33 replies to this topic

[ShinVector]

Tycho von Gagern, on 30 June 2015 - 02:18 AM, said:

Leaving aside the Stormcrow, being a dedicated medium pilot is a thankless job. One mechwarrior in these forums called it "hard mode." If you see a medium (again, aside from the SC) performing well and carrying hard, it's more the pilot making it look easy than the medium mech outperforming the lights, heavies, and assaults around it.

Ermmm.... Mediums... Hard Mode ?
For some reason in the past.. I used to think this...

But now a days nah... Possible to carry in a Medium even against a 7man.

Edited by ShinVector, 30 June 2015 - 03:49 AM.

[InspectorG]

Tycho von Gagern, on 30 June 2015 - 02:18 AM, said:

is a pretty flawed statement.

While heavies may have the "more friendly blend of firepower and mobility," mediums have a distinctly unfriendly blend of heavy/assault scale and light armor. The worst of all worlds, mediums -no matter how mobile- will never be as hard to hit as a fast light, and will never pack an effective "one-shot alpha" like the heavies and assaults. Mediums never have the speed. They never pack in enough heatsinks or ammo, and whatever they do manage to bring comes at the sacrifice of something else: three jumpjets or AMS or BAP? Pick one and forget the rest.

Leaving aside the Stormcrow, being a dedicated medium pilot is a thankless job. One mechwarrior in these forums called it "hard mode." If you see a medium (again, aside from the SC) performing well and carrying hard, it's more the pilot making it look easy than the medium mech outperforming the lights, heavies, and assaults around it.

The ques beg to differ.

Light have far more liabilities than mediums. They can be one-shotted by many heavies and assualts. 10 heatsink rule and performance...and how that effects DPS. Light alphas are smaller than mediums on average.

You gonna tell me Spiders, Jenners, Commandos, Lynxes, Ferrets, Urbies, Panthers, maybe Ravens are more optimal and powerful than most mediums???

Firestarter is very strong but diminishes with each HSR pass...as we shall soon see again. Ravens are also strong but profile and legs hinder them.

Compare to (ill leave stormcrow out of it) HBK's(most especially the Grid iron), 2 Centurions, 2 decent Blackjacks, Wubcada, Enforcers, 2 Trebuchets, Shads, 2-3 Griffins, a Kintaro, Nova(as a poptart) and 2 wolverine variants???

You need to look at some Mediums DPS instead of alpha. Grid Iron, HBK-J, Wubcada, Wolverine, Wang.
Also need to look at some of the range to profile ratios and with even moderate speed creates very favorable trades for mediums...3LL Wolverine at 500m for example.

Only nerf to Havies/Assaults i would like to see is a noticable nerf to turning rate.

This would give lights a better role because unlike the other weight classes, they dont currently have one.

[Navy Sixes]

InspectorG, on 30 June 2015 - 06:12 AM, said:

The ques beg to differ.

Sure, but my point is it's only because weight-classes in the PUGs are regulated by queues to begin with. It forces players to find builds in other classes that work. I'm not complaining, mind you. It's a good thing. You list a lot of good options, but I remember what the class-spread looked like before 3x4, why PGI instituted 3x4 to begin with. Without those queues, you wouldn't see any of those good medium options in the PUG (except for a few gifted and driven medium fanatics). It'd be Firestarters, Timberwolves, and Direwolves all day.

ShinVector, on 30 June 2015 - 03:41 AM, said:

Ermmm.... Mediums... Hard Mode ?
For some reason in the past.. I used to think this...

But now a days nah... Possible to carry in a Medium even against a 7man.

Put it away, Shin...
.

[Wildstreak]

Tycho von Gagern, on 30 June 2015 - 02:18 AM, said:

Really? I blame it on 3x4.

How can you blame a system that was removed?

[Jon Gotham]

It's not just that though OP it's the massibe pp alpha you'll eat the nanosecond you peek from cover. even an Atlas can be cored nearly instantly should you make a wrong move and with the lumbering forward/reverse speeds you can't twist or move fast enough to shrug off that damage.
Now factor in the extreme self centric approach most pugs take to the game and the recipe is there.

[Innocent]

Boy that video was depressing. Why can't the game look like that again?

[mailin]

Mediums are certainly not underpowered. When I'm not in a light, I LOVE driving my Nova. small pulse lasers and 4 mgs tear stuff up. Hunchies used to be underpowered against even some of the newer IS mediums, but the mech quirks really resurrected those guys. And there's definitely a role for lights, it's just that most people don't recognize that. The percentage of lights in the queue really works to my advantage.

One thing that I would like to see is mech unlocks. Not allowing players to buy a heavy until they have gotten a certain number of drops in a medium, and work it the same for the assaults. Then you'd see assault players who really understood the game more.

