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!

Treacherous Swamp and Second Chances

The new area is out tonight! Some people have raced ahead and completed it already, while some of us are still taking the leisurely route. The double-chance Gacha event is up again with 30% extra rubies when you purchase any right now, so if you want another shot at limited edition ranger, Red, this is your best chance. I do think that for people saving up rubies that it's best to keep saving for the next set of new rangers who will surely be even more powerful in various ways.

The other very exciting thing about the new release is the "re-balancing" of rangers. I haven't personally taken a very close look at everything, but at a quick (very, very brief) glance, many of the free rangers as well as earlier generation of rangers have gotten a mighty boost in attack power, range, etc. This type of boost will help free players and veteran players get over many hurdles, and is probably a hint at the difficulty level of Treacherous Swamp. They want to make sure that free ranger players have a decent chance if they work hard enough to master the freely obtainable rangers and as always, try, try again.

I'm kind of put off, as many other people are, about the Ninja Warrior ranger who is new -- and reportedly -- only available to paying players who buy $49.99 USD worth of rubies now. Hmmm. It seems kind of dirty to me. I mean, he's good but... is he $49.99 x5 good? You be the judge...

Edit: I thought about this again. And well, $250 isn't such a bad price for a master Warrior Ninja. The truth is, when you play the Gacha on average it will take you around $400 worth of rubies before you receive 5 of any new 5-star ranger. The $250 price tag may be a turn-off but if you think about it rationally, it IS more of a bargain and of some level of consolation that you will *definitely* get the new ranger rather than leaving it up to chance. Of course, the $400 is an average and some people can get the new ranger that they are hunting for much cheaper, perhaps even cheaper than $250. Good for them. But in my own experience, it's never been the case personally. In hindsight -- and I am being 100% serious and honest about this -- I had so much trouble getting Sorcerer Cony and Ola Brown when they were flavor of the week that if LINE flat out said if you give us $250, we will give you SoCo/Ola... I would have taken them up on their offer. In reality, I spent much, much more trying to get them in the Gacha and it was excruciatingly painful on my wallet.

That said, is warrior ninja worth it? Well, he's basically a pseudo tank unit. He has more HP/mineral than our previous bargain tank unit, Muay Thai Brown. His attack is really quite good (especially when you compare it to the nonsense that is Somchai). So as far as being useful, he is definitely good. But whether or not you need to have it is up to you and your current team composition.

Side Note (credit to T'Golf): Warrior Ninja looks like Glenn in a ninja suit. Put on a ninja suit, get upgraded to 5 stars. Well played, Glenn. Well played.

Also, the new treasure is...(Look away now if you don't want to know!)....

Increase ranger's experience gained. Taking a wild guess here, but since almost every other treasure was a 45% increase, I'm going to guess that full treasure benefit will also be a 45% bump in ranger experience gained. (BTW, some players who are more diligent than me figured out that the Waste Land treasure for Player EXP gained was also +45%).

Treasure pic credit goes to fellow LR player, Bozz. 

Good luck and have fun, everyone! I might go ahead and try to play some more Line Rangers seeing as how World of Warcraft has like a 6 hour queue to log in since the new expansion pack got released yesterday lol...

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

Winning 1st Place in PvP - A Point of View

Ever wonder what is going on in Team Battle and what it takes to win the weekly competition? Well, I got in touch with last week's winner and asked her for an interview so we could get to know her more! Clara was the first place champion for week ending September 22, 2014. Clara is a kind, good friend and a long time supporter of mine, so I will be closely moderating replies to this post. Please be courteous!

Panicbutton: Hello Clara (Siam.CRTG) and thank you very much for agreeing to my interview questions. Congratulations on your recent First Place victory in the weekly Team Battle! "Line Rangers & Friends" is very lucky to get to know you and get a closer look at the top tier of Line Rangers Team Battle through your eyes.  

P: How long have you been playing Line Rangers? 
Clara: I've been playing since the game newly started end of March, when they launched the Line Rangers stickers and I downloaded the game to get the stickers, feel in love with the game since.

P: Many long-time Line Rangers players have gotten tired of the game lately. Do you feel this way? Or do you think you will feel this way in the next few months?
C: My heavy paying Line Rangers friends and I got so disappointed by the latest event of Limited Cony Yaris. We spent so much on it because of the first launch stat, but it's been adjusted to more than half less efficient within one night. So if Line Rangers keep doing this, a lot of players will quit soon and so will I.

