47 replies to this topic

[Alistair Winter]

I'm not saying it's viable. I'm not saying it's good. But for a long time, I tried to run 2xAC2 on lights and mediums and it was just... horrible. In 2013, I would run out of ammo and do no damage. In 2014, I would overheat and do no damage. In 2015, it was a mix of both. Until they finallly buffed the AC2.

It's been my dream to run 2xAC2 on my Ravens since 2012, but it never worked. Until now. I can now play 2xAC2 on my Huginn (or RVN-4X) or CDA-3C and get through the match without running out of ammo. I'll even hit 300-500 dmg if I play my cards right. And although I don't own any Blackjacks, I'm thrilled to see that BJ-pilots are finally running 2xAC2 instead of 1xAC20. Now the Blackjack is being used the way it's supposed to, like a mobile light ballistics platform.

I wouldn't mind if the AC2 was even better, but I think this is the best place the AC2 has been in. (For a while, the AC2 was really good, but lacked ammo. So you couldn't run the AC2 on a light mech, but you saw a lot of Shadow Hawks and Atlases with 3xAC2. Which is fine, but I want to see 30-45 ton mechs carrying them)

[Wintersdark]

Yeah, the cAC2 (NOT the cUAC2) is actually a usable weapon on the clan HBK-IIC. It's not an optimal build - the 10's, or even 5's are simply better for all the reasons those are usually better than 2's. However, you can run 4xcAC2 to a surprising level of effectiveness. Better range than the UAC2, no 5 second downtime when jamming causing overall lower DPS.

And 4xcAC2 actually outputs a reasonable amount of DPS. There's much dakka, and thus much entertainment to be had and - outside of very high tier matches - it's actually reasonably effective.

[Alistair Winter]

Wintersdark, on 30 December 2015 - 08:06 PM, said:

Yeah, the cAC2 (NOT the cUAC2) is actually a usable weapon on the clan HBK-IIC. It's not an optimal build - the 10's, or even 5's are simply better for all the reasons those are usually better than 2's. However, you can run 4xcAC2 to a surprising level of effectiveness. Better range than the UAC2, no 5 second downtime when jamming causing overall lower DPS.

That's interesting. I haven't played my Clan account for a while, so I look forward to testing the Clan counterparts at some point.

Wintersdark, on 30 December 2015 - 08:06 PM, said:

And 4xcAC2 actually outputs a reasonable amount of DPS. There's much dakka, and thus much entertainment to be had and - outside of very high tier matches - it's actually reasonably effective.

In February, when the Mauler is finally available for C-bills, I'm going to make a desperate effort to make the MAL-1R work with 4xAC2, 2xLRM10 and a couple of lasers in the arms. Not quite stock, but close enough. My hope is that I can just pile on some LRMs when I have no line of sight, and pump 4xAC2s when I have line of sight, and then pewpew with lasers when I'm out of ammo.

[Fox With A Shotgun]

Lol, you guys missed the glory days of the RVN-4X's 30% ballistic range. 2AC2 actually worked sort of as a minigauss with that little mech.

[Wintersdark]

ArcturusWolf, on 30 December 2015 - 08:14 PM, said:

Lol, you guys missed the glory days of the RVN-4X's 30% ballistic range. 2AC2 actually worked sort of as a minigauss with that little mech.

Well, or just the days of 3xoptimal max range. I always felt they should have left that in place for the AC2.

[Alistair Winter]

ArcturusWolf, on 30 December 2015 - 08:14 PM, said:

Lol, you guys missed the glory days of the RVN-4X's 30% ballistic range. 2AC2 actually worked sort of as a minigauss with that little mech.

IIRC, the weapon was still too hot, while also lacking ammo for extended engagements and not doing enough damage. I've tried to make the 2xAC2 builds work for so long, I'm quite sure I didn't miss anything. I was even there for that brief moment of joy when the Kit Fox could run 2xUAC2 in the side torsos

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

You got more DPS than a dual gauss mech, I elited one of my Kit Foxes with dual AC2 and even tried my Urban Mech out with two of them (of course that one had ammo issues though but still would get around 400 damage in some matches).

It really does just pump out constant damage, and people who notice its just an AC2 and try to take it just realize how deadly they can be, those who hide get run over by the enemy force. AC2s really aren't as bad as people claim they are at times, the buffs made them even better. I'd always love a shorter cooldown time on them or a module for it, but that's just because I love some dakka.

[Y E O N N E]

I've always run 2xAC/2 on the Blackjacks, but I admit I stopped playing those so-equipped Blackjacks so much once they nerfed the AC/2 cool-down when Clans launched. Now, they are perfect with AC/2. So much fun!

