29 replies to this topic

[Nik Kerensky]

So how would you guys compare the Clan assaults vs the IS assaults?

[BaconCouch]

The Dire Whale is the most heavy direct-fire assault in the game, if you meet it in a tunnel...you die. No questions asked.
Not properly set up, or supported, they are easy pickings

The warhawks are nasty missile boats, but suffer from their obvious PPC dependence in most stock variations. They are pretty fast, as well.

[SethAbercromby]

The build I'm running on my Misery has been serving me extremely well against clanners. It's tough enough to survive extended brawling while giving the enemy 'Mech no space to hide. I think most Clan builds suffer from mid to long range dependance and heat problems that natuarally accompany large payloads. They seem to not do very well when they are forced into the open with nowhere to run, which is exactly what I intend to do with my Stalker builds.

[Xeno Phalcon]

Very pilot, build and map/positioning reliant; Despite the constant whining on the forums they match up fairly well for the most part when tactics are properly applied. Derp Whales bring a lot of firepower but they tend to bring it....eventually, and if hit by a narc they may as well just alt f4 if the enemy team has more than one missile boat, and their wide CT makes them very vulnerable to SRM boats.

[Escef]

BaconCouch, on 16 July 2014 - 04:31 AM, said:

The warhawks are nasty missile boats, but suffer from their obvious PPC dependence in most stock variations. They are pretty fast, as well.

My experience with the Warhawk so far has been that if you lose your Right Torso you've lost anywhere from half to 3/4s of your firepower. That and it's very ho-hum until you get speed tweak, at which point it comes alive.

[Mazzyplz]

here's the truth:

the top tier are probably in all honesty the victor with the jumping arm hardpoints, the ecm atlas variant, and the misery stalker with all the front loaded damage, then the daishi which is the same thing with more armor; some builds on banshee are the lower end of the top tier also because of the pinpoint, but they're slow and must be brought to open terrain to expose the low hardpoint.

awesome/stalker/battlemaster/warhawk/highlander and most banshee builds are a toss up. its down to preference

my favorite is the awesome, it is no slouch - good torso speed and comfortable arm hardpoints, takes out stalkers on a equal footing when you know how to disarm them

Edited by Mazzyplz, 18 July 2014 - 01:52 PM.

[SethAbercromby]

Mazzyplz, on 18 July 2014 - 01:51 PM, said:

my favorite is the awesome, it is no slouch - good torso speed and comfortable arm hardpoints, takes out stalkers on a equal footing when you know how to disarm them

Whether that is true is debatable, but I think we have to draw a line between the builds that put all their focus into a single system such as AC20 Miserys and PPC Stalkers in general, as that makes them vulnerable either for losing much more than half of their fire power if the primary weapon is lost, or due to range/heat limitations respectively.

More balanced designs seem, at lest in my case, to operate much better in that regard, as losing one half of their hard points only translates to losing half their firepower at a much improved heat efficiency (In the case of my Misery build, you have the coice of destroying the LT, which holds an LBX, first, or go for the RT where 've got a PPC mounted in the arm. It's like playing devils's advocate). This allows them to stare down even seemingly superior 'Mechs by utilizing their hitboxes and laying down continous return fire.

[Mazzyplz]

SethAbercromby, on 18 July 2014 - 02:42 PM, said:

Whether that is true is debatable, but I think we have to draw a line between the builds that put all their focus into a single system such as AC20 Miserys and PPC Stalkers in general, as that makes them vulnerable either for losing much more than half of their fire power if the primary weapon is lost, or due to range/heat limitations respectively.

More balanced designs seem, at lest in my case, to operate much better in that regard, as losing one half of their hard points only translates to losing half their firepower at a much improved heat efficiency (In the case of my Misery build, you have the coice of destroying the LT, which holds an LBX, first, or go for the RT where 've got a PPC mounted in the arm. It's like playing devils's advocate). This allows them to stare down even seemingly superior 'Mechs by utilizing their hitboxes and laying down continous return fire.

yep i didn't mean on equal footing meaning face-to-face. usually the awesome pilot has to do a lot of dancing around the stalker and the misery can 1-shot u - it's true (i mentioned as top tier in the same post)
what i meant was that on a 1v1 that isn't face to face... given chance to hit and run or run laps around stalker, awesome has a good chance - if we ignore the fact that awesome is a lot harder to pilot because of the whole dancing around thing.

in the end they are energy and missile boats the AWS and STK - they both kinda have to shoot and twist or cool off, because the low-heat DPS arsenal is not available to them - no autocannon, machineguns, etc - (unless you want to count flamers lol!)

if you're interested in DPS weapons then obviously the banshee and battlemaster both have ballistic arm in at least one variant. i tried both of them and the banshee is ok but slow as an atlas, the battlemaster is tall and has good high mounted hardpoints for the lasers but the rest are in a pretty bad spot i feel.

the victor is good but depends on the jumpjet to turn on a dime, the regular turning speed is like moving underwater

in the end the awesome has some glaring faults like the wide hitbox, but hear me out - it isn't TOO tall, it may be as wide as the direwolf but the size front to back is very slim compared to the direwolf silhouette is like a train with 18 carts, you get heavy mech mobility in all common variants and the arms on the AWS shoot 90 degree to the side while moving, which is why it is a better sniper -
the stalker is a front line mech, its meant to spearhead and tank shots while returning a huge arsenal, pure aggro. the awesome gets to the front at the beginning of the match to snipe once and then hangs at the back shredding mechs of all sizes in all directions, twist can catch a light mech and trace it too.
and you can snipe while on the move more than 100 degrees, you can shoot behind you with those arms on the 8t and 8r most of all

Edited by Mazzyplz, 18 July 2014 - 05:38 PM.

[SethAbercromby]

Mazzyplz, on 18 July 2014 - 04:59 PM, said:

yep i didn't mean on equal footing meaning face-to-face. usually the awesome pilot has to do a lot of dancing around the stalker and the misery can 1-shot u - it's true (i mentioned as top tier in the same post) what i meant was that on a 1v1 that isn't face to face... given chance to hit and run or run laps around stalker, awesome has a good chance - if we ignore the fact that awesome is a lot harder to pilot because of the whole dancing around thing.

Yeah I get where you're coming from. Due to its design, it doesn't need to rely too much on dancing in a 1v1 and in fact will usuallly be attempting to force you into a zone where running is not an option any more. It moves like a tank, but is with an STD300 still fast enough to create pressure on a similarly large opponent. Basically, you're solving combat Kamina Style.

Also, Awsome CT structure: 50hp, CT armor: about 80 points. Even on the STs, that's still about 70 pints worth of damage you'd need to pour into that component. I wanna see a single viable alpha build that can pull of that much damage. Lights don't count because most other Assaults can carry that payload. Not exactly exclusive to the Misery.

[Autobot9000]

I think the best on the IS side are Victor-9s/Dragonslayer (Gauss/AC20 + 2 PPC), AS-DDC (AC20/3ASRM6), Stalker-3F (4 ML, 2ALRM20 or 4 ERLL with or without 4 SSRM2).

On the clan side Direwolf-B (U/AC10s+U/C5s), Direwolf Prime (2 ER PPC, 2 Gauss).

Personally I also have a lot of success with the Warhawk-B with U/AC20, 2 ER PPC, 2 SRM6, but it's a personal build, haven't seen it among other players.

AWS is one of my favorite too, but in all honesty, the way PGI did that mech it's completely worthless.

Edited by Autobot9000, 18 July 2014 - 11:29 PM.