How to play Mech in Set 3.5

The Super-Mech that you get from fielding 3 Mech-Pilots has been a fan favorite ever since Set 3 released. At the start of combat Annie, Rumble and Fizz will combine into a Garen Mech, who benefits from their traits, items and stats. He will also cleave with his auto attacks and cast a powerful Ability for massive amounts of magic damage. There are a ton of different comps and interactions based around this mechanic, so hopefully this guide will help you to find success in the future!

When you have Annie, Rumble and Fizz on your board, you will see a light blue Hex appear on your board. This is an indicator for where the Mech will spawn at the start of combat. The game will try to find the middle between the three closest pilots, but this is also useful for another mechanic.

Once the trait is active, you can decide which Pilots will be part of the Mech based around the indicator. For example if you add a second Annie then you can separate Fizz from the rest of the team and he won’t be part of the Mech. This can be useful if you have a Fizz 3 Star and would prefer to run him as a unit instead of wasting him as part of the Mech.

There are three possible traits that can be activated for your Mech without Emblems:

• Annie -> Sorcerer
• Rumble -> Demolitionist
• Fizz -> Infiltrator

Since Sorcerer is a global trait, activating it doesn’t make a difference for this mechanic. Rumble on the other hand with his Demolitionist trait is a lot more powerful. If you add Ziggs or Gangplank to activate the trait, then the powerful Mech Ability will in fact stun everyone who gets hit. This is why you will often see Gangplank as a popular choice in late game for any Mech Setup.

Fizz and Infiltrator is a tiny bit more complicated. So in short, if you add a second Infiltrator like Shaco to activate the trait, then the Mech WILL NOT jump to the enemy backline. However he will get the Attack Speed from the trait, which also gets renewed for every take down. It is in fact possible to make your Mech jump to the enemy backline, but this requires an Infiltrator Emblem on either Annie or Rumble. Though this is a bit of a meme strategy, the main thing for you to remember is that activating Infiltrator is beneficial for your Mech if you want to utilize the bonus attack speed.

The core concept of the Mech is that it will add all the items from every Space Pilot into an item pool and select three of those items at random. To bypass the randomness of this mechanic you will often see players run a maximum of three items to ensure the Mech always gets the perfect items.

It does not matter if you spread out the items or put them all onto one unit. The most popular choice is simply to put all your items on Rumble, as he is stronger than Annie early mid / game and Fizz usually joins much later.

This rule will only apply to non-unique items. It is not possible for the Mech to receive two unique items like Edge of Night. Emblems, Artifacts and Radiant Items are all viable options, which allows you to make your Mech extremely powerful if you find the right setup.

One item interaction that should be highlighted has to do with Thief’s Gloves as it is currently (Patch 14.2) behaving rather weird. The expected behavior would be for the game to consider the two item rolls from Thief’s Gloves as the viable item choices, but this is not happening.

If you give one of your Space Pilots a Thief’s Gloves then the game can choose any rolled item twice and it is also possible for the Gloves themselves to be an option as well. So if your Thief Glove’s Rolled Warmog and Stoneplate then it’s possible for the Mech to roll 2x Warmog and 1x Stoneplate or 1x Warmog, 1x Stoneplate and 1x Thief Gloves.

The Gloves themselves only give some HP and critical strike chance, so if they are selected they will not roll any additional items. Nevertheless this interaction has some pretty interesting implications, especially if you select the Augment Roll the Dice to receive a radiant Thief’s Gloves.

Your Mech can now receive three Radiant Items, which is quite powerful in mid game. It's not necessarily overpowered, since you can still low roll either the items themselves or the Mech choices. In case you’re wondering, the Ornn version for Thief Gloves does not have this interaction and an Artifact cannot appear twice.

One question that hasn't been answered yet is which items does the Mech actually want? Back in Set 3.5 he wanted items like Hand of Justice, Titan's Resolve and Quicksilver but these items were selected back then because of Dodge Chance and Bloodthirster not having Omnivamp.

With modern TFT items you have a lot more choices. If you want to play it safe then Bloodthirster, Titan's Resolve and Quicksilver is a build usually worth aiming for. The Mech has a ton of AD and will cleave nearby units with his attacks, often resulting in him dealing more physical than magic damage.

Since Set 3.5 has a crazy amount of crowd control it's somewhat required to build Quicksilver to make sure that he remains relevant in the fight. Unfortunately Quicksilver will not protect him against Urgot, but if you want your Mech to deal most of his damage from attacks, then it’s an item you don’t want to skip.

You can also try to build him more as a tank with items like Crownguard + Steadfast Heart, since both items have great synergy and thanks to his high HP pool he will receive a massive shield at the start of the fight.

Finally let’s cover interesting Setups to run with your Mech. The most basic setup is known as the Mech Bus and it focuses on Viktor with a lot of utility units and an AD Mech as its core. In mid game you have Space Pilots with Viktor, Shaco, Karma and Soraka to activate Infiltrator, Dark Star and Mystic. In the late game you can add Gangplank, Ekko, Aurelion and Lulu to cap out your board. Viktor is usually running Blue + Morello for his core and has the Mech Clean up the board.

This comp used to be a lot more popular, but it was nerfed over the course of Set 3.5, so it’s not as easy to pull off anymore. The core concept here is to run 4 Infiltrators and usually roll for Zed 3 Star and Shaco 3 Star to take care of the enemy backline while your Mech will act as a tank in the frontline to make sure nobody is focusing on your carries.

If you’re looking for something fun to try, then this comp is definitely a great choice. This is a very wacky comp, as the entire setup is based around making your Mech the sole carry. You are running 4 Celestial units so you can skip Omnivamp items and focus purely on damage, meaning items like Infinity Edge, Last Whisper and Quicksilver. You also want to add Mystic and connect Karma to your Mech so he gets a massive Attack Speed buff throughout the fight. It’s a bit hard to get this comp to work, but once it’s rolling it’s hilarious to watch.

The mech remains a popular choice for the Set Revival and if you spot an early Fizz then you should definitely considering playing around Mech-Pilots. Especially in early mid game the Mech is unmatched in power and allows you to easily stabilize and transition into a late game comp. There are tons of other fun ways to play around this trait, from running AP and Crit items to make his ability one shot the enemy team, to running a Star Guardian Emblem for True Damage auto attacks. While not everything will work out in late game, you will still end up with a game worth remembering.