Armored Core 6 has a fast-paced PvP filled with wacky cosplays, player-shredding blenders, and janky piles of cobbled-together AC parts. It may seem intimidating at first, but after you dip your feet into it, your first few frantic games of PvP will be a blast. Whether you’re sifting through your AC parts to brew up a new counter build or just testing the limits of your favorite AC, you’re almost assured to find something in PvP that fits your play style.
But once you’ve dived into this new world of competition you’ll be left with the next big question: how the heck do you win? There’s only so much you can do to upgrade your AC, but how do we upgrade your piloting skills? Regardless of what build you’re using, here are some skills to add to your tool belt so you can pilot your AC to victory.
10 Know Your Effective And Ideal Range
Each weapon has two range stats – an Ideal Range and an Effective Range. Ideal Range is the range you want to keep your opponent in. Shooting at an enemy past your ideal range may result in a ricochet. The further your opponent is away from your ideal range, the more often your attacks will ricochet. In comparison, Effective Range is the total range your weapon can deal some form of damage in. Past that range and your attacks won’t do any damage.
If you want to know how far away your opponent is from you, pay attention to the numbers on your lock on. Distance will be displayed just below your target as a number followed by an “m.”
Knowing these two ranges will let you know how close you need to be against your opponent to maximize your damage. Alternatively, knowing your opponent’s maximum range will tell you how far away you should stay away from them so their attacks can harmlessly ricochet off you. The best example for this concept can be seen with the Gatling Guns and their ideal range of 130m. This means you have to stay further than 130m from them to make their attacks ineffective against you. If you bring a weapon with a longer ideal range, you’ll have the advantage because you’ll force the Gatling gun player to approach you.
9 Move Erratically To Throw Off An Opponent’s Aim
Since Armored Core 6 uses predictive shooting, meaning the game will predict where your target will be and shoot a projectile to intercept it, you’ll have to know how to trick this predictive algorithm to dodge attacks. Thankfully, predictive shooting struggles to hit objects moving in a circle. This is best seen from Tetrapod-legged ACs since they can strafe in tight circles while hovering above their targets to throw off their opponent’s aim.
For everyone else, you’ll want to change directions and shift your momentum as much as possible to throw off shots from arm weapons. Quick boosting diagonally backward in a zigzag pattern is the perfect way to accomplish this when you’re on the ground and are desperate to stay alive. At mid and long-range, just moving backward in a zigzag is sometimes enough to throw off any predictive shooting and make your opponents waste their ammo.
Leaping into the air and drifting down in a zigzag pattern is also a great way to throw off targeting predictions by adding another dimension for the predictive algorithm to guess at.
8 Move Diagonally Forward To Avoid Missiles
Missiles don’t use this same predictive shooting as Arm Weapons, so a different strategy is required to dodge them. To avoid missiles, move diagonally to the left or right toward your opponent so the missiles will curve and then miss you. Vertical Missiles can be dodged just by moving in one direction if you have a high enough Boost Speed.
If you don’t, then tap Quick Boost the moment you see missiles raining from the sky. If you ever have any doubt of how to dodge a missile, use Assault Boost. Its high speed should bring you past direct missiles and shake off the tracking for vertical missiles. Adding a dodge in your Assault Boost is another tool to help you dodge missiles at the cost of more EN.
7 Don’t Forget About Assault Boost
It’s very easy to get into a rhythm in PvP where all you do is follow your opponents around, periodically Quick Boost to dodge attacks and pester your target to death with projectiles. However, don’t forget you have an Assault Boost to use too. Assault Boost decreases the amount of Impact damage you take and increases the amount of Impact you deal.
These benefits also activate the moment you press the Assault Boost button. While this encourages you to be aggressive with your movement, it also makes a well-timed Assault Boost the perfect tool for punishing a poorly used Armor ability. Just start the boost the moment you see your opponent start crackling with energy, and kick them when you’re close enough.
6 Use Armor Abilities To Secure Your Wins
While Armor expansions come in four different flavors, only two of them shine in PvP: Assault Armor and Pulse Armor. When used, Assault Armor will create a massive burst of energy that deals more damage the closer your opponents are to your AC. Pulse Armor creates an energy bubble around your AC to both protect you for a short period and reset your Impact meter.
In practice, you never want to be the first one to activate your armor ability since it leaves you stationary while it’s activating and your opponents can just activate their armor ability after yours to stay ahead. The opposite is also true; whenever you see an opponent activate their armor ability, it’s usually a good idea to immediately use your armor ability to close out the game in your favor. If you have Assault Armor equipped and your opponent is forced to use Pulse Armor first, using your Assault Armor immediately will strip away your opponent’s Pulse Armor and sometimes stagger them again. Alternatively, if you’re using Pulse Armor and your opponent is forced to use Assault Armor first, you can immediately use Pulse Armor to get out of the burst relatively unscathed.
