104 replies to this topic

[Bishop Steiner]

So many posts try to compare the Summoner to the TimberWolf, especially the "S" configuration. In fairness, the T-Wolf should be a more powerful mech. It is 5 tons heavier, mounts more armor, does not have 3.5 tons of IS locked and wasted because of not using Endo, and it doesn't have 5 tons mandatorily locked into JJs. After taking in differences in weight from the different engines, structure mass, locked chassis heatsinks, etc, the T-Wolf simply has more available tonnage, with no loss of speed, over the Summoner.

No. I don't want the Summoner to be better than the T-Wolf. I do want it to truly have it's niche, and, I don't think it's too much to ask, for it to outperform an Inner Sphere GRF-1N Griffin. Is it? I, and others have frequently compared it to an over-sized Griffin. SO that got me thinking, just how DO the Summoner and Griffin stack up compared to each other?

Well. the results were surprising.

(All stats compiled using Smurfys)
GRF-1N

SMN-PRIME

ARMOR: (Edge: Summoner*)
Griffin: 370
Summoner: 434 (364 stock)

*This is somewhat misleading. The Summoner does mount more raw armor than a Griffin, and it's XL engine is better, but it's actual survivability is generally LESS, due to the Griffin having far superior hitboxes and agility allowing it to spread damage. So the Summoner wins on paper, but not as much in game.

SPEED: (Edge: Griffin. Both start at the same speed, but Griffin can increase, Summoner cannot)
Griffin: 89.7 (stock)
Summoner: 89.7

JUMPING: (Edge: Griffin, not only can it outjump, but can reduce JJS for more weapons)
25.1 m, stock (30.1 meters for .5 tons more, or 35.17 with 2 more JJs)
Summoner: 28.28

*also should be noted, the Griffin launches faster, and possesses higher maneuverability while airborne.

AGILITY: (Edge: Griffin)
Griffin:

Summoner:

And it's not even close. The lack of agility is further compounded by the Summoner losing it's lower arm actuators if it mounts Autocannons, Gauss or PPCs.

Weapons: (Edge: Summoner*)
Griffin: 26 tons before maxing armor (while maintaining equal performance to Summoner), 24 tons after.
Summoner: 22.5 stock (21 after maxing armor)

*the Summoner actually has LESS available tonnage than a Griffin, when you match all other factors as closely as possible, though in fairness the Summoner is also stuck with 4 tons of hard mounted DHS. But regardless, those tons cannot be used in any other manner. The real reason the Summoner "wins" this is simply because due to generally lighter weights of Clan Weapons, it can pack more total firepower, though that is a "Tech" advantage,rather than a "Chassis" one.

Conclusion: For the Summoner to be outclassed by the TimberWolf is one thing, and largely to be expected. But to be neck and neck, and overall slightly inferior to an Inner Sphere Medium Mech? Generally unacceptable.

One should not be surprised that the Griffin is more mobile, but what is troubling is that in the "traditional" areas of Heavy Mech advantages, the Summoner really only delivers on paper, as inferior Hit Boxes and the largely DoT nature of Clan Weaponry largely negate the numeric advantage of either category. In general, the lower heat ballistics and greater quantity of missiles give the Summoner the slightest of edges, but in particular, it's lack of ability to mount a quantity of smaller Energy weapons AND Missiles simultaneously, makes that a much smaller margin than there should be.

In closing, calling it an oversized, clumsier Griffin really does seem apropos.

[Phlinger]

It's simple, it really is. I want my 70ton Clan mech to be balanced against this. Not field the same load outs, but be one on one, winner is determined by skill.



Not to have it replace this...

[Bishop Steiner]

Ronyn, on 27 June 2014 - 10:02 AM, said:

It's simple, it really is. I want my 70ton Clan mech to be balanced against this. Not field the same load outs, but be one on one, winner is determined by skill.



Not to have it replace this...

If it actually even DID replace the Griffin, it would be a step up. But yes, I agree, that other Heavy Mechs SHOULD be itps target audience.

[1453 R]

Being fair, the Griffin benefits tremendously from the Inner Sphere's customary hardpoint inflation and is also at one of the best sweet spots for tonnage in the game (55 is a very, very good spot to be in, especially for jumping 'Mechs). If the Summoner had the same hardpoint inflation as the Griffin, the difference would not be nearly so small.

But that's sort of the point, isn't it? Regardless of the reasons, the Griffin does much of what the Summoner does for fifteen less tons and a much greater degree of flexibility, to say nothing of the Shadow Hawk. No need to even talk about the Timber-S.

