176 replies to this topic

[Bishop Steiner]

Michael Abt, on 20 December 2014 - 01:40 PM, said:

In an earlier posting you wrote:




The GI is missing one of the key elements you listed being responsible for your success.

two, actually, as previously noted, it can't torso twist and tank with an XL. So it's slower, more fragile and can't poptart.

Yup, JUST like a Shadowhawk.

[Jazzbandit1313]

Bishop Steiner, on 20 December 2014 - 01:42 PM, said:

two, actually, as previously noted, it can't torso twist and tank with an XL. So it's slower, more fragile and can't poptart.

Yup, JUST like a Shadowhawk.

except id much rather take a hunchy over a sdh. smaller, more maneuverable

[Telmasa]

Michael Abt, on 20 December 2014 - 01:40 PM, said:

In an earlier posting you wrote:

The GI is missing one of the key elements you listed being responsible for your success.

All the JJ did was make it a little easier to get back to my perch if I happened to fall off. If you thought it was absolutely must-have crucial, the make-or-break element of my strategy with the Shadowhawk, you are dearly mistaken.

Doesn't serve to minimize any of the other points I've made, and you already quoted me clearly stating 'equal or superior in every way EXCEPT the JJ' - it's an admission I've already made.

Bishop Steiner, on 20 December 2014 - 01:42 PM, said:

two, actually, as previously noted, it can't torso twist and tank with an XL. So it's slower, more fragile and can't poptart.

Yup, JUST like a Shadowhawk.

I didn't say it was "JUST" like a Shadowhawk.

And anybody trying to "tank" while using an XL engine, let alone "tank" in a medium mech with Gauss rifle, is being stupid.

PLUS:

• using the same engines as the Shadowhawk, the Hunchback goes faster. It can drop down 25 points in engine size and go the same speed as the S-hawk. So no, it's not slower.
  
• It also receives armor & structure quirks that the Shadowhawk does not.
  
• It's much smaller - the top of the Hunchback barely rises above the S-hawk's elbows.

You're trying to grasp at straws. I'm sorry that I'm making a sensible argument against one of your favored playtoys, but it needs to be in balance with the rest of the game.

Edited by Telmasa, 20 December 2014 - 02:28 PM.

[YueFei]

Telmasa, on 20 December 2014 - 12:17 PM, said:

It was an example. Do you know what an example is?

3 seconds, in terms of Mech-on-Mech combat, amounts to almost nothing at all.

3 seconds is plenty time to hit any mech twice before it ducks back into cover. The only mechs I expect to NOT hit twice in that span of time (with a weapon capable of doing so) are ones moving over 120 kph.

OK, I see. The people you play against need more than 3 seconds to do a berm drill. Or it takes them longer than 3 seconds to torso twist 90 degrees when even the sluggish DWF can torso twist at 84 degrees per second when fully elited.

Face it. You don't have an argument on this specific point and you know it.

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What makes the Grid Iron so overwhelming with that, is that being able to fire a gauss every 3 seconds with a 50 ton mech is not replicatable *anywhere else in the game*. Even the Centurion's AC20 buffs only top out at 20% max sum total, and if there is ANY mech that deserved a 50% total cooldown quirk, it is that one.

And that advantage is largely negated at long ranges where cover is more readily available. And if we're talking brawling ranges, that Gauss rifle's 6 DPS isn't exactly overwhelming.

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You grossly overestimate the ability to block properly aimed incoming fire with the Shadowhawk's arms - and you also grossly overestimate the purpose of tanking damage in a medium mech.

The Shadowhawk's arm hitbox fully covers the shoulder, akin to the Centurion's left arm. If you twist to the right angle against incoming fire, the enemy cannot reach your side torso. That's not the case with the Hunchback. Even fully twisted 90 degrees, the shoulder hitbox juts out, and the toothpick-thin upper arms have very little chance to absorb incoming fire.

The Shadowhawk is tankier than a Hunchback is, and has extra armor and jump jets.

