I recently wrote about the function of Auto-Rallies in Whiteout Survival, and as I was completing the guide, I realized that I never actually wrote about the basic functionality of Rallies.
Though I’ve sprinkled bits and bobs about effective rallying in guides like how to deal the most damage in Hunting Trap/Bear Hunt Events, the reality is that Rallies are far more complicated than a player would initially expect. Quite frankly, it’s the complexity of Whiteout Survival that had me reinstall the game when I initially quit. I simply cannot deny how much joy it brings me to nerd out about the game and research/playtest mechanics.
Today’s guide is going to take you through everything you need to know about Rallies, whether you just started playing Whiteout Survival or just want to brush up on the facts and updates about the mechanics.
WHAT IS A RALLY?
Rallies are used to get assistance from Alliance Members when taking down stronger foes. While not all foes can be rallied, Rallies can be used in both PVE and PVP instances.
Rallies in PVP instances include:
- Attacking player bases
- Attacking or garrisoning Facilities, Fortresses, Strongholds, and Sunfire Castle
The PVE Mobs that can be rallied include:
- Polar Terrors
- Berserk Cryptids
- Phaethon Mercenaries
- Bear Hunt / Hunting Trap
DO RALLIES ALWAYS COST STAMINA?
In PVE instances, Rallies will always cost 25 Stamina except Bear Hunt/Hunting Trap which does not cost any Stamina.
The only way to reduce the cost of Stamina is to have Gina in the party, as her Expedition Skill, Endurance Training, can reduce the Stamina Cost by 20% when fully upgraded. This means that Stamina costs will range between 20-25 Stamina as you upgrade Gina.
While having the Stamina reduction from Gina is nice, players may not always want to use her when calling Rallies as she provides not provide any combat bonuses.
Players will never need to spend Stamina if they are rallying against another player, whether this is attacking their base or a building they are holding.
HOW DO RALLIES WORK?
Whether a player is initiating a Rally or joining a Rally, they will need to begin by selecting 3 Heroes and the troops they wish to deploy.
Newer players will often think that their Hero and Troop composition doesn’t matter, but nothing could be further from the truth. Although the power number in the top right of the screen is a decent approximation of your power, there are a number of hidden stats that will affect your Damage, Defense, Health and Healing. Not to forget, there are plenty of Hero Skills that will impact your stats and bonuses and can be a dealbreaker on whether you win a fight.
I’m going to break the next portion up into smaller sections because there’s quite a bit of intricacy in decision-making.
HERO SKILLS & BUFFS
There are two classifications for Heroes in Whiteout Survival: Combat and Growth. In most cases, Combat Heroes will provide extra utility in PvP and Rallies, but that’s not always the case.
You see, the classification of Hero typically dictates the Expedition Skills that the Hero has. To check Expedition Skills, players must select a Hero then navigate to the Skills Tab. Expedition Skills are the ones on the right-hand side and are the only skills that are utilized in Rallies.
It’s a good idea to take a read of all of a Hero’s Expedition Skills as not all will be prevalent for the content you are currently trying to complete. For example, though Gina is a Battle Hero her skills only reduce Stamina use and increase March Speed; this means that she’s pretty useless in PVP Rallies, but is extremely useful when completing daily tasks.
Although you don’t need to memorize every Hero’s Expedition Skills, you will want to know which are you Defensive Heroes and which are your Offensive Heroes. You may assume that because a Hero is an Infantry, they are the best for Defense, however, this is not always the case. Some Lancers, such as Patrick, can be much more effective at holding garrison, especially in the late game when rally sizes grow and more troops can be deployed. Or take Bahiti for instance, who has one Defensive Expedition Skill and one Offensive Expedition Skill.
This is extremely important to note for the following reasons:
HOW HERO SKILLS WORK WHEN YOU CALL A RALLY
When a player calls a Rally the game accounts for all the Expedition Skills of the Heroes that are chosen. In many cases this means that a player does not need to pay attention to their Heroes as much and can simply select the strongest Heroes they have.
Now, I must say that this is still an overgeneralization, as players will not want to select Growth Heroes unless they have not unlocked/levelled their Combat Heroes.
There are several instances where a player will want to choose a lower levelled Hero to call a rally because their Expedition Skills will make up for “damage loss.” For example, selecting a non-maxed Bahiti instead of maxed out Gina can sometimes be a better option when taking down Polar Terrors, as that switch alone can sometimes land you a higher level Polar Terror you otherwise could not defeat.
Players may want to note that Epic Heroes only have 2 Expedition Skills while Mythic Heroes have 3, meaning that it is generally better to use Mythic Heroes when calling Rallies rather than Epic Heroes.
