40 replies to this topic

[TLX]

DemarticusStone, on 06 May 2015 - 11:55 PM, said:

Well this is my last post for today, I've yet to download the game due to crappy internet and would take me 6 Hours to download.

I'll work around with the Jager DD Model, although, I still want defensive modifications, like have my Gauss Rifle and then have a defensive Energy or Ballistic Weapon to defend itself within close range.

Yeah,but put at least 3 machine guns if u want something decent as defensive skills. Machineguns do the slowest damage but in groups of 4 do good work,specially vs internals.

[Koniving]

DemarticusStone, on 06 May 2015 - 11:55 PM, said:

Well this is my last post for today, I've yet to download the game due to crappy internet and would take me 6 Hours to download.

I'll work around with the Jager DD Model, although, I still want defensive modifications, like have my Gauss Rifle and then have a defensive Energy or Ballistic Weapon to defend itself within close range.

You can edit the post. Also the post limits will go away once you complete 25 matches. It is some sort of anti-bot measure that keeps spam (usually kitchen remodels or find love from foreign countries with mail-order brides) limited to easy to police areas.

Defensive is a good idea. The Jagermech design I have in the screenshots uses twin TAGs (mostly for finding and getting around invisible wall issues) which will mark an enemy with a crosshair. This immediately draws the attention of any LRM-user in the area who will rain it with showers of death if possible. In addition to enabling LRM users to be more accurate against the target I intend to shoot at (which gravitates their fire to my target, helping me), I also carry 4 machine guns which -- when used against the exposed structure when armor is gone -- has extremely high chances of doing significantly extra damage not only to internal equipment (ammo, heatsinks, weapons) but also to the structure itself. Inexperienced players don't think of it as a threat, but indeed it is one of the most devastating threats that can be used; provided the Mech firing the MGs is slow enough to keep consistent firepower on target.

Most MG users are fast, and cannot focus their fire.

Alternatively, I can recommend pulse lasers for rapidly deadly responses, or if your leftover tonnage is light, possibly using standard lasers.

For the JM6-DD I recommend medium pulse lasers if you plan on an energy defense. For the JM6-S, four medium lasers (same weight, more beam time, almost twice as much damage though). For the JM6-A, I would use Streak Missiles and Beagle Active Probe instead for a very devastating defense. Alternatively twin SRM-6s.(Streak missile and medium pulse laser demonstration here; using a Catapult CPT-C4).

Edited by Koniving, 07 May 2015 - 12:18 AM.

[SethAbercromby]

DemarticusStone, on 06 May 2015 - 11:35 PM, said:

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...3cc40f2bb77b57b

Here is my current build, is it decent?

If you feel changes need to be made, feel free to do so to guide me in the right path and just link it back to me

Okay, let's do the most obvious improvements. First, you'll want Endo Steel on top of Ferro. This gives you a lot of extra tonnage to play with. With that you can now stack 2 additional MGs into the left arm to justify 4 Tons of Ammo and increase Gauss ammo to a total of 5 tons. Basically, you will not be running out of ammo any time soon.

Now we can up the armor values to near-max levels, tweek the front/rear ratio of your torsos for some extra durability and throw in 2 medium lasers for additional pew pew. This however asks for a DHS upgrade and we throw in one heat sink into the external slot of your engine for good measure.

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...300aa4db495bd82

Edited by SethAbercromby, 07 May 2015 - 12:56 AM.

[jss78]

Among IS mediums, I'm getting a lot of milage using the SHD-2K as a long-range mech. With 3xERLL on that left shoulder, it's really great for throwing mean long-range punches with minimal exposure.

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...9bac99097cd24d2

(My build isn't quite meta -- I enjoy running 3xSRM2 as a secondary armament, but I guess many would drop those for more heat sinks. I just find the chain-fired SRM2 "rocket machine gun" so hilarious that I can't make myself part with it.)

It's really, really effective where I play, which is ~low-Elo PUG. I'm getting around 420 damage average and I'm a mediocre player at best. Although I think in low-Elo games long-range mechs are generally good, because you get so many enemies who aren't exactly mathematical about which trades are worth making. I get surprisingly many people come for a second serving of 3xERLL, even when they really shouldn't, as their weapons don't do much more than scrape off some paint.

Edited by jss78, 07 May 2015 - 08:29 AM.

[Crotch RockIt]

Gauss on a Jager is fine, but if you're running a DD, I'd stick with the excellent UAC/5 quirks.

