Preferred members of bonus squads?

[Francis Crawford]

I have fewer than half my TFs leveled to or near 15, so I’d like to throw around some ideas that would help me prioritize. In particular — which TF(s) from each squad would be best to run with in competitions? Here’s where I’m at so far.

First, some generalities:

— Slower is better than faster, because fast TFs might run off the screen before they’ve destroyed everything.
— Energon-powered survivability is nice.
— Delays in firing aren’t good.
— In most competitions, it’s useful to destroy “trash” — random pigs, wood blocks, ice blocks, whatever. Grimlocks are good at that. So are TFs with explosive capabilities. So are those with true area-of-effect attacks.
— It is useful to be able to kill missiles at a distance. Grimlocks can do that. So can Shockwave. So, I think, can Galvatrons and Epic Optimus.
— Grimlocks are perhaps the worst at killing WMTs, because they can’t shoot and then run away; they need to say engaged with an opponent until it’s dead.
— TFs that push or pull targets are terrible against gold blocks.
— For most of a run, it really doesn’t matter to your score whether you kill a balloon pig or a missile, or whether instead you just let it hit you in the face; you score either way. But at the end of the run, the ability to kill them quickly can get you points you’d otherwise lose out on.

As for specific squads:

RESCUE BOTS: Optimus Prime is the clear winner, if you equip him with the explosive rounds accessory. In that case, he’s surprisingly good. Bumblebee is fast and doesn’t hit very hard; blech. Heatwave shoots very slowly, and is only good against WMTs, and perhaps not even those.

INSTRUMENTS OF DESTRUCTION: I don’t see much difference between Soundwave and Soundblaster. They’re both strong in most competitions, although I get frustrated that they sometimes can’t easily nab distant energon cubes. My Soundblaster has somewhat better accessories, so I usually use him — but even so, I don’t see much difference.

TARGET 2006: None of these seems good against trash. Jazz seems weak against everything (too fast if nothing else). I leveled up Ultra Magnus ahead of Galvatron; I suspect that of having been a mistake.

PURE WARRIORS: Lockdown and Energon Lockdown both seem very strong with the competition accessories. I’ve been using Lockdown because my accessories for him seem better, and because he’s two levels higher than my Energon Lockdown, but really both do a great job. I doubt Brawl can compare.

SEEKERS; Energon Starsream has an explosive rounds accessory. Thundercracker doesn’t. Huge difference.

ENERGON FUELED: Grimlocks are great.

VARIANT VERSIONS: Grimlocks are great.

LEADERS: Grilocks are great. However, if the target of the day is WMTs, it’s tempting to take Sentinel Prime instead.

VALKYRIES: All my TFs in this squad are in the Levels 6-8 range. None is terribly effective. Any thoughts?

BROTHERS IN ARMOUR: I have no idea what the difference is between Prowl and Bluestreak, if any.

ICONIC: Epic Optimus is the only one I have. He’s been shockingly effective at Level 6.

HOTRODS: I don’t have any.

CYBERTRONIANS: Shockwave should be great against missiles, but he shoots a bit slowsly. Generally, he seems fairly weak. I haven’t leveled up Acid Storm to compare.

Topic

[Nightcrawler]

@franciscrawford the difference between prowl and bluestreak is that prowl fires three shots before reloading whereas bluestreak only fires two and also bluestreak is stronger.

[MillForce2k]

All of my bots, except Acid Storm, are at level 15.

Rescue Bots – Concur about Optimus Prime. I don’t use any other.

Instruments of Destruction – I found that Soundwave had to take two shots at some pigs, I think the flying ones, so I’ve been using Soundblaster. He couldn’t take out Boss Pig, though, and died after getting hit by two of his missiles. Otherwise, he’s been quite effective.

Target: 2006 – Been using Galvitron, but tried Ultra Magnus today and may continue to use him. He’s good against missiles and flying pigs, but mostly just pushes regular pigs. I tend to destroy the tower and let the pigs fall to their doom.

Pure Warriors – Energon Lockdown has the edge due to his energon healing, so I don’t outrun fireballs, not that we’ve seen that many in this competition.

Energon Fueled – Yep, Energon Grimlock all the way.

Variant Versions – Ditto on Goldbite Grimlock.

Leaders – Ditto again.

Valkyries – I didn’t even consider Arcee due to her single stream and bubbles that basically just push things. Tried Windblade, but fire rate is a bit slow and she needs to hit some pigs a couple times to destroy. I’ve been using Airachnid. She has a good fire rate and can destroy pigs in one shot. The bubbles move a bit slow, so she sometimes does miss a flying pig and the missiles can get a bit tricky.

Brothers in Armour – I think Prowl has the slight edge.

The Iconic Transformer – Epic Optimus is my only option as well.

The Hotrods – Energon Grimlock. Yep, I don’t have Rodimus, so I just use a good bot that will get the job done and forego the bonus.

Cybertronians – With Shockwave’s slow fire rate, I’m using Acid Storm. He did well against the missiles. You have to let them get pretty close to you, but can generally get two in a row quickly. You also have to let his acid do it’s work on the towers and move on to other targets.

[Anonymous]

Co-sign everything @millforce2k said. I’ll add that both Ultra Magnus (with the helmet accessory, ideally) and Galvatron may be the right choice for Target: 2006, depending on the high value target of the day. Galvatron is a terrible choice if it’s ice blocks or some other high volume target. Oh, and for Valkyries, I’ve been doing just fine with Airachnid too. Mine is level 15 with the increased fire rate accessory, which obviously helps. Note that at higher levels, she shoots five bubbles at once rather than her original three. And they spread out as a square (with one in the middle), unlike Soundblaster, whose five-in-one attack (once he’s leveled up enough) remains a horizontal line (just wider, of course).

