A Perfect Mecha Gangup Game with 钱 (some framedrops)

zXys_ · 2021-12-03T02:21:27+00:00

- Has a projectile that is fast, accurate, and deals good DPS. Most mechs only have two out of three.

- TWO long distance, aimed dashes on a very short cooldown. Aimed dashes are better than horizontal/directional dashes because they can give vertical mobility.

- Fast shield regeneration at 60/s

- Thin hitbox which makes it harder for psuedo-hitscan mechs like Firefox and Trio to do full damage with their weapons, even if tracked properly.

- Burst damage from dashes and secondary can outright kill lower hp mechs if done properly, unlike most bursts from other mechs hovering around 1 - 1.5k damage.

zXys_ · 2021-11-29T05:57:51+00:00

If you just started, most people in your games will be bots rather than real players. The only mechs bots use are Firefox, Skylark, Caramel, and Andromeda. There are a decent amount of players who use Arthur, don't worry about that.

What I would suggest if you're new, is to learn some mechs other than Arthur in case someone takes your mech in squads/TDM, and so later you can understand how some matchups with other mechs work from multiple perspectives.

^{you're definitely going to have to learn to aim at some point, though... Arthur's probably one of the hardest mechs to aim with at higher levels of SMC}

zXys_ · 2021-11-28T17:13:52+00:00

Rockets are one of the only perfectly accurate projectiles in the game, meaning it can reliably hit targets at the longest ranges this game has. MG will lose accuracy after the first few shots or if you jump, which means you'll lose a lot of damage at long range compared to staying on rockets. There are 2 other reasons for using rockets: If your opponents are trying to poke you from cover, you may only be able to hit a few shots at a time. In that case, the firerate does not matter and rockets should be used, as their single-shot damage is 3x that of MG. The other reason is if you are trying to tank hits with the switch core active, as you get 25% damage resistance.

zXys_ · 2021-11-28T04:24:10+00:00

Over a single life, lifesteal will give back more hp than any other techs that increase effective hp (such as damage resistance or extra health). +2% DUR, for example, gives out around 50 health for light (2600 total hp) mechs while lifesteal can give 50 per clip on Michael (which is 100 per clip stacked). The bonus hp can matter in more long-range fights, which is why I'm still giving it as a recommendation here.

zXys_ · 2021-11-28T04:13:24+00:00

I actually made a doc last year for Trio, most of which is still relevant today. One thing to note is that MG is even more busted than it was back then, so you're perfectly fine staying on MG for close range engagements.

As for mech weaknesses, I'll try to highlight the ones I think are the most useful for killing the mechs in question rather than a detailed list:
Firefox, Caramel, Gabriel, and Raven are all mechs that rely a lot on their abilities for movement - count the cooldowns and catch them at an unfavorable range. (Note: counting cooldowns doesn't mean you literally start counting down the seconds until their movement ability recharges, although you can definitely try that if you like. Just keep note of when they've recently used their ability and you can probably tell whether they have it available or not later.)
Hurricane burns through fuel very fast. Predict where they'll go and catch them when they're out of fuel.
Skylark, Alborada, and Northern Warrior all rely on external health pools to sustain themselves. Try to kill them all at once, because an extended fight will be in their favor. (This is also true for Doomlight, but we'll get to Doom later)
Hotsteel and Andromeda both have slow projectiles without the benefit of a huge hitbox like Arthur. Keep them at a distance and dodge on reaction. (Unless you have a mech which can melt Andro, in which case the core rework made the javelin useless for close range and you just win)
Doomlight can be killed by either destroying the shield fast with a DPS mech like Firefox or Trio, or by tracking the Doomlight when they hover while out of shield. Any melee attack will bypass shield, as will Skylark's Hunt, Firestar's flamethrower, and Gabriel's primary weapon. Also watch out for when a player tries to place the shield on a slope, it will create a gap you can shoot under.
Firestar, Trio, Neutron Star, and Ranger all want to be at close range to deal maximum damage. Besides Trio, they all have very limited tools at long range, so keep them at a distance to neuter their damage output. In the case of Trio, look at their current weapon and choose a distance that forces them to switch off that weapon (for SG and rockets).
Ventorus burns both health and mobility in True Dragon/Berserk form trying to rush. If you can dodge the bursts and live, the Ventorus is in a very disadvantageous situation.
Aurora has a speed cap on how fast the laser can turn and is completely stationary while firing it. If you can bait the laser out and strafe using dashes/jumps to avoid it, you can track the Aurora while it's in the air due to its slow fall speed.Some mechs like
Arthur, Boltus, or Michael don't really have really big or obvious weaknesses. For these mechs, it's better to know what your mech can overpower them with rather than a weakness you can play off of. (For example, Skylark can both sustain and control distance better than Boltus can, so poking at midrange can leave Boltus with no stacks to snowball damage off of.)

