An endgame Lancer with 8's is still a threat endgame. Finding a Legendary Javelin rage implant makes it that much more dangerous because you can curve the rockets to hit the back of the targeted mech for double damage from 100 yards away.

With a few mechs that max out at 16. Any 8 weapon is worth the investment. When there's a tournament where Javelins aren't a great pick, I'll equip the longarms or shotgun 8's. But about 4 star is about where I would stop leveling anything under 8 power. 

As F2P though, that's a long journey ahead and you really just gotta play what feels the most fun.  

For the Ares, if you can get your hands on a shotgun 8. That was a lot of early game fun and the shotguns were eventually still very useful when my smaller mechs started getting higher rank.

I PLAY KILLSHOT WITH ARCHER 8 (2)

I AM GOOD AND HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY/ ANSWER

First, I will define good. And we can figure out if self assesment is logical or a fantasy.

    I'm at endgame and my kill shot is basically paper meche. I didnt bother with arhcer six (don't it's awaste of your resources so I hear). When I am against a more powerfull team with better weapons and better mechs, I pretty much almost always win on any map. Especially at high levels where people dont bother with it because its a leverage weapon that is only more powerful with skil and has low raw power, or dumb power. It doesn't matter how bad my team is, because the enmy will always have less control points and loose powerfull mechs.

     More powerful enemy team, weeker freindly team, always win Cpc. Objectively, I am good. I have a low power squad and im. not pay to win, and in fact, i won the research torunement in second place and could have gotten first place if i spent some money at the last minuts. I didnt want to. I got that robot. Two stars and 20000 implant parts. Why? Becuase I was hoarding the whole time and not spending my stuff on anything to increase my power.

    Now I have 

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When I loose, I either got hit by archers, did something dumb, did things differently cause im tired of doing the same thing, or tried so ething new. Sometimes the enemy teams is just too strong, usually, it's my fault and I could have lost less I wasnt being an idiot. And yeah, because I play well above my power, when I mess up, it is my fault the team lost, not the other way around, and behooves me to understand that if I am to win. i just try to play well like i do, rather than hold hands Though. If team needs backup, then help, cpc, then capture.

   SO WHAT DO I HAVE TO SAY

two archer 8's on kill shot is a godly combo, but only for people who can leverage it. If you know what you are doing its s teir, but b teir at best other wise, and higher levels it lowers because of low dps and the need to augment the damage of your teammates, or other words either start or end the enemy mech quickly with help and not on your own.

there are things like morters, and zephers that are just unfair and balanced and use skill.

things like archer pods and a paper meche mech, or snipers on a support mech like gaurdian, are things that arent raw poer and will have your bot team decimated at high levels. Now that I think about it, what probably hapens is astrong team ends up with weeksauce garbage when my bots join the team and they get wrecked hard and fast.

part of is the skill. My whole line up effectiveness multiplier through skill but fall on face when fail. Have three sniper guns and a rail gun, on of them is sniper 10

the reason why it c teir at high levels is exactly why i have to know when to get my mech blown up on kind of purpose. It does not do enough dps. Neother the mech. Or the pods, and the mech becomes paper meche at high levels. 

because requires quite allot of skill, its higher teir with use, and lower in general.

at low levels though, yeah, you will one shot stuff.

    The reason it is s teir at cpc and f to a (skill) f to b (inate) on 5v5 or 2v2 is because the mech can be used to cut the enemy team in half in two dimensions (so you can halve a cut enemy team with five mechs in one spot) if on dimension is how many mechs are in a spot and their level and that bots and players will choose power levels differently. And chopping up and segmenting the enemy team is worthy of a whole teir upgrade. Not to mention, being able to force the team to loose because of lack of control points is huge And teir worthy as well, But it also causes the team to Have your team spawn in (home feild advantage) with fully vulnerable and healed out and loaded mechs and they have to walk. Meaning that this mehc basically has multiple ways to make it so that the enmey is fighting at a numercial or power disadvantage. And i dont know if you know, but two equal mechs can do equal damage to eachother, but three equal mechs but two on the same team can receive and dish out more/ less than half. The reason is, because if you blow mech before it can reload and shoot, you halve half of the damage two on tow or on one at eachother and spread to half considering bother. Meaning, quarter damage. But this is all all over the place and depends. You can have simular or different levels of damage Depending on the variables. It just goes to show how a numerical advantage can actually be more powerfull than just the number of bots against the other bots, because after all having the time to only shoot half as much over two mechs and halving a mech's health means full dps capabilities for both surviving mechs.

