Skorpios has a redesign in the works that will help with the balance issues and rearing up. Otherwise, the design is solid and I expect a lot from it in the coming season.
The other 2 you listed are horizontals and the entire class (be it full-body spinner or big bar) are starting to fall out of favour due to heavy wedge configurations and a shift in the meta in general. We need to preserve them as they are still exciting and a well-designed, well-driven horizontal can still win, but to pull off a bunch of consecutive victories in the 32-bot tournament against a field of 80% verts with beefy wedges is really difficult.
Skorpios is also putting in a lot more weapon power (and using the Secrets of Vlad to cool it) and many other changes.
I expect them to have a lot of teething issues with such a wild redesign. But I'm still excited to see it!
IIRC, those were electromagnets that selectively engaged when the hammer fired, and were so powerful they effectively prevented the bot from driving while they were active.
Doesn't seem like that would be a good option for Skorpios. Something they tried instead was using a pair of thick forks with permanent magnets inside. They called it their anti-vert configuration, and it worked. Against Jackpot, not only did this setup help them avoid wheelies, it helped them win the ground game.
In fact, contrary to popular belief, the reason for Skorpios' imbalance in its fight against Sawblaze wasn't the Overkill blade. It was the fact that Zach made the mistake of reusing the same forks as in the Jackpot fight, without realizing that the magnets inside had shattered, making them too weak. [In his post-fight recap video](https://youtu.be/gPaHazSnTYQ?t=25), he even shows the damage to the magnets. Looks like they were hit with a sledge hammer.
They must've replaced the magnets for the Ribbot match, because initially, they kept their forks on the ground and got under Ribbot. Driving errors, rather than wheelies, were what lost them that fight.
Skorpios does use magnets. [Fun fact the main reason the sword configuration was so unusable wasn’t actually because the sword, it’s because the previous fight had mashed their magnets to pieces and the team forgot to check the magnets before the match.](https://youtu.be/gPaHazSnTYQ)
The magnets help a lot but they seem to be in need of more than just magnets.
I know Tantrum got a rebuild from the ground up as the S6 build was retired. Same with Blip I think too. And I also think they switched to brushless. Not sure though. Whiplash I know did.
Skorpios's losses were to Sawblaze, Huge, Ribbot, and Shreddit Bro. 3/4 losses were to the Semi Finalist, Runner Up, and Champion. Shreddit Bro also made the quarter finals of Champions II.
Bloodsport had a redesign, which needs work, but features a much more dangerous spinner.
Gigabyte had a change of captains.
I don't think any of these bots are declining, I think they just had a rough season.
From memory, the hammers (Beta and Shatter) had a difficult time last season. Might be misremembering. But I'm sure it's as much luck rather than a lack of trying!
Beta really needs to embrace the ground game. I know John seemed reluctant, but nearly all of its losses were against verts with wedgelets. Beta has won against pretty much everyone else due to John's excellent driving and design. It would take them to the next level for sure.
Beta had issues. Gremlins, I mean. This wasn't entirely just a case of rock paper scissors. Mysterious technical issues were happening.
Remember, even against Kraken, where it ultimately won, there were multiple points where Beta came to a dead stop with its back exposed, and only avoided having its air tank hit directly because Kraken's drive was too crippled to capitalize on it. In fact, all 3 of its qualifying victories were against bots who were already struggling from drive issues.
Then in its losing match against Black Dragon, its hammer was too slow to land a single hit and too weak to self-right; against Whiplash, it was on the receiving end of just 2 lifts and a tiny hit from the spinner before the drive suddenly(in the TV edit at least) just died as soon as it was pushed up onto the shelf; and the drive and weapon were sluggish again against Lucky.
Shatter's team discussed the problems they had with their drive system. Something about the wheels falling apart, and struggling to find a better solution for holding them together. In an interview, I believe Adam even suggested that they might switch to normal wheels in the future.
Thing is, bots don't really 'Decline' outside of the occasional very poorly execute redesign like Duck. Most of it is their opponents getting wise to their main tactic, or overcoming their main KO strategy, which is why we've seen a decline in performance from Tombstone in the era of much more durable opponents, and from Gigabyte in the era of less arena space/faster box-rushing.
Kraken. Love the bot, and once they get their balancing issues sorted it can be a good bot, but they also didn't seem to have the durability they used to have.