A Medium mech's primary purpose isn't to tank the enemy's focus, but like any other mech on the firing line, it has a responsibility to share the incoming damage with teammates. It's better to absorb 100 damage onto your own mech, spread as evenly as you can make it, to keep a teammate alive and in the fight, than it is to allow your injured teammate to absorb 100 damage and die, depriving your team of firepower and angles.

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Like, great, take a STD engine to prevent torso-death. You're in a mech that only weighs 50 tons, by the time you've taken enough damage to lose a torso, you're a walking corpse already.

The only reason to take a STD engine in a medium mech is if you are going for a full-out, balls-to-the-wall urban-brawling build. Otherwise there is no point at all, since with ANY other kind of build, a medium's tactics are about flanking and supporting - never about tanking damage.

If taking an XL engine in the Hunchie grants me the ability to do 15 pin point damage every 3 flippin' seconds at the longest possible ranges of ANY weapon in the game, I will GLADLY make that trade without any second thought. There's not even a question there.

Which is fine, but there is a trade-off involved, namely that you don't get to shield with the left torso and still keep trucking.

And I don't see how 15 damage every 3 seconds is so much scarier than 30 damage every 4 seconds.

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Nope.

GI player properly aking advantage of that gauss would also duck in and out, simply twice as fast (perfectly easy to accomplish in a medium mech with an XL255 engine). In fact, being able to do so also grants that GI player the better ability to avoid being hit, since he's got more visibility on the other mech and can preemptively duck behind cover to avoid that incoming 30-point alpha.

How do I know this? Cause I've done it countless times with my Shadowhawk. The GI has a very similar hardpoint to the SH with the gauss - something I know because I've played hunchbacks, too - so it stands to reason it can pull off the same exact 'trick'.

How are you going to take advantage of your faster firing rate unless the enemy is out in the open? If *both* of you have cover nearby, you can go ahead and duck in and out of cover twice as fast.... but every other time you pop out, you'll find no target to hit, because your target has gone back into cover to recycle his weapons.

And if you've caught him out in the open where he has no cover and you can fire at max ROF, what's the problem? He deserves to get ripped up by you.

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And let's say he's not the only mech you have to worry about...or let's say you're trying to guide in LRMs...or let's say he has an ERPPC mounted in addition and every time you twist back from the gauss hit, you take 10 damage to the CT instead.

Or let's say he's a real clever pilot, and simply waits for you to twist back to try to get a shot off every time. You know he's going to be ready with a shot every time you do, because he has the rate of fire for it!

Twisting and tanking only does so much when he's able to shoot that rapidly.

Or.... the guy you're fighting actually uses cover and you don't get to simply stare at him waiting for him to twist back at you?

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This is dumb. That statement applies to literally any & all mechs in the game. A truer statement is "ANY mech can take best advantage of its weapons by out-playing and out-positioning the opponent."

The issue with the Hunchback GI with a gauss rifle is that the advantage it gets by doing so, is vastly disproportionate to any other platform in the game.

No it's not. If someone gets on top of you in their HBK-4SP with its LOLridiculous SRM6 quirks, it's dishing out 22 DPS. That's a heckuva lot more than the HBK-GI's 6 DPS Gauss Rifle.

[superteds]

i see lots and lots of words about how the GI is better than the shadowhawk

all i have to say is;

are you literally off your meds?

[Bishop Steiner]

YueFei, on 20 December 2014 - 04:45 PM, said:

OK, I see. The people you play against need more than 3 seconds to do a berm drill. Or it takes them longer than 3 seconds to torso twist 90 degrees when even the sluggish DWF can torso twist at 84 degrees per second when fully elited.

Face it. You don't have an argument on this specific point and you know it.



And that advantage is largely negated at long ranges where cover is more readily available. And if we're talking brawling ranges, that Gauss rifle's 6 DPS isn't exactly overwhelming.



