Free-to-play. What, if any, are the options?

[wolverine848 13,097]

8 minutes ago, TheCongoSpider said:

Mammoth has 100% protection against mines during the Overdrive. It is a potent counter to Saboteur and Miner drone users. 

 

Ah... is that relatively new - when hey gave it some buffs?

Bought mk6 mammoth on this account and I'm gonna troll enemies with Trickster and EMP smoky.  May not get top-3 but it's pretty funny.

Edited January 25, 2022 by wolverine848

[alkyng 3,080]

The fact is Mammoth immunity from mines is for Parkour players, not in a sort of balancing or for MM.

Yes it annoy me in MM, but the biggest effect is in Parkour battles. Parkour battles are always active and there is 10/10 Silence for more than a battle (most of the times).

Look how much Mines this player used for Parkour ..

Spoiler

 

[TheCongoSpider 8,943]

40 minutes ago, wolverine848 said:

Ah... is that relatively new - when hey gave it some buffs?

9th July, 2021 was when they gave it 100% mine protection. 

 

40 minutes ago, wolverine848 said:

Bought mk6 mammoth on this account and I'm gonna troll enemies with Trickster and EMP smoky.  May not get top-3 but it's pretty funny.

Yes it is a potent minefield destroyer especially with Trickster or Crisis. 

[wolverine848 13,097]

42 minutes ago, YANUKFIN said:

This is very true as well, unless said miner has a boat load of mines down, then mammoth is also screwed big time, overdrive or not.

I play mammoth a lot and its "immunity" is good at dealing with mines up to a point, but worse than useless against sustained counter fire even from 1 turret if no protection module is forthcoming. Having said all that with all the stuns, emp, etc on display mammoth does not fare well out in the open as its size would suggest, rather weak really.

Haven't capped yet (every stinking map so far has been on the large end) but I must have killed about 70+ tanks in the 4 battles I played.

[TheCongoSpider 8,943]

43 minutes ago, YANUKFIN said:

This is very true as well, unless said miner has a boat load of mines down, then mammoth is also screwed big time, overdrive or not.

I play mammoth a lot and its "immunity" is good at dealing with mines up to a point, but worse than useless against sustained counter fire even from 1 turret if no protection module is forthcoming. Having said all that with all the stuns, emp, etc on display mammoth does not fare well out in the open as its size would suggest, rather weak really.

Mammoth has status immunity and mine damage immunity during the Overdrive. How are you being stopped by status effects and mines during that?

[DestrotankAI9 1,513]

1 hour ago, YANUKFIN said:

Forget brutus, (my personal opinion is that it is useless, hence it is cheap) go for trickster straight away as soon as you can get it. Brutus will only drain your crystal resources which you will need for more substantial equipment.

No way, I don't think this is good advice. You say a lot of other good things but I think pretty much everyone will agree that ever since the update that linked drone upgrade level to the power of your supplies (and since Brutus had its cost and time to upgrade dramatically reduced), buying and upgrading Brutus drone is the first thing you should do - on any account. And by upgrade, I mean upgrade it step by step with no speed ups (which takes about 2 weeks or so). Unless you are a big buyer you WILL need Brutus drone - even at Legend - because especially after the latest update you WILL run out of batteries - and then without Brutus you will be cannon fodder.

But for new players, the most important thing is to get supplies up in power level as fast as possible and for a cheap price - and Brutus achieves that. You can get up to max power Boosted Armor and Boosted Damage very fast, and for only 100k - you won't have time or crystal to upgrade other drones if you are playing daily, without buying. You will end up at high rank with a drone on only 10/20 upgrades, and have spent so much on it that you will be badly lacking in turret and hull upgrades, and modules.

100k crystals on Brutus is not much compared to other drones - and it is an investment that is not only good at the start, but also useful at Legend too. When I use Brutus at Legend I can top leaderboards with it (not always), but of course that is also because I have a strong garage too. However to do well at high ranks usually, you will of course need other drones, but at low ranks you simply do not have the crystals to get protections/turrets and hulls and another maxed out drone - plus let's not forget that maxing out any drone other than Brutus takes a very long time, and you will be ranking fast. So there is no reason not to get and max out Brutus, and then you can use that until you get other, better drones.
 

