I like the balance between most bots that this game provides. Seeing grey bots and blue bots able to fight purple bots and gold bots on equal footing is a great way to do balance and not waste content (ie pointless bots and weapons). With that being said, there are still some outliers who find themselves with very few use cases. I think this is the case for weapons too, but that post is for another day.

I’d like to overview bots as a whole in this game and provide some ideas (and concept art!) for ways the bots that lag behind the pack can be improved.

Paragon

Boost cooldown 9s -> 10s

• While boosting, Paragon cleanses and ignores all negative effects except for EMP
• Additionally, Paragon gets 25% damage resistance, a 15% damage boost, and doesn’t take extra side damage or back damage while boost is active

With these changes, paragon becomes a capable fighter within close range, getting the update that it's (comparatively mediocre) ability deserves, but at the cost of a slightly increased cooldown. Despite the new upsides of the ability, Zephyrs and Surges can still give Paragon trouble.

Panther

• No changes

Panther is a great mech, maybe even a bit on the powerful side, but it’s flimsy HP keeps it in check.

Arachnos

• Moved to tank category
• Arachnos ability reworked:
• Turret lasts 8s and cools down for 14s.
• Turret activates instantly, instead of when an enemy is spotted
• Turret now projects a half circle shield that works the same way as panther’s, but doesn’t freeze enemies that go through it.
• Turret now slowly applies stasis to those who are under its fire for too long.
• Concept images (From some old posts)

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Gaurdian

• No changes

Similar to Panther, I think this bot is in a great spot as is.

Stalker

• No changes

Honestly, this bot is kind of OP. I think it should get its HP nerfed back, as it’s now an all in one tank/assault bot.

Redox

• Caustic blast radius 30m -> 45m
• Base Speed 16km/h -> 19km/h
• Ability base damage 13k -> 16k
• New effect: Caustic blast now slows down reloads, cooldowns, and fire rate of affected enemies by 50%.

Commentary: While I have little personal experience with this bot, I know a bit about (and the major grievances players have with it) because I thought it looked cool and wanted it when I first started playing, so I did quite a lot of research. I found that the main issues are that it’s super slow and that its ability is unimpressive, so that’s what I tried to change.

Lancer

• Speed 25km/h -> 36km/h
• Jumping cleanses all negative effects except for EMP and decreases sprint cooldown by 3 seconds

I was happy to see that tengu didn’t directly powercreep this bot, as the jump height is quite different and lancer remains to be the only bot that can reach certain ares of the map and barrage enemies with Javs. This use case is extremely niche, so I thought that giving the lancer an instant cleanse would be more than enough to carve some space for it in the meta when paired with its super short cooldown. A great boost to its speed and sprint cooldown allow it to decide most engagements, making lancer effective when piloted by an opporturnistic player.

Killshot

• No changes

Killshot is still a top bot, and while the surge buff gave it some competition, I don’t believe it kicked it out of the meta.

Shadow & Tengu

• During stealth, take no bonus back/side damage and 50% reduced splash damage

While I don’t personally Pilot a Shadow, I have found them insanely easy to kill in stealth with Disc Launchers. As a matter of fact, they’re actually easier to kill in stealth than out of stealth with these weapons since you can splash them with back hits. I don’t think there should be any case where Shadow or Tengu's ability make them more vulnerable than they already are. It's less of an issue for Tengu thanks to the Stasis and the fact that it spends some of its stealth time in air, but a third party using disc launchers that you didn't hit with your ability will kill you just as they would kill a shadow - pretty fast.

Redeemer

• No changes

This bot just came out, so I’m not sure as to how it’s performing. At first glance in the overview video, it seems to be quite good.

Surge

• No changes

I honestly think surge was was a bit overtuned. They brought it up from a D tier bot to #1 bot in the game virtually overnight, but still, I think that the addition of cleanse to paragon and lancer will make for some unexpected counters to this bot without the need for direct nerfs. I also chose to not give it the same stealth buff as Tengu and Stalker, as it performs just fine without being tougher to kill in stealth.

