11 replies to this topic

[Dekallis]

I'm a veteran of previous mechwarrior games I've at least played every MW from the original up to 4 and it's expansions.(And own all but MW3)

So coming in I thought I knew what I wanted....I knew I wanted a MadCat/Timberwolf because....well...that probably doesn't need explaining the mech is just that good.

I was fairly sure I'd want a ryoken, but seeing the stormcrow I'm not so sure mainly because in MW4 it could mount JJ's and I loved hoping to try and pop open cockpits of taller mechs with a laser volley but this one can't mount any and my runs on the trial mech have left me less than impressed. So I'm looking at the Nova as a potential buy instead since it appears to have a similar profile and more beam points....and jump jets. But I'm not sure if it's the right mech to buy for a medium. I'm probably only going to run one maybe two medium mechs at most depending on if I find a light I really love, but usually i'm more comfy in mediums and heavies because I'm mostly a brawler at heart.

As far as lights go I got the kit fox and i'm ok with it still experimenting with loadouts, though had tons of fun with a mg/flamer build that jumpjets in behind people,shoots flames up their backsides, and runs away...or sticks if they're running only beams since they're probably going to overheat.(I basically use it as a 'beam hunter') Alternatively i've tried running missiles but...so far lrms seem like they're wet noodles compared to previous MW games and SRM's don't seem to pack as much punch...maybe it's just the lack of visual impact like mechs rocking when hit but it never feels like i'm doing much damage with them. So I ended up going large laser sniping when I'm not being a firefox.(I really have no idea what i'm doing with this mech i'm just screwing around and stuffs working presumably because i'm low tier.)

For an assault mech(Because what stable would be complete without an assault mech?) I was looking forward to getting a Daishi....but the Dire wolf feels like a turtle compared to the MW4 Daishi with it's gimped torso turning radius and I genuinely cannot stand being that slow while simultaneously being such a large target. Light mechs were never a concern to me before in assaults but the dire wolf most definitely has to be concerned when nimble mechs are sprinting at it because it can't seem to track them at all. Soooooo instead I'm thinking of getting a Warhawk or Gargoyle, Warhawk because it seems like a solid assault mech and partly because after having read the Dark Age books I kinda want one. Gargoyle because it's clearly a skirmisher assault mech which is such a glorious contradiction. I feel like it'll do well as a brawler if it's mobility is half as good as I hope it is but I'm genuinely concerned about it's humanoid design, see I'm used to habitually targeting the face of mechs like this one partly because years of FPS games have trained me to aim for the head and partly because I'm used to dealing with atlases by shooting for the cockpit....which is in the head and it looks like the garg has the exact same weakpoint. I'm worried it'll be too easy to hit the cockpit and render all that armor useless(much like it usually is on an atlas when people remember the faceplate is like a easy kill button) but I'm not overly familiar with hitboxes around here yet and it seems like cockpit shots are much harder to land than in MW4 at least.

I've tried Faction play a bit, won a couple of battles, (Flamethrower kitfox was actually useful by getting lucky and blowing up components) lost more battles, i can't help but notice how much the battles tend to get bogged down into standoffs is that normal and should I be LRM boating if standing around poking at each other is the norm?

I had thought to get a LRM support mech but the longbow apparently isn't in game so...there went that. It's the only mech I've ever really felt comfy LRM boating in, and I genuinely felt it did its job better than catapault. So what's a good support mech to consider instead?

EDIT: Keep in mind I'll be grabbing these piecemeal by grinding credits, since i'm not sure yet whether I really want to spend cash on this....though I might buy a rifleman if it's done justice because that's a fun mech.

Edited by Dekallis, 13 February 2016 - 08:14 PM.

[mailin]

Okay, lots to comment on, so let me see if I can make some things coherent for you.

1) Novas are GREAT mechs, but Stormcrows are regarded as the BEST mediums out there. Yes, they lack jump jets, but with the omnipods, they have access to virtually all weapons, they're fast and they are tough. For that reason, if you get a Stormcrow you will probably get focused on. For that reason I love my Nova. Load it with 6 small pulse, and 4 mgs. The key however is that you are very short range. So, stay close to the assaults and look for either wounded enemies or lights. That Nova build is a killer.

