Official AWBW tier list by Hellraider

Official AWBW CO Tier List by Hellraider

This Tier List will, or at least should, serve as template for all future events on AWBW.

Introduction
While any sort of CO ranking can't be entirely accurate due to trend changes, metagame-development and mapdependency, this list should serve as a very good starting point. It depicts the relative CO strength on an average map, meaning 15k-25k income, 2-4 bases per side, average terrain, available airports and non-relevant naval battle. Any kind of changes of CO strength depending on certain map features will be noted. I'll be using 6 tiers to classify the COs, namely Broken Tier, Luck Tier and Tier 1-5. The Brokens and the luck COs generally won't be used in competitions, the former due to their extreme strength and the latter due to their reliability on luck. For that reason, they will be simply listed and no clarification on their exact abilities will be given.

To account for the map dependency of the COs, I added a few paragraphs to each CO explaining on what sort of maps they shine on.

The tier list applies to 2-player maps outside of FoW, with 1000 income per property and banned Black Bombs. The "average" map that this tier list is generally based on has 17k-22k income, 3 bases and at least one airport per side, 2-3 at least partly connected fronts and no contested key properties.


CO Tier List
Broken Tier

Kanbei, Colin, Sensei, Grit, Hachi, Javier2T+

Luck Tier

Nell, Flak, Jugger

Tier 1 (Top Tier)

Sturm, Von Bolt, Javier1T, Sasha, Hawke

Tier 2 (High Tier)

Eagle, Olaf, Max

Tier 3 (Mid Tier)

Andy, Drake, Kindle, Lash, Sami

Tier 4 (Low Tier)

Rachel, Grimm, Adder

Tier 5 (Bottom Tier)

Jake, Jess, Sonja, Javier0T, Koal


Explanation
Note, this tier list is only a guideline and strongly reflects what sort of maps are being played on currently. Nearly no competition will have banlists that are an exact copy of what stands above, as every map has unique features that serve to make certain COs stronger or weaker. In this section, I want to elaborate on these features as well as give the general reasons for why the COs are placed as they are.

Tier 1 (Top Tier)

Sturm

Sturm is a CO that will often be banned even in this tier, as his perfect movement has the potential to break the game if the terrain is heavy enough. He also benefits from terrain defence because it works well together with his day to day. Likewise, he almost need towers as desperately as Javier as it gives him a bigger relative boost to his attack. The maps where Sturm will be played on are few, as they need to have enough heavy terrain to make him useful, but not enough to make him look overpowered and therefore banned.

Von Bolt

110/110 Stats and an overpriced SCOP lead to VB's usefulness being indirectly proportional to the size of the map. Small maps without towers, without airports, with open fronts and only 2 bases are his ideal feeding ground, as they promote the tank/infantry battles where he has a good chance to run over his opponent with his superior stats. Anything that reduces the impact of his enhanced defence, for instance copters, indirects, heavy tanks etc. will make him weaker. Not being able to turn his stats into a capture phase advantage is also a good sign that you might not want to pick him on the map in question.

Javier1T

While Javier's d2d is decent, the relevant only kicks in after capturing the tower, meaning that he is weak in the capture phase. His strength lies in his COP that allows him to attack without taking much damage in the following turn, which also means that you don't miss out on too much charge during your COP, a problem that haunts many powers. Javier is useable on a wide variety of maps, bar the smallest and the largest ones, as the former may have him dead before his d2d or his COP kicks in, while the latter make it hard for him to do enough damage before stronger powers are charged.

Sasha

Similar to Javier, Sasha can be used on many maps. The ones where she is best can be tricky to spot, as they are the ones where her early vehicle advantage allows her to take a positional advantage big enough to gain a property advantage. Her COP gives her fairly regular minor boosts while delaying the opponents powers, making her a good counter to COs such as Eagle and Hawke. Her SCOP, which I haven't seen used once yet, might have it's uses especially against COs with bad powers, but suffers from the fact that you are spending 6 stars for an advantage that does not have an immediate effect on the battle.
She might not enjoy maps where infantry brawls decide over contested cities, as she might find herself without her standard income advantage soon. Therefore, she is rarely picked on smaller maps.

Hawke

While he probably won't see much play, his d2d is at least decent enough to let him hang on (and most importantly, do damage) in this tier. His SCOP is often game-winning, meaning that Hawke will do better on larger maps with more unit buildup and less heated brawling. On smaller maps he might drop a tier, although his d2d makes him good even then.

Tier 2 (High Tier)

Eagle

Eagle has the hardest I-Win-Button in the game, but he suffers from a d2d that is limited to air units, sometimes making it hard for him to survive long enough to use it. Big maps are his friends, and maps with prominent copters might make him more useful than his alternative, Olaf.

Olaf

Very similar to Eagle, Olaf often wins the game with his SCOP. The obvious differences are that it is 2 stars cheaper, but also overall weaker in effect. The more subtle difference lies in the fact that Olaf's SCOP can sometimes be better at evening a game up. If there are only few vehicles around, its advantage is that the snow will prevent many units from attacking (especially infantry), thereby conserving units and limiting charge.

Max

It is more than obvious if I say that Max likes maps that favor direct units. Open fronts that allow tanks to move between them and copters that can outmaneuvre Anti-Air units are perfect for him. While he is placed here because many maps allow that sort of effectiveness currently, Max can easily drop one or two tiers if the map is too big, has too many chokes or has completely divided fronts. A tower allows Max to OHKO road/shoal infantry with an uncertainty, which can be useful but is slightly overrated.

Tier 3 (Mid Tier)

Andy

Andy's one and only strength is his SCOP. The threat of being able to repair up units makes it possible for him to launch attacks or take positions that would be impossible for any other CO. He is not overly mapdependent and will stay similar in strength, but prefers not too small maps, optimally without tower.

Drake

Drake is mostly a weaker Olaf, suffering from the fact that having only 80/100 copters can really hurt (lack of copter + tank 2HKOs especially) and that rain is inferior to snow. Still, mass damage is always a force to be reckoned with. Maps with prominent airports can hurt him, as Drake wants to avoid countering copters with his own copters, but it is more important that the map is big enough to allow enough units and therefore charge.

Kindle

Her d2d is mainly useful when fighting for contested properties with infantry, usually being rather irrelevant apart from that. As her COP is one that does not gain efficiency with more units around, Kindle does well on smaller maps with high property density, optimally including contested ones. She is also playable on bigger maps if the fronts have enough properties that are hard to avoid, as she then has decent d2d, COP and SCOP.

Lash

As her d2d is directly linked to terrain defence, Lash's strength depends heavily on the map and she can go up or down a tier depending on that. Apart from overall heavy terrain, she likes having no airports, relevant 2HKOs onto key cities, contested properties and prefers smaller maps due to her rather underwhelming powers.

Sami

Sami is a rather special case, as she is a CO where the player has to shift away from the common tank-heavy playstyle to use her to full effect. She is decent in this tier simply with enough infantry around, and might go up if there are heavily contested properties, relevant areas where vehicles can't reach and/or bases that are close enough to the front to allow mechs. On any map that either is tank(copter)-friendly (such as 2-base maps) and/or are big enough to allow vehicle buildup before infantry can start fighting Sami will drop down one, in extreme cases even two tiers.

