Red Sand Hill + Limited Ranger Adjustments

Right out of the gate, many players have already completed all the new stages of Red Sand Hill! Hard to believe, but it's true! Almost exclusively up-to-date premium players, but still, it's quite fast to already have dominated the new map. 

One of the exciting things I found quite fascinating is the new adjustments (read: buffs) of the older limited rangers, as briefed in the notice we received prior to the new area release.

This may not mean much to some, but I am very happy about this because it brings older veteran players like me, who have for a while dropped out of the race and stopped paying for rangers, a reason to come back into the fold. My dear old faithful, Ola Brown got a huge bump in stats, as did Susu and others that followed him. Whether or not it makes them "useful" again is up for debate, but, what it represents is the idea from LINE that they recognize old rangers need to be brought "up" to make them more competitive. They've done it before for older generation rangers... and then quickly scaled up the power of the newer rangers again. So we know this "new buff" is only temporarily relevant, as with all things in Line Rangers.

Nevertheless, rejoice, friends! New area, new life to old friends, new treasure. Have fun!

Trick or Treat

Happy Halloween!

It's end of October/Beginning of November so of course we can't be without more new rangers. 

They have continued the Halloween Gacha theme, but it's slightly changed. Instead of a hefty 200 rubies, you spend 150 and get a guaranteed chance to obtain either a 4-star or a 5-star ranger, effectively weeding out all 3-star rubbish ranger results. The yield is now "8+2" for a total of 10 rather than "10+3" for a total of 13. The price per spin is technically better this time (by a fraction, at 15 rubies per spin), but with the number of rangers consistently rising, the odds of you getting the couple of rangers you really need continue to diminish with time.

This month, the limited ranger is "Red" who is apparently an "Angry Bird." Honest to goodness, I don't know what Angry Birds is about because I've never downloaded the game, but I've briefly seen other people play it. It's a totally different genre from Line Rangers, so this is a strange collaborative event between the two games. And being a Limited Ranger, Red is pretty powerful. He has a *TON* of HP but he's going to need it because he's ultra-close range to the enemy. He's on a very long cooldown as well. Check him out:

That's pretty powerful! Here's what I think is the thing: Brown, Cony, Moon, Jessica and James have all been going at this for months. The Angry Birds heard that some guy was messing around with their fellow bird and decided it's time to bring it. Come on, Line Town Friends. It's time to put your game face on. Don't let this crossover bird steal all the credit. [Update: Just read the game notice... This story is exactly why Angry Birds are involved in the Sally rescue!] 

By the way, if you read the notice carefully, for the rest of November, there will be other Angry Birds events which will grant more of their characters to Line Rangers players. Pretty cute! 

Kung Fu Brown is an agile close-range splash unit. His animation is really funny. It looks like he wants to shove his nunchuku up the enemies' face. BTW I'm not a kung fu expert or anything, but I'm pretty sure nunchaku are not... part of Chinese kung fu? At least not traditionally? I guess it's just a Bruce Lee theme. But back to business: 183k splash, very fast move speed... for 330 minerals. Wow, just wow. KFBrown is going to tear melee enemies a new one. 

I was initially excited to see the splash screen include a new Jessica, but when I saw what she was I'm completely underwhelmed. I wanted her to be 5-star and very powerful. I think, as many of the readers have expressed, a powerful Jessica ranger is very much overdue. We've pretty much never had a super desirable Jessica. I know, back in the generation 1 days of LR, Charismatic Jessica was a dangerous kitty, and when Warrior Jessica was placed into the map as a free obtainable ranger, it was indeed a big deal and a huge help to the free ranger players. But it's been months since she was relevant in the least. Come on, we want OP Jessica! A 4-star premium health ranger with only 2.2M health with pretty much negligible attack in today's standards... is pretty useless. Driver Brown was free and he sports 2.4M health and costs less. I really don't see the point. Sorry, Jessica :( LINE made you just as a punching bag for Kung Fu Brown (see her description).

Thunder Brown's girlfriend Thunder Cony has finally decided to join the fight. I'm not sure if I like her yet. On the one hand, she's super fast and super cheap for fairly decent attack. If she's spammable, she could be pretty deadly in PVP. And the description... well, I hope they fix it. Cony's not going to be happy about being male.