2) Personally, I don't like the Kit Fox. They are too slow to be a full on light, instead I consider them mediums that didn't gain the necessary weight. For a true light look to the Arctic Cheetah. By most this mech is regarded as the best light going currently. Unfortunately, they too tend to get focused.

3) I'm not the one to ask about assaults. I hate being slow and lumbering, and the Dire Wolf really is the poster child for that. However, DWFs can lay down some serious damage if they get support from their team. If not, they get focused into scrap.

4) Faction play is generally considered hard mode. I give you full credit for trying this. Personally I am not a fan and I'd much rather play quick drops. Note that the reason CW is so challenging is that currently there is no separation between groups and pugs in CW. So if you drop in CW as a single pug you could be on a team made up entirely of other pugs (and not on comms) against a well-coordinated 12-man group that is using TeamSpeak. Also, the few drops that I have done on CW seemed to be a lot of long range shoot and scoot battles. Not my favorite method of fighting. YMMV. In order to be the most successful at CW in its current implementation, get a drop deck of 4 mechs, get them fully elited at the minimum and get a group of 11 other players all on TeamSpeak.

5) There are a couple of mechs that have really been quirked for lrms. The first one that comes to mind is the Hunchback 4J. Note the quirks on this mech. I have also seen some Jagermechs with lrms, but I can't remember exactly which variant. Personally if I want to have lols with lurms, I will drop in my Stalker 5M. On this mech I have 5 lrm 5s, a tag and 4 mlas. I chain fire the lrm 5s to form a nearly constant stream. It is important to note that lrms NEED to have a target lock to be most effective. To get a lock press R, hold the reticle over the enemy mech indicator and wait. When the circle turns red you have a lock. BUT, you need to maintain that lock until the missiles hit. The reticle needs to stay very close to the enemy indicator. If you see the tiny circle in the middle turn red it means that your lrms have hit a mech. BUT, they may have hit a friendly, or a different enemy that you weren't aiming for. For these reasons, while most consider lrms to be noob weapons because they CAN be instant hits, they are NOT guaranteed hits.

6) For mech building before spending any c-bills look to http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/

7) Welcome to MWO and feel free to ask any questions that pop into your head. We LOVE helping new pilots.

Edited by mailin, 13 February 2016 - 11:11 PM.

[Kimberm1911]

There is a lot of information you are looking for, I'll try to be as helpful as I can be. First of all, I pilot exclusively inner sphere mechs. However, since I have played for quite some time, and am somewhat familiar with the meta, as well as faced down many clan mechs, I feel I can give you at least a little bit of advice on both inner sphere and clan.

Let's start with the LRM support mech you are looking for. In terms of inner sphere, the Mauler, BLR 1s, JM6-A, and Catapult all function admirably in terms of missile support. Since you stated you wanted a "support mech," the King crab, Mauler, Catapult k2, and Banshee 3e all serve as dedicated direct fire support mechs. Lots of clan mechs function really well as LRM boats, but in my experience, clan LRM's do not hit as hard as inner sphere lrms. The Timber wolf, Summoner, and mad dog work well as missile boats. However, using a timber wolf as a lrm boat is a waste of its potential.

I pilot primarily assaults, and while I pilot primarily inner sphere, I'm fairly familiar with the combat capabilities of the clan assaults. I do not enjoy piloting clan assaults, and I sold the dire wolf about a week after buying it, too slow for PUG drops, and too heavy for CW. However, in group play, the Dire wolf becomes a terrifying beast. In terms of assaults, since you mentioned trying to decide between the Warhawk and Gargoyle, I would recommend the Warhawk, not because it is the best clan assault, but rather because the Gargoyle is terrible. There will always be a pilot that makes a bad mech work out really well for them, but overall, trying to get the Gargoyle to function well is difficult. It's weapon payload is located almost exclusively in its arms, and its light armor and boxy torso don't do well in terms of keeping it alive. The Warhawk however, is another story. The warhawk has some really fun builds, and can function well if you know what you are doing with it. It is faster then most other assault mechs, and packs some really weirdly powerful weapon combinations. It is a fairly squishy mech however, and being the size of a dire wolf but 15 tons less does not help its survivability. That coupled with the fact it is often mistaken for a dire wolf and focused down very quickly. Recommendation, dire wo.... I mean warhawk.

