183 replies to this topic

[TKSax]

Charles Sennet, on 24 March 2016 - 04:38 AM, said:

What advantages do Clans have exactly? The big advantages of superior DPS, armor, and pinpoint damage are all on the IS side. What's left?

XL's engines ( I mean not dying is a good thing), Double heat sincs that only take up 2 slots, ERLL that only take up 1 slot, CLPL, Streak SRM4/6's, Guass that takes up less slots and weight less than the IS Version. There is more that is all I can thinkg of. All of that stuff taking less slots means the clans can pack more weapons andmore heat sincs in thier builds than most of the IS mechs can and then be faster and survive better.

NomadWolf991, on 24 March 2016 - 06:42 AM, said:

Thank you ill have to try that last one seems fun I'm usual the one with the assaults because I know their inportant to the battle as well as i used to run them tell TBR came out. im still working on the basics but im getting better i dont die instantly any more. as for brawler I'm new to it so Im rather terrable at it but with every failure as long as I dont repeat it and learn from it I'll get better.

Go to http://metamechs.com Look at the builds, this is a good place to get started.

Edited by TKSax, 24 March 2016 - 06:49 AM.

[Tasker]

Here, I'll give you a handy cheat sheet on how to be good at playing Clans.

Good clan mechs: Timber Wolf, Hellbringer, Ebon Jaguar, Stormcrow, Arctic Cheetah

Good weapons to use in CW: Large pulse laser, medium pulse laser, ER medium laser. C-SRMs are good if you're with a full brawling wave.


Everything else is trash. Instead of getting mad and wondering why ballistics are poor choices, or why LRMs are entirely useless, just accept the fact that PGI does not actually play their own game, and therefore does not understand how to make these weapons useful.

Fit the best mix of Large Pulse + ER Medium lasers on a mech that you can get in there without triggering ghost heat (ghost heat 2.0 coming soon! ha ha!) and then slot them into good mechs and then jam as many heat sinks as you can in there.

Also remember that jump jets are actually good, which is something that 99% of this game's community does not understand, because they are bad at first person shooters.

[Tarogato]

Ah, the nice side effect of being on a space vacation in a Clan - some people go slightly ad hominem without realising that I'm actually an FRR loyalist who just prefers to look at things objectively as possible. They think I'm just another entitled clanner scrub.

Rushin Roulette, on 24 March 2016 - 05:11 AM, said:

Seriously? IS can safely run XLs? ... ermm... hahahahahahahahahahhahahahahaha (extend this as needed). Bringing an XL on an IS mech over 40 Tons is still a fast suicide with the exception of a few very specific builds.

Name IS mechs over 40 tons that run STD engines. I'll give it a go myself:

- Thunderbolts
- Orions
... uhhh... crаp...
*pulls up list of chassis to jog memory*
- Centurion (but sometimes XL these days)
- Hunchback
- Crab
- Marauder
- sometimes Cataphract
- Awesome
- Zeus
- Stalker
- Mauler
- some Banshees
- King Crab
- Atlas

That's 14 chassis for standard. XL's comprise the other 20-odd chassis.
Now specifically the top picked IS mechs presently (the "meta"), which do they belong to?

- [XL] BJ-3, BJ-1X
- [XL] ENF-4R
- [XL] GRF-3M, GRF-2N
- [XL] WVR-6K
- [XL] Quickdraws (all)
- [XL] JM6-DD
- [XL] Grasshoppers
- [XL] Black Knights
- [XL] Battlemasters (though falling out of favour)
- [XL] BNC-3M
- [STD] BNC-3E, sometimes -3M
- [STD] HBK-4SP
- [STD] Thunderbolts
- [STD] Stalkers (falling out of favour)
- [STD] Maulers
- [STD] Atlases

Quote

IS mechs have better speed?

Never said what you think I said. I said they have better speed than ever before because more of them are running XL now.

Quote

Want to wait till that Stalker finally arrives? get ready for a long wait in your Thunderbolt.

Why do you think Stalkers are falling out of popularity recently?

Quote

IS mechs have higher alphas? Never was true, still isnt true and never will be true.