Happy spinning, friends. I haven't got any rubies to spare this time around, but if you guys are getting the new rangers, share your opinions below! Let us know how they play into the Wasteland stages, etc.

If you're not getting the results you want, here are some hilarious pictures of people, presumably in Halloween costumes, to cheer you up. I don't know where these pics were originally from or who these people are, but they are so awesome. LOLOL

Happy Pre-Halloween

First of all, yes, Waste Land is open now! The new treasure increases EXP received.

Hrmmmmmm... preparing for expansion of max player level?

Whoo! Free random rangers

I was all tickled when I got my Mach Brown and Mach Moon today in the mailbox but then when I opened the game this evening, I saw:

• Halloween Cony!!!!!!!!
• Gacha Event updated (limited time) - More on this in a minute

Halloween Cony is so cute. I love her little wizard hat. She reminds me of my first Cony, Magician Cony. When I first started playing the game, I got Magician Cony and I could not be happier. Halloween Cony brought me back to that nostalgic feeling a bit. It's funny to even use the word "nostalgic" for a game that is less than a year old, but it's been a long journey. 

Halloween Cony IS pretty OP. I like her a lot. I don't have her mastered, but even so, she's crazy powerful. Her cooldown is, as expected, a bit long, but it's not as long as some other "OP" splash rangers out there -- and this is based on no numbers whatsoever, by the way. It's based on me playing 2 of the new stages with her on my team and just kinda marveling at her. Her speed across the board is just fantastic. And the stats? Brace yourself.

488k splash damage! 3.53M HP?! :O!

Mine isn't mastered, but she's still pretty freakin' mighty

Back to the gacha event that is going on right now until the end of Halloween -- when I first read the splash screen for the first event, I was all super confused. What on earth does this even mean? Well, this is how it breaks down:

• It's a whole other gacha panel that costs 200 rubies to play once. 
• The possible contents of your gacha result are 4 or 5 stars only, meaning there are NO 3 star rangers in the Halloween Gacha
• Instead of 2 bonus free spins by paying 200 rubies, you get 3 bonus free spins (because if you do the math, 100 rubies buys you 5+1 = 6 spins, 200 rubies would normally buy you 12 spins. The Halloween Gacha buys you 13 spins instead). 

I haven't spent any serious money on the game in a few months and I've passed over a few limited rangers as a result. But this Halloween Gacha event is very compelling. It's attractive because you're guaranteed to not get any rubbish 3 star crap that frankly, I don't even use for combining anymore (I just sell for coin). It's more worth it than any Premium gachas were previously because of the 3 spin bonus. Now, unfortunately, you are NOT exempt from receiving farmable free rangers nor the lesser exciting 4 and 5 star rangers from the earlier generations, but it's still mounds better than receiving Hero Jessica for the 500th time. 

My yield from 600 rubies: 

Halloween Cony x2

Luke x3

Hip Hop Brown X2

Maestro Boss x2

Cherina

Muay Thai Brown

Junior Cony x2

Legend Boss

Luis

Somchai

Honey

Bernard

Sorcerer Cony

Gentleman James

Summer Brown x3

Biker James x3

Frog Brown x3 (first time I've gotten him in Gacha, but he was reportedly in the mix intermittently)

Sindy x2

Fighter Moon

Songster Cony

Macho Moon

Rapper Boss

Lightning Jessica

Abdula

Clara

General Brown

This Halloween Gacha event is going on for 2 weeks so if you wanna throw down some money, now's the time. It's what we've been clamoring about for months and this is LINE's response to our feedback. All in all, I'm pleased with this. This is the most satisfied I've felt with the Gacha in a very, very long time. Perhaps in all of my time playing this game. BTW, we are supposedly getting increased chances (whatever that means) to receive all October new rangers during the current Double Chance/Ruby Bonus period as well (until October 18). 

