mostly I've just been enjoying all the big targets people are driving
They don't fall over immediately like they used to, but uhh, I soloed like three of them last night in my UltraWang. They are no replacement for an Assault that can actually push. They seem to forget PPCs and LRMs have a minimum range when they turn a corner and see a Medium sitting there. New and Improved Shield Arm is clutch.
PGI needs to get a public service message out there to noobs in Assaults that it doesn't matter how many extra LRM 15 you can fit, stop putting XLs in your Assault. Also, stop fitting LRMs and telling your team to push by themselves.
People are running XL'd Awesomes? It's like closed beta all over again!
+1
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
mostly I've just been enjoying all the big targets people are driving
They don't fall over immediately like they used to, but uhh, I soloed like three of them last night in my UltraWang. They are no replacement for an Assault that can actually push. They seem to forget PPCs and LRMs have a minimum range when they turn a corner and see a Medium sitting there. New and Improved Shield Arm is clutch.
PGI needs to get a public service message out there to noobs in Assaults that it doesn't matter how many extra LRM 15 you can fit, stop putting XLs in your Assault. Also, stop fitting LRMs and telling your team to push by themselves.
and stop wasting ammo and heat on spamming your LRM45 at a target 40m away.
I had a pair of XL-engined LRMboating Stalkers arguing that they were totally making a worthwhile contribution to the team.
Nevermind that I nearly outscored both of them and definitely outlived them. In a light. While they were bitching about me, by myself, not giving them support because they started the match by running of to get the best missile approaches on the enemy team and promptly got crushed by the entire enemy team.
Nope, totally worth losing two assault slots to a couple of mechs that will quite happily stand back and never get shot at. And then crumple like a wet paper hat under a fat guy's ass when they have to actually fight.
mostly I've just been enjoying all the big targets people are driving
They don't fall over immediately like they used to, but uhh, I soloed like three of them last night in my UltraWang. They are no replacement for an Assault that can actually push. They seem to forget PPCs and LRMs have a minimum range when they turn a corner and see a Medium sitting there. New and Improved Shield Arm is clutch.
PGI needs to get a public service message out there to noobs in Assaults that it doesn't matter how many extra LRM 15 you can fit, stop putting XLs in your Assault. Also, stop fitting LRMs and telling your team to push by themselves.
Serious question: why exactly is an XL engine a bad idea in an Assault? I've only owned two assaults and know very little about piloting them. Is it due to the size of their side torsos and how much you're pretty much mitigating their biggest asset (ie lots of survivability) for speed/extra tonnage?
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Had an astonishingly-good match with a pub team. They immediately recognized our lack of ECM on HPG Manifold and dove directly underneath the center structure, which was good, since the enemy team had the sniper/LRM spam that's become so common. Had four morons on our own team who decided to charge outside and fight the enemy waiting on top of the dome; three were predictably wrecked in short order and only a heavily-damaged Battlemaster managed to waddle back inside to safety.
The rest of the team, surprisingly, just waited in out until targets started showing up; they actually stayed out of easy lines of fire, and watched every entrance. By ones and twos, we ground the enemy down, first evening the fight, then eventually turning it around completely. Eventually, I went outside and hunted me down a Spider and a Raven, bringing the fight to a thoroughly lopsided 7v2, with one Victor and one (predictably lame) LRMboat Catapult, neither of which lasted long once I scouted the pair out for the rest of the team to demolish.
The one thing that annoyed me about the match is that, despite tagging all but one enemy throughout the fight while bringing down two lights, a heavy, and an assault, the daily double bonus still only left me with around 2500 XP because I didn't put out insanely high damage as well. Ah well.
also because most awesomes cap out at 300 engine rating, so you don't gain all that much in terms of weight
it makes a certain amount of sense on the ones with big engine caps, but the pretty baby is awful anyway and the other one is more of an energy boat that probably needs the slots for heat sinks
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
So, I love my Catapult c4, but after 55 patches away from the game, I'm not sure how to load one out.
