233 replies to this topic

[MischiefSC]

Blueduck, on 10 January 2015 - 07:57 PM, said:

As always I appreciate the reply. That said I must respectfully disagree very strongly. In no way is the Ice Ferret anywhere near the level of the Firstarter or stormcrow for a few reasons. Even when he functions in his niche role he is still a very limited roll compared to the IS scouts.

1) He is 10 tons heavier than the firstarter, it makes a big difference

2) Ice Ferrets weapons are largely confined to the arms making him more than a bit delicate in a light on light brawl. A streak stormcrow is a much better hunter of firestartes or other lights.

3) He has no jump jets meaning he cannot solo commando or hope to get away like a firestarter can

4) In no way does and srm 18 compete with the level of dps that a small pulse laser firestarter can doll out. That said if you put some streaks on him he could be an ok light killer but the stormcrow would still be much better.

5) He can fit a max of 4 lasers if you're running the non-prime variant, 3 if you are running the prime. He will be shredded by a firestarter 1vs1.

6) His hit boxes are bigger and he is definitely a "medium" sized mech

7) Its not the ice ferrets fault but the stormcrow and firestarter have brokenish hitboxes making them far more survivable then they should be. Again, its not the ice ferrets fault but it does make him less useful. I will take an IS XL engine with problematic hitboxes over a big boxy medium mech where the hits definitely register almost every time.

8) As highlighted in point 7 he large compared to a firestarter and not that much smaller than a stormcrow.


The ice ferret is not a terrible mech (granted his is still tier 5ish and is due for some more perks and Omni pods according to the devs) but in no way does he come close to the stormcrow or firestarter. He does serve a unique roll in the clan arsenal right now but he will not stand up to turrets and frankly the mist lynx is a much better option if you want a commando scout to sneak at the generators due to his jump jets.

I have firestarters, mist lynxs, stormcrows, and ice ferrets. I would choose the first 3 over the latter any day of the week for the reasons I outlined. He is not a terrible mech and I do have him mastered but he just can't compete on a competitive basis right now. Granted, not everything is about competition but when I'm rolling in my unit and we are storming a generator I want the mech that can stay with the group and doll out the damage which is right now the stormcrow and TW. And no mistake, this grouping is just as uberpowerful and cheap as anything the IS can throw out there.

And it is important to remember that he is only available for real money right now making him a non-option for many people.

In complete honesty having run both variants and owning 3 firestarters and 3 ice ferrets if the devs would allow it I would 100% trade you the firestarter from the IS arsenal for the ice ferret while happily throwing in the summoner as a bonus.

Trade accepted. It's not about precision on a ogen/legging mech; it's about damage sustained over time. you get 3 alphas with 5MPLs, then you overheat and likely die. 3xSRM6 is going to be closer to 7. When you talk about actual useful DPS that's the big difference. For busting ogens and popping legs that's what matters.

You don't get into a fight with Firestarters. If they are chasing you, you shake them. You should be running in a pack of 12; so your teammates behidn you are blowing his legs off with SRM18s while he's trying to shoot you and you're covering the guys in front of you. If they're running an Ogen wipe they are doing the same thing. In that context you have more firepower with better DPS for busting legs.

The difference between 30 leg armor on a Firestarter and 44 leg armor on a Ice Ferret is night and day. That's 1 more hit to take - very literally. It's enough to take a 3ERPPC shot to the leg when jumping the gate and have armor left.

It's also about the deck and uniformity of deck that lets you build. 2xIce Ferrets and 2x Timber Wolves gives you about optimal - wish I could build something comparable with IS mechs. A long range TW, a brawling TW, two objective run/leg breaker mediums with the speed of lights and 5 tons of SRM ammo.... *drool*. Nobody would run anything else. Comp teams might swap 1 TW for 1 TDR 9S if precision fire is there thing on Boreal, maybe not though. DEM CERLLs.

I just pugged a couple matches on the Clan border and it reminded me how absolutely terrible we (as in the IS) are pugging the Clan border. I've got days where I drop almost 20 matches on the Dav/Mar or Dav/Liao border and I have never, ever, not since the first week of CW, dropped with or against any less organized or less willing to be organized group of pugs in CW. If that's what you guys play against then I see why you never had to learn any tactics but a simple push or attrition match.

Against a comp team though you need to be sneaky.

