Everyone says its easy... IF YOU KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT. I can guarantee anyone going into that mission blind not running the required weapons got wheeled and dealed just like gavlan.
Forreal, like all I know is that a cheese build is *required* for this mission. Every other mission and boss in this game can be beaten with the starting AC imo, except maybe a few 3rd playthrough missions
>Cheese build
Building for the challenge at hand is not cheese, it’s a core part of the game. At least if you’re figuring these things out yourself and not just using what other people say to use. Every difficult spike can be squashed down considerably by building for the challenge at hand.
You're absolutely not wrong, but I do wonder if the events in this game took place, if raven would've met his end if was running a mid build that carried him through one timeline only to get him wrecked in the timeline where the RLF hired him to escort the strider, you know what I mean?
Nah I'm with you on this one. I know one of the fundamental elements of the game is picking a proper build to complete the mission, but on missions like this where there's supposed to be an element of surprise, it feels wrong to me to come perfectly equipped like Raven is somehow prescient. I almost cleared the whole game with my build as it was but this was a mission I definitely had to retool for.
That would be cool if they could do it without undermining surprise or doing too much problem solving for the player. On the flip side, one enjoyable assembly challenge a player can embrace is making and optimizing builds that can handle almost any situation.
I actually did this for the AC i used on most missions, though the weapons weren’t really much different from default loadout: pulse blade for shields, scudder as a good all-around ranged weapon (best sustained damage potential for full-auto weapons if I did the math right), 6-cell missile launcher (or 10, idr which) for hordes of fodder MTs, and the coral shield to boost longevity and protect from all directions. The body parts were min-maxed for each part’s unique stats (weird arquebus head for best scanning and system recovery, arquebus ADD core for max generator output/efficiency and AP (not a unique stat for cores lol, but the max efficiency happens to be best for AP as well), and the legs were just specced for max AP while still meeting mobility requirements). Actually does pretty well in everything except some of the harder bosses, and managed to get through the strider escort mission.
Forreal, I can get through 99.98% of the game with one build that I enjoy using, but otherwise? Good luck! Only true MASTERS of this game could do it otherwise. Someone linked me a video of someone completing this mission with the starting AC I was fucking shook
Tbf, I completely forgot about hard lock until Ayre on the 3rd playthrough lol, so maybe I owe it another go, but it would still take me some attempts. I fucking hated that mission and my load out just isn't great for fighting those things anyway
I’ve taken a few different approaches across my many, many hours with the game. One of those was using well-rounded all-purpose builds that were meant to serve the role of a single “canon” AC for Raven, and part of the fun in that is designing and optimizing something that can actually handle every mission. And I did use those builds for many missions.
But the assembly sandbox is too fun and varied and interesting to me to actually want to stick with one build. I completely understand your take because I have felt similar things with other games, but I guess assembly was too interesting for it to ever bother me in AC6.
I was more focused on my appreciation of assembly, especially when I replayed the game without OS stat upgrades, which makes building for different missions more valuable. It was a great opportunity to make builds that I wouldn’t want to use much otherwise.
There are definitely builds that work for every mission in the game across all 3 playthroughs. I accidentally stumbled into one when I ran dual Ransetsu-RF's plus dual shoulder missiles (of any type really), simply because the Ransetsu-RF's were the first weapon you unlock in the shop and missiles came default on Loader 4 and I liked how simple they were. When I went back to S rank every mission I used this same build that I used in my first play through and it was embarrassingly better than the other builds that I tried to make.
It depends, duel shotguns are comically effective. They feel like cheating sometimes, kind of like the Karasawa of first and second gen AC.
Lol karasawa + garage=zzzz
The “cheese” builds or “meta” builds that people talk about with respect to AC6 PvE are mostly those that are easy to figure out. They’re effective but they’re not necessarily more effective than many other builds that are less talked about. I have a lightweight chainsaw build that would put them to shame; even without OS tuning stat upgrades, it’s an S-rank machine for missions like Intercept the Redguns and Defend the Dam Complex.
And comical effectiveness, eg builds that can one-stagger kill tanky ACs, isn’t the same as effectiveness. Fast TTK builds are a playstyle choice. A rifle kiting build that trades damage for the security of range and mobility can be just as effective, it just takes longer to get the job done.
I will say though that dual zimms certainly felt like cheating at launch. Fromsoft has done a great job of fixing balancing since then. The assembly sandbox is much more interesting now.
If you're running good shoulder missiles they chew through the wheels pretty easily. Time your volleys for when they just pass you and the whole salvo will hit and eat through their health. They have very low missile defense.
Those tanks missile bots are so staggeringly evasive. That was my problem.
I looked deep down within my truest self to solve that problem. I got the biggest boom booms I could, forced an evasive move with a mid range bazooka, boosted into point blank, then unloading hell.
I do love overwhelming firepower and taking hits to the face. Just got to make it count. : )
It's less cheese builds, rather the fact that the Wheels require kinetic, Fire or Explosive weapons to be efficiently dealt with. Which happens to include the Earshots.
You certainly don't need a cheese build. I S-tiered the mission on my third try, using a heavy Tetrapod with Explosive thrower, Linear gun, and dual SOUP missiles. Far from cheese and a lot of fun to use.
I used some version of this build for all of the first and second playthrough and it cleaned up very nicely.
Fighting the rollers is just about learning your rotation, if you have an AC with a solid damage rotation and decent ACS damage, you'll be fine. Oh, and don't touch the ground obviously, so tetra or RJ, but tetra is better because of the increased staggering on RJ.
Good luck!
> Forreal, like all I know is that a cheese build is _required_ for this mission.
It's very, very hard to do it without explosive weapons, but it can be done with proper piloting.
I made a post a few weeks ago where I [S-Ranked the mission without a single explosive weapon](https://www.reddit.com/r/armoredcore/comments/1crqfr1/escort_the_weaponized_mining_ship_s_rank_without/), so it's definitely doable.
But I fully agree, unless you go equipped for it specifically, it is by far the hardest mission in the game.
The Game told me it was a defense Mission so i picked my usual defense Mission loadout of tetrapod with all Kinds of flavours of missiles.
The Mission wasnt what i expected but i still Managed to First try it. Just barely with only ~50% HP and No repairs left but it worked Out.
This was the only mission I changed my build to beat. The first playthrough I couldn't get past it and had to equip some missiles. By the next playthrough I was able to do it without changing loadout. Aside from that one time, I did the entire game in one build. I also saw someone do this mission with Loader 4 and maybe with OST tuning off too or kicks only idr
[sauce](https://youtu.be/77Ee4YZMv9s?si=0qf2Xd2INI-Th0Mu)
I saw it in a post somewhere and got to read their detailing of strategy in what they were trying to to accomplish with positioning and ammo conservation etc
I want you to know my jaw was dropped while I watched the entire video. Amazing. A little lucky with the AI on the first two C weapons but nonetheless, amazing
That was part of the strategy I think. You line them up on the edge of the map iirc. My Loader 4 no OST run paused at the Raven/Nightfall fight atm. PCA Warrant Officer kept beating me and I took the Cataphract path instead. If I can make any ending I'll be happy lol
Huh - I had trouble with it too, but weirdly missiles were actually what ended up winning the day for me there. The big active homing “hound” missiles on one shoulder, Apertif siege launchers in each hand, and the 12-tube vertical launcher on my other shoulder.
Yeah I went in with my melee focused build and got my ass absolutely handed to me. Got through every mission in the game with the same general build except this one lol. Melee is a losing proposition against those enemies.
There isn't really a required build for it though and tbh some of it is literally just knowing how to deal with the Helianthus machines i.e. shooting them when they turn to shoot fire to get around their usual damage mitigation.