So with all that excitement, I'm heading into Waste Land! The zone looks pretty hard and I'm kind of confused, because I think I saw the birds from Maze of Illusion in the first couple stages... running out of ideas for enemy design, maybe? Oh and... guess who? THUNDER BROWN is the new farmable 5 star ranger. I would be pretty pleased with this selection, but I admit that Thunder Brown's arrival is dampened a lot by the availability of Driver Brown. Still, for players who didn't have the feathers, time or opportunity to grind stages to get the limited edition Driver Brown, Thunder Brown will make a great addition to the tanking team.

Oh and Alex is the new 4-star. Meh. :P

I hope you all have fun!

Fists of Fury: Attack Speed and Damage

Following on the heels of the attack range article, LINE Rangers台灣社團 members have created more great reference tables on attack speed to aid us in ranger comparisons. We have had this discussion before when we explored the Attack Speed & DPS differences and the treasure effects of Castle in the Sky. If you followed me through those posts, the math below will look familiar. The text below is a translated interpretation of the article, Attack Speed Measured: 40 Team Members.

    
    The article comes from: LINE Rangers台灣社團
    Authors: 小為, 楊濟安
    Revision: 小為
    Testing Team: 黃郁弘，楊濟安，小為，鈺

Contained within the box below is their article interpreted in English. 

The team at LINE Rangers台灣社團 worked to get the exact damage numbers for each ranger and was able to calculate the precise attack speed. If numbers are not your thing, then check out the link to the article for a pictorial representation of the rangers' attack speed. (From left to right, the ranger attack speed goes from slower to faster.) For more detail, read on.

Note: All data below are based on max level rangers and stats as of June 11, 2014.

  Column 1 is the ranger profile listed DPS in game

  Column 2 is the actual DPS once you account for the treasure bonus (Column 1 * 1.454546)

  Column 3 is the actual damage dealt to enemy tower in battle in a single hit

  Column 4 is calculated attack speed, explained below

  Column 5 is the ranger profile listed attack speed

Attack Speed Calculation

To explain how these numbers came about, let's take the example of Masked Moon:

  - Take Masked Moon to an enemy tower and recorded that one hit against the enemy tower produced 162,305 damage. 

  - Masked Moon's listed base damage in his profile (which is his DPS, damage-per-second) is 51,500.

  - Take into account the 45% increase in damage benefit from Castle in the Sky's treasure, which multiples base DPS by 1.454546. His actual DPS is 74,909. 

  ⇨Since we know his one-hit damage is 162,305, then we simply divide: 162305/74909 = Every 2.16 seconds, Masked Moon hits one time. This is the number we achieve in Column 4.

The authors comes to the same conclusion as I did: faster attack speed rangers are a bit more advantageous. The reasoning is as follows: Suppose you had 2 rangers' whose DPS is 100,000. The first one attacks once per 1 second, the other attacks once every 4 seconds. If both were attacking an enemy with only 50,000 HP left, the first ranger would kill it after one second and only waste 50,000 damage. The second ranger would hit it after 4 seconds, cause 400,000 damage but waste 350,000 damage. 

Damage Per Minute

Taking our understanding of DPS a step further, the authors have created a table which displays the accumulation of damage by a ranger over the span of one minute. Bear with us, all will be explained.

  Column 1 is the ranger profile listed DPS in game

  Column 2 is the actual DPS once you account for the treasure bonus (Column 1 * 1.454546)

  Column 3 is the latest cooldown for each ranger, in seconds. Cooldown is the time that must pass before you may deploy another ranger.

  Column 4 is the total number of seconds of damage that can be inflicted per minute. To illustrate, let's take KSM as an example. You can deploy KSM once every 15 seconds. 

     First deployed KSM may attack for a full 60 seconds

     The second deployed KSM may attack for 45 seconds

     The third deployed KSM may attack for 30 seconds

     The fourth deployed KSM may attack for 15 seconds

     ⇨60s + 45s + 30s + 15s = 150 seconds

  Column 5 is total accumulated damage per minute: Column 2*Column 4. For KSM, that's 188,363*150=28,254,450 damage.

  Column 6 is the total cost to deploy possible units per minute. 4 KSMs amounts to 890*4 = 3560 mineral

The objective of these tables is to show us the rangers with the highest continuous damage accumulation. It is now quite obvious that Dumpy wins in this category, inflicting 228.9 million damage per minute. 