[Star Wolves Admin Account]

MischiefSC, on 10 January 2015 - 08:57 PM, said:

Trade accepted. It's not about precision on a ogen/legging mech; it's about damage sustained over time. you get 3 alphas with 5MPLs, then you overheat and likely die. 3xSRM6 is going to be closer to 7. When you talk about actual useful DPS that's the big difference. For busting ogens and popping legs that's what matters.

You don't get into a fight with Firestarters. If they are chasing you, you shake them. You should be running in a pack of 12; so your teammates behidn you are blowing his legs off with SRM18s while he's trying to shoot you and you're covering the guys in front of you. If they're running an Ogen wipe they are doing the same thing. In that context you have more firepower with better DPS for busting legs.

The difference between 30 leg armor on a Firestarter and 44 leg armor on a Ice Ferret is night and day. That's 1 more hit to take - very literally. It's enough to take a 3ERPPC shot to the leg when jumping the gate and have armor left.

It's also about the deck and uniformity of deck that lets you build. 2xIce Ferrets and 2x Timber Wolves gives you about optimal - wish I could build something comparable with IS mechs. A long range TW, a brawling TW, two objective run/leg breaker mediums with the speed of lights and 5 tons of SRM ammo.... *drool*. Nobody would run anything else. Comp teams might swap 1 TW for 1 TDR 9S if precision fire is there thing on Boreal, maybe not though. DEM CERLLs.

I just pugged a couple matches on the Clan border and it reminded me how absolutely terrible we (as in the IS) are pugging the Clan border. I've got days where I drop almost 20 matches on the Dav/Mar or Dav/Liao border and I have never, ever, not since the first week of CW, dropped with or against any less organized or less willing to be organized group of pugs in CW. If that's what you guys play against then I see why you never had to learn any tactics but a simple push or attrition match.

Against a comp team though you need to be sneaky.

Oh God if only they would let us. xD I could then take out 2 Timberwolfs, 1 stormcrow, and a firestarter. Given the firestarters brokenish hit boxes it would be an unstoppable rush combo.

In regards to competitive my unit only fields 10-12 mans and we go against the like of merc star, CI, 228, etc all the time. Keep this in perspective, we played CI and Mercstar a ton and never once when they played clan did they ever take out an ice ferret when we played them.

In terms of sneaky, mist lynx is king in the clans. Small hit boxes, small geometry, and jump jets. Again, the ice ferret is a clunker compared to the mist lynx and firestater. These are the mechs we use on our commando raids, the ice ferret is of limited use due to this lack of JJ. The ice ferret can't do anything unless the generators are open unlike the mist lynx. He is also 20 tons lighter

Now, compare the 30 armor of in the legs of the firestarter compared to the 44 in the ice ferret while ignoring the ice ferrets larger geometry. Now think of the pinpoint nature of an IS small pulse laser compared to a spread weapon like the srm 6. The IS small pulse laser is almost as instantaneous as a missle and is far more accurate. In terms of legging the firestarter blows the ice ferret out of the water and will win ever single fight 1v1 if two even pilots are matched.

In its present incarnation the firestarter is a top tier tournament mech; the ice ferret is tier 4 at best. This doesn't make him terrible but in terms of competitive play you would have a hard time finding a clan or IS player that would willingly trade a firestarter for an ice ferret.

Out of curiosity do you own both 3 elited firestarters and 3 elited ice ferrets? I have and in all my experiences have I ever played a game in my ice ferret where I could not have done better in my firestarter. I found the weapons loadout in the ice ferret allowed a bit more diversity for all around play but that was really the only advantage.

Edited by Blueduck, 10 January 2015 - 09:21 PM.

[Abivard]

Blueduck, on 10 January 2015 - 09:15 PM, said:

Oh God if only they would let us. xD I could then take out 2 Timberwolfs, 1 stormcrow, and a firestarter. Given the firestarters brokenish hit boxes it would be an unstoppable rush combo.

In regards to competitive my unit only fields 10-12 mans and we go against the like of merc star, CI, 228, etc all the time. Keep this in perspective, we played CI and Mercstar a ton and never once when they played clan did they ever take out an ice ferret when we played them.