[ShinVector]

Tycho von Gagern, on 30 June 2015 - 09:09 AM, said:

Sure, but my point is it's only because weight-classes in the PUGs are regulated by queues to begin with. It forces players to find builds in other classes that work. I'm not complaining, mind you. It's a good thing. You list a lot of good options, but I remember what the class-spread looked like before 3x4, why PGI instituted 3x4 to begin with. Without those queues, you wouldn't see any of those good medium options in the PUG (except for a few gifted and driven medium fanatics). It'd be Firestarters, Timberwolves, and Direwolves all day.
.

There was a huge problem without 3x4 with this ELO MM...
I seen stupid matches where like an almost all Assault mech team Vs. an almost all Light mech team.
It was ridiculous that the MM thought that was a fair match.

What we have now is better than that.

Edited by ShinVector, 01 July 2015 - 04:09 AM.

[purplewasabi]

Tycho von Gagern, on 30 June 2015 - 02:18 AM, said:

While heavies may have the "more friendly blend of firepower and mobility," mediums have a distinctly unfriendly blend of heavy/assault scale and light armor. The worst of all worlds, mediums -no matter how mobile- will never be as hard to hit as a fast light, and will never pack an effective "one-shot alpha" like the heavies and assaults. Mediums never have the speed. They never pack in enough heatsinks or ammo, and whatever they do manage to bring comes at the sacrifice of something else: three jumpjets or AMS or BAP? Pick one and forget the rest.

Leaving aside the Stormcrow, being a dedicated medium pilot is a thankless job. One mechwarrior in these forums called it "hard mode." If you see a medium (again, aside from the SC) performing well and carrying hard, it's more the pilot making it look easy than the medium mech outperforming the lights, heavies, and assaults around it.

I disagree. I run four hunchbacks for community warfare, occasionally swapping one for an assault depending on the map/game mode, MAINLY due to its blend of firepower and mobility. The innersphere (because i dont own any clan mechs) medium mechs are some of the most efficient mechs we have, despite their lack of firepower, ammo or both AMS and BAP.

[Rip von Graze]

I find mediums harder to play and are appropriately labled 'hard mode.' Playing a medium is less forgiving than any of the other classes, if you misjudge the enemy position you usually have neither the armor, speed, nor weapons to give yourself enough time to recover. What I find mediums do is force the player to think intelligently about what their team is doing and what their enemy is doing and react accordingly. Fight smart or die quickly.

On topic though...my recommendations are :
IS -

• Shadowhawks (mobility, XL friendly hitboxes, varied loadouts and boating possible)
  
• Hunchbacks (quicks revitalized the mech now that the hunch is a bit more well armored)
  
• Griffin / Wolverines (I do not have any but they seem to do well)
  
• Centurions (My favourite)

Clan -

• Stormcrow (crazy good hitboxes)
  
• Nova (meh, I elited it early on and have not played them since)

[InspectorG]

Dawnstealer, on 29 June 2015 - 07:29 PM, said:

I also make sure even my 100-tonners don't go slower than 60. That helps. My slowest Atlas moves at 62. You sacrifice a little firepower, but the ability to keep pace with the herd is more valuable in pugs.

Thts why i Pug more in my Warhawk instead of my Whales. And of course, my XL400 Wubshee.

[Kahadras]

Quote

Leaving aside the Stormcrow, being a dedicated medium pilot is a thankless job. One mechwarrior in these forums called it "hard mode." If you see a medium (again, aside from the SC) performing well and carrying hard, it's more the pilot making it look easy than the medium mech outperforming the lights, heavies, and assaults around it.

I'm a dedicated medium pilot and I don't feel it's a thankless job. Each weight class, IMO, requires a distinct play style and the medium class 'fits' me better than light, heavy or assault. If I was to choose what 'hard mode' was I would say assaults because I find them too sluggish. In my medium mechs I can rack up hundreds of points of damage in a game (to the point where I concider getting less than 600 damage in my Shadowhawk to be a poor performance). In an assault mech I feel lucky to break 300.

[jper4]

at least when I play I find the heavy/assault queue is usually 60-65% with medium/light 35-40, mediums usually 5-10% higher than lights. lights under 10% happens pretty often. heavies tend to be the most popular that I see always 30%+. usually runs heavies>assaults>=mediums>lights for me.

when I see the mediums/lights trying to get to the front tends to be because they're sick of waiting for the assaults that are just standing there to move. I rarely play assaults because when I do i'll find a likely spot to push from, then die because everyone else sits where they're at and watches me more often than not.

[Tim East]

I'm pretty sure the light queue is always short because people don't like the potential to get downed in a single hit. I one-shot two ECM Ravens on HPG last night because they stopped moving while the crosshairs of my dual-gauss Ebon Jaguar were on them.

I don't even really consider myself a heavy pilot; I'm mainly just driving those to whet my appetite for the Arctic Cheetah, which I hope will be a proper (read: fast) light.