New Rangers Released: Game Field to Farm Field

The new rangers are here! This is the 3rd month in a row that new rangers have hit the game in the early days of the month, so it seems like we are following a steady release cycle. On to the new stuff!

Ola Brown and Dumpy range comparison with Thunder Brown (front line), KSM and Songster Cony

Ola Brown - 5 star long-ranged Splash Ranger. Limited time only! Get him while you can because Ola Brown will only be available June 1 through June 30 GMT +9. This is the first non-melee Brown unit we have seen and he is so cute with his creepy football/soccer ball. He is currently the longest range splash ranger which works out in his favor since Ola's health is relatively low. His health is comparable to Cony, so he's quite weak. Ola will not live in the presence of Richard (green dino mini boss in Skyscraper zone) but he will serve you well from behind the fray in most other instances. His attack is nothing to write home about, but it's certainly better than the 4-star splash rangers. Ola is also cheaper to deploy than other 5-star splash units, only 350 minerals at max. In certain situations due to his superior cooldown, cost and speed, spamming a lot of Ola Brown may be more effective than deploying Sorcerer Cony, Sol, or KSM. At level 80, he has 48,898 ATK (also known as DPS)/104,781 HP. 

Dumpy -  5 star Attack Ranger. Mid-range. Absolutely insanely high attack. Makes Dancer King Boss' max attack seem like child's play, but Dumpy has a much shorter range to hit. His range is the same as Dwight and Sol. Even at level 1, he does 45K DPS, making him immediately viable to use. He's on relatively short cooldown and he costs 380 minerals to deploy at max which is really cheap! The problem with Dumpy is his health is pretty low unless you are lucky enough to get 5 Dumpies to combine. His level 80 stats are 476,905 DPS/319,334 HP. More attack than health? That's a first for rangers! 

Abdula, Dwight and Lightning Jessica range comparison with Witch Cony & Warrior Jessica

Dwight -  5 star Balance Ranger. Melee range, sort of. Insanely high attack, high health. Pretty costly to deploy but makes up for it in battle. As far as range goes, Dwight doesn't stand up where health rangers are. He's a little bit further back, which is ideal for a ranger of his strengths because he will allow the health rangers to take the direct damage while having enough health to stand in the heat of incoming splash damage and hold the line a bit if the health rangers die. His range is the same as Sol. His level 80 stats are 245,279 DPS/2,678,054 HP. Yes, you read correctly -- That's 2.6 million HP. He's pretty much a Bernard with actual damage capabilities. Dwight will be a very valuable team member despite not being a splash ranger. 

Abdula -  4-star mid-range Splash Ranger. Medium splash damage, high health, but costs a great deal of minerals to deploy. He stands the same distance from the enemy as Clara. Abdula trumps all the other 4-star splash rangers in damage. At first I was skeptical about him because he does cost quite a bit more than other 4-star splash rangers (760 at max) and it didn't feel like he did that much more damage. However, after doing some math, I have found that with the cost of his damage, he does in fact come out ahead of all four of the other 4-star splash units. So he is actually a good choice to use if you can afford him. But what's important is he has the most hilarious attack animation. Maybe Abdula is the pet chicken's name, who knows? :) At level 70, Abdula sports 69,668 DPS/381,790 HP.

Lightning Jessica -  4 Star Speed Ranger. Only way to describe her is a mini Hip-Hop Brown. High speed, spammable, cheap. Doesn't quite have the attack or health for tanking the way Hip Hop does, so my initial thought is if you have a maxed Hip Hop Brown, you probably don't need to bother with Lightning Jessica. Another thing that's somewhat off about her is unlike her melee splash lookalikes, Lightning Jessica does not stand in actual tanking range (see picture above). Her distance is the same as Sol, Dwight and Dumpy. So if you're looking to use her as a tanking alternative, I'd be a little wary. She leaves a lot of room between her hit range and the enemy's hit range, which may result in allowable enemy forward marching space. Lightning Jessica's stats at level 70 is 21,975 DPS/305,089 HP.

Position comparison between new rangers and Sol. Dumpy, Dwight and Lightning Jessica stand at the same range as Sol

All 5 new rangers tearing up the place in 117

All in all, the new rangers are pretty impressive, with maybe the exception of Lightning Jessica. The game makers have really tried to give us a wide array of ranger attributes to choose from. I can definitely foresee situations where you cannot use some of our new overpowered friends, but many situations where they will excel and give you a huge advantage.

Does this mean that we don't need or want KSM, DKB, SongCo, Hip-Hop and Bernard? Absolutely not. They each have their own strengths and will fill different needs depending on the stage and the rangers you have available. Now, if you have Dwight and Bernard, you probably won't put both on your team, but certainly if have just Dumpy and Bernard, it's not a bad combo at all. Hip-Hop as a tanking hybrid will still be better than Lightning Jessica and hold speed advantage over Dwight. Dancer King is still the king of range though he does not have the DPS of Dumpy. But sometimes safety in far-range is more important than 500-600K hits. So, it all depends!

Good luck, everyone! If you are curious about GACHA probability, check out this post.

Missile, Ice Shot and Meteor Damage

Note : This information current as of May 2014 only. 

Missile Damage

Your missile levels up every time you invest some coins into it. In the earlier stages it seems like a great idea to upgrade your missiles because it seemed to do a lot of helpful damage. I have personally felt like the higher my player level became (which in turn meant more coins required for each missile level), the less it was worth to invest coin into a missile. My rangers feel more powerful these days and my missile feels like it's doing a lot less than my rangers. So why would I invest over 100,000 coins into this category at player level 75+? The question has been gnawing at me a while so I decided to try and figure out, how much damage does my missile do? My current missile level is 78.

I used a level 50 Hunt and stage 16's dragon boss to try to approximate some numbers. One hit from Hunt causes 19791 damage (tested it against an enemy tower). In Stage 16, it takes 5 hits to kill the dragon boss so my best guess is that the dragon has between 79164 to 98955 HP. We can then figure that half his health would be somewhere between 39582 to 49477 HP, the point which would be indicated by visually seeing the dragon get knocked back.

