29 replies to this topic

[Hit the Deck]

I wonder why? It's a good pod space saver and itself is a pretty effective combo. Usually I use it on several of my clan mechs (HBR, TBR, and WHK). My IS robots aren't really suitable for the combo except the Highlander (the old metabuild) and Jagermech. But the Jäger can just mount dual Gauss instead.

Is it not trendy anymore today?

[Lynx7725]

Gauss and ER PPC only? Well the speed differential and the Gauss charge-up made it harder to synchronize their attack. Also claims of hit reg problems with PPCs in general. And even by Clan standards, those are fairly hefty weapons.

[Hit the Deck]

It's not only those two that a mech mounts but they are used as the sniping weapons. For sample builds, see my OP.

Yeah the speed difference makes it not pinpoint on moving enemies at long range but at less than 400-500m, they can hit the same spot on heavier and slower mechs I think. The synch issue pretty much disappears after several runs.

Edited by Hit the Deck, 25 March 2015 - 02:56 AM.

[Lily from animove]

because its bad.

Firepower is lowish, heta management isn't good with a gauss + lasers, since clanmechs run hot. that HBR; 13DHS to cool a ppc and all thta lasers, thats pointless. better make it 2 PPC's and put the rest into DHS.

same for the timber, wanna cool those E's with these 15DHS? ouch.

on top of that, PPC's with clanlaserburntime and such make you have a bad weapo synchronisation with a lot of needed time to exposure to unlaod all. very unappealing, very bad in survival.

Your warhawk is probably the only one with somewhat decent cooling yet not soemthign to use over a DWF.

[Alistair Winter]

Power creep and quirkening. Gauss + PPC does as much damage as before, but today you can do a lot more damage with laser boats. Another factor, I think, is the fact that Firestarters are more dangerous today than ever, and even the other light mechs are slightly more dangerous than before, due to quirks. The balance between the gauss + ppc heavy / assault mechs and light mechs has shifted, and lasers are a lot better for legging light mechs than gauss + ppc.

Back in the day, you could play a bit of cat and mouse with light mechs. Today, those Firestarters will **** your cat up pretty fast if you don't deal with them.

[Hit the Deck]

Lily from animove, on 25 March 2015 - 03:05 AM, said:

because its bad.

Please explain to me in what way it's bad?

Lily from animove, on 25 March 2015 - 03:05 AM, said:

Firepower is lowish, heta management isn't good with a gauss + lasers, since clanmechs run hot. that HBR; 13DHS to cool a ppc and all thta lasers, thats pointless. better make it 2 PPC's and put the rest into DHS.

same for the timber, wanna cool those E's with these 15DHS? ouch.

Perhaps I should explain that all of these mechs have is two "weapon groups":
1/ Gauss+ERPPC for long ranges
2/ Gauss+Lasers/SRMs for short ranges

So you remove the ERPPC for counting heat at short engagements and the lasers/SRMs for long ranges. With this in mind I actually arrive at a respectable cooling efficiency (more than 40% on smurfy).

As for the firepower issue, this combo only has a 5 points of damage shy from the dual Gauss Jäger but it permits one to mount more short range weaponries. I find firing dual ERPPC to be too hot for my taste.

Lily from animove, on 25 March 2015 - 03:05 AM, said:

on top of that, PPC's with clanlaserburntime and such make you have a bad weapo synchronisation with a lot of needed time to exposure to unlaod all. very unappealing, very bad in survival.

See above.

Lily from animove, on 25 March 2015 - 03:05 AM, said:

Your warhawk is probably the only one with somewhat decent cooling yet not soemthign to use over a DWF.

Yeah I like Warhawks but have a hard time making builds that work to its strength (cooling from integrated DHS).

[Hit the Deck]

Alistair Winter, on 25 March 2015 - 03:26 AM, said:

Power creep and quirkening. Gauss + PPC does as much damage as before, but today you can do a lot more damage with laser boats.

But firepower aside, you can still use Gauss+ERPPC if you want to minimize face time, like I do with my HBR to keep the ECM mech live as long as possible. At long ranges, unfortunately PPC is too slow to be used in conjuction with Gauss.

[Joseph Mallan]

I have a dual Gauss Dual CERPPC Dire Wolf. I call it Stone Rhino. It's not as good as my TT Stone Rhino but it is close.

[Alistair Winter]

Hit the Deck, on 25 March 2015 - 03:32 AM, said:

But firepower aside, you can still use Gauss+ERPPC if you want to minimize face time, like I do with my HBR to keep the ECM mech live as long as possible. At long ranges, unfortunately PPC is too slow to be used in conjuction with Gauss.

Oh yeah, it still does just as much damage, it's still deadly. But you really need to make the enemy play your kind of game in order to maintain the advantage. And at long range, the PPC projectile is too slow. At close range, the enemy has a DPS advantage and may be able to flank and thus remove your ability to use cover.

I got killed by a gauss+ppc TBR yesterday. They're still deadly. I'm just explaining why they're not as popular anymore. The rules have changed. It's not just an empty fad.

[meteorol]

Well, Gauss/PPC builds were all over the place. Basically, they were the meta. Then they nerfhammered the PPC speed to desynch it with other weapons.
They went for the nerfnuke instead of the hammer and now basically no one uses PPCs on mechs which don't have velocity quirks for them.

Those builds still pack a nice pinpoint punch, but the slow ppc speed took away a lot of the builds strenghts.

[kesmai]

You don't see it often because erll and cllpl are easier to use with gauss and give less heat.

[Hit the Deck]

Joseph Mallan, on 25 March 2015 - 03:35 AM, said:

I have a dual Gauss Dual CERPPC Dire Wolf. I call it Stone Rhino. It's not as good as my TT Stone Rhino but it is close.

Rather than a Stone Rhino, it's more like a supermetacheese build

Do you fire all of your Gauss and ERPPC at the same time for 50 damage BTW?

Alistair Winter, on 25 March 2015 - 03:39 AM, said:

Oh yeah, it still does just as much damage, it's still deadly. But you really need to make the enemy play your kind of game in order to maintain the advantage. And at long range, the PPC projectile is too slow. At close range, the enemy has a DPS advantage and may be able to flank and thus remove your ability to use cover.

I got killed by a gauss+ppc TBR yesterday. They're still deadly. I'm just explaining why they're not as popular anymore. The rules have changed. It's not just an empty fad.

When I use this Gauss+ERPPC combo, it's meant for mechs that can't mount dual Gauss well, therefore the alternative. I find that ERPPC still works decently at longish range. For short engagements, that's what the Lasers and SRMs are for It's on this aspect this combo actually better than dual Gauss because you can mount more short range weapons.

meteorol, on 25 March 2015 - 03:43 AM, said:

Well, Gauss/PPC builds were all over the place. Basically, they were the meta. Then they nerfhammered the PPC speed to desynch it with other weapons.
They went for the nerfnuke instead of the hammer and now basically no one uses PPCs on mechs which don't have velocity quirks for them.

Those builds still pack a nice pinpoint punch, but the slow ppc speed took away a lot of the builds strenghts.

Thanks for the explanation! Now I see why it isn't used more. But ERPPC still works decently IMO because it's somewhat faster.

Edited by Hit the Deck, 25 March 2015 - 03:55 AM.

[Votanin FleshRender]

Better than half the dire wolves I see pugging are dual gauss dual erppc...

[Wrathful Scythe]

Beeing fed up with lasers (or the hitreg to be precise) on clan mechs I rebuild my CW dropdeck with Gauss and PPC in mind. And those same mechs are beeing played in pugqueue of course.

I was pretty surprised at how effective it is even in pugland. I thought it would suffer because my CW deck is build around sniping enemys at great range. While I do less damage overall, I tend to do more kills and those pesky lights bite the dust even faster. And having the option to torso twist is really helping because I don't need to stare everyone down with my lasers.

[Hit the Deck]

Votanin FleshRender, on 25 March 2015 - 03:55 AM, said:

Better than half the dire wolves I see pugging are dual gauss dual erppc...

I think dual Gauss and dual ERPPC build is somewhat different than Gauss+ERPPC because the latter is meant to be fired at the same time. With the former you have the option to alpha, fire dual Gauss, dual ERPPC, or chain fire the ERPPC to hit those pesky lights.

[Lily from animove]

Hit the Deck, on 25 March 2015 - 03:27 AM, said:

Please explain to me in what way it's bad?


Perhaps I should explain that all of these mechs have is two "weapon groups":
1/ Gauss+ERPPC for long ranges
2/ Gauss+Lasers/SRMs for short ranges

So you remove the ERPPC for counting heat at short engagements and the lasers/SRMs for long ranges. With this in mind I actually arrive at a respectable cooling efficiency (more than 40% on smurfy).

As for the firepower issue, this combo only has a 5 points of damage shy from the dual Gauss Jäger but it permits one to mount more short range weaponries. I find firing dual ERPPC to be too hot for my taste.


See above.


