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Crow's Blackjack Tech


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#1 Carrioncrows

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Posted 25 May 2013 - 11:03 PM

Crow’s Black Jack Tech

So as most of you know whenever a new mech is released I go ahead and snap up all the available builds and then put together a guide of what I believe the most viable load outs are for each variant.

Overall

I love my Blackjack. It takes a little bit of a rearrangement of the thinking when utilizing it as you are not used to something that small going that slow. But the upside is the sheer amount of weapon you can mount as well as the dazzling array of weapon hard points.

It just meant that instead of running you’re Blackjack like a better armored cicada at high speeds you are just going to have to settle for running a more heavily armed Dragon at slower speeds.

First up the BJ-1

This is the standard bread and butter, 2 solid ballistic slots and a nice 4 energy can give this mech some solid firepower. Initially I ran with the Dual AC2’s, then AC5’s, then the UAC5’s, then Dual LB10-x, AC10’s and even a whooping Dual AC20 build.

Needless to say it didn't take long for me to back it down to something more manageable. I generally prefer a more balanced load outs for the prime variants as such I felt that having a 45 ton mech with jumpjets really required a Big gun. Rather than push my luck and try and fit an ER PPC and a Gauss into the combo, instead I decided to resurrect the Good Ol Enforcer, albeit slightly upgraded one.

BJ-1 “AIME”
200 XL
10 DHS
ENDO
288 STD Armor
2/4 Jumpjets
1x Gauss Rifle (x3 tons of ammo)
1x ER Large laser

I honestly flip flop between this and a Regular Large laser and an AC20 with x4 tons of ammo. It really is interchangeable. The reason for the large over additional meds is more to do with being effective at all multiple ranges and less heat. I average more damage with the Large and ER Large just for not having to get within that 270m to get full damage.



BJ-1X

The BJ-1X was a solid buy; it remains the fastest of all the Blackjacks and has a whopping 8 energy hard points. Most people have probably gone with the standard 8 meds, oodles of DHS and max engine. I tried it a few times and through its nifty you really have to exercise heat management which means when I really need an Alpha because I have a fantastic shot on someone you’ll generally shutdown and die soon after to your stationary nature.

I graduated to running this mech with 4 meds and 4 smalls, like a big cicada with a standard engine but even then I was noticing that I wasn't taking too many shots to the torso’s which make using an XL acceptable, so why not push it?, which frees up a lot of weight for what I have planned.

BJ-1X “Harbinger”
295 XL
Endo
17 DHS
288 STD Armor
AMS
x1 Large laser
X3 Medium lasers
X4 Small Lasers

This is one of the few builds that is a pure delight to pilot. This is because your main weapons are the Large laser and 3 mediums. I know it doesn't sound like that great of an armament in this heavy alpha society, but having the additional 4 small lasers can bring me up to a decent 36 Alpha at close range, more to the point it is backed up by 17 DHS which gives this mech some truly impressive sustained DPS in any engagement.

Long Range Rely upon the Large and mediums to pick them apart, when you get into knife range go to work with the mediums and the smalls while rotating your large laser in as heat dictates. I get quite the enjoyment out of hunting down other light mechs with this beasty.





BJ-1DC

The Blackjack-1DC trades in its jumpjets for extra energy slots which means you can turn this mech into some very interesting builds. I've played with most of them and instead of going for something exotic I instead decided to go with a more vanilla build back up with some lethal up close firepower.

BJ-1DC “Deathstalker”
200 XL
Endo
10 DHS
256 Armor
X2 AC5 (x5 tons of ammo)
X2 Medium Lasers
X4 Small Lasers

Named after my favorite book series the Deathstalker is built towards laying down the law. The twin AC5’s give decent firepower with the cycle time dropped to 1.5 secs make a good source of both long range alpha damage and sustained DPS. The main weapons of the Deathstalker is the AC5’s and Mediums, use those every chance you get. If you have a target those AC5’s should never go silent.

The addition of the 4 small lasers is your ace in the hole against chance encounters and light mechs. Most of the time a light mech spots me and then will charge attempting to close the distance, a full alpha of all weapons deals a solid 32 damage and more times than not cores them. Considering the cycle time on the small lasers this gives me edge in putting any finishing blows into damaged locations.

I've gone head to head with highlanders in this build at 10 paces and put them down, so long as your aim is steady you can put out some surprisingly good DPS.



BJ-3

The Blackjack-3 is the one variant that felt the most uncomfortable for me. All energy builds usually are as any attempts to build a solid design is meth with a plethora of heat problems. I've tried everything from 2 PPC’s 4 meds, 2 PPC’s, 2 meds, 2 ERPC’s, 2 larges, 4 meds, pulse lasers and everything in between. Pretty soon it occurred to me I was just over thinking it is all.

I've got Jumpjets, I've got arm mounted energy hard points, let’s go ******* fishing.

BJ-3 “Illeria”
180 XL
13 DHS
Endo
272 STD Armor
3 / 4 Jumpjets
X1 ER PPC
X2 PPC

Try and contain yourself from laughing. It works. Seriously. I've got a shocking 1.28 Heat Efficiency. Though definitely having Elite Mastery unlocked to get the x2 bonus on basic skills helps. For this load out all you need to practice is Range awareness. If your firing on someone at 900m there is no need to fire the 2 regular PPC’s since they will do minor damage, just salvo the ERPPC. Up close and personal you rely upon the ERPPC to defend yourself so you need to really exercise restraint from firing off wild shots.

At 540m though is your sweet spot and when targets come into that range you are ready to rock. Jumpjets to clear cover will allow you to tear apart mechs in short order. Just be sure to really plant your shots as missed shots cost you the same amount of heat. Honestly you could probably drop another ton of armor from the mech to get another heat sink if you wanted, but because this is a jumper I prefer to keep my leg armor near max.

This is the only build I kept the stock engine rating of 180 at which means you are going 64 kph and 72 kph with speed tweak. So using those jumpjets and sticking with the group is key.

This build doesn't leave a lot of room for forgiveness, but on the bright side if you need to control heat hey just use the 2 ppc’s and you are golden, no worse for wear. But when people come into that sweet spot and you open up with all 3 cannon’s you cut people in half.

We get overrun in this video, but not from lack of effort on this builds part.


#2 ferranis

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Posted 26 May 2013 - 12:31 AM

I realy like the effort you put into making this. But your loadouts are just too slow (except the xl295 one). A slow mech with paper armour against the current 35-40 pinpoint damage meta is not a good idea.

The blackjack has the problem many other mechs have too, it just cant do anything other mechs can do better.
There are heavies which are faster, better armoured and carry way more punch at the same time.

Which is sad for this mech, because i realy like the design.

#3 Carrioncrows

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Posted 26 May 2013 - 01:32 AM

View Postferranis, on 26 May 2013 - 12:31 AM, said:

I realy like the effort you put into making this. But your loadouts are just too slow (except the xl295 one). A slow mech with paper armour against the current 35-40 pinpoint damage meta is not a good idea.

The blackjack has the problem many other mechs have too, it just cant do anything other mechs can do better.
There are heavies which are faster, better armoured and carry way more punch at the same time.

Which is sad for this mech, because i realy like the design.


Then you are really missing out on a fantastic mech.

My Blackjacks run 46 CT and 36 Side Torso's. Sure a full 40 dmg will cave in the armor the side armor. But it will require three solid salvo's to destroy my mech, exactly like every other mech out there until you get to the upper tier heavies and assaults.

Not sure why we have this need that a Medium mech "Must" go fast, as long as your comfortable with the speed and acquit yourself well in a match there really isn't a problem.

I just got out of a match a little while ago, I solo (As in they were fresh when I engaged them and I was the only one attacking them) killed a Stalker, a Raven and a Highlander (killed him while I was legged) with my AIME build in Tourmaline. The high heat didn't effect me one whit and the jumpjets allowed me to use cover judiciously.

There are some bad builds out there simply because weapons are not up to snuff, but provided you know your mech and what, where, and how to engage there really isn't much that these Blackjack's can't accomplish.

But at the end of the day it's a 45 ton mech, which makes it so much more powerful in competitive and league play when weight factors in.

Posted Image

#4 Carrioncrows

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Posted 26 May 2013 - 03:57 AM

Another Illeria match, though I wanted to ask if anyone else is having issues with PPC hit registration?

Like I seriously have like 1 out of 3 shots fails to register, it's quite annoying as several times during this video I Tee off against a cheery red mech, nail it, see the hit go in have the cursor turn red and not so much as a flicker on the opponents hit box.

Very frustrating at times, i'm not sure if it's just some correlation between jump jetting and ppc's but it's driving me nuts.



#5 Flapdrol

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Posted 26 May 2013 - 05:34 AM

Yeah, not sure what's up with the hitreg, I do think it's related to server load and latency. If I'm playing around EU lunchtime the hitreg is great. Late in the evening when the US is on my ping to the server is sometimes all over the place, even though my local ping is just fine (steady 22ms) and the hitreg can be terrible.

#6 Ken Fury

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Posted 26 May 2013 - 08:02 AM

Those are some good builds, give them a try.

#7 BoPop

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Posted 26 May 2013 - 01:44 PM

interesting idea for the 1x, going to give it a go. good post.

#8 SchwarzerPeter

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Posted 26 May 2013 - 11:47 PM

I realy would like to know if you die to side torso explosion very often. Seems hard to protect these sides with the arms. And guard it with your CT seems not the best idea :)

And have you tried the 8ml with 18 dhs? I mean i run 9ml with 17 dhs in my 4p and the heat is absolutely manageable.

#9 Carrioncrows

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Posted 27 May 2013 - 03:02 PM

View PostSchwarzerPeter, on 26 May 2013 - 11:47 PM, said:

I realy would like to know if you die to side torso explosion very often. Seems hard to protect these sides with the arms. And guard it with your CT seems not the best idea :)

And have you tried the 8ml with 18 dhs? I mean i run 9ml with 17 dhs in my 4p and the heat is absolutely manageable.


Believe it or not, I don't die to side torso's very often. It's pretty rare that I die to anything other than CT. (what's funny about that statement is 2 of the video's above i go down to side torso's) But it is rare.

The Side torso's look like they are big, but in reality the BJ is a 45 ton mech, it's kinda small. So when your moving people aim for Center mass. Plus I have a theory that the cylinder part of the mech is actually the CT as well and the Side torso's are above the ring.

As for the 8 ML, yes I have tried it and though it can be manageable in sort of a pop out and hit someone then duck back into cover while you cool down. I find it flops a bit when put any sort of stress. You use all 8 ML, maybe get off another Alpha and then you are down to either using an Alpha again and shutting down, waiting to cool down or using 2 ML to throw some damage but ultimately that just sustains your heat.

The 1 large, 3 med and 4 small give me options to keep up a high level of sustained DPS. I never stop firing, only switching weapon groups as I cool down.

#10 Daikoku

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Posted 29 May 2013 - 12:21 AM

Hey Carrioncrows. Meant to say thanks for the tips on the Blackjack during our game. I adopted your BJ-1X build for my BJ-3.

BJ-3 "Hole Card"
STD 210
Endo
15 DHS
288 STD Armor
AMS
x1 LL
x5 ML

I had been on a massive losing streak with Commandos and didn't have much in the way of money. I sold both COMs and had a total of 4 mil to my account. (A real bad streak plus a good amount of care and feeding of a Cataphract 4X.) I was looking at other builds, but didn't like the centurion or the treb. I read your posts advocating the Blackjack and bought one.

Not having oodles of cash, I opted for a STD 210 engine I had laying around from my Cataphract and racked up 7 kills almost immediately.

It kinda reminds me of a Jenner I had in another lifetime.

Edited by Daikoku, 29 May 2013 - 12:21 AM.


#11 Sh4dow78

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Posted 29 May 2013 - 10:51 AM

BJ 1X my little love <3 i choose it for my "main" BJ platform just bcoz its fastest and 8xML + 19DHS powered by 280XL let me run at 110kp/h and put my 40 alphas into back of unaware enemys. Fast enough to just alpha strike and cya bro! behind cover just to alpha again feew seconds later.
Posted Image
this is what this mech is able to do when used in right way :P

#12 Carrioncrows

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Posted 29 May 2013 - 04:24 PM

Glad you guys are enjoying the builds and these are definitely not the be all end all of builds, these are just the ones I enjoy running the most.

Lately I've taken to running the BJ-1DC dropping the 2 medium lasers and upgrading the AC5's to UAC5's as you can see here:



Always tinker and always keep moving =)

#13 Zaptruder

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Posted 29 May 2013 - 04:46 PM

View Postferranis, on 26 May 2013 - 12:31 AM, said:

I realy like the effort you put into making this. But your loadouts are just too slow (except the xl295 one). A slow mech with paper armour against the current 35-40 pinpoint damage meta is not a good idea.

The blackjack has the problem many other mechs have too, it just cant do anything other mechs can do better.
There are heavies which are faster, better armoured and carry way more punch at the same time.

Which is sad for this mech, because i realy like the design.


This mech punches above its paper weight in practice because of its shape and position of its arms and the JJs.

It's a true jump sniper without the cheese.

#14 xengk

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Posted 31 May 2013 - 02:11 AM

Im running something similar to the BJ-1DC in op.
Instead of the 2 Mlaz, I replace them with 2 extra Slaz and an extra ton of AC5 ammo.

Pew Pew Pew

Twin AC/5 as the main offensive at range.
While the 6 Slaz deals 18 damage if anyone manage to close up, that is almost an AC20 shot every 2 seconds.

Primary a direct fire support role for team brawlers, also play escort for the occasional LRMboat to help peel off lights.

#15 Autobot9000

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Posted 31 May 2013 - 07:31 AM

Funny Blackjack build here
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...b71043875b18a2d

Edited by Autobot9000, 31 May 2013 - 07:46 AM.


#16 tdppdttdppdt

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Posted 31 May 2013 - 12:23 PM

Started my Blackjack purchases with the 1X. Pretty much went the standard route - 295XL 8ML DHS. Found heat to be very manageable with the weapons in a (1)LeftArm (2)RightArm (3)Torso grouping: poking with 1 or 2 around corners, firing 1+2 most of the time, and adding 3 if it was a solid shot. That speed with 8ML is unmatched. Interesting in trying your 1LL build, though, Crows.

Now I'm on my 2nd variant - the 1DC. Tried the AC/5 and UAC5, but ended up settling on this build http://mwo.smurfy-ne...13e209c2711814c. Basically an alpha>dps decision.
(Mind you, the XL210 is a borrowed engine - not convinced its the best, but its what I had.)

Quote

Primary a direct fire support role for team brawlers, also play escort for the occasional LRMboat to help peel off lights.
Xengk, you nailed it.

#17 xengk

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Posted 01 June 2013 - 02:01 AM

View Posttdppdttdppdt, on 31 May 2013 - 12:23 PM, said:

Xengk, you nailed it.


I also have a dual AC2 BJ-1DC
Loaded with 7 ton of ammo, go with either 2 coolshots or replace 1 with seismic module.
500+ shots of AC2 to annoy any target I can find, great for discouraging enemy LRMboat and sniper.

Added AMS, because this build thans to draw angry LRMs.
Mini Dakkas

#18 Raso

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Posted 01 June 2013 - 09:25 PM

I'm still not a fan of XL engines. I won't use them on anything other than a light mech or something with very narrow side torsos like a Catapult or Stalker. That said, with many of my builds I try to optimize with out an XL.This means getting the most speed and fire power out of less free tonnage.

This is what I came up with for my BJ1X.
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...10e0dd7d039dd84



My BJ3, however, seems to be harder to find a niche with.
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...4047ec1fa957113
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...2efe950058720b3
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...5d36484d81be31c
I want to use the JJs on it but that's 4 more tons I could use for... well just about anything else! I've had most luck using it as a sniper and trying to stay inconspicuous while it's more close range builds just don't seem to fair very well...

#19 SulphurAeon

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Posted 03 June 2013 - 02:57 AM

I really like your builds Crow. I'm running the Harbinger-build right now and its a blast. As soon as I've got the C-Bills for the 200 XL I'll get out there with your Deathstalker und Aime build. Thx again

#20 Blue Splint

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Posted 03 June 2013 - 10:06 AM

I agree with ferranis. With a 200 engine your speed is only average for a heavy mech, meaning you are basically playing a smaller-profiled, less armored heavy with less firepower. In my opinion, that tradeoff is not worth it. I feel like you might as well get up to ~85/93 and provide flanking/striking capabilities to your team, with that added speed doing a little bit more for your survivability. That's how I play my BJ's anyway.





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