I tested by firing the missile and then allowing Hunt to hit him. The missile did some damage, then after Hunt hit him once, the dragon was knocked back (reaching half health). So this was evidence that the missile only did somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000 damage, definitely less than 39582 damage since the missile alone didn't knock him back.

From just normal gameplay, I think we can all agree that the missile does a concrete number in damage, and not a set percentage. In later stages, the missile feels like it is hardly doing anything. The boss's health bars don't even move, whereas in lower stages, the missiles seem to be hitting for a large chunk of the boss's health.

It's tough to put an exact number on it, but I think it's safe to say that for a missile that hits approximately 30K (even splashed over a lot of targets), it's hardly worth putting any coin into once you get into the higher player levels. If you want to compare, level 80 Alice does over 220K in one hit. Level 70 Opera James does 109K in one hit, also as splash over all targets in range. 30K splash is peanuts! Upgrading missile becomes astronomically expensive in higher levels and, in my opinion, it isn't worth it. Missile upgrade is low priority along with tower health now. I'll upgrade them when I am sitting on a wealth of gold, but otherwise I'm not going to bother.

Ice Shot Damage

Ice Shot's description states that it "damages enemies by freezing." Does it really? I tested whether it really does by recording videos of myself versus bosses in various stages.

Stage 16 Ice Shot thawing

Stage 64 Ice Shot Thawing

Stage 84 Ice Shot thawing

If you click to enlarge the images, you'll see that indeed Ice Shot does damage them. The damage occurs when the enemies thaw, not when they become frozen. The screenshots also illustrate that Ice Shot does a set percentage of damage since it takes the same "chunk" of health off the bar from bosses that clearly have very different health pools. How many percent? Again, it's hard to say, but I would guess 3% to 5% looks about correct.

Meteor Damage

It always bothered me that the Meteor item cost more than the others. Sure, it does a bunch of damage, but so what? What exactly makes it more powerful than Ice Shot? [NOTE: Below discoveries about meteor are applicable to single player stage mode. Not confirmed for Friend or Team Battle Mode.]

To test, I took a lot of video captures of various stages and watched the playback in slow motion to try to figure it all out. Unfortunately, Meteor's damage is incremental with a damage-over-time element which makes it is difficult to show in still images, so you'll have to take my word for it and maybe test for yourself to see what I mean. 

Meteor does damage five separate times spread over a small area immediately behind the front-most enemy. Each time it tosses a meteor down to the ground, it does an initial amount of damage to anything in that area, then burns them for an additional amount. It does this 5 separate times to 5 different spots. 

This is the shot right before I hit Meteor. The first meteor will target the area where the green UFO enemy is standing. 

Meteor #1

Meteor #2

Meteor #3 - Dragon boss is finally within range and gets hit

Meteor #4

Meteor #5

Notice how the boss's health is lower than when #5 hits. This is the additional burn damage that happens after a meteor hits.

Positioning

I tried over and over and concluded that it is quite difficult, if not impossible, to time it such that the boss gets hit by all 5 meteors. Usually they only get hit by about 3 of the 5 meteors. The area that it hits is relatively tight. The first meteor hits from the left and the rest sweeps towards the right while all bosses typically move from right to left. The only times I think it might be possible for the boss to get hit by all 5 meteors are: (1) you are insanely good at timing tornado such that the boss gets swept back at the same rate as the Meteors dropping, or (2) Boss health is close to half when meteors #1, 2 and 3 hit, then they are hit by meteor #4 and 5 because of the knock back to the right. I haven't ever successfully done the latter, but I guess theoretically it is possible (for bosses that get knocked back a great distance like the crawling worm in Altar of Flame).

Conversely, never time your item usage such that your Meteor will completely miss. I have done this by accident before. If while tornado is blowing everyone back (on a long pathway stage) then you hit meteor, the hot rocks will start to drop where there are no targets because the enemies are all swept back to their tower already. Positioning matters with this item, unlike Ice Shot which freezes absolutely everything on the path. 

Damage

I tested with a number of different stages and I've concluded that Meteor hits for a percentage of the total health of boss enemies. So if the boss is at 100% health, you release Meteor and 3 meteors hit it, then the boss will be left with approximately 70% of their health. Each meteor hits and burns for a total of approximately 10% the boss enemy's total health. It's a visual "guess-timate" so take it as you will! By the way, it is not 10% of the boss's current health. If it were dealing 10% of its current health in damage, then we would see that the meteors never actually kill any enemies but just bring it down in health and never actually reach 0 HP, which is untrue. [Side note: Percentage damage does not appear to apply to non-boss enemies. Meteor seems capable of one-shot killing low health little enemies outright, like the little UFO in my first picture above.]

So on average, you can expect that the Meteor item will deal 30% damage to bosses close to the front of the enemy line. Since it is a percentage, that can mean that it lopped off a lot of boss health, multiplied by however many bosses you are facing at the time. The potential damage is huge. Knowing this now, I think I feel that the 700 coins they charge me for the use of this item is justified. 30% can be crucial to timing, or help push through a Hurry Up phase where everything is already reduced to 50% health. 

I tested these items to the best of my knowledge. If anyone has other ideas or methods on how to figure out a more accurate damage meter, do share. 

Rangers to Keep, Rangers to Eat

A friend suggested that I write a description for each ranger and at first I hesitated because I knew it would be a big opinion post. But as I combed through some different Line Rangers communities online, I realized that the question, "should I keep it or should I eat it" comes up quite often. There is nothing more devastating than finding out later that you ate a powerful ranger because you didn't know any better at the time. So if you have found your way here with this question, I hope this post is helpful to you.

Below is my description of rangers that are worth having and my reasons for keeping them or selling/combining ("synthesizing") them. Keep in mind that these descriptions are applicable for normal single-player mode.

Caveat: When deciding which rangers to put on your team, you should always consider the kind of enemies you are facing, the length of the path in the stage and how many minerals they cost to deploy. It is also important to understand what the ranger's attack stats are.

As always, the full list of rangers is here.

[This post was last updated on July 10, 2014.]

