AW RANK GUIDE
INTRO
Guideline on AW Ranking.
Look somewhere else for basic game knowledge.
Hi I’m Makisu, me like cute gun girl desu AYAYA, scored topped at 183.8k at the time of writing, hopefully it makes the guide a bit more legit.
COMPOSITION
TL;DR:
Minimal requirement 6 Echelons if you are trying for top 100.
Most being [ARSMG], and fit in as many [SGMG] as possible.
Reasoning
As [SGMG] teams are costly and time consuming to raise, while [SMGAR] having a lot of options, most players find themselves with multiple [SMGAR] teams, and fewer [SGMG] teams.
Another factor affecting the number of echelons required are the mob spawn locations, as you will need to kill as many mobs without clogging, while having enough ammo/ration before the helipads reopen for you to resupply.
Factoring these into the equation, I recommend having 6 functional echelons before attempting ranked.
The echelons should be assembled with the following in mind:
- You will need a few team(s) that can deal with the bosses and will still be functionable for mob killing in the later waves.
- You will need echelons that are as flexible as possible to deal with the random spawns in the waves, and this flexibility requirement increases as your max echelon count decreases.
[ARSMG] teams are the go-to that fulfills the guideline (1.), they can take down bosses easily without sustaining heavy damage while still being able to deal with most, if not all encounters.
As guideline (2.), [SGMG] teams’ superior firepower and tankiness makes them extremely powerful in AW ranking, since they can deal with almost every single mob spawn without losing 20~ health on your SG. If you are looking to afk your clears or just to make the run easier without having to micro, fit in as many [SGMG] teams as possible. Note that they are weak against bosses, so try to not run them into bosses unless necessary.
If you have more than 6 echelons, Adding in [HGRF] teams are fine too as they excel in dealing with armored units and bosses, while being weak against tarantulas and dragoons. If you field [HGRF] teams, make sure to leave a buffer zone between [HGRF] teams and the spawn so you can swap in other teams if tarantula spawns.
Additional Adjustments:
Feel free to sub a HG in [SMGAR] teams to replace the AR in the middle (Position 4, refer to numpad), preferably firepower buffers to handle armored units.
If you have a few extra MG laying around, but not enough to make another team, I recommend using [2SMG 2AR 1MG] teams, as they are extremely flexible and should deal with everything including bosses with ease.
Sample Echelon:
These were the teams I used during my 6 echelon test runs, note that I obtained the 184k score with 10 echelons instead of 6, the remaining teams were 2 generic [HGRF] teams and 2 [SGMG] teams.
THE MAP
There’s no tl;dr here, just read if you want to understand the mechanics.
Spawn Points
Ok let’s start with the spawn points.
The nodes indicated in red are mob spawn points, one random mob spawn from those nodes every turn. There are 8 of them so 8 spawns per turn, shocking I know.
Then we have the “RNGpad”, which is indicated in violet.
This helipad will spawn a mob every 4 turns if it was captured by an enemy, to achieve higher scores it’s recommended to let the enemies capture this helipad and leave it as it is.
Clog Sources
As for what are clogs…
Mobs spawn on the helipads at the beginning of their turn (After you end turn, another shocking fact), THEN they start their movement. What this means is that, if you had a mob standing on the helipad before you ended your turn, it will stop the next mob from spawning on the helipad, resulting in 1 less potential kill.
Here’s a map that indicates the clog points that you should be aware of. Try to keep the nodes in green clean without enemies at all times, since they can, and will move toward the helipads and cause a clog.
Echelon Setup Locations and Prowling Area
Next up, we are looking at where to set up camps for our echelons, and where should they patrol to clear mobs.
Colored nodes are recommended campsites, while the prowling area is indicated by the heart and the orange pp.
Self-explanatory hopefully.
I recommend stationing most of the [SGMG] teams at the bottom side of the map, especially on the bottom left corner as it requires a lot of action points to have the other teams move there and back.
# of [SGMG]
1 +1 Pink Area
2 +1 Blue Area
3 +1 Orange Area
4+ +x Wherever
COMBAT
Micro while fighting mobs and bosses.
Doing so will reduce your damage taken by a lot. With a few simple moves you can take 1~2 hits or even 10+ hits less if you bothered to drag left and right.
- Move your main tank forward to extend your firing distance
- Main tank hold position until threat takes aim
- Move main tank back when the threat(s) are standing still (taking aim)
- Wait till the threat(s) start moving again (Retargeting since you got out of it’s attack range)
- Move your main tank forward again to trigger the attack animation
- Repeat until you can’t get out of their fire range
- Retreat the main tank when she’s about the get hit.
Tips Against Bosses
Executioner
Not much to say about her, simple fight and her slash takes too long to wind up.
Hunter
Probably the toughest fight since she hits really hard and double taps. You might want to reset the fight until you get a good dodge spree to minimize damage.
Intruder
Around 40% (I think?) She will swing her gun around and start her MG form, just retreat your main tank while she’s in animation to stop it.
Scarecrow
Her first hit deals like 170 damage and will most likely take out one link from your main tank, try to dodge it by kiting then she does 20 damage shots in quick succession.
Around 40~50% she will start spinning her guns around her and perform a super fast set of 20 damage shots. Reset it by retreating your main tank.
Another solution, which is kinda wonky, is to use force shield SMG against her (i.e. Thompson, G36C). Turn off autoskill after your ARs triggered their skills, and wait for Scarecrows wind-up animation for the pew pew, then turn on the force field manually. She can tank through the whole thing if you have decent skill level on the force fielders.
