Hoarder Of Shiny Objects And Also Headcanons

Five:

Five is a Jack of All Trades when it comes to his loadout, and the same goes for how he fights. He’s decent enough both at range and up close (although he easily prefers range), and his tools and weapons are a pretty even split between attacking, defence, buffs, debuffs, plixelcraft and really whatever else he might need.

Also, Five doesn’t really have any specific weapon that he gravitates to like Miko’s Hammer and/or Twin Swords or Zahra’s Sniper. He actually barely use any plixelcraft weapons in the show at all to my knowledge. He uses an axe to break down a door in Ralphie Bear Is Back, but other than that he mostly sticks to his gauntlet’s built in bolts and beams. I choose to believe that like the rest of his loadout, he’s a Jack of All Trades and is decent enough with just about anything you give him, but if you have to talk specifics, Five is very practiced at pure gauntlet-based combat. He barely uses plixelcraft weapons, but he has very good aim with his gauntlet and can handle himself using stuff like the gauntlet’s wrist blade with surprising efficiency.

That being said, Five is much better at range. He CAN fight up close, but he’s much, much better at shooting something with his gauntlet than throwing a punch or swinging a sword. Usually between the two of them it’s Miko that charges in to punch stuff while he stays back to shoot, buff and provide covering fire.

Also, Five doesn’t have the same insane reflexes or physical ability as someone like Miko or Mitch. He’s definitely not doing Miko’s patented “Spinning Front Flip Over the Enemy while Firing Downwards” trick anytime soon. But Five makes up for this by fighting with his brain a lot more. Five fights very pragmatically, likes planning out ways to deal with things and can think on the fly. Like his attempt to take out Team [Enter Name] in Alpha Leader. He knows he can’t beat them with his loadout and skills, so he aims for the ceiling and tries to crush them with the rubble. He’ll use traps and environmental hazards (either pre-existing ones he notices or ones he makes himself), try to mess with your head to get you to make a mistake, or if none of that is an option, buff himself or debuff you to even the playing field.

Five has and uses plenty of buffs and debuffs. And it’s not a case like Zahra or Hannesh where he specializes in one or the other, again, Jack of All Trades. He’s just as likely to buff himself as he is to debuff his opponent, and both are equally effective. To say nothing of the Plixelcraft he has access to. It’s nowhere near Nix with his Advanced Certification or even Haneesh who’s simply put more time into leveling it, but he does have access to some preset plixelcraft walls and barriers. Plus his hoverboard for whenever he needs to gain some verticality or go a bit closer to Miko-Speed. All making him very adaptable to just about any situation.

And then there’s the big robot he keeps in his pocket. Five rarely uses Alpha (I personally headcanon that Alpha is like some kind of Reverse-Ash’s-Pikachu and hates being out of Five’s gauntlet for long periods of time), but when he is pulled out, dear god. I don’t think i need to say much other than “800 Pound Robot Gorilla”. Again, Five rarely uses him, but some season 3 footage indicates that he will summon him if he needs the raw physical power, or as a last resort if he’s in danger and can’t see any other ways out.

Five isn’t dangerous because of one specific skill or ability. He’s dangerous because he’s decent enough at everything to easily improvise and adapt to whatever situation he’s in, or at least cover his own weaknesses. That and his ability to outthink, read and outsmart opponents. If a fight goes on for long enough, he WILL figure out some kind of plan, and probably a plan B if the first one doesn’t work.

This does actually make him open to rushdowns where he’s dragged into melee before he’s able to plan or strategize anything however, especially since he’s worse when he’s up close and forced to fight in melee compared to when he’s able to aim and shoot. Of course, that’s where buffs and debuffs typically come in to give him a needed edge.

Miko:

Miko is a pure rushdown character who’s main goal is to drag you into melee before you’re able to plan or strategize anything.

Miko is very heavily melee focused. She CAN shoot, her aim isn’t bad at all and she’s more than capable of hitting someone with a shot from her gauntlet, but at the same time, she NEEDS to fight things up close, and she excels at it. The fact that her ranged options are mostly limited to just her gauntlet’s basic emitters and a few options she doesn’t use all that much does affect this though.

Miko is also a huge dps addict. Her weapon of choice is a massive sledgehammer, capable of doing massive damage with each hit, and her second options are two swords meant to let her slash and attack as fast as possible. Fun Fact: Blunt weapons like Maces and Warhammers are typically anti-armour. Additional Fun Fact: Miko Kubota is currently 200 meters away from your location and approaching rapidly.

Strategy-Wise, what strategy? Miko doesn’t do strategy. She’s not dumb, and she is capable of it, but Miko and Planning go together like oil and water, and her usual combat strategy is to just charge in and start doing as much damage as possible, zeroing in on any weak points she sees, but otherwise being pretty indiscriminate in how and where she attacks. But then again, this is pretty darn effective for her, and when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like nails.

Miko’s reflexes are INSANE. Combine that with how fast, high-energy, and straight up acrobatic she can be and there’s a solid chance you as another tech would struggle to even hit her when she’s fully locked in, at least without any kind of buffs or Miko leaving herself open.

That being said, Miko doesn’t care much about defence. She CAN shield, block, parry or whatever else she needs to do to protect herself, and a Miko that’s purely on the defensive can be almost impossible to damage if she really locks in and focuses on it, but she very rarely does simply because it’s not how she functions. Miko has a tendency to attack frequently and leave herself open to being attacked herself, relying purely on her own instincts and reflexes to dodge at the last second. And in terms of her actual loadout and armour, Miko is a glass cannon designed purely for speed and damage.

That being said, while Miko is a glass cannon on paper, in reality she Will. Not. Stay. Down. Even after taking some seriously bad hits, she WILL keep fighting with a tendency to ignore her own injuries, and a lot of the time with just how high energy she is along with some of her stubborn competitiveness, she’ll just power through it or at least make sure that by the time SHE goes down, YOU will have fallen just before she does. Her own armour and shields are weak, but Miko’s actual body and will to keep going is deceptively strong.

And on that note: Miko has a little skill that not all techs have: She doesn’t completely rely on her gauntlet to fight. Even without the gauntlet’s weapons and the passive buffs and overshield that tech armour gives, Miko is still capable of flipping through the air, running circles around a good chunk of people and kicking your ass specifically. It’s just that now, her options for attacking are limited, her ability to punch through armour is even more so, her limited defences and ranged options are completely gone and she’ll tire herself out just a bit faster. She’s more than capable of holding on and defending herself without any weapons, and as proven by her multiple demonstrations on various Glitches, Animatronics and also Mitch at one point, Miko has some insanely strong legs and can kick you halfway across a room. I guess it comes with being able to move at a hundred miles per hour and do spinning front flips over opponents. She can and also probably will bite you if she has to as well.

That note about Miko not being fully reliant on her gauntlet’s weapons is important as well if you’re a tech or some other human, particularly due to the little quirk that Miko is much more well known for. Her immunity to resets.

For Tech Vs Tech combat, the most obvious win condition is breaking the opponent’s visor, since that’s their protection against resets, and then literally just pointing your gauntlet in their direction and resetting. As long as they’re looking in it general direction it’s effective, and closing or covering your eyes does nothing. As long as their back isn’t completely turned to the blast or there’s a physical barrier blocking it, it’ll work. It doesn’t even need to be a particularly big reset, since even a small reset of a few seconds leaves you in that suggestible state where your opponent can tell you something like “Sleep” and now you’re taking an involuntary nap.

Miko, does not work like that. At MOST, a reset will stun her for a second or two before she shakes it off, and that’ll only work at most once because once’s she’s actually expecting the reset it’ll do absolutely nothing. Trying to break her visor to end the fight via reset is pointless. Breaking her gauntlet also won’t stop her because she’s still capable, albeit heavily nerfed, of holding her own without it. And keep in mind, you’re still vulnerable to the whole “Visor Break into Reset combo”.

