60 replies to this topic

[UrsusMorologus]

I have been looking around a bit at roles that mediums are good for, and all of them seem to be better filled by lights or heavies. Like, medium makes a solid escort/defensive patrol ship, but an ember does it better. What is it that mediums are really really better at?

[Zordicron]

This is hard to answer, because more then any other tonnage range, mediums are diverse in speed, firepower, agility and fighting ability.

For instance, a Cicada is really an oversize light mech, while a shadowhawk is much closer to a light weight heavy in firepower and mobility.

I think if you are trying to figure the class out, or perhaps even just a certain mech or two, it would be eaiser to help you out if you specify. I dont think i play any two of the mediums in a similar loadout/playstyle. Other then fire support as a very broad general type. There is just too much difference in mobility and firepower/speed/durability to set the whole tonnage range into one spot.

[HlynkaCG]

UrsusMorologus, on 08 September 2014 - 01:32 PM, said:

What is it that mediums are really really better at?

Killing light mechs , they can also make excellent fast-strikers, IE Stormcrows and Griffins.

Edited by HlynkaCG, 09 September 2014 - 08:33 AM.

[pulupulu]

medium is the best weight class for peek-a-boo.

they are the only one with enough speed and firepower to do it as their primary role. That's for long range weapons. Obvvously stormcrow is absolutely the best at this, currently in game.

Heavy can do it to a degree, but it is less safe than medium. Assault can't do it without prior knowledge of where opponent is looking at.

For short range, medium are the best to flank with srm. With alot of srm, medium can pack alot of punch for a surprise attack then get out without being dead. Srm are also excellent light killing weapon. Yes, stormcrow is also the best srm medium in the game currently.

All the other role such as fire support, finisher, harassment, front line combat, holding down defensive position, etc other class do it way better. If you want to play those role well, don't pick a medium.

Medium builds should not be jack of all trade. They need to dedicate all their tonnage for a single spear point attack that tip the war toward your team's direction. If someone has to die, it is better you die than your heavy, light, or assault. (unless they are clearly noob from solo queue, then u need to carry)

Edited by pulupulu, 08 September 2014 - 07:47 PM.

[UrsusMorologus]

Hunter/stalker makes sense with a couple of ERPPC and either ECM or speed/jump

Thanks

[STEF_]

Let's put in this way: it's up to you to choose

1) medium mechs have less weapons than heavy, and less speed than a light.

OR

2) medium have more weapons than a light and have more maneuverability than a heavy mechs.

I'm a medium mech pilot, and I live inside a SHD-2H, brawler config.
That ac10 in my shoulder makes me happy than the arms of a jager.
When things go dirty or the heavier ones aim at me, I can fly away.
Then, when heavy and assault are critical, COD with all my srm and ml and ac10.

aaaa Hawk of my dreams, make my dreams fly <3

[JonahGrimm]

UrsusMorologus, on 08 September 2014 - 01:32 PM, said:

I have been looking around a bit at roles that mediums are good for, and all of them seem to be better filled by lights or heavies. Like, medium makes a solid escort/defensive patrol ship, but an ember does it better. What is it that mediums are really really better at?

As a dedicated light and medium pilot... well. Here's the thing:

Every weight class, in very broad terms, can be said to be a tradeoff in three things: armor (including target profile), weapons, and speed. The heavier you go, the more armor you pack, the bigger your loadout... and the lower your speed. Lights and assaults are, of course, the extremes, and useful for illustrating the point: a light (in general) moves at insane speeds and brings a limited suite of firepower with light armor, while an assault presents a profile like a barn door and enough guns to level a small city... coupled to a speed that would necessitate the emergency lane on the interstate.

So, using that stratification - Mediums are designed to carry a heavier payload than lights at a greater speed than heavies can offer. With that in mind, Mediums are the kings of maneuverable firepower, e.g. - delivering the right gun to the right place at the right time, even from a bad position. They can react to the flow of the battlefield faster than a heavy or assault, making it possible for a medium to lend its weight anywhere within a few moments. They can retreat from a bad position in a way the heavier classes cannot - meaning that they can recover from serious positioning errors very quickly. Their heavier armor than a light - in some cases, within inches of higher tier weight classes - means that they're survivable in the event things go wrong.

In a more succinct statement: mediums are all about the maneuver.

