Another good idea would be making a video about synergetic pairs of units to make a build, for example, ball stang push, wraith ball push, fang fortress, mustang melting point etc, explaining when is a good idea and when isn't to build those pairs of units together.
i can speak on elite specialist for the 900-1300 mmr band it makes a lot of the 0 cost units incredibly powerful, which means that if you correctly predict your opponents choices that you can snow ball a very early win...but the cost of everything, without the extra income, is incredibly difficult to play with so if things go wrong andyou need more expensive units, you fall behind incredibly quickly
A lot of rhinos are usually bad. 1-3 can be strong because they are great item holders and force a response. Then, you can just sell out when the opp invests in that. Also level 1 rhinos are infinitely worse than level 2 rhinos, so if you don't get them off a drop it might be worth to elite recruit.
The rhino is not a good unit to commit into. They do a lot of work in aggression if you get the 3 rhino drop and go for example armor on them. But building them yourselves and committing into them is not very good. With the rhino spec, you need to find a position on the board where there isn't enough damage to kill. Then next round mobile beacon it away from this positon so it dodges the counter the enemy has deployed. This means the enemy needs to recruit all sorts of garbage all around the map and then you just sell the rhino and go some giants
"I am top 10 in the world. Elite specialist is garbage tier, it is my highest win rate against lower MMR people, but not against high MMR people" Haha bro I think that means for anyone 1500 or below its totally fine xD Jokes aside, great analysis
steel ball almost always wants to be paired with crawlers for chaff. So Ball+Arc you can buy crawlers as your chaff. But with Ball+Fang you are stuck with chaff that pairs poorly with balls
Yea maybe i should have talked about some unit packs a little bit in the video. The fangs don't protect the balls because of the movement speed. Also arclight is more valuable with steel balls because of the huge single target damage of them. That's why i rank the pack higher than for example arc+storm. The best use for ball+fang is probably carry fang which isn't an optimal strategy to force.
@@SurreyEZ I dont agree that you would value 50 gold per turn to 3 speed when going aggro. I watch your games and you click speed on your units in lategame always, so you must know it has value.
@@o0Silvos0o That's lategame when the board is set up and all your carries are online. For the early turns, speed doesn't do much for you, and certainly less than the units or the economy from the other specialists.
@@o0Silvos0o sure but lategame is like 3 turns, at best thats 150 actual value ur getting from speed spec. its probably worth less than quick supply and quick supply has the advantage of being front loaded and giving good tempo
Saber is my favorite. I like a lot Elite spec , mostly because of Arc Carry BUT you need Balls for Elite not other units. Elite with Balls + Chaff is strong start. Defensive play , late balls , you keep long range and dont need a lot of chaff
@SurreyEZ Here's what I need .... economy management. When to level up verses when to get upgrades verses when to get tower upgrades. If I have 300 in the bank, do I level up 3 packs of mustangs or get them all range? Or maybe I should just buy another unit of stangs and add a bonus pack of crawlers in? Which of those 3 options brings the most value overall in the most situations?
Hey, Surrey, Could you use the speed specialist to place your units in more defensible positions without losing out on your overall aggression? Like I know on offense we try to position along the line. What if with speed spec we played a row or two back to better be protected by shields or place a counter unit later in the game?
yea, but i think the main benefit is that if you start a little bit more fat away your flanks will pull more of enemy units. So people who have memorized that i place this unit here and this unit here suddenly all of their stuff gets pulled to the flank and you speed to their tower
One thing not mentioned as a drawback for the fire badger specialist is that early game the opponent can missile them, they barely survive, and then become free EXP. Early game where they're less likely to be as protected from missiles as the board develops this is especially a risk. Knowing that, the badger could do a cheeky positioning or drop an anti-missile device to protect them, but that also has its own risks.
Elite Spec, get Tarantula, get early spider mines. Get sniper later, get sniper with firing squad. Get vulcans, get vulcans with Sniper spawn. Elite vulcans that spawn elite snipers that spawn elite fangs. Also just elite crawler on the flank causes a lot of problems because it cannot be countered by a T1 unit. Also Elite wasps with the replacement tech is sick for aggro. Sorry but elite is pretty good, you just really need good starting units with it.
