17 replies to this topic

[iLegionLord]

I recently bought a shitload of MC and I have no idea what to buy. I was hoping I can get some help and suggestions here on what to buy...

[meteorol]

If you want help and suggestions, you should try to specify your question.

Do you want to buy hero mechs? Just assaults (because you posted in the assault section) or any mech?
What kind of weapons do you prefer (missiles, lasers, ballistics?)
Do you want to play a brawler or a sniper? Minmaxed meta build or balanced loadout?

If you want to play assaults and don't really know what you want to do with them, i'd advice the Victor or the Highlander.
They are very versatile and can be played as both sniper and brawler. Be aware that both mechs have alot of builds that use a xl engine, but there are quite a few you can run without one if you like to.

You will need 3 of each mech to get the elite skills anyway, but the HGN-733C and VTR-9S really shine at the moment. Both hero mechs (dragon slayer and heavy metal) are decent, they can run the current meta builds with double AC5, but keep in mind they are not able to mount an ac20.

If you want to get more specific information, you need to give us more details on what you actually want to do with your mech

[MnDragon]

As a general rule of thumb, unless you have money exploding from your ears every few minutes, it is widely accepted that the use of MC for standard variants is a poor choice. Spend the money on Hero's, possibly champion's, packages (clan stuff) or putting swag in your cockpit.

[Victor Morson]

LordThanathos, on 06 February 2014 - 06:16 AM, said:

I recently bought a ****load of MC and I have no idea what to buy. I was hoping I can get some help and suggestions here on what to buy...

First off, don't spend MC on regular Cbill 'mechs. Buy heroes exclusively.

TOP TIER CHOICES:
Highlander - Heavy Metal [ A more durable layout for the Highlander ]
Victor - Dragon Slayer [ Asymmetrical design gives you a side torso to use as a damage soak ]
Cataphract - Ilya Muromets [ 3x UAC/5 3x ML remains one of the best cash grinding setups out there. ]

ONE POINT FIVE TIER CHOICES:
Jagermech - Firebrand
Jenner - Oxide
Firestarter - Ember [The Ember itself is not that great, but the upcoming Firestarters are if you want to get a jump on them.]

SECOND TIER CHOICES:
Boar's Head - Atlas
Protector - Orion
Cicada - X5
Stalker - Misery

THIRD TIER CHOICES:
Catapult - Jester [ Nearly made the avoid list except it's better than a Golden Boy and Pretty Baby. ]
Dragon - Flame

AVOID AT ALL COSTS:
Kintaro - Golden Boy (It is literally a crippled KTO-18)
Awesome - Pretty Baby (Nearly a crippled AWS 9M)
Fang - Close to a regular Dragon, and regular Dragons are not good.
Centurion - Yen-Lo-Wang (Comically easy to knock out 90% of it's firepower)
Hunchback - Grid Iron (Just all around bad.)
Commando - Death's Knell (Not a terrible Commando but Commandos are worked by every 35 tonner and up on the field.)

I apologize if i missed any. Definitely pick a hero up, and use it to grind some cbills to buy two more 'mechs and master that chassis. Or pick up a couple heroes. Again don't waste your cash on Champions or regular 'mechs, they just aren't worth it; heroes can be great.

Edited by Victor Morson, 06 February 2014 - 09:51 AM.

[NRP]

Heh, I watched a pro match where some Antares Scorpions dude used a YLW to completely wreck house. SJR didn't see anything "comical" about his mech choice.

[Voivode]

Alright, here's what I'd suggest. You said shitload so I'm assuming lots of MC.

1) Buy a couple hero mechs

2) Invest in premium time so you don't waste money on standard variants

3) Maybe buy some GXP if you have regular XP available on another mech.

The post above attempts to assign values to each hero chassis, but I wouldn't let guides like that dictate what you buy. I have some of the "avoid at all costs" hero mechs and I find them both fun and effective. Instead of following a guide, ask yourself the following questions.

1) What sort of combat do I prefer? Is it in your face brawling? Is it long distance precision? Indirect LRM boating? Quick strike and retreat attacks?

2) Look at the available hero mechs. Believe me when I say none of them are terrible, though some don't run "meta" builds and get a bad reputation from that.

3) Which hero will be able to fight well using your style? Smurfy is a great resource to check out the builds before you decide.

4) Buy the mech, then use premium time to blow through the XP for that variant, buy the next two, and quickly unlock the elite levels for your hero and any standard variants you decide you like.

[MnDragon]

Voivode, on 06 February 2014 - 10:02 AM, said:

Alright, here's what I'd suggest. You said shitload so I'm assuming lots of MC.

