Help me with Canyon!

I would start with the Rhino. Cap the beacons along the way to center beacon via under the bridge. hold Center until you die.

Assess the situation before deploying second bot. If unsure drop the Galahad.

The Rog is ideal for capping the side beacons but are useless if there are snipers and hydras.

I would replace the Fujin but since it is there is is Ok for capping and holding center beacon personally I would prefer a Lance for this job.

I would agree, start with Rhino.  Look at what is on the battlefield, the key is to help out your blues while countering what is on the red side.  

You have a good mix of Plasma and Splash, that is good.
You max range is 350m, that is bad.

I would also agree the 1st bot to change would be the Fujin.  Or at least put some mid-range weapons on it. If you clan alot, that is fine as others will take the mid-range role.  If you run solo alot, you are missing a key part of balanced hangar with out any mid-range bot.  If you are concerned about speed, run a Zeus or Trident Carnage.  I have Tridents and swap my Carnage & Fury around for variety.  I just scored my new high damage, 970k up to 1.152M - I was running the Carnage, go figure....

Also, to be effective you must look for your opportunities to strike.  You must effectively use cover to get in position.  I have started going around the outside to flank reds and it has been vary effective!

Lacking any midrange builds makes Canyon and Yam tough maps for you. Your instinct is to take center, but once there, you will get pounded by enemy midrange.

With this hangar, my advice is to avoid the initial rush, and guard your own home beacons, while looking for an open time to flank and grab the enemy home beacon. If the reds have several midrangers pounding center, your best bet is to take cover 275m behind center out of their range, and guard your blue midrangers, and pound the red knifers as they over extend and push towards you. Your Rogata can make a run at a single Trident Fury, but everything else you have there will not last if you try to charge after Trident launchers.

Use hydras and molots for Canyon

I have similar problems with canyon and use an all knifer / runner hangar. Every other map has better options.

I have 2 gals, a gary, a stuka griff and an orkan ancillot.

1 gal always first. Take whichever side beacon is closest to where I spawn then depending on the situation try to take the closest red side beacon. This depends on the your team and the red team.

Centre is too contested often to even attempt.

I try to save the ancillot for a late centre beacon run because it is the one bot that can survive some hits from all the mid / long range.
Gary tries to make late red beacon runs.

This map plays pretty similar to Yamantau I feel. A lot of it is reading the situation, kinda like what a point guard does on the fly. Like others said, scout before the game starts. Check for long range, Tridents, Zeuses, Gekkos, Trebs, etc. When going for the home beacons if you do, watch out for any dangers. Sometimes, you may have to back off and leave a home beacon and let another teammate get it. If I"m in my Carnage, then I'm not gonna suicide myself if I see Butch Treb looking at me. First priority is defending your 2 home beacons. The more exposed home beacon can get charged, so be ready to defend it at the beginning of the match. If you or your teamates don't pay attention to enemy movements (and bots/weapons will tell you too), then you can easily be down 1-4 beacons. You need to let your squad know if you see them charging for it, like 3 Lancelots/Galahads coming for it. You can basically sit back and focus on this priority (defending the 2 home beacons) and it'll work pretty good.

2nd goal is to grab a third beacon. This can be centre beacon or one of their home beacons. It all depends on where their troops are, and if they are busy, well defended, etc. If you see center open after a fierce battle and you are the last man standing near center, then go for that beacon if they don't have any Furys looking at you. If they are pushing center and your right flank hard, then go left and get that beacon if you're in position and have something like a Galahad or Ancilot. If they pushed hard and set up shop near center so there is no way you can get centre or their forward home beacon, then their beacon in the back is prolly defenseless, so something fast like a Stalker, Gareth, etc. can go and try to grab it.