P: What other games do you like to play?
C: Now I'm starting to play Line Stage, but not as addicted as Line Rangers.

P: The game has a ranger who has the same name as you. Do you like the splash ranger, Clara? Who is your favorite Ranger?
C: 555 That's funny, I wish Clara ranger would be one of those Limited ones. Of course I like splash rangers but it doesn't work much in pvp.

P: Who is your favorite LINE character? Why?
C: I can't really tell which one is my favorite LINE character. I love all of them, especially the funny ones.

P: How did you first decide to try to win the weekly team battle competition? What was your inspiration?
C: Frankly speaking, I only won the battle because of my Siam. team, mostly because Siam.aa (he is the Siam team Mentor), Siam.Ark( he is my line rangers mentor), Siam.อ้น, Siam.Therd and Siam.Chong. We play as a team and help each other.

P: Did you need to do any preparation before the competition began?
C: I need to prepare at least 2000 rubies in advance. I can't waste time to recharge the rubies during the battle. And I need to have lots of rest before the battle week begins.

P: Which rangers did you like to use on your team? Any special reasons why you chose those rangers?
C: I use Erica, Cony Kinnara, Dumpy, Mully , Brown MuayThai. In pvp the attack rangers (Dumpy & Mully) are the most effective rangers. They help me finish the game fast. I also need a splasher to hit the tower so I choose Erica, a long-range splasher and Cony Kinnara melee splasher. Of all the rangers I think Brown MuayThai is one of the best ranger (for now) because of his fast cd, speed type, almost 4 million HP and good attack, too, for only 640 minerals.

P: It seems like each week, the number of points required to get first place is gets higher and higher. How many points did you need to get to win first place last week?
C: The number of points required to get first place is gets higher and higher think it's a nature of competition. My last week points for 1st rank was 31,939.

P: How does it feel to win first place? Do you think you will try to win first place again? 
C: To win the first place takes a lot of time, energy, strategy, and rubies. I couldn't do it without my Siam friends. Last two weeks, I got 3rd place with my Siam friends' help, too. I'm not sure if I can have that much energy and time again.

P: From the point of view of everyone else, it looks like as soon as the weekly points reset, the competition rockets away nonstop. Is is true that nonstop playing is required to win? How much did last week's competition impact your daily life? 
C: It's not really non-stop playing but you need to know when to play and how long you need to play at a time. It could be 18 hours straight or it could be only 1 hour at a time. It is up to many things like your rank, other's score, score gap, etc.

P: Was it exciting and cutthroat for 7 days straight or did you feel like you have time to do some other things?
C: Yes it was fun and exciting. If you are playing for top 5, time is the thing you need to sacrifice. Also the rubies.

P: You did not get to the first place position at the beginning. Was this a strategy, to save some time and rubies in the first couple of days until the ranking settle down? 
C: I just didn't have time to play at the beginning of the week. But it's easier to get a lot of points from below.

P: Can you reveal to us approximately how many rubies you needed to keep at the top of the game? 
C: Well! It's different on each week, depend on lots of things. If you over-prepare special feathers then you will spend a lot more rubies. Last week I spent around 2500 rubies.

P: In the last several weeks, I have noticed that the Siam team and other Line Rangers teams have "stacked" the top ranks together. It created point gaps where the team players all have a much higher score than the next individual rank below them. This strategy is used to block others from gaining enough points to get to the top ranks, is this correct? Can you explain the point gap strategy, and how it began? 
C: We did not intended to block others from gaining the point (there's no such a thing as blocking others to gain enough points to get to the top rank, they can get to that amount of points in time), but to create a gap is just to give us some time to rest.
But you can only make that gap when you get to top rank. But to get to top rank is the most important thing. It takes time energy and a lot of strategies.

P: Is it harder to fight up to first place, or is it harder to remain in first place? How tough is the competition when you are at the top on the last day before reset?
C: The last day wasn't so difficult, only monitoring needed, but the 6 days before that we hardly sleep and eat, we spent almost all of our time on pvp (4 days and 4 nights continuously if I'm not mistaken).

