| AirMech | Strategy | Quests | Variants |
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Description[]
Based off the legendary A-10 Thunderbolt, the Warthog is technically and statistically the best Airmech in the game, with some of the strongest and weakest aspects of any mech. In the air, the Warthog is the king of mech-to-mech combat, with the highest theoretical DPS in the game and extremely strong armour and the highest base health by far of any mech, though actually killing faster mechs can be difficult thanks to the 50% speed reduction whilst firing and the windup time. However, forcing a retreat against any other mech that engages it is very easy, as no other mech can compete with its sheer DPS in the air. On the ground, the Warthog's speed reduction drops to just 40%, though the large hitbox of the Warthog means you will need to tank fire, not avoid it. The ground Warthog can solo any other mech with startling ease, and in Strike especially, it is very difficult to escape from a Warthog that has you in its sights. This is because of the startup frames of the transform animation for most mechs leaves them no way of escaping quickly enough to avoid death. However, the Warthog has one very glaring weakness, if you make a move, you need to commit to it, because the time it takes for you to escape a fight is often times too slow to keep you alive. While the Warthog is unbeatable in a straight 1v1, if you are outnumbered and outgunned, there is no escape. You can't run, and you can't win the 1v2 until later levels, so you must hold your ground and try to trade rather than try to run and die. This combined with the Warthog's clumsy aerial and grounded movement means that you need to be very good at positioning rather than just charging into fights. Despite the seemingly simple playstyle advertised by the game, the Warthog may actually be the most skill-dependent Airmech in the entire game.
The Warthog is an offensive unit killer. The Warthog slows down by 50% while firing its powerful gatling gun in the air and by 40% on the ground making it very easy to be defeated by 1v2 situations. The Warthog deals the highest base damage but is also the only AirMech that has a normal attack that drains energy and has a startup delay (base 2 seconds). The range of the Warthog is the same as any other mech, but since the chaingun has a straight line of fire rather than two cannons on the arms, it feels more effective at long range than other mechs, though this is likely just a visual feature than an actual game mechanic. Although it's a unit killer, it mirrors the Bomber in the sense that it's offensive instead of defensive. The Warthog can simply walk along the opponent's attacking army and provide support by smashing units in an attempt to push forward due to its high damage and armor. It also has a deceptively high carry capacity, only beaten by the "carry mechs", which have comparatively abysmal primary weapons.
The Warthog is a very durable and tanky Mech. The raw health and damage have no equal, though the reduction in speed while firing is a hindrance while making the decision to run or fight. Even though the Warthog may seem totally useless at air superiority this is often a misconception borne from the fact that the Warthog rarely kills its targets, instead preferring to scare the living hell out of them from high DPS and armour, as mentioned above, most Airmechs would rather flee than fight a Warthog. To counter this, if you expect a aerial confrontation, tap the shoot button to charge the Warthog's chaingun up without firing it. Then, when a foe comes near, tap fire it to warn them, then let loose if they are foolish enough to approach. Upgrading the Spin-Up Speed passive has both positive and negative effects on this strategy, as while it does give you an alternative to the aforementioned strategy, most times the better option is improving your Gun Spray and Gun Passive abilities. The Warthog is fantastic in terms of offensive combat. Due to the Warthog's statistics, it is great at destroying enemy tanks, which is neat, as the real world equivalent is sometimes called the "Tankbuster". Although it may seem like a good mech for newer players at first, learning to fight in the air properly as a Warthog is a skill that takes a lot of skill and practice to master.
Ability Usage[]
Most of the Warthog's abilities are passive like gun damage and weapon ammunition. To increase its effectiveness against units in terms of damage output later on, if the player gets the Power Shield ability they will be able to absorb massive amounts of damage for a few seconds at the cost of mobility.
From this point onwards you will be recieving direct advice from a long-time Airmech player who mains the Warthog. I will not be revealing my name obviously, but I recommend paying close attention to what I say in this guide, which will be broken up into 3 sections. 1. The Gun Spray ability. 2. The Passive abilities. 3. The Power Shield ability.
Let's get started.
Gun Spray
The basic ability for the Warthog, this ability allows you to fire from air to ground, with a 50% debuff to your damage. This is changed drastically by three main factors. The first is the level of the ability. Below is a list of the level stats.
- Level 1: Ability is now unlocked, with a 50% damage debuff when used.
- Level 2: Ability now does 15% additional damage. You will now be able to destroy light vehicles with relative ease.
- Level 3: Ability now does 30% additional damage. You will now have DPS similar to other mechs on the ground while using the ability.
- Level 4: Ability now does 60% additional damage, and now has similar stats to normal firing.
The second is the Guns Passive, which adds even more DPS to this ability, and the third is equipment and pilots, which also affect the damage and potentiality the energy cost of using the ability. This ability is relatively simple. For the most part, this ability is best used against tanks and light vehicles, as most don't have a way to fight back or have mediocre DPS against aerial targets. Remember to aim for the rear of tanks when fighting them, as this will improve you DPS against them substantially. One other trick is to use the ability against infantry in outposts while dropping your own to take it. They will usually focus on you instead of shooting your infantry, though this sometimes doesn't work against infantry with high DPS like the brute. Also, as a fun fact, this ability used to function very differently. In Arena, you could also shoot from ground to air, but this was removed and replaced with the ability to do so in any mech.
Spin Up Passive
Also quite simple, and because it is a passive, you just get it whenever and it becomes permanent.
- 33% buff to spin up speed, 2% better strafe speed.
- 66% buff to spin up speed, 4% better strafe speed.
- 100% buff to spin up speed, 6% better strafe speed
- 150% buff to spin up speed, 8% better strafe speed.
I will say, the buff might seem very good, but in reality it is less useful than just doing more damage thanks to the Tap-Charge strategy mentioned above. I would highly recommend getting this upgrade last, so you can focus on damage rather than convenience. Learn how to Tap-Charge, it provides so much more utility than using up an upgrade point on this passive. However, if you run speed focused pilots, this ability becomes critical to your kit, as the buff to your strafe speed becomes much more noticeable and therefore is a very useful upgrade for this situation specifically. However, as I will say later in the Power Shield segment, there is only a few good pilots to use on the Warthog in my experience.
Guns Passive
Who on the team named this? There were so many possibilities you could've used, like Ammunition Upgrade, Gun Tuning, Overcharge... Anyways, I digress. This is the absolute most important of the starter upgrades to get. Buffing your damage output by a flat percent like this is absolutely insane, and being able to get it AT LEVEL ONE is actually crazy. It even affects the Gun Spray ability!
- 5% buff to damage, and since you can get this at the very start of the match, you basically get level 2 DPS at level 1.
- 10% buff to damage
- 15% buff to damage, likely the cap for most matches due to the level 4 Guns requiring a very high level to unlock.
- 25% buff to damage, if you can get this, get it IMMEDIATELY. It buffs your damage to a quite frankly absurd amount and allows you to steamroll through goliaths and devastators so long as you can get behind them. This is objectively the best passive ability in the game aside from Abduct and maybe Builder.
I would argue that the Guns passive, while rather simple and boring, is the second most important ability the Warthog has in its toolkit.
Power Shield
Now we are onto the good
Loadout Build[]
The Warthog is an extraordinary clunky and heavy Mech, making it more of a Solo Mech; it lacks the abilities to micromanage units like most other Mechs are able to.
As such, most Warthog players rely on making large tanks armies in a spot, and sending them all at once. Therefore, loadouts heavy on tanks (Longhorn, Gemini, Seeker, etc.) are the easiest to make use of.
Due to the Warthog's low speed, if an enemy mech were to start attacking an outpost or position far away from the Warthog's current position, it will take time to get the Warthog over there. As such, it is a good idea to equip defense turrets to make defense a little less stressful on a Warthog pilot.
Counters[]
As stated above, the Warthog is extraordinary clunky and slow. Take advantage of this by using faster and more agile Mechs to engage it, such as Striker, Saucer, or Neo, but be careful to watch your pathing, as getting the business end of the Warthog's cannon mid-air is extraordinary lethal.
Take advantage of the Warthog's slow speed by attacking areas that the Warthog currently isn't at, like their Fortess or an unguarded outpost. Doing so may force the enemy Warthog to respond in defense, giving you more time to prep your army. While the enemy Warthog is distracted defending his outpost, you may choose to push your army towards another outpost that he currently isn't guarding, forcing the Warthog to choose which of the two he wants to defend, and giving you a shot at at least one of the two targets.
Most Warthogs will use their Power Shield ability to step right into the middle of your unit clumps and deal damage without taking damage themselves. While this make seem inevitable, you can circumvent a huge amount of damage by quick thinking. If a Warthog lands in your group and begins attacking a unit, pick that unit up and place it behind a stronger, better-healed one. Every time the Warthog switches targets, move the unit it's targeting and it will have no choice but to withdraw, giving you a chance to take it down.