Overview
The Mixmatch Mastery item gives you stat upgrades when you have core augments from different sets. Normally the augments are designed to have greatest synchronization when you have all pieces of the same set, but there are a few combinations taking pieces from all four sets that can work well together, thus maximizing use of the Mixmatch Mastery upgrade.
Introduction
There are four sets of core augments in the game, four pieces each; head, body, arms, legs. Each piece does something different, and in general each set is meant to synchronize its four pieces effectively. Armatort focuses on defense, Oxjack focuses on your dash and speed, Dracopent focuses on your regular attack and charge shots, and Owlhawk focuses on your special weapons. When you have all four pieces of a set, you’ll get a special bonus for it. However, Mixmatch Mastery will give you stat bonuses for having armor pieces of different sets. In general, each set’s pieces are meant to synchronize with one another to great effect, while having pieces of different sets will not be nearly as effective. However, there are a few combinations that can work together reasonably well, allowing you to have Mixmatch Mastery’s stat bonuses and a functional set of upgrades.
The Signatures
Each set has a piece of the armor that is described as that sets “signature” piece. It generally acts as a symbol of the core thematic. Owlhawk helmet makes it so that roughly 50% of your powers are free to use, Armatort body makes it so you take no knockback, Dracopent buster lets you charge your attacks to an even further stage, and Oxjack legs let you dash in the four cardinal directions in the air. None of these pieces synchronize especially well, but they will generally make you pretty effective at everything. This can be seen as something akin to a jack of all trades in that respect.
Shot Destroyer
I love the Armatort set, and one of the major reasons is because of its arm part, the ability to destroy enemy projectiles with your own charge shots. Any time the game tries to throw some bullet hell at you, you can just blast straight through it all. This synchronizes well with two other pieces in particular, the Oxjack body and the Dracopent helment. The Oxjack body makes it so that when you dash, a shield appears in front of you. So now you can charge shot through bullets or dash through them. The Dracopent helmet allows you to charge up two shots instead of the one, giving you twice the firepower for getting rid of those pesky bullets. The Owlhawk legs are a bonus here, giving you some pretty free flight. If you find that you’re not that great a dodging projectiles, this will help tremendously in that regard.
Absorber
The Dracopent body and Owlhawk buster do very similar things. Dracopent body makes it so that when you defeat an enemy with your buster you have a chance of restoring health, while the Owlhawk buster does the same thing, but you have a chance of restoring energy instead. With this combination, defeating enemies will keep you sustained pretty effectively. Then throw in the Armatort helmet, which makes it so that every time you pick up health, there is a chance of you getting armor as well, even if you’re at max health. The Oxjack legs are a bonus, and a decent one at that with its air dashes. A continuous supply of recovery is nothing to sneeze at, though the one downside to this set is that none of these bonuses are consistent. There is a chance of recovering both health and energy with each enemy defeated or box destroyed, yes, but it is not exactly commonplace to do so. Still, if you’re playing Defiant mode with the Swarm effect on, causing far more enemies than normal to appear, this set may keep you powered for much longer than normal as you will have more chances to restore your stats.
Never Stop Shooting
The Oxjack buster makes it so that you charge your shots faster than normal, combine this with the stored charge shot of the Dracopent helmet and you’ll find yourself with more charge shots than you know what to do with. Toss in the Armatort body to negate knockback and nothing can stop your ridiculous barrage. Owlhawk legs are, once again, a solid bonus here. That said, while this set will be nice to obtain the Mixmatch bonus, if you really want to spam constant charge shots, it may be better to find the full Dracopent set when possible, as the bonus for that entire set is all of your regular shots becoming charge shots.
The Leftovers
Unfortunately nothing synchronizes all that well with the Owlhawk body piece, the Oxjack helmet, or the Dracopent or Armatort legs as far as I could tell. I mean, I guess you COULD try those pieces together, but I don’t think you’d end up with anything particularly coherent. The Owlhawk body piece makes it so you have a chance to recover health every time you defeat an opponent with a power. It sounds like it would go well with the Dracopent body piece, as that allows you to recover health when you defeat foes with your regular weapon, but as they both go on your body, they cannot be equipped together. Otherwise, as the only core augments that increase your special weapon effectiveness are all Owlhawk, it does not combine well with anything else. The Oxjack helment increases your dash speed, but even within the Oxjack set itself its easily the weakest element of the armor, and doesn’t really synchronize with anything else. The Dracopent and Armatort legs are both reasonable mobility upgrades, being a double jump and a 2 second hover respectively, but their other armor pieces are generally far superior. Having a combination of these core augments creates essentially the opposite of the first set described, instead of being a jack of all trades, you become a master of none.
Conclusion
Those are all the solid combinations I could find. Ultimately, the stat bonuses from Mixmatch Mastery aren’t really that high, each different piece gives you +1 to all stats, culimating in +4 to everything if every core augment is different. This is certainly not worth skipping over the powerful bonuses you get from completing a single set during longer runs, as a mere +4 statistical upgrade will pale in comparison to all of the accumulated stats one will receive over time, especially when you consider that all of the full set bonuses are mechanical in nature, and will never become outdated. Still, on a regular run these sets can be very interesting to work with, and will undoubtedly provide a unique style of play for times where one simply cannot find four pices of the same set.