P: Did you have much assistance and support from the Siam team during last week's competition? Can you describe what it is like to be on a Line Rangers team?
C: As I've mentioned before, I will not be able to be 1st rank if I not in Siam team. We are always supporting each other. Siam.aa (our team mentor) always shares video clip of how to win the battle. Siam.อ้น Siam.Chong also share the video clips on Endless Mode, too.
My line rangers mentor Siam.Ark always teaches me how to play and how to use all items. All of us 21 members in Siam team are so nice Siam.aa ,Siam.Ark Badshit ,Siam.#^.^#ครุคริ , Siam.Ball, Siam.THErd , Siam.Chong, Siam.palmyXFreak, Siam.Kurt of BKK, Siam.joEcnx, Siam.อ้น, we always support each other (even though some of us did not use "Siam" in front of their name but they are one of us like Cindy , Totoro ,Naratah , Wachara , Maggy , P'Nhong , DDดีดี , Oat and  หมอชนบท ) .

P: Do you have team strategies that you cannot reveal to the public? If yes, you can just say yes, you don't have to tell me what it is :)
C: Yes we have some strategy that we would like to keep it between us, and also some rules, too, like no cheats. I think every team has it.

P: If you could have one new feature or change to the game, what would it be? 
C: If I could wish for the new feature, exchange rangers from one players to another may be, to reduce our expense in  Gacha, don't you agree? Or maybe Line Rangers can make new extra power feature like Brown combo team or Cony combo team would put a lot more challenge in the game.

P: Is there anything else you would like to share with the Line Rangers & Friends blog audience?
C: Line Rangers is a great game, nice community though, but things are changing. Too many new rangers players had to spend more rubies to mastered new rangers. But things are getting better when the Erica's set comes, a lot easier to get new rangers mastered.
The turning points would be Cony Yaris, it is limited line ranger should think it through before releasing it, not release it and then adjust it after one whole night ( just like you release a ranger that so much like a dragon but when you get hold of it , it's just a simple dog with a dragon skin).  I felt like I've been cheated.

C: Thank you so much Panic, for this interview. It's an honor to be interview by the very famous blogger Panic. Thank you so much again for interviewing me. It's always been my dreams to be in one of your articles.
P: Thanks very much for doing the interview, Clara. I really appreciate that you took the time to share your experience with the Line Rangers community. 

So there you have it! I got some insight on some things about the weekly competition and how intense it can get at various points in the week. In addition, it is quite obvious to those heading into battle with their eyes on the top prize that it is not "worth it" in rubies, because they know they will have to spend at least 2000 rubies on special feathers alone and they will only get a maximum of 1000 rubies as a prize. I get the feeling that the experience of the competitive arena of Team Battle is worth more than the reward. When was the last time you played a game and didn't eat or sleep for 4 days in the heat of it? :)

I am also reminded that even though this game hasn't turned into all we hoped it to be, it has brought a lot of people together in ways that no one ever imagined. The team/clan companionship that has developed is remarkable. Below is a roster list of 2 other famously popular teams in the Line Rangers community. No doubt you have seen some of these players' work on YouTube and elsewhere.

The feeling of gamer burnout is not just for semi-casual players who have grown disappointed at the game. It apparently goes all the way up to the hard core top tiers of competitors as well. Nevertheless, there are still fun aspects to the game -- if you are willing to overlook some of the more frustrating aspects in order to trudge on and save Sally. Many, many people still play Line Rangers with varying degrees of passion. I have stopped spending cash on the game, but I still pick it up and play every now and then. I still look forward to the challenge of new stages. In fact, I was just looking at the calendar... it has been over a month since the Ravine of Death was released. Granted, I've decided since its release to take the slow, casual route through it and I am still working on stage 144, but, I do wonder why it is taking so long to release new stages. Is LINE brewing up something else in the background or are they just taking their sweet time because of the number of new rangers they scheduled to release this month?

Anyway, I hope that you enjoyed reading the interview as much as I enjoyed doing it. Stay fresh, friends.

Red-Hot Summer Rangers

[Updated August 1: Added stats & comparables.]

They are here! New Rangers of the summertime! If you have not checked out the new Edward video, go do it now! He's totally psycho behind the wheel, and Leonard is tapping into that madman personality for Sally's rescue! I like how Leonard is like Lucius Fox from Batman Begins as they step into the secret lair to show him his new acorn-mobile...

