19 replies to this topic

[avenger cannon]

I'm REALLY feeling impulsive and wanting to get one of three mastery packs tonight/tomorrow.
I'm down to 3 for sure choices to make.

Spider
-Has a cool unique mech that I'm very interested in playing due to my love of the look and loadout for it and what seems to be considered a fun must have chassis in the D.
-Has seemingly no draw for me for CW related things other than engines possibly.

Jenner
-Playing the Jenner trial mech is very fun and everyone I see talking about the Oxide seems to find it very enjoyable and worth having.
-The Jenner has the possibility to fill up a spot on my CW drop replacing my Wolfhound.

Cicada
- I am rather fond of my 3M and DO NOT MIND having a clone of it to use in a different build.
- I am planning to get a second 3M to complete my CW drop as it will completely replace the Wolfhound and use my remaining tonnage while giving me a potent ECM support sniper.
- I haven't gotten this pack yet only because I already own a mech that's part of it and I don't know about owning 3 more of a single chassis before buying one of the other two sets.


Mechs I'm planning on getting using Cbills in the nearish future.

Mauler-2P
I LOVE the chassis so much and the 2P quirks are pretty interesting, it's redundant having 4 of the same chassis but I NEEEEEED to have the last one on the list.

Crab-27SL
I really adore the crab's chassis but they are pretty bland and unexciting from a loadout standpoint which is why I am thrilled at the idea of getting this stand out jump jet variant to dash around in.

I'm still on the fence about getting the Stalker Mastery Pack, I have the 5S already and I kind of still like it but I feel that the Stalkers are just too slow and unwieldly to protect themselves from a lot of the enemies out there, so the idea of spending 'big bucks' to get 3 more chassis I am losing interest in to be a toss up idea, that said everyone seems to love the Misery and it does have a nice Ballistics point I'd love to exploit.

I'm considering buying these using the Gift Shop since I haven't seen anything I'm that interested on buying with MC so far (and bad experience with having a bunch of gold in WoT laying around with nothing I can justify spending it on) so that means flat money prices (which are better value than the 30$ of MC I'd buy at the most anyways, also while I might take advantage of the bonuses with buying mech credits on the current offer I do not intend on playing Clan side on CW so I haven't bought of considered buying Clan mechs after letting the Kodiak slip by.
Any insight or opinions on this particular conundrum ?

Edited by avenger cannon, 26 April 2016 - 05:02 PM.

[ImperialKnight]

The IS Jenners are still decent. But I don't see the point of the Mastery Pack. The IIC (O) is the Oxide but with more hardpoints, Clan weaponry, and Jump Jets, so as a "Hero" mech, the Oxide is completely outclassed.

Spiders are past their prime. And again, the Hero is not impressive. If you want to play with them, buy with CBills, not worth the real money.

If you already have the CDA-3M, no point repurchasing it with real money. The X5 is not fantastic anyway. Same for the Stalker. The older mechs just doesn't cut it anymore, with the current crop of mechs.

Would highly recommend the Origins $40 pack with the Jenner and Hunchback IICs

[Lupis Volk]

The Crabs in general are a good pick. they are a solid "my first energy boat" mech. The 27SL is the most costly and has a XL engine. Crabs are great "zombie" mechs since they have 2-3 energy hard points in their head and centre torso and XL engines render that advantage moot.

[jss78]

The Cicada mastery bundle is wonderful in that all mechs in it come with big XL engines. Makes it an even better value for money than most mastery bundles. That said, I'd only use real money on it if you really want the X5. I think it's a fun mech (I love mine with XL320, 4xML and 2xSRM4), but you might want to consider that a Jenner or a Raven can run a very similar build (the Raven 3L with ECM). Otherwise, you could simply pick up two more Cicadas for c-bills.

I like Crabs, although yes, they're somewhat bland laser boats. I don't mind since in general I don't laser boat much. They're wonderful with STD engines; the quirks and hardpoint locations are not great, but they are immensely survivable, meaning that you can rack up good damage numbers over the long haul. Not flashy, but a reliable workhorse (just like in lore, funny how that sometimes works out).

Edited by jss78, 13 March 2016 - 03:48 AM.

[Rear Admiral Tier 6]

Warhammer pack is strong.

buy the regular pack + black widow,they are good value at 35 bucks

[avenger cannon]

I of course would remove the XL engine from that crab.

