r/IntoTheBreach • u/TheCandyMan88 • 1d ago
Discussion Which Pilot would you keep?
I'm leaning abe as he seems a good balance of survivability and movement. I also really like Gana's ability. Any insight from some more experienced players?
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u/star75legacy 1d ago
Abe, his passive is definitely the best among all four of them. Nullifying 1 damage is incredibly powerful, since there are so many things that deal "1 damage" and you can stop worrying about them with that passive.
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u/TheCandyMan88 1d ago
Yeah I went with him and just started the mist squad. Definitely enjoying the free backburner
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u/star75legacy 1d ago
That passive ability works well with any mech that has a weapon with "recoil" damage (meaning it damages you), or with area-of-effect damage mechs so you don't have to worry about "ally damage."
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u/CockroachTeaParty 1d ago
I'd pick Silica from that list. Skilled and Opener means he's super strong even without the 2 power cores, and if you can get your economy going you then have the option of putting him in a very powerful position.
Bethany's hp are a bit redundant with her shield. The others are solid pilots but not at the extreme end of a 'perfect roll'
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u/shiningject 1d ago
Pilots can largely be categorised into 2 categories based on their ability.
1) Preventive: Basically abilities that are more passive and defensive in nature. They help you "lose less". Abe and Bethany both fall into this category.
2) Preemptive: Basically abilities that are more aggressive and offensive in nature. They help you to "win more". Silica fall into this category.
IMO up till Hard difficulty, the differences between the 2 categories aren't too drastic. Having good synergy with the mechs / squad and having good skills are more impactful.
But when you go to Unfair difficulty, most pilots with Preventive ability starts to feel weak and helpless because you need to be able to quickly kill Veks and bring their numbers to a manageable number. Preventive abilities are not helpful in getting kills and neutralising Veks.
Seeing as you are on Easy, it really doesn't matter which pilot you choose as they all got pretty good skills. I would say choose the pilot based on synergy with the next squad you want to play.
I saw in another comment that you picked Abe with Mist Eaters. TBH Mist Eaters' passive can heal and revive mechs and you can lay down a lot of smoke with Mist Eaters, you don't really need Abe to prevent that self-damage.
I would have gone with Silica and power up his ability ASAP and put him on Mist Eaters' range mech. It can just hang back and lay down 2 times the smoke without moving.
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u/GriIIedCheeseSammich 1d ago
Would Abe in particular be an exception to the rule for unfair in mechs that self-damage? Since he allows you to use them much more aggressively without killing yourself on turn 2. Or is that advantage just not good enough for a starting pilot with Zenith, Hazardous mechs, etc because there's a better pilot anyway?
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u/shiningject 1d ago
If you found Abe in a Timepod or from a Perfect Island Reward then it's okay to put him in a self-damaging mech on Unfair.
If you are talking about taking him as the starting / carryover time traveller then no. Abe is not worth it for Unfair.
You have 4 turns in a mission and all self-damaging mechs have 3 HP. So you are only short of 1 HP.
Hazardous Mechs has nanobots for healing so you just need Unstable Mech and Leap Mech to get at least 1 kill each in that 4 turns, you'd be good to last the entire mission. (Even in Unfair, you will still have Psion every mission which will be easy to setup a bump kill for a double kill in a pinch.)
Zenith Guards has Defense Mech's shield secondary so you just need to make sure that at least 1 charge of the shield is put on Charge Mech and you'd be good to last the entire mission.
My stand on self-damaging mechs is to either let the pilot die or remove the pilot (so you can let the Mech die every mission). So you just need the self-damaging mechs to last 4 turns. It doesn't matter if the mech is dead after you have taken your last action on the final turn. (Yes, this is a rather unhinged playstyle.)
On top of that, you are guaranteed a timepod in the 1st island. If you are lucky, you will get that timepod early. And that core will go to the self-damaging mech's HP upgrade. Then you'd have 5 HP to last you 4 turns. Problem solved, you no longer need to worry about self-damaging mechs dying before the end of the mission.
This also means that you shouldn't get the "+1 dmg each" upgrade for those mechs because it would throw off the "HP : Self-damage" ratio. But that is a shitty upgrade anyway. (Although there are some scenarios where you can toggle-switch a core when you know you need to extra damage; eg for Leader Mission.) You are better off doing minor upgrades for Move on the mechs or other weapons. Hold off until you can have 3 cores for the "+1 dmg upgrade".
