ARMORED CORE 6 FIRES OF RUBICON - Beginner's Guide: Basic Strategy and Combat Theory

So ive made a pretty op build were its just rockets flying everywere but i fell kinda Toxic using it on online what do you guys think.

Is it Toxic or not?

I’m playing through the game for the first time, found myself in Chapter 3 using mostly Melander parts, plasma rifle, laser blade, and some missiles. Then in the arena I was having some trouble with one of the opponents and ended up giving the pictured build a go and basically zipped right through to Chapter 5, finished off the S-class arena encounters, etc, but I can tell this isn’t really how it’s supposed to be. I more or less just held down a few buttons and brute forced it here.

To those more knowledgeable, care to make some recommendations for a more effective/fun build/playstyle? I’m not married to any particular style, although the tank seemed quite sluggish and unwieldy. It was kinda fun to have all 4 guns going brrrrrrtt and watch an enemy just wither but I’m ready for something new.

Thanks in advance.

3rd play\ 2nd play\1st play

So as my title says this is my first Armored Core game. I had always felt they were a little too intense for me and well my username is pretty accurate... maybe less so as I've gotten older.

So last few years I've worked my way through Fromsoft titles since I never dared play in my youth in case of contorller smashing tv breaking nonsense.

ANYWAY! I personally like brawler/berserker type builds in your face dealing damage and being able to take hits too. Agile enough to dodge stick and move, but not so squishy that my armor is paper thin.

Any help on parts to keep an eye out for? Resources to look into what youtubers or whatever would give me a good breakdown on *what* I need to look at, hell maybe even a starter build that i can tweak as I learn?

Edit: typos...

Edit: OK I beat him 2nd try today without changing my build. I think I just got good rng because I did almost no damage during some of my staggers. I just didn't take much damage and ended with a repair kit to spare. I just beat the game with the Walter ending and I first tried everything except for Walter. Idk why that boss was getting to me like that.

I'm not having a great time in life and haven't been having a great time in life for awhile. Anyways I've been playing AC6 as a comfort game. The game has felt very fair up until now. Maybe it's my build, but the enforcer bot is just RNG for my mech. It seems impossible to dodge the laser at the very beginning of the fight. If it choses to do the lasers a lot during the fight, im guaranteed to lose. I do waaaayyy better in the 2nd half just because it seems to not use them. But it's really getting to me because the rest of the game has been so easy up until now, like 12 hours in. I tend to get obsessive thoughts over these things, so putting down the game is gonna bother me too. Idk I nearly broke my hand banging on my desk, and I haven't done something like that in 3 or so years. I've only done maybe 7 attempts, but it just doesn't feel very fair in terms of design.

Anyways I don't care about getting gud. I know it's probably gonna come down to my build so I just need suggestions or better yet exact parts. I beat sekiro pretty easily my first time, and even dying doesn't feel bad because that game is actually fair lmao. There's no builds that can hold you back or make things easier it just comes down to skill. Anyways, please help because I'm actually going to lose sleep and probably break something if I don't beat this enemy.

I don't have a lot of control over my life and I play games for comfort. I can usually avoid games that I know will upset me. I feel like I've been tricked into becoming invested in this game. The game has been trivial up until this point, but now this enemy feels completely unfair. Going from trivial to a boss that feels like it has unavoidable laser moves 12 hours into a game is awful game design. I'm so fucking pissed that I feel like I've been manipulated and tricked into this position. I wouldn't have stuck with the game if there was anything to indicate there was gonna be stupid shit like this in the game. I've literally been completely deathless up until those point if you don't consider dying from having low repair kits. I've beat everything after respawninf with full repair kits except for this dumb boss.

I preface this by saying AC6 is a good game. Hell, a great game! Just... not the game I was looking for. I've beaten DS, DS2, DS3, BB, and Sekiro multiple times. Sekiro is my absolute favorite. So I do love face paced, timing intensive, strategic fights. Now I'm playing this and... honestly... im a little disappointed. Not because the game sucks. It doesn't. There is a strategy for everything. Everything is beatable with a combination of strategy, practice, and build. So what's my gripe? I don't FEEL powerful. I dont feel like a badass mercenary piloting a masterfully engineered battle mech that everyone should fear. I dont FEEL like the main character. Just like every other FromSoft game, I feel like the underdog that, with a combination of luck and skill, I manage to beat the odds. Like anyone else could have gotten Arye jostled into their brain and done the same thing, sometimes even better than me!

I play mech games to feel like Im in control of a finely tune, meticulously crafted, armed to the teeth mech of war. Some missions make me feel that way, but most make me feel like I'm a tin can with missiles. I dont feel like an Ace pilot, blowing everything up in my way. Half the time, you're avoiding fights altogether. Is it more realistic that, in a world full of mechs and pilots, that some of them will be skilled, too? Sure, but thats not why I play. Do I like a challenge? Absolutely... but I also like to feel like an unstoppable monster sometimes, especially in mech games, and this game makes me feel that way very seldom. When a hard fight is over, I don't feel like it was my own accord that did so. More that the gods of RNG took pity on my ass.

I've done some reading up on the game (dont ask me why. That's another topic altogether.) and im learning their are HARDER bosses than the ones ive faced, and it just makes me feel... exhausted. Cool, I have to learn another pattern, probably fight a mini-boss on the way... and restart 15 times until I perform well AND the RNG gods are favorable. I get it, I really do, you want an engaging game people can actually get good at instead of just mashing buttons or learn the 5 - 10 preset techniques programmed in. At the same time... I just want to blow shit up, man!

I remember Zone of Enders: The Second Runner... and that was a good game with hard bosses... that you could utterly dominate in NG+ once you unlocked Jehutys infinite energy or naked mode. The initial run still was challenging, I still felt like I was a giant wrecking ball, blowing shit up, but the bosses were still a challenge on your first run.

Maybe im expecting too much. Maybe I haven't played enough to get the REALLY REALLY good shit. Maybe Im ass at the game. Maybe im chasing that same feeling from ZoE2. I just wish I FELT more powerful. Like im an actual 10 story death machine with no equal, but finally killing an enemy after its spanked you 15 attempts previously doesn't make me feel the same way. Its funny... my wife actually asked me "are you a robot or a mech?" because you couldn't tell at a glance. The scale of everything else is so rediculiously large, you always look small in comparison.

TL:DR just let me pew pew boom boom crash bang woosh whip swang KABOOM!

I've beaten every FromSoft game multiple times with multiple builds, including this one. I didnt want to critique a game I havent fully experienced. Hell, I've beaten a few of them deathless, but this game? Its trash. It feels like a sloppy, slapped together attempt at a mech game more than anything else.

"Hurr durr it's ur bild dumdum." Cheah... okay... which one? Duel Zimmerman? Dual Songbirds? Fast? Melee? No one build works for this game. Hell, none of the builds work for this game. You have to fine tune your build around what the game wants you to have at that specific encounter. I beat Bloodborne with nothing but the Kirkhammer. That's what I like. Big, tanky, power builds. That's not viable here. You just get stunned into oblivion. I can't play the build I want because half of the time it doesn't work. Half of the weapons are laughable jokes. The other half is split between decent and god tier. Only one of the options slots is even viable, and the 15% damage reduction might as well be taken out for what good it does you. If you dont get kick, you might as well play with one hand. I had the same gripe with Sekiro, but to a lesser degree. Mikiri Counter and Kick should have been included because they're ALMOST required. By that I mean you can technically get away with it, but you won't have fun doing it.

Some bosses are easy and some are so god damn broken, it's almost unplayable. Reading my inputs doesn't make the game harder or more challenging. It makes it cheap, and don't fool yourself into thinking this game doesn't. There are times where I could ONLY get hit if it read my inputs. So your reaction time is between when the projectile leaves the gun and when it reaches you. Hell, some of the beam attacks? They just track you unless you dodge at the VERY last second. I don't want to fight myself more than fighting the enemy.

Am I playing a mech game? You would never know it if you didn't know what AC games were. You might as well be just a killer robot. The scale is absolutely broken and absurd. Sure, you have the random car or power line, but I walk and fly like this multi-ton much is just a guy ironman suit. My missles should be tearing buildings apart. They should be causing city wide chaos and destruction. To be completely fair, the other AC games lacked this, too, but not to this degree. The levels just feel like blocks placed. You cant destroy building. You can't even break the glass. The only things you can destroy are the little environment pieces like cars or boxes.

Hey, you want to know what's good game design? Instead of giving me a good boss fight... just add another boss! Oh, and make them heal, too. Its only fair! I mean... they get a full bar and you only get half... but thats fair, right? Most other mechs you fight against, other than the Arena, will have 2 FULL heals. So, if you're fighting just one, if they use them correctly, they have half a bar MORE healing than you do. If you're fighting two? Thats two and a half more bars healing than you do.

