6reavers-blog

[6reavers-blog]

Re-Zero Missions (semi-complete list)

Independence day and Starship trooper missions are unchanged. Likewise, hobby of a weird individual and an endless wait of a thousand years remain the same.

D9 became more difficult. Now requires 3-3-3-3 (3 arbiters 3 ghosts (tier 3) + 3 female ghosts 3 archons (tier 2)).

Color specific mission for teal is now changed to 7 female ghosts (kerrigans), rather than male ghost.

Every flying units (muta scout wraith (tier 1) + scout (tier 2) + devourer arbiter wraith (tier 3) + valk guard (tier 4)) gives you two boss civs.

There are now two epic missions. First one involves 3 reavers + 3 wraiths (tier 3) + 3 male ghosts (tier 3). Award: 1 tier 5 civ. Previous epic mission involving tier 4 archons and marines is no longer available. 

Second one is somewhat harder (recent correction): 

Carrier + tassadar (tier 5) + 

Reaver + templar + Archon (tier 4) + 

Dragoon + male ghost + devourer (tier 3) + 

archon + tank + scout (tier 2) + 

dragoon + scout (tier 1). 

Award: 1 tier 5 civ + 1000 minerals + 4 gas (yes 4 gas).

A new mission that awards you 503 gas requires 9 towers in total:

Tier 4: Guardian + Archon + High templar

Tier 3: Devourer + Arbiter + Male ghost

Tier 2: Defiler + Dark templar + Scout.

Finally, a new tier 2 mission involves collecting all 8 Tier 2 towers (similar to Tier 1 mission). Award: 300 minerals and 100 gas.  Previous Tier 2 male + female ghost = 400 minerals is still in play.

Other unchanged missions (sort of):

3 hydras (Tier 4) still gives you 400 minerals and 400 gas. 

3 reavers = 400 minerals, 5 reavers = 800 minerals and gas. 

Previously, 555 gas was awarded for 2 tassdar + kerrigan (tier 5). Rezero version requires 2 tassdars (tier 5) + 2 male ghosts (tier 2). 

___________

There is one more mission called “Hearts of the abandoned” that has not been figured out. 

[6reavers-blog]

Re-Zero Released

The newest patch Re-Zero is now available for play!

New cool beacons!

No goon bug:(

New missions!

Changes to old missions! 

More info coming soon!

[6reavers-blog]

General Strategy

Early game:

The general goal is to acquire as much resources as possible while saving towers required for hidden quests. Save archons, female ghosts, and the tier 2 towers for the color-specific quest.

Complete level 1 gateway mission as frequently as possible. Refer to “Gateway Mission” section for details. Once you have few tier 3 towers, it’s generally safe to start the zealot mission in the middle of the round.

Early gas is recommended. Whenever you spawn a tier 1 dragoon, save ~300 minerals and start the dragoon mission. Lose 10 lives, convert goon tower into tier 2. Repeat. With 400 gas and 1 or 2 Tier 4 towers, give total of ~10 upgrades to complete the dragoon mission.

It’s important to distribute the upgrades between different towers because you don’t know which Tier 5 towers you will end up with. For the same reason, you should spend the minimal amount of gas to stay alive.

Mid game:

Around round 15-20, if you have strong line clear (e.g. Tier 4 and Tier 5 high temps, lurkers, or 3 matching Tier 4s), you should pursue as many quests as possible until round 30ish. If you have a valkyrie, start saving Tier 2 tank/defiler and Tier 3 fbat/devourer/dragoon. If you don’t, your primary goal should be to get one - either through color specific quests or by merging as many Tier 3 towers as possible. Refrain from buying the valkyrie with civ until you have the other combo pieces in case your plan changes.

If you don’t have strong line clear and are not close to any of the hidden quests,  prepare for an early high templar gateway mission. Get 2 Tier 5 towers. Pause building towers and spend all minerals for gas until you can complete the high templar mission (again, distribute the upgrades but take into consideration your Tier 3-4 towers as well) . Upon completion, begin building towers for quests.

End game:

Assess your board state. For example, if you have 3 matching vultures, mutas, either ghosts, carrier, you have enough to beat the final level boss carrier. Your primary goal should be to upgrade your towers (carriers and cloaked ghosts will require supporting units for line clear).

Around rounds 30-32 (at the latest), stop building towers altogether. Exceptions are 1) you are very close to finishing a quest 2) you have no chance of beating the final boss unless you finish additional quests. 

