21 replies to this topic

[Dingo Battler]

Thinking of getting my first assault mech. I've typically been a brawler, playing with a Cataphract first, then Timberwolf later on. I'm a pure PUG player, and enjoy brawls more than anything. However, I might have been spoilt on the high speed of my TW, because it really is easy to get in and out of brawls of it. KDR is around 1.2, if its any help. I've got a few questions:

1) Is using an assault purely for brawls okay? - I've noticed that most whale players pack quite a few long range options on their mechs, which honestly, isn't my cup of tea. I want to get in and dance. Reading up assault mech guides, I've seen a few people say assaults don't brawl well, as they're slow, and can't get there in time, is this true? I always sh*t my pants when I have to go one on one with whales... I plan to use a dakka whale with a bunch of a/c10s, and maybe 3 medium lasers

2) Are assaults hard/frustrating to use in PUGs? - I only play in PUGs. I've been doing well in the TW, as I always push with the assaults. Seems like assaults only thrive with a lot of support. I'm worried that if I use an assault in PUGs, people will not push with me. Using a TW is passive, I wait for others to push, while now I'm the one pushing. Any tips to get over this?

3) Is this the proper way to play assaults? I've been reading quite a bit, and it seems when you push, you never backpedal unless everyone abandons you. No playing peek-a-boo due to low slung weapons. Alpha often, and go in for the kill. Gather around with large groups of allies, so that you can push in together. Once you commit, you're committed, no turning back.

Edited by KBurn85, 04 June 2015 - 09:08 PM.

[Sewman]

I recently got into DWFs with the recent clan sale. A few months ago I started a thread to ask about the most durable Assault Mech around because I too enjoy brawling the most out of the various play styles. I think that Stalkers and Banshees kept entering the conversation for their tankiness and good hit boxes, not to mention their high mounted hardpoints.

After mastering my Banshees, I can say that it's probably been my favourite mech in terms of getting into hot brawls and coming out alive, however beat up I am afterwards. They've rewarded me with the best Kill/Death ratio in my collection of mechs.

So what does this have to do with the Direwolf? After mastering the DWF's I can safely say that it's most effective as a sniper, or mid/long range support mech. I think that most DWF pilots will agree when I say that this is definitely NOT the brawliest mech. It's hitboxes are NOT conducive to leading the rush. It really shines when you time your advances just so that enemies are already in the heat of battle or just get cocky and accidentally push too aggressively into your cross hairs.

When I follow my knee jerk tendency to aggressively join/start brawls, I'm usually the first on my team to die. I've only begun to realize it's true potential by proceeding much more cautiously or waiting for something to round corners. By being extremely cautious and paranoid about leaving cover, I've finally been able to taste some 600+ damage games and squeak in a couple of 700+ damage matches. So in otherwords, if you want to play a DWF, don't anticipate any chaotic brawls. It'll have to be a more calculated, methodical and chess like play style.

[Jorunn]

Excellent input from Sewman. I've been a Banshee pilot for a long time, have a lot of heavies including Timberwolf and Hellbringer and I love brawling. I love speed and tankiness! Even slowing to 65 Kph in my BNC-3E, BNC-3S, and unmastered Warhawk I feel SOO slow and unmaneuverable compared to my LaMalinche and BNC-3M which are over 70Kph and very nimble.

I got a Warhawk which admittedly is not as heavily armed as the Direwolf but supposedly more like a Banshee for brawling and have yet to like it much. Arm mounted weapons seem to get blown off fast and are low mounted. It gets targeted mistaken for a Direwolf and dies fast.

Watch Youtube videos on gameplay for the mechs you are thinking about. Here is one in my LaMalinche and 3M




And here's a Direwolf pretty well played but you can see how slow

[Spare Parts Bin]

Much that there is to say about the DWF has been said.

Lrms+ERLLs+CUAC5s make it a Jack of all Trades able to snipe,provide mobile LRM support and brawl.

[Wildstreak]

The following 2 questions answer this for anyone.

Do you like cruise control? Because that is what a Dire is at times.

Do you like being focused on? Because people who work together even in PUGs, they spot a Dire, it is focus fire time.

[Voivode]

As most have said, the Dire Wolf is a poor brawler. It's hitboxes aren't great for it, you tend to get focus fired, and the speed is just too low.

There are some great choices for assault brawler that have been mentioned, but I'll throw the Atlas in the ring, too. The Atlas is kind of the opposite of the Dire Wolf: it's a poor long range fighter and excels at close range engagements. If you want to brawl with an Atlas, make sure you get a big enough engine to top 60KPH and use torso twist as most experienced pilots will aim for the side torso carrying your ballistic slots.

