JayZ's NML strategy compendium

vabuda1

@ JayZ I’ve read thru your tips and they’re all great! But I was wondering if you had something to show the best gear/weapons for shooters/assaults? Like what traits they should have...I’m sick upgrading crappy weapons lol

marroba2000

vabuda1 said:

@ JayZ I’ve read thru your tips and they’re all great! But I was wondering if you had something to show the best gear/weapons for shooters/assaults? Like what traits they should have...I’m sick upgrading crappy weapons lol

We use this table in our guild. 

arturdj

A nice presentation, but 3x iron skin for warriors? I think 3x critical damage will be much better.

ghost_pepper

ATLAS-Z said: something good

@vabuda1 if you look at the list marroba shared, pair two of the traits together and you may want to consider a unicorn critical chance badge on your warrior. If you have follow through and you are using tactical, the strategy for your warrior would be to hit and then move to safety. X2 cd and x1 cc would boost your cc chance to nearly half, letting you take more advantage of follow through.

JayZ

Had some time this morning and finally made a bunch of updates to the strategy compendium, including:
1. A new post! Advanced guide to ranged survivors
2. Updated video links in many of the old posts to show new/better uses of survivors
3. Updated information to reflect more recent updates/new heroes in the old posts

Next on my to-do list:
1. Update the General tips for succeeding in the Challenge and Distance post with more tips and better videos
2. Create an updated badging guide for the new update (this is long overdue, but @Paste with help from others has created a very helpful guide that has been shared with many people in the mean time

JayZ

vabuda1 said:

@ JayZ I’ve read thru your tips and they’re all great! But I was wondering if you had something to show the best gear/weapons for shooters/assaults? Like what traits they should have...I’m sick upgrading crappy weapons lol

@vabuda1

A very late response, but I finally posted some information now

Advanced guide to ranged survivors

JayZ

Jeff’s videos and suggestions for Nightmare Distance (set 2)...

It is no joke! I made it out with no losses, but I did use one nade in a sticky situation. I also made some silly mistakes with Sasha, so I used some gold in between missions to restore her to green, so it’s not a “clean” no loss run.

Would not recommend nightmare Distance unless you can finish hard Distance with no loss and you regularly play level 45+ challenge missions.

My tips:

1. You need to play it like the old Distance when it was more difficult. Charge up a lot of survivors at the beginning to have flexibility later on. Don’t be afraid to flee if you need to, to save your most important survivors (Sasha) for later on. The last missions are almost impossible without her.

2. Level 46+ maps are all about two things: making walkers burn and staying alive. The most important survivors for me this week were Sasha (charging and rooting), Shane (killing with his LT), and Bruisers/Assaults (to stay alive).

3. Being able to charge quickly (Lucky harpoon, Lucky festive shotgun, and Lucky decimator) made my life a lot easier. Sometimes you’ll see me linger at the end of missions to get charge points for the next mission.

4. These maps definitely require a little more skill. Be aware of where walkers spawn and how far they can move to get to you. Play more slowly/carefully.


I would recommend refreshing yourself on some of the tips in this post: https://forums.nextgames.com/walkingdead/discussion/comment/395975/#Comment_395975

Finally, what you were waiting for. My playlist is here but the videos are slow to upload:

WellyLuga

JayZ said:

Jeff’s videos and suggestions for Nightmare Distance (set 2)...

It is no joke! I made it out with no losses, but I did use one nade in a sticky situation. I also made some silly mistakes with Sasha, so I used some gold in between missions to restore her to green, so it’s not a “clean” no loss run.

Would not recommend nightmare Distance unless you can finish hard Distance with no loss and you regularly play level 45+ challenge missions.

My tips:

1. You need to play it like the old Distance when it was more difficult. Charge up a lot of survivors at the beginning to have flexibility later on. Don’t be afraid to flee if you need to, to save your most important survivors (Sasha) for later on. The last missions are almost impossible without her.

2. Level 46+ maps are all about two things: making walkers burn and staying alive. The most important survivors for me this week were Sasha (charging and rooting), Shane (killing with his LT), and Bruisers/Assaults (to stay alive).

3. Being able to charge quickly (Lucky harpoon, Lucky festive shotgun, and Lucky decimator) made my life a lot easier. Sometimes you’ll see me linger at the end of missions to get charge points for the next mission.

4. These maps definitely require a little more skill. Be aware of where walkers spawn and how far they can move to get to you. Play more slowly/carefully.


I would recommend refreshing yourself on some of the tips in this post: https://forums.nextgames.com/walkingdead/discussion/comment/395975/#Comment_395975

Finally, what you were waiting for. My playlist is here but the videos are slow to upload:

Nice work, I thought someone would clear without a loss today! I'm not sure I would have thrown a grenade though, I'd have just sacrificed a survivor and gone back in!

That first tip is probably the best one, it's how I approached it too. I found myself charging the majority of my roster and then cycling through my bruisers along side Sasha and Shane/shooter, saving Eugene for last. I would chip away at the walkers whilst letting my bruiser take the hits. I think it won't be too long before we are playing clean week in, week out 

JayZ

@WellyLuga my biggest concern is the human scouts were dead. Those guys usually buy you 3-4 extra turns, and I could see it getting real messy without them as a buffer at the beginning. Trust me, I didn’t wanna lob the nades either 😂

wms

It works!!!!  I had already changed my Sasha to a harpoon and she has Marksman, CA, lucky, and ruthless.  I guess revenge could replace marksman but no luck with rerolls.  Have other survivors with greater reroll needs.  Guess I tried her with assaults in the past but with a stronger weapon and no body shots. Just had to line up my ducks in a row.  Thank you.

