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So I chose to buy Fang instead, and took my dive into the grim dark path of the Dragons. Widely considered the worst Heavy ever, I simply can't resist the challenge. Therefore, I created this topic to provide the two of you out there who still has a flying interest in Dragons, with my experience with Dragons from the beginning, with the perspective of an experienced mechwarrior. I will keep updating the post as the story develops.
Theorycrafting:
Now, Dragon, along with Quickdraw, are the only two Heavy chassis that can run pass 100 km/h tweaked, the only saving grace against Dragon's giant CT. Therefore all of my theorycrafting started with a Dragon with an XL350 engine saves 5N. The three I chose is 1N (for its two missile hardpoints), 5N(for its three ballistic hardpoints) and of course Fang:
1N: XL350, Endo, Ferro, 12DHS, 1xAC5(2ton), 1xERPPC, 2xSSRM2(1ton), BAP
5N: XL325, Endo, Ferro, 13DHS, 3xAC2(4ton), 2xML
Fang: XL350, Endo, Ferro, 11DHS, 2xAC5(4ton), 3xML
Most of these builds are pretty self explanatory - mid-long range direct-fire support. I only bought 1N and Fang for some reasons I myself don't know. I'll get to 5N later.
Day 1:
Took three drops with each of them today.
The result are better than I expected. The giant CT was not as much as an issue given even the pre-tweak agility. The real problem, however, lies in the arms. With Lower-arm Actuators, those HUGE arms, who covers the majority of the weaponry, covers both sides of the torso extensively, but have only 40 armor each. Which means they get structured very quickly, even faster than CT sometimes.
Fang performed quite well. The two AC5s packs a decent punch and DPS over range, and 4 tons of ammo is more than enough for me. Three MLas are what I consider the minimum level of knife-fight weapons anyway, and they work as usual. Managed to deal 600+ damage during one drop.
However, I almost immediately regretted buying 1N. The drastically different cooldown timer bewteen the single AC5 and ERPPC makes them very hard to sync, and the two SSRMs barely made any use - they're good for finishing off and bug-spraying, but neither do you have the speed of hunting down Lights (also there're only two SSRMs), nor do you want to push up rapidly to perform finish-offs, risking yourself to be ambushed by big brawlers. Now I have two choices: either build it around two AC2s, retaining the SSRMs, or get a pair of LRM5s in there and build around them. Downgrading engines is not an options to me. If neither of them works, I may sell it and switch to this 1C build instead: XL350, Endo, Ferro, 12DHS, 1xAC5(1ton), 2xLL, 2xML.
Day 2:
I took one drop for each of them and the results were surprisingly not half bad. Admittedly they're indeed a bit squishy for a Heavy - I died in both drops - but the agility provided by the massive XL350 engines make them very handy in suppressing large targets. Still, running with packs is very important, and you want to start running when you become the center of attention.
Fang keeps working wonders for me. I even manged to chase down a Centurion armed with UAC5 and ERLL:
The 1N build is slowly catching up. The AC5 and ERPPC are obviously good at stripping armor over long range, very useful against occupied Assaults. However I was trapped during end game with that Cataphract and it was nightmarish. Then I spammed chatbox with bunch of swearing and f-words (but hey, both of the other two guys had FULL ARMOR and barely did any damage!).
Day 3:
Goodbye 1N. Finally decided that it's not fun.
However, the replacing 1C with 2xLL 2xML 1xAC5 rapidly became so handy that I managed to duel a Victor with it while being harassed by a Jenner...that is not half bad. Not half bad.
Also picked up 5N, and the 1st match with it, thanks to Premium and 1st-win-of-the-day, got me 6000+ xp.
To be continued...
Edited by Helmstif, 11 February 2014 - 02:48 PM.