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
mostly I've just been enjoying all the big targets people are driving
They don't fall over immediately like they used to, but uhh, I soloed like three of them last night in my UltraWang. They are no replacement for an Assault that can actually push. They seem to forget PPCs and LRMs have a minimum range when they turn a corner and see a Medium sitting there. New and Improved Shield Arm is clutch.
PGI needs to get a public service message out there to noobs in Assaults that it doesn't matter how many extra LRM 15 you can fit, stop putting XLs in your Assault. Also, stop fitting LRMs and telling your team to push by themselves.
People are running XL'd Awesomes? It's like closed beta all over again!
also because most awesomes cap out at 300 engine rating, so you don't gain all that much in terms of weight
it makes a certain amount of sense on the ones with big engine caps, but the pretty baby is awful anyway and the other one is more of an energy boat that probably needs the slots for heat sinks
You get more free slots out of the giant engine than you'd get by running a standard.
also because most awesomes cap out at 300 engine rating, so you don't gain all that much in terms of weight
it makes a certain amount of sense on the ones with big engine caps, but the pretty baby is awful anyway and the other one is more of an energy boat that probably needs the slots for heat sinks
Really hope improved IS stuff isn't too far down the line. A Light fusion engine won't have the same weight savings as the Clan XLs, but the survivability boost would be a biiiig equalizer for heavier IS mechs in general and the Awesome in particular. I say this completely innocent of any desire to have zombie Wangs and Sprinturions, or the immense improvement Light fusion engines would add to mediums in general.
Though I haven't even heard of any plans on the part of PGI to implement improved IS gear, so I can't say I have much in the way of expectations on that front.
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NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
It would be so weird to have a MechWarrior game with any of the latter-day tech. Have any MechWarrior games even been put in the Jihad timeframe or later?
As I said recently on Vent: I'd do unhealthy things for a smartly-implemented TSEMP and Mech Taser.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Considering that PGI seems to have largely tossed tha canon aside and the Jihad was pretty blatantly stupid anyway, no real need for anything to come out of the later Battletech years other than the tech. The Light Fusion Engine alone would do a lot to even things up between the Assault-grade arsenals on Clan mechs, since then at least IS mechs wouldn't be subjected to bulkier, heavier engines and with increased vulnerability.
Regardless, I can pretty much guarantee that even PGI has better sense than to implement weapons that shut down mechs on command. It would be pretty miserable to play a game where the big mechs just taser everything and blow them away while they're helpless.
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NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
Regardless, I can pretty much guarantee that even PGI has better sense than to implement weapons that shut down mechs on command. It would be pretty miserable to play a game where the big mechs just taser everything and blow them away while they're helpless.
That's the best part: The Mech Taser is heavy, short ranged, and best of all only has a little more than 8% chance of actually shutting down the target mech. So it's better suited for a dedicated light mech, to dance around the enemy fatties, taking jabs until you shock one into submission, leaving it vulnerable to your fatties. Like a Mech Torero! (Bull fighter)
I'd find five tons on a Locust for the opportunity to shock a Dire Wolf into submission.
I watched a dude in an Awesome boating only medium pulse lasers with some kind of enormous engine and a truly ridiculous amount of heat dissipation wreck faces one time; it might have been a fluke but it was also before this last patch, so that build might be worth revisiting, given the fact that PGI apparently forgot to assign a ghost heat value to MPLs (see also: 9MPL hunchback shenanigans.)
I watched a dude in an Awesome boating only medium pulse lasers with some kind of enormous engine and a truly ridiculous amount of heat dissipation wreck faces one time; it might have been a fluke but it was also before this last patch, so that build might be worth revisiting, given the fact that PGI apparently forgot to assign a ghost heat value to MPLs (see also: 9MPL hunchback shenanigans.)
