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Panky's builder guide

Discussion in 'Builder' started by PUNK123, Jun 20, 2016.

  1. PUNK123

    PUNK123 Hella wRangler Staff Alumni Tester

    Messages:
    1,275
    Movement
    The builder is the slowest class in the game but has its own way of getting around. First, the builder can jump 3 blocks high and wallrun after that(knights can slash jump over four blocks and wallrun the fifth or sixth(because the character is two blocks tall)). Second, the builder can use blocks to scale enemy buildings by placing blocks directly below themselves.
    ex:
    [​IMG]
    This is quicker than laddering and it messes up the front of their tower(now your teammates can scale behind you).
    Doors
    Doors are a very valuable but weak block. Bomb arrows completely disintegrate them(when they are behind solid blocks) and people can be killed inside them. There is this strongly held belief that ground doors are bad, but it honestly depends. Yes, in public servers you are only as good as your team but ground doors are by far the easiest way to travel and defend. The downsides are obvious because enemies can follow you in or *place* a body in your doors(though this strategy is barely used). The other option is to place your doors 3-4 blocks up and that has some advantage like you can wallrun through the bottom three blocks and get a step in on the doors and then wallrun up the rest(no i dont mean walk in and stop your wallrun you just hold up and take a slight step like classic notching). This has the advantage of a well defended entrance/exit but it gives the enemy the control in a fight(they can camp slash your butt). There also used to be a pub meta where players would used a door-platform design to make their entire front tower(for this example i added in the repairable wall because it looks cool)
    ex:
    [​IMG]
    Other door tricks include placing doors on the side of a platform and using that as a more defendable entrance. This works really well a the top of bases because it allows you a quick team only path through platforms. This specific design i first saw used by @franek123 and it looks like this:
    [​IMG]
    again the weaknesses of this is that it is 1 layer, but the benefits are that it is easy to spikedrop from, gives you some protection from bombjumpers, and is a pretty cheap structure(note the builder is standing in the door that you use to go around the platforms). It is basically a windmill of movement for your team.
    Platforms

    The platform is probably the weirdest block in kag. No players can pick up items that are inside platforms and builders cannot place blocks when they are inside platforms. Another weird thing involving them is that a builder sitting inside them does not take damage from a knight's bomb.
    Saws
    Saws can be purchased at the builder shop and can only be picked up when your player is underneath the saw(like a block below not crouching). This means that your treefarms at the very least need doors at the bottom.
    ex:
    [​IMG]
    notice that the treefarm is 3 blocks high because ,from my experience, the trees dont "miss the holes" when the farm is built this way. Another thing people do that i dont agree with is using platforms to lock up treefarms(because you cant manually pick up items inside platforms), but for knowledge sakes i will show you what it is:
    [​IMG]
    Finally there is another tip i can offer, if you dont like picking up the saw, and accidentally grabbing the seeds, then you can either put the trees one block deeper than the saw or do this:
    [​IMG] [​IMG]
    Pick up the saw, mine the trees, then throw the saws at the logs to get the wood. This might take alittle longer but accidentally picking up the seeds will take up more time.





    Base Design

    The general rule is to make sure that your base helps your teammate but hinders your enemy; however, this does not mean that you make traps behind the flagroom(infact you should never make traps because trapblocks and saws are either weak or too powerful for the enemy). Behind the flagroom is usually where you will have your base's shops and those need to be defended(though some like the inn are not as valuable and not high priority). In front of those shops is the team's side of the flagroom that you can make several different ways. I dont recommend more than two layers because if the enemy is on your side why does it matter how many layers your flagcase has you should kill them or lose at that point. Ways to get over the flagroom, on your side, range from making a two block thick corridor upwards, using a trapblock, or(stupidly) using a singular ladder. I do not do any of these because i find the trapblock wasteful(and awkward), the corridor gives the enemy the advantage, and the ladder slows down movement. I usually lay a layer of wooden doors across our side so our team can wallrun up and stop on a solid door(works better with platforms so you wallrun that instead of opening all the doors and knocking down teammates). Then comes the top of your team's side of the flagroom which can be empty or you can have a stone overhang with two of your doors as an entrance/exit access.

