Exploding Penguin
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I've been messing around with Pyro fly for quite a while now, and I'm thoroughly convinced it's one of the best bots in the game. Here's why:
PROS:
-Amazing bot special that can instantly win you the match from turn 1
-Deflectable bot, so you won't get punished as hard if it gets deflected
-Rarely used so people never build their skill tree to cope with it
-Can work on almost any possible build, although it does better on some compared to others
CONS:
-Special is luck-based on many occasions and you'll have a 1/3 or sometimes even 2/3 chance of disabling the skill that you didn't want to remove
-Completely trash base bot damage
-Hard to utilize effectively if you don't go first
So let's look at the current metagame and see how Pyro Fly fits in:
In the current metagame, momentum is an extremely important factor in a fight. You may not think a lot about it, but pretty much every build controls momentum and deals with it in its own unique way. For example, the infamous high-strength builds with little support, little tech, good dex, and moderate HP. These builds are absolutely notorious for pressuring low-HP builds by consistently dealing damage despite above-average defenses and forcing opponents onto the defensive. This kind of build is completely based on dominating the momentum early and snowballing for the rest of the game. Here's why forcing your opponent onto the defensive is a huge thing for this type of build:
-If they keep healing, they can't attack. They deal no damage while you're dealing tons of it
-If they aren't attacking, they aren't getting rage. Meanwhile, you are. This adds even more to your damage and makes you even harder to stop
-Most of these strength builds have some form of lifesteal. Mark of blood and blood commander are pretty much these, and they make it even harder to stop the high-pressure strength builds because the turns of attacking that you can barely afford between spamming defensive buffs and healing are negated entirely by the lifesteal effect.
On the surface, this build seems completely dominant and almost impossible to stop. However, this type of build is EXTREMELY dependent on gaining the lead and gaining momentum early, and is fairly good at maintaining it. However, to stop this build, all you have to do is abruptly cut off its momentum while sticking yourself back into a favorable position, or just downright not letting the strength build pressure you before it's too late. While many builds have trouble doing this, some things can be done to prevent getting stuck in these bad situations:
-A moderately strong surgical strike can take away their rage, stalling it for about 2 turns, lifesteal a good amount, and deal massive damage. This takes away their momentum and puts you into a much more favorable position
-Getting a block/deflect or two disrupts their snowballing and gives you an opportunity to come back
-Very high levels of field medic, especially with critical heal, can stick you from 1 hit to dying back all the way to max health. Given you've been playing it right and your opponent hasn't recovered all the damage you've dealt to them thus far with lifesteal, you can come back easily at this point.
That's just an example of a build heavily dependent on gaining momentum early. However, there are definitely other builds that handle momentum differently. Heal-looping builds get into a cyclic momentum that can be disrupted fairly easily in most cases, but if you can't stop their cycle of recovering energy -> healing, then you're probably gonna lose while they kill you with chip damage like poison or just stall for turns for their 5 focus bot to deal massive damage. Heal-looping builds don't gain their momentum from applying pressure, but rather from stopping you from applying pressure to them. Good planning with cooldowns on energy drains/recoveries can stop them, though.
Another type of build that handles momentum quite differently are caster builds. Rather than heal-looping, they just have so much tank that when they do use their weak heal it recovers most of the damage you had dealt to them prior. Additionally, they follow a similar cyclic momentum pattern to heal-loopers but instead of dealing consistent chip damage and using massive heals, they nuke you down with 1 huge, extremely powerful skill. The problem with this kind of build is that it's VERY HARD to pressure them early and with force, but they will eventually fall off and die slowly if you can keep up with their cycle of recovering energy -> nuke spell. The caster build also likes to shut down your ability to pressure them by chunking tons of your health within the first couple turns before they start their cyclic momentum. These are probably the most common types of builds you'll see, and I'll now explain how pyro fly fits into all of this.
First off, for those of you who don't know, pyro fly's special deals weaker physical robot damage and permanently disables one of the top 3 most invested skills in the opponent's skill tree. In most cases, this will be one of 3 things:
-A nuke-spell like a caster skill or a max bludgeon
-An energy flow skill like energy parasite, static smash, battery backup, etc...
-A recovery skill like field medic or mark of blood
First thing you'll notice is:
-The nuke spell is extremely important on caster and early-pressure snowball builds because it helps them establish the momentum they want right from the beginning. Just so happens both of these builds tends to go last due to low support. These builds are perfect prey for Pyro Fly to cripple them right from turn 1 and make their lives extremely difficult for the rest of the match.
-Disabling the energy flow skill is the biggest game-changer in most cases. Energy flow is a huge focus in the current meta as almost everything that has extra effects costs energy, and not having this resource is debilitating in multiple ways. Additionally, getting your own energy drained can disrupt your momentum no matter what build you're using, so eliminating your opponent's primary energy flow skill can give your build pretty much free reign
-Disabling field medic or mark of blood is also extremely beneficial. In most cases, if someone has a high enough field medic to be in the top 3 most invested skills, that person probably needs it desperately for their build to work. You just shut down their heal-loop strategy and forced them to play a tanky build with weak consistent damage that has no reliable heals. Disrupting mark of blood can also make it much harder for snowball builds to gain unstoppable bullying momentum against you, making it much easier to turn the tide with a well-placed strong field medic or other skill that counters them.
Overall, Pyro Fly currently targets absolutely essential skills in the current metagame -- more so than at any previous phase in ED. You'll almost always disable a skill that cripples your opponents and makes it extremely hard for them to do what they want with the build they made, thus giving you almost full control of the flow of the battle from the start. If you're a strength-based snowball build that requires consistent pressure and snowball momentum, disabling that level 7 field medic or level 6 surgical strike just sealed the deal because now your opponent has no hope of retaliating once you establish your momentum.
However, Pyro Fly still has a couple problems with it:
Your base damage is absolutely abysmal. Your robot will still deal good damage, but not anywhere near as good as other bots. However, if you're not a focus build this isn't a problem. Additionally, even if you are a focus build stopping an opponent from controlling the battle is much more important than a non-guaranteed 30-40 damage every 4 turns.
Another problem is that pyro fly is very hard to utilize effectively if you don't go first. You get hit by smokescreen, you buff against it, then you get hit by mark of blood. Now your opponent has burnt 2 of his skills out of the 3 that you want to disable with pyro fly, and using the bot might end up being a waste of a turn for you if you don't land it on static grenade. However, most people don't invest in support so if you're running a focus build you'll most likely be able to do what you want with it.
This about wraps up my analysis for Pyro Fly's placement in the current metagame! I hope this was helpful! Please comment and share your thoughts and ideas about this.
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