HOW HERO SKILLS WORK WHEN YOU JOIN A RALLY
When a player joins a Rally only their first slot Hero has importance and the remainder can be autofilled with the highest levelled Heroes. This is because only the first Hero’s Expedition skill gets accounted for.
Also, unlike the Rally Captain’s Heroes, only the top right Expedition skill of the first Hero (known as the Hero Captain) is taken into account when players join Rallies. So, this is when things get very interesting.
As only one Expedition Skill is accounted for when joining Rallies, players have more options when it comes to choosing which Heroes to deploy.
For example, similar to how Gina’s Expedition Skills aren’t the most useful in Battle, well there are some Growth Heroes who have Offensive Skills in their top-right slot. The two most notable Growth Heroes used for joining Rallies are Seo-yoon and Jasser, which give 25% Damage Buffs when maxed out. On the flip side, you have Bahati who is a great choice when you are the Rally Captain, but since his primary Skill is defensive he is never used as the leader when joining a Rally.
Typically, the rally Captain will relay what formation they are deploying, specifically whether it is Defensive or Offensive, and joining members will select one of their premade Squad Formations.
Attack Formations will generally use Jessie, Seo-yoon or Jasser as the leaders and Defensive will use Sergey at first, but will switch to Patrick once his Expedition Skills are improved and rally size grows. Although newer Heroes come into the game, they are typically not used as the leader when joining Rallies, so you won’t see too much variance.
A lot of this has to do with the fact that Mythic Heroes often have a primary skill that does not empower Troops or have as high of a buff.
When a Rally deploys, the main Expedition Skill of the top 4 Heroes will be included as an additional bonus. Note, this is based on the level of the Expedition Skill and not the actual level of the Hero. So, if you have a Rally that has a Jessie with a level 4 Expedition Skill and a player joins with a Eugene with a level 5 Expedition Skill, Eugene’s skill will be used even though it has no utility.
However, this mechanic tends to get a bit more complicated when alliances are trying to use it to the fullest potential. You see, while only the top 4 Hero’s skills get used, you cannot stack the exact same buff. So, if you have 4 Jessie’s in your team that are all level 5, you will not get 100% attack damage, but only 25%. Instead players will want to spread out which Heroes they choose to deploy in their first slot if they want the maximum output.
In most cases, this is not necessary, however if you have a well co-ordinated Alliance and members have multiple Heroes levelled up, this is the way to hyper-optimize even more.
For all Polar Terrors, players will want to choose Offensive Heroes that provide damage, as Defense isn’t typically an issue.
JOINING A RALLY WITH NO HEROES
While players may assume that joining a Rally with no Heroes is a mistake, it is actually better to join a rally with no Heroes than the wrong Heroes.
This is simply because overwriting a better Heroes skill can be detrimental to the team and can only be ignored if players are extraordinarily overpowered.
At the end of the day, Troops will always deal more damage than Heroes as there are simply more of them and their total damage is easily multiplied.
TROOP COMPOSITION
A massive mistake newer players make is thinking that having an equal number of each type of Troop is always the best option, however, this is rarely true.
While yes, it’s fine to have an equal number of each Troop type when fighting against Polar Terrors, when players are in PVP instances this is typically their downfall.
I suggest memorizing the strengths and weaknesses of Troop types as early as possible, since this is the only way to defeat players who are stronger than you. I’ve seen it happen quite often in my State, where Whales will get taken down because they simply deployed Troops in a 33/33/33 formation, thinking that their power would be the only thing necessary to win.
Unfortunately, there is no simple answer as to what the best formations are, since it depends on what the other team is deploying/hast deployed.
Some recommended formations include:
ATTACK FORMATIONS
Standard Attack Rally formation (high defense, medium damage): 50/17/33
When needing light damage/high defense: ~40/20/40
When needing medium damage/medium defense: ~30/20/50
When needing heavy damage (oppenent has heavy Infantry): ~20/20/60
If chain rallies are being called, typically each Rally Captain will tell you which composition you should utilize when joining their Rally. Depending on the circumstances you may see the first Rally go in with heavier damage to get rid of as many Infantry as possible, resulting in many injured Troops and the following two going in with Medium and Light Damage to save on Troop injury.
DEFENSE FORMATIONS
Standard: 50/33/17
When the opponent is weaker: ~40/30/30
When the opponent is of comparative level: ~40/40/20
When the opponent is stronger: ~60/30/10
Typically, for garrison, players will know the strength of their opponent as their territory must be touching the Facility, or they can see their bases during Stronghold or Fortress battles.
These formations tend to change quite a bit, but in my opinion the most important type of Troop to have is Infantry as they are your main defenders. Too many Infantry is a bad idea though since they don’t have very much damage.
TROOP STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES
Marksmen are good against Infantry and weak against Lancers
Infantry are good against Lancer and weak against Markemen
Lancers are good against Marksmen and weak against Infantry
TROOP STRENGTH
When it comes to dispatching Troops it’s extremely important that you only send out your highest level Troops.