The Shadowhawk's arm hitbox fully covers the shoulder, akin to the Centurion's left arm. If you twist to the right angle against incoming fire, the enemy cannot reach your side torso. That's not the case with the Hunchback. Even fully twisted 90 degrees, the shoulder hitbox juts out, and the toothpick-thin upper arms have very little chance to absorb incoming fire.

The Shadowhawk is tankier than a Hunchback is, and has extra armor and jump jets.

A Medium mech's primary purpose isn't to tank the enemy's focus, but like any other mech on the firing line, it has a responsibility to share the incoming damage with teammates. It's better to absorb 100 damage onto your own mech, spread as evenly as you can make it, to keep a teammate alive and in the fight, than it is to allow your injured teammate to absorb 100 damage and die, depriving your team of firepower and angles.



Which is fine, but there is a trade-off involved, namely that you don't get to shield with the left torso and still keep trucking.

And I don't see how 15 damage every 3 seconds is so much scarier than 30 damage every 4 seconds.



How are you going to take advantage of your faster firing rate unless the enemy is out in the open? If *both* of you have cover nearby, you can go ahead and duck in and out of cover twice as fast.... but every other time you pop out, you'll find no target to hit, because your target has gone back into cover to recycle his weapons.

And if you've caught him out in the open where he has no cover and you can fire at max ROF, what's the problem? He deserves to get ripped up by you.



Or.... the guy you're fighting actually uses cover and you don't get to simply stare at him waiting for him to twist back at you?



No it's not. If someone gets on top of you in their HBK-4SP with its LOLridiculous SRM6 quirks, it's dishing out 22 DPS. That's a heckuva lot more than the HBK-GI's 6 DPS Gauss Rifle.

superteds, on 20 December 2014 - 04:51 PM, said:

i see lots and lots of words about how the GI is better than the shadowhawk



all i have to say is;



are you literally off your meds?

the guy i stalking pure nonsense out his butt, why even give him the time of day? Once I realized he was clueless, I just put him on ignore. Let him cower in the shadows afraid of the GI of Doom.... while having his imaginary 1200 pt SHD matches.

Because if the guy thinks tanking is overrated in an SHD, he obviously doesn't know how to use one, and thus, 1200 damage seems very unlikely. I have escaped focus fire more times in my SHDs than any other mech, taking enough fire to kill any Assault mech in the process.

SMH

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 20 December 2014 - 05:01 PM.

[Telmasa]

YueFei, on 20 December 2014 - 04:45 PM, said:

OK, I see. The people you play against need more than 3 seconds to do a berm drill. Or it takes them longer than 3 seconds to torso twist 90 degrees when even the sluggish DWF can torso twist at 84 degrees per second when fully elited.
Face it. You don't have an argument on this specific point and you know it.

I do have an argument, you don't want to face it. There is a multitude of scenarios, in every game I have played, where there are enemy mechs open as targets for longer than 3 seconds apart, and remain so even when I start shooting them. In no situation has the enemy repetiviely ducked, twisted, juked, or jived every single time that I shoot at them. It's more than easy to get multiple shots to connect, one after the other.

It takes just under 3 full seconds for a fully mastered Dire Wolf to torso twist from 1 side to the other, without the legs helping, incidentally.

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And that advantage is largely negated at long ranges where cover is more readily available. And if we're talking brawling ranges, that Gauss rifle's 6 DPS isn't exactly overwhelming.

On most pug maps, this is true. For CW, this is not always the case. For brawling, it's a no-heat 15 damage; you can use any lasers you have mounted as freely as you like without risk of overheating.

The important thing with DPS in a brawl is what's sustainable - and if the gauss rifle alone is 6 DPS, well and *above* what most mechs its weight can achieve without hordes of SRMs, try considering what the lasers you mount add on top of that, and you have a mech than can brawl just as well as any AC/20 Founder's hunchback.

Though if you're trying to brawl off the bat with a Gauss rifle, that's doing it wrong regardless.

