Heavy Metal Machines (which I will abbreviate in future use as HMM) is a MOBA based on car-combat.

There are no NPCs or towers in HMM. Instead, you fight over a neutral flag (which I will usually call bomb).This flag has to be carried throug hthe enemy lane towards their bomb, with the enemy's goal being to carry it up your lane.

The flag carrier has to take the long route towards his goal, walls pop up which only affect him, although his allies and the enemy cars can pass through them freely.

Players have 4 skills depending on their charather choice at the start of the match, charther choice is locked once a match starts, and you cannot switch between them mid-game.

The skills have infinite ammo, but are all based on a cooldown timer. Generally, their will be a Q skill with short cooldown, a W skill with longer cooldown, E for a speed or turbo related skill, and R for an ultimate. The ultimate's cooldown is special in that it does charge with time, but it can charge faster when you deal damage/heal allies/are carrying the bomb.

Other feautres include being able to buy upgrades to the skills (or other stats) midgame through a shop. These are purchased with ingame currency earned during the match only, and disapear when the game ends.

If any player dies they respawn at their base in the corner of the map. Deaths later in the round have a longer respawn delay. It seems to be add a second for every 20 seconds of match time.. All players on the opposing team get 30 bonus currency for upgrades if this happens.

Cars regenerate at a rate of 100 health per second if they haven't taken damage or used one of their weapons within the last 5 seconds.

Their are two enviornemental hazards in the game. The first is lava which deals 100 damage per second. Unlike Wildfire's fire attacks, lava has no afterburn and you stop taking damage immediately upon driving out of it. The second is Drop zones, which make you drop the flag if you drive into them (actually they seem to launch the flag at full power to your rear, it isn't dropped in place). Only the drop zone's in the enemy lane affect your team, if you defend the flag while the enemy has it in your lane, once you have the flag, you can drive through your own ones without penalty on the way out. However, temporary walls will still affect you no matter which lane you are in.

The cars drive toward the mouse cursor whenver you hold left click. If you hold right click they do so in reverse, although the top speed slightly lower. This allows for very sharp turns, since you can steer by simply dragging the cursor were you want to go.

Finally you can pass the ball by holding space, which starts a power bar which you can cancel by releasing space, interupt to launch the ball at a lower velocity by pressing space a second time, or allow to fill all the way by continuing to hold space down for the duration, which launches the ball with as much power as possible. You can only launch the ball directly behind you, no matter how much power you use, and when not attached to cars, it will bounce off walls, although it loses momentum and comes to rest after a short while.

It cannot pass through the barrier walls even when not attached to a car, and will simply bounce off them.

So pretty straightforward moba stuff.

When an enemy player has the bomb, they will be unable to move through walls, but they're teamates, and all four of your team still can. Their are three ways to get the bomb off of a player. 1: Killing them. 2: Forcing them into a drop zone. 3: If the player passes the ball.

Killing the bomb carrier is easiest on the 4 turns around the lava area, and the 3 turns around the drop zone area.

On the other hand, ceirtain cars, such as Rampage and wind rider, are better suited to positioning themselves diagnolly, so that when the bomb car passes them, they can push it into the drop zone.

Their are two main complications when trying to get a bomb held by an enemy car.

1: Your own health.

You cannot deal damge while dead. This is a big problem, if the bomb carrier's partners single you out, or if it is being carried by a charather who doesn't need to aim one of their weapons/can shoot backwards.

To manage your health on offense, you should look first to your own support cars.

If you don't have any, or the ones that you do have are in an unsafe-area (EG a metal herald who is in the middle of fighting the bomb carrier himself) then you will want to use the 5 second out of combat healing delay.(3.5 second with Metal never dies upgrade). The best places to do this, is of course, further ahead on the lane, so that the bomb carrier will come to you by the time you are fit for combat again.

If this is a common problem, buy self-healing or other durability upgrades rather than damage upgrades when you have the chance to shop, a medium amount of damage over a long amount of time is better than a large amount of damage that you can only use once!

The other way to manage your health, is simply to kill anyone who attacks you. Keep in mind that while doing this, you still want to be driving in the direction (alongside the enemy if possible) of the bomb carrier, so you can get in position for your real job at the same time as protecting yourself. Do not let them distract you more than you need to make sure you survive.This is not a K/D game, it is an objective-based game.

2: The enemy can pass the ball.

Every time this happens succsefully you will need to go through about 600 more health before your team has it again. There are several ways to manage this too.

If you are immediately behind them, you will instantly grab the ball if they pass it. Even if your entire team is dead, and the other team has all four people, if you kill the bomb carrier (which causes a full power backward pass) and are in the right spot, you can instantly gain poesseion and make a run for it .

The other way of dealing with this is to distribute your damage amongst multible enemies. This is harder to do, because time spent away from the bomb-carrier (especially if they have a support) could lead to him healing or otherwise having a higher chance at getting to the end. Usually you can only afford to damage the "minor" enemies while driving past them, since stopping to get some serious damage in will cost too much time. It is difficult to damage multible enemies at once, since area of effect damage is rare in this game and most cars have very short range. However, whenever it is possible you should do it. Otherwise, you run the risk of needing to do 2400 damage instead of 600 to get the ball back.

Drop Zones

Finally, there's the drop zones. Clunker and rampage are the best for abusing them, although Metal Herald, Windrider, and Little Monster also have knockback/ways to stop enemy changing direction. Keep in mind though, while when you kill an enemy, you can control where the bomb goes and get it immediately by driving behind them, the drop zones are very hard to gauge, and some are positioned at sharp angles. They have the advantage of working just as well if the enemy has 800 health or 20 health, but the disadvantage of putting you in a race with the enem yto pick the bomb back up. Always plan to double back ahead of time when using these, so that you will be started on the way towards the bomb, and so that they give you as big an advantage as possible.

Chasing versus Ambushing

All cars drive at the same speed when holding down left click. This means that once in range, you can stay at range until they use their nitro very reliably, but once out of range, you will almost never be able to run them down ever again.

This can be overcome by purchasing the blazing nitro upgrade, but if the bomb carrier does the same thing, you run into the same problem.

The game provides an obvious way to deal with the problems. The shortcut walls. You can simply chase them and only uses the walls when they get away.

However, timing this so that you come back into the race at attack distance can be difficult, especially if you aren't ceirtain of their nitro status.

On the other hand, if you used the wall to get ahaed of someone and they are about to drive past you, starting your engine as they do it will essentially gurantee you stay in range for at least 8 seconds, even if they have a nitro upgrade and you don't.

Generally you will want people on your team who use both methods. Chasing keeps the bomb carrier at attention the whole round, while pulling ahead to damage can lead to a burst of very accurate, reliable damage, allow interceptor's to heal themselves without getting too far from combat zones, and can even lead to you getting .2-.6 seoncds of slowing the bomb carrier down due to body blocking or them swerving to go around you.

Timing the 3,2,1,Go Boost.
To get this free turbo at the start of a game, you need to be holding left mouse so that the bar is currently increasing and in the green or second red zone, but not the very last light isn't filled.

The boost is the same regardless of green or second red zone. If the bar is curently falling, even if it's in the middle of green when the round starts, then you will get no boost. Finally, your car will stall out for a second if you completely fill the bar at the start of the race.

There are lots of setups for this, but I recomend waiting until the 4th light is turning red (note starting after will be too slow, AS it is turning red) releasing the left mouse for a split second, and then holding it down for the rest. This lets you get straight into steering your car, and you can get the by looking at the lights only, not needing to keep track of the bar at all. Anything that works is valid though.


Passing

"light pass" if you are low health, holding space for a brief second and then quickly hitting space a second time will send the ball backwards only a short distance, which is ideal for having a teamate pick it up, as opposed to a full power backwards launch (which will happen automatically if you die).

Passing is important because it allows you control over when an ally gets the bomb, if you are at low health, you can't control the timing of when the other team gets it's finishing blow, but if you pass the bomb early, you will have gotten it to an ally much more reliably.


Using Reverse
Practice this in Co-op mode, it's difficult to figure it out.

By holding right click instead of left click, the car will steer backwards using the same pathing and turn rate as when driving normally. However, your weapons can be fired backwards, and passing the bomb will send it in the same direction as your movment.

Don't try to use turbo through, this only creates forward momentum! For this reason, this technique is generally a bad idea if you buy the Blazing Nitro upgrade or are using Black Lotus/ Artificer

This might seem silly, but it has several advantages. Firstly, you can shoot your weapons backwards, if you were using little monster, this lets you heal while carrying the bomb, and if you are an interceptor being forced to carry the bomb, you could prevent people from following you through damage. Secondly, if an ally is ahead of you in the lane, holding down space to pass the ball will launch it "forward" in a way that is easy to aim, since it will perfectly match up with where you are dragging the cursor.

This is especially dangerous because if someone is driving ahead on the lane, they usually won't be taking enemy fire, most players will shoot the bomb carrier-people immeidately dealing damage to them- and people behind/near the bomb carrier- Being in front of the bomb carrier, especially signifigantly in front, is a relative safe zone, and if they DO dedicate someone to chasing you, you still win a minor victory, as the bomb carrier will now live longer due to not having an extra wildfire or whatever after them.

You can still use your nitro on straightways because it doesn't take very long to change which mouse button you are holding down, and striaghten out. You can go back to reverse driving on the next set of curves.

Supporting your bomb carrier

Often enough, one of your 3 partners will have the bomb. When this happens, you should thinkg about what the enemy team want. They will generally chase the bomb carrier down by using the shortcutsto keep up with them.

If you are a support car, your job is clear- attach yourself to the bomb carrier to heal them.

If you are a transporter or interceptor, you have to pick off these enemies, which will reduce the incoming damage towards the bomb carrier.

However you should keep your own health in mind- if you die, they will be free to immediately return to their main target- however, if you are low health you may have a non-combat way to reduce attacks on the bomb- they might try to finish you off; This will of course distract one person at a time, and you can waste a lot of the time they could be spending killing the bomb.

Combat this by breaking off to drive torward the position of any support cars on your team, or otherwise to drive into a side area where you can get the 5 second delay (3,5 second with Metal Never Dies upgrade) out of combat healing to activate.

You should also keep in mind the bomb-carrier's health, so you can see when they are going to drop the bomb- if you have full health, even as an intercetpor, catching it and immediately moving up the lane can win games. Check to see if they are driving forwards or backwards, this will determine which way the bomb moves if they die.

If a pass is succesful, you can force the enemy to need to go through another 600 health to get to the ball.

You cannot control your car in the shop menu. If you plan out your upgrades, you can use the limited time on the starting line to shop without falling behind the action.

In this game,you receive credits for bombs captured 150, amount of kills 30(regardless of which teamate does it) and time 2 per second.

A second important thing to note is that in each match, you can only own 2 Q skill upgrades, 2 W skill upgrades, 1 R skill upgrade, and 2 general upgrades. Any other credits you receive cannot be spent.

You can refund a skill that you've purchased for half price, which frees up a slot. However, Refunding a Q skill will still only free up a Q skill slot, it can't be used to get 3 W skills.

Each suggestion lists 7 upgrades, as a result.

The order in which you get them is very important. Generally, I recomend getting core upgrades very early. Keep in mind that I'll list stuff like the R ability upgrade for many cars, but I list it last. I don't list it so often because it's important! In many cases, you'll only have money the things I recomend buying last in very long matches. An extreme example of this is the Blockade Breach (Q) upgrades for Heavy Metal Judge, just because they are "recomended" does not mean they should ever be bought before the other upgrades I list, they usually have a small impact on the match, and are in the guide mostly to fill up the full 7/7 slots.

Upgrades are an -important part of Heavy Metal Machines. However, compared to a normal Dota, you CAN get away with not using them at all, and "stock" cars can perform well with or without them. Enemy upgrades almost never create a "farming gap". You will always be able to hurt them. It should be noted that things like Black Lotus's Impetus do present a high level of utility, though.

I will post the 5 generic upgrades here because they are shared among all vehicles.

Heavy Metal Plates
Maximum Health +100

This upgrades helps with survivability. I often recomend it for transporters and support cars who might want to run past the other team rather than fight. In also recomend it for some builds for offensive cars, as idealing they focus on the bomb carrier, they need the health to do so if the enemy team force a fight.

Metal Never Dies - Cost 600 credits
Game says "reduces out of combat repair delay by 30%

This is very unpopular upgrade, and the game doesn't explain it well. The default delay is 5 seconds. Because of how rounding works in HMM, this upgrade changes it to 3.5 seconds. This regeneration gives you 100 health per second. What the game considers "out of combat" is also vague. It counts both "the last time you took damage" AND the last time you fired a weapon (q skill, w skill, or r skill). Using Nitro does not reset the delay or interupt the healing once it's started. This skill is inapprobiate if you want to focus on carrying the bomb, since the damage the bomb does to you will prevent you from ever gaining this regeneration. It is also bad if you have other sources of healing, such as Artificer's atomic feedback, Little Monster's devouring Maw, etc. However, it can be used effectively for a vehicle that spends a lot of time setting up their attacks, and which are likely to pass the ball relatively quickly rather than carrying it themselves. In the guide I recomend it for Clunker, Inferno, and Rampage. It is worth noting that enemies with damage over time (Metal Herald and Inferno) can weaken the out of combat delay for cars , as the timer won't start counting down for a while after they've hit you.

Blazing Nitro
Game description Reduced Nitro cooldown by 30%

HMM rounds up so this has a different effect for different cars. Most cars start with 18 second cooldown and become 12 with this. Black Lotus has a 13 second starting cooldown and becomes 9 second. Artificer starts with 1 second and becomes 0.6 seconds.

Nitro is very important because the less time it takes to get up the enemies lane, the less time they have to attack you and make you risking dropping the bomb (or similiarly to respawn). It is also important for cars with short range weapon (so all of them) in order to counter enemies who've purchased Blazing Nitro, a Rampage with 18 second cd fighting a Metal Herald with 12 second CD will only be able to hit him for 6 second seconds during their first boosts, and by the time he has a 2nd boost, Metal Herald will use his 3rd, forcing him to rely on using an alternate route to catch up instead of tailing him directly. Strangely, every car's nitro and non nitro speed is equal in strength- Black Lotus's nitro is only different from Rampage's in it's cooldown. This equality lets most cars stay within each other's range as long as they match each other's timing. In the guide, I recomend Blazing Nitro on the main build of every car except artificer within the first 4 purchases. I do leave it off on some aggresive builds, but I cannot overstate it's importance.

Symphony of Power
Game Description: Gives a 25% increase to the special weapon's charge rate.

The special weapon requires 200 points to charge. It gains 1 point a second. It also gains 1 points per 7 damage dealt, or 10 damage healed (self healing through weapons counts, but not out of battle heals). After each bomb is scored, the charge drops to 0 (The games shows your charge from last round, but after the starting countdown's green light, it properly drops)

This upgrade changes a few things. It does not change the 1 per second. It only changes the points per damage/healing/holding bomb.

This offers a very signifigant increase in how early you'll have your special weapon available, assuming you actively participate in the battle. Most of these provide a very signifigant tactical advantage. However, for other cars, the combination of something like Blazing Turbo+Heavy Metal Plates can give you the oppurtunity to win ceirtain rounds before a special weapon even charges, even with the boost from this upgrade. Other car's simply have weak special weapons.

In the guide I recomend this upgrade for Rampage, ceirtain Wildfire builds, Clunker, and ceirtain Heavy Metal Judges. It could be used to large effect for a couple other cars though. For people who want to focus on their special ability (R) it is often more important than the upgrade for the special ability (apoclayse, Directed Shutdown, etc) itself, as being able to get it out at all, is usually more important than having a slightly longer duration or higher damage.

Bullets from Hell
Increases damage of weapons by 10%

This upgrade often sounds better than it really is. A percentage based damage increase can be worked out by taking the original damage of the weapon, dividing by 10, and then adding the sum to the original. For example, a weapon that normally deals 50 damage, will deal 55 damage with this upgrade, and a weapon that deals 20 damage will deal 22. So you can see that this upgrade's strength depends on what it is boosting orginally. However, it is worth noting that this damage boost is usually weaker than a damage boost for a specific Q skill. For example, Heavy Metal Judge has Lead Coating, which increases damage from 20 to 24. This is a 20% increase. Second Strike for Black Lotus adds 15 damage to the 50 damage of the Quantum Leap. This is actually a 30% increase. This upgrade does apply to all 3 weapons, but, you should consider that a lot of machine's don't use their w skills very often. Case in points being Heavy Metal Judge, and Little Monster. Also, the 2 upgrade rule often means that using a Q or W slot for damage is often okay, you only lose out on the other Q/W skills, some of which you always want to skip. But if you want to use Bullets from Hell , you will miss out on one of Blazing Nitro/Symphony of Power/Heavy Metal Plates, any one of which could be a central strategy. I recomend this on some altenrative builds, but I m not the biggest fan.

Artificer is the main "Healer" of the Heavy Metal Machines.

It is unique in that it's weapon's aren't forward firing. Instead they simply arc to targets within the large circle surronding the car at all times. Surprisnigly, even though it is tied for 2nd lowest health Artificer can generally stay in the thick of the action at all times, since it has ways to restore it's own health, in addition to making one of it's allies very, very hard to kill. However, since it needs a little time to reach it's full potential, it can be destroyed by a wildfire or clunker that means business, although weaker attacks can more or less be ignored.

Default health is 500, default turbo recharge is 1 second (4 seconds every 3rd boost)

Q skill - Metal Mender
Sends a beam toward nearest ally within the circle. Heals 45 per second. It also seems to tether your movement, but only your ally can pull you, you cannot pull them. Overheats after 8 seconds.

Most of Artificer's time should be spent using this skill. However, if there are two allies' it will not switch automatically, you must release the q button, and drive reactivate it to do so. You should be careful not to overheat it.

Upgrades
Wave Extension 400
Overheats at 9.6 seconds.

Can be useful if you find yourself healing too often. I find that it's better to keep your options open and stop healing for a while rather than sit through the full 8 second recharge. The last 3-4 second half of your overheat bar can make all the difference.

OverClock 600
Your heal target gains 10% extra damage.

The usefulness of this depends on who you are paired up with, but since your own damage is so poor it is genearlly quite nice. It also lessens the impact of your passivity when chasnig down enemy ball transporters.

Atomic Feedback 600
You gain 20% self healing for healing done.

Although it is only 8 health per second, you can have this on almost all the time, which makes it very useful and can greatly extend your life. In the 25ish seconds it takes to get down a lane, that is 200 health already, which can make the difference between survivng 700 points of enemy damage or just 500.

Radiactive Field 800
Nearby enemies have their damage reduced by 25%

The reduction is quite severe, but the upgrade costs quite a bit as well. On it's own it increases your effective health from 500 to 625. With both atomic feedback and health+100 it increases your effective health to 900. (500 default+100 from armor+200(+25 seconds of 8healpersecond) from atomic feedback+200(800 divided by 4) from radiactive field - 100(25 seconds of 4 bomb damage per second)). Both the person you are healing and yourself become quite tanky.

W skill - Electroblaster
Attacks up to 2 enemies within the targeting circle for 75 damage. Inflicts a 20% slow for 2 seconds. Cooldown of 7.5 seconds.

The only damaging ability. It's pretty convenient, and doesn't need to be aimed, it can easily hit people behind you.

Upgrades

Energy Prompter 800
Electroblaster can hit 3 targets instead of 2.

This can be helpful against very aggresive enemy compositions. You should wait a few rounds to see if oppurtunies where enemies pile up happen very often before purchase, not good in all matches, but very good in some.

Lightning Coilds 600
Increases slowdown debuff to -30% speed

I have a hard time noticing the difference.

Exothermic Shock 400
Decreases Overheat/cooldown of Metal Mender by 1.5 seconds when you hit an enemy with electroblaster

Usually more effective than the Metal Mender overheat skill. You can use both together to almost never run out. However, I recomend only taking one of the two.

600
Decreases Cooldown for Electroblaster to 6.3 seconds.

I recomend this one, waiting over 7 seconds for your only source of damage is a lot, and if you are also using Exothermic Shock, it allows you to keep pace with Metal Mender's overheating more easily.

