All I'm seeing is that after you account for there being more Clan mechs on the field, they are still ahead of the IS in damage (not as important) and kills (important). PEBCAC issues are just an opinion.
The sample size is still small, however.
And most of those pilots have not changed their builds or tactics.
What are those changes to builds and tactics the IS would have to do?
I'm just getting back in after not having played in months, so I am curious.
I mostly noticed that my beloved 3AC2 Victor performs worse now, might be because of clan mech meta or because I'm not used to playing anymore.
If you've taken a long break, they took AC/2 stacking and beat it over the head with a stick.
As far as IS tactics changes, to be short, up until now, proper torso twisting is not a skill that has been required. At all. With the damage clan mechs put out, the IS need to properly twist to survive brawls. Speed is now even more paramount on IS mechs. Most players just don't rotate properly, or disengage soon enough.
In essence, they don't play to the strengths of their mechs while avoiding the strengths of their enemy.
Yeah, a lot of people are far too willing to walk straight up to the Clans which is exactly what the Clans want you to do. Overcomitting in a brawl against the Clans will get you torn to pieces in a hurry. The IS have superior alpha striking capabilities so the better plan is to put those to work by not getting right up into point blank range and instead using the terrain and cover to jab at them. Basically, instead of just diving headlong into the brawl like we used to, we need to play a bit more cautiously.
On the surface, it sounds like the jumpsnipe meta is perfectly suited to fighting Clans. And it kind of is. But to go back to TOG's initial point, people aren't modifying their tactics.
Traditional meta play is you just jumpsnipe constantly, even after the enemy closes, just keep jumpsniping. The problem is, they never pull back when the enemy pushes forward, they just keep jumpsniping, confident the enemy will be too beaten to put up a fight when they actually get close. This isn't the case with the Clans. So suddenly, your meta Victor finds itself in a fight with somebody that won't fold after four jumpsnipes, and no ability to disengage. The habit of scooping out a ST is demonstrably less effective on a clan mech, given the XLs, but you still see people doing it as a priority. This gives the Clans more than enough time to take out the IS mech.
Overall, that's good for the meta. Those poptarting victors don't have big enough engines to get away when the clan mechs close, and even if they pull back early it might not help them with the clan's brawling weapons' range. Jump sniping isn't as accurate as normal shots, which is why I think they end up going after side torsos so much. They poptart a clanner and hit their ST, they strip the armor away and go "I should continue shooting that part because it's hurt" even though that's not going to truly cripple a clanner.
All I'm seeing is that after you account for there being more Clan mechs on the field, they are still ahead of the IS in damage (not as important) and kills (important). PEBCAC issues are just an opinion.
The sample size is still small, however.
And most of those pilots have not changed their builds or tactics.
What are those changes to builds and tactics the IS would have to do?
I'm just getting back in after not having played in months, so I am curious.
I mostly noticed that my beloved 3AC2 Victor performs worse now, might be because of clan mech meta or because I'm not used to playing anymore.
If you've taken a long break, they took AC/2 stacking and beat it over the head with a stick.
As far as IS tactics changes, to be short, up until now, proper torso twisting is not a skill that has been required. At all. With the damage clan mechs put out, the IS need to properly twist to survive brawls. Speed is now even more paramount on IS mechs. Most players just don't rotate properly, or disengage soon enough.
In essence, they don't play to the strengths of their mechs while avoiding the strengths of their enemy.
Yeah, a lot of people are far too willing to walk straight up to the Clans which is exactly what the Clans want you to do. Overcomitting in a brawl against the Clans will get you torn to pieces in a hurry. The IS have superior alpha striking capabilities so the better plan is to put those to work by not getting right up into point blank range and instead using the terrain and cover to jab at them. Basically, instead of just diving headlong into the brawl like we used to, we need to play a bit more cautiously.
On the surface, it sounds like the jumpsnipe meta is perfectly suited to fighting Clans. And it kind of is. But to go back to TOG's initial point, people aren't modifying their tactics.
Traditional meta play is you just jumpsnipe constantly, even after the enemy closes, just keep jumpsniping. The problem is, they never pull back when the enemy pushes forward, they just keep jumpsniping, confident the enemy will be too beaten to put up a fight when they actually get close. This isn't the case with the Clans. So suddenly, your meta Victor finds itself in a fight with somebody that won't fold after four jumpsnipes, and no ability to disengage. The habit of scooping out a ST is demonstrably less effective on a clan mech, given the XLs, but you still see people doing it as a priority. This gives the Clans more than enough time to take out the IS mech.