You used to see builds like that, but boating IS lasers is not really worth doing at this point (unless you're a light). The clan versions are vastly better, and the increased range means that engagements are often not close enough for your IS MPL to even scratch paint.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited August 2014
Given that MLASes are relatively light, I could see an Awesome taking a big standard engine to tank a lot of damage while really dishing it out from sheer endless MLAS firepower. Hasn't been much point in taking a laserboat Awesome since the heatscaling nerfs, so it's possible. Something like this, I suppose? [AWS-9M]: 5xMLAS, AMS, ERPPC, STD370, DHS, Endo, Ferro
Problem is that, yeah, while Awesomes have mass and a number of energy hardpoints, most of them don't really have enough to boat many MLASes, though the extra heat dissipation may make up for that. Still, you're talking about the extra heat dissipation keeping you fighting longer, when front-loaded damage is pretty much king of the game. On top of that, there's really only two Awesome variants that can even have much speed, and one of them is a heftily-priced Hero variant; everything else is resigned entirely to Assault-slog speeds.
Ninja Snarl P on
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BrodyThe WatchThe First ShoreRegistered Userregular
Im pretty sure I owned more mechs before...
"I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."
Given that MLASes are relatively light, I could see an Awesome taking a big standard engine to tank a lot of damage while really dishing it out from sheer endless MLAS firepower. Hasn't been much point in taking a laserboat Awesome since the heatscaling nerfs, so it's possible. Something like this, I suppose? [AWS-9M]: 5xMLAS, AMS, ERPPC, STD370, DHS, Endo, Ferro
Problem is that, yeah, while Awesomes have mass and a number of energy hardpoints, most of them don't really have enough to boat many MLASes, though the extra heat dissipation may make up for that. Still, you're talking about the extra heat dissipation keeping you fighting longer, when front-loaded damage is pretty much king of the game. On top of that, there's really only two Awesome variants that can even have much speed, and one of them is a heftily-priced Hero variant; everything else is resigned entirely to Assault-slog speeds.
A huge engine and a ton of MLAS is the exact reason the Awesome has such a shitty engine size limit. MPLAS 8Qs used to roam the open plains, grazing on the slower, vulnerable mechs.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited August 2014
Right, I forgot they had to nerf the mech because a decent solution was never invented and heat scaling didn't show up until ages later.
So I guess now the Awesome can get a proper engine size back again, right? Because there's no point in fucking over the chassis for game balance that ceased to an issue something like 2 years ago?
Right?
EDIT: Have I mentioned recently how much I love my Wang?
Got me an Adder, a Jester, a Timber Wolf, and a Dire Wolf, all because the fight drifted into a city section and stayed there so sniping was severely limited. Really wish PGI would shift to brawl-centric instead of snipe-centric maps, because city fights are just so much more damn fun than two blobs standing across canyons to throw pinpoint damage at each other.
mostly I've just been enjoying all the big targets people are driving
They don't fall over immediately like they used to, but uhh, I soloed like three of them last night in my UltraWang. They are no replacement for an Assault that can actually push. They seem to forget PPCs and LRMs have a minimum range when they turn a corner and see a Medium sitting there. New and Improved Shield Arm is clutch.
PGI needs to get a public service message out there to noobs in Assaults that it doesn't matter how many extra LRM 15 you can fit, stop putting XLs in your Assault. Also, stop fitting LRMs and telling your team to push by themselves.
Serious question: why exactly is an XL engine a bad idea in an Assault? I've only owned two assaults and know very little about piloting them. Is it due to the size of their side torsos and how much you're pretty much mitigating their biggest asset (ie lots of survivability) for speed/extra tonnage?
Generally the side torsos are easy to hit in most medium and larger mechs. There are some exceptions to the rule, but yes. For this reason I tend to target the RST of any assault mech before chewing through his center because I can get it down much quicker. Even if he's running a standard engine, usually I'm able to take out the better part of his weapons this way. The other reason is that Assaults are generally hardpoint/crit slot limited instead of weight limited. The weight savings isn't all that big a deal when you can't fit anymore guns without Ghost Heat or you need those slots for ammo. Also in that example Stalkers are a notoriously poor candidate for XL engines since their side torso hitboxes extend to almost the end of their huge bulbous noses.