And that’s before Miko’s buffs come into play. Miko doesn’t typically buff other people, Five is much better at that, and she very rarely debuffs. She’s very much “The only stat I care about changing is changing my enemy’s HP stat to ZERO” when it comes to that kind of thing. But she does have some buffs for herself. Mainly things like raw speed and strength buffs to really push her abilities to the limit, and make her go from “downright impossible to hit” to “ACTUALLY impossible to hit” until it wears off. She KNOWS how to overclock her gauntlet, but probably won’t, at least in the middle of combat. Unlike Mitch, she isn’t especially practiced in typing in all the commands and codes needed to override the gauntlet’s safety features, especially while in the middle of a fight, and is a lot more likely to just say “Screw it. Too much effort” and not bother with it. Plus if she does, there’s no way she’d remember to turn it off in time to prevent her gauntlet from shutting off.

And of course, you have the bird. Ally is a big part of Miko’s loadout, mostly being used as a mount to help Miko achieve some insanely high speeds or deal with flying opponents, but Miko has shown the ability to use Ally for strafing runs and to make herself harder to hit. Of course, this comes with the cost that if you manage to damage Ally, they’ll teleport away, fall out of the sky or disappear entirely and probably drop Miko while moving at high speed.

Her main weakness: that refusal to strategize and tendency to leave herself open to attacks. Miko is very easy to read, and doesn’t tend to change strategies in response to most things. That and an obvious weakness to debuffs, traps and more strategic plays if you’re able to plan it out before she’s able to rush you down. Her only real counter to it is just the fact that even if you know exactly what Miko is going to do, she might move too fast for you to actually DO anything about it.

Mitch:

Mitch takes Five and Miko, averages them together and adds a pitch of assholery and show-off-ness for taste.

Mitch fits the trope of a “combat pragmatist”. When fighting, he doesn’t care about things like rules, decency, overkill or anything like that. He just wants to win. He doesn’t care about how Overclocking is both overkill and heavily discouraged by the higher ups, it’s a very effective and efficient way to win, so he’s going to use it. He doesn’t care about how he looks kicking a child fan of his off a ledge in the Hinobi Smash Tournament, he just wants to win.

But at the same time, Mitch also wants everyone to know just how good he is and how much he’s winning, so he frequently shows off and trash talks whenever he has the chance. The end result is something like his first fight in BUDS, where you have Mitch dragging out the fight and trash talking the glitch the entire time (even with no one around to see it) combined with him overclocking his gauntlet and finishing the glitch off with a massive beam that’s larger than the glitch itself.

Like how Miko can theoretically become basically impossible to hit if she puts all her focus and effort into dodging, blocking and playing defensively, Mitch can become absolutely broken if he stops showing off and focuses purely on efficient plays and taking out his opponent. But just like how Miko will basically never do this (even in life threatening situations, her fight or flight response is very much “fight”), you will basically never see Mitch completely abandon that show-off-ness for the full duration of a fight. Maybe for like a brief moment or two if he thinks he’s in actual danger and he needs to lock in for a few seconds, but once he’s back to normal again it’s back to showing off and flashy plays whenever he thinks he can get away with it. Unless you’re literally holding Five and Miko at gunpoint or directly threatening to get Mitch fired or permabanned, you’re not seeing Mitch fight like this. It’s just not how he works.

Like Five, Mitch is able to read people, strategize and plan out ways to take out threats that he’s not fully equipped to deal with, but like Miko, he’s fully capable of throwing all concepts of a plan to the wayside and just wrecking house if need be. That being said, there’s very few threats that he’s not equipped to deal with.