To give you an idea of what 228.9 million damage can do, consider this. Stage 108's enemy tower has 15 million HP. In 60 seconds, Dumpys can destroy about 15 of those towers -- assuming that there is no travel time from the point of deployment to the target. 

The reigning splash damage accumulation goes to KSM (28.2 million per minute), followed by Abdula (21.3 million), then Ola Brown (18.2 million). Sorcerer Cony is fourth on this list! 

What's the point of the last column? If mineral regeneration is about 200 mineral per second, then you can generate roughly 12,000 minerals -- take into account some extra, because you recover some minerals every time an enemy unit is killed -- and you can use the last column data to pick out the appropriate team for your needs. 

Deep Breath!

That's a lot of numbers! I found the information contained within the attack speed tables (particularly the actual DPS column) to be really nice. And the amount of time necessary to record the damage per actual hit must have been tremendous. 

The damage done per minute is a really interesting way to apply the DPS concept for a bigger picture. Take it with a grain of salt, because in reality there's no way for short-range rangers to spawn and immediately begin attacking, and most of us won't be able to deploy rangers as soon as they come off cooldown with 100% precision. But the damage per minute exercise gives us some insight into how DPS and cooldown can play into amount of total damage we can be dealing. This is the first and only place I've ever seen this abstracted.

P.S. Why is does attack speed article contain 40 rangers while attack range only 39 rangers? Red Brown was added as a consideration for the attack speed article.

Attack Range: A Picture Story

One of the finer details of the game which I quietly pointed out in my "Did You Know?" post months ago is that the attack range of different rangers vary. In my own gameplay, I mostly memorized their ranges in relation to each other, and that's how you'll find I described them throughout most of my posts. But our Taiwanese Line Rangers friends have now unmistakably shown us how ranges differ by putting 39 rangers on display! (Valid as of the time of this writing.) Contained within the box is their article interpreted in English.

    This article comes from: LINE Rangers台灣社團
    Authors: 黃郁弘，小為
    Photo Editor: 黃郁弘，小為
    Revision: 小為
    Testing Team: 鈺，楊濟安，Hsingju Wu，ShawTim Liu，黃名揚，標準兔，黃郁弘

In their article, "Attack Distance Measured: 39 Team Members," they took 39 4-star and 5-star rangers and with a ton of time, feathers, and screenshots later... lined them up in one incredible picture of ascending attack range. I'm not going to say anymore -- seriously, just click on the link! Scroll down and look at the picture. It tells a thousand words. Note: the testing group all have 100% treasure achieved in Skyscraper zone's Far-reaching Insight which increases attack range. 

Picture below is a translated table of the rangers quantified by range. Click to enlarge view.

Ok, cool, right? Of course. They also shared one really keen finding. Honey the speedy bee ranger has the same range as Sol. But she has an interesting attack animation: she arches back and then lurches forward to sting the enemy. They found that when Honey arches backward, it's not "just" animation; her position actually shrinks backward, taking her out of immediate enemy hit range. When she swings forward to sting, she is back in melee hit range again. So it is possible for Honey to avoid being the first target to be attacked when she swings back and forth! Weird. I wonder if the same sort of swinging motion applies to Dwight, whose attack animation is quite a lot of space. 

They also pointed out that Songster Cony is actually a pretty good ranger because her long range (quantified at 11) gives her a lot more survivability over other choices like Opera James. At max level, Ola Brown's DPS-to-cost ratio is almost identical to that of KSM (140 vs. 146). But Ola Brown's attack range is unprecedented for splash attackers and his attack speed is incredibly fast, making him a truly great asset to the team. 

The set of pictures at the bottom of their article show the difference in various rangers' standing distance between having the Skyscraper area treasure at 0% and 100%. They used Friends' rangers to illustrate the difference. (Edit: By the way, this means that when you use your Friends, no treasure benefits apply to their rangers.)