In other news taking a week long break and playing for just a few matches at a time has renewed the fun for me. I must have been having an of week or something. I picked up the Arrow and Huginn from the sale and I'm liking both. I decided that one of the biggest (pun incoming) problems of the player base is how poor most assault pilots are. The greater majority is too timid to push and the largest minority likes to charge in solo. I realize it's some PHD level tactical thinking to position a hulking behemoth in the right place at the right time, so I'm trying my hand at it with the Warhawks I got from the Clan Collection. I tried the Prime out in it's stock configuration and it's way too hot, so I swapped the PPCs and SRMs out for CLPLs and AMS. It's not bad, but it doesn't really have that much punch for an assault. Sure DPS is high but it's all too easy to spread that damage out. I'm open to suggestions. For reasons, I like to mix up the three builds as much as I can, though I'm not particular about keeping the omnipods the same.
The greater majority is too timid to push and the largest minority likes to charge in solo.
^ right there is the root cause of the problem of pugging, if you do push you risk ending up charging in solo, which you know will kill you, so you wait to follow someone in. Except everyone wants to follow someone in. Or people push without communicating with the team and making sure everyone knows the push is coming.
mostly I've just been enjoying all the big targets people are driving
They don't fall over immediately like they used to, but uhh, I soloed like three of them last night in my UltraWang. They are no replacement for an Assault that can actually push. They seem to forget PPCs and LRMs have a minimum range when they turn a corner and see a Medium sitting there. New and Improved Shield Arm is clutch.
PGI needs to get a public service message out there to noobs in Assaults that it doesn't matter how many extra LRM 15 you can fit, stop putting XLs in your Assault. Also, stop fitting LRMs and telling your team to push by themselves.
Serious question: why exactly is an XL engine a bad idea in an Assault? I've only owned two assaults and know very little about piloting them. Is it due to the size of their side torsos and how much you're pretty much mitigating their biggest asset (ie lots of survivability) for speed/extra tonnage?
Generally the side torsos are easy to hit in most medium and larger mechs. There are some exceptions to the rule, but yes. For this reason I tend to target the RST of any assault mech before chewing through his center because I can get it down much quicker. Even if he's running a standard engine, usually I'm able to take out the better part of his weapons this way. The other reason is that Assaults are generally hardpoint/crit slot limited instead of weight limited. The weight savings isn't all that big a deal when you can't fit anymore guns without Ghost Heat or you need those slots for ammo. Also in that example Stalkers are a notoriously poor candidate for XL engines since their side torso hitboxes extend to almost the end of their huge bulbous noses.
So putting a huge XL on a Victor isn't necessarily a bad idea? I've got a Dragon Slayer and I'm trying to figure out how to set it up. I want to brawl with it, but brawling requires speed in my mind.
---
Since the hero sale was extended to the 2nd I picked up an Ember last night. I've got some MC left over and have been eyeing the Arrow. Many of you guys own one, can I infer from that that it's pretty good?
You really cant brawl that well with an XL, the increase in speed will not make up for the loss of survivability in a brawl.
XL is handy if you get enough speed that you can engage / disengage at will, but that wont be happening with an assault (generally).
XL is also handy for loading more guns with front loaded pinpoint damage so that you don't need to leave cover for long to apply your full damage then duck back in.
I'm away from my gaming computer for at least another two weeks, so I thought I'd miss the Hero Mech sale. But the Mechlab part of MWO runs on my laptop (barely), so I took the chance and bought the Firebrand.
My first Hero Mech
Also took a peek at my old Awesome builds from all those months ago when I last experimented with them. They are... kinda weird and seem a bit useless. Maybe the heatchanges for the AWS made them workable.
[AWS-9T]: 3xMPLAS, 2xLPLAS, AMS, 2x LRM 5+A, STD300, 8 DHS, Endo
[AWS-9Q]: 3xMLAS, 2xLLAS, 2xPPC, AMS, STD300, 8 DHS, Endo
Also, using an XL to increase your weapons loadout in an assault mech means you won't be able to equip enough heatsinks to use those weapons properly.