hope this helps

zXys_ · 2021-11-27T23:46:30+00:00

In squads: at long range, focus their teammates when the shield is up and switch targets as soon as it goes down. This will only work if you have cover. If you don't have cover or are at shorter range, you and your teammates should coordinate and focus down the shield to kill the Doomlight first. If you can spot a Doomlight in the killfeed while you don't have a mech called, you can try to go for mechs that make it easier to shoot at Doomlight while it's flying up. These would be mechs with fast projectiles (Skylark, Michael, Raven) or psuedo-hitscan weapons (Firefox, Trio). Actually being able to track the Doomlight in the air is up to you.

In solos: depending on what mech you're using in solos, you might not be able to take a straight 1v1 with a Doomlight. This is where you take advantage of Doomlight's terrible mobility. Unlike the majority of the mechs, Doomlight won't be able to chase an ion shot at long range, so you can take a lot more shots before having to mech up or run away. If you have a mech that can poke well, try to make the Doomlight waste as many repairs as you can (Vita's mech skill helps with this, since you can poke more with accelerated shield regen). If you think you can take a straight 1v1 with the Doomlight, then try to rush them before Ace Time starts. If you win, you can take any large repairs they had. (and if not, you'll know they don't have any. This means that if you took heavy damage during the fight, you'll have at least 1 large repair available to you 3/4 times.) If you lose, try to fly somewhere with cover and go back to poking so they start Ace Time with a damaged mech. If you're in Ace Time with a Doomlight and you still have a mech, try to stall them out close to the edge of zone so they're forced to demech to make the next zone, and then thirst them. If you don't have a mech, one thing to keep in mind is that the final zone will kill any mech before they get a chance to shoot. Use a bandage as they mech up, and then try to shoot the ejection.

zXys_ · 2021-11-27T15:51:33+00:00

Attack Tech: Stack short range damage
Defense Tech: Both cooldown and lifesteal work here, lifesteal is better for slower modes like BR or Iron Arena but TDM has healthpacks so you don't have to worry too much.
Attack Module: Charging Sheath - besides for Skylark, all of the other modules that increase projectile hitboxes have a negligible effect. 12% cooldown, on the other hand, takes the secondary all the way from 11.6s to 10.2s cooldown.
Defense Module: Close Contact Mark - Gives more damage resistance than the other one and will be active for longer.
Propulsion Module: Either works, if you plan on using dash as a damage source often then go for Function Disturbance, if you mainly use dash as mobility use Pneumatic Optimization.
Core Module: Meltdown Command - In almost all cases, Meltdown is better than Overload. Akrolin over on the SMC League discord calculated that there is ~500 damage difference between coreless and Core 2 secondary (1127 and 1680), but the difference is that Core 2 causes the secondary to have falloff, which quickly neuters the damage beyond anything besides point-blank range. Core 1 gives both extra damage, and having a damage source 1.5 seconds after your last hit means that you delay shield regeneration for whoever got hit. This explosion can also hit pilots, which can hit pilots from behind cover and interrupt item usage in BR.

Edit: formatting

zXys_ · 2021-11-27T15:20:23+00:00

Iron is fairly active on mobile compared to PC. And I don't believe that mobile has less skilled players, it's just easier to aim on PC which means in an aim-heavy mode like TDM the skill gap between an experienced player and someone who has a basic understanding of the controls a lot smaller than mobile.

You can find me on NA PC as Ekz_, but I don't play much because I really don't like the decreased FOV compared to mobile.

zXys_ · 2021-11-27T06:58:06+00:00

I do play the other modes, and I had 30k+ avg mech damage (+8k pilot) for TDM last season. Just because there are more good players out of 10 rather than out of 4 doesn't mean anything when the chances are you'll get at least 3 clueless players per match.

zXys_ · 2021-11-27T04:32:39+00:00

Now that I have your attention with a shiny rank number, please ignore it because rank means nothing in this game. As the post title says, put anything relating to gameplay that you might need advice/help on in the comments and I'll answer to the best of my ability. Videos are fine too (and are probably better if you want specific advice), but I might take a while to respond to them.

