The Ongoing Tale of NoDestroyWithTurret - Part 4

[NoDestroyWithTurret 69]

Part 3: Making Wasp's Bomb Sting

Part 5: Taking a Deep Dive into Containers

 

It is I, NoDestroyWithTurret. I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

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Through festivities... and boredom... From the lowest rank to the highest battle fund, I fought them, the tankers of the other team. Until at last, I threw down my enemies and smote their ruin upon the Rio beach. darkness took me. And I strayed out of thought and time. V-Logs wheeled overhead and every patch note was as long as a life-age of Tanki Online. But it was not the end. I felt interest in me again. I have been sent back, until my task is done.

^{Me, circa January 17th, 2020 (colorized)}

In late 2019, I found myself getting rather burnt out. I was progressing slowly, and though I had maxed out the micro-upgrades on my equipment, it was to be a long time before I reached the rank at which I could obtain higher modifications. I finished the new years' celebrations and took a break.

When I returned three weeks later, I was thoroughly confused. Everyone was making a big hubbub over "Mk7" equipment, and I had to investigate. First, I asked a couple of buddies of mine, but I couldn't get a straight answer through all of the incoherent babbling about crystals and rankups. Then, I thought "well, it'll all be explained in the wiki page for updates." But alas:

My only remaining course of action was to actually open up my garage and check, which of course is a far more drastic plan than any I had originally envisioned. Nonetheless, it proved successful.

What did I discover? My maxed-out M0 equipment had become stock Mk3, and by maxed out M1 Mammoth had become ... had become ... *drumroll please* ... wait for it ... I know the suspense is killing you but just wait a second longer and the reveal will be so much more dramatic ... Mk5! That's right. I had in my possession a Mk5 hull at a rank that everyone else had only unlocked Mk2. It was time to press this advantage that my Micro-upgrading had bought me.

 

 

WHAT I'M USING

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Okay, let’s see what we’re working with... Woah- Nice hull. Massive, but not too unstable. Perfect HP. A nice tall profile. Could increase the speed a bit, but we’ll work on it. Yep... I’d say that’s a pretty nice hull. I rate it... 8.5 / 10. Good job, kiddo.

As it currently stands, my Mammoth is at Mk5-4. That gives it a whopping 3212 HP, a not-so-whopping 5.61m/s top speed, and a whole lot of weight and power. It's pretty good for catching gold boxes, and fantastic for anything that requires surviving a constant rain of enemy fire. 

Currently, my (rather optimistic) plan is to max out Mammoth by the end of Warrant Officer 5. Though it'll cost me 82740 crystals that I currently don't have,* the raw power of such a well-upgraded hull will be astounding. Which is good, considering my turret isn't doing much to protect it from my opponents.

_{*In a manner of speaking. They're in my garage, but reserved for other pieces of equipment. I'll tell you all about it in the birthday/lockdown summary installment.}

 

And speaking of upgrades, here's a little knowledge knugget that somehow escapes a lot of tankers:

 Upgrades Tip #2^TM: The first micro-upgrade on any piece of equipment, at any modification, is incredibly cheap. Always MU at least one step!

 

Lastly, I rely on Mammoth's Overdrive, which is called the AT-Field, for most of my kills. When activated, it:

• Resets your HP to maximum
• Increases your Speed by 50% (stacks with speed boost) for 7 seconds
• Adds 3996 damage per second to your hull (with a small range outside the hull, not actually touching an enemy) for 7 seconds
• Cannot be deactivated unless the mammoth is killed.
• Cannot be protected against, even with supplies, drones, or Titan's dome

Pretty awesome, huh?

There are some drawbacks, though:

• It can be stalled for 3 seconds by Hunter's overdrive, and you'll lose your supplies
• Unlike wasp's bomb, it cannot be charged (except with Nuclear Energy) while it is activated. You'll finish with 0% charge, no matter how many kills you got.
• 7 seconds is a pretty short time - it's easy to waste this OD if you get stuck, blocked, flipped, frozen, or killed.

 

WHEN I'M USING IT

Wasp is my favorite hull. It's wicked fast and explosive. Recently, I've really started to enjoy Dictator. It's intimidating, and it's overdrive is the most altruistic in the game.