50 minutes ago, wolverine848 said:

Ah... is that relatively new - when hey gave it some buffs?

Bought mk6 mammoth on this account and I'm gonna troll enemies with Trickster and EMP smoky.  May not get top-3 but it's pretty funny.

The buff to Mammoth to give it mine immunity was one of the few good updates - Mammoth suffered a lot from mines, as since you have to charge in at the closest possible range to deal damage (plus Mammoth's large profile), you either had to waste time trying to dodge mines and die from enemy fire, or take a lot of damage from mines and then die soon after. The other upside is that all 3 heavy hulls actually have overdrives that can counter mines, making them useful with Trickster drone in CTF - but Mammoth's counter is by far the best.

Mammoth-Trickster and EMP Smoky is more than just good, and you will get top-3, or top-1. I have been using it quite a bit lately and it is an awesome combo right now, absolutely deadly. On small maps in capture modes (as with the screenshot I posted), it is devastating, but actually it is good in all modes. As I mentioned somewhere in my (rather long) posts here, I sometimes change to Defender drone in Siege (where you need to sit a point tanking shots), or for TDM (to get a better k/d ratio), but in general Mammoth/Trickster and EMP Smoky is an awesome and fun combo (apart from, for my enemies of course, lol).

Oh and another thing - if you hate Paladin then activate your overdrive when you are just out of range of theirs - and ram into them to get rid of those pesky Paladins :) Or even better if you have Jammer immunity like me, you can activate it even up close - the perfect counter.

Edited January 26, 2022 by DestrotankAI9

[qwds 185]

51 minutes ago, YANUKFIN said:

This is very true as well, unless said miner has a boat load of mines down, then mammoth is also screwed big time, overdrive or not.

I play mammoth a lot and its "immunity" is good at dealing with mines up to a point, but worse than useless against sustained counter fire even from 1 turret if no protection module is forthcoming. Having said all that with all the stuns, emp, etc on display mammoth does not fare well out in the open as its size would suggest, rather weak really.

I kinda wish that the heavy hulls had some way to really use their health in battle, like if it was constantly healing itself at some rate that's balanced, so it can do what that description about it says, "a vulcans gun is like a tickle that can be ignored, it can take so much damage it can stand out in the open and fight several tanks at once".

The reality is that until Mk7 it has slightly less than 1/3rd more health than the medium tanks - enough for 2 more smoky hits. It can hardly be used in the way the description makes it sound.

I haven't played much Tanki at all, but so far, I think mammoth is a good hull with long ranged turrets, especially shaft, where you can sort of carefully control how much damage you get, by using covers and staying in the distance, and then heal yourself with the overdrive, which means you can sort of "trade" getting damaged for damaging the enemy, and with the overdrive charging at a fast rate you have a lot of constantly restoring health to do that with.

Edited January 26, 2022 by qwds

[wolverine848 13,097]

7 minutes ago, DestrotankAI9 said:

Mammoth-Trickster and EMP Smoky is more than just good, and you will get top-3, or top-1.

It's only mk6 and my only decent Hull augment is cold immunity - so it is quite vulnerable until I hit OD.

Made it top-2 once though.

But crappy luck on map selection... Kunger, Brest, Massacre, etc.  Will likely perform better when on smaller maps and I don't spend half my time travelling.

[wolverine848 13,097]

5 minutes ago, qwds said:

I haven't played much Tanki at all, but so far, I think mammoth is a good hull with long ranged turrets, especially shaft, where you can sort of control how much damage you get by using covers and distance, and then heal yourself in time with the overdrive, which means you can sort of "trade" getting damaged for damaging the enemy, and with the overdrive charging at a fast rate you have a lot of health to do that with.

If you are using Mammoth OD just to get the extra healing that's a waste.

Better off using Dictator then as you get all supplies and extra score if anyone is near you.  Plus the supercharge.