Again, I didn't say what you think I said. They have higher alphas then ever before, now that we have XL Grasshoppers and Black Knights roaming the waters. With 48+ alphas as short of a duration as they are, Clans have a difficult time trading favorably with the IS and maintaining the dps. And those IS mechs that aren't running high alpha (triple LPL builds on the BJ, QKD, quad LL builds, etc), have better sustainability than Clans (and the shorter duration there as well.)

Quote

As to the point about surviving 1 or 2 alphas longer... this shouldnt be an issue at all. One alpha is 40 damage on average.. even if mechs were to be able to be able to survive that extra damage... it is 3,3 points of damage per player in a focused team. That is less than one medium laser per player if focus fire is executed correctly and means a survival of less than 1 second longer for a target... everyone spreading their damage around like a pr0nstar at the end of a shooting? That may be the reason why IS seem to survive much longer than you want. not the structure buffs.

P. S. The structure buffs of the only IS mech everyone was whining about have been toned down a month ago...

I agree, not a big deal, but still a contributing factor, since sooo many mechs have them now and some people are now considering mechs like the Stormcrow and Timberwolf to be glass cannons these days because they don't tank as well as a HBK-4SP or Black Knight.

[Tasker]

A properly built grasshopper is a low alpha mech in comparison to an EBJ, HBR, or TBR.

It's not my fault the guy who runs metamechs is incredibly stupid and doesn't know how to build a mech properly.

[Rushin Roulette]

Tarogato, on 24 March 2016 - 07:08 AM, said:

- [XL] BJ-3, BJ-1X - XL is suicide here. If you want to play seriously you need STD
- [XL] ENF-4R - Havent played this myself, so cant comment objectively
- [XL] GRF-3M, GRF-2N - XL is suicide here. If you want to play seriously you need STD
- [XL] WVR-6K - XL is suicide here. If you want to play seriously you need STD
- [XL] Quickdraws (all) - Havent played this myself, so cant comment objectively
- [XL] JM6-DD - XL is suicide here. If you want to play seriously you need STD
- [XL] Grasshoppers - Havent played this myself, so cant comment objectively
- [XL] Black Knights - Havent played this myself, so cant comment objectively
- [XL] Battlemasters (though falling out of favour) - XL is suicide here. If you want to play seriously you need STD
- [XL] BNC-3M - Glass cannon if you can get close to it.
- [STD] BNC-3E, sometimes -3M
- [STD] HBK-4SP
- [STD] Thunderbolts
- [STD] Stalkers (falling out of favour)
- [STD] Maulers
- [STD] Atlases

Most of those mechs you listed should never... ever run XL. The other ones I can honestly not say if they should run XL or not, as I havent played them myself.

Edited by Rushin Roulette, 24 March 2016 - 12:59 PM.

[Tarogato]

Rushin Roulette, on 24 March 2016 - 07:21 AM, said:

Most of tose mechs you listed should never... ever run XL. The otehr ones I can honestly not say if they should run XL or not, as I havent played them myself.

The mechs that you relabeled as STD-only says a lot about your understanding of high-level play in the current meta. Black Jacks *never* run standard, nor do Wolverines, or Jagermechs. On Griffins... I feel like there is a viable argument for STD, but the vast majority of players run XL on them for peak performance - the mobility is critical.

[Cy Mitchell]

The problem is not the balance between IS and Clan. The problem is the game mechanics that allow Alphas, Alphas and multiple Alphas. No Mech should be able to fire back to back 40+ damage Alphas without suffering serious and long lasting impacts on the Mech's performance.

With the exception of an Assault nailing a Light with a direct hit full on Alpha, no Mech should be able to one shot a completely healthy, full armored Mech barring an incredibly lucky headshot. This is Mechwarrior not CoD, Halo, Unreal, CS but right now it plays more like a normal FPS because the Alpha meta.

That is my 1 cent. My apologies to the FPS fanbois.

IS vs Clan balance will never be perfect and it will always be argued about but from what I have seen it is pretty fair right now. I am almost exclusively a Clan Mech player. I only own 2 IS Mechs.

[Nerdboard]

Personally I think the balance is good at the moment. Gotta admit that I have not played Clans in... 2 months? Might be 3. I did play Clans for a week or two when the IS range was not yet nerfed. Back then I also had troubles transitioning and it took me a few days before I could get high scoring games (2000+) again.