The Summoner, just like the Awesome, is a 'Mech that needs aggressive positive quirking in order to match up against its more naturally blessed competition and which did not get it. Alternatively, I would suggest that granting the Summoner access to the (slightly modified) G-configuration pods would also give it a new lease on life. Replace the stock G's heavy small laser with an ER small laser, and then we have a Summoner with 3E/6M, which would go a long way towards addressing the machine's lack-of-hardpoints issue. Yes, it would be a somewhat heavy-handed mangling of the timeline, but aside from the heavy minibeamer, everything it has we have available to us already, and short of being seriously douchey and releasing a 6E Hero or something, that seems like our best option. Outside aggressive up-quirking. Which is different than aggressive up-twerking.

I do not want to see twerking Summoners.

@_@

[Bishop Steiner]

1453 R, on 27 June 2014 - 10:28 AM, said:

Being fair, the Griffin benefits tremendously from the Inner Sphere's customary hardpoint inflation and is also at one of the best sweet spots for tonnage in the game (55 is a very, very good spot to be in, especially for jumping 'Mechs). If the Summoner had the same hardpoint inflation as the Griffin, the difference would not be nearly so small.

But that's sort of the point, isn't it? Regardless of the reasons, the Griffin does much of what the Summoner does for fifteen less tons and a much greater degree of flexibility, to say nothing of the Shadow Hawk. No need to even talk about the Timber-S.

The Summoner, just like the Awesome, is a 'Mech that needs aggressive positive quirking in order to match up against its more naturally blessed competition and which did not get it. Alternatively, I would suggest that granting the Summoner access to the (slightly modified) G-configuration pods would also give it a new lease on life. Replace the stock G's heavy small laser with an ER small laser, and then we have a Summoner with 3E/6M, which would go a long way towards addressing the machine's lack-of-hardpoints issue. Yes, it would be a somewhat heavy-handed mangling of the timeline, but aside from the heavy minibeamer, everything it has we have available to us already, and short of being seriously douchey and releasing a 6E Hero or something, that seems like our best option. Outside aggressive up-quirking. Which is different than aggressive up-twerking.

I do not want to see twerking Summoners.

@_@

Only thing is, relying on one or 2 sets of Pods does not really equal "balance" as those pods now become "de-facto" must haves for the Chassis to legit compete.

[101011]

I will just quote myself here

101011, on 27 June 2014 - 10:27 AM, said:

I have been thinking about this, and came up with several ways to improve the Summoner.

• Hardpoint inflation - Some 'Mechs (Nova ) did not need it, but the Summoner's lack of mixed hardpoint omnipods mixed with very few total hardpoints really hurt it. Perhaps give the Prime RT 1-2 energy points, and the B another missile point, etc.
  
• Better cooldown for the Prime arms - So, I think we can all agree that the 10% cooldown increase does not do all that much. Increase it to perhaps 25% or even 33%, and it might become worth it to take the Prime RA over the D RA.
  
• Lose the cooldown entirely on the Prime RA and go for a damage increase instead, 150% - This would give the ERPPC the original 15 damage it had in TT, which would help the 'Mech with it's lack of tonnage for weapons.
  
• Give the legs jumpjet quirks which increase thrust - Getting off the ground even faster would only help.
  
• Make FF actually worth using (yeah, this will not happen, but one can dream, quiaff?)

[FupDup]

1453 R, on 27 June 2014 - 10:28 AM, said:

... and short of being seriously douchey and releasing a 6E Hero or something, that seems like our best option....

Nicolai Malthus demands a hero Thor in his honor.



2 energy per arm, 6 energy per side torso (because they won't fit in the legs). The ultimate trolllololololol hero.

Edited by FupDup, 27 June 2014 - 10:38 AM.

[Karl Marlow]

Aparantly Nikolai Malthus is like the second coming of Lu Bu

[Sephlock]

Bishop Steiner, on 27 June 2014 - 10:31 AM, said:

Only thing is, relying on one or 2 sets of Pods does not really equal "balance" as those pods now become "de-facto" must haves for the Chassis to legit compete.

That does seem to fit the pattern of 'balancing' thus far .

Also, I beg you to start using the format that the whiners use:

BUFF THE SUMMONER PGI!

SUMMONER UP! FIX IT!

[SilentWolff]

I been calling the Summoner the Griffin's big brother since it came out. So yeah, I generally concur with the OP.

[Roadkill]

When I first saw the Summoner's actual hardpoints in game, my reaction was:


3 hardpoints? WTF? So I ignored it. Garbage Mech.

