24 replies to this topic

[War Kitten]

Greetings All,

I am considering my next assault (have: Mauler, Dire, BMaster, Victor (C), Banshee), and was looking at the AWS, but have not seen good reports on them, and am looking to find the pro/cons of the Highlander/HIIC. I tend to prefer to brawl.

Any thoughts?

Thank you all for any insight...

War Kitten

[S 0 L E N Y A]

If you like to brawl then you need the Atlas.
Get the S and DDC, then pick whatever for a 3rd.

[JigglyMoobs]

Exactly. But, when the Kodiak arrives, it will likely reign supreme.

[Ingga Raokai]

War Kitten, on 15 May 2016 - 01:32 AM, said:

pro/cons of the Highlander/HIIC. I tend to prefer to brawl.

Pros: can equip jump-jets
Cons: more like hover-jets rather than jump-jets

Like above said, for brawl...Atlas, unless you have a special build/place in your heart for HGNs.

[Audacious Aubergine]

Mostly depends on whether you prefer clan or IS tech. I don't have any of the IS Highlanders though so I'm not sure what their hardpoints and quirks are like for build possibilities.

[Zarock]

I only have the IS-Highlander so far, but Im planning to buy the IIC´s next. In my IS-Hgn I dont have any real brawl-builds Oftn combinations of gauss and srms or pulse-lasers, but no real brawlers. For the IIC´s Ive built a sniper, a brawler and a mid-ranger in smurfy´s. They got a lot of variety, so if you want Brawlers, the IIC´s are probaly the better choice. On the other Hand, thak to quirks, the IS-Hgn can probaly tank more than the clanner. Then the IIC can take a xl engine and mount a lot of weapons...

[Nik Reaper]

The IIc , for now, has no quirks making it very stiff and under armored/structured compared to the IS one , it can mount a lot of weapons but is just too much of a glass cannon to make it worth it most of the time.

Also because of the low engine limit it will never be fast and you will find that often building it you will just not have room for all the stuff you want and be forced to go for less but larger weapons, also sufering for the lack of in engine heatsink slots.

Edited by Nik Reaper, 15 May 2016 - 05:03 AM.

[TercieI]

Boogie138, on 15 May 2016 - 02:35 AM, said:

If you like to brawl then you need the Atlas.
Get the S and DDC, then pick whatever for a 3rd.

^This. The Lowlander (both versions) is in a bad spot. If you like to brawl, the AS7-S is the king (note this may change next Tuesday).

[Rogue Jedi]

the biggest difference is Clan v Inner Sphere tech, the Highlander IIC is a redesign of the Highlander as a Clan Battlemech ^{(and counts as a Clan Mech for faction play)}, it can fit the "safer" Clan XL ^{(you can survive loosing 1 side torso)} and the lighter Clan weapons which usual require more skill to use effectively, it can also take the Clan Double Endo Steel and Fero Fiberus upgrades which each use less space for similar or superior weight savings, and the 2 slot Clan Double Heat Sinks rather than 3 slot IS DHS.

Both are too slow for my tastes but you can argue ether side, the easier to use Inner Sphere weapons or the lighter and ^{(if you are skilled enough to use them effectively)} higher damage Clan weapons

[War Kitten]

Sorry, Boogie, I have no interest in the Atlas...but I plan on looking into the Kodiak....so its something of a toss up...sigh...not surprised...

Thanks for the wonderful replies....

War Kitten

[Koniving]

War Kitten, on 15 May 2016 - 01:32 AM, said:

Greetings All,

I am considering my next assault (have: Mauler, Dire, BMaster, Victor (C), Banshee), and was looking at the AWS, but have not seen good reports on them, and am looking to find the pro/cons of the Highlander/HIIC. I tend to prefer to brawl.

Any thoughts?

Thank you all for any insight...

War Kitten

Okay so I reserved this to talk about Highlanders.

Koniving, the Ominous pilot of heretical brawlers here. May the heretics burn all meta!

<.< As a warning I should mention I'm unconventional but you already know that War Kitten.

Yes I'm crazy.

Time for a Highlander comparison.

Okay.

Highlanders:

I will start with the hero, the Heavy Metal. 2 ballistic, 3 energy, 2 missile.

Its victory chime is one of a few riffs, though not decent ones. They can be replaced with warhorns of course. The real joy of the Heavy Metal though is that it mimicked one of the top-of-the-line meta mechs for two years with the bonus of ten tons more room to play with. Lasers in the left arm, ballistics in the right and missiles on the torso; it's effectively a Victor and at the time was one of the fastest assault mechs possible in the game.

Its quirks currently favor generic lasers, generic missiles, generic ballistics.
(My first non-meta Heavy Metal build which evolved into my current one. Brawling a Misery.)

I personally run this the same way I've run it for about 3 years. One AC/2, one LBX/10, three medium lasers, two streaks with an XL 330 engine and it is a charger. Find a way to charge into an enemy's flank or lesser-guarded side.
Example, pre-quirks but I do this a lot.