CONY  long-range speed/splash

• Lucifer Cony, Best Couple Cony, Witch Cony, Elf Cony, and Magician Cony are all speed class rangers. You can deploy Cony very rapidly back to back at very little mineral cost. Particularly Witch Cony, Best Couple Cony and Lucifer Cony at max level, if you manage to get a lot of them out, they lay waste to enemies fast. Consider using Cony for stages that have a lot of low-health enemy targets and stages that have a very long pathway. 
• Elf Cony is a 3-star ranger gift for sending invitations to friends. She was also obtainable during an event in August 2014. During this event, players could finally max their Elf Cony to level 60.
• In early stages, Magician Cony can be very helpful because she's long-range, fast, and low cost but once you get Manager, you will find that he hits much harder.
• Sorcerer Cony, Songster Cony and Summer Cony are splash rangers. They hit multiple targets with every attack they shoot out. Sorcerer and Songster are both fantastic to have on your team. They also move relatively quickly but unlike their speed class lookalikes, they have a longer cooldown (time between deployment) and they cost more minerals to deploy. Summer Cony is somewhat less desirable only because she is a 3-star ranger. But she does have advantages. She's inexpensive to deploy and for a 3-star ranger, she's really quite powerful. She trails Songster's damage by a significant amount, but she's still not bad for how cheap she is.
• Sorcerer Cony (who I lovingly call SoCo) is one of the highest damage rangers in the game. Songster doesn't do as much DPS as her big sister, but Songster is not bad still. I like Songster better than Clara because she costs less, moves & attacks faster, and hits from further away. However, if you only have one Songster, don't throw away Clara since you can easily get a level 70 Clara. A level 70 Clara is does more DPS than a level 50 Songster.
• All Conys have relatively low health so you need to protect them with rangers at the front of your army.
• End Game: Keep Lucifer, Witch, Best Couple, Sorcerer and Songster Cony

BROWN   melee (mostly)

• Thunder Brown, Best Couple Brown, Frog Brown, Underwear Brown, Summer Brown, Super Brown and Brownie are health rangers. I like the Brown series of health rangers quite a lot because they move at a decent speed and their cooldown are all about 5 seconds, which is acceptable for most stages. Thunder Brown costs the most minerals of the bunch and you may find him useful if you encounter stages that need a lot of big-HP tanks (he has over 1 million HP at max). There are more affordable alternatives like Macho Moon who can tank for less cost. Summer Brown is an interesting option as a health ranger because for a 4-star ranger, he has more HP than his 5-star lookalikes, while costing quite a bit less. Summer Brown has 1.5 million HP at level 70, but does peewee damage. For a health ranger though, the health is mostly what matters.
• Frog Brown can be obtained by inviting friends to play the game or now you also have a chance to get him from Gacha. He makes a fantastic tank for your team until about stages in the mid 80's. At that point, you may be better off with Xan. 
• General Brown is one of my favorite balance rangers. He is meaty enough to take a lot of hits and deals a very decent amount of damage. He is also pretty cheap to deploy as he is a 4-star ranger. I have often used General Brown instead of a health ranger.
• Hip Hop Brown is a speed ranger but he can dual purpose as a health ranger as well. Hip Hop Brown gains a lot of health as he levels up. He costs only 210 minerals and his cooldown is a mere 3 seconds so you can deploy him over and over to keep the front of your army safe. He can easily double as your team's primary health ranger. 
• Red Brown is also a speed ranger, but he doesn't have the kind of HP that his big brother Hip Hop does. He was available as a limited edition ranger on two occasions. He is not available in Gacha or stages anymore. He is an interesting option as a super-lowbie because of his speed and cost. At level 60 he has 153K health so he's really not a bad choice as a filler if you need someone to quickly rush to the front and take a few hits. Red Brown is a keeper because he's both a collector's item and he's quite useful as a mini-tank/lowbie hybrid. 
• Ola Brown is the first of the Brown series to break out of the melee status. He's not just any ranged distance ranger, he's the longest range splash unit in the game currently. He's a delicate guy, only 104K health at level 80, but he can throw almost 49K DPS at a cost of only 350 mineral, which makes him more attack-to-cost effective than Sorcerer Cony. His low health but long range will keep him safe from most things, but be aware that enemies like the Convini (onigiri enemy), Creamy (ice cream enemy) and Richard (green dino/lizard enemy) will definitely kill Ola Brown in seconds. One last thing: He's limited edition, only available in the GACHA mix for the month of June 2014, so you must get him while you can and then keep him forever!
• End Game: Keep Thunder, Best Couple, Summer Brown, General, Hip Hop, Red and Ola Brown.

Edward melee splash 

• Edward is a brand new limited-time ranger that is only obtainable for the month of August 2014. He's very, very strong splash ranger with well over 1 million HP. Edward's splash range is quite large, hitting a huge area in front of him where his acorn mobile zips through. 
• The cons of Edward are that he costs a huge amount of minerals to deploy. If you're not high enough level, you cannot even deploy him right away. Edward's cooldown is also very, very long - 38 seconds normally, 19 seconds at master level. At high levels, though, Edward is a great ranger to have on your team for long levels that require big sustained damage. He's definitely a keeper if you are lucky enough to have him.

COBE  melee splash 

• Cobe is really adorable and if you happen to have one in the lower stages, he (she?) is fantastic to use. He has a relatively high health pool and attacks multiple targets with his lollipop which makes him a good alternative to a traditional health ranger. 
• At level 50, Cobe starts to become less useful in the Ancient Temple area. But if you manage to get Cobe to level 70, he is still a very viable splash ranger to use throughout. The only thing I don't like about Cobe is his long cooldown period, but pair him with another melee ranger like Moon, Brown or Jessica, and he will be fine. 
• End Game: Keep Cobe if you can get him to level 70. 

MOON   melee

• Masked Moon, Fighter Moon, Champion Moon and Popeye Moon are balance rangers. Moon does a decent job being a backup tank for your team while doing more damage than a health ranger. Fighter and Masked Moon are obtainable from later stages and it's a good idea to max them out. They rush to the front and can help hold the front line if your health rangers die before you get another one up. 
• Macho Moon is a great health ranger to have because he runs faster than Brown, and costs less than Thunder Brown while packing a lot more health than Frog Brown. He is cheaper to deploy and  has a lower cooldown than Xan, so if you get your hands on Macho Moon, keep him.
• End Game: Keep Masked, Fighter, Macho Moon.

