Mechanic: Cooling Mods and Ice Conversion

At a glance

What Mechanic is for

That ordering fix makes Mechanic the reliable route to Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow (a million Ice damage in one run), and a clean answer to any build trying to push the Ice tag past its 10+ threshold, where the published effect is 5% +1% for every tag over 10.

Ranks

Every survivor has five ranks, the fifth added in version 1.0 along with two new synergy nodes, two passive improvement nodes, and one passive node that buffs the whole team whenever Mechanic is in the squad. Ranks 2 through 5 each have an achievement:

The Survival Level each rank requires has never been published by the studio, and is not guessed at here.

Personal mission chain

Mechanic asks for five missions, each its own achievement, and unlocks repeatable quests afterwards. Every one raises Team Bond, the squad-wide bonus to Cash and Specialization Points.

Observation → Formulation → Hypothesis → Antithesis → Synthesis

The mission chain is the scientific method, and his rank 5 achievement is a Mortal Kombat reference.

Patch history worth knowing

Patch 1.0.0b changed how Cooling Mods orders its damage: the additional damage instance now applies before the weapon’s own, so a target killed in a single hit dies to Ice damage. The studio patching damage ordering is a strong signal of how central this ability is to elemental builds.

Where Mechanic fits

See the survivor tier list for how Mechanic ranks against the other eight and why, the full roster for every unlock and mission chain side by side, and builds and synergies for how squad composition actually works.