Guide to Combat Boosts in Mobile Strike

Mobile Strike Boosts – Head to Head Comparison

Tier 1 Boosts:

Tier 2 Boosts:

Enemy Health Debuff

Often nearly as good as Attack Boost, but does nothing at all against very strong opponents (e.g. Zeroing a huge player).

Health Boost

Very good in nearly all scenarios but does very little against very weak opponents.

Tier 3 Boosts:

Defense Debuff

Essentially the opposite of Health Debuff. The very best boost when battling very strong opponents (e.g. Zeroing a huge player) but in most common scenarios it only increases damage by a moderate amount. Great for multi-billion power rally leaders. Not so great for everyone else.

Defense Boost

Better than Health Boost when losses are very low, but it’s effectiveness drops off rapidly as troop losses increase.

Tier 4 Boosts:

Trap Boost

Traps are affected by Troop boosts anyway so there is little need to focus on this. Traps have a big impact on the game for medium power bases, but once you get to millions of troops, 125k traps just don’t have a huge influence.

Siege Boost

As with Trap Boost – once players start getting millions of troops, having a troop specialized in destroying 125k traps just isn’t that useful.

The Results – Time for Some Graphs!

Boosts are very situation dependent so I have tried to cover a variety of common combat scenarios. The main influencing factor is how strong or weak your opponent is relative to you. To keep things as simple as possible, all these battles are Tier 3 Armored Vehicles vs. Tier 3 Armored Vehicles. If you want to know more specifics about the testing approach, see below.

Attack Boosts

This section is looking at the boosts that deal extra damage. It is looking at how many additional kills each boost type gets.

Scenario 1: Rallying a Huge Target

2.375m vs. 25m troops

You: 600% Attack Boost

Opponent: 600% Defense and Health Boost

When fighting a huge opponent health debuff does nothing whereas defense debuff is even better than attack boost. This is true in all scenarios where your opponent has very high defence (through massive troop numbers and/or through huge defence boosts).

Scenario 2: Solo Attacking  a Medium Target

375k vs. 1m Troops

You: Attack: 400%

Opponent: Defense: 200% Health: 200%

Here defense debuff gets much worse. It still does a reasonable amount of extra damage but far less than the other two boosts. Health debuff is nearly as good as troop attack, even overtaking it at higher levels.

Scenario 3: Taking a Hit from a Rally

5m vs 2.375m

You: 600% Attack

Opponent: Defense: 600% Health: 600%

Defense debuff becomes very ineffective in fights that are even or where you are ahead. Again, we see health debuff is very similar to troop attack.

Defensive Boosts

This section looks at how the defensive boosts reduce kills. A number of players had reported seeing positive results by using a mix of defence and health boost so I have also included a 50/50 split of these two boosts.

Scenario 1: Rallying a Large Target

2.375m vs. 10m troops

You: 600% Defense and Health Boost

Opponent: 400% Attack Boost

This shows the power of attack debuff. It blows all other boosts out of the water. We can also see that defense boost does nearly nothing in this scenario. Troop health is somewhere in the middle but still much more effective than defense boost. If you are weak compared to your opponent (either through being outnumbered or out-boosted), defense boost is very ineffective. The 50/50 health defense split is somewhere in the middle but still worse than just focussing on troop health.

Scenario 2: Solo Attacking  a Medium Target

375k vs. 1m Troops

You: Defense: 300% Health: 300%

Opponent: Attack: 250%

Very similar results to the scenario above. You are outnumbered, and even though you have better boosts than your opponent, defense boost is very ineffective. Attack debuff is dominant once again.

Scenario 3: Taking a Hit from a Rally

5m vs 2.375m Troops

You: Defense: 400% Health: 400%

Opponent: 600% Attack

Defense boost is more effective in this scenario but still significantly less effective  than the other boosts.

Scenario 4: Smashing a Weak Opponent

375k vs. 100k Troops

You: 350% Health 350% Defense

Opponent: 150% Attack

As I talked about in a previous article, this is the only scenario where defense boost overtakes health boost. If you are attacking a very weak opponent, defense boost is more effective and can reduce your losses to 0 (health boost can’t). It is worth noting though that losses here are very small regardless at less than 1% of total troops.

Testing Specifics

The results were all produced from the Mobile Strike Battle Calculator  which was created from extensive testing and modelling of the combat algorithm. It is tested working with a high level of accuracy but it comes with the disclaimer that it is not possible to test for every eventuality. In particular it is very difficult to run controlled tests with very large troop numbers and therefore cannot rule out the possibility that Epic War might apply certain nerf/boosts above certain thresholds. Even if this were the case, I would hope it would not significantly impact the conclusions of this test.

To keep things as simple as possible, these results were all conducted with Regular T3 Armored Vehicles vs. Regular T3 Armored Vehicles. In future, I would like to test with a wider range of troops and tiers.

Conclusions

There is a clear hierarchy of boosts. You will probably see the 1 billion+  rally leaders wearing defense debuff gear but this does not mean it is the best gear for you. With a few very specific exceptions the boosts can be divided into tiers:

Tier 1:

Attack

Attack Debuff

Tier 2:

Health

Health Debuff

Tier 3:

Defense

Defense Debuff

As mentioned, it is dependant on the type of combat you engage in, but if you follow these tiers you will be covered for the majority of combat situations. The guide to the Best Combat Gear is a great place to start comparing gear as it is weighted based on these conclusions. And let me know your thoughts in the comments below.