I'd say Cataphract.
Reason: low hardpoints for weapons (in arms, mostly) and relatively small numbers of energy + ballistic hardpoints that make it hard finding a viable build compared to other "meta-friendly" mechs like the warhammer.
I love them (my 0XP with Gauss and 3 ER-LLs is one of my top performer mech) but I don't see many on the battlefield...
So much Cataphract love...
Spoiler
Koniving's Cataphract 4X, shot by Lordred 2013.
Same Cataphract, same day, different pantjob. Under heavy fire. Shot by Lordred.
My Loadout that day.
With the advent of Quirks, Cataphracts largely fell out of favor because with shorter reload times on some of these insanely quirked mechs, there isn't enough time to 'twist' and protect yourself and being that big, the face time required to deliver a payload against enemies with much faster firing rates.... it very quickly fell out of meta favor.
Structure quirks help them out a lot, but the damage had aleady been done to their reputation. This combined with how old the mechs are, most experienced players have played them out. This said, they're still quite formidable.
I'll field some shortly. (Fun fact, I've never bought the best one, and so I'll get that soon too).
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Rogue Jedi, on 02 May 2016 - 11:20 PM, said:
Myst Lynx,
all the guns in the arms and it looses arms too quickly, if you take ECM only 2 guns, considering my affection for the SDR-5V I did not think that would be a problem for me but I just could not make it work.
Not enough experience with it; as an opponent I've almost never seen them lose arms. I have, however, seen them easily lose torsos.
Will have to try 'em out and then edit this or requote it.
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Rhavin, on 03 May 2016 - 02:11 AM, said:
Ice Ferrets, first mech I ever spent gxp on to basic and sell to free up mechbays. Did the same for the panther. Only kept the special variants and used mechbays to buy warhawks. I have so much global exp I still won't ever run out of it so I don't consider it a big loss.
Ice ferret , its just too big, it seemed every shot i took seemed to cost me half my firepower.
To begin... Note that in MWO the Hunchback (shortest 50 tonner in humanoid form in this game) is 13.5 meters (which is at minimum 4.5 meters taller than they are in Battletech).
The Ice Ferret... well this says it all.
2+ megabyte animated gif comparing them. In Spoiler.
Spoiler
'Nough said.
(BT version is a very tall 11 meters, but a fair bit of this height is because of endo steel and ferro fibrous, which both makes a mech 'thicker' and larger than it should be.)
(Then again, the Hunchback in BT is just under 9 meters tall, and has a drum on its back because the mech is so small that it can't fit the ammunition inside itself. Notice the stock ammo is left torso where the drum is, and the only two official drawings of the 4SP both have a CT drum, where there 4SP stock ammo is.)
(For comparison, Victor is a pretty short 9-10 tall in BT... I'm scared to figure out how tall it is in MWO because I know it towers over a 14 meter mech.)
Beyond the scale issue, they do have the merit of being particularly fast. Will give them more of a shot and some vids to see if I can come up with anything that will help people to like them.
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Rhavin, on 03 May 2016 - 02:11 AM, said:
Panther was just too slow for me no matter what I did it felt like it was moving 60 kph and turning/twisting at 20. Also not enough firepower, one shot takes off an arm and that arm had the only weapon.
Yeah, those are the only 2 mechs I actually feel hate for, don't think I ever broke 150 damage in game with them.
Panthers are sort of supposed to be slow. But I do know what you mean. There is the torso but it does leave you wishing that there was some hardpoint inflation on the left side. The low top speed does encourage standard engine use, which makes it tank better than many mediums.
Will have some vids.
Here's mine if it helps.
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Locust
Quite a few calls. Will quote specifics when I have some vids about 'em.
Being so thinly armored is difficult. Most of my Locust vids are fun, but I have a few slower Locusts that manage to unspeakable feats.
Such as this AC/5 Locust.
Skip to 5:50
Furball72, on 03 May 2016 - 02:41 AM, said:
Locust, any variant
Reason: Truly awful cockpit canopy that is more blindspot than visual field.
I couldn't agree more.
Zoomed out, do you see why it's so bad?
For some reason, the pilot is seated in the far back (image courtesy Haruko) instead of near the front.
The layout here explains it.
However the artist intended for the pilot to be more forward, he also expected the Locust to be larger. It's just about 9 meters in MWO, maybe a little under. BT has Locusts as being bigger, mainly due to really long, thin legs and needing a high angle to see the field with.
If the artist knew the pilot was going to be so far back, I imagine the front end of the Locust would look very different, especially since a two seater helicopter layout was used to conceive the cockpit shape.
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Dragon!
Spoiler
Bud Crue, on 03 May 2016 - 02:40 AM, said:
Cataphract, see above.
Wolverine, see above. Only mech I never bought back after I sold most off.
Dragon: Low number of hardpoints, wide frame, assault sized profile (due to be reduced soon), bad hit boxes, lacks the diversity and jump jets of a Quickdraw, lacks the consistently high hard points of a Rifleman, hardpoint location makes many builds have only a few weapons but on opposite sides of body (or in both arms) making the Alpha/twist play style a losing proposition.
Victor, is too damn big and fragile. Suffers same problems as Dragon. Though it has jump jets, the are a joke, and XL is nearly required to get any weapons in it making it easily killed.
Dragon, in my opinion another mech suffering from scale issues. The huge belly on BT Dragons is actually because Dragons are short and squat. The head is about the only thing close to actual scale (compared to a person), the rest is really oversized. For MWO's standards, even then it is pretty wide though surprisingly short compared to some of the other 60 tonners.
But -- even so... Perhaps it's not as big as you think? For example the Mad Dog is HUGE compared to a Dragon.
You tell me, compared to other mechs: Each mech is shown in order of weight from lowest to highest. There are mechs also close to its weight that are much worse but I wanted to keep it fair. The Hellbringer is 65 tons, completely meta, and bigger. The Mad Dog towers over both of them. The Centurion, exceptionally meta for nearly 3 years, is roughly the same size without nearly so many quirks.
Kit Fox: Too slow for a light mech, not enough armor for that speed, in higher tiers almost useless triple AMS combo. Ever weapon in the arms OR must be bought by taking jumpjets and even THEN you can't really stuff something there besides MG.
And the arms? Mounted too low, so you need exposure (which you don't want, see speed and armor).
I found only two roles: AMS boat + ECM cover (only useful in T5) and some lasers + MGs to finish off what others started (fun but not really usefull, also more than one of this would surely backfire).
You could do streak kitty to kill lights, but you'd either be missing the punch or the ammo, also everyone can either run away from you or oneshot you.
Sniper mech turned race horse by the common populace. Its 'slow' for an MWO light, pretty fast for a BT light. Its intended role is long range and it does this really well. You can also do close range but its better to think of it as more of a 'stealth mission' rather than rushing to get close.
The most common build I actually see on it is ER LL sniper. Will do some vids. On the right torso you can do over-the-shoulder ACs, and yes I believe the JJ requirement really hurt the Kitfox's versatility for torso mounted ballistics.
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jss78, on 03 May 2016 - 03:14 AM, said:
I feel like the Vindicator is so unpopular that people don't remember to mention it even in a listing like this :-D
That they are unpopular is not subject to debate IMO.
Whether they can be good... I'd argue the dual-PPC poptart 1AA is at least OK, even good so long as YOUR AIM is good. The 1R has sufficient hardpoints and quirks to make a poor man's Blackjack with worse hardpoint locations, which makes it I guess mediocre but not tge worst mech in the world. The 1X I haven't been able to make work.
I'll be honest, personal experience turned me off from the Vindicator. The first disappointment was the lack of a missile door, so no additional protection for the LT.
Mainly though, its a mech designed for single armor/structure, placed in a game with double armor/structure... with mediocre help. The age of quirks is what really did the Victors in at first glance (because everyone else got them and Vindicators were new, so they had none at first). When PGI got around to it, there weren't many willing to give them a chance.
I'll see what I can do with mine.
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That's about half of the first page and all I can comment on for now (3 AM, tired).
Huh. I could have sworn my pilot's flipped those top bar switches but I don't recall him ever leaning really far forward.
Maybe my pilot's actually Stretch Armstrong.
Koniving, I agree with your assessment on the Kit Fox.
They're probably mediocre lights if played like other light mechs. But as a die-hard MEDIUM jock I've always had consistent good luck with them. I'll hang somewhere near the biggest cluster of friendly fatties, giving AMS/ECM cover and provide supporting fire with whatever weaponry I can pack on top of that. Sure they're slow, but easily fast enough for within-group movent, and while squishy they'll last until late game when escorting higher-priority targets.
Exceptional utility mechs IMO, but require a mathematical and selfless approach to how to best support your team.
Not enough experience with it; as an opponent I've almost never seen them lose arms. I have, however, seen them easily lose torsos.
it is quite possible there has been some sort of adjustment, I tried them when they were first released but just kept loosing both arms really early, the Mech itself seemed pretty durable for its weight but it lost its arms and all its guns really early in the match about 10 games in a row and I just gave up on them, and I do not see them enough to have any idea on there durability these days, and I still have several unmastered Mechs, I may eventually go back to the MLX and give it another chance after I have elited or mastered most of my chassis but that will take a while, especially if I keep getting new Mechs
All depend on personnel opinion. Any mech can find his role on battlefield. Problem that in modem meta heaven people tend to have something that can painfully punch back and not just take up slot in drop ship. Most unpopular mechs = those you almost never see in game.
1– ice ferret – completely useless, very hot, almost no free tonnage to play with, feels like it light, big bulky easy target, ugly as nuclear war, ECM and speed does not save it – any other medium in game performs better in any role. It rather have less speed with smaller engine and more space to be more like medium mech and not like “this”.
2– vidicator – hot, thin armor, few hardpoints, blackjack is much better in all aspects.
3 – panther – good mech, but there is enough lights that better, and can punch harder.
4 – myst lynx – same as panther unpopular because of powerful meta and fast matches where weak mechs just cant keep up. Too low tonnage to play with. If you want something crazy, capable to annoy people and make a punch on targets - locust is 100% better.
5 – kitfox – good mech, quite powerful, but it just VERY slow. In game where heavies can run 80 km/h and all IS lights runs faster than 120, this thing get wrecked in seconds. Also it’s 80s design looks bad among other shiny mechs.
6 – summoner - no free space for lodout experiments. Only capable build in modern meta world – SRM boat, what makes its quite boring and not flexible at all when talking about omnimechs.
7 – Orion 2C – nice heavy that got only 1 problem – completely broken hit boxes which combined with bulky design makes it feel like it made of glass and makes it die in couple of shots.
8 – Gargoyle – joke assault with no firepower whatsoever and few hard points. Also surprisingly hot even with few weapons.
But pay attention, that “unpopular” doesn’t means that they are ‘’BAD”. That’s means that for this exact moment of space and time those mechs just not good enough when compared with all many other mechs that are now in game. Some future changes can bring new modes/roles on battlefield and those mechs will find their use and will shine.
some other mechs I really dislike to play, but for me these stand out.
I am usually very surprised if I see them on the battlefield. In my hangar, they are just gathering dust.
My fave KFX is the ASRM24 build. It doesn't have a lot of ammo (3.5 tons IIRC) but with spread quirks, they're among the most precise SRMs in the game. (You can drop to ASRM22 or 20 if the ammo bothers you). Surprisingly fun if you're good with SRMs.
- Commando: Maybe it is THAT worse just because I'm not a dedicated light Pilot but for me it is the worst Mech in Game. Either not enough punch to be of any matter or no usefull light mech Equipment (Beagle, Narc, TAG, ECM) or you have to go in to near to survive more than seconds.
- Vindicator: too light for its size....thats about it. Its survivability just sucks and it can't carry enough high powered raged weapons to compensate for this.
- Kintaro and Ballista: Not as bad as the Vindi but close. Much too large for their armor or payload.
I do not say it is impossible to do anything usefull with them, its just the fact that you constantly meet mchs doing everything better and just killing you stone dead when they haveremotely the same skilllevel.
- Dragon.....I...do not want to talk about THAT.
- Victor....and especially the !""§$$%$%&&%!/%&§$&§%§& !!!!!!!!!11111!!! Dragonslayer.
You paid for itand then it gets nerfed in a way it is not even weak any more.
If there would be any possibility in the games code the ingame Store would demand toxic waste disposal fees if it could for sellling it.
Huh. I could have sworn my pilot's flipped those top bar switches but I don't recall him ever leaning really far forward. Maybe my pilot's actually Stretch Armstrong.
Change the FOV, something like 75 to 90. 90 might be a bit much.
There's plenty of pages to go through and I will have responses to them. Also, posting this update because in about 15 minutes I will be fielding the first mech on the list, the Cataphract. Tiers 5 through 2 may be able to find me on the American and European servers, as I hit Tier 3 yesterday (and then bombed to see how hard it would be to drop back down; turns out not hard at all) and so I'm teetering the knife's edge. (Sorry Oceanic but those pings are bad during recording.)
Commando: Not enough hardpoints
Spider: Not enough hardpoints
KFX: Slow
MLX: Not enough hardpoints/firepower, slow
IFR: Not enough hardpoints/ tonnage
Dragon: Not enough firepower
Highlander: Not enough hardpoints/firepower. Suffered from JJ nerfs
Victor: Fragile. Suffered from JJ nerfs
Commando: Not enough hardpoints
Spider: Not enough hardpoints
KFX: Slow
MLX: Not enough hardpoints/firepower, slow
IFR: Not enough hardpoints/ tonnage
Dragon: Not enough firepower
Highlander: Not enough hardpoints/firepower. Suffered from JJ nerfs
Victor: Fragile. Suffered from JJ nerfs
Tonnage a bigger issue than hardpoints for the COM, IMO.
And the IFR is unpopular, but it's unjust. It's really pretty good, though butt ugly.
Vindicator is unpopular because of it's size and it's weapon hardpoint selection. The irony is that i love it.
It has almost everything i want in a mech and some of those things i like is the kinda things the meta players hate.
Speed, JJ and good torso/arm twist is loved by everyone.
But i like the diverse mix weapons hardpoints. It has a bit of everything and i like that.
I don't give a damn about it's quirks because i don't select my weapons based on a mechs quirks.
The only thing i dislike about the Vindicator is the size but that will be fixed. Despite my love for it this mech is disliked by the MWO community.
I suppose i will do even better in the Viper because of the higher speed.
I never understood the hate for the Adder. Statwise it´s my top performing light mech. Can do classic twin PPC in the high torso mounts, combined with it being flat makes a great hill humper. Alternatively 3 ermeds + 1lrgpulse.
Or ASRM 24 with decent ammo can also be loads of fun.
And it has the sexiest engine purr of all the mechs