Warmachine Guide

This guide is focused on the strategy for new players on war machines, since changing the strategy later on gets punished through some mechanics anyway. This WM-guide gets updated with data from a couple of accounts with different setups.
Also the guide will be more focused on PvE than PvP but will have some side notes for PvP.
(Original guide by Yakinthos)

deutsche Version: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2805088027

Hot take on changes of 7.6

The rarity is a pretty important factor, so it looks like a good idea to bring every WM to level 10 at least on old accounts. It's probably even worth to spend tokens to get the tools, since the cost ratio is rather nice. After that you most likely continue with your old strategy and max the rarity on your main WM(s) slowly until you hit max.
For newer accounts I tend to say that Solo-Tank might be the best choice now, at least bring the first WM to level 10 and either the second one too or just wait until you opened enough chests to unlock the tank.

The machines you get

At first you get a damage dealer (aka DD) from a pool of 4 possible machines, on engineer level 2 (your 1st machine reaches level 7) you get another DD from the same pool. At engineer level 5 you get 1 of 3 tank-machines. The next machine arrives at engineer level 10 it is a DD that deals Area of Effect (AoE) damage. The last set machine is a healer-machine on level 15. Any further milestones (engineer level 20, 30 etc.) are random machines from all the machines you didn’t get yet.

Basic strategies

For free to play players there are mostly 3 valid strategies: Solo-DD, Tank & DD, Solo-Tank. With very high activity Tank & DD & Healer is possible as well, but that leaves the personal guild tree pretty blank. Besides I will talk about the possible tactics for players who spend money.

Solo-DD

The basic idea is very simple, you just focus on your first machine and ignore the rest. There always could be discussion if you pick one of the first two machines or definitely focus on the first one. Points spent on other war machines are always a disadvantage later on because they push the engineer level too high. The solo strategies leave the most room for the personal guild tree, since you need the lowest amount of tokens for the same progress in the campaign. Blueprints have to be used for all attributes, with damage as number one priority.
It’s the fastest strategy to reach 155 stars as f2p (8.5 months is definitely possible). And still should be fastest to reach 190 stars (which should be somewhere between level 160 to 165, depending on your artifacts).
If you left all other machines on level 1, you can reach level 130 before getting the 5th machine, that should be 145 stars and transmuting for opal chests as well as the opal chest in the weekly. From there on you save to level 135, if you didn’t spread you etheral shards to wide, you should hit 155 stars with that.
[Due to the new WM artifacts you probably might get lucky and be able to do 155 stars on level 130, if you already got 2 or 3 of them.]
Drawback is that it is pretty weak in PvP because most other setups beat it. Your arena ranking will be pretty much a rollercoaster everyday.

Tank & DD

You take one of your first two machines as a damage dealer and the tank (third machine). The best case is to get Goliath or Fortress. When you get Earthshatter you have to decide whether or not to go with one of the solo strategies, as he is much worse for this strategy.
Blueprints have to be used accordingly to the focus of each machine, HP & armor on the tank while pushing damage on the DD. Just as with the Solo DD strategy, it can be beneficial to take the first machine as the DD no matter what you got.
In the end this strategy will lead to less progress in the guild tree, but this build is more stable in PvP and can beat more setups than the Solo-DD.

Solo-Tank

This may sound a little odd but in the end it works pretty similar to Solo-DD, you just tackle it from the other side. While Solo-DD is all about how long you can survive, you survive very well as Solo-Tank but can end up in round 20 (which equals a loss) because you lack damage. The advantage is that a tank scales better for power requirements, later on you need a certain power to do stages and Solo-Tank fares better in that than a Solo-DD.
Earthshatter isn’t as durable in this strategy as well, but at least his damage is more of use here. Most likely the best strategy if you want to use Earthshatter for some reason.
In PvP this tactic can be a nuisance for some enemies but when attacking it can also lead to many draws. Don’t pick enemies with several high DDs.

Tank & DD & Healer

Only recommended for very active f2p players or players who are willing to spend some money. On f2p you can barely manage to keep up with the material income but you would completely abandon your guild tree. [This might be no longer true once you get to emerald chests, since they significantly boost your income for components.] The healer is the fifth machine you will get. By then you should have made good progress with the heroes. Unless you already have a pool of 12 heroes, you shouldn't be using the healer. Machines without a full crew are much weaker.
Compared to the other strategies the healer barely increases the progress in PvE, but for PvP healers are very useful and this strategy beats non-healer strategies pretty good. Fortress as Tank is best suited for this strategy, as its high base armor blocks most of the incoming damage and any healing it gets is worth more. Earthshatter is even weaker here than in the Tank & DD strategy. Blueprints get spent as follows: Tank HP/Armor, DD and Healer damage. If you have any surplus of blueprints increase the damage of the tank for PvP.