In terms of medium mechs, the stormcrow really is the top of the meta right now. Coming from an inner sphere pilot, it is just very hard to take down. I would not necessarily say it is OP, like some people would, but it is definitely one of the better medium mechs out there. Its ability to mount a variety of powerful weapon combinations, and very very nice hitboxes, allow it to be a threat to anything on the battlefield. The nova is a bit more niche........... It can run a boat ton of lasers, but 12 er medium lasers will melt your mech very quickly, and while it is an admirable striker, the fact that the majority of its weapons are located in its weak arms prevent it from being on the front lines for any length of time. As an inner sphere assault pilot, I see a stormcrow as a threat, and a nova more as a squishy free kill. Torso twist, wait for the nova to panic alpha, shutdown, and then get finished off by my large weapons.

Peace, and have fun.

Edited by Kimberm1911, 13 February 2016 - 11:16 PM.

[Ximinett]

Yes,Nova is a mech killer,whatever if the enemy is bigger than u (putting appart the assaults)

Edited by Ximinett, 14 February 2016 - 12:15 AM.

[Leone]

I love me my Blackhawks. One thing to think on though, the Nova is limited in tonnage, so the builds,.... You know what, whatever, here I made this for someone else, but take a look at four Novas in CW. Threw em all together in one drop, not my best match, not my worst. Less talky, How bout I show you.

Next up, Daishi. I love it, but I'd leave off the assualts till you've got a few others under your belt. Those things are like, 17 million cbills. I personally am huge fan of the Man'o'War, but the thing to remember about the 'Goyle, is they've roughly the free tonnage of a Nova, almost. Only thing I like em for is brawling, but the are awesome for it.

And no, Never been headshotted in a Gargoyle, an I mastered three o' em long and long ago. I got my Daishi later'n I got goyles, an got killed by cockpit breach in em first. As for the Masakari... meh. Never got it. I mean, I could go DAishi, an go all the way with weaponry, or go Goyle, an go whole hog on speed. Why find a middle ground that doesn't do either as well as the others?

But seriously, leave the assault till later, it's the larger purchase.

~Leone.

[Rogue Jedi]

Dekallis, on 13 February 2016 - 08:12 PM, said:

As far as lights go I got the kit fox and i'm ok with it still experimenting with loadouts, though had tons of fun with a mg/flamer build that jumpjets in behind people,shoots flames up their backsides, and runs away...or sticks if they're running only beams since they're probably going to overheat.(I basically use it as a 'beam hunter') Alternatively i've tried running missiles but...so far lrms seem like they're wet noodles compared to previous MW games and SRM's don't seem to pack as much punch...maybe it's just the lack of visual impact like mechs rocking when hit but it never feels like i'm doing much damage with them. So I ended up going large laser sniping when I'm not being a firefox.(I really have no idea what i'm doing with this mech i'm just screwing around and stuffs working presumably because i'm low tier.)

Kit Fox is a slow Light, better for protecting the assaults or providing ECM cover to a medium/heavy lance, most of the Lights in MWO are 30-50% faster than the Kit Fox, and are used to harass and distract the enemy, as well as to scout, spot, and in assault or conquest game modes to capture the objectives ^{(in assault capping is likely to draw off 2-4 Mechs who will come to hunt you down, if your main force pushes when you tell them you are under attack that will probably win the game, although you will not make much)}
Good fast Lights include:
Firestarter, Jenner, Arctic Cheetah, JennerIIC, Spider, Raven.
Out of the above Firestarter, JennerIIC, Jenner and Arctic Cheetah are the most heavily armed,
Raven is the best Sniper
Spider is the fastest and best at jumping
Spider, Firestarter and Arctic Cheetah are the most durable