To that end, mediums excel in the following roles:

- Brawler
- Striker
- Fire Support
- EW support (non-ECM)
- Flanker

They are not necessarially better than another mech in a different weight class - but they make up for any of their limitations with maneuvering capability that isn't necessarially readily apparent on paper. Everything about them is generally faster - from their torso twist speed to their arm movements, not just their ground speed.

The Vindicator is a good example - with top speeds (after speed tweak) ~90kph, they'd seem mediocre at first glance. However, their engine limitations open up the possibility of wide ranges of weapons; I've got a 1X running a gauss paired with several medium lasers as a maneuverable sniper, and my SIB is configured as LRM support, both carrying surprisingly heavy weapon loads for a 45-ton mech. My Griffons are built as brawlers, with my best built with 3ML and SRM20 - a /55 point alpha/ under sixty tons with a left-arm shield, 113kph, and enough jump to make it a terror.

Anyway - the point is that mediums must:

a) be tailored for a role
be run with enough patience to fulfill that role
c) fulfill their promise of speed and firepower

... to be effective. Miss on any one of these points, and they'll feel (at best) painful.

[Rushin Roulette]

UrsusMorologus, on 08 September 2014 - 01:32 PM, said:

I have been looking around a bit at roles that mediums are good for, and all of them seem to be better filled by lights or heavies. Like, medium makes a solid escort/defensive patrol ship, but an ember does it better. What is it that mediums are really really better at?

What are heavies better at that Assaults or Mediums cant do better? Mediums are better armoured and have a higher weapons pay load than Lights, but are also slower, The same goes for Heavies over Mediums and Assaults over Heavies.
No mech class is better than another class, Each class has an advantage over some and a dissadvantage against others. Its the classic rock paper scissors situation.

Edited by Rushin Roulette, 09 September 2014 - 05:46 AM.

[Redshift2k5]

They're really good at shoot&scoot, and some of them can bring huge numbers of medium/small lasers which few heaveir mechs can match.

They also tend to be much more maneuverable, so better suited to finesse gameplay. For example, I can bring ther same loadout as a stock K2 on a 45 ton Blackjack, and it's a much smaller target on a much more nimble, jump-capable chassis. Faster than a Heavy but slower than a light. A very wide range of speeds available, and many jump jet capable options.

They tend to be cheaper, good for the pilot on a budget.

If you play in a group/merc/unit/etc, you are limited by a max of 3 per weight class, so larger groups of friends will require some medium pilots.

Edited by Redshift2k5, 09 September 2014 - 05:47 AM.

[Scurry]

Mediums usually excel in roles that require decent speed, IMHO. Strikers, Cavalry brawlers, Light-Snipers, LRMishing, etc. My favourite weight class, personally.

What's fun is that they usually have the medium awareness filter - if an opponent is faced with a heavy and a medium, chances are he'll shoot at the heavy first. Use that to circle round, blow off the opponent's rear, or just support fire.

Taking the examples you just gave - yes, the Ember can be a decent escort, but it doesn't have quite the firepower to really make all that much difference at first. While a Heavy can be a better DPSer, the medium can get to where it is needed faster. It all depends on how you configure it.

P.S. Your username looks familiar. STO, perchance?

[BigFatGator]

Operational flexibility. Mediums can change their attack axis and adjust to changes in the battle flow much quicker than Heavies or Assaults. They can also carry a much more diversified and powerful payload vs. lights.

A lot depends on the specific Medium. I like Shadowhawks myself, and they are really great at plugging holes or flanking. Easy to pack on 20T of weapons, not much lighter armor than the 60-65T heavies, but faster and with JJs.

[Dracol]

I look at mediums as force multipliers.

Picture this:Your main death ball has encountered the main enemy death ball. The medium can work the edges of the firing line and bring its guns to bare onto the focused targets of the Assaults and Heavies.

If a segment of the enemy attacks the flank, the mediums can respond and provide much needed firepower. As the flank is turned back, they can quickly get back to the main engagement.

Heavies don't have the speed to do this and the lights don't have the armor to be effective doing this over the course of a battle.

Edited by Dracol, 09 September 2014 - 07:38 AM.

[UrsusMorologus]

Scurry, on 09 September 2014 - 07:12 AM, said:

P.S. Your username looks familiar. STO, perchance?

Yeah trying to reduce my activity there and MWO has been on my to-play list for a while now

[Scurry]

UrsusMorologus, on 09 September 2014 - 08:12 AM, said:

Yeah trying to reduce my activity there and MWO has been on my to-play list for a while now

Heh, I see. Have fun here!

