Necromantion, on 23 February 2015 - 09:41 AM, said:
Once again I and a lot of other players in merc units have played both factions 50/50 from the inception of CW and our win/loss record is no different from one faction to the other. Teamwork and competence are what matters and having the brains to bring the right loadouts for each game type and map. Altering your play to conform to quirks and optimize your play makes IS mechs more than competitive with Clans if not even certain builds to be even stronger than Clans.
Just adding in my 2 cents, but have you played IS vs Clan on the IS side since the nerfs to the TDR-9S? The match-up feels more in favour of Clans now. Sadly, the TDR-9S was the biggest contributor to IS-Clan balance and the 20-30pts of front-loaded damage did make it superior (in skilled hands) to the laser vomit Mechs of the Clans until it lost 2 of it's ER PPCs OR you pushed in hard with your Clan Mechs en masse.
QQ Mercs is now on the Clan side and it is certainly a lot easier than it used to be fighting vs IS. Now the biggest threat is the STK-4N, but it is actually easier to kill it than the TDR-9S, despite it's higher mounted weapons and additional toughness. The burn time of the LL is shorter, but you can get as much damage on it as you take, thanks to the extended range/damage per ton of the Clan lasers, not to mention ability to boat as many DHS as a STK in a mech that is 10 tons lighter.
The 3rd Clan pack is going to shift even more in favour to the Clans with 2 new ECM options, one of which can make a good ER PPC/Gauss jump sniper. The new DWF-S omnipods are still not widely used, so its effects are minimal in the grand scheme of things, but it makes the DWF a LOT better for mobility and damage mitigation. Once these are available for C-Bills, you will see the Whales dominating even more than they have been. The King Crab was supposed to be the answer to the DWF, but it fell short of that due to it's low-slung arms and huge CT hitbox/flat-top.
LRMs are in favour of the Clans, despite the front-loaded IS option, simply due to the superior ECM chassis available to the Clans (Hellbringers and eventually the Arctic Cheetah and Shadow Cat). The IS needs an ECM-capable Heavy in a bad way.
The Arctic Cheetah will eliminate the IS light advantage with an equally fast, ECM- and Jump-capable light that doesn't die to a side torso blow-out and can pack up to 6 energy weapons with the ECM included. Good bye Firestarters!
IS Quirks were made to compensate for Clan tech superiority in the absence of fighting 10v12. There is a reason why many merc units who flip between Clan and IS are preferring fighting as Clans going forward. Sadly, as much as I like to run both, I just don't see the IS being able to match the Clans. Soon Clans are getting more quirks for their "weaker" Mechs, which means the baseline of power is moving toward being on par to SCR/HBR/TBR levels rather than bringing those down to a more equivalent IS baseline.
Soon enough, the "Clans are OP" argument will become clearly validated, regardless of equal skill level between the 2 sides.