Tier 4 (Low Tier)

Rachel

On medium to bigger maps, Rachel basically has inferior mass damage assuming that the opponent knows how to split against the missiles (and the situation allows it). Rachel thrives on maps that are small enough to make her SCOP hit well, but also big enough to allow enough charge to be gained before the game is decided and for the missiles to be relevant. Under the correct circumstances, she can go up a tier.

Grimm

While Grimm technically prefers low terrain due to his d2d, its main effect is to change the way the game is played by granting both players 2HKOs everywhere, making it impossible to sit on cities and hard to shield indirects. His innate strength comes from his (S)COP, which allow his units to wreck everything in sight. Unfortunately for him they come without any sort of defensive advantage, meaning that it is very hard for him to find good opportunities to use his powers. They have to be used early enough so that the attack boost actually allows him to cripple enough of the opponents army. Therefore, Grimm rather wants smaller maps as larger maps might make it harder for him to find an opening, and also allow the opponent to charge potentially stronger powers.

Adder

The main strength of Adder's COP, and therefore himself, is that it allows him to slaughter infantry with his own. For that to be possible the map has to be open enough to have enough attack angles. As it is only 2 stars, smaller maps are of advantage as they will allow Adder to gain a quick advantage without charging longer CO bars. Being able to use Mechs to decent effect is an additional perk that comes into effect on maps that allow for it.

Tier 5 (Bottom Tier)

Jake

Jake can do decently on 1T maps where plains next to cities allow him safe 2HKOs, or on maps with a lot of plains overall. While his COP can be used as a threat, it usually does nothing, leaving him with a SCOP that is only really useful if the map has enough plains. To sum it up, plains are good for Jake.

Jess

90/100 infantry is a absolutely horrible d2d, making her useful only on a select few maps where having infantry with reduced attack doesn't absolutely cripple you. These include 2-base maps as well as maps with higher starting income and maps where vehicles reach the front before infantry do.

Sonja

Sonja is actually a decent CO, but her negative luck makes it nearly impossible to actually play with her. She does best on tower- and airportless maps that favor tankspam, as her absurdly good SCOP will profit from that.

Javier0T

I suppose he is decent if you want to walk into indirect range, but I doubt that being able to do so for one turn makes him worth a pick.

Koal

For the most part, Koal plays as Adder with a 50% more expensive COP. However, he does have a niche in road-heavy maps, where his powers allow him to do a decent amount of damage.

Recently I found that the low tier games became the game between rachel and kindle. I think we have underestimate some COs and overrate some as well. So I want to express my view here and seek some changes.
My CO tier list:
broken: kanbei, sensei, colin, hachi, grit(someone doubt if he can maintain his position in GL maps)
top: von bolt, javier(1T), sasha, nell
luck: nell, flak, jugger (nell>flak>jugger. But flak's d2d ability is the best one)
high: hawke, eagle, max, sami (auctually some players think that sami should be a CO of top tier, but cause of sami is too hard to use, I put her in high tier now)
mid: olaf, rachel, kindle, andy, lash
low: jake, jess, adder, grimm, drake, flak
bottum: sonja, koal, javier(0T), jugger

I'll explain my view briefly on why there's some difference between my list and Hellraider's list.

rachel: almost every player I cognized disagree that rachel is a low tier CO.
Her d2d is useful. Every rachel's city is a small factory which can maintain more force in the battlefront. I think her d2d is better than jake's.
Her COP can be used to destroy MD tanks, that's a good choice for a troop fromed by only tanks, b-copters, anti-airs when rushing a place defended by md. Not a useless ability. ps. considering an attack between two same unit (basic damage=55), luck(0-40) leads to a total basic damage of (55-95), which equal to a power of power bonus, (100%-172%, average=136%). It's not bad.
Her SP is very powerful, which is like olaf's and drake's ability, but more offensive and less defensive. She can destroy a large number of enemy in one turn, or keep patience and wait for a better chance. When facing a perfect defensive formation, rachel's SP is better than olaf's.

Kindle: good d2d, good COP, and good SP. Because we put kindle in low tier(rachel as well), now we can see that most low tier games are between kindle and rachel. That's boring.

Olaf and Drake: I don't think there SP are too powerful. They are both defensive CO's. If we release their power in advance, that can only influence the money(snow and rain effect is not so useful when attacking a group of well-protected troops). If hold their power, their are just the no-power COs. I don't think they can be big problem for high tier COs if treated carefully. Drake's air force is nearly useless, which is a great problem. As well, his COP isn't as useful as Olaf's, and his SP can't stop the pace of infantries. So, their tiers are mid and low in my opinion.

Jess and Jake:
I think jess, jake and adder are on the same tier. I find that it's normal to use jess or jake if adder is available. jumzhutwo analyzed that jess is a CO for long period game, she can use rocket and tanks well, and also destroy her opponent's. 1T jess is like max. I can't understand why she is worse than adder. A 0.9 inf is not good, but at least she can make up her shortcoming with her powerful tanks.
Jake as well, powerful troops(a 1T jake can destroy a same troop on city with one plain terrain, that's enough. It's not so important if an attack can cause a damage of 5HP or 6HP). Also, his SP is not bad.
In contrast, adder is totally a CO for short period game.

I hope we can change the CO tier. At least avoid the horrible rachel vs rachel games. We can realize the real tier of the COs by counting the choice of GL players.(not that in map analyse, because I think that the CO tier has changed several times before)

Hi, I just registered, but I have been playing AW on and off for sometime, just started on AWBW again after a long hiatus. It's great to see an active forum on the game here, for months I've only seen long dead ones. I'm not an expert, and I have too little experience with some COs to comment on them, but I do have a few opinions and questions on the current CO tier system.

Firstly, I would agree about Kindle feeling underrated for low tier. Kindle's D2D allows her to park tanks on cities without fearing first strike, and her COP is a very nice weapon, especially when your opponent buys a lot of new units. However, from the tier list I saw, it seems to say she is middle tier? That would be about right IMO. Rachel's nice SCOP and 3 HP recovery on city should probably also move her up to middle tier, at any rate I feel she is stronger than Adder and Grimm, and probably at least as good as Lash.

Secondly, Sonja might not be as terrible as she is ranked. Yes the negative luck can be incredibly annoying, but her innate ability of hiding HP wreaks havoc on the opposition, and prevents the calculated breaking through of weak points in defensive lines. Her other innate ability, 50% increased counterattack leaves her to scoff at even HP first strikes as long as she has decent terrain, and remember, the opponent often doesn't know which attacks are overwhelming, which are even, and which are against superior odds. Her SCOP, combined with her hidden HP ability will leave her units essentially invulnerable for one turn, much like Kanbei's SCOP. I daresay she could stand at least an even chance against mid-tier COs in the league non-FOW setting. In FOW, she is probably broken.

