AirMech Bomber Guide

AirMech Bomber Guide by KittenAqua

The Bomber… it can only reasonably attack units at melee range or closer. Its only ranged attack takes an entire second to charge up. But most importantly, it bombs. But why should you use Bomber? You probably shouldn’t. Everything ever counters it. But hey, it’s fun, right? Right? Guys?

BOMBER. THE FACTS. Pretty much any statistic you’d want to know about the Bomber can be found on this data sheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc … li=1#gid=5
That data sheet is amazing, and we as a community should be grateful to have it as a resource.

Basic information: The Bomber’s ground form is melee. It can only attack targets that it is very very close to. The plus side of this is that the damage is very very high. It has a very strong ranged attack for it’s ground ability that has a charge-up time, and it gives you resistance to damage while you are charging it up. In the air, the Bomber’s carrying capacity is equal to the Saucer. Its air damage is equal to the Striker, but it lacks the missiles. Instead, the air ability is bombs. It’s passive ability is ground speed, but this ground speed bonus is literally pointless, and the only reason to choose it is if you are the world’s greatest troll, since everything else is so much better.

I’m going to be giving insight about how I would recommend the Bomber is played, the order of skills to level up, and what units to take into battle.

Loadout

Everyone wants different units in their loadout. Because of that fact, I’m going to state every unit that could be used effectively with the Bomber. I would advise against using any unit that is not listed below. If their is an asterisk (*) next to the unit, I would recommend taking it.

Heavy Mine
Stasis Mine*
Lunchbox
Moneymaker
Any infantry that isn’t a Boomer or FF2000*
Longhorn
Gemini*
Seeker*
HAAT
Jackal
Goliath
Arty or Archy*
Bertha
Ratchet
Repair Guardian

There are many units listed above, but you can only take 8 into the fray. How do you decide? Every loadout should, in my opinion, have at least one of each of these types of units:
Tank
Pad Item
Infantry
Artillery
Antiair

Everyone is different, so you don’t have to stick to those units, and if you don’t want infantry, by all means, don’t take it.

Now, you also need a pilot. Unforunately, the best pilot for the Bomber in my opinion was only available around Earth Day or PAX. So, the pilot is your choice, though I’d recommend not taking a pilot that lowers your air speed. The item is completely your choice, I really don’t care what you choose. The Airmech should be the Bomber. The color should be rainbow. Don’t have rainbow? Well neither do I. = [

Skills

Skills are almost as essential on the Bomber as they are on the Osprey. Without Bombs, the Bomber’s only advantage is it’s high damage ground form. The skills I recommend you take change depending on the units you have. If you have the repair guardian in your loadout, the blue skill order is for you. If you don’t have the repair guardian, you want the red skill order.

Bombs
Mantis Strike
Bombs
Bombs
Mantis Strike
Mantis Strike
Guardian Slot
Guardian Slot
Guardian Slot
Creep
Creep
Creep
Ground Speed
Ground Speed

As the Bomber, you want bombs. You want strong bombs. You want strong bombs quickly. Mantis Strike is good to have as utility, so you want to max it early. Then bombs. You will want to grab a point in the Guardian Slot skill when you reach 8, then max it. Then you max the creeps, before finishing with 2 points in Ground Speed, since you have nothing else to put it in. (If there wasn’t the big yellow plus next to your name that makes you look like a noob, I’d tell you to just keep the two skill points instead.)

The reasoning behind using Repair Guardians is so that you can bomb for longer before returning to the outpost. Repair Guardians really show their use against enemies with many healing units.

Bombs
Mantis Strike
Bombs
Bombs
Mantis Strike
Mantis Strike
Creep
Creep
Creep
Guardian Slot
Guardian Slot
Guardian Slot
Ground Speed
Ground Speed
As the Bomber, you want bombs. You want strong bombs. You want strong bombs quickly. Mantis Strike is good to have as utility, so you want a point in that early. Then bombs. (Deja Vu if you read the other skill order description as well.) Then, you’ll want the Creeps, followed by the Guardian Slots and since there’s nothing else usable to spec into, take Ground Speed. I’m dead serious here, it’s better to have Guardian Slots than Ground Speed, even if you don’t have any Guardians. Ground Speed is that bad.

How to Play

The Bomber is played differently from other Mechs, just like how the Osprey is played different from other Mechs. Most units, you’ll just want to bomb. If they’re light armor, such as a Jackal, ‘Dillo, or infantry unit, get down on the ground and kill it with melee. It will die quicker that way. If it’s a single tank, usually it’s best to just kill it with melee by hitting it in the back. If it’s a HAAT, get down on the ground so that you take reduced damage. Anything else should be bombed. Even Seekers.