    [​IMG]
    I dont recommend this because it can be turned against you if a builder gets atop your flagroom and covers up the doors. Some players utilize a platform overhang that allows your team to go up and also gives you defensive power if your team loses the top of the flagroom. I personally use this along with a slight alteration(i use doors at the end of the platforms to get back down quickly)
    [​IMG]
    This doubles as the top of my flagroom which depending on the player can be built a ton of different ways. Some have platforms facing up or down to stop tunnelers, while i have mine up with no blocks ontop for our team to have more control and defensive power. It also will not burn because of the stone backwall. Other variations of this design include but is not limited to
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    Furthermore, your team needs to be able to get back into your base to heal, purchase ammo, or capture the flag. This can be a problem because your flagroom is 5 blocks high and needs to be covered in layers(builders will have an issue getting up without help), so you can add team only movement to get in. Though i dont approve some people use trapblocks for scaling, the only beneficial one i see utilized is this:
    .
    [​IMG]
    Alternatively you can have doors in the front of your flagroom but that is not recommended in a pub situation because there are always new players on the server.

    Walls
    Walls are the meat of your building. They are how you gain map control and keep it. There are all different kinds of walls made in kag and i will just cover some basic designs and old ones that arent used in pubs as often. I will start out with the meta that i find most useful in a pub environment:the false wall. @BC utilizes wooden blocks and stone backwall to make large unstoppable structures and hold off hordes of the enemy. The advantages of his walls are that they take up space so they are strong against kegs, yet, they are weak against bomb-mining and take up alot of space.
    ex:
    [​IMG]
    Then there is the meta against tunnelers, which is alternating platform and stone. The advantage of this base is that it counters bomb mining and tunneling but it is very weak against bomb arrow spam and siege.
    ex:
    [​IMG]

    The final meta i will cover is a 1 block platform wide front wall used atop your base. The platforms allow your team to camp behind them and attack through our behind them. The downsides include that the wall is only 1 block thick and that knights do not slide off platforms so they cant re-bomb jump while holding onto your wall.

    Supplies

    For starters, a builder needs materials to contribute like a car needs gas to run. This means in order to be successful at the class you need to have good resource management and realize all the tidbits of the game. Furthermore, the builder cannot run only on resupplies if they want to be dominant, and that means you have to mine. I know i know all the mechanics of the builder make it seem the other way but really you should mine. One way to do it in build time is to use all of your wood and then mine stone and put it into your "hands" so you can snag the extra 100 stone plus the stone you mined. This does not mean that resupplies arent important, in fact they are vital, but i will talk about those later.
    Now comes resource management, wood is your friend but it can stab you in the back. Make sure to have wood breaks or to have your non-solid blocks plastered with stone backwall to save your tail from a scummy archer. Non-solid blocks made out of wood(the platform and the door) will still spread fire with stone backwall but will not plague your entire base. Another thing about resource management is that you have to decide how you actually want to divide your resources, will you make your blocks out of stone and backwalls out of wood or vice verse? The upside to making your blocks out of stone is that nothing can be set on fire from the front of your base and stone is ultimately stronger than wood. The downside is how much stone you will need and that you cant attach anything wood because of the wooden backwall. The option of making your blocks out of wood is good because wood is abundant, convertable, and is given larger from the resupplies. The downsides include being damages by slashes and being very susceptable to slashes. I find the most viable option is a mixture of mainly wood walls, all stone backwall, and afew stone blocks to provide fire breaks.

    Forward Tower

    The forward tower is what you build to stop the enemy's rush and is your first attempt to gain control of the map.There are very few original tower designs and i will try to cover them all. The first is a meta by @makmoud98 called the toothbrush. It involves a short tower made out of wood and wood spikes that stop the enemy's rush by not allowing them to wallrun. It looks like this:

    [​IMG]
    A downside to this is that is flammable, expensive, and does not work well when teammates try to retreat. The flammable part can be countered by a smart builder(see meta tools) The second tower i will talk about is the repairable module originally utilized by @Strathos in classic that still has a use in beta. The tower can be repaired through doors and works very well against bomb arrow spam, bomb spam, ballista fire, catapult rain, and any other explosives. The design looks like this:
    [​IMG]
    and its weaknesses are glaring: does not work well against tunnelers, can only be a 3 block thick wall, needs to be babysat to be useful. The third design is the basic wall used to impede the enemy's push and work as a starter for future things. This tower can be made out of wood or stone and looks as follows:
    [​IMG]
    and needs to be 7 blocks high with a atleast a single block forward to stop a knight's wallrun. The downside to this build is that your team cannot get back but you can add doors to the bottom and break the bottom front 2 blocks to make a ground level entrance.