Overall, that's good for the meta. Those poptarting victors don't have big enough engines to get away when the clan mechs close, and even if they pull back early it might not help them with the clan's brawling weapons' range. Jump sniping isn't as accurate as normal shots, which is why I think they end up going after side torsos so much. They poptart a clanner and hit their ST, they strip the armor away and go "I should continue shooting that part because it's hurt" even though that's not going to truly cripple a clanner.
And that goes back to the mindest. When a mech loses armor on a ST, a lot of people will stop looking to protect themselves and focus on the killshot. They won't torso twist, or they'll stop watching heat levels. This was largely okay against IS mechs because most ran XLs, and anything else was largely crippled when that ST fell of (Save for Stalkers). With Clanners, they're effectively just giving the Clan more opportunity to demolish them.
The plus side is, that even when the poptarts learn to ignore the STs (barring any particularly juicy weapons in that side of the mech), they'll still have to start on the CT from scratch after their first poptart hit a ST, which should give a clan mech and his friends that much more time to close. Also, with the added falling damage, poptarting will become more expensive opportunity-cost wise and they'll have to be extra careful and accurate to be effective.
My Jenner F is maxed on weight with an XL 300(With 2 single heatsinks in the engine) and 6 Medium lasers, and it runs hot.. almost unplayably hot on hot maps. Would I be better served removing 2 MLs and replacing them with two standard heatsinks, or removing the two MLs and spending 1.5mil on the double heatsink upgrade
My Jenner F is maxed on weight with an XL 300(With 2 single heatsinks in the engine) and 6 Medium lasers, and it runs hot.. almost unplayably hot on hot maps. Would I be better served removing 2 MLs and replacing them with two standard heatsinks, or removing the two MLs and spending 1.5mil on the double heatsink upgrade
Oh my god before you ever do anything get DHS. There is literally no reason not to. Almost every competitive build functions only because of DHS. You need them, and then you can run that Jenner F just fine (With the occasinaly trigger discipline).
I've been finding that Gauss rifles are the light. Swapped my AC/40 arms on my JM6-S as well as the AC/20 on my SHD-2D2 for Gauss and the difference in combat effectiveness at least feels far superior to the AC/20. Maybe because the AC requires you to get closer to be fully effective and exposes you to more fire both while positioning and fighting.
EDIT: And, after a bit of practice, Gauss still brawls just fine.
Basically, doubles take up more crit slots (3, compared to 1). However, DHS heat capacity and dissipation is 1.4 (SHS is 1). The real big kicker, is the heat sinks that come in the engine, are true doubles.
To take your Jenner.
It has 12 SHS. Slotting doubles gives it the efficiency of 22.8 single heat sinks. Yeah, they're that good.
They weigh the same, take up 3 crit slots instead of 1, and dissipate 40% more heat. The trick is though, that your engine has 10 internal heat sinks that are giving you most of your heat dissipation right now. Instead of increasing dissipation by 40%, internal heat sink cooling is doubled with DHS.
I'm not joking, take Champions mechs into matches until you have the money for DHS, if you have to but get that upgrade. Anytime you begin to outfit a mech, the first thing you do is always, always, DHS.
Once you get DHS, the clouds will part, and you will see the matrix.
+3
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
I love it when other heavy or smaller IS mechs saunter up to my TWolf like it's a good idea. Usually by the time they try and disengage, realizing they can't take me in a straight 1v1 brawl, it's too late.
I'm not joking, take Champions mechs into matches until you have the money for DHS, if you have to but get that upgrade. Anytime you begin to outfit a mech, the first thing you do is always, always, DHS.
Once you get DHS, the clouds will part, and you will see the matrix.
I just sold my atlas K to pay for it, wasn't any fun anyway. didn't like the hardpoints, only bought it for the XL300 anyway.
I love it when other heavy or smaller IS mechs saunter up to my TWolf like it's a good idea. Usually by the time they try and disengage, realizing they can't take me in a straight 1v1 brawl, it's too late.
That's pretty much any clan vs IS brawl, though. That's the last thing IS mechs want to do with clan mechs, brawl.
