51 replies to this topic

[BUDFORCE]

Assuming all three are built with XL 295 with lasers to match the quirks, standard meta builds.

Also, I just want to point out here that I am naturally more of a medium/heavy mech player with not quite as much experience with lights.

H = Medium Lasers
S = Medium Pulse
A = Small Pulse

I can decide on which of the three.

I am leaning towards the S being my less favourite. You are relying quite heavily on your arms not getting blown off (which seems to happen with this mech) and although the dual AMS might be fun you gotta dump quiet a few tons to accomodate it.

So, between the A and the H. I really cant decide.

The A has the higher DPS on paper, the 8 SPL build is fun, and extremely lethal late game or as a support mech if your team are stomping them. Its also possibly the better against other hostile lights.

My only gripe with the A is the lack of range, and even with the bonus's and weapon upgrades you don't have much range to play with, meaning, (at least with my play style), the first half of the game, especially if it turns to a sniping war, you need to be patient. And if your team gets stomped, I find it difficult to score.

This is where the H starts to excel, the medium lasers hit out much further, which is handy for duck and cover early game and scoring assists - which less face it, is handy for grinding Cbills.

But I just cant decide so I am after the opinion of other more experienced Firestarter pilots.

[STEF_]

A.
The real beast, thanks to recent quirks.

It has enough dps to core or going to critic in a blinck.

edit: don't worry about range: with a 295 you can close very easily

Edited by Stefka Kerensky, 28 January 2015 - 12:34 AM.

[Ratpoison]

FS9-S is my favorite since its 15% energy heat reduction makes it more versatile than the others and it can pack dual AMS. Don't assume you have to run the MPLAS on it, it's just as good as the FS9-H at running MLAS and nearly as good as the FS9-A at running SPLAS considering that it's the only one that can take dual AMS and the others can't beat its heat reduction.

[TercieI]

5MPL S is the most versatile and my favorite. The A is a monster too. I get why the H is good, but I don't care for it. More than any other FS9, it just makes me miss my Jenners, despite the huge heat advantage over the JR7-F.

Edit: skip dual AMS. It's a waste of tonnage. You don't have two tons to spare for it.

Edited by Terciel1976, 28 January 2015 - 08:40 AM.

[Ratpoison]

Terciel1976, on 28 January 2015 - 08:38 AM, said:

5MPL S is the most versatile and my favorite. The A is a monster too. I get why the H is good, but I don't care for it. More than any other FS9, it just makes me miss my Jenners, despite the huge heat advantage over the JR7-F.

Edit: skip dual AMS. It's a waste of tonnage. You don't have two tons to spare for it.

You do if you take 6 MLAS.

[TercieI]

tortuousGoddess, on 28 January 2015 - 08:59 AM, said:

You do if you take 6 MLAS.

Not really. Even on the H, the engine usually drops to an XL285 to get JJ and enough DHS.

You're right about heat vs. the H, but there's no reason to give up the range of you're not running AMS.

Edited by Terciel1976, 28 January 2015 - 09:05 AM.

[Ratpoison]

Terciel1976, on 28 January 2015 - 09:03 AM, said:

Not really. Even on the H, the engine usually drops to an XL285 to get JJ and enough DHS.

You're right about heat vs. the H, but there's no reason to give up the range of you're not running AMS.

Uh, yes really. FS9-S

I run this all the time, there's tons of space for it. You don't need the tiny range buff when you can have dual AMS instead. You're moving 150, it wont make much difference.

You only have to skip the dual AMS if you go with lots of MPLAS or with heavier energy.

Edited by tortuousGoddess, 28 January 2015 - 09:44 AM.

[3xnihilo]

I would take the A w/spl They are monsters. The S would be my second choice w/mpl better range and still a killer. I personally don't run ams on light mechs because you can get to cover most of the time before the missiles can get to you. I also tend to shy away from ml on really fast mechs because it becomes difficult to hold on target for the whole duration while you are moving at top speed...but that is probably just my bad aim.

[TercieI]

tortuousGoddess, on 28 January 2015 - 09:36 AM, said:

Uh, yes really. FS9-S

I run this all the time, there's tons of space for it. You don't need the tiny range buff when you can have dual AMS instead. You're moving 150, it wont make much difference.

You only have to skip the dual AMS if you go with lots of MPLAS or with heavier energy.

You're moving 150...why do you need AMS?

[Smokeyjedi]

there all stupid good if you have a ping of 100 or more. I get no firecrutch @ 18ms.....you lucky scumdogs

[Ratpoison]

Terciel1976, on 28 January 2015 - 10:47 AM, said:

You're moving 150...why do you need AMS?

It's not all about you, AMS helps everyone. It also reduces streak damage, and reducing your vulnerability to LRMs even more is never bad.

[TercieI]

tortuousGoddess, on 28 January 2015 - 10:56 AM, said:

It's not all about you, AMS helps everyone. It also reduces streak damage, and reducing your vulnerability to LRMs even more is never bad.

LRMs are zero threat in a light unless you're pretty bad and honestly, no, double AMS doesn't meaningfully reduce the damage from a StreakCrow/Dog and anything less than that isn't really common any more. Better to have more cooling and kill more faster. <shrug>

[Basskicker]

Terciel1976, on 28 January 2015 - 10:47 AM, said:

You're moving 150...why do you need AMS?

To help create an lrm shield for your team. Helping shield that Direwhale on your team till he gets to cover is useful. Plus that ams comes in handy against ssrms that are fired from 200+m out, and we all know how much ssrms love blowing fs9 arms off.

My question is why do you have to run 150? This mech is a heavy hunter. Drop the engine down to a 280 and you are still going 140 which is plenty fast enough to escape from most threats, and use the extra tonnage for ams.

