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Metal Warriors
Undoubtebly one of the best 1v1 games ever made, the combat system is intricate, involving, and rawking.
BASICS
Items
Items either serve as secondary weapons, or provide buffs. Some buffs are applied automatically on picking items up, some may be reserved for manual use. You can only "Hold" one item at a time, you'll see it attached to your Mech.
Ports
Ports spawn random items at regular intervals. There are between one and three per map (one map has zero but its a horrible map)
Unmanned Mechs
Hitting select abandons your current Mech, and you will instead get control of a pilot, who can take control of an unmanned Mech. Your current mech becomes unmanned when you abandon it, and there may or may not be a few unmanned Mechs lying around the stage. Unmanned mechs can be destroyed and have very low hitpoints, regardless of how much health they would have while manned. You can be quite easily killed while controlling your pilot.
The Mechs
Havoc "Highspeed Armored Trooper"
A Button - Blade Chain
B Button - Jump Jets
X Button - Zip Roller
Y Button - Machine Rifle
R Button - Shield
Special Ability Zip Roller can only be used on the ground, anchors the Havoc to the ground and drastically increases his movement speed and momentum. Excellent ability for running, chasing, or for shoving opponents around. Machine Rifle can be used while zip roller is active, but not Blade Chain.
Notes about abilities:
Blade Chain is a fairly weak melee ability, Machine Rifle is also relatively weak. His shield is quite good.
How to play Havoc:
To compensate for his weak combat skills, Havoc has a good amount of armor and depending on the stage, good mobility and speed. With Zip Roller he's undoubtebly the fastest Mech in the game, and Jump Jets is the only thing holding his mobility back (depending on the stage, again).
Havoc's playstyle is very adaptive, he can run and harass with items, or he can chase relentlessly and try to pin his opponent down or finish them off, more in the matchups section.
Nitro "Advanced Mobility Armor"
A Button - Beam Sabre
B Button - Flight Pack
X Button - Shield Wall
Y Button - Fusion Rifle
R Button - Shield
Special Ability Shield Wall Creates a shield on top of Nitro, this shield damages enemies if touched, and can absorb projectiles, though it will be destroyed if it takes a certain amount of damage. If a second shield is deployed while the first is active, the first disappears.
Notes about abilities:
Fusion Rifle is a relatively strong ability, but Beam Sabre is monstrously strong. Engage in melee if at all possible, its much better than Fusion Rifle. His shield stops normal projectiles but not heavier ones.
Beam Sabre has three different slashes, a thrust, a slash, and an upward slash. Slash knocks back, Thrust does more damage, and upward slash is obvious
How to play Nitro:
Despite having full flight capabilities, Nitro is relatively slow and clumsy. His flight pack takes some time to get moving, and he's very easily shoved around in the air by projectiles and especially by melee weapons. His flight pack gives him a slight movement speed boost, so even if you don't want to move upwards, tap it on and off to speed up.
Nitro's main goal is to stab people with his Beam Sabre. Chase and engage in melee, fire Fusion Rifle if they're not in range yet. Don't try to attrition your opponents to death, since almost every one of them has more mobility than you and can hog ports a lot better than you can (exception: Prometheus). Shield Wall is not very useful offencively, since it's only good when engaged in ranged combat, and that isn't what you're trying to do. It's very good if you're trying to get away from people, but if you're trying to run away to a port for a health pack, you're in trouble as it is. Don't cling to a wounded Nitro, get a new Mech if you possibly can.
Drache "Full Flight Armor"
(A,B,X,Y Button) - Energy Cannon
R button - Power Dive
Notes about abilities: Energy Cannon is feeble, Power Dive is pretty much instant kill.
How to play Drache:
Drache is a wierd Mech. He as the description mentions, he has full flight cabilities, and he's fairly fast, so there's no doubt he's the most mobile Mech in the game by leaps and bounds. He trades this for paper-thin armor and only one decent offencive capability. There are two ways to kill someone with a Drache, Use items, or land a Power Dive. Power Dive (surprisingly) dives downward with the Drache, dealing ridiculous damage and usually killing anything it hits. The problem is it has a small hitbox, and if you miss by a small margin, you're looking at your opponent's melee weapon, which your armor can't really withstand. Smart opponents will be careful not to let themselves be caught without a low roof over their head, so Power Dive isn't always an option. Barring that, run away, get an item, harass them, take a Power Dive if you get the oppurtunity, and *dont* let yourself get pinned down. Drache's momentum is really feeble, he can't shove anyone out of his way at all. If you get caught in a corner, you will die; You're better off abandoning your Drache and trying to fly past their Mech with your pilot and hoping they don't manage to hit you.
Prometheus "Heavy Weapons Platform"
A Button - Flame Gun
B Button - Bridge Layer
X Button - Aerial Mines
Y Button - Mega Cannon
R Button - Shield
How to play Prometheus:
Prometheus is a giant fucking Tank. He doesn't even have a jump, if that gives you an idea. Prometheus' weapons are all very different, so I'll go over them one by one.
Flame Gun is your basic flamethrower, and its Prometheus' melee weapon. It does a lot of damage, doesn't knockback, absorbs projectiles, and if it hits opponents they continue to burn and take damage over the course of about 4 seconds. Flame Gun is not only Prometheus' melee weapon, its also his shield (since his R button shield is useless). Notably, Flame Gun actually absorbs the secondary weapon Grenade, but not Missiles. Flame Gun does a lot of damage.
Aerial Mines sends little mines floating upwards like bubbles. You can use it while moving or attacking, but they're not very useful. They do a lot of damage.
Mega Cannon. Holding Y launches a missile. Releasing Y causes the missle to explode outward in a spray of 8 regular shots. Only one missle can be in the air at any time, and it doesn't dissipate after travelling a certain distance like most shots do. The actual missile does a lot more damage than the spray does, so hit them with that if you can. Mega Cannon does a lot of damage (like everything else Prometheus does), Notably, if the Mega Cannon missile collides with other projectiles, it cancels them out and keeps going, *including* the secondary missiles and grenades. This thing is beastly.
Bridge Layer is Prometheus' excuse for a jump. He creates a destroyable block at his feet (if there's no normal ground there) that he and other Mechs can walk on. Holding B and walking towards a cliff edge lets Prometheus slowly travel, creating a bridge as he goes.
His R button shield is useless, never use it.
Prometheus is very much a Godsdamn tank, even from range he can do a lot of damage, he's hard to attrition since he hurts you a lot worse and has more armor, and even if he's at very low health he can still kill most Mechs if they're full. So how do you beat a Prometheus? Items. Hit him with all you have, maybe even an item you picked up, then run away and heal. Rinse and repeat until he dies. Fights with a Prometheus obviously last longer than most fights (although its nothing obscene). Secondary Missiles are Prometheus' bane, since he can't dodge them and flamethrower won't cancel them, harass him as hard as you can when you get these, but try to misalign their attack path with his Mega Cannon or they'll get cancelled out (standing on slightly lower/higher terrain than him works very well). If Prometheus pins someone down, he wins, although this should rarely if ever happen. Even if you're a Nitro, getting close to a Prometheus is only to be done if you have spare armor, Flame Gun really hurts. For max damage, Prometheus can alternate Flame Gun and Mega Cannon shots at close range, since Flame Gun applies a damage over time effect, but this is tricky to do. Prometheus doesn't really have matchup strategies, other Mechs have a "Prometheus" strategy.
Interestingly to note, Unmanned Prometheus' are only in two maps, compared to Nitros and Havocs which are in at least a dozen.
KITTENS' "HEAD-TO-HEAD" METAL WARRIORS GUIDE
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