Mammoth? On the face of things, it seems like it doesn't fit into my "chase-teammates-to-heal" and "spring around completing game objectives" style of play. Nonetheless, it has its uses. They are:

• Being fat
• Allowing naps while driving during battle
• Getting in the way
• Watching golds drop from afar
• Chasing your 96-year-old grandmother down

Fantastic, eh? Seriously, though, here's what I use it for:

• Jug Hunting
  • Why? Though it's much easier to catch the Juggernaut with wasp, its hard to drop the bomb soon enough and discreetly enough that the juggernaut doesn't get away.
  • With Mammoth, I can corner the juggernaut and get a nearly-guaranteed kill with the 3996 DPS of the AT-Field.
  • Thanks to my Mk5ness, I can take a full salvo of Jug rockets and more, absorbing railgun shot after railgun shot as I inevitably approach the cowering enemy Jug.
  • Also thanks to my Mk5ness, if I become our team's juggernaut, the enemies' Mk2 turrets break upon my armor as water upon rock.
• Deathmatch
  • Spoiler

    

     

  • Yes, believe it or not, I do play in DM and Solo Juggernaut mode when they come up in an event. I'm not passing up those golds!
  • Mammoth's high HP allows me to survive happily in a corner, venturing out every 30 seconds to plant a mine and occasionally journeying to the nuclear box.
  • The AT-Field is perfect as a last-ditch defense and for mowing through enemies crowding around a gold.

I used to also use it for Siege and defending in Assault, but Dictator now seems to be the superior hull in those modes.

 

 

HOW I'M USING IT

I'm a simple man. I join a battle with mammoth, I press the forward key. By the end of the battle, sometimes I make it out of my base.

To be more specific, though, let's look at my typical Juggernaut battle with Mammoth.

1. As soon as I join, I check if anyone around me needs healing.
   • If they do, I hope that they see me because I'll never catch them otherwise.
   • If they don't, I tell them to wait for me in chat. When they ignore me, I try someone else.
2. I then drive straight to the nuclear drop zone.
   • The first box usually appears a little before the six-minute mark.
   • I plant a mine on the zone in case my box is contested by the enemy, or in case I live long enough for the next box to drop while I'm busy doing something else.
   • That reminds me! 
   • Mine Tip #2^TM: Plant mines on drop zones. They're almost guaranteed to get traffic, and if a box falls on top of it, it's invisible. Speed boost and double damage are excellent, and repair kit zones attract already-weakened enemies. Double armor zones are less than ideal. Nuclear zones are unpredictable, and Gold Drop zones are almost a guaranteed kill.
   • Ok, now that we've gotten that over with, I generally take the box. If I don't, by the time I respawn and heal a few teammates, by OD is about 70%, which is high enough to start hunting.
3. I begin the hunt for the enemy Juggernaut.
   • I use the word "hunt" loosely here. It's a very slow-motion approach.
   • I don't use any supplies until I can see the whites of its eyes tips of its barrels. Nothin sucks more than losing a juggernaut kill because my supplies were in cooldown, so I am patient and take the back route so that I don't need them until the big confrontation.
4. I trap the Juggernaut and charge
   • Ideally, the Jug doesn't know its trapped until it's far too late.
   • "Trapped" can mean really stuck, occupied with other enemies, or simply up against a wall. Anything that will prevent it from running away.
   • At this point, even if I've been seen, I start activating supplies. Usually, SB followed by DA followed by RK if its needed.
5. Juggernaut kill!
   • If I've gotten this far, it's pretty much over for the enemy Jug. It can't shoot me down; I have too much HP. It can't run; I made sure of that. And it definitely can't survive longer than a few of seconds once I start sizzling.
   • The only thing I have to worry about is overdrives - if an enemy activates an OD on me while I'm trying to get the Jug, I usually die or the jug escapes. 
   • I also have to be cautious of getting flipped or blown backwards. To avoid this, I sometimes feign a charge to get the Jug to activate the overdrive, and if I'm still on my tracks, then I activate mine and plow away.
   • Mammoth Tip #1^TM: Wait until the last possible moment to activate your Overdrive. You'll get the most out of the HP reset that way, and you'll waste your activation less often. 
   • There was one occasion that, thanks to the AT-Field's small range of effect outside of the hull (7.5 meters), I activated my overdrive, got flipped by the Juggernaut, and killed them anyway in midair. I should really take some videos of me playing sometime so I can catch epic stuff like that.
6. Rinse and repeat as often as possible.
   • With Mammoth, I usually get 1-2 Jug kills each battle, and I've gotten 3 on one occasion. Still trying for that elusive quadruple!
7. Heal my teammate's Juggernaut when they come close by.
   • "It ain't much, but it's honest work" - there are no extra points awarded for healing the Jug as compared to healing anyone else, and it takes much longer. It helps the team, though. Also, it keeps me close to the Jug, so if it does get destroyed, I'm usually next in line to take on that role.