The most anticipated ranger, Edward, is in fact limited to the month of August only, so get him while you can. He is super fast and a big time splash ranger. My reservation is that Edward seems to cost a LOT and his cooldown is a whopping 38 seconds (standard, not mastered CD). On the bright side, he does have tons of health and is worth the cost of deployment. By the way, notice he has an adjective "Rider" in front of his name EDWARD. Does this mean we will get other Edwards in the future? :)

Compare Rider Edward to Susu and honestly it's close in damage. Edward is a bit less health, but he will survive most of anything that will come his way. The advantage with Edward is that he hits everything in the path of his acorn-mobile, which is tremendous range, and his resting position is quite out of melee range of the enemy. He's a good ranger, but you really need to give Edward sufficient support from other teammates to allow him to shine. Edward is likely to be a monster in Team Battle for his speed, range, and sheer road-ripping murderous rage.

Master level stats ►	Cost	Dmg/Mineral	HP/Mineral	Attack Speed	Move Speed	CD
Rider Edward	1360	141	3112.9	Very Slow	Fast	19
Susu	1140	167.14	4187.4	Normal	Normal	14
KSM	890	145.5	706.4	Very Slow	Very Slow	7

Summer Brown is so lazy... just lounging on the beach working on his beautiful tan. Very handsome, and very butch, but why so slow, Brown? Pick up the speed a little for Sally, ok? 

Summer Brown is on a 12 second cooldown (standard, not master). Once mastered, he has 1.5 million HP which is huge for a 4 star ranger, even if he hits like a wet noodle. As a pure tank, he's leaps and bounds ahead of fellow 4-star health ranger Macho Moon, even more HP and HPM (health per mineral) than 5-star Thunder Brown. Really not bad if you are looking to put a cheap wall between you and the enemy. 

Master level stats ►	Cost	Dmg/Mineral	HP/Mineral	Attack Speed	Move Speed	CD
Summer Brown	300	8.2	5078.7	Very Slow	Very Slow	6
Thunder Brown	370	44.6	3522.6	Fast	Slow	2
Hip Hop Brown	210	114.4	2376.0	Fast	Very Fast	1
General Brown	280	211.4	2347.6	Normal	Normal	2
Macho Moon	330	38.6	1769.4	Very Fast	Fast	2
Best Couple Brown	430	45.5	1847.6	Very Fast	Normal	3
Xan	500	34.0	1698.3	Slow	Very Fast	4

Chichi is the new better, faster Dwight! She's so expensive but she's worth every penny. Pretty quick and has a TON of HP. Chichi is one of the best of the new set of rangers. More health than any other ranger at the moment.

Master level stats ►	Cost	Dmg/Mineral	HP/Mineral	Attack Speed	Move Speed	CD
Chichi	1040	494.8	4885.1	Slow	Fast	7.5
Luis	520	391.9	4056.4	Slow	Normal	4
Dwight	980	281.8	3414.0	Slow	Slow	6

Elle is one of only two ranged splash units in the 3-star grade (ok, one of three if you count Pew, hee hee) and actually for the 3-star quality, she does really decent damage at master level. The most impressive thing about Elle is her range. It is possible to even use her in Maze of Illusion where range is crucial to escape from enemy splash damage. She's more damage per mineral than Shu, believe it or not, and therefore more cost efficient to use. She is on a 8 second standard (not master) cooldown.

Elle has really good range!

Sorcerer Cony's 2nd little sister? Very cute, but so far not so amazing that I would want to use her for anything current content. Her range is not spectacular, which makes me wonder where she fits in, or if she is useful at all given her lackluster damage (when you compare her to other options, of course). I was wrong about her squishiness, though. Turns out, she's really butch when you look at the comparables.

Summer Cony stands too close to the heat. Her ice cream is going to melt.

Master level stats ►	Cost	Dmg/Mineral	HP/Mineral	Attack Speed	Move Speed	CD
Elle	290	77.5	507.3	Very Slow	Slow	4
Summer Cony	270	70.9	872.9	Slow	Very Fast	3
Songster Cony	360	99.0	411.8	Fast	Very Fast	4
Shu	460	58.7	400.7	Fast	Fast	4

Mully looks like he has some good uses. He's pretty meaty and does really decent damage, with good speed. I like him a lot in PvP because of the good balance of stats and fairly cheap cost (by today's standards anyway). The interesting thing about Mully and his closest competitor Dumpy is that they're kind of polar opposites of each other while still being very attractive choices for different reasons. Dumpy's dmg/min is double Mully's. Mully's HP/min is double that of Dumpy. They both move very fast (though in reality, Dumpy's still faster). In a game like Team Battle however, HP will get you much more actual bang for buck. There are stages in single player mode that allow for low health cannons like Dumpy to shine, but more often than not, survival trumps higher damage. 