Tips Against Tough Mobs
Armored Sniper Tanks
They take a long time to wind up their shots, have your main tank walk up, let them wind up for a sec or a tad bit more, then move backwards to reset the windup. You can do this twice before you run out of space.
Don’t worry about kiting the armored guys in the front, they deal minimal damage with low rate of fire.
Armored Dogs
Try to use MG against them when possible. Without good firepower they can shred your frontline. You can wait for half a second after they get into range and starts wind-up, then retreat ASAP.
18K CE Squad
Don’t bother kiting the front guards, or even the flying scouts. Focus on kiting the mobs with handguns.
STRATEGY
This route I offer was tailor made for 6 echelons, if you are a 10 ech chad you can feel free to add more into the fray, send a team to the east helipad to deal with scarecrow, anything would work as long as it doesn’t delay your pace on getting echelons out and capturing helipads for resupplies.
Follow the colored path for routing, the filled nodes are echelon locations when turn ends.
From this point on you just follow the prowling map and clear whatever spawns, while dealing with stuff you have yet to kill.
Then comes the final wave, the 20th spawn. You will need to position your echelons to where the mobs walk to right after spawning, so there will be no buffer and sometimes you end up with tarantula walking into your [HGRF] teams if you got unlucky.
The RNGpad spawns a mob too in the final wave, so you will have to cast a die and hope that the spawn runs into your teams.
The blue nodes are campsites for the final wave and the purple nodes are the possible outcomes from the RNGpad.
SCORE
As for now, the top score in EN is 183k and 187k for JP, so how are you going to tell if your run is world-record pace or way off-course? I suggest using the [Score / Kill] formula to determine if your run is going according to your goals.
Let’s consider this situation:
You are aiming for top 100 in EN, which is somewhere near 170k.
You currently have 82 kills, including bosses. With the score of 88203.
With the [Score/Kill] Calculations, you currently have a 1075.6 average score per kill.
Assuming that you had 5 clogs, that means in the end you will have approximately 164 kills, since 169 is the max amount of kills in theory.
Multiplying 164*1075, resulting in 176.4k. So in theory if the average keeps up, you are very likely to get 175k~ score at the end, which is way above your goal.
Only pay attention to this method in later turns (i.e. turn 10+), since the boss kills will inflate your score by a considerable amount during early turns, resulting in way higher averages.
You should also keep track of the amount of clogs that happened during the run, as they can, and will greatly affect your final score. This can be achieved by comparing the perfect kill count to your current kill count + fielded enemies.
Rules
Map starts with 4 bosses
Every turn spawns 8 mobs
1 RNG spawn from the RNGpad every 4 turns
|
Turn |
Spawns |
Turn |
Spawns |
|
1 |
12 |
11 |
94 |
|
2 |
20 |
12* |
103 |
|
3 |
28 |
13 |
111 |
|
4* |
37 |
14 |
119 |
|
5 |
45 |
15 |
127 |
|
6 |
53 |
16* |
136 |
|
7 |
61 |
17 |
144 |
|
8* |
70 |
18 |
152 |
|
9 |
78 |
19 |
160 |
|
10 |
86 |
20* |
169 |
(*) Turns with RNG spawn
Note that without some new-generation big brain galaxy mind strats, the current feasible max kill count is 168.
RESETING
As we all know, this rank is heavily reliant on RNG when you are competing for the top-end spots, hence it’s essential to reset your run over and over again until you get a desirable set of spawns over the first few turns in order to pull up the average.
Depending on what your goal score is, you might want different averages in your first few rounds, a decent place would be say 1200 average. Note that this calculation does not include boss kills, you will have to deduct (2.5k * # of bosses killed) off your score and (# of bosses killed) off your kill count, and take that average instead to counter the inflated score.
Try-hard Reset
The following calculations is what I use for my runs, since I’m aiming for the top spot, which requires me to score higher than 187k.
I reset a run if more than 2 clogs happen, so I assume my kill count as 167.
To achieve 188k, I’ll need to score an average of 1125.7.
My reset order goes like this:
- First wave average on board must be above 1300.
- No clogs until turn 3
- Average on board + kills (without boss) by turn 3 must be over 1250
If all the previous situations are true, I will keep going in the run until a clog happens or the average drops below 1100 before turn 10. I monitor the score average every turn, if it ever drops below 1075, it’s a reset, else I just pray and spray.
And yes, that’s a lot of resets, I’ve done over 450 resets to date, a lot were around turn 3~5 and a sizeable amount during turn 13~18. If I recall correctly I have only did 10-ish full runs so far.
How to Reset Fast
How to save time without seeing the score screen/waiting for battles to end.
This method preserves all the ammo/ration on your deployed echelons, since the ranking map has a different mechanic on mission completion.
A.) Your turn
- Run is dead
- Go back to Mission Selection at the top left corner
- Manually kill the run
B.) During Enemy Turn
- Run is dead
- Kill the app
- Go to the event map page and manually kill the run
Q&A
Just questions that people ask, or may ask.
Q.1
Is having 6 echelons a huge disadvantage compared to 10 echelons? Is this game actually P2W?
A.1
It’s not a great factor to your score when you aren’t aiming for the very top. The only disadvantage will be less coverage during the wave 20 spawn, you will always have 2~3 less kills than someone with 10 echelons because they get to cover all 8 spawns and can allocate 2 teams to cover half of the spawn outcomes from the RNGpad.
Conclusion is yes. It’s P2W.
CLOSURE
RNGfest, ranking sucks
Updoot the post if it’s useful, so it gets more exposure.