In terms of sneaky, mist lynx is king in the clans. Small hit boxes, small geometry, and jump jets. Again, the ice ferret is a clunker compared to the mist lynx and firestater. These are the mechs we use on our commando raids, the ice ferret is of limited use due to this lack of JJ. The ice ferret can't do anything unless the generators are open unlike the mist lynx. He is also 20 tons lighter

Now, compare the 30 armor of in the legs of the firestarter compared to the 44 in the ice ferret while ignoring the ice ferrets larger geometry. Now think of the pinpoint nature of an IS small pulse laser compared to a spread weapon like the srm 6. The IS small pulse laser is almost as instantaneous as a missle and is far more accurate. In terms of legging the firestarter blows the ice ferret out of the water and will win ever single fight 1v1 if two even pilots are matched.

In its present incarnation the firestarter is a top tier tournament mech; the ice ferret is tier 4 at best. This doesn't make him terrible but in terms of competitive play you would have a hard time finding a clan or IS player that would willingly trade a firestarter for an ice ferret.

Out of curiosity do you own both 3 elited firestarters and 3 elited ice ferrets? I have and in all my experiences have I ever played a game in my ice ferret where I could not have done better in my firestarter. I found the weapons loadout in the ice ferret allowed a bit more diversity for all around play but that was really the only advantage.

How to say this without you taking offense...

You are bringing public queue game mode mentality to a CW mode game.

The very concept of one-on-one is a thing you need to stop considering as your primary tenet.

This is where Adapting is needed, once you adapt to that you can then improvise and overcome. Or you could just give up and post reasons why you CAN'T but others CAN.

They're to many player's who are able to DO, what you claim can not be done, perhaps you should consider that.

[MischiefSC]

Blueduck, on 10 January 2015 - 09:15 PM, said:

Oh God if only they would let us. xD I could then take out 2 Timberwolfs, 1 stormcrow, and a firestarter. Given the firestarters brokenish hit boxes it would be an unstoppable rush combo.

In regards to competitive my unit only fields 10-12 mans and we go against the like of merc star, CI, 228, etc all the time. Keep this in perspective, we played CI and Mercstar a ton and never once when they played clan did they ever take out an ice ferret when we played them.

In terms of sneaky, mist lynx is king in the clans. Small hit boxes, small geometry, and jump jets. Again, the ice ferret is a clunker compared to the mist lynx and firestater. These are the mechs we use on our commando raids, the ice ferret is of limited use due to this lack of JJ. The ice ferret can't do anything unless the generators are open unlike the mist lynx. He is also 20 tons lighter

Now, compare the 30 armor of in the legs of the firestarter compared to the 44 in the ice ferret while ignoring the ice ferrets larger geometry. Now think of the pinpoint nature of an IS small pulse laser compared to a spread weapon like the srm 6. The IS small pulse laser is almost as instantaneous as a missle and is far more accurate. In terms of legging the firestarter blows the ice ferret out of the water and will win ever single fight 1v1 if two even pilots are matched.

In its present incarnation the firestarter is a top tier tournament mech; the ice ferret is tier 4 at best. This doesn't make him terrible but in terms of competitive play you would have a hard time finding a clan or IS player that would willingly trade a firestarter for an ice ferret.

Out of curiosity do you own both 3 elited firestarters and 3 elited ice ferrets? I have and in all my experiences have I ever played a game in my ice ferret where I could not have done better in my firestarter. I found the weapons loadout in the ice ferret allowed a bit more diversity for all around play but that was really the only advantage.

I never get along with Abivard and yet you just made me like one of his posts.

You're not going to fight a Firestarter in a Ice Ferret - you're not shooting at each other. You're either trying to stay out of his range and avoid him shooting at you or he's doing the same thing back. Even more to the point you're blowing the RT out of the back of TDRs when they're rushing.

You're trying to play CW like pug queue. You can't play like CI and 228; none of the rest of us can, cuz we don't practice and sync our builds and spend a bunch of money on the right hardware setup and config files and such. There's a lot that goes into playing at the comp level and due to the steep nature of the skill curve grants increasingly smaller returns for larger and larger investments of effort. This isn't a MW:O thing it's a human skill think, applies to everything. Getting from College level to Pro level is a huge shift in effort and energy and investment for a relatively minor improvement of skill. Moving from there to 'Olympic' level is a massive, massive investment for only a couple % better. World record for running a mile is 3:43. You have college level at 4:15 seconds; 30 seconds shaved off running a mile is the difference between a great college athlete and the worlds greatest record.

Comp teams don't run complex decks because they don't have to. They have spent years perfecting focused fire and they bring those skills to CW. For the rest of us you need to get good at the shell game. I've beaten a 6man of a top tier comp team + a couple smaller but organized groups with 12 pugs via a well run shell game. You could probably beat a comp team with a solid 12man of non-comp players with a well run plan and setup and it probably happens from time to time.

