49 replies to this topic

[Shae Starfyre]

Greetings,

I immediately bought the Dragon Slayer, maxed XL Engine to 400 (81 Speed, no tweak yet), 2 MG (2 Ton Ammo), 2 Medium Lasers in Shoulder, 2 SSRMS in Shoulder (2 Ton Ammo), and one Pulse Medium in the other Arm; BAP, AMS (1 Ton Ammo), Max Armor, the rest Double-Sinks, and Max JJ (4).

Heat Efficiency 1.64 (I came close to over heating once on Caustic).

Like the Quickdraw, especially with the Basics Master, the agility is not bad for an Assault (80) ton mech.

It is not a brawler in the classic sense, but a good finisher (currently, 1.29 Kill Ratio - made some mistakes along the way, but starting to figure it out).

I am a lone wolf, so this K/D is not too bad considering.

Anyways, when properly played, it is a skirmishing finisher. Wait near the group, fend off lights, and then wait for the kill; your agility allows you to jump in, lay on sustained fire power, get the kill, all the while JJ'n about, and then get out, looking for the next.

I average around 300-400 damage (no kidding), and the XL, unless the enemy is lucky or I come into intense fire, has not been a hindrance, because if you circle, JJ around, you're presenting all angles to your mech, spreading damage everywhere...much like the Quickdraw.

4 JJ with the new movement rules is far better than 1; you can clear mechs better, and with the larger engine, twist faster (nothing like the ponderous nature of the Highlander).

Over-all, aside from some heavier test builds, this build is my favorite and has some staying power.

Kudos; and I can't wait for the variants (Mastered all basics in a few hours - Need MOAR!).

Edited by Aphoticus, 03 July 2013 - 05:48 AM.

[mack sabbath]

"Wait near the group, fend off lights, and then wait for the kill".


Ever notice that lately every mech we seem to get lately is only built for this purpose, no pure brawlers?

Edited by Die Primate Die, 03 July 2013 - 05:05 AM.

[blacklp]

That is the biggest trebuchet I have ever seen.
I'm used to the Heavy Metal, so I run my Dragon Slayer a bit more like an assault.
Much like the Highlanders, running XL does not seem to be an issue.
Victors seem like they will be very effective.

Edited by blacklp, 03 July 2013 - 05:21 AM.

[Goldhawk]

Was hoping the loadout was a little closer to the original, but, it surprisingly works well!

1 Gauss, 1 ppc, SRM 6, 2 medium pulse lasers.

I stripped off the SRM 6 put in streaks and downgraded the lasers to regular mediums to add more Gauss ammo.

The OP was correct and it works well as a finisher.
The 2nd poster was also correct in suggesting that many mechs are built in a more complementary method of supporting other mechs, there are very few "brawler" builds due to the proliferation of LRMS, and the lack of map choice.
Brawler builds mostly are close range builds that work usually between 400 and kissing close. Problem is, that 600 meters that they are targeted before they can get into range, they are rained on by LRMS, PPC, and gauss.

[SgtMagor]

I changed my load out, i couldn't use that config very well. 3 med lasers-Lrm15-srm6-gauss rifle-300xl-BAP-AMS. After i changed my config the Slayer became the Death Dealer i hoped it would be.

Edited by SgtMagor, 03 July 2013 - 05:36 AM.

[Shae Starfyre]

Oh, yeah, just another note. When putting in LRMs, it is a 10 tube/5 tube setup (this made for an interesting LRM 20 +Arty with a LRM10 + Arty setup (two volleys of 15 missiles)...not much Ammo though.

When doing SRMS, it's a 6 tube/4 tube combo.

I also found a UAC5 + AC2 combo interesting.

Edited by Aphoticus, 03 July 2013 - 05:50 AM.

[Shae Starfyre]

Die Primate Die, on 03 July 2013 - 05:03 AM, said:

"Wait near the group, fend off lights, and then wait for the kill".


Ever notice that lately every mech we seem to get lately is only built for this purpose, no pure brawlers?

Yea, I noticed this too, but it caters to my play style anyways. I just can;t bring myself to get into the Meta as it currently is, competitive or not, because I just know I am short changing myself as I feel things will change.

I feel it is a better investment to put practice into pilot skills and aiming more than hill humping and alpha firing (this is just me, and not to put down anyone; I just find it far more challenging to try and close the distance, and get into a brawl with substandard layouts).

[Angel of Annihilation]

Aphoticus, on 03 July 2013 - 05:59 AM, said:

Yea, I noticed this too, but it caters to my play style anyways. I just can;t bring myself to get into the Meta as it currently is, competitive or not, because I just know I am short changing myself as I feel things will change.

