24 replies to this topic

[NeoCodex]

When was the last time you saw one?

No, when was the last time you really did?

I swear that even Wolfhounds and Phoenix Hawks are more common than what once was the supreme Overlord and bringer of Justice.

Why is this still listed as the best meta build for the DS? Is it really?

Is there a brave soul out there that still gave good ol' Victors another try? How would you build a DS today? Or will this be another 15$ down the drain that we will never get back again?

Besides DS, the other variants seem to have potential to do an AC20 build besides the fact that.. hardpoint spread across the mech between the missile, ballistics and energy couldn't be more worse.. Let's remember that they got their "agility" back quite some time ago, that happened after they got it nerfed and Victor officialy died, but even after the un-nerf nobody is playing them again.

So why does nobody, nobody ever use them anymore? Or is it really just power creep? Well, it's not really a question of why but rather.. Why not? Is this really the worst assault/heavy mech in the game now?

Share your thoughts.

Edited by NeoCodex, 01 September 2016 - 05:23 AM.

[TercieI]

80 tons is a bad weight if there's nothing special and without JJ there's nothing special about the VTR.

I saw a few one night last week and ended up diddling in Smurfy, but mine remain stripped in the back of the garage.

[Wintersdark]

TercieI, on 01 September 2016 - 06:01 AM, said:

80 tons is a bad weight if there's nothing special and without JJ there's nothing special about the VTR.

I saw a few one night last week and ended up diddling in Smurfy, but mine remain stripped in the back of the garage.

This.

It suffers from bottom-of-classitis, JJ's are an utter waste of time on anything over ~50t, has mediocre, generally low slung hardpoints and few of them. Decent hitboxes, though. It was a beast in the PPC+AC/Gauss poptarting meta days, but after it got beat down in the Great Victor (and Highlander) Nerf losing it's once fabled agility, then pilot skills were nerfed too further mangling it's agility, it really has nothing left going for it.

At least Awesome's have uberstrong quirks.

See, what happened is a tale as old as time MWO. Once a mech is a dominant force for a long time and gets harshly nerfed, it can never be good again. PGI won't allow it. Hell, even the Catapult K2 still suffers from this.

[TercieI]

Wintersdark, on 01 September 2016 - 08:42 AM, said:

This.

It suffers from bottom-of-classitis, JJ's are an utter waste of time on anything over ~50t, has mediocre, generally low slung hardpoints and few of them. Decent hitboxes, though. It was a beast in the PPC+AC/Gauss poptarting meta days, but after it got beat down in the Great Victor (and Highlander) Nerf losing it's once fabled agility, then pilot skills were nerfed too further mangling it's agility, it really has nothing left going for it.

At least Awesome's have uberstrong quirks.

See, what happened is a tale as old as time MWO. Once a mech is a dominant force for a long time and gets harshly nerfed, it can never be good again. PGI won't allow it. Hell, even the Catapult K2 still suffers from this.

LOL. Sad but true.

It's very annoying that in quirks they take JJ as a huge strike against any mech when JJs have been nerfed to nigh uselessness on big mechs. You literally equip one to get over small rocks and anything else is just a waste. I'm not even a fattie driver by trade, but they're in a dumb state on fatties.

[Wintersdark]

TercieI, on 01 September 2016 - 08:50 AM, said:

LOL. Sad but true.

It's very annoying that in quirks they take JJ as a huge strike against any mech when JJs have been nerfed to nigh uselessness on big mechs. You literally equip one to get over small rocks and anything else is just a waste. I'm not even a fattie driver by trade, but they're in a dumb state on fatties.

An absurdly dumb state, particularly given how the larger fatties are packing 2t JJ's. They're laughably bad on things like Highlanders (IIC or no), or anything bigger. I mean, it's actively depressing how sad it is to take a 5JJ HGN-HM (which *should* by rights jump like a 5JJ 50 tonner, given it's putting 10 tons into JJ's vs. 2.5) can barely make it off the ground.


The nerf quirks on ECM too, despite it as well having nowhere near the value it once did. Hell, I even run ECM capable mechs without ECM sometimes (this is actually a good thing!)... But ECM is still viewed from PGI's perspective (and a lot of players who haven't gotten past The Old Days) as a major advantage.

[Virlutris]

TercieI, on 01 September 2016 - 08:50 AM, said:

LOL. Sad but true.

It's very annoying that in quirks they take JJ as a huge strike against any mech when JJs have been nerfed to nigh uselessness on big mechs. You literally equip one to get over small rocks and anything else is just a waste. I'm not even a fattie driver by trade, but they're in a dumb state on fatties.

The irony here is that one of the reasons for the JJ nerf (not the only one, but one nonetheless) was that there was no reason to equip more than one JJ due to how "powerful" they were.

Now what do we have? There's no reason to equip more than one because of how powerful they're not .

To be fair, I think we'd keep min-maxing this pretty much the same way regardless of how good the JJs are. Minimum investment of tonnage for maximum return of utility. We're unlikely to get enough power in JJs to allow for the return of the Assault Poptart, which means they're doomed to remain "almost effective" at best, when maxed out.

I don't run more than 2 on any of my Victors, and they're the Assault chassis on my "What Mech Challenge" alt. I need that tonnage for ammo, heatsinks, engine weight, armor, you name it.

