Short Answer - Eh, probably the Emancipator

Long Answer - Ok, this all started a few days ago, when I heard some heavy Patriot slander. Instead of needlessly arguing on reddit, I decided to do some tests. I would complete one D10 mission from each faction for each mech, and grant a best mech for each faction, and prove that all the mechs are useful

(WARNING LONG RANT, SKIP TO SECTIONS YOU CARE ABOUT)

The results were, mostly what I expected, but the execution and uniqueness of the new mechs and changes made things a lot different than I expected

Now first, we need to explain the purpose of each mech, because I don’t think this was very clear to a lot of people

Defining Mechs

Each mech has two armaments, a left arm and a right arm. The right arm is the main purpose of the mech, whilst the left arm supports it by either filling a niche or reinforcing a mechs identity

Patriot - This is the Chaff mech, meant to eliminate Chaff at any distance, whilst having some AT to protect yourself

Excavator - This is the anti-Medium mech, killing everything Hulk/Charger and below with ease whilst requiring AT for the bigger fellows, or good aim. Out of all the mechs, this is the highest aim skill required, as you need to hit your shots for it to work and not burn ammo. Also, for reasons, it’s the only mech that can destroy fabricators and bug holes and squid ships. It just is, the others can’t

Lumberer - This is the AT mech. While it has some anti-chaff, this is an AT-Emplacement on feet, able to easily dispatch any armored targets quickly

Breakthrough - By far the most unique mech, this is the Melee mech. I saw people who wanted a sword and shield mech, this is literally it. Able to kill almost anything but Bile Titans and Fac Striders with 2 shots, it’s a beast, but requires you to be very close to be able to dish out insane amounts of damage. Because of how it propels you forward with the shield, and requires you to be close to work, this is the only stratagem in the game that is a “Charge head-on” tool, contrary to everything else which is either “Fighting retreat” or “Hold a point”. Because of this it is the highest skill cap mech

Now, if you skipped all that, good. Let’s answer the question. What’s the best mech. It’s, hard to say. What can be good against the squids may not be good against the bots, and vice versa, so it’s impossible to say one universal OP mech. So we’ll define a best mech per faction. Starting with the bugs

TERMINIDS

Ok, for the bugs we need something that does good AT damage, and good chaff damage up close.

Crazy, the Lumberer fits the bill perfectly. Because range isn’t a priority at all, it completely outclasses the Patriot in every way. Kills chaff better with the flamethrower, which will burn them to do, has more AT rounds, and kicks absolute ass as it’s much easier to hit with the AT

For the two other mechs, they are great against them, but with obvious downsides

For the Emancipator, it burns through ammo, contrary to the lumberer who can just flame once and forget, you have to shoot every shitty bug. And you can’t kill Bile Titans without expending a quarter-eighth of your ammo to do so. Great on a clear bug holes mission though

For the Breakthrough, it’s great, and although ammo seems like a concern, it isn’t because you won’t live long enough with these damage durability changes. Barring a glitch, you are super vulnerable during reloads and forced to use a shield to fight. And the bugs will swarm and attack and kill you, so just take down as many as you can. Perfect at rushing objectives and providing a 1 minute super boost

Patriot, don’t bother. Just use the Lumberer. This thing just can’t reliably hit weakspots on the charger/bile titan because they move too much. Once you’re out of AT, you’re done

AUTOMATONS

So, this faction is a unique one. Basically, it’s kill or be killed. Unironically the DAMAGE DURABILITY CHANGES MEANT TO BRING THE BUGS IN LINE WITH THE BOTS HELPED THE BOTS MORE THAN ANYONE

Sorry had to let that out. Now anyways because everyone is shooting at you and is a threat, a good mech is something that can kill everything super quick because heavy devastators will maul you if you let them, and raiders, and rocket striders, and turrets, and factory striders, and war striders, and everything else. Except beserkers

The three that fit the bill are the Emancipator, Patriot, and Breakthrough

Lumberer is straight up ASS. That flamethrower takes 5 light years to kill shit (yes I know about the bug this is at the right range). That means you only have an AT gun for, everything above beserkers. 25 shots. Just bring an AT-Emplacement atp

Now, between these 3, lets first eliminate the breakthrough. It fucks super hard, but requires you to be in melee range to do so. The problem is these enemies have range, lots of it. They will murder you before you get there

Now between the patriot and the emancipator, problem is the rockets are hard to aim. If the patriot rockets were easy to use, and could hit the weakspots you want, it would be the best. It can’t

The emancipator however, can two shot hulks, murder war striders, factory striders, gunships, destroy the enemies in bot drops (better than killing the drop ships) and overall can kill everything before it kills you

Illuminate

Mechs are OP here. Ngl it’s kinda because the squids are so ridiculously easy, but also because most of them kill things so fast

First things first, Lumberer is straight up ass cheeks. The flamethrower can’t kill watchers. It takes forever on everything else, except for the voteless, and who tf cares about voteless ttk. Killing everything is hard, requires three lumberer shots to kill a harvester. The entire time I had it, I was asking myself, “Why not bring anything else”

The rest, absolute god tier. Breakthrough, obv, will die faster than the rest (but btw two shots to kill a flashmob), and can’t kill watchers from range

The best one though has got to be the Patriot. You have enough rounds to kill everything (kills watchers super fast), murders harvesters, for some reason their misiles one shot the harvester shield (crazy) but the MG is even better at destroying the shield. MG just destroys everything, everything, and has enough rounds for the next squid warp

Conclusion

Sorry, long ass rant, but I spent a lot of time testing for these, and finally have my data to share

If devs are listening, and got this far, have a little bit of feedback

Make it so that the heavy devastators aren’t doing damage, they shouldn’t be. The MG and the rocket strider should have AP 2, they shouldn’t be murdering you. Actually, just lower the durable damage of all their blasters outside of turrets. And lastly, DONT HAVE MECHS DRAW AGGRO. THE ENEMY SHOULDNT BE QRFING MECHS ITS NOT FUN

lastly, if you design another mech, it has to follow the design of the breakthrough, or the emancipator, and not be just another sidegrade. Something like a laser mech, with unlimited ammo, just worse than the others, would be good, because right now the current meta of each faction having a mech plus the breakthrough is good. It allows people to run mechs on any faction they wish