The GFL GamePress Theatre V Ranking

Hello everyone, and welcome to the GFL GamePress Theatre V Ranking!

“So what is this?” you may be asking. With Theatre V now over, I invited all the members of the GFL team here at GamePress to participate in this ranking to see who, out of us, did the best overall and get their thoughts and feelings on Theatre V as a whole. Those who agreed to participate, you can read all of their interviews.

I hope you enjoy!

Honestly, I was very lazy on this one and, quite frankly, some days I forgot that Theater was going on. Resident Sleeper Theater.

Mk 153 dolls remind of College Artist Hipster in Chicago. I wasn't excited at all, plus the girls look like they smoke blunts at base. Design-wise -10. Stats idk cause I'm too pea brain for numbers.

Let me tell you something about Core 8. Core 8 was the smelliest and the most grossest Core 8 I ever played. Every day when I played core 8 it felt like someone grabbed you by the balls and twisted them and untwisted 10 times. That's how I feel about Core 8.

SWAP UNITS were the most ass enemies. I hated them so much cause it took a point of my HOCs when I went against them. Also forced me to level up M500 and mod her, which caused the majority of my resources saved up to be used up completely. The Dogs were not a problem; honestly, it was easy, just use Agent 416 and ez clap. Landmines help out.

None at all. It's pretty easy overall up until Resident Cheek Taker 8.

You do team planning? I just throw any doll I have and hope it works out. I see big numbers stats and good perk And I just toss them together

 Nope, that's all for now. Going back to my sigma grindset on GFL.

You too Red. Stay safe out there.

Good, I took a break from the grind and only casually played the last months, but now I'm back in action! Ahaha

Pretty good until Core 8 where I got really unlucky and lost a run to Dogs & Archers while I had no problems before and after. Unlucky.

That's exactly what I hope.

Pretty much most runs went with minimal to medium damage, just 2 runs in a row I got meme'd on by multiple Dog & Archer waves.

Nope, everything else was pretty easy!

Pretty much. Who doesn't love infinite shielding through SF waves. I guess that one is less awkward and more funny… But still.

It be like that sometimes.

A few times, but most of the time I just rolled with what I got.

Just get lucky 5Head.

My actual Gacha luck has been... pretty bad.

Thanks!

The one time I don't participate in CBT, I win half of my votes, also C won too often, that's all.

No problem. :D

Mostly not too bad. I only forgot to vote twice, which is a depressing improvement over Theaters 3 and 4. Core 8 kicked my ass because I tried to get cheeky with my CE stacking, but managed to avoid filtering myself.

I'm not sure we could have scored closer if we actually tried.

You went C for last vote didn't you?

Then we should be about the same, I checked and it turns out I did commit to the memes for the last day. Final day results were missing until now for reasons unclear, no word on why that I've seen.

Core 8 is the one day where I actually bother to CE stack, since we usually are on it for enough days that the CE stacking can be defined as 'mattering', and it makes for a bit of a fun challenge to try and squeeze as many points as possible from it. First day I did the hyper safe strats and used the MG/SG comp for the SWAP stack, and used that as my excuse to go get a snack while the fight ran. Second day, did some experimenting and tried out the RF/HG with a Taunt Fairy (stolen from BLT) for that. In sim I could no damage it fairly reliably, but actually running the blasted wave in Theater for whatever reason I had a hell of a time getting the SWAP Rippers to correctly retarget from handgun to handgun, and instead they'd routinely take potshots at the RFs. An hour of my life I'll never get back. 

Dog/Archer sucks of course, and I never tried for the 0 Damage strats on that wave, seemed like too much RNG for my taste. Did finally give my MP5 mod some use, which was nice to see, but more than 2-3 Dogs per run would have given me hell if I didn't sit and reset a whole lot.

I also managed to nearly [BEEP] up a Recce center for the first time ever, trying to do it with just M2 mortar cover instead of 2B or AT4.

A GFL right of passage, nearly losing a fight to a barn.

