Analysis: Carnage

The Carnage is definately a "changeup" robot. It works quite different from any other robot in the game, and even though it has only a small number of recommended setups, it is a lot of fun to play. However, with the emergence of a host of new fast robot, the Carnage is losing ground fast and is clearly no longer viable in higher leagues.  It will give you a formidable weapon up to Expert though.

The big plus for the Carnage is the mobility. With its rush it's faster than anything except maybe a dashing Kumiho, it has a very good base speed, and it has the Ancile that will give it additional protection, even though it's the weakest Ancile out there. With the Ancile you're pretty much immune against the dreaded Sphydra pest (Spiral Hydra builds), any Zenit Noricum chuckers, you enjoy decent protection against midrange missiles (it withstands a salvo from a RDB) and any gun based weapons, at least for a few seconds.

With two heavy weapons it has decent firepower, and it is arguably the best robot to utilize Thunders because it can close in on all other robots quickly.

On the other hand it's extremely fragile. With only 114k HP at level 12 it goes down quickly to any energy weapons, be it Gekkos, Trebuchets, Zeus, Tarans or Magnums. And a DB Griffin will melt kill it in one blast, because it has the firepower to melt the Ancile and shred the Carnage frame as well. So it has to be piloted with a lot of finesse, it has to pick its battles and the pilot needs extremely good situational awareness, because it's crucial to know which builds the enemy pilots run.

Unfortunately, the Carnage is also a prime target for all red robots. If I see a Thunder Carnage approaching, I will switch from whatever other robot I'm targeting and handle the Carnage, because I know that I will be dead within seconds if I don't do it. But a Carnage is easy to detect because even snipers can see the Ancile, so it really works only well if you have some cover.

These builds work well with a Carnage:

• Thunder Carnage. Clearly my favorite. You have to have a special mentality to run a Thunder Carnage, because it is *not* a brawler. If you try to go head to head with any Leo, Lancelot, even Griffin, you will probably lose. Your game is to hang around, identify a good target, sneak close to it (250m or closer), and wait until it is reloading. Say if you're up against a DB Griffin, it's suicide to charge heads up, even if you can get close - he'll smoke you with his rockets. But if a Griffin has just emptied his clips against another target it will need 20s to reload, and that's where you strike. Similar against a Taran Griffin/Lancelot/Galahad, wait until the Taran is reloading. You have just 5 seconds, but 5 seconds is all you need. Then you rush, get into point blank range (and there I mean 50m or less), and kill your prey. If you are successful, and chose your matchup well (preferrably a rocket build that will only dent your Ancile), you'll have killed your enemy without even a scratch in your paint.
  
  2 Thunders deliver 31k damage per shot. As a Thunder reloads while firing, you can fire 8 shots in 8 seconds, delivering 248k damage in that time - enough to kill a Leo.
  
  However, with the emergence of the Storm and Gust, the Thunder Carnage has gotten some serious competition. A Storm Dash bot will do more damage and is less fragile, and even a Storm Gust Gary or a Gust Stalker does almost the same damage as the Carnage, but is much faster.
  
  
• Embers. Carnage is very mobile, and an Ember Carnage can be played like a Thunder Carnage, with a lot more range. It's a glass cannon though, many players claim that it is too squishy for Embers. D'oh! Carnage is not a brawler (despite its name), use it for hit and run tactics, dudes.
  
  
• Zeus. Also a very good build, even though it has to be piloted quite differently. 2 Zeus deliver 31k per shot as well. And even though they need to reload 5 seconds, and some time to acquire a target, that means you'll need only 6 hits to kill any robot except Leo, Raijin and Bulgasari. It also means you can crack shields with either patience or help, especially Lancelot shields.
  
  The Carnage is the ideal platform for the Zeus, because it is agile enough to reposition in a way to get line of sight (which is required for a Zeus) while still being able to stay out of range of your target, and out of sight for snipers. Many players would argue that Zeus Carnage is the best Zeus build, even though there are builds with more firepower (Zeus Fury or Zeus Gekko Natty) and any robot navigating at 550m has to deal with snipers, that usually have energy weapons penetrating the Ancile.
  
  Again, recently we've seen a shift towards Zeus Furys or Raijins. The Zeus Carnage was close to being a "meta" bot when the meta was rockets. But now that has shifted towards shocktrains, and the best midrangers are either shielded robots (Bulgasari, Lancelot) or robots with a lot of HP (Fury, Natasha).
  
  
• Dragoon. As the Dragoon is basically an improved (but much more expensive) version of the Zeus, everything said there applies to the Dragoon too. 
  
  
• Tempest Carnage.I run this build regularly in my medium hangar, and it's maybe the strongest bot there. 2 Tempests can do a lot of damage, and if you keep out of range the opponents will positively loathe you. But as with all Tempest builds, it's not viable in top tier. 
  
  Here the competition comes from a silver robot, the Punisher Tempest Natasha. It has twice the HP, easy level 12 Mk2, and adds some serious firepower from the two Punishers at close range.
  
  
• Trident Carnage. Back in 2.9, when Tridents still ruled the world, the Trident Carnage was considered the ideal build. It had less firepower than a Fury, of course, but the Ancile would block a full salvo of 3 Tridents from a Fury, and you could get within 600m (or 620m on even terrain), fire and rush out of range. Today however Tridents have fallen out of favor, and Trident Carnages have become almost extinct. It's still a build you can try if you don't dig a Thunder Carnage and don't have the gold for a pair of Zeus.
  
  
• Zenit Carnage. I'm torn here if I should even mention it. But Zenits seem to do a lot more damage in 3.1 than they did before, and I had a lot of games in facebook gameroom where those Zenits did some serious damage to me. I used to ignore Zenit chuckers completely, but since the 3.1 upgrade they seem to be roughly as harmless or dangerous as Hydra builds, and it's a good idea to take them out if you can. But if you would want to run a Zenit build, why choose a Zenit Nori Natasha if you can have almost the same firepower but be protected from enemy Zenit builds in a Carnage?
  
  Disclaimer: I think it is a waste of a perfectly good Carnage to put a weapon like Zenit on it. Why run Zenit if you can put Thunders on it and have fun? But hey, if you really want to run Zenits, Carnage is the platform to go.
  

Builds you should not run with a Carnage:

• Trebuchet. As a sniper, you're first and foremost up against enemy snipers, and 99% of the snipers have energy weapons (penetrating the Ancile) and more hitpoints than a Carnage. Just don't.
• Nashorn/Kang-Dae. Just not enough damage, and they don't penetrate any shield.
• Ancile. Sacrificing half of your firepower is not worth the additional protection.

Suggestion for new players: Carnage is another robot that I love, but can no longer recommend as it's just too squishy. If you win one, fine. If you have all a surplus of WSP, got for it. But I wouldn't make it a target.


You will find my other analysis threads linked here.