39 replies to this topic

[Wittyname Terribad]

Awesomes are wonderful fun. Still have my 3 (8R, 8T, 8V). You will become a better pilot mastering this chassis

[oldradagast]

Sadly, the 8Q is one of the hardest to use mechs in the game. Most other Awesomes can still pack a punch with energy weapons, but they can also mix it up with missiles, which lets them get around the ghost heat penalty. The 8Q is stuck with 1 weapon type and thus takes it on the chin with ghost heat.

That being said, you can still make it work at least long enough to get the basic skills unlocked. Then, if you like the idea of Awesome but just don't like the limited weapon choices on this chassis, buy a different one and play around with it.

Good luck.

[Grifthin]

I like my 8Q - I'm busy mastering them at the moment. I'm running 464 Armor, Max engine, AMS, 3 Medium lasers (in torso, head), 2 x Large lasers and 2x PPC. 18 Double heat sinks.

It's not to hot - just stagger fire your weapon groups. You make good fire support for team mates. Just hang 300 or so meter's behind them and let the enemy have it.

Also - no ghost heat.

Edited by Grifthin, 29 August 2013 - 02:29 AM.

[Kaptain]

The 8q is one of my fav mechs even with ninja heat... I do wish they would fix the CT though.

8Q
300std
RA: 2xLL
RT: 1ML & 1LL
LT: 1ML & 1LL
DHS
Standard Structure
Standard Armor

Some things I have learned with the AWS:
The 300 makes a world of difference
Make sure to fire your LL as 2 separate groups to avoid the ghost heat
Try to use your left arm as a shield
PPCs work better on the 9m with some LRMs for backup

[Tolkien]

In the hands of a good pilot no mech is a bad mech.

The AWS just has a lot of factors against it that make it hard to do as well in it as you could in another chassis:

1) The frontal silhouette is very large and square. This makes it very easy for enemy fire to hit you when they aim for your centre of mass.

2) The arm weapons are low slung. This is similar to the atlas in that it makes the arm weapons hard to use on targets near terrain rises/drops

3)Hitbox allocation between centre and side torsos seems off

4) While the arms are much bigger than a hunchbacks they still don't deflect as much fire from the sides as they could stand to.

5) Can't poptart which seems to be a thing right now

6) Zero ballistic mounts. Ballistics aren't great but on an assault you generally want one or two since they help a lot with heat management.

Keep in mind that I am not an awesome pilot myself except for a few rounds back in closed beta. I have shot a lot of them though, and these are the factors that I believe makes them vulnerable.

[mbebe23]

I suggest to keep the AWS-8Q even if it is hard to play for you right now. As someone noted the quality of AWS-8Q can change in plus in some time. And if you play it more and try to find The Way to play this mech you will be much better pilot then
Don't give up! Be Awesome! ;P

[aniviron]

Hi, longtime Awesome pilot here. I'm pretty good in them, and have a fair amount of experience.

My best advice to you is: Sell your Awesome. Sorry, they're really bad. There is nothing they do that both Stalkers and Victors don't do better.

If you already have a few Awesomes and are absolutely committed to using yours, a 275 std, 4xppc +20dhs loadout will do okay, mostly because PPCs are still really really good, even when you have to fire in two groups of two. Any Stalker will do this loadout better, though.

[Arete]

The awesomes are quite hard to use well, they are at a serious disadvantage. Nevertheless, I find them to be awesome fun to play, because when you can do good in them you feel awesome :-D

I've made my 8Q into a full-on pinpoint brawler (with no ghost heat): http://mwo.smurfy-ne...2133b32ab5f2bad

[oldradagast]

I do disagree on the statement that everything an Awesome can do the Victor or Stalker can do better - LRM boating is the one exception, IMHO. The Victor's can't really LRM boat since they can't put out enough missiles at a time. Stalkers can boat just fine, sometimes even better than Awesome's, but their limited maneuverability and lack of horizontal arm movement leaves them more vulnerable to enemies that get under LRM range than an Awesome is, IMHO. It's a toss-up, but Awesome's still make good LRM platforms. The problem is that's about all they do well - the Stalker beats them overall in the energy + missile mix, and the Victor beats them for speed and brawling.

[Ixion]

aniviron, on 29 August 2013 - 04:23 AM, said:

Hi, longtime Awesome pilot here. I'm pretty good in them, and have a fair amount of experience.

My best advice to you is: Sell your Awesome. Sorry, they're really bad. There is nothing they do that both Stalkers and Victors don't do better.

