21 replies to this topic

[LordBraxton]

I'm an IS loyalist, but I have all the IS mechs I want till the grasshopper joins us, and I might ala carte him....

So I actually have (very f*cking)slowly grinded enough Cbills to buy a Clan mech. Any Clan mech.

I have 3 stormcrows from when they were half off, so Im not totally new to Clan tech.

However, I want a Clan mech that plays very differently from the Crow.

I'm torn between the competitive nature of the Twolf bandwagon, the sheer firepower of a wubhawk, and the beauty of a Summoner. (Also I secretly love CJF, so CJF mechs are my favorite)

Is the Summoner really THAT bad? I want a Summoner but I'm terrified I'll blow 14mil and have a ****** mech.

Also, I know the maddog is on the horizon, but with three stormcrows to my name, another laser\missile mech seems like it might not be a great entrance into the heavy class.

[Ultimax]

LordBraxton, on 03 January 2015 - 02:33 PM, said:

I'm an IS loyalist, but I have all the IS mechs I want till the grasshopper joins us, and I might ala carte him....

So I actually have (very f*cking)slowly grinded enough Cbills to buy a Clan mech. Any Clan mech.

I have 3 stormcrows from when they were half off, so Im not totally new to Clan tech.

However, I want a Clan mech that plays very differently from the Crow.

I'm torn between the competitive nature of the Twolf bandwagon, the sheer firepower of a wubhawk, and the beauty of a Summoner. (Also I secretly love CJF, so CJF mechs are my favorite)

Is the Summoner really THAT bad? I want a Summoner but I'm terrified I'll blow 14mil and have a ****** mech.

Also, I know the maddog is on the horizon, but with three stormcrows to my name, another laser\missile mech seems like it might not be a great entrance into the heavy class.

Mad Dog: Generally works best being missile heavy. If you like Missiles, you might like this, but it's not a front line mech - it's like a Dragon and a Catapult had a love child and gave it a clan xl engine.

Hell Bringer: Somewhat unique, and can run some varied builds. Like many good clan mechs it excels with energy focused builds like CLPL+CERMLAS, CERLLAS or 5x/6x CMPL. It kind of plays like a larger, ground based, Shadowhawk with ECM instead of JJs.

Summoner: Is actually one of the most agile clan mechs in the 50 to 75T range. At the moment that's the only thing that stands out about this mech - it will play differently than the Storm Crow but I'd shy away from this until clan mechs get their real quirk pass.

Timber Wolf: Plays like the Storm Crow except with MOAR. More tonnage, more weapons, more armor. Has a lot of options.



If you want something really different, you should probably be looking at the Warhawk & Dire Wolf. They play absolutely nothing like the above mechs.





I recommend you save your C-Bills for now, wait for clan quirk pass and then ask your question again.

[Escef]

The Summoner in my experience has a really good feel to it. I think I've had the most success with a quad ERLL build. Quirks gave it a nice mobility boost, with speed tweak it goes over 90 kph, which is almost unheard of for a heavy.

The hardpoints are rather anemic, but a positive side effect of that is that it is actually a little difficult to overheat the SOB.

The ballistic hard points on the D side torsos are mounted pretty high, you could do 2xUAC5 w/4 tons ammo, 2xERML, 2xERSL and near max armor and fight at any range your little heart desires.

While the Summoner isn't earthshattering, it isn't bad by any stretch of the imagination. Its only real problem is that it competes directly with the Timber Wolf as a clan heavy, and compared to the min-max goodness of the Timby, almost everything else looks a little sub-par.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Problem with the Summoner is how few loadouts you can put on it that wont have your enemy laughing in your face. Playing with it in Smurfy I cant make any builds that dont get me cringing at how bad the build is.

[Brody319]

If you want a heavy or an assault.
Maddog: missile boat
Timberwolf: Fantastic energy boat and ballistics user
Summoner: its a poptarter that has trouble poptarting because bad.
Hellbringer: Laser vomit
Warhawk: Sniper of death, LPL or PPC boater. also works as a missile boat.
Direwolf: Boat all the gun!