Other strategies

Tank & Double DD: There are two variants, you take the first two DDs or you take the AoE-DD later on, but the AoE doesn’t help too often so probably standard DDs are fine. The idea is to still have a dedicated tank but crash the enemies faster. Resourcewise it’s like the healer strategy but should lead to a little faster progress in campaign and in PvP it’s the nemesis for a Solo-Tank strategy.
5 machines: For newer players there will be a lack of heroes and even later on you will miss a hero in one machine. This strategy is very expensive and doesn’t result in too much campaign progress. Only really feasible for heavy payers. Even in PvP it gets beaten by enough strategies since the individual machines are way lower than in other strategies.
F2P-Arena-build: More of a cheesy strategy for alts on other servers, but it works...but only if you completely starve your ptree, this strategy isn't really combineable with putting tokens elsewhere. Step 1: Go to 28 with your 1st DD, but only put blueprints in damage. Step 2: Don't draw Earthshatterer. Step 3: Go basically solo tank until your Goliath/Fortress reaches level 103. Step 4: Save upgrades towards 125 (if you got some WM artifacts) or 130 (when you want to be save) Step 5: push tank and DD to that level in 1 go and get your 155 stars. Step 6: Now level your 2nd DD until you get components on the other machines again. Step 7: Before you reach engineer level 30 save towards 190 stars.
When you started the server on day 1, this strategy should be enough to get top 14 (obviously after reaching step 5) so you could grap p1 if that server does share & care.
Strategies for payers: (disclaimer: not tested) I would assume that a strategy with 3 or 4 machines should be enough even for bigger payers, rather go for higher machines than for more machines. On one hand the engineer level pushes all machines, but in the end one machine level up equals one engineer level up, so even for a payer it should be more effective to level up not too many machines, rather pay to decrease the time where the main machines don’t get components.

Engineer

It’s a bit counterintuitive but in most strategies you want to have your engineer as low as possible. The reason for that is the way the distribution of materials work. Every time you get a new machine that new one will get most of the materials until you could possibly upgrade the machine to the same level as your other machines. But you can use these breaks to upgrade the personal guild tree. Later on the level of the engineer hinders your progress to new level ups of your machines because more and more machines get components you don’t even use, which means less components per daily cycle for the machines you use. This is the punishing part when you start to change strategies. Every time when a new machine is drawn, some players are tempted to push this machine. After months this only leads faster to the point where the next machine is drawn, it’s a vicious circle.
Sometimes it can be advised to save components for the machine(s) to achieve a milestone in the campaign (primarily new liberation missions) before a new machine arrives.

Personal tree vs War machines

In general the bonuses from the warfront campaign are more cost effective, since you double up gold income and attributes every 5 stars. But you don’t want to ignore the tree entirely since the bonuses are calculated multiplicatively and especially the bonus for battlecry is pushed most effectively when you increase in campaign and tree. In general you will most likely use the breaks after a new machine arrives to get ahead in the tree again. In the solo strategies those will be bigger breaks but less often, because your machine will always be higher already when you hit a new machine compared to people with multiple machines that are raised equally. Now and then you even will be able to do some upgrades parallel to leveling your machine(s), this obviously happens more often the fewer machines you level up.
It’s hard to calculate completely, but our assumptions are that for a long time a tree right above 30 or 40 is definitely enough. From 190 stars on the 50s region and further the tree could be cost-effective enough again to do some progress there. (Because of new missions it could be a little higher than 190).
Practical data: For orientation real data, on high activity you can reach 135 stars on Solo DD while you personal tree hits level 40.

Buying chests at the Exotic merchant

From character level 65 on you can buy chests at the exotic merchant (3rd tab). There is no point in buying any packages below 5000 emblems of valor. Before reaching 100 stars in the campaign ‘only’ golden chests can be bought to provide a good extra income in components and early on help out with the jewels as well, especially because you usually get gold chests there first before getting some in the campaign.
While progressing towards 100 stars some people start to save up emblems to buy a lot of diamond chests once 100 stars are reached. In the end it is a gamble, most people will look at the chance for legendary seals of power, if you hit the ‘right’ seals it is a great benefit, but you also could ‘miss’ a lot. Missing refers to getting a seal for a jewel that isn’t epic yet or for the heroes you don’t use in the crew of your main machines or if just get seals for runes (boosting HP) in a machine focused on damage. I for sure would advise against saving up before hitting 80 stars, since you would hinder your progress too much. It is better to save on a strategy that uses 2+ machines, since you use more heroes and the chance to hit their jewels gets bigger.

Dungeon / Transmuting Jewel chests

You will unlock the first dungeon at 70 stars.You get a new resource (Elixir of life) which you only could use, but shouldn’t, for a very long time. It is used to transmute jewel chests into a better one. The downside is that in the recipes you would use, you give up 2 or 3 chests to get just 1 better chest. You would end up with way less components and also less ethereal shards most likely just to have one higher guaranteed jewel.
So the hard truth is you ‘have’ to stockpile them until you hit a high star count. From patch 7.0 on I would advise to even save them until you can transmute opal to emerald chests, since the increase in ressources for that transmutation is way bigger.

