Definitive Bot Land Beta tier list

Martin Giger

Bot Land is a browser-based game that is still in development. You can learn more at https://bot.land. I streamed creating this tier list. You can watch the VOD of it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/F-PUJEErrQA

Attack/Offense

Vanilla Lasers

Pros

  • Blind fire

Cons

  • Countered by reflect
  • Not a good secondary weapon

Attacking

Any defense that doesn’t reflect they’re great against.

Defending

Fine, very easily countered though.

Missiles

Pros

  • Fire in every direction

Cons

  • Countered by reflect
  • Don’t do enough damage

Attacking

Ok, not great. Vulnerable to weapons with a bigger range, and vulnerable to weapons with a smaller range.

Defending

Good at being a secondary weapon on Artillery bots, for example.

Artillery

Pros

  • Biggest range
  • Lots of damage
  • They splash damage adjacent tiles
  • They don’t care about reflect

Cons

  • Travel time
  • Countered by teleport, melee

Attacking

Great against defenses that don’t move much.

Defending

Ok choice for defense, but not great against many attack patterns. You will need some other bots that “pin” the attackers, so you can hit them with artillery. Usually a secondary weapon vastly increases the effectiveness of artillery bots. I’d recommend zappers or missiles as secondary weapon.

Zapper

Pros

  • Works while you’re using another weapon
  • Hits cloaked targets (since it’s untargeted)

Cons

  • Has to be used at short range

Attacking

Must have for melee bots, since it’s free extra damage.

Defending

Ok if you like the attacker to be close to you (which you shouldn’t like), and thus not too great because they take a slot that you could use for support hardware.

Melee

Pros

  • Deals good damage
  • Good counter to most ranged damage if you can get close

Cons

  • Bot has to get close to enemies
  • Weak against artillery/other ranged damage
  • Countered by bigger range (artillery etc)

Attacking

Great against most defenses. Works well with zappers, doesn’t need any other weapons. Gets even better if you move faster (teleport, thrusters)

Defending

Again, ok if you like the attacker to be close to you (see zappers, which are better at that)

Landmines

Pros

  • Explode enemies, I guess…

Cons

  • Enemies have to step on them
  • Needs good scripts

Attacking

Very, very niche. But can be ok.

Defending

Weak, really hard to use effectively.

Inferno Lasers

Pros

  • They burn things
  • Easier to use than normal lasers
  • Keep dealing damage to cloaked enemies/de-cloak enemies

Cons

  • They don’t deal as much hit damage
  • Countered by reflect

Attacking

Have edge cases where they are better than normal lasers, in general they are about the same though. Maybe a bit easier to use.

Defending

Similar to lasers. Not really better or worse.

Inferno Zappers

Pros

  • They still zap
  • Do fire damage (de-cloak, enemy can move out of range)

Cons

  • Deal less initial damage
  • DoT on zapper is less valuable
  • Reflect

Attacking

Ok. Great with melee attack bots

Defending

Like normal zappers, not that great. But better against some attack strategies as a close quarters weapon, since you keep dealing damage to enemies that retreat from directly attacking you.

Stunning Lasers

Pros

  • Unique effect of stunning.

Cons

  • Requires a strategy tailored to them, due to reduced damage
  • Countered by reflect

Attacking

Hard to use for attacks, require other damage sources to work.

Defending

Good for ranged defenses (which is really the only good kind of defense), even when they just hit random targets.

Vampiric Lasers

Pros

  • Heals your bot (without taking up an extra slot or turn)

Cons

  • Deals less damage per hit
  • Countered by reflect

Attacking

Less wasted turns when attacking chips. Ok, drop-in replacement of lasers that can be better in edge cases.

Defending

Better healing sources for defense than sacrificing laser damage.

Acceleration Missiles

Note: haven’t used the new, revised acceleration missiles

Pros

  • Can eventually deal a lot of damage.
  • Sound really neat on paper

Cons

  • Not great in practice
  • Countered by reflect

I don’t think you should be using them. Neither for attack nor defense.

Support/Defense

Cloaking

Pros

  • Enemies can’t see you when you’re cloaked (while you don’t walk into them)

Cons

  • Doesn’t work well with melee or Zappers
  • Cooldown – can only cloak every now and then

Attacking

Ok for attacks, requires very specific usage, don’t use with melee!

Defending

Not as valuable, so very niche.

Regen

Pros

  • Restores life

Cons

  • Only restores a little life

Attacking

Don’t bother, if you’d survive due to regen, another form of support may have been more effective.

Defending

Don’t bother either, use the chip.

Teleport

Pros

  • It moves your bot far quickly.

Cons

  • Has a cooldown

Attacking

Great for retreating, not as good for quick melee or similar.

Defending

Great for getting in the first hit, retreating is less of an issue/consideration.

Thrusters

Pros

  • Makes you attack faster
  • Can potentially kill enemy just before it would kill you (1v1 duel winner)

Cons

  • Not as good if your enemy has more thrusters (or haste)
  • Not as useful if you have teleport

Attacking

Good if you have spare slots

Defending

Good if there’s a thruster meta, but really only use it for spare slots, haste chip has similar effect for free.

Reflect

Pros

  • Reflects ALL the things

Cons

  • Sometimes on cooldown
  • Never a guaranteed reflect

Attacking

Use whenever you encounter things that you can reflect. Prefer over any other defensive hardware. I have two versions of many bots, one with and one without reflect, since reflect is useless when attacking any defense without lasers or missiles. What to replace reflect with depends on the strategy for the bot.

Defending

Reflecting wall in front is pretty good, if your bots die quick, all bots should probably have some reflect. If you use reflect, you’ll see more artillery and melee attacks.
Makes it really easy to deal with any strat that uses weapons that can be reflected and you can focus on other strategies.

Shield

Pros

  • Shields your bot from damage
  • Shield other entities

Cons

  • Have to be activated

Attacking

Solid, better than repair for simple strats.

Defending

Depends, can be strong, but active healing by specialized healers is stronger, since those don’t take up a slot or turn.

Armor

Pros

  • Reduces damage taken
  • Passive

Cons

  • Reflect is the better slot filler
  • Worse than regen, only absorbs so much damage, while regen can regenerate infinite damage taken (in theory)

Attacking

Not sure why you’re not using reflect…

Defending

At least have the decency to use regen.

EMP

Pros

  • Disables weapons

Cons

  • Not great against activatables
  • Hard to time right, due to range

Attacking

If you’re using EMP as an attacker, I’m sure you have a good reason for it.

Defending

Good to shut down that one annoying thing you forgot to deal with in your defense. Requires some custom code to be effective.

Repair

Pros

  • Repair yourself
  • Repair others
  • Repair CPU

Cons

  • Not an AoE

Attacking

Do you want to live forever? If yes, build a bot that retreats and heals (and hope no-one follows you, as in TP away so they don’t see you anymore)

Defending

Use it when you don’t have area repair yet. Use it when you have some CPU cult worshiping your CPU. Have a dedicated bot, probably.

Area Repair

Pros

  • Heals things
  • AoE

Cons

  • AoE (for attacking)
  • Doesn’t heal things that aren’t bots

Attacking

Bad, because AoEs when attacking are hard.

Defending

Great. Use it (on a dedicated bot, or just anywhere)

Chips

Nice-to-have, don’t rely on them, generally not game-changing.