Avatar (Tiberium Wars)

"I must have that device Commander. I am sending the most powerful weapon we have, the Avatar. Use them to blast your way out. DO NOT KEEP ME WAITING!"

- Kane

The Avatar is the Brotherhood of Nod's heaviest vehicle that appears in Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars and its expansion pack. It is the second mechanized walker the Brotherhood has ever utilized during the course of Command & Conquer 3 storyline with the Purifier Warmech being its first variation. Unlike the Purifier Warmech, the Avatar Warmech is more powerful and can upgrade itself in order to use different types of weapons or abilities such as stealth systems or sensors. The Avatar Warmech is also fond of crushing lower tier units.

Background
In the wake of the destruction caused by GDI walkers to Nod armed forces during the Second Tiberium War, the Brotherhood became interested in the technology, perceiving it as an innovative way to expand their forces. While GDI abandoned the technology, deeming it a dead end of development, the Brotherhood Black Hand began its own research, basing it in part on GDI designs and taking advantage of its own research in other areas to accelerate the development of the Avatar.

They invested years of research and development at a ruthlessly fast pace. The first result of this research was the Purifier Warmech (built in the image of Marcion), and eventually the powerful Avatar, a towering bipedal mech able to engage most targets with ease, was created.

The Avatar's pilot was enclosed in a "virtual sensory pod", a control interface for the vehicle. Its incredible all terrain ability, fluid motion, and power, make it in effect a gigantic soldier.

The introduction of this towering walker changed Nod's military doctrine - instead of always utilizing hit-and-run attacks to outgun their heavier adversaries, the Avatar gave Nod the option to battle their opponents head on with superior armor and firepower if the need arose.

Armament
It comes by default with a powerful laser cannon on its right arm (based on the Obelisk laser), and possesses the ability to use its "hand" on the left arm to rip off weaponry and equipment from certain other Nod vehicles, then install the components into its own frame, augmenting its battle capabilities:


 * Attack bike: stealth detectors
 * Stealth tank: personal stealth generator
 * Flame tank: flamethrower
 * Beam cannon: particle beam cannon

In addition, the Avatar Warmech is capable of crushing most other vehicles under its feet, similar to the Mammoth 27 or Annihilator Tripod. In form, it bears similarity to CABAL's Core Defender, although it is unclear if Nod reverse-engineered its technology.

An Avatar can upgrade itself using enemy Nod vehicles, gaining power while destroying an enemy unit. They can also rip weapons off other Nod sub-faction vehicles (e.g. A Marked of Kane Avatar can take the Flamethrower off a Black Hand Flame Tank).

Identification
As the Avatar is a successor to the Purifier, both walkers bear a high level of visual similarity; however, there are important differences that can be used to distinguish the two. Generally, Avatars are black in color except for red lights and stripes on the body and a silvery gray middle torso and legs, while the Purifiers have red-mauve armor on the shoulder and leg sections, with yellow and black warning lines on this segments. Purifiers also naturally sport the Black Hand insignia, being a Black Hand-specific unit, while Avatars sport normal Brotherhood of Nod insignia. Purifiers also come with the Flamethrower as a standard weapon.

However, it should be noted that some Avatars have been spotted with a different set of markings, that is, red-mauve with gray stripes on the body and shoulder protectors.

Legacy
Sometime after 2052, the Nod AI LEGION conducted a critical analysis of the warmech. It found that while in itself a powerful unit, Avatar pilots would impulsively take the weapons of other perfectly functioning Nod vehicles to maintain self-preservation and the destroyed tanks would impede GDI's advance. The AI found that this created inefficiency so Nod engineers later went to work to develop the next-generation Avatar. The upgraded version was made available by the time of the Ascension Conflict.

In-game
The primary weakness of the Avatar is its susceptibility to aerial assaults, swarms of Anti-Armor Infantry and Commandos, who are capable of planting explosives on an Avatar's legs. This is perhaps the reason why GDI decided to abandon most of its walker technology. Also, although powerful, Avatars are only capable of using their laser weaponry while stationary, a drawback against mobile targets. However, a simple flamethrower upgrade can somewhat eliminate the drawback of being bombed by Commandos or Anti-Armor infantry. Another failing is that without any addition weapons, the Avatar often loses against the GDI Mammoth Tank, which is particulary inferior given that the Avatar costs more than Mammoth Tank, meaning upgraded Avatars are guarranteed to be outnumber by what is dollar for dollar, a better anti-armor unit.

Fallen Avatars are repairable by capable engineers, who can reactivate the pilot's virtual sensory pod and rebuild the walker, adding it to the armed forces of the side the engineer was on (a blessing and a curse for the Nod commander). The only requirement is that the engineer must reach the fallen walker before either its power core finally dies down, or a coup de grace is delivered, destroying the fragile husk.

In earlier patches, the Avatar was regarded as the least useful tier 3 land unit. Lacking the Mammoth Tank's firepower and the Tripod's range and shield upgrades, and its own ability to tank equipment from vehicles was typically regarded by most players as too expensive to worth using, particulary since in practice, the Avatar is too slow to take advantage of stealth detection or being stealthed, and Vertigo bombers proved a more cost effective way of dealing with enemy armor. However, in later patches, the Avatar was balanced. Specifically, its cost was reduced (to 2200), its health increased, and its original laser weapon made more powerful. Due to this, the Avatar is currently considered to be both cost effective and powerful.

A bit of a battlefield tip: properly timing multiple Avatars can allow them to share a single vehicle, a flame tank for example.

Interestingly, an Avatar can upgrade itself using weapons from enemy Nod vehicles, although this tactic is mainly effective against enemy Flame Tanks, being the slowest of the four Avatar-compatible units. Additionally, if a vehicle targeted for weapon commandeering is destroyed, an Avatar can still retrieve the weapon from the remains of the vehicle (it only has a few seconds to do this, however, before the wreckage disappears).

Pros

 * Extremely powerful firepower when used against vehicles and structures. Especially with the laser upgrade.
 * Turns into a husk when destroyed
 * Longer range than that of Mammoth Tanks and Tripods.
 * High armor and relatively good mobility.
 * Relatively cheap and fast to build compered to Mammoths or Tripods.
 * Can crush any non-tier 3 unit on the battlefield.
 * Very versatile (flamethrower, stealth detection etc.).
 * Without cost of upgrades, cheapest among main Tier 3 units ($2200 per unit while Mammoths are $2500 and Tripods are $3000)

Cons
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 * Cannot fire on move except flamethrower upgrade
 * Must rotate entire body towards the target.
 * Cannot reverse move.
 * Vulnerable to air attacks due to lack of AA weapon upgrade
 * Vulnerable to anti-tank infantry and Commandos especially GDI Commando since Jumpjet skill allow him to avoid flamethrower attack and easily sudden destroy Avatar
 * Very inefficient against infantry due it's laser cannon's slow rate of fire without the flamethrower upgrade.
 * EMP can render it useless
 * Requires Tier 3 to build
 * Avatar husks can be captured by the enemy
 * To maximize potential, must upgrade most (cost of Avatar plus Beam Cannon + Attack Bike + Flame Tank + Cloak Field ability) which maybe burn war funds very fast per Avatar

Quotes

 * Avatar ready!
 * Location set!
 * Thought so...
 * Avatar!
 * Clear a path!
 * Destroy!
 * To dust!
 * They're done!


 * Upgrading!


 * I like!


 * I want that!


 * They're next!


 * Of course!
 * Back!
 * Returning!
 * Everything goes!