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[Chados]

We've all got one. Not just one, but "The ONE." The one you shake the dust off of when you've got ROFLstomped five times straight and want to get your mojo back. The one that you feel like you're slipping into a comfortable beat up old T-shirt when you boot it up. The one you'd never sell. Ever.

What is it? Why that one?

Now, it's gonna get long so if you're bored, stop here and post your thoughts.

I'll go first. This thread is prompted by a question posed to me in another thread inquiring just how is it that I have an 11/5 Catapult nerf meme in my signature when I have only been in the game six weeks? The implication being that I'm posting on an alt and I have a secret founder account or something somewhere. Well, no...I really am a Tier 5 underhive dweller.

I'm a fan of Mechwarrior games since the early 1990s and have experience in one of the earliest online multiplayer BT titles. I wanted to play this game when I discovered it in July, and so I started in with the trial mechs. And predictably, I did awful. But I wanted to give the game a fair shake and I've always liked Jagermechs. I thought a good way to stack up some experience points would be to go ahead and buy a champion. I bought the JM6-A(C). And over the next 27 drops, nothing I did prevented me from getting shot down seconds after first contact with the enemy. I couldn't hit a thing I aimed at and did little damage when I did, and when the enemy hit me they PPFLD'd me into oblivion in one or two shots. My K/D was 0.02. I knew there were things such as missiles-I had the hardpoints and remembered how much I hated LRMs from earlier games-but having read these forums knew that LRMs are the work of the Dark Lord and not to ever be resorted to.

After the first 30 matches I sold the JM and used the Cbills I had to get into Cicadas, I had the Cbills to buy two. The CW of the meta says that speed = life. The CDA is fast. And it has a hero, the X-5, I could use to earn more Cbills. I got one, as you need three to get into elites. Things did not get any better. I even had some most excellent guys from a competitive Kurita unit take me out in group queue and test my skills; the verdict was that I showed promise, but I needed to get better at peeking and the Circle of Doom. And I learned two things....the Circle of Doom makes me seasick, and my frame rates drop to single digits when I'm moving real fast and in a circle, leaving me...cannon fodder. And sniping? A mech at 800 meters away looks like three pixels and I can't barely distinguish it from the background. And if I stay still long enough to lay the cursor steadily on and take a shot at aforesaid pixels, I get instantly one-shotted by an enemy I can't even see where he is shooting from. Bam, dead...spend fourteen minutes spectating. Wash, rinse, repeat.

And it wasn't the "Mechwarrior" of Big Stompy Robots bashing the heck out of each other that I remembered from the past. The Circle of Doom might be meta but it is absolutely no fun for me. If that's the game, I'd rather play something else. I was about to bail on the whole game. The learning curve was vertical. I couldn't compete. I embarrassed myself every time I dropped and my average damage hovered around 30, with a K/D around .015 by this time. I was over it.

But it's...Mechwarrior, darn it! Surely there's something here even for me?

Looking for inspiration, I stumbled on a thread by Catalina Steiner in the "Guides and Strategies" section, extolling the strategies of LRMs. Her videos were fascinating. So many ways to use them! You can shoot them from behind cover, even. It locks on, helping people who don't have elite twitch mastery to get into the game. Yeah, it's a noob tube but I'm a noob and I need a noob tube. And it's a system that scales...her thread teaches that as you get better...you can do better things like missile-bending around obstacles. You can fire them without locks or with. With Artemis, you get tighter groups when you can see the target and faster locks. You can use TAG if you're real good Nd have line of sight, to debuff ECM and you can carry a Beagle probe to help debuff ECM too.

I loaded LRM5s on my X-5 to see if all this worked for me. My damage scores started going up. In the 70s, not the 20s. I met Tesunie on these forums, then Kjudoon, who are LRM gurus. IraqiWalker and Dawnstealer chimed in with points of wisdom. I was beginning to get it...maybe.

I decided...Go big, or go home. In MechCommander and Mechwarrior 4, the Inner Sphere had a mech built around LRMs...the Catapult. If you're going to depend on the system, you need to bring a lot of them. LRM5s are great...but if your gonna go, go all in. I needed more LRMs, more than the X-5 could carry, to do this right. And I was C-bill broke, though, and I wasn't going to ante up any more real money on a speculative venture-I'd bought two mechs and they weren't a good entertainment-return on my investment. Not doing that again.

Since this was going to be my last hurrah before I hung up the game for good, I cleaned out the inventory and sold all three of my Cicadas including the X-5. I also cleaned out my meager inventory of equipment. And I had just enough in the Cbill account to buy a C1 Catapult and outfit it for war with Artemis, a Beagle Active Probe, DHS, and Endosteel.

Five drops later I knew I had done the right thing. My damage numbers were rising. When meta snipers sniped I could hide and shoot over cover. I was seeing wins. I was getting occasional kills. The C1 felt good, it moved fast enough, felt intuitive, and could take some hits, not many but some. Now I wanted more. I bought Catapult Mastery, and had enough MC left to buy the C4 as well so I could get elites on the missile Catapults and have the other two for later, when my skills got better.
I discovered LRMishing, the art of close-in LRM support, where you're close enough to use secondary armament and cut flight times for LRMs.