Back then you could even more clearly see that Clan mechs are (then and now) less forgiving if you make mistakes in the peeking game. They have less durability and despite their superior speed in terms of peeking speed they are only on par with some of the IS mechs which have accel/deccel quirks. The IS variants at the same time have more structure and - imo - better hitboxes. That doesnt mean that you cant make it work. The more precision you have and with good positioning these differences will probably become less important.

Clan brawler mechs in groups are super scary btw. I've seen the better Clans groups runs tons of U-AC/10s and SRMs when IS range was flat out superior.. which gave them almost free wins because all of the IS long range mechs obviously couldnt handle it. But this is more of a teamplay aspect than anything. Honestly, see if some of the seasoned Clan CW veterans can update you on the best current builds and check how or if they are different from yours.

tl;dr: I think balance is fine but Clan solo - especially peeking - might play more difficult. Maybe thats the feeling you were referring to.

[B0oN]

MS confirmed IS as being easymode .

Case closed, your honour .

[habu86]

Tasker, on 24 March 2016 - 07:14 AM, said:

A properly built grasshopper is a low alpha mech in comparison to an EBJ, HBR, or TBR.

It's not my fault the guy who runs metamechs is incredibly stupid and doesn't know how to build a mech properly.

You're usually pretty spot-on with your actual analysis and I wish more IS players took heed of NKVA's builds and tactics, but the days of viable Clan laser-vomit alphas in the 60-point range have been history since the Dec. 1 patch which reduced Clan DH heat capacity to 1.1.

Try running one of those today on anything other than a WHK or a DWF and you'll see that you can't throw two alphas back-to-back without overheating, which is pretty much a game over against a 12-GHR or BKT rush performed by a competent and aggressive team.

If you want to play a Clan laser-vomit you pretty much have to build for the high-40/low-50 point range, which is only marginally higher than the mid-high 40 point range on most GHR and BKT builds.

The reason you see the CW Clan meta being dominated by SRM/UAC combos is because that's the only thing that stands a chance of putting up enough DPS to stop a determined push by IS heavies; whether the Clanners will successfully coordinate fire and target components appropriately is a different story.

Edited by habu86, 24 March 2016 - 08:04 AM.

[nehebkau]

NomadWolf991, on 23 March 2016 - 06:01 PM, said:

Is it just me or dose it seem that in faction play IS mechs are hitting harder than than Clan I've been playing both Faction play and standard with the same mech and in faction play i pretty much melt in 5 seconds and do no damage to them even with double PPCs. Is it just me or are others having issues with this?

You are in CW -- you are facing IS meta for the most part so, yes, you are finding them hard to kill. The simple truth is that if you want to compete you must play CLAN dps meta -- then things will seem more balanced. And ignore metamechs laser-vomit builds for clan-- they are out of date for clan laser vomit.

What Habu wrote above is spot on.

Edited by nehebkau, 24 March 2016 - 08:14 AM.

[Tasker]

Clan lasers are still the way to go if you can aim well and torso twist. Most players are bad at both of those things, which is why you wind up with suggestions like "dakka" and splats.

[Wanderer of the Mists]

Thank you all I'll keep looking for a build that suits me and get keep working on it theres a lotfor me to work on but i think i can set myself up to be a real challange for you Freebirths.

[Tasker]

NomadWolf991, on 24 March 2016 - 08:43 AM, said:

Thank you all I'll keep looking for a build that suits me and get keep working on it theres a lotfor me to work on but i think i can set myself up to be a real challange for you Freebirths.

This is a great attitude, but please let me remind you:

I am the ilKhan.

[Vxheous]

Rushin Roulette, on 24 March 2016 - 07:21 AM, said:

Most of tose mechs you listed should never... ever run XL. The otehr ones I can honestly not say if they should run XL or not, as I havent played them myself.

I think you lack an understanding on how higher skill/competitive play in this game works. Tarogato's list is dead on for which IS mechs use XLs and excel at it.

[habu86]

Tasker, on 24 March 2016 - 08:27 AM, said:

Clan lasers are still the way to go if you can aim well and torso twist. Most players are bad at both of those things, which is why you wind up with suggestions like "dakka" and splats.

Even good shooters will have a hard time keeping a ~1.1 second laser burn on a single component, especially when going up against a humanoid-shaped mech, piloted by someone who knows how to torso-twist; if they stay in place and stare at you the whole time, then they get what's coming to them.

A mid-60 point Clan laser vomit alpha will be doing well if it can put 40 of those points on the component of choice, but will still incur put ~50 points of heat generation. Use cool shot and you'll get to throw a second such alpha. A third alpha will require overriding.

At this point, if you're a very good shot, you've put, maybe, 120 points of damage on your component of choice. That will get you through a side torso, or it will have blown out a leg, or it will have opened up a CT and put it deep into orange on most IS heavies. Pretty good right?

Not really. The GHR or BKT in front of you will have done about same amount of damage, but will still have a cool shot in reserve and will placed almost all of that damage on the targeted component, especially if that component is the CT on TBR, EBJ, or SCR, which are a lot more difficult to shield properly (pro-tip for non-NKVA spheroids: aim for the tip of the nose and follow it as it tries to twist away). So, if by this point you're not dead already due to focus fire, you're beat to ****, playing the overheat-RNG roulette, and the next shot you take will pretty much spell the end of you.

Honestly, within 400 meters or so, Clan UACs give you a better chance of actually putting all the damage on the component you're aiming for than lasers, assuming, of course, that you can actually shoot. Splats, in the meantime, take sledgehammer approach to the whole thing, but they're probably the most heat-efficient way of putting the damage out there, and they're devastating when used by a coordinated 12-man that know how to close the distance without getting ripped to shreds first.

Basically, in order for Clan lasers to really shine, you need to get the IS bogged down in a 400-600 meter poke fight; doable against scrub-tier IS units, but, in all the matches I've played against NKVA, y'all have done of two things:
1.) Fight from a dug-in firing line at 300-400 meters or less
2.) Full-on, 12-man rush

Clan laser vomit looses those fights every time. Really, really badly.

Edited by habu86, 24 March 2016 - 09:54 AM.

[Tasker]

Sorry, but I really don't take very seriously the gameplay balance / mech build opinions of people who lose to me over and over again every night.

If the builds I described aren't working for you, work on your aim. Because that's all you have to do, point and click.

Edited by Tasker, 24 March 2016 - 10:01 AM.

[habu86]

Tasker, on 24 March 2016 - 09:55 AM, said:

Sorry, but I really don't take very seriously the gameplay balance / mech build opinions of people who lose to me over and over again every night.

And that's certainly your prerogative as the victor.

If you won't take my word for it, though, then set up an internal NKVA scrim to see for yourself how well Clan laser vomit fares in the kind of brawl you get in CW. Try stopping a 12-man GHR rush with LPL/ERML TBR in close quarters. Since it'll be your corps of top-notch pilots on both sides, my inferior piloting and tactics shouldn't impact the outcome, right?

At any rate, I'm not out to convince you personally of anything; you're doing just fine in CW as you are. But, as good as the advice you give with respect to IS builds and tactics is, your insistence on recommending all-laser vomit builds for Clans in CW is doing a massive disservice to any Clan pilots who don't know any better.

[Tasker]

Nobody is going to take my advice, which is why I continue to give good advice.

I've learned that when I stomp the piss out of players over and over again, and then explain to them exactly what they need to do in order to defeat me, they assume that I am 'trolling' or somehow trying to mislead them in order to keep my advantage.

So that's why I will continue to tell people that the 24 MPLAS drop deck is the last thing I ever want to see an opposing player use in CW. Because I know that the more I say that, the more likely someone is to go "hurr, guess I need more dakka!"

[habu86]

Just to be clear, I never accused you of trolling when you give advice. On the contrary, if more IS pilots took your advice on builds and tactics, we'd have a lot fewer threads whining about balance. I just think you're overestimating the staying power of Clan laser builds these days, that's all.

4xHBR running 6xcMPL (I do listen to and take note of what you say) on each is an undeniably powerful dropdeck, especially once you factor in how difficult it is to keep track of targets when every one of them is running ECM, and I'd love to give that run against you guys some time. But I think what we'll find is that 3xGHR, 1xBJ or 3xBKT, 1xOxide is just better enough that it wins consistently, given equal skill levels. All because the heat curve differentials will allow them to get a couple of extra alphas in.

Edited by habu86, 24 March 2016 - 10:49 AM.