Finally, the broken tier has always struck me as being odd, banning such a large number of COs. Intuitively, one would think if all 5 were far stronger than the others, they could be matched against each other, since 5 is a large enough number for a tier. Finally I realised it may make sense if not all of these are equally broken- Colin especially but also Hachi are in a league of their own IMO, Sensei and Grit are very good (Grit especially benefits from the AWBW stalemates), while Kanbei intuitively doesn't seem that insanely strong to me (but I have too limited experience with him to contest his placement by experts). What do people think about the broken tier COs compared with each other? In addition, would Sturm be able to compete with a broken CO in a fairly terrain heavy map? His D2D ability seems pretty insane on many maps, giving him additional captures and first strikes often.

I apologise if any of the opinions or questions seem presumptuous or stupid, hopefully you can be patient with them, and I look forward to joining this community!

Thank you both for your comments. I'll leave a detailed response on this topic later (hopefully tonight). And welcome InvincibleXI .

I'll leave most of this for Walker since he really has a lot more knowledge in this area, but I'll specifically address your points on the broken 5 because I have a decent amount of experience with them.

As you suggested, they aren't broken equally and that's because they're broken for different reasons. For example, if you make a map with a lot of cities and/or production facilities, then Colin, Hachi, and Sensei can become extremely powerful very easily- I would argue that Colin has, by far, the greatest potential, especially on large maps. Hachi and Sensei may be fantastic at spamming, but Colin can use his COP to build his money while filling every port, airport, and base he has with higher tier units than his opponents can afford because he gets them so cheap. His property income will eventually be useless because his COP can give him many times the funding once he saves up his money (not hard). At a certain point he becomes completely broken and can alternate bank-friendly COPs with beyond-crippling SCOPs that let just about every unit do 100's to 1000's of percent damage to almost any target. You have enough money and subs can OHKO cruisers, copters OHKO AA and even infantry and recons can confidently attack neotanks or megatanks. Then just imagine that once he's at this stage in the game, he can also afford to build nothing but stealths, carriers/battleships, and megatanks on every base/port/airport every turn without batting an eye. I've been there and seen it and it's terrifying. If you don't stop him by then, there's little hope for redemption.

Now, on the other hand, if you put Colin and Kanbei together on a small map with few bases, Kanbei will roll right over top of him before the mid-game even gets going. So what if Colin gets the first tank? How well do you think his 90/100 will fare against Kanbei's 130/130? Colin can attack first from a city and barely break even against a Kanbei tank on a road. Flip the terrain, still leaving Colin first strike, and he does 1-2 damage vs Kanbei's 5-6 in counterattack. Colin simply never gets off the ground when he doesn't have sufficient bases and/or time to really charge up vs Kanbei.

Grit's primary strength is in land combat, for obvious reasons. There's a lot of need for direct units in air/naval warfare so it takes away from him a bit, but otherwise he's a force to be reckoned with. Colin, Sensei, and Hachi can be good counters because they can spam units to break through Grit's meatshield. Colin especially doesn't mind losing a few tanks to deal some damage because it just boosts his CO meter, making him richer and stronger. It can be a lot for Grit to handle because he can only target so many, and once his wall is gone he's completely vulnerable. On the other hand, very chokey maps (obviously) give him the advantage because spamming becomes useless when terrain is the limiting factor. Personally, I like a good Kanbei/Grit matchup because in the right circumstances their abilities pair nicely. Kanbei has high defense and offense, making him ideal for breaking through Grit's wall, but on the other hand, Grit has the chance to try and snipe Kanbei's fewer units without directly engaging them which is usually how you have to treat Kanbei. Obviously certain scenarios will leave one more powerful than the other, but I think they balance with each other much more easily than, say, Colin and Kanbei.

I have much less experience with 2+T Javier, but I know he can be a very serious threat. With 2 towers his D2D is getting close to Kanbei's, but without the drawback. Granted, his opponent will also have +20% attack, but defense is much more important because of the way damage is calculated. This is a game-breaking advantage as it is, but the problem here is that he becomes like Colin in the sense that he can gain enormous strength as the battle progresses. If each player has 2 towers, capturing 1 of the enemy towers is all he needs to become unstoppable. Suddenly he has Kanbei stats D2D, still without a the drawback, and the added benefit of being virtually immune one of the best Kanbei-counters: indirect units. Give him a COP or SCOP and he can quite literally become immune to damage while boasting either 160 (COP) or 190 (SCOP) attack, plus his extra 10% boost just for using his SCOP. In other words, he outmatches even Grimm's COP/SCOP firepower while also being invincible to taking damage. Obviously Grit vs 2T Javier isn't a fair fight, but I won't compare him directly to the other Brokens since I have little experience with him.

So the take-away message here is that not all Broken CO's are created equal so you couldn't really just drop the Broken Tier into league games and expect fair results. They balance in drastically different ways because of their drastically different abilities and it's often the case that only 1 or 2 are actually a great candidate (compared to other brokens) on a map. You have to contrive examples to make maps play otherwise. One last thing I will say is that broken CO team matches can get really interesting. Just imagine the power of Kanbei or Grit doing all the heavy lifting from behind a wall of sacrificial Colin units until Colin's had a chance to become completely broken and take the reigns in the late-game. It introduces a really fun dynamic if you ask me.

the FANG wrote:My CO tier list:
broken: kanbei, sensei, colin, hachi, grit(someone doubt if he can maintain his position in GL maps)
top: von bolt, javier(1T), sasha, nell
luck: nell, flak, jugger    (nell>flak>jugger. But flak's d2d ability is the best one)
high: hawke, eagle, max, sami (auctually some players think that sami should be a CO of top tier, but cause of sami is too hard to use, I put her in high tier now)
mid: olaf, rachel, kindle, andy, lash
low: jake, jess, adder, grimm, drake, flak
bottum: sonja, koal, javier(0T), jugger

the FANG wrote:rachel:
Her d2d is useful. Every rachel's city is a small factory which can maintain more force in the battlefront. I think her d2d is better than jake's. Her SP is very powerful, which is like olaf's and drake's ability, but more offensive and less defensive. She can destroy a large number of enemy in one turn, or keep patience and wait for a better chance. When facing a perfect defensive formation, rachel's SP is better than olaf's.

It really depends on the map. On something like Iconic, where the fronts are closely packed together, Rachel probably is in the same tier as Kindle, Lash, et al. As Hellraider notes in his analysis, she goes up a tier on smaller maps where her SCOP is very effective. But on something bigger like Beyond Eternity, it's too easy to divert her missiles with infantry. Rachel's D2D is not bad, but it's not something you can use to gain an advantage over your opponent like Lash or Kindle can. Rachel has trouble keeping up with D2D CO's, and really relies on her SCOP to win a front in one big swoop.

the FANG wrote:Olaf and Drake: I don't think there SP are too powerful. They are both defensive CO's... If hold their power, their are just the no-power COs.  I don't think they can be big problem for high tier COs if treated carefully.

I respectfully disagree 100%. Olaf's SCOP is the 3rd strongest in the game, behind Eagle and Hawke - and sometimes it is even better than theirs if the snow is really useful. 2hp to every unit is enough to guarantee 2HKO's in a lot of places (especially on opponent's cities), and you are much more free to attack into the opponent since their reinforcements are delayed a turn. Olaf is absolutely on par with Eagle and Max.

the FANG wrote:Drake's air force is nearly useless, which is a great problem. As well, his COP isn't as useful as Olaf's, and his SP can't stop the pace of infantries.

