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I’m almost exclusively a Clan pilot these days. Clan ‘Mechs just feel better to me overall, and combined with the fact that most of my pre-MWO BattleTech history has been largely pro-Clan (with the ferocious exception of the Smoked Jaguars), it’s just a good fit.
However, for whatever reason (almost certainly related to ‘Mech addiction and my weakness for robots of all types) I keep buying Resistance ‘Mechs I neither need nor generally pilot T_T. I bought up to Grasshoppers for Resistance 1, but given the enormous and unceasing glut of heavies in the Puglandia queue, I only recently started working with my Grasshoppers. Panthers I like a lot, and Enforcers…are a thing…but the Grasshoppers were the guys I was mostly interested in with Resistance 1, so of late I decided to just hang the heavy queue numbers and start working with these things.
This is the first time in a long while I’ve gone back to a heavy emphasis on Sphere ‘Mechs, outside a brief but intense fling with my Panthers (which perform uniquely enough that they didn’t feel like Sphere ‘Mechs). Impressions from an unrepentant Clansman below:
First thing I noticed – Sphere DHS are bulky as hell. I’m spoiled to high heaven on Clan 2-slot DHS and I freely admit it. How do you people manage with these porky bastiches?
Second thing I noticed – Unlocked engines really are nice. On the Clan side the Grasshopper woulda been stuck on a 280 and thus the machine would’ve been largely unusable at an incredibly mediocre ~71kph. On the Sphere side though, I can swap in a 330 or a 350 as appropriate (and as my XL engine collection permits) and shore up the ‘Mech’s speed as well as hitting the right balance between free weight and speed. I’m not sure if it’s a proper replacement for the omnipod system, at this point I’m so used to locked engines it really was an almost guilty pleasure to play rating-minmax again, but it is pretty slick. Really wish I had a 340 for the slower ‘Hoppers, though even then the [R] variant would likely still be my favorite.
Third thing I noticed – I’d forgotten how much Sphere XLs suck. The Grasshopper doesn’t have any especial problems with glass shoulders, nothing even remotely like Doges, and I would in fact consider it to have pretty good hitboxes from my experiences with it, but man I hate when catching an early Whale shot in a shoulder means I have to baby that side for the entire fight. I’m still waiting for the XL speed loss nerf on CXLs, and unlike some folks ‘round these parts I’ve never really objected to it. This has reminded me how much of an advantage the CXL really is, even with all the stuff Clansmen have to give up for it.
Fourth thing I noticed – LORDAMIGHTY you guys have, like, no beam range whatsoever. Grasshoppers are laser vomit chassis, that is literally all they can do, which is alright because I like lasers and have since I started playing, but one of the primary reasons I switched to Clans and never really looked back was that Clan beams felt powerful. At the time, Sphere beams were anemic also-rans to ballistics and PPCs, before both weapon categories had their legs cut out from under them. Now, I recognize that what I have are ER lasers and what you guys have are standard lasers, but those iML especially are just painfully short-ranged.
Fifth thing I noticed – MY GOD THESE LASERS DON’T EVEN HEAT BRO. So this is how you guys deal with those chubby-ass DHS – your lasers are, like, ice beams. It’d been so long since I’d run a beam-centric Sphere ‘Mech with appropriate heat sinkage (so not ERPPC Panthers) that I was completely unprepared for how cool-running Spheroid beams are compared to Clan energy. My GRH-5J[R] isn’t even all that extraneously heat-efficient compared to my typical Clan rides, but that didn’t really matter. Normally, two LPL and four ML would be a pretty ambitious energy loadout for my Clan rides, and definitely more focused on skirmishing alpha strikes around cover than on sustainable beam-brawling. There’s a reason most of my modern Clan designs don’t tend to use much more than four beams. The GRH needs to get a lot closer, but once it got there I felt like I could clamp down on the triggers for weeks on end and not worry. I don’t even know why.