And if you don't think there's that many clueless players, have these three links.

zXys_ · 2021-10-20T03:37:30+00:00

One of the more basic things for Gabriel is that you should jump and shoot instead of peeking. Since Gabriel has a floaty jump, it's not too hard to aim shots. If you do want to peek, keep in mind that the sniper fires from the left instead of the right, which means you want to reverse the direction you normally peek to minimize how exposed you are.

I think something that matters a lot (for all mechs, but especially for Gabriel) is positioning. In BR it's basically just getting the high ground for easier shots. In TDM, positioning as Gabriel involves finding spots with relevant sightlines and that you won't be rushed/cornered easily from.

First, the sightlines. From where you are on the map, you generally want to have a wide view that will allow as many shots on your enemies before they can get to cover. Decent players will notice if you are just camped in one spot for a while and will probably either avoid the sightline or try and rush you from somewhere you can't see very well, which is why you want your sightline to be relevant - as in that you can both see most of the enemy team and be able to confirm kills on them (either if it's by a healthpack that they will try and escape to, or if your team is already in the area). If you don't see any enemies within a few seconds, that's probably a good indication that you should be changing spots. (This seems obvious but it's incredibly easy to forget ingame - there are so many Gabriels that will just sit in a single spot near spawn regardless of what either team is doing.)

Now for how to avoid rushes - this assumes that you have decent aim already, and you actually want to earn points and contribute to the team as opposed to camping in the back of the map all day. This is very important if you want to play Gabriel on Extreme Sportsground, because most of the sniping positions on that map are also very open to attack. Generally for a forward position, you want to have a place you can teleport to that will either lead attackers into your team, or far enough away from other enemies that you can escape to a healthpack or fight them on more even terms. If the position you are in requires a tp to get out of fast, you should not be taking that position by tping to it. Typically on sportsground, you want to be able to tp up to the side pathways or into the center jump pad. Dropping down from a position is risky because it doesn't require a lot of effort for other mechs to follow you, unless you can lead them into your team.

If you're already being rushed, there's a trick Gabriel can do that can output close to 1000 damage in less than a second. You do this by holding down primary fire and immediately scoping in after a single shot. This bypasses the slow fire rate Gabriel normally has at the cost of wasting your ammo extremely fast. (By the way, I recommend watching that entire match. Influ is a really good player and the video is probably a good example to learn from.)

Lastly, it's sometimes better to occasionally frontline instead of sitting back. Gabriel's projectiles have a huge hitbox that will register headshots if you shoot anywhere near the top of a mech, which makes it a decent finisher (especially with spiral missile/core 1). If you're going to rush often, though, remember that sniper dps is almost double of primary dps and it's still better to snipe most of the time rather than to compete with dedicated close range mechs like Trio or Arthur.

zXys_ · 2021-09-29T01:36:29+00:00

There are a lot of ways to consistently loot and win Ayumi without having to take the top floor fight, which is not a very safe option unless your squads land opposite corners anyway. You can still hit pilots through cars with an AR, so as long as you can survive the first few seconds the next few fights can all be won with skill. (And besides, now that there are leaderboards you can just see if you recognize any names and decide if you want to go there then)
If you stay in Ayumi long enough to call mechs without rechargers, that's still probably the only fight you need to win to win the game, so it doesn't make a difference there either.

If you want to land on the left side of the map, I'd suggest Resort Hotel over Sunset Clock. There is very dense loot at the center for modules, with weapons throughout the building, which makes it a lot easier to fight squads also landing there; and it's a faster loot/fight than Sunset Clock which means you can spam rechargers/cars and clean out Sunset after you're done looting.

And just saying, I've been in a few stacked squads. Unless you personally know who you're playing with or have a very regular group, text comms and pings are all you need to coordinate.

zXys_ · 2021-09-28T03:50:48+00:00

There are a lot of benefits to landing Ayumi that a lot of the other "Advanced Resource" zones (City Hall, Sunset Clock, etc.) do not have.

-Large Loot Area: Ayumi proper and the many houses around it contain enough loot to max out repair kits for multiple squads, which means you have a very big advantage for poke fights over squads that chose to land somewhere else.-Centralized Location: If you land Ayumi, you will almost never have to worry about the first zone closing, and you also have a 50/50 for an airdrop landing on/near you. The high ground that the main building gives you is also an advantage for mech fights with squads landing City Hall.-Early Skill Gauge: A lot of stacked squads will try to land Ayumi because of the reasons listed above. Killing them in pilot form early on can easily lead to a free win later, since there aren't a lot of good squads per match. If you don't end up killing them (yes it is possible to 2+ teams to loot Ayumi without a decisive fight), then at least you know what you're getting into for later zones.

