13 replies to this topic

[Anachronda]

Apologies for length - tl;dr version is, I am looking for the fastest ballistic builds I can get - emphasis on maximizing both speed and weapons with a bias to speed, especially assaults.

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I've been playing on and off the better part of this year, with the exception of several cumulative months of hiatus. In that time, I have received a lot of advice and learned a lot about the game. We have an awesome community here.

My favorite mode of play is Community Warfare. Even though we're still not in a place where there's more meaning to it than simple growth of territory leading to opportunities for further expansion, it still feels more meaningful. It also enforces teamwork and inspires people to work together. Over time I have talked with a number of people about mechs and builds for CW and adjusted my deck accordingly. When people complain about my mechs or builds I listen and adjust, especially when they point out the need for synergy. One of the things that I have been trying to work on is having mechs which fulfill as many roles as I can, so I can swap my deck around to fit the situations and tactics the drop caller is pointing to.

It takes .. quite a while to do that because any one mech I need requires I buy to be effectively bought three times then levelled. I've been naughty before and taken mechs to CW to level them, but, really, what you want in CW is mastered mechs. Plus a lot of the benefits of a given mech (in many cases) don't really become available before mastery. Some mechs are really great out of the box, but in general the efficiencies are necessary.

One of the things that was pointed to before is that the mechs I was bringing were too slow. Particularly my heavies and assaults. Since the ones I had couldn't be made fast enough to keep up, I needed new ones. I now have a set of mechs which, particularly once I finish off my third banshee and can master the others, can form a deck in which nothing is slower than about 80kph (Banshee with max engine and speed tweak is 75kph), with mediums around 90-100 and lights around the mid 100s. That has helped a lot. Zeus has been suggested as another fast assault, something I once thought didn't exist.

The problem I have is the mechs I have meeting those criteria are energy heavy with emphasis on pure energy - no ballistic hardpoints. With some pretty hot maps in CW, drop callers often ask we switch to ballistics-heavy mechs, and I don't have fast mechs with lots of ballistics. My ballistics-heavy mechs tend to be slower. The exception there would be some with a large gun like an ac/20 or gauss, which tends to have a slower firing rate and the latter being a bit dangerous. I have found that with heat management, good number of heatsinks, and in some cases coolshot for emergencies, I can use pure energy builds even on Vitric Forge, but I'd like to see if I can't build more heat efficient mechs with more ballistics while having speed.

I've been going over the mechs available and it seems like I am having trouble picking something which fits that bill, especially with assaults. Even the assaults with the most ballistic hardpoints have more energy hardpoints than ballistic, and crit space limits their use a lot. That tells me I need to figure out the most efficient dps for the situation at hand, and I need some input there.

What are the best mechs/builds for this situation in your opinion? Am I crazy here? Besides increasing my skill I am trying to also end up with mechs people will complain less about. Dealing with the fact people were unhappy with my choices / advised against them has led in the end to me playing a lot less CW as I try to level/buy the suggested mechs. Frustration has led to hiatus which exacerbated the problem that I take too long to get where I need to be in terms of such buying and levelling, so I really want to avoid getting something else people would prefer I bring. It's funny, too, because part of that frustration has been in me building the mechs people suggest/borderline demand then having people say "We can't have you bringing those to CW - what were you thinking?" I don't want to repeat that experience, so I am trying to get a wider view. People will complain less if I perform better, and mechs which better meet the needs of the situation are part of this.

Edited by Anachronda, 28 November 2015 - 03:15 PM.

[Nyuuu]

Sounds like you need to get yourself a Jagermech DD.
The tripple UAC5 Build is just hilarious, guaranteed 1k damage before running out of ammo unless something goes pretty bad.

XL255 allows it to run at 69 after speed tweak, I don't see a reason why that should not be fast enough.

Edit: If you absolutely require it, you can drop 2 1/2 tons of ammo to push the speed above 80kph
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...0f81124e22d81dc

I would much rather suggest though learning to maneuver and keep up with your team at lower speeds, with good map sense even a 53kph Direwolf can avoid being left alone, much more so thanks to CW being quite static in its engagements.