Man, I don't know where this idea came from or why it keeps getting repeated here, but it's not even close to true. An XL consumes 6 additional slots, and the weight savings from that gives you far more mass/slot than endo steel, which is itself all but mandatory on most builds.
In fact, unless you have a really low engine cap, you can swap out a standard engine for an XL, spend the extra tonnage on an higher engine rating, and gain back all the slots you lost. My most heavily heat-sinked 'mech is an XL AWS-9M, which accomplishes that feat by fitting 14 heat sinks into the engine itself. I used to run it with even more--23 DHS and an XL 385 before the AWS buff.
The drawback of an XL is getting killed via side torso destruction (for IS); the loss of a few critical slots is usually irrelevant.
Yeah in terms of weight savings vs crit slots used, nothing beats an XL engine. I mean, unless you're using a really small engine, but even a 300XL saves you, what, 9.5 tons (I may have remembered that wrong) for 6 crit slots. At best Endosteel saves you 5 tons for 14 (IS) or 7 (Clan) slots.
mostly I've just been enjoying all the big targets people are driving
They don't fall over immediately like they used to, but uhh, I soloed like three of them last night in my UltraWang. They are no replacement for an Assault that can actually push. They seem to forget PPCs and LRMs have a minimum range when they turn a corner and see a Medium sitting there. New and Improved Shield Arm is clutch.
PGI needs to get a public service message out there to noobs in Assaults that it doesn't matter how many extra LRM 15 you can fit, stop putting XLs in your Assault. Also, stop fitting LRMs and telling your team to push by themselves.
Serious question: why exactly is an XL engine a bad idea in an Assault? I've only owned two assaults and know very little about piloting them. Is it due to the size of their side torsos and how much you're pretty much mitigating their biggest asset (ie lots of survivability) for speed/extra tonnage?
Generally the side torsos are easy to hit in most medium and larger mechs. There are some exceptions to the rule, but yes. For this reason I tend to target the RST of any assault mech before chewing through his center because I can get it down much quicker. Even if he's running a standard engine, usually I'm able to take out the better part of his weapons this way. The other reason is that Assaults are generally hardpoint/crit slot limited instead of weight limited. The weight savings isn't all that big a deal when you can't fit anymore guns without Ghost Heat or you need those slots for ammo. Also in that example Stalkers are a notoriously poor candidate for XL engines since their side torso hitboxes extend to almost the end of their huge bulbous noses.
So putting a huge XL on a Victor isn't necessarily a bad idea? I've got a Dragon Slayer and I'm trying to figure out how to set it up. I want to brawl with it, but brawling requires speed in my mind.
---
Since the hero sale was extended to the 2nd I picked up an Ember last night. I've got some MC left over and have been eyeing the Arrow. Many of you guys own one, can I infer from that that it's pretty good?
The Arrow is a fun mech. And the paint job just seals the deal.
Not fast enough, obviously, but a 42-point alpha on a 3 second cooldown that you can fire three times before overheating is worth being scared of, I think, and I dunno if the Oosik mechlab is even calculating the bonus dissipation from the quirks.
I still think pulse lasers are kinda not worth it, other than smalls. The shorter range and the weight of MPlas are a pretty big deal, and LPLs really might as well just be PPCs
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
DPS (and the fact that the DPS is better focused than normal lasers) are the only things pulse lasers have, but they do have it. Two large pulse lasers have the DPS of 3 PPCs. (Mathed this wrong, actually. 3 PPCs is 7.5 DPS, two LPLS is only 6.52) Five MPLs are the same DPS as six MLs, and they spread it less. If and only if you can get in range and have a godly array of heat sinks, they have a role, and the fact that MPLs don't have a ghost heat multiplier makes me want to find somewhere they'll be really viable. Because I like lasers, and I like wub, and it's fun to try to find ways to make less-advantaged weapons viable.
they have a minor dps advantage at their optimal range, but their optimal range is short and the advantage evaporates pretty quickly. Mplas have a dps edge on Mlas at 200m, but that advantage is gone at 250m. LPLs are basically in the same situation compared to large lasers or PPCs.