Everything: Konphujun(#1458)
0
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
I love it when other heavy or smaller IS mechs saunter up to my TWolf like it's a good idea. Usually by the time they try and disengage, realizing they can't take me in a straight 1v1 brawl, it's too late.
That's pretty much any clan vs IS brawl, though. That's the last thing IS mechs want to do with clan mechs, brawl.
I know, that's the point. I was reinforcing that as someone who pretty much only pilots a clan mech these days, the thing I want you to do is get up in my face where my sustained DPS will win 90% of fights.
I'm not joking, take Champions mechs into matches until you have the money for DHS, if you have to but get that upgrade. Anytime you begin to outfit a mech, the first thing you do is always, always, DHS.
Once you get DHS, the clouds will part, and you will see the matrix.
I just sold my atlas K to pay for it, wasn't any fun anyway. didn't like the hardpoints, only bought it for the XL300 anyway.
Another thing to consider for your Jenner-F:
Small pulse lasers. Embrace the wub, love the wub.
| Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
I'm not joking, take Champions mechs into matches until you have the money for DHS, if you have to but get that upgrade. Anytime you begin to outfit a mech, the first thing you do is always, always, DHS.
Once you get DHS, the clouds will part, and you will see the matrix.
I just sold my atlas K to pay for it, wasn't any fun anyway. didn't like the hardpoints, only bought it for the XL300 anyway.
Another thing to consider for your Jenner-F:
Small pulse lasers. Embrace the wub, love the wub.
would that provide a overall dps increase over medium lasers?
I'm not joking, take Champions mechs into matches until you have the money for DHS, if you have to but get that upgrade. Anytime you begin to outfit a mech, the first thing you do is always, always, DHS.
Once you get DHS, the clouds will part, and you will see the matrix.
I just sold my atlas K to pay for it, wasn't any fun anyway. didn't like the hardpoints, only bought it for the XL300 anyway.
Another thing to consider for your Jenner-F:
Small pulse lasers. Embrace the wub, love the wub.
would that provide a overall dps increase over medium lasers?
It's a loss of alpha damage, and a potential dps increase depending on your piloting skills. The reduced duration and cooldown time makes smpulses add up damage very quickly.
I'm not joking, take Champions mechs into matches until you have the money for DHS, if you have to but get that upgrade. Anytime you begin to outfit a mech, the first thing you do is always, always, DHS.
Once you get DHS, the clouds will part, and you will see the matrix.
I just sold my atlas K to pay for it, wasn't any fun anyway. didn't like the hardpoints, only bought it for the XL300 anyway.
Another thing to consider for your Jenner-F:
Small pulse lasers. Embrace the wub, love the wub.
would that provide a overall dps increase over medium lasers?
No, it gives slightly less dps overall, but it gives a much different damage profile. The laser damage happens over a much shorter time frame, letting you give all that damage to one part, rather than spreading it over the mech. You'll have a much shorter range as a trade off. You'll be generating less heat if you go that route.
I'm not joking, take Champions mechs into matches until you have the money for DHS, if you have to but get that upgrade. Anytime you begin to outfit a mech, the first thing you do is always, always, DHS.
Once you get DHS, the clouds will part, and you will see the matrix.
I just sold my atlas K to pay for it, wasn't any fun anyway. didn't like the hardpoints, only bought it for the XL300 anyway.
Another thing to consider for your Jenner-F:
Small pulse lasers. Embrace the wub, love the wub.
would that provide a overall dps increase over medium lasers?
It's a loss of alpha damage, and a potential dps increase depending on your piloting skills. The reduced duration and cooldown time makes smpulses add up damage very quickly.
Can you rate piloting skills as a negative number?
So what I'm hearing as a person who likes Inner Sphere 'mechs, has no interest in Clan 'mechs, and prefers brawling to alpha-sniping is that my best/only chance of beating Clan 'mechs is not to brawl and to get better and smarter at alpha-sniping.
So what I'm hearing as a person who likes Inner Sphere 'mechs, has no interest in Clan 'mechs, and prefers brawling to alpha-sniping is that my best/only chance of beating Clan 'mechs is not to brawl and to get better and smarter at alpha-sniping.
There are plenty of good IS brawlers. Get a Cataphract or a Jager. Get the Ilya if you don't mind spending MC. Now that SRMs are working, I imagine the srm stalker could be hugely dangerous again.