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For an assault mech(Because what stable would be complete without an assault mech?) I was looking forward to getting a Daishi....but the Dire wolf feels like a turtle compared to the MW4 Daishi with it's gimped torso turning radius and I genuinely cannot stand being that slow while simultaneously being such a large target. Light mechs were never a concern to me before in assaults but the dire wolf most definitely has to be concerned when nimble mechs are sprinting at it because it can't seem to track them at all. Soooooo instead I'm thinking of getting a Warhawk or Gargoyle, Warhawk because it seems like a solid assault mech and partly because after having read the Dark Age books I kinda want one. Gargoyle because it's clearly a skirmisher assault mech which is such a glorious contradiction. I feel like it'll do well as a brawler if it's mobility is half as good as I hope it is but I'm genuinely concerned about it's humanoid design, see I'm used to habitually targeting the face of mechs like this one partly because years of FPS games have trained me to aim for the head and partly because I'm used to dealing with atlases by shooting for the cockpit....which is in the head and it looks like the garg has the exact same weakpoint. I'm worried it'll be too easy to hit the cockpit and render all that armor useless(much like it usually is on an atlas when people remember the faceplate is like a easy kill button) but I'm not overly familiar with hitboxes around here yet and it seems like cockpit shots are much harder to land than in MW4 at least.

In MWO you see people piloting all weight classes in previous MechWarrior games you would pilot a Light until you could afford a medium, it was basicly a race to heavy or assault then you never piloted Light/Medium Mechs again, it could not be that way in MWO so the Light Mechs is great for hunting down slow assault Mechs.
An assault will usually destroy slow mediums or heavy Mechs 1v1 but Assaults are a trade-off armour and firepower in exchange for speed and mobility, at close range pretty much any Mech will beat a Dire Wolf one on one, but at mid to long range few other Mechs will stand a chance against the Dire.
Faster assaults have a chance against Lights but a Light is fast and agile enough that you have to be ether really good or really lucky to kill a Light Mech with a competent pilot in an assault

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I've tried Faction play a bit, won a couple of battles, (Flamethrower kitfox was actually useful by getting lucky and blowing up components) lost more battles, i can't help but notice how much the battles tend to get bogged down into standoffs is that normal and should I be LRM boating if standing around poking at each other is the norm?

Faction Play also known as Community Warfare is designed for unit play, the team with largest group will usually win due to better coordination, in FP communication is key. There is no skill based matchmaking in FP, you a new player in Trial Mechs can end up with 11 other individuals against an elite 12 player team, if that happens the game will not last long and you will not stand much of a chance.
On some faction play maps if you are defending LRM Boats can be deadly, however most maps that will not be the case. Basically the more experienced players you are up against the harder it is to use LRMs effectively, on the whole direct fire is better than LRM in faction play.

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I had thought to get a LRM support mech but the longbow apparently isn't in game so...there went that. It's the only mech I've ever really felt comfy LRM boating in, and I genuinely felt it did its job better than catapault. So what's a good support mech to consider instead?

The best LRM Mechs by weight class are;
Trebuchet, Griffin, Kintaro, Stormcrow
Mad Dog, Catapult
Battlemaster 1s, Warhawk, Awesome 8r.

[Kyynele]

When considering the Nova, do keep in mind that the current game mechanics don't allow more than 2 clan large lasers of any type or more than 6 of any smaller lasers (ERML, MPL, ERSL, SPL) to be fired simultaneously without a massive extra heat spike. So, even though you can theoretically put 14 lasers in a nova, the absolute maximum amount that you can fire without penalty is 8 lasers, and that is 2 larges and 6 mediums or smalls. Nova has pretty limited mass available for the weapons, so you probably won't be using large lasers on it.

What you can do with the Nova are either stick with the 6 laser limit and live with it, or put more lasers in it and only fire them 6 at a time. In that case you have to be careful, if you accidentally fire the second weapon group within 0.5 seconds after the first, you will get that heat spike and likely either shutdown or plainly die from overheat. Nova Prime, I think is the only stock loadout in the game that you can kill yourself within 2 seconds from match start by simply firing 1 alpha.

If you already knew this, good. I just wanted to make sure you don't buy a Nova because of the beam hardpoints and get disappointed because you don't actually get to use them as one could imagine.