I agree that Drake is worse than Olaf for the reasons mentioned. On maps where air is really critical, he probably does fall into Low Tier. But on larger maps, mass damage is still really strong.

the FANG wrote:Jess:
I think jess, jake and adder are on the same tier. I find that it's normal to use jess or jake if adder is available. jumzhutwo analyzed that jess is a CO for long period game, she can use rocket and tanks well, and also destroy her opponent's. 1T jess is like max. I can't understand why she is worse than adder. A 0.9 inf is not good, but at least she can make up her shortcoming with her powerful tanks.

Really disagree here too, Jess is absolutely a bottom tier CO on most maps. The only maps where she maybe gets to low tier is on 2-base maps where there are relatively few infantry and vehicles are the predominant unit in the mid-game. But on the majority of maps, her inability to get 2HKO's with infantry is absolutely crippling. You can't make up for that with vehicles.

the FANG wrote:Jake as well, powerful troops(a 1T jake can destroy a same troop on city with one plain terrain, that's enough. It's not so important if an attack can cause a damage of 5HP or 6HP). Also, his SP is not bad.

I could see Jake moving up to low tier, I agree that he's not too far off adder. The problem is that his D2D is typically not that useful - it doesn't grant you very many extra 2HKO's, and his SCOP is not nearly as game-breaking as many of the upper tier CO's. On the right map I would pick him over Adder, but it can go either way.

With regards to Sami, she often should be a High Tier CO, but it can be difficult to tell when. I see you moved Hawke down to High Tier - we originally did have him here but there were a LOT of Hawke mirrors, so we moved him up to Top Tier. His CO powers are strong enough for him to keep up if the map is big enough.

In the end, I think you're right that we probably need to be better about making adjustments for CO tiers based on the map. Perhaps we are being too conservative with moving Rachel or Sami or Kindle, etc. up or down tiers when it's needed. It would really help if we could have top players' feedback on what League maps they think have settings that are not accurate, to help us evaluate changes. I can put together a list of the current maps and settings, if you or anyone else is interested in helping us, the FANG.

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InvincibleXI wrote:Secondly, Sonja might not be as terrible as she is ranked.

Sonja is literally the worst CO in the game, in my opinion. Incredibly annoying doesn't begin to describe it - you can't count on practically any 2HKO or OHKO, which makes it ludicrously hard to mount an attack or counterattack. Her counterattacking is okay, but in most situations you wouldn't want to attack into a given defensive formation regardless of the counterattacking boost (and her bad luck affects the counterattack too!). Her HP hiding is overrated, as generally it's easy for a player to keep track of her units and their relative HP if they take screenshots and notes. Her SCOP is very good, but is just not enough to save her. Without her bad luck she might be a low or mid-tier CO, but the bad luck is REALLY bad.

Xmo5 pretty much summed up my thoughts on the broken COs. I will say that there is potential for having broken CO setups in the League, because I think there are likely sets of at least 3 broken CO's who are relatively balanced for given maps. But because broken CO's have never been heavily explored, we have to do a bit of testing and development to really understand how strong they are relative to each other for given maps. I made a competition a couple years ago featuring only broken COs to do exactly this type of development, but more research is definitely needed. It's kind of a high-risk endeavor to throw them in the League, too, because when they are broken, they are really broken. And that's not fun to be on the losing side of.

I actually wrote a reply to Xmo on my com and submitted it, I'll try to recover and repost it later, but the summary is great points, especially about Kanbei v Colin, I always used to think that Colin being able to afford almost 2 tanks for Kanbei's one would give him an early combat advantage but I see now that even in 1v2 Kanbei wins if he can get first strike or a terrain advantage.

To Walker, I suppose it depends on how lucky you are as to how much the bad luck affects you Somehow in a previous game it didn't cost me that many opposition hp when the battles came up. The counterattack ability is better when you are on good terrain of course, but even on average terrain it will cost your opponent 1hp normally, which should compensate the bad luck hp you've lost. With regards to screenshots and notes, how many players actually do that? And even when that is done, when there are multiple tanks or infantry in close proximity, it can be genuinely impossible to tell which is which hp, as long as the Sonja player is clever with shuffling. I think not knowing how much hp each unit is as much of a hindrance to launching an attack as not being able to guarantee 1HKOs or 2HKOs (in fact in some ways it has the same effect, as unless you're prepped for a 10HP unit, you can't guarantee you'll kill it as fast as you want). One thing that does affect this which I'm not clear about, having never faced Sonja in AWBW, is when (if ever) does Sonja's opponent see her units HP? At the damage percent screen, after launching an attack, or after facing an attack from a unit? In any case, I agree that Sonja has major disadvantages that keep her from being middle tier or higher, but I would definitely take her over Koal, Adder, Jess or Jake, at least for the confusion it will give my opponent. Just my personal opinion, and I'd love to test it out.

A broken CO competition or other research would be great if you're intending to revive it, since many of those COs are the most fun to play with. I'd definitely be interested to try

(note: this post was written prior to Walker's post)

Thanks for the welcome Walker, and the detailed response, Xmo! I fully agree with what you said about Colin on large maps with loads of properties, his COP utterly breaks the game, such  that even if he faces total strategic and tactical defeats on multiple fronts (even losing a battle for an advanced base, or since those don't exist much in AWBW, multiple cities), as long as he has sufficient funds, he can exponentially increase his income and gradually build up an armada at the same time. His SCOP isn't even needed, but will of course break any defensive line once it comes into play assuming you have already pushed back the opponent with your swarm of forces.

Your point about Kanbei destroying Colin in small bases surprised me, but when I checked the stats I realise it makes a lot of sense. Colin generally has an early game (capture phase, plus very early battle) advantage thanks to his cheap units which can be deployed earlier than opponents, and I always thought the reverse affected Kanbei but I realised that with those incredible numbers Colin's 2 tanks lose to Kanbei's 1 if it has first strike OR terrain advantages, so the open field is a disaster for Colin. I wonder if Colin could just infantry spam and turtle till his CO power starts generating funds for him though? Obviously this would be harder with a smaller map and less bases, but I just feel it may be possible with most maps. As I said, I have too little experience with Kanbei (or for that matter using Colin against a skilled player), so this is just a feeling.

Grit obviously has a huge edge with congested maps against most COs, although I think unless the map is very small Colin will normally destroy him. You can't play as slowly as Grit does when your opponent can double his funds in 2 turns, and you can't advance quickly against the meatshields Colin can put up. Theoretically, he should be beatable in open maps, but one thing I noticed was that AWBW tends to lead to even open-looking maps getting blocked up, making Grit stronger. The lack of central bases may be a factor, since all bases are too far away from the front, damage dealt by indirects cannot quickly be replenished, although on the flip side, central bases could be targeted by Grit's indirects more, though I think his weakness in direct fights may mean that he may lose contests for any central bases. This is all just theory though, and probably irrelevant one at that.