If you already have a few Awesomes and are absolutely committed to using yours, a 275 std, 4xppc +20dhs loadout will do okay, mostly because PPCs are still really really good, even when you have to fire in two groups of two. Any Stalker will do this loadout better, though.

between the speed of the 9M and the LRM abilities of some of the other variants I think that most awesomes can hold their own. I'm a pug player so maybe for people playing more competitive organized matches this isn't the case, I don't know, but when I use them I score regularly in the top damage and kills range. What I would like to know about the build you suggest is, can you actually use 4 PPC's? I only have the 8Q variant partly through elite, so no 2x basic. If I tried to do that build an alpha strike would very likely instantly overheat it, and if I chain fired slow enough not to overheat, there's no way I would be firing the 4th PPC before the first was off cool down. In effect I'd just be alternating weapons, not truly chain firing, and might as well have dropped at 73/80 tons. That's the core of my issue with the 8Q.

[xengk]

The 8Q is one of my favourite Assault mech, although Im primary a medium mech pilot.
The 8Q work best in its original design as a PPC sniper, 500~800m away from the front line.
Find a good spot with clear firing range with a few handy cover nearby for when you draw LRM attention.
They can be very devastating against slow moving assault and heavy mechs.

My current build.
3x PPC
2x MLaz
2x SLaz
280 STD
19 DHS
BAP
AMS

Have the PPC on chain fire and you can pop out 5~6 shots before reaching critical heat. Ideally to fire 3 shots and fallback to cooldown before re-emerge to do it again.

Edited by xengk, 29 August 2013 - 09:58 AM.

[Jzaltheral]

Hexenhammer, on 25 August 2013 - 09:23 PM, said:

Word to your mother.

I bought an Ilya on sale months.... MONTHS ago. Total game time? 00:13:10. Barely 13 minutes!

Stalker-3f: 22:23:32
Atlas-D: 30:38:22
Atlas-D-DC: 12:55:26
Jagermech JM6-DD 11:32:31

All bought with C-bills.

I've bought the Ilya and X-5. I'll probably master the X-5 before I unlock the Ilya's novice skills.

A lot of it is play style. I love my Ilya. I regularly post 600 and 700 point matches in it. My X 5 has sat unused for months. There really are very few bad mechs in the game. There are lots of bad players, however.

[Lyoto Machida]

Try this build (though you better be good with managing heat). Vary the ranges at which you use the different weapon systems:

XL 300 (66.8 kph)
480 Armor
16 DHS/Endo
2 ERPPC (RA)
2 LL (RT/LT)
2 LPL (RT/LT)
AMS (1 ton)

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...1ea0f523aa8436b

Still...I haven't done very well with this variant in comparison to my 8R and 9M. Not sure if I've ever broken 500 in it.

For comparison, I dropped last night in a dual UAC5/4ML K2 that I hadn't run in months. Pulled down 931 damage and 3 kills...some mechs are easier than others.

[aniviron]

Ixion, on 29 August 2013 - 09:27 AM, said:

between the speed of the 9M and the LRM abilities of some of the other variants I think that most awesomes can hold their own. I'm a pug player so maybe for people playing more competitive organized matches this isn't the case, I don't know, but when I use them I score regularly in the top damage and kills range. What I would like to know about the build you suggest is, can you actually use 4 PPC's? I only have the 8Q variant partly through elite, so no 2x basic. If I tried to do that build an alpha strike would very likely instantly overheat it, and if I chain fired slow enough not to overheat, there's no way I would be firing the 4th PPC before the first was off cool down. In effect I'd just be alternating weapons, not truly chain firing, and might as well have dropped at 73/80 tons. That's the core of my issue with the 8Q.

The 9m has speed, yes, but it really is the only one of the bunch with anything to recommend to it. The only AWS that really excels with LRMs is the 8R, but an LRM60 isn't really all that unique- you're not really much better off than doing the same thing in a catapult or stalker.

The 4 PPC 8q is very competitive. It's not too uncommon for me to get 4+ kills 1000+ damage with it; maybe three of my games in the assault vs world leaderboard were from the 8Q. You don't alpha (anymore :[ ) and you don't chainfire, at least not unless they're almost dead and you're overheated. You put the left two on one group and the right two on the other and fire off one side then the other for two bolts of 20 damage .5 seconds apart. If you're good or lucky, both will hit the same spot. The thing is, ever since they slowed down the PPC refire rate, you can't play with 3PPCs and go for damage over time on anyone out in the open, which is what I used to do. You just can't put enough damage down fast enough to compete with autocannons. So you have to get in, fire four times (eight total ppcs) and then hunker down for 5-10s to cool, and do it again. The advantage of this is that it lets you punch holes through someone's armor without really being vulnerable to return fire while you are cooling off. The ability to frontload the damage and then get out is very important to this build. That said, on Alpine or Frozen, you can engage for longer periods of time fairly reliably. Firing both groups of 2ppcs .5s apart gets you to about 50-55% heat on most hot maps, so you can fire all your guns 2-3 times before you need to cool off if you start with no heat.