[Beo Vulf]

Mediums can pack a suprising amount of firepower in a fast mech with a low profile. case in point the Nova cat can pack the firepower of a heavy in a smaller faster frame. Which if used as an opening alpha strike on a light can core it, and kill it. When teamed with a heavy, or assualt mech can take down a heavy, or assualt mech within seconds if that mech does not take cover. The down side of the medium is that it does not carry as much armor as a heavy, or assualt mech. I love both my hunchback , and my Nova cat. They are best used in different roles, but both should be teamed with at least one heavy, or assualt mech. The best advice I can give for a medium mech pilot is stick with the heavy.

[Clownwarlord]

What are mediums good at?

• Light Mech Hunters
  
• Snipers
  
• Spotters
  
• Brawlers
  
• Everything ...

Now to answer your question, "What Does Mediums Do Better Than OTHERS?"

The answer is nothing, but its true ability makes it the best all around mech type able to do anything and do it well. May not be the best at that role but its weight class allows it to fill anyrole out there, examples:

Cicada 3M - sniper and spotter
Kintaro, Shadowhawk, Griffon, Wolverine - sniper, brawler, light mech hunter, lrm boat

In truth a medium mech can fill any role depending on how you play it and how you built, the other chassis can't do that. They are limited by one of these: armor, speed, weapons.

For example: light mechs not the best armor and don't carry the most weapons which hurt them at brawling; heavy mechs lack speed and are bigger which makes it harder to snipe and spot because the enemy can see you better; and assaults well they don't have any speed but they have all the weapons so they are good at brawling but spotting ... yeah leave that for lights please.

I hope this helps and yes that is generalizing the medium class and the other classes not to say some mechs can't do the other roles but for the most part they can't where as the medium class can fill every role.

[IraqiWalker]

As many before me have stated, mediums are the jack of all trades, master of none mechs in the army.

In the lore, they are the most numerous mechs fielded by any army (with a few exceptions), because they are cheap to produce, and can bring terrifying firepower where it's needed very quickly.

For example. I can configure a Cn9-AL to be a short range brawler with SRMs, a big STD engine, and loads of MPLs. Or, as a long range sniper, with PPCs, and maybe LRMs, and a nice XL engine. Or in-between with 2 LPLs, and MLs. Or even as a pure LRM mech. The main thing to remember here, is that the Centy can do any of these roles rather well, but it falls short from the mechs/weight classes, designed specifically for these tasks.


They combine small frames, that are hard to hit, with great speeds (most mediums are running at over 90Kph, making them demi-lights. Some even go above 110Kph), fantastic mobility (their movement archetype means that there is almost no piece of terrain they can't climb, couple it with a hill climb module, and you are free to move almost anywhere. Or use JJs, as many of them have JJs), decent armor, presenting a lower threat to the enemy than most other things around them, and really big guns.

The Hunchback-4G is the best representation of that. Most people will usually ignore it, in favor of killing the big assault charging them. Big mistake. The Hunchie is one of the most nimble and maneuverable mechs in the game, coupled with being very short, and packing an AC 20, and you have a recipe for a proper cored back on an enemy mech. While their targets focus the assaults drawing fire, the hunchies will maneuver into the proper spot, and open fire with that AC 20, causing catastrophic damage that most pilots won't even realize is coming from the tiny mech to their left.


medium mechs tend to use their mobility, and maneuverability to wolf-pack their opponents. Swarming around them very quickly, while hitting from all sides, and twisting around to spread damage, or hide behind cover. Seeing a proper medium mech wolf pack is a sight to behold.

[Rear Admiral Tier 6]

Well i had good success against the clan lights and assault mechs in Centurions,Trebuchets and Cicadas.

Slap in some nice big engine,ASRM:s and hit and run tactics.

Also the honorary medium Dragon is great with ballistics due to the cooldown buff.

[IraqiWalker]

Cookiemonter669, on 10 September 2014 - 12:25 AM, said:

Well i had good success against the clan lights and assault mechs in Centurions,Trebuchets and Cicadas.

Slap in some nice big engine,ASRM:s and hit and run tactics.

Also the honorary medium Dragon is great with ballistics due to the cooldown buff.

AC 20s do wonders to clan mech constitution.

[Appogee]

Medium Mechs are good at sorting out the good pilots from the bad ones