[DestrotankAI9 1,513]

19 minutes ago, qwds said:

I kinda wish that the heavy hulls had some way to really use their health in battle, like if it was constantly healing itself at some rate that's balanced, so it can do what that description about it says, "a vulcans gun is like a tickle that can be ignored, it can take so much damage it can stand out in the open and fight several tanks at once".

The reality is that until Mk7 it has slightly less than 1/3rd more health than the medium tanks - enough for 2 more smoky hits. It can hardly be used in the way the description makes it sound.

I haven't played much Tanki at all, but so far, I think mammoth is a good hull with long ranged turrets, especially shaft, where you can sort of carefully control how much damage you get, by using covers and staying in the distance, and then heal yourself with the overdrive, which means you can sort of "trade" getting damaged for damaging the enemy, and with the overdrive charging at a fast rate you have a lot of constantly restoring health to do that with.

I wish I could show you a video of how I use Mammoth, but unfortunately I can't record videos with my PC :( I don't really watch any Tanki videos, but perhaps @TheCongoSpider knows some videos showing good use of Mammoth's overdrive? You can certainly sit back and use Mammoth just for its heal option, and I suppose with its high health it is a reasonably good option if you are wanting to camp. However, it is definitely capable of a lot more than that - but as I say a lot of the offensive potential of Mammoth's overdrive increases at higher ranks, when you get access to Trickster drone, or even to Defender which will give you more survivability.

It is certainly true that the Heavy hulls don't always last long these days, as far as I know in the past they actually used to have more health relative to medium hulls than they do now - so the descriptions might have made more sense back then. Also, we didn't have status effects and drones back then (or even overdrives), so players probably lived a bit longer since you couldn't get EMP'd or AP'd etc - or hit by a Viking with overdrive or something.

At higher ranks, if you get high gearscore and use drones like Defender or Lifeguard with heavy hulls (and if you have strong modules), you may start to feel a bit more "tanky" with heavy hulls. The ultimate "damage absorber" in the game is actually probably TItan with the AP Immunity hull augment- if you are within Titan's dome, and you have AP Immunity - AP effects can not remove your protection, and unless the enemy uses an overdrive such as Wasp Bomb to counter your dome, you will be almost impossible to kill during your overdrive.

But in general in Tanki, apart from that one last example - being able to take a lot of damage comes from having high gearscore, rather than using a certain type of hull. Big buyers with 50% armadillo module (critical protection module - obtained from Ultra Containers), 3 other maxed out modules - a full set of hull immunities and everything maxed out, will be able to take more damage even when using a light hull, than a low gearscore player will using a heavy hull. That is the way Tanki is, unfortunately. But as a free player, you can also get up to a strong garage eventually - but it takes a long time.

Edited January 26, 2022 by DestrotankAI9

[qwds 185]

26 minutes ago, DestrotankAI9 said:

 

I guess that's the deal with playing a F2P game, the way it's designed and the need to progress for it to get more enjoyable, etc.

I might keep at it regardless, I still like it for camping.

Hey @TheCongoSpider , sorry for the notification but it was mentioned that you might know of some good videos that shows how to play well with mammoth. Would you please like to share them? I would be very grateful :)

Edited January 26, 2022 by qwds

[TheCongoSpider 8,943]

18 minutes ago, qwds said:

Hey @TheCongoSpider , sorry for the notification but it was mentioned that you know of some great videos that shows how to play well with mammoth. Would you please like to share them? I would be very grateful :)

I don't have any F2P videos of that, unfortunately. There is, however, a channel that gives some Mammoth gameplay with top drones and augments by tanker DaringDeer. Those top drones being Trickster and Crisis which allow you to reach high top speeds not possible with other drones. Here is one video. 

 

 

 

[alkyng 3,080]

22 minutes ago, TheCongoSpider said:

 

Sorry for off-topic, but look how MAMMOTH with crisis 2:16 was easily about to flip. Now imagine it with Hornet..  (even worse).   And people assumes " Crisis is OP with Hopper not because Hopper or Crisis are OP *but they magically integrated* "   Hovering smoothly and unflipability was the MOST thing that made that combo OP.