Range is really quite important to keep in mind as you progress through the more difficult stages. Sindy makes herself invaluable as a freely available ranger in so many stages because of her ability to out-range enemies. In the same way, Witch Cony is also a very good choice but with less DPS. Ola Brown can reportedly solo the first 80+ stages due to both his very far reaching ball and his high attack speed. Why is Dumpy such a high impact single target unit with such a low cost? Because he is relatively short range with relatively little HP, making him vulnerable to death. Clara and Opera James are two of the most closely related free rangers, but why does Clara cost so much more while doing less damage even though Opera James has longer range? Clara's value lies in the fact that she is obtainable 72 stages before Opera James and sometimes move speed is more highly valued than sheer DPS (Players who were around for the original version of stage 84 will know what I mean!).

In almost every ranger vs. ranger comparison, there is a reason for why one stat is low and another stat is high, justifying their various cost and cooldowns. Attack range is one very relevant stat to compare. Hope that this was illustrative and useful.

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!

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.

Friendship Point Event - Macho Moon

Macho Moon is now in the mix of Friendship Point GACHA for the next 7 days. The only difference between this event and the Clara event is that Friendship Points remain at 20 points for sending and receiving help (no event-only boost to 50 pts). If someone selects your rangers as help for a stage, you get 10 points, as always.

Now's the time! Gather up your friends and try your chance at getting Macho Moon. Here is the Friend ID sharing page where you can add loads of friends, and feel free to add yourself to the list, too. Be sure you go to LINE app> Settings > Profile and tick "Public User ID" to allow people to add you.

I've had terrible, terrible odds so far during this event, but it's only Day 1. I hear others are getting Macho Moon rather quickly. Let's all help each other win level 60 Macho Moon! Remember, you'll need 5 to get him to maximum level capacity. 356K HP at level 60 with a 310 mineral cost is not too shabby at all.

A handsome, nice fellow who likes to live dangerously. And so deliciously plump at max level. 

Just when I was lamenting about how going forward I would have to use Xan or Styne as the health ranger standard to do free ranger videos, this event comes to save the day. Macho Moon is my preferred health ranger when I need someone with loads of HP. He walks faster than Brown and Styne by a mile. He doesn't cost nearly the fortune that Xan does (310 vs. 470) and has a shorter cooldown (5 seconds vs 8 seconds). All the makings of an excellent tanking ranger! I am very happy he is joining the free ranger club. I wonder if he will also be available on the spinner for stage clears in the new areas.

While we all wait for Sorcerer Cony to arrive in the mail, Macho Moon will definitely be helpful to those still working on the areas that are currently released in the game. Good luck, everyone!

[Update] Just for fun... Here are my current rollies on the Friendship Gacha. Not great odds. But the 1, 2, and 3 star results are pretty much even.

New Rangers Released + Castle in the Sky Thoughts

I woke up yesterday morning and it was all mayhem because all the obtainable rangers in boss stages were different. I woke up this morning and apparently the entire player community has gone amok because new and even more outrageously overpowered rangers have been released! And it's Bonus Ruby time and double chances on Premium Gacha time, and to top it all off it's Double Coin day. It's been a very unproductive day for me. Been playing Rangers all day.

My discussion of Castle in the Sky part one was very long in the making, but with the advent of the new rangers, the last half of the zone got obliterated in about an hour. I don't want to write up part 2 just yet, because writing how I beat it with the new rangers seems like a waste. This post will be just about the set of new rangers as well as some thoughts about how they are a good fit for tackling Castle in the Sky.

KSM is picked on by his wife, but he only takes his anger out on Alien Army members

First things first, Sorcerer Cony has been overthrown by this fine gentleman as the most overpowered ranger in the game to date. Mr. KSM, you are a very mysterious fellow. Why is his name KSM? What does it mean and what does it stand for? My theory is KSM are his initials. I wish we could see the breast pockets of his robe because I bet KSM is embroidered there. Why does KSM have so much rage? What does his wife do to him? We'll never know...