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The Shadowhawk's arm hitbox fully covers the shoulder, akin to the Centurion's left arm. If you twist to the right angle against incoming fire, the enemy cannot reach your side torso. That's not the case with the Hunchback. Even fully twisted 90 degrees, the shoulder hitbox juts out, and the toothpick-thin upper arms have very little chance to absorb incoming fire.

The Shadowhawk is tankier than a Hunchback is, and has extra armor and jump jets.

No, it doesn't fully cover the shoulder. Take a good close look at a Shadowhawk, there's a good chunky portion of torso sticking out on either side of the arm even at the 'best' possible angle of 90 degrees. It's also about half the size of my Centurion AH's arm.

Granted, the upper shoulders cover a little better on the Shadowhawk than the Hunchie...but the Hunchie has far more compact hitboxes, while the Shadowhawk is the size of a Stalker, just without the bullet nose.

Plus, I highly doubt anybody is going to get that "perfect" 90 degrees in the midst of a brawl each and every time. Odds are at *best* you will block maybe half the damage with the arm, with the rest still hitting your torsos.

There is about a 1-ton difference between the armor on my Hunchback SP & my Shadowhawk, so there is something - just not that much.

TL/DR version:
With 5 tons over the hunchback, weapon quirks aside there's clearly going to be some advantages the Shadowhawk will carry over the hunchback; what I'm trying to point out is that WITH weapon quirks, any edges my build might have over a GI are quite slight, and thus grossly outweighed by the quirks the GI recieves.

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A Medium mech's primary purpose isn't to tank the enemy's focus, but like any other mech on the firing line, it has a responsibility to share the incoming damage with teammates. It's better to absorb 100 damage onto your own mech, spread as evenly as you can make it, to keep a teammate alive and in the fight, than it is to allow your injured teammate to absorb 100 damage and die, depriving your team of firepower and angles.

What you just described is situational.

We agree on one thing: "A Medium mech's primary purpose isnt' to tank the enemy's focus", and that's the point I was making since Bishop apparently thought that's a selling point on why the GI is such a *poorly disadvantaged mech* that needs such a wonka-licious handicap.

See, I can put viewpoints out of context, too.

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Which is fine, but there is a trade-off involved, namely that you don't get to shield with the left torso and still keep trucking.

And I don't see how 15 damage every 3 seconds is so much scarier than 30 damage every 4 seconds.

There is certainly a tradeoff there...and in my view, it's pretty slight; if your mech is so damaged that you're losing torsos, you're probably getting toward the end of your useful lifespan anyway. Pretty rarely do I find myself ejecting because of a destroyed torso and wishing I were still in the fight. (like if I run into a TDR-9SS or King Crab around a corner... derp)

It's every 2 seconds, unless I'm completely unaware of how cooldown buff math is calculated, and there's the cooldown mk.5 module stacked on top of it to consider.

You're probably going to say, "so? point remains, it's the same, right? 1 every 2 seconds = 2 every 4 seconds"

That's the problem - that it's the SAME, while only requiring half(!) the tonnage and only one hardpoint. It shouldn't *be* able to fully compete with a mech that makes twice the tradeoffs to have what would, under normal circumstances, be double the firepower.

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How are you going to take advantage of your faster firing rate unless the enemy is out in the open? If *both* of you have cover nearby, you can go ahead and duck in and out of cover twice as fast.... but every other time you pop out, you'll find no target to hit, because your target has gone back into cover to recycle his weapons.

And if you've caught him out in the open where he has no cover and you can fire at max ROF, what's the problem? He deserves to get ripped up by you.

Or.... the guy you're fighting actually uses cover and you don't get to simply stare at him waiting for him to twist back at you?

If you're poking out under those very specific circumstances, knowing that he's not going to be there, then that's fairly foolish, right?

That's not what I mean.

I mean that if you're up against, say, my Shadowhawk, you're going to have your Gauss rifle off cooldown & ready to fire, twice as often as I am. So if I happen to be distracted, engaging other enemies in addition to you, and other such variables come into play, with that perk you in your GI is going to obliterate my Shadowhawk long before I can hope to put you on your last legs.