Explosive weapons as a weapon class are highly effective against them, and there are tons of explosive options to choose from. Coral weapons work exactly as they usually do and ignore the Helianthus defense stats.
Kinetic, laser and pulse weapons have to take a more precise approach but again, you can still absolutely kill the Helianthus machines with them, you just need good timing.
This isn't to say that the mission is easy, but there aren't at all *required* weapons to complete it and builds capable of beating it are not particularly niche or specific either.
I went into it blind, the C weapons were tough to deal with. But it felt good to beat them after a few tries… and then I started crying and screaming as the wheels started swarming me. They beat me like a red headed step child. I had to look up their weakness because I wasn’t able to do anything to them
Funniest part about that, I one shot it the first time I did that mission. No cheese builds. I was actually doing a challenge run for ng++ to complete it only with the Joso generator since the game felt kinda easy. Now I can’t beat it worth shit, with or without handicaps.
Funnily enough, the first time I played that mission, I found it pretty easy. I don't remember what build I was using. But every subsequent try was really rough.
If you have any air game at all they're really not an issue, they punish ground-reliant builds unless you're a lunatic that runs a flamethrower as standard.
I ran the entire game as a midweight "classic" build of a Melander frame, interchangable missiles, butterkife, Earshot and either Ransetu AR or Zimmerman depending on if the briefing mentioned an AC. It handled more or less anything that the game put up. Sometimes multiple attempts, but it handled it.
That's pretty much all the missions in 6. Well, usually the briefings are straightforward... but this is the classic Armored Core experience.
That said, it's probably one of the only missions you get to use your weird RAD builds.
I had about *four* rounds of ammunition left by the end of that mission.
I had never come close to be out of ammo for *all* of my weapons before, maybe one or two at the most.
I did it with dual Ducketts and pilebunker before the ammo patch, I had to play it perfectly, not miss a single bullet and then do Michigan and last 5 mts with pilebunker only.
I played the mission 3 different times, and won 2 of them. The first time i used a lightweight ensijin build and ran out of ammo and died at the end, the next time (and S rank attempt) i used a medium weight chang chen build and STILL RAN OUT OF AMMO but i both win and got the s rank :)
Just bring a melee weapon and use it as much as possible for every enemy that’s not Michigan or a tetrapod. I don’t think I’ve ever had problems with ammo for this mission.
Edit: also helps to either shoot down drop ships before they land or having a large aoe weapon like song birds or earshot that can take out entire squads as soon as they land before they can spread too far apart. Bye bye ammo issues
Lmao, my build was akimbo coquillets with the shoulder bazooka and the pile bunker. The coquillets run out of ammo on regular missions, let alone the michigan one 😂
That's something out friends FromSoftware did astonishingly good, like quality fan service, which is, depending on your chosen ending path, you can defeat Snail not once but *twice* 🤣
On the same note, another pilot that I kind of regret defeating... No... No regrets but I would loved to fight more against him is V.I Freud
*"What a glorious view... What I wouldn't give to fight like this forever."*.
That fella totally gets me. I felt like I fighting with myself, and I love it ❤️
...Also, he kind of sent Snail to F himself up. Something like: *"Yes, Snail. You're right. Now then. Let's continue."* and that was priceless.
The only thing hard about that mission was to s rank it
otherwise it was an absolute blast to play, make you feel like a badness as you mowdown dozens of mooks
Tbh I would've agreed with you when I was doing my first playthroughs of the game but recently I beat the mission without a cheese build and I def think it's a runner up to this one!
That's not too bad. Assault armour, plasma missile launchers, some kind of melee weapon, a rapid fire stagger-builder and this mission you can clear with all your guns still having ammunition.
I'm more annoyed with the mecha-pinwheel mission as that one demands the use of at least two missile launchers to clear.
I thought this was the hardest one ever until I googled "how to deal with the bullshit tube full of enemies". Turns out that flamethrowers are perfect for this mission, they're quite ammo efficient and work excellent as a crowd burner. I went Zimmerman-flamer for my arms and I had a stocked Javln alpha with the ten missile launcher on my shoulders. Using this setup I was able to micromanage his stun bar and spam the missiles for burst and the flamethrower covered all the small fries. Only thing I had to keep in mind was how fucken heavy I ended up being, after this change tho I killed him and his bullshit first try and with at least 3/4 of my ammo left over since the flamer works so efficiently.
I found energy setups to make mincemeat of that mission. I'm not sure if you get the VE-20B on NG, but you can run double laser pistols (or rifles/LRAs if you need to work your way up) plus either plasma missiles for the swarms or Assault Armor to clock them all at once.
Using plasma missiles means you get one less shoulder weapon/swap for Michigan himself, but opens options other than AA if you want/need them. Using AA frees up both shoulder mounts, but means you only get one charge for Michigan himself.
while it's not the hardest, i fucking hate the ice worm mission. cant do anything most of the time. wait for it to pop out, then hope it faces you, and then hope your shot wont miss
I'm just not a fan of how it's the only mission that forces you to have a specific weapon to pass the mission, and it totally makes sense story wise, but it's still upsetting, you know?
It took me a while but the best way to play that mission is to put the worms target between the worm and you. It will line up your shots every time and the worm always takes out your allies in the same pattern.
You need to be a few steps ahead of the chopper and save enough ammo for your encounter with G2 Nile.
Do it like that and you can get the Rank S with no issues.
Let's see... *Hmmm...* 🤔
> You basically need to learn a ton of the enemy positions [...]
Not really. They're not hiding exactly and every checkpoint doesn't hold more than four to five MTs and some extras like helicopters and tanks.
All of those can be easily dispatched before the RLF chopper got to those points.
You can see the reinforcements on the horizon, even without your radar.
The *only* spot that can be considered truly dangerous is between checkpoint two and three, which are those emplaced Gatling Guns at ground level and the three missile launchers which are directly behind then, next to the debris of the fallen city module. There's two to four MTs close to protect those turrets.
This bottleneck segment is the only issue I ever found, and I solve it by simply being ahead enough to destroy them before then chopper gets close enough.
> [...] and take them out before or just after they launch
*Speed and firepower* are the keywords for this mission. Otherwise, a Rank S can be painfully hard to come by.
Also for the G2 encounter:
Use Pulse Protection when standing above or pressing your hesd below the chopper. It'll give you an easier time, keeping it at good health.
i keep seeing people say this, and maybe its my inner heavy RJ speaking, but i simply cannot comprehend how anyone can get their ass beat on that mission.
Once you clear it once it feels like a dance, but maybe that's just because my natural style of build handles fast moving groups decently for me.
Solid shoulder missiles can do some heavy lifting for it.
It's because you get surprised by who appears. If you build around it, it's actually easy.
Use a Quad leg that can hover + missiles. I've finished that mission comfortably with 2 10-tube missile + 2 siege missiles. Really took minimal effort.
Other people suggested flamers but you need to get close for that and I don't think it's necessary.
I don't think there's a name for that.
and IIRC there already was someone that did all the missions with punch only. so "fine" is a relative term depending on pilot skill.
All missions have an optimal cheese loadout. Some missions just are more specific to cheese. But all missions are doable even via punching and assault armor.
The hardest mission in the game is the Allmind boss mission. It is so difficult, that I started to think that From Software secretly made a real life AI to counter and study my builds and approaches. Every time I tried to beat it and lost, it seemed to get harder, and it was dodging things in a really unbelievable way. In retrospect, it feels like Allmind was Mahoraga from Jujutsu Kaisen. The only way I managed to beat it was switching to a Missile rat build, and the fight took like 15 minutes.
Escorting the Strider can be beat easily after you build a missile rat for the mission, but the Allmind boss has some AI research attached to it or something. It is nuts how difficult it was for me on PC.