It’s not uncommon for newer players to believe that having “fodder” on their team is more useful than not dispatching their max capacity, but this is never true for two major reasons:
- If your Infirmary gets too full, Troops will begin to die. The only way to recover Troops is by using the Enlistment Office, which only recovers a percentage of the Troops you have lost. Although the chance of lost Troops can be mitigated with proper Batch Healing, you will be very dissapointed if your stronger Troops die because a weaker Troop took the Infirmary slot.
- Since other players will be joining a Rally, it’s important to think about Rallies as a group effort rather than individual. Since buffs are multiplicative and not just a base stat boost, it’s a lot better to have stronger players with better Troops take up slots so the damage is and defense is higher. This is mostly true in PVP settings, but even against Polar Terrors I would make sure your auto-deployment only has your strongest Troops even if it’s not a terribly significant amount.
In PVP settings Rally Captains will often let players know what the minimum Troop level players should send are. In some cases when multiple Rallies are held Rally Captains will ask for lower levelled players to go in first to help reduce the number of Infantry and then the second and third rally will be composed of the heavier hitters.
Since lower level Troops also take less time to heal, these members can often Batch Heal their troops by the time they are needed for the next rally, leaving them able to focus on Batch Healing the stronger players.
ADDITIONAL BONUS STATS FROM RALLY CAPTAIN
Although all players will be calling rallies for Polar Terrors, it’s going to cruicial that Alliances predetermine who is going to call Rallies in a PVP setting. In many cases players will want to prioritize both the players with the best bonuses and those with the highest rally capacity (which I will cover shortly).
In some cases players with smaller rally capacities can be better Rally Captains than those with higher capacities as it depends on the Rally Captain’s:
- Purchased/Acquired Skins
- Purchased/Aquired Buffs
- Hero Level
- Research
- Chief Gear
- Gems
- Hero Widgets
- Daybreak Island Upgrades
Although players can check their bonuses by pressing their Power in the top right and scrolingl down to the Military header, these do not include all of the stats combined (such as Research and Hero Boosts).
The only way to get a proper idea of who should be appointed as Rally Captains is by looking at the reports after defeating Polar Terrors as these logs include all of the buffs for that fight.
Important Bonuses include:
- Infantry Attack
- Infantry Defense
- Infantry Lethality
- Infantry Health
- Lancer Attack
- Lancer Defense
- Lancer Lethality
- Lancer Health
- Marskman Attack
- Marskman Defense
- Marskman Lethality
- Marskman Health
BONUS STATS FROM FACILITIES
Taking control of Facilities is tremendously cruicial if Alliances want to raise the chances of success when in PVP.
Once taken over a Facility becomes Invulnerable for 3 days and the following are the ones that help in combat:
Defense Facility (Level 2): 5% Troop Defense
Defense Facility (Level 4): 8% Troop Defense
Weapons Facility (Level 2): 5% Troop Attack
Weapons Facility (Level 4): 8% Troop Attack
Expedition Facility (Level 3): 15% March Speed
Training Facility (Level 2): 20% Training Speed
It should be noted that these bonuses are global for all Alliance Members, no matter where their bases are.
BONUS STATS FROM ALLIANCE TECH
Alliance Tech should be a priority for all Alliance Members, though I have seen plenty of selfish members state that they don’t want to spend their resources on Tech, this menality also harms them.
While at first Alliances will want to focus on Growth Tech and Territory Tech as soon as there are enough members contributing and the Tundra has unlocked Alliances will want to switch to a heavy focus on Battle Tech.
Here players will receive an increase the following buffs:
- An increase to how many players can join a Rally
- An increase to Attack Damage
- An increase to Defense
- An increase to Lethality
- An incrase to Health
It should be noted that Defense and Attacks boosts are only granted when a player’s base is on their Alliance’s Territory, so you may want to make sure everyone teleports near a banner when taking over Facilities, Fortresses and Strongholds; though it also depends on what the other team is doing.
This is especially true in Stronghold/Fortress battles as there are bonus rewards for the first team to enter, so many Alliances will squat directly at the Stronghold/Fortress and ignore the bonuses their Territory provides. The only time
HOW TO MAKE YOUR RALLY CAPACITY BIGGER
I first need to note that Rally Capacity is different than Troop Capacity as Rally Capacity regards to the number of Troops that you can deploy.
While I will cover Troop Deployment Capacity in its own guide, I believe the reason many guides will conflate Troop Deployment Capacity and Rally Capacity is because the number of Troops you deploy is not included in your Rally Capacity.
So, say you can deploy 50,000 Troops and your Rally Capacity can be 200,000 then your rally size will appear as 250,000; however, if you only deploy 40,000 the rally size will appear as 240,000.