Makes sense. I did end up with one run where fairy commands were a bit tight, and had to do a patroller with no taunt, but in general it wasn't that bad on Fairy Commands. I'm not sure I'd recommend it in general though, not good for the blood pressure and you need to 0-almost no damage it, in order to get the point returns.

Not really. A couple of the SWAP waves in Core 6/7 meant I needed to pay some attention to the game, but overall not that much that I'd call challenging before Core 8. Coeus in Advanced 8 were more annoying than challenging, because the stupid things have massively random targetting and even with the hyper lazy Python/M500/SAT8 and let the HOCs do the work strategy, it still was an annoying wave.

I gave up on doing Coeus with RFs after a few resets and just let the HOCs handle it while M500 feed infinite shields. Effective but annoying. Grape/NTW/Deagle DPS meant I had to kite the armored SWAPs a bit but nothing too bad. and 2B proved her best HOC status.

[BEEP] SWAP Rippers, never thought they'd annoy me, but here we are. Mod your M500's it's fantastic, and will make Theater 6 easier when it comes. Also, mod your G3's she's cute and deserves more love.

This message brought to you by the GP Low Tier Mod Propaganda Department.

Ah, guess it’s my turn to talk then. I’ll make this brief.

Overall, I think this theatre went pretty well for me. It was a bit of a near heart attack to see how I went from 3% to 5% once the final scores were made available. But in the end, that’s still a 4 star Mk 153, so I’m happy with my score.

Core 8 wasn’t so bad once I understood what I was needing to do. My biggest problem was definitely the Doggo Archer node, which I’m still kinda iffy on. I got the team down, now it’s mostly the micromanagement I need to perfect. The SWAP node, while pretty easy with HOCs, could still be annoying too due to mortar targeting. Those Jaegers just don’t seem to die sometimes man.

I want to give a massive shoutout to BLT (BLT#8675 on Discord) who provided people with a 3 team comp that could handle Core 8. I used it myself and it was certainly effective. Since Theatre 6 is the same as Theatre 5, feel free to take note of this setup, maybe it’ll make your Core 8 life easier next time.

Best of luck to everyone next theatre! For now, let’s move on to those that outscored me.

Ah yes, my doppelganger who people may or may not have confused with me before!

I actually did quite well this season, and despite the Core 8 struggle, I managed to achieve the best placement I've done during all five seasons. Among all the enemy comps, archer-doggos hurt the most.

I was pretty worried about minos and the new SWAP wave this season, but those became a non-issue once I had the proper echelons built. It's funny how easy the SWAP wave can be with SAT8 and M500.

Or the numerous amount of times 2B refuses to kill a single SWAP Jaeger in the back.

Truly!

Only other enemy comp I recall being difficult were the Coeus tanks. However if we had Liu, those would be a breeze. 

And no I'm not biased.

Perhaps.

I've been saving since anniversary for that skin. Needless to say, I'm going to continue to cope.

Gee, I wonder who it could be?

I guessed right. Pretty sure most of us are waiting for that skin. It'll be your reward for clearing Core 8 this season.

I was voting [B]ed this entire theater, and it sort of worked. Let's wait and see what S7 delivers on the old servers with those new changes.

Heeeey cutiepie!

I HATE ARCHERS. I HATE I HATE I HATE I HATE THEM aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Okay, now that I have malded, allow me to explain: they're a bunch of [BEEP]. This Theater, save Core 8, was quite comfy I must say, I played it for myself and for a friend, so I got first hand experience it in a veteran account, and a newbie account with 2-3 star fairies, few dolls raised and a lot of non maxed Skills. 

Only similarity in both of them is that both had two Manticores levelled, though mines are level 90 5 star (and 1 link) while my friends are 90 and 70, also one link. So, for those who were wondering how well SF teams can perform? Well, save for very few specific comps, they're a big clutch for anyone that has been rolling the SF Gacha since at least one month after its release.