Yeah I like Warhawks but have a hard time making builds that work to its strength (cooling from integrated DHS).

Ass aid, gauss and ERPPC do not synchronise well, this menas a opponent at range will require you to lead him with two different ranges and shooting both individually, otherwise chance tohit rises, and chance to hot the same section is a lot lower.
A Single CERPPC already runs quite hot, 14DHS is not much to cool them at all. And if you engage in closer combat, not using PPC and only your lasers, you will dps wise just suck, bevause you lakc firepower. and if you use the ppc as well, then you lack the cooling.

You invest entire 12t in that gauss + further 2-3.5 tons for ammo just to get those cool, 15 dmg.
But none of the other wepaons does truly benefit from this laodout. another ppcs and DHS will support your lasers in cqc as well, or support your sniping with 2 PPFLD PPC's a lot better.

Juts go and run around on the testing ground and try to kill off dummies and see how heat manages and how long you need to kill these non moving mechs.

Sure, you can play this mech, if you have fun in it thats more important than optimising the loadouts, but they are not really good builds at all, thats why you hardly see them in the queues.

[NeoCodex]

I've been always a fan and mostly used gauss/ppc combo on.. almost any mech that could fit it, that was the primary setup.

But after getting used to quirked ppc speeds, switching back to nonquirked the ppc seemed stupidly, stupidly, slow. Than I realised how **** it really is now. It wasn't even that great quirked, but it was at least a dependable weapon. Now it's almost a joke. Sadly. I still didn't change my ppc/gauss build on HBR tough, because that's the only weapons that an ecm heavy should carry, dammit!

[Hit the Deck]

Lily from animove, on 25 March 2015 - 04:22 AM, said:

Ass aid, gauss and ERPPC do not synchronise well, this menas a opponent at range will require you to lead him with two different ranges and shooting both individually, otherwise chance tohit rises, and chance to hot the same section is a lot lower.
A Single CERPPC already runs quite hot, 14DHS is not much to cool them at all. And if you engage in closer combat, not using PPC and only your lasers, you will dps wise just suck, bevause you lakc firepower. and if you use the ppc as well, then you lack the cooling.

Well, that's true. But it's the next best thing from dual Gauss if you want to peek-a-boo snipe on mechs that can't run dual Gauss well. As for DPS in close combat, this combo is meant for sniping builds so the fighting capability at short ranges is just a bonus (but still better than a dual Gauss setup BTW).

Lily from animove, on 25 March 2015 - 04:22 AM, said:

You invest entire 12t in that gauss + further 2-3.5 tons for ammo just to get those cool, 15 dmg.
But none of the other wepaons does truly benefit from this laodout. another ppcs and DHS will support your lasers in cqc as well, or support your sniping with 2 PPFLD PPC's a lot better.

Juts go and run around on the testing ground and try to kill off dummies and see how heat manages and how long you need to kill these non moving mechs.

Sure, you can play this mech, if you have fun in it thats more important than optimising the loadouts, but they are not really good builds at all, thats why you hardly see them in the queues.

As I said before, firing 2x ERPPC (as opposed to PPC because it's too slow) is too hot for me and it takes the short range weapons out because I need to put more DHS.

But the answer to my original question is already given by meteorol I think, that because nowadays (ER)PPCs are too slow and maybe the Gauss charge mechanics contributes somewhat to the demise of the combo.

[Widowmaker1981]

Try the HBR with Gauss + 3-4t ammo + 4xERML + TC1 + DHS. I used to use it a lot, but single gauss has a little too much difficulty to damage ratio for me (just personal preference) so now i tend to use 2xLPL + 2xERML for simplicity of use. CW builds this is, i dont often play clan mechs in pub queue anymore (because im all about the IS wub based assaults)

[FupDup]

Alistair Winter, on 25 March 2015 - 03:26 AM, said:

Power creep and quirkening. Gauss + PPC does as much damage as before, but today you can do a lot more damage with laser boats. Another factor, I think, is the fact that Firestarters are more dangerous today than ever, and even the other light mechs are slightly more dangerous than before, due to quirks. The balance between the gauss + ppc heavy / assault mechs and light mechs has shifted, and lasers are a lot better for legging light mechs than gauss + ppc.

Back in the day, you could play a bit of cat and mouse with light mechs. Today, those Firestarters will **** your cat up pretty fast if you don't deal with them.

Actually it happened because of the PPC nerf. When PPCs were 1500 m/s, the PPC + Gauss combo was a pretty huge FoTM on Dire Whales. But the instant their projectile speed got cut in half, the PPC has become a novelty really.