Juggernaut & Ares

• Both can now cancel shield early by tapping the ability button again. Cooldown is reduced by however much HP was left on the shield (ie, 50% shield HP, cooldown halved)
• Juggernaut durability increased by 10%
• Juggernaut shield mechanics changed to be the same as ares (shield lasts forever)
• Concept image

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Aegis

• Bubble cooldown 10s -> 16s
• Bubble duration 10s -> 12s
• Aegis and his teammates generate a Juggernaut-like overshield when entering the bubble
• The overshield generates over time rather than being applied instantly, taking 4 seconds to reach max HP (25% generated per second)
• The shield HP is determined by the Aegis' level, but it should be a decent bit less than Juggernaut's actual overshield
• If you exit the bubble, you will keep the overshield, but if you don't return to the bubble within 4 seconds, it will dissapear
• Going back in the bubble will regenerate the overshield if it was damaged, or apply a new one from zero if it was completely destroyed at 25% per second.

With these changes, killing players who are inside the bubble becomes incredibly hard since they regenerate a shield very quickly. The bubble becomes a very bad zone for enemies to be in, as they are put at a disadvantage - but only when inside! This makes for a significantly less oppressive change than allowing players to shoot through the bubble, since that would put any enemy in line of sight at a disadvantage. The shield will linger when exiting, allowing the bubble to be used when making a push, but it doesn't linger for long enough to be too oppressive. Snipers can wait out the 4 seconds before it dissapears before taking the shot, but brawlers may need to chew through it. The duration of the bubble is increased to allow for use of this feature and dipping in and out to get shots in while shielded, but since it's significantly stronger now, the cooldown gets increased more than the duration, making the uptime to downtime ratio 3:4 instead of 1:1.

Brickhouse

• Overcharger radius 10m -> 15m
• Overcharger self damage boost 50% -> 60%
• Durability +10%
• Overcharger now grants 10% damage resistance to brickhouse and those in its area of effect.

Since this bot is a tank, I think it should have some defensive ability, even though it's an "off-tank" of sorts that specializes in damage. I think it should get buffed in multple ways because it has effectivally been replaced by Stalker, who can do it's job better and without all the clunkiness that comes with being a huge tank mech. Making the damage buff it gives itself slightly stronger and making it take less damage instead of more damage is a good way to give this mech an edge on Stalker in some ways, but still be worse off in others. 

MD

• Heal radius 10m->15m
• Ability cooldown 12s -> 8s
• Now continues to heal while taking damage, but at 50% power

I have seriously never seen a non-AI MD on my team before. It’s the one and only bot bestowed with the power to heal allies and yet it sees virtually no use because of its weaknesses. Allowing it to heal a little through firepower, fit more teammates in the heal radius, and have its ability active more often than not (10s:8s ability cooldown ratio) may allow this low firepower dedicated support to shine.

Cheetah

• No changes

Cheetah was buffed a little after I started playing this game, and I think that buff is more than enough for now, as I recall many people saying it was too much.

Zephyr

• Speed 18km/h -> 22km/h
• Shock pulse radius 30m -> 40m
• Durability 71200 -> 92000
• Cooldown 8s -> 9s

Since Zephyr is losing to Surge for the spot of EMP champion, I think it should get some stat adjustments. This way, instead of having entirely worse stats than surge, it makes trade offs. Zephyr would have more durability and a significantly larger EMP radius, but it gives up speed and stealth, as well as incurring a slightly longer cooldown.

Orion

• No changes

Orion is has a really strong ability that is synergistic with basically any weapon and can cut down tanks with ease. This bot is a bit too strong, but again, I’d rather buff other bots than resort to nerfing this one.

If you read till the end - thank you for listening to my ramble! What do you think about these change concepts?