Current Events > BattleBots: Fight Night week 3 discussion topic *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

Sorry for not having the topic ready earlier, I had a brain fart and forgot what day it was. Still, IT'S ROBOT FIGHTIN' TIME!

https://i.imgur.com/LPRaOih.jpg

Death Roll vs. Cobalt leads us off, and Hydra vs. Rotator is the main event. As a reminder, please put any discussion of match results under spoiler tags until 24 hours after the episode airs out of consideration for people who can't watch the episode live, especially if you decide to watch the episode early on Discovery+ before it airs on TV.

just in time!

Excited for Deathroll to return!

One of the few bots to completely shit on Endgame.

Ominous looks sick. Hopefully those omni-directional wheels actually work well on the BattleBox floor though. And they did, but Claw Viper was so blisteringly fast that not even the omni-directional wheels could help Ominous keep up with it. That was an impressive win by Claw Viper.

Rotator... You know what to do!

So many shitty self-righting mechanisms this season. Make it fast, function over form, and generalized. And follow Malice's example of adding an anti-upright bumper on the back.

Death Roll vs Cobalt: Cobalt is such an awkward weapon placement but it shreds.

Ominous vs Claw Viper: Claw Viper is a much better bot now but that idiot strap needs work.

Copperhead vs Bloodsport: Bloodsport trying to be Icewave is hilarious. ICE engines don't belong on a bot.

Lock-Jaw vs Malice: Malice's weapon still sucks but they almost had it.

Lucky vs Triton: I'm perfectly fine with Lucky flexing with that heavy armor. A better Biohazard.

Skorpios vs Jackpot: Hammer saws are looking really hot this season.

Hydra vs Rotator: If Blip fails this season, at least we'll have Hydra for all these insane flips.

Lock-Jaw vs. Malice was a pretty good slugfest. Lock-Jaw definitely deserved the judge's decision, but I don't think it looked as good as people were making it seem. Still some reliability issues to work out. Now time for Triton, AKA Deep Six but turned sideways, to make its debut.

I'm a bit behind but holy shit Claw Viper is fast.

https://i.imgur.com/JyhSnAR.jpg

Claw Viper was out for blood

Copperhead: "FFFAAALLLCCCOOOONNN PUNCH!!"

This week's episode was filled with upsets and surprises. Sad to see Deathroll get trounced like that, but to be fair, Cobalt is one of the nastiest weapons in all of BattleBots and Deathroll had no wedgelets or forks to fight for the low ground. Wasn't much they could do in that situation except maybe try to get at the sides, which is easier said than done.

Triton was a meme, like I expected it to be. If it actually managed to get to full speed and land a hit, the story might have been different, but a weapon that huge on a horizontal spinner is mighty hard to spin up and control. Lucky played it well, kept Triton from getting full speed, and did what it was meant to do. Solid performance, even if it made for an underwhelming debut for Triton.

Claw Viper actually impressed me. It's one of those bots that has historically been seen as a free win because it doesn't have a reliable way of scoring damage points or getting KOs, but if it has this much speed and that UNREAL stability on the floor, it might be a real contender going forward. It will still run into problems in judge decisions, but it's a much stronger fighter now than it has ever been before, I think. Ominous still has a chance to prove itself, but that was another disappointing rookie-bot debut.

Given how the commentators like to gas up Lockjaw/Donald Hudson, it's kind of sad that a fight with a lower-tier bot like Malice was such a struggle. I think Lockjaw needs some serious redesign. It's too floppy, too exposed, too rickety for the modern scene. The weapon hits with "reasonable" power, but it's nothing to write home about. Either way, grats to the team on getting a win.

Hydra as a robot is one of the coolest in the sport, and I wish I could root for it. I just don't really care for the attitude of Jake; I know a lot of it is that he's playing up the cocky villain angle, but there's also the very real controversy he has caused in the past with dirty tactics and rule exploiting. Either way, it's great to see Hydra fully-functional again after it had so many problems getting full-power flips last season. We need at least one insane flipper bot in each competition. We're lucky to have Hydra and Blip both active at the same time. Flippers are so much fun to watch when they actually succeed in doing what they're meant to do.

Copperhead may look a lot like Minotaur's scrappy little brother, but oh boy does it still hit hard as heck. Bloodsport never knew what hit them. Excellent first showing of the season for Copperhead, but I expect more out of Bloodsport going forward: it was one of the bots that kept horizontal spinners looking relevant, so I hope they can pull it together for their next match.

Skorpios and Jackpot was fun to see, even though it was cut short by Jackpot's malfunctioning self-right mechanism. Skorpios has good pushing power and solid defense, it was bullying its opponent easily. Seems new and improved like a lot of others this season.

All in all, it was a solid episode with some phenomenally powerful hits for the highlight reel. What more can I ask for?

Late to watch, but there were some great moments in this episode. It's nice to see so many bots dialed in and ready for the spotlight. A few bots still have some gremlins, such as Malice, Lockjaw, and Rotator, but overall it's a tough season by all appearances.

Those armor plates on the front of Lucky and Hydra are a good choice IMO. In previous seasons that style of flipper tended to be damaged and destroyed in combat. Now it takes a big mistake to lose such critical parts.

Triton is an interesting bot in that it seems to be hoping to take over the style spot of Tombstone. But similar to Tombstone if bots can survive a hit from it then the thing just sort of fails over the course of 3 minutes. Most teams have figured out the benefits of angled ablative armor.

Oh man Ominous looks bad. I was so excited to see it, but I think they understated how many problems Ominous had, most notably that it seemed to be taking nearly all the force from its spinner hits - it went flying every time.

https://i.imgur.com/DY4Xrp9.jpg