21 replies to this topic

[Iron Angel mk1]

I've tried a lot of different playstyles but I love the big giant Assaults, and the Warhawk is my favorite. Its fast enough that it doesnt get left behind but its burly enough to really take a hit and hold the weapons to pack a massive punch.

I redid the loadout to something more along the lines of what I like, and wanted some opinions.

Here is my last game:



I performed decently, and I'm getting the hang of the playstyle, but I want some more expert opinions on if my loadout can be improved.



I have the four lasers set to chain fire on group 1, and this means I can either hold it down for a continuous laser or I can tap it 2-4 times depending on how much firepower I think I need to crank out quickly. Basically I can suppress with continued beam, or I can just core someone that steps out into the open, or panic button against something that gets too close. Then I have the missiles for the really irritating missile barrages, and the AMS for the really irritating missile barrages.

Finally here is a picture of my baby.



So any tips from more experienced pilots?

[IraqiWalker]

I'd say don't get too trigger happy with the LRMs, since you only have 3 tons of ammo, and other than that, it looks great.

Have you tried the 4PPCs set up? That's another terrifying one for the WHK chassis.


EDIT: I also love the Targeting Computer. It may not always work, but the zoom buff is great.

Couple it with Advanced Zoom module for maximum precision.

Edited by IraqiWalker, 27 July 2014 - 03:51 AM.

[Iron Angel mk1]

the quad PPC was the loadout I had before this and while the damage was nice I just didnt like the colossal heat spike from firing them, plus the extra weight. I dont have a lot of trouble actually hitting people, and I loved the range, but I felt like my possible damage output was being constantly gimped by sitting around waiting for my weapons to stop threatening to slag my engine if I tried to use them, and meanwhile my teammates are eating bullets while my massive bulk of armor was going to waste behind a building or uselessly getitng shot at while waiting to not overheat. I like the ERLLs better for that reason, I can put out a constant stream of damage and I'm not just a big front loaded burst, but with 4 ERLLs I CAN crank out a huge burst of damage and suck heat if it is practical/advantageous to do so.

Honestly my biggest problem with the loadout is that it requires me to keep the space between me and the target clear, and while I can maneuver the beast to adequately do this, my team seems to not realize I am an implacable juggernaut of laser annihilation and like to run directly in front of me as I am shooting and wonder where all their rear armor went.

Edited by Iron Angel 2k2, 27 July 2014 - 04:08 AM.

[Bhelogan]

I like the 4LL combo, but I ended up swapping the RT pod and running it with 6 SRMs and 4 tons of ammo and using a smaller targeting computer.

Edited by Bhelogan, 27 July 2014 - 04:18 AM.

[Iron Angel mk1]

I'm still relatively new so I'm not familiar with all of the acronyms yet. SMRS?

Edit: Short range missiles. Got it.

I like to play as more of a mid range fire support but I'll take a look at short range missiles for sure.

Edited by Iron Angel 2k2, 27 July 2014 - 04:28 AM.

[Bhelogan]

Iron Angel 2k2, on 27 July 2014 - 04:09 AM, said:

I'm still relatively new so I'm not familiar with all of the acronyms yet. SMRS?

Edit: Streak missile launchers. Gotcha.

I like to play as more of a mid range fire support but I'll take a look at streak missiles for sure.

Nope, SRMs, that was a 'too early in the morning' typo. Above post edited.

Edited by Bhelogan, 27 July 2014 - 04:19 AM.

[IraqiWalker]

Iron Angel 2k2, on 27 July 2014 - 04:03 AM, said:

the quad PPC was the loadout I had before this and while the damage was nice I just didnt like the colossal heat spike from firing them, plus the extra weight. I dont have a lot of trouble actually hitting people, and I loved the range, but I felt like my possible damage output was being constantly gimped by sitting around waiting for my weapons to stop threatening to slag my engine if I tried to use them, and meanwhile my teammates are eating bullets while my massive bulk of armor was going to waste behind a building or uselessly getitng shot at while waiting to not overheat. I like the ERLLs better for that reason, I can put out a constant stream of damage and I'm not just a big front loaded burst, but with 4 ERLLs I CAN crank out a huge burst of damage and suck heat if it is practical/advantageous to do so.