Edit:  I meant this to go to the different discussion in Strategy "how to get assaults to stun" and directed to MasterofBullets

JayZ

Several posts and diagrams updated!

tbdbitl

JayZ said:

Badging strategy

Last updated: March 11, 2020

In general, my strategy with badges is to (1) enhance the strongest aspects of survivors, and (2) allow my survivors to survive at high levels which means maxing out damage reduction at 80% between your gear, badges, and survivor traits.

I'm at a loss! I've seen charts to help calculate what percentage you are at for different traits. but I have had no luck searching for the posts and or diagrams that help with calculating your percentages. Would love to see a section added here or maybe someone can reply with a link to the post that bests illustrates how to calculate when traits are maxed out or at what percentage they are.

tbdbitl

As well as DR, I guess I should have asked for a link that best describes the max increase for all traits and the calculation.
That is what is the max increase for Health? is there one? or damage, critical damage, etc?
I have found some that say if weapon gives 10% DR, armor gives 15%, and your iron skin is at 16% that give you 41% so anything more than 2 20% DR badges is a waste.

Gothgul

Thats true for a non hero if you have IS, but for heroes you still need 3 DR since there is no room for IS. But if its a bruiser or assault, there is really no other choice unless you are going for some extra damage on the assault. There is no cap on damage, crit damage, or health. Its only limited by quality of badges, hero stars, and gear. Im sure there is a theortical max because all the gear and badges are known entities. If you know how to use the badge crafting chart and maximize the bonuses and get lucky and get the top range on a badge (there is a narrow range), you can get to that max, at least from the badge side. Getting a trait to 10 pink will cost a lot.

Steeboon

I believe what you are looking for is in page 1 of this thread @tbdbitl

tbdbitl

Thanks for the input guys, Especially @Gothgul that was really helpful. Although you confused me by saying that there was no room for IS. And after extensive searching I found that when @JayZ lists the must haves that they are not in order of importance (or maybe they are). Especially for Heroes. I saw that I should probably ditch Iron Skin for retaliate for Eugene since the DR can be made up in badging and the other four traits cannot. So is that what you meant @Gothgul?

Burmeliinis

yes, change IS to Retaliate.

Gothgul

Exactly that. Ditch IS when you can get to 80% DR (or darn close). 10% from tactical weapon makes it very doable with 3 DR badges even if they are not perfect. 

JayZ

The trait list is relatively simplistic so as to not overwhelm people with information. I would recommend people read the "Advanced guide" to really understand the WHY behind the traits and what to try to maximize when building characters.

zeeblack

@JayZ any change in the strategy for shooters after the update

DornicHold

@JayZ or anyone with knowledge, I am unclear if the old style badge crafting is still in play and if so what are the advantages of it over the new Recipe procedure?

JayZ

@DornicHold Short-answer: crafting cycles still exist but behave a bit differently than before because of these new recipes. @Paste is the author of the most up-to-date badging guides and maps. He has some instructions that I'm hoping he'll post on the forums to make them more accessible to the public.

@zeeblack good call! I'll take a look and revisit. I don't think the strategy changes much, tbh, but they are a bit more viable than before.

NatsuDark

@DornicHold
 What do you mean by old style badge crafting?

DornicHold

In days of old, @NatsuDark, a lot of players found that Badge Crafting was not truly/completely random. And after many hours/days/weeks/months/years of collaborative efforts released the fruits of their research: the 1DR and 6DR badge crafting jump lists. Following the lists and recipes you had some control over the type (DR, CC, Dmg, CD, Health), bonus and slot of the badge crafted. Thus you could use lower level components/fragments when the badge to be crafted would have a type/bonus/slot you didn’t want and high level components/fragments when it did. 

Billbam

We have one base list now (there are others that come into play with certain events during crafting) but now we only know the BONUS group and the Orientation of the badge.  The goal is to find a location with a good Bonus group and craft a Specific badge recipe to match the bonus.

JayZ

I know this guide is a bit outdated, and doesn't include some of the new weapons and heroes. Hoping to make incremental updates over the next few months, but I have a busy summer ahead. Apologies for the delays, but I think 85-90% of the information should still be relevant and helpful

nufan

thak you for this awesome guide, really helped me until now

if i get it straight, it does not apply well to GW : is there a discussion where i could get some tips in choosing what to do?

thank you very much

xbassman

Nufan, GW recently changed & some guilds are using exploits that make it unfair.
Best to wait for another update to fix that issue.

Paste

You can apply the knowledge from this awesome compendium to all game modes, including GW. But you won't see a lot of public videos about GW, because it's a competitive game mode, and there's a conflict of interest between sharing knowledge and educating your opponents.

JayZ

Paste said:

You can apply the knowledge from this awesome compendium to all game modes, including GW. But you won't see a lot of public videos about GW, because it's a competitive game mode, and there's a conflict of interest between sharing knowledge and educating your opponents.

Yes, for sure! In particular, the tips about walker movement.

Also; added the new heroes to my hero guide. Will try to revamp eventually, including videos showing some of the heroes at work. 55+ hour work weeks along with the GW season, the USA opening back up, summer, etc. make it really hard to keep up