48 replies to this topic

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GrimRiver, on 26 July 2016 - 03:19 PM, said:

The BJ-1DC is pretty close to the Grid Iron which is a good medium in it's own right minus the missile hardpoint and the BJ-1DC is faster then the Grid Iron, also the BJ-1DC has much more then 15 gauss rounds, it has 35 rounds. As stated before it's a sniper mech, if you want duel gauss/laser vomit threatening firepower then the jager or any other mech is better for the job.

I'm not sure what you meant by that last bit, I get 500-800dmg all the time in subpar mechs with builds like the BJ-1DC because I play them in their respective roles so I'm not sure what you're asking of the BJ's to do?

I never said it had 15 rounds, I said your only long range gun does 15 damage and suffers ammo constraints. A single Gauss for 15 damage at long range is pathetic for a sniper (though none of the BJs save maybe the 1X are true snipers, since a sniper will shoot and relocate quickly rather than trade or otherwise poke continuously from one position). Triple ERLL are far and away superior. Even the marginally more powerful twin ERPPC build would be better, since you can at least pop-tart with it for dramatically reduced exposure.

And I also get 500-800 damage all the time in sub-par 'Mechs. I've basically made a career out of it, and the Blackjack and Locust have been my bread-and-butter 'Mechs since early 2014, back when Jenners, Firestarters, and Shadowhawks reigned supreme. But you try to take that 'Mech in a league drop, and you will be cut down quickly before you can contribute much. Your damage output is, simply, too low relative to your ability to sustain and evade returning fire. That is the standard by which the 'Mech shall be judged, not some pre-conceived notion on what "role" you think it has.

Also, that earlier quip about a Dragon being unable to fit that firepower? Well, a Dragon is 60 tons. Allow me to blow your mind with this Rifleman I slapped together in 30 seconds. Dragon seems okay, too. I wouldn't call either optimal, but they thoroughly debunk the supposed XL-requirement to best the Blackjack's range and firepower.

[GrimRiver]

Yeonne Greene, on 27 July 2016 - 12:44 AM, said:

I never said it had 15 rounds, I said your only long range gun does 15 damage and suffers ammo constraints. A single Gauss for 15 damage at long range is pathetic for a sniper (though none of the BJs save maybe the 1X are true snipers, since a sniper will shoot and relocate quickly rather than trade or otherwise poke continuously from one position). Triple ERLL are far and away superior. Even the marginally more powerful twin ERPPC build would be better, since you can at least pop-tart with it for dramatically reduced exposure.

And I also get 500-800 damage all the time in sub-par 'Mechs. I've basically made a career out of it, and the Blackjack and Locust have been my bread-and-butter 'Mechs since early 2014, back when Jenners, Firestarters, and Shadowhawks reigned supreme. But you try to take that 'Mech in a league drop, and you will be cut down quickly before you can contribute much. Your damage output is, simply, too low relative to your ability to sustain and evade returning fire. That is the standard by which the 'Mech shall be judged, not some pre-conceived notion on what "role" you think it has.

Also, that earlier quip about a Dragon being unable to fit that firepower? Well, a Dragon is 60 tons. Allow me to blow your mind with this Rifleman I slapped together in 30 seconds. Dragon seems okay, too. I wouldn't call either optimal, but they thoroughly debunk the supposed XL-requirement to best the Blackjack's range and firepower.

When you said "15 ammo" one could only assume you meant ammo.

I wouldn't say 1 gauss is pathetic, a bunch of builds used 1 gauss in the old poptart meta before the JJ nerf even some builds now still use 1 gauss but the cons to energy sniping is that it tends to give away your position while a gauss can pop off a round and be back in hiding before they know where you sniped from, while yes energy versions of the BJ do more damage overall they however run hotter and give away your location every time you fire.

Mechs do actually have roles, I wouldn't take a brawler Atlas to do a scouts job and I wouldn't take a hunterkiller light to play sniper also the mechs hardpoint locations typically indicate what loadout synergizes well with the mech, like the BJ's can play as sniper or skirmisher but can't play brawler or lancer.

I was mostly listing the Dragon for it's weight to loadout ratio, for a 60 ton heavy it has the skimpiest armament while a 45t STD engine BJ has a bit more firepower.

I still don't understand what you're asking of the BJ, if you're asking for more structure then that's the last thing it needs because last time it had health buffs equal to a 60-75 ton which was down right insane for a little 45t mech, are you asking for it to be resized because it just got a resize to it's correct volume, are you asking for more weapon quirks because it already has a mind blowing amount of them now and people rely too much on quirks as it is.

