12 replies to this topic

[Calvyr]

I've been going all over the place in my thinking of what I want to do in this game, from thinking that I want to get into CW as soon as possible on Clan, then on IS, then back again. I've now decided that I'm just going to play and enjoy myself as I build my collection of mechs, and worry about CW later.

So far, I've finished all the elite skills on the Hunchback 4G, 4SP, and 4J and the Stormcrow Prime, C, and D. I've also been playing around with the Arctic Cheetah trial and having fun with that. From all of this, I've figured out that I tend to enjoy playing a striker/brawler/assassin role, and also doing some skirmishing/poking. I'd like to have something that's relatively quick and has jump jets. ECM would be a great addition as well, but not necessary.

I've asked a few people and received suggestions of Blackjack, Crab, Jagermech, and Dragon. I've also considered the Griffin and Shadow Hawk, maybe the Enforcer. I like Clan mechs, but I think that bang for buck and variety, it might be better to stick to IS.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Audacious Aubergine]

The -D variant of the Centurion can take a large ballistic, an even larger max engine and zombie lasers to boot. Might be viable?

[Calvyr]

I am fairly heavily considering either the Griffin or the Shadow Hawk. There are things that I like and dislike about both. The Griffin lacks ballistics (which I like and would like to get better with), but it has ECM and I like striking with missiles and lasers too. However, the Shadow Hawk reportedly has better hitboxes and it has a little more versatility, being able to fight at multiple ranges.

I am still definitely open to other suggestions, though.

Edited by Calvyr, 19 January 2016 - 08:17 PM.

[Rorvik]

Calvyr, on 19 January 2016 - 12:15 PM, said:

I've been going all over the place in my thinking of what I want to do in this game, from thinking that I want to get into CW as soon as possible on Clan, then on IS, then back again. I've now decided that I'm just going to play and enjoy myself as I build my collection of mechs, and worry about CW later.

This is a good attitude to have. The Mechs that play well in Quick Play (QP) may not be well-suited for CW, and for CW, if you really want to min-max it, you'd need the modules, which cost a fortune to acquire.

Calvyr, on 19 January 2016 - 12:15 PM, said:

So far, I've finished all the elite skills on the Hunchback 4G, 4SP, and 4J and the Stormcrow Prime, C, and D. I've also been playing around with the Arctic Cheetah trial and having fun with that. From all of this, I've figured out that I tend to enjoy playing a striker/brawler/assassin role, and also doing some skirmishing/poking. I'd like to have something that's relatively quick and has jump jets. ECM would be a great addition as well, but not necessary.

I've asked a few people and received suggestions of Blackjack, Crab, Jagermech, and Dragon. I've also considered the Griffin and Shadow Hawk, maybe the Enforcer. I like Clan mechs, but I think that bang for buck and variety, it might be better to stick to IS.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

As someone who also enjoys brawling / striking, I can highly recommend the Enforcers and Griffins. While the Griffin is a bit larger, its mobility will make up for it, and it does have that left arm as a shield.

I would caution you on the Dragons. They can be effective (especially with XL engines), but their arm mounted weapons are really low and far out and have a very large yaw range, so it will take a lot of getting used to; you will end up hitting terrain a lot when you first play them. Also, I've heard varying stories about the torso hitboxes, but I've never personally had any major issues with them, even though I usually run XL engines on them; however, it's been a while since I played them, though, so YMMV.

I would strongly recommend you STAY AWAY from the Shadow Hawks. They make for great support Mechs but are terrible at brawling / striking, IMO. They are very sluggish, have a very narrow cockpit, are astonishingly large for a medium Mech, and the jumpjets are anemic on all but the 2K and 5M.

While I do not yet own any Crabs, I've heard good things about them and their hitboxes. Plus, they look pretty cool (and cute). Their only real downside is lack of variety in the variants (especially if you hate laser boats).

I can't say anything about Blackjacks or JaegerMechs as I do not own either; their design, although cool looking, for some reason just do not appeal to me.

If you really like Clan Mechs, there seems to be a huge number of Stormcrows and Shadow Cats in QP, and many a player swear by the Stormcrow. However, I'm relaying this as hearsay, as I don't own either Mech. The only medium Clan Mechs I have are the loyalty Nova, which sucks (too large and too slow for a medium), and the HBK-IICs, but I haven't really played them so far (saving my C-bills for the sales).

Calvyr, on 19 January 2016 - 08:10 PM, said:

I am fairly heavily considering either the Griffin or the Shadow Hawk. There are things that I like and dislike about both. The Griffin lacks ballistics (which I like and would like to get better with), but it has ECM and I like striking with missiles and lasers too. However, the Shadow Hawk reportedly has better hitboxes and it has a little more versatility, being able to fight at multiple ranges.

I am still definitely open to other suggestions, though.

If you're looking for a Griffin with ballistics, say hello to the Wolverine.

Edited by Rorvik, 20 January 2016 - 06:18 PM.