Nova: Core yourself!
Adder: A baby Warhawk firepower galore
Kit Fox: Raindrops ain't falling on anyone's head anymore.
Ice Ferret: go fast...
Lynx: Don't get shot...
Gargoyle: Wonder what to do with it

[OznerpaG]

Adder w/2 LPL in the torso is a lot of fun - the adder is a very short mech so it doesn't attract attention, those 2 torso mounts are cockpit level so you can shoot and scoot, and there's a lot of other loadout options if you prefer. i find i'v been going back to it here and there long after i leveled it so that says something

the Dire is another fun mech - i never piloted a mech below 75kph before i piloted a Dire and figured it'd be torture, but i was pleasantly surprised. the arm and torso mounts are all at about the same height and not that far below the cockpit so all loadouts work pretty well no matter where they'r mounted, plus of course the options are near limitless with all that available room. i find it funny that you have to have a bad game to get sub-500 dmg with it - which is fun in it's own right lol

oddly enough i never went back to the Timber after i leveled it - just don't care for it for whatever reason

started leveling the Warhawk but never finished - not a huge fan either

Summoner is a decent mech, the only issue i have is no matter what loadout you put on you end up with 20+ empty crit slots so it almost feels like you'r piloting a massive echo chamber. it takes a lot more work to achieve the same results compared to other Clam mechs since it's hardpoints and available weight for weapons are far from optimal, but it doesn't mean it isn't fun

Edited by JagdFlanker, 03 January 2015 - 04:37 PM.

[Senor Cataclysmo]

The Mad Dog with the ballistic hardpoint is a thing of beauty. My favourite mech in the game so far.

[Impossible Wasabi]

Clams are pretty tasty.

[Metus regem]

I think a Cougar Prime (Adder with dual cLPL and dual cLRM5), would be interesting for you, that is how I run mine, and it works as a support mech for something bigger.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Brody319, on 03 January 2015 - 04:28 PM, said:

If you want a heavy or an assault.
Maddog: missile boat
Timberwolf: Fantastic energy boat and ballistics user
Summoner: its a poptarter that has trouble poptarting because bad.
Hellbringer: Laser vomit
Warhawk: Sniper of death, LPL or PPC boater. also works as a missile boat.
Direwolf: Boat all the gun!

Nova: Core yourself!
Adder: A baby Warhawk firepower galore
Kit Fox: Raindrops ain't falling on anyone's head anymore.
Ice Ferret: go fast...
Lynx: Don't get shot...
Gargoyle: Wonder what to do with it

Direwolf: Boat all the guns, move like said boat.....

[Brody319]

LordKnightFandragon, on 03 January 2015 - 04:51 PM, said:

Direwolf: Boat all the guns, move like said boat.....

Land Boats!

[Navid A1]

• Run everywhere, do everything all rounder: Timber, crow and hellbringer.
  
• You want a challenge: Nova and Summoner.
  
• Jump everywhere, practice your bullet dodging skills: Mist lynx
  
• Going fast, NOT doing any real damage, and trying to protect your arms practice: Ice ferret
  
• poke at the enemy from afar: warhawk.
  
• Being a turret, shafting it up anyone who looks at you in the eyes in a wrong way: Dire wolf.
  
• showing the finger to their lurmers and the NARCs to the rest of them: Kitfox
  
• Like being a masochist: Gargoyle and Adder.

[Cyborne Elemental]

Start with a Madcat, its the most versatile mech and will be the least frustrating one in terms of learning whats best for clan tech.

You can snipe, brawl, LRMboat, SRMboat it, even load up some decent ballistic configs.

Its a jack of all trades.

Starting in a Dire or Warhawk will be diminishing returns in terms of enjoyment, most of the time you'll just get stuck in the rear to be overrun and murdered early, or be the last man standing against an entire enemy team.

[Spare Parts Bin]

I am learning to enjoy my TBR-C and WHK-B. The Dire Wolf can do almost anything except move fast.

[MonkeyCheese]

The others have been covered fine here but I will just say unless you want to go wub PLEASE stay away from the gargoyle until it gets more weapon omnipods.