06:43 I don't understand why you rank the Cost Control Spec so bad. In Theory it should be even better than the Supply Spec. You get 100 Credits every round. So after two rounds you can have bought the Attack and Defense Enhancement which negates the downside of the Spec completely. Afterwards you get 100 Supply extra every round!!
@@SurreyEZ I was on the testing ground and bought Attack and Defense Enhancement as Cost Control Spec first round. Pretty much same stats afterwards. Obviously if the opponent buys them too he has an advantage again.
Gotta be honest, Sledgehammer + Fang start is one of my least favorites not because it's bad per se, it works decently against most other starting units, BUT if the enemy starts with stormcallers, you're going to be fighting an uphill battle since round 1. And as you're focused on trying to find ways to counter the stormcallers, the enemy can just build on their advantage and deploy other threats. Painful painful matchup.
how is storm and arclight bad, but storm and crawler/fangs good? you can just buy crawlers or fangs with your storm+arc start. and with storm+crawler or fang youd want arclights for chaff clear anyways, right?
certainly not, sometimes you want r1 wasp or phoenix or 5 chaff. Sometime you want only 1 arc. Or to sell the storms and prepare a better defense with another unit. That's why the chaff is good, you can do whatever you want
@SurreyEZ from what I've experienced 5 chaff R1 has a high risk of feeding enemy chaff clear early levels and if you want just 1 arc you can sell the other. Also storms want at least 1 chaff clearer BC they are extremely vulnerable to crawlers. Going for air R1 can land a cheesy victory, true, but that is possible with storm+arc too. In the end I feel it's a bit of a rock paper scissors situation with starting units: storms + X beats slow starts (spiders, MM, fangs), fast starts (balls + crawlers) beat storms, vertical slow starts (sledges+MM+arc) beat balls. And air beats anything without late fangs. So I don't see a scenario where Strom arc loses very hard where Stroms wouldn't have lost anyways. In fact I think storms arc lose quite gracefully to balls crawlers because they can often clear chaff so that the storms get off a volley of two on the balls.
@@NicksAreOverrated sure maybe you feed chaff clear early levels but honestly it doesnt really matter that much; its basically impossible to feed a tarantula a level in round 1 (and with storms its really not an actual concern) but then you have 5 chaff and u can react more appropriately to the board while having a good fundamental setup. and also like u dont need to go 5 chaff? its better to have 3 chaff than 3 arclight, and maybe 4 chaff 1 arclight is the ideal setup and u cant do that with 3 arclight starts.
i don't get why stangs/crawler would be that bad. Stangs are very versatile unit and move as fast as crawlers so they get along pretty well. Not so strong in the very first rounds and can be countered by anti-chaff but I feel like they play similar role as chaff in terms of flexibility and once stags start levelling they can become difficult to stop. We can go aggro or standard and adjust to ennemy's board? But i'm no great specialist of this game :)
I think there's two reasons he rates it so low. One is that stang crawler is only really useful for a standard start most of the time and RAT plays aggressive most of the time. The other is that stang crawler is predictable and tends to lose you the first rounds, putting you on the back foot.
@@zeorydan7613 thanks :) Maybe RAT will confirm your approach, you're probably right about standard play as aggro seems not really playable indeed (I got it wrong). I'm also low MMR 100-ish and maybe "bad" packs can still work well against bad opponents who do not predict how to counter it some time to time, i had some wins with stangs/crawlers :p
contrary to the other comment, mustang crawler is a lot better in aggro than in standard. But mustang is a horrible unit that doesn't clear crawlers and loses to literally all of the 200 cost units very heavily. It's a good unit later on if you manage to deploy it against something it counters. But to start with it, the enemy doesn't build a single unit it's good against and you can't even force him to do so, so you are just stuck with a unit that does nothing while bleeding hp
@@SurreyEZ hmm, I never got it to work for me in aggro because mustangs are so weak, but it tends to work well if I gradually accumulate a backline while working in a standard formation. I'm still only around 1500mmr tho so eh.
