size 14.

- Corrected 2 typos.

- Rephrased 1 sentence.

- Capitalised several hull/turret names.

- Removed indents.

- Made font size consistent.

- Edited title.

 

Interesting. It's nice to hear about other peoples' experiences using 1 combination. Well-written, though you could possibly be more formal at times.

 

I forgot there's a Savage kit, Tanki must have named it after me...

Thx :*

And it wasn't supposed to be totally formal, it was supposed to be a helpful, but light hearted guide...

 

And don't worry, I noticed the "typos" :P

[Blackdrakon30 2,943]

:ph34r: Yeah I'm working on getting Smoky M2 on my alt account as well. I do have it with slow Titan, but that's because I picked up Titan separately before getting Smoky.  :P I'm going for either Wasp or Dictator M1 to go with it.

 

Fun article!

[GunnyHighway 34]

Smoky-M1 at 10/10 dominates at the Sergeant levels.

[Tofu 6,773]

Smoky bae <3

 

 

 

 

(the kit, not that pro Reporter).

​

How much did he pay you for this?

 

 

 

 

Edited June 17, 2017 by Mr.Meowth
200 k ?

[kaisdf 3,320]

Smoky bae <3

 

 

 

 

How much did he pay you for this?

 

 

 

 

Well, that was one of the "typos"...

It might have looked different if someone else had checked it first... :ph34r:

[Crip 4,735]

:ph34r:

[Misery 1,415]

Always a kill-stealer

[TTK_229 1,080]

Why did they have to make Smoky m2 so ridiculously OP

[Benefactor 6,888]

Why did they have to make Smoky m2 so ridiculously OP

Maybe you are playing against fully MU'd Smoky-M2s?

[marc.jp_44 20,837]

Smoky bae <3

 

 

 

 

 

How much did he pay you for this?

 

 

 

 

I think it was a typo actually.

---

Not a bad article though at high ranks, you won't exactly see a Wasp-Smoky "dominating" battles like you suggest. It's a great turret to buy early in a kit, MU the hell out of then dominate but once you reach Multshal onwards, it's just too weak to be an attacker and too weak to be a defender.

[KillerGnat 3,135]

(like omihgawd its bæ)

My reaction when I saw you posted another article  :P.

 

Very well-done piece m8.  ^_^ I've tried the same thing on my alt, Nathaniei. Only have like 3-4 MUs though :/. Ain't nobody got time to play on two accounts.

 

 

 

couple of lil' mistakes that you could change :3

 

"my focus waivered and I died again" Wavered*

 

"I earnt 45k crystals" earnt isn't a word. Earned* although honestly that's kinda debatable...

 

[Skepta 405]

Smoky Wasp rocks! But I find Smoky Hornet just as fun if not better :lol:

[Truthteller 4,204]

Smoky Wasp was one of my first m1 combos on truth, great tank :) bought it on 2014 50% sale

[HAPPSHOT 2,029]

Noice , now i wanna buy smoky. Gimme smoky m3! xD

 

Whats meta though?

[Destrod 2,634]

I wonder what the sentence on the top could mean  ;)

[You.Have.to.die 519]

I wonder what the sentence on the top could mean  ;)

umm...yes suspicious.

[kaisdf 3,320]

I wonder what the sentence on the top could mean ;)

They're on to me, run! :Ph34r: