RoaDiE wrote on 03/15/15 at 21:36:13:
Might do a relic guide in future too!
The below might be a useful starting point. I wrote it back in 2005 for TMHO players who were confused about relics. I did a quick scan before posting this and edited out some TMHO examples with TMBO examples, but it might still have some parts that are from a TMHO perspective.
Hopefully it's still useful.
Guide
Relics 101 and 102
Relics add some of the deepest and most complex fun in the game, IF you know how to use them. Unfortunately, few get that far with them before giving up on them, and to be completely honest the TMHO booklet wasn’t as helpful or explanatory as the TMBO one was about the game. For this post, first I’m going to combine the descriptions from the TMBO and TMHO manuals, and then provide a few powerful strategies and combos for relics.
Finally, each relic will contain a basic classification stating whether that relic is primarily an offensive or defensive relic.
Relics and what they do:
(Note: The TMBO booklet uses slightly different, and cooler, names for the relics than the TMHO one does. Because I prefer the TMBO’s, and have used them for years and so am used to them, I will list the TMBO name with the TMHO name in parenthesis, also, new information from the TMBO booklet that wasn’t in the TMHO will be in all caps.)
Defiance (Shield relic) <Defensive Relic>: Reduces damage taken by 42%. THE PLAYER POSSESSING THE DEFIANCE RELIC CAN’T BE FROZEN OR CAUGHT ON FIRE.
Restoration (Health Relic) <Defensive Relic>: Sets players max health at 200% (In other words, doubles your car’s armor total), slowly regenerates health over time. Note; TMHO contains a Restoration glitch. As it should work, if a player has only 25 points of health left, and gets the relic, it should temporarily double their health to 25, and max armor possible, but once the relic is gone you’re left with little health again. Now, in TMHO, non-host players keep the health gained.
As an important note, the slow health regeneration works faster when your car is standing still.
Slayer (Damage Relic) <Offensive Relic>: All weapons do double damage.
Mega Guns <Offensive Relic>: Gives player mega gun bullets which slowly regenerate up to a maximum of 100 shots. When mega gun bullets run out, the vehicle will shoot unlimited enhanced machine guns. Increases the damage of machine guns and bullets gain homing ability.
Special Regen <Offensive Relic>: Regenerates the vehicle’s special at a faster rate (i.e. all special weapons in TMHO regenerate every 30 seconds, but with this relic they regenerate every ten). The possessor also regenerates energy and turbo.
Backlash (Reflect Relic) <Defensive Relic>: WHEN SHIELDED, weapons fired at the possessor will reflect back upon the player who fired them. As an added bonus, the possessor’s shields consume only ¼ of the AA bar (i.e. you can do four shields with one bar of AA instead of the usual one shield with a second shield a few seconds later).
Assassin (Deception Relic) <Offensive Relic/Defensive>: This relic allows the player to cloak when motionless. The possessor’s vehicle will decloak when he fires, and also his health bar will always appear to other players to be full, even if he has only five points of health left..
Evade (No Lock Relic) <Defensive Relic>: Limits the weapon lock distance to 150 ft, Buster always locks, and Backlash will lock up to 600 ft.
Blitzkrieg (Fast Fire Relic) <Offensive Relic>: Doubles the firing rates for all weapons. The possessor gets double the pick up amount (From a maximum of thirty weapons in inventory to 60, and every pick up obtained gives you twice as many – so instead of two homing missiles you get four – four swarms – etc.).
Parasite (Life Sucker Relic) <Defensive Relic/Offensive>: Returns a portion of damage done to opponents back to the possessor as health. This relic will also transfer some energy and turbo from opponent into their own AA and turbo bars.
Demolition (Destruction Relic) <Offensive Relic>: Applies area effect damage to all weapons (i.e. all weapons now react like napalm, with fire and bounce affect).
Buster <Defensive/Offensive>: When an opposing opponent is hit with any kind of weapon from the Buster, their relic is dropped and they are unable to carry another relic for a considerable length of time.
