How does Basic Strategy Work | Metal Slug Defense
Introduction
Upgrade Your MSP Gain First
Importance of AP Upgrade
Other Upgrades
Tips to Free POW’s
Understanding the Special of Your Units
Mix Tanky Units in Your Setup
Combine the Units Activation
Unleashing Metal Slug
Combat Basic Setup
Introduction
Defending your base is important in the game. In this basic guide for Metal Slug Defense, we will go over some basic concepts and strategies if you are new to the game. Please note that this guide is geared and written for beginners, advanced players may already use these strategies and find them lacking.
Please check out the rest of our mobile game guides for more helpful gaming tips.
Upgrade Your MSP Gain First
When you are first starting to play, your first priority in Metal Slug Defense is to upgrade your MSP gain. To advance further in the game without much trouble, you will have to upgrade different home base items and units. All the upgrades cost MSP. By upgrading that first, you will make sure that you earn more money out of all of your subsequent stage passes.
Importance of AP Upgrade
Your next upgrade on the list is developmental speed power. Faster AP generation speed allows you to build faster and upgrade faster. Having that additional units in the beginning stages can help tremendously. As you pass more stages, you unlock additional units which may replace your existing deck.
This makes upgrading your base far more attractive.
Other Upgrades
We will briefly go over some other base upgrades in the order of importance. You can decide whether to upgrade your units first or the base next. At the time of writing, you can upgrade up to level 10 for World 1 stages, level 20 upgrades are unlocked when you progress to the second world.
Important Upgrades
MSP Gain Level: Extremely important to help you upgrade the rest of the items faster.
Development Speed Level: Important to help you build faster.
Production Speed Level: Let you build units faster, this is important toward later stages where you have to unleash your units at a much faster pace. Helps especially to build your slow production units.
Decent Upgrades
Hangar Level: Raises Maximum AP value. It is decent to help you better manage your AP resource while micromanaging the timing of your units skill activation.
Destruction Bonus Level: Boosts your AP earned by defeating enemy units. In general you will get the majority of your AP through natural production, however this skill can be an nice addition to help you in the beginning.
Charge Speed Level – Improve the speed of Metal Slug Attack. It is a decent upgrade against infantry heavy stages where the Metal slug can run those infantry units over. However, weaker upgrade against stages with buildings or tanks.
NOT useful upgrades
Base Level: Each level raise your base’ HP. In most cases you will not need to upgrade this unless you cannot kill enemy fast enough to counter their wide area attacks. When you are first starting, if the enemies stack up at your base, the chances are that you will die soon even with a high base level.
Sortie Level – Each level grants 10 more sortie points for your base, this is useful if you play once in a while, higher energy pool = less frequently you have to play. However, at the beginning this is less useful if you plan to play frequently.
Metal Slug Attack – Raises Metal Slug Attack Power. You really should upgrade the Metal Slug attack after you have upgraded the rest of the items.
Tips to Free POW’s
Freeing POW is largely based on random luck. However, it appears that the speed at which you clear the stage may come into effect. The faster and less units you use to clear the stage, the more likely that you can free the POW’s. The best shot is to farm the stages over and over and you free them all. However, having stronger units can definitely help. Simply upgrade your AP a few times, then unleash your army to destroy the enemy at the fast forward speed.
Freeing POWs have various benefits such as increasing your AP generation rate or increase damage of certain character skills. The details of the POW bonus can be seen under the POW screen. It is best when you are just starting, farm the beginning sections until you have maximized most of the important home base upgrades while freeing the POW’s.
It should be noted that the bonus perk from freeing POW’s are active across all in game regions.
Understanding the Special of Your Units
Each of your units has their strengths and weaknesses, use them to your advantage. For example, the beginning foot soldier has a decent bomb attack, they come really cheap and can be used as a one shot meat shield in the earlier stages.
Different specials have their ranges and attack powers, as well as different reloading time. The key to win is to learn and time to activate your specials well.
Mix Tanky Units in Your Setup
One popular strategy to beat the game is by using a bunch of high production ranged units. However, that strategy can be harder than if you have a couple units that are tanky in nature. By utilizing some tanks, you can use them to shield your ranged units from dying too much.
Combine the Units Activation
If you have played other defense games or have dabbled around with Metal Slug Defense, you would know that all the units by themselves are pretty weak. It is best if you experiment around and learn when and how to send out your units at the same time. Combine that with how effective they are against certain enemy units.
For example, you can send out Soldier along with your main character units. The main character units have decent special attacks, however they cost more than double the AP of your soldier units, yet their HP is not double. This means that sometimes it may be better to conjure up a few soldier units as cannon fodders.
Unleashing Metal Slug
Metal Slug is a special unit or skill that is one time use. The power of metal slug lies in its ability to destroy all the infantry units as long as they do not get blocked by tanks or buildings. Use them wisely can help you beat some of the stages that you otherwise would have lost.
Learn when to unleash the metal slug or only use it as the last resort when your entrance is blocked by an army of infantry units.
Combat Basic Setup
Opening
For most of the stages, you should always start by upgrading your AP to the next level. Sometimes you can even upgrade it twice to have a stronger start. Then use a soldier if enemy has a soldier, or a sandbag or other tanks if enemy uses a unit that counters your soldier.
Mid Game
This stage of the battle requires you to micromanage your units a bit, time your specials where they can effectively kill enemy units and tanks. In the mean time upgrade your AP speed level further.
End Game
By this stage you should have a good level of AP speed, unleash everything that you have depending on the time. Activate all the skills at will to quickly wipe out the enemies.
Things to Avoid
Avoid losing your “entrance” to your base. When enemies have a couple units stacked at your entrance, you will find that you will almost likely lose your game. When enemies are stacked, any of your spawned units are quickly killed and there is no way for you to recover other than using the metal slug.