So what I'm hearing as a person who likes Inner Sphere 'mechs, has no interest in Clan 'mechs, and prefers brawling to alpha-sniping is that my best/only chance of beating Clan 'mechs is not to brawl and to get better and smarter at alpha-sniping.
You can brawl against Clanners in an IS mech, you're just going to have to be very smart about it. I'd say being a kind of poacher works best, descending on targets of opportunity, and never doing so alone. Hit and run strikes work decently, too.
So what I'm hearing as a person who likes Inner Sphere 'mechs, has no interest in Clan 'mechs, and prefers brawling to alpha-sniping is that my best/only chance of beating Clan 'mechs is not to brawl and to get better and smarter at alpha-sniping.
Uh, not at all? Your best bet is to learn how to torso twist appropriately and aim for CT on the Clan mechs, because most of the Clan pilots are dumb as rocks and will stare you down thinking they can win a straight DPS fight, and are invulnerable due to the side torsos not being instagib. A Timberwolf is almost as easy to core out as a Catapult, Dire Wolfs and Warhawks can torso twist and turn about as well as your average barn, the Summoner lacks the overwhelming firepower to make it stand out (it can still hurt, but isn't LOL levels of firepower). Clan mediums pack a punch, but have all the heat issues, and clan lights tend to be equivalent to really, really fragile mediums.
Basically, if it's a Light or Medium, treat it the same way you would an IS mech, if it's Heavy, pour your fire into the CT ASAP and twist away their return volleys. If it's an assault, just go around it and shoot it in the back. You can take your time, they'll wait for you.
So what I'm hearing as a person who likes Inner Sphere 'mechs, has no interest in Clan 'mechs, and prefers brawling to alpha-sniping is that my best/only chance of beating Clan 'mechs is not to brawl and to get better and smarter at alpha-sniping.
The IS have superior alpha striking capabilities so the better plan is to put those to work by not getting right up into point blank range and instead using the terrain and cover to jab at them. Basically, instead of just diving headlong into the brawl like we used to, we need to play a bit more cautiously.
I love it when other heavy or smaller IS mechs saunter up to my TWolf like it's a good idea. Usually by the time they try and disengage, realizing they can't take me in a straight 1v1 brawl, it's too late.
That's pretty much any clan vs IS brawl, though. That's the last thing IS mechs want to do with clan mechs, brawl.
"Brawling is the last thing you want to do." "You have superior alpha." "Use terrain and jab." "Be more cautious."
Alpha-sniping, extreme tedious caution, everybody stands in a blob and hides behind terrain, and impossibility of brawling is what made me uninstall the game. And what I'm hearing is that all of these things are exacerbated by the presence of Clan 'mechs if you're piloting IS.
You can still brawl with superior alpha. Fire AC/20, big SRM salvo, etc, duck behind cover or twist to spread the return fire out. Or as a light, zip in, fire a few salvos, zip out. The Clanner's big weakness is most of their guns tend to splatter damage around, and they don't have fast lights.
@italianranma This is a rough build of what I use in the Summoner-B. I took the armor off the head just because it wasn't letting me scroll down to take it off the legs.
So what I'm hearing as a person who likes Inner Sphere 'mechs, has no interest in Clan 'mechs, and prefers brawling to alpha-sniping is that my best/only chance of beating Clan 'mechs is not to brawl and to get better and smarter at alpha-sniping.
The IS have superior alpha striking capabilities so the better plan is to put those to work by not getting right up into point blank range and instead using the terrain and cover to jab at them. Basically, instead of just diving headlong into the brawl like we used to, we need to play a bit more cautiously.
I love it when other heavy or smaller IS mechs saunter up to my TWolf like it's a good idea. Usually by the time they try and disengage, realizing they can't take me in a straight 1v1 brawl, it's too late.
That's pretty much any clan vs IS brawl, though. That's the last thing IS mechs want to do with clan mechs, brawl.
"Brawling is the last thing you want to do." "You have superior alpha." "Use terrain and jab." "Be more cautious."
Alpha-sniping, extreme tedious caution, everybody stands in a blob and hides behind terrain, and impossibility of brawling is what made me uninstall the game. And what I'm hearing is that all of these things are exacerbated by the presence of Clan 'mechs if you're piloting IS.
