Sydney 3 guild raid review: first attempt (18 March 2016 11pm UTC)

....23 minutes.... 'nuff said. ;-)

Longer version:

I thought we could probably do it, if enough people helped. Others were more confident than me - Ace thought he, Briezh and I could probably manage it alone (not sure on that account still ;-) !) and Yersinia said he thought we could do it in half an hour (over-estimated by 7 minutes).

So that's another raid we can comfortably do. Well done, team!

(Sorry I didn't take screenshots)

Dubai IV Raid Review: First run through

After a month of planning and boot-camping, the weekend of March 12-13th marked the date for Dubai IV.

Getting ready had been a bit of a marathon in itself: I had taken every opportunity to encourage and support as many people as possible to be able to participate. While I was confident it would all come together, I also knew things would go wrong. And they did: Breizh (king of Dubai III) got sick. Jifferlaar (previous MVP) went AWOL to a darts' contest (Jifferlaar, you have a month or so left of teasing from me about that until I get over it). John Burtt mysteriously disappeared..... (Where are you, John Burtt? Come back: I miss you and your dodgy schemes!!!!).  I spent most of my Sunday playing on a sporadically working 3G mobile connection with worrying waits of more than a minute after most fights while the loading icon churned......

However, in the end more things went right than wrong and we completed Dubai IV with more than 10 hours to spare.

 

Most of the credit goes to the following people (Thanks to The Maelstrom for taking the screeenshots)

 

Lots of people surprised themselves with how well they did, which was great. Special shout-outs to Walker (who was aiming for 100k and got nearly 200K) and Maelstrom (who got 9K more than he thought was a stretch goal for himself).  

Sadly, I was asleep when Dubai IV was won, with newcomer Ace taking first place (Congrats, Ace!)

If you want to be like Ace, here are a few of his playing tips for Dubai:

• A team of a level 41 Dreadnought, level 33 Patient Zero, and a level 20 Mortician is enough to get a perfect score on expert
• Have as many teams as you can (Ace has 12 teams that can beat Dubai on Expert)
• Learn to play on fastforward

We did a random draw raffle for the three guild legendaries with the people who had got at least 54K (1/50 of 2.7 million) being entered. The lucky numbers, according to random.org, were 14, 6 and 7: The Maestrom, Yersinia, and Wayne. Congrats!

Lastly a thanks to the Dubai IV planning team: Breizh, Yersinia, and .Wayne. Thanks guys!!

NEKO Method in Dubai

Here are some videos showing the NEKO method in three of the different level layouts for Dubai.

My team has a team power strength of 112 and is made up entirely of level 1 Mistresses (don't worry, I won't use any of them!). The borrowed explosive is Breizh's level 30 Doomsday.

First layout:

In this video, you can see how careful timing and drone usage can result in more survivor casualties and there is a demonstration of how to explode both units and a building on the diagonal away from the units with careful placement of the drone geyser. I also show some ways you can use the flare with a heavy explosive. Link to higher resolution video on YouTube

Second layout:

In this video, you can see a few more ways you can use the flare and drones to get more points. You can also see how you can use drone geyser. Link to higher resolution video on YouTube

Third layout:

In this video, see how timing and position of your flare is important for maximum carnage and destruction of buildings and how a dose of Stim-Z and the flare can make your drones more lethal. Link to higher resolution video on YouTube

The Neko method in action!

It has taken me a while, but I have finally worked out how to make WZ videos! (Thanks Youtube tutorials!)

I was lazy and didn't tidy it up, but hopefully you get the idea :-)

Here is the Neko method in action in Buenos Aires:

This was a great layout as I could use the borrowed explosive plus drone geyser to take out both buildings at once, which is always fun.

Our favo(u)rite units: Fast explody guys by Octavia

(Warning: Contains lots of long anecdotes about "the olden days of WZ" ;-)! I'm sorry ;-)

I started playing World Zombination quite a long time ago, probably around 18 months ago.

The game was a little different back then, with fewer units (no mythics, no heavy explosives, no tentacled girls, no triplets). There were also no cool downs - you were given all your units at the start and deployed them when and where you saw fit.

Back then in our low-levelled guild, rare units were actually rare, which meant that I had to rely on uncommon and common units.

Delivery men became an early favourite. I was raised as the only girl in a house full of firework-mad males and obviously some of their love of explosions had rubbed off on me.

