Current Events > BattleBots returns to TV tonight! *discussion and spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

thanks for the topic, now i can at least catch the last half

I'm not sure if it was still working at the end, but Deep Six is still as deadly as ever. The main event, End Game vs. Hydra, is up next... after some commercials and padding, because American capitalism.

Okay, that skit in the pits of Ray Billings passing the title of "villain of the show" to Jake Ewert was pretty funny.

#FuckHydra

Damn, finally caught up to real time and its commercials... nvm

*yeah, I liked that too

bah, that was fast

I just go to Youtube to catch up on Battlebots.

Thankfully, BattleBots is one thing that didn't suck when it was revived. Neither was Robot Wars, but sadly that show is gone. It was a good spinoff.

I still love oldschool Battlebots. But I'm glad they threw out some of those old rules for the newer iteration.

Bit of a disappointing main event as Hydra suffers some technical difficulties and then gets knocked out by End Game. Still an awesome episode overall and a great start to the season.

I'm pounding pints like I do virtually everyday, but now I got an idea of what to watch on Youtube. Even YT can get stale after a while.

Is anyone else still traumatized by Robotica?

And what's this 3rd hour?

Apparently, the phantom hour that was showing up on people's cable guides is an episode of last year's BattleBots: Bounty Hunters side series, which was previously exclusive to Discovery+. That's cool that people who didn't subscribe to the service to watch those can now watch them on TV.

Also, since those are episodes from last season, they're not subject to the "put it under spoiler tags until 24 hours after airing" rule in this topic.

It's a rerun/reshowing of their bounty hunters side thing. It used to be a Discovery plus exclusive, then they started showing them last year, now it's randomly tacked on. I was wondering how the hell they were going to pad out an extra hour... turns out they didn't.

BH was kinda meh but enjoyable

Chomp is such a bad bot. Take that aimbot weapon and put it on something with wheels ffs.

Starks posted...

Is anyone else still traumatized by Robotica?

And what's this 3rd hour?

I remember that one too. Namely the bald host.

It was okay.

This episode was a hell of a trip. Every fight was awesome, and so many wild results. Shrederator beating Tombstone is such a legendary fluke, you can't help but root for it. Glad Deep Six got to showcase the power of its weapon in ideal conditions, even if Pain Train isn't exactly known for its durability lol.

Also, Hydra getting defeated made my gf cheer very loudly.

Calwings posted...

Apparently, the phantom hour that was showing up on people's cable guides is an episode of last year's BattleBots: Bounty Hunters side series, which was previously exclusive to Discovery+. That's cool that people who didn't subscribe to the service to watch those can now watch them on TV.

Also, since those are episodes from last season, they're not subject to the "put it under spoiler tags until 24 hours after airing" rule in this topic.

Thank GOD. Even 2 hours was rough. Maybe if me and my wife get a snow day tomorrow, we'll watch it.

Wow. Quite the kick-off to the season. The amount of laughing and cheering at our watch-party when Hydra lost was intense.

So, with a night to sleep on it, my takeaways are:

1.) Tombstone's upgrades might need some careful revisions.

2.) Sawblaze came to play this season. Their new design is insanely strong, and their weapon is scarier than ever.

3.) Endgame is still monstrously effective, as expected. So far, a worthy successor to Bite Force as the champion team.

4.) Hydra was spewing dark smoke from the very start of the match. They had better work out that technical issue quick, or they're gonna be a laughing stock.

5.) Blacksmith is no joke, either. Changing from a hammer to a spinning hammer saw was an excellent decision, and maybe now they can get more of those judge victories they've been missing out on. A real contender this year? I think so.

6.) Team Shrederator is never going to let Ray Billings live that down. It's going to be mentioned for years and years to come.

7.) Switchback looks cool, but it's not going to accomplish much with that design. The gimmick of swinging the weapon around just makes it all more likely to break or make the bot unstable at the base.

The 24-hour spoiler tag period is up, so I wanted to bring this by:

https://www.reddit.com/r/battlebots/comments/rycsv7/post_fight_hotness/
https://www.instagram.com/blacksmithbattlebot/p/CYcBK40Lz6Q/

Al Kindle from team Blacksmith posted pictures from the pits of the damage their new "power hammer" weapon caused to Free Shipping. That thing has a lot more power than I thought while watching that fight. After watching the show last night and thinking about it more today, I really want to see this new and improved Blacksmith get a rematch against Minotaur to possibly get revenge for the ass-beating it took four seasons ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkbAcwYix7I

What do you guys think? Would you be interested in seeing that rematch?

Calwings posted...

Al Kindle from team Blacksmith posted pictures from the pits of the damage their new "power hammer" weapon caused to Free Shipping. That thing has a lot more power than I thought while watching that fight.

Yeah, I have never been a fan of basic hammer or axe designs for Battlebots but the hybridization that is a Saw Hammer works great for puncturing bots and trying to tear at internal components. Blacksmith will definitely have a shot at winning multiple matches this year.

You could tell that many of the bots had opening night jitters though, little gremlins that need to be worked out of the machines. The teams that quickly dial those in should go far. As a result the matches should be relatively unpredictable when compared to previous seasons.

Gobstoppers12 posted...

5.) Blacksmith is no joke, either. Changing from a hammer to a spinning hammer saw was an excellent decision, and maybe now they can get more of those judge victories they've been missing out on. A real contender this year? I think so.

The hammer was completely useless to be honest.

The only good hammer bot in this rebooted BattleBots was Beta, and even it wasn't really a championship contender. High tier, but not championship tier.

Chomp's hammer/pickaxe was decent, unfortunately the rest of the bot was not.

I kinda miss those crazy bastards. The walker was not at all competitive, but fun to see.

So like

When is the league gonna stop playing up Tombstone as some sort of unstoppable killing machine? Ever since teams actually started caring about armor/defense and figured out to use Tomb's kinetic energy against it, I feel like it loses every other match.

Like, probably a hot take, but I'm gonna go out and say Tombstone is a poorly designed robot to be honest. It's poorly balanced, its wheels are extremely vulnerable, and it's slow. Most competent/non-gimmick teams beat it easily now.

https://youtu.be/FA27O7yy90Q

Bonus fight!

The bonus fight was pretty fun. Deadlift looks improved compared to last year and Jackpot still looks like a monster.

LostForest posted...

Like, probably a hot take, but I'm gonna go out and say Tombstone is a poorly designed robot to be honest. It's poorly balanced, its wheels are extremely vulnerable, and it's slow. Most competent/non-gimmick teams beat it easily now.

I've heard Ray Billings claim that he leaves Tombstone's wheels exposed on purpose to use them as bait and catch bots from the side when they go for the wheels, and in past seasons, his driving skill made that strategy work really well. But now, there are more bots that can hit back just as hard and are tougher. I don't think that Tombstone is badly designed, I just think the meta and the bots around it have caught up to it.

DuranOfForcena posted...

i don't care much for this upper deck. it seems like just a gigantic waste of space in the arena. i wish they'd take more inspiration from Robot Wars for the arena hazards. i liked the little flip ramp in particular. the screws and the pulverizer are basically gimmicks that never actually make any real difference. and so far the only way the upper deck has come into play was making it easier to box your opponent in in the corner, which i'm not sure is really all that fair.

Robot Wars had the arena almost perfect in its rebooted incarnation. Spinners still have room to roam but have to be more careful of recoil. Flippers have zones for out-of-the-arena flips that are viable but not super easy to pull off. Control bots have a viable win condition via the Pit and don't need to rely solely on judge's decisions or the enemy spinner just knocking themselves out. It was balanced and led to a lot of weapon variety. Just remove the randomness of the House Robots and put a limit on how soon the Pit can be opened (I'd say make the button active a minute, maybe a minute and a half into the fight) and it's perfectly balanced for any kind of bot with any kind of weapon.

Calwings posted...

I don't think that Tombstone is badly designed, I just think the meta and the bots around it have caught up to it.

Yeah, but Tombstone is definitely long in the tooth. At this rate it'll end up like Bronco: a relic of the past. If the weapon ever gives out Tombstone is just a box, moved by two wheels. This makes it really vulnerable whenever the weapon fails.