New map. Three new robots. One new and one not-so-new gun. Add a huge buff for all the bullet weapons to that — and you’ll get the list of things that define the update 3.1.

In other news: Noricum and Raijin get their chance for a comeback, chests become available forever and some long-requested fixes for 3.0 combat UI. As usual, before we go for a deep dive here are previous patch notes.

Beacon Rush…

…stays here. For now.

This mode prove itself worthy and we decided to get rid of a timer and let it stay. Now let’s see how Beacon Rush will show itself in a longer run.

New map: Valley

A peaceful view or a land of discord?

Valley is an small close/mid range map with couple of good spots for those preferring to play as a sniper support. Available both for Classic and Beacon Rush.

Check out the recent article on Valley to learn more:

New map: Valley. How it was made — and what’s next

New robots: Kumiho, Haechi and Bulgasari

New challengers have entered the ring!

These three were in development for months, and now they’re finally here.

Each robot in this pack is built around its inherent mobility. The special ability of all three is Dash — a short, quick leap that allows to evade enemy fire. You can use it twice in a row changing movement direction mid-flight, but you cannot Dash over obstacles. Overall Kumiho, Haechi an Bulgasari are more agile than Rogatka and Griffin, but air domination is out of their boundaries. On land and in skilled hands they are scary though.

Kumiho is the fastest of the bunch, but has the least amount of protection a carries one medium weapon less.
Haechi is the one with the energy barrier to block rockets and bullets. Kind of like Carnage, with less raw firepower, but more outplay potential.
Bulgasari is the heaviest. Its Dash has the longest cooldown, which is well compensated by Bu’s ability to withstand direct hits with a physical shield on its side.

For more info on what we wanted to achieve with these robots read our articles on the topic.

During 3.1 Kumiho, Haechi and Bulgasari are obtainable only through the Black Market . All players have equal chances to obtain them.

We do this to ease Dash integration into the game as much as possible. This ability by itself might cause a huge shift in which robots are in favor and which aren’t, so we are giving them sort of a test run. Spreading these through Black Market initially will give us enough data to work with in terms of balancing without disrupting the gameplay too much. Thanks for your understanding and patience!

Black Market

Every day is a bargain day

We’re bringing back the chests, and this time they are here to stay.

For those who didn’t follow previous events, now after every match you receive some amount of tokens that you can spend to open a chest of certain quality. The better the chest, the higher the chance you receive something useful from it. More detailed look here.

That also bring some better news: the Black Market turning into a permanent system means that next events won’t be based around the same thing. So expect something new this Halloween.

New weapon: Scourge

The closer you get, the harder you hit them

Damage per second @ level 12: 2400 (600 m); 4800 (350 m); 8160 (point blank)
Maximum range: 600 m
Seconds until reloading: 10
Reload time: 5 s

Scourge is somewhat similar to Gekko in that regard that it is an energy weapon that made for wearing opponents down. The difference is, while it is not as suitable for long-range fights, in close quarters it turns into a best of a gun with damage increasing the closer you are to your target.

Also, hint-hint: it’s good on Kumi-Hae-Bu — but it is also good AGAINST them. While, of course, not being the only good option. Go forth and experiment!

During 3.1 Scourge is obtainable only through the Black Market.

New weapon: Tempest

I am you. But bigger

Damage per round @ level 12: 1550
Maximum range: 800 m
Reload time: 10 s
Ammo capacity: 70 rounds
Rate of fire: 4.2 rounds/sec

Tempest is back as a Black Market item. It is a heavy version of Molot: autocannon with a range of 800 meters. Now looks even better in the light of the news that are… well, right below.

During 3.1 Tempest is obtainable only through the Black Market.

Kinetic weapons buff

Punishers, Molots, Tempest, Kang Dae, Nashorn and — oh boy — Thunder deal double damage to physical shields

The subtitle says it all. Bullet weapons always lacked a certain specificity: they shoot, they deal damage… a-a-and that’s it. With this new mechanic they got a real niche turning into your ultimate shield busters. See that Ancilot? Now you don’t.

The concern, of course, arises: after recent buffs won’t it allow Punishers and Molots to destroy everything, not just physical shiels, maybe too easily? The interesting part here is they they still have key deficiencies allowing others to find a window to play around them. Kang Dae and Nashorn aren’t that bursty to get through energy shields — they remain more of support weapons. Robots with Thunders have to get on an arm’s length to actually start being scary. And before Punishers, Molots and Tempest properly wind-up, you usually have more that enough time to react and get out of harm’s way.

Nevertheless, on live servers this change might prove to be tad overwhelming. We’ll keep tuning these guns up and down as we collect more data on their performance to find the right balance.

Update: Noricum

Not just an uppercut gun anymore

Damage @ level 12: 1800 → 1238
Minimum range: 400 → 300
Maximum range: 900 → 1100
Projectile speed: 180 → 360
Missile arc is slighly adjusted
Missile spread is less dependent on distance

For quite a while if someone asked “Which weapon in War Robots sucks the most?” the top response would be “Noricum”. A supposedly glorious ballistic weapon that was to cover huge distances and deal damage in biggest radius possible, just didn’t have enough “oomph” to it. Robots rarely clump closely in order for 200-meter-or-so radius AoE to be efficient.

Probably, the coolest thing Noricum could do before is a magic trick called “Noricum Uppercut” (or “Noricum Karate”). If you haven’t see how people do it, go check it out. Basically, you find some place beneath a high ground and position yourself just below your opponent. If you aligned yourself right, the splash damage from all Noricum rockets would do an immense amount of damage, usually resulting in a quick frag. This technique is super unreliable, although great to see when someone actually nails it — to further opponent’s confusion. Fun times, huh.

Unfortunately for those wanting to try Uppercut now, this technique going to be less effective after this update. It’s a long range weapon after all. We’ve cut the damage of each individual rocket, but reduced the spread greatly, so more rockets can hit the same target and make it go “oh heck it’s noricum!!!” instead of “ba-a-ah, it’s noricum”.

Update: Raijin

It’s like a Fury. But with a shield. And stationary

New effect: +30% damage to each weapon when in Bastion mode

To put it in a simplest way possible, if you install 2 Tridents on your Raijin, these will hit like two and a half Tridents while you’re in Bastion mode. When stationary, damage-wise Raijin becomes close to a fully equipped Fury. With its lower profile and physical shield it would be a worthy trade for temporary inability to move.

Minor tweaks

Zeus, Aphid, Pinata, Spiral, Hydra, Tempest, Magnum: +5% damage on all levels
Tulumbas, Pin, Gekko, Thunder: -5% damage on all levels

Just some run of the mill changes for under- and overperforming weapons. The most notable ones:

Zeus — still wasn’t strong enough after bug fixes.

Aphid, Spiral, Hydra — even with the mental pain they can cause to enemies, they don’t do as much actual damage as required for weapons of their class. We might, however, rethink it later. “The hardest battles are fought in the mind” — as someone witty once said.

Tulumbas, Pin — another nominal cut from mid-range rockets after their 2.9 reign.

Thunder — a slight nerf to account for its now-obtained shield shattering qualities. Also, in Beacon Rush Thunder could be a bit too overwhelming, so here we go.

Bugfixes

Gekko’s beam color now properly changes in accord to its level
Robot detalization is now better on higher distances

Also: UI and controls tweaks

Lock-on button should work properly in all cases now
Faster target switching in basic targeting mode
Movement pad doesn’t get triggered by multitouch anymore
Fixed an issue with a text scaling on certain devices

War Robots 3.1 Update Notes. Dash into the Valley