(After seeing the first score, skip to 6:25 for another match with a very similar score; commanding the entire team, leading the charges, and brawling mech after mech after mech after mech despite how we lost almost all 8 of our trial-mech players.) Only in competition / group play does the LBX occasionally get swapped for an AC/10 at the loss of one ton of ammo.

Highlander 733. 1 ballistic, 2 energy, 4 missile. Quirks favor an AC/10, rest are generic missile and no energy quirks.

As brawler, the arm-based missiles can be useful for SRMs if you're the type to take advantage of arm-aiming. Especially if you use an SRM/LRM or SRM-Streak mixture, you load up the streaks or LRMs on the torso and keep the SRMs on the arm to devastate your pests exactly where you want it. The ballistic hardpoint and the lasers don't mesh well and in general this is a problem with the Highlanders beyond the Heavy Metal. Between this and jumpjets, that's about the only reason you don't see many Highlanders in the field.

My resident missile boat. Sure brawler rigs could be built but I didn't have enough XL engines and 325 certainly isn't a 330. So I use a smaller XL engine. Low energy/ballistic potential had me set this as a missile boat. You'd be surprised what a single AC/2, 1 ML, one tag and 4 LRMs could do. Many times I have used this as an actual command mech.

In the following video the man saying "Contact". Remember that voice for this story.


One day I was playing and he -- Wolfmech -- was on the other team. This is back when groups could play with pugs. I was solo. Wolfmech had a group with him of 3 other players (the max you could do at the time). The rest of his were pugs. My side had a two groups of 2 players and the rest were pugs. No voice comms at the time, all comms had to be through typing and BattleGrid commands. We were on Alpine. Wolfmech's team took the hill. All of them. A scout announced this. I said "Don't feed them." I gave the order to set up beyond their range and in sight yet untouchable and with cover. I chose a spot with two walls, one toward the hill and one behind that wall forming a | | shaped barrier.
I used the battlegrid, gave orders. We had only one guy ignore those orders -- and he died in about 5 seconds of engaging the enemy and called us a foul name and disconnected. The rest followed the orders. We had Alpha lance behind the first barrier facing north. Charlie lance behind the second barrier. Bravo lance behind the first barrier facing south. Since MWO went a smidge slower in terms of action without all these high speed weapon quirks, we had time to lay out a plan. We hold. Some 3 minutes later the enemy chose to drop the high-ground and charge us (took a bit of taunting.) Wolfmech had an Atlas and pretty much a big chunk of their assault lance and so when they moved, his whole team did.
So here they come. Charlie's mechs are standing on top of the second barrier lighting up 2-4 mechs at a time on their targeting systems, feeding us with info. I start bombarding them with missiles from the North-Middle of the first barrier. It slows their advance. I'm the only missile boat on the entire team. By the time they arrive they lost two mechs. The barrier is impossible for any of their mechs to climb, they must come to the North or the South and either way we're waiting for them. It becomes a 9 minute grueling battle of attrition, as my guys started to get hammered they'd switch out, changing to the second barrier while Charlie sent someone in to take their place. By the time the battle ended, it was 2 to 0. I was still alive though badly damaged from having kept near and on the front line. I had exclusively a single ML left and my comrade had no weapons left. Wolfmech asked me if we had a 12 man because he had never seen such organized resistance from pugs.

The point is from this mech I was able to stay close and on the front line, command the team, type both simple and sometimes very detailed orders to comrades, pull up and use the battlegrid, sustain suppression fire with LRMs, and three times take on multiple mechs at once with an ML and an AC/2 at close range (and bombard them with LRMs as they pulled back) before tangling with the final enemy Atlas without any fire support. It has served me well.

The Highlander 733P. 0 Ballistic. 4 energy, 3 missile.

Generic laser, energy, and missile quirks. Nothing impressive.
NOTE: This mech is FANTASTIC with a max standard engine!

There isn't a lot of special things to mention here. Just load up your JJs if so inclined, load up your lasers and missiles and remember to use this as a brawler. Akin to the 733 you can pack an SRM into the arm, but you can't pack two there. Torso missiles are typical. Where this one shines is there's no heavy ballistic weapon hardpoint to use. I pack mine with lasers and I like to run full speed, get in close and hammer the living **** out of things! There's nothing more to tell really other than it's pretty good at it. Especially since everyone tries to blow off the side torso and then scream in terror "WHY ARENT YOU DEAD YET?!" "Y R U SO FAST?!"

Yeah.
(My Heavy Metal again)

Highlander 733C. 2 ballistics. 2 energy. 3 missiles.

Generic quirks. Favoritism for an AC/20.
Tried to get out Lordred's Brawlander shot, but sadly it isn't up anymore. If anyone has saved Lordred's Brawlander screenshot, please post it in here? Anyway.