Or, in a typical team situation, you're going to be able to engage targets TWICE as fast - or TWICE as often - as I am with my mech.

Doesn't that strike you as a bit - even just a BIT - unbalanced?

Plus, being able to kill mechs in the open twice as fast as any other 'normal' mech that brings a single gauss is, in a word, obscene.

Assuming that every time you shoot an enemy that he's going to be able to matrix out of the way before your next shot behind the perfectly sized piece of cover is a fairly delusional fantasy (or nightmare, rather?) anyhow.

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No it's not. If someone gets on top of you in their HBK-4SP with its LOLridiculous SRM6 quirks, it's dishing out 22 DPS. That's a heckuva lot more than the HBK-GI's 6 DPS Gauss Rifle.

That's, again, a very specific set of very disadvantageous circumstances...and not always is it such a "LOLIWIN" if I get my Hunchie-SP right up and close into the face of an enemy mech.

• SRMs don't focus on any one component
  
• quite hard to "shoot & twist" and still take full advantage of that rate of fire to achieve that DPS
  
• MUCH larger issues with heat management compared to the Grid iron
  
• vastly, VASTLY inferior range

The unsaid point that I will grant you is that per ton of ammo invested, I get 1.6 more shots off with SRM6 than with a gauss rifle.




Now, frankly - I had the SP before the second quirk pass, and thought it was perfectly fine.
40% total cooldown does seem a bit over the top on the surface, but in actual practice I rarely find myself making use of that, due to the reasons I bullet-pointed above: I have to take time between each salvo to properly aim, to maneuver, to make sure I won't overheat; all of which aren't nearly such large concerns using a gauss rifle (the most that can be said is you have to hold down a button as you aim, then release).

Bishop Steiner, on 20 December 2014 - 05:01 PM, said:

the guy i stalking pure nonsense out his butt, why even give him the time of day? Once I realized he was clueless, I just put him on ignore. Let him cower in the shadows afraid of the GI of Doom.... while having his imaginary 1200 pt SHD matches.
Because if the guy thinks tanking is overrated in an SHD, he obviously doesn't know how to use one, and thus, 1200 damage seems very unlikely. I have escaped focus fire more times in my SHDs than any other mech, taking enough fire to kill any Assault mech in the process.
SMH

So let's tally this up:

• you display selfish arrogance, clearly trying to display that you are such a genius as to be totally unquestionable
  
• you display a total lack of willingness to discuss any of the points I make
  
• you intentionally misrepresent my views (GI of doom? Are you kidding me? NOW who is off their meds?)
  
• you let everybody know you've put me on ignore (yet still passive-aggressively caring about what I'm posting)

At this point, is it rational to completely lose all hope that you might offer some kind of constructive, thoughtful posting in this thread? Or are you going to continue to downtrod upon anybody who happens to agree with the original premise here, that the current Hunchback GI quirks are too much to be fair and balanced?


Quit being such a stuck-up thickhead.

Edited by Telmasa, 20 December 2014 - 06:48 PM.

[YueFei]

OK, well, if the HBK-GI's 6 DPS Gauss Rifle makes you wet your pants, this build with 7.93 DPS must have you ready to break out the pitchforks:
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...037bb354fdde010

You should run this build and wreck everything in your path. You're welcome.

[Telmasa]

2AC2s + 25% ballistic cooldown = major problems with heat management (as my experience with grinding out a couple Dragons has shown).

Gauss GI has no such issue - plus, with AC-2s, your reticule has to be GLUED to an enemy to do any appreciable damage.

Gauss GI can twist and shout all damn day - just rotate back and/or peekaboo for the merest of moments every 2-3 seconds.


Also, by the way, those 3ML+gauss builds I posted a page or two ago? 7.00 maximum DPS.

So your build managed to achieve .93 more DPS than mine did, pat yourself on the back, buddy.

Edited by Telmasa, 21 December 2014 - 01:34 AM.