I feel it is a better investment to put practice into pilot skills and aiming more than hill humping and alpha firing (this is just me, and not to put down anyone; I just find it far more challenging to try and close the distance, and get into a brawl with substandard layouts).

You and me are exactly on the same sheet of music here for the most part. I immediately fell in love with the QD because it feels like the videos I see of Sharks feeding. It basically can dart in from a unexpected angle and tear a piece of meat off the enemy only to just as quickly fade out of sight. I regularily pull 400-550 damage with multiple kills and most of the time find myself ranked number one or two on my team in terms of contribution. However doing these numbers takes a whole lot more skill than doing it in my Stalker which kind of just plods along and mashes a single button to fire its quad LLs at enemies.

Also I personally don't find the current meta of Alpha, Alpha, Alpha all that effective. Sure it hurts when they manage to land a hit but every time I spectate on these Alpha boats, I see them miss more than they hit and spend what seems like minutes of every match shutdown and/or mashing the override button. That being said I wonder if they are really more competitive or if rather they are just easier. The difference is "easy" means less skilled players find themselves more effective but because they aren't "competitve" builds they hit a ceiling on their skill levels where as a "competitive" build would allow for a skilled player to EVENTUALLY (key word) with time and practice, perform at their best and dominate the battlefields. This is just a theory but it is kind of ironic how my "non-competitive" builds using a QD which everyone seems to agree sucks, regularily outperforms all those "boats" on my team hehe.

One thing. "Wait near the group, fend off lights, and then wait for the kill" is advice every pilot of every mech should heed because that is the starting foundation of good teamwork in that when doing this you can all support one another. It shouldn't just be the playstyle of the Victor.

Edited by Viktor Drake, 03 July 2013 - 07:25 AM.

[NRP]

Well Viktor,
High alpha damage is about your only hope with an 80T Assault. If you run around pis$ing MLs and MGs you'll get wrecked at higher ELOs.

Also, regarding the "Wait behind the group" tactic, if everyone did that, it would be a staring contest rather than a mech battle. Someone has to go into the breach. Sometimes you just have take initiative.

Edited by NRP, 03 July 2013 - 07:45 AM.

[XX Sulla XX]

They are fun builds. Although I tend to go for high pinpoint alpha and speed. Although I might change over to SRMs when they are fixed as part of the weopons mix.

[Angel of Annihilation]

NRP, on 03 July 2013 - 07:42 AM, said:

Well Viktor,
High alpha damage is about your only hope with an 80T Assault. If you run around pis$ing MLs and MGs you'll get wrecked at higher ELOs.

Well I have to ask you to pardon my ignorance but just where can I go about finding my ELO rating so I can determine if I am in a high or low bracket? To my knowledge this information isn't available is that not correct?

The reason I ask is that all I keep hearing is that in High ELO matches if your not part of the Quad PPC/high Alpha meta then your not competitive but how does anyone know what ELO they are in? I mean wouldn't it be ironic if all the people that keep claiming Alpha is king at high ELO rankings were really in the lowest brackets?

Now I am not sure that is the case, but it seems like people claiming they are experts or that they are uber skilled are making alot of assumptions on just where they are actually ranked. For example I placed 20th with the Quickdraw in the Heavy vs the world tournament and even managed to attain 15th place up unitl a few hours before the tournament ended. Now should I take that as me being one of the top players in the game OR did I only score that well because I was the best player in the lowest ELO braket? Without some sort of global ranking system how can anyone claim anything about the High ELO meta game?

[Enigmos]

We can estimate that each bracket in the tourneys have at least 1000 pilots competing and usually more. 100th place or better will be in the top 10% but remember you are only competing with those who drop solo. Most premades drop either 4 man or 8 man and so are ineligible when they do, even if they opt in. The higher tiers will be primarily people who religiously never drop alone. Fight together or die alone. Most good soloists I suspect have close to a 1 to 1 K/D ratio. Among premades if you have a 1:1 K/D you must be on point all the time.

[C E Dwyer]

Die Primate Die, on 03 July 2013 - 05:03 AM, said:

"Wait near the group, fend off lights, and then wait for the kill".


Ever notice that lately every mech we seem to get lately is only built for this purpose, no pure brawlers?