Level 1 KSM, Level 1 Dancer King Boss destroying the Fart King

Mr. KSM is a splash ranger and he will be undoubtedly the most sought after ranger by everyone. At level 1 he costs 540 mineral to deploy which may seem like an astronomical amount of resources for one unit, but at level 1, his attack DPS is already 10500. Honestly, if you get him from GACHA, go ahead and use him right away, even if you don't have anyone to synthesize him with to level up. At level 1, he's already as good as Opera James at level 40. At level 41 to 50, KSM costs 740 to deploy, which may seem like a lot, but as you head into Castle in the Sky, all the stages lend themselves to splash damage a lot. At Stage 104 and beyond, the pathways are very short so KSM's Very Slow speed is not much of a problem, while his damage will knock everything out in a few hits. I was skeptical, but he is well worth the money. In addition, his max range is the same as Opera James, so he can safely dole out the pain from behind the fray. He can't avoid the unicycle or the ice cream enemies' splash damage, but (1) KSM has a lot of health and (2) if you deploy in the right order, you'll have enough KSMs out to obliterate them in no time at all. His cooldown (time before you can deploy him again) is very long, even longer than other splash rangers by a little bit, but I've been finding it ok because it takes a while to even regenerate that kind of cash.

Dancer King Boss has the master moves and a keen sense of style

Dancer King Boss is really awesome and not just because he hurls disco balls across the room. Dancer King overthrows Sindy as the ranger with the longest range and outperforms Lia, Alice, Sindy and Legend Boss as the highest single target DPS. Look closely at the picture below for the left-most Dancer King Boss and the left-most Sindy. That's how much further back Dancer King Boss can stand. In stage 104, Dancer King pops and remains at the foot of the home tower while damaging enemies standing at the foot of the enemy tower. Talk about far! Needless to say, he also out-ranges the ice cream splash damage, which will make him ideal for most stages in Castle in the Sky. To give you an idea of  how powerful he is, maxed out at level 70, Dancer Boss King deals over 100,000 DPS. He is very bit as OP as I make him seem, trust me.

Honey roasted peanut Bernard is kind of a beach bum. But who surfs with socks on? That's just weird.

Bernard is like the new Thunder Brown. Really, really slow, doesn't do a lot of damage, but his potbelly gives him about one million HP when he's at level 50. One. Million. He costs 820 mineral to deploy, but that's not my only problem with him. Bernard does not really allow himself to be the only tank in your team because his cooldown (time before you can deploy him again) is *insanely long* for a health unit. His cooldown is the same as KSM's, something like 12 seconds. 12 seconds for a splash ranger is acceptable because you will most likely be sending out other rangers in between, but for a health ranger to have such a long cooldown and at such cost is almost detrimental. One million HP is actually nothing when you're up against 10 Tylers (paper airplane enemy). He's also Slow move speed.

I don't think I will be using him much, just like I didn't end up using Thunder Brown much. They have a ton of health but because of their cost and speed, I just don't believe they're very functional for holding the front line. Maybe for Stage 97 and 98, but beyond that, I think I'll just use this guy...

Brown gets cooler every time we see him. Lightning kicks and tattooed fist. Eat your heart out.

Hip Hop Brown is amazing. Unique to Brown as a speed ranger, he gains a lot of HP as you level him and he has a 3 second cooldown just like Honey. He walks really fast and the best part is he only costs 210 mineral which means you can spam him like crazy and he's just as good at holding the front line as any tank. He walks faster than Honey, which is pretty fast for a big meaty ranger.

On a related note, if you logged in recently, you would have gotten a bonus 3 star ranger, Red Brown. He's like Hip Hop Brown's little brother. 3 star, so less meaty, but still very good and very cheap to deploy. Great for lower stages and only 120 minerals to deploy. 

Poor Songster Cony. She's a hipster and she has a bit of potential, but lacks talent indeed.

Songster Cony is kind of like Sorcerer Cony's baby sister. She joins the ranks with other 4-star ranged splash units, and she performs about as well. Where Opera James and Clara fall short in both move and attack speed, she excels. Her attack power at level 40 isn't terrible, but it's not great, either. Especially with level 60 Clara being so available to the public these days, Songster Cony seems to fall short for me in desirability. If Clara is your only other ranged splash unit, though, Songster Cony will do nicely to join your team. She has quite long range as well, just short of Sindy's. 

Seems to me like KSM, Dancer King Boss are at the top of the wish list with Hip Hop Brown not far behind. The new rangers will surely make Castle in the Sky much easier for people. I'm still not sure why KSM wants to save Sally but we're lucky to have him on our side. If you have the cash to spare, now's the time to play the GACHA machine with double chances and bonus rubies. Good luck, everyone!