USS Benham: The Marathon Guide

[Alex_Connor]

The USS Benham marathon is running from June 27th to July 21st so here is a guide and some tips on how to earn the Benham.

 

 

Earning the Benham requires collecting 800 fuel tokens during the Rogue Waves event, there are a total of 850 available without purchase during the event from the main Rogue Wave event, the Battle for Resources mission chain, the Daily resources missions and the Daily shipments rewards.

 

Rogue Waves - 250 Fuel

4 stages with a new stage unlocking each week, requires 5 missions per stage. Options to complete 5 missions in Savage Battles or 5 missions in Random/Co-op etc per stage, you can also mix and match. Should be noted that the Savage Battle missions are noticeably easier.

 

Can be completed playing 1-2 days per week during event, if done via Savage Battles counts towards mission below.

 

Battle for Resources - 300 Fuel

Savage Battles only, 2 stages with 150 Fuel per stage. 1st stage requires grinding 3.6 Million credits, stage 2 requires 12 Million. Can be completed through to the end of the Rogue Waves event (26 July).

 

3 Star DDs have a huge credit boost compared to the starting ships, critical to unlock one as soon as possible. 250k+ silver avg per battle win or lose is easily possible with Premium account and 20% credit flag in a 3 star DD which means approx 60 battles to complete and you can make good progress in Rogue Waves at the same time.

 

I can't stress this enough, get a 3 star DD as quick as possible. Preferably the Messer line, torps seem to beat all.

 

Fairly easy if you don't hate the game mode, battles are short.

 

Daily Shipments bonus - 50 Fuel

2 rewards 25 fuel each, complete by July 12th

 

Daily Missions + Daily Mission: Rogue Waves - 150 + 100 Fuel

This part is a real grind. Daily Mission: Rogue Waves requires players to complete 48 daily mission stages out of the 50 possible in 25 days. Falling short by even 1 means missing out on the 100 Fuel bonus, and without that bonus players will not have 800 Fuel and can't get the Benham for free. The regular Daily Missions give 3 Fuel each for a total of 150 possible if all 50 are completed.

 

Realistically, even if the other stages are fairly easy and can be completed without playing every day most people won't be able to play 24 days out of 25 so I've crunched the math on how many containers players will need to buy to get the Benham without completing all the daily missions.

Containers needed vs Daily Missions completed

Spoiler

 

Assuming 600 Fuel from Rogue Waves, Savage Battles and Daily Login,

 

48-50 Daily Missions = 844-850 Fuel

0 Containers

 

47 Daily Missions = 741 Fuel

4 Containers 

 

42-46 Daily Missions = 726-738 Fuel

5 Containers

 

37-41 Daily Missions = 711-723 Fuel

6 Containers

 

32-36 Daily Missions = 696-708 Fuel

7 Containers

 

27-31 Daily Missions = 681-693 Fuel

8 Containers

 

22-26 Daily Missions = 666-678 Fuel

9 Containers

 

17-21 Daily Missions = 651-663 Fuel

10 Containers

 

12-16 Daily Missions = 636-648 Fuel

11 Containers

 

7-11 Daily Missions = 621-633 Fuel

12 Containers

 

2-6 Daily Missions = 606-618 Fuel

13 Containers

 

0-1 Daily Missions = 600-603 Fuel

14 Containers

 

 

 

 

 

USS Hill Bundle - 75 Fuel

Buying the USS Hill (Tier 5) is an alternative to buying containers, the ship comes with a daily mission that offers 3 fuel for playing one battle per day during the Rogue Waves event, up to 75 total fuel (equivalent to 5 containers) if you bought the ship on the 27th of June. Hill comes bundled with some flags and a 6pt commander which drives the price up, but completing the Rogue Waves event will compensate 3500 doubloons to any player who bought the bundle and is worth considering if you could use the doubloons as it will make the grind for Benham easier.

 

Rogue Waves Containers - 15 Fuel each

Rogue Waves containers would be something of a last resort, the containers cost 1250 Doubloons or £3.85 bought individually and only contain 15 Fuel, meaning a player would need to buy 54 Containers to buy the Benham outright. Which would cost £167.83 at best rates. Don't.