Edited by Nyuuu, 28 November 2015 - 04:34 PM.

[Anachronda]

Jagermech is probably a good idea - I'd forgotten it was on my list of mechs I was interested in before. Looks like I overlooked speed.

My previous decks had slower assaults. For instance I have a couple King Crab builds which are pretty cool and fit the description here. Very often, too, if you have a slower mech you can catch up when the team slows after running into the enemy, especially in pug matches. I also have Stalkers but those are energy heavy as well and with the builds I have, speed is better than my king crabs, but still around 60kph. For heavies I have mastered Thunderbolts, but Jagermech sounds like what I need to use for dakka as you pointed out.

The problem I have with CW in slower mechs is the people I run with tend to try stuff that requires speed and is dependent on timing. If they wait for me to get there before their push, it takes too long. Even when they can do that I am at the tail of the line. Yesterday I had my worst ever CW matches because being at the back of the line meant getting chewed to hell by the whole enemy team without a chance to do any damage. That's what reminded me I needed to get fast dakka to compliment my fast energy deck.

I agree that positioning is a major weakness I have. Even when I got my aim and other stuff down pretty well, bad positioning leads to dying quickly, especially in a slow mech that can't correct my mistake. It also leads to not having a chance to shoot because I'm not in a position to fire on the enemy - friends are in the way or something else is a problem. Faster mechs can help with that a bit, but I do still need to work on it.

In any case, people on the teams I have played have expressed annoyance with mechs that are too slow. When I got faster mechs, it led to a lot better performance in matches where they used some of the tactics they like to use.

Edited by Anachronda, 29 November 2015 - 05:13 AM.

[Spheroid]

Three Thunderbolts is already the perfect deck. Embrace the heat of Vitric, it hurts clans more than inner sphere as long you force a protracted brawl.

Sitting back is what allows them to win alpha exchanges. The standard Thunderwub has twenty DHS so the heat capacity is rather generous. With coolshot you are talking four or five alphas. With override shutdown enabled you can push the heat limits quite recklessly before dying.

If you must have ballistic your choices are:

Enforcer-5P
Wolverine-6R
Dragon-1N
Jager-DD


Also don't bring King Crabs to CW. Not only are they slow they eat up too much tonnage from the lower end of your drop deck.

Edited by Spheroid, 29 November 2015 - 11:44 AM.

[zudukai]

Wolverine-6R it's got a dead side, JJ and quirks just shy of the dragon. -55t

Spoiler

WVR-6R
TORSO TURN RATE (YAW): 25.00 %
ADDITIONAL STRUCTURE (RA): 18.00
AC/5 COOLDOWN: 20.00 %
BALLISTIC COOLDOWN: 20.00 %
MISSILE RANGE: 12.50 %

the enforcer has JJ too, but the weapons are on both arms so it's not nearly as tough and has lesser quality quirks. -50t

Spoiler

ENF-5P Max Engine: 325
ADDITIONAL STRUCTURE (LA): 8.00
ADDITIONAL STRUCTURE (RA): 8.00
ADDITIONAL STRUCTURE (LL): 12.00
ADDITIONAL STRUCTURE (RL): 12.00
TORSO TURN RATE (YAW): 25.00 %
UAC/5 COOLDOWN: 10.00 %
BALLISTIC COOLDOWN: 10.00 %
UAC/5 HEAT GENERATION: -10.00 %
BALLISTIC HEAT GENERATION: -10.00 %
UAC/5 VELOCITY: 10.00 %
BALLISTIC VELOCITY: 10.00 %
UAC/5 JAM CHANCE: -30.00 %
LASER DURATION: -12.50 %

i should mention that the Wolverine has other strong preforming variants also (namely the 3LL arm), while the Enforcer does not.

Edited by zudukai, 29 November 2015 - 12:41 PM.

