Mech Arena - An Overview of all the Different Weapons
One of the particularities of Mech Arena, aside from the variety of mechs that you can unlock and upgrade, is how equipping different weapons to a certain unit can radically change its effectiveness at performing a variety of tasks. And just like there are many different mechs, there are several types of weapons in this game, with which you can fine-tune the performance of your robot.
In this guide, we’re going to go over all the different weapons in the game. However, in contrast with our guide where we mentioned our personal picks for best mech in every category, we’re simply going to limit ourselves to listing the different weapons types this time around. This is because the effectiveness of each weapon varies according to the role you wish to fill.
With that being said, let’s get started.
Assault Weapons
By far, this is the most varied weapon type in the game, offering gear for all types of encounters at all distances:
- Autocannon: A standard weapon model available from the very beginning. It has high fire rate, good precision at most distances, and a decent magazine size, though it doesn’t do amazing damage. Nevertheless, it’s a very reliable all-rounder weapon.
- Plasma Cannon: Powerful weapon that suffers from low projectile speeds, making it ideal for close range encounters.It also has a low magazine capacity, but can do much more damage per magazine, in relation to the autocannon.
- Pulse Cannon: The weapon with the highest ammo capacity in this category. While it features a similar play style to the autocannon, it suffers from poor accuracy. Nevertheless, the pulse cannon does a decent job at close to medium distances. It also has short reloading times so you’ll never be caught unprepared with this weapon.
- Carbine: While other assault weapons are all about suppressing fire or “making it rain”, the carbine is more about precision shooting. This gun features the lowest fire rate in the category, but the highest damage per shot. If you can hit with every single bullet, you will be able to destroy lots of mechs with one or two magazines.
Missile Weapons
This weapon type focuses on slower projectiles that deal tons of damage with every shot. It also features one of the strongest weapons in the game. Nevertheless, they require great skill in order to use effectively, as a single miss means that you’ll deal significantly less damage with every burst.
- RPG: Standard missile launcher that deals damage to everything in the area of explosion. It has a low fire rate and low magazine capacity, but the AoE damage is considerable, especially when enemies are bunched up together.
- Missile Rack: Arguably one of the best weapons in the game. This weapon consists of a stream of missiles shooting out in very quick succession, which deals tons of damage to the enemy. Even a single missile can deal significant damage, and an entire burst can destroy some of the more fragile mechs outright.
Beam Weapons
These are special weapons that don’t have physical projectiles, which means that they can hit even the fastest targets with ease. However, their damage isn’t very high, and they often required sustained fire in order to destroy their foes, which limits their damage potential. However, since they’re energy weapons, they don’t have to reload, and can instead fire continuously as long as they have energy, which recharges automatically over time.
- Thermal Lance: A weapon that fires a continuous beam that gradually burns away at the enemy. Continued exposure applies the “overheated” effect to the target, which further increases the damage sustained from this weapon.
- Stasis Beam: This weapon works similar to the Thermal Lance, except it applies a slowing effect instead of the overheat status. Overall, the damage from this weapon is higher than the previous entry, though its true utility comes from slowing targets down so that other team members can focus their fire on them.
Close Quarter Weapons
As their name implies, these are the types of weapons that can shred enemies apart at close quarters. More often than not, they’ll be the weapons of choice of Scouts and other speedy mechs that have the maneuverability to get behind enemies and exploit their weaknesses.
- Shotgun: A standard shotgun that fires numerous pellets per shot, often dealing tons of damage to enemies. This weapon loses effectiveness as soon if the enemy manages to put some distance between them and you.
- Arc Torrent: Similar to the shotgun in the sense that its range is quite limited, however, this weapon has the special trait that, whenever it hits a target, lightning will bounce to nearby targets, dealing additional damage to other enemies.
Sniper Weapons
These weapons boast lots of range and are used mainly for protecting points from afar. Their effectiveness, however, is highly dependent on the user’s ability to position themselves and aim with accuracy. A single missed shot from these guns will severely limit their damage potential.
- Longarm: High damage per shot, extremely long range, and hefty reload times makes this weapon ideal for single-target engagements and for taking out light robots with a few well-placed shots. If you get flanked or caught with this weapon, however, you’d have nothing to defend yourself, considering that this weapon deals more damage the further away the target is.
- Railgun: Featuring the single highest damage-per-shot in the game, the railgun can easily tear through all but the strongest foes in 3 or fewer shots. There’s really not much more to say—if you’re looking for the strongest weapon in Mech Arena, then this is it. However, it has all the disadvantages of a sniper, which means that it suffers greatly in close quarters.
Guided and Artillery Weapons
We’ve combined the last two weapon types into one category since we believe they perform a similar support role. In the case of guided weapons, these are meant to push and pressure enemies, particularly since they don’t do much damage, but rarely miss their mark. Meanwhile, artillery weapons are meant to create area denial, which means that they can rain destruction on areas, and on all robots that don’t get out of the way.
- Javelin Rack: Guided weapon that locks onto enemy targets at a max range of 75 meters and fires a salvo of rockets that deal splash damage to the target and all nearby bots. These rockets travel in an arc, which means that they can go over small obstacles to hit their target.
- Rocket Mortar: Artillery weapons that deal splash damage to an area instead of a single target. However, they’re meant to be used exclusively at medium to long distances, as the rockets don’t explode if they don’t travel at least 46 meters.
With this last category, we’ve covered all the weapons in Mech Arena as of its launch. What’s your favorite weapon type? Have you gotten good results with a specific weapon and mech combination? Leave us your thoughts in the comments below.