My first attempt at them was on Advanced 8, which I thought it would be pretty hard on my friend's account. Until I decided to try with SF units and some odd teams, and streamrolled it. If my friend is reading this: I'm sorry I lost you 50000 points.

SO a couple of things to note: Two mantis make Pyxis a joke. It is possible to throw them at Recee Centers (a.k.a the houses that filtered our kawaii xVarz) but remember to switch to Destroy so you don't spend 15 minutes pushing houses back. Stun works better so the walking melons get rekt by Manti column-wide skill.

Mino wave with Aegis is also possible with two mantis and scarecrow. I fielded a Nememeum but retreated it before Minos used AoE attack, so it was down mostly to Scarecrow and Mantis to kill them.

Coeus are also made easy with that, as in my experience Scarecrow tended to evade their attacks frequently, while Nemeum and Mantis are armored, so they laugh at it. nades hurt a bit at level 70, but once you have a lv90 Manti with one link, it just tickles. So here's friendly tips: get mantis peeps.

REDDIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

Sorry, I was too caught up in the heat of the moment, hon.

Okay so, first a particular shenanigan about Theater: Waves are coded to have a flat level buff that varies on what node you are (i.e. Core 8 won't have the same level buff that Easy 1 will). TL;DR Core 8 is coded to start at +5 level buff for enemies, going all the way to +14 on Wave 10. What does that mean? The enemy level increase translates into their stats increase as well, which may or may not be a linear increase.

You can see how this can be problematic if you roll bad RNG and get Archers near the end of your Core 8 run. Thus what is an already annoying enemy to face becomes increasingly annoying, even if you have fully levelled dolls and fairies and equips. I'd rather face Archers under Gustav fire than Wave 10 Archers (which I did).

Yeah, I found out this Theater on GFC discord, so I can't confirm if it's a recent addition or has always been around. But given the nature of Theater, it makes it interesting, if not challenged. Or it would if Core 8 didn’t have these [BEEP] pricks.

SWAP SF can hurt if you're unable to Armor stack enough (which was the case of my friend's account). Coeus was more fearsome than I initially thought. Like, yes, dealing with it with a standard G&K team requires building a specific team tailored to it (preferably with Twins), but honestly, if you gonna have trouble dealing with it, just steamroll with SF.

Hmmm, yes… When we going on our post stabbing date?

loser pays it, so it's on you cutie.

Well, Theater 5 came in a terrible moment for me, I barely take pleasure at the game which led me to not put a lot of effort into my votes. There is a huge difference between Theater 4, where I was motivated and in the (cancelled) betting panel roaster. However, this Theater had barely any secret for me, considering that I had to do Theater 6 on KR Server with a much worse account than mine. But yeah, overall, I made my Theater 5 experience be as short as possible.

Not exactly, I am not de-valorating my own score because i already played the theater. Just like players that had a smaller score don't have to feel jealous of my performances or anything.

Memory helps, that is true, but GFL isn't a memory game at all. Knowing what you are going to fight is important, knowing HOW to fight it is even more. Plus, the final score, considering a player doing all maps correctly and never being filtered or skipping days, will always be around the same.

Of course, there will always be a difference between CE stackers and non-CE stackers, but that difference will be so minimal it barely has an impact. Votes are the thing people underestimate the most, especially in early stages (1st week).

Well, Core 8 was pretty much an RNG roll of "how fine it can be". I was using 4 teams to clear Core 8: 

• One team with KSVK and Grape with Beach Fairy for pretty much everything
• One ARSMG team just for Doggo Archers, which is something I regret that I've done.
• One other RF comp with Deagle, M200 and Taunt Fairy, just so the Patroller and Uhlans are easy.
• One Pyxis team with HS2K, SAT8, M500 mod, and 2 rifles.

There were some heavy problems with the ARSMG comp that I didn't feel like changing, so having 2 doggo Archer teams could have been a disaster. The same goes for SWAP SF, but with the Grape KSVK comp. Otherwise, yeah, it was pretty smooth I'd say. However, I'd like to give a shoutout about Adv8 Coeus who were absolutely a no-no for me.