[Anachronda]

Spheroid, on 29 November 2015 - 11:38 AM, said:

Three Thunderbolts is already the perfect deck. Embrace the heat of Vitric, it hurts clans more than inner sphere as long you force a protracted brawl.

You ain't kiddin'. I love my Thunderbolts. Fast and hard-hitting, nice shield side, great mech. I've been in groups where we all had Banshees/Zeuses and Thunderbolts, or at least all had at least 2 Thunderbolts. Then we'd do a Thunderbolt push. Thunder .. Thunder .. Thunderbolts hooooo! Good times.

Edited by Anachronda, 30 November 2015 - 04:56 AM.

[Johny Rocket]

Treb 7K Jack Hammer
TBT-7K

You can shed some armor for more ammo. With quirks elite and a AC5 cooldown mod it brings the cooldown to 1 sec so set to chainfire you get an AC5 every half sec.
Nice symmetrical build with the ACs in the left ST and MLs in the right.

Never tried it in CW.
My dropdeck is 3 Black Nights and a Pirate's Bane. The BK can run some great max XL LL/ERLL builds that can out last clanners heat wise on any map.

Edited by Tractor Joe, 29 November 2015 - 11:28 PM.

[Anachronda]

An aside: I actually do currently bring energy to Vitric, and with heat management I do think it's doable. I dont overheat a lot anymore, but that's because I try to manage heat. For instance I rarely alpha anymore, and I try to be creative with weapon groups. Usually I have weapons grouped by side with heat in mind (left group 1, right group 2, middle or something else group 3). On my Stalker 4N I just wait the .5 second between firing my left and right side lasers. On my Thunderbolts, I have a set for left and right pulse lasers and group 3 is a chainfire which includes all pulse lasers - that basically means I can fire all the time. My Firestarter 9A does have group 1 as an alpha of all the spls, but group 2 is the arms, which is good for when I am hot or when I need to shoot at tighter angles. I've done all of that on Vitric. My hottest mechs, like the wubshees and 4N, carry max coolshots to keep things going longer.

The reason for this thread is more for the fact I am trying to make sure I have mechs for every scenario needed. For instance I am working on having ECM in every weight class and I built some mechs for flying up on the wall in Vitric and knocking off those Cheetahs and such. In this case, it's for the situation where the caller demands dakka. If they want me to bring dakka, that's what I'm going to try and bring, despite the above. Besides, the less heat, the better as long as I can still do enough damage. I learned to love gauss rifles for that reason.

Thanks for all the advice, guys, please keep it coming

Edited by Anachronda, 30 November 2015 - 05:01 AM.

[DevlinCognito]

Pretty much covered already, but the 6R and Jager get my vote. With the Jager you get a decent double gauss sniper as well as the 3 UAC DD, both solid mechs with a bit of variety.

The Wolverines give you the 6R for some AC5 machine gunning, the 6K for a quick mid range poke beast and the 7K for a decent brawler with 3 SRM6 with med pulse lasers.

The Trebuchet is another decent and oft overlooked build, the 7k with 2 PPC and an AC5 is a nice mid range poke mech, but the others aren't ideal. The 7M does make a pretty good lurmisher , but lurms in CW aren't ideal if dropping against the preponderance of ECM Clan mechs.

[Bud Crue]

My "fast heavy" ballistic mechs are Cataphracts and Jaggers. If willing to use XLs you can get these things up into some serious speeds. I however, run mostly standard engines for CW. My slowest of the group is the 3 AC5 Cataphract IM (2 MPL as back up) with a standard 260 which gets you to 68 kph with speed tweak. My 0XP with the standard AC/20 and 4 MPL and running a std 300 gets you up to 76.3 kph with speed tweak. Should you want to jump, you can do the Cataphract D same as the 0XP but drop the MPL to regular mediums for 4 jump jets (obviously you lose the ECM on the D as well, but I add a beagle).