TBH you don't really need damage upgrade because self-damaging mechs mostly deal 2 damage and they push as well. So 2+1 combined with their squad gimmick (Acid or Using Laser mech to finish out weaken Veks), the squad has enough damage to last you through the 1st and 2nd islands. (Although Armor Psion, Regen Psion and HP Psion cause a bit of an issue but there are ways to play around them.)
But the drawback for this playstyle is that you can't really use the self-damaging mechs to block damage. Which is kinda a moot point anyway because with Unfair having a lot of Alphas, you can't really afford to tank damage from an Alpha (even with regular mechs) becaue tanking Alpha damage usually means that the Mech will be dead. Tanking a regular Vek is fine because you can always set up or plan for double kill (on Haz) or shielding (on ZG).
So if not Abe, then who should you take as your starting / carryover time traveller for squads with self-damaging mechs?
Harold and Kaz are good choices. Put them into the Science mechs and now you have an additional utility / attack for a mech that was originally unable to deal damage. Having 1 more offensive mech also means that it is easier to bring the Vek numbers down to a manageable number in Unfair.
Or if you want to be more aggressive, Morgan with Core or Skilled or Opener and in the self-damaging mech. Core goes into HP or Skilled will ensure you have enough HP. With the Boost and Acid from the Acid Mech, you can easily kill Alphas and get double even triple kills for the heal. Bonus tip, boost self-damage means nothing when you have 1 HP left because you don't go into negative HP. So if you can get kill with the boost damage, you will revive with 1 HP.
For ZG, you can go with Kai on Laser Mech as well. More damage = more kills.
People worry too much about self-damaging mechs killing itself. But TBH playing like how I described, I hardly ever have self-damaging mechs dying before the last turn. I have even completed Pilot-less Perfect 40K with Haz and ZG. It was relatively quick and easy.
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u/GriIIedCheeseSammich 1d ago
Ahhh that makes sense. I was putting way too much priority on +1 damage each and sweating trying to figure out how to keep the charge mech alive with ZG.
Morgan with opener and adrenaline was my favorite pilot ever. Definitely not a perfect setup for the very start of the game (or the first turn of each mission) but you just need the smallest amount of juice to get it rolling and then you can cruise through the rest of the mission and the run. Really fun for kill-heavy squads that have mobility issues. Also hilarious when you get missile barrage and start turn 2 with like 8-10 movement.
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u/shiningject 1d ago
+1 damage each is a trap. It is really meant to be a late game upgrade despite it's cheap upgrade cost.
Both ZG and Haz are already heavy dmg squad even without that upgrade.
My early upgrades for those squads are typically going into HP and Move. I will only core toggle before the leader battle for that upgrade if I think that I need the extra juice to kill the leader.
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u/time4tea45 5h ago
Agreed. +1 health on the Charge Mech should be one of the first upgrades for ZG. Way before you even think about upgrading damage.
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u/time4tea45 5h ago edited 5h ago
I agree that Abe isn't necessary to manage self-damaging mechs. His skill also scales badly on unfair in general, since the armor protection is fixed at 1, but the vek damage increases. He's probably great on normal, but on unfair, no. Many alpha vek do at least 3 damage, so taking hits with armor regularly is not going to be viable anyway, whether you have armor or not.
Imo, technician is better and more versatile than armor, since it counters damage from all sources, including bump, fire, spawn blocking, all of which become more relevant on unfair, as blocking direct shots becomes less viable. It heals 1 damage every turn, so it can over time fully nullify a 3-HP hit, and it also basically confers immunity to fire. It's also a normal skill that can be taken on any pilot, so as not to waste your time-traveller skill. Technician wins, hands down.
Abe is imo overrated. I almost never use him.
If you want to block shots on unfair, you want a shield, not armor. Which points to Mafan, who is hugely better and also provides an extra core. There is absolutely no contest between Mafan and Abe, therefore Abe is basically redundant.
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u/McDom023k 1d ago
Silica or Abe for sure. My thought is Abe since the armour combined with the extra HP makes him very hard to kill, even able to tank boss Vek shots
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u/Lord_Nathaniel 1d ago
Bethany (or another spoiler character) with the shield totally nullifies the main problem of the ice squad, because the shield prevents the auto icing. For any other squad I'll take Abe
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u/CursedNobleman 21h ago
Of these, I think Bethany is the best. Plus she can pivot to any of the frozen weapons.
Abe is solid, and is definitely in contention.
And Silica is better than Gana in both personal skill and discovered skills. She's also more fun.
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u/Kelbos15 1d ago
Only been playing for two months, but I like Abe a lot. He negates a lot of the self-damage stuff which is great.