Hit the Deck, on 26 May 2015 - 10:19 PM, said:
Those are some amazing stats! Do you mind telling us how you configure your Cicadas and Dragons, i.e. their loadout?
The Cicadas are flukes, as per the blurb underneath that list. The CDA-2A was actually just a trial 'Mech with 6x MedLas and an XL340. If I look at the archive numbers, it's actually doing 1 kill in 327 damage over the course of 87 matches versus that tiny sampling of 3 matches in the current stats. I was new to the game at that time, so that's expected. The CDA-3C came much later and was a single ERPPC and 4x MG
built like this. I played it for 18 matches and achieved 22 kills and 13 deaths. It's not inherently a high-damage build because you have to hit 50 times to break 500, and because I made calculated shots at easy ranges and then just charged the target with MG when the component was open, which usually ended them pretty quick because almost everybody had XL back then. This was pre-Clan, so I don't know how useful it would be today. Probably nowhere near as good due to the PPC velocity nerfs and being a friggin' Cicada with one real gun.
The Dragon 1C was played in two ways, neither particularly fancy or special or even good. I started off with it
as a brawler with an LB-10X, an SRM2, and 4x MedLas. The trick with this build was to bide your time and charge out only when the fur starts flying. Do not even try to start poking, that's not what it's for. It is, however, perfect for running circles around targets and just wailing on them when they have 11 other targets to worry about, 25% of them more visibly dangerous than a Dragon. It's totally a close-quarters face-roller, like the Arrow. I then changed it into
a sword-and-board 1x PPC + 1x ERPPC 'Mech and had even better success that way. I recall having a small laser in the arm somehow, but I doubt it really helped. In the 15 matches I had the DRG-1C, I obtained 27 kills for 8 deaths. Both builds are pre-quirk. Sword and board still works rather well, but there are better options for that like the Vindicator, Panther, and Thunderbolt.
Duke Nedo, on 26 May 2015 - 10:55 PM, said:
Frankly, all this probably has more to do with playstyle than builds or aim... if you don't take part in early round trading because you are short ranged and/or just play carefully (read like a chicken
) you'll end up with much less damage per kill. Looking at the variants in that list most of them are probably MPL, ML, SPL, MG builds that do mop-up. The Dragon is the exception, but that one had very few games he said so...
It's definitely play-style, but play-style involves a certain level of practice to work. To be true, there is a fair amount of mop-up in there, but no more than any other 'Mech I have because I'm active throughout the match with my Locusts doing whatever needs done be it flanking, scouting, placing UAVs, poking, diving, brawling, or simply playing the rabbit. If we're all focusing fire, I'm right there on the line focusing fire, and kills are bound to get secured. That said, about half of the kills are by back-coring, either during early game against fats or the rest of the game when whatever target is distracted. The rest are frontal trades. I do, in fact, spend an inordinate amount of time practicing shot placement in motion in training grounds. With such short burn times even on MedLas, it doesn't matter that a real target will be in motion because nobody can turn away fast enough, and so it only takes me about 200 damage in output to blow through an Atlas and less on anybody else. The hardest 'Mechs to kill with my play style are Storm Crows, because they have the narrowest hit-boxes known to man with crazy twist and general agility.
As for the guns, well, what else can you realistically load on a Firestarter or a Locust?
The Cicadas and the Dragon are pretty much flukes. I definitely don't think I can pull such consistently high efficiency with any of those even as mop-up. There's no special build or amazing shot-placement there, just bad statistics. Most of that list is just happenstance and the only ones that I am confident I can get away with are the FS9-A (which I sold because I hate the way Firestarters handle) and the Locusts, and I do continue to get away with them.
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