Welcome back Pilots! We’re here with another Spider Tanks Showcase. This time, we’re getting sneaky. Stealth abilities are on display!
Too often stealth is an overlooked strategy in the arena. Let’s face it, the arena is a brute force kind of place… but
Stealth Abilities and Strategy Overview
As we discussed in our Movement Abilities showcase, positioning is one of the most important things in any Spider Tanks match. In that regard, stealth Abilities serve much the same purpose – Get better positioning without the opponent ruining your day.
Stealth Abilities, however, can serve a little more niche function than movement Abilities. At the end of the day, movement will just take you closer or further from your target. Stealth Abilities, however, throw in much more confusion. Stealth Abilities not only get you better positioning, but disrupt the opposing team’s coordination and their positioning.
Stealth is a little more nuanced than movement Abilities though. When you’re using a Relay Drone, you don’t really care what your opponents think or perceive… either way, you’re going to teleport. When you’re using stealth, however, you need to take into account what your actions look like from your opponents’ perspective. Deceit is part of the strategy, and if you pull it off it’ll have devastating effects on the opposing team.
A nice, slow moving body makes it incredibly hard to see your outline while cloaked. These two poor Tanks never saw it coming…
Silent Killer
Offensively, stealth Abilities can easily strike fear into opponents. The arena is already chaos, add in not knowing which direction death is coming from and it can be impossible for your opponents to feel safe.
Crucially, that’s part of the plan. In the early moments of a match, your enemies may not know that you’re packing Cloak Drone or a Smoke Canister. Once you’ve lost the element of surprise though, you still have the element of fear on your side. Your opponents will have to be wary of your stealth Abilities all the way through the match. Forcing them to think three dimensionally like this could force them to make a mistake at a critical moment.
This Shotgun gets to walk right up on these two wounded stragglers. It may not have fooled them for long, but I guess we’ll never know.
To capitalize both on surprise and fear, your first strike with deception needs to really count. Not only should you secure a kill or a serious positioning hiccup for the opposing team, you should make your target lose their confidence. If they spend one minute sweating being humiliated in front of their team, you may have already won. Get them out of their comfort zone and it’ll pay off for the rest of the match.
Fade Away
Stealth Abilities are a quick and effective offense if you know how to use them, but they can also be beneficial defensively. If you’re on the run a quick Decoy Drone may not fool the enemy for long, but it can easily make them lose a split second to decide which is which. If an enemy has you in their sights, a smoke canister is just as effective at helping you dodge bullets as it is at hiding you while shooting them.
This Carver doesn’t buy much time with their decoy, but it’s more than enough wasted flamer fuel for the Flea that it has no chance against the larger Tracks.
Even Disguise Drone or Cloak Drone can give you some time to get to safety. If you’re going through a large pack of enemies and you pop a Disguise Drone, you’ll be difficult to follow even for someone that was watching you disguise. A quick cloak when you have a minute where you know you won’t be shot may let you disappear in plain sight. True, they can still see a vague silhouette of your outline… but that’s much harder to follow than a big, showy, multiple ton hunk of metal!
It’s all about positioning and timing, and stealth Abilities let you use distraction and deception to get that few extra seconds here and there to unleash havoc. Defensively or offensively, they can be deadly in the hands of a master.
To dodge bullets, you need to be able to see where they’re coming from just as much as you need to see your quarry to shoot it. Your brain is capable of calculating those ballistics, but only with a point of origin… if the shot is coming from some ambiguous place inside the smoke, however, dancing around it is a lot harder.
Sneak and Destroy!
That’ll be all for today’s showcase, but there’s tons more to cover in the Spider Tanks arena!
Next time, we’ll be back with a Hero Tank showcase – The T-Rex! Have mad skills with this ancient predator? Let us know on Discord or social media for a chance to be featured in the next Spider Tanks Showcase!
Eternal Paradox Season 5 is well underway. How go your battles, Captain?
The first Conquest event of the season took place last weekend, with the top three spots being claimed by SquareXII, BTB-I and Eternals. Of course, there’s a lot of battle left in the season. Time will tell if these early leaders can hold their advantage through the next two Conquest battles.
Today we’ll set aside Conquest, however, and focus on another aspect of the fight for the Ring. The Arena is different from meeting on the field in a large set piece battle. Eight Mercenaries enter the Arena… no soldiers to hide behind, just two teams duking it out to see who is best.
Arena Overview
The Arena measures the strength of your Mercenaries, but also your battle tactics and persistence to achieve victory. Each Arena season lasts one week. You’ll have seven days to climb the leaderboard and improve your ranking.