The post above attempts to assign values to each hero chassis, but I wouldn't let guides like that dictate what you buy. I have some of the "avoid at all costs" hero mechs and I find them both fun and effective. Instead of following a guide, ask yourself the following questions.

You just poked the Victor dragon....I'm sure he will be back to tell you that you are wrong..

[cSand]

Also pick up some mechbays. You can never have enough of those!

[iLegionLord]

meteorol, on 06 February 2014 - 08:46 AM, said:

If you want help and suggestions, you should try to specify your question.

Do you want to buy hero mechs? Just assaults (because you posted in the assault section) or any mech?
What kind of weapons do you prefer (missiles, lasers, ballistics?)
Do you want to play a brawler or a sniper? Minmaxed meta build or balanced loadout?

If you want to play assaults and don't really know what you want to do with them, i'd advice the Victor or the Highlander.
They are very versatile and can be played as both sniper and brawler. Be aware that both mechs have alot of builds that use a xl engine, but there are quite a few you can run without one if you like to.

You will need 3 of each mech to get the elite skills anyway, but the HGN-733C and VTR-9S really shine at the moment. Both hero mechs (dragon slayer and heavy metal) are decent, they can run the current meta builds with double AC5, but keep in mind they are not able to mount an ac20.

If you want to get more specific information, you need to give us more details on what you actually want to do with your mech

I thought XL engines in an Assault was suicide? Well, I'd be OK with lots of kills, and I'd also like a lot of XP, now that I've pretty much got the C-Bills I need.

Victor Morson, on 06 February 2014 - 09:47 AM, said:

First off, don't spend MC on regular Cbill 'mechs. Buy heroes exclusively.

TOP TIER CHOICES:
Highlander - Heavy Metal [ A more durable layout for the Highlander ]
Victor - Dragon Slayer [ Asymmetrical design gives you a side torso to use as a damage soak ]
Cataphract - Ilya Muromets [ 3x UAC/5 3x ML remains one of the best cash grinding setups out there. ]

ONE POINT FIVE TIER CHOICES:
Jagermech - Firebrand
Jenner - Oxide
Firestarter - Ember [The Ember itself is not that great, but the upcoming Firestarters are if you want to get a jump on them.]

SECOND TIER CHOICES:
Boar's Head - Atlas
Protector - Orion
Cicada - X5
Stalker - Misery

THIRD TIER CHOICES:
Catapult - Jester [ Nearly made the avoid list except it's better than a Golden Boy and Pretty Baby. ]
Dragon - Flame

AVOID AT ALL COSTS:
Kintaro - Golden Boy (It is literally a crippled KTO-18)
Awesome - Pretty Baby (Nearly a crippled AWS 9M)
Fang - Close to a regular Dragon, and regular Dragons are not good.
Centurion - Yen-Lo-Wang (Comically easy to knock out 90% of it's firepower)
Hunchback - Grid Iron (Just all around bad.)
Commando - Death's Knell (Not a terrible Commando but Commandos are worked by every 35 tonner and up on the field.)

I apologize if i missed any. Definitely pick a hero up, and use it to grind some cbills to buy two more 'mechs and master that chassis. Or pick up a couple heroes. Again don't waste your cash on Champions or regular 'mechs, they just aren't worth it; heroes can be great.

Excellent post!

Just a few things I'd like to point out, The YLW is pretty badass out there, can take shit like no other, and walk out of a firestorm barely scratched, at least that's what I read on another post. And it's pretty forgiving in terms of mistakes, either loadous or just when shit happens on the battlefield.

Can you also specify which of the 3 mech variants I should get per mech in your top-tier section?

And should I get the rest of the Atlases? If so, what should I get?

Direwolf (Clan Mech) made Atlas look like a chicken walker bitching about on the battlefield, so should I get the Masakari package with the Golden Direwolf or get 2 other variants of Atlas for now?

And what do you think of Clan Mechs? Should I get the current Mechs or just get the Masakari Package? I don't want to waste my MCs on something I'd never use.

Lastly, if you would pick a mech, for an overall kickass games, what would you pick? Brawler? Sniper? If so, what?

[Modo44]

Highlander: 733C, 732, 733
Victor: Dragon Slayer, 9S, 9K
Cataphract: 3D, Ilya, any other

Notice how the Heavy Metal is not in the top list? Not a mistake. Only the Cbill variants can devote the entire left side to shielding, which makes the hero mech inferior. It does play rock music after every kill, though...

We do not know how exactly the Clan mechs will perform. This is more about early access and additional perks, like premium time and mech variants with bonuses. The mechs are of unknown strenght. PGI has plans to balance them in order to make IS mechs still viable after June.