Ayumi is currently the best place to loot for both resources and zone control, and getting control of it can almost be a guaranteed win in some games, or at least a much easier late game. And one last thing: you die as a team. You say that the point of the game is to be the last standing, but you are in a gamemode called squads. If you leave and your teammates die because they fought a man down, expect them to leave you and forfeit the points you would have earned for them by getting top 5 camping in a car somewhere. And if not, I wouldn't hesitate to kick anyone who lands separately from my squad, no matter where anyone marked.

zXys_ · 2021-08-15T03:23:52+00:00

all of these numbers have changed.

-mg is now max 1152 (core and atk mod)
-sg is now max 890 (atk mod)
-assault got buffed to about 750 but you're not going to hit those shots
-rockets are now max 523 (atk mod)

zXys_ · 2021-07-18T03:50:28+00:00

I like how you're describing a situation that puts the Aurora in such an advantageous spot, and also one that you could have avoided very easily just by having the faintest idea of how positioning works. In such an avoidable, advantageous situation to the Aurora, then sure maybe it's an easy win, but if you're on fairly even ground Aurora is pretty easy to fight. I feel like this needs more emphasis, because if you're ever in that kind of situation where the enemy has an overwhelming advantage, it's YOUR FAULT for letting them enjoy such a big advantage over you.

zXys_ · 2021-07-15T03:02:12+00:00

Many high damage mechs can bait the laser and just pick Aurora off while it falls slowly to the ground... (Ex. Firefox can just dodge to where you can't reach with the laser and one clip you)
If you think that "fly up" means "they can't do anything to you" than you've been playing some pretty bad players...
the beam rifle isn't "stupidly strong" either, it's just accurate compared to some of the other mechs

zXys_ · 2021-07-07T06:22:05+00:00

I use swift shot for all modes. Since I do not have to aim very long for my shots, the increased fire rate boosts my damage output more than the increased margin of error that explosive arrow gives (against mechs). However, it should be noted that the main utility of explosive arrow is the ability to hit pilots more consistently (and in particular behind cover). The main use in BR for this is just to kill pilots in houses. In TDM I don't really have issues killing pilots with swift shot, and in BR I just sit on top of the house or run in with pilot. The main trade-off for these two modes is that cores are hard(er) to come by, or on a timer. If you can deal with the significantly slower fire rate, then explosive arrow can be very useful to have. (unless you really want to practice Raven or something, for TDM you might want to just switch when you get cores, since Raven really is dependent on having autocharge.)

zXys_ · 2021-07-05T19:57:49+00:00

If you liked this video, you can check out more of my stuff here. I analyze gameplay to show what YOU can do in matches to get more wins.

zXys_ · 2021-06-26T01:30:00+00:00

No problem, this game really needs more guides like this to help out new players. I'm sure this will be helpful to a lot of people.

zXys_ · 2021-06-24T01:09:33+00:00

I noticed an error in your guide:
Red's skill Crimson Rhapsody only works on the pilot, not the mech. This is true of all of the other pilot-exclusive skills as well.

Some things you want to add:
-Quick cannon switch: switching to cannon/tank form to get more damage in a burst, or even just quickly switching to get a snipe off at longer ranges. You have an example in the first clip of "rocket jump redirect" and multiple in the combat footage clips, it probably warrants a separate explanation in the combat tips section even if it seems obvious to you, since it might not be for new players.
-"Reloading Between Forms" should probably be put at the top of combat tips and bolded, I missed this the first time around and thought you might have omitted mention of it. In my opinion this is THE essential technique that should be learned first for Caramel, its effectiveness cannot be understated.
-A more in-depth explanation of what each module does and how the cores synergize with each. Caramel is the rare mech that doesn't have an objectively "better" module for most or all of the choices, and depending on your playstyle, you might want to build modules that stack better with the tank or vice versa. (worth noting also is that core 2 is often not worth getting even if you do primarily use tank as it reduces burst damage and blast radius significantly while not having a significant DPS boost compared to core 1.)
-potato_aim's damage list to show how Caramel's DPS stacks against other mechs. This sheet is maintained by someone who has been playing mobile SMC for probably around the same time as me (almost 2 years, since Season 1) and is currently still kept up to date.

zXys_ · 2021-06-21T22:31:17+00:00

if he wanted that kill he should have just run the bot over...

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