21 replies to this topic

[JC Daxion]

just curious what people would think are tankish mechs at every level...

i would guess raven at light, Medium??? definatly not the big ol HBKs... though perhaps the 4sp...


heavy and assault, i have no clue...


so thoughts on this?

[Benjamin Davion]

Define 'Tankish'.

[Stoicblitzer]

no joke. the spider is the best tank in the game.

[Xiang]

Light - Spider (can take a million tons of damage and not die)
Med - Centurion (same as spider)
Heavy - ?? Dragon or Quickdraw (fast and not as easy to kill as other heavies)
Assault - All (that is what they are designed to do) - unless they have an XL engine....

Xiang

[Royalewithcheese]

Spider even has aggro mechanics. Well, at least it draws my aggro when one of those obnoxious little b*stards runs around spraying flamer and MG.

Edited by Royalewithcheese, 24 July 2013 - 09:53 PM.

[Xorv]

daishi

[Redshift2k5]

Here's something a lot of people don't know about, and which is what makes the Spider and Centurion take so long to kill:

Damage transfer through destoyed components reduces the damage recieved. If I have a destroyed side torso, and you shoot that side torso, it transfer the damage to my CT... but not all of it. If you hit a damaged arm (the shoulder remains attached to the mech even after an arm and it's side torso are destroyed) that damage is reduced twice. The Centurion has large chunks of 'destroyed arm' left on the body, and when they use effective torso twisting, you spread damage all over the body including to those damaged components.

The Centurion also has missile bay doors covering the front of it's left torso (yes, really) and these doors, when closed, offer a 10% damage reduction to the front of that part of the LT.

The Centurion is famous for taking huge amounts of direct fire without dying, and they can also bring effective weapon loadouts and most of them have impressive engine speed caps (as compared to the Hunchback). This does require effective use of defensive torso twisting, though.

---

for Heavy mechs, they all have pretty similar armor and all have some relatively easy to hit sections. Heavies and Assaults don't present weird cases of mechs being "too hard to kill" so you can just pick whichever one has the weapons you like.

[zraven7]

Redshift2k5, on 25 July 2013 - 03:29 AM, said:

Here's something a lot of people don't know about, and which is what makes the Spider and Centurion take so long to kill:

Damage transfer through destoyed components reduces the damage recieved. If I have a destroyed side torso, and you shoot that side torso, it transfer the damage to my CT... but not all of it. If you hit a damaged arm (the shoulder remains attached to the mech even after an arm and it's side torso are destroyed) that damage is reduced twice. The Centurion has large chunks of 'destroyed arm' left on the body, and when they use effective torso twisting, you spread damage all over the body including to those damaged components.

The Centurion also has missile bay doors covering the front of it's left torso (yes, really) and these doors, when closed, offer a 10% damage reduction to the front of that part of the LT.

The Centurion is famous for taking huge amounts of direct fire without dying, and they can also bring effective weapon loadouts and most of them have impressive engine speed caps (as compared to the Hunchback). This does require effective use of defensive torso twisting, though.

---

for Heavy mechs, they all have pretty similar armor and all have some relatively easy to hit sections. Heavies and Assaults don't present weird cases of mechs being "too hard to kill" so you can just pick whichever one has the weapons you like.

Basically, this means shoot freakin Centurions in the legs.

[Enieles]

zraven7, on 25 July 2013 - 04:28 AM, said:

Basically, this means shoot freakin Centurions in the legs.

This!

[Thorqemada]

Dont make any mistake about Medium Mechs.
The Moment you face experienced Pilots any slow Medium (below 110 kph) is free lunch and the Centurions have a specific weakness with easy to disable legs.

From my experience:
Light: Spider
Medium: None
Heavy: Quickdraw
Assault: Avoid the Awesome at all cost - it has an especially weak CT.

Edited by Thorqemada, 25 July 2013 - 07:48 AM.

[scJazz]

Spider
Centurion
None (at least not reliably)
Stalker

[IceSerpent]

Thorqemada, on 25 July 2013 - 07:48 AM, said:

The Moment you face experienced Pilots any slow Medium (below 110 kph) is free lunch

That actually made me laugh.

Quote

and the Centurions have a specific weakness with easy to disable legs.

All mechs have that "specific weakness", no exceptions.

@OP: "Tankish" mechs are (IMHO)

Light: none (Spider currently has broken hitboxes so it can absorb a lot of damage, but we have no idea when/if it will get fixed).
Medium: Centurion
Heavy: none
Assault: Atlas, Highlander

[Uoke]

I would argue that the Stalker is the tankiest assault class mech in the game. Its hitboxes make it very difficult to destroy the center torso, even from the front.

