With launch behind us, we’re looking forward to the future in Spider Tanks! Today, we’ll talk about the next evolution of Tank Parts that will roll into the arena!
The Spider Tanks launch was a major milestone for both the community and team, but it’s far from the finish line. The game will continue to grow and evolve — offering fresh content, more explosive action and new exciting ways to play.
The battles we see in the arena today are fought with many veteran Tank Parts released during beta testing. In the future, however, these Generation 1 Tank Parts will no longer be available from the Spider Tanks store, and Generation 2 will soon begin.
The Garage of the Future
Many of the Tank Parts that you know and love may be available in Generation 2, but these Tanks will function a little differently than their current Generation 1 counterparts. Every Tank Part still plays a vital role in your strategy in the arena, but the premier Generation 1 Tanks offer some early access advantages that future Tank Parts won’t.
If you own Generation 1 Tank Parts, nothing will happen to the items in your wallet. These Tanks will soon be prized relics of a bygone age in the arena, and collectors and competitors alike will be glad to have these in their Garage.
With our Tanksgiving sale still going on a little while longer, it’s a perfect chance for Pilots to get their hands on another Generation 1 Tank from the Spider Tanks store before it’s too late! Soon we’ll release more information about Generation 2 items coming to the store.
The Generation Gap
Generation 1 Tanks are the height of engineering ingenuity in the arena, and can potentially offer their Pilots a serious advantage. While Generation 2 Tanks will be able to rise to the power of Generation 1 Tanks, it may be a longer road for some to get there.
Generation 2 Tanks will all start at level 0, regardless of rarity. This means that higher rarity Tanks will no longer come fully equipped with perfect upgrades to a certain level based on the rarity of the specific Part. Generation 1 Tanks potentially have a serious head start on climbing the ranks.
Generation 2 Tank Parts will also have different Victory Point potential from each win than their early counterparts. We’ll release more information on these in the future, but overall the Victory Points these new Tank Parts earn each day will be lower than Generation 1 Tank Parts. Upgrade costs for these new Tank Parts will be adjusted accordingly.
Higher rarity Tanks can still achieve higher VPs per win than their more common counterparts with Generation 2. VP per win is still highly dependent on upgrade level, however, so Pilots who hit the arena in these Generation 2 Tanks may need to put more work into refining their machine to realize their full potential.
Onward to the Next Battle
Spider Tanks is just getting started, and there are tons of challenges waiting in the arena in the months and years ahead. We can hardly wait to share more with you about what we have planned for Generation 2 Tank Parts and the future of Spider Tanks, but suffice it to say that launch was the beginning rather than the end of great things coming to the arena!
There’s still a little time left in our Tanksgiving sale to grab some great Generation 1 Tanks. Don’t forget to check out the Spider Tanks store to see what great deals are going on right now!
Alright Pilots, get yourself some scratch paper and let’s dive into the numbers behind battle rewards!
Battles in the arena are– in a way– their own reward. The thrill of victory, the smell of burning fuel… this is what true arena champions are all about, but Spider Tanks brings you rewards that go a little beyond the pure satisfaction of destroying your opponents.
Today, we’re going to dive into the Victory Point formula for battles and hopefully shed some light on the finer functions of the great machine that is the arena. This will let all Pilots plan out their entire rise to glory from their humble beginnings to their highest hopes of Tank Pilot glory.
The Victory Points (VPs) you could potentially win each match are influenced by a number of factors. Your Rank, the rarity and level of your Tank Parts, and how many battles you’ve already won using those specific Parts that day are the major variables in how many VPs you’ll rack up from each victory. Other factors– such as Honor– may also eventually affect your potential VPs.
Note: This is a snapshot of how the VP battle reward system currently works at the time of this article. Fun gameplay, balance and sustainability will always be priorities of Spider Tanks. If necessary, this formula may be altered in the future to better support those core goals.
Base VP Potential
Determining the amount of VP you could earn from each win starts with your base potential. This is a set number for each rarity and level to which multipliers are applied to reward you VP. Each Tank Part has an independent value for its potential VP… even if it’s a Hero Tank that was purchased as a package, all Weapons and Bodies are accounted for separately in VP calculations.