R ability- Total Shutdown
Inflicts disarm on all opponet's regardless of location, for 2 seconds.

Honestly I wouldn't say that it is as useful as Windrider's similiar stun ability, since they can still get in position to attack, and in the case of Little Monster, still attack you through passives. It doesn't decide rounds very often due to it's tiny duration. Really it's just a nice bit of extra prevented damage,

Upgrades
Directed Shutdown 800
Increases duration of Total Shutdown to 3 seconds.

Not really enough. Get this once you already have all 6 of your other upgrades.

Passive
Swift Thrusters
Replaces Turbo with a much shorter burst of speed, but it has a much shorter cooldown to compensate.

Indeed. With the 1 second cooldown, you can actually Hold E the entire match to scoot around. However, while it is very easy to control, it is slower than the big boost of the other cars, especially on straightways.

Generic Upgrades

Health +100
Artificer takes a lot of fire, and has no real way to make enemies stop shooting, since it's

Self Healing -30%
Atomic Feedback is so strong that you will rarely ever need a second survivability skill.

Symphony of Power
Decent, but should probbably buy electrobaster and metal mender upgrades first.

Turbo Cooldown +30%
This is a very good upgrade for most cars, but is not worth it at all for Artificer. The way rounding works in this game make it very weak when the number being reduced is low to begin with. You only get a .4 and 1.0 (for 3rd boosts) second reduction as opposed to the 18>12 of other cars and the 13>9 of Black Lotus.

Weapon Damage +10%

Don't buy,the extra 7 damage on Electroblaster isn't worth it.
Need to test if it works on the Q skill's healing.

Sample buying order(s)

Atomic Feedback>Q>Overclock>Energy Prompter>Health+100>Symphony of Power>Directed Shutdown

Grabs Atomic Feedback for survivability, then makes electroblaster as effective as possible. A little extra bulk is added in very long matches.

Atomic Feedback>Health+100>Radiactive Field>Exothermic Shock>Q>Symphony of Power>Directed Shutdown

Becomes as tanky as possible as fast as possible. Aside from enemies that can prevent healing and enemies that try to move you into the drop zones rather than do damage, you can pick up the bomb yourself as long as you keep an ally nearby to start your own self-healing.

Black Lotus is the fastest car. By a lot. A normal car has a turbo recharge of 18 seconds (12 after upgrade) Black Lotus has 13 seconds (9 after upgrade) But There's more. His Q skill actually shoots him forward a little bit, and it even stacks with the speed during turbo. So he can move at above default speed during boosts and during recharge time. This makes him almost untouchable on the two straightways, meaning he only really has to worry about combat during the 2 curvy sections.

Default health is 100. Default turbo is 13 seconds.

Q skill - Quantum Leap
Black Lotus jumps ahead a short distance dealing 50 damage to any enemies in the way. Cooldown of 2 seconds.

It seems so simple at first glance, but then you realize the true potential of this skill: movement. It can be used nearly to give you individually small boosts of speed, but given the amount of them you can make, it is huge boost. It's damage is alrgiht, and it's range isn't bad either.

Upgrades

Reverbation 800 Credits
Adds a second strike that deals 15 damage. Slightly extends range.

Reverbation works by generating a little "ghost car" that flies out of you from where you start. It has slightly more veolcity than your real car, so it extends your range. Since you should be using quantom leap all the time, the relatively small boost to damage can go a long way.

Stillness 600 Credits
Disarms opponet's for 1.5 seconds, preventing them from firing weapons.

Decent boost to survivability, but blocking damage from 1.5 seconds isn't as good as what you get naturally, the attack that you hit them with also moves you forward a little bit, and in just .5 more seconds you could quantam leap again. Most cars in the game don't have enough range to hit you once you are 2 quanum leap's length away, even if their weapon isn't blocked.

Metalic Merger- 400 Credits
You restore 60% health of quantom leap's damage. By default this is 30 health.

It isn't bad. Actually it might even be a little better than HeavyMetal Plates, as you'll usually get 3-5 hits on a clean run through an enemy lane.

Impetus-600 Credits.
Increases the speed of Quantum Leap by 50%.

One of the most powerful upgrades in the game. You can buy it before the start of the second round due to it's low price, and even if you don't get in combat, it allows you 6(4 after turbo upgrade) bursts of speed while waiting for your turbo to recharge.

W skill - Specter
You gain the ability to pass through enemy cars for 3 seconds. This does 50 damage to them. It also steals 3 seconds of nitro cooldown. 10 second cooldown.

Specter has many uses. First of all, you can simply think of it as giving every 5th and 6th quantom leap double damage. Secondly, nitro steal is one of the most effective slowdown tools in the entire game, especially if you are the one they are trying to chase.

Upgrades
Shadow of Ruin 800 credits
Gives you a 10% attack buff while in Specter.

Since you will probbably be hitting people with quantom leap, this essentially means doing 10 bonus damage, 5 from specter and 5 from quantom leap. It's not very noticable, although it's decent if using eerie veil.

Hunger for Speed 600 credits
Drains 4 seconds of nitro instead of 3

Pretty minor, the recharging self aspect is not important, stopping the enemy from boosting after you is the biggest thing, and 3 seconds does so just as well as 4.

Eerie Veil 400 credits
Shares Specter with nearby allies.

This is surprisngly useful, as in say, the begining of a round, your team and the other team will meat head on, guranteeing about 200 damage if all of your people have specter, and giving a nitro advantage to just about everyone. However, the rest of the time you pull ahead of your teamates just as much as you pull ahead of enemies (if not moreso) so they often will be out of range.

Timeless Wraith 600 credits
Extends duration to 4 seconds.

I don't find this any use since you can't possibly get a third double damage quantam leap out of it.

R skill - Curse of Yama
Makes you invulnerable for 3 seconds. Also reflects 200% of the damage you would take from enemy attacks to the attack and inflicts a 50% slow debuff for 5 seconds.

Very powerful. If used on a 550 or less health car they will often die instantly, especially one's like wildfire/rampage who don't usually buy any health upgrades. You can also save it and wait out an enemy special attack. I prefer to use it aggresively. If they don't die, and your team has the bomb you will also leave them in the dust, even more so than usual.

Upgrade
Touch of Damnation 800 credits
Increases reflection to 250% original damage and duration to 5 seconds.

This makes the skill even more extreme. However, it doesn't really have much to do with your everyday role in battle.

Passive-Perpetual Motion
The source of the faster nitro recharge.


Generic Upgrades
Heavy Metal Plates
100 Extra health helps cover you in instances where your speed doesn't work out.
Metal Never Dies
Heals 3.5 seconds out of combat instead of 5.

Even when you are out of combat, you will probbably be using Quantum leap, which resets the regeneration, which means this isn't wortwhile.
Blazing Nitro
Reduces Turbo cooldown to 9 seconds. (Because of how rounding works, this is 2 seconds less than most cars get). However, this is still very, very useful.
Synmphony of Power
Yama is a very powerful ability, but unfortanetly even with 25% faster charge for 600 credits, Black Lotus can already buy everything he needs to run away with the game for that much.
Bullets From Hell
Increases damage of weapons by 10%.

Not sure if it works with yama, I think that only counts enemy damage. Even if it did, they are usually already dead or crippled already. For Specter and Quanum Leap, it only adds 5 damage, which is less than what you can from Reverbation, usually you'll want your two generic slots on health and nitro.

Sample buying order(s)

Impetus>Blazing Nitro>Heavy Metal Plates>Metalic Meal>Shadow of Rim>W>Touch of Damnation

The first two alone increase Black Lotus's speed from "better than everyone else" to 3 corners in front of everyone else. It puts an extreme amount of pressure on the other team to take care of you, because they can lose their advantage in a big way. Some people even argue that this combination makes Black Lotus the best car in the game. I argue that just the first half of the combination is all it takes. Afterwards the most natural thing to add is a little survivability. Sometimes you can afford to drop Metalic Meal for a damaging ability or purchase Heavy Metal Plates later (move back to where Shadow Of Rim is) in the match.

Black Lotus will spend most of its time grabbing the bomb and making run for it. Enemies have a very hard time killing him, since he can outrun them so easily. A lot of people think he's useless on offense, but this is frankly not true. I personally find him the 3rd easiest to get kills with (probbably drop to 4th once I test Judge more) The 50 damage of the Q attack seems low, but it's much, much easier to hit people with it than other "melee" attacks, like rampages, since it lasts for a decent distance, and the enemy car won't dodge you as often with their turbo, it's easy to keep up. Furthermore, his "slow ability" is BETTER than the slow abilities of Little monster and Artificer. Draining Turbo with W is a huge deal.

Clunker is an interceptor car, and the second best in the game at getting kills. Clunker is a little harder to use than wildfire, but a good clunker player can help the team more than a good wildfire player. He just requires more careful aim to reach his full potential. Unfortanetly, Clunker is a little stuck in his role, wildfire can opt for survivability and can grab the bomb sometimes when not busy killing, but clunker doesn't really have this luxury.
Clunker can be played like Wildfire, or like Rampage. He can try to kill the enemy as they come aroud each corner, or else he can try to pull them into the blocker zones.

Health is 550. Nitro is 18 seconds.

Q skill - Spark Trap
Deals damage around your car. 50 damage. 2 second cooldown.

A decent skill, since it charges fast and you have ways to affect enemy movement, you can force them into its range. Usually you want to use it dorung your Thunder Tow and special ability.

Upgrades

Keep out Blaster 800
Adds knockback

This makes it hard to get follow up hits. It's only okay for slowing people down, as the tow itself outclasses it a lot.

Sorrow Dispenser 600
Cooldown decreased to 1.75

This basically translates to a big increase in damage, since you always need multiple hits due to its lowish damage.

Electrical Fix 400
Removes positive status effects on enemies.

Most of these are really short. However, it can be decent against windrunner and little monster. Doesn't affect most healing or "on hit gain temporary health" skills.

Tow Charges 600
Hitting the opponet reduces W cooldown by 1 second.

Very useful. While Q does the bulk of your damage due to how fast it is, W is the main focus of clunker. Also, you can usually hit someone with three Qs before W recharges, so you'll really be reducing cooldown by several seconds, not just one.

