TLxB, on 08 May 2015 - 06:51 AM, said:
I am Void Angel. I will... help you.
First, your fellow unit member was correct. The Thunderbolt is
the best Heavy Chassis in the Inner Sphere. With a very blocky construction to spread damage backed up by good hardpoints, a fast max engine, and excellent quirks, this chassis is a top performer and you are wise to have listened and bought it.
However, your 'mech construction theory is... flawed. You may or may not know this, but the MechWarrior Online community has been doing its own tournaments for a while now - spurred by a desire for competition in the absence of community warfare or ladders for 12-man play. One of the bigger tournaments is abbreviated RHoD - "Run Hot, or Die." The name is not an accident; it is an aphorism, and a good one. If you are too heat efficient with your builds, you
will lose to opponents who have more firepower and are willing to risk overheating to win. This
doesn't mean that more guns are always better, and screw heat sinks! But it does mean that with a very few exceptions, any build that has little chance of overheating also has little chance of being competitive, even on the PuG scene.
To illustrate what I mean, allow me to give you my own build of the
Thunderbolt 5S. If you play around with this build in Smurfy's, you'll notice a few things. First, I've maximized the number of heat sinks you can fit in this build given these weapons while still bringing AMS. Second, while my on-paper dps is only slightly higher than your build, I sdtill deal more damage at a time, and can deal damage at
much longer ranges. Even my SRMs are effective at longer ranges because Artemis. This 'mech is a good all-around PuG build, which has acquitted itself well as a brawler/damage sponge in CW as well.
Next up is the
Thunderbolt 9S. This build is very hot, and is supported only because of the ERPPC quirks for this variant. But such quirks they are! This variant was the justified subject of many, many, sweet Clanner tears at the opening of CW beta. The quirks are adjusted now, but while the ERPPC projectile speed buff was less originally, the variant's heat dissipation was even greater than it is now! This overquirked monster could outsnipe about any Clanner, and then close to
brawl with brutal effectiveness. The resulting nerf (which I think was a
little too much) needed to happen, and even with taking a significant hit, the chassis remains a viable long-range sniper. Note that while I've again maximized the heat sinks I can carry, I picked my weapons first.
Now we have the
Thunderbolt 5SS, the cause of many, many sweet Clanner tears during the Battle of Tukayyid. This was also an overquirked monster 'mech, having even more heat reduction in its quirks than it does now - but again, while the nerf needed to happen, the variant is quite viable. This is one of the build types where it can be ok not to bring AMS, although I've included it in my preferred build; the pulse lasers are so hot, even with quirks, that it
may still be more effective to stack on another heat sink.
Finally we have the
Thunderbolt 5SE. The SE is the only Thunderbolt with jump jets, and is notable for that alone - but also for its quirked Large Pulse Lasers. While not quite so nasty a brawler as the 5SS, the SE's versatility - and its being a Thunderbolt - still make the variant a popular 'mech in some quarters.
You're building your 'mechs in Smurfy's, which is good - wonderful tool. However, what I'd advise you to do when building a 'mech is this:
- First, max your armor via the Tool drop-down menu, then put in a 130 engine as a placeholder.
- Next, decide what weapons you want to use, and why - then put those where you want them.
- After you've selected weapons, add ammunition and other equipment if needed, then fill the rest of the 'mech with heat sinks.
- Pull out the 130 engine and pick the biggest engine you can fit, leaving enough tonnage to fill up the internal heat sinks in the engine, if any.
- Now click on the WeaponLab button on the top and see if your 'mech can sustain combat at your preferred range, and go back to the pick your weapons step if you think you're running too hot for your planned type of combat (e.g. snipers can be hotter than brawlers, but should still be able to fight back at close range.)
Doing this will give you maximized effectiveness for your tonnage and weapons, while preventing you from making the error of under-arming yourself like you did with the original build. Heat management is an essential skill, more basic than any chassis.
- run hot, or die.
Now finally, I need to correct some of the bad advice you've been given above: First,
good players very much do shoot your Thunderbolt's legs, particularly Clanners. Why? Because it's the best way to kill a Thunderbolt, especially with Clanner laser vomit. The blocky torsos and arms can spread damage all day long, and if you know what you're doing, you are
very hard to kill. Blasting your legs out from under you alleviates this problem for your enemy, crippling your movement to make blasting out your other leg child's play. Don't skimp on your leg armor.
Second, as you may have noticed, I use AMS. A lot. There's a reason for this, and that reason is, unsurprisingly, LRMs. LRMs are not high-level optimal strategies, but at low and mid-levels you see a lot of them. Bringing AMS cuts them down to size, and even takes a chunk out of Streaks and the like at close range. If you don't allocate the 1.5 tons needed to bring AMS to the field, you're hurting your team and helping to create a situation where LRMs can wreck your team and ruin your day. The reason high-level players often warn against LRMs is that they are unreliable - because of random map selection, ECM,
and AMS.
Edited by Void Angel, 09 May 2015 - 07:23 PM.
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