You have to brawl smart. If you want to go CT face on with a clan mech of similar tonnage, expect to lose if the pilot can click mouse buttons and has a decent fit. If you're smart, and realize that most clan pilots WANT to hang and bang with you face on, you can exploit that. Your other option is to be a vulture and brawl with wounded mechs as they try and disengage from the battle. One of the scariest things for me is when I'm wounded and trying to fall back for a better position and a Hunchback comes tooting up to me.
What's funny to me is that everyone is basically saying that "Inner Sphere and Clans mechs are totally balanced guys, buy you just gotta play your IS mechs differently to make up for the fact that Clanners are more powerful. :wtf:
Proper torso twisting is a skill that is desirable to all mechs. Trying to say that IS pilots just have to master torso twisting to make them balanced with Clan pilots, who are apparently mouth-breathing fools who never torso twist is not balancing the game. That's essentially saying, "hey, to get a fair fight you just got to play someone dumber than you..." lol...
Assuming equal pilot skill, Clan mechs are just (except for a few chassis) better. They are more survivable. They pack more weapons. They brawl better than you, and the argument that they aren't as good at jump sniping is questionable once you either account for a) a Clanner using a Gauss instead or b) the extra damage they get from being able to do things like field LRM's in addition to their pinpoint weapons.
The only thing that Clanners are lacking is speedy lights, and I suppose the Summoner is kind of unimpressive compared to the other Clan chassis. I just don't see how people are making the argument that IS and Clanners are balanced because Clanners are horrible players.
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Of course they are better. Have you never played Battletech?
The problem isn't that clan mechs are lore correct and a bit better than IS mechs, the problem is that MM makes mixed IS and clan teams face other mixed IS and clan teams, rather than forcing battles where the clans natural weakness (numbers) is actually exploitable.
No one is arguing that Clan mechs are better, they should be better, that's Battletech lore. We're giving suggestions for how to negate some of that better and have a fighting chance until PGI gets around to creating CW or some other system that takes in to account the natural scarcity of clan tech.
As a side note, this is why I'm hoping the 4x3 system is only a stop gap, as it still won't correctly model clan tech scarcity. I'm not sure what PGI's issue with just using a Battletech style points system to balance out MM (where clan tech scarcity is naturally accounted for), but they seem to want to go another route.
What's funny to me is that everyone is basically saying that "Inner Sphere and Clans mechs are totally balanced guys, buy you just gotta play your IS mechs differently to make up for the fact that Clanners are more powerful. :wtf:
Proper torso twisting is a skill that is desirable to all mechs. Trying to say that IS pilots just have to master torso twisting to make them balanced with Clan pilots, who are apparently mouth-breathing fools who never torso twist is not balancing the game. That's essentially saying, "hey, to get a fair fight you just got to play someone dumber than you..." lol...
Assuming equal pilot skill, Clan mechs are just (except for a few chassis) better. They are more survivable. They pack more weapons. They brawl better than you, and the argument that they aren't as good at jump sniping is questionable once you either account for a) a Clanner using a Gauss instead or b) the extra damage they get from being able to do things like field LRM's in addition to their pinpoint weapons.
The only thing that Clanners are lacking is speedy lights, and I suppose the Summoner is kind of unimpressive compared to the other Clan chassis. I just don't see how people are making the argument that IS and Clanners are balanced because Clanners are horrible players.
Clanners aren't more powerful. Proper torso twisting benefits all mechs, but in this case we're saying it is a requirement. That's different.
Clan jumpsniping is probably comparable, yeah, okay. Except, why are you doing that? You're giving the IS more help by not taking advantage of your added survivability.
And Clan heat managed straight up fucking sucks. That's why as an IS, torso twisting becomes paramount. If you can get them to hit their heat ceiling by spreading damage across you, congrats, you've about got yourself the kill.
I don't know what your confusion is. If you want to assume perfectly equal pilot skill, and for some reason a one on one situation, yeah, the Clanner is gonna win. That's the point of the Clan mechs. That's also you playing directly into the strength of the enemy mech. That isn't a sign of the Clan mech being straight up better, but the IS pilot being an utter moron. Let's try this in a less confusing way:
All those ability that are just a bonus before are now exceedingly important when combating Clans. You need to take advantage of them, and with back up.
Clan mechs have distinct disadvantages in a brawl. The autocannons, while nasty, fire in a stream. That both spreads damage out AND keeps you from torso-twisting for longer. Same for the lasers, and I think even the SRMs have a wider spread. SSRMs have a long-ass recycle time. Etc.