    You can hide behind cover and avoid enimies and shoot and be invulnerable. You can destroy strategic targets, and you force the team to split up, and you cause your self to have more points and can win the game. Basically, if yiur team sucks, and the other is powerfull, you can make it impossible for them to win if you have this mech and start with it. 

      The teir reducers are miner though. You just have to know when to discard your mech and use what is now better strategy, or when to keep it, when to blow people up, and when to ignore bots and capture objectives. That is why it is bas b to a On cpc in the hands of player. Other wise, its b to c in bots.

    Now the ranges are all over the place depending on the map. You have maps that archer pods are litterally f teird in 2v2 down to late beginner. You dont do enough damage with melee, and you are destined to get shot, and at high levels, you are papper meche.

    2v2 is just terrible, but some maps you can actually avoid obsticles so you can literally have yor full mech but at a disadvantage. There are some maps where its a because it be s but the need to have perfect positioning make it a with skill, other wise, its be c or f for including skill and inherent. Bots bring it down further, because they are even dumber. on maps obsticles, bots could be incapable of hitting anything.

    5v5 depends on maps and player and bots, some players can adapt, some cant. If you have people who dont change how they play and use cover, then you can blow them up if you shoot behind cover. Bots are dumb. 

   personally, i usually don't bother removing the pods 

For 5v5 or 2v2. And the reason is because you just have to focus on getting killed. If you can not make certain stupid mistakes, you will at worse, only loose four mechsby the time time runs our. Just play like  magnetic target and try not to die and get kills, and maybe sacricice a shot or two for not exposing yourself to bad probability and you wont need the last mech, but having in the squad is great for the maps where a team that doesnt know that the corner has a killshot with archers. And if they do, well they have to adapt, which means you kight just want to use a better mech.

one last thing, kill shots with archers are great for forcing your openents to try to snipe you, and if you are good, your arent easy to snipe, meaning they arent getting points on you atleast. It also means that dying is great, because if you have a railgund, you can probably spawn in and delee a sniper or make it waste its shot on your invulnerability. if you have three snipers, and can use them in close quarters, kill shot is just the best, because one of your snipers is porbably a panther (20) that has 18 energies of snipers and invulnerability while behind its wall, or the energy free ones when it runs out. The other one is likey also good in close quarters, meaning a gaurdian with damage multiplier (lazer weapon used to heat up on spsystem crash) and a three shot, close quarters able sniper.

    And yeah, its eaiser to hit things with one railgun and two snipers at close range than you might think. That only bothers the noobs, but you di reduce their damage given. So anoying. I hate close quarters. Its usually a full reload, but eveyrthing is a full reload witha sniper because you need the full mag.

MY VERDICT

if you have skills, killshot with two archers is verry, verry good.

and if you push to the higher levels the if skill thing means you wont have to worry about people with these mechs or weapons, because the power is too low for people to have them.

cpc i basically know if im going to win or perhaps not or maybe depending on how long my killshot stays alive. after that, you have decide if killing mechs with it or another mech is better. In 5v5 most maps are good for it, and you dont have to die four times to have to use it. There isnt enogugh time if you are playing right.

toruney is better after the first game, because its basically a probability game with the 5v5 normal. In toruney, after you play match, you can readjust your whole squad and not maximize it to the probability. This means that kill is good, because the probability it will hurt you goes away. You can remove it from your que and the chance it will be harmed by it is not there so any negatives is gone, meaning that that factoring in teir means its not as bad in tournaments.

it litterally can be a force game win mech In cpc every game almost.

that is its potential. So it is S class with skill in cpc. It doesnt reach s anywhere else even with skill because it simply doesnt have enough power, and in fact, good cpc usage requires deciding to discard it after a while (But it doesnt really demote it). Also, the probability it counts as f in a match could even make it b teir. In fact, 5v5 b teir makes sense with skill, and c with skill but a good player can make it make them win at high levels with situation regards is also reasonable. But dont forget that situations it is d and f.