[Rhavin]

Since the last quirkening the X5 cicada is not as strong as it once was. If you already have cicadas elited and want another 3M just spend some cbills on one.

Oxide is good fun if you want one, yes the Jenner IICs are arguably "better" jenners but they are are clan and you mention your drop deck many times. Firestarters are great IS lights as well.

Not a spider pilot, don't care much for the chassis, my commander uses an Anasi in our CW drops to great effect. He's one of the best players in the game though and that certainly helps when playing a less than stellar mech chassis.

You didn't mention heavy mechs, mauraders and warhammers are great deals at $ 20 for 3. Archer releases in 2 days as well. Are you running Black Knights already? If not either of those could be a great buy.

You seem to favor light/ medium mechs too, so you might enjoy the ever tanky blackjack mastery bundle. Really solid medium at the moment.

[avenger cannon]

Rhavin, on 13 March 2016 - 06:27 AM, said:

Since the last quirkening the X5 cicada is not as strong as it once was. If you already have cicadas elited and want another 3M just spend some cbills on one.

Oxide is good fun if you want one, yes the Jenner IICs are arguably "better" jenners but they are are clan and you mention your drop deck many times. Firestarters are great IS lights as well.

Not a spider pilot, don't care much for the chassis, my commander uses an Anasi in our CW drops to great effect. He's one of the best players in the game though and that certainly helps when playing a less than stellar mech chassis.

You didn't mention heavy mechs, mauraders and warhammers are great deals at $ 20 for 3. Archer releases in 2 days as well. Are you running Black Knights already? If not either of those could be a great buy.

You seem to favor light/ medium mechs too, so you might enjoy the ever tanky blackjack mastery bundle. Really solid medium at the moment.

I was thinking about going for the Marauder or Warhammer due to their tonnage and flexibility, although I hate how they've done the arms on the Warhammer and Mauler, losing that fun death tube look.

My current CW set up is shoddy at best consisting of 2 Maulers a 3m cicada and a wolfhound
I was looking at the blackjack and it does sound kind of fun but it's so slow it kind of makes me annoyed of course it has a lot of firepower to balance that out

I can't stand my Black Knights, their hard point locations just don't work for me at all and with their height and large hit catching potential due to their humanoid shape I don't care for piloting them much.

I could theoretically go with a mauler, 2 Marauders and a locust which would be interesting, maybe wait for pirates bane to come out and have an ECM bug

I started after early rewards ended or I'd have all those classic packs already :C

Edited by avenger cannon, 13 March 2016 - 07:11 AM.

[Anunknownlurker]

I honestly don't think you can go wrong with Marauders, personally I prefer them to Warhammers. Be aware though that now everyone knows to shoot at the right torso of a Marauder but as long as you protect that (and don't run an XL!) the Marauder will reward you. I am not a very good heavy player but even I enjoy that mech

[avenger cannon]

Jimmy DiGriz, on 13 March 2016 - 07:48 AM, said:

I honestly don't think you can go wrong with Marauders, personally I prefer them to Warhammers. Be aware though that now everyone knows to shoot at the right torso of a Marauder but as long as you protect that (and don't run an XL!) the Marauder will reward you. I am not a very good heavy player but even I enjoy that mech

Now I'm unable to decide between another 2 selections and people seem to love the Heros as well >.> At least I'm ruling out the cicada

[JC Daxion]

Id take the cicada pack over the Jenner. They carry many of the same load-outs, and speed, but the cicada also has the ballistic build as you know. the Hero makes for an excellent light hunter. It carries more armor too, which is very nice in those light vrs light duels. The package also comes with 3 great XL engines. I also think the cicada has better hit boxes some people think it is a bit to big, but i find it more than capable of being maneuverable enough to make it work. I use the 3M in my CW drop deck.


Stalker pack is another great one. Misery is one of the best heroes around, and is used by many in CW. You rarely hear anything bad about stalkers especially the misery, outside of people that just don't like assaults. It's one of the few mechs, that has basically been on the short list of the best mechs in the game since it arrived, despite weapon nerfs, ghost heat, ext. with an STD and it can tank damage like a champ too. I can't give this mech enough praise, even going back to the days of the 4PPC builds when i loathed them Was great then, and is still great now.