W skill- Thunder tow
Launches magnet ahead of you, dealing 60 damage, tethering the opponet to you for 3 seconds, and then dealing 60 more damage when it releases them. 10 seconds cooldown.

An amazing ability, has decent range. You can sit in drop zones and tether them to reel them in, or you can chase people, shoot them with the tether, and then turn around and drag them with your car's normal driving speed. Either way, this is a winner. The damage is pretty fantastic if you consdier that you are basically guranteed to hit them q at least twice during the duration. You'll notice that when you shoot the magnet out, if you miss, it will retract back towards your car. You can actually still grab enemies if it hits them while you are reeling it in! This is most likely to happen if you shoot in front of an enemy, just steer so that you end up behind them, and you'll be almost guranteed to hit them when it comes back to you.

upgrades

Ravenous Recoil 600
Applies slow 50% for 2 seconds after dealing damage.

Thankfully this happens during the second part of the damage. However, it is kind of uneeded for undoing enemy progress. You can simply turn your car around and pull them with the tether by boosting, or drive through a drop zone.

Hauling Might 400
Gain 125 temporary health on hit.

Only applies to first part of damage. This is clunker's only real survivability skill. It works all right.

Party Starter 800
Increases hit area

The magnet doesn't get any wider, unlike similiar upgrades on other cars. Instead the projectile shoots farther. probbably most useful when two people are driving close together, giving you a higher chance of hitting the second one (see artificer+little monster)

Endless Drag 600
Drag time increases to 3.5 seconds

This lets you drag enemies even further, and makes it easier to hit them with spark trap two times per tether. If you use it and Ravenous recoil together you could get three guranteed spark traps (q skill) per tether.

R skill - Death-Hole Drive
Releases a shockwave dealing 100 damage. Then sucks all enemies into you.

The damage is low compared to the special abilities on interceptors, but it's real benefit is in dragging everyone back. This makes it useful if the enemy has the bomb, a partner has the bomb and you want them far away from him, and even in other places. Also one of the guys you hit should be set up for you to tether, which lets you suck them into you for even longer.

Gears of the Cargo 800
150 damage

Probbably wouldn't recomend it over getting faster cooldown on spark trap. It does help with the low damage a little bit.

Passive-Repulsive Machine
Enemies that drive near you are pulled in very slightly.

This seems really weak, I just ignore it.

Generic upgrades

Health +100

Helps when you forced to fight other interceptors

Out of combat healing delay -30%

Clunker's limited healing actually makes this decent, especially if you focus on getting ahead and using drop zones.

turbo 30%

Keeping up with enemies makes spark trap more useful, and makes aiming thunder tow easier.

special weapon charge 25%

If you want to affect entire teams this is the way to go.

bullets from hell

At only a 5 and 12 (w hits twice) damage increase, this won't do much.

Sample Buying Order(s)

Metal Never Dies>Tow Charges>Hauling Might>Ravenous Recoil>Symphony of Power>Gears of the Cargo>Electrical Fix

My main focus with Clunker is to let enemies pass me and shoot them from behind, then move ahead of them by cutting across the wall's in the track to start over again. When my own team has the bomb I just hunt down people. Because of this, I am always far away from teamatesThis makes self healing actually important. I focus on having W, because it lets me harras enemy movement, not just their health. I will get Electrical Fix before symphony of power if the other team has windrunner or little monster. I don't worry about any other car's positive buffs.

Blazing Nitro>Party Starter>Symphony of Power>Tow Charges>Sorrow Dispner>Endless Drag>Gears of the Cargo

An alterante clunker. The focus here is picking off the bomb-carrier specifically, so it becomes important to chase after them at all times. This is why the range upgrade is used. This is somewhat finciky and aim-dependent in my experience, but on the other hand, you put pressure on the transporter on parts of the map that they are used to being "free", which can make a big difference.

The Judge is a new car, he is considered a transporter, but despite this, he is almost as good at getting kills as clunker (not wildfire or rampage though). As a transporter he plays more like little monster than Black Lotus, he carries the bomb like a tank, using his self-healing rather than his speed to get through the enemy lane. He has a much easier time killing enemy players than little monster though. His ally sharing abilities in particular are a lot better. However, He isn't quite as tanky as the Little Monster.

Default Health is 550. Default Turbo recharge is 18 seconds.

Q skill - Missle Gun
20 Damage per Shot. 1 Second Cooldown (at full health). Can hold up to 3 charges. Every time you hit an opponet they drop scrap, if collected, you get 30 temporary hit points.

The damage is pretty low on its own, but at low health or during your special weapon, this is a very strong ability. The main draw of this is the health. Compared with the lifesteal of Little monster, you can get healing opponets farther away from you. The projectile's bounce off walls like the Wildfire's Q attacks, but they seem to disapeear a lot earlier, so you can't shoot as far away as with wildfire. The healing doesn't increase with damage though, so don't focus on upgrading it like you might with ceirtain kinds of little monster.

The pickups this drops have a very generous pickup radius. They kind of get sucked in, you don't have to drive over them precisely. This makes it a lot better for healing than you would expect.

Upgrades
Lead Coat 600
Damage of Missle Gun increased to 24 per shot
Decent Damage Upgrade, Every 5 missles will count as 6 missles essentially. Very useful when shooting quickly through low health or Metal Storm.

My Gun and Me 800
Can Hold up to 4 charged missles.
Not a good upgrade for the Missle Gun. however it's effect is magnified by Metal Storm. Only buy this if you have Symphony of Power.

Worthy Shot 400
When you hit with missle gun, -25 second to Blocade Breach Cooldown.
The Blocakde Breach does move your car ahead and if used repeatedly in between turbos can speed you up, but I think you are better off using Black Lotus if you like that playstyle. If you want it to have resitance all the time it might be worthwhile though.

Train of Steel 600
Nearby allies also heal when you pick up metal. They still can't pick it up themselves though.

This is a very, very useful upgrade. It gives you something to do if you have two transporters and you aren't the active bomb-carrier, and you can assists a charather like clunker/wildfire, who might not have much healing otherwise.

W Skill - Blockade Breach
Attack by boosting forward a short distance. 60 damage. 8 second cooldown (at full health) 3 seconds of Resistance to Knockback after use

The melee attack works like Black Lotus's but sadly, it takes longer to charge, and doesn't really give you as much of a speed boost when used. The knockback resitance doesn't seem all that good to me, as Windrunner/Little Monster's knockback affect is too weak to matter, and Rampage's knockback is so strong that the resistance isn't enough. However I feel knockback resistance may become very important in the future after some balance tweaks (possibly applying also to Clunker's magnet)

Upgrades
Old Wild Wheel 800
Anyone you hit with Blocakde Breach cannot change speed or direction for .5 seconds.

I like this ability. It's kind of like a mini-version of Rampage's skill. If you hit someone while they are turning, you could force them into a drop zone or even the lava. If you are the bomb carrier, it's still fairly useful, since if they were making a pass at you, they won't be able to turn around, so you will only have to take 1 shot from in front, instead of letting them shoot you, having them turn around immediately, and shooting a second time from your back. It is a little expensive though.

Bumper of the Lord 600
Damage increased to 80.

I think the cooldown is too low to make it worth it, especially since you don't have skills that make you able to get in melee range easily like Black Lotus Can.

Driver of the Storm 400
Nearby allies also receive knockback resistance.

Bad for reasons given above.

Black Engine 600
4 seconds of knockback resitance instead of 3.

Same problem.

R skill - Metal Storm
Multiplies projectiles shot from missle gun for short while.

When you have this available, the missle gun transforms from "low damage but good healing" to being one of the best attacks in the game. Before using it, make sure you let all 3 (or 4) missles charge up, so that as many missles as possible receive the buff.

Upgrades
RattleSnake Bullets 800
Every 4 scrap you collect in a round increasing the healing of all scrap collected by 1, up to a maximum of 60.

This ability needs more testing. I think every time the bomb moves from the middle of the map to halfway up one of the lane's you will hit an average of 32 shots. This would increase healing 8 points. In a very long round, your already good healing should eventually become ridiculous. This would only happen if say, you got the ball halfway, then they got the ball halfway up theirs, and then you got it up your lane again. For now I give it so-so rating since rounds are so short, it might be interesting if you use it with the share healing ability though.

Passive - Relentless Chaser
Your weapons charge faster at low health. This is difficult to determine. The lower minimum of Blockade Breach(Q) seems to be 5 seconds, and the lower minimum of Missle Gun(W) seemds to be 0.6 seconds. You can do a lot of damage with the missle gun firing at double speed, but I wouldn't intentionally go at low health to abuse it, and if you are actually carrying the bomb don't tell partners NOT to heal you. It can be useful for getting out of a bad situation. Overheal health doesn't seem to count for this abilities's "percentage health remaining". So 100 Real health + 200 overheal health will still get the 30ish% faster weapon charge.

Generic Upgrades

+100 Health
A little more survival, Better on this car than most others.

Health Regen - 30%
Full Metal Judge wants to avoid downtime because of the way temporary health decays, so this ability isn't very useful.

Special Weapon Recharge -30%
Metal Storm is very useful, so this allows you to focus on it.

Turbo 30%
Helps you if you want to focus on being a transporter and counteracts short range of weapons.

Weapon Damage 10%
This is an extra 2 damage per missle shot or 6 damage for blockade breach. Lead Coat gives more damage for same price of 600. I don't think buying both together is as helpful as mixing other skills.

Sample buying order(s)
Symphony of Power> Lead Coat> My Gun and Me> Turbo> RattleSnake Bullets> Old Wild Wheel>Bumper of the Lord

This is a "interceptor-transporter hybird". The main focus is simply being able to beat down enemies with missles. My Gun and Me could be replaced with Train of Steel, since you'll be fighting enemies and therefore nearby partners more often, but I think focusing on the special ability makes up for it. Turbo is more to get in range than to "escape once you have the bomb". This usually keeps both damage and self healing (through temporary health) very high.

Old Wild Wheel> Worthy Shot>Train of Steel> Turbo>Health+100>Bumper of the Lord>Rattlesnake Bullets

This is a "support-transporter hybird".Buy nothing first round so you can have Old Wild Wheel early second round on, then use it to stun people liberally. Worthy shot let's you use it more often, and train of Steel keeps allies a little healthy as well. Might replace Health+100 with symphony of Power, even without missle upgrades having the special skill available is very useful..

