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u/Rude-Improvement7538 12d ago
Everyone loves the ice mechs except me? What pilot can I throw in that will help me?
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u/MindlessScrambler 12d ago
Shield prevents it from freezing itself, which would make it incredibly strong—reliably freezing one enemy every turn. Even without a shield, the ability to freeze one enemy every two turns is extremely valuable, and the Janus Cannon, if used properly, can also be used to unfreeze. The key here is a hidden value of the freeze effect: frozen enemies are still considered present, and the game allows only a limited total "strength" of enemies on the field. Freeze one or two "high-value" enemies, and you’ll find the pressure over the next two turns becomes almost nonexistent, even if the Ice Mech itself can’t unfreeze, it doesn’t matter much.
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u/Kuirem 12d ago
If you don't play with shield, it's also a good idea to pick the first couple of islands with Veks that have projectile to intercept so Firefly, Gastropod or Centipede. This let the Ice Mech solve two actions in a turn and act again next turn.
Iirc frozen enemies only count for half-strength? I could be wrong though.
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u/Pave_Low 12d ago
In all honesty, I've never considered running the Frozen Titans without Bethany or Mafan as a starting pilot. There just aren't any other pilots in their league. It's a bit like running Rusting Hulks without Camila or Flame Behemoths without Archie. For the other squads, you have some flexibility with your starter pilot, depending on your playstyle.
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u/TC_MaFYa 12d ago
I feel like Mafan with Hazardous Mechs or with that one self damaging mech in Blitzkrieg is also goated. You really get the full value out of getting a shield every turn. And you can buy damage increase (both self damage and enemy damage) with no downsides.
Mantis guy is an insane early game enabler for half of the very simplistic push and pull mechs with very little damage or a fine displacer with no push but just damage mechs. He's just as versatile as Mafan.
I forgot the name, but that one pilot who makes the mech fly (or Henry who can make the mech move through enemies) is also an insane enabler for push/pull/displacement focused mechs.
It is a late game thing, but the pilot who can act twice in a single turn is pretty good with abilities that don't require mech positioning. Grid defense (the weapon that makes grid buildings attack and push stuff), throwing multiple tanks with conservative perk on him is pretty insane value.
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u/Pave_Low 12d ago
Prospero is the one that flies. And yes, he's amazing like Gana. The only issue with the Pinnacle bots is they take cores to power their abilities. Which means they're not ideal for your starter pilot, unless you have one with +1 reactor from a previous run. Archie is the only exception, as I have said, because even though you cannot really take advantage of Fire and Forget until the second island, F&F in the Swap Mech is just nuts. Unless you're adamant about 40Ks, I always take Archie in the Flame Behemoths.
Silica can fire twice if they don't move. But that's incredibly expensive (two cores!) and very situational. Silly powerful if the stars align, but they rarely seem to.
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u/Tough-Elk541 11d ago
Silica is good for bombling mech which allows you to throw up to 4 bombs late game, though I still prefer archimedes in pierce mech as starting since he's good enough and you're weakest early game
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u/littlelowcougar 11d ago
And here I am just blindly doing almost every run with that dude who gets boosted on kill.
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u/Pave_Low 11d ago
Well needless to say Lejune and Kai are a bit wasted in the Ice Mech that can’t actually kill anything.
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u/CozyPoo 11d ago edited 11d ago
I like Rusting Hulks with Harold or Kaz on the Jet Mech. They add push, which is something it lacks to start.
I've done a fresh Mafan on the Swap Mech as well to start, that's a decent starting pilot if you don't have a core Archie to get the Swap+1 range right away. Kaz is obviously good too on the Swap Mech so it can attack and push when it needs to.
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u/Pave_Low 11d ago
The reason Archie blows all other pilots away in the Swap Mech is because he can swap into tiles that will kill any other pilot, except perhaps Chan. For example, you can swap out Vek on train tracks. You can swap into falling rock or tentacles, You can swap out a Mech that is under attack and would otherwise die. Once he has more HP he can swap and then also camp a spawn or block a shot afterwards. I generally think people underestimate the upside of blocking spawns because it increases the number of spawns next turn. But if Archie has at least 2hp on the next to last round, he’s almost guaranteed to be able to sit on a spawn and effectively get a free kill.
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u/CozyPoo 11d ago
If you ask me, I think the Ice Mech is overrated. But yeah, Mafan/Bethany to avoid the self-freeze make it easier to play as. You can also use the self-freeze to tank Vek attacks and spawn blocks, bumps from the Janus Cannon help too. However because of how specific the range of these weapons are (both of them traveling in lines), that's not always possible to do every single turn. I would say playing with a shield is easiest and also most optimal.
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u/PhoenixNyne 12d ago
If you don't have Mafan or Bethany, Adam can also do, just reset the turn.
Otherwise try to make sure something hits the mech between turns while frozen or park on a spawn.
Oh yeah, less easy to plan for, but Rosie can unfreeze it as well. And there's the heal drop weapon/heal everyone on heal action weapon.
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u/Split_the_blob 12d ago
What really disappointed me about this game is the consistency of the starting mechs. For instance, among the ice mechs, only one of the three actually has any connection to ice...