What tactics do I add to raids? A helpful explanation

I’ll keep this simple, feel free to read the tactics theorcraft if you want to know more: http://www.legacyofathousandsuns.com/forum/showthread.php?1589-Tactics-theorycraft

There are actually rather few tactics that you should use, the free ones are:
Suppressive Fire (SF)
Esprit de Corps (EdC)
Flank Attack (FA)
Preparation (Prep)
and Asymmetric Warfare (AW)

Virtually all other free tactics are basically useless and should not be played, with a few exceptions.

Let’s start with Asymmetric Warfare, if it’s a 10 man raid or Luna (i.e. a raid with 2 tactic slots) you should play Asymmetric Warfare, thats all there is to it. Keep in mind that Asymmetric Warfare ONLY works on the Murderer personal raid, and 10 man raids, never play it on any other raid.

As a second tactic, I would suggest Better to Receive, discussed below. For higher damage you can place What Ya Gonna Do, if you can get it, Killing Field if you can’t.

As far as larger raids are concerned, you should play the other 4 tactics preferably in this order listed: SF, EdC, FA, Prep. If FA is already played, play EdC before playing SF. These 4 tactics help each other and are known as the EdC chain. This combination is the best in the game. If you do not have these tactics do not play anything. Something is not better than nothing in this case, all you are doing is taking up a tactic slot that could have been used for something good.

The other tactic I would like to talk about is Pursuit of Excellence, or PoE. As a general rule, don’t play it. It doesn’t work if your LSI (shown on your profile page) is above 6.5, and a majority of the players are over 6.5, so it is useless to most people. Most importantly, do not put Pursuit of Excellence on another player’s raid unless they specifically ask you to. If you are low LSI and want to level faster, go ahead and put it on your own raid, but you should take it off as soon as you are done hitting it. Space Raiders is something else you should treat like PoE, do not add it to other people’s raids, and remove it when you are done hitting it if you added it to your own raid.

If you have any doubt about playing a tactic, do not play anything at all. Ask someone else to add tactics instead.

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There are also good tactics among the expedition packs, the first and foremost being Better to Receive (BtR) which gives each person attacking the raid an extra epic drop. In theory, this should be played at the end of almost every raid just before it dies, but in practice that is too much effort for most people as it involves tracking your raid and being on at the correct time. Not to mention finding someone that has it right when you need to play it.

The exception to using BtR on all raids are special raids that don’t follow the normal drop rates, mainly Pox and Wahsh.

There are also 2 other good tactics from expedition packs, Take a Chance (TaC) and What Ya Gonna Do (WYGD). WYGD is good because it provides the best boost that works on all raids for a single tactic slot. This should be played after the EdC chain on a raid with 5 tactic slots. TaC is good because not only does it periodically increase damage, it’s the only way someone with over 6.5 LSI can increase the amount of xp they get. This should be played after WYGD on raids with 6 tactic slots, or possibly after EdC chain on raids with 5 tactic slots.

Other notable expedition tactics include Final Assault, Rousing Speech, and Master Wu’s Gambit, but you won’t encounter those as often. The most important thing about these is that they should not going on raids with a low fs (void, telemachus, carnifex, etc), as they cause people to overhit and do more damage, meaning fewer people can hit the raids and get loot.

great post dub

Dub’s dumbs versions:
Special Raids:
Murderer:AW
Pox: AW & Purge (Ideally TaC or Wygd are much better than Purge) BTR is useless
ALL other 2 slots including Luna: AW & TaC or BTR
Genesis: Secret Weapon (useless on any other raid) +…

General rule always Apply in this order depending on the number of slots:
SF EDC FA Prep

Then Apply if you have:
Wygd or RS_&_FiA or Wu

Always leave the last slot free to apply:
BTR (+1 orange loot) or TaC (Bonus damage/XP/Credit)

I was originally going to go for something as simple as that, but the more I thought about it, and experienced it, the more I wanted to stress the point about not applying PoE or SR to raids. Maybe add a little bit of stress to the fact that AW only works on small and personal raids. Also, I wanted to stop people from having the incorrect idea that “something is better than nothing” when it came to applying tactics. Finally, in most situations, WYGD is preferable to Wu or RS/FiA in that it yields steady gains, and cuts down on the possibility of massively overhitting a raid.

I would add (near where you posted “If you have any doubt about playing a tactic…”) That players should look at the raid chat before adding tactics because the owner may have requested certain tactics there (Such as “BTR only”).