Then as I was playing around with my other Clan Mechs, I noticed the quirks attached to various omnipods. Aha! Surely the Summoner has a crap-ton of quirks to balance out those ridiculously lousy hardpoints, right?

No?

WTF double-take?

I'd be fine with the Summoner if its crappy omnipods (read: most of them) had sufficient quirks to make it viable. But they don't, so it's really not.

[Crotch RockIt]

Bishop Steiner, on 27 June 2014 - 10:31 AM, said:

Only thing is, relying on one or 2 sets of Pods does not really equal "balance" as those pods now become "de-facto" must haves for the Chassis to legit compete.

*cough* Kit Fox *cough*

[Khobai]

I'd like to see the following changes made to the Summoner and Timberwolf:

1) increase the Summoner's arm yaw from 20 to 30 so it has better arm yaw than the Timberwolf.
2) increase the Summoner's torso and arm pitch from 20 to 25 and 30 to 35 respectively so it has better torso/arm pitch than the Timberwolf.
3) give the Summoner a passive quirk which increases its heat dissipation by 10%-15% to make up for the lack of Endosteel.
4) remove a module slot from all Timberwolf variants
5) add the following penalties to the Timberwolf-s side torsos:
+5% cooldown on ALL weapons (instead of just missile cooldown)
-5% heat capacity (instead of overheat damage)
-10% torso twist speed (instead of 7.5%)
-5% max speed (gives the summoner a faster top speed than a timberwolf with JJs)

Edited by Khobai, 27 June 2014 - 11:09 AM.

[Ultimax]

Bishop Steiner, on 27 June 2014 - 09:43 AM, said:

One should not be surprised that the Griffin is more mobile, but what is troubling is that in the "traditional" areas of Heavy Mech advantages, the Summoner really only delivers on paper, as inferior Hit Boxes and the largely DoT nature of Clan Weaponry largely negate the numeric advantage of either category. In general, the lower heat ballistics and greater quantity of missiles give the Summoner the slightest of edges, but in particular, it's lack of ability to mount a quantity of smaller Energy weapons AND Missiles simultaneously, makes that a much smaller margin than there should be.

In closing, calling it an oversized, clumsier Griffin really does seem apropos.

This is why I've repeated my suggestions to directly buff the summoner, and yes break rules to do it.


Because ultimately, doing something like giving it half weight jump jets because they are locked to the chassis is still a minor compensation.

Your previous rebuttal was that this would break stock, but it does not break stock. It simply adds 2.5 tons free to stock - this changes nothing in the performance of the mech and is not really any different than having 'stock' armor that can then be increased.

(My suggestion was that any current and future mechs with hardlocked JJs, would receive a 50% weight discount on those built-in JJs)


If there can be "free" armor that can be manipulated, I see no reason why there cannot be free tonnage available.



Nothing short of buffing the summoner directly will improve it.


The only way for the summoner to truly capitalize on clan tech is to go very missile heavy - because this one of the more major tonnage savings areas the clans have - unlike say most of their ACs which are:

A: Only 1 to 2 tons lighter
B: Ballistic weapons, which while great are also poor efficiency from a weight vs. output standpoint.

With notable exception to the Gauss, which is 3 tons lighter (but will also gobble up nearly 75% of the Summoners available tonnage).

Edited by Ultimatum X, 27 June 2014 - 11:19 AM.

[Pygar]

Nice...but, I don't agree that Summoner is not more comparable to a Cataphract. (Really if you think about it a good Griffin build can accomplish much of what a CTF-3D could in a battle as well) Most builds I have made for Thor have better damage potential than a typical 3D Gauss/PPC build, just not the pinpoint damage- but it's possible the Targeting Computer paired with 2x PPC on Thor-D builds might even up the odds in that comparison.

Do agree it needs some love from PGI either by way of releasing other pod-variant options, or by looking into sweetening up some of the quirks on the pods we have.

Edited by Pygar, 27 June 2014 - 11:20 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Ultimatum X, on 27 June 2014 - 11:17 AM, said:

This is why I've repeated my suggestions to directly buff the summoner, and yes break rules to do it.


Because ultimately, doing something like giving it half weight jump jets because they are locked to the chassis is still a minor compensation.

Your previous rebuttal was that this would break stock, but it does not break stock. It simply adds 2.5 tons free to stock - this changes nothing in the performance of the mech and is not really any different than having 'stock' armor that can then be increased.