The Little Monster is a transporter. It isn't very good at getting kills, but it can take damage, once you pick up the bomb, the enemy has a lot of work gettting you to drop it.

Default health 700. Default turbo cooldown 18 seconds.

Q skill - Devouring Maw
Deals 35 damage per second. Overheats after 5 seconds. 50% of damage done received as healing.

17 health healed a second is mediocre, but your inital health pool makes any regeneration signifigant. It's usually better to approach people diagnolly from the side and then to physically touch them rather than chase them from behind with the maw; the slow effect will minimize their ability to escape it by turning.

Upgrades

Gigantic Gut 800 credits
Increases overheat timer from 5 seconds to 7 seconds.

It can be quite east to overheat. Your use of devouring maw this had a direct effect on your ability to heal yourself.

Prey Slicer 600 credits
Enemies hit with devouring maw receive 10% extra damage from all sources for 3 seconds.

Gives you more healing per second, if an allied wildfire or rampage is nearby, can have a drastic effect on the victim's life.

Feeding the Pack 600 credits
Nearby Allies also receive the healing from Devouring maw.

This adds a little circle so you can know how nearby is neccesary. Unfortunately, devouring maw only gets a tiny amouint of damage if you use it while driving around, since it works best while pinning someone by driving on top of them, and you will usually have your teamates pass you up while you are doing so, preventing them from sharing in the healing..

Ravenous Collar 400 credits
Doing damage for 1 second with Q gives 1 second of cooldown to W

This is useful if you want to use W all the time, which is beneficial if you don't care about aiming W and just want to activate it's on-use effects, such as armor. Otherwise this upgrade is out of the way.

W skill - Crushing Pounce
75 damage. 10 second cooldown. Projectiles cannot hit you while in midair. damages in radius all around you.

It's a little awkward, since one you are in the air, you can't change direction until you land. The "hangtime" seems to be about .5 seconds. The description says it dodges "projectiles" but actually, you can even jump over the corner of Metal Herald's coffin or the scorch mark from drop of destruction. The only thing that can you during that .5 seconds seems to be damage over time effects. Also at the end of this ability you seem to regain full left click speed even if you were in the middle of sitting on top of someone and had a 30% slow. Nice to remember this if you are transporting the bomb.

Upgrades

Enormous Paw 400
Increases the radius by 30%
If you want to damage enemies with this ability at all, this is almost a must-have. That said, the long cooldown still holds it back, so it's really just a nice bonus.

Blast Processing 600
Enemy's are knocked back.

This can stall enemies and knock them out of range. Most helpful on the two straightways. Otherwise, knocking them back doesn't really stop them from getting close enough to kill you. Don't expect it to get them as far away from you as Lotus's Impetus. On offense, I've never manged to use this to knock an enemy bomb carrier into a drop zone, but it is theoretically possible.

Undying Drive 800
Gives you an armor 15% effect after your jump for 5 seconds.

Very useful, 15% of 700 is 105. So used well , this can act like the health upgrade. It's worth noting that since it reduces enemy damage instead of increasing your own health, it isn't vulnerable to stuff like wildfire's - you will have the increaased effective health no matter what uprades they use.

Brood Flies 600
Makes nearby allies jump as well.
Very situational. You could save your entire team from say, wildfire's meteor, but consider, if you are carrying the bomb, and your partners are, clunker,Articier, and Judge. Most likely, you artifier will be out in front, the enemies team behind you, and clunker and judge behind them. This means that only 1 other person is benefiting instead of 3.

R ability - Terror Carapace
Restores 65 health per second for 8 seconds.

Whenever you can pop this ability, you can achieve near-invincibility. Keep in mind that wildfire with the upgrade can nullify a lot of it, and extreme burst damage (black lotus, wildfire, and rampage's special attacks) has a slightly lower chance of getting through. Otherwise, you can essentially guranttee that you can carry the bomb sbout 1/3 of the way up their lane.

Upgrade - Juggernaught 800 credits
Increases healing per second to 80.

Personally I think this is the worst special ability upgrade in the game. It doesn't increase the duration, only the healing. The problem is, the healing of the unupgraded version is so high that almost nothing can kill. In perspective, the enemy needs to do 1200 damage to kill you with the original, and 1300 with this expensive upgrade give or take a few hundered depending on if you heal yourself with devouring maw or have a partner that can heal. This is kind of a lot. the enemy team has to be very co-ordinated. Bots will maybe do 850-900 from the middle to their base, while a good human player + 3 average/new players will probbably do 1400. A good human team may do 1600ish, but honestly I think that should be mitigated by having your own human team.

Passive - Monstrous
Runs over other cars, deals 25 damage per second, and inflicts slow 30% on both yourself and the victim. Slow seems to end .2 seconds after you stop touching them.

The game does not give you the value of this damage, but upon testing it is very low. What's more, the hitbox for this ends at the width of your own model, so you have to be on top of them to get this effect. Because of this, drive-bysl usually only hit them for a few tenths of a second dealing 8-16 damage. If you approach the enemy from alongside on the other hand, you can sustain them in a slow for a long time and be in perfect range for devouring maw the whole time. They will usually gradually pull out of your model, and will barely do half damage, but it will keep them still for a long time. It does have a "hidden" upside. Other car's can't physically bodyblock you. You need to immediately use W to jump out of the slow to make the most of it.

Passive- Monstrous
Running into enemy cars damages them and inflicts slow 25% on both them and yourself.
Generic Upgrades

Health +100

This gives you 800 health, which is pretty intimidating. It can be better than symphony of power in shorter rounds, consider using this if you are starting in the 1 position and consistently get the ball first because the opposing team consistently fail the fast start nitro.

Out of battle healing +30%

Not very good for a transporter, since the damage from the ball.

Nitro cooldown -30%
Very good for a transporter. gives 12 second cooldown instead of 18.

Special weapon +25%

The special weapon of little monster makes you very hard to kill for a short while. Having it available can mean that the other team has to kill you twice over to get you to drop the bomb.

Weapon Damage +10%

An interesting note is that since devouring maw does more damage, it will also do more healing. The effect on W on the other hand is way to minor to matter. I usually pass this up.

Sample Buying Order(s)

Undying Drive>Blazing Nitro>Symphony of Power>Gigantic Gut>>Prey Slicer>Juggernaught>Enormous Paw

I prefer to play round 1 with no upgrades so that I can have the Undying from the start of round 2 onward. I feel it is the most signifgant upgrade for little monster. Afterwards I focus on speed and survivabilty, mainly by having the Q ability cooldown as much as possible.. Having the special ability available helps survivabilty, but uprading it further than that isn't neccesary.

The Herald is a support car. It acts as a healer, like the Artificer, but also does decent damage. I find that it's better to focus on one of his two skills instead of using both together. He is interesting because he has one of the only rear-firing weapons in the game, meaning that even when he has the bomb, he can damage enemies.

Health is 600. Nitro cooldown is 18 seconds.

Q skill - Indoctrinator
Fires in a cone in front of you. Can hit multible targets at once. Enemies are damaged, allies are healed. 40 damage. 60 healing. 1.75 second cooldown.

This is one of the fastest weapons in the game. It's most useful when somone is trying to hit your bomb carrier at melee range, since you can heal your guy and hurt them in one shot, and also if the other team has an artificer, you can hit him and the guy he's healing at the same time.

Upgrades
Bless from Beyond 800
Restore 15 health every time you hit an enemy

This seems weak compared to other cars with self-healing or the ability to get temporary hit points on their q, but you can get it to activate more often than other cars, since Metal Herald's cooldown is very short.

Divine Finger 400
Increases range 25%

I find the default cone to be very large, so I don't usually pick this up.

Word of Power 600
Damage increased to 45. Healing increased to 65

Basically makes every 8 attacks count as 9 attacks. Better than the 10 attacks counting as 11 attacks from Bullets from Hell. Bullets from Hell also doesn't give the healing boost.

Hard Rock Sermon 600
Cooldown reduced to 1.5 seconds

This is only a .25 increase. I think damage wise it actually becomes too fast, I'm not that good at tailing people! Healing wise though, it can crank up your heals per second a good amount.

W skill - Melodic Vessel
Drops a vessel on the ground. Can be run over by 1 ally or enemy before disapearing. Deals 25 damage per second for 5 seconds (total 125) or heals 35 damage per second for 5 seconds (total 175) Cannot affect yourself. 8 second cooldown.

Considering what this does, it charges surprisngly fast. This ability allows Metal Herald to charge it's special weapon more reliabilty than any other car. It also does decent damage, and it allows you to attack behind you. Enemies can swerve to avoid it, (it's activation area is a little smaller than the visible circle), but that will usually work in your favor, as it allows you or the bomb carrier to increase your distance from them signifigantly.

upgrades

Gospel Dissemnator 800
Explodes when people run over it allowing you to affect multible targets.

One of the best upgrades in the game. It makes Metal Herald one of the better "area of effect" charathers, and therefore it indirectly makes his special weapon charge even faster. It still won't apply to yourself, even if you use it at point blank range. Also, when helping a bomb carrier, they won't block you from doing damage by absorbing the vessel, it will usually hit both them and the enemy after them. Technically, if there is only one car behind you, it does the same thing as an unupgraded q, but you can almost always arrange for 1 enemy and 1 ally, even when you can't get 2-3 enemies.

Tenacious Tune 400
Healing increases to 40 per second (total 200)

Nothing wrong with this, although I am happy with the original.

Hurtful Truth 600
Inficts slow 50% for 1 second (enemies only)

The duration short, but since it charges reasonbly quickly, and can hit multible enemies at once, it can become useful since you can apply it so often

Immense Faith 600
Increases the size of the vessel +50%

Pretty much worthless without Dissemnator. It will still disapear after affecting a single target, and unlike most skills, it's pretty easy to aim. However, with dissemnator, it is fairly powerful, as you can now essentially hit people who aren't even driving over the target, and in the case of supproting a bomb-carrier, pretty much gurantee that anyone in range of them will be affected by their "healing".