Quit looking at the Ice Ferret as a competitor for the Firestarter. Look at it as a tool to do a specific thing. Run 12 of them with SRM6s to clear ogens. Just try it 1 time. May 10 Ice Foxes and 2 Myst Lynx if you have them, all SRMs if you can run them and try to roll all 3 ogens plus some Omega damage and see how far you get. You don't NEED JJs. JJs help a little but they actually cause more issues than they solve; other than right in front of Omega you want to be on the ground anyway. When you JJ you are on a predictable path and easier to leg. Just practice jigging. Try it and see what happens. It may take a little practice. Ideally since you guys haven't been doing this since day 1 do some private matches on maps with uneven ground and get used to zagging in ways that keep your legs covered while people shoot at you.

Saving my cbills for King Crabs or I'd buy an Ice Ferret and roll some matches with you . Don't suppose you feel like making an alt account and rolling with the IS for a bit? You guys just don't play anything like we do - your matches feel, at least from this side, way more like pug/premade mixed queue with respawns. South Side matches do not, at all. Mixed rushes and attrition, goal oriented and run in 4 specific waves each with very specific goals and mechs built for them.

I'd love the ice ferret. Its hitboxes are smaller than my Griffins and it's 50% faster, plus dat CXL! For the price of which I get a little bit more armor, a couple JJs and 2 MLs but inferior heat management and less ammo. Flat out would love to trade you.

[Star Wolves Admin Account]

Thank you from the input from both of you guys Mischief and Abivard but I think we are largely saying the same thing. We do agree that the ice ferret serves a specific role and is not a terrible mech; my only point is that at present there are better tools in the clan arsenal to do some of the things you mentioned. He's not terrible by any means but most of the things you've mentioned we've tried at various points and found the mist lynx to be better suited due to his size and weighing less tons. He's still fun to play with though.

In regards to the alt its funny you mentioned that but a lot of the people in my unit want to go back to their IS mechs for a bit so we're going to be doing something like that in the future. I miss using my atlas's, firestarters, and cataphracts.

I'll keep you posted and we'll get some games in Mischief.

Edited by Blueduck, 11 January 2015 - 12:10 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Alt up, go fwl or fs or Liao. Get in the faction ts and drop with some units. We have a lot of fun and sportsmanship is a big deal; look at the Dav/mar forums. It's a fun but competitive environment. Just please as on the faction ts what sort of drop deck you should run. Its a very different place but a lot of fun. We try to make sure everyone is having fun.

Come play. If it's dull up north come down south for a bit. Don't even need alts - bust your contact, come down here for a couple weeks then go back. Go with a southern (rimward) faction, we're all pretty cool right now. Love to have you guys to fight with or against.

[Slapshot]

I stopped dropping in community warfare once I realized it's just two maps and one game mode for eternity. With team play it can be fun at times but getting rolled over by experienced teams over and over again for some placeholder planet that has no meaning is not worth the wait times to get into a fight.

Don't get me wrong I think you will see more clanners willing to fight you when CW gets a bit more attention from PGI but right now there just is not enough reason for solo players to put up with it and I think tons of us are not dropping anymore. Once I realized the cool looking map is really where the immersion of community warfare ends why would I waste 20 minutes just to get into a drop so I can be farmed when I can grind out skills in public matches in rapid succession?

Edited by Slapshot, 11 January 2015 - 05:43 PM.

[Star Wolves Admin Account]

Slapshot, on 11 January 2015 - 04:55 PM, said:

I stopped dropping in community warfare once I realized it's just two maps and one game mode for eternity. With team play it can be fun at times but getting rolled over by experienced teams over and over again for some placeholder planet that has no meaning is not worth the wait times to get into a fight.

Don't get me wrong I think you will see more clanners willing to fight you when CW gets a bit more attention from PGI but right now there just is not enough reason for solo players to put up with it and I think tons of us are not dropping anymore. Once I realized the cool looking map is really where the immersion of community warfare ends why would I waste 20 minutes just to get into a drop so I can be farmed when I can grind out skills in public matches in rapid succession?

I agree. I don't like the excuse of we stopped playing because good merc units flipped is valid. Its ok to lose, its the only way to get better.

