Gags: Strategy for ALL Level 7 Gags

[Prof. Graham Soursnooker]

Although Level 7 gags and Organic Gags have been out for a few weeks now, I have realized that people have not developed consistent strategies for using them. This post is primarily meant to describe some of the features of two of these gags, the Wedding Cake and the Geyser, however I will discuss the other gags breifly in the end. While throw and squirt gags are the most basic gags in the game, these two gags in particular are unique in several ways and can be extremely powerful if used correctly. This guide will proceed int he following sections.

Section 1: Indicating Organic Gags
Section 2: Strategies for the Wedding Cake
Section 3: Strategies for the Geyser
Section 4: Strategies for the Opera Singer
Section 5: Strategies for other Level 7 Gags
Section 6: Care and Maintenance of Level 7 Gags


Section1: Indicating Organic Gags

First, however, i want to mention a few things about organic bonuses on gags; throw gags in particular.

A Birthday Cake with the organic bonus can kill an unlured level 9 and can kill lured level 11s. This comes in handy in many places, but I often see that people still put Whole Cream Pies on my Birthday Cake when I target an 11, although they can go for another cog.

The problem comes from the fact that there is no real way to indicate that you have an organic Cake, or any other organic gag for that matter. I, and most others, do so in the following way:

Upon selecting the gag I, and others say: "Sorry, I'm busy Gardening" or "Come check out my garden". I often follow with "You should pick a diferent Cog"

If someone uses these phrases back off of that cog and go for another, or at least adapt your strategy so you don't waste gags, or waste time by killing overkilling one cog when you can easily kill a different one or toon your team.

Section 2:Strategies for the Wedding Cake

The Wedding Cake is different from other throw gags in that it hits ALL 4 COGS in the line. This provides for an interesting strategy. First, however, you must understand how gag damage is calculated.


For all gags that hit cogs (sound, throw, squirt, drop), when two or more toons use the same type of gag there is a bonus added to the total damage of 20%. This is the yellow number that floats up after the gags all hit. For example, 2 maxxed Cream Pies do a total damage of 80 pts (each does 40) if they are thrown at the same cog. After each cream pie hits, a red -40 will come up, and after they have all hit, a yellow number will rise. This number is the bonus you get for using the same type of gag. In this case it will be -16, which is 20% of the total damage of 80.

Next, there is a bonus when you hit lured cogs of 50% of the total damage. So, if the same two cream pies hit a lured cog and it jumps backward, you will see two red numbers float up sayin -40, then an orange number will float up which will be -40. This is the lure bonus, which is 50% of the total damage cause to the lured cog. Thus, two cream pies on a lures cog will cause -40, -40, -40, -16.

Now, the question remains...What happens when someone throws a Wedding Cake that hits ALL FOUR COGS and someone else throws another throw gag at only one cog?

Amazingly, ALL OF THE COGS get hit with the 20% bonus of the TOTAL damage, even though only 1 cog gets hit with 2 gags. Also, ALL FOUR COGS get the lure bonus of 50% of the damage done to that SINGLE cog that was hit with the wedding cake and another throw gag. So...if someone has a wedding cake, you can increase the damage that it causes by 20% on ALL 4 COGS just by throwing another throw gag at any of the other cogs, and you can increase the amount of damage in the lure bonus by doing the same thing.

At the bottom of this guide I have attached a Photo Series that shows this in action. We killed a lured 12 by throwing an organic wedding cake at it and throwing a Cream Pie slice at another cog!!!

With this in mind, here are some useful strategies:

2a. Wedding Cake without Organic Bonus

Base Damage = 120
Lure Bonus = 60

Can kill 4 unlured 9s
Can kill 4 lured 11s

If another toon throws a Cream Pie at ANY of the 4 cogs you get an additional Lure Bonus of 20 for the Cream Pie and 60 for the Wedding Cake AND a Paired Gag Bonus of 32 on ALL COGS!!! Thus:

Wedding Cake + Cream Pie (or better) on ANY cog + Lure

Kills a FULL ROW of 12s

2b. Wedding Cake WITH Organic Bonus

The same rules from above apply, but here are the differences.

Base Damage = 132
Lure Bonus = 66
Total Damage with Lure bonus = 198!!!

Can Kill 4 UNLURED 10s
Can Kill 4 LURED 11s

Useful Combos

Wedding Cake + Birthday Cake on ANY COG

Kills 4 UNLURED 11s

AND HERE IS THE KICKER!!!!!

Wedding Cake + Lure + ANY THROW (even cupcake)on ANY COG

Will Kill 4 LURED 12s!!!!!!