Like Miko, Mitch has a tendency to leave himself open to attacks, but there’s a big difference between them. Miko leaves herself open because she went for an impulsive and easy-to-read hammer swing and she’ll be in trouble if it doesn’t hit. Mitch leaves himself open because he’s busy shit-talking you while he’s confident that there’s nothing you can do that can hurt him, or he’s confident that his armour/shield/skills/whatever will protect him even if he gets hit at that moment.

Loadout-wise, Mitch has basically everything unlocked, and although he DOES have a slight preference towards modern weaponry like guns, cannons, miniguns and stuff like that, he’ll pull out and use basically anything if he thinks it’ll be efficient and/or flashy enough to justify using, from hammers to swords to bombs to any glitch items he has registered. He’s a lot like Five in this regard. A Jack of All Trades that’ll use whatever is most useful in that situation, and he’s typically very effective no matter what you give him.

For something besides weapons, Mitch is a tank. His armour is stronger than a normal tech, his shields are MUCH stronger than normal, and he’s probably able to take some weaker shots without any signs of damage and just keep going. It’s kind of a necessity when you’re going up against high level glitches alone. Plus, there’s nothing cooler than getting hit by a huge attack and literally no-selling it before absolutely obliterating your opponent with a massive attack of your own.

Same goes for buffs. Mitch doesn’t typically buff others unless he has to (He typically has Five and/or Zahra in the squad already doing that whenever he’s part of a team), but he does keep a good supply of various buffs and debuffs on hand, which are again, kind of a necessity for solo patrols. Like Five, he won’t hesitate to debuff his opponent or buff himself with powerful buffs/debuffs to even the playing field, or in his case tilt the playing field completely to his side.

And then there’s overclocking. Mitch can and will overclock, both because it’s effective and because it’s flashy, and unlike Miko he’s fully capable of doing it mid-combat and won’t forget to disable it before that 30 second overheat timer goes off. If Mitch lets an overclock last longer than normal, he’s either struggling considerably, or he’s about to win and wants it to look as cool, flashy and overkill-y as possible, not caring about his gauntlet shutting down because he’s confident that by the time it does, he will have already taken out every threat in the area.

Similar to Miko, Mitch is capable of fighting and being somewhat effective without a gauntlet, although not to the same degree or for the same reasons as Miko. For Mitch, it’s mostly because even without a gauntlet, he’s still able to throw a very strong punch. He’s been doing this for a year or two longer than any of the other techs, he absolutely excels at it and just has the extra experience from all of it to know how to fight without necessarily needing a gauntlet, plus he’s one of the most physically active techs in general behind Miko. A fight between him and anyone with a gauntlet is still HEAVILY weighted towards the person with the gauntlet and tech armour, and Miko could definitely beat him in a gauntlet-less fight, but he’s able to hold his own for at least a few minutes more than most.

Speaking of Miko, Miko may be faster and more agile than him, and her reflexes are inhuman by Mitch’s own standards, but she can’t consistently beat Mitch. Mainly because Mitch is both good enough at strategizing and using his mind to predict and read her, and even if she’s ultimately faster than him, he’s still more than fast enough to dodge and block her. Mitch can drag out a fight against her, and the longer a fight goes on, the more time someone has to plan out or strategize ways to beat her.

As for his weaknesses: Overconfidence in both his abilities and his equipment is a big one. Mitch will trash talk and make flashy, over-the-top moves even when it conflicts with his whole “most efficient way to win” mentality. He also has a tendency to think that he’s invincible or to believe that he’s so good there’s no way his opponent can actually hurt him, let alone win. This leaves him open to being proven spectacularly wrong at the worst possible moments. Or in the case of fights like BUDS, believe that he’s taken out the enemy when he hasn’t. The fact that he’s a tank doesn’t help with this mentality, and there’s plenty of times where he’s thought “My armour/shields should be more than strong enough to tank this” only to be painfully proven wrong.