Well, I was aware of the strat with that but there are many reasons why I didn't choose to go for that. The first one is laziness because you can be annoyed to simply change a Doll's equipment when you're not having pleasure in a game. The second one is pretty simple: I have a huge ego, I am stubborn and I don't accept failures. Over the years of playing this game, my brain has decided that I have the knowledge to assemble a team that can simply take ANYTHING in this Theater without any problem. And it did. The comp worked without me changing it since day 1 of Theater. The only things they haven't fought are Pyxis and Patrollers.

Evasion RNG never was in my favour, so it wasn't rare that i lose 4 links on one of the SMGs before the end of the fight. Plus, Doggos Archer are annoying to deal with in general, I'd say.

Nope, I followed the same path as for my Grape+KSVK comp. I built the team on the first day, and never changed it again. At the time, I actually forgot that Core 8 had Doggo Archers. So I just dealt with it. We can take this as an example of why laziness is a bad thing in a strategy game, though.

To be honest, Core 6 actually got me by surprise, it was way harder than I expected. But it's nothing that resetting and actually play the game with a bit of kitings can't fix. Otherwise, no, besides the fact that I lacked some advantaged dolls, nothing was really stopping me this Theater.

Theater 5 was probably the worst Theater so far for early and mid-gamers, and Theater 6 will be the same, so I'll just wish them all luck and hope they don't let the difficulty stop them.

No problem, it was a pleasure.

Surprisingly good. Didn't get filtered anywhere and only just barely didn't enjoy it this time around.

Never have been, but that's a whole can of worms I don't want to open outside of an opinion article I may or may not be working on without y'all's knowledge.

I just said I didn't want to open this can of worms TL;DR, the self-contradicting design choices and the fact that it acts as a replacement for Defense Drill.

...Fine.

Not a raised one. Didn't have either the space, or brain - I'll let the reader decide - for a second RFHG either because of advantaged dolls.

Nothing that wouldn't cause anyone else issues. There's a special place in the repair bay for whoever told me that force shield SMGs are good against Centaurus. Though the Gladiator/Gunner combo was interesting this time around. Much less chunky than last time, but hits like a truck.

Maybe I'm just too small brain with kiting then. Also, man, RoF ARs didn't work against the Orthrus' shields in the least.

Ignoring how my first Core 7 run dropped an entire Doll's worth of advantage bonus for literally no reason, not really. Except maybe that I somehow managed to come out on top of the team here, spare for Hass. Sure, if you don't get filtered it's down to voting luck. But as per usual, it's about sending a message.

...and it probably arrived this time around.

Nothing that wouldn't end in shilling, so I'll abstain.

Well I'm not gonna stop you from plugging~

Not as bad as previous Theaters. I always ended up missing a day or forgetting my advantaged dolls for one run for previous theaters, instantly sending myself to under 10% in ranking. Ended up top 100 on the final battle leaderboard and top 1% on total score this time.

Oh, awful. I had to reset so much to get zero damage on every fight with one team only. I would like to thank BLT for enabling this strat so I could suffer.

Yes, may he rest in peace.

Actually found a way to no damage Doggo Archers. 

... given proper amounts of luck. 

... and correct kiting while fighting the client. 

... and with enough resets.

Don't even get me started on screengrabbing so that you're just scrolling your view instead of kiting a doll. Lose like an entire 5 seconds every time that happens.

Hm, lots of people seemed ticked off we got it so late. Which as long as we get there, doesn't really matter to me. Just means a bigger gap between those that are filtered and those that aren't. Doing the Minotaurs + Cerinitis was a pain sometimes. And, of course, no one can forget the SWAP SF stack.

So glad that MICA added a mechanic that can do anywhere between 90% to 5% of your total damage output depending on a dice roll, aren't we?

I didn't see enough memes circulate this time. Guess we're all too tired of this awful event by now.

Yeh, sorry I mostly just complain.