This map is the Galahad playground, so I always do well in that bot. I use the principles of flanking and divide-and-conquer. If your Fujin has the higher ground, and a red is parked on centre beacon, you can chew through even something like a Galahad or Lancelot. You can flank with any bot, but something powerful like a plasma Griffin, Fujin, or Rhino will do so much damage to their exposed sides. Something mobile like a Galahad, I will make sure only one red can hit me so lots of times I will back pedal or run sideways to target. Then either take out one target at a time while remaining safe for yourself, aka divide-and-conquer. Corner shoot if you can, or try to reposition yourself to hit at a shield bot's flank. There are literally no obstacles to get in the way of Galahad. If you are on the river bed, then stay to the left of center beacon and use that hill to corner shoot them, whether they are in the middle or on higher ground approaching from the left. If you are on the mid ground just above the river bed, then stay right of center beacon and use that hill as cover, plus the ground as cover if they are below you.

I'll usually use one of those 2 hills and play around there, either the right or left hill. If you're on the right hill, you can move up the hill to get them from the other side down below. Also, then I might barely get on the bridge, and either corner shoot them down below, or shoot them if they are on the other side of that bridge and they are coming from mid-ground. Those are the basic plays I run since most of the action is near center beacon, but you can definitely flank them and go around the long way to the left or right. Either to take out a Fury or Carnage, or to try and take one of their home beacons, or to cause a distraction. The purpose of a distraction is to relieve pressure on your teammates, esp. on centre beacon so hopefully they can grab centre beacon. On something like Yamantau, this is deadlier esp. at the end of a game if you can pull 2 reds towards you, and you lead them on a wild goose chase, and can get a Lancelot to come for you too. I've had reds fall for it, and my purpose was never to get their beacon.

There's a million other things I can add, but hopefully this is basic enough to start you on the right path and you can figure out more details and bot specific things on your own.

Have you ever considered a long range support Bot?

triple gekko treb Leo?

It would make you see the map differently....

I would save the Rhino around mid game when teamates start pushing middle beacon with Lancelots. If you start with it, your basically making an immediate sacrifice. I would rather make the sacrifice with it later because its your only tank bot. Optimal situation would be to assault with other brutes around you and bring the heat on the reds.

I would start with Galahad. The shield would protect you from Zeus and treb bots while you get side beacons. Then I would start to scout middle beacon, only grabbing it if it's safe. If I can't, I'm looking to supress fire enemy trying to get it. Once cleared, I would grab it.

Second bot would be either Rogatka or the other Galahad. Rogatka would be best, but if there's a lot of plasma, I'd be forced to use Galahad. The one between these two that I don't choose, will likely be my closer.

Third bot would be Fujin, which should be limited to middle beacon duty only. Then Rhino at 4th.

Obviously, Id adjust as needed.

Honestly you should get a Lancelot to close the game.

...and give him a robot that is essentially only usable on 3 out of 7 maps (soon 3 out of 8), and costs a chunk of gold to add insult to injury.

That hangar is fine on all maps except Canyon. On Yama, use the cover of the large bridge (stay below the bridge of course). On Springfield, you can rock the building part of the map where you have cover. On Canyon, well, yes, Canyon is tough without any midrange. A lot has been said already - all those robots are vulnerable against Tridents, but as Canyon is also Sniper heaven, I'd always use the Galahads and the Rhinos before going to the Fujin and Rog. Most players with sniper setups drop the snipers first, so if you have to go to your 4th or 5th robot, the Treb/Gekko snipers will hopefully be gone by then.

I'd generally suggest to leave the middle alone in Canyon unless it is obvious that you'll lose if you don't get it immediately. Snipers and midrange robots tend to go always to "their" side of the ravine and they will try to own the middle. Therefore going to the middle means instant death unless those campers are defeated. If you're behind on beacons, it's usually easier to attack the B/D beacons where those campers won't be able to get you as easily. And with some luck you can stick to the perimeter and see if you can flank the campers, getting within range of your Plasma weapons. (Of course, if you manage to turn the B/D beacon, it's quite possible that the reds focus on getting the beacon back, giving you or your teammates a chance to take center.)

Like I mentioned earlier in the thread, I have a Gekko Leo (and am a huge fan), but it doesn't rock on Canyon so much... I'll be upgrading the Doc I won soon enough, to run with quad-tulumbas.  Should be loads of fun.  


The reason I posted my hangar but didn't mention anything about swapping bots is because I was looking for advice on tactics.  If I were to build a hangar specifically for Canyon it would obviously look quite different, but what I want from myself is to be good on any map with any hangar.  (That statement had to be taken in it's generality, not it's extremes).