One might think looking at the stats oh its just a 9M awesome with clan tech like the way I looked at it in the beginning, but it is just massive with terrible movement and is as tall as an atlas. The reason I have always loved my 9m Awesome so much is that along with that armor and speed you can combo lasers/ppcs with either srms/ssrms/lrms but you cant even pull that off well with the gargoyle or with ballistics as its M/B hardpoints are one of each on each arm.

[El Bandito]

So you got Stormcrow eh? Stormcrows are nimble buggers that can boat energy and missiles. You want opposite of that? That means slow and can boat ballistics. Which means--DIREWHALE!

[FupDup]

If you go Clam, like 80% or more of your loadouts will inevitably be laser vomit.




Or perhaps mixing SRMs with lazors. This excludes Whales, which can actually make good use of Clam ballistics (unlike the vast majority of other Clam gundams).

Edited by FupDup, 03 January 2015 - 08:40 PM.

[blood4blood]

Clam: either go stuffed, or raw, both are good.

Clan: Let's be honest...I've mastered cute foxes, novas, summones, and dire wolves, almost mastered timbers and stormcrows. Played the rest on trial versions. My take:

Kit Fox: for ecm/ams support, staying back long range, hanging out with bigger mechs. It's not a good scout or skirmisher.
Nova: has niche builds, overall it sucks.
Stormcrow: Great mech, every version.
Summoner: mediocre...not horrible, but never really good. Waste of cbills compared to TBR.
Timber: Very good mech, like SCR but with JJ option as well (the only thing the SCR doesn't have).
Dire: Very strong, but don't let anyone get behind you.
Puma, Masakari - trial versions are way too hot for anyone who's trigger-happy.

EDIT: Haven't tried Wave 2 mechs, but HBR with ECM is obvious.

Edited by blood4blood, 03 January 2015 - 08:57 PM.

[Green Mamba]

Most Important thing as a Clan Player is Whining about recently Quirked IS Mechs are now OP and Clan Mechs can't Compete anymore

[Tristan Winter]

LordBraxton, on 03 January 2015 - 02:33 PM, said:

Is the Summoner really THAT bad? I want a Summoner but I'm terrified I'll blow 14mil and have a ****** mech.

I made a conscious decision to play the least popular of the Clan mechs. Granted, the Warhawk has been a personal favourite since MW2, but I really tried to make the Summoner and Nova work, just because the TW and SCR are so blatantly overpowered.

Is the Summoner really THAT bad? Not at all. Its only problem is the small number of good builds. In my opinion, the high number of jump jets combined with the lack of Endo means that you don't really have enough free weight to make ballistic builds worthwhile. Sadly, the Hellbringer is a better platform for ballistics, even though it's a lighter mech. The Hellbringer has more weight to play with, AND more critical slots. So it's ultimately just a better platform for ballistics, IMO.

With the Summoner, I think the best choices are boating SRMs or mounting 4 energy weapons in the arms. Those are the two main choices, and you have a lot of options based on those two. Whether you go with SRM6's or a combination of SRM4+SRM6 for the SRM boat, whether you go with pulse lasers or normal lasers, whether you go with MGs or a single SRM launcher as backup weapon, that's all up to you. But the big question is whether you put 4 SRM launchers in the arms or 4 lasers.

For me, the best builds have been 4xSRM6+Art, 1xSRM4+Art with 2AMS, or... 2xLPL, 2xML, 2xMG. I suppose 2xLL, 2xML and 1xSRM6 works equally well, but I just love MGs. And I really love my Summoners.

The Warhawk has the same problems as the Summoner. It's not that the Warhawk is bad, it just has a lack of options. There's a few good builds for the Warhawk, and an infinite number of bad ones. Like the Summoner, I find that the Warhawk is a very bad ballistic weapon platform. It just doesn't have enough hardpoints and it has too many locked heatsinks. For the Warhawk, you have three main choices: quad large pulse lasers, or lots of lasers and LRMs or a combination of lasers and SRMs. One of my favourite mechs in the game is the Warhawk with dual gauss, but that's really more for fun than actually being a competitive build. Quad LPLs or SRMs + various lasers are both solid builds though. Really lots of fun to play on a relatively fast assault mech.

As for the Adder... well. It's a beautiful mech. Very fun to play. It's better than the Mist Lynx. But that's about it.