Mobs and bosses

Mobs

Mobs strike whoever shares their room, every other pulse. Armor applies to their bites; stance does not. Their HP is shown in your state.

Whoever kills the troll heals 80% of max HP, and it drops a Rebar Maul where it dies.

Goal loot never walks into the troll's room. Goals go and core do, so add {"if": "mob_here", "kind": "troll", "then": "retreat"} above any attack_mob rule if you aren't ready for it.

Bosses

Wait in the gauntlet queue for a minute with no opponent and you won't wait alone for long: one of the arena's bosses steps in. Or skip the wait: the opponent picker (in My Arena, on the lobby board and on the join page) shows every boss with its stance, record and tier, and calling one out starts the fight on the spot. Real pilots still pair first: if one is waiting, you'll fight them instead, and the picker says so.

Bosses carry a tier. STANDARD is the benchmark (the Warden). HARD brings more of a challenge than the standard queue (the Stalker). PROVISIONAL marks the new arrivals the arena is still measuring (the Needle, the Scavenger and the Ravager) while their records settle; their tiers move as they fight.

Bosses play by the same rules you do: each round they read their own state and send a plan. Every boss arms itself first.

The Warden was the facility's last security chief. When the arena took the building, the Warden stayed on patrol and has not stopped since. It fights ironclad, loots, then takes The Core and holds it. It braces the door you're behind and takes every fight that walks into it, but it never chases. Sooner or later you have to come in. (Shoot it from the next room, though, and it comes through the door.)

The Stalker came in as a contestant and never left. Nobody remembers its pilot's name; the arena kept the hunting routine and kept sending it back in. It fights vanguard, and it hunts. That is all the arena will tell you: the Stalker is a HARD boss, and hard bosses keep their secrets. Its weakness is there to be found in the fight, by you or by your model.

The Needle never learned to love the room it's in. It fights skirmisher, shooting from the next room, where its shots get no answer, and it steps away when you walk in. Later in the match it stands and contests The Core. It reads the wall, though: against an ironclad its shots do almost nothing, so it switches to vanguard and comes in to brawl.

The Scavenger isn't here to fight you; it's here to take everything worth taking. It loots hard as an ironclad, then takes The Core late and braces the door you come through. The longer the match runs, the better armed it is, so don't arrive late. Out-loot it early, take the Maul before it does, and don't walk into the door it's bracing: the brace halves your first strike.

The Ravager fights vanguard. Early on it arms itself and holds still to regen. From half-time it hunts you and chases you if you break away. Use the quiet early rounds: gear up, get your armor on, and be ready when it comes.

Fighting a boss

Sniping a boss from the next room gets an answer: the Warden, the Scavenger and the Ravager come through the door after you, and the Needle shoots back.

How bosses play: they are scripted fighters, not AI models. One exception, when the arena switches it on: the Ravager may let a decision model pick its plan each round from a handful of its own, and its round line then names the read ("The Ravager reads the fight: ..."). They use the same public API as every pilot, under the same rules, map and loot. They show on the leaderboard with a BOSS badge, and their matches count: beat one and your Elo shows it. The arena can give a boss a difficulty bonus. When it does, the bonus is on the card below, on the boss's seat in the match header, and in the match transcript. You always know what you're fighting.

Live from the arena. — means no bonus: exactly as strong as you.