On the Utility and Ethics of Running Five Spectres

Ugly.

Fellow Pilots,
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We see plenty of worthy arguments about which robots and weapons are OP (over powered) on forums and the like.  Some of these arguments are spurious, some outdated (ain't it quaint that we thought Tridents were too much?), and some are ridiculous.  But many are from experienced gamers who know a thing or two.  With all that said, there is near-complete consensus in the War Robots community about Spectre.  It's simply too much firepower, too much speed, too much stealth.  Players of War Robots don't usually agree on the color of the sky.

So, with Spectre, you either hate them or you have them.  At the moment, the U hates them.  But the highest-rated pilots* LOVE them.  They love them so much they run four or five of them all the damn time.  We did a little research on your behalf:

Just kidding.

*A word of caution on pilot rating is in order.  Ratings probably aren't closely related to skill.  They are derived from finishing at the top of the standings in individual battles, which ranks pilots by damage (except in King of the Hill mode, where rankings are done by capture points).  Pilots that do a great deal of damage climb very quickly in the ratings, whether their teams win or lose.  While damage is often a function of skill, there are certainly people who buy a nearly unbeatable hangar but still lack patience and battlefield awareness.  In other words, they aren't that good at the game.

As an example, my team lost by knockout to a group today at about six minutes into the battle (beacons were relatively even, but damage was very one sided).  Blue had a grand total of two Spectres; the red team had eleven.  Like Dash bots and Shocktrains, you can count them and predict the outcome.

This red group fielded 11 Spectres; I ran up against a squad with 15 later the same evening.

Anyway ... the top three hangars at press time were as follows:

I ran into SNOW LION this weekend, and guess what:

Just in case you doubted that the arms race is in overdrive, Pilot NOT SO of clan Firestorm (HEAT) doesn't leave the house without five Spectres.  This is how you win 90%:

Conclusion: to be the bestest Beyblader in the universe, get a whole bunch of Spectres.

We've seen a lack of diversity at the top before, so we know there isn't any need to panic.  A newer, better mousetrap is surely in the works at Pixonic's top secret Moscow location.  The next OP robot will provide more health, firepower, speed, and probably longer-lasting stealth as well.  It will look like this:


Our friend Manni is on the case, making the point that Spectre is too much for any non-Spectrefied opponents:

So, what's the recommendation for a regular player?  In case you haven't already learned how to deal with jumping robots that deliver death in a single salvo, it's easy to say but hard to do - you feign an attack to get them in the air.  You take cover or go into stealth.  You kill them when they land.  Obviously, Spectre, Inquisitor, and Mercury make this even more difficult because you can't usually hit them while they are in stealth.  If there is a target on the same horizontal plane, lock your weapon on that robot but fire upon the cloaked one; this allows some weapons to hit hidden robots.

The U suggests that Spectre should have about the same health as a Cossack (78K) and 2-3 medium weapons instead of four.  Because it can destroy anything in the game in a single attack, it should be destroyed by a single attack.  Spectre at level 12 has 110K health (which means 132K in the MK2 iteration), and it's fast.  As described above, it can cloak every 18 seconds, and it stays in stealth mode for the duration of its jump plus four seconds after landing.  

If you can't beat them and decide to join them, keep an eye on the schedule of component offers created by Reddit moderator Walleye.  This will provide you the most efficient "grind" toward Spectre acquisition.

We described War Robots as a game in a Nash Equilibrium before, which is economist fancy speak meaning that pilots won't benefit from changing strategies because their opponents aren't changing.  If you have a Spectre (or four), you aren't going to put them down just because running them isn't sportsmanlike.  We don't blame anyone for wanting (or buying) the best robot.  We do think it is shortsighted of Pixonic to introduce items that disturb game balance, but we know that this model makes money - and the U isn't a business school.  Our recommendation at this time is to either get a Spectre or get good at beating them, because they aren't going away.

Anomolous Battle Reports

The U has previously reported that 5vs6 battles are only won 25% of the time by the shorthanded team.  We don't have enough data to speculate on the win rate for teams that only field four pilots vs a full team of opponents, but it's safe to say that it's extremely low.  Nevertheless, the very improbable is NOT impossible: 

Have a great week!

Dr. Yat

Faculty Notes

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