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Gauntlet Still Doesn't Work for Me
Captain SMR
✭✭✭
in The Bridge
So this week, I passed 5,000 gauntlet battles and got my first Top 25 finish after playing for about 2.75 years. Here is my issue, I have ZERO Rare Reward legendaries. I know there is a RNG (more like chaotic number generator). But, I can never get ahead of the walls of rare reward legendaries everyone at the top has. Am I the only one that is frustrated? It seems like those that got rare rewards mostly due to RNG get richer and richer and the rest of us putter along. I guess I won't mind if the rare rewards aren't good for anything else (voyages, shuttles, etc.) Thanks for listening to my one real gripe in an otherwise great game!
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If you face the wall I’d suggest you to spend merits for refreshing. It can be a lot of merits, like really a lot, but you’d be surprised what refreshing can do for you.
With 4700+ rounds played since April I already got Locutus and The Caretaker from winning series. The ranks never have granted anything noteworthy to me yet.
So... it is mostly about the proper bonus crew, doing it a lot and being lucky. Fingers crossed for you!
I tend to repeat this mantra to myself a lot. It gets me off the ledge more times than I care to admit...
FWIW, I did not ever get a Gauntlet legendary in the "early" time (i.e. before all the legendaries were available in the boxes at the same time). All four legendaries I've gotten have come since then. I was equally frustrated, so I totally get where your coming from, but if you want the crew, you have no alternative but to keep trying and hope your number finally gets pulled. I'll be the first to congratulate you when it does.
And I am not some gauntlet savy player, I play gauntlet mostly for merits.
- 4/5 Caretaker
- 2/5 Armus
- 2/5 Bartender Guinan
- 1/5 Locutus
All this may change however, since I have just this weekend completed my last Cadet Mission, and moved into the late game. I have reclaimed about 15 crew slots and can focus on my 4* and 5* crew, and perhaps even claim some of my 5* crew sitting in my mail box (I have about 6 in there). At least I won't have to freeze every single crew that I get to level 100 now. I know I have some good Gauntlet crew in the freezer.
The key is playing regularly, knowing that your gauntlet crew refreshes every 4 hours. Missing a gauntlet window is the biggest obstacle to a top finish. If you face an impossible wall, refresh once or twice, then you should get at least one competitive matchup (gauntlet is the only thing I spend merits on, until I get over 10k and then I try my luck with a merit pull). There are plenty of good options for all the skills, which have been in the portal for over a year.
The other key is to go into a gauntlet with low expectations. Expect to face walls of formidable opponents that will require a refresh. Expect to lose some winnable battles. Expect to have even worse luck on matchups that are multiples of 3. It really shouldn't take more than a couple minutes to play a gauntlet wave every four hours.
Play every four hours with no expectations, and you might just be surprised by how well you can do, in terms of win streaks and/or final rankings.
I'm at 18.5k rounds on gauntlet and have been playing it since the first day it was introduced to the game. Have won multiple times, including once with others in my fleet of top players (without using dilithium). I still don't have a Locutus -- so, no, even Locutus is not essential. Just this week I got my fifth copy of Guinan and finally immortalized her. My Armus and Caretaker are each 2/5.
Captain Level: 95
VIP Level: 12
Unique Crew Immortalized: 525
Collections Completed: Vulcan, Ferengi, Borg, Romulan, Cardassian, Uncommon, Rare, Veteran, Common, Engineered, Physician, Innovator, Inspiring, Diplomat, Jury Rigger, Gauntlet Legends
FWIW, my 'exclusives' roster:
Locutus 5/5 (only 2 from reward crates)
Guinan 4/5
Caretaker 5/5 + 1/5
Armus 5/5 + 3/5
I concur that you can be quite competitive w/o these cards - there are some gauntlets when none of them make my roster. But if you want them, then you must play regularly and get lots of 3-streaks. The drop rate is tiny - only way to overcome that is by brute force.
Granted aiming for the top 10 will also be accompanied by lots of streaks, but since the odds change I’ve noticed a pretty consistent stream of golds from the top 10 boxes. Maybe 1 a month on average for finishing top 10 each gauntlet.
I've always been a "volume over quality" gauntleteer, aiming for 11-15th place. This sounds compelling enough for me to try it your way for a while.
1/5 Caretaker
3/5 Armus
1/5 Guinan
1/5 Locutus
All but the Guinan came from streak boxes. Actually over the past month or so I’ve gotten an Armus, Guinan and Locutus.
But the first gauntlet I ever won was before I had any of these. As mentioned before, there are also good SR cards to use in gauntlet.