Side note... Mully's description makes me wonder if Sally wants his help or not...

Master level stats ►	Cost	Dmg/Mineral	HP/Mineral	Attack Speed	Move Speed	CD
Mully	550	597.3	1645.1	Normal	Very Fast	4.5
Dumpy	380	1255.0	840.4	Slow	Very Fast	3

Anyway, most of these master rangers are not mine! Good luck, on your Gacha, everyone!

Illusionary Dice MoI Area 11 Treasure Effect

When I first heard that the Maze of Illusion treasure was increase in attack speed, my first thought was, "oh really, again?" :P My second thought was that it was one of two possible effects:

1. DPS (damage per second) of the ranger would remain the same, but the hit rate increases. Exmaple: Without the treasure, if Ranger X's DPS is 10000 and he hits once every 5 seconds, then his damage per hit is 50000. Assume that with the treasure his hit rate doubles, then he would hit once every 2.5 seconds while his DPS remained the same, then each hit would cause only 25000 damage. This scenario causes no total damage gain, but has its perks as hitting more often can be advantageous. 
2. Damage-per-hit remains the same while the hit rate increases. Example: If without the treasure Ranger X's DPS was 10000, he hits once every 5 seconds, then his damage per hit is 50000. With the treasure, assume the treasure causes hit rate to double, then he is doing 50000 every 2.5 seconds. His new DPS would be 20000, effectively doubling it.

One way gives us just marginal benefits while the other gives us significant gains. So which way is it?

Our friends at LINE Rangers 台灣社團 has done the research for us! The text you find contained in the box below is an interpretation of their new article, Increased Attack Speed Treasure Comparison.

Article comes from: LINE Rangers 台灣社團
Author: 小為，黃郁弘
Research participants: 黃郁弘，小為，為執著，張家銘，黃名楊
Editor: 小為

Summary

LINE Rangers 台灣社團's testing has indicated that Maze of Illusion's treasure effect increases the rate of attack while preserving the amount of damage per hit. Each ranger's "attack" in the profile card represents its DPS (damage per second), and the damage per hit is derived from this number. The treasure preserves the ranger's damage per hit value according to its original DPS, but because the treasure causes an increase to the number of hits the ranger produces in a time period, it effectively is increasing its "true" DPS value. We can multiply the profile DPS value by the ranger's attack speed to find out how much the DPS has increased. For instance, Alice's profile lists her DPS as 53128. With 100% Illusionary Dice benefit, her DPS becomes 96693*.

* This value was obtained by using the attack speed value discovered via research method discussed below.

So how good is this treasure? Since this area is so tough, many players have had trouble getting it. Once you get to stage 129, you have a chance to unlock it 100%. Not to disappoint, the raid team has finally obtained 100% of the treasure and solved the mystery of its benefits.

The Method

The test method used recordings of the rangers attacking as researchers watched them in 10x slow motion to see the attack speed of each ranger. They recorded it many times and took averages of their observations so as to minimize error. Their original attack speed values were posted in their first article on the topic here, which I discussed on my blog here. Here is a sampling of their findings post-treasure (measured in time between hits):
  - Sol's speed is now 2.38 seconds, down from 4.33 s
  - Witch Cony's speed is now 1.47 seconds, down from 2.67 s
  - Alice's speed is now 2.55 seconds, down from 4.63 s
  - Opera James's speed is now 1.50 seconds, down from 2.73 s

Compare that to the original attack speed and you will see that obtaining 100% Illusionary Dice results in a 0.55 attack time reduction.

100% Illusionary Dice Attack Speed Coefficient

By battling a friend who does not have the Illusionary Dice treasure unlocked, the testers (who all obtained 100% of the treasure) saw that the Damage-Per-Hit value has not been changed, which is key to understanding how the treasure changes our ranger's damage.