As for theory crafting, if you get a 16 on lancer, you will actually be super strong and powerfull. So lancer becomes crap fast, but eventually ebcomes a good mech if skills are used.

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As you can see, if you have four archer, and eight (which is the only combo you should probably spend anything on) you only have a bump on each two upgrades.

but, as you can see, it has a toooooonnnnnn of health at max level comparitively. And it is a mech that can gain invulnerability via unaccessible cover. Not just cover, but cover only counterable with the same mech and morters.

if you know how to get on top of the buildings, you basically only need to learn how to use those bulding as cover, and you arent going to die much. Some maps are ceilingable, if you get on the buildings, meaning your your enemy looses cover almost completely and litterally has to have the skills for covering on this mech specifically to counter it, and using that will likely push them into damage and death And out of cover, and you can move to where they arent in cover, requiring more skills to counter this specific mech.

this mech would be s teir almost everywhere i am pretty certain. 

in early game it was s teir with no doubt and quickly became f teir. in 5v5 and 2v2 and control point clash, it is a killing mech mainly with abilitiy to capture control points quicker than other mechs, and sometimes faster than kill shot. As well as gaining and getting out of cover wuicker than kill shotand harder to hit for a breif time in the open.

in 5v5 and 2v2 , because of randomness, a teir would not surprise me, and s teir wouldnt really either,  ut i imagine a teir with skill. Bots c teir or b teir max end game and tour ey, well there is no randomness after fisrt game, so as long as you use it on the right map and remove it from your roster when its no good or change the guns, its s teir.

the jump does give it slight forwards speed boost, not as good as kill shot or surge, or the other dasher that goes invisible, but it can litterall doge them, even the jump freesing analogue.

however, being a good mech for other things like sniper make it conveint for swapping with archers. At 16 it can hold two 8 snipers or get a boost of damage by having 4 lazer and 10 sniper. It can use one railgun.

you can jump across buidlings easily, which meakes this a great combo. The only issue was at low levels, you cant get much damage on them before you get into higher levels, and as soon get higher enough, the minor extra doesnt matter. Once you max out though, its a stable mech weapon Combo. Sice its the same damage as kill shot, the same stuff I said about kill shot often applies. Once you have a good pilot, inpants, max energy version and high upgrades, you can two shot mechs.

the issue is that its low dps, but its damage all at once, or pulse damage, meaning a bad guy can sudenly find himself dead, or about about to die and his team mate fighting two to three dudes with himself or one other guy quite often, meaning ofter two kills and likely powerfull bots that can not damage you removed from the enmy team destorying your team mates and preventing them from their powerful mechs destroying your enemy.

Basically, archer pods is one of those weapons that makes a player do more than their power level, and potentially lets them be enough to cause their team to win.

of corse. With most people, they will only get f to c teir, which is why its rare. but higher levels, people with it are you Achilles heal anyway, so if your good, it actually gets easier, and harder if you de rank too much. And can jump over the morters and you can actually dodge archer pods some times. It basically emans that if you have skill, you are more than your power, and your bots a christams gift whenthe enemy playse against your laodout, except that with lancer, its actually a damage sponge a bit when upgraded, but i dont know if late game its paper meche or not. It looks like it has enough health for being usually imune to damage Though, so its kind of not if you use it right. Dont forget that ten percent extra health of 80k is an extra 8k health. Its often when you basically are immune because of cover, surving enough to have morters destracted or dead is enough to survive a whole game with little health. Its kill shot. You can retreat i to the sky, on a building, which is cover, that you can shoot around while in cover. And if you cant be seen, you cant even be hit Or targetted, and many bukdings in the sky aphave cover. Its beautiful.