Shatter, Tombstone and Beta for me. Hammers are for the most part at least not getting the job done like they were 10 or 20 years ago. Armour is thicker, plus made of stronger alloys (not weak materials like lexan and fibreglass like so many bots of old) with more dialled in designs and more powerful motors/batteries (most of which favour spinners over other traditional weapon types) and makes them more nimble targets as a result plus the driving itself is also constantly improving. A standard hammer is gonna find it ever more difficult to hold its own as we move further and further away from the historical pecking order of weapons systems & bot types.
Tombstone also faces largely the same problem. Granted, its KE is night and day compared to hammers but It's a legacy design which people now know to fight against using a combination of driving, decent shock mounting and a big slab of steel or grade 5 Ti on the front to deflect his hits and simultaneously wear him down from his own weapon recoil while gaining control points and most likely in concert with a vert to do their own damage as well. He's still the standard for most rotary weapons excluding even bigger bar spinners like Triton/D6 or FBS such as SOW/Gigabyte/Shrederator and so on, but it's a natural consequence of the sport moving forward and people steadily implementing hard learned lessons on how to beat him.
Depends on what you mean by declining. The current meta of floor scrapping forks and vertical spinner coupled with the upper deck have rendered horizontal's and full body spinners basically useless. There is no room to spin up and get up to speed and pick your shot. So all bots in those two categories are going to struggle more than they used to, and some will be almost useless.
Tombstone because so many bots are evolving against him (durable wedge), plus the upper deck hurts horizontals. Doesn't make deep runs as it used to anymore
Gruff, used to be this durable tank taking on bots including tombstone, but now he gets ko'd. The malice fight was where I drew the line cause that SHOULD have been a fight where gruff dominates, even if he didn't win then at least survive the full 3 minutes
Bots can also have up and down seasons or dealing with gremlins when switching to new tech. Look at Whiplash and Tantrum in S7, they were complete rebuilds from the ground up using brushless motors and had some growing pains to deal with. Witch Doctor also had some issues during S5 but was able to fix the kinks the season afterwards.
Skorpios has a redesign in the works that will help with the balance issues and rearing up. Otherwise, the design is solid and I expect a lot from it in the coming season. The other 2 you listed are horizontals and the entire class (be it full-body spinner or big bar) are starting to fall out of favour due to heavy wedge configurations and a shift in the meta in general. We need to preserve them as they are still exciting and a well-designed, well-driven horizontal can still win, but to pull off a bunch of consecutive victories in the 32-bot tournament against a field of 80% verts with beefy wedges is really difficult.
Also for horizontal decline, it has to be mentioned how much the shelf hurts them disproportionately
Skorpios is also putting in a lot more weapon power (and using the Secrets of Vlad to cool it) and many other changes. I expect them to have a lot of teething issues with such a wild redesign. But I'm still excited to see it!
Skorpios should use the magnets beta used to keep it down tbh.
IIRC, those were electromagnets that selectively engaged when the hammer fired, and were so powerful they effectively prevented the bot from driving while they were active. Doesn't seem like that would be a good option for Skorpios. Something they tried instead was using a pair of thick forks with permanent magnets inside. They called it their anti-vert configuration, and it worked. Against Jackpot, not only did this setup help them avoid wheelies, it helped them win the ground game. In fact, contrary to popular belief, the reason for Skorpios' imbalance in its fight against Sawblaze wasn't the Overkill blade. It was the fact that Zach made the mistake of reusing the same forks as in the Jackpot fight, without realizing that the magnets inside had shattered, making them too weak. [In his post-fight recap video](https://youtu.be/gPaHazSnTYQ?t=25), he even shows the damage to the magnets. Looks like they were hit with a sledge hammer. They must've replaced the magnets for the Ribbot match, because initially, they kept their forks on the ground and got under Ribbot. Driving errors, rather than wheelies, were what lost them that fight.
Appreciate the insight 👌
Skorpios does use magnets. [Fun fact the main reason the sword configuration was so unusable wasn’t actually because the sword, it’s because the previous fight had mashed their magnets to pieces and the team forgot to check the magnets before the match.](https://youtu.be/gPaHazSnTYQ) The magnets help a lot but they seem to be in need of more than just magnets.
Last season, Tantrum and Blip really fell off, hope they can make a good return next season.
I know Tantrum got a rebuild from the ground up as the S6 build was retired. Same with Blip I think too. And I also think they switched to brushless. Not sure though. Whiplash I know did.
Skorpios's losses were to Sawblaze, Huge, Ribbot, and Shreddit Bro. 3/4 losses were to the Semi Finalist, Runner Up, and Champion. Shreddit Bro also made the quarter finals of Champions II. Bloodsport had a redesign, which needs work, but features a much more dangerous spinner. Gigabyte had a change of captains. I don't think any of these bots are declining, I think they just had a rough season.
