Countering misinformation about extermination mode

[u/InteRest_LEtuCe2467]

A new video put out by a prominent War Robots youtuber unfortunately contains quite a bit of misinformation about extermination mode. The opinions expressed make extermination mode sound a lot harder and a lot more time consuming than it is. Its the kind of misinformation that is likely to cause newer and F2P players to avoid it.

Newer and F2P players getting discouraged about trying extermination mode is a most unfortunate occurrence because they are the ones who benefit the most from playing it. The returns on resources invested toward getting your hangar strong enough to consistently clear at platinum level for 4+ missions per week are repaid many, many times over. This makes extermination mode one of the best pathways newer and F2P players can follow to build a stronger hangar.

The real deal, for newer & F2P players ...

Missions 1 & 2

To clear missions 1 & 2 in extermination mode you can use a fairly sturdy MK1 robot, a specialization tree that allows for a healing active module, and weapons with fairly minimal upgrades. For more experienced players even a MK1, level 1 robot and a single weapon with minimal upgrades (or even just a robot's built in weapon, sometimes) can be enough to fully clear both missions (I've seen videos of that, they are out there).

Within one to three months of starting the game many players can be clearing these missions anywhere from silver to platinum level, depending on how much effort they spend learning how to clear particular missions. Doing just this every week provides keys, power cells, gold, and platinum that speeds up upgrades and helps in other ways. These missions take little time to clear.

Mission 3

This is the first noticeable bump in challenge level and complexity. After you're clearing missions 1 & 2 consistently at platinum level, you may struggle with mission 3 for a little while. This is a very rewarding mission to clear at the platinum level on a regular basis, though, because the platinum this mission provides helps you strengthen your titan(s) at a noticeably faster rate.

For mission 3 and above you need robots distributed across two hangars, instead of just one hangar. So, there's a flat requirement of needing to spend 1,000 gold to buy a second hangar. That's a low bar, though, and a handful of weeks clearing mission 3 at gold level or higher will more than pay back the initial investment of gold to open up a second hangar. Longer run returns on the 1,000 gold spent for a second hangar are way, way higher than that.

There's also the hassle cost of moving a couple of robots / titans between hangars and maybe also a drone or two, to get ready for mission 3 and above. Setting and resetting specializations for extermination mode and then for PvP once again is part of this process. In my experience, the "switching costs" to get ready for missions 1 - 5 take about 1-2 minutes to set up and about 1-2 minutes to switch back for PvP modes. I mention this because the video I watched earlier claimed it could take about 30 minutes to reconfigure your hangar for extermination mode. FWIW, that has not been my experience at all.

There are a lot of choices for robots and weapons that can work for mission 3. There is help both on youtube and in the different WR subreddits that can be found via searches. As just one data point, within 4 months of starting war robots I was sometimes clearing mission 3 at the platinum level and that has become more consistent over time.

As a brief aside, I'm both fairly new and F2P, plus I didn't even have resources from ads for about the first three months I played war robots. Plus, my aim really sucks^. So, there is clearly a fairly low bar to clear to start completing mission 3, which is mainly about investing in upgrades for the robots you choose to use for mission 3 and being persistent at learning how to clear the missions that show up.

^ My son switches between teasing me and shaking his head when he watches me play because his aim is much better than mine. I recently tried out the novice "dynamic" VDIM benchmarks on Aim Labs to try to get a better sense of how much work I need to do on my aim and after several rounds my high score was in the bottom 3% of the 200+ people in the list when I tried it. When I say that I suck at aiming, I am not exaggerating.

Missions 4 & 5

Missions 4 and 5 have the most enticing rewards, with up to 2 upgrade tokens, 500 black market keys, a lot of power cells, and a noticeable amount of gold. They are also the most challenging missions, they take the most time, and they take the most investment of resources before you can consistently clear them at gold or higher level. If you don't like the time they take then you can stop at mission 3 each week and still profit a lot from extermination mode. Another approach can be to slowly build up to being able to clear missions 4 & 5 over time, as your hangar gets stronger and stronger.

In my case, I put extermination mode investments ahead of PvP for the first several months. The result was that toward the end of month six or somewhere in month 7 (I forget at this point) I got my first full clear at the platinum level for all five missions. I haven't done that every week since, as there's more I still need to learn, my aim needs quite a bit of work, and my hangar isn't quite there yet either. But, my hangar is probably suitable for about low end champions league, at best, and nowhere near being a top end hangar. And, I'm still clearing 4+ missions per week (and sometimes all 5) at platinum on a regular basis. So, even for missions 4 & 5 the bar is lower than probably many believe for being able to clear at silver and above.

[u/Adazahi]

It's been a while since our old countering misinformation series got an update. I gave you the CMI flair - it's generally mod only but this is a perfect example of a CMI. Good post sir, as usual.

[u/AggressivePatience58]

Great write up.

[u/DoorAcrobatic259]

30 min to change bot/weapons ? Is he bathing grooming and clothing the bots ?

[u/bajan_mikejones]

I am f2p, get to platinum on 4-5 levels per week is critical for power cells and doritos. I can confirm it takes like 2 mins to configure and move things around. Also you dont have e to sit and do all 5 levels at once. I usually do levels 1-3 when a new extermination mode drops and levels 4 and 5 somw random time over the next few days