If you want a light pack, i would suggest the firestarter pack, or raven. I like both heroes. the huggin is a short range SRM mech that packs a huge wallope. The Ember, is just fun especially if you are a fan of machine guns, though both the huggin and ember have 4 ballistic hard points. Raven has the ECM 3L, and the firestarter is a bit tankier, and has JJ's. It can also boat up to 8 lasers. It's a great counter to the arctic cheetah, i think the Firestarter has an edge in that fight though. Raven is more of a lance support mech, especially the SRM+laser set ups, or the huggin. They can dish out tons of damage in the short range game very quickly. The firestarter is more of a light hunter, but also plays the lance support roll very well.

Spiders, while fun are an underwhelming mech, and takes a great light pilot to make them shine. I never played the spider hero.



To me outside of the spider you can't go wrong with any of these mechs, they are among my favorite IS mechs, and really play well in the game. The spider is only for very good light pilots that also are not quite right in the head. But when you find a good one, watch out. .

[avenger cannon]

JC Daxion, on 13 March 2016 - 12:17 PM, said:

Id take the cicada pack over the Jenner. They carry many of the same load-outs, and speed, but the cicada also has the ballistic build as you know. the Hero makes for an excellent light hunter. It carries more armor too, which is very nice in those light vrs light duels. The package also comes with 3 great XL engines. I also think the cicada has better hit boxes some people think it is a bit to big, but i find it more than capable of being maneuverable enough to make it work. I use the 3M in my CW drop deck.

I heard rumors that they were going to redo the sizes of some mechs in the next patch or two and it sounded like the Cicada would be one of those to get the buff.

[JC Daxion]

Not sure when it is going to hit. I think the townhall russ said something about perhaps spliting it up. It sounded like he was thinking may/june. This update has a huge graphical upgrade, and some tweaks to game play, and a new map, and the archer, and i would guess more bugfixes, like the last patch. I am not sure if the new game mode is happening this patch, called domination... Perhaps it is though. April is CW3 i think, so it would make sense that it would come after that.

I have not seen a complete list of all the mechs being adjusted, but he said something around 85% he said something that some mechs were not going to get scaled because they were with in 5% of the correct mass. A slightly smaller cicada would be nice though.. No clue if it is on the list or not.

maybe someone has a link to a confirmed list?

[Spheroid]

I would not waste money on those mastery packs. The best mechs for CW are all standard variants. If anything just get a Marauder package and use its 30 days of premium to help grind a better deck. The Marauder's engines are also quite reusable and it is a suitable replacement if you hate Black Knights.

The Spider is vastly outclassed by the Firerstarter. The Wolfhound is not a bad mech at all since it is buffed for heat, durability and turning. Plus your WLF-2® already has a c-bill boost.

Maulers while fun are not terribly fast or durable. I recommend you ton down to bring more heavies. Best combination for most scenarios is heavy, heavy, heavy, medium or assault, heavy, heavy, light.

Here are the common competitive mechs for CW.

lights
Firestarter
Wolfhound
Oxide
Locust-1E/PB

Medium
BJ-1X
Enforcer-4R
Crab

Heavies
Jagermech-DD
Thunderbolt-9SE/5SS
Black Knight
Warhammer

Assault
Maulers
Battlemasters all
Banshee-3M
Atlas-S/DDC


Finally several new mastery packages will available patch day. I suggest you study their value before committing to purchasing now.

Edited by Spheroid, 13 March 2016 - 06:19 PM.

[Rhavin]

My community warfare team is pretty good, I am at best a good pilot, not a great one but we have good leadership on our drops which helps. Have not lost a CW match in over a week (knock on Ferro Fibrous). We are well coordinated and are generally just told what a plan is and expected to bring mechs to support the plan and listen very very well. We have alot of fun and my deck is probably the most meta of all the regular drop members. I used to run an atlas thunderbolt hunchback jenner drop deck, but it was Hella slow but those were my favorite IS mechs so it is what I used. Just wasn't a good deck because of the speed factor. 20 dollars for MAD and WHM bundles made a huge difference after cbill investment in upgrades, maybe this will help you, maybe not but after warhammer release my drop decks are generally as follows.