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...9f9a42e97ddd672

[jss78]

SethAbercromby, on 07 May 2015 - 12:50 AM, said:

Okay, let's do the most obvious improvements. First, you'll want Endo Steel on top of Ferro. This gives you a lot of extra tonnage to play with. With that you can now stack 2 additional MGs into the left arm to justify 4 Tons of Ammo and increase Gauss ammo to a total of 5 tons. Basically, you will not be running out of ammo any time soon.

Now we can up the armor values to near-max levels, tweek the front/rear ratio of your torsos for some extra durability and throw in 2 medium lasers for additional pew pew. This however asks for a DHS upgrade and we throw in one heat sink into the external slot of your engine for good measure.

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...300aa4db495bd82

4 ton of ammo for 3xMG is still a lot. I run MGs a lot, and I'd never, ever carry more than 0.5 t per gun. I'd drop two tons of 2 MG ammo and then add 2 more MG in the other arm. That leaves one ton to add AMS.

I think 5 tons of ammo for a single Gauss Rifle is also quite a lot -- I might drop a half ton and increase armour especially in those arms which carry so much of your armament. I'm a pretty sucky player and even I know to shoot the arms off Jagermechs at first opportunity.

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...94506ccf593728d

[Wronka]

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...9ab07cca133ee73

I vote this.... the only problem is the King Crab is expensive!

[TheMagician]

The best:
Assault: Stalker 4N: 4-6 Large Lasers
Heavy: Timberwolf: 2 lrg pulse + Gauss (I don't recommend clan erll very often as their duration is too long)
Medium: Stormcrow 2 lrg pulse 2 medium lasers or Wolverine 6K 4 large lasers (or 3 LL + 2 ml) or you can evendo 4 erll.
Light: Raven 4X 2 er large lasers.

Some other good options include:
Assault: DireWolf 2 erll, 3 gauss
Heavy: Summoner erppc/gauss, Jager-S 2-gauss, TDR-9S 2erppc, TDR-5SS 4ERLL, Hellbringer 2-3 erll + meds + ecm, timberwolf 3 lrg pulse
Medium: Nova 2 erppc, shadowhawk 2K 3ERLL (a bit warm though),
Light: Raven 2X 3 large lasers (or 2LL + 2 med lasers), raven 3L 2ERLL + ECM, panther 9R 2ppcs.

Edited by TheMagician, 07 May 2015 - 09:49 AM.

[TLxB]

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...635c99358338cc6

Check this,since im a fan of machine guns. This mech have long range skills with defensive capabilities. Maybe its not ur desire,but at least u will do massive damage to internals when the armor,weakened by lasers are gone

Edited by TLxB, 07 May 2015 - 10:35 AM.

[Palor]

As you will see there will be many suggestions of best/preferred long range sniper build. You will probably spend a pile of C-bills buying various weapons and testing them to find your place in the game.

Dual gauss jaegers are lethal, but once spotted they tend to get killed right away, too dangerous to let them live.

ER PPC Thunderbolts are not too bad, I find I prefer them over Gauss sniper builds.

Raven 4x has the ability to use to ERLL's with lethal accuracy to 945m (with mod)

I have and pilot Jaegers, T-bolts and Ravens and enjoy all 3 machines and all their variants.

[HlynkaCG]

DemarticusStone, on 06 May 2015 - 11:35 PM, said:

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...3cc40f2bb77b57b

Here is my current build, is it decent?

If you feel changes need to be made, feel free to do so to guide me in the right path and just link it back to me

You don't need nearly that much machine gun ammo and MGs themselves are rather weak.

Assuming you lack the CBills for an XL engine and a second gauss you'd be far better off investing that tonnage in armor and and some back-up lasers.

You'll also want to "front load" that armor, 25 points of rear armor is excessive even for an an assault platform much less for a sniper like the Jager. 8 - 12 pts of rear armor should be enough to protect you from random sneak attacks so long as you respond to them quickly.

The following build is a very simple (and reasonably cheap) upgrade to the stock Jager DD, the ,ost expensive items are the Gauss Rifles themselves.

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...138455a3ca2ef78

A bit of a "Glass Cannon" but supremely dangerous in the hands of a skilled pilot. As you earn more CBills and XP you can swap it's Ferro Fiberous armor for an endo steel skeleton which will free up additional tonnage for more ammo armor and equipment.

[Spleenslitta]

When asking for the best longrange mech it's a hard question to answer since there are so many answers depending on what you're looking for.