It's just a shame that we have to run specific 'Mechs to get usable AC/2. The AC/2 on the BJ-1/DC is how the AC/2 should behave across the board.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

ArcturusWolf, on 30 December 2015 - 08:14 PM, said:

Lol, you guys missed the glory days of the RVN-4X's 30% ballistic range. 2AC2 actually worked sort of as a minigauss with that little mech.

Yeah but you could just shove an actual guass on there instead...

[Not A Real RAbbi]

Alistair Winter, on 30 December 2015 - 07:14 PM, said:

I'm not saying it's viable. I'm not saying it's good. But for a long time, I tried to run 2xAC2 on lights and mediums and it was just... horrible. In 2013, I would run out of ammo and do no damage. In 2014, I would overheat and do no damage. In 2015, it was a mix of both. Until they finallly buffed the AC2.

It's been my dream to run 2xAC2 on my Ravens since 2012, but it never worked. Until now. I can now play 2xAC2 on my Huginn (or RVN-4X) or CDA-3C and get through the match without running out of ammo. I'll even hit 300-500 dmg if I play my cards right. And although I don't own any Blackjacks, I'm thrilled to see that BJ-pilots are finally running 2xAC2 instead of 1xAC20. Now the Blackjack is being used the way it's supposed to, like a mobile light ballistics platform.

I wouldn't mind if the AC2 was even better, but I think this is the best place the AC2 has been in. (For a while, the AC2 was really good, but lacked ammo. So you couldn't run the AC2 on a light mech, but you saw a lot of Shadow Hawks and Atlases with 3xAC2. Which is fine, but I want to see 30-45 ton mechs carrying them)

Twin AC/2? I put down a 753-damage drop earlier tonight in a BJ-1(C) with 2x AC/2, 2x MPL. And I SUCK at this game. Imagine what a good player could do with that!

Yes, the AC/2 is back and better than ever.

[El Bandito]

Wintersdark, on 30 December 2015 - 08:06 PM, said:

Yeah, the cAC2 (NOT the cUAC2) is actually a usable weapon on the clan HBK-IIC. It's not an optimal build - the 10's, or even 5's are simply better for all the reasons those are usually better than 2's. However, you can run 4xcAC2 to a surprising level of effectiveness. Better range than the UAC2, no 5 second downtime when jamming causing overall lower DPS.

I always find this puzzling. All you have to do with CUACs is just hold down the button and it will never jam. Granted, the CAC2 has better range than the CUAC2 without any drop in DPS, but CAC5, 10,and 20 are all inferior than their UAC counterparts.

Edited by El Bandito, 30 December 2015 - 10:57 PM.

[FupDup]

TheRAbbi, on 30 December 2015 - 10:49 PM, said:

Twin AC/2? I put down a 753-damage drop earlier tonight in a BJ-1(C) with 2x AC/2, 2x MPL. And I SUCK at this game. Imagine what a good player could do with that!

Yes, the AC/2 is back and better than ever.

It's almost as if the BJ-1 has 25% total AC/2 cooldown, -25% total AC/2 heat, 30% ballistic velocity, and 15% ballistic range quirks.

Now try the vanilla, unquirked AC/2.

[Wintersdark]

El Bandito, on 30 December 2015 - 10:56 PM, said:

I always find this puzzling. All you have to do with CUACs is just hold down the button and it will never jam. Granted, the CAC2 has better range than the CUAC2 without any drop in DPS, but CAC5, 10,and 20 are all inferior than their UAC counterparts.

The 5, 10, and 20 have nothing to do with this at all. They are all better.

The CUAC2, however, is strictly worse. The doubletap ability in it alone results in lower overall DPS output, and the '2s are specifically DPS weapons. So, you never want to doubletap. Sure, you can hold down the fire button to not doubletap, but then why are you handing over a longer max range? That makes no sense at all.

Take a CUAC2 with lower range because the 5, 10, and 20 are better than their non-ultra variants? That's just silly.

TheRAbbi, on 30 December 2015 - 10:49 PM, said:

Twin AC/2? I put down a 753-damage drop earlier tonight in a BJ-1(C) with 2x AC/2, 2x MPL. And I SUCK at this game. Imagine what a good player could do with that!

Yes, the AC/2 is back and better than ever.