Weapons tend to have roughly 30% more VP potential from each win than Bodies of equal rarity and level. This is due to the original pricing disparity between Weapons and Bodies. As Weapons often define a playstyle more than Bodies, this also helps discourage players from swapping out Bodies only to augment VP without the work of mastering another Weapon in the arena.
The following charts represent the base theoretical maximum VP potential of each rarity/level Tank Part for a particular day. This is before any modifiers are applied for Rank or upgrade quality.
You’re welcome to pick through these numbers and check out what the potential for your specific build is, but even at a glance it should be obvious how important the level of any specific Part is in relation to VP potential. Once other factors are introduced, this base number will massively affect your overall VP gain from wins, as multipliers can make minor changes in your level more pronounced.
Starting Strong
Now that we’ve discussed the intrinsic VP potential of each rarity and level of Tank Part, let’s get into what factors influence that to arrive at the amount of VP you receive from each win.
First off, each win in a given day with a specific Tank Part will reward diminishing VPs. As we said earlier, the charts above are to indicate what the theoretical maximum is for a particular Part, but in reality you’ll continue to win diminishing amounts of VP indefinitely. The first few wins each day will give you a much larger share of VPs than your 19th and 20th.
By 5 wins in a day, you should be just shy of 50% of your Tank Part’s total theoretical potential. At 10 wins, you’ll have received around 75% of that total potential. By 20 wins, you’ve received right about 95% of all total VP you could possibly get from that Tank Part that day. You’ll never totally stop winning VP with any Part, but the amount you receive will continue to diminish exponentially as you win more and more.
Swapping out Tank Parts doesn’t have to be done at the same time to get your full VP. Each is factored separately then added together to give you your total VP from winning a match. If you’ve already won 10 matches on a Titan/Crossbow and you swap out the Crossbow for a Cannon you haven’t used that day but keep the Titan, you’ll be getting a fresh flow of potential VP from the Weapon, but your Body will still have the diminishing returns of 10 matches won.
Upgrade Quality
Every upgrade on a Tank Part randomizes several stats independently of each other within a range. The overall quality grade (Decent, Good, Great, Excellent, Perfect) is a generalized measurement of how high these rolls are rather than the factor that determines them. The best upgrades are called “Perfect”, but one Perfect may be slightly numerically better than another.
For VP calculations, the quality of all your upgrades up to level 30 is taken as a percentage measurement of how close to numerically perfect they cumulatively all are together. This is used to determine a multiplier between 1 and 2 applied to your base VP potential.
A level 0 Tank Part (or a Tank Part with the worst possible upgrades each level!) is 0% quality, so its multiplier would be 1. A level 30 Part with only absolutely mathematically perfect upgrades would be 100% quality, thus a multiplier of 2. It’s important to note that it’s incredibly unlikely any Tank Part will ever have a full multiplier of 2 in this calculation.
This crucially assumes 100% quality is 30 levels of totally mathematically perfect rolls. A level 15 Weapon with absolutely perfect rolls to that point would be 50% quality (15/30) and have a multiplier of 1.5.
Upgrade costs increase as you get higher, spread across all Components required by the specific Part. Weapons cost more to upgrade than equivalent Bodies, in line with their increased potential VP. At a different level for each Part and rarity, upgrades will begin to require Arachnium and will require increasing amounts until level 30. Epic rarity and higher Tank Parts will require Arachnium starting at the first upgrade, though they do start at a higher level.
Battle Ranking
Your overall Elo rating is the number behind that bar that fills up or drops down when each match ends. This number is used for matchmaking and Rank calculations and increases or decreases based on your wins and losses, but also on your performance in each match, how successful your opponents were in other matches, etc. Though at this scale and speed the system can seem complex, it’s something most people are very familiar with. It is the same basic ranking system used by most major sports leagues.
This Elo rating is also (at the time of writing this article) the only factor in VP calculation that does not rely on your specific Tank Parts. This one is all about you as a Pilot!
The multiplier from your Elo can be anywhere from .5 to 2 depending on your overall position among active players. The lowest Elo score in the game has a multiplier of .5– halving VP received from any win. The highest Elo score will have a multiplier of 2 — doubling VP received from any win. The vast majority of players will fall somewhere in the center of this spectrum, but increasing your rating relative to other players will always increase the multiplier applied to your VPs.
Adding It All Up
So now that we know what factors go into VP calculation, we can simplify it down to a pretty basic equation for how many VPs you’ll receive from your first win each day.