R skill - Chord of Omnipotence
Makes all allies in a circle around you invulnerable for 5 seconds.

A strange ultimate. It doesn't protect your own car. Also the effect only lasts around your car, but an ally can receive it even if they weren't inside the circle for the first second. Works well if you drive near your allies, but can get you targeted. Will usually charge quickly due to melodic vessel, and being a healer.

Upgrade
Bane of the Damned
Increases duration to 7 seconds. Also gives you 25% armor for the duration.

So, this basically gives you a temporary 750 health. It isn't going to give you emergency protection in the way Black Lotus or Little Monster's specials do, but on the plus side, you can fully charge it in around 34 seconds (without upgrading charge time).


Passive- Harmonic Touch
Allies you hit with your weapons have any debuffs removed

Usually useful, although a lot of the worst debuffs that only last 1 second are hard to react too, and debuffs caused by stuff like wildfire's whirling dragon or little monster's physical contact, that are constantly being re-applied for a few seconds, are basically impossible for this skill to deal with.

Generic Upgrades

Health +100

Personally I condier metal herald to be frail, so I usually spring for this. I find this upgrade to generally benefit machines that work best in short rounds, and metal herald is one of hem.

Out of Combat Delay -30%

I don't use this, since I always want to plant melodic vessels when out of combat.

Nitro Cooldown -30%

Helps you keep up with your heal targets or enemies. If you want Hard Rock Sermon, staying in range for longer is important, otherwise you can afford the seconds needed to use the shortcuts to catch up.

Special weapon charge +25%

It already charges in about 35 seconds, I don't really see how you could want more. Actually I would argue that Gospel Disseminator offers an even larger charge boost than this 25% since hitting multiple targets will get you more charge anyway. Both together seem like overkill.

Weapon Damage +10%

Kind of medoicre. Adds 4 damage to indoctrinator and 12 damage to melodic vessel.

Sample Buying Order(s)

Gospel Dissemnator>Hurtful Truth>Bane of the Damned>Health+100>Word of Power>Hard Rock Sermon>Symphony of Power

Get the ability to hit multible enemies at once, then get slows on it. This will give you fast access to your special even without symphony of power, so you might as well make it's duration longer. Afterwards I just grab survivabilty. It is kind of an ideal setup for a fast fin if you are starting from the 3rd or 4th position and one of your partner's gets the bomb right away, since you'll almost always have the special weapon ready by the time they get to the 2nd set of curves. When the enemy has the bomb, you can damage them effectively, but ah.

Gospel Dissemnator>Immense Faith> Hard Rock Sermon>Blazing Nitro>Health+100>Bless from Beyond>Bane of the Damned

Taking immesne faith over hurtful truth usually leads to even faster special weapon recharge, but you lose out on the slows. Bless from Beyond's impact on your survivability depends on how often you can hit people with indoctrinator (q skill) hence the why we take the cooldown upgrade (hard rock sermon).

Rampage is an interceptor. He is best suited to longer matches, where his R skill will have time to charge. He can do damage very quickly. He has an easier time attacking multiple opponets than wildfire or clunker. Additionally, he has the lowest health. He makes up for this by having a very effective way to push opponet's into the red zones.

Default health is 450. Default turbo cooldown is 18 seconds.

Q skill - Blade Smash
Deals 100 damage right in front of you. Cooldown of 2.5 seconds.

Main attack, you should be looking to get people right in front of you at all times. Can hit multiple people at once, although it isn't very wide, so this is hard to deal unless you grouped them up yourself with your W skill.

Upgrades

Unending Routine 800
Cooldown reduced to 2 seconds

The biggest increase in potential damage rampage has.

Shut them up 600
Disarm for 1 second on hit.

Worth using against wildfire/clunker, who will attack back if you are in range.

Safety first 600
Gives +50 temporary health on succesful hit

Helps offset your low health.

Wreckage master 400
Cooldown of W -1 on hit.

Let's you use your main skill more often.

W skill- Demolition Engine
Deals 25 damage and drags enemy along. Does an extra 75 damage and releases enemy if you hit a wall. 10 second cooldown. Takes 1.5 seconds to end if you don't hit a wall.

You'll want this for pushing people. There are two ways to try this. into walls, to maximize damage, or you can push them into the drop areas. You can not use Q,R, or turbo during the "pinning" animation. However, as soon as it ends, you can get a guranteed hit with Q if you push it right away. If you pushed them into a wall, this could mean an instant 200 damage. Pinned Enemies cannot drive, turn or use nitro until release. However, the enemy can still fire their weapons during the pin. If you use it on wildfire or clunker, you can lose over half of your health.

upgrades

happy hour 600
Does 25 extra damage if you hit multiple opponets.

You'll definately have oppurtunities to do this, especially if they brought supports.

wounder wall 800
slows enemy 50% for 1 second after release.

Duration is short, but it can help with following up with Q after hitting someone into wall.

Huge Jerk 600
30% Blade width

Let's you grab people a bit more easily. Nothing wrong with that.

Social Path 400
Leaves a trail that gives 60% speed to allies for 1 second.

A nice idea, but you only move for 1.5 seconds, and allies may not be behind you, espeically if you are pinning enemies.

R skill - Wrathquake

Shoots a large projectile straight ahead that can hit multiple enemies without disapperaing, goes a long distance, and passes through walls. 250 damage. This is very easy to hit with, and does tremendous damage.

Rage against the machine 800 scrap
Makes projectile 50% wider.

This is actually a pretty good upgrade. It makes it much easier to hit multible opponets.

Passive - Headstrong
35% damage reduction from the front

If all the damage you take is from the front, you effectively have 607 health instead of 450.
Unfortunately, the other team rarely co-operates. You can get more out of this by using the reverse gear (right click) in ceirtain situations instead of driving with left click. However more often than not you won't get it. Expect to take 520 points of damage in average case scenarios.

General Upgrades

Health +100

Having the lowest health is a bad thing. This goes a long way. Because your passive is percentage based, having more health begin with makes it 19 points stronger.

Regeneration delay -30%

Waiting 3.5 seconds instead of 5 seconds makes this more acceptable. Since your weapons are melee, you won't reset the delay as often as other cars, who will often want to take potshots. Because your other healing options are weak, this can be fine, especially if you take time to line yourself up with drop areas attack the enemy as they pass, and then go 1-2 curves ahead to repeat.

Blazing Nitro

This keeps Rampage in range to use his attacks. You would probbably want to buy the cooldown upgrades with it though, otherwise, you would be wasting a good deal of the extra 6 seconds you can keep someone with equal speed pinned down, and would be better using an ambush playstyle over a chasing playstyle.

Special Weapon charge +25%

Rampage has a pretty easy time charging his special weapon. If you can pin multiple opponets with Q, then hit them all with W at the end of it you get a big boost. (hint, start in the 2nd position, and take advanage of how the enemy will line up when grabbing the ball from the middle). If the other team is using Windrunner or Artificer, you can almost gurantee the ability to hit the healer and their buddy together for the entire match. Taking this upgrade makes a relatively fast charge go even faster, but In my opinion it's already fast enough (probbably fastest of all non-support charathers) and often I'll want to spend my general upgrades making up for rampage's health.

Bullets from Hell
Weapons do 10% more damage.

This can actually have a notiable effect on rampage. If a car with 600 health receives even 1 point of healing, you would need to hit them 7 times instead of 6 to kill them. With this skill, enemies must heal at least 61 points before an extra hit to kill becomes neccesary. Artificer takes 1.3 seconds to heal 60 points of damage. Even better for long periods of time, for example 3 seconds of healing from artificer (600+135=735). You need 7 (110x7=770) hits compared to 8 hits without. 6 seconds of artificer healing (270) requires 8 hits compared to 10 hits. You save an attack every 3 seconds*.

* Actually you gain on Artificer, after 9 seconds of this you start gaining an attack every 2 seconds, but fighting should never be that drawn out. At 21 seconds, you pull ahead, gaining 1 1/3 of an attack for every 1 second of healing. You will never have to hit someone more than 14 times.

Similiarly, the tiny 30 health that a Black Lotus gets from Metalic Merger, could force you to hit him 6 times instead of 5. With this, he needs to use it 3 times before he can make you need an extra hit. 4 times with damage from Lotus carrying the bomb added in.

Sampe buying order(s)
Unending Routine>Rage Against the Machine>Happy Hour>Huge Jerk>Symphony of Power> Bullets from hell> Safety First

I'm pretty confident in my ability to line up opponets well, and happy hour+ ability to charge the special weapon from hitting multiple people at once, really penalizes teams that use artificer/windrunner.

Wildfire is an interceptor. It is one of the easist cars to use in the game, and strongly recomended. It has an easier time getting kills than any other.

550 default health. 18 second nitro cooldown.


Q skill - Whirling Dragon
Makes a circle of fire around your car. Deals 40 damage per second.

The main focus of wildfire should be this skill. It isn't so good against black lotus since you have to keep up with your target, but against anyone else, it is very easy to keep equal speed with them. It's worth noting that it will overheat before you get through a full healthbar, so you should ease up every now and then.

Upgrades
Heated to the core 800 credits
Prevents targets from healing for .5 seconds after damaging them.

This can be a dig deal if the opponet has an artificer on their team, or otherwise has a strong source of self healing like little monster and wildfire's on the other team. The duration is short, but you will often re-apply it because of wildfire's playstyle keeping you close to the enemy. You may not need to buy it if the other team doesn't have little monster/metal herald/artificer.

Devouring Flame 600 credits
30% healing based on damage done. By default this equals 12 health per second.

This lets you act as a semi-decent transporter, and also gives you a kind self healing. More importantly, a teamate is the bomb carrier, it lets you go from enemy to enemy very freely, which is good since any healers on your team will be helping the transporter, not you. It can easily outpace the damage of Judge, Metal Herald, or Rampage, but other wildfires and Clunkers will still be able to kill you through your healing, and if you overheat anyone can.

Feeding the Devil 600 credits
1 second cooldown for devil's spit (w) for every second of damage through whirling dragon.

Using Devil's spit effectively will allow you to kill faster than using Whirling Dragon alone, and this can help with that.