Can you give some more insight why Fortified Specialist is garbage? I thought it was pretty strong since it gives you 100 supply outright and then gives a scaling benefit cuz as you get more units you get more bonus health.
it doesn't offer any economic benefit so it's harder for you to modify your composition, meaning the enemy has more resources at hand and his board will likely counter yours. And when your composition is fighting against a composition that counters it, the stats are very irrelevant. It's not this simple in a real game but this is the basic idea simplified
@@SurreyEZ I see thanks a lot man. But then if stats don't matter shouldn't the cost control specialist be in the best tier since it offers the most economy out of all the specialists? I don't understand why stats matter in CC specialist but Fortified specialist is garbage because stats don't matter.
@@Gaze73 that doesnt make any sense to me. Negative is the opposite of positive when you have 17% more hp its the same as your opponent having 17% less hp.
@@roslolian11 If you buy the 15% hp bonus from tower as forti spec, you'll have 117+15% = 132% hp. If cost control buys it, it will be 115%*0.89=102%. If you put amp core on a unit with forti, you'll have 117+50% = 167% hp. Cost control is 150%*0.89=133%. If you buy something like scorching tech on Vulcan, you will have just 178% atk instead of 200% which is a 22% loss.
My recommendation is to reconsider the play styles of the first 3 "garbage heroes". Maybe for fortified health you have to take an early tower upgrade for stat superiority. Making your chaff and mid game transition into beefy high end units. The speed speck one I know works very well with fangs, and then applying another speed buff ontop of that might mean other slow units with the double buff, may be superior. These are all suggestions from a scrub player with terrible MMR, but I see these guys in ways that might not fit in a typical path. After all, things like Hackers exist and they do nuanced things, and these things change depending on several factors. Can you keep this slower beefy tanking unit ahead of your hacker? What if your hacker shield hp is buffed 3 times by tower and base stats? Then your foritifed shields become interesting. Obviously that tech is only unraveled if you play atypical styles to try and unlock their value.
He is top ten in the world and has played for a year, Mr.MC. What you see as possibilities is bc you play against trash. There may be some merit to what you say, but go find out first hand before jerking urself off about how you are YOU, The Great
Other guides:
Item Guide: ua-cam.com/video/NbK9XBTKlqE/v-deo.html
Double MMR rules: ua-cam.com/video/09pbB0q4Vrs/v-deo.html
Chaff guide: ua-cam.com/video/nFhlX6JG77A/v-deo.html
Free unit drop guide: ua-cam.com/video/B11kAYjJ6ew/v-deo.html
Vertical/Horizontal position: ua-cam.com/video/5Dr-d-WENSk/v-deo.html
The holy moly list!
Another good idea would be making a video about synergetic pairs of units to make a build, for example, ball stang push, wraith ball push, fang fortress, mustang melting point etc, explaining when is a good idea and when isn't to build those pairs of units together.
thanks for the idea!
I'd love to see this actually.
Speed spec seems so bad in 1v1 but pretty good in all the other game modes. I kinda wish they'd buff that one and the quickstart spec.
Love it, waited for it for a quite a while. Thanks Surrey!
i can speak on elite specialist for the 900-1300 mmr band
it makes a lot of the 0 cost units incredibly powerful, which means that if you correctly predict your opponents choices that you can snow ball a very early win...but the cost of everything, without the extra income, is incredibly difficult to play with so if things go wrong andyou need more expensive units, you fall behind incredibly quickly
Paying 600$ for a melter quickly cools your love for those goth girl eyes
Especially with the fact that there are no goth eyes after 1.0
I find my rhinos alqays gwt countered hard
Its rare i do well with them. Am i missing out on how to use them?
If you are rhino spec, place it, see what happens, if its countered and you lose the round, sell it, big economic boost.
A lot of rhinos are usually bad. 1-3 can be strong because they are great item holders and force a response. Then, you can just sell out when the opp invests in that. Also level 1 rhinos are infinitely worse than level 2 rhinos, so if you don't get them off a drop it might be worth to elite recruit.