[XxXAbsolutZeroXxX]

For assault brawling I like the gargoyle or king crab. The crab dual wielding AC-20's is unique in terms of it being the only IS mech that can run that build. Under the right conditions it can brawl and inflict hideous amounts of damage. And the gargoyle can do 90 kph with speed tweak unlocked. It turns like a medium or a heavy while boating an impressive amount of energy hardpoints. Most mounts are on the arms which gives you an additional angle of fire.

[jaxjace]

The dire wolf can potentially carry more weapons than any other mech in the game, it is a semi glassy cannon.

[SushiSalad]

The dire wolf dies too fast as an assault. Something is really wrong somewhere. Regardless of your build, once you enter the battle, you hardly will last 3mins before you are totally dead. Unless you keep yourself away from battle and snipe the enemies.

Most of the shots will be at the CT which I am not sure why it can be so easily shot up. i.e cored. The assault Clan mechs can't be that fragile till to this stage. Though this is a game for money generation, deviating too much from what it supposed to be is just too hard to accept. i.e too much nerfing and buffing. It should be done in moderation rather than totally skew up the game.

[Mr Ezzquizo]

dw = paper weak mech

[Void Angel]

Dire Wolves aren't "paper," but their lack of mobility makes them very difficult to pilot successfully in the current game environment, and they are not considered generally competitive.

I would strongly recommend against buying a Dire Wolf at this time.

Voivode, on 05 June 2015 - 06:54 AM, said:

As most have said, the Dire Wolf is a poor brawler. It's hitboxes aren't great for it, you tend to get focus fired, and the speed is just too low.

There are some great choices for assault brawler that have been mentioned, but I'll throw the Atlas in the ring, too. The Atlas is kind of the opposite of the Dire Wolf: it's a poor long range fighter and excels at close range engagements. If you want to brawl with an Atlas, make sure you get a big enough engine to top 60KPH and use torso twist as most experienced pilots will aim for the side torso carrying your ballistic slots.

The Atlas suffers a bit overall in my opinion - but within the limited confines of close-range combat nothing yet seen on the battlefield takes a licking and keeps on kicking like an Atlas.

[Aegic]

+1 Not for brawling at all

I have 2x Gauss and 4x ER-LL and have fun. Really shines on huge maps.

[John1352]

IMO the Direwolf needs a lot of DPS with minimal heat and is then able to do "Direwolf style" brawling. Builds I would recommend include: 4xUAC10 (this can be done on the JJ variant too, but armor and ammo will be slightly low), 6xUAC5, 5xUAC5 and 5 ERML (ERMLs are only used when you're running cool). Gauss Rifles just don't quite cut it in DPS for these types of builds IMO.

Direwolf style brawling involves not charging into the middle of the fray, where you'll get focused like no other mech ---> people thin armor is paper. You need to position yourself so you'll only be exposed to one at a time where possible, and situations where the enemies will all be appearing in the same place (like a tunnel) can negate your inability to twist.

[Bleary]

Go Banshee. Or if you don't mind spending money, Misery. Or if you're really committed to brawling (forever and ever amen) get an Atlas. The Atlas is still the premier brawl tank. It's just not great at anything else.

Edited by Bleary, 10 June 2015 - 12:57 AM.

[Heart of Storm]

Gonna add to the 'don't brawl in Dire Wolves' consensus. The Whale is just too slow, it will get outmanouvered by a skilled opponent and be unable to bring its full arsenal to bear. Slow movement speed also means slow torso twist speed, so your better brawlers are faster assaults.

Atlases used to be the kings of brawls but i find they go down to quick for my liking, having all your big guns torso mounted also limits your ability to track and kill faster enemies, as such i find them less useful in brawls, and in general.

Personally my brawler du jour is the King Crab with quad UAC5 and a big engine (I run STD340 to ensure i get over 60kph with speed tweak), you still tend to be a fire magnet but being hit by this thing *hurts* people often spend more time trying to avoid your punishing hail of fire then they do hitting you back which makes for an excellent spearhead/push assault. I've torn apart whole teams brawling with this bad boy and any time it drops is a guaranteed high damage/cbill reward game.

[PhoenixFire55]

As a first assault ... no. Simply no. Just trust sombody who playes this game for 3 years...

1) Assaults are not only for brawls, but assaults are for taking damage. Brawler assaults are dishing and taking damage up close, ranged assaults are dishing AND taking damage at range. Assaults brawl perfectly fine, especially kinds that are build for it, i.e. Atlas.