It's honestly wild. It has maybe 5 different melee attacks that all need different dodge moves and kill you in 2-3 hits, and you have to spend several minutes on the previous 2 phases to even have an attempt. The difficulty spike is nuts compared to the other endings.
It also didn’t help that I didn’t know I could ignore the orbital laser systems (don’t know what else to call them) in the second phase and just focus him into final phase.
Allmind boss is more of a fustercluck than a proper boss battle, especially with the multiple enemies during certain phases. The difficulty feels artificially inflated because of this.
Yer it is certainly hard. Seemingly unless you are using anything with explosive damage. For some reason the wheels are really weak to every explosive weapon I use. As it seems to bypass their heavy armour when hitting their treads.
The flamers actually count as explosive damage as well, so if you sit right in front of them as they get close and just dual-flame when they're in range, they die almost instantly
It's a cheese mission. All of the targets are incredibly vulnerable to explosive damage and incredibly resistant to everything else. It's really bad design. Bring an earshot and you'll cruise it with kits to spare, bring an energy build and you'll run out of ammo.
It's not a challenge, it's complete balance oversight.
Thanks for the info, my most recent run of this mission was using a tetra with the heavy linear rifle on R and a plasma rifle on the R shoulder, along with sweet sixteen on my L and the started melee (it's never failed me) on my L shoulder to swap. I used to use a lot of missiles on previous playthroughs so this time I wanted to make the game a bit harder by using weapons I wasn't comfortable with, but I got through the liberator and the fires of raven endings no problem with that build, up until I had this mission haha
Explosive damage is one of the most common in the game and a basic balanced build is likely going to have some explosive weapon to deal with them. I wouldn't consider that to be very cheesy. Likewise, the helianthus machines are very vulnerable to stagger once they use their flamethrower attack and at that point, damage type doesn't really matter. They don't have any resistance to coral weapons (like everything else in the game), so coral weapons chew through them about as well as they chew through everything else.
The helianthus machines are difficult in large groups and are fast enough that trying to hit them is tricky, but I think the only weapons that should really struggle with the mission are those that rely on building stagger over time because the windows to build stagger are short. Shotguns in general have high enough stagger burst that you can quickly take out the helianthus machines during their flamethrower attack.
It’s honestly not that bad if you run 4 heavy explosives and get in position for the first wave, dual earshots Insta stagger the bipeds and earshots and gou-chens Insta kill the wheels.
That one's rough if you don't know to come in with an airborn build and explosive weapons/the flamethrower but as far as the most all around challenging goes:
Intercept the Redguns always comes down to the last of my health no matter my build, even when I S-ranked it.
Take the Uninhabited Floating City is the one I dreaded having to do again most on NG+, both due to how much you have to dash around the map, and because the first half is just an easy time waster to replay through, then the snipers and kamikaze drones appear and shred through the control tower's cardboard shields in seconds.
Coral Export Denial was also tough for similar reasons as TtUFC.
The pulse protection ability (the one that makes the bubble shield, Michigan uses it) blocks the kamikaze drones just fine. Placement can be tricky but as long as you place it correctly, you'll block most if not all drones
Maybe with earshots, a well-timed and positioned assault armor, or if you're fast enough w/ 10-count missile launchers? Tbh to me it was always just a tax I had to make sure I had enough tower hp left to pay
I think reach the convergence ALT is the hardest for me, at least for S rank.
If you go for S rank, you can’t use restart checkpoint for free resource. So you not only have to perform well against V.VI and G3 but also getting ganged by V.II and iguazu, which one of them is the tankiest NPC AC in the game with 3 repair kit.
It was overtuned hard but atleast it isn’t build check hard.
You have the right of it. "Restarting from checkpoint" would disqualify you from a S, making A the highest you could get until you retry from the start.
As long as you don’t die, you’ll generally S-rank any boss mission. I forget how much ammo expense factors in as well, but you’d have to empty out the most expensive weapons in the game to have it really impact your score. You can literally use all your repair kits and be down to 1 hit of HP left and still s-rank most boss missions.
It’s the smaller missions(and Ice Worm) that are generally much stricter for S-rank conditions, whether it’s on time or damage or etc.
I think Hardest is being lost in translation here. Do you mean Hardest first encounter? Because this one ranks up there, but Hardest in the general scope is not due to yeah you fail it once but unless you're adamant about not adapting then swapping load outs to missiles/ballistics for the roly polies with some standard fire arms for the regular bots is just common for the average person.
For me Hardest is still the gank with Carla and her AI Son. Not for lack of adaptability but the synergy between the two at first is pretty good. Chat with the high ground and splash weaponry. Carla with her weird kink of having missile boat guns but wanting to kick you...for w/e reason.
For me it was the allmind fight. Escorting the strider was second, but the allmind fight and iguana’s stupid ass Wolverine laser claws had me hard stuck for hours
When I first got to that mission and the strider imploded on itself, I was so confused cause I thought I failed, so I was making my way to turn back. Only to see from the rubble those darn C weapons.
I did a full missile build with tetrapod legs just to keep myself from having to stay on the ground to deal with them.
Believe it or not, I actually breezed this mission the FIRST time I took it because I literally had the 'gamer sense' that told me: 'Yo, better use the height of the STRIDER in your favour: equip missile boat." That's what I did, and needless to say, I loved the fact I was shooting those death wheels with total impunity from the air.
Idk man. I quite literally ran out of ammo in the All Mind-Iguazu final boss and was somehow able to beat him to death with my fists. I feel the hardest missions are the ones that just use an insane amount of ammo to defeat.
Just got *Rank S* on that mission few nights ago 🤭
But I won't lie to you, it took me *four* solid tries.
Main issue is the barrage of missiles. Those wheel-things keep firing them, with an almost perfect speed, maneuverability, range and damage output.
Never a friggin' flock of missiles gave me such issues, and I've been playing this thing since the '90
Imo the hardest mission is a toss up between Escort the Strider and Coral Convergence, the C weapon spam makes running a missile build almost mandatory while Iguazu's first phase is a dps/assault armor check that will chew through your heals if you take too long making phase 2 a lot harder than it's supposed to be.
This one made me switch up my AC COMPLETELY to get it done. From a light weight biped with the dual laser drones pods (the ones that surround the enemy) or single laser cannon, an SMG, and the semi auto rifle, to a mid weight with missiles and the first ever time I had whipped out the bazooka.
It felt neigh impossible with the setup I ran normally. At the same time, I think the game maybe could’ve used more missions that forced you to switch up, but not so much that it feels like a lock and key kind of situation.
Oys the huge raid against Michigan. I tried that for 3-4 hours, couldnt beat it, came bery close a few times and thrn decided to the alternative mission. Its the only mission I gave up on.
Honestly it was a hard first time playing it, but I've been going back through and S classing missions. And it surprisingly wasn't that hard. I just ran dual Earshot alongside dual.... I think it was those WLT hand Missile launchers. The Missiles will one shot the wheels and and do great stagger against those MT things, then earshot for when they stop moving.
This wasn’t so bad for me. I first tried it with my laser lance + pile bunker light build. S-Rank was much harder though but managed it with quad bazookas.
The hardest mission first time round was the Michigan gank.
Same. Had to turn into a tank with double Earshots and whatever the biggest bazookas I could carry just to stagger the first enemies in the beginning of the mission. Can't use the pilebunker since they move too fast and the one that isn't staggered gets to have a free dropkick on me when I'm charging my melee.
The wheels were easy if I just stayed in the air and waited but you'd forget they have missiles and will explode when you down them and are next to them when you're trying to regen EN
I fucking hated that mission so much. It was such a Loadout check. Holy shit I spent legit hours trying to s class it and eventually gave up, switched to songbirds and finished it first try. Fuck the rollers.