Comparing Nova with Stormcrow:

Nova
+ Jumps
+ Can boat beam weapons (14 max)

Stormcrow
+ Faster
+ Much thinner = better hitboxes, harder to hit, harder to disarm, harder to kill
+ More armor
+ A lot more pod space for weapons and ammo
+ Can boat missile launchers (5 max)
+ Can boat beam weapons (13 max)
+ Has the pod space to mount big ballistics if preferred
+ Arm hardpoints higher than Nova's

I'm a fan of Nova, and it does a couple tricks better than the other (Clan) Mechs. But objectively, Stormcrow is the smarter buy, even if just for it's speed, durability and versatility.

If you plan to play Faction play, I'd suggest don't buy assaults at all. The faction play maps are huge, and speed is the Clan thing. Bringing anything slower than 87kph just means you'll either always be late for the engagement or your team has to waste precious match time waiting for you. The fastest way to get a competitive drop deck is to just get Timber Wolves and Stormcrows. If you want to expand on that, you can add a Hellbringer or an Arctic Cheetah there for some peace of mind from LRMs. You can't go very wrong purchasing any of these 4.

Edited by Kyynele, 14 February 2016 - 05:37 AM.

[Rhavin]

If you just have to have clan assault mech and don't mind the wait look into the kodiak. It is preorder right now. Will likely be the best clan assault mech when it actually ships in 3 months. It wiLL be fat and pack an atLas sized punch of weapons.

I have warhawks, I have a blast in them, it's a heavy mech with a bigger profile and looks like a Dire wolf, moves more like a madcat. But can't carry the weapons a madcat can. Still it's a fun mech in quick drops because it can keep up with everyone else. Clan assaults just take up too much weight in CW.

Everything said about the stormcrow is true, it is fast, can take a bit of damage and can use a wide variety of weapons. Multiple People will try to kill you fast because if they don't they have a justifiable fear that you will kill them fast. Novas are easier to kill, they are slower and hotter, and bigger in game than they need to be.

Kit fox is a great medium mech, and a poor light mech. Its way to slow for this game. It can work great in support of your heavy and assault lances, but it cant do the solo work away from the team that any other clan mech can do. The cheetah is superior by far, nothing in the clans right now compares to it. It will do anything the other clan lights do, only better, and with ECM.

Clans have 3 great heavys, the hellbringer, the ebon jaguar and the timberwolf. All hit hard, all are fast and all can pack serious firepower. The hellbringer is the most fragile but it packs ecm capabilities. Hellbringer and jags are great support mechs, but the TW really can get in the mix and brawl away. An LRM timberwolf is a waste of armor and makes teammates sputter in rage.

All that said, play whatever you want, it's a game man. If you have skill to make it work enough to satisfy your personal goals then run with it.

[Dekallis]

Wow thanks for all the detailed replies. I currently have 16million C-bills. So I was a bit unsure whether to just plunge into a assault mech or wait and buy two mediums or a heavy and some mech modules or something. It's a bit disapointing I can't buy mechbays so I'm probably going to end up doing alot of CW to try and get more bays from faction rewards since as far as I can see that's the only other way to get more.

Now back to mechs:
I know the cheetah is a favorite light but I like my kit fox, using the trial cheetah I found myself indulging in bad habits expecting the speed and quantity of lasers to do more than it did I also had a bad habit of overheating when I really needed to be able to run, but ultimately it seemed really susceptible to overheating and my flamer fox actually made a couple blow up that way. Maybe they were just bad maybe I'm just bad, but I'm more comfy in my kitfox I've learned more from using it than I did in my runs with the cheetah and the fact it has ballistic hardpoints is a plus for me. I like ballistic hardpoints on light mechs. Less fighting heat buildup and more fighting the enemy. I actually managed to sit directly on top of a high point in a forest colony battle with a LBX-5 and rained shots down an entire match almost entirely undisturbed. Components were destroyed, but people either werent' looking for me or oblivious to where the fire was coming from. Which is a big plus for me for shell weapons over beams on mechs that like to hit and run or hide and poke at things. Lasers have the annoying downside of ruining any good hiding spot the moment you fire. I'm still experimenting with configurations for my fox, but I'm fairly sure I'm going to settle on some kind of ballistic setup eventually with a targeting computer if there's room to squeeze it in. Besides all this I've noted if people see me and they see a cheetah or...basically any other mech they shoot the other mech and not me. It's nice to be ignored and left to do your damage and there's nothing quite like the feeling of bringing down an atlas or king crab with a kitfox simply because they made the mistake of ignoring me when they shouldn't have. Above all else though I like being able to reconfigure the fox to run beams or ballistics or missiles on a whim. Can't do that with a cheetah....or most lights. I wish the ECM could be mounted elsewhere but overall I'm happy with it.