And on top of that, Mitch will refuse to admit that he’s losing, even to himself, so if he gets in over his head it will take an actual miracle for him to admit that. Same thing for particular bad matchups. He’ll throw himself at targets that are far above his weight class either because he genuinely thinks he’s able to beat them or because he knows he can’t, but it’ll be a cold day in hell when Mitch Williams admits that to the rest of his team.

Of course, this does require that you have a favourable matchup or that you’re already winning against Mitch Williams, which is a lot harder than it sounds. He doesn’t hold his place at the top of the leaderboard from stealing glitches. That’s his hobby for when he’s exterminated every glitch in his own patrol area and still has a few hours before lunch. The man is the Glitch Doomslayer.

Zahra:

Fighting Zahra at close range vs fighting Zahra at long range are two completely different things.

If Zahra has range, you aren’t winning that fight. Straight up, you have a better chance at fighting Mitch than you do against Zahra at range. She has insane reflexes and aim with that sniper of hers, can shoot fast-moving projectiles out of the air and even if you can dodge one shot, that sniper has some kind of burst fire and she has that same insane aim with each and every shot. Even trying to rush to her location is harder than it seems because she can parkour away or portal herself to somewhere else and start sniping from there. Hydrogen Bomb vs Coughing Baby.

Up close though, Zahra is much weaker. Sure she has that sword and a minigun, but i headcanon that those two large and easy-to-hit-with weapons are compensating for a lack of skill up close. They’re meant to deal as much damage as possible for her while still being very hard to miss with, the sword due to its size and the minigun because it’s a minigun. Also worth noting, Zahra has a tendency to rely on buffs whenever she has to use that sword. Again, she’s compensating for a lack of ability to fight up close.

She CAN use her rifle at close to mid-range like in The Real Glitch Techs, but it’s not exactly meant for it. Despite having a very fast firing rate by sniper rifle standards, it is still a sniper rifle running off video game mechanics, and i headcanon that Zahra uses some perks and modifications that make it deal more damage with distance.

On the topic of the Minigun, it’s mostly meant to be used a mid-range when she has no other options, or if Zahra can see that her rifle just isn’t going to cut it in this situation. If an opponent gets into melee range it’s basically impossible to use and the time needed to get rid of it and swap to her sword can be a huge issue, and she has much better options for long range, so it’s main purpose is to take out massive or extremely numerous threats or more often, to lay down covering fire while Zahra backs up to a more comfortable range.

Zahra IS incredibly agile, that bit of her climbing into position in Alpha Leader shows it, but again, it’s mostly sniper-related skills. Parkour and climbing ability. Stuff that lets her get into good positions. She can dodge pretty well and navigate rough terrain easily, but its a bit hard to translate those parkour skills that utilize both hands and a lot of focus into something that almost always needs a free hand either holding a weapon or firing a gauntlet.

A large chunk of her loadout is also meant mostly for long range. Like her holographic decoys and the flashbang-blast-thing she used while deploying them for example. Against a human being the holograms won’t exactly fool anybody, but the flashbang is more than enough to stun someone while Zahra vanishes and gets back into sniper range. I mean, her entire loadout and build is a mix of Long Range Sniper, which already means she’s weaker up close, and Support, which typically in video games means you’re less effective damage-wise overall.

But Zahra isn’t just a sniper. She’s the techs go-to support. Sure Miko and Mitch have some buffs they use on themselves and Five is capable of filling the role of when Zahra isn’t present, but Zahra is THE Buff and Powerup Expert of the squad. Her buffs and powerups are stronger from the get-go, last longer, and she has way more of them both variety-wise and charge-wise before she has to wait for any cooldowns compared to any of the other techs. You need a Speed Boost? Zahra has several unique variants and speeds. You need healing? Here’s an adrenaline shot of plixel healing to keep you going for a bit longer. You need some unique or obscure buff like wall-climbing or elemental damage applied to your weapons? Zahra probably has it on hand.