Section 3: Strategies for the Geyser

Just like the Wedding Cake, the Geyser also hits ALL FOUR COGS, which makes it different from all other squirt gags that hit only one cog. Thus, the same rules of multi-gag and lure bonuses that applied to the wedding cake ALSO apply to the geyser. This opens up the following strategies:

3a.Geyser WITHOUT Organic Bonus

Base Damage = 105
Lure Bonus = 53

Can Kill 4 UNLURED 8s
Can Kill 4 LURED 11s

Useful Combos:

Geyser + Hose on ANY COG

Kills 4 UNLURED 10s

3b.Geyser WITH Organic Bonus

Base Damage = 116
Lure Bonus = 58

Kills 4 UNLURED 9s

Kills 4 LURED 11s[/center]

Useful Combos

Organic Geyser + Hose on ANY COG

Kills 4 UNLURED 10s

Organic Geyser + Cloud on ANY COG

Kills 4 UNLURED11s

Here are the combos for Lured Cogs and Geyser


Organic Geyser + Lure + Seltzer on ANY COG

Kills 4 LURED 12s!!!![/center]



Combos with Opera Singer

Wedding Cake+ Opera Singer

Kills 4 12s

(Organic bonus does not make a difference here)

Geyser+ Opera Singer -- (Either one must be organic)

Kills 4 12s

In summary, perhaps the most important thing to note is that using another throw or squirt gag on ANY single cog in the line will result in the Paired Gag Bonus (the yellow number) of 20%, plus a higher Lure Bonus (the orange number) of 50% of the TOTAL damage, on ALL 4 COGS!!!


Section 4: Strategies for the Opera Singer

Compared to the changes made by the other level 7 gags, the Opera Singer is rather weak, but there are some strategies that it provides. More than anything the listing below is meant to show what is necessary to kill certain line-ups of cogs with an opera singer present.

4a.Opera Singer WITHOUT Organic Bonus

Base Damage=90

Will kill 4 8s

Combos: (Note in these combos, I include the MINIMUM extra gag necessary to kill. I also include the minimum damage points needed to kill the desired levels. Any combination of sound gags that produce these minimum points will work.)

Opera Singer + Bike Horn or (-2 pts damage)

Kills 4 9s

Opera Singer + Elephant or (-20 pts)

Kills 4 10s

Opera Singer + Fog or (-40 pts)

Kills 4 11s

Opera Singer + Fog + Aooga or (-80 pts)

Kills 4 12s

Special Combo:

2 Opera Singers

Kills 4 12s

4b.Opera Singer WITH Organic Bonus

Base Damage = 99

Kills 4 8s

Combos:

Organic Opera Singer + Bike Horn or (-1 pts)

Kills 4 9s

Organic Opera Singer + Aooga or (-12 pts)

Kills 4 10s

Organic Opera Singer + 2 Aoogas or (-31 pts)

Kills 4 11s

Organic Opera Singer + Fog + Elephant or (-67 pts)

Kills 4 12s

4c. Organic Sound in General

I think it is obvious from the combos above that there is no benefit to the organic bonus on the Opera Singer. In fact organic sound offers almost no benefit in terms of strategy. The only combo that is given by organic sound that may be of some benefit is the following:

2 Organic Fog Horns

Kills 4 10s

Thus one would have to consider how often they are in a situation when 2 toons must quickly kill 4 10s. For more on this, see the final section.


Section 5: Strategies for Other Level 7 Gags

The other Level 7 gags are very powerful but are not complicated in their use. Therefore I will ust briefly mention combos for maximum damage for each.

5a. High Dive

Base Laff Boost = 210 to other toons spread out in the following way

210 to one other toon
105 to two other toons
70 to three other toons

Laff boost with Organic Bonus = 231 to other toons spread out the following way

231 to one other toon
115 to two other toons
76 to three other toons

The High Dive is a great gag to watch, but toons must decide for themselves how often they are in situations that require such great amounts of laff boosts.

5b.Train

The Level 7 Trap gag is a blast to watch and very easy to use. Unlike other trap gags, but like all other Level 7 gags, the train hits all 4 cogs. Like other trap gags, however, if another trap is thrown an any cog at the same time as the train, the train will go away. The quickest to make another toon angry is to waste their level 7 trap gag by throwing another trap on top of it. The train works the same way as all other traps in that another toon must lure for it to work.

There are mixed reports regarding how many cogs have to be lured to be hit by the train. If there are two cogs lured when the train is thrown, and someone lures the other two cogs, the previously lured cogs will step back but they will STILL BE HIT by the train. However, some have reported that they only lured one of the unlured cogs and it caused the lured cogs to become unlured. I have not personally seen this, so more testing needs to be done.

