War Robots Strategy - Know yourself and know your enemy

Hello,

This is the first of a series of strategy posts to apply on battlefield in order to get the best ranking of the battle and increase the chance to win. Both winning a match and having a good ranking among your team is important to get better reward (Silver, Gold, Keys, experience)

Know your enemy and know yourself

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” -- Sun Tzu - The Art Of War

This principle is applicable in all confrontations, not only in War Robots.

It is very important to know very well your robots, weapons, pilots skills and drones to maximise their output. I am not going to detail how to play each robot here (I will do it in other separate posts), but it is important to know your robot ability and optimise it. For example Leech is weak when his ability is off, so your should use its ability when you are in trouble, like when enemies are shooting at you and there is no cover. The same way, knowing your enemy robots will help you a lot to know when to avoid them and when to attack them. For example with Leech: its ability redirect 90% of damage to you or your teammates. Never shoot at a Leech when its ability is on (except if you have Defence Mitigation like with Titan or Hawk).

It is very important to know your weapon range and type (Kinetic, Energy, Missiles, Flame) as it will be more or less efficient against some type of shield. For example Energy weapons are as efficient against physical shields than kinetic, flame and missile. Kinetic weapons has double damage against physical shield (worn by Arthur, Tyr, Bullwark, Lancelot, Raijin, Galahad and Gareth). Missile (Cryo, Rime, Glacier, Orkan, etc) bypass physical shield with their splash damage. Flame weapons ignore physical shields. Energy Shields (worn by Carnage, Fujin, Haechi and robots using Ancile) are bypassed by Energy Weapons. The same way, it is important when you are using shield to know your enemy's weapon type. So you will avoid them if your shield does not stop this type of weapon.

It is not easy to "know your enemy" if you have never played this robot or weapon. Personally I try to have all robots and weapons instead of few at high level. I try all robots until I know them very well so I can beat them more efficiently on the battlefield. Another way to know robots and weapons you don't have is to read attentively their description in War Robots Wiki and watch game play videos. You can also play Skirmish battle mode when it is available.

Weapon range is also very important to know: if your weapon range is 500m and you are fighting an enemy with a 350m weapon range, stay between 350 and 500m so you can shoot at him and he cannot. More difficult but important is to know how much damage does each weapon at specific range. No need to know exactly but have an idea. For example "Electric weapons like Cyclone (for titans) or (Calamity) weapons are deadly at short range but less efficient at their max range, while weapons like Retaliator (titan) or Energy Shot Gun (Quarker/Atomizer/Nucleon) are more efficient at their maximum range. So if you have titan with Retaliator fighting against a titan with Cyclone: stay as far as possible in your range (500m). You can find the details of damage on War Robots Wiki but it is easier to watch the great videos of AYGIR who does an amazing job by comparing the different weapons. But be careful: weapons and robots are regularly buffed and nerfed, so mind the date of publication. Also take into accounts that these tests are done with immobile enemy; on the battlefield, targets are moving. So it is not only about damage. Lock-down weapons don't miss the target while missile of flame are more difficult to use to target fast moving enemy.