Do you want the mech that can mount the most firepower in high mounting points?
Or a fast mech that can shot from long range and relocate before the enemy can respond?
Something with ECM so you're slightly more safe when coming out of cover to make your shot?

Mech with lot's of JJ's to jump on top of places nobody will expect you to shoot from?
ECM/JJ combo mech capable of hitting hard at long range?
Maybe something capable of brawling, JJ'ing all over the place and yet fast with decent firepower even if you sacrifise some long range firepower for some lightweight backup weapons?

There are so many types of builds for sniper mechs. So very many.....

If you're still worried about pay 2 win don't be.
A lot of the hero mechs you have to pay money to use are worse or just about the same tier as the ones you pay nothing for.

[JC Daxion]

It is not so much the mech, but the weapons and the quirks.. Someone linked you to smurfy already, so click on the main page, and scroll down to the quirks.. You want a mech that has....


AC5,

ER large laser or larger laser

Gauss rifle

ER PPC or PPC

those are the main weapons, and one of the 65 ton mechs is probably your best bet. Of course there are also long range missiles too, which i find a lot of fun, and work perfectly well in pugs, but honestly to me their name is deceiving, as they really are not the best long range weapon. LRM's shine in the 250-400m range, where other long range weapons can work very well past that. Unless a mech is way out in the open, lrms just don't work well at the 600+ range.


So all that said, I would suggest a 65 ton heavy, Jager, or thunder bolt. the jags are slanted towards ballistic, and t-bolts energy. they have good armor and speed, and can haul a decent load out. As for armor, you pretty much want to max it everywhere, though you can scrap a bit off the legs, or head for the most part, though lights you would always max, for the rest, you can go med 40, heavy 50, assault 60 as a basic point of reference. Just keep in mind the heavy mech que always takes longer by a few mins on average so if that bugs you, you might wanna try mediums.

Other mechs, the cicada's for 40 ton mechs, the 3M for ac-5, or the 3C with a insianly quirked ERPP, with an XL-300 engine, they are almost as fast as lights, but haul a really nice loadout, and can make a great long range mech, with the speed to flank well.

as for best, really there is no such thing for the most part, though take a look at this, these are what people consider the better mechs at this point in time, but remember, this changes and next year i would be surprised if there isn't a whole new batch of so called "best" mechs
http://mwomercs.com/...yyid-statistics

[Leone]

Looking at your Jager build, I can only say, too much MG ammo. As a long range sniper, you'll be wanting to keep outside the Machine Gun range, to wit, you shouldn't be using em enough to need so much ammo, I'd suggest switching one ton to Gauss. Three tons is a bare minimum I've found, and you've the spare tonnage.


My current (And only) Gauss Sniper. Note that with such limited tonnage I made many sacrifices in order to bring thirty shots. I've recently downgraded the engine even further to bring the lasers. Not so sure it was worth it though, so still consider this a build in progress.
FS9-H

~Leone

Edited by Leone, 07 May 2015 - 03:20 PM.

[Koniving]

After being added on Skype late last night, I was able to fix some of the misconceptions the original poster was having (such as 'I have so many machine guns dont I need lots of ammo?' and so on). Also showed how to read the armor counts so that it would be easier to understand when he had full armor.

Various other things. I also wound up directing him to the JM6-A as a starter mech as it is significantly cheaper to start with when considering changes as well as a non-BT-standard engine change (so rather than the stock engine, something like a 285 engine).

Lets let him present a new build idea, knowing that he mostly understands how it works now.

Edited by Koniving, 07 May 2015 - 05:20 PM.

[luxebo]

Koniving, on 07 May 2015 - 05:18 PM, said:

Various other things. I also wound up directing him to the JM6-A as a starter mech as it is significantly cheaper to start with when considering changes as well as a non-BT-standard engine change (so rather than the stock engine, something like a 285 engine).

I think JM6-S is best as it is best with any AC (except UAC5 boating which that is for the DD, or MG/AC2 boating). It's quite cheap too.