BOSS  mid-to-long-range attack

• Legend Boss, Rapper Boss, Gangster Boss and Dancer Boss all attack from mid-range so be careful using him if you have dangerous enemies that can hit past the front line. Boss does not have a lot of health so you really must try to protect him. He attacks very slowly but each hit packs a punch. His attack power is quite good when compared to other single target ranged hitters. He also moves quicker than most other single target ranged hitters. I like using Boss if I don't have access to any splash rangers. Rapper Boss versus Ellin or Sindy, I would choose either Ellin or Sindy over Rapper because of hit range advantage. 
• Gangster Boss is the only one who is pretty useless. He isn't obtainable from stages until stage 93 and by that time he won't be helpful at all. If you randomly get him from Gacha in the early stages, you can certainly use him. 
• Dancer King Boss is currently the second-longest range attacker in the game. He's so far in the distance and his attack power is so high that he's basically a cannon. If you get your hands on him, train him up and he won't let you down.
• End Game: Keep Dancer King and Legend Boss. 

JAMES  mid-to-long range single/splash

• Gentleman James, Biker James, Sexy James and Ballerino James are balance rangers who hit from a short distance away from the enemy, and they have a decent amount of health. James can take a couple of hits if your health ranger happens to die, but he is not as meaty as Moon as a balance ranger. James' DPS is nothing very special because he is not as good as Boss series rangers for attack but he sort of makes up for it with more health. I really don't find James to be very effective and I haven't ever found a reason to use him over someone else. Gentleman James has decent damage and a lot of health but he's too far away from the front line to be a tank. If you get a 5 or 4 star James, maybe just keep him around in case the game developers buff him up one day to be actually useful. You can eat him up otherwise.
• Opera James is the only splash ranger of the James series a very good one. He attacks multiple targets from a distance and at max level he hits very hard. Opera James is a solid addition to any team. At max level he costs less and hits harder than Clara but has a slightly longer cooldown. 
• Prince James is one of the newest rangers in the game and is currently the longest range attacker (longer than Dancer King Boss by a little). He does incredible single target damage (more than Dancer King), has really decent amount of HP, so he's definitely a good asset to the team.
• End Game: Keep Opera James, Prince James. 

JESSICA  melee 

• Charismatic Jessica, Warrior Jessica, and Hero Jessica are all great splash rangers. Max level Jessicas are very versatile. You can use her in lieu of a backup tank ranger like Moon. Jessica's high speed and high HP make her the perfect alternative to a health ranger altogether if you are looking for ways to increase your total damage output. Once you get to the stages where you can get Warrior Jessica, it is a good idea to farm 5 and max her out. 
• Lightning Jessica is unlike the others in her series. She is a speed ranger, moves lightning-fast and can be deployed again and again very quickly. She has more HP at max level than Warrior, but since her attack is single target, her damage will generally be much lower. For her cost, speed, and cooldown, Lightning Jessica may be an interesting option as a backup tank, similar to Hip-Hop Brown in this respect, but with lower stats. One thing to be cautious about is that Lightning Jessica's range is a bit farther back than her splash lookalikes. She leaves room between her hit range and the enemy's hit range, which may result in allowing the enemy some extra forward marching space.
• End Game: Keep Charismatic, Warrior and Lightning Jessica

There sure are a lot of humanoids.

• KSM is a splash ranger, and one of the highest DPS ones at that. He costs a lot to deploy and has a very long cooldown, but he makes up for it with his insane attack power. He is worth deploying in almost every stage and situation. You don't even have to worry whether you will waste your minerals deploying him while fighting a boss stage because he has a lot of health. He is slow, but he will survive even if he gets hit a few times on the way to the fight. Make no mistake, he is one of the most sought-after ranger in the game at the moment, so if you got him, congratulations!
• Lia is a balance ranger who packs a caffeinated punch. She is small but she actually is a very high damage single target ranger. Her cooldown is so low that you can amass an army of little girls very quickly. I had reservations about using her when she was low level because of her cost but actually at high levels she's pretty useful.
• Alice is the highest single target dps ranger that you can get from stage clears. She hits like a truck and sports a lot of health. The only downside to Alice is that she is very slow in every way (cooldown, move & attack speed). But if you manage to get her into range of the fight, she does tear up the place with her shoe. If you don't have Lia, Alice isn't a bad alternative.
• Clara is a solid splash ranger and the first splash ranger you can obtain from stage clears who can attack from a good distance away. Once you can safely farm stage 40 to get her, I would highly recommend doing so. Clara will make life a lot easier as you progress through the mid-level stages. 
• Dwight is a very powerful balance ranger to have on your team because he comes with very high attack stats as well as extremely high health, like Bernard. He costs quite a lot to deploy, but he is well worth the mineral cost because you almost never have to worry that he will die quickly. As far as single target damage, Dwight is one of the best.
• Xan is the highest HP health ranger you can obtain from stage clears. He costs quite a lot and his cooldown is longer than most other health rangers but he makes up for it by flying to the front of the fight very quickly. If you get Xan, keep him as he may very useful for stages where you need a big meaty tank. 
• Styne is pretty much the default health ranger at mid-lower stages. He's fine to use if you have no other viable alternatives available. Once you get 5 Stynes combined, he has a lot of health and remains useful until around stage 70. Styne pairs really well with Moon on a team because Moon moves fast and can be Styne's backup. If you get your hands on General Brown, Macho Moon or Xan, you might want to try them over Styne. 
• Bob is a health ranger who really has a ton of health but he moves very, very slowly. You have to plan ahead when you use Bob and learn to anticipate when he is going to die because you will need either a backup tank to help take the hit when he dies or time the arrival of another Bob to waddle his way there. If you don't have Frog Brown, Macho Moon, Styne or Xan, Bob is ok to use. Since Styne is obtainable from stage clears, I would dump Bob as soon as I got 2 or 3 Stynes combined. If you have several Bobs combined, the difference between Styne is slight and you'll have to judge for yourself which one has more of a health or speed advantage for your needs. At max, I would pick Styne still. While he has a little less HP, he costs a great deal less. If you have Macho Moon, then there is no contest. 
• Manager is probably one of the best ranged attackers you can get very early on in the game. Combine 5 of them together and you should have pretty decent outgoing damage in the lower stages. When you can trade up for Clara, Sindy or Ellin, do so. 
• Abdula's pure splash damage stats outperform every other 4-star splash ranger currently. Looking at damage alone, he even tops Sorcerer Cony at max level. However, when you compare how much he costs (which is a lot for a 4-star ranger) then actually SoCo pulls ahead by a little bit. The difference is that Abdula has nearly double the health, and therefore will generally live much longer than SoCo which under certain battle conditions will make him a much better choice. He's a keeper.
• Shu is a splash ranger whose range is almost the same as Ola Brown. His survivability makes him an excellent ranger to have. His damage is better than Clara's and he has much more health than her. He's a solid splash ranger, but he is limited edition so unfortunately, not everyone will have him. 
• Susu is part of the same promotion as Shu, but you can only randomly get him from Premium Gacha for a limited time. Susu is the highest DPS splash ranger by a mile, and he over 4 million health (at master level) which makes him perfect for standing in melee range and crushing enemies. The pros are that he's really meaty and destroys things in no time. The cons are that he's very rare to obtain, costs quite a lot to deploy and has the 2nd longest cooldown of any ranger on the roster. If you get him, by all means, you should keep him. 
• Hitman is quite similar to KSM and Abdula, but actually he is worth more damage per cost, which makes him even more worth it to deploy than KSM. He attacks from a really nice distance away, and his high-DPS is very impressive. 
• Luis, for all intents and purposes, is more cost-efficient Dwight. His damage to cost ratio is better than Dwight's, but per unit he does less damage. There are a few tradeoffs, but all in all still a solid damage dealer for a balance class.
• Chichi is the new better, faster Dwight! She's so expensive to deploy but she's worth every penny. She moves fast and she has more health than any other ranger at the moment. Her half million damage at level 80 is quite scary for a little girl.
• End Game: Keep KSM, Lia, Alice, Clara, Dwight, Xan, Abdula, Hitman, Luis, Chichi