Example: Level 70 Witch Cony

  - Without treasure, Witch Cony's damage-per-hit against the tower is 35648 

  - With 100% Illusionary Dice treasure, Witch Cony's damage-per-hit against tower is still 35648

From this, we can deduce that the treasure does not affect base damage values. Witch Cony's original no-treasure attack speed is one hit every 2.67 seconds while with 100% treasure, she hits once every 1.47 seconds. Since the treasure increases attack speed while preserving her damage-per-hit value, it means that her true DPS value has been increased. Based on damage-per-hit:

  2.67 sec/1.47 sec = approximately 1.82 times

...which means that if you take her profile DPS and multiply it by 1.82, you will get her new DPS. The treasure increases DPS by 1.82 times. 

Other rangers' attack speed changes also reflect the 1.82 coefficient:

  Sol 4.33/2.38 ~ 1.82

  Witch Cony 2.67/1.47 ~ 1.82

  Alice 4.63/2.55 ~ 1.82

  Opera James 2.73/1.50 ~ 1.82

This is how we arrived at the previous example with Alice: 

   53128 (original listed DPS) * 1.82 = 96693

Afterword

Line Ranger stages 109 - 120 of the Skyscraper area originally released with the treasure "increase attack speed" but because they reduced the damage at the same time, they finally changed the treasure altogether to something else, increase attack range. The present treasure for Maze of Illusion carries the same description as the old treasure, but it is vastly different and very beneficial to players. Once you obtain 100% of the Illusionary Dice, go back to Skyscraper and you will realize just how much easier the area becomes with the treasure effect. 

But the treasure effect is not just a DPS increase. It has substantially decreased the amount of time it takes for previously "slow/very slow" attack speed rangers to produce one hit. For instance, before the treasure, there was a very good chance that Sol would be knocked back or totally killed before landing even 1 hit of his red bomb. But now his hits are only 2.38 seconds apart (down from 4.33 seconds), so one quick burp and the enemy loses 250k! 

Conclusion

Long story short, the new treasure is the second scenario that I posed at the start, the effective DPS is increased by a factor of 1.82. 

Regarding Castle in the Sky

What about the 1.4545 multiplier from the Castle in the Sky treasure? Where does it fit in? 

Rest assured, the Castle in the Sky treasure is still in effect and it is still a factor in our rangers' damage-per-hit. The new attack speed is simply doing that amount of damage-per-hit more often.

The calculation of our rangers' damage is getting more and more convoluted as they add more treasure effects and multipliers. And it's getting all the more challenging to backtrack because they took away the enemy tower HP values that we used to measure against >:O It's all bit mind boggling, but we're getting more powerful all the same so I can't complain! 

Thanks again to the gurus at LINE Rangers 台灣社團. They work tirelessly to find out all this cool information.

Team Battle Balancing

This is a delicate subject. A lot of players have expressed that there are issues with Team Battle Mode (which I'll just call PvP, player vs. player, for shorthand). We know that the developers tweak the PvP parameters and the computer AI quite often because we see the game download "new resources." Each time they push new team battle files down, it throws us all for a loop because we don't know what they have changed. Teams you used to ride to victory one day may not serve you very well the next. But here is some breaking news from our friends at LINE Rangers 台灣社團 which may help explain what's going on. Their raid team published this just today, and this will change the way you think about your PvP strategy. Keep in mind that this is subject to change, and very likely will given Line Rangers' track record.

Team Battle Attack Power Reduction Ratio

Published and valid as of: July 14, 2014, 6:37pm. The text contained within this box is an English interpretation of the original article. 

• Article originates from: LINE Rangers 台灣社團
• Authors: 黃郁弘, 小為
• Testing Contributors: 黃郁弘, 陳安安, 小為
• Editor: 小為

The Line Rangers Raid Team is focusing on attack power specific to Team Battle this time. 

Rangers' attack power = DPS x Attack Speed x Attack Power Treasure modifier 

We discussed the details of this formula for finding actual attack damage in the attack speed post where the Raid Team hashed all that out.

The team experimented with rangers in Friend Battle Mode and discovered that rangers' attack power while in Team Battle Mode is weaker than in Single Player Stage Mode. The amount by which they are weakened is determined by the ranger's classification. 

Quick example:
Level 80 Alice's attack is reduced down to 33813. Level 70 Shu is weakened to 4049: Alice's attack power is approximately equivalent to 8 Shus on single target damage.

