116 replies to this topic

[TheFlyingScotsman]

Hello all. I've noticed that since their initial release, BJs have fallen back behind CN9s and HBKs in terms of numbers fielded. Mostly, they are as rare as CDAs. I hope others (whom I have seen use the BJ well) will also post their favorite builds. Also: Everyone knows about 6ml/8ml boat builds, and nobody needs to see them posted. That would be like posting the AC40jager or 6ppc STK, ergo, nobody ******* cares and everybody already knows. Thank you in advance. :3

I myself find the BJ to be a very functional mech with many benefits, and will post my favorite build for my favorite model, the BJ-1. I feel strongly that the Ballistics toting variants are much stronger than the pure-energy variants, solely because their heat dispersion is much easier to manage with only a 45-ton chassis.

Unfortunately, most mediums require max size engines to have any realistic effectiveness. This is a problem with engine scaling I don't think will be fixed soon, but in the mean time, medium players must squeeze every ton and slot. I also find that JJs are essential to medium survival, as being able to circumvent terrain gives a strong advantage over larger, landlocked mechs in many situations.

To that end, I present my favorite build, the GaussJack:

BJ-1 - GaussJack

The benefits of this build are high heat tolerance, the ability to be effective at any range, the ability to continue dealing ample damage when ammo runs out, very balanced/complimentary weapon types, nearly full armor, and fully used tonnage and slots. This mech has zero open crits and only 0.02 tons of free weight.

Now, lets see some other good BJ builds. :3

Edited by TheFlyingScotsman, 07 July 2013 - 04:36 PM.

[Drakari]

Unfortunately, I don't have the money to afford an XL 235 engine (I'm saving up now, but 3.8 million is a lot of C-Bills...) I do pilot Blackjacks though, mostly because I bought one and I'd rather commit to using them than start over on mastery. Overall, I like the BJ-1; it has jump jets and ballistic slots while other variants have only one of the two. The 1DC is also pretty good, with more energy slots allowing some nice all-energy builds as well as mixed ballistic builds, but the 1X doesn't really have the weight to take advantage of 8 energy slots with good cooling and a large engine (not that it's impossible, just that it's not really optimal or versatile) and the -3 is only better than the -1 if you NEED specifically 6 energy weapons (or, I guess, 5) and even then it's only better than the -1DC if you NEED jump jets. All that said, there are a lot of builds which work perfectly well on just about any Blackjack with not a whole lot of distinction between them.

Anyways, I'm currently running basically the stock BJ-1 with two of the lasers traded for extra ammo (1 ton is not enough for dual AC/2s and standard heatsinks can't manage 4 MLs anyway... also, don't look at me like that; it works just fine and I need to save for my engine anyway.)

[jper4]

i still pilot my Blackjacks regularlyoddly the BJ1 that everyone likes is my least successful.

bj1x- 4ML, 2SPLs, 295 xl engine and max armor, speed 116kph, BAP (just because i had the tonnage and couldn;t fit another dhs) good for dealing with light harrassers as the BAP kills their ecm for all the "unusuable" streaks the rest of the team is sporting- only run into trouble when i try acting as a pure scout role (fairly common since lights are pretty rare of late)

bj1- keep changing it but currently doing the dual ac2 2ML thing, std engine, 71kph, 1JJ, does ok as long as i can keep my distance but nothing overly exciting. had used xl at one point but never found anything comfortable to use. had an ac10 and 3ML for a bit

bj dc- my "Baby Boomer" ac20, 2SL,1ML, tops off at 80kph xl engine. must stay with the group to work, get peeled off by myself or chase too far and i'm usually toast. but most folk look for the jager when ac20 rounds start hitting them.

bj3- wasn;t going to buy it at first, but decided to complete the set and has somehow become my most success mech despite it's vanilla design. 6MLs, 91kph w/ speed tweak, std engine, 1JJ. dunno why it's been working so well but not complaining- can get usually get at least a kill a match barring the stomp matches, even then if we only have 1 or 2 kills there's a decent chance i got one of them. works best in the city maps (even frozen where i'm usually horrible), kinda like the 6ML jenner/cicada's dorkier older cousin.

edit- just had one of my favorite moments with "Baby Boomer" tweaking the build some (trying std engine to see how it works now- bit slower and a bit less armor now). i see a raven running down the ramp in frozen city near kappa. it shuts down to avoid lrms and doesn;t realize i'm behind it. sees me, powers up. BOOM- ac20 round, dead. missed the comment at first but post match i saw the raven pilot had typed "You put an AC20 in a dam blackjack!?"