If both you and your opponent are running Pulse Armor then who uses their armor ability first is less important.
5 AP Lead
Make sure you know who has the most amount of health before starting each engagement. The player with the most health doesn’t have to play aggressively or take risks. Instead, once you have the life lead, you can run away, hide in cover, or just play generally safe.
This is also great if you need a moment to reload your guns and your opponent is backing off. Then, once your opponent realizes that they have to chase you to win the game, you’ll get the opportunity to put more damage onto them when they approach you. This kind of defensive play can be backbreaking against builds that want to run away and kite you to death instead of being forced to chase after you. Missile-focused builds are one example of an AC that would prefer to run instead of being forced to come closer.
Taking a moment to check who has the AP Lead can also give you a hint when your opponent may use their Armor expansion. Once a player’s health is low enough, or their Stagger bar is high enough, they’ll most likely use their Assault/Pulse Armor soon to try and reclaim the lead.
4 Use Cover As Much As Possible
Often an overlooked skill for newer players that just want to get into a fight as soon as possible, using cover to preserve your AP is an important tool to help you win PvP games. Cover can deny crucial Line of Sight to our opponents or prevent them from landing shots on your AC. Additionally, staying in cover when you have an AP lead will force your opponent to come to you.
Against Truenos and other long lock-on weapons, cover is a great way to break their locks or dodge the projectile all together by forcing it into a building instead. This is especially useful to keep in mind against vertical plasma missiles since they’re extremely difficult to fully dodge without a roof over your head. Against status effect builds, cover can buy you precious time for the Electric Discharge status or ACS Anomaly effect to decay before you pick a fight again. Finally, if you’re using a weapon that has a tendency to overheat, then you should get comfortable using terrain as a way to buy time until your guns are back online.
3 Be Aware Of Focus Targets
These next three tips will be for 3v3s or Teams. In this mode, almost any AC will melt if it’s being focus-fired by 3 players at once. As a result, finding a focus target is the most efficient way to score points for your team. Usually, the player with the lowest HP or highest stagger will be the target for the opposing team because it should be fairly easy finish off that AC. If you notice an opponent’s HP bar constantly going down, then it’s a safe guess to say that your teammates are either focusing on that target or a teammate is doing an exceptional job of landing damage. Regardless of which it is, in these scenarios, it’s usually in your team’s best interest to look for that wounded target and finish it off as soon as possible.
Alternatively, if you notice that you’re the focus target for the opposing team, drop what you’re doing and focus on staying alive at all costs. Move as erratically as possible to dodge attacks, and put a teammate between you and one of your pursuers to throw off their soft lock temporarily.
2 Play With The Priority Target
On the note of focus targets, in 3v3, you should usually play around with who the Priority Target is. Each time a player slays the Priority Target, they get bonus points for their team. The player with the highest score/kills in the game becomes the Priority Target. As a result, barring extreme circumstances, the Priority Target will usually be on the winning team’s side.
Playing around the Priority Target is fairly simple: if the Priority Target is on the opponent’s team then you should be hunting after them when it’s safe. If the Priority Target is on your team, defend them when it’s safe for you to do so. Keep an eye out for the golden exclamation point next to a player’s portrait to show that they’re the Priority Target now. Just remember that if you have to choose between chasing after a full health Priority Target or finishing off the target’s wounded teammate, it’s usually a smarter idea to finish off their teammate, then burst down the Priority Target as a team.
Terminal Armor can throw a wrench into an attacker’s plan by buying just enough time for the Priority Target’s teammates to come to the rescue. .
1 Keep An Eye On Respawns
In 3v3 make sure you keep an eye on who is down on each team. If your team is ahead by a kill or two, take the time to focus down one of the remaining members of the opposing team before their teammates respawn. As noted before, not many ACs will last long in a 2v1 or 3v1 situation, so press your advantage while your opponents are missing a gun.
Alternatively, if you notice that you’ve lost two of your teammates, don’t continue fighting your opponents, run away, dodge in a zigzag to throw off their fire, and wait for your team to come back. Failure to do so will lead to you getting focused down by all three of your opponents and staggering your team’s spawn further. This becomes even more important if you’re spawning in and notice that one teammate is dead, and the other teammate is getting focus fired by 3 players. At that point, you’ll have to make a judgment call of whether it’s worth the risk to fight and bail them out, or let them die and wait longer for your team to be back to full strength again. With all of this in mind, you now have the tools you need to conquer PvP, so get out there and start blasting ACs into scrap heaps!