~ Spoilers for Armored Core 6 below! ~
Handler Walter is the final boss inArmored Core 6if you choose the Liberator of Rubicon route. This fight isn’t as mechanically demanding as theArquebus Balteus fight. Instead, it’s a tragic final push across the finish line into the game’s ‘good’ ending.
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If you aren’t prepared for it, this fight can be a slog to get through. Walter’s weapons are obnoxious to dodge, and its attacks pack an astonishing amount of punch to them. With the right movement and the right know-how, you’ll be able to breeze through this fight. Your emotions may still be in tatters afterward, but at least “you’ve found a friend” in your Armored Core 6 journey.
Handler Walter Weapons Overview
Here are the weapons Handler Walter can use against you and how to dodge them:
Description
How To Dodge
IB-C03W2: WLT 101 (Coral Oscillator)
When it’s uncharged, the Coral Oscillator will strike like a Pulse Sword in front of it. When it is charged, the Coral Oscillator will sweep a beam horizontally at the player. While your AC will chirp an alarm, it usually creates that sound halfway through the sweep, making it unreliable.
IB-C03W4: NGI 028 (Coral Shield)
Walter activates the Coral Shield and holds it up for a while. This will reduce damage coming at him and reduce impact damage so it’s harder to stagger him.
IB-C03W1: WLT 011 (Coral Rifle)
This rifle has three modes: uncharged, level 1 charge, and level 2/full charge. Uncharged shots fire like a typical beam rifle, with a fast projectile that heads toward the player. Level 1 charge will have your AC sound a short alarm, followed by Walter firing a faster and stronger beam at you. At full charge, this rifle will fire a massive, multi-hitting beam at the player.
IB-C03W3: NGI 006 (Coral missile)
Walter fires a coral missile from his back unit. The missile will aggressively track the player and explode into a heavily damaging AoE on contact. Get familiar with dodging this because you will most likely see this in burst-heavy PvP builds.
Recommended Build Against Handler Walter
This build is made fortanking through Handler Walter’s attacks, putting him into Stagger, and then bursting down his AP as soon as possible.To that end, the Miniguns and Zimmermans make their return for theiramazing Impact damage and Direct Hit damage. The rest of the parts are to support a large body and give you as much AP as possible to work with. Finally,your back weapons are a choice between a pair of Songbirds or a pair of Needle Launchers.Both of them have high Direct Hit and regular damage, and the choice between them for this fight is down to preference and what parts you want to run.
If you’re interested in PvP, parts of this build can be surprisingly effective against other players. Just be careful because it has a bad match-up againstevery other meta buildin the game.
As an example of how effective this build is against Walter, here’s a video where our test pilot for today was extremely unfamiliar with tank treads and was still able to defeat Handler Walter on their second try:
Best Strategy Against Handler Walter
This fight will most likely deal more emotional damage to you than AP damage. Walter has been with you since the beginning, and putting down this version of him is a heartbreaking moment. But, one way or another, we have to free Walter from what Arquebus has done to him.
Handler Walter will rotate between firing his two beam rifles and Coral missiles. If you’re using the recommended build above, this strategy wants to brute force your way through these attacks so you can keep building up Impact on Walter.Constantly circle straight around Walter to dodge the beam rifle shots and the Coral Rifle’s charged shot. Circle around to his back or fly vertically into the air to dodge the Oscillator’s sweeps. If you’re not on tank treads, move vertically upward and free-fall downward to dodge his rifle shots and charged beams. This kind of movement will also help you dodge the beam sweeps from his Coral Oscillator.
Besides the beams,be sure to keep a sharp eye out for when Walter uses Assault Armor.You have three options at that moment: back out to safety, use your Assault Armor when you see the startup of his Assault Armor, or Assault Boost and kick Walter. Assault Boost works here because you’re using its 40% Impact damage reduction to power through Walter’s Assault Armor and get a free kick in. If you’re on tetrapod legs and tank treads, your stability should be high enough to shake this attack off and keep going.
The hardest part about this fight is that Handler Walter has more AP than you’d expect. Walter has three repair kits before you hit his final AP bar, so keep an eye on how many times his AP refills and stick close to him.