The only way to upgrade your Rally Capacity is by upgrading your Command Center.
Upgrading your Command Center is extremely important and should be one of your biggest priorities anytime you upgrade your Funace level. While I understand the inclination to ignore it by Free to Play (F2P) Players, I do believe it is one of the biggest mistakes a player can make.
Since Rallies are used in both PvP and PvE, having the highest Rally Capacity can set players forward by weeks of progress simply because they are relying on other players to take down Polar Terrors for them. Of course, there are limits to how much help a team can provide with taking down Polar Terrors, but as players become more powerful they will be able to solo most Polar Terrors.
HOW LONG SHOULD I MAKE A RALLY?
Players may notice that when they call for a Rally they are provided different options based on what they are trying to Rally. For example, PvP rallies allow players to Rally for a minimum of 1-minute, while PvE Rallies require a minimum of 5-minutes.
Generally players will always want to select the shortest time for a Rally, though there are some situations where this is not true.
Rally Arrival Time is the amount of time a player is willing to wait for their teammates to join the Rally. This mechanic works differently in PvP and PvE settings.
In a PvE setting, if the Rally is filled by the maximum number of Chiefs or Troops the Rally will deploy immediately. This is often possible with the assistance of Auto-Join. However, if not enough players join the Rally due to them forgetting to turn on Auto-Join or having their Troops deployed to gather, the Rally timer will continue going until it has fully counted down.
This is an absolute waste of time for all players in the Alliance, even if the rally fills up with members as it will allow Troops from players who are extremely far away to attempt to join the Rally. Say one of your Alliance members has used a Random Teleport and is not near the Hive; if they have forgotten to turn off Auto-Join your party will wait for that player to march to the base before it deploys.
Realistically there is never a reason you will want to Rally more than 5-minutes in a PvE setting since you will want to take down the mob as quickly as possible to move onto the next one.
Note: Although the Bear Hunt/Hunting Trap is technically PvE, the timer must complete before the Rally begins to March. There is no way to bypass this.
In PvP settings, Rallies can be held for a minimum of 1-minute when deploying towards a Facility, Fortress, Stronghold or Sunfire Castle; however, when trying to Rally a Camp 5-minutes is the minimum. Unlike PvE, all PvP Rallies will only deploy once the timer has concluded and this can be utilized to create proper staggared Rallies.
The choice to utilize the 1-minute Rally when it is available really depends on how many players are working together to take down a building and how spread apart they are.
In many cases, a 1-minute Rally should be able to accomidate most players, however, this is only if the team is packed neatly beside each other. In my experience this is possible in Facility, Fortress and Stronghold Battles, but is rarely possible during Sunfire Castle due to how many Alliances take part.
That being said, 1-minute rallies can also be extremely hard to co-ordinate as all players need to click fast enough to join. Even if a player is 20 seconds away from your base, if there is only 15 seconds left on the timer they will not make it to the Rally.
1-minute Rallies are not necessary, however, they are extremely effective when all players are on the same page. If there are any stutters in your Alliance or players are mid Batch Healing or doing other tasks, stick to 5-minute Rallies.
CAN I KICK SOMEONE OUT OF A RALLY?
Although some players think it’s toxic to kick members out of Rallies, the reality is it is sometimes necessary when trying to guarentee success.
Often kicking is necessary when players join a Rally with very low level Troops or when a player sends the wrong composition of Troops or Heroes. This is true in both a PvP and PvE setting and quite often players will request that they be kicked from a party as they are aware they have made a mistake.
Only the players who created the Rally or an R5/R4 can expel a player from a rally. The only case where this isn’t true is in Bear Hunt/Hunting Trap where only the individual who created the Rally can kick members out of the Rally.
If you expell someone from a Rally, I strongly recommend you state why in Alliance Chat so they can fix the issue. As a player will always be notified that they have been expelled from a Rally, it’s much better to help them be aware of why so they are not left in confusion.
To expell someone from a rally you must click on the Rally in question then press the – next to the player’s name.
CAN I DISBAND A RALLY?
Similar to disbanding Rallies, only the player who creates the Rally or an R4/R5 can disband it. This is tremendously useful when players call Rallies that are too long or when a Rally will be marching towards its death. The latter is often because a Rally doesn’t fill with enough members or when a building such as a Stronghold, Fortress or Facility gets overturned by a much stronger opponent.
Disbanding a Rally is quite simple and only needs players to press the little red icon in the top right hand corner of the Rally, depicted with 3 people and an X.
Players will be alerted their rally has been disbanded if it was initiated by another player.
The only time an R4 or R5 cannot disband a Rally is during Hunting Trap/Bear Hunt and will require the player who initiates it to disband the rally.
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