VP=(VPbase) x (Quality Multiplier) x (Elo Multiplier)
After the first win you’ll receive gradually less from each until a new day starts, but you can use the charts above to estimate what that base should be after you reach your win goal for the day.
The SILK distribution based on daily VP you win varies depending on a number of factors. More SILK spent within the Spider Tanks Ecosystem results in more SILK being distributed, whereas more SILK in circulation but not being spent results in less SILK being distributed daily.
This distribution is designed to gravitate around 1000 VP resulting in one SILK during that day’s distribution, but it could be higher or lower any given day depending on the factors mentioned above. This figure also depends on consistent spend in-game, and if users stop burning SILK, there will obviously be no SILK to be added to the remint quantity, reducing this number.
For Victory!
Knowledge is an important part of each battle in the arena, and hopefully this crash course in the math behind your battles lets you get an edge every time you get in the driver’s seat.
Remember, it’s all about victory at the end of the day! Knowing the systems running under the hood in the arena won’t do anything if you can’t triumph over your opponents. So get out there! Blow some stuff up and rack up some wins today!
We’ll be returning to dive into more numbers soon, so if you have any questions about this basic overview, shout them out in the comments below or let us know on Discord!
For this spotlight, we’re heading slow and steady towards victory with the Tortoise! This reptilian wrecker comes with the Blade Spinner– deadly from both near and far.
Welcome back to another edition of the Spider Tanks Showcase! This time we’re giving you a close up view on a community favorite and a serious force to be reckoned with in the arena.
This showcase is all about Tortoise. It keeps itself protected in combat with plenty of Armor, but it can also snap out of its shell at a moment’s notice to gobble up unsuspecting Tanks. Don’t underestimate this massive machine.
Tortoise isn’t as impenetrably Armored as Titan, but it still boasts more protection than nearly every other Body out there. The small tradeoff it makes in Armor compared to the biggest Tanks is made up for by a little extra Speed.
Tortoise also has a very respectable Energy– close to that of Nomad or Santa’s Slay. More maneuverability and the ability to use more Abilities means this Tortoise can adapt to situations far more effectively than a lot of other heavy Tanks in the arena.
The Hare’s Nightmare: Tortoise/Blade Spinner
A Tortoise isn’t just another heavy Tank Body with a cool, half-shell style. As a Hero Tank, Tortoise comes as a package deal with its signature Blade Spinner Weapon. This makes it a beastly build in the arena straight out of the box. Tortoise’s slow and methodical movements are complemented by Blade Spinner’s unique attack style and blindingly fast projectile speed.
The Blade Spinner launches out a single spinning blade of death that can be charged up to control its distance. They’ll zip out of your Tortoise’s mouth and decelerate as they rush towards the opponent, with their range depending on how long you charge your shot. Once they reach the max distance, they’ll slow down and turn about. They are just as deadly on the way back to Tortoise’s waiting maw as they were coming out. This not only means a Pilot that’s skilled at firing a Blade Spinner can hit another Tank twice with one shot, but means you can absolutely devastate your opponents if you fire perfectly to make the blade stop and reverse right on top of them.
Here you can see the team on the right trying desperately to take the Control Point and being hassled the whole time by the Tortoise’s Blade Spinner. Its range is so versatile, it can harass from a distance or fire short shots if needed.
It can take some Pilots a little while to get used to the very different feel of Blade Spinner… but opponents will also have trouble adapting to it! Especially in frenzied assaults, opponents exert so much effort dodging the shots coming from one side that they can often forget to look for what’s coming back at them from behind.
With a talented Pilot and some practice, there’s some absolutely crazy destruction you can make happen with a Blade Spinner!
Slow and Steady Wins the Brawl
Tortoise may be slow compared to most other Tanks, but with a Weapon that fires as far as Blade Spinner does, that can sometimes be an advantage. A Tortoise Pilot that’s well practiced with the Blade Spinner can snipe someone from behind the protection of other Tanks nearly all the way across the arena, but when pressed they can still be deadly at close range.
Blade Spinner’s projectiles shoot at much higher velocity than most other Weapons. With how fast blades spit out the mouth of Tortoise, an opponent may not even have a chance to dodge a full strength blade before it gets to them.