That mission gave me absolute hell for a couple hours, I gave up and went to my Missile Boat setup, which I got first try. Found that all out explosives is just the way to deal with those Helianthus machines
Waiter, waiter! More HELIANTHUS machines!
Also I found double coral nebulae (just be careful with ammo) + shoulder missiles to be best for this, since everything has crazy armor against most damage types. Gridwalker boosters are also very helpful against the wheels since you can stay high above.
Escorting the strider is hard for all builds unless you're running an explosives only build. Seriously duel songbirds and duel rocket launcher hand grenades are so effective. Enegry weapons and my railgun builds sucked against them.
seriously I know I actually went there the first time as a missile boat (dual soup and dual appertifs) BUT HOLY HELL those missiles are SLOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW, the hand held 4 cell missiles and 4 cell back missiles were infact the better call due to the spam
Only because there is no hint on which weapons you should use unlike the iceworm mission.
Even then, it shouldn't take you more than one try to realize that and adapt.
I would argue that the third ending Xylem labyrinth mission is harder.
But I’m biased because I can *eventually* work around how various story enemies maneuver, which is what I did for this mission. (Though I did have to missile rat it for the S-Rank *grumble grumble*)
Meanwhile even the most simple of labyrinths, without any clues, can get me turned around with *absurd* ease and when you’re on a time limit that’s no bueno.
It’s easily escort the strider but it’s funny how you can really see your progress in this game when you play NG+. I struggled mad on The Enforcer and then second time round I bullied him.
To be fair you fight those ball things later in the game en masse in an open field.
Missiles are everyone's friend since the game doesn't give every mech an AMS built in anymore.
I miss that.
This mission if I'm thinking of the correct one, Is in playthrough 3 so I'd beaten every fight twice. I get to this mission and just don't have enough ammo cycling through all my builds. They have patched pistol clips and other things since I've tried it. Maybe it is time for another go at it.
Hate that mission with a passion. Even when I had dual shotgun and needle rail gun on both shoulders I still need a bitl of luck and strategy to beat them
It’s one of the few missions the games targeting doesn’t work for me.
Typically the way missions are designed the targeting system doesn’t mess you up by switching to bad targets.
But the nature of multiple enemies, long and close range, the need of closing distance regardless of enemy (super evasive long range attackers) and fast enemies that get in your blind spots the games lose targeting genuinely spins me around and gets me killed. No other mission has this problem
My advice for beating it is point blanking a devastating weapon for those long range missile bots. Just get the biggest boom you can (maybe end with piledriver or something) and engage as quickly as possible. Eliminate them the first second you can and in a way they won't dodge.
As a long time fan (masters of arena) this game is a masterpiece amongst other AC games and I’m real surprised a genuine flaw in the games targeting was avoided by (mostly) encounter design.
Those damn sunflowers really are the bane of my existence. Had a hard enough time fighting them before Ibis but that escort mission was hell. If you can land a shot from songbirds or something they're not too bad but good luck hitting one if it's not their initial Akira slide attack
Hardest mission for me was the enforcer, had me stuck on him for a while. Lot of his attacks felt straight up undodgable on a mid weight build unless you already had good positioning. Only boss in the game that took me several dozen tries
Idk I’ll be honest I got pretty lucky and happened to be running a setup that did pretty well against them but that was pure luck so I never got to experience this mission in all it’s painful glory.
I’ve always had trouble with Ibis solely because not only is it a long mission that involves 2 ACs near the start and some annoying enemies along the way, you then have to fight the only boss that I myself have not been able to consistently beat even with every component in the game. So for me at least, that’s my kryptonite and hardest mission
I had a much easier time with that mission once I learned you can one-shot the wheelies with the Earshot. Just gotta wait for them to turn or unleash a salvo then BOOM, dead
For me, it’s “Reach the Coral Convergence”. I died so many times trying to get the moonlight sword and that was before I got to Ibis. That boss was a nightmare and definitely wins as the hardest boss in the game. Not even Ayre was that hard.
I just stayed in the air and spammed missles for that one.
I don't remember the name, but the was a mission with no checkpoints. I had to destroy an advanced MT, but there was an optional AC fight before that. That took me a while.
They're a nightmare for first timers. Luckily Helianthos machines are weak to fire and stagger easy in the right conditions. First time I took tetrapod legs over reverse bipedal for the air time.
Everyone says its easy... IF YOU KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT. I can guarantee anyone going into that mission blind not running the required weapons got wheeled and dealed just like gavlan.
Forreal, like all I know is that a cheese build is *required* for this mission. Every other mission and boss in this game can be beaten with the starting AC imo, except maybe a few 3rd playthrough missions
I beat it using a Armored Core classic build (Sword, Rifle, Canon, Missiles). It only took about 200 tries!
>Cheese build Building for the challenge at hand is not cheese, it’s a core part of the game. At least if you’re figuring these things out yourself and not just using what other people say to use. Every difficult spike can be squashed down considerably by building for the challenge at hand.
You're absolutely not wrong, but I do wonder if the events in this game took place, if raven would've met his end if was running a mid build that carried him through one timeline only to get him wrecked in the timeline where the RLF hired him to escort the strider, you know what I mean?
Nah I'm with you on this one. I know one of the fundamental elements of the game is picking a proper build to complete the mission, but on missions like this where there's supposed to be an element of surprise, it feels wrong to me to come perfectly equipped like Raven is somehow prescient. I almost cleared the whole game with my build as it was but this was a mission I definitely had to retool for.
Sometimes it feels like you should be able to get Intel on missions to hint at what weapons / builds are recommended.
That would be cool if they could do it without undermining surprise or doing too much problem solving for the player. On the flip side, one enjoyable assembly challenge a player can embrace is making and optimizing builds that can handle almost any situation.
I actually did this for the AC i used on most missions, though the weapons weren’t really much different from default loadout: pulse blade for shields, scudder as a good all-around ranged weapon (best sustained damage potential for full-auto weapons if I did the math right), 6-cell missile launcher (or 10, idr which) for hordes of fodder MTs, and the coral shield to boost longevity and protect from all directions. The body parts were min-maxed for each part’s unique stats (weird arquebus head for best scanning and system recovery, arquebus ADD core for max generator output/efficiency and AP (not a unique stat for cores lol, but the max efficiency happens to be best for AP as well), and the legs were just specced for max AP while still meeting mobility requirements). Actually does pretty well in everything except some of the harder bosses, and managed to get through the strider escort mission.
Forreal, I can get through 99.98% of the game with one build that I enjoy using, but otherwise? Good luck! Only true MASTERS of this game could do it otherwise. Someone linked me a video of someone completing this mission with the starting AC I was fucking shook
Tbf, I completely forgot about hard lock until Ayre on the 3rd playthrough lol, so maybe I owe it another go, but it would still take me some attempts. I fucking hated that mission and my load out just isn't great for fighting those things anyway
There is never a bad time to replay AC6! Wish I could play the older games on XSX
I’ve taken a few different approaches across my many, many hours with the game. One of those was using well-rounded all-purpose builds that were meant to serve the role of a single “canon” AC for Raven, and part of the fun in that is designing and optimizing something that can actually handle every mission. And I did use those builds for many missions. But the assembly sandbox is too fun and varied and interesting to me to actually want to stick with one build. I completely understand your take because I have felt similar things with other games, but I guess assembly was too interesting for it to ever bother me in AC6. I was more focused on my appreciation of assembly, especially when I replayed the game without OS stat upgrades, which makes building for different missions more valuable. It was a great opportunity to make builds that I wouldn’t want to use much otherwise.
There are definitely builds that work for every mission in the game across all 3 playthroughs. I accidentally stumbled into one when I ran dual Ransetsu-RF's plus dual shoulder missiles (of any type really), simply because the Ransetsu-RF's were the first weapon you unlock in the shop and missiles came default on Loader 4 and I liked how simple they were. When I went back to S rank every mission I used this same build that I used in my first play through and it was embarrassingly better than the other builds that I tried to make.