Also, my understanding was that AW worked with Luna. if it does you should add that exception to your first bolded section.

Awesome guide dubloe, I hope this results in correct tactics on many more raids.

AW seems to work with every raid that has up to two tac slots. It’s definitely proved for Luna.

BW now correctly gets the organic humanoid bonus damage on the Temple raid, which makes it a better choice than wygd, if you can deal with the low proc rates and huge overhits it can give

It would be really nice if one of the mods who visit this forum would sticky this post (HINT HINT HINT) so that the newer players would be more inclined to at least peruse it.

Originally posted by Krrak:

It would be really nice if one of the mods who visit this forum would sticky this post (HINT HINT HINT) so that the newer players would be more inclined to at least peruse it.

agreed, this is a really useful guide, thanks!

A friendly bump for newer players :)

This needs to be bumped again, and if OP or some other more knowledgable soul than I could update this with the new tactics since June that would be great.

Now quiskan Psi-hound has a tactic, use it!

This is pretty much just a bump

Okay, I’ve been away for a while due to some long ass work hours, so I haven’t been keeping up on new tactics. Is there anything that needs to be added?

this needs to be stickied!

Originally posted by MeanGun:

this needs to be stickied!

Or just be bumped continuosly.

Did anyone trie to keep his LSI just below 6.5 and cast-remove PoE on any raid he hits?

Originally posted by Goontra:

Did anyone trie to keep his LSI just below 6.5 and cast-remove PoE on any raid he hits?

I did for a while, it wasn’t worth it. Also, you wouldn’t be able to remove it, even if you placed it.

Originally posted by dubloe7:

As far as larger raids are concerned, you should play the other 4 tactics preferably in this order listed: SF, EdC, FA, Prep. If FA is already played, play EdC before playing SF.

Why does the order for SF, EdC, FA, Prep matter?

Originally posted by Jade_:

Originally posted by dubloe7:

As far as larger raids are concerned, you should play the other 4 tactics preferably in this order listed: SF, EdC, FA, Prep. If FA is already played, play EdC before playing SF.

Why does the order for SF, EdC, FA, Prep matter?

Because EDC gives a bigger bonus for SF than for FA and Prep gives a smaller bonus to SF and FA than EDC.

Originally posted by MeanGun:

Originally posted by Jade_:

Originally posted by dubloe7:

As far as larger raids are concerned, you should play the other 4 tactics preferably in this order listed: SF, EdC, FA, Prep. If FA is already played, play EdC before playing SF.

Why does the order for SF, EdC, FA, Prep matter?

Because EDC gives a bigger bonus for SF than for FA and Prep gives a smaller bonus to SF and FA than EDC.

So new tactics only affect those immediately before them?

Originally posted by Jade_:

Originally posted by MeanGun:

Originally posted by Jade_:

Originally posted by dubloe7:

As far as larger raids are concerned, you should play the other 4 tactics preferably in this order listed: SF, EdC, FA, Prep. If FA is already played, play EdC before playing SF.

Why does the order for SF, EdC, FA, Prep matter?

Because EDC gives a bigger bonus for SF than for FA and Prep gives a smaller bonus to SF and FA than EDC.

So new tactics only affect those immediately before them?

No, that doesnt matter at all. Its just the most efficient way to put up tacs. You start with EDC/SF then add FA and then Prep. Reason for this is that there is always somebody who puts a crap tac on a 4 tactics raid and thus breaks the EDC chain. If you get EDC/SF/FA up before that happens, you still get a good damage bonus. If you put up Prep/EDC/FA and somebody puts up Space Raiders in the 4th spot, your damage bonus is much reduced.

EDC chain gets used for raids with 3+ tac slots. The 3 tacs being EDC/SF/FA + Prep if 4+ tac slots. We dont use EDC chain for 2 tac raids anymore since we have Asymmetric Warfare now (free tac from Colossa) (Second tac should be BTR). 1 tac slot raids also use AW.

Ok got it thanks for explaining :)

There’s a new generation in the forums now: http://www.legacyofathousandsuns.com/forum/showthread.php?10329-Tactic-Theorycraft(Second-Generation)

I think people should be less stingy about tactics, but ah well…good guide anyway.

Originally posted by dubloe7:

The other tactic I would like to talk about is Pursuit of Excellence, or PoE. As a general rule, don’t play it. It doesn’t work if your LSI (shown on your profile page) is above 6.5, and a majority of the players are over 6.5, so it is useless to most people.

Any proof or evidence for this lack of statistic? Or is this an assumption?