Shots taken right at an opponent could hit multiple times, but can be dodged much more easily since they slow as they approach. These big hits are worth it if you can reliably pull them off — A well placed direct hit could shred a Tank to scrap even from full Armor. You also have the freedom to blast the enemy at full power so they just can’t get out of the way though. Knowing how to use this versatility is the key to really excelling with Tortoise.
Here you can see a creep of Tortoises (yes, that’s really what a group of tortoises is called!) get pinned in by the enemy. The Tortoise with the Lava Launcher is able to blast enough projectiles to keep the enemy focused on its fire. Meanwhile the Blade Spinner Tortoise is able to place deliberate shots to eventually force the Shotgun Titan to flee and end the standoff.
A Blade Spinner won’t fire very quickly though, and with very long shots your projectile may be a long time returning to your mouth. This means it’s important to know your capabilities and time your shots right. A Tortoise with a Blade Spinner can be the bane of an opposing team in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing, but without practice you may miss too many opportunities to deal damage.
Tinkering with the Tortoise Combo
Both Tortoise and Blade Spinner are solid Tank Parts, and they can be used to great effect with other Parts in your Garage. Tortoise itself is a nice choice for someone who wants a heavy Tank with good Energy, but would rather have a little more maneuverability than the lumbering Titan and wants to avoid the more limited movement of a Tank like Nomad.
While it doesn’t move a lot faster than Titan, that little bit of extra speed makes a world of difference — especially when you’re up against another big hunk of metal. Its huge Armored shell is great at keeping it in one piece, which can give you a lot more flexibility in how you play your favorite Weapons.
This Tortoise opted to go with a Shotgun rather than a Blade Spinner. You can see how deadly this Tortoise gets when it’s turtled up in that center Control Point. With a close range Weapon like Shotgun or Flamethrower, Tortoise can withstand a lot of punishment while still having a lot more maneuverability than other big Bodies like Titan.
Blade Spinner with a different Body can be a lot of fun as well. With how fast and far it can shoot, imagine a tiny, zippy Tank like Flea firing spinning blades across the arena! No one in the arena is safe from a fast combo with a Blade Spinner like this, but it can be incredibly hard to have the precision that this Weapon requires while moving too fast. Most Pilots will find that a medium Body like Muzzle is a much better fit for a more mobile Blade Spinner build.
Some Tortoise Tanks are still for sale in the Spider Tanks Store! Keep an eye out, and you may even catch one on a daily Tanksgiving sale through the end of November!
The Glorious Tortoise
Squaring up across the arena from a Tortoise can be intimidating, but having one on your side could be a huge asset. This Tank isn’t easy to master, but hopefully this feature has given you some insight into how you can dominate the arena with this Hero Tank.
You haven’t heard the last of us here at the Spider Tanks Showcase! We’ll be back later this week with some festive holiday poultry, arena style. We don’t have any turkeys in the arena, but the people of the galaxy still tell the tales of the mighty chicken of old Earth– the greatest alpha predator the universe has ever seen.
That’s right! When we come back we’re going to have a discussion about the Alpha Executioner, and it’s going to be finger-lickingly explosive! Let us know your favorite strategies with this mighty bird in the comments below or in Discord… or you can always tweet a clip to us with the hashtag #STShowcase!
Welcome to your final Orientation Course. Today, we’ll tie everything we’ve learned together to help up your game in the arena.
Welcome to our final session of our introductory Pilot Orientation course. We ask that you refrain from arming any more missiles for the remainder of the class, and please withhold airstrikes on fellow Pilots until the lecture has concluded. Thank you for your attention.
Today we’re tying everything from our prior two Pilot Orientation classes together to help you become the best Pilot you can be. We’ll be breaking down how to upgrade and improve your Tanks, as well as how to advance through the ranks and what the benefits of higher ranks are.
At the end of this class, we’ll be diving back into team strategy now that you’ve gotten a crash course in everything else about piloting a Tank. Hopefully this gives you the groundwork for more advanced coursework, and so you can build on your skills with practice to become one of the greatest the arena has ever seen.
For Tank owners out there, upgrading your Tank Parts is the best way to get more power in the arena. There’s no reason you can’t go blow some stuff up at level 0, but the explosions will be much more satisfying at level 30.