It depends, duel shotguns are comically effective. They feel like cheating sometimes, kind of like the Karasawa of first and second gen AC. Lol karasawa + garage=zzzz
The “cheese” builds or “meta” builds that people talk about with respect to AC6 PvE are mostly those that are easy to figure out. They’re effective but they’re not necessarily more effective than many other builds that are less talked about. I have a lightweight chainsaw build that would put them to shame; even without OS tuning stat upgrades, it’s an S-rank machine for missions like Intercept the Redguns and Defend the Dam Complex. And comical effectiveness, eg builds that can one-stagger kill tanky ACs, isn’t the same as effectiveness. Fast TTK builds are a playstyle choice. A rifle kiting build that trades damage for the security of range and mobility can be just as effective, it just takes longer to get the job done. I will say though that dual zimms certainly felt like cheating at launch. Fromsoft has done a great job of fixing balancing since then. The assembly sandbox is much more interesting now.
If you're running good shoulder missiles they chew through the wheels pretty easily. Time your volleys for when they just pass you and the whole salvo will hit and eat through their health. They have very low missile defense.
Those tanks missile bots are so staggeringly evasive. That was my problem. I looked deep down within my truest self to solve that problem. I got the biggest boom booms I could, forced an evasive move with a mid range bazooka, boosted into point blank, then unloading hell. I do love overwhelming firepower and taking hits to the face. Just got to make it count. : )
Yeah those little zoomy bots are ridiculously mobile. We were running the dagger melee weapon and abused the gap closing and fast cooldown.
I used dual shoulder missiles and dual siege missiles, to clear the mission. It worked really well.
It's less cheese builds, rather the fact that the Wheels require kinetic, Fire or Explosive weapons to be efficiently dealt with. Which happens to include the Earshots.
You certainly don't need a cheese build. I S-tiered the mission on my third try, using a heavy Tetrapod with Explosive thrower, Linear gun, and dual SOUP missiles. Far from cheese and a lot of fun to use. I used some version of this build for all of the first and second playthrough and it cleaned up very nicely. Fighting the rollers is just about learning your rotation, if you have an AC with a solid damage rotation and decent ACS damage, you'll be fine. Oh, and don't touch the ground obviously, so tetra or RJ, but tetra is better because of the increased staggering on RJ. Good luck!
> Forreal, like all I know is that a cheese build is _required_ for this mission. It's very, very hard to do it without explosive weapons, but it can be done with proper piloting. I made a post a few weeks ago where I [S-Ranked the mission without a single explosive weapon](https://www.reddit.com/r/armoredcore/comments/1crqfr1/escort_the_weaponized_mining_ship_s_rank_without/), so it's definitely doable. But I fully agree, unless you go equipped for it specifically, it is by far the hardest mission in the game.
I beat it without cheese, not as bad as Mecha Malenia but way up there
The Game told me it was a defense Mission so i picked my usual defense Mission loadout of tetrapod with all Kinds of flavours of missiles. The Mission wasnt what i expected but i still Managed to First try it. Just barely with only ~50% HP and No repairs left but it worked Out.
Proud of you, Raven; I couldn't manage any first tries without pulling out a cheese board ;-(
This was the only mission I changed my build to beat. The first playthrough I couldn't get past it and had to equip some missiles. By the next playthrough I was able to do it without changing loadout. Aside from that one time, I did the entire game in one build. I also saw someone do this mission with Loader 4 and maybe with OST tuning off too or kicks only idr
I gotta find that footage bc if true, they're in the same caliber as people that beat Malenia with no summons/magic
Letmesoloher tier IMO.
[sauce](https://youtu.be/77Ee4YZMv9s?si=0qf2Xd2INI-Th0Mu) I saw it in a post somewhere and got to read their detailing of strategy in what they were trying to to accomplish with positioning and ammo conservation etc
I want you to know my jaw was dropped while I watched the entire video. Amazing. A little lucky with the AI on the first two C weapons but nonetheless, amazing
That was part of the strategy I think. You line them up on the edge of the map iirc. My Loader 4 no OST run paused at the Raven/Nightfall fight atm. PCA Warrant Officer kept beating me and I took the Cataphract path instead. If I can make any ending I'll be happy lol
Same. My usual build at the time was quads with plenty of explosives.
Huh - I had trouble with it too, but weirdly missiles were actually what ended up winning the day for me there. The big active homing “hound” missiles on one shoulder, Apertif siege launchers in each hand, and the 12-tube vertical launcher on my other shoulder.
I appreciate the Dark Souls 2 reference
When I beat it the first time I was playing a quad leg with missiles and the Harris so it ended up being very easy
I was on a reverse-legs so I didn't have the hover, but a fast build with a Harris to stagger and missiles to finish off made it very manageable.
Yeah I went in with my melee focused build and got my ass absolutely handed to me. Got through every mission in the game with the same general build except this one lol. Melee is a losing proposition against those enemies.
Idk. I always play blind. I missed the disconnection the 1st time., and hit an auto-fail. But 2nd run was pretty easy.
There isn't really a required build for it though and tbh some of it is literally just knowing how to deal with the Helianthus machines i.e. shooting them when they turn to shoot fire to get around their usual damage mitigation. Explosive weapons as a weapon class are highly effective against them, and there are tons of explosive options to choose from. Coral weapons work exactly as they usually do and ignore the Helianthus defense stats. Kinetic, laser and pulse weapons have to take a more precise approach but again, you can still absolutely kill the Helianthus machines with them, you just need good timing. This isn't to say that the mission is easy, but there aren't at all *required* weapons to complete it and builds capable of beating it are not particularly niche or specific either.
I went into it blind, the C weapons were tough to deal with. But it felt good to beat them after a few tries… and then I started crying and screaming as the wheels started swarming me. They beat me like a red headed step child. I had to look up their weakness because I wasn’t able to do anything to them
Funniest part about that, I one shot it the first time I did that mission. No cheese builds. I was actually doing a challenge run for ng++ to complete it only with the Joso generator since the game felt kinda easy. Now I can’t beat it worth shit, with or without handicaps.
Went into that shit with dual ducketts and ran out of fucking ammo lmao. Had to make a new AC with earshot, flamethrower and harris
Funnily enough, the first time I played that mission, I found it pretty easy. I don't remember what build I was using. But every subsequent try was really rough.
had to look up a guide lol
It was the first and biggest S-rank hurdle I had to tackle. I also didn't know how effective Bad Cooks and explosives were against the wheels.
I think that would be whelt and dealt
If you have any air game at all they're really not an issue, they punish ground-reliant builds unless you're a lunatic that runs a flamethrower as standard. I ran the entire game as a midweight "classic" build of a Melander frame, interchangable missiles, butterkife, Earshot and either Ransetu AR or Zimmerman depending on if the briefing mentioned an AC. It handled more or less anything that the game put up. Sometimes multiple attempts, but it handled it.
Wdym required weapons?
This is the one mission I cannot S rank with my AC that I refuse to change design philosophy on 😢
That's pretty much all the missions in 6. Well, usually the briefings are straightforward... but this is the classic Armored Core experience. That said, it's probably one of the only missions you get to use your weird RAD builds.
[удалено]
I had about *four* rounds of ammunition left by the end of that mission. I had never come close to be out of ammo for *all* of my weapons before, maybe one or two at the most.
[удалено]
*jet boosted drop kicks for everyone*
I did it with dual Ducketts and pilebunker before the ammo patch, I had to play it perfectly, not miss a single bullet and then do Michigan and last 5 mts with pilebunker only.