As you win in the Arena, you’ll advance through five ranks – each with three tiers within them:
Silver
Gold
Platinum
Master
Legend
As your rank increases, so too will your rewards from each win and your eventual prizes at the end of the Arena season. While these ladder ranks boost your resource and Honor gains, what matters for Arena Victory Points is your rank versus other players.
You can always see your relative rank displayed on the front page of the Arena. At the end of each Arena season, players will receive AVP based on their final position. At the end of each full season of Eternal Paradox, players will receive $ETIME based on their AVP rank. 20% of the total seasonal ETIME reward goes to the Arena. The top finisher gets 15% of that portion of the seasonal prize, scaling down to .02% at rank 120.
Each battle costs one Arena Point, which can be refreshed through Arena Point items or by spending Diamonds to get additional points. 10 points will cost 500 Diamonds the first time each day, but each consecutive purchase will make the price go up.
When you win Arena battles, you will receive Honor Points. These can be spent in the Honor Shop to get Mercenary Gear rewards or Summoning Stones.
Arena Edge
The Arena relies mostly on the strength of your Mercenaries. This is your Mercenary’s overall stats, however, which can be boosted in several key ways:
Mercenary Level
Mercenary Rank
Skill Level
Mercenary Equipment
Mercenary Research
Awakening boosts
Rarity bonuses
Immortal Stats
Obviously, pumping up your Mercenaries and Mercenary Research is always a good policy to perform well in the Arena.
There are other ways to get an edge, though. Many of the other ways to boost your Mercenary stats for the Arena are frequently overlooked by players. These are a little bit harder to reach than the above, and it’ll take more grind typically to get less bonus. For the top of the leaderboard though, this kind of refining endgame stats is another crucial tool in their kit.
Land
One of the buffs that can be assigned to Legendary or Ancient Land is “Arena Mercenary Speed +10”. Speed is a very small stat typically, with 10 being comparable to a decent piece of Mercenary Gear.
With only four Mercenaries on the field, getting to take the first shot can be the difference between victory and defeat. Keep your eyes peeled for great land to park on and soak up some speed buffs.
Contribution
The “Mercenary” section of Mercenary Group Attributes contains big bonuses for your team. Contribution doesn’t come easy, however, so you’ll have to make some critical decisions about what to prioritize.
It is worth noting, however, that Mercenary Group Attributes can be refunded and respent easily. Maybe at those crucial points in the Arena it’s worth reallocating your points?
Titles and Skins
Certain titles and skins give boosts to large groups of Mercenaries. This will also affect their performance in the Arena, and even a little bit can be a lot of help.
These items don’t come around often, and you may have to work hard to get your hands on the best titles. If you can get them they’ll provide a welcome boost to your Mercenaries.
Collection
The Mercenary Collection can be accessed through the Tavern. Here you get to assign Mercenaries to certain pre-set groups based around a theme. When you complete a set you’ll receive a bonus. The size of the bonus depends on the Rank of the Mercenaries assigned.
There is only one Mercenary Collection currently available that influences the Arena… but it’s a direct boost to Mercenary Speed. As we’ve already stressed, the chance to strike first is potentially a huge advantage.
Fighting for Glory
The Arena is a different sort of test for a Captain, but great rewards await the victors!
Aside from the obviously nice prize of $ETIME based on your AVP at the end of a Season, you can also fight for the prestigious titles and skins awarded to the victors:
God of the Arena title: +5% Mercenary Attack, 1st place in AVP
King of the Arena title: +3% Mercenary Attack, 2nd or 3rd in AVP
Lord of the Arena title: +2% Mercenary Attack, 4th through 10th in AVP
First place in AVP will also receive the Dragon Castle skin for the next season, granting +5 Mercenary speed!
There are many rewards to be gained in the Arena… but you’ll never grasp them if you don’t get in there and do battle!
We’ll be back next week with a brief breakdown of the meta in the Arena, along with some tips on how to build a winning team. Until then, level up those Mercenaries and get after that leaderboard! There’s only two days left in this week’s Arena competition!
Abraham Ford’s entire life was about service. Service to his country, service to his family, service to those he chose to protect. There’s little room for celebration in the ruins of the old world, but it’s fitting that we honor Abraham Ford this week.
Abraham’s “departure” from AMC’s The Walking Dead was tragic… but he could live on. Will your empire give him the purpose he’s after?
Abraham Sale Details
The Abraham sale kicks off Friday, July 5th at 6pm PT. All rarities will be available in limited supply. Purchase any Hero Card to step into the combat boots of Abraham as you fight for survival.