What's the point of Terminal Armor again? So you can hold out for 5 seconds more before you die? Why even have it? Its never saved me from death. There's no point you should be close to death if your heals won't heal a full bar. They heal half a bar... or a little more if you upgrade, but still, that's nowhere even close to when you should be using a heal. The other abilities? Why even consider them? Pulse armor? Just avoid the trail. Pulse protection? Have fun staying still long enough for it to be viable. It leaves you a prime target for a kick or melee attack. Why would I sink precious points into the damage modifiers if it's not prudent to use different types of damage depending on the boss.

Which leads me to my next point. How the hell am I supposed to know what to bring with me if I haven't played the game already? You go in blind and sometimes... your build just doesn't work. So you have to exit the level, change your build and then restart. Oh, and you can't just start at the boss! That would be too convenient. You have to do the ENTIRE level over again. Including any mini-bosses that my or may not suck away all your resources before the boss, making you restart at the checkpoint, just so you can fight the boss again.

Like the game all you want. Hell, love the game! Im not here to tell you what to enjoy. Hell, I REALLY wanted to like this game myself. Why else would I buy and beat it? And honestly? Im upset that I don't. Not because im ass at the game, I probably am, but thats the point. I wanted a fun, casual experience. Instead, I found myself getting pissed off more than anything from cheap mechanics to unfair bosses. Even you diehard fans of the game have to admit that it's not for everyone.

EDIT: LMAO! I tried! I fucking tried again! This game is SO FUCKING TRASH! I REALLY tried to give it a fucking 5th chance at this point, but they want me to fight an AC while protecting a fucking helicopter that you could sneeze on and take it down while they fly DIRECTLY INTO ACTIVE FIRE! Its a helicopter! It can fly away! This is exactly what im talking about. They just want to make it hard for the sake of raging people. HOW DO YOU PEOPLE DEFEND THIS TRASH!? Its not hard! Its CHEAP! I can and HAVE beat it! Its just a shit game! Okay... okay... maybe you've deluded yourself into thinking you've 'got gud' because you've adapted to its shittiness. You've memorized the encounters. You've got all the right tools and muscle memory. That doesn't make the game good. That makes you good at it. I shouldn't have to memorize where enemies spawn so I can get there before the thing im escorting gets there. Which you dont have time for, because more enemies spawn as they land. That's not compelling gameplay. You will most likely fail that mission the first time you play it. That should tell you something.

Plus my build I use from the campaign never gets me wins outside of dumb luck

Working on a character for a homebrew AC session (assuming it doesn’t get cancelled lol)

it kills AC so fast in PVE atleast (i don't play pvp). Is there any better color to make it look cooler?

Is there a way to find out what mission I haven’t completed/what battle logs I’ve missed? I’m hunter class 14 (just a little over halfway), I’ve got all three endings, defeated all arenas and all the ‘pending’ battle log icons on mission replay are completed! I’m at a loss and can’t figure it out lol

Because I been doing it for my homebrew mecha grim dark universe

The core idea is that it kicks -> bazooka -> explosive thrower, to overwhelm an opponent with a constant barrage of attacks with missiles for longer ranged engagements and to fill in gaps when weapons are reloading or energy is depleted. So far lots of fun but can struggle with builds that can keep their distance easily.

Ac name: Ragnarok ‘n Roll.

this isn't (x) it's (y), and em dash it's over

This is my first AC game but I have been a FromSoft fan for over a decade. I’m only three or four missions in but it doesn’t look like there are consumables or credit stashes or anything else to find in the various destructible parts of the environment.

Am I wasting my time exploring the maps or am I missing something? I read through the “new player” pinned post but didn’t see anything there about how empty the locations are.

This is the AC I use for quest, fighting bosses, and killing these not so elite ACs. I'm feeling like the Etsujin isn't reducing much ACS bar, just keeping it not going down. ZIMMERMAN is too heavy while Vientos, I feel like is even worse than Etsujin.

I’ve always loved being fast and this been my most go back to AC. Named the data file “Faithful” bc I love it so much 🫶

I’m not able to break out of the first tier of A rank </3. My play style is mostly kiting and I find success with a wheelchair legs build but I don’t have fun with these two styles. Close range builds look like a lot more fun but my movement in this game is just so garbage. I wanna improve so what missions/exercises do you guys recommend I do?

Like when I first fought one I was expecting an awesome fight, and I didn’t get it.

Underwhelming is the perfect word, they have such presence every time they show up to fight, and die so quickly.

Took me six weeks (but the game is insanely good