DRAGONS  splash 

• Sol is currently the highest damage splash ranger that you can obtain from stage clears. At max level, he does about 36000 DPS, which is quite powerful. And unlike Opera James, Clara and Sorcerer/Songster Cony, Sol can actually take a lot of damage before he dies. This is his biggest advantage in the later stages over other splash rangers. He is, as many people will agree, a poor man's KSM. Definitely keep Sol and level him up. 
• Luke is some kind of a dinosaur in a suit, I guess. He is a melee splash ranger so his large health pool will help him survive in the front line. Luke does less damage than Sol but if you have Luke and you don't have any other better splash ranger alternatives, he will do just fine. But otherwise, I think Warrior Jessica, who is obtainable from stage clears, is a more versatile alternative. Keep him around if you have 5 Lukes combined as a fill-in splash ranger.
• Dickey is one of the first splash rangers you can get and he is pretty useful up to about stage 30. He's very slow getting to the front of the fight, but if you manage to get him to the enemy tower, he can help shorten the battle by splashing down the tower. He's nice to keep around until you have a better option like Vlad or Clara. Don't get me wrong - I'm only saying he's fine for the very early stages! 

• Bernard (roasted peanut? sweet potato?) is a very healthy ranger with a lot of HP. He has well over 3,000,000 HP at max level, but he is very costly and his cooldown is very, very long. He is definitely worth keeping, but more as a back pocket tank. I wouldn't use him as the only tanking unit at higher stages because he walks so slowly and takes so long to produce. But if you time it right, Bernard can be very useful indeed.
• Honey the Sally doppelganger bee is a speed ranger with formidable attack power when you get her to max level. Even at level 60 her attack is not to be dismissed lightly. Because she costs very little, move speed is very fast and her cooldown is merely 3 seconds, you can spam many Honeys out and the sheer quantity of her attacks going out can be overwhelming. Another way to use Honey is as a halfway lowbie. She's spammable, but her relatively high attack gives you a little bit of extra damage on tough enemies. Honey has helped me win several stages where the tiniest increase in damage was crucial. Obtainable from Gacha or 100 friend invitations, she's really quite worth getting and keeping around.
• Dumpy is the highest single target attack ranger currently. He has more DPS than he has HP! He rolls on his steamer to the front line very quickly and can easily get himself killed as a result. He doesn't have a lot of HP so if you use him you must make sure he is protected at all times, or he will quickly become enemy appetizer. At level 80 he does the equivalent of 477K damage per second! Seriously, make sure he lives! 
• Sindy (a tanuki) & Ellin (cloud elemental) are both fantastic rangers to have on your team in the mid-stages (~52 through 87). They are both obtainable from stage clears so anyone can get a max level Sindy and Ellin. Before getting Alice, Sindy and Ellin are almost indispensable as high DPS rangers to have on your team. Sindy does a bit more damage and attacks faster, but costs more. Ellin is a little more affordable which may be helpful in some stages. They are both very useful to have in the mid and near-end game. If you are using freely obtainable rangers only, they're practically indispensable. If you play the Premium Gacha a lot, Sindy and Ellin will be old news for you.
• Cherina is one of the newest splash rangers and she looks like a cherry bomb because she is. She rockets her way to the front line and deals an astonishing amount of splash damage. She's costs very little to deploy, has an incredibly short cooldown and sports enough health to tank (at max level). I can't begin to tell you how powerful she really is so you have to see her in action yourself. A half dozen pack of Cherinas at your front line and your enemies will be in a lot of trouble.
• Mully... I don't even know what kind of creature Mully is. But he is a fantastic attack ranger with high attack, high health, and very fast move speed. At moderate cost, Mully is great for pushing forward against clumps of difficult enemies because he can withstand a lot of damage while dealing lots of pain. He's a great ranger to have on the team.
• Elle is a new 3-star splash ranger. She's a top tier 3-star ranger and can contend with some 4-star rangers as well. Her damage is really good for the amount of minerals she costs. Elle's best feature is her long range. She can fire from a huge distance and safely stay out of the enemy fire. Not a bad ranger for 3 stars!
• End Game: Keep all of them!