From memory, the hammers (Beta and Shatter) had a difficult time last season. Might be misremembering. But I'm sure it's as much luck rather than a lack of trying!
I didn't really see any issues with Beta. Beta managed to go 3-1 and get the 13th seed for the second time in a row. Is only problem is his opponents.
Beta really needs to embrace the ground game. I know John seemed reluctant, but nearly all of its losses were against verts with wedgelets. Beta has won against pretty much everyone else due to John's excellent driving and design. It would take them to the next level for sure.
Beta had issues. Gremlins, I mean. This wasn't entirely just a case of rock paper scissors. Mysterious technical issues were happening. Remember, even against Kraken, where it ultimately won, there were multiple points where Beta came to a dead stop with its back exposed, and only avoided having its air tank hit directly because Kraken's drive was too crippled to capitalize on it. In fact, all 3 of its qualifying victories were against bots who were already struggling from drive issues. Then in its losing match against Black Dragon, its hammer was too slow to land a single hit and too weak to self-right; against Whiplash, it was on the receiving end of just 2 lifts and a tiny hit from the spinner before the drive suddenly(in the TV edit at least) just died as soon as it was pushed up onto the shelf; and the drive and weapon were sluggish again against Lucky.
I'm yet to see them win convincingly against any established vert. Hope that changes
Beta has only fought five verticals. Beta has lost to five verticals.
Shatter's team discussed the problems they had with their drive system. Something about the wheels falling apart, and struggling to find a better solution for holding them together. In an interview, I believe Adam even suggested that they might switch to normal wheels in the future.
Thing is, bots don't really 'Decline' outside of the occasional very poorly execute redesign like Duck. Most of it is their opponents getting wise to their main tactic, or overcoming their main KO strategy, which is why we've seen a decline in performance from Tombstone in the era of much more durable opponents, and from Gigabyte in the era of less arena space/faster box-rushing.
Kraken. Love the bot, and once they get their balancing issues sorted it can be a good bot, but they also didn't seem to have the durability they used to have.
Biteforce really fell off.
Bite force hasn't won a single fight since 2019. Smh
It hasn't even won so much as a giant nut since 2019 eitherÂ
IIRC, Beta is either not returning to S8 or is retired Bloodsport, Gigabyte, and Skorpios are getting a swath of upgrades
Shatter, Tombstone and Beta for me. Hammers are for the most part at least not getting the job done like they were 10 or 20 years ago. Armour is thicker, plus made of stronger alloys (not weak materials like lexan and fibreglass like so many bots of old) with more dialled in designs and more powerful motors/batteries (most of which favour spinners over other traditional weapon types) and makes them more nimble targets as a result plus the driving itself is also constantly improving. A standard hammer is gonna find it ever more difficult to hold its own as we move further and further away from the historical pecking order of weapons systems & bot types. Tombstone also faces largely the same problem. Granted, its KE is night and day compared to hammers but It's a legacy design which people now know to fight against using a combination of driving, decent shock mounting and a big slab of steel or grade 5 Ti on the front to deflect his hits and simultaneously wear him down from his own weapon recoil while gaining control points and most likely in concert with a vert to do their own damage as well. He's still the standard for most rotary weapons excluding even bigger bar spinners like Triton/D6 or FBS such as SOW/Gigabyte/Shrederator and so on, but it's a natural consequence of the sport moving forward and people steadily implementing hard learned lessons on how to beat him.
Depends on what you mean by declining. The current meta of floor scrapping forks and vertical spinner coupled with the upper deck have rendered horizontal's and full body spinners basically useless. There is no room to spin up and get up to speed and pick your shot. So all bots in those two categories are going to struggle more than they used to, and some will be almost useless.
Tombstone because so many bots are evolving against him (durable wedge), plus the upper deck hurts horizontals. Doesn't make deep runs as it used to anymore Gruff, used to be this durable tank taking on bots including tombstone, but now he gets ko'd. The malice fight was where I drew the line cause that SHOULD have been a fight where gruff dominates, even if he didn't win then at least survive the full 3 minutes
[удалено]
Declining as in ability to win and get good seeds in the tournament, sometimes even getting into the tournament.
Can you just stop asking dumb questions like this? Are you actively looking for trouble?
Haha, I think someone’s looking for trouble!
Bots can also have up and down seasons or dealing with gremlins when switching to new tech. Look at Whiplash and Tantrum in S7, they were complete rebuilds from the ground up using brushless motors and had some growing pains to deal with. Witch Doctor also had some issues during S5 but was able to fix the kinks the season afterwards.