7 replies to this topic

[Bacardio]

Hello all,

Returning player and I have no idea on the current state of the meta, nerfs/buffs etc
I was curious if you all could chime in on the best burst builds that you can come up with.

Ballistic Burst / Laser Boat Burst / Missile Burst

Pretty much any thoughts are appreciated. I like the massive burst alpha strikes and wondering if anything suites my play-style in the current meta. Doesn't need to be super competitive, just effective enough and FUN enough to play in PUGs.

I still have the $80 dollars (somehow in MC) that was gifted to me with the founders pack and am ready to start dropping the bills.

Cheers.

[MalodorousMonkey]

Not sure how long ago you last played, so you may already know this. A new system referred to officially as "heat scale" and by the community as "ghost heat" was introduced quite awhile ago.

Now, most weapons have a cap on how many you can alpha without generating a lot of extra heat. For instance, you can only alpha 2 large lasers without gaining a heat penalty. Firing only 2 would only generate their usual combined heat. Firing 3, however, would generated their usual combined heat, as well as an extra amount of heat to penalize the alpha.

Weapons hit hardest by this are weapons such as the PPC and AC20. For the AC20, you can only fire 1 without garnering a heat penalty.

----------------------------

If you DO know this already, then here's what I would say about alphas. SRMs you can still alpha pretty effectively, even witht the heat penalty. Mix those with an AC20 and that's a fun alpha.

Really, I guess it's hard for me to come up with a fun "alpha" build considering a lot of balancing has gone into trying to prevent high damage alphas.

NOTE: If you just got back after a break, you may also not know that you should have at least 2 free mechs now. A loyalty rewards program was enacted a few months ago, and anybody who has preordered one of their mech packages (such as the founders packages) gets a free unique atlas variant and centurion variant.

Edited by MalodorousMonkey, 08 November 2014 - 09:57 PM.

[ImperialKnight]

AC40 jagers, AC20/Dual PPC Misery and the Direstar(as many PPC as you dare to mount on a Direwolf) sounds like OP's cup of tea

[Elizander]

Double Gauss + Lasers up the wazoo Direwhale but it's not pinpoint frontloaded.

[Bacardio]

Appreciate the responses thus far. Would be also nice if some people could chime in on currently competitive builds and what the meta looks like currently (ie: what are people running into)

Light,Medium,Heavy,Assault...whatever you know tell me! ...It will save me personally a lot of time (and others perhaps who are also curious)

[[is there anyway to search forum posts by year [[ie:2014]] its hard to do research when half the posts are from 2012,2013]]

Edited by Bacardio, 09 November 2014 - 09:52 AM.

[Kodyn]

High pinpoint alpha builds were the meta, but with the recent release of the IS quirks, the meta is still resettling itself currently.

Before the 4th you could expect to see a lot of clan mechs with some combo of Gauss + Energy, usually LPL or ERPPC...a meta which is now facing some stiff competition from IS mechs that can offer similar damage.

Good high alpha mechs to look into, outside of clan, because I don't play them, and plenty can give you advice there, are:

Stalker Rhino builds, ie, bunch of SRMs and ML, usually around 70-80 alpha there, high heat.

T-Bolts, all of which got nice new quirks..you can either go MPL boat on the 5SS for a real nasty, very repeatable alpha, or get some more range with LPLs or ERPPCs, depending on variant.

BLR can do something similar to the Stalker's Rhino build, but with 2 less ML, more mobility, arms to shield, and less armor.

Awesomes are actually pretty awesome now, and can do some fun stuff with various energy-based builds.

Just examples off the top of my head, but you're really going to have to spend some time looking at the new quirks and trying stuff out for yourself. Many unplayable mechs just became very viable, and everyone is relearning the game right now.

[MalodorousMonkey]

As Kodyn said, things have changed just since the last patch. The inner sphere mechs received a "quirk pass", giving certain chassis some really good bonuses for certain weapons. For instance, the Dragon-1N has only half the AC5 cooldown that other mechs have. You can fire it twice as fast.

I've also see people run the Thunderbolt-5SS as Kodyn mentioned. I only recently checked it out on smurfy, and it looks pretty nasty. It can carry 8 Medium pulse and fire them all without a heat penalty. That's a 48 damage alpha

Before the quirks, the "meta" was pretty much clan mechs. The clan mechs, however, are a bit more geared for DPS than for high alphas. Still very fun tho

[Krostif]

if you think 7mpl is nasty and its 7 on the 5ss try 9 on a hbk P its great