 

Containers are really expensive, you want to get as close as possible with earned Fuel before spending money.

 

 

So using myself as an example, I can't complete the 48 daily missions because among other reasons I'm going on holiday during the event. So I'm going to play mainly Savage Battles to do Rogue Waves and the credit missions, that part is pretty easy, then I've bought the USS Hill bundle which should net another 60 or so fuel and I'm going to complete as many daily missions as possible (probably around the 30-35 mark). Which will leave me on around 750-770 Fuel, and I'll buy 1-3 Rogue Waves containers to make up the difference and get the Benham.

[DutchDelightsNL]

Thank you for your work!

[DRA_Harkesh]

Nice summary, thank you!

Isn't there even a hall of fame reward to add to the list?

Maybe that could also help saving some money.

[Redcap375]

Nice one mate.

 

However I have a life so wont be able to get it.  

 

Besides we arent thick enough to think that it's not designed for people to buy creates eventually when they come up short....Right?  Please tell me you can see though this lads. 

 

[Alex_Connor]

3 hours ago, Redcap375 said:

Nice one mate.

 

However I have a life so wont be able to get it.  

 

Besides we arent thick enough to think that it's not designed for people to buy creates eventually when they come up short....Right?  Please tell me you can see though this lads. 

 

Agreed.

 

The mission design is such that you can get to 600 Fuel pretty easily (at least by Marathon standards), can do Battle for Resources and Rogue Waves alongside each other in Savage Battles, takes about 100 matches over a month, that part is a breeze.

 

The real grind is hidden in the innocuous little Daily Mission: Rogue Waves which requires completing 48 out of 50 possible daily missions in 25 days, and the way the Fuel drops are set up so falling short by even one daily mission means having to buy containers.

 

That part just isn't possible for most people and means the majority of players who end up with a Benham will have spent cash on at least part of the Fuel.

[Redcap375]

1 hour ago, Alex_Connor said:

Agreed.

 

The mission design is such that you can get to 600 Fuel pretty easily (at least by Marathon standards), can do Battle for Resources and Rogue Waves alongside each other in Savage Battles, takes about 100 matches over a month, that part is a breeze.

 

The real grind is hidden in the innocuous little Daily Mission: Rogue Waves which requires completing 48 out of 50 possible daily missions in 25 days, and the way the Fuel drops are set up so falling short by even one daily mission means having to buy containers.

 

That part just isn't possible for most people and means the majority of players who end up with a Benham will have spent cash on at least part of the Fuel.

 

And that's WG for you. Easy to see through this one, some are harder but always comes back to ££££.

[ZeroSkillPureLuck]

85k dmg and lost..

 

[iJoby]

Great article @Alex_Connor 

[__Helmut_Kohl__]

20 hours ago, Redcap375 said:

However I have a life so wont be able to get it.  

 

If you have a life and a job, you can just buy half of the crates and get it without any effort.

 

Price is too high? Maybe, but if I invest my time into stressful grinding, I make a worse deal than working in my job to earn it.

[Isoruku_Yamamoto]

16 minutes ago, __Helmut_Kohl__ said:

 

If you have a life and a job, you can just buy half of the crates and get it without any effort.

 

Price is too high? Maybe, but if I invest my time into stressful grinding, I make a worse deal than working in my job to earn it.

I think it boils down to a balance. 

I bought the Hill bundle, will try my best to grind out the missions and already saved up over 300 fuel at this point. Expect to go to nearly 400 before the first week passed. Mainly through playing as much as i enjoy, but also forcing myself to pay attention to the missions & making sure that i do those daily missions every day. 

If i cant do the daily missions, i'll ask a friend of mine if he can fill them in for me once or twice- if it gets worse than that- too bad. 

But i do strictly believe that you should only go for this ship if you really like DDs, specifically the fletcher and/or clemson. 

And then just see whatever tactic works best for you, however i honestly dont think straightout buying it at start is the best option, since buying the hill pack and playing it 1 battle per day would leave you with 100 tokens already, and when combined with some of the credit grinding you should easily get to 200+, which saves you a nett 30eu- assuming you don't finish the missions to get compensated for the hill.  