Edited by Tanar, 09 July 2013 - 08:25 AM.

[Lyoncet]

I've posted a few times about my favorite BJ-1 build, and favorite Blackjack in general: the Double Negative.

BJ-1
2 AC/2 (5t)
2 MLAS
4/4 jump jets
11 heatsinks
235 XL engine
ES, DHS
14 alpha strike, 3.68 sustained DPS, 35% cooling, 93 km/h, 288/306 armor

I've had great success with double AC/2 lately. (And yes, I recently graduated into the nothing-but-PPCs bracket, much to my dismay.) I think that a few things go into making this viable even in such a brutal, homogenous, unforgiving environment:

• You have high-mounted arms, so you can hug ridges pretty well
  
• You have jump jets, which means ridge hugging is even easier and you can easily get to good perches
  
• You have a small profile
  
• You're not that quick, but at least fast enough to reposition and evade fire
  
• You can outrange both ERPPCs and LRMs

On top of that, you can backstab like nuts with this build. I often find myself sitting in fire support mode, then noticing an assault Batchalling it up. I'll scoot over, hold down my alpha strike button, and wait a few seconds for them to get cored. (It takes 7 seconds to core a stock Atlas from behind with this build, I think. But that may be for 2 MLAS and 3 AC/2s, not 2 and 2.)



Note that the alpha on this build is awful (14), and the sustained DPS is also sub-par at only 3.68. But, a couple things balance this out. For starts, you can usually get 3-4 AC/2 shots off per cannon at the very least before your target can get out of your life of fire. Often more. That's the same damage as a Gauss strike. So low alpha, but decent concentrated fire. Second, while the build runs hot if you keep spraying fire, you usually don't do that. You'll almost never overheat sniping, and because of how you tend to pilot this loadout (get in for a lot of quick damage, than fly away and duck under cover and reposition, or wait for your target to engage someone else), you have an intrinsic cool-off period built in. And while you're unloading, you have a full 10.50 DPS, which can strip armor or blow off limbs damn quick. Generally if you're in a situation where you'd overheat, your team's already overrun, or you let yourself get way out of position.

Another important element is that while you're in a small 'Mech, you can't play as if you're in a small 'Mech. Your armor is thin, and while you have jump jets, you just don't have the raw speed to recover if you let yourself get flanked or run headlong into something big and scary. You'll just die. It's imperative that you have good game sense with this build, or you'll get chewed to pieces and wonder what went wrong.

That said, if you can pilot this well, you can at least pitch in, and often really wreak havoc, in any situation, and respond to fill whatever role is needed. I went from a 1:5 kdr with this variant to hovering around 2-3 kills per match and almost always doing between 350 and 550 damage.

I've tried this with 4 SLAS instead of 2 MLAS, but I found that the extra range was more important than the extra heat efficiency and short-range punch. I've also experimented with AC/5 builds, Gauss builds, PPC builds, etc., and never found one that worked as well for me as this (even if the 6-8 laser BJ-1X builds are a lot easier). It could be because I'm a little impatient and feel like if there's not something I can do at any given moment, I'm not contributing enough. Being able to switch between suppressive fire/counter-sniping to dealing heavy damage in a short period gives the flexibility it takes to contribute no matter which map you're on or how the battle unfolds.

One final note, I just got my third Blackjack variant, so I haven't gotten elite skills or double basics. So this is actually my experience playing a build with gimped speed, twist, acceleration, cooling, etc.

Hope that little writeup proves useful, and happy hunting fellow Blackjackers!

Edited by Lyoncet, 08 July 2013 - 07:15 AM.

[xengk]

Im currently working on my Cicadas, these are my Blackjacks that I have completed Elite.

The BJ are very hard to headshot, so I redistribute alot of amour from HD to other parts.
So far only dies from headshot less than 5 times, and all of them are from LRM damage.

Flying Hunchback
Handle similarly like a HBK4G, but without the bullet magnet hump.
Buddy up with another brawler or medium and become a dynamic duo, the AC20 will bring lotsa pain and the enemy will have to split between fighting you or your partner.
I prefer an U/AC5s Cataphract/Jag or AC40Jag as battle partner when in this ride.


Minidakka
This work like a AC2 turret, find a nice spot and dakka away or play escort for the team mid-range LRMboat. The 6 Slaz(18 damage every 2 seconds!!) are for discouraging lights from hang around too long.
Install an AMS because this build draws alot of LRM hate.
With the new movement update, probably want to replace this with a JJ variant.