If any mechs that needs buffs is the vindy's and victor's.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

GrimRiver, on 27 July 2016 - 09:46 AM, said:

I wouldn't say 1 gauss is pathetic, a bunch of builds used 1 gauss in the old poptart meta

Hold, I see where you are trying to go with this and Ima stop you right here, poptart builds used Gauss IN CONJUCTION with PPCs which functioned and behaved similarly enough that you could use them in the same situations and fire them together without too much spread, the same cannot be said about Gauss and iMLs whose range profile prevent them from working together like PPC/Gauss did at long range.

GrimRiver, on 27 July 2016 - 09:46 AM, said:

I still don't understand what you're asking of the BJ, if you're asking for more structure then that's the last thing it needs because last time it had health buffs equal to a 60-75 ton which was down right insane for a little 45t mech

That was several months ago, this recent nerf wasn't really necessary, also remember, the best medium in the game is only 5 tons more, so asking for 45 tonners to be on par with it isn't outrageous (though it is clan tech so it does mean it needs buffs).

GrimRiver, on 27 July 2016 - 09:46 AM, said:

If any mechs that needs buffs is the vindy's and victor's.

No ones disagreeing with that really, PGI just refuses to buff them appropriately, the Victor because it is a symbol of the poptart days (and still paying for that sin) and the Vindi because it requires basically uber quirks in all areas to be worthwhile apparently. That said, again, these nerfs on the BJ weren't necessary.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 27 July 2016 - 10:30 AM.

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GrimRiver, on 27 July 2016 - 09:46 AM, said:

When you said "15 ammo" one could only assume you meant ammo.

If you re-examine the post you are referring to, you'll note a hyphen. It was "15 ammo-limited damage" , where "ammo-limited" is a single adjective to describe the 15 damage from the Gauss.

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I wouldn't say 1 gauss is pathetic, a bunch of builds used 1 gauss in the old poptart meta before the JJ nerf even some builds now still use 1 gauss but the cons to energy sniping is that it tends to give away your position while a gauss can pop off a round and be back in hiding before they know where you sniped from, while yes energy versions of the BJ do more damage overall they however run hotter and give away your location every time you fire.

Nothing considered strong used *just* a Gauss rifle, which is effectively what you have. They combined Gauss with PPC, another Gauss, and later with long range lasers. On that Blackjack, you are either wasting the long range potential by being close enough for the medium lasers to be useful or you are wasting the damage and weight of the mediums by being too far away. An AC/10 would be a better fit, giving you more weight for more guns, engine, and/or cooling as well as having inherently superior DPS. Even the LB-10X would be better.

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Mechs do actually have roles, I wouldn't take a brawler Atlas to do a scouts job and I wouldn't take a hunterkiller light to play sniper also the mechs hardpoint locations typically indicate what loadout synergizes well with the mech, like the BJ's can play as sniper or skirmisher but can't play brawler or lancer.

Roles are not that concrete. You wouldn't expect a Grasshopper to be sniping you with its low hardpoints, but it excels at it. Similarly, the Blackjack looks fantastic at the role...until you find yourself losing that trade to a 3x cLPL Hunchback in a big way because he does more damage than you in a shorter time and colder and with more armor. Then you slap on some MPL and play medium-close where you can trash a similar HBK-IIC for having a more front-loaded build.

The Blackjack excels between 200 and 450 meters. Below that and it has too little speed and twist and above that the quantity and quality of its firepower rapidly deteriorate.

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I was mostly listing the Dragon for it's weight to loadout ratio, for a 60 ton heavy it has the skimpiest armament while a 45t STD engine BJ has a bit more firepower.

It doesn't, though. You compare an XL BJ to a STD DRG and it isn't a fair comparison since, at the same time, you call out the XL weakness for the latter while ignoring it on the former. With the same engine types, and moving at about the same speed, the Dragon gets better weapons.

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I still don't understand what you're asking of the BJ, if you're asking for more structure then that's the last thing it needs because last time it had health buffs equal to a 60-75 ton which was down right insane for a little 45t mech, are you asking for it to be resized because it just got a resize to it's correct volume, are you asking for more weapon quirks because it already has a mind blowing amount of them now and people rely too much on quirks as it is.

If any mechs that needs buffs is the vindy's and victor's.