[Michael Abt]

It is always nice to have a theorycrafter explaining the experienced players that they are wrong because the paper says so. Every single online game has them.

[Tahribator]

With all this doom and gloom and the tales of GI's mowing down whole teams, I am yet to see one doing exceptionally in solo/group/CW. Yes, they're annoying but still nothing compared to 9S annoyance.

[Michael Abt]

Tahribator, on 21 December 2014 - 04:20 AM, said:

With all this doom and gloom and the tales of GI's mowing down whole teams, I am yet to see one doing exceptionally in solo/group/CW. Yes, they're annoying but still nothing compared to 9S annoyance.

Reason is that most GI's are running an AC20 config. Maybe nobody told them about the Gauss quirks yet?

[ShadowWolf Kell]

Bishop Steiner, on 20 December 2014 - 01:42 PM, said:

two, actually, as previously noted, it can't torso twist and tank with an XL. So it's slower, more fragile and can't poptart.

Yup, JUST like a Shadowhawk.

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...f027a4c44d88e00

Can I haz cookiez nao?

[superteds]

Telmasa, on 21 December 2014 - 01:29 AM, said:

2AC2s + 25% ballistic cooldown = major problems with heat management (as my experience with grinding out a couple Dragons has shown).

Gauss GI has no such issue - plus, with AC-2s, your reticule has to be GLUED to an enemy to do any appreciable damage.

Gauss GI can twist and shout all damn day - just rotate back and/or peekaboo for the merest of moments every 2-3 seconds.


Also, by the way, those 3ML+gauss builds I posted a page or two ago? 7.00 maximum DPS.

So your build managed to achieve .93 more DPS than mine did, pat yourself on the back, buddy.

the ac dragon will only overheat once everything is very very dead. again, it's great that you like your mech but you are deluded if you think its as good as a 4G/4SP/1N/shadowhawk

[Michael Abt]

superteds, on 21 December 2014 - 05:42 AM, said:

the ac dragon will only overheat once everything is very very dead. again, it's great that you like your mech but you are deluded if you think its as good as a 4G/4SP/1N/shadowhawk

You misunderstood him. He doesn't own the GI, he just explains why it is overpowered.

[Cow And Chicken]

Heya guys.

I have been driving it for few days now and I have to admit that for a gauss mech it's fun.
I would still be driving my Jeagers if they were viable but I find them sucking way to bad these months.

I have to say that while it's fun it's abit dangerous and sometimes I am dead before seeing battle.
Meeting a DW or even a TW make me go running for cover, even just running behind my teamies.

I have gone one on one with another medium and if they know they'r stuff I am dead.

Running it seems like an russian roulette at times, exploding without much damage taken to the mech
but that gun screams SHOOT ME!

The guys I am getting down are the ones standing still. Think they are trying for the R button then whining because
I am gone before theyr lock is on lol.

It's just like driving my raven with ER-PPC or ER-LL. You pop in, shoot, then pop out of sight.
I am hardly getting 500 damage without a very good game against bad players. If I take my TW out for a spin
I get 500+ easily (Its still in basic skill level).

So if you think that the GL is so super/uber just get one and post your uber score here in the thread.

BTW. My gun is seen before I see you. I dont know where you are. I have to aim and release the button to hit.
I have to calculate the distance vs your movement to hit and get to cover as fast as I can.
Which means you can take me out alot faster with your lazers if your aim is true....

Regards,
C&C

Edited by Cow And Chicken, 21 December 2014 - 07:12 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Michael Abt, on 21 December 2014 - 05:57 AM, said:

You misunderstood him. He doesn't own the GI, he just explains why it is overpowered.

without any actual use to back it up.

Rather like the scientific method..... oh wait...they hypothesize and then TEST exhaustively to make claims.

(checks mech bay....oh look...... every shadowhawk AND every Hunchback. All with hundreds of drops. Yup. No testing of my claims done here)

Guess he's just another smurfywarrior.