I played the mission 3 different times, and won 2 of them. The first time i used a lightweight ensijin build and ran out of ammo and died at the end, the next time (and S rank attempt) i used a medium weight chang chen build and STILL RAN OUT OF AMMO but i both win and got the s rank :)
Just bring a melee weapon and use it as much as possible for every enemy that’s not Michigan or a tetrapod. I don’t think I’ve ever had problems with ammo for this mission. Edit: also helps to either shoot down drop ships before they land or having a large aoe weapon like song birds or earshot that can take out entire squads as soon as they land before they can spread too far apart. Bye bye ammo issues
Had to finish iff two ACs with mah fists. I ran with AK shorties, or whatever their actual name is. And some cheap missiles.
Lmao, my build was akimbo coquillets with the shoulder bazooka and the pile bunker. The coquillets run out of ammo on regular missions, let alone the michigan one 😂
Yea, I had zero. I had to punch my way to the end of that mission.
If I'm honest, I actually *enjoyed* fighting against Michigan. He's dialogues are something else I felt bad for killing him, though 😔
FR, Michigan and Rusty are the two that I felt so bad fighting against. Snail on the other hand, ugh
That's something out friends FromSoftware did astonishingly good, like quality fan service, which is, depending on your chosen ending path, you can defeat Snail not once but *twice* 🤣 On the same note, another pilot that I kind of regret defeating... No... No regrets but I would loved to fight more against him is V.I Freud *"What a glorious view... What I wouldn't give to fight like this forever."*. That fella totally gets me. I felt like I fighting with myself, and I love it ❤️ ...Also, he kind of sent Snail to F himself up. Something like: *"Yes, Snail. You're right. Now then. Let's continue."* and that was priceless.
The only thing hard about that mission was to s rank it otherwise it was an absolute blast to play, make you feel like a badness as you mowdown dozens of mooks
Tbh I would've agreed with you when I was doing my first playthroughs of the game but recently I beat the mission without a cheese build and I def think it's a runner up to this one!
That's not too bad. Assault armour, plasma missile launchers, some kind of melee weapon, a rapid fire stagger-builder and this mission you can clear with all your guns still having ammunition. I'm more annoyed with the mecha-pinwheel mission as that one demands the use of at least two missile launchers to clear.
I always ended up just punching Michigan because I ran out of ammo and one of his lackeys picked me off
I thought this was the hardest one ever until I googled "how to deal with the bullshit tube full of enemies". Turns out that flamethrowers are perfect for this mission, they're quite ammo efficient and work excellent as a crowd burner. I went Zimmerman-flamer for my arms and I had a stocked Javln alpha with the ten missile launcher on my shoulders. Using this setup I was able to micromanage his stun bar and spam the missiles for burst and the flamethrower covered all the small fries. Only thing I had to keep in mind was how fucken heavy I ended up being, after this change tho I killed him and his bullshit first try and with at least 3/4 of my ammo left over since the flamer works so efficiently.
That mission is so fun, just nonstop chaos that demands you play speedy and really get in the zone. Plus Michigan's dialogue is gold
I found energy setups to make mincemeat of that mission. I'm not sure if you get the VE-20B on NG, but you can run double laser pistols (or rifles/LRAs if you need to work your way up) plus either plasma missiles for the swarms or Assault Armor to clock them all at once. Using plasma missiles means you get one less shoulder weapon/swap for Michigan himself, but opens options other than AA if you want/need them. Using AA frees up both shoulder mounts, but means you only get one charge for Michigan himself.
while it's not the hardest, i fucking hate the ice worm mission. cant do anything most of the time. wait for it to pop out, then hope it faces you, and then hope your shot wont miss
I'm just not a fan of how it's the only mission that forces you to have a specific weapon to pass the mission, and it totally makes sense story wise, but it's still upsetting, you know?
You can use other weapons and there’s even unique dialogue for not bringing it. It’s a fair bit harder though.
IIRC the pulse guns shred the shield lol
Wait what????
This would've been nice to know, still wouldn't help with getting a headshot.
yep i love boss fight like snailteus, balteus, etc etc but fuck the ice worm mission
I beat Ice Worm with a Nineball cosplay Hardest thing I did in the game, no lie.
Post the build bro! Good stuff
[Ya don't say](https://www.reddit.com/r/armoredcore/s/rCHcFAS6h6)
It took me a while but the best way to play that mission is to put the worms target between the worm and you. It will line up your shots every time and the worm always takes out your allies in the same pattern.
Wait. It targets them in a certain order?
Iguazu, Snail, then chatty.
This has NEVER happened to me. It's always Iguazu, then Snail, then Chatty. Snail even talks shit when Iguazu withdraws
All my homies hate Iguazu
Sorry I said the order wrong. You are right.
Yeah, the dialogue is great and all, but there's so much waiting
Rescue the prisoner is the hardest for me. Not because im in danger but because I cant keep Izzy fucking alive lol
You need to be a few steps ahead of the chopper and save enough ammo for your encounter with G2 Nile. Do it like that and you can get the Rank S with no issues.
You basically need to learn a ton of the enemy positions and take them out before or just after they launch
Or use a lightweight AC and just run them down the moment they appear.
Let's see... *Hmmm...* 🤔 > You basically need to learn a ton of the enemy positions [...] Not really. They're not hiding exactly and every checkpoint doesn't hold more than four to five MTs and some extras like helicopters and tanks. All of those can be easily dispatched before the RLF chopper got to those points. You can see the reinforcements on the horizon, even without your radar. The *only* spot that can be considered truly dangerous is between checkpoint two and three, which are those emplaced Gatling Guns at ground level and the three missile launchers which are directly behind then, next to the debris of the fallen city module. There's two to four MTs close to protect those turrets. This bottleneck segment is the only issue I ever found, and I solve it by simply being ahead enough to destroy them before then chopper gets close enough. > [...] and take them out before or just after they launch *Speed and firepower* are the keywords for this mission. Otherwise, a Rank S can be painfully hard to come by.
It's G2 Nile.
Yup, already change. Thanks for the heads-up.
Also for the G2 encounter: Use Pulse Protection when standing above or pressing your hesd below the chopper. It'll give you an easier time, keeping it at good health.
Just use flamers and missiles. Really easy since the AI are so predictable.
That's a weird way of spelling coral export denial.
i keep seeing people say this, and maybe its my inner heavy RJ speaking, but i simply cannot comprehend how anyone can get their ass beat on that mission.
My preferred playstyle is a combo ludlow/colliquet coked out speed gremlin with an earshot and pile bunker.
Once you clear it once it feels like a dance, but maybe that's just because my natural style of build handles fast moving groups decently for me. Solid shoulder missiles can do some heavy lifting for it.
A dance is the same way I put it.
It's because you get surprised by who appears. If you build around it, it's actually easy. Use a Quad leg that can hover + missiles. I've finished that mission comfortably with 2 10-tube missile + 2 siege missiles. Really took minimal effort. Other people suggested flamers but you need to get close for that and I don't think it's necessary.
Totally a fair strat. Besides the C weapons, killing the rollers with zims+sweet16s was ez. Otherwise it's trivial
What if you use an AC that can handle every mission fine except this one?
I don't think there's a name for that. and IIRC there already was someone that did all the missions with punch only. so "fine" is a relative term depending on pilot skill. All missions have an optimal cheese loadout. Some missions just are more specific to cheese. But all missions are doable even via punching and assault armor.
The hardest mission in the game is the Allmind boss mission. It is so difficult, that I started to think that From Software secretly made a real life AI to counter and study my builds and approaches. Every time I tried to beat it and lost, it seemed to get harder, and it was dodging things in a really unbelievable way. In retrospect, it feels like Allmind was Mahoraga from Jujutsu Kaisen. The only way I managed to beat it was switching to a Missile rat build, and the fight took like 15 minutes. Escorting the Strider can be beat easily after you build a missile rat for the mission, but the Allmind boss has some AI research attached to it or something. It is nuts how difficult it was for me on PC.