Zahra DOES have debuffs, but they pale in comparison to her buffs and powerups. Similarly, she knows how to hack things well enough that she’s maxed out the hacking part of the tech tree, but isn’t exactly able hack something in the middle of combat. Zahra’s debuffs are either more things mostly meant to help her get out of melee (like the pause blast Mitch uses on Miko in Smashozaurs for example), or are much stronger debuffs and status effects meant to be delivered at long range through the barrel of her rifle for more effective support. Her hacks are similarly meant to be used and uploaded into targets while she’s either far away or in stealth, not in active combat. Unlike Haneesh, Zahra doesn’t exactly have quickhacks on-hand that are ready to be pulled out and used in combat.

And that does turn the tides quite a bit in melee combat. Because like I mentioned before, Zahra tends to rely on buffs when using her sword, and assuming she hasn’t been using up her buffs on everyone else up until now, she has a very large supply of powerups, many of which can stack, and all the reason to use them if she’s forced into melee. It turns out once you become twelve parts deluxe-quality plixel buff to one part everything else, it kind of doesn’t matter how bad you are at using a sword.

And that’s again just assuming she doesn’t manage to debuff you, vanish into stealth or literally just flashbang you before retreating to long range either on foot or via portal, at which point you’re fighting Zahra at range, and I cannot stress enough how you will not win in a long ranged fight against Zahra. The more distance there is between you and her, the better aim she has and the more damage she’s going to be able to output while you struggle to even figure out what roof she’s camping.

Haneesh:

Haneesh is the polar opposite of Zahra, which works well because they’re frequently paired up. Where Zahra needs long range to function properly, Haneesh works best up close. Haneesh isn’t the best of the best when it comes to raw up-close melee combat, that title goes to Miko, but that doesn’t mean he can’t absolutely excel up close. Mainly because where Zahra focuses on buffs and powerups, Haneesh focuses on debuffs and removing or cancelling out the effects of powerups.

Sure Haneesh has SOME buffs, but that’s nothing compared to his debuffs. Fighting Haneesh is an exercise in seeing just how many debuffs and hacks you can handle, because he will be using every single one in his arsenal. From default debuffs unlocked through the tech tree to spells, curses and abilities he got from games to entirely new debuffs he programmed himself. Your armour WILL have the durability of wet paper towels. Dodging WILL feel like trying to move through cement mix and Haneesh WILL give you several status effects on top of damage vulnerabilities to anything and everything under the sun. And like Zahra’s buffs, these debuffs will last longer and be stronger than what most other techs have access to.

He’s not dangerous in melee because he’s some demigod with reflexes fast enough to dodge bullets like Miko and Mitch, he’s dangerous because the moment you come within range of him you’re going to be suffering from a whole cocktail of debuffs making things like dodging, attacking or anything else you try to do extremely difficult.

And that’s without considering his ability to hack stuff. Haneesh has the hacking skill tree maxed out, and even though programming entirely new hacks or trying to mod something mid-combat is still a bad idea (best to wait until you’re not actively being shot at), he has a variety of quickhacks ready to go at any moment. Your gauntlet WILL jam, freeze up and suddenly have its fans turn off. Your visor WILL suddenly project a large black square across your vision like it’s trying to redact the entire room. Your controls WILL be inverted and your language settings WILL be changed to pig latin.

Haneesh also has access to Plixelcraft, albeit still more as a utility than any kind of weapon. Projecting walls, platforms, preset shapes, that kind of thing. He’s got more options than Five, but it’s still just presets you unlock in the tech tree, without the certification and training needed to be allowed to make the custom stuff. He mostly uses it to make cover and sniper perches for Zahra, but being able to suddenly spawn a wall between you and your opponent is always a good defensive option.

In terms of weapons, Haneesh is best at melee, (he can still shoot, being able to aim well is still a very big part of being a tech) but like Five doesn’t really have any specific weapon or type of weapon that he gravitates towards. Give him just about anything and he can use it, from swords, shields and hammers to spears and scythes to less conventional stuff like a giant pair of scissors. He’s very much used to counter-swapping to whatever weapon he thinks would work best against the current enemy, and would definitely switch weapons mid-fight if need be.