Now that we have bombing rules out of the way, how do you play the Bomber? The Bomber won’t fight any other Airmech in the air, with the exception of the Osprey and Striker without missiles. Just don’t even try. It won’t work out well. However, if you’re skilled enough, you can win on the Ground. Groundfighting as the Bomber takes a serious amount of effort. To close the gap, you’ll want to go into air, fly in close, and go back on the ground. Then you slash them up and they try to fly away. Then you repeat and they’ll die eventually. Most Mechs can’t beat a skilled Bomber player 1v1 on the ground. If you’re having trouble reaching them, Mantis Strike does a lot more damage than people think. I’m not kidding. Nobody ever uses it, but it’s good. Seriously.

Bombers are particularly good at defending outposts. Any units they send at it individually will probably be squashed before they can get in more than 1, and the Bomber’s melee instagibs infantry. There isn’t really much to talk about in regards to outpost defense. Just follow the bombing rules and the outpost will be fine.

If you fly around the enemy’s fortress and find that their defenses are minimal, go build a tank (or if you’re level 3 or higher and have them in your loadout, you can bring 3 Jackals) and bring it to the undefended side of the fortress. Then, use Mantis Strike to rip the fortress apart. If you find that the enemy is continually leaving their Fortress undefended, make them regret it by maxing Mantis Strike first. If you can ever hit the front door of the enemy fortress with a level 3 Mantis Strike, it adds a good bit of damage. I doubt you’ll ever be able to get the front door, though.

Bombers are great against tanks. If your enemy is sending a column of tanks at you, build some repair guardians and drop bombs all over them. If you grabbed heavy mines, you are the ultimate turtle. Unless they have a lot of Seekers. I’d say about 6 Seekers can completely shut down a Bomber.

Bombers can kill enemy Mechs that are on the ground very very easily. It isn’t that difficult to drop bombs on a grounded Mech from the air, is it?

Now, the Bomber has a few disadvantages. It’s air fighting ability is mediocre, and it’s carrying capacity is small, but above all else, one shining flaw burns the Bomber’s glorious abilities. It only. Has. Melee. This may not seem like a big deal, but it is, especially when talking about neutral heavy maps. For Twin Peaks, Simple, and Chasm, the Bomber is the Mech that will take the longest to capture the center outpost. This may not seem like a big issue, but for Twin Peaks and Simple, it actually is. Chasm matches usually last a good deal of time, allowing you to take the middle back, but for Simple and Twin Peaks, Bomber is probably the least capable mech.

When to NOT choose Bomber.

Unfortunately, as much as I wish it were not so, there are some moments when choosing Bomber is a bad idea. The following are situations when you should choose a different Mech.

~Whenever you are playing on Twin Peaks or Simple. (Assume that it is unsafe to choose Bomber on a Random Map.)
~Whenever the enemy is using a powerful air-to-air mech.
On the other hand, there is a particular situation that you SHOULD choose Bomber above every other Mech.
~If you know for certain the enemy will rush you.
Bomber decimates rushes much better than other Mechs, due to the ridiculous damage caused by the melee, which is dealt to multiple targets. This makes it the optimal choice for fighting a rush tactic.
(I am just waiting for Otakuma to correct me on my use of the word decimate.)

How To Fight a Bomber

Bomber is a very powerful Mech in the metagame at the moment. With extreme damage, intense groundfighting potential, and the most powerful unit killing capabilities that outweigh all else, Bomber is a force that should be fought against carefully. However, it has its weaknesses, and there are ways to exploit the Bomber. If you need to defeat a Bomber, there are ways of doing so. Two strategies have been known to work excruciatingly well.

The first strategy is to get your whole team (yes, everyone) to shoot down the Bomber every time it shows its beautiful face. This will essentially knock it out of the game, or at the very least, force it to play carefully. A careful Bomber is a useless Bomber, after all.

The second strategy is to spread your units out. This makes the Bomber’s splash damage worthless, and you can pick up individual units to heal them.

Also, as a general rule, take Probes against a Bomber, since if he gets and keeps your outpost, all the units there are -probably- dead.

That is pretty much it. Nothing else I could say could help you to play Bomber. This is everything I know about playing Bomber from several months of experience. If it helps out, good for you. If it doesn’t, too bad. You’ll just have to deal with being a terrible Bomber. I was originally going to keep this guide secret for all eternity, after having it written for about two months, but I updated some information to the current metagame, and released it upon the wolves. Will I inevitably regret it? Yes, yes I will. So at least put the information to good use; I want to see some Bombers that don’t fall flat on their face; there is quite a shortage of those, as far as I can tell.

Now get out there and BOMB!