You can upgrade Weapons and Bodies in the Garage by clicking the “Upgrade” button under any Part. This button will only appear under Tanks that are on Project Gyri rather than in a Treasure Chest or on the Ethereum Network.
Each upgrade cost is dependent on the current level of the Part and its rarity. Every rarity of Tank Part has a Component associated with it. Upgrading each will require the Component for that rarity as well as all those from lower rarities.
Common — Bolts
Uncommon — Scrap Metal
Rare — Chips
Epic — Hydraulics
Legendary — Engine
Ancient — Energy Core
Once any Part reaches level 17, every upgrade after that point will require a slowly increasing Arachnium cost as well.
Upgrading an Uncommon Tank Part will only cost Bolts and Scrap Metal (and Arachnium for level 18 or higher). The amount required to upgrade depends on how high level the Part already is.
Every Tank Part has a max level of 30. Each level is upgraded within a range of effectiveness. Though you can see the actual, specific numbers that an upgrade will add on the upgrade interface itself, it also grades the overall upgrade’s quality with a generalized score: Decent, Good, Great, Excellent, Perfect. These are a range it should be noted, so while all Excellent upgrades are better than Great, not all Excellents are equal.
You can reroll each upgrade offered to you using a fraction of the Component costs used for the upgrade itself. The increase to individual stats on an upgrade are all independently randomized, so it’s important to look at every reroll offered in depth. Sometimes, you may want to reroll to get only the best for your Tank, but occasionally you can end up with a great roll on a stat that’s the most important to you, but poor rolls on other stats that you find acceptable. Upgrading at any quality before the next battle is better than no upgrade at all, so prioritizing perfection strategically is important to grind up your Tank to the highest levels.
Outside of destructive power in the arena, the level of your Tank Parts directly influences their potential Victory Points per win. The base Victory Points any Part can win in a given match is determined by that Part’s level and rarity. Level dramatically increases this base amount, which also means that any multipliers applied to it will compound its increase in your overall total Victory Points for each win.
This upgrade gives this Rare Shotgun extra damage, range, and projectile speed, as well as reduced reload time. Jumping from level 22 to 23 would also increase its base potential Victory Points per win by around 20%!
We’ll dive more into the mechanics behind Victory Point calculations in more advanced materials in the future, but here are a few brief examples:
A Common Body or Weapon has nearly 100x the potential VP per win at level 30 than it does at level 0.
The same Common part will increase its base VP potential by over 11x from level 0 to 15, though at that point it is still only around 12% at the full potential of a level 30!
Upgrades cost more Components for an Ancient Part, but only two upgrades from level 28 to 30 for an Ancient Body would increase potential VP per win by around 600%.
At level 25 an Uncommon Weapon surpasses the potential VP per win of a Rare level 23 Weapon. If upgraded to 25, however, the Rare Weapon would then have around 25% higher potential than the equal level Uncommon Weapon.
In addition to upgrades affecting your base potential VP, each Tank Part is assigned a multiplier based on how close to perfect their upgrades are. The best possible upgrades each time all the way up to level 30 would result in a 2x multiplier applied to your VP from each win. Most Tanks will not have all perfect upgrades and will fall somewhere below this multiplier, depending on how close their upgrades are to mathematically perfect.
Rise to Glory
Through your glorious battles in the arena, you’ll gradually increase your rank– should you win more than you lose that is! As your rank increases you’ll get matched against more difficult opponents, and your potential VPs from each win will increase.
Each Pilot is assigned an Elo score based on their victories and defeats. How much your rank increases or decreases in each match depends heavily on the Elo score of your opponents relative to yours. Winning against lower ranked opponents won’t move you up the rankings as fast as victories against those with rank above yours. Likewise, losing to an enemy with a lower rank than yours will be the most painful for you Elo.
Fun fact: “Elo” is not an acronym, but is rather pronounced like “ē -ˈlō” in English. It was originally designed as a rating system for competitive chess by Hungarian physicist Arpad Elo.
Striving for higher ranks won’t just end you up with harder battles with no extra glory though! In addition to the multiplier assigned by the relative perfection of your upgrades, the VP you earn every battle is also amplified by your rank. This can up your VP multiplier anywhere from nothing to an extra 2x based on your Elo relative to all other players in the game.
