The Messenger is a boss that was added with the release of the game.
Design
Messenger has a light purple quadrilateral base, which is shaped like a rhombus. Its base is based on the Crusher Fragment. It is a crasher, just like most Nest Defender bosses. On top of the base, it has an auto Streamliner cannon. On the two sides of its base, it has two drone spawners, which spawn crushers.
Technical
Messenger is a medium-sized boss with medium speed. Its main ammunition is streamliner bullets, which are strong by themselves, because of high damage and penetration, but also because of the slight spread. Messenger shoots these bullets at a pretty fast rate.
Also, Messenger constantly spawns yellow-colored crushers. When there are no players nearby, these crushers will spin around Messenger, and when there are players nearby, they will try to ram into the player and deal some damage. They are similar to drones in many aspects. Crushers of Messenger look like Ice Crushers, but yellow and without the hue and glow.
Spawning
Spawning by a randomizer.
Countering
Both types of Messenger's ammunition are powerful. Although Messenger does not have a lot of health, it will still likely kill you before you manage to kill it. The first problem are bullets, or bullet spread to be precise. Messenger has strong bullets, but they can be penetrated. Usually, you would move in a left-right pattern to dodge most bullets, but this does not extremely well with Messenger. The second problem are the crushers. They constantly spawn, and if you ignore them, they will slowly sap your health, and what's worse, they neglect your regeneration.
In order to penetrate the bullets, you have to use a really high-firepower tank with some spread, so that you can out-penetrate the bullets. Crushers will also come from flanks, and deal decent damage. Messenger moves relatively fast, but you may stand some chance to escape if you have a low-speed tank. The spread of bullets and high penetration is required in a fight with Messenger. Macheptionist is an excellent example; bullet spread, extreme penetration. Macheptionist, if skilled enough, can kill a Messenger in solo. While both the Macheptionist and the Messenger will both take damage, the Macheptionist will just take far less damage, while Messenger will take more. Tanks with heavy penetration and some spread can also kill a Messenger if skilled enough.
The Engineer or Musketeer branch is surprisingly effective against Messenger. Custom blocks do a lot of damage by themselves, bullets will eliminate a good part of Crushers, and if one can avoid the Messenger's bullets, you can easily defeat the boss. In order to avoid the bullets, you have two ways to go:
- Find an indestructible rock. Since Messenger is Nest Defender, it will usually stay in a pentagon nest, and there are a lot of rocks there. Lure Messenger near a rock. Next, start moving to the opposite side of the rock and throw blocks on both sides. Then, slowly advance to the Messenger. If it closes, retreats, and repeat.
- Firstly, create yourself a fort of 5 blocks. Then, start to advance to Messenger, while maintaining blocks around you. When Messenger will lock on you, try to force it to ram into blocks while launching blocks in the boss. Messenger will die before you will run out of blocks. Always hide behind blocks while fighting. This method is pretty fast and can kill Messenger within ~20 seconds.
Gallery