Test Method

The test team used Friend Battle Mode to do all their research. They allowed the opponent to attack their tower (since only the home tower has HP values now) in order to exact the damage inflicted by rangers. If you click on the article, you will see the pictures which illustrate Witch Cony inflicting exactly 24808 damage on the home tower, a farcry from the calculated 49616 damage per hit she should be making in single player mode. 

Sampling of rangers of various class types and their modified attack power in PvP Mode. The last column is the rangers' attack reduction modifier rate

Conclusion

The Line Rangers game has adjusted the damage rate practically once per week. Last week, splash rangers were reduced to 0.20, single-target rangers were 0.25. 

The week of July 14, highlights were attack class rangers 0.70, while other single target rangers were 0.50. 

This just continues to prove that Team Battle Mode is not ruled by splash rangers. If you have Dumpy, Prince James or Dancer King Boss, it's time to take them off the bench. You may find them surprisingly effective. 

For players who play with free rangers, Alice and Masked Moon are great choices. 

This week, attack rangers have the highest attack modifier as they're attacking at 70% power. All other single-target rangers are performing at 50% power and splash rangers are doing just 15% of their original power. Yikes.

Surely from the early days of Team Battle Mode, we have felt that something was not quite right. Our rangers do not perform the way we expect them to. Thanks to the team at LINE Rangers 台灣社團 we now know what was happening last week for a few days when it seemed as though our rangers were dying faster. Some modifiers must have been changed which created a difference in the actual damage rangers were inflicting and the way we expected our rangers to be performing. 

Some players may be outraged by this, but this info doesn't shock me, actually. A lot of games that have vs. player and vs. computer modes create a modifier for damage vs. other people because the pure damage in vs. computer environment would spell the end of player controlled units in no time at all. The amount of damage that is increasingly demanded to keep up with the challenge and difficulty of single player would not translate well in a PvP environment. This is an attempt to "balance" the rangers to make the PvP experience smoother and more worthwhile. Everyone will have their own opinions about whether this is helping. 

My biggest problem with Line Rangers with regard to these modifiers is the fact that players have gotten NO NOTICE about their existence nor the changing of these values on a near-weekly basis. This is something I criticized in my survey to the developers. They change stats without telling us. They change stage environment and enemy formation without so much as a warning. And they created and tweak these attack rate modifiers without any indication. We're left to wonder week after week why our fine team last week sucks this week. Or why our good tank yesterday is getting fried today. I understand that Team Battle is new and the game still needs tweaking. But the players should not get penalized for the mistakes and trials of the developer. At least give us the opportunity to properly adjust.

If anyone out there in LINE world is reading, my greatest plea would be to give us notices when significant changes like this are pushed out. Please?

And finally, I want to emphasize that the above stats are a snapshot of the PvP environment as of July 14 afternoon in Taiwan time. These numbers may not apply for tomorrow or the week after. And I wouldn't expect for the authors of the article to continually update the modifier numbers, either. It really changes too often to keep up-to-date 100%. But the point is, we know that our team composition needs to take into account for this kind of a parameter. This week, if you have the super good single target attack rangers on your team, you're probably kicking butt all over the place on the ladder ranking. Next week, it might not feel as great.

By the way, this does not mean that there is no place for splash rangers. You shouldn't just cross splash rangers off your team. Their potential damage is still huge when the enemy stacks up a bunch of rangers together. What this deters is having a whole 5-man team of splash rangers. That comp might not be a very effective team at the moment.

It's also possible that they tweak other stuff, like how much HP rangers have. We don't know if they've ever touched that stat in the past or if they will in the future. Sometimes you just have to go by feel of how your team is performing, and adjust accordingly.

Edit: This is more of an afterthought but... I just realized that I should feel kind of cheated by these modifiers. I spun the Gacha a lot over the last few months for splash rangers like SoCo, KSM and Ola Brown. Especially Ola Brown because he came around right as Team Battle was introduced, I wanted him badly! And I'm sure a lot of you were spinning for a chance at Susu recently. They're all splash rangers and they were promoted as the most powerful rangers in the game. And yet we just found out that splash rangers are performing at a mere 15% of their normal power in PvP. Anyone else feel like they've been played for a fool? HMMM...

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.