A.) The only super quirked BJs are the -1 and -1DC, both of which occur on the battlefield with about the same frequency as Vindicators. And quirks are relied upon because PGI refuses to make changes to equipment that would create a more level playing field. You strip all quirks out of the game and every high level player will tell you it becomes a Clan-dominated environment. We tried stripping out quirks in the last PTS, which included the Clan laser nerfs. It was horrible. Not much has changed since then; even the resizing is not fundamental enough to create a new outcome.

B.) If you go back and read my replies from the top of the thread, you'll see that all I want for the Blackjack itself at this point is to have a torso yaw in the 100+ degree range for all variants. Perhaps an agility buff, too. The durability buffs are fine where they are. They were fine the first time, before PGI got the idea of applying the monster buff in the first place.

C.) Inner Sphere standard lasers (not ER and not Pulse) are inadequate across the board without a 10% reduction in burn time according to the damage per tick measurement. They are also woefully inadequate without a 10% range buff. I would like to see those implemented as equipment changes, but I'll accept them as quirks for now. The lighter 'Mechs in every class are hurt more when they lose these buffs because they can sustain less return fire than their heavier siblings. The BJ-1X pre monster-structure was *perfect* at skirmishing. Dangerous glass cannon with moderate agility. Now it has to face stare for days and it takes a fortnight to get your guns turned around. All because PGI overburden it's durability and, instead of just rolling that back, they decided to smackdown everything that was right on it.

D.) I don't think you'll find anybody disagreeing on the Vindicator and Victor, but it's not like we can't have all three.

[GrimRiver]

There is too many statements for me to reply to, so I'll say this.

Yes poptart meta was used with GR+PPC combo, but some poptart meta mechs didn't have or couldn't fit a secondary weapon system to work in conjunction with a gauss but yet they still performed well because JJ allowed them to get a shot off in a short amount of time while making it hard to hit the offending mech due to the unpredictable nature of not knowing where the next poptart shot could come from, but even now some mechs still can work a single gauss like the Grid Iron only without all the poptarting and such.

Yes min-maxing yields better results for the range you're fighting in but outside that range it's pretty much useless which is why I always have at least 1 weapon for long range when brawling or short range weapon(s) when sniping, so I can be of use to my team at all times in most situations.

The STD engine Dragon and a STD engine BJ with the same engine won't perform the same, say a STD200 BJ goes 72kph but a DRG with a STD200 will only go 54kph while yes the DRG can now fit extra firepower but with a lower engine it's speed suffers very badly, you would have to pack a STD270 just to perform the same speed as a STD200 BJ.

While yes mechs can play outside their meant roles in lore, like a Black Knight can use ERLL's but due to it's low mounted hardpoints it has a very hard time shooting over hills and with it's longer ranged loadout it'll have a harder time dealing with targets at short range, where short burn time weapons would've been better for it's low slung hardpoints.

Unlike the BL-KNT the BJ has higher mounted hardpoints, is more nimble and from lore it was meant as a long ranged fire support and therefor it's horizontal LOS axis is much tighter then let's say a Hunchback or Griffin, if people want a mech to perform outside it's intended use then this game is gonna have to cast away it's bases in lore and be it's own game.

Buff it's turn axis or whatever but quirks are relied on too much in this game and sadly at the same time some mechs need it badly to be of any use.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

GrimRiver, on 27 July 2016 - 01:04 PM, said:

Yes poptart meta was used with GR+PPC combo, but some poptart meta mechs didn't have or couldn't fit a secondary weapon system to work in conjunction with a gauss

This is false, there were no single Gauss meta poptarts, at the lowest end it was either the 2 AC5/PPC Shad, 1 AC5/2 PPC Shad, or the AC20/PPC Shad later on.

GrimRiver, on 27 July 2016 - 01:04 PM, said:

but even now some mechs still can work a single gauss like the Grid Iron only without all the poptarting and such.

The only time the GI was remotely potent was when it had the 50% cooldown quirk, that is the only thing that made it remotely worthwhile, and even then it was a rare sight in comp drops.

GrimRiver, on 27 July 2016 - 01:04 PM, said:

Unlike the BL-KNT the BJ has higher mounted hardpoints, is more nimble and from lore it was meant as a long ranged fire support and therefor it's horizontal LOS axis is much tighter then let's say a Hunchback or Griffin

Pretty sure the Griffin was a long range fire support mech given the fact it had a PPC and an LRM10 in the earlier configurations, ironically the Vindicator would also fall under that category. Having twist range is important for any range mech because it allows you to shoot a wider angle while re-positioning.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 27 July 2016 - 01:11 PM.