LOWBIES

Little guys Scott, Bella, Crush and Glenn are speed rangers that I think everyone should keep around. There are many stages in the game where lowbies like these can be very, very useful. They are speed rangers so their mineral cost will never change even if they level up to max.

JUST MAYBE

• Dane is a 3-star health ranger obtainable very early on and I think he is useful only in the very early stages of the game. Though as soon as you can get Styne, there's really no reason to continue using Dane. 
• Pew and Vlad are 3-star splash rangers but are so slow and have so little health that half the time they don't make it to the battle before dying. If you happen to get them very, very early on, they might be useful to you. But once you can get Clara, I would not bother with either of them.
• Hunt the pirate fowl is a pretty interesting option. He is similar to Cony in that he is a speed ranger. At max level 60, he actually does damage that is not bad and he costs very little. I don't think he is worthwhile having in your main team but he is a nice option to keep in your back pocket for some specific stages that need a fast, low cost long range attacker. It's a very niche spot. 
• The single target James series (not including Prince James though) got buffed recently but I would still put them in the maybe category. There's just no clear reason to use them unless you don't have a better alternative for single target attack.

DON'T BOTHER

Alex, Frankie, Duncan, Jason, Lucas, Toti, Ryan, Walter, Becky, Clark, Jack, Jacob, Mike, Mummy, Rei, Ben, Simon, Ham, Jill, Joe, Merry, Ned, Puff, Sisi, Zac, Ron
These rangers are either so low stat or appear in the game out of sequence for their usefulness period that there are better options for your team. They are pretty much food for other rangers.

That about covers the rangers that I think are worth mentioning. If you are reading this and passionately disagree, comment and let me know why you do.

Which rangers did you keep on your team longest? Which rangers will you never eat/sell because they did so much for you?

May 22 Changes - Laughing All The Way To The Bank

AMG! NO!

Late last night (for me anyway), Line issued some ominous new game notices and minutes later retracted them. Today just after Japan's 01:00 AM we are seeing the lives changes in place. The funniest part for me is that for hours before they finished maintenance, I read that players had all kinds of issues as they were attempting to put out these changes, clearly having technical difficulties. In my mind I imagined that Line Rangers is in fact the brain child of one poor lad sitting in a room in Tokyo, clicking away on his laptop keyboard and then spilling his coffee and messing everything up on the eve of his proposed changes. And then frantically trying to fix it afterward...

The game was taken offline for emergency maintenance while the developer(s) properly implemented the new changes once and for all. For interrupting the tail hours of my favorite Ranger Day, Double Coin Day, we all got 40 rubies and 10,000 gold coins in addition to the 10 rubies they promised us daily for the month of May. Hey, I think it's a fair exchange for this rather hilarious blunder. Call me cruel, but watching them trip all over themselves during a patch cycle is pretty chuckle-worthy in my book.

The Changes

As for the changes, they are exactly as outlined in the notices from last night. Here they are for your perusal.

The change to the max level of all rangers does not require you to obtain 2 more of the same type of ranger, so we can all breathe a sigh of relief. However, be aware that the increase does not appear to stack the way the other ones did after combining to raise the max; there is no additional 20% stat increase like we did for combining rangers. The 10 additional levels is a linear stat increase. So 5-star rangers' default max is now 60, 4-star rangers' default max is now 50, and so on. If you only have 1 of a ranger and it is at its default max level, you still need a second one in order to gain a 20% stat increase. Side note: Even as a linear upgrade, the extra 10 levels takes Dancer King Boss to 121k attack and KSM to 129k attack at level 80. Godly!

Speed rangers have gotten a big high-five and now they're actually very worth considering for your team composition. Most speed rangers' mineral cost are now reverted to their level 1 base cost, with the exception of Hip-Hop Brown who remains at 210. Honey's mineral cost has been bumped down twice now, and she's so worth using now at a mere 160 mineral cost. All speed class Cony rangers are amazing as well, particularly Lucifer Cony, who packs a mighty punch for the measly cost. All of our speed class lowbies are going to reach level 20 now, but as long as their mineral cost remains the same as their level 1 to 10 cost, I see no downside to this.

Balance and speed rangers have gotten a fist-bump from the developers, too. Certain rangers have had their stats increased. I believe Masked Moon's HP and attack have both been increased, making him actually pretty decent as a pseudo-health ranger (level 80: 51.5k attack/531k HP). I don't have a hard comparison, but I do believe that Gentleman James got an increase, too. I mean, as far as undesirable 5-star rangers go, Gentleman James was unfortunately very close to the top of that list previously. 

"Some" miscellaneous rangers got buffed, like Sol. I admit I didn't always like him. I used to call him Greenie McDroopy (Fatty McDroopy's cousin. Who's his cousin? Dickey, of course.) At level 70 he was pretty decent but post-change, he's become really competitive. Sol has gone from ~13k attack at level 70 to ~30k attack. If you've been snacking on Sol instead of keeping him, you might be kicking yourself now! He has 567k health at level 80 and deals a 36k DPS to boot. Not bad at all. I'm sorry I ever doubted you, Mr. McDroopy.

Gold Brown is a cool new addition to the game. He will randomly appear in stages and he is basically a health ranger. He's a huge gold statue and twirls his way to the front line, then helps tank while jump-kicking baddies in the face. I have never had Gold Brown appear while I was farming easy stages so maybe it isn't completely random. Perhaps the game has some way of gauging if the player is having difficulty before giving you a chance to get Gold Brown.

Skyscraper Treasure Changed

The Skyscraper Treasure is finally what I wanted! Far-Reaching Insight now increases range instead of speed. This treasure won't increase your direct damage or anything, but it may indirectly save your rangers from death.

As shown in the picture here, you can see what 100% benefit of the new version of the Skyscraper treasure does. The increase isn't huge when you look at it alone, but the important thing is when you compare the maximum range of our rangers today versus the maximum range of our enemies, you will find that the extra distance may put our rangers safely out of the attack radius of certain attacks. So there you have it! Measurable treasure benefits!

Rumors or real changes coming?

[Update: These notices were real and now they are live.]