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Posts
People are running XL'd Awesomes? It's like closed beta all over again!
Nevermind that I nearly outscored both of them and definitely outlived them. In a light. While they were bitching about me, by myself, not giving them support because they started the match by running of to get the best missile approaches on the enemy team and promptly got crushed by the entire enemy team.
Nope, totally worth losing two assault slots to a couple of mechs that will quite happily stand back and never get shot at. And then crumple like a wet paper hat under a fat guy's ass when they have to actually fight.
Missile boating cause you cant aim for shit and expecting strangers to pick up your slack is bullshit.
Though I do love raining angry bees on people.
Nintendo Network ID: imperialparadox | 3DS FC: 2294-4029-6793
XBL Gamertag: Paradox3351 | PSN: imperialparadox
Set up camping positions
Get rolled in 2 minutes
PUG LYFE!
Serious question: why exactly is an XL engine a bad idea in an Assault? I've only owned two assaults and know very little about piloting them. Is it due to the size of their side torsos and how much you're pretty much mitigating their biggest asset (ie lots of survivability) for speed/extra tonnage?
The rest of the team, surprisingly, just waited in out until targets started showing up; they actually stayed out of easy lines of fire, and watched every entrance. By ones and twos, we ground the enemy down, first evening the fight, then eventually turning it around completely. Eventually, I went outside and hunted me down a Spider and a Raven, bringing the fight to a thoroughly lopsided 7v2, with one Victor and one (predictably lame) LRMboat Catapult, neither of which lasted long once I scouted the pair out for the rest of the team to demolish.
also because most awesomes cap out at 300 engine rating, so you don't gain all that much in terms of weight
it makes a certain amount of sense on the ones with big engine caps, but the pretty baby is awful anyway and the other one is more of an energy boat that probably needs the slots for heat sinks
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
Carry on, wayward son.
Because the Awesome is like the Orion or Mad Cat to me.
It is Mechwarrior.
Kind of one of the most iconic mechs out there.
Though I haven't even heard of any plans on the part of PGI to implement improved IS gear, so I can't say I have much in the way of expectations on that front.
As I said recently on Vent: I'd do unhealthy things for a smartly-implemented TSEMP and Mech Taser.
Regardless, I can pretty much guarantee that even PGI has better sense than to implement weapons that shut down mechs on command. It would be pretty miserable to play a game where the big mechs just taser everything and blow them away while they're helpless.
That's the best part: The Mech Taser is heavy, short ranged, and best of all only has a little more than 8% chance of actually shutting down the target mech. So it's better suited for a dedicated light mech, to dance around the enemy fatties, taking jabs until you shock one into submission, leaving it vulnerable to your fatties. Like a Mech Torero! (Bull fighter)
I'd find five tons on a Locust for the opportunity to shock a Dire Wolf into submission.
[AWS-9M]: 5xMLAS, AMS, ERPPC, STD370, DHS, Endo, Ferro
Problem is that, yeah, while Awesomes have mass and a number of energy hardpoints, most of them don't really have enough to boat many MLASes, though the extra heat dissipation may make up for that. Still, you're talking about the extra heat dissipation keeping you fighting longer, when front-loaded damage is pretty much king of the game. On top of that, there's really only two Awesome variants that can even have much speed, and one of them is a heftily-priced Hero variant; everything else is resigned entirely to Assault-slog speeds.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
A huge engine and a ton of MLAS is the exact reason the Awesome has such a shitty engine size limit. MPLAS 8Qs used to roam the open plains, grazing on the slower, vulnerable mechs.
So I guess now the Awesome can get a proper engine size back again, right? Because there's no point in fucking over the chassis for game balance that ceased to an issue something like 2 years ago?
Right?
EDIT: Have I mentioned recently how much I love my Wang?