Hell is for everyone 400 credits
8% damage increase per vehicle hit with whirling dragon.

On its own it will give 6 extra damage for one target hit, so if you only care about W it is stronger and cheaper than Bullets from Hell even if you don't hit multiple targets.
Needs testing to see if this requires you to hold Q continously through a single overheat cycle, or if it holds extra damage over multiple attacks.

W skill - Devil's spit
Shoots a fireball forward. 80 damage. Bounces off walls. On impact or after a ceirtain maximum distance it explodes, hitting enemies in a ceirtain radius which can affect multiple targets

Excellant damge, and worth paying attention to enemies for when you can get away with it.

Upgrades

Burning Brother 800 credits
Adds a second explosion which does 25 damage.

Decent damage, but I find the high price to be a problem.

Overheating Fever 400 credits
After htting enemies with devil's spit (w) debuffs them so their attacks deal -25% less damage for 5 seconds.

A pretty signifigant decrease in your victim's attack power, if they were one of the car's that could outdamage devouring flame healing before, this will make it so that they aren't.

Scorched Earth 600 credits
When the projectile explodes it leaves a pile of fire which does 50 damage to every enemy driving over.

It's really 70 damage if you add in metalic melter. While the damage is reasonable, I don't usually see enemies drive over the same place and I have a hard time hitting the front man when trying to deal with say, an artificer attached to a transporter, usually I'll hit the one in back and not get the change to hit the other guy with this.

Hurting High and Low 600 credits
Increases blast radius of projectile by 30%

I've never noticed this one in gameplay.

R skill - Drop of Destruction
Prime a projectiles for a time, then drops it dealing 300 damage in a huge radius.

You have to lead the shot, but if you play wildfire the way I suggest (by waiting at each succesive turn and letting them come to you from behind) you will be in the position to drop this naturally, which makes the timing easy.

Upgrade
Apocalpyse
Increases damage to 350

The most straightforward uprade you can imagine. It's actually a pretty meaningful boost though.


Passive - Metalic Melter
After using a weapon (q,w, or r) Enemies take 10 damage per second over time for 2 seconds.

This is totally free. It can be removed by enemies like metal herald, and also forces anyone trying to use out of combat healing to wait an extra 2 seconds before their 5 or (upgraded)3.5 regeneration delay even starts. Hitting an enemy who already has this debuff resets the 2 seconds rather than stacking.

Generic upgrades

Heavy Metal Plates
Increases health to 650.

I don't usually take this as wildfire. It might help when enemy interceptors forced you into fights on the way to the transporter, you'd need to survive or win those "mirror" fights before you could do your main job after all.

Metal Never Dies
Reduces out of combat healing delay to 3.5

In all honesty, Wildfire is one of the most cars most able to use this. I just use Devouring Flame due to personal prefernce. If you wanted to use a specific combination of 2 whirling dragon upgrades and didn't have room for devouring flame, this can make up for it very well. The Wildfire should be in the bomb's way, not on it's tail, so out of combat healing is viable.

Blazing Nitro
Reduces nitro cooldown to 12 seconds from 18.

Important if you want a hybird role from your wildfire. After all, if you kill the bomb carrier, you'll be the one closest to picking it up.

Symphony of Power
Increases charge time for R by 25%

Drop of Destruction can change games instantly if you use it well. This gives you the chance to use it more often.

Bullets From Hell
Increases damage of weapons by 10% (44 per second whirling dragon, 99 for devil's shot) does not affect metal melter's damage over time.

It's not a bad deal for 600 credits. Wildfire is defined by its offense.

Sample Buying Order(s)

Devouring Flame>Symphony of Power>Blazing Nitro>Apocalypse>Overheating Fever>Feeding the Devil>Burning Brother

I like to use this a lot, because it makes it possible to act as a transporter, after all, since wildfire is usually the one to kill the bomb carrier- the bomb will drop very close to you, and sommetimes no one else will be around to pick it up. I focus on Q more than the projectile, because with the additional purchase of Turbo, It is easier to stay close enough to use it. I will use Heated to the Core over turbo if they have artificer on their team though.

Overheating Fever>Heated to the core> Bullets from Hell> Metal Never Dies>Hell is for Everyone>Scorched Earth>Apocalyse.

A more convential wildfire. This one focuses on removing opponet's effiecently and counteracting support cars like artificer from healing or self-healing from abilities like devouring maw.

The Windrunner is considered a Support. I think it has one of the most awkward skillsets of all the cars. It isn't as straightforward to heal with as herald or artificer, and it isn't as good at knockback/crod control as rampage/clunker.

600 default health. 18 second nitro cooldown.


Q skill - Ghostly Avenger
55 damage. 3 second cooldown. Shoots a bird forward. Pushes enemies.Doesn't disapear on impact, can hit multiple enemies.

Unlike Judge/Wildfire's similiar skills. This means it can hit 2 or more enemies if they are in a line. You won't really move enemies around, but they will stutter a bit as if they hit a pothole. If this happens in the middle of a nitro, they will basically be forced back to regular speed immediately and still have to be on cooldown.

Upgrades
Hunter of foes 800 credits
Adds a second hawk that deals 15 damage.

Can be awkward to aim, since there is a little delay on the second hawk.

Ancestral Emmisary 400 credits
On hit, -1 cooldown for (W) Road Wraiths

Use this if you want to have your road wraiths out more often. However, since Q skill has a 3 second cooldown itself, you can only take off 2 seconds at most, never 3.

Tireless Tormenter 600 credits
Increases hit area

A wider projectile is easier to aim, use depends on how often you find yourself attacking.

Gush of Hate 600 credits
Increases knockback

It has some affect, but not all that much.


W skill - Road Wraiths
Spawns a bunch of ghost horses on your car, and makes you drop 18 healing bubbles. 10 health per bubble. 10 damage and some pushforce on enemies contacting horses. Horses last 5 seconds. Cooldown is 10 seconds.

I believe the number of healing bubbles dropped is 2 for the first second, and 4 for every other second. The healing bubbles are actually pretty decent, if you are out in front of the bomb , no one will be shooting at you since you aren't the main target and the bomb carrier behind you can get up to 180 health+winds of change health, although 120 is more likely. It's damage is awful, and pushing people with it is kind of awkward. Only allies can collect the bubbles, not yourself.

upgrades

Shell from hell 600 credits
You get 100 Temporary health when you use the skill

Since you'll be using it a lot, this increases the amount of damage you can take pretty signifigantly.

Spirits of rug 800 credits
6 second duration

If you always use w when it's available, this will let you go from having horses out 50% of the time to 60%. Take this if you want healing for allies or speed+10% active more often. Will add 4 more health bubbles to the trail. Up to 22 from default 18.

Othwerwordly Metal 600 credits
Heal bubbles give 13 health.

The healing is very strong to start with, 13 health per bubble times 18 bubbles, lets you heal up to 54 more points per skill use(if all are collected). Over the 4.5 seconds you drop bubbles, this means your heal per second is 12 higher. I don't use it much.

Deathly Haunting 400 credits
Grants 10% speed increase for duration

This upgrade makes windrunner the second fastest car in the game, behind black lotus. 10% might seem low, but when dodging melee cars, anything that breaks your tied speed can ruin a rampage's day. Additionally, if you consider the 5 second duration and the 10 second cooldown, you will have that speed active fully half of your time spent alive.


R skill - Gates to Nowhere
Holds allies and enemies in around you in place for 1 second, allies receive 200 health when it ends.

As a healer, you can fill the special weapon gauge quite fast. However this skill is a little odd. You can use it to heal allies, but also as crowd control. However this makes it weird, to heal the bomb carrier the most efficiently you would want to drive in front of him, but to get the most out of this skill you would want to brake so that you could catch enemies chasing him, but not hit the bombcarrier himself (so he could get a big lead on the enemies). It also heals yourself.

upgrade
Highway to Paradise
Repairs 300 HP to allies.

Passive - Winds of Change
A healing trail follows your car, healing allies that drive in it for 48 health per second (at left click driving speed).

This is actually a decent heal . It seems to have a wider hitbox than the visual, and can be pretty effective, although usually it'll only really be doing 30 heals per second, since following your movement exactly isn't as important to your allies as carrying bomb/shooting at enemies. The trail seems to be made up of (invisible) segments that heal 6 damage each. You might think artificer clearly has the advantage here, but since there is no overheat, you can have the full effect all the time. Additionally, you can trail heal and heal with road wraiths at the same time. If your ally picks them up while boosting or while they have a slow on themselves the healing can be different.

Generic Upgrades

Health +100
Wind Runner has a hard time making enemies leave it alone, since it doesn't do much to their health.

Self Healing 30%
A little interesting, since you won't be resetting your out of combat timer when healing people like artificer/metal herald due to part of your healing being passive/ long cooldown. However, I think responsible human players should target healers if they have a large impact on the match,

Turbo 30%
Pretty important, if you can't stay ahead of your allies, you can't heal them, and since you heal by dropping, you usually want to use the corners like they do instead of taking shortcuts to catch up

Weapon Damage 10%

Really bad. You only get 5 more damage for Ghostly avenger (7 more with hunter of foes) and 1 more damage on road wraiths.

Special Weapon25%

Charges fast to begin with, since heals are easy to get off all the time. Also, since you usually want to take time to aim with this one, you usually end up with dry seconds once it's ready anyway.

Sample Buying order(s)

Deathly Haunting>Blazing Nitro>Shell From Hell> Heavy Metal Plates>Highway to Paradise> Hunter of Foes> Ancestral Emissary

Grabs speed, then grabs survivability, I only use him for healing the bomb carrier or carrying it, so yeah.

Windrunner can be the second fastest car in the game after black lotus. It is also more durable than black lotus, with 100 higher base health and the ability to get 100 temp health every 10 seconds (only around 70 of that will be useful for enemy attacks due to decay). This gives windrunner decent potential to grab the bomb for itself and run to goal, having a combination of above average speed and tankiness.

However, wind runner is stronger in its support role driving in front of the bomb carrier. If you were careful to drive in the middle lane so that they didn't miss any heals, you could give them 50 health per second and 70-90 health every other 5 seconds through q.