Delivering dodgy propane tanks
to your door since 2014

At the time, most people seemed to hate explosives: "They blow up your horde!" was what I heard many times. However, I liked the strategy of delivery men. To use them well, you had to keep them away from the rest of the horde and time their deployment well. It was fun to know exactly how many drones to put down to be able to get the deliveryman safely to his destination.

The real excitement was when I worked out you could combine a delivery man with the drone geyser to take out the ranged enemies.

In the olden days, I could farm in Manila, with a single level 20 deliveryman. I did this quite a lot as Manila had the best pay off of trophies.

Now I have bored you with my anecdotes, here is some useful advice!

Don't bother with delivery men
As it now is incredibly easy to get a harbinger (with our current guild perks), I would suggest you don't worry about levelling your delivery men, go straight for the harbingers.

Using harbingers well
When I work out how to make WZ play videos, I will make one to show these techniques in action.

Confession: It took me a long time to work out
that they were harbingers not harbRingers!

For now, here are my tips:

• The first thing you do should be to look for an area where there are enemies close to a deploy point and use a harbinger to get them. Don't put out too many drones, just enough to get the harbinger to his destination.
• Use harbingers from other entry points, away from your main horde
• Drone geyser + harbinger = instant death (or building explosion). Great for hard to reach ranged units.
• Flare (with at least Strobe light 30% dodge perk) + harbinger = safe delivery of harbinger to destination
• You can deploy a harbinger from your horde (if you don't have other fast units like daredevil and assassin in play), then use flare (preferably with the Strobe light 30% dodge research done) to get the harbinger to his destination faster than everyone else.
• If there are enemies standing right by a building, use flare or drone geyser to get the harbinger right to the building side of them - hopefully taking out the enemies and the building. This can also work if a building is on a diagonal away from where the enemies are. (Picture coming!)

Choosing your perks
Here are my recommendations for perking your harbingers (probably deathwishes too, but I don't have one!)

Level 10 perk: Volatility or Flashpoint?
Volatility is better than Flashpoint (more speed) as it increases your area of effect. As long as you are using fast explosives properly, you want to get as bigger area of effect as possible (more likely to take out buildings and enemies)

Level 30 perk: Rapid Decompression or Nuclear Explosion?
I've chosen the Rapid decompression (50% dodge perk) for both of my harbingers, but you could also go Nuclear Explosion (occasionally explodes for 50% more damage). I chose Rapid decompression because I wanted my units to be more likely get to their destination - but if you use flare with your harbingers

Level 50 perk: Safe Handling or Cheat Death?
I've borrowed the Prolatariat's level 50 mythic deathwishes with both of these level 50 perks. Safer handling means your explosive will no longer hurt your zombies so you can deploy them freely without any cares in the world! Cheat Death means he may live through the explosion and explode again (up to four times in my experience). I enjoyed both perks. I'd probably chose Safer Handling as I'd want him to lend out (and then re-perk the Rapid compression to Nuclear explosion for more survivor deaths), but if he was just for my own personal use I'd probably choose Cheat Death as it is quite fun to watch him explode several times ;-)

How to go up levels fast

Snipers: so puny your drones
can take them out!

Being a higher level in World Zombination gives you two main advantages:
1) you have access to more raids (you need to be 32 to play in Bogota)
2) your borrowed unit can be a higher level

So how do you get up to a higher level fast?

The short answer: by getting a lot of trophies!

Levels 3 - 20
As soon as you can, play San Francisco on Hard difficulty. San Francisco hard only has snipers, which can be killed by your drones. All you need is an infector or reanimator and the "guild Goliath" (or any other borrowed tank or explosive). By playing on Hard, rather than Normal, you'll go up levels faster and also get lots of brains.

(I'd also recommend making your second team early as you will be able to get through the campaign faster, which also helps you to go up levels).

When you finish playing with your main teams or farming, get into the habit of quickfighting any left over units not on cooldown. The trophies you get in a place like Vancouver on normal difficulty actually add up quite quickly and help you go up levels fast!

Levels 20 - 50
Once you are around level 20, try using the NEKO method (borrowed explosive on expert difficulty in raids/faction wars). It is a good way of playing for as long as you want and getting trophies and DNA as well.

Punks are great at attacking melee units

When you are around 22-25, try brain farming in Lima Hard with borrowed delinquents/punks/hooligans only. You only need a shot of the flare to direct them to take out the Spec Ops guys. You can also play in Lima expert, but you probably won't win every time (I found I won about half the time, using a level 25 account while Jifferlaar has found once you are level 40, you'll win Expert about 80% of the time).

Continue to quick fight any extra units and you'll be at level 50 before you know it!