Generally the side torsos are easy to hit in most medium and larger mechs. There are some exceptions to the rule, but yes. For this reason I tend to target the RST of any assault mech before chewing through his center because I can get it down much quicker. Even if he's running a standard engine, usually I'm able to take out the better part of his weapons this way. The other reason is that Assaults are generally hardpoint/crit slot limited instead of weight limited. The weight savings isn't all that big a deal when you can't fit anymore guns without Ghost Heat or you need those slots for ammo. Also in that example Stalkers are a notoriously poor candidate for XL engines since their side torso hitboxes extend to almost the end of their huge bulbous noses.
In other news taking a week long break and playing for just a few matches at a time has renewed the fun for me. I must have been having an of week or something. I picked up the Arrow and Huginn from the sale and I'm liking both. I decided that one of the biggest (pun incoming) problems of the player base is how poor most assault pilots are. The greater majority is too timid to push and the largest minority likes to charge in solo. I realize it's some PHD level tactical thinking to position a hulking behemoth in the right place at the right time, so I'm trying my hand at it with the Warhawks I got from the Clan Collection. I tried the Prime out in it's stock configuration and it's way too hot, so I swapped the PPCs and SRMs out for CLPLs and AMS. It's not bad, but it doesn't really have that much punch for an assault. Sure DPS is high but it's all too easy to spread that damage out. I'm open to suggestions. For reasons, I like to mix up the three builds as much as I can, though I'm not particular about keeping the omnipods the same.
Also, if boating lasers in a fast mech is supposed to be a bad thing, why did they add the BLR-1G?
^ right there is the root cause of the problem of pugging, if you do push you risk ending up charging in solo, which you know will kill you, so you wait to follow someone in. Except everyone wants to follow someone in. Or people push without communicating with the team and making sure everyone knows the push is coming.
So putting a huge XL on a Victor isn't necessarily a bad idea? I've got a Dragon Slayer and I'm trying to figure out how to set it up. I want to brawl with it, but brawling requires speed in my mind.
---
Since the hero sale was extended to the 2nd I picked up an Ember last night. I've got some MC left over and have been eyeing the Arrow. Many of you guys own one, can I infer from that that it's pretty good?
XL is handy if you get enough speed that you can engage / disengage at will, but that wont be happening with an assault (generally).
XL is also handy for loading more guns with front loaded pinpoint damage so that you don't need to leave cover for long to apply your full damage then duck back in.
MWO: Adamski
My first Hero Mech
Also took a peek at my old Awesome builds from all those months ago when I last experimented with them. They are... kinda weird and seem a bit useless. Maybe the heatchanges for the AWS made them workable.
[AWS-9T]: 3xMPLAS, 2xLPLAS, AMS, 2x LRM 5+A, STD300, 8 DHS, Endo
[AWS-9Q]: 3xMLAS, 2xLLAS, 2xPPC, AMS, STD300, 8 DHS, Endo
C1 - 2 PPC (or 2LL/LPL), 2 ML, 2 SRM6 has been a very fun build for me.
C4 - 2ML, 4 SRM6s
*edit* durrr wrong load out...
The C4 is the model with only two energy hardpoints, and both of them are in the center torso.
In fact, unless you have a really low engine cap, you can swap out a standard engine for an XL, spend the extra tonnage on an higher engine rating, and gain back all the slots you lost. My most heavily heat-sinked 'mech is an XL AWS-9M, which accomplishes that feat by fitting 14 heat sinks into the engine itself. I used to run it with even more--23 DHS and an XL 385 before the AWS buff.
The drawback of an XL is getting killed via side torso destruction (for IS); the loss of a few critical slots is usually irrelevant.
The Arrow is a fun mech. And the paint job just seals the deal.
Not fast enough, obviously, but a 42-point alpha on a 3 second cooldown that you can fire three times before overheating is worth being scared of, I think, and I dunno if the Oosik mechlab is even calculating the bonus dissipation from the quirks.
This one's faster: [AWS-9M]: 4xMPLS, 2xLPLS, XL385, DHS, Endo and while it doesn't quite have the same sustain, some of its weapons reach just a little farther.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
someday I'll manage to get 8 kills
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget