Starting Out in War Robots

Overview

A guide for players new to War Robots! Covers early-game walk-through, weapons, and ROBOTS!

First, a Few Quick Notes

<>You can earn gold in the game everyday. Don’t spend gold to speed-up upgrades. Save all your gold and use it to unlock all 5 hangar bays. After unlocking your hangar bays, keep saving gold for pilots, weapons, and robots.

<>Many paid robots and weapons are insanely over-powered compared to your free bots. My hope is that this guide will help new players adapt to this dynamic and stay with the game. I think with a larger Steam playerbase, fair matches will become more frequent.

<>If you want to spend a little money to support the game, there are many deals that pop up, and it seems some of the best deals are given in the early levels of the game. I’ve seen 1000 gold for $1. That’s really cheap and will save you a lot of time in unlocking hangar bays. I’ve also seen some decent bots for $5. That’s also really cheap. I haven’t seen these deals since leveling up.

<>Do not buy silver, in time you will have more than you can use.

<>Do not buy coins or keys, unless you like gambling and possibly wasting your money.

Setup

Before you start, it’s a good idea to make one quick change to the game’s setup.

Click on the “Advanced” tab and check the box for “Manually choose a target to lock on to”

This will allow you to use the Tab key to lock on to targets and switch targets in battle.

First Battles

Your first 3 battles are against A.I. bots, and they generally don’t shoot a lot, so you should not have too much trouble in these battles.

Your first bot is called Destrier, and is equipped with a Molot gun and Spiral rockets. If you replace the Spiral rockets with a Punisher gun, this will improve your overall DPS, and will help you get the top position on your team in these first 3 battles. The top positions get the best rewards.

The top 3 players on the winning side get gold, silver, and keys. All other players will get silver and at least 1 key.

Tasks

The game has tasks for you to complete, which will give you gold and silver. Click the Tasks button to see your progress and redeem your rewards. The early levels of the game will give you a good number of tasks, so keep checking in when you level up.

**I noticed the “Upgrade Any Bot” task only worked when I upgraded my starter bot 😛

**For the “Rename” task, enter your new name, then click the “Rename” button 2 times. The 1st click checks the availability of the name, the 2nd click finalizes the name.

Early Game Matches

So your 3 matches against A.I. bots are finished and you have your robot pilot’s license XD
Time to join the fight!

You . . . . . . . . will die. But don’t worry, it’s not because you suck. It’s because your robots do. The only thing to do is grind through these early matches and do your best until you can afford some better robots and weapons.

Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be a whole lot of players in the lower levels, so depending on when you are playing, you may find it hard to connect to a low level match simply due to a lack of players. This situation improves as you progress through the game and can get into higher level matches.

In these low levels, I can usually connect to a match in under 2 minutes, but sometimes I’ve waited over 5 minutes depending on the time I was playing. Hopefully more low level players will decide to stick with the game, and that will also help alleviate matchmaking woes.

The good news is that as you level up, you gain extra rewards with each level: more gold, more silver.

Game Modes

Know your mode!

There are 2 basic game modes in War Robots, each with some minor variations:

<>Death Match. Your objective is to kill the enemy team. Try to stay with teammates and attack together.

<>Beacon Control. Your objective is to capture beacons and hold them longer than the enemy.

It is important that you identify which game mode you are joining before you choose your first robot to enter battle.

If you are starting a beacon control mode, like “Domination”, you should choose a fast robot first so you can capture some beacons quickly. Remember that capping and defending beacons is the key to victory. Don’t pass by an enemy beacon to chase down an enemy. Go cap that beacon!

In death match games, you don’t necessarily need a fast robot right away. You can choose a robot that is more suited to the map you are in. If your robot is destroyed, you may want to next choose a fast robot to quickly catch up with your team and more quickly rejoin the fighting.

Weapons

When choosing weapons for your robot, it is important to consider their effective range, reload time, and other details in the weapon’s description.

In the example above, the Thunder’s max range is 500m, but due to its wide spread it does little damage from 500m away. It’s effective range would probably start around 350m, and gets stronger as you get closer to your target.

When equipping your robot with different kinds of weapons, it is important to consider how well they compliment each other. Below is an example of weapons that do not work together.

This Destrier has Noricom and Pinata equipped. The Noricom is a long range weapon, and cannot hit enemies closer than 300m. Pinata is a short range weapon with a max range of 300m. So, for any given target, you would essentially only have one usable weapon.

Also consider the strengths/weaknesses of your weapons. A Punisher and Pin have the same range, but Punisher has a long clip and is best used to engage the enemy for a long time. Pin does not stock many rockets and is best used in short bursts and hiding in cover while it restocks. Combining a long attack and short attack weapon together is not always a good idea.

In battle, you can select weapons to fire with your right mouse button. This can have useful applications, such as saving ammunition for a weapon or setting up your weapons so that some will fire while others reload to allow for continuous fire.

At the start of battle, you can see your weapons in the lower right corner of the screen, numbered 1 – 4. They all have a light circle around them, indicating they are linked to the right mouse button. To link/unlink weapons to the RMB, press the corresponding number on your keyboard. In the picture below, I have weapons 2 and 4 linked to the RMB.