Honestly my biggest problem with the loadout is that it requires me to keep the space between me and the target clear, and while I can maneuver the beast to adequately do this, my team seems to not realize I am an implacable juggernaut of laser annihilation and like to run directly in front of me as I am shooting and wonder where all their rear armor went.

Oh God bless all the idiots that jump in front of me while I am unloading a river of ballistic and laser shots. They HAVE early warning. They see all the bullets I'm firing, and STILL insist on jumping in front of me.

One question: Did you fire more than 2 PPCs every 1 second? There is ghost heat associated with firing multiple PPCs (above 2 at a time.)

Firing 2 C-ERPPCs generates 30 heat. Firing 3 generates 57.15 instead of the expected 45. Firing 4 of them generates 92.40 heat.

The way Ghost heat works is that it generates extra heat when firing multiples of the same weapon in one alpha shot(If you ran into 6PPC Stalkers or my 9PPC direwolf joke build, you would understand why).

So instead you need at least a minimum of 0.5 seconds between weapons fire to not cause the bonus heat, giving your prey some time to know what happened, and possibly react a bit (plus it makes some logical sense from a lore perspective)

For example, in the case of your 4ERLL or 4PPC builds. Both weapons actually trigger ghost heat when firing more than 2.

So I would mount 4, and have each 2 in one weapons group (one for left arm, one for right arm). I fire group 1, wait a second or so, and then fire group 2. That generates only 30 heat per punch instead of the 92.40 expected, but as a trade off, I don't deal 40 points of damage out of nowhere, to one location in one shot.

When you construct a mech you should get a red warning triangle in the mechbay screen for that mech warning you about ghost heat, if you have a set up that triggers it.

Also, go to http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/equipment and scroll down to the ghost heat section to figure out the associated heat penalties (If it's green, there's no ghost heat, if it's yellow, there's ghost heat)

Edited by IraqiWalker, 27 July 2014 - 04:30 AM.

[Iron Angel mk1]

I had them on chain fire as well so it was staggered out, in addition to group 2 being the left arm and 3 being the right, and the only time I fired all four was either a massive alpha strike to try to core someone instantly or as a panic button if I was being overwhelmed and was going to die if I didn't do something really drastic. Otherwise I would stick to the chain fire and try to pepper people, but they had this nasty habit of running behind things, and as a cherry on top, back to my Big Problem, hitting a friendly medium in the back with one as he charges right into my sights as I pull the trigger and instantly vaporizing all his rear armor really sucks because I go from being a valuable heavy fire support asset to a teamkilling fucktard instantly, at least in my own head, and as the cherry on top of THAT cherry, thats heat I just sucked that DIDNT damage enemies.

[IraqiWalker]

Iron Angel 2k2, on 27 July 2014 - 04:42 AM, said:

I had them on chain fire as well so it was staggered out, in addition to group 2 being the left arm and 3 being the right, and the only time I fired all four was either a massive alpha strike to try to core someone instantly or as a panic button if I was being overwhelmed and was going to die if I didn't do something really drastic. Otherwise I would stick to the chain fire and try to pepper people, but they had this nasty habit of running behind things, and as a cherry on top, back to my Big Problem, hitting a friendly medium in the back with one as he charges right into my sights as I pull the trigger and instantly vaporizing all his rear armor really sucks because I go from being a valuable heavy fire support asset to a teamkilling fucktard instantly, at least in my own head, and as the cherry on top of THAT cherry, thats heat I just sucked that DIDNT damage enemies.

Sometimes I have half a mind to just kill someone who stepped in front of me outright. Just to drill the point into people's skulls. If someone is firing a lot of DoT (Damage Over Time) weapons, don't cut in front of them mid salvo. In fact, don't cut in front of your allies' firing lines, at all!

However, since that would deprive me of an extra meat shield, and does leave a bitter aftertaste in my mouth after the match is done, I don't do it.

Actually, when running the 9C-ERPPC DWF, I almost killed one of my teammates because he jumped in front of me when I was about to die, and I was mashing the alpha button. Luckily, the weapons were still on Cooldown, and I managed to stop myself at the last second.