DemarticusStone, on 06 May 2015 - 11:55 PM, said:

Well this is my last post for today, I've yet to download the game due to crappy internet and would take me 6 Hours to download.
I'll work around with the Jager DD Model, although, I still want defensive modifications, like have my Gauss Rifle and then have a defensive Energy or Ballistic Weapon to defend itself within close range.
Edit: Here is my current progress on my Jager DD Model Build - Tell me what you think
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...3d2f95d55d5a112

Highly recommending the following changes:
-Armor up. Shouldn't be too too expensive but is worthwhile.
-Using laser + MG combo is good, but it's hard to use those rapid fire weapons and maintain accuracy with your Gauss, so it's best to focus on some weapons.
-Depends on your layout later on but I do suggest dual Gauss layout, plus you will want XL engine (just keep the stock DD engine if you have bought it).
-Put MG ammo in legs/head unless you feel like you constantly get legged and then ammo exploded.
-Later switch this respective layout to the JM6-S and then put UAC5s on the DD. Recommended on that note, but of course you can play around.
-Suggesting DHS if you even put any backup lasers. Dual Gauss can get away with no heat sinks and Standard upgrade only.
-SWITCH YOUR ENGINE BETWEEN THE JM6-S, A, AND DD! Really important note to do once you've bought the DD and switch around the XL engine or buy the engine (which is very expensive).

Edited by luxebo, 07 May 2015 - 07:00 PM.

[BaconTWOfourACTUAL]

IMO if you want firepower balanced with manuverability to get you out of situations.... Go Medium Mech.... I can't say enough about my ShadowHawk. lol

[IraqiWalker]

Elizander, on 06 May 2015 - 11:42 PM, said:

Ah no, don't do that. You'll usually want something like this:

JM6-DD

It requires quite a lot of money to upgrade though.

You don't need DHS for a Gauss mech. It's heat neutral with Gauss. Plus, it saves you 1.5 Million C-Bills on the costs.

[Repasy Cooper]

DemarticusStone, on 06 May 2015 - 08:24 PM, said:

Hello everyone, my name is Demarticus Stone and I've wanted to become a part of MechWarrior Online for a LONG time but I kept putting it off because of my Internet speeds, but now that I'm here I have a few questions.


#1: What is the best long range Mech?

I had my eye on the JagerMech, I also checked out the stats on the JagerMech and it doesn't seem too bad.


The reason I have chosen Long Ranged Mechs is because I have always been the type for Long Ranged engagements, on any game, whether it be Battlefield, or World of Tanks, I ALWAYS go for range.

But I also am looking for defensive capability for when and if I get into a sticky situation.

#2: I really hate to ask this, but several games have made me unsure of others, is this
game Pay-To-Win?

I honestly don't like asking that question but, games like World of Tanks have made me a very skittish person about Free-To-Play Games.

Thanks to everyone who help me with my questions

~Demarticus Stone

Hello!

To answer the first question, I don't blame you for eyeing the Jagermech. That mech is possibly the PINNACLE example of a sniper mech in this game, with the dual-gauss build being very popular. Here is a list of other mechs suited to long-range combat:

Stalker - great buffs for boating large lasers.

Thunderbolt - some variants work well with ER PPC builds.

Raven - double ER Large Laser build is popular.

Cicada - also works well with ER PPC.

Kit Fox - look up the A variant on Sarna.

Stormcrow - you can take advantage of C variant side torso hardpoints for a hill-peeking sniper.

Mad Dog - the C variant runs short on ammo, but if you've got a keen eye it's enough to snipe a couple mechs.

Dire Wolf - you can throw a mix of Gauss & PPC on for serious long range sniping.

In general, the Clan mechs have better ranged combat as lasers have extended range and gauss weighs less than the IS version.

To answer second question, all mechs (with the exception of Hero mechs) are purchasable with in-game currency, no wallet required. You only start out with 4 mechbays, but you can earn free mechbays by playing for factions in Community Warfare. Also, PGI hosts many frequent personal challenge events and tournaments, with free mechs and whatnot as prizes.

The Hero mechs aren't OP either, so don't let that deter you. There is no pay-to-win money ceiling in this game. Money helps you ascend faster for sure, but with enough time all players can ascend to same height.

Edited by Repasy, 07 May 2015 - 09:07 PM.

[BaconTWOfourACTUAL]

As many others have said, there really is no P2W.

I know because I'm a FtP player. I'm just as competitive as the guys who spend money.... and a lot of time, the paid players get cosmetic items, (i.e. cockpit items, camos) They can buy other mechs, but those can be cored just as easily by a FTP laser or ballistic weapon. You don't buy 'armor' or additional 'weapon slots' or functionality. You can buy a Mech, and whatever class that Mech is in, has its own limitations.

Thats what I like about this game. Use the trial mechs, get your c-bills up... and buy a mech with c-bills. That's what I did with my Shadow Hawk, and its my favorite mech.