[DEMAX51]

Terciel1976, on 28 January 2015 - 10:58 AM, said:

LRMs are zero threat in a light unless you're pretty bad and honestly, no, double AMS doesn't meaningfully reduce the damage from a StreakCrow/Dog and anything less than that isn't really common any more. Better to have more cooling and kill more faster. <shrug>

QFT

AMS - even dual AMS - does so little to protect you from streaks it is completely not worth it. And for LRMs - a little re-positioning and Radar Deprivation are all you need.

[TercieI]

Basskicker, on 28 January 2015 - 11:05 AM, said:

To help create an lrm shield for your team. Helping shield that Direwhale on your team till he gets to cover is useful. Plus that ams comes in handy against ssrms that are fired from 200+m out, and we all know how much ssrms love blowing fs9 arms off.

My question is why do you have to run 150? This mech is a heavy hunter. Drop the engine down to a 280 and you are still going 140 which is plenty fast enough to escape from most threats, and use the extra tonnage for ams.

Have you tried a FS9 with an XL280? Decidedly less nimble. I won't run one less than max if it's a slasher. Can pull off XL285 with a poking H.

And as for an LRM shield...why? Cover and Radar Derp.

Edited by Terciel1976, 28 January 2015 - 11:16 AM.

[Basskicker]

Terciel1976, on 28 January 2015 - 11:15 AM, said:

Have you tried a FS9 with an XL280? Decidedly less nimble. I won't run one less than max if it's a slasher. Can pull off XL285 with a poking H.

And as for an LRM shield...why? Cover and Radar Derp.

Yes I run an xl280 in my A(8 spl) and S(4mpl 1sl) and I do perfectly fine with them. I used to run max engines in all of them, but I found dropping it down to a 280xl let me do more for my team and still keep my killing power.

You seem to be missing the point of the dual ams. It's not to protect you. It is there to protect your teammates who may not be as quick to cover as you.

[Ratpoison]

Terciel1976, on 28 January 2015 - 10:58 AM, said:

LRMs are zero threat in a light unless you're pretty bad and honestly, no, double AMS doesn't meaningfully reduce the damage from a StreakCrow/Dog and anything less than that isn't really common any more. Better to have more cooling and kill more faster. <shrug>

Assuming you're going to have cover available all the time is short sighted and naive. Especially in that 180-300m range, LRMs will have no trouble finding you, even if you're a great light pilot and rarely take damage from them.

Furthermore, moving 150 means your ability to reduce LRM damage against your slower teammates is greatly increased, as you can move the cover around far more effectively and follow missile trails to shoot down more of them.

Narrow minded selfish build choices may help your damage output by a dozen points or so, but that difference isn't helping your team or your win rate on the whole.

[DEMAX51]

tortuousGoddess, on 28 January 2015 - 11:49 AM, said:

Assuming you're going to have cover available all the time is short sighted and naive. Especially in that 180-300m range, LRMs will have no trouble finding you, even if you're a great light pilot and rarely take damage from them.

It's not really short-sighted or naive. Cover is pretty abundant on almost every map, and even if you can't find cover that is tall enough to block a salvo of LRMs, all you have to do is find cover you can duck behind to break Line-of-sight and make the missile boat(s) lose lock.

Quote

Furthermore, moving 150 means your ability to reduce LRM damage against your slower teammates is greatly increased, as you can move the cover around far more effectively and follow missile trails to shoot down more of them.

You can be far more useful to your team if you're actually fighting instead of acting as a roaming AMS platform. Sure, you can follow that Direwolf around and block maybe 30% of the LRMs being fired at him. Or, you can find that missile boat, use your speed to get behind it, and use your DPS to core it from behind. Even if you don't kill it (because it turns around and engages you), you've effectively protected your team from more LRMs than your AMS can because that dude's no longer shooting at your teammates.

Quote

Narrow minded selfish build choices may help your damage output by a dozen points or so, but that difference isn't helping your team or your win rate on the whole.

Choosing to take something else over AMS on a Light isn't narrow-minded or selfish, and you can do PLENTY to help your team win without simply being a LRMsponge.

Edited by DEMAX51, 28 January 2015 - 12:15 PM.

[TercieI]

DEMAX said most of what I was going to, so I'll just add one thing.

Have a look at MetaMechs' Tier Lists. While not exhaustive, this is the single best public resource for competitive and High Elo tested builds. Take a peek through the lights and see how many of them have AMS or use a meaningfully reduced engine. This is very representative of what top level players use. And they use it because it works against anyone. I'm not exactly pulling this stuff out of my ear here or going just off my own personal opinions and experience.

Edited by Terciel1976, 28 January 2015 - 12:17 PM.

[Ratpoison]

DEMAX51, on 28 January 2015 - 12:08 PM, said:

It's not really short-sighted or naive. Cover is pretty abundant on almost every map, and even if you can't find cover that is tall enough to block a salvo of LRMs, all you have to do is find cover you can duck behind to break Line-of-sight and make the missile boat(s) lose lock.


You can be far more useful to your team if you're actually fighting instead of acting as a roaming AMS platform. Sure, you can follow that Direwolf around and block maybe 30% of the LRMs being fired at him. Or, you can find that missile boat, use your speed to get behind it, and use your DPS to core it from behind. Even if you don't kill it (because it turns around and engages you), you've effectively protected your team from more LRMs than your AMS can because that dude's no longer shooting at your teammates.



Choosing to take something else over AMS on a Light isn't narrow-minded or selfish, and you can do PLENTY to help your team win without simply being a LRMsponge.

You make far too many assumptions for how forgiving any given situation in this game will be for you. Experience tells me you can't expect all of those things to just fall in place for you every game.