Tavern Cards

Since patch 5.1.1 you also get sacred cards for war machines. You cannot influence which cards you get. This is an additional argument to spend Gems in the tavern. One card-level for a machine has the same value as one level up of the machine itself (5%).

Buying resources for tokens

In the guild shop you can buy jewel chests, blueprints and elixir of life for expedition tokens. Buying elixir of life is pointless when you just stockpile it anyways. The jewel chests aren’t cost effective for f2p players, rather spend the tokens in the tree. As a money spending player it could be useful to get over breaks by buying chests. You should focus on the special offers from the goblin zeppelin which includes jewels chests (depending on your campaign progress, diamond at 100+ stars, 145+ star for opal, 190+ for emerald), this one appears every 7 days. The blueprints can be worth it in some cases since you also get a milestone bonus, but it's a close call if an upgrade in the tree is more cost effective, definitely don’t buy them before you are at 100+ stars. Mostly you would use it to get to a campaign milestone where you miss the power requirement. For paying players it could be a useful option, but again you get some from the offers as well.
Later on you can buy elixir of life to transmute opal to emerald, that's more efficient from cost to components. But still only a thing for accounts hardcore focused on WMs.

Crew

At this topic there are no very simple answers, since your jewel rarity will split up differently, especially once you hit diamond chests and legendary jewels.
For general understanding, every hero boosts the stats of the machine he is sitting in corresponding to the jewels he got equipped. The numeric values can be looked up in the crew bonus tab in the hall of heroes. Besides the effect of the corresponding jewels added up (e.g. for damage you have to add the effect of ankh, talisman and necklace) there is a specialization bonus depending on the hero's specialization. Damage heroes give a bigger damage bonus, healer heroes more HP and tank heroes more armor.
As a rule of thumb in strategies with more than 1 machine you would want to push your strengths. So in DD-machines and healer-machines you want to put your DD-heroes. In Goliath you would want to put healers-heroes 1st (they give HP -> his special gets more value), in Fortress you want to put tank-heroes 1st (his strength is his armor).
In the strategies with only 1 machine you want to work on your weaknesses so in Solo-DD it can be useful to have at least one or two healer heroes in your main machine, as Solo-Tank you will most likely just have damage heroes as crew.
For every crewmember you should focus on upgrading those jewels where you push the blueprints of the machine since everything gets multiplied. For example you play Tank & DD and look at a damage hero in your DD-machine there is not much of a point to upgrade the idol or the trinket since your armor value is low anyway, you only would make the value a little less lower but still low.

Engineer Level 30 / 5th crew slot

If you play a strategy with 2 or 3 main machines, you may reach the point where you wonder if you should push for the last crew slot. Tests show that you can gain about two stars per difficulty (if you aren't at a wall right now). So you should plan it with the next wall ahead in mind. For arena you should fill your big machines and split the rest of the heroes (before the game reaches 25 heroes) evenly across the lower machines.Don't look too hard at the change of arena power, since it's just not a good measuremnt of your real strength in arena.

Saving vs pushing (Solo DD)

When you went through cleanly your DD will be level 72 right before you would unlock the 4th machine. At this point you should have reached 80 stars (if not only a few jewel upgrades should be missing).When you save up for 321 upgrades now, you can instantly push your machine to level 105 and get 110 stars and fill up the new machine afterwards. [WM Artifacts might lower the level you need.]
This will be about 6 weeks faster then just going over the engineer level and do a steady progress.

In theory you should probably save from level 130 to 190 stars if you already were able to do 155 stars because you drew some artifacts that helped your WM stats.

Road to 155 stars and beyond (190 stars nowadays)

As mentioned above the fastest way to 155 stars is a solo level 135 machine. [Or less due to WM artifacts] The solo-DD variant has several milestones were it works out better as solo-Tank especially because of the engineer level. For example as the last step to level 135, when you want to stay on 4 machines, the solo-DD can have the DD on level 130 and the rest on level 1, while the solo-Tank had to put 27 level ups elsewhere, so you basically have to save materials for over 30 level ups.
There are many points where you might have the feeling that you have to push another machine now, but the 2 Tank & DD strategies always close up when you get a new machine but will fall back as well when they hit a new one, which happens more often long-term obviously. I would estimate that Tank & DD is a more than 1 month slower to 155, but at least it can progress after that instantly.

After you hit the daily opal chest you really feel the bigger amount of possible upgrades per day. Strategies with 2 machines can still keep up with the tokens needed but as long as you make campaign progress (e.g. from 155 to 170 stars) you will barely generate enough tokens from your daily expeditions and won’t generate a surplus nearly as fast as before. Strategies with 3 machines will barely fall short of tokens now, if you aren’t investing money.

Patch 7.0 addition: The big goal is 190 stars now of course, the emerald chest is far superior and you daily income does another nice jump.

Additions

This guide was written by Yakinthos and can also be found on Google Docs: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gniqLi6bsL3us2lSY2KghRQ-2beAcHGo3tMpfqxuR-U

Material Calculator and PvE/PvP-Simulator: https://fs.volcanoverse.net/