For example:
- Mirror Phlox
- Doc Crusher
- Ellen Landry
- Antaak
All of these can get up to 45-65% crit chance if the traits align (and they do regularly).
I might even pull some 4* Froggy Parises by then, to go with my 6 copies of Coffee Janeway. Hope springs eternal, but patience is a virtue I struggle with. 🖖
I wish I had your DBNG.
I've observed a notable increase in the number of end reward crates dropping golds. Most of the drops I've had since the change have been from end reward crates.
That said, I haven't noticed any difference from end reward crates in regards to ranking. The first dropped from a 30+ finish. I received two golds in seven crates from finishing 12th once - best clump of good rng I've seen in gauntlet. I've also gone months without a drop from streak or end crates, regardless of "effort level" and final ranking.
Streaks may be of some slightly increased importance for Top 3-4 ranking depending on the competition, but rarely Top 10. As with most facets of the game, the key is good cards, hitting a good rng streak, and playing more often than others. Large trophy payouts and streaks are often at odds with one another in the higher rankings unless one runs at a negative merit margin (dilithium spending helps a lot too, obviously).
To the OP: I have played gauntlet since it was released to the public. When Locutus was first available I regularly played for streaks of 30+. Didn't get Locutus until around 19800 rounds. I did fine without him, but I can't deny he's elevated my lineup since. I had better luck with Guinan when I stopped caring optimized for 3, 6, and 9 streaks, but those payouts seem to have dropped off with the rewards change.
Many people cite how many raw rounds they've played, but this statistic is somewhat meaningless outside of the 20k achievement. What matters is how many streak and end reward crates you open. Expect to spend more merits chasing streaks, with higher streaks costing exponentially more merits. Hence this is why it's best to optimize for merits initially...if you have a lot, it's easier to justify blowing them on match selection re-rolls.
Essentially gauntlet is a lot like the lottery - you have to play to win, but don't expect to win.
A couple months ago I got a Locutus from a first place win, then 48 hours later got two Locutuses from another first! Would have been absurdly insane before the drop rate increase, but now it's merely brilliant.
Oh, for people who find Gauntlet stressful, try covering your eyes during the six pewpewpews. I've found it far more relaxing that way.
Took about 9500 rounds for my first legendary to drop (Guinan), then another 9000 after that before I got my first Caretaker.
But after that it just took off... 2nd Caretaker within a week of the 1st, and got Armus quite quickly after he was introduced.
Pre-update to include all the legendaries in the rewards I got more drops on "streaks" of 3 than winning gauntlets, but recently the opposite has been true.
Check out our website to find out more:
https://wiki.tenforwardloungers.com/
My DBNG has been pretty generous since the change in odds. I started playing during Guinan's time but never managed her, then got 2 Caretakers during his reign.
Since the change? I'm at:
1/5 Locutus (for completing 20,000 rounds - RNJesus has not blessed me yet)
3/5 Guinan
4/5 Caretaker
5/5 Armus ... X2 (that's right, 10 total Armuses)
Most of my wins come from 3 and 6 steaks (I rarely aim for 9...tends to be more frustrating and merit heavy than it's worth), with the occasional box at the finish line. I go for top 10 when life affords me the luxury of time, but tend to finish between 15 and 30.
Locutus - 5/5 + 2/5 (includes 2 citations, 2 from borg packs, 1 from 20k rounds)
Caretaker - 5/5 + 2/5 (includes 1 citation)
Guinan - 5/5 + 2/5 (includes 3 citations)
Armus - 5/5 + 5/5 (no citations)
With 20:20 hindsight I regret some of the citations since the change in the rewards table, but all seemed like a good idea at the time for voyages.
Check out our website to find out more:
https://wiki.tenforwardloungers.com/
4/5 Caretaker
1/5 Guinan (recent drop)
3/5 Locutus (all gauntlet drops)
I'm at 14k gauntlet rounds. I had only 2/5 Caretaker before the Armus crew was released. I've not used any citations on them.
For me, I've found top 10 gauntlets since the change to all crew drops have given me more, but probably 2/3 were from streaks. I spend almost all of my merits chasing streaks, I try to reach 20+ streak in every gauntlet from the start before chasing rank at the end (when choosing a high odds 10 point win is useless, while a 50/50 odds 200 point win is better).
I've ramped up my participation a LOT since the change and it's paid off for me. Frequency of play and chasing streaks works great for me. I've seen others posting pictures of those super rare merit pull legend drops, but so many of them have such terrible crew. EVERY legend you can get in gauntlet is a good crew, so in my opinion it's a far better investment for merits.