Artificer- Artificer is really easy to learn, as you'd expect, but it can be surprising, especially if you trade places with the guy carrying the bomb, so that youcan maximize the self healing from atomic feedback with the 45 heal per second on them. It kind of has a momentum effect though- when your team has the ball, it can make sure you keep the ball really well, but if an enemy gets the ball, it can't really do anyting to the bomb carrier, and spends time keeping your teamates, who are the only meaningful attackers, alive, which can be useful against an aggresive enemy, but some bomb carriers will focus on running away only, and against them, having 4 guns is better than 3 guns and a healer.

Black Lotus- Black Lotus is a really well designed machine.I find it's speed to be great, and it's damage to be tottally accetpable, espeically since, it can make up for how weak it's indvidual attacks are by having the ability to stay in range and thus not miss shots.

Clunker- Clunker is really fun to use, and one of the two cars that can make good use of the drop zones. It is less versatile than wildfire in a really long chase/combat, since it's self-healing abilty isn't as useful as devouring flame. but on the other hand, unlike wildfire, he can make full health cars drop bombs just as well as low health cars, and even the people he doesn't kill, can be slowed down by a huge amount of time by his tether.

Full Metal Judge- Full metal judge is a really great car, and his ability to get large amounts of temporary health quickly, allows him to run through the lane using his "effective" high health, and also makes him interesting, as of course, you have to constantly get in fights to maintain it due to decau. He also has a very Offensive special ability, almost as much so as the ones on the intercetpor cars.

Little Monster- Little Monster is a hunk of meat. This works surprisngly well when grabbing the bomb. However, the most practical way to kill people with litle monster is unlike any other car- the weird way it's slow fomr it's passive ability "monstrous" works almost allows you to "stop" both your victim and yourself. It's very strange, as it's main attack only works at close range like wildfire and rampages, butwhen they fight people they end up still moving toward the end of the lane. Not so with little monster. This makes it very, very useful if you exclusively target the lead car, but also, unlikely anyone else, actually encourages the enemy to make use of passing to get around you. Additionally, if little monster has the bomb, an enemy can "sacrfice" themselves by driving into you to force you to inflict slow on yourself, which even with your health, will give everyone else on the enemy team time to chip away at you. You have to be ready to use your "crusing pounce skill" to end the slow. It encourages thinking, but sadly, Full Metal Judge accomplishes the same "high health bomb carrier" effect without having as much of a learning curve. Also it's worth pointing out that if you don't brush enemies with monstrous to slow them, the main attack "devouring maw" is very weak due to the combination of it's low damage ticks and how difficult it is to keep them inside it's range for the full duration if they are moving at their normal speed, so it can't really change targets easily like the other cars can.

Metal Herald- Metal Herald works pretty well as a support car. It's healing is decent, it shouldn't have too many problems keeping up with the transporter, and the ability to heal and hurt at the same time is more useful than it sounds, since enemies like wildfire/rampage will need to be "hugging" your bomb carrier to use their main attacks, they will also coincedntlly set up oppurtunities to hit them and the bomb carrier at the same time. Also it solves the artificer problem of having little to do with your time when the enemy team has the bomb- you can double as an attacker pretty well. However, he does have a bad side- he can be a little awkward to keep alive, he doesn't have an ability to gain a high amount of temporary health every 10 seconds like windrunner or something like artificer's atomic feedback. His health skill is downright weak. Also because he does area of effect all tihe time and he's a healer, he tends to charge his special weapon in 40 seconds instead of the 50ish seconds that most other cars take. It's a really strange special attack, since it doesn't protect yourself at all, although on the other hand, arguably, if your team had the bomb first, it would be the best one in the game, since it's charge time would be ready during the first trip up the lane in that round.

Rampage- Rampage as an interceptor works just as well as the other two at killing most things- however, if the other team has interceptors and he forces fights with them, he will almost always pay for it, and because of his lower health, damage over time, including from carrying the bomb, will have a big impact on him (especially since it can't be reduced by his ability). On the plus side he is a very health addition to the game, because he can punish people who abuse support cars... if the other team has two people who drives next to each other all the time, his skill will let him grab both of them very easily, which wildfire and clunker cannot do nearly as well. And of course he is the other car that encourages players to learn how to use the drop zones.

Wildfire- Wildfire is the easiest to learn car in the game, and can pick fights all the time, which rampag and clunker usually can't pull off without the assitance of a healer. I love that it can cancel out enemy healing and lower enemy damage, and it will probbably remain my most played car. It's worth noting though, that it can be "pulled off" of an enemy bomb carrier if the enemy has interceptor's of it's own, which would almost never happen to clunker, rampage, or the transporter cars when forced to use their offense.

Windrunner- Windrunner is allegedly good at both knockback and healing. The healing part is true- if driven carefully, it can outheal the other two.supports. However, the knockback you get really doesn't do so much. Also it has really weird long cooldown. 3 seconds for it's q skill and 10 seconds for its w skill compared to metal herald having 1.75 seconds and 8 seconds. Like artifcer I find it weird to figure out what to do when the enemy team has the
bomb. Also it might just be me, but I find myself using the speed upgrade + tthe temporary health upgrade to act like a weaker version of little monster and grab the bomb myself.

Blurred roles- Keep in mind that if a bomb carrier dies halfway up the lane or on the final stretch interceptors and support have no problem carrying it the rest of the way, and that cars like metal herald and full metal judge can lay down decent damage even though they aren't interceptors. Even without upgrades, this is a fast arcade-style game, and most of the time, every car is going to be covering whatever situation is needed, instead of what they're specifically talented for. I think this is one of HMM's better accomplishments.

Team composition- A lot of people are going to hate me for this, but in the current state of the game, the best teams seem to be those that stack roles. That is, a team with all healing cars or a team with all three interceptors. However it doesnt provide TOO much of an advantage,over a "balanced" or "random" team. But it's an advantagee none-the-less.

What are experience and fame?

Fame is the ingame "account" currency- it is available to all players, . You can't purchase anything that affects gameplay, unlike the scrap currency you get during real gameplay.

Experience is a much more generously awarded pseudo currency. You receive it at the end of a match for both the car you used and your general account. All of the cars have their own experience meters. At some levels, you unlock models for the car in the shop. On other levels you receive a flat (unaffected by double experience events) amount of fame. Sometimes the game won't update immediately, and will not show an increase in the counter at the top left of the screen or still show the car as locked in the shop, but playing another match or logging out and coming back online will usually fix this.

There are multiple ways to get fame

Level up cars
This is probbably the best way to get fame. To make this go faster, it's better to play during double experience weekends, since you will only need to play half as many matches to level up the cars and hence unlock fame.

Every car is worth up to 2500 fame at level 8. This means, if you get all 9 cars to level 8, you would have 17500 fame + some extra fame from leveling up the account/daily missions along the way of playing that much.

Each level requires 1.5 times more experience as the last level, so you should watch it. You need 1456 experience for the first level up (level 2). At first, a car will level up after winning 4-5 games, but it will slow down a lot towards the later levels.

I calculate that it takes an average of 270 matches per car to get to level 10 and 120 matches to get to level 8.

Level up general account

You shouldn't focus on this, just let it happen naturally, you'll should have all of the levels that have a "fame" reward by doing 2-3 cars all the way or all of the cars up to level 6 each.

Matches

This is neglible. 10 or 20 (during events) fame is very slow. I wouldn't rely on this unless you end up just short of something you want ot purchase, or you just want to grab a bunch of cheap skins

Daily Rewards

Most of these are very easy to do. Keep in mind, though, you can get clogged up if you don't finish them, and will not receive more than 3 at a time. Think of it like team fortress's drop system. in team fortress, you have 7 random drops per week, but if you miss a week, you can have 14 drops the next week. In heavy metal machines, you have 3 random missions every 3 days, but if you miss a 3 day cycle, you still only get 3 over 6 days.

The Shop itself

In the shop, you can purcahse Machines and Models. You use FAME as the currency and not EXPERIENCE.

Actually just think of the Machines as being smaller shops for that each car. You cannot buy the Wildfire skin's until you purcahse the wildfire machine, and so on for every car.

The machines cost 1000 (artificer), 2500, (wildfire, little monster, windrunner), 10,000 (Black Lotus) and 7500 for everyone else.

Each car has 1 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. 3 skins that cost 500, 1 skin that costs 2000 (can only be purchased if your car's level is 3) 1 skin that costs 5,000 (which requires a level 5 car), and 3 skins that cost 10,000. one with no level requirement, one with a level 10 requirement, and the beta skin.

Disclaimer- the models aren't as important as enjoying gameplay. I like that it encourages you to play all the machines, but I wouldn't recomend people to "grind out" every machine to level 10.. that's a little silly. You don't really need lots of machine models anyway.

Personally I think that a lot of the models' look pretty good, especially for metal herald and heavy metal judge.

I do find most of Black Lotus and Clunker's models to look the same at a distance (except the one white one for black lotus and the HAND magnet for clunker.

So the Heavy Metal Machine Page says that the planned amount of cars is 12.

Since we currently have 3 interceptors, 3 supports, and 3 transporters, it is safe to predict that the last 3 cars will maintain the balance and we'll get one of each.

Also, it's worth noting that the "random select" has it's own music, which might end up being the music for one of the unrevealed charathers (speculation).

Their are also plans for new maps, and the in-progress "ranked" mode, although details on these are mostly limited to one-off posts by the developers and the placeholder artwork in the mode select menu.

If you see a problem with anything I mentioned, or want to suggest your own playstlye for one of the cars, I will gladly put it in the guide.

During the making of this guide, I played about 40 pve co-op matches, since you cannot view the shopping menu unless you are ingame. My lifetime stats will probbably be hilarious forever. However, most of the strategies are based on Player versus player experience. In co-op games, you can start in the 1 position with any car, grab the bomb at the start of the round, and score no matte which car you're using very reliably. I kind of wish the bots were harder, but I consider them an extended part of the tutorial, so maybe that isn't too important.

I hope this guide has been helpful. I am mostly writing this because, as an early access player, I feel obliged to give feedback to the developers. This guide is mostly a summary of the things I find effective in the game. Most of the stuff I leave out or am less wordy about, I consider to be underpowered windrunner. If it is useful to new players and veterens, I will consider that a nice bonus.