About Javier, I never realised quite how dangerous he was, until fighting him 1T with Sasha. His COP is pretty painful. Can I just ask though, how exactly is defence more important than attack? I've heard it said a few times, though I never quite understood it. Taking Sturm for instance, 80/120 by basic multiplication seems to suggest only doing 96% as well as 100/100 (ignoring towers and terrain). How exactly does this maths work?

Finally, Colin is a phenomenal tag partner, though I've always played him as the primary CO except for major combat turns. And yeah, loads of fun, except probably for the other guy  

InvincibleXI wrote:Can I just ask though, how exactly is defence more important than attack? I've heard it said a few times, though I never quite understood it. [...] How exactly does this maths work?

Ah, great question! I actually didn't look into this myself until about a year ago and it blew my mind how important defense is in this game. If you want to look at the actual equation, you can find it on the AWBW wiki: Damage Formula.

In the formula, your attack value (already accounting for luck etc.) gets multiplied by:

(200-[Defense_co + (Terrain Stars*Unit HP) ])/100

So what does that mean? Basically you sum up your CO defensive value (Kanbei = 130, for example) and add it to 1% per HP per terrain star (+30 for a 10 HP unit on a city) and subtract that number from 200 before dividing by 100. A 10 HP Kanbei unit on a city would look like:

[200 - (130 + 30)]/100 = 40/100 = 0.40

Now, considering the fact that your max attack value is multiplied by this number, that basically means that Kanbei just negated 60% of the raw damage value. Follow that through a bit further and you'll see that having combined defense value of 200 makes you 100% invincible to damage because, regardless of what the raw attack value is, it's being multiplied by 0. You could have Colin with 10,000,000 funds on his SCOP, normally doing 1000's of damage, and you would still do nothing. Keep in mind that this means a defense stat of 190 make you invincible on plains, 180 on forests and reefs, 170 on cities/urban tiles, and 160 on HQ's and mountains.

This is why defense is so dangerous, and probably why it's so rare to find increased defensive values. The only COs that come to mind are Kanbei, Sturm, Javier, and Von Bolt. Eagle and Drake have increased defense, but are a bit different here because they can't combine the boosted defense with terrain very well (or at all) and their defense boost only applies to a few units. Notice how all of the COs that have across the board defense boosts (0T Javier doesn't count) are in Broken or Top Tier, though Sturm's movement bonus helps here too (sometimes too much).

Ooh, that's a fascinating formula. So if you take a 130% attack unit and attack a Kanbei unit on a city, you're still only going to get 0.52 damage multiplier. On the other hand, if you take Andy v Andy on a city you get 0.7, and Sturm v Grimm on a city you get 0.88. Andy v Sturm would be 0.5 and the reverse would be 0.56 so 80/120 beats 100/100 too. I checked to see if this still applied on roads or 0* terrain, and it doesn't seem to (Andy v Sturm is 0.8 either way, 130 v Kanbei= 0.91, same as 70% attack 70% defence hypothetically), so the advantage appears to be linked to the terrain bonus that is added to the defence. Sorry for all those numbers, got too excited with experimenting. That explains why defence boosts are so important. By the way, does that mean that Javier 1T on SCOP would be literally invulnerable to indirects from plains (or does the +10 attack +10 defence for all COPs mean he gets total invulnerability even from roads)? Also, it seems that luck wouldn't help overcome this invulnerability either, since it affects the attack side? Does that mean also that COs with higher luck benefit more from attack boosts than those without?

And yeah, Sturm's movement bonus is game breaking on most maps too. So both of Sturm's strengths come from having heavy terrain.

InvincibleXI wrote:So if you take a 130% attack unit and attack a Kanbei unit on a city, you're still only going to get 0.52 damage multiplier. On the other hand, if you take Andy v Andy on a city you get 0.7

Took me a minute to realize what you meant by these numbers, but yes, that's right. You can see how much more impact the 30% defense boost has than the 30% attack boost in that scenario.

InvincibleXI wrote:By the way, does that mean that Javier 1T on SCOP would be literally invulnerable to indirects from plains (or does the +10 attack +10 defence for all COPs mean he gets total invulnerability even from roads)?

Correct. Javier has 110/110 for using his SCOP, then an additional 30 defense/attack from his tower and 60 extra defense against indirects. This leaves him with 200 defense against indirects (and 140 against everything else) on a 1T SCOP, making him invulnerable to indirect fire on any terrain. His normal units will probably take somewhere around an average of 50% of the intended damage and then hit with a counterattack at 140% attack. With SCOP stats rivaling Kanbei's COP plus being immune to indirects, it's no surprise he makes the top tier with 1 tower.

InvincibleXI wrote:Also, it seems that luck wouldn't help overcome this invulnerability either, since it affects the attack side? Does that mean also that COs with higher luck benefit more from attack boosts than those without?

Right, luck is factored in before the defense multiplier so it won't save you against a combined defense stat of 200. Also, based on that formula, I wouldn't think that luck CO's benefit any more from attack boosts than anyone else. It doesn't specifically mention how COs like Nell, Flak, Jugger, or Sonja factor into that equation, but I would imagine it has to do with modifying the R value and the various probabilities of getting different numbers. If that's the case, it appears as though the impact of luck is only proportionally increased by the attacking unit's HP and not it's attack value. If it were a multiplier that would be a different story, and I suspect that's why it isn't.

InvincibleXI wrote:So both of Sturm's strengths come from having heavy terrain.

Yup, and that's one of the things that makes him most dangerous; his D2D powers work together fantastically. His high defense really shines on heavy terrain and his movement bonus helps him to take full advantage of that. Lash and Kindle both have "similar" D2D powers in the sense that ideal terrain becomes even more beneficial (unlike Koal who is the reverse), but it's nothing like the way Sturm does since he has not only the additional 20% defense regardless of terrain, but also the movement bonus to overcome the drawbacks of heavy terrain.

Cool, that's very informative, thank you! Yeah I understand now why Javier is top tier with a tower. I also see what you mean about luck not affecting the attack boost disproportionately, I've been trying to understand the maths intuitively, but it keeps confusing me, so I'll just stop. And I'll definitely give Sturm a shot the next time I get the chance to, the most recent high-tier league match I played on Bel'Shir Beach I chose Eagle since I wasn't sure that the terrain suited Sturm enough and wanted Eagle's SCOP. I basically facepalmed when I saw Sasha in response lol. Sasha beats Eagle especially, because of his absolutely useless (IMO) COP.

Oh and by the way, how do you select sections of a post to extract and comment on? Thanks.

InvincibleXI wrote:Oh and by the way, how do you select sections of a post to extract and comment on? Thanks.

It's nothing fancy (or if it is I've been doing it wrong). I do it by manually typing:

Code:

[quote="InvincibleXI"][/quote]

then copy-pasting a few times and copy-pasting (or moving around inside my response) the text I want to quote for each one. Alternatively, if you start your reply by quoting someone you can delete all of the quoted text except what you want for your first quote and then copying that whole mess, deleting the quote inside and inputting text you want for your second quote. Repeat for every quote you want to add. There's also a quote button you can use while writing your post (it looks like a speech bubble) where you simply input the name of the person you're quoting and it gives you the same quote tags that I write in manually. If the quotes are from multiple people/posts, you can start with multiquote and just select all the posts you want to quote from before replying.

Point is, there are a bunch of ways to arrange the logistics of that general method, but if there's a fancier way to do it, I don't know it.

Xmo5 wrote: Point is, there are a bunch of ways to arrange the logistics of that general method, but if there's a fancier way to do it, I don't know it.

Great, let me give this a shot. Yeah the preview looks like it works. Thanks!

InvincibleXI wrote:To Walker, I suppose it depends on how lucky you are as to how much the bad luck affects you.

Here is an example of what I mean. Watch my attempted attack on the next turn. My goal was to attack on both fronts and hit enough things to charge my SCOP, making it nearly impossible for Javier to counterattack properly.

Instead my attack failed because 2 infantry couldn't get a 2HKO on a plain. 49% + 51% ≠ a 2HKO for Sonja. I also didn't get the OHKO with my AA, but that was only 94% so Sonja wasn't entirely to blame.

It actually got even better on the next turn, when my 10hp copter did 1 damage to a 3hp AA (at 25%), keeping my infantry from 2HKO'ing it, and absolutely destroying my attack in the middle. In the top right, you can see that my 2 infantry AGAIN failed to get a 2HKO on an infantry on plains.

I didn't get totally screwed by those bad rolls, but that type of thing is usually more than enough to turn games. When playing Sonja, you essentially have to treat all of your units like 90/100, which is pretty horribly crippling.

InvincibleXI wrote:With regards to screenshots and notes, how many players actually do that? And even when that is done, when there are multiple tanks or infantry in close proximity, it can be genuinely impossible to tell which is which hp, as long as the Sonja player is clever with shuffling. I think not knowing how much hp each unit is as much of a hindrance to launching an attack as not being able to guarantee 1HKOs or 2HKOs (in fact in some ways it has the same effect, as unless you're prepped for a 10HP unit, you can't guarantee you'll kill it as fast as you want).

In practice it's hard to be clever with shuffling, while still making good moves. Similar to how her d2d counterattack isn't that great, a good player will generally make sure their attacks will get 2HKO's regardless of the unit's hp. So while it might help in some very specific situations, in general I don't think it's enough to make up for her total inability to reliably launch attacks.

InvincibleXI wrote:One thing that does affect this which I'm not clear about, having never faced Sonja in AWBW, is when (if ever) does Sonja's opponent see her units HP? At the damage percent screen, after launching an attack, or after facing an attack from a unit?

All of Sonja's units show up as ?hp for the entire game. You can only tell what one of her unit's hp is when it's built, and when it is destroyed.

WalkerBoh wrote:Here is an example of what I mean. Watch my attempted attack on the next turn. My goal was to attack on both fronts and hit enough things to charge my SCOP, making it nearly impossible for Javier to counterattack properly.

Instead my attack failed because 2 infantry couldn't get a 2HKO on a plain. 49% + 51% ≠ a 2HKO for Sonja. I also didn't get the OHKO with my AA, but that was only 94% so Sonja wasn't entirely to blame.

Thanks for the illustration. Yeah that is frustrating. However, in this particular case, it looks to me like you have guaranteed the 2HKO by committing your BCopter which didn't do much anyway (I'm not 100% which moved where even with the replay, which illustrates my point about how hard it is to track HP). To some degree, you chose to take the risk, which admittedly shouldn't have been much. But here playing safe would have given an alternative breakthrough, so I don't think the disadvantage was necessarily that crippling.

In the top right, the plain OHKO looks normal, but as you point out, 94% isn't guaranteed for anyone. Again, there also appears to be an alternative safer breakthrough against the infantry on the road, followed by the tank hitting the full strength arty (assuming your plan was to kamikaze that tank) which I think may actually have been better anyway. Of course with Sonja there's the chance it won't work either, but it would have been much more likely to succeed.

WalkerBoh wrote:It actually got even better on the next turn, when my 10hp copter did 1 damage to a 3hp AA (at 25%), keeping my infantry from 2HKO'ing it, and absolutely destroying my attack in the middle. In the top right, you can see that my 2 infantry AGAIN failed to get a 2HKO on an infantry on plains.

That really sucks, I'd be extremely annoyed if that happened. However, I think there may still have been a way to guarantee the kill of that AA, such as by using the 4HP BCopter, or more accurately the other 10HP one (since the 4HP one has a 6HP BCopter to hit). The other full hp BCopter only hit an infantry, which seems to me like something that didn't need to be done. In my opinion it could have been kept in reserve to finish off the job if and when necessary depending on the luck of the first hit, so as to leave the tank attack open. I don't see any 2 full HP infantry in the top right which could have struck to get a 2HKO of the plains infantry though? From what I see on the damage calculator, you'd have to be quite lucky to get that 2HKO which obviously you can't count on with Sonja. If you really want to breakthrough though, again it can be guaranteed by committing the 5HP infantry to the fight as well.

My point essentially is that in these particular cases at least, and I think a large portion of the time, it is possible to "play safer" and ensure a breakthrough, sometimes sacrificing another attack, but often not. Of course, when only infantry are at stake taking risks is normal, and with Sonja that often won't pay off. But, the decision whether to commit forces that can be used elsewhere to guarantee a breakthrough can sometimes be done after a first attempt at a "lucky" one. So I don't think that's necessarily as crippling as you say, with precise play.

WalkerBoh wrote:In practice it's hard to be clever with shuffling, while still making good moves. Similar to how her d2d counterattack isn't that great, a good player will generally make sure their attacks will get 2HKO's regardless of the unit's hp. So while it might help in some very specific situations, in general I don't think it's enough to make up for her total inability to reliably launch attacks.

I agree often it can be hard to make shuffling moves that are completely indistinguishable, but often they can be close to that, and sometimes not even deliberately done. For instance looking at the northern airport front in your game on move 29 http://awbw.amarriner.com/replay.php?games_id=220769&ndx=28 Your opponent has no way of knowing for sure which of your BCopters is crippled and which are full/near full strength, and in fact, unless he has been taking notes, he may not even know how many are at a crippled. He can guess that the one that hit his BCopter is approx 2 HP from the damage it dealt, but that is all. Which means to clear the 2HP BCopter that is blocking your 9HP one, he may commit too strong a unit and end up with too little to do any significant damage. By any measure that's not a nice situation to be in. Similarly, not knowing that your infantry on the road there is 8HP, he may hope that it's a low HP unit and try to take it out with weak attacks to preserve strength, which once more could prove disastrous. IMO, the "total inability to launch attacks" applies much more to the opponent than to Sonja.

WalkerBoh wrote:All of Sonja's units show up as ?hp for the entire game. You can only tell what one of her unit's hp is when it's built, and when it is destroyed.

Cool. Do you see the damage percentage your units will do? If you can then you can figure it out in those situations, in addition to guessing when you have faced an attack from a unit (by looking at your units HP, although this can be a bit tricky, if there are multiple attackers or your unit is destroyed). Other than that, I genuinely think this D2D advantage is a huge one. To some degree, might it be underrated since when you're using it, you can't always tell what attacks you have caused your opponent to shy away from, and sometimes even fail?

