Styxx42, on 10 March 2015 - 04:26 PM, said:
I wanted to reply before readying everyone else reason.
ANKLE FIRE POSITION.
That is it in a nut shell.
You fire 90% of your weapons from your feet, you clip every rock, pebble and grass blade. you are only effective in Mining colony(Totally flat ground) Even then if you are above them forget it, You have to be stepped out to point down.
HORRIBLE firing platform
Then PGi Ghost H lasers and I have never been back. I own three, I love what it looks like.
HATE how it performs.
Only mech I do not want to master.
Frankly I would take my Wolverine any day of the week over this mech.
This is a great argument, a couple people have mentioned it earlier but I'm glad someone just singled in on and goes Dennis Miller all over it.
It's definitely one of those things that can instantly ruin chances of a quick kill on something and allow it to riposte. Turfing sucks. Tart that ****! xD
Lord Scarlett Johan, on 10 March 2015 - 04:28 PM, said:
When me and some of the QQ guys were putting light mechs through the ringer when quirks hit, we would do a best of 5 then rotate pilots. So it be Pilot X in Mech A vs Pilot Y in mech B for 5 rounds, then Pilot X in Mech B vs Pilot Y in mech A for 5 rounds and we'd rotate out pilots pretty frequently too. We'd have like 6 to 10 guys all doing it simultaneously too.
I'd be down for getting it set up in the next couple of days, I've always got Premium Time rolling and I'm sure I can get some of the QQ guys in on it.
If you guys actually come up with some sort of "1v1 Clan vs IS" make sure you get it real balanced (cuz Clanners should win 1v1 according to lore right), and I'm definitely interested in at least watching.
aniviron, on 10 March 2015 - 04:28 PM, said:
I've really tried to make the Nova work, it's my favourite mech in BT and I own the three you can get in MWO, but I just don't like it. I've run the 12SPL build you use, but it's far too feast/famine for my tastes. Either you catch a bunch of people standing still from behind like in your video and you kill them fast, or someone with real guns sees you 600m away and you end up with no arms or no legs really fast.
Other things I don't like about the Nova: I noticed that not once did any of your lasers hit the ground; again, it's great when all your weapons hit, but I can't think of a single mech I own with lower-mounted weapon hardpoints, and it's incredibly common and terribly frustrating to fire a 12 laser alpha and have six of them hit the floor because the lasers are not only on low arms, but they're on the bottom of the arm as well.
It's laughably sluggish. Compare it to the Stormcrow or Griffin, five tons heavier but much more agile, or the Hunchback, at the same tonnage but with far superior twist. It almost feels like I'm piloting an Awesome, given how slowly the mech turns and twists, especially with the low hardpoints.
The natural solution is to use the jumpjets, but they don't provide nearly the turn speed that they once did, and given that using JJs now not only stops you from sinking heat but builds it up, that's a gamble at best in a Nova. It's generally not worth the tradeoff, I feel.
Finally, the thing has abysmal hitboxes. The CT can be hit from literally any angle, it's impossible to shield. All the weapons are in the arms, which are hilariously easy to shoot off. The legs are quite prominent, and it's not uncommon to lose them quickly as well. Your side torsi are reasonably sized, but not safe in the same way a Dragon or Awesome's used to be.
So the thing about the Nova is that it's only useful trait is those 12E hardpoints. That means coming up with a build that uses 8 or more energy weapons; otherwise, you might as well just use a Hellbringer or Stormcrow, both of which are more agile, better armed, and have better hitboxes and weapon locations, not to mention more tonnage for heatsinks.
If we're talking about using 8+ energy weapons, your options are: 12 ER SL, 12 SPL, 8ML, or 6 ER ML + 6 ER SL. The 6+6 build feels weak to me; at range it's worse than most builds it will be fighting, and up close you're still limited somewhat by ghost heat, and still going to run quite hot. The 12 ER SL and 12 SPL builds are very strong if you get the drop on someone lighter than you or already hurt, but if you're forced to cover open ground like on Alpine, Caustic, Mordor, and a handful of other maps, good luck with that. 8 ER ML is just enough to run unpleasantly hot while still not really providing you much of an advantage at range.
The only build I have really found that works for the Nova is 2 ER PPC; all the jumpjets actually make it a pretty decent poptart, even in this day and age. The downside is that even though it's 15 tons heavier than the adder, it only has a 7% cooling boost over it with the same loadout, which is pretty disappointing for a 15 ton gap, and one that spans a weight class no less. In an Adder, you're faster and more agile despite lacking jumpjets, and the weapons are much higher so you can still be a competent sniper.
Oh, and props to Soy for using Foregone Destruction and Colossus in the video. The original UT had such a fantastic soundtrack.
I have three Novae, three Mist Lynxes, and four Awesomes, so if you want someone to duel, I'm game.

Nice deep post, here's response...
- I'm usin 10 not 12 I think this is very important distinction. But they are same "thing" basically, I'll definitely give you that.
- When someone sees you 600m out posted, and you go into their sight line, you ****** up. Straight up. It's a no-no. It sucks. Can't do it. I work really hard and limiting that, I think it requires more work than getting a mastery of a weapon cadence, this mech's monstrous heat, or aiming. I think proper ninja **** and patience goes a long way.
- It is sluggish. This is what gets it armed or legged from that 600m in the first place, is you showed into sight line and it takes about 3-4 seconds to even move back 10 meters. Ugh. I'd poop rainbows for a week if this thing even got 5% acceleration bonus, but I keep 'buff hopes' out of sight out of mind.
- I think people have given up on JJs or maybe feel romantic about how they used to be... I spent so much time away that coming back I just isolated the Clan mech with the best 'tart' feel and went with it, I guess I'm trying to remain ignorant or optimistic about it I guess. Maybe people should I dunno, hit themselves in the head with a hammer and then after recovering, try and just isolate JJs in training or in practice solo play, and really get a full understanding of them again as they currently are, without constantly harping back to how they 'used to be'. And believe me, I know how they used to be. Just let it go I guess and accept it, get comfy, and use em as you can... :/
- I really like the ER PPC shoulder Nova, maybe throw like 2 smalls in each hand for fun and dynamic play, it's not able to do anything 'best' at that point but it's able to do proper Clan snipe tarting. Which is cool. I'd imagine some of you miss that after the Timber/JJ nerf, eh? So maybe that's the route some have gone with it and are deep into that as a comfort or bias of the Nova... reminds me, last night it occured to me, if I could put JJs on any mech (and since I'm currently Clan-only) I said.... Adder? 2x PPC on that thing w/ JJs would be fun I think, but that's a fantasy.
- Music is just **** I was watching or listening to. That's why some of it is like, dialogue from TV shows. I only added the "triple kill" kid and "wombo combo" at the beginning to firewall against idiots who want an excuse to not watch the vid, and to make fun of myself. I had UT soundtrack playing at one point. I didn't record a lot of footage, only a couple nights worth, so that's why you hear UT twice and Busta like four times or whatever... meh, it is what it is.
Ultimatum X, on 10 March 2015 - 04:36 PM, said:
I can see not agreeing with all of his builds or the finer points of where in a tier a mech should be or if it should be one tier higher/lower.
I think "absurd" is about the same level of stretching a word as saying the Nova "sucks" or is "useless".
Ok then it washed out semantically; content.
What I'm really hitting at it is that sort of thing tends to make people play like sheep and very linearly. Which is awful when the virtue of BT/MW is customization for the fun of it. Min/max should always be second imo.