[TercieI]

Virlutris, on 01 September 2016 - 09:34 AM, said:

The irony here is that one of the reasons for the JJ nerf (not the only one, but one nonetheless) was that there was no reason to equip more than one JJ due to how "powerful" they were.

Now what do we have? There's no reason to equip more than one because of how powerful they're not .

To be fair, I think we'd keep min-maxing this pretty much the same way regardless of how good the JJs are. Minimum investment of tonnage for maximum return of utility. We're unlikely to get enough power in JJs to allow for the return of the Assault Poptart, which means they're doomed to remain "almost effective" at best, when maxed out.

I don't run more than 2 on any of my Victors, and they're the Assault chassis on my "What Mech Challenge" alt. I need that tonnage for ammo, heatsinks, engine weight, armor, you name it.

I agree and disagree. IMO, JJs are actually about perfect on mediums. One gets you something, four gets you a lot more, eight flips you into orbit. They're slightly too weak on lights, but pretty close. It's just heavies and assaults where they're trash.

[Virlutris]

TercieI, on 01 September 2016 - 09:54 AM, said:

I agree and disagree. IMO, JJs are actually about perfect on mediums. One gets you something, four gets you a lot more, eight flips you into orbit. They're slightly too weak on lights, but pretty close. It's just heavies and assaults where they're trash.

Okay, so I hinted at it with the Assault Poptart comment, but we basically agree. It's the assaults that are in the especially tough spot, but I was trying to be too economical in my post, and you rightly called me on it.

Class 1, 2 and 3 are all in a tough spot. Class 1's situation is compounded by the higher weight of the JJs themselves. It's small consolation that the Victor has Class 2 JJs, because the "performance" and lighter weight doesn't offset the chassis's other build issues. :/

[Rock Roller]

I have played my Victor recently. It has less firepower, durability and mobility than my Marauder has. It also has worse hard point locations and more limited loadout options.

Sad because I want to love it.

O if you didn't see the results of the recent assault challenge, it was by far the lowest performing assault.

The Awesome that in many ways is an equivalent mech in lore has far more quirk love.

[NeoCodex]

^{Regarding JJ, I made a joke build KDK-2 with max jumpjets gauss and peeps.. And... It was pure **** if you wanted to poptart. There is absolutely no difference between one and max jumpjets. Why?! 10 tons of jump jets, and.. nothing?! I just want my jumping HGN/KDKs man... At least they should be able to if they pack maximum of those. Come on PGI!!}

[Requiemking]

Honestly, the most likely reason PGI won't fix JJs is because, in doing so, they wouldn't be able to sell new mechs because the old gods would be just as powerful.

[Alienized]

i love my victor. constantly playing it. far away from the blatant deathball movement of everyone.
waiting for victims on the path's everyone does and no one expects a 80ton head on brawler with 4 jj's torso twisting goodness.

and if i can take 2 enemies with me while fighting 3mechs + lrm's, its just not my fault if the team loses.

[Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky]

#MakeVictorsFlyAgain

[VitriolicViolet]

I want my Heavy Metal to take off properly, i currently run it without an JJ, the only Highlander i use them on is the 733C.
I did have Victors but they are the only mechs ive sold off as im useless in one.

[Avatar4]

I did get to play Victors at the end of their glory days. I never really liked the pop-tart, but back then they were so damn nimble I just loved playing it. A few lasers for range and a big AC for brawling - it was like a fast moving fast turning Atlas. I miss it.

[knight-of-ni]

I too miss the times when Victors were fun to play.
Unless something in the game changes to make them fun again, they will continue to sit in my mech bay museum of has-beens.

[oldradagast]

Victors are trash, and the only think that kept them from suffering Awesome-level failure was that jump-jets and Gauss + PPC meta were once both very good things. The Awesome could never use JJ or Gauss, so it suffered for ages, while the Victor enjoyed that period in the meta.

Once one makes jump jets useless on larger mechs and the game changes enough so that a Victor's firepower, even with a Gauss (now with charge up) is no longer anything astounding, and you see how horrible the Victor really is. It is BIG - despite the size normalization per tonnage - and very wide in the torso, so it suffers the same problem as the Awesome. It also completely lacks any high mounted weapon hardpoints (even the Awesome's have a head laser), and the missile tubes on them are still borked, so they can't properly run a brawling loadout with piles of SRM6's thanks to 2 and 4 tube limitations. Victor's also have lousy quirks because they were once powerful and thus can never be powerful again thanks to PGI logic. End result - one of the worst mechs in the game.

[Lyoto Machida]

Requiemking, on 02 September 2016 - 10:31 AM, said:

Honestly, the most likely reason PGI won't fix JJs is because, in doing so, they wouldn't be able to sell new mechs because the old gods would be just as powerful.

This...why fix old mechs when you can sell new ones for actual cash?

[Chados]

I saw a Dragon Slayer last night.

I run mine sometimes, the old meta build of two LPL and an AC10. I carry an active probe to get counter ECM Lock damage and four jets. It can still hover. I've even poptarted over a scrum using a PPC Executioner. It doesn't fly like a Phoenix Hawk, though. That's for sure.

[Aggravated Assault Mech]

Victor could use the same rescale + quirk treatment that the Awesome got.