Breadknife
Another support build, hang back from brawl and exploit any weakspot with 4 large lasers.
Due to low heat efficiency, this build require abit more discipline at picking target and knowing when to fire.
Separate the Llaz into 3 groups; 1 for chain fire, 2 for all left weapon and another for all right weapon, useful when peeking behind obstacle. Hold group 2 and 3 for alpha.
2 Coolshot is a must.

Edited by xengk, 08 July 2013 - 11:52 PM.

[Drakari]

If only I didn't need 10 heat sinks...

[Benjamin Davion]

Drakari, on 09 July 2013 - 08:52 PM, said:

If only I didn't need 10 heat sinks...

HexaPPC Blackjack. lololol. I dub this the FusionBombJack, because if you ever dared pull the trigger, that's what your mech would be...

[Drakari]

Benjamin Davion, on 09 July 2013 - 09:01 PM, said:

HexaPPC Blackjack. lololol. I dub this the FusionBombJack, because if you ever dared pull the trigger, that's what your mech would be...

Indeed. I needed to tone it down a little, but I managed to get a technically useable mech. I'm pretty sure it would still explode after one alpha, but at least it can leave the hangar.

All kidding aside, I'm liking dual UAC/5s. Right now the build is something like this, though I'm not entirely sure about the armor distribution. It's got nice DPS at pretty much any range, but not much room for ammo. It's possible to squeeze out another ton if you go to standard heat sinks and add FF armor, but since you have to pay C-bills to do that and even more to revert it I'd rather keep my mech in shape to be remotely capable of doing something else.

Of course, there's still the fact that the Ilya Muromets can get 3 UAC/5s as well as more ammo and armor, with only a tiny bit less speed. If we move it to a BJ-1 and drop 1 ton of ammo we could add in a jump jet for at least some benefit (other than being much cheaper), but I think it might be better to go with just one UAC/5 and maybe 4 tons of ammo, then add some energy weapons. (Right now, a PPC and 2 MLas, plus another heat sink. At least, that's what I'd say.)

[Ruccus]

This build is my main build which works really well for me. I had an amazing 1,079 damage match in it (though the stars aligned for me that match - lots of heavy and assault mechs duking it out with each other and for the most part ignoring little old me. It was well above my 832 second best and 698 third best using the build) and I find it suits my play style well. An alternate version of my main build is this BJ-1 build which basically swaps the Gauss Rifle and a medium laser for an AC20 and a heatsink. I like the Gauss though, and after I've spent my 30 rounds I can still put out some respectable damage with the four medium lasers.

My secondary build is this build which uses dual PPCs as its main weaponry. The closest version to the stock dual AC2 loadout while still being a significant change would be the Dual AC5 BJ-1. I've used that build effectively as well.

Edited by Ruccus, 23 July 2013 - 05:37 AM.

[Ryolacap]

Anytime a mech can carry a AC20 and XL, I go that direction 20 Buck BJ, I do so love the AC20.

Edited by Ryolacap, 23 July 2013 - 06:06 AM.

[Training Instructor]

Here's my BJ-3 build. 6xMedlasers, 17 dhs, 235 std engine. Pretty effective so far.

BJ-3

[Malsumis]

Just bought my first Blackjack and originally was looking to do the typical 8 medium laser setup. I tried it a bit and found it kinda meh. I eventually settled on this BJ-1X setup. The weapon setup is good for all ranges and the heat management I find is very easy to handle.

[Inflatable Fish]

BJ-1DC

2x PPC (arms)
2x Machinegun (arms) with 1 ton of ammo in the CT
2x ML (torso)

XL 235
14 DHS (one in the left arm due to lack of slots in torso)

Endosteel structure


Has proved to be a surprisingly mobile medium-range harasser and "scavenger" - specialty is blowing up Atlai >:]

[Xeno Phalcon]

I coulda sworn I had a post in this thread hmmm apparently not. My main squeeze right now (and for the past month or so) has been the BJ-1 with 154 matches played and more then 14 hours spent in its cockpit.

Iv used a few versions built around this starting off with 2LL/2ML, then I went to 4PML, and currently iv been having fun with a unorthodox 3ML/1LL version. I tend to support the advance or flank, im especially fond of sneaking around and chewing up missile boats who simply dont have the firepower to fend off this mech up close.