I'm gonna jump in here and say that this tread is full of great advice and tactics.  Thank's everyone!


With regards to the Fujin. (lol)  I think that the Fujin is, all things considered, not a very good bot.  However, I think that it carries an unfairly harsh stigma.  I'm trying to find a way to say this without sounding arrogant (and am not coming up with anything) so I'm just gonna say it, so please don't take it like I'm condescending because I really truly am not. 
I think the Fujin takes a lot of skill to use, and requires unselfish team play.  Additionally, it has a steeper learning curve than might be obviously apparent.  Those things, combined with the obvious flaws in it's design and implementation have, in my opinion, caused a lot of people to run it for a bit (if they ever even got it) and then discard it as junk.  Some people perhaps were not willing to play a bot that requires a lot of skill, some don't like being unselfish team players, to some it simply never appealed, others are highly competitive (like superhero said) and wanted only the best of the best (and so they have 5 Lances, lol (I kid)), and still others simply had/have other goals that are more important.  This whole scenario has, to me, become readily apparent with the advent of the Dash bots: "three medium hardpoints! that's 200k dmg every ten seconds!!"  You know there's already a bot that does that, right?  (I know the Dash bots are way better, that's not my point).  My point in all this is to say that I think we've created ourselves a very powerful confirmation-bias feedback loop, so that now Fujins are now so universally derided even by people who have never run them or given them a chance!  
Aside: I'm not insinuating that anyone who posted in this thread is one of those people, necessarily.  (and you all were generally accepting of "I'm keeping the Fujin", "Ok.")
I've seen plenty of times where someone who has 40 wins or something is given advice (that fits the standard model) well beyond their level and experience.  That, serving as an example of how this community shares the blame with Pix for entrenching the meta by not giving any credit to any build that breaks the mold.

Wow... I've gotten quite off topic.  That's all.  Rant over.  Again, I don't mean to be condescending in this.

Anyways, thanks for all the strategies!

My advice was general, and wasn't really tailored for your hanger, except for the fact that it consisted of 5 knife-fighters. I ran my Fujin last night and dropped on Canyon. Did pretty well in that bot in Expert iOS. Stay on the high ground, and near cover. Use the range of its Tarans and the firepower of 3 medium slots to take down bots that get too close but are not aware of you yet. Near centre beacon is pretty chaotic so there is usually a Griffin or Rogatka that is approaching centre or going for your side beacon skipping across the map that you can tag. Remember, try to divide-and-conquer even with the Fujin and stay far away from all bots except one. If you are helping a teammate, try to take up a flanking position even if it's not a shield bot. So that they don't see you and see how badly they are being beaten by your 3 Tarans, and so that they don't retaliate if they have plasma. You don't have to totally flank them, even a small angle of 30 degrees is  better than being right in front of them. Then when the plasma Lancelots came, I got on top of the left hill. (It'll depend on which spawn you get). The Fujin is very nimble so you can either pop in-and-out of cover to shoot, or corner shoot. If you stay behind cover and count to 3 or wait for them to engage and fire at another blue, then pop back out and unload on them. They will have to switch targets, or may ignore you. Then I got up on top of the hill when the Lancelot was getting real close to our spawn, and I actually got behind him while on top of the hill, and still remaining safe for myself. Like I said, you should attack Lancelots from high ground, but this time he got cocky, and showed his back to me too. Even though he was prolly less than 50m from me, it's like a 2 year old and when you're out of his sight, he forgets about you. 

There's a lot more strategy/ tactics if you're hiding under centre beacon too, that I neglected to mention. As you can see, there is literally so many things that even if I told you every single one I could think of, you still need to play and practice it for yourself. Try to learn one new thing or new bot at a time. Before you know it, there'll be like 100 different plays in your playbook. I have never listed out my plays like this, but I just have a split second to decide which one I'm gonna run. Sometimes I come up with a new one too. A lot of times when I'm in these situations, there's some goto plays I have in my head immediately kinda like the way a QB or point guard needs to read the defense. Everyone is gonna be different so you can have your own preferences and playstyle. 

Use the cover on the outer edges to give the reds two angles to worry about