(My suggestion was that any current and future mechs with hardlocked JJs, would receive a 50% weight discount on those built-in JJs)


If there can be "free" armor that can be manipulated, I see no reason why there cannot be free tonnage available.



Nothing short of buffing the summoner directly will improve it.


The only way for the summoner to truly capitalize on clan tech is to go very missile heavy - because this one of the more major tonnage savings areas the clans have - unlike say most of their ACs which are:

A: Only 1 to 2 tons lighter
B: Ballistic weapons, which while great are also poor efficiency from a weight vs. output standpoint.

With notable exception to the Gauss, which is 3 tons lighter (but will also gobble up nearly 75% of the Summoners available tonnage).

and how does 2.5 tons of free space that didn't exist before NOT break the stock model? If we are going to do that, why, what about those poor warhawks.... they can't really use those Ballistic slots effectively because they are saddled with hardlocked 20 DHS! So let's reduce their weight.... after all it doesn't break stock, it just frees up some extra weight, right?

It's called a slippery slope.

And ultimately makes less sense than simply nerfing the effectiveness of Omni-JJs.

[TheSteelRhino]

Sorry op. But u have left out that the IS xl engine is far more vulnerable than the clan xl

That is a HUGE advantage. An summoner does not have to worry about an xl blowout killing the nech (at least on 1 side). Also th summoner has a better distribution of hardpoints. Even with a std engine the kiss of the right torso neuters a grf-1n.

Also. If u move omnipods from the symmoner d arms to the prime u have more energy hardpoints available than a griffin.
Perhaps you are not playing this chassis the right way....

[Bishop Steiner]

Rhinehardt Ritter, on 27 June 2014 - 11:39 AM, said:

Sorry op. But u have left out that the IS xl engine is far more vulnerable than the clan xl

That is a HUGE advantage. An summoner does not have to worry about an xl blowout killing the nech (at least on 1 side). Also th summoner has a better distribution of hardpoints. Even with a std engine the kiss of the right torso neuters a grf-1n.

Also. If u move omnipods from the symmoner d arms to the prime u have more energy hardpoints available than a griffin.
Perhaps you are not playing this chassis the right way....

Actually, I did not, I mentioned the extra toughness of the Clan XL.
And with inferior hitboxes, it is still often a paper advantage. Also, I simply use a GRF-1S i have equal energy hardpoints, and better missiles. So no, Still wrong.

Perhaps you are jsut not very good at reading?

[TheSteelRhino]

I read quite well. But you dont make avery fair comparison. U are basically ignoring clan range advantages, weapon advantages (stuff IS doesnt even have, targeting computers, all lbx/uac, increased ppc advantage...)

Sorry but a 55ton mech should be more agile than a 70 ton mech

Basically it appears your post fails to give proper weight to the advantages of clan tech in general over IS tech.

Honestly the timber wilf probably needs to be toned down a bit. But all in all PGI has done a decent job of balancing the clans

Edited by Rhinehardt Ritter, 27 June 2014 - 11:57 AM.

[Ultimax]

Bishop Steiner, on 27 June 2014 - 11:30 AM, said:

and how does 2.5 tons of free space that didn't exist before NOT break the stock model? If we are going to do that, why, what about those poor warhawks.... they can't really use those Ballistic slots effectively because they are saddled with hardlocked 20 DHS! So let's reduce their weight.... after all it doesn't break stock, it just frees up some extra weight, right?

It's called a slippery slope.

And ultimately makes less sense than simply nerfing the effectiveness of Omni-JJs.

1) It's called an exception. Just like all of the Omni-pod quirks we have, all the mech chassis quirks we have.
2) Warhawk has 10 added DHS (not 20). Yes it's a lot but at least on builds using energy/missiles, DHS have value. There is no practical use for 5x JJs. And I don't see you lobbying daily that built into chassis DHS like the Warhawk has should be more awesome either - or that everyone else's added DHS should get nerfed to compensate.
3) Nerfing the effectiveness of Omni-JJs means nothing for the Summoner. It is still only as good as, and arguably worse than, a Shadowhawk or Griffin. Then you'd need to go and nerf every single IS JJ in the game as well, to ... make the summoner less bad.


So feel free to hold fast to arbitrary rules and also cherry picking which arbitrary rules you like (like quirks) and which ones you deem slippery slope, but nerfing other things will not save the summoner.

What the summoner needs is one, simple thing.

Usable Tonnage.


It will not get that without bending the rules a bit, you could remove JJs completely from the Timber Wolf and the Summoner is still a lemon.

Edited by Ultimatum X, 27 June 2014 - 11:54 AM.