30 replies to this topic

[Kaspirikay]

Escef, on 12 September 2014 - 06:51 PM, said:

If you are relying on 4+ missile systems, the Summoner's lack of a recycle penalty on them is nice. The Timby-S side torso pods both come with a debuff to missile recycle and increased overheating damage.

That aside, the Summoner's anemic hardpoints lead to a very strange phenomenon. It tends to run cooler than many mechs its size, and therefor can maintain a more robust rate of fire.

True, it does have that advantage. But, whats the point of a hard throttle on heat if you can do the same with a disciplined trigger finger.

The Bummerner is bad. Its a fun mech, but its bad.

[Fire and Salt]

Well, it can do all SRMs better than the Timberwolf.... because it has 1 more missile slot... but thats such a situational build that it isn't going to do well on most maps.


But of course.... you can load the stormcrow up with 5 SRM launchers and move faster... which is quite necessary for a SRM mech...




The high mounted ballistic points on the summoner are great. If it didn't have those 4 engine heat sinks eating up weight, you could do some really nice ballistic builds...

With only FF, I doubt a summoner ever runs out of crit space, so its a shame that the summoner has those extra engine heat sinks.... The stormcrow only has 10 in the engine even though its a 330XL.




I wish there were energy side torsos, so you could stick a laser or a PPC in the high mounted locations that the machine guns use. I think that would really help the mech, and it wouldn't break from lore since it is an omni, afterall....

Edited by Fire and Salt, 12 September 2014 - 10:52 PM.

[Diablo Intercepter]

The timber wolf is just a better mech. It has too many options, and plenty of weight. That's probably never going to change, the lore demands the timber wolf be the most amazing mech possible.
That said I have found a build with the Thor that I have found a lot of success with:
-2 ER medium lasers
-3 SRM 6s (2.5 tons of ammo)
-1 UAC 10 (2 tons of ammo)
-422 armor
It's a very limited build, but it is very good at close range. At mid range you have the lasers and UAC 10 (although I only really use the UAC mid-range if I see someone standing still). It does run hot, I always have a cool shot just incase. I spend most of my time positioning myself, at long range this can't really do anything. The lack of ams also bugs me but I just don't think the Thor has enough weight for a close range build that uses ams.

[Fire and Salt]

Lore does seem oblivious to the shape of the 'mech when it comes to durability, and the extreme value of high mounted weapons for peeking.


That's why I am hoping that we eventually get at least 1 torso omni pod that has an energy weapon mountable in the same physical location that the torso ballistics now use.


The arms are great shields... unfortunately, they hold most of the firepower, and all of the energy weapons. Its crazy to not use some energy weapons, when you have so many non-removable DHS eating up tonnage.



2 torso PPCs and a medium laser in each arm would be good. It would be a simple and effective jump sniper build. Or an LL/LPL instead of a PPC in each torso for peeking. Sure, you can do the same thing in a timberwolf, and add a couple extra arm lasers as well because of the greater free tonnage... but if you want torso PPCs you are limited to 3 JJs on a timberwolf... and you have to expose more of your 'mech with the Timberwolf.

If energy torsos were available, I would run this build all the time.

too bad

[Escef]

Kaspirikay, on 12 September 2014 - 10:42 PM, said:

But, whats the point of a hard throttle on heat if you can do the same with a disciplined trigger finger.

Training wheels. If you don't need them, they're a hindrance. But for those that haven't learned proper trigger discipline yet it will improve their performance.

Fire and Salt, on 12 September 2014 - 10:47 PM, said:

Well, it can do all SRMs better than the Timberwolf.... because it has 1 more missile slot... but thats such a situational build that it isn't going to do well on most maps.


But of course.... you can load the stormcrow up with 5 SRM launchers and move faster... which is quite necessary for a SRM mech...

The Timby S torsos come with a missile recycle debuff, so the Summoner can put out more damage with missiles than the Timby, but with less payload it may find deficiencies in ammo or backup weapons.

As for comparing it to the Stormcrow, while the Crow is faster, the Summoner jumps. Depending upon the map, either could be more important than the other.