    ==Meta tools==
    A builder can convert burning blocks before the fire damages them or before it spreads.
    ex:
    [​IMG]
    Another tool the builder had is its bullcrap targeting that you can use to your advantage. The builder can destroy shops through a "corner" like this:
    [​IMG]
    or they can destroy flesh through a corner made out of doors(does not have to be your team's doors). Another tool a builder can utilize is collapses.
    Collapses
    The spike is powerful for destroying flesh, while solid blocks are powerful for destroying structures(shops, ballistas, catapults, ect) and non-solid blocks. The spike can be placed onto a non-solid block and will collapse(like if a door were placed on a non-solid block it would eventually fall). Solid blocks need to be placed onto any block and then need to be released by collapsing the piece that holds it up(usually best to use wood backwall). Another thing to keep in mind is that solid blocks break other blocks when they fall but do not damage other solid blocks very well. The only really useful use for collapsing solid blocks is to drop them over non-solid blocks because they break easier. I'm not sure what happens when you collapse solid blocks over a de-activated trapblock or open'd door but if you drop a spike through those things it will past(won't break on impact).
    solid blocks: Stone Block, Wooden Block

    Non-solid blocks: platform, trapblock, wooden door, stone door, ladder.


    -this is semi-old ill add to it if i ever gain some initiative
     
    Last edited: Jul 20, 2016
  2. Colargolator

    Colargolator Horde Gibber
    1. KAG Competitive League

    Messages:
    155
    Builders have a slightly superior running speed than knights
     
  3. PUNK123

    PUNK123 Hella wRangler Staff Alumni Tester

    Messages:
    1,275
    Probably. Just my leftover memory from pre-build 1180 where people whined about builder speed(before all the nerfs tho im not 100% speed nerf). Point still stands though what with shield sliding being fast as hell. I dont think a strolling archer is too quick and that's you almost never see them walk(they do the grapple movement). But i get the point :)
     
  4. an_obamanation

    an_obamanation The boss Donator

    Messages:
    392
    Ground doors can be good, but when they're bad, they can be the difference between victory and defeat.

    Because of this, i've adopted a new way of making ground doors that solves every problem that a ground door presents...with a price. The price in question is that it makes mobility slightly more sluggish and can be awkward to navigate if you're not used to the design. The plus side however is that this design completely negates door fighting, allowing you to door fight to your hearts content without having to worry about dying inside your doorways, plus it's more resistant to bomb arrows than your average door setup.

    [​IMG]

    Getting out of this design is just as quick as having a front door, and it allows you to go back through as well as negating the flaws of door fighting. The cons with this one though is that it requires a large sum of wood, 630 wood would be required for all 19 doors and 4 platforms. However you can reduce the amount of doors if resources are scarce or make this design which is my favorite.

    [​IMG]

    Requires half the wood and possibly less if you replaced the door ladder with a regular ladder and decided to remove the archer platforms/make them smaller. (Currently they're 3 blocks high) It's about half as resistant to bomb arrows as it's box counterpart but hey, it also cost less than half the resources that the box one cost, so it works out in the end.
    Personally I think both of these designs are better than that boring one way door platform stuff
    [​IMG]

    That costs pretty much the same amount of mats but has less uses than if you just made doors where there were blocks so your team can get back. What if I wanted to break that tree on the left and bring the sapling back? Outta luck. And it's not even as strong against bomb arrows either.


    That's my little thing for ground doors at any rate, mainly a prototype idea though. I keep experimenting with it to try and get the best result possible and to find the best situations to use it in. I've made it as a front door for flag rooms mainly but if you're playing in pub matches someone will mess it up while they're trying to help, otherwise it's hard to thicken the walls as people keep spamming blocks making it difficult, this little door usually works out well in the end though, unless you've got an enemy knight right on your ass in which case you're screwed 25252525
     
  5. PUNK123

    PUNK123 Hella wRangler Staff Alumni Tester

    Messages:
    1,275
    where do i start. Making something like this completely sets the front of whatever you are building(meaning expanding it will be a pain). Then there is the fact that the best way to avoid door camping knights(as a builder) is to just have an upward area to crawl into and camp/ repair. The cumbersome part really becomes an issue when you are in clutchmode and you need to move around/ defend well or quickly. also it isnt any less explosive proof(except maybe the first hit and only because it wouldnt rekt all the doors because someone was standing in them). Finally the upkeep from slashes, troll builder blocking, ect doesnt make it a truly good strategy imho. But you have fun with it :)