A month later, I've also bought a deck of light mechs so I can have something to fill out a CW drop deck...I'll never be a Circle of Doomer, but the lights I picked aren't fast anyway and operate a lot like a fragile medium I still rack up 25-30 average damage per match in them, and in the Jester and K2 I'm almost as bad; my only two teamkills were in the Jester and K2 respectively though my damage numbers are higher. They're Catapults and I love them, and I will hang onto them for that reason. But in the missile Cats, I'm a different player In a match my team wins I run routinely around 300 damage, six or more assists, Counter ECM Lock Damage, Brawling, Spotting, Flanking, and Scouting, with top damage 633 in one match. I have had two kills in a match on several occasions, and even won the Hat Trick achievement in the A1(C) on Crimson Strait. I pack a UAV as Cbills permit and occasionally use them. I move, lock and fire on the move, and try to position strategically. I'm beginning to learn the game now, and even joined a unit.

My 11/5 sig happened when I did a search on Catapults in this forum and found the "Catapult Day" post. I wear the banner in my sig to honor the mech that changed the game for me and I support the upcoming rescale-it can't happen fast enough-and I'd love to see the Cat get a few buffs, armor and structure primarily, and more LRM quirks.

Do you have one mech that makes the game different? What is it? Why is it the one that makes you better as a pilot? What sets it apart for you from all the rest?

[Armored Yokai]

The Orion.

[Davegt27]

nice read thanks

[InkiePie]

The Stalker-3F "Deathtube"

4 x 5 LRM
1 x Large Laser
3 x Medium Pulse Laser
+ Full armor

Lethal on each range

Or my Jägermech6-S "Knock-Knock"

2 x 2 ACs
2 x 5 ACs

14 Dmg at all, like a single Gauss with high fire rate

Edited by InkiePie, 30 August 2015 - 02:11 PM.

[TwentyOne]

WUBSHEE. 3LPL 5MPL XL400. Its an incredible light/medium killer

[Flyby215]

Thumbs up for Catapults.

Jester is my baby, everyone I play with knows that (I make sure of it!).

Although, she can't carry. If there's no team for my Jester to support, then she's just a lonely support mech without a cause. When things get a little rofl-stomp-y, the fallback becomes my second favourite, yet first love - Misery.

True to the burns and bullet markings on her exterior, my Misery is a combat veteran of the front lines. She can tank, she can flank, she can ridge-poke, side-poke, hold a line, or push hard (there's a double inuendo in there somewhere I think). The best part, unlike my Jester, I can still successfully play the Misery even with a few beers! Now THAT is a love-worthy mech.

[Kiiyor]

Mine is the Awesome.

It's at the bottom of sub par. It's fat, with terrible hitboxes. It gets stuck on everything. It's ponderous bulk gets blasted by FF all the time, and i've lost count of the number of arms that have been claimed by friendlies in the name of frustration.

It's been my favourite mech in every form of battletech though, both electronic and physical, and when it dropped in MWO I was as excited as a pre-pubescent girl finding a one direction ticket in the gutter.

For a while, we worked well. Then as the meta shifted, the flaws in the Awesome really started to show.

Still, I persevered, and I came to know every foible of my beloved chubby barn door.

Now, whenever I jump in a different mech, they just feel... wrong. It takes me 5 or 10 matches to get used to them, yet when I jump back in the Awesome, the crosshairs go exactly where I want them to, and I can almost steer the walking shipping container blindfolded.

I've worked out how to leverage people ignoring me in the pub queues, and i'm like a grossly overweight ninja stalking through the shadows, hiding behind things that I should never be concealed behind.

I love my Awesome. Damn it.

[Zeriniel]

Mine is the Battlemaster.

When I first bought the tabletop game decades ago, it quickly became my favorite (based on looks alone), and I was giddy when MW2 came out, and you could unlock it for use.
And then the dreaded Unseen BS happened.

I was incredibly excited when the Phoenix Package was announced, and gleefully purchased the Overlord pack.

I'm still a little pissed that the 1G torso twist is still nerfed (OMG 7 ENERGY HARDPOINTS SO OP...but wait, the Banshee is fine).

But I make it work. No mech has as much play time as my beloved BLR-1G(P)

Edit: Also the Phoenix camo was so awesome on the Concept art...

Edited by Zeriniel, 30 August 2015 - 02:36 PM.

[Aetes Nakatomi]

I also struggled when I started to play MWO. I used the Victor trial because in my mind using an assault mech should make it easier. How very wrong I was... I was like a walking target for those first 20 games, my cadet bonus running low and my moral even lower. I then looked at my little mass of C-Bills and hunted in the store to see what mechs I could afford, the answer was not much. But I just about had enough for a Hunchback 4P. I saw the Hunchie was also a trial mech so I decided to give it a whirl.

That first game in the Trial 4P was glorious. I got my first ever kill (that is right... 20 games no kills) I had multiple assists and I lived to the end. At that point I was in love, I finished my cadet bonus' in the trial mech and then bought myself a 4P Fitted it as best I could with what C-bills I had, named it 'Pew-Bot' and started my MWO career.