[GrimRiver]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 27 July 2016 - 01:06 PM, said:

This is false, there were no single Gauss meta poptarts, at the lowest end it was either the 2 AC5/PPC Shad, 1 AC5/2 PPC Shad, or the AC20/PPC Shad later on.


The only time the GI was remotely potent was when it had the 50% cooldown quirk, that is the only thing that made it remotely worthwhile, and even then it was a rare sight in comp drops.


Pretty sure the Griffin was a long range fire support mech given the fact it had a PPC and an LRM10 in the earlier configurations, ironically the Vindicator would also fall under that category. Having twist range is important for any range mech because it allows you to shoot a wider angle while re-positioning.

False? Not at all, more like quickly forgotten about. Gauss poptarting was the first to start it off and as soon somebody figured out you could slap a PPC or 2 in the arms with little to no loss of pinpoint while JJ'ing then the rest is now history.

To be fair that's only half of the loadouts of the Griffin variants, the others had ML's - LL's - LPL's - SRM's - MML's - Plasma rifle's and Snub nose PPC's.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

GrimRiver, on 27 July 2016 - 02:02 PM, said:

False? Not at all, more like quickly forgotten about. Gauss poptarting was the first to start it off and as soon somebody figured out you could slap a PPC or 2 in the arms with little to no loss of pinpoint while JJ'ing

You realize this was immediately because the first poptart was the CTF-3D which ran anywhere from 2 PPC/Gauss to 3-4 PPCs (which ran the PPCs in the torso first, not in the arms). I don't know that dual Gauss poptarting was ever a thing initially. Prior to that poptarting wasn't ever used because it was the brawl meta, the age of the Splatapults/Boomapult/Splaturions.

Single Gauss poptarting was never apart of a meta.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 27 July 2016 - 03:03 PM.

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GrimRiver, on 27 July 2016 - 01:04 PM, said:

Yes min-maxing yields better results for the range you're fighting in but outside that range it's pretty much useless which is why I always have at least 1 weapon for long range when brawling or short range weapon(s) when sniping, so I can be of use to my team at all times in most situations.

Specializing completely is always stronger, but not all specializations are reliably good in a pub match. Rather than make a bracket build, I simply avoid playing specialist roles that don't work well without a team in pub games.

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The STD engine Dragon and a STD engine BJ with the same engine won't perform the same, say a STD200 BJ goes 72kph but a DRG with a STD200 will only go 54kph while yes the DRG can now fit extra firepower but with a lower engine it's speed suffers very badly, you would have to pack a STD270 just to perform the same speed as a STD200 BJ.

I never said same size engine, I said same type. You take a Dragon or Rifleman with a STD 280, and it runs at 81.3 kph. That's in the ball-park of a Blackjack running a STD 225 at 87.1 kph; not enough of a speed differential to matter. The Dragon and Rifleman have better guns with that engine than the Blackjack has on the STD 225. It's actually only slightly worse than an XL 225 Blackjack. You stuff an XL 280 into those 60 ton 'Mechs, and they have a whole lot more whoop-a** than the Blackjack can muster. The Rifleman is an extremely solid 'Mech. The Dragon would be, too, if it didn't have unsalvageably bad geometry.

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Unlike the BL-KNT the BJ has higher mounted hardpoints, is more nimble and from lore it was meant as a long ranged fire support and therefor it's horizontal LOS axis is much tighter then let's say a Hunchback or Griffin, if people want a mech to perform outside it's intended use then this game is gonna have to cast away it's bases in lore and be it's own game.

The lore is 100% irrelevant when we have access to a MechLab allowing complete customization. You can't have both lore and a MechLab; the two are at odds with each other because people will always min-max. And when min-maxing is going on, the Blackjack is not at its peak at long range. It's way better at mid-range. It could even be pretty good in a brawl using SPL on a BJ-1X if it received some improved twist and agility.

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Buff it's turn axis or whatever but quirks are relied on too much in this game and sadly at the same time some mechs need it badly to be of any use.

I don't think anybody would disagree that the quirk system is a hot mess. Most 'Mech problems, though, are actually equipment problems. The only 'Mech-specific buffs that should be required in most cases are extra hit-points or extra agility, depending on whether the 'Mech needs a direct improvement or an indirect one that requires pilot skill to make use of.