[Iron Angel mk1]

I'm very much a team player and hitting one of my allies, even if it is due to their own stupidity, makes me feel like a legit burden. Dont get me wrong, I'm frustrated at THEM too. I just get frustrated at myself as well.

[IraqiWalker]

Iron Angel 2k2, on 27 July 2014 - 06:39 AM, said:

I'm very much a team player and hitting one of my allies, even if it is due to their own stupidity, makes me feel like a legit burden. Dont get me wrong, I'm frustrated at THEM too. I just get frustrated at myself as well.

I love dropping with players like you. Team players really make this game fun.

[Koniving]

Personally I hide my targeting computer in the left arm, and shift the LRM 20 into the right torso.

Everyone always wants to blow away the right side (as it always has the most valuable stuff in it usually), so it leaves me with 2 ER Larges + the targeting computer when I do lose the right side. This allows me to keep my range.

You'll need to trade the right torso Omni-pod for one of the two missile loadout designs.

[Iron Angel mk1]

Koniving, on 27 July 2014 - 07:59 AM, said:

Personally I hide my targeting computer in the left arm, and shift the LRM 20 into the right torso.

Everyone always wants to blow away the right side (as it always has the most valuable stuff in it usually), so it leaves me with 2 ER Larges + the targeting computer when I do lose the right side. This allows me to keep my range.

You'll need to trade the right torso Omni-pod for one of the two missile loadout designs.

My only issue with that is I have to give up my AMS to do so and in pugs you can't really rely on an ally to have ECM to cover you from the endless barrage of missile spam I hate oh so much. At the very least the AMS can thin the numbers of missiles long enough for me to get behind something and cry.

[Koniving]

Iron Angel 2k2, on 27 July 2014 - 08:51 AM, said:

My only issue with that is I have to give up my AMS to do so and in pugs you can't really rely on an ally to have ECM to cover you from the endless barrage of missile spam I hate oh so much. At the very least the AMS can thin the numbers of missiles long enough for me to get behind something and cry.

True. Truth be told I completely ignore enemy LRMs. The weapons are weak but spammy. Once they start coming thinning their numbers is nice, but if it's a meaningful number of Inner Sphere LRMs you're screwed no matter what. Prevention is better than treatment.

[GTV Zeratul]

You could also try to swap 2 ER-LL for 2 pulse LL, no ghost heat so you can fire all 4 for that oh sh... moments.

Edited by GTV Zeratul, 27 July 2014 - 01:47 PM.

[TheCaptainJZ]

Aren't all large lasers linked? They are for IS right?

[GTV Zeratul]

For IS yes, for Clans not. (yet/bug?)

[IraqiWalker]

TheCaptainJZ, on 27 July 2014 - 10:25 PM, said:

Aren't all large lasers linked? They are for IS right?

GTV Zeratul, on 28 July 2014 - 01:48 PM, said:

For IS yes, for Clans not. (yet/bug?)

Clan large lasers and large pulse lasers are linked. Check Smurfy's

[Xeno Phalcon]

Iron Angel 2k2, on 27 July 2014 - 03:37 AM, said:

So any tips from more experienced pilots?

I like large lasers, and had a build something like that for a little bit but ended up trading out the missiles for more lasers and a stupid large tactical computer. However I found that warhawks are also superb brawlers due to having such a large engine they are very responsive in the torso twisting department, srms also allow the warhawk to bring enough firepower to compensate for their lack of crit slots and hard points. Iv got a gaggle of builds in my thread (see my sig) and pretty much cover everything though some are outdated at this point but you'll be hard pressed to find a more comprehensive collection of warhawk data, builds and footnotes.

[Kin3ticX]

Iron Angel 2k2, on 27 July 2014 - 03:37 AM, said:

I would ditch the targeting computer and go with this:

4xERLL, 3xLRM-10, Tag, 23 DHS
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...b39bd33f8943c62

-or-

Gauss, 2x ERPPC, 3x LRM-5, 20 DHS
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...2221019e600439c

They are pretty hot if you alpha strike everything repeatedly but you are able to chime in on targets when you lack line of sight with your big guns.

I have other clan builds posted here:
https://docs.google....g3532a8eb7_2624