[Corvus Antaka]

i like the dual erppc Bj-1, 2 MG and 2 slaser for backup. the BJ is best as a support sniper, and a great finisher for end of match.

[Benjamin Davion]

Right now I'm using a BJ3 with 1 ERPPC, 5ML. Biggest XL engine I can slam in the thing, which gives me, as I recall, 86.1kph. 3JJs gives it plenty of jump. Full armor. AMS w/ 1ton of armor. Every other available slot is filled with DHS. Even with all that, it is STILL 1.4 tons light and I can't decide what to do with it. My shining moment for this mech, in a four man the other day, I used this guy on Alpine and, with an LRMCat for support, traded fire with an Awesome and a Stalker from high altitude until I cored and killed both. The ERPPC allows this mech to dish out significant firepower from a distance, and five medium lasers fired chained is a pretty big surprise to most adversaries that try to brawl with this mech. It's ideally NOT a brawler, but a skirmisher that darts around the edges of the brawls, stabbing volleys of lasers into vulnerable targets while not slowing down enough to be an easy target. At the same time, the ERPPC allows it to smash away at enemy armor while closing, creating gaping wounds for the lasers to exploit. Even with every consideration for heat, this mech is HOT, so it takes care and practice to use, but the results I have seen are spectacular for a mech of this weight class.

[Drakari]

Benjamin Davion, on 30 July 2013 - 06:51 PM, said:

Right now I'm using a BJ3 with 1 ERPPC, 5ML. Biggest XL engine I can slam in the thing, which gives me, as I recall, 86.1kph. 3JJs gives it plenty of jump. Full armor. AMS w/ 1ton of armor. Every other available slot is filled with DHS. Even with all that, it is STILL 1.4 tons light and I can't decide what to do with it. My shining moment for this mech, in a four man the other day, I used this guy on Alpine and, with an LRMCat for support, traded fire with an Awesome and a Stalker from high altitude until I cored and killed both. The ERPPC allows this mech to dish out significant firepower from a distance, and five medium lasers fired chained is a pretty big surprise to most adversaries that try to brawl with this mech. It's ideally NOT a brawler, but a skirmisher that darts around the edges of the brawls, stabbing volleys of lasers into vulnerable targets while not slowing down enough to be an easy target. At the same time, the ERPPC allows it to smash away at enemy armor while closing, creating gaping wounds for the lasers to exploit. Even with every consideration for heat, this mech is HOT, so it takes care and practice to use, but the results I have seen are spectacular for a mech of this weight class.

If you take away 18 points of armor you can drop Endo-Steel to get more slots to work with, but then you'd have to drop even more armor to actually put anything in so it's probably not worth it. There are a few things you could do with it to get rid of those empty tons, but I think that's probably the best you're gonna get at all without a huge overhaul. If you rebuild it in a 1X you'll have to drop the jump jets but could put in a bigger engine. 250 or above will have an extra heatsink in the engine so you get another 3 slots to work with as well. I made this pretty quickly, it goes over 100 kph and uses all the tonnage while only sacrificing 2 points of cockpit armor and the jumpjets. Depends on your preference, but I'd go with something closer to that.

I really wish the 1X could fit a 300 engine though, it would allow fitting an additional heatsink in the engine for only .5 more tons, increase the top speed marginally, and it's just a more useful engine in other mechs (as well as being one of the more common ones to be included in expensive variants).

[Training Instructor]

I've had some really good matches lately with the BJ-3. Just six medium lasers, 4 jj, 235 std, ES, 17 dhs, AMS, almost full armor.

Play it like a slower bj-1x, but jump over people and be more heat efficient while doing it. I've been finding it to be a fairly effective light killer, and exceptionally helpful support mech for assaults.

[Draxist]

for the BJ-1

dual AC/5,
dual medium lasers (left and right torsos)
XL195
five tons of ammo
four jump-jets
three double heat-sinks

and the BJ-1DC
AC/20
ERPPC
two small lasers (left and right torsos)
three tons AC20 ammo
XL195
three double Heat-sinks

I love them both, and both play radically different, with the BJ-1 being a jumpy pop-sniper that deals good long range fire support, and the BJ-1DC being better for close-in brawl support. XL195's seem small since you need three extra tons for heatsinks,and very little speed bump from stock engines, but I think its worth it.

Edited by Draxist, 31 July 2013 - 11:04 AM.

[SirSlaughter]

BJ-1X with 2 PPC, 6 small lasers, XL295 and total 12 DHS