Amazingly, I'm starting to wonder if perhaps the Summoner's biggest strength is that it isn't a Timby or Stormcrow. Timbies and Stormcrows are known to be very good, very dangerous mechs, and attract a lot of attention. Summoners, not so much. Same reason why people that know how to use Locusts and Commandos can bust out 500+ damage games with them, people don't take you as seriously and will ignore you in favor of higher priority targets, leaving you free to rip people up and down.

[n r g]

No.

[JigglyMoobs]

Escef, on 12 September 2014 - 11:09 PM, said:

Amazingly, I'm starting to wonder if perhaps the Summoner's biggest strength is that it isn't a Timby or Stormcrow. Timbies and Stormcrows are known to be very good, very dangerous mechs, and attract a lot of attention. Summoners, not so much. Same reason why people that know how to use Locusts and Commandos can bust out 500+ damage games with them, people don't take you as seriously and will ignore you in favor of higher priority targets, leaving you free to rip people up and down.

In other words, Summoners are great..... as long as there are some Timberwolves to carry you.

[Stormwolf]

The Summoner performs this poorly in MWO? I used to run the MW3 campaign with nothing but Summoner stock configs, it's difficult but it can be done.

Though I guess that the primary problem here is that there's not that many weapons a Summoner to begin with, you can't really compare it to a Timber Wolf anyway. The Summoner is a quick striking heavy that isn't supposed to overheat (Jade Falcon design), the Timber Wolf is a allround mech (Clan Wolf Design). It also doesn't help that PGI slapped a hardpoint system on a omnimech.

Now Clan Jade Falcon did design a mech that could match the Timber Wolf in this area, the Night Gyr.

Edited by Stormwolf, 13 September 2014 - 09:43 AM.

[Escef]

JigglyMoobs, on 13 September 2014 - 09:20 AM, said:

In other words, Summoners are great..... as long as there are some Timberwolves to carry you.

Not so much as "carry" as "run interference".

[IraqiWalker]

Stormwolf, on 13 September 2014 - 09:43 AM, said:

The Summoner performs this poorly in MWO? I used to run the MW3 campaign with nothing but Summoner stock configs, it's difficult but it can be done.

Though I guess that the primary problem here is that there's not that many weapons a Summoner to begin with, you can't really compare it to a Timber Wolf anyway. The Summoner is a quick striking heavy that isn't supposed to overheat (Jade Falcon design), the Timber Wolf is a allround mech (Clan Wolf Design). It also doesn't help that PGI slapped a hardpoint system on a omnimech.

Now Clan Jade Falcon did design a mech that could match the Timber Wolf in this area, the Night Gyr.

At stock values the summoner had a chance, but since we can fully upgrade our mechs, max armor, limited slots, and hardwired JJs are making it hard to compete with the Timby, which can slap JJs of any number.

[a gaijin]

The Great Unwashed, on 08 September 2014 - 07:08 AM, said:

Adding endo and adding leg-SRM hardpoints would be a nice start, plus massive torso twist to make it a brawler...

IraqiWalker, on 11 September 2014 - 06:35 PM, said:

Actually, if you want to see a real monster out of a summoner, remove FF, and add Endo...

Gents, useless conjecture.
Do not take this personally: this is not a "what if the Summoner had <something it does not> post."
It's all about the Lore, whether we like it or not.

He just wants to know if there is a Summoner build that is better than some TW build(s) he either likes or has read about.

Felio, on 08 September 2014 - 07:01 AM, said:

Unfortunately I have both, and I have been struggling to find something to do with the Summoner without feeling like I've deliberately gimped myself.

The short answer is "only better if you need a mech that can jump 0.97 meters further than a Timber Wolf" or "if you want a missile heavy build that can jump."

The long answer is less clear because in order to answer your question you have to tell everyone what your play style is and also what weapons types you like to run.


Also (all of you), keep in mind when asking (or answering to) "what does mech A do better than mech B" that you should think of comparing any mech against another mech that's 5 or so tons heavier.
Nine times out of 10 the heavier chassis will be generally better.

Finally, some useless conjecture from me:
If there is a Summoner build that's better than a Timber Wolf build, I wonder if the person(s) who know this build would share it?