The rhino is not a good unit to commit into. They do a lot of work in aggression if you get the 3 rhino drop and go for example armor on them. But building them yourselves and committing into them is not very good. With the rhino spec, you need to find a position on the board where there isn't enough damage to kill. Then next round mobile beacon it away from this positon so it dodges the counter the enemy has deployed. This means the enemy needs to recruit all sorts of garbage all around the map and then you just sell the rhino and go some giants
Very rarely you buy a lvl 1 rhino. Its manly a surprise (mobile beacon plays) they overreact to defend then I sell next.
@@SurreyEZ im stuck in the 1100 to 1400 mmr range. I never sell my units. I wonder if thats whats holding me back. Ill maybe have to try doing that.
"I am top 10 in the world. Elite specialist is garbage tier, it is my highest win rate against lower MMR people, but not against high MMR people" Haha bro I think that means for anyone 1500 or below its totally fine xD Jokes aside, great analysis
supply spec fells not really good, hp is quite low
i like these new portraits
I might have to reconsider the typhoon spec, I hate that unit so i never gave it a shot
yeah i have no clue how to use typhoons, they always feel terrible
For me anti air or anti chaf unit
I had an event going hard into air on one flank and I got the get 3 typhoon card. Put them on that side and they destroyed it pretty well
Just started this game so your tips are making the early mmr matches child’s play.
nice! welcome :D
supply spcialist is now indian
Why is Steel Ball Fang in the Bad category, but Steel Ball Arclite is Solid?
steel ball almost always wants to be paired with crawlers for chaff. So Ball+Arc you can buy crawlers as your chaff. But with Ball+Fang you are stuck with chaff that pairs poorly with balls
Yea maybe i should have talked about some unit packs a little bit in the video. The fangs don't protect the balls because of the movement speed. Also arclight is more valuable with steel balls because of the huge single target damage of them. That's why i rank the pack higher than for example arc+storm. The best use for ball+fang is probably carry fang which isn't an optimal strategy to force.
Speed spec would be better if it were targetted at certain units. Or it gave a free improved speed at the tower so you could toggle on each round.
now i am going to wreak havoc in the ranked 1v1...😈😈
i got wrecked pretty bad instead 🥲
@@ascyrax8507
@@SurreyEZ 😆🤣
As someone who plays agro, seeing speed spec with balls and crawlers in the pack makes me immediately pick it, so I'm not sure if it is that bad.
it's the only pack that's good for the specialist and even then other specialists with the same pack are a lot better
@@SurreyEZ I dont agree that you would value 50 gold per turn to 3 speed when going aggro. I watch your games and you click speed on your units in lategame always, so you must know it has value.
@@o0Silvos0o That's lategame when the board is set up and all your carries are online. For the early turns, speed doesn't do much for you, and certainly less than the units or the economy from the other specialists.
@@o0Silvos0o sure but lategame is like 3 turns, at best thats 150 actual value ur getting from speed spec. its probably worth less than quick supply and quick supply has the advantage of being front loaded and giving good tempo
now imagine playing ball crawler aggro and getting a free typhoon, farseer or lvl 2 rhino for tempo.
Always great to be taught in the ways of the rat! You should totally insert some random Finnish translation / words in these kinds of videos though...
yooo the new specialist are so cools
Sabertoot!
Saber is my favorite. I like a lot Elite spec , mostly because of Arc Carry BUT you need Balls for Elite not other units. Elite with Balls + Chaff is strong start. Defensive play , late balls , you keep long range and dont need a lot of chaff
Super helpful thanks!
I love Elite. The thing is that you can choose either Marksmen/Archlight carry or a mix of them. That way you cover almost all weaknesses.
May god bless you, you kind man.
@SurreyEZ Here's what I need .... economy management. When to level up verses when to get upgrades verses when to get tower upgrades. If I have 300 in the bank, do I level up 3 packs of mustangs or get them all range? Or maybe I should just buy another unit of stangs and add a bonus pack of crawlers in? Which of those 3 options brings the most value overall in the most situations?
Leveled up units are 2x stronger. It is always better, cheaper, to lvl up an important unit as to buy another one. Tech deppends on the situation.
Hey, Surrey, Could you use the speed specialist to place your units in more defensible positions without losing out on your overall aggression?