Base Damage = 195

Kills 4 11s

Damage = 195

Kills 4 11s

Combos:

Train + Lure + Any Sound above Bike Horn (unless its organic)

Kills 4 12s

Damage with Organic Bonus = 214

Kills 4 12s

5c.Ocean Liner

Just like other drop gags the Ocean Liner works best when the cogs are stunned, however it has not been determined (and i dont think it could be determined) if it is necessary to stun all of the cogs by using sound or if stunning just one will work. Nonetheless, the damage caused by the Ocean Liner is enough to kill 4 level 11 cogs by itself, but a stunning blow of 20 or more damage points will set the Ocean Liner up to kill 4 level 12s. Again, like all of the level 7 gags, the ocean liner kills ALL Cogs, as opposed to just one like other drop gags. Also, the Liner will only hit UNLURED Cogs, unlike Barnacle Bessie which will hit Lured cogs if at least one is unlured.

The downside of the Ocean Liner is that is seems to be very innacurate. Some have reported seeing it miss at least half the time. Personally my success rate with the liner is about 2 out of every three times, even when stunned.

Base Damage = 180
Base Damage with Organic Bonus = 198

Combos: (Note: It is best to make a combination that will stun all of the cogs)

Ocean Liner + Elephant

Kills 4 12s

Organic Ocean Liner + Any sound

Kills 4 12s

5d.Presentation

For many the presentation is perhaps the most boring of the new gags to watch. It really doesn't seem to do much good. This has many people wondering what the benefit of this gag really is. It has a base Accuracy of "Low" which means it has the same probability of missing as the Hpno-Goggles. Also, like the other Lure gags, an organically grown Presentation will only have an Accuracy of "Medium". So, again, you may wonder what the benefit of this gag is.

The answer is simple. The benefit of the presentation is NOT in its accuracy, but in its longevity. Typically, the length of time that cogs will stay lured is 2, 3, or 4 rounds depending on the lure that you use. For most this is all that is needed to take care of the whole line of cogs. But what if you need more time? For example, what if you are in a solo and want to hold 2 or 3 cogs as "buffers" so that you can beat others 1 or 2 at a time? Here is where the presentation is a powerful gag.

Cogs lured with the presentation will stay lured for 15 rounds!!!

Imagine all of the possibilities for strategy and cog maintenance if you could control the cogs for 15 full rounds!!!!

Section 6: Care and Maintenance of Level 7 Gags

While many of the differences of level 7 gag battle strategies are mentioned above, there are some other differences with these gags that toons must consider in order to take full advantage of their potential. this section will deal with these issues.

6a. Earning level 7 gags

Once your gag experience level reaches 10,000 pts, you will be awarded your first level 7 gag. Once this happens your gag experience meter will stop counting UP to 10,000 and it will begin counting DOWN from 500 to 0. Each time you reach 0, you will earn a new level 7 gag. Thus, toons MUST keep the following tip in mind:

TIP 1: You can only carry 1 level 7 gag at a time. Therefore, if you reach "0 to go" in your meter, you will not earn another level 7 until you use the one you already have. Once you use this gag, however, you will be rewarded with a new one immediately and your meter will be reset to "500 to go".

6b.Growing Level 7 Gags

You can grow level 7 gags at your estate. However there are several restrictions on this.

1. You can only grow ONE level 7 gag.
2. You must have grown all of the other gags in that same track.
3. If you remove one of the trees from that gag track, your level 7 gag tree will no longer produce gags.
4. Level 7 gag trees take 21 days to bloom.


Tip 2: You can harvest 1 level 7 gag from your garden daily. Gardens bloom at 12AM PST. Thus every day you can essentially get a "free" level 7 gag in the track that you decided to plant. This is IN ADDITION to the level 7 gags that you earn through gag experience.

NOTE: If you DO NOT pick your level 7 gag it does NOT carry over to the next day. You get ONE PER DAY. If you don't pick it you lose it.

NOTE: Recent updates have changed the way level 7 gags affect your inventory. They no longer count towards your total gag count. Therefore, you can carry more gags than the maximum allowed by your gag sack. For example, is you have an 80 gag backpack, you can carry 80 gags PLUS 1 each of the level 7 gags.

NOTE: Another recent update has now made it so that you cannot pick a level 7 gag from your garden i you already have one in your inventory.


6c.Losing Level 7 Gags

There are two ways to lose level 7 gags:

1. Using them in battle

2. Going sad for ANY reason.

Keep this in mind. If you are a toon who is especially vulnerable to going sad, i.e. an Uber, it may not make sense to hold on to your level 7 gags as you may lose them if you go sad anyway.

A Final Note

Level 7 gags are powerful. Many of them are also extremely fun to watch. I see many toons hoarding their level 7 gags and never using them. I would make one more suggestion. USE YOUR GAGS!!!! You will earn them back before you know it, and using them only adds to the fun factor of the game; which is THE most important reason we play. Have fun with them and Don't be afraid to take advantage of both the power and the enjoyment they provide.

Now go kill some cogs!!!!!