I wonder if I'm the only one who saw these two "new notices" because as soon as I saw them they disappeared. I saw one on my husband's iPhone and the second notice on my Android. I wish I screenshot them because they were dramatic changes...  There's no evidence that the game has changed yet, so maybe they accidentally pushed out new notices and then retracted them?

IPhone notice: (not iPhone specific, I just happened to read it there, and these are what I remember from memory of reading it once)

-Changed speed rangers mineral cost so that it does not increase as they level up
-adjusted balance of ranger stats (no specifics were given as to which rangers and what stats)
-increased max level of all rangers by 10. (Oh my stars!!!! This would be amazing.)
-Gold Brown will randomly appear in stages as a friendly ranger (did not say what Gold Brown does or what kind of ranger he is)

I was so excited that I grabbed my phone and wanted to see immediately if the changes were live. But when I started my game my Android got a different notice...

-We found out there were some glitches regarding the stats in the Area 10 treasure which have now been fixed.
-We've also revised Ranger attack speed to Ranger attack distance

So does that mean, as many people have found if they tried to really paid attention, that Skyscraper's Treasure (increase attack speed) in fact does nothing at the moment? And they plan to change it to attack range/distance?

Did anyone else see these notices go out or am I hallucinating deep into the night? I have a screen shot of the Android notice which I'll post if it has not gone live by tomorrow morning.

What do you guys think of these "changes"?

Rolling The Dice: Gacha Probabilities

What Are Our Chances of Winning a 5-Star Ranger?

We all take a chance with our rubies hoping to play the GACHA machine for great rangers like KSM, Sorcerer Cony, etc. The vast majority of us have experienced our fair share of disappointment with this random generator. I read an article today where the author, 楊濟安, has taken the effort to crunch the numbers on exactly what our odds are of landing a 4 or 5 star ranger. His calculations are based on a healthy sampling from a couple hundred volunteers who shared their Gacha results. The full article goes into detail so if your Chinese (and curiosity of probability) is solid, do go and read the whole thing. Again, full credit goes to the author of the article, but I will pull a few details to discuss here for the benefit of our English speaking community. It's a burning question that we all want to know about because some of us (many of us) spend cold, hard cash and we would like to know just how much of a gamble it is.

• Full article in Chinese
• Data samples are here (courtesy of the Facebook group LINE Rangers 台灣社團)

So if you're not interested in all the gritty details (TL;DR and all that), during the "Double Chance on 5 Star" event, the probability of getting a 5-star ranger  is approximately 20%. The probability for 4-star is approximately 30% and 3 star is about 49-50%, based upon the samples obtained. Based on this, the probability of 5-star rangers goes down to only 10% when the event is not taking place. 

Other Interesting Findings

One of the assumptions that he takes on is that every turn of the Gacha is an independent event. This means that one turn of the Gacha has no bearing on the result of the next turn of the Gacha. He believes that the 6 results from 100 rubies Gacha are independent events because a lot of people reported getting four 4-stars and one 5-star, or three 5-stars and three 4-stars. This kind of result would not be possible if the game developer had set the 100 rubies Gacha to be dependent events. For instance, if we believe the Gacha is set up to predetermined dependent results, then we should often get results of three 3-stars, two 4-stars and one 5-star, with some variability but not to the extreme of some people getting four or five 4-star rangers in one shot of 100 rubies. I buy his line of reasoning for this assumption, and it is an important one to make.

The author imparts us with a bit of basic probability knowledge which may affect the way we interpret the possible results we get when we play. Suppose there were 10 marbles in a can and one of the marbles would win you a prize. 10 people line up to pick out one marble each, one at a time. Each time someone picks a marble, they put the marble back. The chances of each person winning the prize is 1 out of 10 -- easy, of course. Suppose the 10 people in line picked out a marble each and did not put their marble back after selecting. Now who has the highest probability of winning the prize? The answer is they all still have the same chance of winning, which is 1 out of 10. (The first person has a 1/10 chance he has picked the winning marble. The second person has a 9/10 chance that the first person didn't get the winning marble * 1/10 chance that he selected the winning marble = 1/10). All this is to say that the misconception that if you got something good from the Gacha, the chances of you getting something good again the next turn is lessened, is completely mathematically false. If the chance of getting a 5 star ranger is set by the game developer at 10%, then your chances each and every time you play the Gacha is 10%, no matter what you got in the past, no matter what someone you know recently got, no matter night or day or where you live. The numbers don't lie :)

Six 3-star rangers? Sad day.

Another question he answered was regarding the poor players who get six 3-star rangers with 100 rubies. How is this possible in a world where the chance to get a 3-star ranger one time is 50%? He uses normal probability distributions to determine that there is a 81.33% probability of not obtaining six 3-stars. If you happened to be the chap who got six 3-stars, you're in the unlucky 18.67% lot. It's not an insignificant chance if you ask me!

One last note is, he made some assumptions to show that playing 100 rubies at a time is only slightly better than playing 20 rubies at a time but the details are a bit fuzzy to me (lost in translation; I couldn't quite understand the assumptions he made to arrive at his numbers). All I can say is that he concluded that the overall result of doing 20 rubies 5 times versus 100 rubies 1 time, that the 100 rubies wins out, if only by a little. 

The article was really enlightening and fascinating. Might takes maybe a bit of knowledge in statistics and a lot of Chinese to understand, but totally awesome that someone took the time to not only crunch numbers but also explain all this stuff. Bravo and a big thank you to 楊濟安 and the people who shared their results to make this study possible. In the words of Bill Nye the Science Guy, "now you know!"

I know what you're thinking! You're thinking, 20%? Pfffltt. Screw that, I didn't get anything from my rubies! I got Lucas, Hunt, Vlad, Ryan and Jason over and over! Remember that's 20% overall in a relatively large sample pool. If you played the Gacha 100 times in a row, 20 rubies at a time, surely close to 20 of them will be 5-stars. 