Edited January 26, 2022 by asem.harbi

[qwds 185]

1 hour ago, TheCongoSpider said:

I don't have any F2P videos of that, unfortunately. There is, however, a channel that gives some Mammoth gameplay with top drones and augments by tanker DaringDeer. Those top drones being Trickster and Crisis which allow you to reach high top speeds not possible with other drones. Here is one video. 

 

 

 

Thanks for the reply :)

The game looks fun at the higher ranks, if you have a lot of supplies, and such drones. Maybe worth striving for as a F2P player.

[alkyng 3,080]

13 minutes ago, qwds said:

The game looks fun at the higher ranks, if you have a lot of supplies, and such drones. Maybe worth striving for as a F2P player.

You can't strive for a certain thing you want "as a F2P player", depends on your luck you may get Crisis, or an OP augment you don't strive for.   Maybe I get Crisis while I'm not striving for, but you don't get it while you're striving for.

Edited January 26, 2022 by asem.harbi

[Abellia 504]

5 hours ago, YANUKFIN said:

although for the first couple of seconds it takes very little damage from anything

What? All it gets is a full heal upon overdrive activation, and then for the full duration it gets status immunity, invulnerability to mines, an overdrive disabling field, and a speed boost. There's nothing that's only active for the first couple seconds.

[YANUKFIN 493]

6 hours ago, TheCongoSpider said:

Mammoth has status immunity and mine damage immunity during the Overdrive. How are you being stopped by status effects and mines during that?

Like i said true enough, but its overdrive does not give you immunity for the whole duration of the overdrive. Try it and see for yourself. Like i said it is for a heavy hull overdrive or not, very weak. 

[Dopamine 2,161]

4 hours ago, asem.harbi said:

You can't strive for a certain thing you want "as a F2P player", depends on your luck you may get Crisis, or an OP augment you don't strive for.   Maybe I get Crisis while I'm not striving for, but you don't get it while you're striving for.

I got crisis some time ago, not using it though, as it isn´t eco-friendly .

[YANUKFIN 493]

8 hours ago, DestrotankAI9 said:

you won't have time or crystal to upgrade other drones if you are playing daily, without buying. You will end up at high rank with a drone on only 10/20 upgrades, and have spent so much on it that you will be badly lacking in turret and hull upgrades, and modules.

It all depends how you play the game. I did state patience as being a key factor, meaning not playing until you are at full strength or very close to it, to minimise the canon fodder scenario.

 

8 hours ago, DestrotankAI9 said:

, but also useful at Legend too.

I really disagree on this point "LEGEND" with brutus is a joke. Not having a go at players with this drone because i no F2P can only do so much, but brutus at the high ranks is just not happening. 

 

8 hours ago, DestrotankAI9 said:

So there is no reason not to get and max out Brutus, and then you can use that until you get other, better drones.

Would normally agree with you on that, if brutus wasn't so useless. You will not convince me that brutus is a worthwhile investment, because it's not.

 

8 hours ago, DestrotankAI9 said:

But as a free player, you can also get up to a strong garage eventually - but it takes a long time.

Quite the understatement.

 

8 hours ago, qwds said:

I still like it for camping

In todays OP, gimmicky tanki, that is a very smart move.

 

7 hours ago, TheCongoSpider said:

I don't have any F2P videos of that, unfortunately. There is, however, a channel that gives some Mammoth gameplay with top drones and augments by tanker DaringDeer. Those top drones being Trickster and Crisis which allow you to reach high top speeds not possible with other drones. Here is one video. 

 

 

 

 This was a very good representation of how well you can do in battle, IF you are a heavy buyer and have a good team around you. 

Crisis, mammoth, armadillo, maxed out everything with vampire isida is a lethal set up. Mammoth made a couple of poor choices, but in the heat of battle we never get it right all the time. All in all mammoth played well and managed to get a gold without jeopardising the teams chances of victory, although the win was never in doubt.