That had nothing to do with the AC2 and everything to do with BJ quirks these days.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Alistair Winter, on 30 December 2015 - 08:12 PM, said:

In February, when the Mauler is finally available for C-bills, I'm going to make a desperate effort to make the MAL-1R work with 4xAC2, 2xLRM10 and a couple of lasers in the arms. Not quite stock, but close enough. My hope is that I can just pile on some LRMs when I have no line of sight, and pump 4xAC2s when I have line of sight, and then pewpew with lasers when I'm out of ammo.

I kind of miss my 6 ac2 jager lol

[El Bandito]

Wintersdark, on 30 December 2015 - 11:16 PM, said:

The 5, 10, and 20 have nothing to do with this at all. They are all better.

The CUAC2, however, is strictly worse. The doubletap ability in it alone results in lower overall DPS output, and the '2s are specifically DPS weapons. So, you never want to doubletap. Sure, you can hold down the fire button to not doubletap, but then why are you handing over a longer max range? That makes no sense at all.

Take a CUAC2 with lower range because the 5, 10, and 20 are better than their non-ultra variants? That's just silly.

That had nothing to do with the AC2 and everything to do with BJ quirks these days.

Cause I still see people who swear by CACs and shun the CUACs due to jamming. Never mind that one does not have to double tap and have the option to do so in tight situations--plus CUACs are less bulky than CAC ones.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

El Bandito, on 30 December 2015 - 11:56 PM, said:

Cause I still see people who swear by CACs and shun the CUACs due to jamming. Never mind that one does not have to double tap and have the option to do so in tight situations--plus CUACs are less bulky than CAC ones.

and - weirdly - less expensive. PGI really dont want ppl using non U Acs lol

[Davegt27]

video or it did not happen

[Wintersdark]

El Bandito, on 30 December 2015 - 11:56 PM, said:

Cause I still see people who swear by CACs and shun the CUACs due to jamming. Never mind that one does not have to double tap and have the option to do so in tight situations--plus CUACs are less bulky than CAC ones.

Yeah, but that's dumb. You don't choose a weapon based on how others in its class perform. You care about how the particular weapon performs.

The CAC2 is simply better than the CUAC2. This is objectively not true of the others, but the 2 is a special case. It refires fast enough that doubletapping offers even less burst, as a 5 second downtime that's almost guaranteed if you have more than one is crippling. Jam rates are way to high without antijamming quirks.

It's not even just about long term dps, even in the short term you don't want to doubletap 2's.

To ignore AC2's because the 5/10/20's are better is as stupid as running AC5's instead of UAC5's because the AC2 is better.

The only time you want CUAC2's is the odd situation where you actually need that slot. My experience is that on Clan mechs running multiple heavy, small 2's, that's pretty nearly never.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Wintersdark, on 31 December 2015 - 01:10 AM, said:

Yeah, but that's dumb. You don't choose a weapon based on how others in its class perform. You care about how the particular weapon performs.

The CAC2 is simply better than the CUAC2. This is objectively not true of the others, but the 2 is a special case. It refires fast enough that doubletapping offers even less burst, as a 5 second downtime that's almost guaranteed if you have more than one is crippling. Jam rates are way to high without antijamming quirks.

It's not even just about long term dps, even in the short term you don't want to doubletap 2's.

To ignore AC2's because the 5/10/20's are better is as stupid as running AC5's instead of UAC5's because the AC2 is better.

The only time you want CUAC2's is the odd situation where you actually need that slot. My experience is that on Clan mechs running multiple heavy, small 2's, that's pretty nearly never.

I usually just run UAC2s rather than AC2s and often use the burst fire since I'm usually carrying 4, so its unlikely that they will all jam at once and as long as I have at least 2 up at any given time I'm still putting out DPS higher than what I would if I was not double tapping. Its a bit riskier but usually gets me what I need when I need it, I suppose by the time they all jam up I should probably move back into cover anyway.

[Wintersdark]

Dakota1000, on 31 December 2015 - 01:16 AM, said:

I usually just run UAC2s rather than AC2s and often use the burst fire since I'm usually carrying 4, so its unlikely that they will all jam at once and as long as I have at least 2 up at any given time I'm still putting out DPS higher than what I would if I was not double tapping. Its a bit riskier but usually gets me what I need when I need it, I suppose by the time they all jam up I should probably move back into cover anyway.

Mathematically, that's not the case. Unlike every other UAC, uac2's actually lose dps doubletapping, rather than gaining some. As each has a 30% jam chance, you're extremely likely to lose at least one in your first doubletap *and* your second, then those guns are down for 5 seconds. It is, per gun, a pretty substantial loss, whereas every other UAC gains dps even accounting for jams.

So, unless you're only firing for 1 second at a time (at which point one needs to ask why you're bothering with 2's in the first place) you're better off just single firing.