I'll give you an example. I found out from my Macho Moon Friendship Point Event study that the chance to get Macho Moon during this event was in the neighborhood of 4%. However as it so happens on day one of the event, I played the Friendship Gacha 172 times before I got my very first Macho Moon. That translates to 0.6% in a sample of 172. Not even one percent! It seemed absurd to me at the time. But later on in the day as I continued to play, oddly enough, I got Macho Moon 2 out of 3 spins, which is 66.6% looking at a sample of 3. On day one I played the Gacha a total of 244 times and landed myself 10 Macho Moons. So it evened itself out to 4.1%. Day two and day three were not nearly as dramatic because Moon popped out much more evenly. But throughout the course of the day I did find myself inexplicably caught in chains of 1 and 2 stars, then later on, in chains of 3-stars. However, even the 1, 2 and 3 star quantities leveled themselves out if I played enough times in a day. This is just how statistics and probability goes. We arrive at a number that is the result of calculations from an extremely large amount of trials. Your reality after playing a handful of times may vary quite a lot from the average.

And let's not forget that the 20% is not the chance that you will get something useful to you. The 20% emcompasses the chances that you will get duds like Luke (who nobody wants lol), Xan, Sol and Alice (who are available from stage clear rolls). The chances of you getting what you want (like KSM, Dancer King Boss, Sorcerer Cony and the like), is actually quite a bit smaller. So let's not confuse what you want with the total probability of 5-star rangers. 

[Addendum: I emailed the company and asked them whether the probability of all rangers within the same star grade is the same throughout. I have been told that the probability of all the rangers is preset. They do discriminate among the rangers as they deem some rarer than others, and the rarer ones have a lower probability than the others. Therefore, while the general odds of getting 5-star rangers on a normal day may be 10%, within the 10% there is another variable which determines which 5-star ranger you'll get. We can safely assume that the more desirable rangers are the "rarer" ones they referenced. However, a smaller chance does not mean no chance, it is just less probable. It's like they say in the lottery business: You have to play to win. And if you don't ever Gacha, then you will never win. If you don't want to gamble, that's your decision. So that's it, I'll leave it at that!]

Hope this post was helpful to you guys out there! Happy gaming and good luck!

Skyscraper - Videos and Thoughts

Skyscraper: Monkey brains, bats, ladybugs, dynamite... and twerking. What's not to love?

Although I don't think I like the poodle abusing goth chick.

[Update: May 21, 2014] 
Skyscraper has been revised. The boss stages are more difficult than they were at the initial release.

As some sort of consolation for making the area more challenging, LINE has sent us all a free Cobe. I like Cobe, but, I think it's still generally a bad idea to make stages more difficult after they have been released. That's just my personal opinion on game updates, though. I suppose it'll put players without special rangers in an even more precarious position for stage progression, and those with KSM & company may wince maybe a little at the change. Cobe may help, but probably not a ton. Cobe is a good splash ranger who can get herself (himself?) up to the front line fairly quickly and can take a few hits due to medium-high HP at max level. I believe this is the second free Cobe event since the launch of the game, so veteran players may have a level 60 Cobe already.

The New Stuff

The newly available 4 star ranger is Opera James and 5 star is Masked Moon. James is absolutely fantastic as he's a powerful splash ranger who costs less than Clara and maxes out at higher damage as well. Masked Moon at level is quite a piece of work. I personally haven't found a good reason to use him yet but at max, his health is insane and his attack is formidable. At lower levels, I would pass on him altogether because you have better options for both health and attack.

And the Treasure for this area is... click to find out!

Free Ranger Videos (Up to date)

• Stage 117 Cleared - (Free rangers, no Friend: Sol, Clara, Opera James, Warrior Jessica, Cobe)
• Line Rangers Stage 119 Free Clear - English Voice Explanation- Free Rangers Sol, Warrior Jessica, Opera James, Clara, Glenn

First-time Playthrough Links 

I used Hip Hop Brown [70], KSM [55], Dancer King Boss [60], Sorcerer Cony [50], Charismatic Jessica [70] in almost all of these first attempts... just because I can. These videos were just for fun because I recorded the very first time I encountered the new stages. If you are looking for other ranger teams, I might work on those later, though there are plenty of people who do a better job of those kinds of videos than I do! I make no claims about being a good player, I just try my best with what I have, so proceed with the attitude of fun, please. [Update: All the boss stages were revised to be more difficult, featuring more mini boss enemies per stage. Videos are probably outdated but haven't had time to sort it all out so watch with caution.]

Stage 109 Cleared

Stage 110 Cleared

Stage 111 Cleared

Stage 112 Cleared
Stage 113 Cleared

Stage 114 Cleared

Stage 115 Cleared

Stage 116 Cleared

Stage 117 pwnd (me)
Stage 117 Cleared
Stage 118 Cleared

Stage 112 Cleared (Free rangers: Sol, Clara, Sindy, Warrior Jessica, Scott) - [Update: outdated due to stage revision]

First Impressions

I stand corrected on my previous predictions. This entire zone was trivialized significantly by KSM, Dancer King, Hip Hop and Bernard. If you watched my videos above, this is quite obvious. Every stage was one-shot except for 117 & 120. I got 120 on my 4th try (with Dancer King [60], Sorcerer Cony [50] and 3 lowbies). I still enjoyed it, though. Going back and trying these again with other ranger combinations will be fun.

Mundo? More like Psycho... Pet kidnapper. I don't like her. I bet she's the one who abducted Sally for the Alien King.

In addition, lowbies have made a huge comeback. I will try my best to remember to put KSM & company back in my team when I am not playing, sorry in advance if you use my help and get a Bella :( Koji (red jumpsuit enemy) is really terrible to deal with and having a horde of lowbies in the front helps a lot. Same with the dynamite enemies (not listed in the enemy collection). It's also very helpful on Stage 120 where Mundo (poodle riding boss) body slams everything in a huge radius. Might as well let her kill throwaway lowbies. 

Richard, the green dino mini boss, has an insane range. I mean, really ridiculously long range. Everything, including Dancer King Boss and probably most towers, gets hit by his splash damage. Any time this mini boss is present, it acts as a ticking time bomb because if you don't kill him in time, your tower will get splashed down and game over -- Use your Tower Repair carefully. Luckily, his attack speed is pretty slow, and he's not terribly difficult to block with a standard health ranger.

That's all the thoughts I have for now. Hope everyone is enjoying the new area's challenges.