The tiers above are based partially on piloting difficulty. For example, the Flame can perform very well, but is difficult to pilot -- something to consider later on.

Anything can be kickass. You can change loadouts -- and thus roles -- of most mechs, so it is up to you to find out what you like.

Edited by Modo44, 07 February 2014 - 08:19 AM.

[iLegionLord]

And what do you recommend for long distance LRM boating? There's this stalker that is a trial mech but I'm unable to buy it.

[meteorol]

LordThanathos, on 07 February 2014 - 06:48 AM, said:

I thought XL engines in an Assault was suicide?

Lastly, if you would pick a mech, for an overall kickass games, what would you pick? Brawler? Sniper? If so, what?

1. On XL engines:

XL engines are not suicide on assault mechs in generall. If a xl engine is good for a mech or not only depends on hitboxes, not the weight class.
Your assumption is right for quite a few assault mechs. NEVER use XL engines with an atlas or a stalker. Just don't do it.

The Highlander and the Victor have rather XL friendly hitboxes, meaning their center torso is pretty large and they will take most of the damage to the CT.

Downside of XL is that you won't be able to use half of your mech as shield. The Highlander has all the "important" hardpoints on one side of the mech, meaning you can sacrifice your other half and just lose the missile hitpoints. So there is a point for standard engines on Highlanders.

For Victors: You basically have to chose between 3 things: Firepower, speed, and standard engine. You won't have all three of them together. If you choose a big standard engine to be fast, you have less room for weapons. If you spend many tons on weapons, you will either have to go slow with a standard engine, or fast with XL.
The Victor can be VERY fast for an assault mech if you slap a large XL engine on it (With speedtweak its 78kph with a 350 XL, up to 86 if you really want to use the biggest xl engine.) So it's basically speed vs durability. Your choice.

In the end this is all up to you, i just wanted to point out that the Victor and the HGN are probably the two assaults with the most XL dependend builds.


2. On what to pick

This question is generally a bit harder to answer, because we don't know what future will bring (or if anything will change at all)
Right now brawling suffers from bad srm hitdetection. SRMs used to be premium brawler weapons, but since they don't cause damange in like 50% of the times shot, they are somewhat unreliable.

The "meta" at the moment is using 2PPCs and either 2xAC5/UAC 5 or an AC20 on either the Victor or the Highlander.
The devs posted they will change something about jumpjets, which will probably affect both mechs in a negative way.

But if you want a mech to buy right now, i would advice the HGN 733C.
Why? Its freaking versatile. You can use the current "meta builds" (sniper) , you can just change the loadout the get a brawler. If you don't want to use it as lrm boat, the 733C is really a jack of all trades.

Edited by meteorol, 08 February 2014 - 03:09 AM.

[Modo44]

LordThanathos, on 07 February 2014 - 11:06 AM, said:

And what do you recommend for long distance LRM boating? There's this stalker that is a trial mech but I'm unable to buy it.

You can take a Highlander. The 733 variant has four missile hardpoints, and you can put 4xLRM15 on it. This is what I meant by different loadouts serving different roles. The Highlander is pretty good at that.

[iLegionLord]

What do you think of this?

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...7c76a75748c23f3

Or this?

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...5205b5ace252dca

Edited by LordThanathos, 08 February 2014 - 07:27 AM.

[Modo44]

Two heavy, ammo-reliant weapon systems are generally a bad idea. You end up with ammo and/or speed and/or space issues. XLs on Highlanders are pretty dangerous -- better save that for a Victor. I would suggest either a big gun with LRMs as support, or no gun with lots of LRMs. There are many possible configs, and the 733C is not the best LRM Highlander. You can tweak the cooling/ammo/backup weapons situation, but if LRMs are your main weapon system, then plenty of ammo, TAG, and BAP are priorities.

[Tahribator]

Get premium time and keep playing. Amass some C-Bills, get different mechs, learn the mechanics and find your taste. Honestly, it's better to discover your style for yourself rather than being told what to do.

[meteorol]

Modo44, on 08 February 2014 - 07:11 AM, said:

XLs on Highlanders are pretty dangerous -- better save that for a Victor.

I have to disagree on this. The HGN has rather small side torsos and a huge CT. It has the advantage of being heavy enough to use a STD300 and still pack a punsh (and using their missile side as shield), but i wouldn't call XLs on them pretty dangerous.
They benefit less from XL engines than victors, but it's not a no-go for them.

[Modo44]

Typical builds only utilize one side, treating the entire other side (including side torso) as a shield. You lose that ability if you put an XL engine on a Highlander. Yeah, you can do it, but the mech instantly becomes much less tanky.