Jaggers can be built in similar manner to the Cataphracts (except for jump possibility). If using standard engines I do the 2 AC/10 build with medium lasers, or the S with the 3 AC/5 build or 3UAC 5 with or without back up weapons respectively. All builds should run in mid to upper 70s.

Honorable mention: I also occasionally will run one of my Quickdraw IV-4 builds in CW...but only rarely do I so, do to the need to run an XL engine in the things (I am not good enough of a torso twister yet to feel confident enough to run XLs on bigger mechs in CW...and there are few mechs bigger in profile than the Quickdraw). My 2 LB-10X build is fun for 2nd or 4th wave crit seeking. I also have 1 with a Gauss and an ERLL that is fun to snipe with on Boreal and from the top on Vitric. Lastly, do not sneeze at the 2 AC/5 and mixed secondary weapons build. The current quirks of 20% ballistics cool down plus 20% AC/5 cool down, makes standard AC/5 feel more like UACs without the extra tonnage. Just be careful to not shoot too much dirt with those gorilla arms. All builds with a XL270 you run at 80kph with speed tweak.

Edited by Bud Crue, 30 November 2015 - 07:26 AM.

[Anachronda]

Bud Crue, on 30 November 2015 - 07:24 AM, said:

My "fast heavy" ballistic mechs are Cataphracts and Jaggers. If willing to use XLs you can get these things up into some serious speeds. I however, run mostly standard engines for CW. My slowest of the group is the 3 AC5 Cataphract IM (2 MPL as back up) with a standard 260 which gets you to 68 kph with speed tweak. My 0XP with the standard AC/20 and 4 MPL and running a std 300 gets you up to 76.3 kph with speed tweak. Should you want to jump, you can do the Cataphract D same as the 0XP but drop the MPL to regular mediums for 4 jump jets (obviously you lose the ECM on the D as well, but I add a beagle).

That is a nice heads up. I do love and miss my Ilya and I only just realized the reason my cats are slow is the way I built them back as a new player (they were my first heavies). It's too bad the 4x has such a small max engine, because mine does a lot of dakka.

I think the hardest to fill this description seems to be Assaults, which was the problem I experienced . Banshee 3E can only use 3AC/5 if you use a standard engine - I'm not sure how good it is that way but some people seem to like it. King Crabs are the king of dakka, with the problems outlined. As far as lights go, if you are going to put autocannons on you're going to basically have one. Still useful and Machine guns are fun, though.

[DevlinCognito]

CW is tough because you need the speed, but don't want to run all XL because some of the shooters out there can pop a side torso in one volley. With some mechs the gamble can be worth it (Jagers and honourable mention to some of the Zues) but with the Cataphract I'd say the torsos are too prone to being XL-checked.

Speaking of the Zues, there is one variant that can fit 2 AC5 and 4 medium pulse all one side, standard engine and can still move at 70-something. Surprisingly tanky for a mech its size and can have some interesting builds on the other variants.

[Elizander]

CTF-3D with 2 UAC/5 and 4 ML can put on the max engine and go at 84. You can then balance the remaining tonnage between extra ammo and JJs.

[Johny Rocket]

Anachronda, on 30 November 2015 - 09:29 PM, said:

I think the hardest to fill this description seems to be Assaults, which was the problem I experienced . Banshee 3E can only use 3AC/5 if you use a standard engine - I'm not sure how good it is that way but some people seem to like it. King Crabs are the king of dakka, with the problems outlined. As far as lights go, if you are going to put autocannons on you're going to basically have one. Still useful and Machine guns are fun, though.

I have Banshees and my answer to your assault question is the Mauler, its tough to brawl 1 on 1 in but in CW you can work around having to and when you get the drop on them its a punisher. My Favorite MX90 build is 4 AC5 2 SRM4, XL300, hardly ever goes down to an ST loss, 2 shield arms. P2P unfortunately, a la carte it is worth it or the cbill release isn't to far off.

Edited by Tractor Joe, 02 December 2015 - 04:52 PM.