54 replies to this topic

[rageagainstthedyingofthelight]

Your argument makes me think you haven't played them since they fixed the torso's and buffed energy on them. There is no way on God's green earth that a Jester or Sparky (both of which I own, play and love) can complete with a PB in damage dealt, damage absorbed, or combat effectiveness.

You know what punishes a new player? A HUGE UNMISSABLE NOSE with non-existent side torsos that guarantee the first time you accidentally outrun your team you're going to be annihilated before you can regret your decision. Now, which hero mech has one of those?

Your other advice is to send a new player into the world in a medium, you know, the chassis they had to GIVE AWAY just to get their drop numbers above 20%. And my problem with the Sparky is it is sooooooooooooooo much less effective than the standard Griffins. There is just no reason to choose it, especially because energy only mechs are bottom of the barrel right now unless your 35 tons or under.

A PB lets you carry the ultimate noob-friendly weapon, LRM's. I use them to remind me not to charge into battle until I burn out their ammo and then it's brawl-time. And you even get the head mounted laser so you can spit in the face of a mech about to kill you after all your extremities have been ripped off.

Flying a Jester or any medium is going to take more skill than an assault. And the criteria here is that is has to be a fast enough mech to get him to the battle or out of trouble. For that reason I would say no to the Illya, powerful as it is, it handles like a sleeping pregnant water buffalo. Firebrand might be a good choice there, if you don't mind having 666 scribbled across your mech. Also the Hellslinger is a very underrated hero mech that you can buff up the engine a long ways on (I keep an X350 in mine, about 70kph), has tons of hard points and can even mount 2 LRM20's if you're feeling lazy that day. And God help me, you might even like the Flame, you can drop a gauss rifle in it and play Assault escort / sniper and have lot of fun there too. All of these are pretty new player friendly. And the PB. Just because.

[Wrathful Scythe]

For me it is easily the Ilya. 3 UAC/5 with 3 MLaser or 3 AC/5 with 2 LLaser. And with such weapons it is still pretty agile. You can just mow through your Enemys with such DPS. The Firebrand is good but to fragile and I prefer other Jägers with more dakka.

My other tips would be Firestarter or Misery but they suffer from being an Assault/Light (if you cann say that), so I would suggest an Ilya.

[rageagainstthedyingofthelight]

Yeah, the Misery is more agile than you'd think it would be, and it still holds its own against clan assaults.

[Josef Nader]

>LRMs
>Noob Friendly

If you never want to actually get good at this game, and have your entire match score dictated by how effective your teammates are.

I use LRMs. I never use LRM boats. They're awful, and you have zero agency in how the match plays out. If your teammates have a good match, you can have a good match. If your teammates have a bad match, you will die with less than 150 damage. You will never get good milage out of LRMs unless the enemy team hands it to you on a silver platter, or you're extremely skilled at positioning and trigger discipline.

And again, I've played my Awesomes since they've been buffed. They're a ton of fun, but once again, I have to understand that every time I drop in my Awesome, a Dire Whale lands on the other team. Unless you are a competent enough pilot to make up for that, you're going to get screwed.

That's precluding the fact that you say you run your PB with a huge XL, which leads me to believe the people you're fighting have mapped their mouse-aim to the keyboard arrow keys for nostalgia purposes, or are farsighted lobsters lacking the manual dexterity to effectively operate a mouse. If I was foolish enough to put an XL within 400m of my Awesomes, they would spontaneously combust.

[rageagainstthedyingofthelight]

That screen shot was in an XL Awesome, and my last kill was that Direwhale with 1000 damage that round.

One, I never go full boat except the 8R, which has no other purpose. Usually you can have 2 15's or 2 10's 1000-1500 rounds and have plenty of room for lasers/ppc's, all of which your Awesome gets a heat bonus on. Also, I only run XL's on the 8R, PB and the 9M, because they are more for long range PPC/LRM support (although my PB can brawl). Otherwise, standards.

Here's why LRM's help:

If I see a DW and I'm in my PB, I know that I've got to get off 3 or 4 volleys of LRMs before brawling because I can't take off his armor fast enough with lasers or PPC's before he kills me. So I pelt him, because I'm fast enough to decide the engagement, until he's weak enough for me to kill. More likely though, he's in a group, and the LRM's mean I can wear him down before he starts taking out my teammates. And I'm fast enough to get what enemy I want to target and decide when I want the fight to begin. And if I do end up out of position, having some LRM's means I can contribute to my team until I'm close enough to fully engage, instead of being on the wrong side of a rock while a teammate eats it.