As for the nova/stormcrow issue.....I'll probably buy both eventually.Mediums/heavies are my preferred weight classes. if I can get some additional mech bays from CW I might even get the shadow cat, the trial shadowcat impressed me and I'm not normally a fan of the mech but it did some serious work yesterday while i was trying to do CW's for the event reward. That lone gauss is no joke. I know the stormcrow is versatile, that's what I loved about the ryoken really. As for laser boating I'd be more likey to split my lasers into two even firegroups and chain fire them to manage heat while allowing continous fire without any real downtime. Though upon closer inspection I see the nova can't really do anything BUT laserboat....but it does it really really well. I could see myself using it over the crow in maps like bog, or frozen city and certain CW maps where I can use high ground like the modifed HPG map. I dunno I'mma have to flip a coin or something on this one. It's a hard choice because I really enjoy using jump jets. I naturally look for places to hop to and it was awkward for me piloting the stormcrow and not having jets. sooner or later I'll probably get both, I just wish I knew how often trial mechs change so I could plan around how long I'll have that trial stormcrow to play with and feel out the workings of it. I feel like I might enjoy it more if I could change the weapons, but it's a pretty big investment just to find out if re-arming it makes it feel more comfy. I know it's good but even if it were the best mech ever built it'd be worthless to me if I can't find my comfort zone piloting it. I think a big part of my problem is I'm really used to having ECM from my kitfox, so I'll have to learn how to creep around without ECM.

Heavies....I'm definitely getting a Madcat...er...timberwolf eventually.Though I didn't realize hellbringer could mount an ECM I might have to give that a look. But I'm not overly concerned about this tier it's the one i'm most comfy with so once I get my timberwolf I'll proly be able to make anything else work. It's really easy for me to get comfy in a heavy.

Assaults....I think I'll take the advice and stay away from buying one for now. I still think the garg fits me but I'll need to play around with that mech builder a bit more to find some builds that might work for it before I can seriously think about buying one. I could see it being a fire support mech with triple PPC's and staying mobile, or going in brawler mode with small/medium lasers....or maybe even some LBX's if it can mount them I used to love LBX in MW4. Such a satisfying boom when it fired, and the way mechs would swing round on impact....but I'm getting off topic. I'm not sure I'd get one if it can only sling energy weapons, I don't want to end up with a full stable of "Beam spitters" that's boring.

I know the direwolf is a popular mech and i know it's got serious firepower but I can't count how many times I see one get flanked and downed in seconds because it can't protect that squishy backside, that's too serious a flaw for my liking given it's limited torso twist range. Being highly deadly as long as no one approches from the side....or rear...too many deadzones. If I'm going to be that slow I want to at least be able to rotate properly and track targets or turn to face an unexpected threat.
I think I'll wait till another set of trial mechs lets me try some more assault mechs and try to familiarize myself more with the playstyle. In the past I didn't assault mech much, MadcatII and Daishi were the only ones I really used, and Mostly that was the MadcatII.



