This video contains two recent matches I had with the LV2 Rick Dias on Gundam Battle Operation 2. It is a 500-550 cost general with high HP, good midrange shooting ability, decent stun accumulation and moderate frontlining ability. Its weaknesses would be slow turning speed, low melee resistance, below average boosting speed and poor melee damage. This is a suit which is pretty well balanced at the cost of not really excelling at anything, other than being nice in a shootout. It used to be the best overall 500 cost general for quite a while until suits like Galluss-J were added, but powercreep has made Rick Dias more mid tier in comparison with modern 500. It still can do work though if you can pick your fights and switch between shooting or opportunistic frontlining as needed, so I hope that you enjoy watching!
The primary weapon of the LV2 Rick Dias is a clay bazooka with 2415 power, 6 ammo, 7 seconds cooldown, 18 seconds reload, 1.77 seconds swap time, 355m range and 80% stagger value. This does a lot of damage and has good splash radius but the cooldown is a little long. This can do gigantic damage against the right targets so it is a good combo starter before going into your vulcans, beam pistols or melee.
Its primary melee weapon is a beam saber with 2205 power, 2.5 seconds cooldown, 0.77 seconds swap time and standard modifiers. This has below average power, combined with the suits low melee modifier it isn't going to be doing a lot of damage. But it is still good enough for the knockdown and you can follow with beam pistol shots after a downswing.
Its first sub weapon is a vulcan gun with 87 power, 40 ammo, 600 RPM, 5 seconds reload, 0.5 seconds swap time, 200m range, 870 DPS and 4% stagger value. These have better stagger potential than most vulcans but the time to stun isn't the greatest either. It has good range and good DPS, but the scaling is poor for LV2 with only +2 damage compared to LV1.
Its second sub weapon is a pair of beam pistols with 510 power, 18% heat, 235 RPM, 13 seconds overheat, 0.5 seconds swap time, 300m range, 1998 DPS and 10% stagger value. These have amazing damage output but in terms of staggering they are only useful after vulcan shots or a bazooka shot. They can fire 6 shots without overheating so bazooka to beam pistols does pretty massive damage in a combo. Like the vulcans, these have poor scaling and only get +10 damage compared to LV1.
Its third sub weapon is a birdlime launcher with 315 power, 1 ammo, 25 seconds reload, 1 second swap time and 0% stagger value. This instantly staggers and has long potential range due to the firing arc, but it has a very long reload time and has no stagger accumulation. This can be used to stun twice in a row with the bazooka or for emergency self defence.
The LV2 Rick Dias has 18000 HP, 24 ballistic and beam resist with 16 melee resist. These are overall pretty solid defences but the slot layout prevents melee resist from being stacked like other suits can. It has 17000 HP for 500 cost which is rather high, but only gets +1000 for LV2 which means the relative bulk takes a hit at 550 cost. It is by no means squishy at 550 though. It has a LV2 Leg Buffer to reduce damage taken along with LV1 Emergency Evasion and Maneuver Armor for defensive skills.
It also has 145 hover speed, 205 boost speed, 65 thrust and 57 turning speed. The hover speed is great but the boosting speed is a little bit lower than what some other suits get for 500, especially for 550 cost. The real issue here is the 57 turning speed which can make close combat awkward, this is in a cost where most generals are packing at least 63-66. It has LV1 Forced Injectors and LV2 Flight Control as is standard for this cost range.
Overall I think that while the Rick Dias is still capable, it has definitely fallen behind the rest of 500 cost. It has the advantage of versatility but other 500 cost threats like Jegan Type-D, Kapool, Jeda or Barzam Custom also offer the ability to adapt to the situation with good shooting or melee ability. I think it could use a buff to bring it up to a similar level of power as other 500 costs, as well as to have the scaling improved to make it worth taking above LV1. I would buff the vulcans stagger value to 5%, buff turning speed to 63, buff boosting speed to 210, buff melee modifier to 20 with +10 per level, buff vulcans to get +10 damage per level, buff beam pistols to get +50 damage per level and buff HP to +1500 per level. This would be a pretty nice tune up for the LV1 version while also fixing the strange issue it has with stats scaling above LV1. I think it is perfectly usable for 500-550 cost though and it is even something I can recommend for some players, it just just isn't a high tier pick or anything. Thanks for watching, and I hope that you enjoyed it!
Music Used:
Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes, Kill Your Artificial Mind
Dynasty Warriors Gundam 2, A Good Thing Is Possible