[ajb13]

The daily missions are easy to do if you've got an hour or two to spare each day, just do them in ops and co-op as your almost guaranteed a win in those. That'll also do the event missions for you so you'll get the Hill and fuel without having to worry about the savage battle part of it.  You can then leave the last 2 parts of battle for resources, meaning you only have to get 9.3M and can forget about the last 7.5m credits. That's how I'm planning on doing it, and if the internet is down for a day or two I can still do the 9th part of resources as it won't take too long to earn 1.5m credits.

[Isoruku_Yamamoto]

1 hour ago, ajb13 said:

The daily missions are easy to do if you've got an hour or two to spare each day, just do them in ops and co-op as your almost guaranteed a win in those. That'll also do the event missions for you so you'll get the Hill and fuel without having to worry about the savage battle part of it.  You can then leave the last 2 parts of battle for resources, meaning you only have to get 9.3M and can forget about the last 7.5m credits. That's how I'm planning on doing it, and if the internet is down for a day or two I can still do the 9th part of resources as it won't take too long to earn 1.5m credits.

Honestly, those credit missions arent that bad. 
I often run Savage battles in the background while getting coffee, going to the loo etc. Just set an autopilot with a tier 3 ship and boom 200k in the pocket- or sometimes 100k if you forget to set the autopilot. 

 

Less than 8M total left to do so i'm slightly over half- and the first bit goes slower due to worse ships. 

IMO its better to anticipate that you might miss the 100 tokens from daily missions, even if you do plan on obtaining them. 48 out of 50 is a lot, so i'd rather aim to get 925 tokens ;)
 

[hgbn_dk]

On 7/1/2019 at 1:45 AM, Alex_Connor said:

Savage Battles only, 2 stages with 150 Fuel per stage. 1st stage requires grinding 3.6 Million credits,

You might want to correct the number of credits needed to 4.8 Million credits in the first stage. 4x600.000 + 1x2.400.000

[Zen71_sniper]

18 hours ago, Isoruku_Yamamoto said:

Honestly, those credit missions arent that bad. 
I often run Savage battles in the background while getting coffee, going to the loo etc. Just set an autopilot with a tier 3 ship and boom 200k in the pocket- or sometimes 100k if you forget to set the autopilot. 

 

Less than 8M total left to do so i'm slightly over half- and the first bit goes slower due to worse ships. 

IMO its better to anticipate that you might miss the 100 tokens from daily missions, even if you do plan on obtaining them. 48 out of 50 is a lot, so i'd rather aim to get 925 tokens ;)
 

Same here - I thought that credit mission will be a dreadful grind. Before I start work, I multitask (coffee, news, emails, etc) and play 10 battles in about 30-45 minutes. That brings you about 2 million for a minimum to moderate effort. And surprisingly enough, my WR is OK-ish, I didn't check, but certainly more than 25%.

 

 

 

 

[ajb13]

20 hours ago, Isoruku_Yamamoto said:

Honestly, those credit missions arent that bad. 
I often run Savage battles in the background while getting coffee, going to the loo etc. Just set an autopilot with a tier 3 ship and boom 200k in the pocket- or sometimes 100k if you forget to set the autopilot. 

 

1 hour ago, Zen71_sniper said:

Same here - I thought that credit mission will be a dreadful grind. Before I start work, I multitask (coffee, news, emails, etc) and play 10 battles in about 30-45 minutes. That brings you about 2 million for a minimum to moderate effort. And surprisingly enough, my WR is OK-ish, I didn't check, but certainly more than 25%.

Should you really be advocating AFK as grinding tactic on the forums?

[Isoruku_Yamamoto]

52 minutes ago, ajb13 said:

 

Should you really be advocating AFK as grinding tactic on the forums?

Honestly no- until you realise that fully playing a battle yields you less than 50% credits more than just setting the autopilot & hoping for the best. I still play plenty of battles normally, but its far too viable

[Zen71_sniper]

1 hour ago, ajb13 said:

 

Should you really be advocating AFK as grinding tactic on the forums?

Who was talking about being away from the keyboard? Would NEVER do that, as it is disrespectful to other players. 

 

One screen I use for WoWs while there is no action (sailing, waiting for battle, etc...) and another screen for other tasks. OFC, once you get into the battle, you drop other tasks....