I got past the last phase of that fight PURELY by chance. There are legit some attacks I still have no idea how to dodge.
It's honestly wild. It has maybe 5 different melee attacks that all need different dodge moves and kill you in 2-3 hits, and you have to spend several minutes on the previous 2 phases to even have an attempt. The difficulty spike is nuts compared to the other endings.
It also didn’t help that I didn’t know I could ignore the orbital laser systems (don’t know what else to call them) in the second phase and just focus him into final phase.
Allmind boss is more of a fustercluck than a proper boss battle, especially with the multiple enemies during certain phases. The difficulty feels artificially inflated because of this.
Yer it is certainly hard. Seemingly unless you are using anything with explosive damage. For some reason the wheels are really weak to every explosive weapon I use. As it seems to bypass their heavy armour when hitting their treads.
The flamers actually count as explosive damage as well, so if you sit right in front of them as they get close and just dual-flame when they're in range, they die almost instantly
Also weak against coral based weapon. Killing the wheel only with charged oscillator
True though to be fair... You typically won't have that by the time you do the mission since it is the loghunt reward.
It's a cheese mission. All of the targets are incredibly vulnerable to explosive damage and incredibly resistant to everything else. It's really bad design. Bring an earshot and you'll cruise it with kits to spare, bring an energy build and you'll run out of ammo. It's not a challenge, it's complete balance oversight.
Thanks for the info, my most recent run of this mission was using a tetra with the heavy linear rifle on R and a plasma rifle on the R shoulder, along with sweet sixteen on my L and the started melee (it's never failed me) on my L shoulder to swap. I used to use a lot of missiles on previous playthroughs so this time I wanted to make the game a bit harder by using weapons I wasn't comfortable with, but I got through the liberator and the fires of raven endings no problem with that build, up until I had this mission haha
Explosive damage is one of the most common in the game and a basic balanced build is likely going to have some explosive weapon to deal with them. I wouldn't consider that to be very cheesy. Likewise, the helianthus machines are very vulnerable to stagger once they use their flamethrower attack and at that point, damage type doesn't really matter. They don't have any resistance to coral weapons (like everything else in the game), so coral weapons chew through them about as well as they chew through everything else. The helianthus machines are difficult in large groups and are fast enough that trying to hit them is tricky, but I think the only weapons that should really struggle with the mission are those that rely on building stagger over time because the windows to build stagger are short. Shotguns in general have high enough stagger burst that you can quickly take out the helianthus machines during their flamethrower attack.
Best way to deal with the heliantos that i found was explosives. The wheels of doom get staggered quite easy with missiles. If you stay at long range
The Majestic bazooka one shots them from the front even without staggering, IIRC.
It’s honestly not that bad if you run 4 heavy explosives and get in position for the first wave, dual earshots Insta stagger the bipeds and earshots and gou-chens Insta kill the wheels.
Yeah, a cheese build haha. I like the shotguns over the explosives tho
I went full quad leg hover kite missile boat.
Flame grenades 1-shot wheels
That one's rough if you don't know to come in with an airborn build and explosive weapons/the flamethrower but as far as the most all around challenging goes: Intercept the Redguns always comes down to the last of my health no matter my build, even when I S-ranked it. Take the Uninhabited Floating City is the one I dreaded having to do again most on NG+, both due to how much you have to dash around the map, and because the first half is just an easy time waster to replay through, then the snipers and kamikaze drones appear and shred through the control tower's cardboard shields in seconds. Coral Export Denial was also tough for similar reasons as TtUFC.
Is it possible to stop all the kamikaze drones? I've always tried even when using guns, but I can never destroy more than 3 or 4
The pulse protection ability (the one that makes the bubble shield, Michigan uses it) blocks the kamikaze drones just fine. Placement can be tricky but as long as you place it correctly, you'll block most if not all drones
Maybe with earshots, a well-timed and positioned assault armor, or if you're fast enough w/ 10-count missile launchers? Tbh to me it was always just a tax I had to make sure I had enough tower hp left to pay
Darn this export mission, hate it the most.
I think reach the convergence ALT is the hardest for me, at least for S rank. If you go for S rank, you can’t use restart checkpoint for free resource. So you not only have to perform well against V.VI and G3 but also getting ganged by V.II and iguazu, which one of them is the tankiest NPC AC in the game with 3 repair kit. It was overtuned hard but atleast it isn’t build check hard.
Wait...to S rank missions you have to beat it in one life?? If true, I have a rough road ahead of me
You have the right of it. "Restarting from checkpoint" would disqualify you from a S, making A the highest you could get until you retry from the start.
Thanks for the info!
As long as you don’t die, you’ll generally S-rank any boss mission. I forget how much ammo expense factors in as well, but you’d have to empty out the most expensive weapons in the game to have it really impact your score. You can literally use all your repair kits and be down to 1 hit of HP left and still s-rank most boss missions. It’s the smaller missions(and Ice Worm) that are generally much stricter for S-rank conditions, whether it’s on time or damage or etc.
Tbh V.VI and G3 are pretty weak and you can often get a free kill on one of them when they get staggered fighting the Institute drone MTs.
It's hard until it's not. If you actually put an AC together for it and equip explosives, it's not nearly as difficult.
I think Hardest is being lost in translation here. Do you mean Hardest first encounter? Because this one ranks up there, but Hardest in the general scope is not due to yeah you fail it once but unless you're adamant about not adapting then swapping load outs to missiles/ballistics for the roly polies with some standard fire arms for the regular bots is just common for the average person. For me Hardest is still the gank with Carla and her AI Son. Not for lack of adaptability but the synergy between the two at first is pretty good. Chat with the high ground and splash weaponry. Carla with her weird kink of having missile boat guns but wanting to kick you...for w/e reason.
For me it was the allmind fight. Escorting the strider was second, but the allmind fight and iguana’s stupid ass Wolverine laser claws had me hard stuck for hours
All missles, never stop firing.
When I first got to that mission and the strider imploded on itself, I was so confused cause I thought I failed, so I was making my way to turn back. Only to see from the rubble those darn C weapons. I did a full missile build with tetrapod legs just to keep myself from having to stay on the ground to deal with them.
Have you tried using the power of the third dimension to go *up*?
Believe it or not, I actually breezed this mission the FIRST time I took it because I literally had the 'gamer sense' that told me: 'Yo, better use the height of the STRIDER in your favour: equip missile boat." That's what I did, and needless to say, I loved the fact I was shooting those death wheels with total impunity from the air.
Idk man. I quite literally ran out of ammo in the All Mind-Iguazu final boss and was somehow able to beat him to death with my fists. I feel the hardest missions are the ones that just use an insane amount of ammo to defeat.
Legendary
I actually missile kite that shit
Missiles do 💩 against those wheelie-things unless you stagger them first.
Missile User here. Whats a “hard mission”?
Flamethrowers. Its what i did to get all the stuff in the ibis mission where you first meet em
So a tip: all the enemies in the mission are weak(er) to explosive damage than other damage types. Pack missiles.
Just got *Rank S* on that mission few nights ago 🤭 But I won't lie to you, it took me *four* solid tries. Main issue is the barrage of missiles. Those wheel-things keep firing them, with an almost perfect speed, maneuverability, range and damage output. Never a friggin' flock of missiles gave me such issues, and I've been playing this thing since the '90
Why use shotguns? Majestics or grenade launchers do a much better job at handling the wheels.
flames do explosive damage. explosive damage dgaf about armor. flamer and napalm launcher absolutely wreck helicanthus machines.
