Posted 02 March 2015 - 02:25 AM
I play both time of mechs almost every day and these are some considerations:
- The problem and the huge advantage of any IS laser is the beam time: faster beam→less spray→more focused damage→more efficient. Simple as that. So you can move out of cover, fire and tank the return fire. Clan mechs can't to that, they have to look at the target for longer time. Also, that's why many clanners boat a lot of weapons, thinking that more weapons→more damage→more efficient. Nope, more weapons=more difficult heat management unless the target is standing still (=suicide).
Personally I would trade the reduced weight for quicker beam time immediately. There's no point in dealing a lot of damage to both legs, arms and side torsos when you can do less damage overall but more focused in the CT.
- Boating is a problem both for IS and Clans. However, for clans is also a necessity: AC are quite bad and also are very heavy. I perfectly know that IS' AC are heavier, but IS mechs can mount FF+ES+lighter engines. Demostration is that clans don't have a mech with 2xGauss (except for the Daishi). Improving Clans AC is a very important step to reduce laser boating.
- ATM IS has some better designed mechs with higher weapons (stalker, jager, etc) whereas Clanner has less good options (hellbringer) but I think Wave III will adress this.
Btw, the Stalker is a very good mech and I think is the best chassis atm for IS (well, unless it's used by some idiot to boat LRM. That's a totally wasted mech!). I think it shares the same hitboxes of the TWolf, even the latter tanks damage better due to higher mobility (even a bit too much I think).
- The current quirks are totally off. PGI should make them more centered on durability instead of cooldown and heat. Oherwise we could expect a Masakari Prime with the same quirks of the Awesome. Can you image what a moster we'll have then?
- I also would love to see some improvement to the FF. Perhaps make it rise your max armour by a small percentage. It has to be a good alternative to ES, especially for assaults.
That being said, my favourite MWO "easy mode mechs" are: Hellbringer 2xER LL, 4x E ML (Avg dmg: 564; KDR: 3.01) and King Crab 4x UAC5, 2xML (Avg dmg: 621; KDR: 2.4).
Last thing: teamplay is OP. A better team will usually beat a bunch of pugs, even if they have better mechs.