Before 1.7 R-shobu is owning the game like missile hell as very few units can actually hit it. So it's HP really doesn't matter. Now we have Claw, Donkey, Protogunner, Black Hound, Slug Flyer etc. Not to mention the lv25 gap making units tougher to withstand the missiles before using specials. R-shobu always turn out to be 150-180AP gift to opponent. I personally put it out already. Leona herself isn't really good. I faced a lot of times with a single Leona rush strategy. A small trick with timing Claw+Donkey/MordenRobot can easily resist. The really hard thing is the units coming after, where my units suffered damage and cooldown is still on the way. If MSA is not timed properly, I often lose afterwards. Leona rush is a fun way to game, but I have too few experience on how to combo her.
Claw Unit surely is a very competitive unit. In fact, among the units which I still consider competitive, it is the first competitive unit I bought and the first to release its Level Cap without any hesitation. I would most likely include this unit in my rush deck. Also, its hardcore HP and short distance attack makes it a more "adaptive" units than patrol bots and riders alone. However, its effectiveness diminishes a little in late game when facing enemy with high firepower units. In high-level games, this may not become a necessity anymore (very dependent on player's strategy).For those tight in medals, I agree that Claw Unit should be bought before p-bots and riders. Ralf - have not bought it myself, and do not plan to. So, I won't comment too much on this (despite having a slightly pessimistic view on it compared to Leona) Utan - Definitely squishy, but its effect is similar to patrol bots. When multiplied, it can be lethal. Compare to losing 400AP worth MK II to you, I don't mind giving you 200AP from 5 utans, in exchange for probably more AP given to me from destroying all your frontier units. Again, how to have effective tankers to ensure/maintain stable firepower is the key. Donald Morden - personally don't think is a must in 1v1 (given that you already have many other v. competitive units in hands). the cons are already listed out in my previous post. Donkey Slug - nemesis of utan (when 1 on 1), decent attack range (making it not easy to be attacked by most units), good HP/AP ratio -> giving it a relatively high survivability. Strong firepower support from the back it accumulate 3 or more. Patrol bot - agree that just calling patrol bots out from the game would give you an edge in any single game. hence, the whole point is to find ways to protect it and keep accumulating (to the extent of making enemy's MSA a useless attack). Still one single patrol is already capable of stunning most units (even Claw and Leona), allowing other units such as utan to fire at and destroy the enemy units before even touching them. special force riders - to be used with other speedy units such as Claw Units and Leona. whole point is to subjugate enemy's early power and keep them at bay near that own base by constant bombardment (with stunning effect), allowing Leona and Claw Units to give the enemies an instant killer blow. this unit works best in long maps, less so in small maps due to it requiring to drive a certain distance before activating its special. slug flyer - as a rule, slug flyer will leave the stage after two rounds of missile attack (no matter whether you have activate the special or not). For long map, the reason for longer stage time before it takes time for slug flyer to fly to frontier to release missile. Hence, in shorter maps, it is true that their stage time is shorter, but its stage time won't be prolonged by delaying the summoning of a replacement unit neither. BTW, if timing right, slug flyer can activitate two rounds of special. if activating correctly, a slug special can destroy 2 R-shobus simultaneously.
Some reference info for you: Some clever Chinese players from their own MSD forum has come up with a way to deduce each unit's attack power: by finding out how much damage their attack has caused to the tower HP in stage 1-1 and 1-4. they did this for all units... R-shobu pic: the first two HP pairs indicates the unit's (at 20 lv) normal attack (one round of 4 missiles) caused to the tower in stage 1-1 and 1-4 respectively. the last red bar indictates dmg cause from the final round of drop bombs to stage 1-4. Slug Flyer pic: the two bars on the left indicates the units (at 20 lv) normal attack (one round of 4 missiles) caused to the tower in stage 1-1 and 1-4 respectively. the other two bars on the right indicates the damage caused by the special attack.
which means in terms of normal attack damage both are virtually or closely identical.. its just the special and final drop differs(which slug flyer has upper a hand(or upper wing )
my pleasure to help btw, i remember someone had asked earlier about whether increasing a unit's level will increase its attack power (in addition to HP). The answer is YES, but the increment varies among units and do not necessarily follow the same increment % as the HP (especially when unlocking from lv 20 to lv 25).
yes, and somehow i found that it takes longer for slug flyer to complete one round of missile attack (giving it a longer stage time than R-shobu). this point, (together with the fact that it can release anti-air/land/boss special) is quite crucial, because sometimes it gives the player the ability to control the time for delivering a decisive blow to the enemy's frontiers.
Depends what you call "easily". Fielding two units to take down a single 80 AP one isn't much of a trick. But yeah, she shouldn't be sent out all on her lonesome, and if met with that tactic I'll usually not send her again until I've got a bunch more units out. Though it's surprising how often I find she doesn't need her backup... He's spammable, and his special allows him to dodge attacks. Heck, sometimes he'll go right through surviving front-line enemies, and go on to attack those on the other side. His regular attack doesn't have a lot of range to it, but since it penetrates the front line (and his special catapults him right up close), he's really good for mopping up Utans/Martians/whatever. I'm not sure he's top-tier material, but he's won me a lot of games. Mind you, at my low rank that's not saying much. I've won games by sending out single regular soldiers. Yeah, I agree that there are better units. Unfortunately most of them require medals to unlock, and he doesn't. I've seen decks using MKII instead, and they do really well. Any thoughts on Karn? I think it's him I tend to see combo'd with MKII... Good to know. REALLY good to know!
Can you give us a link to this site, please? I'm really interested in seeing all the unit's damage values.
Seems to be from here. On the right are a bunch of links with version numbers; click the one which added the unit you're interested in to see its stats.
I wonder what sort of units will show up for the Halloween update....hopefully not more zombies... The picture they posted did hint to a hanging mummy...
Not sure how useful the hanging mummy will be. Guess it will spew moths? Will it just sort of "fly" along the top of the screen like Samurai Planes? I suspect we'll mostly be seeing zombie/mummy versions of the commandos who don't have them yet. Either that or they'll mostly ignore the "spooky" theme and throw in more random units.
yup, you've found it. this forum has a lot of threads with different thread on different MSD topics, pity that it is mostly (if not all) written in Chinese...
Yes, very tempted to buy karn (as well as leona, both under observation list). my only concern is its actual production CD (appear as "v slow") in terms of seconds, and its firepower (takes ages in-between rounds of fireball attack). Definitely better than Shoe. Not sure if its better than Iron Nokona. In my opinion, usefulness for the four units are (in descending order): MK II > Nokona/Karn > Shoe
It's rather easy to stop Leona dead in her tracks if you have Claw and Utan. She's serves little to no purpose in mid and late game.
agree... hence she is either used for super rush strategy (i.e. to be put into a deck with claw unit, special force riders - in an attempt to finish the game before the 2nd (if not the 1st) MSA) which also makes her disadvantageous in long map)... or you buy her purely for collection
i tried to replace my claw unit with snail recently, not as effective offensively but still fun(for buffer and defense ).. it sucks it has long cooldown and costs more ap