Like I know on offense we try to position along the line. What if with speed spec we played a row or two back to better be protected by shields or place a counter unit later in the game?
yea, but i think the main benefit is that if you start a little bit more fat away your flanks will pull more of enemy units. So people who have memorized that i place this unit here and this unit here suddenly all of their stuff gets pulled to the flank and you speed to their tower
One thing not mentioned as a drawback for the fire badger specialist is that early game the opponent can missile them, they barely survive, and then become free EXP. Early game where they're less likely to be as protected from missiles as the board develops this is especially a risk. Knowing that, the badger could do a cheeky positioning or drop an anti-missile device to protect them, but that also has its own risks.
I am struggling with the new units. I played a lot when everyone played Giants. Now there are like 10 new units...
lots to digest!
Elite Spec, get Tarantula, get early spider mines.
Get sniper later, get sniper with firing squad.
Get vulcans, get vulcans with Sniper spawn.
Elite vulcans that spawn elite snipers that spawn elite fangs.
Also just elite crawler on the flank causes a lot of problems because it cannot be countered by a T1 unit.
Also Elite wasps with the replacement tech is sick for aggro.
Sorry but elite is pretty good, you just really need good starting units with it.
But you will have less units. Few chaff can be a problem.
06:43 I don't understand why you rank the Cost Control Spec so bad. In Theory it should be even better than the Supply Spec. You get 100 Credits every round. So after two rounds you can have bought the Attack and Defense Enhancement which negates the downside of the Spec completely. Afterwards you get 100 Supply extra every round!!
that's not how buffs and debuffs work in this game. All positive buffs are additive and all negative buffs are multiplied
@@SurreyEZ I was on the testing ground and bought Attack and Defense Enhancement as Cost Control Spec first round. Pretty much same stats afterwards. Obviously if the opponent buys them too he has an advantage again.
speed specialist in garbage is criminal.
it's criminal to pick it
Gotta be honest, Sledgehammer + Fang start is one of my least favorites not because it's bad per se, it works decently against most other starting units, BUT if the enemy starts with stormcallers, you're going to be fighting an uphill battle since round 1. And as you're focused on trying to find ways to counter the stormcallers, the enemy can just build on their advantage and deploy other threats. Painful painful matchup.
go more sledge with field maintenance and put overlords behind them. It's a good matchup, rough just on round 1-2
@@SurreyEZ But Surrey you told me never to buy tech on units before round 4!
Kidding. Will try that next time, and see if I can make it work.
@@Levegan then they'll get emp on callers and gg
how is storm and arclight bad, but storm and crawler/fangs good? you can just buy crawlers or fangs with your storm+arc start. and with storm+crawler or fang youd want arclights for chaff clear anyways, right?
certainly not, sometimes you want r1 wasp or phoenix or 5 chaff. Sometime you want only 1 arc. Or to sell the storms and prepare a better defense with another unit. That's why the chaff is good, you can do whatever you want
@SurreyEZ from what I've experienced 5 chaff R1 has a high risk of feeding enemy chaff clear early levels and if you want just 1 arc you can sell the other. Also storms want at least 1 chaff clearer BC they are extremely vulnerable to crawlers. Going for air R1 can land a cheesy victory, true, but that is possible with storm+arc too. In the end I feel it's a bit of a rock paper scissors situation with starting units: storms + X beats slow starts (spiders, MM, fangs), fast starts (balls + crawlers) beat storms, vertical slow starts (sledges+MM+arc) beat balls. And air beats anything without late fangs. So I don't see a scenario where Strom arc loses very hard where Stroms wouldn't have lost anyways. In fact I think storms arc lose quite gracefully to balls crawlers because they can often clear chaff so that the storms get off a volley of two on the balls.