Team Tactics: Advanced Course
This will be the final section of our Pilot Orientation. Now that you’ve had a chance to explore all the different game modes and the nuances of upgrading and rank, it’s time to take another look at how a three Tank team adds up to something far greater than the sum of the individuals with good gameplay and strategy.
A great team is one where everyone realizes that they need their allies. Every Tank has different strengths, and working together you can overcome any individual’s weaknesses.
Both this Hurricane and Bandit are in trouble on their own. Shotguns and Rocket Artillery are high damage, but can’t always stand alone easily. They get together to form a much tougher phalanx, and as a result are able to retreat to the relative safety of a Repair Zone placed by the Hurricane with the Rocket Artillery in back.
If you regularly play with the same Pilots then you know when they may need some covering fire or a well timed distraction. As you play more matches, you’ll get used to seeing this even in groups with random people. It doesn’t take a prior relationship with a Healing Artillery Titan to know that they’re in trouble when they’re being chased by a Muzzle with a flamethrower. Help your team! You need them in one piece!
This Shotgun Titan needs to dodge a grenade thrown at it. Rather than backing off, it uses a Relay Drone to teleport forward. This in turn provides cover and distraction for its buddy creeping up on the enemy while hidden by a Cloak Drone. The Shotgun stays in front and soaks up most of the damage, while the much more fragile Flea with the Flamethrower is protected enough to advance and immolate the enemy.
Keep in mind the game mode, however. If you’re playing Chicken Chaser and one of your teammates is desperately fleeing two enemies, think about leaving them alone and going back to gathering chickens! Unless that ally has a pile of chickens in their hands, they’re occupying two of the enemy with just one of them. This leaves a lot more chickens and room to wrangle them for your team.
The arena would be too simple if everything was a deathmatch. Some game modes you don’t even have to destroy another Tank ever to win. In modes like Capture the Flag or King of the Hill, it’s much more important to be coordinated with your team and stay strong together than to rack up kills. Enemies respawn, so knocking out one enemy at a time will only do so much, and a divided team is easy for the opponent to pick off.
This team has the flag, so they retreat back strategically to limit the directions that their enemies can come after them. Using the natural barriers of the arena, they are able to bunker where their attackers will have to approach without any cover.
Don’t forget to watch the movements of your team. Sticking close by each other can be great to exploit enemy weaknesses, but a well placed Grenade or Flamethrower blast will destroy you both. Stay in sync, but be aware of the tools the enemy team has to take advantage of your movements.
These two Tanks on the right side of the fray stay close together to protect their eggs from the enemy in Kill Confirmed. They know, however, that the Tortoise with the Flamethrower is packing a Relay Drone. They’re ready to split up at a moment’s notice to dodge the fire and regroup with the Tortoise left safely behind.
Last, don’t forget to communicate with your team. You don’t always have to be in voice chat to communicate clearly. Even just taking a moment at the beginning of a Poultry Pusher match to see who is staying with the payload and who is going to harass can be vital for victory.
Don’t forget, you can always talk to just your team by pressing “Y”!
You’ve Graduated Pilot Orientation
Congratulations. You’ve now made it through our rigorous three day training course, and you’re now fully qualified to battle in the arena with a multi-ton death machine. Please do not fire any chambered ordinance in celebration until the speaker has cleared the stage.
We’ll be back in the future to dive even deeper into the strategy of the arena, but first you’ve got to get out there and learn a thing or two yourself. Every match gives you better insight into the next battle, so get out there and learn! Hop in the driver’s seat and go experience the thrill of victory today.
We’re back again! This time we’re featuring the dreaded acid wielding assassin of the arena.
Welcome back to another Spider Tanks Showcase! We hope everyone out there is having a happy Tanksgiving, full of explosive victories in the arena for you and your squad.
Today, we’re taking a deep dive into a Hero Tank that skitters around the arena with a low profile, but packs a venomous sting. It may not be flashy, but Pilots beware… this Tank can cause serious damage with its acid projectiles. This Showcase is all about The Scorpion Tank!
Scorpion rides the middle of the road in its stat spread, trending towards a little more bulk than other balanced Tank Bodies. It’s slower and tougher than other Medium Bodies like Bandit, but also packs fairly respectable Energy. Compared to a high Energy Body like Nomad, Scorpion still runs a little behind, but it will definitely get around the arena faster without sacrificing much Armor.