One other thing though a couple of questions on LRM's why doesn't anyone seem to use Narcs? It seems like madness to use LRMS en masse and NOT have narcs around given how effective ECM is at hiding targets from lrm users. Hell I don't even see the tag laser used that often, so what gives? and about how big a volley do you need to overwhelm AMS? I noticed AMS is unbelievably effective compared to past games and many misslers are just lobbing volleys that get shot down without reaching target when multiple ams's are present...and many of them seem to be oblivious to this.....and just keep volleying. I'm looking at the griffin as a missile support mech seems solid, ecm/JJ's good for getting into high ground and staying undetected shame it doesn't have the tonnage to carry enough missiles for a long battle, I despise having to volley from the low ground.I really dislike the catapault but it seems like it may be my best option....But cata's always have to play purely keep away or they get their 'arms' shot off and become useless.


Thanks again for all the advice guys, and that video leone...wow. Called people out and everything. I felt like I almost had to buy a nova after that.

[Rogue Jedi]

Dekallis, on 14 February 2016 - 12:27 PM, said:

One other thing though a couple of questions on LRM's why doesn't anyone seem to use Narcs? It seems like madness to use LRMS en masse and NOT have narcs around given how effective ECM is at hiding targets from lrm users. Hell I don't even see the tag laser used that often, so what gives? and about how big a volley do you need to overwhelm AMS? I noticed AMS is unbelievably effective compared to past games and many misslers are just lobbing volleys that get shot down without reaching target when multiple ams's are present...and many of them seem to be oblivious to this.....and just keep volleying. I'm looking at the griffin as a missile support mech seems solid, ecm/JJ's good for getting into high ground and staying undetected shame it doesn't have the tonnage to carry enough missiles for a long battle, I despise having to volley from the low ground.I really dislike the catapault but it seems like it may be my best option....But cata's always have to play purely keep away or they get their 'arms' shot off and become useless.

NARC+ ammo is 4 tons minimum on an IS Mech, a Light Mech can make best use of it but 4 tones is a significant investment on a Light ^{(and there may not be a single LRM on the team, so potentially you are investing quater to half your weight for weapons on something which may not give you any return on your investment in half of games)}, NARC has a slow projectile so it is hard to hit a movnig target, and you do not get even quarter the rewards for a NARC assist that the LRM user does from damage, despite the fact that placing a NARC requires a lot of skill and is best done from a Light or Medium.

Many LRM boats think Light Mechs should TAG for them, the problem with that is the TAG is a laser pointer which draws attention to the Mech using it, the last thing a Light Mech wants is to draw attention, the Mech with LRMs should have its own TAG to assist it with target acquisition, unfortunately many LRM boats are under the mistaken impression there job is to hide behind cover lobbing missiles when it is much more effective to get line of sight, hold TAG on target and direct fire LRMs.

I agree AMS is really effective, if the whole team took AMS and stayed in the standard Deathball formation enemy LRMs would be completely useless, but most people do not take it then complain when they fail to use cover, ECM or are on the few maps which are good for LRMs, and get hit by missiles.

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 14 February 2016 - 02:34 PM.

[Rhavin]

I occasionally use a Highlander 2 C build that has artemis, tag , BAP, narc and 2 LRM 15s with 2 med pulse and an AC 10. I brawl at 300 meters with it and do great damage despite the chassis being sub par to other clan assault mechs. Have friends that say it's pretty scary to run into considering that it really doesn't have alot of firepower. The narc and tag bonuses make up for it. Plus it runs really cool so I can keep pouring damage on a target till it runs, dies, or panics overheats and then dies. Really one of those mechs that does require some teamwork in the form of following a push or haveing any other LRM boats bring the rain with you.

Narc and Tag just don't give enough benifit to carry them without your own LRMS along. If Narc was faster or a guaranteed hit with a lock it would be seen more often. Also LRMS are very ineffective in higher tiers and CW drops so you don't see many for that reason either.

Shadowcats are underatedoing mechs. The MASC speed and jumpjets with ECM do make up for lack of hardpoints in proper hands. I prefer it over the nova, if you like to jump.

[S 0 L E N Y A]

I cant emphasize enough what everyone else has already said about the Nova vs Storm Crow.
The Nova is fun, and can run some setups well, but the StormCrow is by FAR the better buy.
The StormCrow can fit so many different rolls and fit them very very well. Jumps are nice, but they do not even come close to closing the gap between the Nova and Crow.

Edited by Boogie138, 14 February 2016 - 07:18 PM.