2) Assaults in PUGs are higher risk - higher reward kinda thing. In matches between organized teams assault mechs are protected by their teammates, but also focused early on, they hardly ever become the deciding factor unless teams make horrible mistakes. In PUGs however, unless you do a horrible mistake teams rarely focus anything, and that allows you sometimes to do a great amount of damage and carry your team. But you also risk dieing horribly if you are a slow assault or just happen to be in a wrong place.

3) Well, once you pushed you gotta see it through. Even if nobody else supported you backpedalling at this point will be simply giving away your mech for nothing as it takes too much time to reverse. Communicating with your team is important, you gotta tell them you are going to push. There is no "proper" way to play anything, only thing I can tell for certain is that assault mechs are meant to take damage. A fully fresh assault in the end of the match is most of the time simply useless ...

Different assaults are meant to play differently. For example ...
- Atlas is a close range mech and is a really poor choice for long range engagement. It has a very high and wide profile making it an easy target when it faces you, but from the side, its arms protect its main body really well, thus you can effectively spread the damage by torso twisting in a brawl. Its torso turn rates are more then adequate for that purpose.
- DireWolf on the other hand is much more of a medium-to-long range mech, it excells at shooting something in a narrow arc in front of it, but fails miserably when target escapes that arc because of slower turn rates and much smaller max torso twist angles. Its profile from the side is also huge, and arms provide little to no cover to its sides. Thus, it just isn't build for a brawl, etc.

[Nightshade24]

Direwolf:

Advantages:
Can mount a wide range of weapons for any kind of combat.
2 x LBX 20, 2 x LRM 20.

4 x UAC 20

2 x ER PPC, 2 x UAC 5, 6 x ER medium laser, 1 x SRM 6, 2 x JJ

2 x LBX 10, 5 x ER medium laser, 2 x MG, 2 x SSRM 4, 3 x JJ

6 x UAC 5

2 x ER PPC, 2 x Large pulse, 3 x ER medium laser, 1 x UAC 20.

1 x ER PPC, 6 x UAC 2.

2 x Gauss, 1 x ER PPC, 2 x LRM 15

2 x Large pulse, 2 x ER PPC, 2 x SSRM 6, 1 x BAP

Mostly any kind of range of weapons can be done.


Another advantage is it being the heaviest Clan mech in game and one of the 3 heaviest in game.

It also has interesting hardpoints so to say, can mount 6 ballistic while still backing a central energy weapon. quite unique.



Disadvantages:

Slowest clan mech in game, quite slow...

Lack of quirks, (Dragon 1N can have simular dakka, King crab can have simular sniper, battlemaster 2c has more armour while being 15 tons lighter) and due to some IS fanboys (not commenting on all people who play IS, just the extremists), I would not be surprised to see this thing nerfed to the point that only lunatics like me continue playing the direwolf.

Weak to clan 'ballancing', things like enemy weapon changes, engine changes, etc cna hit the direwolf huge while still be shrugged off by mechs like the stormcrow which these changes were aimmed at.




you need to practice at the direwolf but once you get the ropes you will struggle to not buy more direwolfs after your 3rd just to have more ct differences and load outs loaded.

[General Solo]

The Direwolf is a terrible damage avoider but great damage maker.
Mostly, the only way a direwolf can avoid damage is to kill/suppress the other mech quickly.
The trick is to remain unnoticed until its too late.
Putting a Direwolf on point is usually a waste of 100 tons because you cannot roll damage or runaway.
Better to let a faster more agile mech (Timberwolf/Stormcrow etc) get the enemies attenion and then kill them while they are distracted.
Most problems are solved through firepower , suppression, area denial and fear.

Your friendly neighborhood Direwolf

[NUJRSYDEVIL]

I do not like mine for CW although it is quite powerful (Dual Gauss Dual ERLL). As with any assault you are a damage magnet and when you lose a 100T mech in CW it's quite a deflating feeling. Now I roll with 3 Mediums and a heavy

On pug drops it's very fun, if you smack someone with dual gauss it's fun to see them run away because they know death is imminent after 1 or 2 shots.

[DONTOR]

DWs really are terrible at brawling.

Assault mechs CAN be frustrating if you end up alone or while mastering them, they realyl improve once you get them fully elited and double the basics.

Good brawling assaults are mostly on the i.s. side, but the Gargoyle can brawl, and the Warhawk aswell but that one can be pretty hard to make work.