41 replies to this topic

[MeiSooHaityu]

I still think the Catapult is my favorite Assault Class. The C1 has a good build loadout, and like many said, the K2 and A1 are good for the crazier builds (Dual AC20s, 6 SRM4s or 6s), etc...

I think what makes the Cat nice is the speed can be upwards of 80kph with a good motor and speed tweaks, plus the torso can turn 270+ degrees with tweaks as well. Plus the Cat does jump jets as well (although not the K2).

[DarkDevilDancer]

Heavy metal is one of my favorite mechs at the moment and its easily replicated with other highlanders, also like the 733P, lots of energy slots means its a flexible mech for boating if thats your thing.

Love my atlas D-dc, slow but wrecks faces at multiple ranges.

[Andross Deverow]

That unmistakeable sound of a heavy Assault engine firing up. That unmistakeable thump of an assault trudging along. Mmmmm those delicious moments when you get the last few kills for your team when all the rest have been retired.

[Kiiyor]

Mafali, on 30 April 2013 - 08:08 AM, said:

Damnit, now I want an Awesome!

BUY IT. Every day is a baptism of fire. Like wearing napalm to the office.

[aniviron]

I, like you, enjoy fighting in mechs that don't move like snails made of lead. I would therefore suggest an AWS-9M.

You'll be a bit fragile because the awesome has some seriously bad hitboxes, but a 380xl will let you go 90kph while still letting you pack 3xLlas and 14 SRMs at nearly full armor and a good heat eff. If you're good in lights and mediums, you will be terror incarnate in this.

[Fajther]

Currently I am digging my Awesome 9m. Getting the 385 xl is a must. Mid 85s kph after speed teak. You can out turn a stalker if you are on flat ground. 3xLL and 3xssrm2 is good enough to take out any heavy or medium in a one on one that you will run into. It is so funny to see dragon after dragon try and chance you down thinking you are a normal awesome and then get killed 30 to 60 seconds later. Weakness? People are not scared of Awesomes at all. Nobody runs away from you. Everybody stays and fights even when you are taring them apart. Given the fact that you are packing less weapons then most assaults you are going to have a hard time killing them. Make sure you have a partner before you take one on. big center torso. really big center torso. Feel free to chase people down with you arms turned towards the weapons fire. It will absorb most of the damage. It is hard to blow the arm off of a awesome.

Other thoughts. Jagers have great hard points. Cataphracts have great ballistics and a pop-tart. I will probably be loyal to catapults until i die. I loved them since mw2 mercs. Why is it then that I am seeing so many dragons when ever I drop?

[Flak Kannon]

You like speed..so it seems

The hero Dragons might float your boat, but a XL340 speed tweaked Cataphract might also interest you. It goes 86Kph. Not shabby.. but you'll have to grind for that.

I personally am an Assault Atlas Mech Pilot at heart, I own and have Mastered all 4.

It is pretty fun popping off AC20 rounds.

If you like Cannons, go with the Jager line.. they are ALL fun, I also own all those, and they can also hit the Mid 80's in Kph speed wise with speed tweak. Until they fix LRM's I'd avoid the Catapult line all together.

If you like Lasers, then Go with the Stalker line or Awesome line, but the Stalkers are pretty ponderous...

Cataphract and Jagermechs with cannons are my favorite, but you need to decide how you want to approach using slower mechs... no Heavy or Assault may seem fun to you, and you may just want to always be a Medium/Light pilot.

Nothing wrong with that, us big boys need targets...

[Narcissistic Martyr]

Screw the meta. Dragons are the best! Well... assuming you like speed and if you do like speed a Dragon tops out at 106 kph with an XL360 which is faster than most mediums while carrying enough weaponry to lay a serious hurt on lights and mediums, while being agile enough to flank and back stab bigger mechs.

[Ph30nix]

honestly you can still have alot of fun with a well decked out splat cat..... im serious people have forgotten to fear that baby, just had a game earlier where i got thru the cave with no one noticing and took out 3 enemy mechs in one shot to the back from point blank, im sure it was a semi fluke each mech was the type to have an XL and nothing bigger than 60 tons,

man that poor K2 pilot RAGED though... he thought the person who killed him was the little jenner in front of him shooting him with a medium laser...
he actually called me a hacker lol.

but in seriousness, the catapults can be fun with the right load out, and the K2 can give you some options for long range pain with still having decent speed.

until they fix LRM's though the rest of the variants are just going to collect dust sadly a C1 can still be useful though but only because 4 beam hardpoints)

[kilgor]

Boats will eventually be nerfed, so why not play with a sensible loadout that can still dish out some decent damage.
Stalker STK-5M
280 Engine - 53.3 KPH Pre speed tweak
2 x ER Large Lasers
1 x Medium Laser
2 x SRM-4
1 x LRM-15
22 Double Heat Sinks
AWS-9M is nice, but having just a 2 port missile slot in the arm is maddening. I went with the AWS-8V instead since you can fire all your missiles in 1 salvo and since missile cool downs do not start until all missiles have left the tubes, that means you can fire more often.
Cataphracts are nice to a degree. Since they have nice and big side torsos, they die pretty quickly because a lot of them run XLs. I like the CTF-1X. I put a 200 engine in it and it runs slow, but I can pack an AC/20 , 5 tons AC/20 ammo, 2 Large Lasers, a Medium Laser, and 16 Double Heat Sinks into it. It lacks the one two punch of dual AC/20s, but since I can fire the lasers more often, in a damage battle against a dual AC/20 'Mech, they'll lose.

[Kiiyor]

Fajther, on 30 April 2013 - 03:58 PM, said:

Currently I am digging my Awesome 9m. Getting the 385 xl is a must. Mid 85s kph after speed teak. You can out turn a stalker if you are on flat ground. 3xLL and 3xssrm2 is good enough to take out any heavy or medium in a one on one that you will run into. It is so funny to see dragon after dragon try and chance you down thinking you are a normal awesome and then get killed 30 to 60 seconds later. Weakness? People are not scared of Awesomes at all. Nobody runs away from you. Everybody stays and fights even when you are taring them apart. Given the fact that you are packing less weapons then most assaults you are going to have a hard time killing them. Make sure you have a partner before you take one on. big center torso. really big center torso. Feel free to chase people down with you arms turned towards the weapons fire. It will absorb most of the damage. It is hard to blow the arm off of a awesome.

Other thoughts. Jagers have great hard points. Cataphracts have great ballistics and a pop-tart. I will probably be loyal to catapults until i die. I loved them since mw2 mercs. Why is it then that I am seeing so many dragons when ever I drop?

I prefer the 380 (weighs the same as the 375) - you net yourself 1.5t over the 385 and sacrifice very little speed. You can also put it in one of the Trenchbuckets and make it a speed... bucket.

I currently run an XL350. You get a lot more space, and run at 77 or so after speed tweak. I like to run the 350 with PPC or SRM builds, and the 380 with large lasers.

Good points about lack of enemy fear. It's especially useful with high alpha builds like bulk LLs or PPCs. It boggles me how many mechs will just stand there and ineffectually blat away at an Awesome while it carves commando sized holes in them.

The less weaponry thing is very true, but also has a silver lining. While you will never outgun a Stalker, you can out DPS just about anything with the right build. If you can use your speed to duck in and out of cover and use the terrain to your advantage, you can own anything. If you can restrain yourself even further and perfect the art of breaking contact, you can be a destroyer of worlds. Stalkers and Atlases are like mobile pillboxes. A fast Awesome popping up at strategic locations on the battlefield can be a real linebreaker, but needs practice and restraint.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Ph30nix, on 30 April 2013 - 06:25 PM, said:

...until they fix LRM's though the rest of the variants are just going to collect dust sadly a C1 can still be useful though but only because 4 beam hardpoints)

2 LLasers (or ER), 2 MLasers, 2 SRM4s w/ Art (1 or 2 ton ammo). That with a 265 Standard Engine and a crap load of DHS and you have yourself a nice brawler.
Current KDR for me with that loadout: 2.06

[Barghest Whelp]

Cataphractor wait for the Orion if you want heavy.

Assault? Atlas or Stalker if you want slow pew pew, Awesome if you want fast pew pew, Highlander if you want a mech that's going to be completely useless compared to an atlas as soon as the poptarting meta goes away.

[El Bandito]

FrostCollar, on 29 April 2013 - 01:22 PM, said:

So, I've got Ravens, I've got Cicadas, I've got Centurions, I've got Hunchbacks, I even had a dalliance with the Spider. However, in the current meta none of these mechs are all that fun. As a light I'm capping more than ever before and not enjoying the boredom of that, but skirmishing with heavier mechs is deadlier than ever before. However, I've got a fair about of CBills sitting around waiting for a use. So, tell me - what Heavy or Assault chassis would you suggest I pick up?

The new Stalker Hero mech that is coming soon.

[FrostCollar]

El Bandito, on 03 May 2013 - 04:31 PM, said:

The new Stalker Hero mech that is coming soon.

No way I'm shelling out that much MC.

[Pater Mors]

Barghest Whelp, on 01 May 2013 - 03:49 PM, said:

Highlander if you want a mech that's going to be completely useless compared to an atlas as soon as the poptarting meta goes away.

Really? I've been duelling Atlai all week without much hassle. I don't have JJ's on my Highlander. I think it comes down to the pilot more than the chassis.

[Barghest Whelp]

Pater Mors, on 03 May 2013 - 05:18 PM, said:

Really? I've been duelling Atlai all week without much hassle. I don't have JJ's on my Highlander. I think it comes down to the pilot more than the chassis.

Yes of course. Pilot skill > Battlemech

The same applies to weapons. A skilled player can easily defeat a lesser player whom is wielding superior weapons, simply because he's better at using the weapons at his disposal. That still doesn't change the fact that the Atlas is superior to the HGN in almost every way.

The only advantage the HGN has is the ability to fit jumpjets, which is a very limited advantage in my perspective. That is probably largely due to the fact that I am not very good at exploiting the advantages that jumpjets may offer. To a player that is more skilled in the use of jumpjets it's probably a completely different story.

Regarding Atlai: I've defeated plenty of them in my Phracts and Catapults. In fact, I managed to take down two of then simultaniously on my own. Doesn't make the Phract a that much better mech, but it does mean that those two Atlas pilots were less skilled.

That, and the fact that I was equipped for close range brawling, and they were fit with massive amounts of LRM's.

[Pater Mors]

Barghest Whelp, on 04 May 2013 - 11:04 AM, said:

Yes of course. Pilot skill > Battlemech

The same applies to weapons. A skilled player can easily defeat a lesser player whom is wielding superior weapons, simply because he's better at using the weapons at his disposal. That still doesn't change the fact that the Atlas is superior to the HGN in almost every way.

The only advantage the HGN has is the ability to fit jumpjets, which is a very limited advantage in my perspective. That is probably largely due to the fact that I am not very good at exploiting the advantages that jumpjets may offer. To a player that is more skilled in the use of jumpjets it's probably a completely different story.

Regarding Atlai: I've defeated plenty of them in my Phracts and Catapults. In fact, I managed to take down two of then simultaniously on my own. Doesn't make the Phract a that much better mech, but it does mean that those two Atlas pilots were less skilled.

That, and the fact that I was equipped for close range brawling, and they were fit with massive amounts of LRM's.

I agree with you. I just think people put too much stock in what is the 'best mech' statistically rather than what is the best mech for their play style. It's never really bothered me if an Atlas is better on paper. On the battlefield paper doesn't mean as much as experience.

[Trauglodyte]

Be a man, grow some hair on your sack, and pick up a Dragon/Awesome. True warriors handicap themselves and come out on top cause they're just that good. <PS, if you're actually a girl, disregard the whole body part thing cause that would be weird >

Edited by Trauglodyte, 04 May 2013 - 01:48 PM.

[Tremendous Upside]

@Barghest - jump jets are a much bigger advantage than you realize. It gives you the ability to fire out of full cover, and that means usually being able to last the first volley or two on an advancing target.