How to Dodge Attacks in Mech Games

Dodging is the most misused mechanic in mech combat. It is powerful, limited, and most players spend it at the wrong moments - usually too early, usually when a cheaper option existed. This guide covers when it is the right answer and how the timing actually works.

How invulnerability frames work

A dodge or boost normally grants a short window of invulnerability, and - this is the part that catches people - that window is shorter than the move itself.

In the games on this site a boost lasts about a quarter of a second and the invulnerable portion is roughly the first two thirds of it. The final part of the move is still movement, but you can be hit during it.

The consequence is that a dodge started too early runs out before the attack arrives. You get the animation, you get the movement, and you get hit anyway - which feels like the game cheating and is actually a timing error.

Dodging late is much safer than dodging early. If you mistime slightly late, the invulnerability is still active when the attack lands. If you mistime early, it has already expired.

When to dodge rather than deflect

Three situations, and outside them deflecting is usually better because it costs less and produces an opening.

• Against an unblockable attack - a red telegraph. A deflector does nothing at all against these, so movement is the only option.
• When you are flanked. A deflector covers a cone in front of you; an attack from behind ignores it entirely.
• When you need to be somewhere else. A dodge repositions as well as protecting, which a deflect does not.

Outside those three, prefer the deflect. It costs no power, staggers the attacker, opens them up for a punish and scores better. A dodge protects you and achieves nothing else.

Dodge through, not away

The instinctive dodge direction is backwards, away from the attack. It is usually the worst one.

Dodging backwards keeps you inside the attack's arc for longer, because you are moving along its line rather than out of it. It also leaves you at maximum distance from the recovering enemy, which means you cannot punish the opening you just earned.

Dodging sideways, or through the attack toward the enemy's flank, leaves the arc immediately and puts you beside a machine that is now recovering. The second part is the point: a dodge that ends with you out of range has protected you, and a dodge that ends with you beside a recovering enemy has won you the exchange.

The cooldown is the real constraint

Dodges usually have both a resource cost and a cooldown, and the cooldown is what actually limits you.

This means a dodge spent on an attack you could have deflected is not merely wasteful - it is a dodge that will not be available for the unblockable attack arriving three seconds later. The cost is not the power, it is the unavailability.

The habit worth building is treating the dodge as an emergency tool with a reserve, in the same way as the last point of power. If your dodge is on cooldown when a red telegraph appears, you have already made the mistake.

When not to dodge at all

Walking out of range is free, has no cooldown, cannot be mistimed and works against everything including unblockable attacks.

Because mech attacks are slow, there is frequently enough time to simply step back out of reach. Players under-use this badly, partly because it feels passive and partly because a dodge feels like the 'correct' answer to an attack.

The rule: if you can leave the attack's reach by walking, walk. Save the dodge for the attacks that are too fast or too wide to walk out of.

Reading the window rather than guessing it

Most dodge mistiming comes from treating the telegraph as a starting gun rather than as a duration.

The telegraph tells you two things: that an attack is coming, and how long you have. A ring closing around an enemy is not merely a warning light - its rate of closure is the timer, and the moment it completes is the moment the attack becomes live.

That means the correct dodge input is keyed to the ring reaching completion, not to it appearing. Dodging on appearance is the single most common reason players get hit during a dodge: the invulnerability expires before the attack arrives.

A useful drill is to deliberately ignore the first half of every telegraph in a run. Watch the ring, do nothing until it is most of the way closed, then act. It feels far too late and it is almost exactly right, which is the same lesson the timing guides reach from a different direction.

Dodging into safety rather than away from danger

A framing shift that improves dodge decisions immediately.

Most players dodge away from the attack, which is a reaction to the threat. Better players dodge toward a specific place, which is a decision about the next two seconds.

Before the dodge, know where you want to end up: beside the recovering enemy, out of a corner, on the far side of a crowd. The dodge then does two jobs rather than one, and the second job is usually worth more than the first.

This also fixes the most common positional error in mech games, which is a sequence of individually sensible dodges that leave you backed against a wall. Each was away from something; none was toward anything.

Frequently asked questions