You pilot Awesomes. I'm an Awesome pilot. And your assertion that "the PB's are garbage" is objectively wrong hyperbolic statement that you can only make here and not on the battlefield.

[Brody319]

Ilya is a good mech, It can run a variety of builds and they can out damage some assaults.
Jester is okay, It runs kinda hot but its pretty fast for a heavy, but is out classed by some other mechs.
Misery is an assault, but its really good, it is the only stalker with a ballistic slot so its truly unique compared to other heros.
Yen-Lo-Wang is good, I've heard some say its the best centurion.

[Josef Nader]

Again, you're not pulling yourself out of the situation.

I 100% believe you're a kick-ass Awesome pilot who can make the Pretty Baby dance like a charm. Again, a good pilot in a bad mech they're comfortable with is always a serious threat.

That said, for most pilots who aren't capable of devoting a lot of time into this game, the PB is a terrible choice. It's got an extremely awkward hardpoint layout, not enough hardpoints to really take advantage of any one weapons system to it's fullest, fairly low slung hardpoints that like to turf shots, it's huge in size, wide in hitboxes, and generally defenseless against any serious firepower. It takes an extremely skilled or extremely dedicated pilot to make good use of it, and most players are going to have a really bad time trying to get the thing out of basics, much less make it a serious killing machine.

Nearly every hero mech in the game is easier to use and more competitive than the PB. I've put out 1200+ damage games in my LCT-1V (thanks to multiple ammo explosions and a really good arty strike), but it takes a lot more effort than a 1200+ damage game in my Jenners, or my Firestarters. This is all about degrees.

Again, you can put good weapons on a bad mech and make them decent. Most of my playtime is spent experimenting with underplayed chassis to see if I can make them respectable. However, that doesn't change the fact that the PB has really terrible hardpoints, with poor hardpoint placement and bad hitboxes. It's extremely unfriendly to pilot. Denying that is disingenuous.

[rageagainstthedyingofthelight]

Did a quick search for your score on the leader boards. Didn't see you on any of the chassis. I'm sure you'll be on by midnight, with your Sparky or Jester.

And this post was so full of bad info, lets take it point by point:

Josef Nader, on 27 October 2014 - 08:46 AM, said:

I've put out 1,400 damage matches in Awesomes too. That's called anecdotal evidence. A good pilot in a bad mech will still do well.

Only smart thing you'll say from here on out. Yes, it's anicdotal because we don't have access to raw data from PGI, so it's the best I can give you.

Josef Nader, on 27 October 2014 - 08:46 AM, said:

That said, the Awesome is incredibly punishing to new and casual players, and it would be the last assault I would ever recommend to anyone. The Pretty Baby is handily the worst mech in the game right now.

Worse than Vindicators, Trebuchets, Dragons, Quickdraws, the nerfed Victors, worse than Locusts? Exaggerate much? When you lie on the small things, it makes the big ones harder to believe.

Josef Nader, on 27 October 2014 - 08:46 AM, said:

That said, it still mounts the same weapons as everyone else and can put out decent numbers with a skilled pilot. It doesn't mean the mech isn't trash.

Having a mech with good hard points that can deal good damage is the opposite of trash. The Huggin is trash, the Vindicator is trash. Trash is a mech that no matter how good you are, it keeps you from winning. Energy mechs over 35 tons are trash, as energy in this game is a backup weapon. If you can't hold SSRMS, LRMS or Autocannons in a heavy mech, you're going to get destroyed unless you absolutely outplay everyone your come up against. Some people can do it. Heck, some people and swim the English Channel, but I'd take a boat. Again, just so, so wrong.

Josef Nader, on 27 October 2014 - 08:46 AM, said:

The Jester is decent, and Sparky is one of the best medium mechs in the game. They're solid recommendations. The Pretty Baby is only a good recommendation if you want people to put the game down and never come back.

And this, this is gold. Find me a Griffin pilot off the leader boards who used the Sparky as anything more than to take a break from his 3M. Find me a catapult pilot who used their Jester to farm C-bills, because they all know the LRM5 A1 will earn more money with out the hero bonus than the Jester will with it. And best medium medium mech??? Next to of course, all the Shadowhawks, all the other Griffins, all the Wolverines, all the Stormcrows, I could go on and on. You know what the clan version of the Sparky is? The Nova.

[rageagainstthedyingofthelight]

Also, this thread is getting flamey, which makes me break out in hives. We aren't going to change each others minds, and this is a much energy as I can put into something that literally changes nothing. So I'll call it quits, call me dumb all you want in the following comments. I'm cool with that.

[Brody319]

rageagainstthedyingofthelight, on 27 October 2014 - 11:59 AM, said:

And this, this is gold. Find me a Griffin pilot off the leader boards who used the Sparky as anything more than to take a break from his 3M. Find me a catapult pilot who used their Jester to farm C-bills, because they all know the LRM5 A1 will earn more money with out the hero bonus than the Jester will with it. And best medium medium mech??? Next to of course, all the Shadowhawks, all the other Griffins, all the Wolverines, all the Stormcrows, I could go on and on. You know what the clan version of the Sparky is? The Nova.

I actually used my Jester to farm c-bills before I got my Timberwolf la-carte. Really I think its a fantastic mech but I understand why some people might not like it. The A1 is garbage in my opinion. Once it runs out of ammo its screwed, if the team doesnt lock, its ******, if the enemy gets too close its ******. Really Its only good if you group drop because you can't trust the current solo drop que to be supportive towards your LRM boat. Plus with the new reward system, most teams have at least 1 ecm mech. Missiles are op when supported but if the team doesn't help then you are just done right away. Doesn't even account for how many maps have holdout points where lrms are useless. The desert and terra therma have huge towers that totally prevent your missiles from reaching the target in a lot of cases.

The Jester is at least fast, and it has long range builds, 4 Large lasers can easily melt an enemy team, I mean some of the best medium builds are just 3 large lasers.

[DieGruneMorder]

speleomaniac, on 27 October 2014 - 02:05 AM, said:

I look to the all Stalker variants as Missile Boats and that is not my thing. Is it different with Misery?

The Misery is a beast....love it!!

[FireDog]

I use to love my Jester but sadly the Jester is a shadow of it's former self. They kinda nerfed it into the back mechbays. I'm hoping the "slightly improved" jump jets will help but as they are using the number of jets as the deciding factor, the Jester's two will probably not make any deference. As for quirks it looks like it might be getting short shift there too, possibly getting only LL plus up. If PGI wanted to give it back its full FUN rating they should give it back its agility; jump jets, turn rate, torso twist, maybe change the laser buff to apply to all lasers/energy weapons (a heat reduction -%). Until I can picture Leigh Voss's Jester doing everything that was mentioned in the mech's intro (below) I would have to recommend another. The Firebrand and Ilya Muroments are both class acts even though they can not jump. And several people I know love their jumping Sparkys' even though its an all energy mech like the Jester.

Jester's Intro:
http://mwomercs.com/...lt-hero-jester/

[Mad Strike]

rageagainstthedyingofthelight, on 27 October 2014 - 06:59 AM, said:

I'm sorry, this guy can't hear you...:

Well done and said , my Boars Head salutes you o7

Napes339, on 27 October 2014 - 07:49 AM, said:

Well, in my defense I did point out both of their weaknesses. Also, I was from from a good pilot when I purchased the Jester and ended up having tons of fun though it has admittedly been a while.

And considering how you're defending the PB (impressive screenshot BTW) lets just say its up to playstyle and overall preference.

Don't forget player performanceeeee

[Jazzbandit1313]

I'd definitely say ember. One of my top grinders and scorers. Although if you're a jager fan like me, You cannot go wrong with the FB. the energy and ballistic hardpoints on the arms make it a much more effective K2 that runs faster and looks better

[Y E O N N E]

speleomaniac, on 27 October 2014 - 01:53 AM, said:

Hi guys,

I need advice about which Hero Mech to buy.

Only criteria it had to be a fun mech and good C-Bill grinder.

Categorically, can't be a light mech because I am over 40 and my reflexes suck and without that I suck with lights.

I don't like the assaults that much, if you choose wrong side of the map, assault are to slow to react either you are dead or fight is over before you arrive there.

So real only options are the meds (while they can react really good to changing battle conditions) and agile heavies.

I am thinking about Arrow, what do you think?

Go with the Arrow. It will not disappoint, even at full price. After the LCT-3S, it is my favorite 'Mech to play and it has earned me all of my highest scores (1200+ danage, normal match is in the 500-600 range) and largest earnings. Just run it with a STD 225 with both endo and ferro, and it won't be fragile.



Firebrand and Protector are pretty good options, too, but I just love the Arrow.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 27 October 2014 - 08:26 PM.