User blog comment:RA2/Robot Wars Rankdown: Series 3/@comment-32166543-20180412190657

Well let's get this going.

15: The Big Cheese - Well I'm starting very controversial here aren't I? Yes, the "best robot to fail to win a heat" or "the robot that could have won any other heat in the series" bottom of the top. Well simply put, this is the most sluggish robot I have ever seen for this time, from movement speed to weapon, this robot simply got lucky to get past the second round, as they managed to catch Anorakaphobia at the best moment

14: Thing 2 - it was effective wedge sure.. at least in looks. But its tendency to rear up and the fact that it had no truly effective weapons, apart from the wedge, which as mentioned, rared up way too much.

13: Facet - A part of me wanted to put this higher, due to having enough power to flip a house robot, but really, it's a flipper that can't self right and that alone makes it just not as good as it could or should be in my eyes sadly.

12: 101 - I'm sad that I have to put my childhood favourite so low, I really am, but 101 gets a bit of an overdone rep. The joke of a "curse of 101" really is true, just in the opposite way round, it isn't their opponents getting cursed to failure, it's 101 getting extremely lucky, from King Buxton catching fire, to *almost* beating Hypno-Disc due to the robot being worn down, to Panic Attack pitting themselves, 101 got as far as they did due to sheer luck.

11: X-Terminator - Another favourite put fairly low, this time being the heat finalist that almost won. Key word being "almost". It's not this low because it lost in the heat final (although battle records do play a tiny part in my final ranking) but it's this low because, despite being a very good robot for the time, it managed to drive into the side wall from the word "activate" and basically feel apart after a single slam.

10: Pitbull - I'm surprised Pitbull ended up so high, but that is how these things work, I didn't expect Mortis to be my number 1 in series 2 Rankdown, to put it simply, Pitbull is a very good robot, with powerful enough jaws and even showing brief dominance over Fire Storm, but sadly, everything else leaves something to be desired, especially the self righting, and at this point, that was becoming something you needed to play with the big bots.

9: Mace 2 - Speaking of "'ave you got a Srimech? Course we haven't!" we have Mace 2, the team that were so confident they didn't need a Srimech, that they basically mocked anyone who used them, oh boy would they be eating their hats afterwards, Despite this, Mace 2 was a very good robot, I just cannot move past the lack of any kind of Srimech

8: Panic Attack - and here's the reigning champion! Vastly improved from Series 2, but that's about it, remaining on the back foot for all its fights, and being very hard to control for whatever reason.

7: Behemoth - It saddens me to think that this is the highest Behemoth's gonna get for a while now... but Behemoth, again was vastly improved, much like Panic Attack. But sadly I can't use bias for my favoruite robot and the lack of a Srimech again makes Behemoth lose alot of points for me. Maybe in Series 4 it will do better, and if not, the reboot. I'm holding out hope for them.

6: Gravedigger - Now this was the real wildcard, I had no idea where Gravedigger was going to place in the final few, but here it is, with a very potent weapon and managing to fight the fourth place winners in a competition that's close enough that people still get up in arms about it over 15 years later, apart from the low speed, it's hard to think of many bad points about this one - the last 5 just outclass it.

5: Steg-O-Saw-Us - Now we've gotten into the absolutley brilliant territory (well for me at least, if Steg ends up in the double figures that first sentence will be a bit awkward). Steg was an amazing pushbot, arguably the best one until Hoppit came along, but really, pushing is all it can do, and against the other four, that was never going to be enough.

4: Hypno-Disc - You know, going into this, I knew that Hypno would be in my top 3, I was certain that it would go like this, but here we are, with Hypno falling just shy of my top 3. Why? Well yes it was absolutely game changing with its weapon power... but that's all it had and the weapon really diminished over time. That and the classic lack of a self righter makes this disc spin into a sad and early stop.

3: Fire Storm - and here's the actual Third place coming at my third in the rankdown, something about that feel very right you know? Fire Storm was a truly amazing step up from Groundhog and it's easy to see why the team kept with that base in future, convincingly defeating all of their opponents up until they faced one of the top 2 best robots in the series, Fire Storm is bound to be a top contender no matter what series they're in and this was the best debut they could ask for.

2: Chaos 2 - Yep, I'm putting the champion in at number 2, Chaos 2 was an absolutely perfect robot in every sense of the word at this time, with speed, power, enough defense, there was nothing that even came close to touching it, let along beating it! Well, apart from one... (and if these two end up not together then this sentence is ruined

1: Razer - Not just because I share hometowns with this beautiful robot (Go Bournemouth!), but because only one robot stopped Razer in series 3, and it wasn't even due to the robot they faced that they lost. Think about the trophies Razer won in this series, International league and World championship first, both showing that Razer dominated any fight it was in, even against the champion! The Pinball, that means that Razer has the best driving out of the robots in that competition, the only meaningful trophy it missed out on, was the UK Champion, and I think that excluding any freak accidents like what happened (Razer's claw retraced perfectly every other time) Razer could have won with no trouble at all. And that's why it's my number 1.