Part 4: Sortie 4 - Old Avalon

Sortie 4 - Old Avalon

Joining me again today through a 'hilarious' series of scheduling errors is nine-gear crow once again. Join us as we take a glimpse into the levels of hatred this game can throw at the player.





This time around, we've got a real glut of AC opponents to cover, so let's get straight to it:


Pilot: Zaltehook
AC: Obyura

Strengths:
-A hilarious voice actor
-Doesn't explode the second he touches the ground
-Theoretically sound core AC design, could shine with some tweaks

Weaknesses:
-Hilariously incompetent pilot spends more time sitting in one place or blindfiring rockets than fighting to the AC's strengths
-Target acquisition and potential energy issues

Strategy:
Zaltehook's first showing in the arena is an absolute farce. Instead of getting up close and personal with his triple rockets and energy machinegun, he likes to spend his time flying around on flight inefficient boosters and fighting from a distance. This makes him an ample target for multi missile systems, allowing an easy kill. So long as you stay on the move and don't let him get the chance to punch you in the face with his rockets, he can't keep up the pressure long enough to kill.

He's most vulnerable when he lands from making an aerial attack, and will often come in too hot and get himself stunned, so that's when you should unload your big guns into him.


Pilot: Zaltehook
AC: Obyura Kai

Strengths:
-Human PLUS makes up for a lot of shortcomings
-Weapon choice much more suited to pilot's strategy
-Ground torpedoes work well with flying strategy to counteract most anti-missile systems

Weaknesses:
-Gets stuck on scenery a lot, will often dump torpedoes into the ground when he's on the upper shelf of the Arena

Strategy:
The danger of this fight is less Zaltehook himself and more the handicap he's given. Which is to say, if he weren't basically cheating, he wouldn't be particularly harder. The main concerns are avoiding his ground torpedoes while simultaneously keeping out of the way of the ceiling-mounted turrets. The turrets can be destroyed easily, but make sure that he doesn't get the chance to get some cheap hits in on you while you're preoccupied.

Since the previous fight, he's gotten all Human PLUS'd up, so he can fire energy beams from his blade and fly for an impressive amount of time, so bring something with a large sight lock, and leave the missiles at home, since he's learned his lesson and loaded up on anti-missile extensions.


Pilot: Soul
AC: Venom

Strengths:
-Ludicrously high burst damage and high accuracy
-Very high defense

Weaknesses:
-Slow, with a booster focused on efficiency rather than speed, easy to keep a bead on with rapid fire weapons or missile systems


Pilot: Scalp Lock
AC: Niten

Strengths:
-Exceptionally mobile, with a high efficiency booster allow him to stay on the evasive or offensive for extended periods

Weaknesses:
-Exceptionally frail, with few ranged offensive options. Exists entirely as close range support to Soul.

Strategy:
These two make a very very mean team together. Venom is bristling with firepower, and Niten is fast and makes a great support unit when you're too concerned with trying to hide from storms of missiles.

The immediate priority should be to stop Soul from peppering you with missiles at any cost, as having 12 missiles at on your ass can ruin your day extremely quickly. Anti-missile extensions are a must, and all offense that you can muster should be unloaded into his face as soon as possible. If you can get around to his back with an overboost, his slow speed and the general ineffectiveness of his missile launchers at close range make him much less scary, even if it does open you up to bazooka retaliation. Making use of the pillars until he dumps his ammo is another good tactic, just keep an eye out for Scalp Lock.

Once Soul is out of the picture, Scalp Lock is a joke. Niten's offense being entirely limited to his low ammo orbit dispensers and blade arms means that without Soul to bring the real heat, he can't do much so long as you keep on your toes and watch for his blades. The main concern is having enough ammo after whittling down all of Venom's AP, but if worst comes to worst, a good old fashioned knife fight can't hurt. Just punish the recovery on his whiffed blade attempts and you'll beat him handily.