0
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited June 2014
Artemis CSRM's actually have pretty tight grouping. It's funny, Artemis usage for me is juxtaposed on clan/IS mechs. For IS, I run arty LRM's but not SRM's, but for my clan mechs, I run regular LRM's and arty SRM's.
Posts
Overall, that's good for the meta. Those poptarting victors don't have big enough engines to get away when the clan mechs close, and even if they pull back early it might not help them with the clan's brawling weapons' range. Jump sniping isn't as accurate as normal shots, which is why I think they end up going after side torsos so much. They poptart a clanner and hit their ST, they strip the armor away and go "I should continue shooting that part because it's hurt" even though that's not going to truly cripple a clanner.
And that goes back to the mindest. When a mech loses armor on a ST, a lot of people will stop looking to protect themselves and focus on the killshot. They won't torso twist, or they'll stop watching heat levels. This was largely okay against IS mechs because most ran XLs, and anything else was largely crippled when that ST fell of (Save for Stalkers). With Clanners, they're effectively just giving the Clan more opportunity to demolish them.
My Jenner F is maxed on weight with an XL 300(With 2 single heatsinks in the engine) and 6 Medium lasers, and it runs hot.. almost unplayably hot on hot maps. Would I be better served removing 2 MLs and replacing them with two standard heatsinks, or removing the two MLs and spending 1.5mil on the double heatsink upgrade
Basically just add the 1.5m CB on to the purchase price of the 'mech as a tax.
Oh my god before you ever do anything get DHS. There is literally no reason not to. Almost every competitive build functions only because of DHS. You need them, and then you can run that Jenner F just fine (With the occasinaly trigger discipline).
Seriously, always DHS.
EDIT: And, after a bit of practice, Gauss still brawls just fine.
No. They only take up more critical spaces.
Edit: Tell us about your heat sinks, Geth.
Basically, doubles take up more crit slots (3, compared to 1). However, DHS heat capacity and dissipation is 1.4 (SHS is 1). The real big kicker, is the heat sinks that come in the engine, are true doubles.
To take your Jenner.
It has 12 SHS. Slotting doubles gives it the efficiency of 22.8 single heat sinks. Yeah, they're that good.
They weigh the same, take up 3 crit slots instead of 1, and dissipate 40% more heat. The trick is though, that your engine has 10 internal heat sinks that are giving you most of your heat dissipation right now. Instead of increasing dissipation by 40%, internal heat sink cooling is doubled with DHS.
Once you get DHS, the clouds will part, and you will see the matrix.
I just sold my atlas K to pay for it, wasn't any fun anyway. didn't like the hardpoints, only bought it for the XL300 anyway.
That's pretty much any clan vs IS brawl, though. That's the last thing IS mechs want to do with clan mechs, brawl.
I know, that's the point. I was reinforcing that as someone who pretty much only pilots a clan mech these days, the thing I want you to do is get up in my face where my sustained DPS will win 90% of fights.
Another thing to consider for your Jenner-F:
Small pulse lasers. Embrace the wub, love the wub.
would that provide a overall dps increase over medium lasers?
It's a loss of alpha damage, and a potential dps increase depending on your piloting skills. The reduced duration and cooldown time makes smpulses add up damage very quickly.
No, it gives slightly less dps overall, but it gives a much different damage profile. The laser damage happens over a much shorter time frame, letting you give all that damage to one part, rather than spreading it over the mech. You'll have a much shorter range as a trade off. You'll be generating less heat if you go that route.
Can you rate piloting skills as a negative number?
There are plenty of good IS brawlers. Get a Cataphract or a Jager. Get the Ilya if you don't mind spending MC. Now that SRMs are working, I imagine the srm stalker could be hugely dangerous again.
You can brawl against Clanners in an IS mech, you're just going to have to be very smart about it. I'd say being a kind of poacher works best, descending on targets of opportunity, and never doing so alone. Hit and run strikes work decently, too.
edit
Okay he literally has no weapons now thanks to the dickhead, and only one leg.