Hopefully the srm fix will see more brawlers, though I still brawl my atlas and some HGN, I do make sure my brawlers have some distance in their make up, ultras gauss erll erppc etc etc..so that I can still dish out while closing down

I do get stuck in with my victor, I'm not a great fan of sitting back and grabbing the kill, while others have made it possible didn't do much to mine took out the srm 6 removed two jj's to add 4srm x2 only running a tonne of srm ammo so I could fit ams, armour's maxed, ideal fit would be artemis and retain all the JJ's but neither the space or the tonnage, not prepared to make a no jump PPc boat out a victor..yet lol

Favorite moments have been killing an atlas, taking the legs off a Raven and alphing the head off a comando with a snap shot.

Edited by Cathy, 03 July 2013 - 08:41 AM.

[Finn McShae]

OriginalTibs, on 03 July 2013 - 08:24 AM, said:

We can estimate that each bracket in the tourneys have at least 1000 pilots competing and usually more. 100th place or better will be in the top 10% but remember you are only competing with those who drop solo. Most premades drop either 4 man or 8 man and so are ineligible when they do, even if they opt in. The higher tiers will be primarily people who religiously never drop alone. Fight together or die alone. Most good soloists I suspect have close to a 1 to 1 K/D ratio. Among premades if you have a 1:1 K/D you must be on point all the time.

This is a good idea, but I had an odd thing happen in the Heavy vs the World. I saw so many AC/40 Jagers that I decided to not actually try and just level some Cataphracts (from nothing). It wasn't until that sunday afternoon that I FINALLY got them all basic'd out and I don't think I even had my Illya elited before the tourney ended. I got 200 somethingth place in the Cataphract category. I promise my 1x and 2x builds were terribad, and I sold them instantly upon finishing Basic.

So in that case, I'm not really sure what to think, 200th place when you're leveling a chassis and STRUGGLING to make it work seems strange to me.

[Angel of Annihilation]

OriginalTibs, on 03 July 2013 - 08:24 AM, said:

We can estimate that each bracket in the tourneys have at least 1000 pilots competing and usually more. 100th place or better will be in the top 10% but remember you are only competing with those who drop solo. Most premades drop either 4 man or 8 man and so are ineligible when they do, even if they opt in. The higher tiers will be primarily people who religiously never drop alone. Fight together or die alone. Most good soloists I suspect have close to a 1 to 1 K/D ratio. Among premades if you have a 1:1 K/D you must be on point all the time.

Not sure if I follow this logic although I do understand that premade with voice chat and working coordinated together are going to be better as a team. However, since ELO is determined by your individual performance, I am not sure they are individually going to be ranked higher than a good soloist.

For example if I am reading your description right, you claim a soloist would normally have a 1:1 K/D ratio where as a member of a premade team would have less than a 1:1 K/D. By defination this would mean that the average soloist would show better individual stats than a member of a premade and again since ELO is determined by individual performance it would just make logical sense that the soloist, with the better stats, would belong to a higher ELO braket.

If this is true, then those people who claim to be in the know about the competitive meta, those who run premades almost exclusively, would actually be playing in a lower ELO braket than good soloist players.

What this has to make you now wonder is if there isn't two metas involved in the game. One, the competitive team play meta and the competitive solo play meta. This would at least explain why there is such a huge difference in opinion among the playerbase about many balance topics.

[Native]

I too was working in the Cataphract bracket leveling basics. I always solo, and had several matches with some of the top finishers. I was in the low 90's when I gave up for the weekend. ended up 200 something, and my overall K/D is 1.09. I would tend to agree with what your saying

[Sephlock]

Viktor Drake, on 03 July 2013 - 08:44 AM, said:

Not sure if I follow this logic although I do understand that premade with voice chat and working coordinated together are going to be better as a team. However, since ELO is determined by your individual performance, I am not sure they are individually going to be ranked higher than a good soloist.

For example if I am reading your description right, you claim a soloist would normally have a 1:1 K/D ratio where as a member of a premade team would have less than a 1:1 K/D. By defination this would mean that the average soloist would show better individual stats than a member of a premade and again since ELO is determined by individual performance it would just make logical sense that the soloist, with the better stats, would belong to a higher ELO braket.

If this is true, then those people who claim to be in the know about the competitive meta, those who run premades almost exclusively, would actually be playing in a lower ELO braket than good soloist players.

What this has to make you now wonder is if there isn't two metas involved in the game. One, the competitive team play meta and the competitive solo play meta. This would at least explain why there is such a huge difference in opinion among the playerbase about many balance topics.

IF they keep rolling enemy teams, they won't accumulate many deaths, even if they aren't getting the kills, though.

[Shae Starfyre]

There are two ELO brackets...come with a team, or hope for team play...

I fall into the latter.

[Bishop Steiner]

Die Primate Die, on 03 July 2013 - 05:03 AM, said:

"Wait near the group, fend off lights, and then wait for the kill".


Ever notice that lately every mech we seem to get lately is only built for this purpose, no pure brawlers?

onlt because there are still so many people who think the only answer is to pack in the biggest engine available, toss on some tiny weapons, and go paper cut people to death is a legit tectic. And sometimes, their precious stats seem to bear it out. Of course, those stats don't show how many more games could have been won. or teammates survived if the thing had the firepower of an Assault mech and could actually save some lives and knock stuff out EARLY in the match.,

one could just as easily waste this build
DRG-1N
and have the survivabilty of a standard engine, better speed and smaller profile. And not skew the MM so much.

or this
TBT-7K
and at least nly waste a medium to mousing and kill stealing.

and I am sure I could keep making progressively smaller mechs where the tonnage isn't going to be wasted.

Seriously, I generally try not to crap on other peoples builds, but that is an utter waste of 80 tons mate, when you can do essentially the same thing for 20-30 tons less.

Aphoticus, on 03 July 2013 - 05:59 AM, said:

Yea, I noticed this too, but it caters to my play style anyways. I just can;t bring myself to get into the Meta as it currently is, competitive or not, because I just know I am short changing myself as I feel things will change.

I feel it is a better investment to put practice into pilot skills and aiming more than hill humping and alpha firing (this is just me, and not to put down anyone; I just find it far more challenging to try and close the distance, and get into a brawl with substandard layouts).

I get that and even applaud it, but even though the MM barely works, don't curse your team by weighting the match with an assault mech that only contributes as a Medium.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 03 July 2013 - 10:26 AM.

[RedrumnCoke]

Viktor Drake, on 03 July 2013 - 08:11 AM, said:

Well I have to ask you to pardon my ignorance but just where can I go about finding my ELO rating so I can determine if I am in a high or low bracket? To my knowledge this information isn't available is that not correct?

The reason I ask is that all I keep hearing is that in High ELO matches if your not part of the Quad PPC/high Alpha meta then your not competitive but how does anyone know what ELO they are in? I mean wouldn't it be ironic if all the people that keep claiming Alpha is king at high ELO rankings were really in the lowest brackets?

Now I am not sure that is the case, but it seems like people claiming they are experts or that they are uber skilled are making alot of assumptions on just where they are actually ranked. For example I placed 20th with the Quickdraw in the Heavy vs the world tournament and even managed to attain 15th place up unitl a few hours before the tournament ended. Now should I take that as me being one of the top players in the game OR did I only score that well because I was the best player in the lowest ELO braket? Without some sort of global ranking system how can anyone claim anything about the High ELO meta game?

I currently have a 1.90 k/d ratio but I don't believe that is all that is factored into elo. However, I will say that despite statements to the contrary, I do just fine without high alpha/high heat builds. All of my mechs are mediums or heavies. None of my builds are below a 1.3 heat efficiency (most are higher at 1.4/1.5). My slowest mech is my Jager at 74 kph and my fastest is my Cicada at 144.8 kph. Most of my other mechs run in the 80 kph - 90 kph range. In other words, I prefer to fun fast builds that run cool. I fit in as much firepower as is possible while maintaining decent speed and heat efficiency, and I favor high dps over a high alpha (my lowest alpha is 19 and my highest is 45, most are in the mid 20s/30s).

I think the high alpha builds are similar to the rogues of WoW in that they are designed to kill quickly, but don't do well in extended firefights (which is why they prefer to fire safely from range). The longer a fight goes on (at close range), the more likely they are to lose to a high dps build as they either shut down form overheating or have to stop firing to cool down; allowing the cooler running build to catch up and surpass in damage.

I will say that to be effective with a high dps build you have to be good at avoiding shots. Most players will alpha as soon as their cooldowns are up, and I have gotten decent at timing when that will be and suddenly changing directions right then to throw off their shot or have it land someplace other than my center torso. You also need to utilize the terrain well; either ducking in-between buildings/other mechs or running up a hill so their torso mounted weaponry can't target you effectively. However, I would be lying if I said that I never got taken out quickly by a high alpha build; it happens, especially when the player is good and can either keep you at range or conversely sneaks up on you and takes out your back armor quickly.

As an example, here is my Blackjack 1-x: http://mwo.smurfy-ne...d0b8caa19b04797 . Only 28 alpha damage and very limited range, but it runs at 101 kph with a heat efficiency of 1.42. I currently have a 2.98 k/d with it. I think the reason some think only a high alpha build will work is they try a high dps build but then stand toe to toe without evasive maneuvering. If you just stand in front of another mech and trade shots, the high alpha build will win every time as they will either take out your cockpit in one strike, or your center torso in 2 strikes.