The problem is, its just not very much fun right now. I really tried to love it in its present state. I tried to be competitive and do a little bit of banter with my IS buddies but in the end I really felt no enjoyment in the competition in CW at the moment. This is largely due to the maps, drop decks, and wins strategies.

Expect most clanners to return after a patch or two once more variety is added. I have a total of 2 12 mans we can throw on at almost any night so the numbers will return once the fun is there.

Edited by Blueduck, 11 January 2015 - 08:19 PM.

[Fox Kell]

Klappspaten, on 06 January 2015 - 02:03 PM, said:

Oh yeah, now its the OP mechs and the OP units. You didn´t see us cop out when we got a beating.

Because the beatings were legit. We didnt have comp teams doing it for us and we also didnt use 9S spam or Firestarter zerg rushes.

When this **** is fixed, clanners will come back and lay waste to the IS like it was doing before **** got stupid.

[Malzel]

Yeah, back then it was just good old-fashioned TBR spam and SCR zerg rushes. And it certainly isn't MercStar's tag on half the early-conquered FRR worlds. Spare me the rose-tinted glasses.

No harm done in taking a break, though. Matter of fact, take your time coming back. Clan Wolf hasn't been the most graceful loser, but you guys were even less graceful winners.

[Abivard]

Wolf seems to have rolled belly up.

CGB has a strong infusion of the Largest and best Merc units fighting for it. Steiner lost most of their NA merc units, they went to CGB for the most part, the 228 came to the FRR. But without mercs Steiner has little stomach for fights vs the clans.

CSJ is going strong like always, they are probably the best organized and coordinated faction in CW at this time. Their lone IS border and single clan border greatly benefits them as they are also one of the smaller factions in overall pop.

CJF lost many NA units, but some few top notch CJF units remain. But as the smallest clan faction faced against the Largest IS factions of the Steiner/Davion alliance, sheer numbers alone have stalled them. this may soon change.

[Fox Kell]

Malzel, on 12 January 2015 - 01:08 PM, said:

Yeah, back then it was just good old-fashioned TBR spam and SCR zerg rushes. And it certainly isn't MercStar's tag on half the early-conquered FRR worlds. Spare me the rose-tinted glasses.

No harm done in taking a break, though. Matter of fact, take your time coming back. Clan Wolf hasn't been the most graceful loser, but you guys were even less graceful winners.

Wolf or clans that I know of never used 8-9 TBR's in a match, its just not viable.

[Tunes of war]

finally we have some action again now we have to defend our territory and concentrate on CGB

dont fight clan wolf anymore... throwback the bears....

Edited by Tunes of war, 13 January 2015 - 05:56 AM.

[Malzel]

Fox Kell, on 12 January 2015 - 06:03 PM, said:

Wolf or clans that I know of never used 8-9 TBR's in a match, its just not viable.

I'm not sure when you started playing, then. From day 1, 1x TBR + 3x SCR was an extremely common drop deck for weeks, and was extremely viable for generator rushes. There are better setups now that O-gens exist and now that we've learned how to contain those rushes, but let's not pretend like we're doing anything different than the Clans do. You have your good mechs that you spam against us, and we have our good mechs that we spam against you. That's the idea of asymmetrical game balance.

Honestly, I think the biggest shift that the Clans are feeling is that when CW started, a high volume of Inner Sphere players were running the same garbage builds that they liked to use in PUG matches, against the Clans' inherently long range and high speed which gave the Clans the advantage in CW's objective-based gameplay. Your average early Clan drop was always a mix of TBRs, SCRs, DWFs, which are all very good mechs unless you're running a phenomenally bad loadout, where as your early IS drops were a mixed bag of the many, many IS mechs, a lot of which still aren't good at all, and with loadouts so illogical it blew my mind. I would routinely spectate PUGs that joined our drops using stock loadouts, and even single heatsinks. Just bizarre.

So the difference you're feeling is that more and more IS players finally got the picture that their mechs were bad and were losing matches for us, and started using good loadouts on good mechs. (Such as TDRs, yes) You're just fighting an IS that's finally starting to make use of its factional advantages, and so it feels much harder than when you were just rolling PUGs and inexperienced teams that weren't playing wisely. The FS9 and TDR aren't new, they've been great since the start of CW, we're just finally getting more people to use them.

I still think the Clans are being enormous divas about it, though, and the fact that complaining about it in the FRR forum appears to be a favorite Clan Wolf past time still puzzles me.