That said, as good as the 4xppc aws-8q build is, it's much easier and works much better in any Stalker.

Edited by aniviron, 29 August 2013 - 11:21 AM.

[Lyoto Machida]

aniviron, on 29 August 2013 - 11:20 AM, said:

The 9m has speed, yes, but it really is the only one of the bunch with anything to recommend to it. The only AWS that really excels with LRMs is the 8R, but an LRM60 isn't really all that unique- you're not really much better off than doing the same thing in a catapult or stalker.

The 4 PPC 8q is very competitive. It's not too uncommon for me to get 4+ kills 1000+ damage with it; maybe three of my games in the assault vs world leaderboard were from the 8Q. You don't alpha (anymore :[ ) and you don't chainfire, at least not unless they're almost dead and you're overheated. You put the left two on one group and the right two on the other and fire off one side then the other for two bolts of 20 damage .5 seconds apart. If you're good or lucky, both will hit the same spot. The thing is, ever since they slowed down the PPC refire rate, you can't play with 3PPCs and go for damage over time on anyone out in the open, which is what I used to do. You just can't put enough damage down fast enough to compete with autocannons. So you have to get in, fire four times (eight total ppcs) and then hunker down for 5-10s to cool, and do it again. The advantage of this is that it lets you punch holes through someone's armor without really being vulnerable to return fire while you are cooling off. The ability to frontload the damage and then get out is very important to this build. That said, on Alpine or Frozen, you can engage for longer periods of time fairly reliably. Firing both groups of 2ppcs .5s apart gets you to about 50-55% heat on most hot maps, so you can fire all your guns 2-3 times before you need to cool off if you start with no heat.

That said, as good as the 4xppc aws-8q build is, it's much easier and works much better in any Stalker.

Can the Catapults or Stalkers fire all 60 LRMs at once? Maybe the Cat can do it (not sure) but I don't think the Stalker can. That was the reason I got so enamored with the 8R (until the heat nerf). Since the ghost heat, I've found that pulling off one of the LRM15s and throwing on 2 LLs made so much more sense instead. Still causing a ton of damage with the 8R.

It's that 60 LRM punch all at once that finishes things pretty nicely...chain fire until the CT is open and nicely damaged and then throw 60 (or 45) at them at once. Artemis/TAG definitely help in this regard.

[MavRCK]

Awesomes are not awesome - my tier list used to be in the new player guide so you wouldn't spend cbills needlessly but your friendly neighborhood trolls and mods moved it. Sorry. But you can build some viable builds with the awesome - 2 erppc - a ton of heatsinks -- some lrms and just be an support mech.

[aniviron]

Lyoto Machida, on 29 August 2013 - 11:25 AM, said:

Can the Catapults or Stalkers fire all 60 LRMs at once? Maybe the Cat can do it (not sure) but I don't think the Stalker can. That was the reason I got so enamored with the 8R (until the heat nerf). Since the ghost heat, I've found that pulling off one of the LRM15s and throwing on 2 LLs made so much more sense instead. Still causing a ton of damage with the 8R.

It's that 60 LRM punch all at once that finishes things pretty nicely...chain fire until the CT is open and nicely damaged and then throw 60 (or 45) at them at once. Artemis/TAG definitely help in this regard.

The Cata can do all 60 at once. The Stalker has to do it in two volleys, but as you so astutely point out, the LRM60 isn't really a good option anymore thanks to ghost heat, so the Stalker can now effectively fire the same size salvo (50) as the AWS-8R can without incurring a heat penalty. And the Stalker can carry 5 tons more, shoots from a better spot on the mech, and has much better hitboxes.

The 8R is fun, but there isn't much it can do that other mechs can do better. If you want to go all SRMs, take a CPLT A1 or a Kintaro. If you want to mix energy and SRMs, most of the stalkers can do that better. If you want to do LRMs, again, the A1 and most of the stalkers are better options. I run my 8R as a honey badger (4xSRM6, 2xmlas, 1xllas, std300) and while it's a ton of fun, being so fat is a huge liability any time I am actually close enough to use my SRMs. If you want a 'serious' build with the 8R, it has to be LRMs, but if you want LRMs, just take a mech better suited to that playstyle instead.

[Spiketail Drake]

The 8R/T/V has one benefit over all those other mechs (bar the Stalker), an energy spot in a high location. If you are willing to give up a backup/zombie weapon, a TAG in the head energyslot is very lethal. The only mech that can do this as well is the Hunchback, because it has the headlaser as well.

[Elizander]

Just put the usual 3 PPCs on it and learn to fire 2-1 with the 0.5 second interval.

[NineTails]

Awesomes are pretty meh.

That said, keep it. Never sell anything. Someday they'll be good.