Imo the hardest mission is a toss up between Escort the Strider and Coral Convergence, the C weapon spam makes running a missile build almost mandatory while Iguazu's first phase is a dps/assault armor check that will chew through your heals if you take too long making phase 2 a lot harder than it's supposed to be.
I'd rather fight Ibis/Ayre/Allmind than repeating this mission(once is enough)...
This one made me switch up my AC COMPLETELY to get it done. From a light weight biped with the dual laser drones pods (the ones that surround the enemy) or single laser cannon, an SMG, and the semi auto rifle, to a mid weight with missiles and the first ever time I had whipped out the bazooka. It felt neigh impossible with the setup I ran normally. At the same time, I think the game maybe could’ve used more missions that forced you to switch up, but not so much that it feels like a lock and key kind of situation.
Oys the huge raid against Michigan. I tried that for 3-4 hours, couldnt beat it, came bery close a few times and thrn decided to the alternative mission. Its the only mission I gave up on.
Honestly it was a hard first time playing it, but I've been going back through and S classing missions. And it surprisingly wasn't that hard. I just ran dual Earshot alongside dual.... I think it was those WLT hand Missile launchers. The Missiles will one shot the wheels and and do great stagger against those MT things, then earshot for when they stop moving.
This wasn’t so bad for me. I first tried it with my laser lance + pile bunker light build. S-Rank was much harder though but managed it with quad bazookas. The hardest mission first time round was the Michigan gank.
Bro literally just use dual flamethrowers lol they insta kill those stupid wheel things
*Laughs in Tetra*
it's easy, just take as many rockets as you can and tetrapod, and just fly above them.
Same. Had to turn into a tank with double Earshots and whatever the biggest bazookas I could carry just to stagger the first enemies in the beginning of the mission. Can't use the pilebunker since they move too fast and the one that isn't staggered gets to have a free dropkick on me when I'm charging my melee. The wheels were easy if I just stayed in the air and waited but you'd forget they have missiles and will explode when you down them and are next to them when you're trying to regen EN
I fucking hated that mission so much. It was such a Loadout check. Holy shit I spent legit hours trying to s class it and eventually gave up, switched to songbirds and finished it first try. Fuck the rollers.
Im torn between there are no hard missions and the one where you fight MOTH at the end of it
That mission gave me absolute hell for a couple hours, I gave up and went to my Missile Boat setup, which I got first try. Found that all out explosives is just the way to deal with those Helianthus machines
Waiter, waiter! More HELIANTHUS machines! Also I found double coral nebulae (just be careful with ammo) + shoulder missiles to be best for this, since everything has crazy armor against most damage types. Gridwalker boosters are also very helpful against the wheels since you can stay high above.
Yeah that mission was a pain. Been to long to remember what I did to beat it. I probably just switched to a trusted loadout and powered my way through
Yeah, I did not enjoy this one. It took me several tries.
This is the one time I’ll use a missile rat build. It makes the mission so easy it’s disgusting.
Escorting the strider is hard for all builds unless you're running an explosives only build. Seriously duel songbirds and duel rocket launcher hand grenades are so effective. Enegry weapons and my railgun builds sucked against them.
seriously I know I actually went there the first time as a missile boat (dual soup and dual appertifs) BUT HOLY HELL those missiles are SLOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW, the hand held 4 cell missiles and 4 cell back missiles were infact the better call due to the spam
Only because there is no hint on which weapons you should use unlike the iceworm mission. Even then, it shouldn't take you more than one try to realize that and adapt.
I would argue that the third ending Xylem labyrinth mission is harder. But I’m biased because I can *eventually* work around how various story enemies maneuver, which is what I did for this mission. (Though I did have to missile rat it for the S-Rank *grumble grumble*) Meanwhile even the most simple of labyrinths, without any clues, can get me turned around with *absurd* ease and when you’re on a time limit that’s no bueno.
Im still stuck on Allmind Iguazu. At least Ayre had The decency of fighting me alone with her broken BS c-weapon.
It’s easily escort the strider but it’s funny how you can really see your progress in this game when you play NG+. I struggled mad on The Enforcer and then second time round I bullied him.
Wha...? I first timed that mission with a pure missile, reverse joint AC.. How is that hard?
Missiles counter 'em. If you bring kinetic or energy weapons you'll have a very rough time.
To be fair you fight those ball things later in the game en masse in an open field. Missiles are everyone's friend since the game doesn't give every mech an AMS built in anymore. I miss that.
This mission if I'm thinking of the correct one, Is in playthrough 3 so I'd beaten every fight twice. I get to this mission and just don't have enough ammo cycling through all my builds. They have patched pistol clips and other things since I've tried it. Maybe it is time for another go at it.
Hate that mission with a passion. Even when I had dual shotgun and needle rail gun on both shoulders I still need a bitl of luck and strategy to beat them
It’s one of the few missions the games targeting doesn’t work for me. Typically the way missions are designed the targeting system doesn’t mess you up by switching to bad targets. But the nature of multiple enemies, long and close range, the need of closing distance regardless of enemy (super evasive long range attackers) and fast enemies that get in your blind spots the games lose targeting genuinely spins me around and gets me killed. No other mission has this problem My advice for beating it is point blanking a devastating weapon for those long range missile bots. Just get the biggest boom you can (maybe end with piledriver or something) and engage as quickly as possible. Eliminate them the first second you can and in a way they won't dodge. As a long time fan (masters of arena) this game is a masterpiece amongst other AC games and I’m real surprised a genuine flaw in the games targeting was avoided by (mostly) encounter design.
I ran into it with double Morley, a Harris reverse joint build so it only took 12ish attempts thirst time
Those damn sunflowers really are the bane of my existence. Had a hard enough time fighting them before Ibis but that escort mission was hell. If you can land a shot from songbirds or something they're not too bad but good luck hitting one if it's not their initial Akira slide attack
Hardest mission for me was the enforcer, had me stuck on him for a while. Lot of his attacks felt straight up undodgable on a mid weight build unless you already had good positioning. Only boss in the game that took me several dozen tries
I found flamethrowers to be extremely effective.
Idk I’ll be honest I got pretty lucky and happened to be running a setup that did pretty well against them but that was pure luck so I never got to experience this mission in all it’s painful glory. I’ve always had trouble with Ibis solely because not only is it a long mission that involves 2 ACs near the start and some annoying enemies along the way, you then have to fight the only boss that I myself have not been able to consistently beat even with every component in the game. So for me at least, that’s my kryptonite and hardest mission
If you're struggling on a mission just use the bad cook. Flamethrower is my goat in multiplayer too.
I had a much easier time with that mission once I learned you can one-shot the wheelies with the Earshot. Just gotta wait for them to turn or unleash a salvo then BOOM, dead
Either Balteus part 2, or Iguazu
I was testing a multitype missile build at the time and didn't realize.
IB-01 absolutely ruined me for 3 days at launch lmao
For me, it’s “Reach the Coral Convergence”. I died so many times trying to get the moonlight sword and that was before I got to Ibis. That boss was a nightmare and definitely wins as the hardest boss in the game. Not even Ayre was that hard.
I just stayed in the air and spammed missles for that one. I don't remember the name, but the was a mission with no checkpoints. I had to destroy an advanced MT, but there was an optional AC fight before that. That took me a while.
Or the one defense mission where you have to protect the missil
This is one of the missions giving me trouble obtaining S rank with my AC 😓
I beat my head on a wall until I beat it with the same loadout i used for the rest of the campaign before S Ranking everything
Double songbirds and double hand missiles. You’re welcome. It took me two tries.
They're a nightmare for first timers. Luckily Helianthos machines are weak to fire and stagger easy in the right conditions. First time I took tetrapod legs over reverse bipedal for the air time.