[Mazzyplz]

i can recommend the dragon 1c with a big xl engine (290 i think) - with 2 erll and 2 LL with LL range mods.

you have all your lasers pretty high up on your left side, and you can shoot like a semi-auto carbine of 4 laser thru even small cracks.
it's great.

and for a second variant the 1n with the dual ac5 is good as well but the hardpoint is a bit low for that arm there

[Calvyr]

Rorvik, on 20 January 2016 - 06:12 PM, said:

If you really like Clan Mechs, there seems to be a huge number of Stormcrows and Shadow Cats in QP, and many a player swear by the Stormcrow. However, I'm relaying this as hearsay, as I don't own either Mech. The only medium Clan Mechs I have are the loyalty Nova, which sucks (too large and too slow for a medium), and the HBK-IICs, but I haven't really played them so far (saving my C-bills for the sales).

I actually own 3 Stormcrows and have all the elites finished on all of them. They're great mechs and I've had a tonne of fun playing them, but I'm looking for something new to play with.

Rorvik, on 20 January 2016 - 06:12 PM, said:

If you're looking for a Griffin with ballistics, say hello to the Wolverine.

I'll take a look at that, it hadn't really hit my radar, but I'm sure it's worth a look. Thanks for all the advice.

Edited by Calvyr, 20 January 2016 - 07:00 PM.

[no one]

MWO more or less fails at creating a space for 'brawler' loadouts. The terrible capacity based heat system favors alpha-cool, alpha-cool cycling, and damage per second per heat doesn't really suffer for long ranged builds. It's dumb and counter intuitive, but long rage ballistics are almost invariably better at sustained infighting than their 'high damage' short range counterparts due to heat buildup. So yeah, the dragon's a good 'brawler' since it's quirks let it sustain high DPS with a light autocannon without significant risk of overheat.

Aside from PGI ******* up the overall heat system, I like to point to the ISerLL when calling attention to how badly they failed at individual weapon balance on the conceptual level. Instead of a high precision, high heat sniper weapon they made it into a luke warm laser pointer. Then they doubled the heat cost of small lasers.

Edited by no one, 20 January 2016 - 07:42 PM.

[Thunder Lips Express]

My favourite ever is a Cataphract 4x with 4 ac5's and 2 medium lasers. I purchased two of them because switching from endo-steel structure to regular and back gets expensive sometimes I want an xl engine for the speed and sometimes I will take a smaller standard engine for more durability. It's a great mech that can deal tons of damage and it has other variants that are quite good such as the muromets and the 3d and 0xp.
Marauders can be pretty good at brawling as well.
How about an Atlas ddc? Put on an ac20, a couple srm6's and some medium lasers with an ecm, you will be a big slow target but it's durable and can do some strong damage. For sure take my advice with a grain of salt, although I have been around since closed beta I'm only tier 3 and only play a handful of mechs out of the 100+ that I own

[NameNotAvailable]

cataphract 4x and atlas are both incredibly slow and no jump jets, not what the op is looking for. Cat 3d does have jump jets and is reasonably fast with an XL.

OP - re "bang for buck", Inner Sphere mechs aren't actually all that cheaper than Clan Mechs, once you factor in the cost of Double Heat Sinks (1.5 million per mech) and EndoSteel (750k?) plus a probable engine change, none of which you pay for on a Clan Mech.

I'd add Timberwolves to your list of possibles, they're 87kph with Speed tweak, can have jump jets, and carry much more armour and firepower than the other mechs suggested. Hellbringers are also great Clan mechs, with ECM, but no Jump Jets.

[VirtualSmitty]

The Enforcer is a fine ride, good hit boxes, can run ballistics, some variants have jump jets.

[Smugsie]

Currently I have one mech per class, all are brawlers except my Raven, which is an ERLL.

Griffin 1N is brutal with 4xSRM6+Artemis. Combine it with jump jets and jump jet splats are everywhere.
Blackjack 1DC is a semi brawler that requires a partner. 2xUAC5+195 shots of it has 2.3 heat efficiency and allows you to stay on the battlefield forever. I've solo'd an atlas and took down 2 more mechs before dying.
Dragons must have all armor in the front(except 5 tons in the back and reduced leg armor for tonnage space). They must also have standard engines when brawling because of the hitbox increase. Everyone goes for the side torsos now. However the arm articulation is what gives the dragon the advantage in a brawl compared to other mechs.
Atlas is a natural brawler, 3xsrm6+artemis and an AC20 is all you really need. Large lasers increase heat and reduce the role efficiency of a brawler.

You can kind of cater every mech to be a brawler, but you must have full armor and good heat efficiency. High heat will not do well for any brawl.

Edited by Necrok3, 28 January 2016 - 06:49 AM.

[Lichschool]

The GRF-1N only has three missile hardpoints.

The 1N is very good, but is generally surpassed by the 3M, which *does* have 4 missile hardpoints. If you're looking for a medium that can smash, you want the Griffin. If you want to master it, get the 3M, 1N, and 1E (sparky). The 1E eschews missiles but has 6 energy hardpoints and is a good, fast wub-boat.

As for missiles, you'll want SRM4+A in lieu of SRM6+A. The SRM4 has a much tighter grouping and you will be able to focus down parts much easier. I used to scoff at this notion, thinking that the SRM 6's firepower compensated enough for the grouping difference, but it does not. I have had far more success with the SRM4+A.

[Zookeeper Dan]

If you get Griffins you should get the 2N. 4 missile hard points and ECM. Next would be the 3M also with 4 missile hard points but no ECM. Then just pick a third because there is a big fall off after those two.