The following guide aims at helping you play more effectively, efficiently and ultimately have more fun while playing and modifying your Dire Wolf, without wasting times and C-Bills experimenting on your favourite builds (cuz I did that for y'all). However it does indeed serve only as a reference, so adjust to taste.
So, the Dire Wolf, the 100-ton Clan-tech death machine that everyone fears, right?
...right?
Well....
![:rolleyes:](https://static.mwomercs.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)
Lemme put it this way: A Dire Wolf is more Atlas than an Atlas. You must position yourself strategically, ideally with good knowledge with the map and have a good idea where your team is going. I'll explain more in the following Pros/Cons analysis. Let's start with the cons:
- clumsy. A quick glance at Smurfy's and you'll see Dire Wolf has only 60 degrees of torso twist, any if you've seen/been in a Stalker, you know what that means in any sort of close-quarter situations. It does help that Dire Wolf has lower arm actuators, but it also has...
- arm-focused hardpoints. It means if you're loading lots of weapons in the arms - AC20, Gauss, two CERLLas plus CUAC5, etc. - you cannot have lower-arm actuators. (I hate you Paul.)
- slow. As we probably all aware by now, Clan 'mechs have their engines locked so no upgrades are available on that part. That means you absolutely don't wanna be left alone early-game, especially on smaller maps like Forest Colony or River city, where enemies could easily circle around the map and touch your team in the butt. It also means an experienced Jenner could easily be the end of you. Besides, you may wanna consider equipping some sort of LRM, because chance is you will not be the first one to see the enemy, and you definitely won't arrive at the party on time.
- massive size. Why is that'a problem? Same with why aircraft-carriers are called bomb-magnets, but with LRMs instead.
Okay, enough bashing the fat man. Now the good part:
- Firepower
- Firepower
- MOAR DAKKA (oh wait wrong universe
![:ph34r:](https://static.mwomercs.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/ph34r.png)
Yes. XL300+Clan-tech means Dire Wolf could easily carry more firepower than an Atlas' wildest dream. Three seconds on any unexpected enemy 'mech and its armor magically disappear. So many times during late-game that a pug sees me around the corner and just go NOPE and run away as fast as possible.
So, combining the pros and cons, here's the mentality and strategy your should employ: keep up with the team, play the objectives (if there's any), and unload all the guns you have as soon as you see your 1st target (because you should be able to shred at least one section of armor to the structure, or even get a kill). When there're multiple targets in sight, pick the biggest, meanest enemy because the bigger it is, the easier it is to hit.
And Dire Wolf hits really, really hard.
Now, to the builds:
DWF-PRIME
![Posted Image](http://i.imgur.com/w3frsJA.jpg)
Now, before you start B*TCHING about "hurr durr y no 2xCERPPC+2xCGauss gg noob", allow me to explain my reasons (other than my burning hatred toward anything that does more than 30 pinpoint damage. Scums.).
To be a sniper 'mech you need at least two out of three things: high-mount hardpoints ('pult, Jager, arguable Quickdraw) so you could fire from cover, 70+ km/h speed(Awesome 9M) to relocate during cooldown or after being surrounded, or a lot of armor. Dire Wolf has a lot of armor, but for various reasons stated above, it also attracts a lot of fire and consequently dies rather easily. In fact, 50 pinpoint damage could hardly kill anything up front (not mentioning Gauss and PPC projectiles have different speeds).
In fact, any of the three builds I present here would easily kill a pinpoint Dire Wolf SCUM during a single cooldown cycle. I've done it multiple times.
Now, back to the build itself. I usually would like to keep the build close to the original, but sadly anything resembles the stock Prime would be way too complicated to manage. This build, however, is what I call a moneymaker. You have some good-range from the CERPPC (dont forget it also has splash damage), you have the sweet, sweet DPS from the CUAC10 (seriously, CUAC10 is absolutely the best Clan AC, trust me), and you have LRM to harass enemies out of your sight, or to further shake their cockpit when they're under your direct fire. Admittedly you could only constant fire at a target with everything you've got for about 12 seconds, but I'm pretty sure 12 seconds is enough to put anything own except for Lights.
(Note: 1, you could use the CERPPCs stripped from your B variant. 2, no need to switch to A-variant LT Omni-Pod and equip 2xCLRM5 for more DPS, because the stock LT provides a 10% cooldown reduction, reducing LRM10's cooldown to 3.6 seconds, a fraction more than LRM5's 3.5 second. And you get the 8-piece bonus. 3, you COULD build it around 2xCUAC20, but those guns take a lot of hardpoints and makes squeezing more firepower in much more difficult.)
DWF-A
![Posted Image](http://i.imgur.com/c30B6qi.jpg)
This is my favourite.
Because, in case you didn't notice, IT HAS LOWER ARM ACTUATORS (well, only one, but right now in game, one counts as two and your LA also turns as a result. Ain't gonna complain.)
(Also, notice that I've got all eight original Omni-Pods?)
Replacing CSSRMs with CLRMs because SSRMs are not very useful against anything other than Lights, and replaced CGauss with CUAC20 because CLRMs already have ranged targets covered, and CUAC20 has much higher DPS. Just remember to set your CLPL to chainfire, and you'll have the best all-range, all-purpose DPS monster in the game, as far as I can tell.
Except for one possible contender.
DWF-B
![Posted Image](http://i.imgur.com/jnhh9Vi.jpg)
I think this one is pretty self-explanatory.
MOAR DAKKA!!!! (sry got carried away a little)
I did replace the CUAC2s with CAC2s though. I grouped arm weapons and torso weapons to my LMB and RMB separately. You could use the stock CUAC2s for even better DPS (which is already ridiculous), but I for one could not hold my aim steady while spamming BOTH mouth buttons.
Also I did reduce arm armor to 60 each to fit in more armor. The reduced defense is negligible, since 9/10 people would go for your CT first because they know they probably don't have the time to completely remove one arm, but it will probably be their end when you turn your attention to them.
If it's a you vs. many situation, then that's different. But you should involve yourself in that kind of situation in the first place, which goes back to my previous point: you need to come up with a bit of strategy. Your route, positioning, target priority, etc. Think about these for a few seconds before riding your Dire Wolf into battle.
Because it is not an easily tamed beast, but when you get the gist, you are - quite literally - unstoppable.