This is an example of setting up weapons for continuous fire. I have one Zenit rocket launcher linked to the RMB. When it runs out of rockets, I press the LMB. Now my other Zenit will fire while the first one reloads. When the second Zenit runs out of rockets, the first will be fully reloaded, and I can fire a never ending barrage of rockets down upon my enemies.

Rockets like Pin and Pinata can be used to hit enemies hiding near the edge of cover. Press the Tab button to lock on to your target, then place the targeting reticle just to the side of their cover.

Homing missiles like Spiral can hit enemies further behind cover. Press the Tab button to lock on to your target, then place the targeting reticle as far to the side as possible without losing your target, and fire. In the picture below, the target is not hiding behind cover, but it still illustrates how it is done.

Silver Robots

The silver robots are the robots that you pay for with . . . well . . . silver.

I won’t go over all the robots here, just some pointers for new players.

Cossack
This will probably be your first beacon capping robot. It’s not so strong, so focus on capping and shooting the enemy from as far a distance as possible. One nice feature is that its weapon is side-mounted, allowing you to keep most of your robot behind cover as you fire. I have come across some leveled up Cossacks with leveled up weapons that were pretty tough, and he can be sneaky, so don’t completely rule out this robot.

Gareth
He has a shield that for some incomprehensible reason receives 2x damage from kinetic weapons. Keep in mind that it also will not protect you from weapons like Pinata rockets, so try to avoid enemies equipped with those. One notable fact is that he runs faster when the shield is on the side. The shield will protect whichever way it is facing, so if you want to run fast while protecting yourself from other directions, just turn his upper body while you run.

Natasha
She is a tall robot with 2 heavy guns mounted on the top. This allows you shoot over the top of buildings and terrain while keeping your robot protected behind cover. Using the Noricom rockets allows you to fire all weapons without exposing yourself to enemy fire.

Griffin
Griffin has a jumping ability. I find it useful to jump to a safer position when stronger enemies are closing in. But look before you leap! It is much better to turn around and take a little fire but jump exactly where you want to jump. Otherwise, if you fire at your enemy and try to jump backwards you could easily hit the side of a building and not really go anywhere, or jump into a more exposed position because you didn’t really know where you were jumping. Try to avoid jumping when you don’t have to. A good sniper will target and hit you right away.

Tips

<>Eventually, you will be fighting against players who have paid money for better robots and weapons. A good way to adapt to this dynamic is too identify strong players on your team and support them in their attacks. Try to avoid groups of enemies unless you are with a group yourself.

<>Until you grind for (or buy) some better gear, it’s a good idea to use mid and long range weapons. Many new paid robots will be very deadly to you at close range. Leo might be your best bet for close range because of his large hit points. If you get a Stalker in a 100 key chest, he’s also a good close range support robot, especially if you have a freeze or lock-down gun, you can set up a nice target for stronger teammates.

<>During a match, try to identify what kind of robots your enemies are using before engaging. Even if you can’t see the enemy, you can still see markers showing their positions if closer than 1100m. Sometimes you will see their marker fly, jump, cloak, raise shields, or dash. This can give you an idea of what you are up against before you attack. You don’t want to rush blindly into a cloaked, flying fire-breathing robot!

<>If you are playing as a sniper, don’t track a single target and wait for him to come out of cover. Constantly scan the battlefield looking for any opportunities to hit someone.

<>Don’t shoot the purple shields. They absorb your fire and redirect the energy into their own weapons, giving them a stronger attack. Run to cover, or if you can’t, wait for the shield to lower before resuming your attack. Remember this too when a teammate is fighting an enemy with the purple shield. If you hit the shield, you make their attack stronger, and that is bad for your teammate.

<>Any shield (even the purple one) can be bypassed completely if you walk (or run) right up to the enemy and deliver a point-blank attack.

<>Don’t bother with the 10 key chests. Save up for the 100 key chests. There is a good chance you will get a new robot or weapon.

<>When you reach level 21, the workshop will become available and will allow you to make parts for better robots and weapons. You can set it up for 3 day production by clicking the “3d” tab at the top of the screen.

I recommend making weapon parts first because you can make more weapon parts than robot parts at one time. Not only can you finish a weapon before a robot, but producing more parts will also level up your workshop faster.

<>Some players engage in tanking, meaning they purposely destroy their robots in battle to get a low score. They do this so they lose points and can drop to a lower league where they hope to be a top player. Don’t do this. You will earn fewer experience points, you cannot open better battle rewards chests, you earn less Operation Experience meaning fewer Operation rewards, it’s time-consuming and boring, you can’t complete any tasks, it will hurt your clan rating. Yes, you can get into a few easier matches for a while, but in the long run you are robbing yourself of many rewards.

<>Sometimes you will receive boosters as rewards.

I recommend saving them up until you have 5 or 6 you can use at the same time. A key booster will help you get a few extra keys. But a key booster with 2 damage boosters and 2 defense boosters and a speed booster will really buff your robots and get you more keys. A silver booster I would use anytime without other boosters, especially in the early game when that is the only time you might be short on silver.

As you progress through the game, you will get more tasks for lots of rewards.

You can complete tasks faster by configuring your robots and weapons for each task. For example, if your task is to capture beacons, make sure you have some fast robots in your hangar. If you only take big, slow robots, it will take longer to complete this task. Or if your task is to deal damage from more than 4oom away, put long range weapons on your robots.