 

 

________________________________________________________________

That's all i've got for you today! Tune in next time for a Grab Bag article - tasty tidbits on upgrades, glitches, augments, containers, and more!

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts and answer your questions.

NoDestroyWithTurret, signing off.

 

Edited July 18, 2020 by NoDestroyWithTurret
Linked to part 5

[Person_Random 4,991]

Approved.

Couldn't approve this earlier on mobile but managed to get this done now, and I'm excited to hear more. You've got a good stock of tips and stories that I am constantly waiting for to improve my terrible gameplay to bolster my impeccable game knowledge. I'm excited to see what else you've got in store. Keep it up!

Edits: minor punctuation and capitalization

[NoDestroyWithTurret 69]

Update: I added some more details on the AT-Field. I think the article feels a bit more complete now.

[JESUSaves2 98]

Bro did you ever read The Martian. The whole time i was reading your article i kept thinking about how your sense of humor and style of writing matched The Martian. Cool article btw.

[NoDestroyWithTurret 69]

48 minutes ago, JESUSaves2 said:

Bro did you ever read The Martian. The whole time i was reading your article i kept thinking about how your sense of humor and style of writing matched The Martian. Cool article btw.

I haven't! I want to, though. I'm a fan of sci-fi.

[Venem 615]

The humor in this piece is priceless... Too good!

The tips are excellent for someone like me, who gets the no-damage bug (the turret can't deal damage, but Mines, Mammoth OD, and Wasp OD can) very often!

Great work, @NoDestroyWithTurret @NoDestroyWithTurret! (had to ping both... you might wanna PM @Maf and get these merged)

[NoDestroyWithTurret 69]

10 hours ago, SHREYA88 said:

The humor in this piece is priceless... Too good!

The tips are excellent for someone like me, who gets the no-damage bug (the turret can't deal damage, but Mines, Mammoth OD, and Wasp OD can) very often!

Great work, @NoDestroyWithTurret @NoDestroyWithTurret! (had to ping both... you might wanna PM @Maf and get these merged)

Thank you! I'm glad its helpful.

That is weird that there's an empty duplicate profile. I'll check it out.

[Viking4s 10,791]

LOL, nice guide on Mammoth OD. Funny and full of wiseness. 
You should have remind your reader somehow somewhere that you are using isida and not using your turret to kill. It sounds obvious to you but if someone just started your story with this chapter he would be lost.
Mammoth is a good tool to kill Jugs, However they are too easy to spot. When they come to your base you know what they have in mind. It is clearly more dangerous when the Jug visite the enemy base.  If a hunter is around it is even better.

Really good tips, they are quite easy to spot in your text.

Yes, please do make an epic video of you killing a Jug with Mammoth.

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I don't use any supplies until I can see the whites of its eyes tips of its barrels. Nothin sucks...

You striked one word too far. and you miss the g at the end of "Nothing".

Edited July 16, 2020 by Viking4s

[NoDestroyWithTurret 69]

On 7/13/2020 at 2:32 PM, Viking4s said:

LOL, nice guide on Mammoth OD. Funny and full of wiseness. 
You should have remind your reader somehow somewhere that you are using isida and not using your turret to kill. It sounds obvious to you but if someone just started your story with this chapter he would be lost.
Mammoth is a good tool to kill Jugs, However they are too easy to spot. When they come to your base you know what they have in mind. It is clearly more dangerous when the Jug visite the enemy base.  If a hunter is around it is even better.

Really good tips, they are quite easy to spot in your text.

Yes, please do make an epic video of you willing a Jug with Mammoth.

You striked one word too far. and you miss the g at the end of "Nothing".

Thanks! Those are some good points.

[E_polypterus 2,374]

Great entertaining article, was very fun to read