I must admit that I am now more of Meta monkey, but on occasion when I feel nostalgic I will drop in my 4P because she saved MWO for me and can still kick arse.

[bad arcade kitty]

well, i like cute stuff :3 my first question (on another forum) it was what mech was the cutest one, i was answered that it's kit fox, but i was suggested not to touch it and to pick crow instead. i ignored the second part of the answer and picked kit fox, was charmed by its name too, i played league of legends, liked ahri (a foxgirl champion of questionable behavior there) and so i was prepared to like another fox (:

well my rig sucked so it wasn't much of a difference what i played at first, but when i upgraded it i realized that kit fox, despite being cute, doesn't really fit my playstyle (i hope it will change if pgi gives it better scaling and armor/structure quirks), i want to quickly approach enemies, 'hug' them and run away leaving their wrecks in my wake, kit fox is mostly suited to be a ranged sniper which is a completely different thing.

so, i made a thread on this forum asking for advice... and was suggested crow again. this time i listened to it and picked crow, i already knew that it has an adorable prancing gait and is generally pretty cute too. now, this mech fitted my style perfectly, well, almost, except crow has no jj which wasn't easy to get used to. i never especially liked crows before (i mean animals), but here it worked the back way, i now feel sympathy to them when i hear their cawing, btw our local crows cannot pronounce 'w', they have a weird accent, their cawing is caaa caaaaa caaaaa! (:

[Taffer]

Streakcrow. I'm just so lazy and it's so easy :|

[vandalhooch]

WVR-6K

But, it became "mine" long before the quirkening. Wolverines and Panthers were my favorites from tabletop days and the Panther wasn't in game when I started. So my cadet bonus was spent on a Wolverine first. I stayed with the chassis for a very long time and at first used the 7K as my primary C-bill earner. I didn't like the 6K because it lacked jets. Then about one month into playing the game I "discovered" the usefulness of NARC in solo queue. I fitted out my 6K with five medium pulse lasers and a NARC launcher with 30 pods.

Thirteen months later my 6K's (bought a second one for the triple large laser build) have earned 2.5 million experience points. I still use one of them in my IS drop decks now. If I'm pugging CW, I love the feel of being back in my "NARCerine".

[Scout Derek]

The Summoner.

Back then when it came out in wave 1 I would always drop back to it with 4 mediums and gauss, and always got good matches in it. Then from time to time I began getting away from it... but not too far.

Whenever I got squashed when basicing a mech, I dropped back to it and always did good.

Oh Summoner, I can't wait to see what they'll give you

[SaltBeef]

Adders ,Warhawks, and the ebon.

[CDLord HHGD]

What: Hunchback HBK-4G
Why: BOOM!

[Triordinant]

My old Jagermech DD.

[TheNef]

My Spider .... can't live without it.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

I love a myriad of mechs that I currently have access to...

but there are only two that I can come back to time and again, and do consistantly well in, that I can slip into at any time, and feel right at home.

HBK-4G and AS7-D[and by extension the AS7-S]. Both of these mechs play very similar in the style I use, both are brawlers, and both can potentially take a beating. While the HBK hits hard, it's fast and a bit light on ammo and armor at the end of the day compaired to the AS7 of course... but any time I hop into either, I know I'm going to do consistantly over 300+ damage, and likely get 2+ kills. It's just so easy to hop into these mechs and just wreck for me.

[Thunder Child]

Despite not having used either one in a very long time, I would have to say either the DRG-Fang, or the CLPT-C1.
When I bought the Fang, hitreg was all over the place, and everyone said that if I like Fast Moving Flankers, I should get the Hero Dragon (apparently the FLAME was THE "Hero Dragon". The Fang was that "other" Dragon that no-one talked about).
But, it worked for me. I crammed the biggest XL I could into it, loaded it up with two Medium Lasers, an SRM6, and LB-10X, and ran around at Flank Speed like a lunatic spraying shots at any enemy in range. I did try the AC10, but with my shots taking anywhere up to a full second to fire after pulling the trigger, the LB-10X at least had a chance to hit. So, whenever I had a bad time trying to use a "normal" mech, I'd jump into the Fang and go crazy.

Then I got a CLPT-C1. Jump Lurmishing was absolutely amazing. With full JJs installed, you had enough thrust to get airborne, hold the TAG on a target, lock-on, and Fire (No JJ Shake, so keeping TAG on target was easy, and with full Jets installed you could get good airtime. No Landing damage either). I absolutely loved my Catapult, right up until they nerfed Jumpjets and made Jump Lurming almost impossible.

These days, my preferred fallback chassis is the HBK-4G. Nothing quite like a Rapid-Fire AC20.

[bad arcade kitty]

btw, chados, reading your post, it seems your problem is called 'low fps', it's exactly what it does, the screen may be relatively smooth... but you just cannot aim and the game looks more twitchy than it is, you need a new gpu, really for most mechs it's rather slow paced and doesn't need much circling either; for the motion sickness problem you can try different fov settings

TheNef, on 30 August 2015 - 03:51 PM, said:

My Spider .... can't live without it.

i met you :3 even made a post somewhere about an unkillable spider