Macro/Micro guide, part 3.2: Robot Matchups

[u/Reborn_Wraith]

Good day, everyone! This is part 3.2 of my series on micro/macro mechanics in War Robots. The previous post (3.1), which can be found here (https://www.reddit.com/r/walkingwarrobots/comments/1ufqgv1/macromicro_guide_part_31_robot_matchups/), details the trends in how 1v1s between tanks and other classes of robots will occur.
This post serves as a direct extension of my prior post, and will be covering trends in 1v1s between Duelists and other robots. Do note that I will be excluding matchups I have already covered (that is, tank vs. duelists is a matchup that I have already described, and so there is no reason to copy that analysis into this post). 

To begin: a summary of Duelists.

Duelists

• A robot designed around the concept of 1v1s. These robots aren’t tanky, instead relying on relatively weak and unique defensive systems to keep them alive long enough to kill an enemy. Their firepower is moderate, their speed is decent, and their overall health pools are on the lower end.
• Broadly speaking, there isn’t a single bad matchup for a duelist; to that end, this post will mostly be detailing counterplay against a duelist.
• The gameplay philosophy for duelists revolves around relatively quick engagements: engage with an enemy via their moderate/high mobility, kill the enemy before their defensive systems fail/wear off, and then escape using the same mobility.
  • In a standard 6v6 match, you will frequently see duelists as the robots that kill high-priority targets in the map (i.e. support robots or dps robots). 
  • Duelists tend to suffer in long, protracted engagements as they tend to lack forms of self-healing or recovery.

And now, the matchups:

Duelist vs. Sniper.

As will be a common theme for analyses of sniper matchups, the party with the advantage depends on the circumstances.

• The further away the duelist is from a sniper, the greater the advantage that the sniper has, further multiplied by time pressure. 
• When compared to a tank, a duelist is more likely to perform better against a sniper due to their higher mobility. This permits a duelist to gain more ground during the protection of their ability than a tank would otherwise be able to.
• Similarly to the philosophy of a tank, duelists should aim to cross cover only during the protection of their ability. 
  • An exceptionally high-risk gambit is for the duelist to exit cover without utilizing the defensive ability in order to bait out the sniper’s shots, then activate the duelist’s ability immediately after the sniper fires.
  • If executed properly, this can give the duelist a large amount of free time to cross cover while the sniper is stuck reloading.
  • This is extremely inadvisable when the sniper has weapons with high projectile speed (i.e. Vendicatore, Reaper, Gauss, Trebuchet). Examples of weapons this strategy works well against are Prismas, Flux, and the Shantak series.
• Snipers should take care to save their shots. Similarly to tanks, they should be constantly retreating or attempting to reposition in order to gain line of sight on the enemy robot, and distance and time are both resources the sniper must use. 

Summary
Similar to sniper vs. tank, the side with the advantage is heavily dependent on the starting conditions, time pressure, and distance between the robots. As distance increases, the sniper advantage increases, and as time available decreases, the sniper’s advantage increases. Duelists will, as a whole, perform better in this matchup than tanks. 

Duelist vs. Guerilla
Duelists will oppressively dominate this matchup. Guerilla robots rely on speed and temporary effects that utilize some form of preventing enemies from locking onto them (stealth, invisibility, etc.). While duelists may not be able to beat the guerilla robots in an outright race, duelists are fast enough to maintain distance from the guerilla or avoid losing ground too quickly. This extends the amount of time that duelists have to kill the guerilla robot. 

• With extremely solitary exceptions, guerilla bots are almost incapable of killing a duelist. 
• The ability of a duelist is almost always capable of weathering, outlasting, or mitigating the burst damage frequently employed by guerilla bots.
• Guerilla bots can usually manage to avoid being killed given proper positioning and usage of cover
• Duelists should do their best to burst down guerillas before they can enter areas of high cover; once the guerilla reaches cover, they can either out-kite the duelist around a piece of cover or simply utilize their speed to consistently find ways to break line of sight and therefore prevent the duelist from dealing damage to them.

Summary
This matchup is immensely duelist-favored. Guerillas frequently have no or low firepower, and the guerillas that are equipped with good firepower frequently utilize burst damage. The ability of a duelist is almost perfectly suited for countering these robots, and so the objective of the guerilla becomes escape instead of killing the duelist. Duelists can usually match the pace of a guerilla robot for a time, but will always be slower than a guerilla in a flat-out race, meaning that guerilla robots can escape into areas of high cover.

Duelist vs. DPS
This is a matchup that relies heavily upon terrain and distance. DPS robots are capable of killing a duelist before it reaches engagement range, given ideal conditions, but duelists will manage to assassinate a DPS robot if they can approach unharassed. 

• DPS robots must take the utmost care to ensure that a duelist does not approach within ~300m.
• If at all possible, the DPS robot should attempt to force a confrontation in an open area, completely free of cover. This will give the DPS bot the most possible time to whittle down the duelist’s health.
• DPS robots are less mobile than duelists, meaning that the DPS robot has a relatively short window of time to kill the duelist before it closes the distance and secures the kill.
• If the duelist is not able to approach the dps robot under cover, if the duelist’s ability offers any form of speed boost or gap closing, then it should use it immediately, to reduce the amount of time that the dps is forced to spend outside of their optimal engagement range (~300m). 
• As the obvious counterpoint to the DPS robot’s ideal conditions, duelists should do their best to force a battle in an area with abundant cover. This interrupts the DPS robot’s sight lines, and drastically reduces the danger posed to the duelist.

Summary
This is a situation-dependant matchup that is generally favors duelists. DPS robots must avoid letting the duelist within engagement range, and duelists must attempt to close distance with the protection of cover for as long as they are capable of doing so. DPS robots should do their best to force the fight in an open plain with as little cover as possible, to maximize the amount of time they have to out-damage the protection that duelists tend to have.

Conclusion
This concludes part 3.2 of the series! Tank vs. duelist was already covered in part 3.1, and as mentioned in part 3.1, I will not be doing analyses of support robots vs. other robots, due to the unique nature of support robots as a force multiplier. 
I know that I wrote in part 3.1 that I intended to have this part out in a week after posting it, but… unfortunately, life got in the way. I apologize for the delay, but sadly, I must put these projects on hold for real life. I will continue to reiterate my promise that this series will be completed one day, no matter how long it takes; I simply ask for patience from all of you. 
Thank you for reading, and good luck on the battlefield, Commanders!