[Enieles]

Really we need to get away from the idea of a "tank" mech, that role doesn't exist in this game, the roles that do exist are scout, fire support, brawler and skirmisher.

[IceSerpent]

Uoke, on 25 July 2013 - 09:05 AM, said:

I would argue that the Stalker is the tankiest assault class mech in the game. Its hitboxes make it very difficult to destroy the center torso, even from the front.

Kind of depends on how you define "tanky" mech - I didn't put it on the list because Stalker can be completely disarmed very easily, and it's difficult to "tank" when you pose no threat.

Enieles, on 25 July 2013 - 09:39 AM, said:

Really we need to get away from the idea of a "tank" mech, that role doesn't exist in this game, the roles that do exist are scout, fire support, brawler and skirmisher.

The "tank" role is alive and well - it's the first mech to rush enemy line (ideally). "Fire support" role is more debatable, as we don't have any "support" weapons - both Long Tom and Arrow IV are not implemented.

[RF Greywolf]

IceSerpent, on 25 July 2013 - 10:44 AM, said:

The "tank" role is alive and well - it's the first mech to rush enemy line (ideally). "Fire support" role is more debatable, as we don't have any "support" weapons - both Long Tom and Arrow IV are not implemented.

Agreed that tanking is alive and well.

Theoretically AC/2's and LRM's are defined as support weapons... according to TT.

[IceSerpent]

RF Greywolf, on 25 July 2013 - 10:49 AM, said:

Agreed that tanking is alive and well.

Theoretically AC/2's and LRM's are defined as support weapons... according to TT.

LRMs are not support weapons in TT - it's one of the main long range weapon systems (i.e. same as ppc / gauss in that regard).

[Blood78]

Some of this idea that certain mechs like Centurion, Spider are tankish is actually false. Its not that they are tankish, its more that they have small hitbox and are typically fast moving so its hard to get a good laser burn or a solid hit so they are hard to kill because they're hard to hit. Not because they can take a lot of punishment.

Tankish Mechs in competitive drops (8 man drops) are basically big mechs (Heavy/Assault) that can take a lot of beating but have enough weapons to make it dangerous enough to be focused on. DDC with AC20 and 3xSRM is perfect example. Atlas is easy to hit, even with big engine. But it has crapload of armor and can take a beating. But if it only had armor and not enough firepower. Why would you shoot it. You'd kill others first.

Hard to hit mechs are mechs like Centurion and Spider. Because of their hit box and agility. Cent with STD engine that runs 90+ kph and has missile bay door closed can easily go down below 20% and still fight. You just leg it instead unless you are a good shot. In that case, aim head or center torso. Spider is small and not only that it runs 130-150kph plus jumps. Its hard to hit it. Trust me that if you get a good shot, Cent and Spider are done for. Whereas tank mechs can take a good shot and still live.

There are few mechs that is both tankish and hard to hit. Highlander has relatively small center torso so if you stick large STD engine in it and pack on Gauss, AC20 with SRMs, M or L.Lasers. It can tank and be hard to hit.

Key to both good models of survival (tankish mech and hard to hit) is rolling damage. Atlas has no option to JJ to roll the damage to leg. Highlander and Spider can.

[RF Greywolf]

The Catapult is an offense oriented, second-line fire-support BattleMech initially produced on a limited contract for the Terran Hegemony.

"two Holly LRM-15 launchers which allow the Catapult to give friendly units fire support"

I guess it depends on how you define fire support. I always seen fire support as any long range weapon that is used to support the main battle line. 6 of one, half a dozen of the others I guess.

By canon, any assault is considered "tanky" due to the amount of damage they can take. Unfortunately MWO changed this a bit with some of the hitboxes of the assaults here...

[Enieles]

In my experience that first mech that crests the hill, or engages the enemy team is usually destroyed very quickly as the entire enemy team focus' fire on it.

As a mech pilot you really don't want more than one or two enemy pilots focusing their attacks on you, even in an Atlas, you want that damage spread out, thinking you are your teams "tank' is a good way to get yourself killed in a hurry.

The best practice is not to be the first over the hills, through the breach, etc., but to simultaneously engage the enemy with as many mechs as your can. Give them more targets than they can shoot at, and focus fire on one of them at a time.

Fire support is any mech that does not engage in the front line brawl, which includes all indirect fire builds (LRMS) or long range weapons (PPC, Gauss, etc), these are mechs that don't really want the attention of enemy fire.