The sale for these Hero Cards will continue until supply has run out, or the Card is removed in anticipation of new Hero Card releases. (Don’t worry: We’ll give plenty of warning before removing any Hero Cards.).
These Hero Cards fulfill directly to GalaChain and will be usable in game right away!
Abraham was always ready to serve a cause he believed in. He’s ready to serve your empire.
Deadland Scavenge
This week’s Deadland Scavenge event is just getting started. How is your position on the leaderboard looking?
Next week starts the Survival Stockpile event. Get crafting… your empire won’t build itself!
Salute the Survivors
True survivors are the ones who persist through adversity, just as Abraham never goes down without a fight. In your empire, he can continue his quest for a better future.
Stay safe out there, survivors. Build your empire strong. There’s more to protect against than just the walkers out here. Head over to The Walking Dead: Empires Store tomorrow to grab a Abraham Hero Card, then strap on your boots and build a new world together.
Welcome back to the Spider Tank Showcase! This week we’ll be taking a pretty sharp turn away from the pew pew of Crosssbow from last edition. This week we’re blasting through one of the bigger hunks of metal in the arena – The Maul!
Maul is a heavy Body, though it’s lighter than the biggest boys out there like Titan, Plate or Tracks. This large bulk provides you with an incredibly healthy amount of durability and Energy, but doesn’t slow your movement to a crawl like the biggest Bodies out there do.
The Warrior
Alright, we wanted to start off with originality… but we just can’t pass up the chance to revisit The Warrior build. Maul was, after all, originally released with the Bouncer. It’s a very classic combo.
The Maul’s bulk allows you to line up your shots a little better to get the best bouncy goodness. Since each ricochet with a Bouncer deals more damage than the last, shots that chain are the paydirt on this one.
Bouncy, bouncy, bouncy.
Maul gives you the maneuverability to make sure you can exploit weaknesses you spot while holding a Bouncer. It’s bulk lets you focus solely on getting your shot off, as you can easily shrug off a hit or two.
The Sentinel
This one is similar in theory to The Warrior, but utilizes the Sniper Rifle to get the most out of Maul’s toughness. Sniper Rifle is deadly from a distance, but lining up the right shot can occasionally leave you exposed.
With a Sniper Rifle, a heavy Body like Maul can easily occupy a choke point in the battle. Control access to part of the map, and you open up your allies to do all sorts of fun shenanigans. The point isn’t so much to not get hit… more to make them pay for wanting to hit you.
Long-range support doesn’t mean out of the action.
In the above clip, the Sniper Rifle has occupied a crucial junction just in front of the teleport. From here, its teammates are able to exercise control over the repair kit above and freely move around the map and only leave one quad where the enemy is safe.
The range on a Sniper Rifle is long enough, that no one can threaten the Maul for long. Even if they can, they have to be in the open to do so… and it only takes two or three clean shots to bring them down.
The Berserker
This last combo isn’t for every Pilot. For The Berserker build, we’ll use Maul alongside Carver. The bulk of Maul allows for you to shrug off the first few hits before your blade finds home, and the high Energy lets you play flexibly with Abilities like Relay Drone and Speed Boost.
You’re going to blow up a few times on this build… more than a few, in fact, while you learn to use it. Patience is the key. When you see your opening, zig and zag as you’re able to. Remember though, the zig towards your enemy. If you get hit a few times, that’s ok. Just kill them before they kill you.
Slice and dice time!
Maul is just heavy enough to ignore full frontal damage for a second or two. That’s often what you need to pin in the enemy with your sword. Keep them running from you. You want to be patient and wait for the right opening, but if you play scared you will lose. You’re a gigantic tank with a sword on top of it… they should be scared of you!
That’s Maul, Folks!
That’ll do it for our 25th edition of The Spider Tanks Showcase! Did we miss your favorite build with Maul? Did we choose one that you think is amateur hour? Let us know on Discord!
Next week we’re giving the Tank combos a rest for a bit, as we’ll dive into Stealth Abilities in the arena. Are you super sneaky? Have some good clips of your deceptive dominance? Let us know on Discord or social media for a shot to be featured in the next Spider Tank Showcase!
Welcome to July! It may be hot outside but we’re pleased to announce the coolest new item in the Gala Games store… VOX Land!
As we prepare for Project Cerberus, VOX’s upcoming game, community members have been FOMO’ing hard about VOX land, which will be one of the best ways to get into VOX rewards! So the team got together and came up with a straight bonkers way for anyone to get their hands on a Rare plot this July!