For weaknesses, Haneesh’s most glaring one is that he’s heavily reliant on those debuffs, and he has to build momentum in a fight. Sure once he gets them all stacked on his targets he’s basically playing on easy mode, but he needs to actually apply those debuffs and they don’t exactly auto-aim. Successfully applying one debuff to a target makes it easier and/or less dangerous to apply another, then another, and it snowballs from there. This becomes a problem when a target is too fast, hard to hit or has any other properties that make landing that first set of debuffs particularly difficult, and an absolutely massive problem when a glitch is resistant or immune to certain effects.

Bergy:

It’s Bergy.

Like what do you want me to say?

It’s Bergy.

In all seriousness, Bergy isn’t exactly built for combat. His main focus is scouting, tracking and taking out the low level glitches that the other Techs avoid in favour of the stronger stuff. He has a large collection of low-level glitch items and Emma’s lab probably owes him for about half the companion pets in there, but in combat saying he’s nothing to scoff at is a massive understatement.

Bergy is physically weaker than the others and unlike every other tech in Bailley, has actively bad aim with a gauntlet. I will admit that said bad aim is only when he’s panicking, but at the same time he panics rather easily, like when he’s forced into combat with a glitch with a higher level than 3. Even in terms of gaming skill, Bergy was canonically hired more for the reasons a real tech support person would be hired (polite conduct and being extremely helpful in some of Hinobi’s game forums) than for the high level gaming achievements of the others.

But at the same time, he’s not completely useless. For one, Bergy has some very good scanning and tracking capabilities so good luck hiding from him, but that’s not exactly combat stuff.

Bergy mostly supplies support through one simple trick. He’s an insanely high level due to his level 1 glitch, quest and achievement farming and as a result has roughly the same arsenal as Mitch, with basically everything unlocked, plus the powerful glitch items he’s collected. Sure if he tried to use any of it he’d probably fail, but he knows some techs who are much better than he is and is more than capable of tossing them the most powerful weapons he has access to. But again, this is supporting others, not fighting on his own.

For actual combat stuff, Bergy has two things going for him: One, he’s bad at aiming a gauntlet, but hand this guy a bow and he’s actually pretty darn good with it. No idea why, but he’s confident with his abilities enough to fight B.U.D.S with it.

For two: Also kind of taking this headcanon from B.U.D.S, but if you stick Bergy in a dangerous and stressful enough situation, that anxiety and stress somehow loops around to an incredible degree of calm and competence. Don’t get me wrong, internally the only thing going through his head is screaming and he’s so stressed i doubt he can even process what’s going on, but from an outsiders perspective Bergy just locked in and pulled a massive amount of confidence and competence seemingly out of his ass and is now just as effective as any other tech. Right until the fight ends and Bergy probably passes out with a few new grey hairs. Only thing is he has to be REALLY stressed for this to fully apply. Like B.U.D.S or “There’s a code green currently trying to kill him” kind of situation.

Combine that with the boost Bergy gets from being way higher level than he honestly should be and having access to some very powerful tools and armour because of that, making him a both deal more damage than you’d expect and be able to take a deceptive amount of damage himself, along with an insane amount of luck, and somehow, no matter the situation, Bergy always does just a bit better than you (and honestly he) would expect from him.

He’s still very weak, but if you expect him to only last 30 seconds in a fight, he’s going to last for 45. If you expect him to not be able to land a single shot, he’s going to land at least one and it’s going to hit a weak point. If you don’t think he’s capable of doing something, you’ll probably be right, but he’ll get way further than you expected.

I kind of think that he could beat Mitch in a 1v1, not because he’s skilled enough to do so, not even remotely close, but because he’s going to panic and blindly fire a bunch of gauntlet bolts, the only shot that lands will be a direct hit on Mitch’s earpiece, disabling his visor, and then Bergy will semi-accidentally reset Mitch (and himself somehow) when he gets close.