Basic Strategies with each relic:
Each of these comments on the individual relics will also include comments on the relics they counter. You’ll notice that different relics often counter each other (slayer counters defiance and visa versa). While this may not make sense at first, it’s because each relic has the potential to stop the other with the right type of strategy. This fact only goes to further show how much depth and brilliance relics add to the game.
DEFIANCE RELIC:
This relic is one of my all time favorites and easily one of the best defensive relics there is, even more than Backlash. While Backlash is incredibly powerful if timed right, once the shields are gone it is relatively useless, further, shields only last for a short time and a smart player can attack Backlash with no worries when shields drop.
Defiance never ceases to work, and prevents you from being affected by freezes or badly damaged or bounced around by napalm or napalm type attacks.
Slayer: With the 42% reduction in damage, the weapons from a player using Slayer are only slightly more powerful than conventional weapons. Further, because you are now impervious to freezes, but the Slayer user isn’t, you can easily freeze the crazed Slayer player and unload on him with a healthy can of whoop-ass.
Mega Guns: While they still can hurt you, if you duck and weave while holding Defiance, and with the added 42% protection, they won’t be able to deal you a killing blow very easily. Because of this, and because a Mega Gun user is usually over confident, you can easily charge and take them out without them being able to so much as scratch your paint.
Backlash: A backlash player, even if they return a full spread of your reversed swarms, won’t be able to do near the damage they hoped to. However, the smarter Defiance player will only fire a homing or two to get the Backlash player to put up his shields, and then watch and wait for an attack until their shields have dropped. With the 42% reduction, the Defiance player can confidently wait for this moment without suffering any major damage during the wait.
RESTORATION:
Because Restoration doubles your current health and armor, it is an excellent tool for a small car to suddenly have the armor of a big car, or for a big car to have the armor of a God.
Further, it will slowly regenerate health over a period of time, and since most of us turn off health in a game it becomes incredibly useful as one of the only legitimate ways to restore lost health points.
It is a good defensive choice against Slayer when Defiance is not available, but not quite as wonderful a defense against Mega Guns.
SLAYER:
Slayer really needs no type of explanation for basic strategies, which is one of the reasons why it is so popular. As a relic it is a cool one but on the most basic of levels not one of the most complex until you start thinking of it in terms of combos.
Basically, a Slayer player looks for moments when another player, preferably players that aren’t using defensive relics (Backlash, Evade, Defiance, Health Regen), but instead offensive relics (Blitzkrieg, Demolition, Assassin, Special Regen, Mega Guns, or even Buster) and quickly deal a killing blow before they even have time to see him.
MEGA GUNS RELIC:
Mega Guns works in much the same way Slayer does in terms of strategy. The primary goal is to use it and use it fast so you kill a player before they have time to think.
As a pro-tip, elevation is a mega Gun’s user’s greatest weapon. At ground level the weapon will be obstructed by all sorts of obstacles like dirt hills, trees, cars, buildings, bad targets, etc. However, its homing ability increases the more your car becomes elevated, and it becomes increasingly impossible to dodge (a weapon raining down on your car’s roof is a lot harder to avoid than a weapon headed for your bumper). Good examples of Mega Gun’s crippling effects at high altitudes includes firing it down into the valley from the top of Mini Skyskrapers, or elevating your car on one of Asylum’s many ramps and firing off its edge at unsuspecting players.
When using elevation to its advantage, a Mega Gun user can kill the most heavily armored cars in a matter of seconds.
Defiance: With the use of elevation, Mega Guns might be the only thing short of using the buster that will stop a confident Defiance player dead in his tracks.
SPECIAL REGEN RELIC:
This is one of those pro relics, which at first most will pass by as useless, but in time come to see as extremely valuable.
Special Regen relic is a linking relic, or a replenishing relic. After you have exhausted your specials from Slayer, your AA from Backlash, your turbo with Evade, or whatever it may be, you can quickly pick this relic up to replenish your supply. A Sweetooth (or any other car) will get three specials in the time it normally takes to get one, quickly have shields again for another backlash attack, or once again have turbo to go charge a bunch of opponents or make a quick escape.
It is extremely useful and full of combo possibilities.