I did notice that this is not a up to date crisis as mammoth was getting max speed, armour, by picking up drop boxes, this no longer applies after the nerf to crisis which i thought was unfair and not needed. This is what an endgame buyer can do to lesser players. The only way to counter this type of player (team) is with players with the same skill level (and smarts) and maxed out garage with lots of augments. Enjoyed the vid, was nice to see a player with skill and intelligence use a combo to its fullest effect, buyer or not. 

[YANUKFIN 493]

6 hours ago, qwds said:

The game looks fun at the higher ranks

Do not let this one vid by a good switched on player who buys for fun (money is no problem) fool you. High ranked battles are full on bloodbaths loaded with OP gimmicks and if you are not a buyer you will suffer greatly and be wiped out on a very regular basis. Only when you have eventually maxed your garage along with a few OP augments will you be able to compete. Of course by the time you do max it out TANKI will have moved on by about a factor of 10, ergo you will be back to square 1 getting wiped out. My advice, do your best and enjoy the low ranks as much as possible, because when you reach LEGEND as a F2P you will see the true colours of tanki and its not 1 of these  but more like this . 

[YANUKFIN 493]

4 hours ago, Abellia said:

What? All it gets is a full heal upon overdrive activation, and then for the full duration it gets status immunity, invulnerability to mines, an overdrive disabling field, and a speed boost. There's nothing that's only active for the first couple seconds.

Its ability to survive intact for the whole duration of its overdrive is a fallacy, after a couple of secs it does not do as well as you think and gets taken out just as quick as anything else going up against all the OP gimmicks that infest most battles. Believe what you want, i no differently, i use mammoth.

[Dopamine 2,161]

2 hours ago, YANUKFIN said:

I really disagree on this point "LEGEND" with brutus is a joke. Not having a go at players with this drone because i no F2P can only do so much, but brutus at the high ranks is just not happening. 

Played a random battle to get a pic for you :).

Brutus and no premium augments used here.

You can absoutely use brutus at legend and win a majority of your battles if you know how to choose your equipment correctly.

I am f2p (spend 3€ on the game in total, to be precise xD), and play brutus only. so there you go, brutus at high ranks is happening :D.

[YANUKFIN 493]

6 minutes ago, frederik123456 said:

Played a random battle to get a pic for you :).

Brutus and no premium augments used here.

You can absoutely use brutus at legend and win a majority of your battles if you know how to choose your equipment correctly.

I am f2p (spend 3€ on the game in total, to be precise xD), and play brutus only. so there you go, brutus at high ranks is happening :D.

Fair point against low G/S players. Try that against proper legends and you lose big time. Check out the video congo posted and tell me how you would do against the team that won. Like i said, brutus is not happening, not against that team. Without seeming brutal you would not have enough time to do much and the 38 kills you got would need divine intervention to achieve. In your battle you won and came top, so congrats for that.  

[Dopamine 2,161]

2 hours ago, YANUKFIN said:

Fair point against low G/S players. Try that against proper legends and you lose big time. Check out the video congo posted and tell me how you would do against the team that won. Like i said, brutus is not happening, not against that team. Without seeming brutal you would not have enough time to do much and the 38 kills you got would need divine intervention to achieve. In your battle you won and came top, so congrats for that.  

My opponents there weren't low GS by any means. In fact my team was at a slight gs disadvantage.

Of course, if you go solo against 4 players 9999gs battle group you're going to lose most fights, but that's not the point. In such battle a better drone wouldn't be of much help either.

I understand what you're trying to say, I just wanted write this for the inexperienced players that might be reading this, so they don't get the impression they need to be reliant on better drones once they reach higher ranks.

Edited January 26, 2022 by frederik123456

[DestrotankAI9 1,513]

5 hours ago, YANUKFIN said:

It all depends how you play the game. I did state patience as being a key factor, meaning not playing until you are at full strength or very close to it, to minimise the canon fodder scenario.

 

I really disagree on this point "LEGEND" with brutus is a joke. Not having a go at players with this drone because i no F2P can only do so much, but brutus at the high ranks is just not happening. 

 

Would normally agree with you on that, if brutus wasn't so useless. You will not convince me that brutus is a worthwhile investment, because it's not.

Alright hold up here. In your original post you said that players should get Trickster and MU it to 10/20 instead of Brutus. Now really?

Trickster is available at MAJOR GENERAL (rank 24), and Brutus is available at CORPORAL (rank 4) - so you are seriously suggesting that players should struggle along up to Major General, with NO DRONE, just for the sake of not spending 100k crystals on upgrading Brutus? Not to mention that, as a F2P, you WILL run out of batteries to use any drone other than Brutus, even sometimes at Legend, so having a fully upgraded Brutus is absolutely essential for a free player, at every rank. So you may as well get it to start off with. You talked about having "patience" and so on - well if you play very, very little, there are ways that you can keep up a good battery count as a free player, but most players will want to play at the very least, daily missions, and in that case you absolutely need to get Brutus from the start.

The only other option, other than upgrading Brutus, is to buy one of the other drones available at the early ranks instead. But even Engineer/Driver/Trooper cost 500k (and take 3 months) to fully upgrade, and the others cost 1 million crystals and take 6 months to upgrade. None of those drones are worth spending that amount of crystals on, certainly not as your first drone anyway - there are better drones available at higher ranks, and it will take far too long to upgrade them before they become useful. Not to mention as I said, you WILL run out of batteries, and then you will be left with no drone at all - if you stubbornly refuse to take the easy option of getting Brutus.

So for a free player who wants to regularly complete daily missions - you have to get Brutus and upgrade it as a priority, there is absolutely no question of that. This is the best decision you can make, and to say otherwise is to give new players awful advice.
 

2 hours ago, frederik123456 said:

Played a random battle to get a pic for you :).

Brutus and no premium augments used here.

You can absoutely use brutus at legend and win a majority of your battles if you know how to choose your equipment correctly.

I am f2p (spend 3€ on the game in total, to be precise xD), and play brutus only. so there you go, brutus at high ranks is happening :D.

 

5 hours ago, YANUKFIN said:

I really disagree on this point "LEGEND" with brutus is a joke. Not having a go at players with this drone because i no F2P can only do so much, but brutus at the high ranks is just not happening. 

Nice playing @frederik123456 :) . You are right @YANUKFIN that Brutus users are at a disadvantage at Legend, but as you can see doing well with Brutus at Legend is very possible. I also have played many battles were I came top of the leaderboard at Legend with Brutus drone, but I didn't keep track of which screenshots were of me using Brutus. Many other players in this forum have also.

The fact is that when you run out of batteries at Legend you NEED to have Brutus, quite simple. And you can do OK with it - but not against 9999 buyer groups of course, but if you find yourself in a match with only one of two buyers on the enemy team, and the rest of let's say middle - high gearscore free players, you will be able to do OK.
 

7 hours ago, YANUKFIN said:

Like i said true enough, but its overdrive does not give you immunity for the whole duration of the overdrive. Try it and see for yourself. Like i said it is for a heavy hull overdrive or not, very weak. 

Mammoth is now extremely good with Trickster drone - try it again. It has been buffed a lot. I am using Mammoth Trickster a lot now and topping many battles, in small maps in CTF also it totally destroys since it can also walk through minefields without taking any damage, killing along the way. It has total immunity from mines for the overdrive duration, I have used it many times and I know that to be true.
 

13 hours ago, TheCongoSpider said:

I don't have any F2P videos of that, unfortunately. There is, however, a channel that gives some Mammoth gameplay with top drones and augments by tanker DaringDeer. Those top drones being Trickster and Crisis which allow you to reach high top speeds not possible with other drones. Here is one video. 

 

 

 

Thanks @TheCongoSpider :) I was thinking DaringDeer might be a good one, after I posted. I knew you sometimes watch Russian youtubers and so on, so thought you might know lol. Of course for @qwds, this particular player is using the Crisis drone. As a free player unfortunately, Crisis consumes too many supplies to be useable. I also have Crisis but I can not afford to use it. However, thankfully you can achieve similar results with the Trickster drone, which is cheaper to run.

Edited January 26, 2022 by DestrotankAI9