Nix:

Blank slate. Do what you want with him.

In my own headcanons for him, Nix is very skilled, but suffers from a lack of variety and equipment due to his level being way lower than it honestly should. It’s not his fault, he has a second job and literally doesn’t get to go on as many missions as everyone else. Plus even when he does get to go on patrol, he’s either fighting weaker glitches or on the night shift where glitches are a lot less common.

That being said, Nix may have a crippling lack of variety, but that also means that he’s very good with what he DOES have access to. In a fighting game he’d be the kind of character that has very few gimmicks or special properties, but very good base skills. He doesn’t have any huge and powerful weapons unlocked from the tech tree and he lacks all but a few of the most basic and low-level buffs and debuffs, but his gauntlet aim is incredibly accurate and he’s remarkably good with the one or two plixelcraft weapons he actually has unlocked (I’ve always envisioned him with a plixelcraft spear for some reason) simply because he’s honed himself to a fine edge with them from constant use, along with being forced to use subpar gear to deal with much stronger threats. He also has a handful of glitch items from Bergy that he makes frequent use of.

Of course, this is before he got his plixelcraft certification. Now Nix has a gimmick, and he’s steadily improving at it as time goes on.

Nix is the point where plixelcraft becomes more than just walls and platforms, because he can make just about anything if he has enough time. Sure, he can’t make anything new mid-combat, plixelcraft is like hacking in that it needs your full attention to use effectively, and his custom-made plixelcraft weapons are a lower quality than the stuff from the tech tree (obviously. That stuff is made, tested and regularly updated by Hinobi employees whose entire job consists of working with plixels and making this kind of stuff), but the sky is the limit when it comes to what he can make.

He still works best with his basic gear, but now his lack of variety in the tech tree is way, WAY less of an issue because he can make whatever he needs. Sure Miko’s plixelcraft hammer from the tech tree is more durable, weighted better and does more damage, but Nix can still make his own hammer if he needs it. Nix’s plixelcraft minigun does less damage and overheats faster than Zahra’s, but it’s still a minigun. He can also make tools that aren’t a part of the tech tree like a crowbar or whatever else he might need, as long as he’s spent some time beforehand actually programming it.

And there’s more, because Nix can also modify his own custom stuff. Sure you can add modifiers and mess with your stuff from the tech tree for more damage or faster speeds or a whole variety of different effects, but Nix can pull out just about anything you could possibly think of. A sword that floats around and attacks whatever Nix pings, a minigun that he’s managed to make into a turret, arrows that curve towards their targets, a second layer of (albeit lower quality) tech armour over his real armour for extra protection, or literally just summoning a bunch of floating spears in mid-air and launching them at an opponent like his name is Undyne The Undying. You have no idea what you can expect from him in a given fight, and his only limit is whatever he’s been able to program on his gauntlet.

And then there’s his ACTUAL loadout, or at least what he’s trying to go for. Just like how Bergy goes for a kind of scout loadout that can easily track opponents, Nix attempts to be a trapper that can hold down and restrict the movements of his targets, making him work well with Bergy. Plixelcraft barriers and walls that are a lot more custom-made than the tech tree’s preset options, plixelcraft restraints literally spawning on you to hold you down, plixelcraft traps that Nix can scatter all over the place, and he can always purposely mess up some of his code to make glitch-bait for root forms and some weaker or damaged glitches.

Sure, he has basically no buffs or debuffs, those aren’t a part of his plixelcraft training, but he makes up for it with his own custom made gear. Pause Debuff? Plixelcraft Chains that can hold a glitch in place. Strength buff? Plixelcraft Exosuit or custom-made Armour Skin. Healing? Regenerating your armour and strengthening your shields. It’s not the same thing, but it’s Nix’s equivalent to it.