@@NicksAreOverrated sure maybe you feed chaff clear early levels but honestly it doesnt really matter that much; its basically impossible to feed a tarantula a level in round 1 (and with storms its really not an actual concern) but then you have 5 chaff and u can react more appropriately to the board while having a good fundamental setup.
and also like
u dont need to go 5 chaff? its better to have 3 chaff than 3 arclight, and maybe 4 chaff 1 arclight is the ideal setup and u cant do that with 3 arclight starts.
i don't get why stangs/crawler would be that bad. Stangs are very versatile unit and move as fast as crawlers so they get along pretty well. Not so strong in the very first rounds and can be countered by anti-chaff but I feel like they play similar role as chaff in terms of flexibility and once stags start levelling they can become difficult to stop. We can go aggro or standard and adjust to ennemy's board? But i'm no great specialist of this game :)
I think there's two reasons he rates it so low. One is that stang crawler is only really useful for a standard start most of the time and RAT plays aggressive most of the time. The other is that stang crawler is predictable and tends to lose you the first rounds, putting you on the back foot.
@@zeorydan7613 thanks :) Maybe RAT will confirm your approach, you're probably right about standard play as aggro seems not really playable indeed (I got it wrong). I'm also low MMR 100-ish and maybe "bad" packs can still work well against bad opponents who do not predict how to counter it some time to time, i had some wins with stangs/crawlers :p
contrary to the other comment, mustang crawler is a lot better in aggro than in standard. But mustang is a horrible unit that doesn't clear crawlers and loses to literally all of the 200 cost units very heavily. It's a good unit later on if you manage to deploy it against something it counters. But to start with it, the enemy doesn't build a single unit it's good against and you can't even force him to do so, so you are just stuck with a unit that does nothing while bleeding hp
@@SurreyEZ hmm, I never got it to work for me in aggro because mustangs are so weak, but it tends to work well if I gradually accumulate a backline while working in a standard formation. I'm still only around 1500mmr tho so eh.
Can you give some more insight why Fortified Specialist is garbage? I thought it was pretty strong since it gives you 100 supply outright and then gives a scaling benefit cuz as you get more units you get more bonus health.
it doesn't offer any economic benefit so it's harder for you to modify your composition, meaning the enemy has more resources at hand and his board will likely counter yours. And when your composition is fighting against a composition that counters it, the stats are very irrelevant. It's not this simple in a real game but this is the basic idea simplified
@@SurreyEZ I see thanks a lot man. But then if stats don't matter shouldn't the cost control specialist be in the best tier since it offers the most economy out of all the specialists? I don't understand why stats matter in CC specialist but Fortified specialist is garbage because stats don't matter.
@@roslolian11 Negative stats scale multiplicatively so they have a bigger effect. Forti is just a flat 17% bonus that only scales with levels.
@@Gaze73 that doesnt make any sense to me. Negative is the opposite of positive when you have 17% more hp its the same as your opponent having 17% less hp.
@@roslolian11 If you buy the 15% hp bonus from tower as forti spec, you'll have 117+15% = 132% hp. If cost control buys it, it will be 115%*0.89=102%. If you put amp core on a unit with forti, you'll have 117+50% = 167% hp. Cost control is 150%*0.89=133%. If you buy something like scorching tech on Vulcan, you will have just 178% atk instead of 200% which is a 22% loss.
Im conflicted, I still kinda want to gatekeep being good at this game. On the other hand its the best guide ands its our rat, so lets go
My recommendation is to reconsider the play styles of the first 3 "garbage heroes". Maybe for fortified health you have to take an early tower upgrade for stat superiority. Making your chaff and mid game transition into beefy high end units.
The speed speck one I know works very well with fangs, and then applying another speed buff ontop of that might mean other slow units with the double buff, may be superior.
These are all suggestions from a scrub player with terrible MMR, but I see these guys in ways that might not fit in a typical path.
After all, things like Hackers exist and they do nuanced things, and these things change depending on several factors.
Can you keep this slower beefy tanking unit ahead of your hacker? What if your hacker shield hp is buffed 3 times by tower and base stats? Then your foritifed shields become interesting.
Obviously that tech is only unraveled if you play atypical styles to try and unlock their value.
He is top ten in the world and has played for a year, Mr.MC.
What you see as possibilities is bc you play against trash. There may be some merit to what you say, but go find out first hand before jerking urself off about how you are YOU, The Great
hecker shield doesn't scale with hp buffs.