The Acid Sting: Scorpion/Stinger
As a Hero Tank, Scorpion comes as a complete package with its signature weapon– The Stinger. As a medium Body with a pretty unique stat spread, Scorpion can be incredibly versatile in the Weapons it’s combined with and the strategies it uses. A Scorpion combined with its original Stinger, however, is especially deadly.
Stinger will fire single acidic projectiles at an enemy, causing huge amounts of damage followed by a slowing debuff and some moderate damage over time. The acid burn won’t tick away at enemies as much as an ignite from the Flamethrower or Lava Launcher, but if you can hit consistently, the enemy will be taking damage almost constantly.
The Scorpion here is able to nail the slow Titan with the Shotgun advancing on it repeatedly, melting away its Armor. The big Tank never even gets close enough to pose a threat.
Stinger only holds one round at a time, so precision is key with this Weapon. With a reload time nearly as fast as the Crossbow though, a deadeye Pilot can keep the short DoT debuff on an enemy perpetually. The arena gets chaotic, and with your high-damage, unassuming projectiles, many Pilots may not even notice they’ve been poisoned in the crossfire until it’s too late for them.
Vicious Venom
A Stinger has decent range, but typically a little shorter than other linear weapons not designed for close range. In a heads up match with a Cannon or Twin Guns, you may find yourself just out of reach at your opponent’s max range. Use the damage over time and the slowing effect of Stinger to your advantage. Take fewer shots and hit with more. Back away between shots while your opponent’s Armor ticks away, then skitter in for another opportunity.
Finding abilities that complement this style is key for many Scorpion Pilots to climb the ranks. An Ability like Speed Booster can give you that extra push you need to dodge , or you could pick Abilities that toughen you up when you need it most, like Reactive Plating or Shield Drone.
This Scorpion knows that it’s most effective at mid range, so it utilizes a Shield Drone to spray venom on enemies in a quick pass and get away unscathed.
Compared to a lot of other Bodies, Scorpion is pretty tough. You’ll be able to take a hit or two, so don’t get too frenzied in the heat of battle. The extra bulk of this Body will let you take your time and line up shots.
While your clip only holds one shot, you’ll reload just before the DoT expires from your enemies. This means that you can keep them constantly taking steady damage if you are persistent and precise with your shots. Even if the massive damage from your initial hit just barely doesn’t destroy the opposing Tank, they still have just over a half second of damage coming. In the meantime, the slow debuff helps you line up the perfect next shot.
Other Carapace Combos
While the Stinger makes a pretty perfect build alongside Scorpion, there may be some times that you want to mix it up with different combos. The Scorpion is a fairly balanced build with higher than average Armor and Energy, which actually makes it quite adaptable.
For Weapons that require precise shots, its steady speed can be an advantage. Tanks that are too fast are only adding to the relative speed of the moving target they’re shooting at. Many Pilots will find that the medium-heavy feel of a Scorpion is the perfect partner for Weapons where every shot counts, like the Cannon or the Blade Spinner.
This pair of Scorpions has taken different strategic routes. One is using Brambler to rain down debuffs on enemies from long range, while the other is using the good old Stinger to ensure everyone at mid range is poisoned and slowed.
Just like we discussed previously with the Muzzle Body, bodies that avoid the extremes on any of their stats can be incredibly versatile. Every time you run into them, you could be facing a totally different strategy.
With the right choice of Abilities, your Scorpion could boost up to be one of the fastest in the arena, or pack enough healing to stand toe to toe with the biggest Tanks. The middle is a pretty flexible place to be, and with its high Energy, Scorpion has a lot more chances to use Abilities to customize their playstyle than many other Bodies.
Scorpion Skills
Mastering the Scorpion Tank and Stinger may take some more work for Pilots used to more straightforward combos, but with how much damage this Hero Tank can do, it’s definitely worth the effort.
Stinger is a Weapon with a very unique and deadly playstyle, and the Scorpion Body itself is incredibly versatile– filling a medium/heavy, high Energy niche that many Pilots won’t find an alternative for in their Garage.
Next week, we’ll be diving into the slow and steady terror that launches blades of death all over the arena– Tortoise!
If you have clips of you kicking Tank and taking names with Tortoise, tweet them with the hashtag #STShowcase and we may feature your battle next week!