Uh, not at all? Your best bet is to learn how to torso twist appropriately and aim for CT on the Clan mechs, because most of the Clan pilots are dumb as rocks and will stare you down thinking they can win a straight DPS fight, and are invulnerable due to the side torsos not being instagib. A Timberwolf is almost as easy to core out as a Catapult, Dire Wolfs and Warhawks can torso twist and turn about as well as your average barn, the Summoner lacks the overwhelming firepower to make it stand out (it can still hurt, but isn't LOL levels of firepower). Clan mediums pack a punch, but have all the heat issues, and clan lights tend to be equivalent to really, really fragile mediums.
Basically, if it's a Light or Medium, treat it the same way you would an IS mech, if it's Heavy, pour your fire into the CT ASAP and twist away their return volleys. If it's an assault, just go around it and shoot it in the back. You can take your time, they'll wait for you.
Yeah, but I'm streaming the match... I'll upload it to youtube and send PGI the link.
I'm just going off stuff like the below:
"Brawling is the last thing you want to do." "You have superior alpha." "Use terrain and jab." "Be more cautious."
Alpha-sniping, extreme tedious caution, everybody stands in a blob and hides behind terrain, and impossibility of brawling is what made me uninstall the game. And what I'm hearing is that all of these things are exacerbated by the presence of Clan 'mechs if you're piloting IS.
[SUMMONER-B]: 4xCSRM6, 2xCAMS, 2xCMG, Clan XL350, DHS, Artemis, Ferro
You have to brawl smart. If you want to go CT face on with a clan mech of similar tonnage, expect to lose if the pilot can click mouse buttons and has a decent fit. If you're smart, and realize that most clan pilots WANT to hang and bang with you face on, you can exploit that. Your other option is to be a vulture and brawl with wounded mechs as they try and disengage from the battle. One of the scariest things for me is when I'm wounded and trying to fall back for a better position and a Hunchback comes tooting up to me.
Proper torso twisting is a skill that is desirable to all mechs. Trying to say that IS pilots just have to master torso twisting to make them balanced with Clan pilots, who are apparently mouth-breathing fools who never torso twist is not balancing the game. That's essentially saying, "hey, to get a fair fight you just got to play someone dumber than you..." lol...
Assuming equal pilot skill, Clan mechs are just (except for a few chassis) better. They are more survivable. They pack more weapons. They brawl better than you, and the argument that they aren't as good at jump sniping is questionable once you either account for a) a Clanner using a Gauss instead or b) the extra damage they get from being able to do things like field LRM's in addition to their pinpoint weapons.
The only thing that Clanners are lacking is speedy lights, and I suppose the Summoner is kind of unimpressive compared to the other Clan chassis. I just don't see how people are making the argument that IS and Clanners are balanced because Clanners are horrible players.
Nintendo Network ID: imperialparadox | 3DS FC: 2294-4029-6793
XBL Gamertag: Paradox3351 | PSN: imperialparadox
The problem isn't that clan mechs are lore correct and a bit better than IS mechs, the problem is that MM makes mixed IS and clan teams face other mixed IS and clan teams, rather than forcing battles where the clans natural weakness (numbers) is actually exploitable.
No one is arguing that Clan mechs are better, they should be better, that's Battletech lore. We're giving suggestions for how to negate some of that better and have a fighting chance until PGI gets around to creating CW or some other system that takes in to account the natural scarcity of clan tech.
As a side note, this is why I'm hoping the 4x3 system is only a stop gap, as it still won't correctly model clan tech scarcity. I'm not sure what PGI's issue with just using a Battletech style points system to balance out MM (where clan tech scarcity is naturally accounted for), but they seem to want to go another route.
Clanners aren't more powerful. Proper torso twisting benefits all mechs, but in this case we're saying it is a requirement. That's different.
Clan jumpsniping is probably comparable, yeah, okay. Except, why are you doing that? You're giving the IS more help by not taking advantage of your added survivability.
And Clan heat managed straight up fucking sucks. That's why as an IS, torso twisting becomes paramount. If you can get them to hit their heat ceiling by spreading damage across you, congrats, you've about got yourself the kill.
I don't know what your confusion is. If you want to assume perfectly equal pilot skill, and for some reason a one on one situation, yeah, the Clanner is gonna win. That's the point of the Clan mechs. That's also you playing directly into the strength of the enemy mech. That isn't a sign of the Clan mech being straight up better, but the IS pilot being an utter moron. Let's try this in a less confusing way:
All those ability that are just a bonus before are now exceedingly important when combating Clans. You need to take advantage of them, and with back up.