Sell all non matching Tier 1-2 towers. Leave 2 Tier 3 towers (since you will get 2 boss civs on round 36). You will turn these Tier 3s into Tier 4s. At this point, merge matching Tier 4s and see if you can luck into matching Tier 5s. Sell Tier 4s unless they have decent upgrades (40+) or will be upgraded along with Tier 5s.

Generally, distribute the upgrades based on the number of matching Tier 5s you have. If you have 2 yamato ghosts and 1 muta, upgrade 2 terran air for each zerg air. In above scenario, if you have one additional valkyrie, then maybe 2.3 terran air upgrade for every 1 zerg air. You should also consider the fact that specific Tier 5 towers like lurkers and high templars perform poorly against the final boss. Tier 5 carrier is an interesting case. At low upgrades, these towers are abysmal against the final boss (because of 245 armor). But with 8 interceptors and super long range, 3 carriers with 80+ upgrades will be a victory. So, unless you can get your carriers to high upgrades, don’t waste gas - upgrade other towers.

[6reavers-blog]

Hidden missions rehashed

Pictures make it easier.

Starship Trooper

Independence Day

District 9

Everyone but me beat it

Starship and Independence Day share half of the ingredients- all of the Terran towers. So if you complete one, you should aim to complete the other. The award is one Tier 4 civ each. So, if you complete Starship and are missing a Reaver, you can use the civ to complete Indpendence Day. After completion, if you have 2 Tier 5 towers, sell the Reaver and upgrade to tackle the high templar gateway mission.

District 9 awards you with two Tier 3 civs. These are often used to fill the missing towers for Starship or Independence Day mission. Early on, I normally save up to 3 archons and 3 female ghosts. Try to see if you can find 2-3 of the required Tier 3 pieces. If you do, use the boss civ(s) to finish. If you are missing 2 or more pieces and think you are going to leak soon, merge and attempt other missions.

Everyone but me beat it. Only mission that awards a Tier 5 civ. Difficult to complete, but if you have 2 or more of Tier 4 pieces, you can finish using civ(s) from starship or independence day. If you only have one Tier 4 civ and have 6 different tier 4′s, I recommend first completing the Hobby of a weird individual mission (every Tier 4 towers other than Reaver). Save the 3 boss civs award. During round 36 (only on hard difficulty), you will receive 2 additional civs to complete An endless wait of a thousand years (Requirement: 5 boss civs. Award: Tier 4 civ). Use the final Tier 4 civ and the boss civs to try to complete Everyone but me beat it. If attempting this mission, be mindful to save tier 2 scouts and firebats around round ~25.

[6reavers-blog]

Version 1.84 Re-Zero Announced

On Jan 6, the creator of Rantadi, kongze1004, announced that a new “patch” Re-Zero will be released soon. This patch will feature new hidden missions and bug fixes onto the map version 1.84. On Battle.net West, 1.90 is the most popular version. However, players in the Korean server favor 1.84 Hell version. Kongze1004 himself indicated that he made a mistake with “unit balance” in 1.90 version and recommended v1.84.

I played 1.84 only a couple of times. In 1.84 (compared to 1.90), you start with 200 minerals (as opposed to 400), and dragoon and high templar missions are significantly easier to complete. It also seemed that in v1.84, level 10, 20, and 30 bosses are tankier. Notably, early gas is awarded to a player with 5 lives (as opposed to 10). 

As far as I can tell, quests/missions seemed to be identical in 1.84. The only exception? 1.84 version has a Rantadi’s Will quest, which requires 8 towers from each of tier 1 thru 4. Upon completion, every surviving player receives 2 tier 4 civs. Hence, if all 6 players complete this quest, everyone will end up with 12 tier 4 civs!

Re-Zero patch will remove Rantadi’s Will quest and fix the infamous Dragoon/High templar bug. Several new quests will be added, although all the details have not been revealed. Kongze1004 indicated that there will be a quest involving every flying unit (other than tier 5). Another will require goliaths.

[6reavers-blog]

Importance of teammates

In Korea, the best players are known to win about 60-70% of games. They key to their success? Teammates.

In a single player mode (or playing with random pubs), the same player will win at much lower percentage. How do teammates help you win?

A typical game (assuming that the player survives until the final level) involves completing about ~5 level-3 high templar missions. Completing each level 3 mission takes about 45-60 seconds (based on in-game timer, independent of speed). This means that, having one teammate that survives until the last level buys you about 1 additional level-3 mission cool down time (5 minutes). Roughly, ~500 minerals. The same math applies to level 2 dragoon missions. During early game, a level 2 dragoon mission also takes roughly 45-60 seconds to complete. Even disregarding the time it takes to complete level 2 missions in late game (a few seconds per mission), I estimate that having one additional player buys you about ~2-3 minutes of cool down time (100-150 minerals). 

Now imagine having 5 other teammates that survive until the end. You will have gained the ability to complete about ~5 additional level 3 missions. In fact, this effect is actually additive. The 5 additional missions from you buys each of the teammates extra time to complete even more missions, which then buys you more time in return, etc. 

Above is somewhat of an over-estimation. Sometimes missions are run in parallel and even level 3 missions are complete in a matter of ~10-15 game time seconds toward the end of the game. Still, the bottom line is that having multiple surviving teammates is greatly beneficial. A fair guess would be somewhere in the range of ~1500-2000 extra minerals from 5 surviving teammates (compared to solo play).

And often, some of your teammates are slower in clearing the rounds. This also factors into reduction in gateway mission cool down time.

The take home message? 1) Good teammates increase your win percentage. 2) It’s best to not over-upgrade your towers. Take as long as possible to line clear/kill units spawning from gateway, to reduce gateway cool down time for you and your teammates. Just don’t die.

[6reavers-blog]

Tier 4 Towers

Valk: Considered to be the most important tier 4 tower. Required for both independence day and starship missions. Does good job with line clears early and mid game, but sometimes bugs out (and doesn’t fire). Terran air upgrade isn’t the best. Hope for yamato ghost.

Marine: Rapid burst of low damage attack makes this tower weak against heavy armored units (mid-late game). Decent job at line clearing early game tho.

Zergling: Good early game. Short range, so best in one of the four center squares. Early expiration date; similar to marine, does fast, low damage attacks. Zerg melee attack is mediocre.

Archon: Gets upgrade from mech attack, and due to nature of it’s slowish, high damage attack makes it useful until mid-late game. Used to bug out in earlier versions, but seems to be fixed for the most part. A solid tier 4 tower.

Hydra: Seems to be ~average at line clear early game. Performs poorly against level 2 dragoon mission (I suspect damage/unit type mismatch, e.g. explosive vs. a small unit). If I get 2 of these, I normally attempt 3 hydra mission (400 min/400 gas reward). Decent tower for red, since defilers share the same upgrade.

Guardian: Slow, long range tower that seems to be below-average in line-clear. Does significant work against dragoon mission though. Required for starship mission.

High Templar: Very good at line clear, slightly weak against bosses. Like Tier 5 high temp, top class.

[6reavers-blog]

Gateway Missions

Gateway missions provide consistent source of extra income. Completing as many missions as possible is one of the keys to winning. 

Level 1 zealot mission (award 100 min) can be completed easy enough - latest at the end of round 2, when you have 6 towers. Sometimes, though, you can complete the mission at the end of round 1: 1) you have 3 towers that are tier 1 marine/muta/scout 2) none of your tier 1 tower is ultra/wraith/vulture/dragoon or 3) if you have a tier 2 archon/fbat/scout/defiler tower. This is a general guideline. I haven’t figured out the minimum dps required for mission 1 yet.

(Damage per second? Left) Tier 1: Marine, Muta, Scout, Hydra, Dragoon, Vulture, Wraith, Ultra. Right) Tier 2: Archon, Firebat, Scout, Defiler, DT, Tank, Female ghost, Male ghost))

Level 2 dragoon mission (award 200 min) is significantly more difficult. Standard play involves early gas + one or two tier 4 towers with 5+ upgrades. It’s generally recommended that you allocate resources for different types of upgrade. This is because 1) each additional upgrade becomes more expensive 2) you don’t know which subsequent towers you will get. Tier 3 goliaths and dragoons as well as tier 2 archons are surprisingly effective against the dragoon mission.  With ~10 upgrades, 3-4 goliaths/dragoons should do the job.

The most difficult and probably the most important mission is the level 3 ht mission. The level 3 mission awards you with 500 minerals (compared to 100 and 200 minerals for level 1 and 2, respectively). 500 minerals is worth more than one boss civ. One or two additional tier 3 missions could be the difference between winning and losing. Level 3 gateway mission generally involves one or two tier 5 towers with 20-40 upgrades. Carrier, muta, and cloaked ghost are the top performers. 

[6reavers-blog]

Color matters

Brown is OP. Brown wants to collect 7 archons. Archons have the highest dps (3300) in tier 2 by a significant margin (followed by firebat 2703) (Arbitrary unit? Source: www.cafe.naver.com/rantadi/28658). Archons are also required in both indepence day AND district 9 missions. Finally, the toss attack upgrade is generally very useful because of tier 4-5 high templars.

I think teal has it worst. Male ghosts have the lowest dps (1577, less than half of that of an archon) and are not used in any mission.

[6reavers-blog]

Tower Placement

Different towers have different attack ranges. The optimal placement for each tower, then, can be determined by drawing a circle with radius as its attack range and computing how long of map’s path (that enemy units travel along) fits in the circle.

Towers with short attack range, like zergling, are best placed in the middle 4 squares. Placing the tower one slot away from the center, will reduce its total damage output by ~25%. Moving it 2 slots away from center, will reduce its damage output by ~50%.

Above calculation is done with one enemy unit in mind. During non-boss rounds, the difference in the total damage output is less, as most of the time each tower would have something to attack. But during non-boss rounds, assuming a zergling has something to attack 80% of time, the tower placement could still reduce the damage out put by 5-10%.

Does 5-10% of damage output actually matter? 5-10% of 30 units per round is about 1.5-3 units. But the answer is actually more complicated. Normally, when I see 5 units leak, they are all low on hp. If you add the total hp of all 5 leaked units, it may be less than hp of a single healthy unit. In other words, reduction in damage output of 1 unit could be a difference between leaking 0 vs 5 units. Reduction in damage out of 3 units, could be 15 units? I dunno.

Towers with longer range, like guardian, should be placed one slot left or right of center. Placing guardian one square right of center allows guardian to reach the long side paths of top right and bottom right squares.

Towers with extremely long range like carrier and muta can be placed anywhere. Well, carrier can be placed anywhere (i think), muta can’t be in the corner of the map.

And everything else being the same, top left side quadrant is the best quadrant. This is because 1) there is a small additional entrance/exit path in the top left side of the map 2) splash damage units are best placed where enemy is most concentrated - as they are entering the field - to not only output most damage - but also to minimize overkills by subsequent towers.

OK. But you don’t get to choose which towers you place where. True. But a few times in a game, you get to choose towers with civs. Also, assessing the efficiency of your towers will help you plan timing of gateway missions and allocation of your resources (towers vs. upgrade).

[6reavers-blog]

Early Gas

By intentionally lowering your life total to 10 (you start with 30 lives), you acquire 400 gas. This usually involves dragoon or high templar gateway mission before you are able to complete it. Having gas early allows you to upgrade your towers to kill the gateway dragoon significantly earlier and without having to allocate  minerals for upgrades. Spend all your minerals on building towers so you can plan which missions to complete.

The obvious downside is that, you are left with 10 lives. The idea, however, is that by having access to extra ~400 minerals (2 dragoon quests), you will have earlier access to key towers that will allow you to line clear (instead of losing lives).

Early gas strat has synergy with the dragoon bug (described below). Say you have 1 tier 1 dragoon. By spawning dragoon from gateway, you 1) lower your life total by 10 and 2) allow dragoon cool down time to convert your tier 1 dragoon into tier 2 for free and 3) burn cool down time for the zealot gateway mission.

In multiplayer game setting, Korean players are known to take turns sending gateway dragoons and high templars early, in order to maximize the number of level 1 (zealot) missions.

In early game (rounds 1-10), it is possible to line clear without having to spend all of your minerals. So, if I spawn a tier 1 dragoon tower, normally I would save my minerals for a round or two before beginning the dragoon mission/goon bug. This increases the expected number of new dragoon towers before the next cool down time.

[6reavers-blog]

Tier 5 Towers Review

Line clear refers to ability of killing non-boss units (normal rounds).

High temp: Has nuclear launch as its attack. Very good at line clear (rank 2), decent against bosses (rank 5). Preferred location is one of the four center tiles, or one square left or above where enemy units are most concentrated (since they do splash). Also, doing splash damage as enemy units are entering the field minimizes overkill.

Lurker: Best line clear (rank 1). If you have one of this, you can give it a few upgrades and focus on completing missions. Doesn’t seem to be so good against bosses (rank 8).

Carrier: Opposite of lurker. If you get this early, your line clear (rank 8) will suffer. But you can kill the high templar gateway mission with ~30 upgrades. Against carrier boss (250 armor), you will need many upgrades. If you have 3 of these, and make it to the end, you will probably win.

Muta: Line clear (rank 6-7). Boss (Rank 1-2). It has long range, so good against bosses. Three should be able to beat the final boss easily. These guys can be built pretty much anywhere on the map.

Kerrigan: Decent at line clear and boss rounds (rank 4-5). You get a 555 gas bonus if you combo with 2 high temps (tier 5). Not my favorite, because it doesn’t share upgrade with many of useful lower tier units. I don’t put many upgrade on tier 4 zergling and tier 3 ghosts are mediocre. Short range, so it’s preferred that these towers are built in one of the 4 middle squares.

Vulture: Good at line clear and boss round (Rank 3-4). It also shares upgrade with tier 4 archons and tier 3 gols and tier 2 fbats, which are considered to be one of the best in respective tier. Very good all-around tier 5 unit.

Cloaked ghost: Sucks against line clear (rank 6) but very good against bosses (rank 2-3). If you have additional one or two tier 4 marines, you should be able to clear high templar gateway mission with ~35 upgrade.

Yamato ghost: One upside is that it shares upgrade with valk, which is a vital tower for both starship and independence day missions. For this reason, people normally put decent amount of upgrades on valk (since it sticks around before both missions are complete). Lacking a bit in line clear (rank 5-6) but does its damage against bosses (rank 3-4). 

Reaver: Every other tower in game has half the selling value than it took to build it. Reaver gives you 1000 minerals, which is 200 more than what you paid for. The tower itself isn’t very good - it shoots too slowly. So the standard play is sell immediately after you get it, unless you are trying to complete indpendence day quest with valk. But if you collect 6+ reavers and manage to max scarab damage upgrade, you should be able to cruise easily to the last level and beat the final boss. And it’s easier to max up scarab damage because the upgrade costs flat 30 gas each time.

[6reavers-blog]

Goon Bug

This trick allows you to mix a single tier 1 dragoon. When disruption web is cast on a lone dragoon tower, while gateway spawns a dragoon, the tower will mix. This works best during gateway dragoon cool down time.

You move the corsair little back, command it to disruption web your tier 1 goon. Immediately after, you spam dragoons from the gateway (during cool down). As goons pop out of gateway, if disruption web is cast on your tier 1 dragoon tower, it will turn into tier 2. 

Usually requires several tries.

This will not work if you have 2 or more dragoons. Also, won’t work with tier 3 dragoon.

You can also do this with tier 4 high templar, but it will often destroy your gateway (not sure why). So not recommended. Do this right before final boss spawns, since you no longer need the gateway.

[6reavers-blog]

Random Tower Defense List of Missions

8 different tier 1 towers (Award: 300 minerals.)

male ghost + female ghost (tier 2) (400 minerals)

Any 7 tier 3 towers (400 min)

Any 6 tier 4 towers (300 min)

Color specific missions:

red: 7 defilers

blue: 8 dark templars

teal: 7 male ghosts

purple: 7 firebats

orange: 7 tanks

brown: 7 archons

All towers are tier 2. For blue, you can collect 7 dts and buy the 8th one from gateway to complete.

Hidden missions:

District 9

2 arbiters (tier 3) + 2 ghosts (tier 3) + 3 archons (tier 2) + 3 female ghosts (tier 2)

Award: 2 tier 3 civs

Independence Day

Valk + Reaver + Firebat (tier 3) + Dragoon (tier 3) + Tank + Archon (tier 2) + Vulture + Dragoon (Tier 1)

Tier 4 Civ

Starship Trooper

Valk + Guardian + Firebat (tier 3) + Devourer + Tank + Defiler (tier 2) + Vulture + Muta

Award: Tier 4 civ

Everyone but me beat it

2 archons (tier 4) + 2 marines (tier 4) + 2 wraiths (tier 3) + 2 arbiters + 2 firebats (tier 2) + 2 scouts (tier 2)

Award: tier 5 civ (Can’t pick lurker, but 800 gas is one of the options)

Hobby of a weird individual

Collect 7 different tier 4 towers other than Reaver. Basically, all tier 4 towers other than Reaver.

Award: Three boss civs

An endless wait of a thousand years

You have to save 5 boss civs (ones you get after beating boss levels. Tier 3-5 civs don’t count) without using them. This has synergy with “hobby of a weird individual” mission.

Note: on hard level, you receive 2 boss civs during round 36. 

Award: One tier 4 civ. 

3 Reavers (400 min)

5 Reavers (800 min/800 gas)

3 Hydras (tier 4) (400 min/400 gas)

3 Lurkers (2 tier 4 civs)

2 high temps (tier 5) + 1 kerrigan (tier 5) (555 gas)

10 lives left (400 gas)