WalkerBoh wrote:All of Sonja's units show up as ?hp for the entire game. You can only tell what one of her unit's hp is when it's built, and when it is destroyed.

One thing I'll add here is that there are a couple of ways you can deduce Sonja unit HPs in the right situations. Obviously, capturing infantry are a dead giveaway because you can see how much they captured. More importantly, when in doubt, you can always check what damage you would do to adjacent Sonja units before moving; terrain defense is proportional to unit HP so the damage estimate is a clue. You can back calculate how much HP the unit has using trial and error with the damage calculator until the "no luck" damage matches what you see. This works so long as it's not on 0-star terrain or the damage isn't absurdly skewed. For example, probing a tank HP with an adjacent recon/inf wouldn't be too helpful, but a tank, copter, or mech probing a tank can get you within 1 HP, even if the tank is on a plains tile (where the effect is diluted). Keep in mind that this is especially useful when you're not sure whether one tank is the 3 HP and which is the 8 HP.

Xmo5 wrote:One thing I'll add here is that there are a couple of ways you can deduce Sonja unit HPs in the right situations. Obviously, capturing infantry are a dead giveaway because you can see how much they captured. More importantly, when in doubt, you can always check what damage you would do to adjacent Sonja units before moving; terrain defense is proportional to unit HP so the damage estimate is a clue. You can back calculate how much HP the unit has using trial and error with the damage calculator until the "no luck" damage matches what you see. This works so long as it's not on 0-star terrain or the damage isn't absurdly skewed. For example, probing a tank HP with an adjacent recon/inf wouldn't be too helpful, but a tank, copter, or mech probing a tank can get you within 1 HP, even if the tank is on a plains tile (where the effect is diluted). Keep in mind that this is especially useful when you're not sure whether one tank is the 3 HP and which is the 8 HP.

Yes, agreed. Of course, as you say there are limitations, and I'd say the biggest one would be that often the units you want to attack are not yet adjacent to your unit. To probe this way you need to move your unit there to check, but once you do that you can't withdraw it. So this only works in very limited settings. BTW, I thought of something with regards to what WalkerBoh said. By "you can see hp when a unit is built", does that mean that there isn't a question mark there, or is it just a guess that a unit on a base has been recently built, instead of the unlikely possibility that it was moved there? Probably just a random musing that is mostly irrelevant but it's a little interesting.

InvincibleXI wrote:My point essentially is that in these particular cases at least, and I think a large portion of the time, it is possible to "play safer" and ensure a breakthrough, sometimes sacrificing another attack, but often not. Of course, when only infantry are at stake taking risks is normal, and with Sonja that often won't pay off. But, the decision whether to commit forces that can be used elsewhere to guarantee a breakthrough can sometimes be done after a first attempt at a "lucky" one. So I don't think that's necessarily as crippling as you say, with precise play.

I'm not sure how playing safer with Sonja ensures a breakthrough? Especially against Javier, where Sonja really wants to avoid artillery standoffs that Javier can win on his COP...

I agree with you that with more precise play, you can in some situations make up for the bad luck. And I would hardly call my play optimal, faaaaar from it. But I wouldn't characterize say that Sonja's bad luck can be mitigated "a large portion of the time" - I find that often every unit is utilized in some way during an attack, with at least one critical attack that is right on the edge of failing with bad luck. Regardless, I think you get the point about how the threat of bad luck takes away a lot of attack options for Sonja, and can actively cause you to suicide units sometimes. Probably the key argument is the frequency of bad luck rolls mattering and the severity of the consequences... Only game experience would help us here I think.

InvincibleXI wrote:I agree often it can be hard to make shuffling moves that are completely indistinguishable, but often they can be close to that, and sometimes not even deliberately done. For instance looking at the northern airport front in your game on move 29 http://awbw.amarriner.com/replay.php?games_id=220769&ndx=28 Your opponent has no way of knowing for sure which of your BCopters is crippled and which are full/near full strength, and in fact, unless he has been taking notes, he may not even know how many are at a crippled. He can guess that the one that hit his BCopter is approx 2 HP from the damage it dealt, but that is all. Which means to clear the 2HP BCopter that is blocking your 9HP one, he may commit too strong a unit and end up with too little to do any significant damage. By any measure that's not a nice situation to be in. Similarly, not knowing that your infantry on the road there is 8HP, he may hope that it's a low HP unit and try to take it out with weak attacks to preserve strength, which once more could prove disastrous. IMO, the "total inability to launch attacks" applies much more to the opponent than to Sonja.

Fair points, though I think the comment about precise play applies here too. The HP hiding does strengthen Sonja's defenses by forcing opponents to need overkill to guarantee kills on some units, that is true. In the end, maybe the most damning thing I can say about Sonja is that she creates games where both players are punished for attacking.

InvincibleXI wrote:By "you can see hp when a unit is built", does that mean that there isn't a question mark there, or is it just a guess that a unit on a base has been recently built, instead of the unlikely possibility that it was moved there?

It still shows a question mark, I was just saying that it's a safe assumption that a unit on a base was freshly built. And you can't really fool your opponent with regards to what you built, since they can see your funding still.

InvincibleXI, if you'd like to play around a bit with Sonja, I wouldn't mind running a short series of games with you. Let me know if you're interested and I'll shoot you a PM with a couple games for you to join.

WalkerBoh wrote:I'm not sure how playing safer with Sonja ensures a breakthrough? Especially against Javier, where Sonja really wants to avoid artillery standoffs that Javier can win on his COP...

I agree with you that with more precise play, you can in some situations make up for the bad luck. And I would hardly call my play optimal, faaaaar from it. But I wouldn't characterize say that Sonja's bad luck can be mitigated "a large portion of the time" - I find that often every unit is utilized in some way during an attack, with at least one critical attack that is right on the edge of failing with bad luck. Regardless, I think you get the point about how the threat of bad luck takes away a lot of attack options for Sonja, and can actively cause you to suicide units sometimes. Probably the key argument is the frequency of bad luck rolls mattering and the severity of the consequences... Only game experience would help us here I think.

My point was just specifically in this scenario, you could have made sure that the bad luck didn't prevent your breakthrough. "Safer" meaning going for more guaranteed KOs like the BCopter + infantry 2HKO instead of 2 infantry attacks. Perhaps the question is how often this can be done without compromising on attack ability, and the answer would be I think a substantial amount of the time, but whether it's more than half is debatable. Of course, this percentage would be increased by deliberately setting up more guaranteed KOs.

WalkerBoh wrote:Fair points, though I think the comment about precise play applies here too. The HP hiding does strengthen Sonja's defenses by forcing opponents to need overkill to guarantee kills on some units, that is true. In the end, maybe the most damning thing I can say about Sonja is that she creates games where both players are punished for attacking. Smile

Yeah absolutely, she penalises both players. Precise play is pretty hard when you don't know how much kill you need, and I think that occurs more with hidden HP than with bad luck that costs 1 HP sometimes.

