Mechanic

* Regular
* Christmas

Rushes into battle with overwhelming strength and speed!

* Mechanic
* Christmas Mechanic

 **Mechanic** is an old man who still has enough strength to fight against zombies. He is armed with a large rusted sledgehammer and a red wrench, and dressed in blue mechanic overalls, a gray T-shirt, dark brown gloves with red cuffs, and a black automobile repair shop cap.

**Christmas Mechanic** is Mechanic's first exclusive skin. He is armed with a large, rusted sledgehammer and a red wrench and dressed in an ugly, short-sleeve red and gray Christmas tree sweater, black pants, dark brown gloves with red highlights, a gray and dark gray trapper hat, and a brown headband with a pair of reindeer antlers.

He can be unlocked for 20 coins after reaching player level 3.

## Functionality

### Basics

Mechanic is a **fighter**, meaning he engages in close-quarters combat, and can destroy the barricade.

Like most fighters, Mechanic is a glass cannon, having low health and base damage, yet fast attack speed. His crits are also landed swiftly. He has a low courage cost, yet takes a moderate amount of time to prepare. Mechanic's movement speed is very high, more so when he has his sledgehammer.

Some time after dying, Mechanic will turn into Tipsy.

### Perks and Abilities

Mechanic's critical hits knock enemies back.

When summoned, Mechanic will dash to enemies and slam his sledgehammer at them, dealing 3x of his listed damage in a guaranteed critical hit (which also knocks enemies back, and is subject to critical hit damage multipliers). He is only able to use this attack once, after which he resorts to hitting enemies with a wrench. While rushing, Mechanic will ignore hazards like fire pools.

Upon reaching level 13, Mechanic's special can be unlocked, which always resets his sledgehammer attack upon killing an enemy with it. Considering this ability's chain hit potential, it increases Mechanic's already high usefulness to greater heights, making him a very cheap and effective unit for clearing out swarms of light zombies, and groups of enemies with medium health. Obviously, it won't work against enemies with health higher than 288 (the highest damage Mechanic's sledgehammer can do if maxed-out) or enemies who are protected by Medic's shields. However, it doesn't means that you can't use him to deal single bursts of damage anymore. To further increase the power of this ability, use the Fury buff to double the damage. With it, Mechanic can chain off enemies with much higher health.

It should be noted that this perk is buggy due to the short 0.5 second animation. If the Mechanic's target dies before the hit connects, the ability does not apply.

## Gameplay

### Main Campaign

Mechanic is a very strong melee unit primarily due to his sledgehammer attack, which has triple base damage and is a guaranteed critical hit. This is excellent for him simply due to Mechanic being able to deliver a quick burst of high damage that can be used to swiftly eliminate specific enemies or heavily damage a high health enemy, essentially spearheading attacks along with other melee units. This combined with his low prep time makes it spammable as well, especially great for stages with large swarms constantly pressuring the Bus. This is not mentioning his SA, which makes him a top tier unit to bring late game despite his very cheap cost.

Mechanic's sledgehammer has slight crowd control, being able to damage any number of foes in a very small area in front of where he slams it. He deals knockback whenever he lands a critical hit and this applies to his additional damage attack too. The sledgehammer attack has slightly longer range, allowing Mechanic to kill zombies who explode on death with less risk. However, he has no self-preservation while charging and will run through fire pools to reach his target. If Mechanic is killed and revived by Paramedic Nancy, he will regain his Sledgehammer even after it has been used.

Although it is rarely realistic, under the right conditions, Mechanic can successfully eliminate Foreman, Energy Sphere, and even Charged Zombie with his sledgehammer before they manage to attack him. The attack usually relies on pure luck, requiring extremely precise timing and positioning of an aforementioned enemy, so it's unadvised to actively rely on it.

### Skirmish

In League, Mechanic is a versatile enough unit thanks to his powerful attack, ease of use, and low courage cost, almost never being a bad choice in any composition. His perk can eliminate almost any unit without a shield in a single blow if his damage is high enough. In some situations, his willingness to run through fire pools can be an upside as he will not hesitate to go for an otherwise unlikely kill. Depending on his position, he can be used to eliminate specific enemies as he always targets the closest enemy unit, making positioning key to his effectiveness. His special ability can extend that strategy's effectiveness even further, potentially allowing him to kill more opponents. However, he is still very vulnerable to ranged units due to his lack of bullet resistance. He is especially susceptible to being killed by another enemy Mechanic, bringing encounters between them down to luck as to who delivers the first strike.

### Item Sets

Mechanic can get a massive boon out of item sets that benefit his sledge. This essentially comes down to Ranger and Gentleman, with the latter not being restrained by its condition, knowing how Mechanic's extra blow attack works. Ranger is a fine option for mid-game, providing an effective x1.1 damage bonus. Meanwhile, Gentleman accentuates Mechanic's role as a burst damager, providing a x1.5 boost to *all* attacks. It's an overall best option for the old man, and is only made better by having access to legendary-tier items.

Like most units, Mechanic benefits more from preparation time decrease watches. However, with him being a fighter, it's highly advised to seek out agility as an extra bonus on multiple other items, so it can be increased up to at least 90 and increases his DPS in practice. +% critical damage books are the best choice simply for boosting his raw damage on his sledgehammer, since +% melee fails to boost Mechanic's base damage by a lot and critical chance doesn't matter due to it being a guaranteed.

## Skins and Synergies

Mechanic only has one titular team synergy.

Thanks to being an all-around effective unit, Mechanic is never a bad option in his namesake team. While he can't abuse its synergies like Hillbilly does due to his long preparation time, he still offers a lot for the team, making the lineup stronger than it would have been.

## Trivia

* Mechanic's sledgehammer attack's hit registration has a number of bugs and gimmicks which require perfect timing, or inexplicable conditions:
	+ Mechanic might deal only the regular amount of additional damage to an enemy. It happens when they stand very close to the barricade, and so when Mechanic strikes his blow it registers on barricade first, causing it to deal only x3 damage to all enemies in the AoE either.
	+ Chain hits from Mechanic's special ability might end despite him killing an enemy.
	+ Mechanic might land a blow with graphic blood splatter appearing per a usual critical hit, but either deal no damage or strike nothing in the first place.
* Judging by the cutscene in Mission 1, it's possible that the man Bill calls out to as "Joe" is Mechanic, as the area of the mission takes place outside of a vehicle repair shop.
* There is a visual inconsistency with the Christmas Mechanic skin as there is a single frame during Mechanic's additional damage attack where his sleeves will suddenly revert to its regular appearance before immediately returning to the skin's appearance. A single blue pixel is also visible.
* The Christmas Mechanic skin in-game ended up looking different from its appearance in the update banner where it was first shown.

## Gallery

Mechanic rushing with his sledgehammer.Mechanic slamming his sledgehammer down.Christmas Mechanic rushing with his sledgehammer.Christmas Mechanic slamming his sledgehammer down.Christmas Mechanic as seen in the 3.0.0 update banner.

 Humans
 TMF Squad