[Marty Schofield]

Rescue Bots: Optimus for sure, with HiQ, I’ve also considered buying one of the power masters, or missiles for the 10% increase in fire rate. He’s still slow, but explosions help.

Instruments: Soundblaster with Ravage, as his shots spread out they can hit a lot with the acid damage

Target:2006
Ultra Magnus is pretty good with the helmet, matrix and shoulder missiles

Pure Warriors: Energon Lockdown with the Energon Cube and Clips, the 20% increased clip size gives him almost continuous fire, with explosions

Seekers: Energon Starscream, and I’m planning to buy his Shoulder pads for the explosive rounds.

ENERGON FUELED, VARIANT VERSIONS, LEADER: As everyone else said, the relevant Grimlocks. I want to buy the swords for them for the weapon cooldown.

I’m in the same situation with Iconic and Hot Rods as well. I have Epic Optimus, and use the best available Grimlock for Hot Rod missions. .. need to go slow e.g. balloon pigs, missiles – Greyslam, otherwise Energon

Brothers in Armor: I got them both their shoulder missiles, they still need help. I think it’s probably just worth using a Grimlock instead.

Valkyries
Never my favorite characters to play, so I didn’t buy any accessories. I’m still not sure Windblade will be worth it with the accessories from this challenge. Airachnid is the best of a bad bunch.

Cybertronians: like others said Shockwave is too slow, has the right sort of weapon for missiles. I’ve been upgrading Acidstorm since I got him, haven’t gotten to try him on an event yet.

[SnTrooper]

Can’t add very much to what has already been said except if the challenge is blocks then there is none better than (a high level) Soundwave. Even better than the Grimlocks. Can completely clear a level of every single block.

Definitely agree about Airachnid. Far better than the other two. She can even take out WMTs (that are not way off in the distance).

[Francis Crawford]

So the big thing I’m learning from this thread (and also from this competition) is that Arachnid is the best of a bad lot, ahead of Windblade.

And everybody seems unsure about Ultra Magnus vs. Galvatron. Perhaps use different ones depending upon the enemy-of-the-day.

Thanks!

[SnTrooper]

For the Target squad I always use Ultra Magnus (with helmet) for everything. Galvatron is only good for WMTs and even then he usually ends up missing more points from missed pigs than Magnus with Glassor from missed WMTs.

[Geli]

Allow me to be the lone dissenter in the lovefest for Airachnid.
My Airachnid is Level 13, with just the headphones accessory.
My Arcee is Level 10, similarly equipped.
Windblade is Level 10 with the Sword, Trident and Metroplex accessories won in the current competition.
I went back and forth between Airachnid and Arcee in the 150% bonus runs and settled on Arcee early on. I tried Windblade before I won the 3 accessories in this competition; it was a lost cause and was only used twice.
Arcee’s 3-pulse shots seem to act faster on distant and/or smaller Energon structures; they get the 3-pulse impact one on top each other. That triple-tap also does decent damage agains flying pigs. I find Arcee’s narrow pulses to be more effective against missiles. It also seems to have a slightly higher rate of fire than Airachnid.
It was the Missle Target day that sealed the deal for me. this may just my misperception, but Arcee is my TF of choice for Valkyrie squads.

I will use the pimped-out Windblade during the last 2 hours of today’s competition and offer my observations in this thread.

[MillForce2k]

Airachnid with no offensive accessories verses Boss Pig. Winner Airachnid! It wasn’t real easy, but she took down the Boss, his missiles, and a bunch of flying pigs.

[Francis Crawford]

Today’s competition is gold blocks, so it was a perfect time for a test:

Level 8 Arachnid — Horrible. Gold blocks skittered away rather than being destroyed.

Level 8 Arachnid with acid rounds – Good. The blocks were destroyed.

Level 7 Windblade with incendiary rounds — Bad. Some of the blocks skittered away.

Between the two, Arachnid indeed seems to be the right choice. The acid rounds make a big difference at Level 8; I couldn’t say whether that will hold true as she levels up.

[Geli]

FWIW
6 runs with Valkyries, target pigs.
Windblade configured as above, with Photoblast Energonicon.

River / Falls- 3 WMT, raw score 465, bonus 1162, 1 “heart” damage
River / Falls- 2 WMT, raw score 400, bonus 1000, 1 “heart” damage
Desert- 2 WMT, raw score 545, bonus 1362, 2 hearts damage
Desert with Glassor Energonicon – 2 WMT, raw score 545, bonus 1362, 2 hearts damage

Airachnid configured as above, Glassor Energonicon
Pig City- 2 WMT, raw score ???, bonus 962, 1 heart damage.

Arcee configured as above, Photoblast energonicon
Slingshot Forest- 0 WMT, 495 raw score, 1237 bonus, NO damage.

Notes: River/Falls were identical runs.
Desert had many falling monoliths
Pig City had a dearth of targets.
Forest had no Energon structures for first 1/4 of the run.

[Francis Crawford]

Bumping this thread, I think:

1. There’s broad consensus that the Grimlocks are strong in competitions.

2. Most people are also happy with Soundwave/Soundblaster, Energon Starscream, and either Lockdown, assuming explosive rounds accessories as appropriate for Energon Starscream and the Lockdowns.

3. There’s a growing consensus of surprised players agreeing that Optimus Prime with the explosive rounds accessory is actually good.

4. Players who find other TFs strong are generally in the minority. But quite a few TFs have at least some fans each.

5. A lot depends on whether the rules of a particular competition do or don’t allow the use of Glassor.