This is the quintensential brawler Highlander if you plan on building it. It can do builds with bigger autocannons, is the only one that can do twin UAC/5, LBX/10 + AC/5 (my favorite, they compliment each other so well), or AC/20. This thing is meant to hammer enemies. Just do it. Get it. Now.

Highlander 732. 1 ballistic. 3 missile. 3 energy.

Generic quirks. Favoritism to Gauss Rifle. Energy's just in laser duration

This one's pretty general. I don't own one and haven't used it. If I did I'd probably go triple LPL (maybe with gauss or another AC), or triple MPL (with Gauss) and either way I'd have two SRMs in the left arm and some LRMs in the LT.

Highlander 732B. 2 ballistic. 2 missile. 3 energy.

Generic quirks. Energy is exclusively in range. Missile quirks not as plentiful as with Highlander 732, but more ballistic quirks.

Again another one I don't own. Comes with Artemis pre-installed.
Unlike the other one, I might do PPCs in this one to take advantage of that range buff (also because PPCs are known to occasionally benefit from 'ballistic' velocity quirks unless that's been fixed).




My Heavy Metal against an Atlas.


General pros:
Good mech, solid design. Bounce in step makes pelvic shots hard (meaning they have to go for torsos where you can twist to protect if needed.
Arm launchers are small with 10 tube limit (won't get huge).
Design forces enemies to choose whether to take out your energy/ballistics OR your missiles; often a hard choice.
When loading with ammo, seems you can never fill up all the space.
Works great with STD and XL engines.

General cons:
Laser/ballistics split between torso and arm makes them incompatible with one another except on hero.
Right arm is a little longer than left, keep this in mind.
Like many assaults it is so tall that a Locust can be directly in front of it but can't be seen.
Not all that compatible with endo steel for ammo-dependent rigs.

Highlander IIC comparison coming later; that's a lot of typing.

Edited by Koniving, 15 May 2016 - 09:06 AM.

[TercieI]

War Kitten, on 15 May 2016 - 06:01 AM, said:

Sorry, Boogie, I have no interest in the Atlas...but I plan on looking into the Kodiak....so its something of a toss up...sigh...not surprised...

Thanks for the wonderful replies....

War Kitten

Have you considered the Stalker? Mostly ranged but the 5M can brawl like a boss.

[S 0 L E N Y A]

TercieI, on 15 May 2016 - 06:00 AM, said:

^This. The Lowlander (both versions) is in a bad spot. If you like to brawl, the AS7-S is the king (note this may change next Tuesday).

It very well may with the kodiak.
However, if the Kodiak takes the crown it wont be done by being built/played as a Clan analog to the meta Atlas brawler.
The Atlas also has weapon quirks AND clan UAC20 and SRM6 spread damage way more than the IS versions.

[Koniving]

Reserving this spot for Highlander IIC pro/con comparison.

[Appogee]

Reserving this spot to let you know that both Highlander and Highlander IIC are awful, compared to other Assaults.

[Vlad Striker]

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...06206a752eba9d7

[Karl the Plumber]

Man if you like the look of a mech, there's no reason to not buy it and try it out. It's not like you get locked into JUST that mech. I've got lots of chassis that aren't that great, but that I think are fun to play. So for my part, I'd say get whichever highlander fits your playstyle best. As an IS player and a fan of using old SLDF mechs, I'd get the IS Highlander.

[VitriolicViolet]

I think id say they are my favourite mechs though Zeus is good.

IS Highlanders are great. The Heavy Metal and 732B have large structure quirks making them really tough if you twist well.
I think ive got 3xLL and 2x AC5s on the 732B and 3xLPL and a AC10 on the Heavy Metal.

The 733 Ive got 2x PPC 1x AC10 and 2x SRM6 good at most ranges.

The IIC Highlanders are not as tough or fast but can carry stupid amounts of weapons i think its nearly 50 tons.
On the HGN-IIC i have 1x UAC20, 2x LRM15, 3x ERMPL, 1x SRM6 as well as clan probe, TC, AMS, 3 tons of ammo each for the LRMs and UAC and 4 or so DHS.

I like them both a lot the other Assaults i usually pilot are Zeus, King Crab, Mauler and Battlemaster. In terms of how 'competitive' they are i think they used to be great but are now seen as lackluster, low engine cap, weird hard point synergy and low count and of course they messed up the JJ a while a go.

[Cupid and Psyche _]

For a player that is relatively new, the Highlander (IS version) would be the one I would have to recommend. This is because it is a sturdier and more forgiving chassis. All of the IICs are fairly difficult to pilot because of their glass cannon nature.

[War Kitten]

You are not the only one who is crazy as a loon, Kon....I also tend to do some of the craziest stuff in battle including facing down an Atlas wearing nothing left but a smile and two med lasers...kept popping that left eye and (as my dad would say) "my gun fit my hand before his gun fit his", and down he went, took the match with that.

I am in excellent company....I am honored.

War Kitten