Attacking
MAD 5R (3 AC5) for heavy pushing/door busting
WHM-BW 2AC 5/4 med lasers for fast push base rushing
WHM-6R 3er large/3 medium for long range engagement
Cicada 3M 1LL 3 Med for ecm coverage and Gen rushing

Defense
Mad 5R (3AC5) heavy push breaker
Mad 5D (5 LG pulse ) ammo free poker
WHM-BW fast response heavy
Firestarter Ember, 4mg, 2 Med 2 med pulse. Fast response mech (rarely ever get called to use it)

All have Derp and seismic, laser range and ac cooldown mods. The overall balance of speed, tankiness and firepower make me much more effective on the battlefield.

Also have a grasshopper / enforcer deck I am lvling on base defenses just cause i want and it works. I am supposed to have an LRM heavy deck but I generally ignore the order to load it and instead run a WHM-7s with a narc and tag instead of the Widow and run interference. I hate LRMs.

[avenger cannon]

Any opinions on the new mastery pack releases ?

[Koniving]

My first question is... did you already buy MC?
If yes... well hang on while I look at them.
If no... Site's preorders/packages are better than the mastery bundles in my opinion.
If there's a Mauler hero yet, then I'd jump on that. Otherwise nope.

I am absolutely baffled at the Awesome bundle being more expensive than the Banshee... and a lot more expensive than the equally weighted yet superior Victor bundle...

Wolverine looks good. Probably because I don't own the hero and it's only slightly more expensive than the hero by itself so that beats waiting for a 50% off sale.

Click Buy on any of them and look at the details. If the hero price is close to the bundle price, it's something I'd consider. Otherwise, nope. Don't need all the 'extras' when I can just earn the mechs with cbills and get the hero at a much cheaper price.

(That Awesome bundle's price... good god, what happened there?)

[avenger cannon]

Koniving, on 15 March 2016 - 04:07 PM, said:

My first question is... did you already buy MC?
If yes... well hang on while I look at them.
If no... Site's preorders/packages are better than the mastery bundles in my opinion.
If there's a Mauler hero yet, then I'd jump on that. Otherwise nope.

I am absolutely baffled at the Awesome bundle being more expensive than the Banshee... and a lot more expensive than the equally weighted yet superior Victor bundle...

Wolverine looks good. Probably because I don't own the hero and it's only slightly more expensive than the hero by itself so that beats waiting for a 50% off sale.

Click Buy on any of them and look at the details. If the hero price is close to the bundle price, it's something I'd consider. Otherwise, nope. Don't need all the 'extras' when I can just earn the mechs with cbills and get the hero at a much cheaper price.

(That Awesome bundle's price... good god, what happened there?)

My idea was to get the gift shop versions for flat cash
Also I have the special Resistance Mauler (MAL-1RR )

I have about 16 million c-bills from the pot of gold event. so I can buy my mauler variant and JJ crab

[DefyingReality]

avenger cannon, on 13 March 2016 - 07:10 AM, said:

I can't stand my Black Knights, their hard point locations just don't work for me at all and with their height and large hit catching potential due to their humanoid shape I don't care for piloting them much.

See, I actually love my Knights partly for that reason. In CW, a company mate of mine and I go through the gates first in Black Knights to absorb fire for the mechs behind us. Yes, we take a crap ton of fire and die pretty quick, but we also kick out a ton of damage before we drop and the three guys behind us are fresh and give out twice what we took in reply.

Even in quick plays, if you work the maps right and think a couple steps ahead of yourself, they can kick a ton of ***. They're less plug-and-play than other mechs, yes, and they don't start to get really good until you have them elited, but man -- I have fun in them.

[avenger cannon]

DefyingReality, on 15 March 2016 - 07:59 PM, said:

See, I actually love my Knights partly for that reason. In CW, a company mate of mine and I go through the gates first in Black Knights to absorb fire for the mechs behind us. Yes, we take a crap ton of fire and die pretty quick, but we also kick out a ton of damage before we drop and the three guys behind us are fresh and give out twice what we took in reply.

Even in quick plays, if you work the maps right and think a couple steps ahead of yourself, they can kick a ton of ***. They're less plug-and-play than other mechs, yes, and they don't start to get really good until you have them elited, but man -- I have fun in them.

I can see this, and it makes sense with the builds I'm seeing as popular with the mechs with tons of front loaded damage that over heats you in 3 alphas and being in front on those flatter gate areas would work with the Mechwarrior 3 style foot and knee mounted lasers

I am also not having a shred of luck with the looking for group function for CW so that's kind of another issue I've discovered when trying to BLKNT it up. Hence my more Mauler Heavy glass cannon style drop.