Sixth thing I noticed – six jump jets do, in fact, jump. Turns out that people who equip two jump jets and then complain that all jets are worthless should probably equip more jump jets. I still feel like jet acceleration is too slow overall and especially on liftoff, but after that initial hovery hitch, I feel like the jets work all right. We just need to adjust the formula some so that all the classic three-jet jumpers aren’t quite so piggish in the air. And also adjust the forums so that people stop freaking taking two jets on their ‘Mechs and then complain they can’t jump. My GRH jumps just fine. It doesn’t fly, though at six jets I kinda wish it would, but it does in fact jump.
Seventh thing I noticed – Grasshoppers are tall as hell. Actually this was like the first thing I noticed after all the things I noticed in the ‘Mechlab. I felt more like I was riding one of my poor old Victors than a 70-tonner. That said, the height really isn’t a problem for me on the field. Everybody’s all like “OH NOES! The GRH is super crazy reconkulous massive, it’s got AWFUL GEOMETRY!” and I’m sitting here going “Dudes? Nova. The Nova has awful geometry.” The GRH is tall, but that height is all in the fact that it has long, gangly-ass legs that go up to its armpits. Those legs move around enough to be a bit tricky to get a proper bead on, and the ‘Mech’s actual torso area isn’t any worse than other heavies. It’s lanky and occupies a ton of visual space, but lanky isn’t the same as broad. Awesomes are broad. Novas are broad. Broad is awful. Lanky is not.
Overall Impression: My sojourn back into the land of the greasy infidels has actually been a lot of fun. I really like my Grasshoppers and am looking forward to doing more work with them. I also don’t really feel any weaker in a Grasshopper than I do in a Clan heavy, overall. More fragile, certainly – dat iXL – but insofar as the weapons balance everyone is screeching over so much? Not a big problem. Yeah, I’ve got a lot less range, but in the chaos of Puglandia at least that’s less of a problem, and once I do get into range I can unleash a volley of rabbit punches most of my Clan ‘Mechs could only dream of. The shorter burn time on the Spheroid beams is super noticeable and helps a lot. The iML could still stand to go back down to 3 heat, but at that point I’m pretty well convinced that balance will have been achieved between the iML and the cERML. It’d also give the iERML, when it comes out, a bit more room between the two to differentiate itself with, and also you guys really would have freaking ice beams to hit me with.
Yes, I fought Timber Wolves with my Grasshopper. That did not generally go well for me, no, but just as importantly it also didn’t go well for the guy in the TBR. Nobody is going to come out of being a TBR’s primary target unscathed, and nor should they, but most of the times I went up against the ‘All-Powerful Lord of Puglandia’, I managed to hit him nearly as hard as he hit me. Also encountered a couple of TBR pilots who were clearly out of their depth and managed to thoroughly mangle them. Spheroid lasers are better at sawing off components quickly than Clan beams, and somebody who’s not afraid of letting his armor do its job really can press hot-running Clan equipment in close and take it to pieces.
Bad pilots are bad pilots no matter what they’re riding, which was my biggest takeaway from this whole retrospective trip. A pilot who knows what he’s doing is going to be dangerous in either tech base, while no amount of #CLANZOP or #MOARQUIRKS will really save a newbie with no game experience, or a goober who refuses to learn. Everyone has good days and bad days, on both sides of the divide. All the forum whinery is – surprise surprise! – mostly just smoke. There are balance problems in the game and I’d love to see them addressed, but the playing field is a lot more level than either side is generally willing to admit.
I challenge all of you to try the same thing. If you’re an early Clan adopter who never really looked back, like me, go give your Spheroid garage some time in the limelight again – and no, don’t just use overquirked monstrosities, or build horrible hodgepodge FrankenMechs with eleven SHS and Ferro armor two tons shy of max just to prove a point. Run some of your old favorites, update them for the new era, see how they do. If you’re a staunch Spheroid pilot who’s never had the time of day for this newfangled balance-wreckin’ Clam Stuff…give it a shot. Snag a chassis or two, give it an honest run, and see whether it’s really as bad as all that. At the very least you’ll get a fresh taste of something different, and that’s a rare thing indeed in MWO.
And if you already switch between the two as your mood dictates and have no idea why I just spent three pages rambling about junk you already know…good on ya. Some of us are slower on the uptake, and besides. I was bored and I enjoy writing. Sue me