WalkerBoh wrote:InvincibleXI, if you'd like to play around a bit with Sonja, I wouldn't mind running a short series of games with you. Let me know if you're interested and I'll shoot you a PM with a couple games for you to join.

Yeah, I'd love to try. As I said Sonja definitely isn't a high tier CO, but I think she would match favourably against most of the other bland COs like Jake Jess Adder Koal and Grimm. Almost certainly better than Javier 0T IMO. My user on AWBW is insignia21

WalkerBoh wrote:

the FANG wrote:rachel:
Her d2d is useful. Every rachel's city is a small factory which can maintain more force in the battlefront. I think her d2d is better than jake's. Her SP is very powerful, which is like olaf's and drake's ability, but more offensive and less defensive. She can destroy a large number of enemy in one turn, or keep patience and wait for a better chance. When facing a perfect defensive formation, rachel's SP is better than olaf's.

It really depends on the map. On something like Iconic, where the fronts are closely packed together, Rachel probably is in the same tier as Kindle, Lash, et al. As Hellraider notes in his analysis, she goes up a tier on smaller maps where her SCOP is very effective. But on something bigger like Beyond Eternity, it's too easy to divert her missiles with infantry. Rachel's D2D is not bad, but it's not something you can use to gain an advantage over your opponent like Lash or Kindle can. Rachel has trouble keeping up with D2D CO's, and really relies on her SCOP to win a front in one big swoop.

I've discussed a lot with Jackcool。 He agrees most of your opinion. But what we both disagree is Rachel's tier. We still think that Rachel is mid tier on most of the GL maps. At least, she approach mid tier rather than low tier. We can see most players choose rachel instead of adder. Grimm is weak against adder and jess. So I don't think he should be a factor concerned in.

the FANG wrote:I've discussed a lot with Jackcool。 He agrees most of your opinion. But what we both disagree is Rachel's tier. We still think that Rachel is mid tier on most of the GL maps. At least, she approach mid tier rather than low tier. We can see most players choose rachel instead of adder. Grimm is weak against adder and jess. So I don't think he should be a factor concerned in.

I agree that most players probably regard Rachel as better than Adder or Grimm. But I also think many players underestimate Adder in particular. I'll take a look at the GL map settings and see if there are any that stand out as Rachel being ranked too low to me. If you have specific maps in mind where she should be mid tier, please feel free to link those too.

A Normal 1v1:
Low Tier = Adder, Rachel, Grimm
Mid Tier = Kindle, Andy, Drake

I could see Rachel moving to Mid Tier and Drake moving to Low Tier here.

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All Roads Lead to Sol:
Low Tier = Adder, Rachel, Grimm (Mid Tier is not in use).

Rachel does seem powerful here, with how close the fronts get packed. Maybe instead of using the Low Tier setting, we can use a Mid Tier instead. Mid Tier would leave Rachel, Andy, Drake, Kindle, Lash (and Grimm, Adder, and bottom tier CO's).

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Battle of Thermopyrae
Low Tier = Adder, Rachel, Grimm (Mid Tier is not in use).

I think Lash and Kindle are probably clearly better than Rachel on this map. The D2D boost allowing you to park safely on those contested cities and forests is really strong. I don't think Rachel's SCOP makes up for it, even with how clumped units can be. I wouldn't change this one. Your thoughts?

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Beyond Eternity
Low Tier = Adder, Rachel, Grimm, Kindle
Mid Tier = Drake, Andy, Sami

As mentioned before, maps like this really don't favor Rachel at all. It's very easy for missiles to be diverted to clumps of infantry in the center - someone like Andy and even Drake (despite how important copters are) will destroy her here I think. I wouldn't change this one either.

What do you think of Sami in Mid Tier here though? Vehicles and copters are very important, but those HQs are very exposed...

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Black Patch War
Low Tier = Adder, Rachel, Grimm, Kindle (Mid Tier is not in use).

This is another one where it might be best to include a Mid Tier instead of Low Tier. I'm not sure Rachel is very strong here, but I probably would never choose Adder or Grimm over Kindle or Rachel. Mid Tier would be Rachel, Kindle, Lash, Andy, Drake (Sami?). Thoughts?

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Highway to Hell
Low Tier = Adder, Rachel, Grimm, Kindle, Lash, Sami
Mid Tier = Andy, Drake

Hard to argue with this one, lots of good options here. Mid Tier is maybe a bit weak, I might suggest switching this out with High Tier or Bottom Tier.

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Masked Fury
Low Tier = Adder, Rachel, Grimm (Mid Tier is not in use).

This one seems correct to me, Rachel's SCOP is weak here and Adder is probably a very good choice. I wouldn't change it.

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Sandland
Hm this one got screwed up, the High Tier COs aren't banned in the Low Tier setting. I'll fix that. But it should be:

Low Tier - Adder, Rachel, Grimm
Mid Tier - Andy, Drake, Lash, Kindle, Sami

I don't have enough experience with the map to say for sure. My initial thought is that I'd never choose Rachel out of the Mid Tier COs. But maybe we should switch the Low Tier for Bottom Tier instead, because I don't know if I'd ever want Adder or Grimm over Rachel.

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Shadows chase you endlessly
Low Tier = Adder, Jake, Jess, Koal, Sonja.
Mid Tier = Andy, Grimm, Drake, Rachel, Kindle, Lash, Sami.

Seems fine to me.

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Shangri-La
Low Tier = Adder, Rachel, Grimm, Kindle
Mid Tier = Andy, Drake, Max

That looks about right to me. Rachel's SCOP is very easily diverted on this map. Maybe Kindle should be in Mid Tier though? What do you think?

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Twisted Fate
Low Tier = Adder, Rachel, Grimm
Mid Tier = Kindle, Andy, Drake

I like the tiers here too. Looking through some games, I see many Adder and Jake choices, and Rachel doesn't look like she will outright win games with SCOP. No changes recommended.

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Where Giants Have Fallen
Low Tier = Adder, Rachel, Grimm, Kindle (Mid Tier not in use).

This map seems too big for Rachel to be higher than Low Tier. Andy and Drake seem like obviously better choices to me. I wouldn't change it.

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So in summary, out of all of the maps that use a Low Tier setting, I would move Rachel to Mid Tier on 3 maps (A Normal 1v1, All Roads Lead to Sol, and Black Patch War). Do you disagree with any of my assessments?

WalkerBoh wrote:

I've post your assessment on chinese forum. I will check others players' opinions (if there are).
Now I've heard four players' opinions on Rachel:
Mid tier -Jackcool
'I can't understand why rachel is on the low tier' -Divva(nano.RIPE fan)
Top tier -mxdcyw2000 (I think he was just joking... I wonder if all COs are on top tier if used by him...)
Lower than high tier, at least mid tier -wyj_0081
At least low tier. -me
I've asked ANTB and eagle!!!. , they will reply me later.


I think most players think that rachel is underestimated. It's not necessary to lift her CO tier too fast. But we can try this and see if the players will choose rachel against better COs.

Interesting, thank you for the feedback. I wonder if there is any game evidence to support the opinions?