22 replies to this topic

[Rando Slim]

Upgraded my IS resistance pack to the full deal to get the free Stalker.........so Im stuck with this huge Black Knight and despite its armor quirks Im having a terrible time. Its sooooo tall and everyone just shoots me no matter where I go, it feels like the entire enemy team has a narc on me for all weapon types at all times. And like, why? Its not even good, I'll be right next to a Timberwolf and I get shot not him. Why is it such a priority target? Its mounts suck, its weapon quirks suck. So I figure I need to get in closer but it gets outclassed in a brawl by high alpha clan brawlers and basically anything than can pack 3 or more srm 6 racks in it. Is it just bad no matter what? I have one with 9 medium lasers, one with 8 medium pulses, and one with 2 large pulse and 5 mediums with a shield arm. I've had maybe 2 good matches in them out of 12-15. What do you guys do? Is it just a scrap heap mech thats cool to look at and nothing else? I get it its always hard leveling mechs in higher tiers and not having elite skills but man alive.......

Edited by Rando Slim, 16 October 2016 - 08:58 PM.

[TheLuc]

Some Mechs are harder than others due to style of play of who ever is having it, you just need practice.

The Black Knight is a priority target due to the laser vomit meta and most builds pack a XL engine so its easy to disable, that is why you feel like being picked as target over that Timber Wolf. If you have XL engines in your builds I strongly recommend to swap to standard engines.

The fact that the design has all the weapons mounts so low make it difficult to play the peek-a-boo game, better off stay in cover till opponents are themselves out of cover

Think of this Mech as the cavalry, the cavalry is always late, so should the Black Knight

[Vagosei]

Use xl 350/3 large pulse lasers/ the rest all small pulse lasers and then fill with heat sinks. If I remember correctly its about 19 HS total.

Black Knight is a very good mech still but your team that you play with can help or hurt you depending on whether or not you are puggin or dropping with a unit. Unit gameplay is always OP.

Edited by Vagosei, 17 October 2016 - 03:59 AM.

[CheeseThief]

The Black Knight is trash since the rescale. A ridiculously tall walking CT with waist high guns.

Best advice I can give is slap in an XL350 since the enemy might occasionally miss the CT if your moving at a decent speed. As TheLuc said, the mech is a cavalry mech. Lie in wait until the battle is joined and then zoom in and vomit lasers or wub over whatever is unfortunate enough to find the surprise heavy.

[Nerd Incognito]

I've actually done fairly well with my BL-6-KNT, even since the rescale. It's the only BK I own, so it's not even elited, and I use a build based on the standard laser vomit meta. (IIRC, I think I dropped one LPL in favour of another ML, and run with a Standard 300 engine, because I didn't have the money for an XL, and 3LPL was too hot for me, but YMMV).

The best piece of advice I can give you: DO NOT HILL HUMP. Repeat for effect: DO NOT FREAKING HILL HUMP!

It's also not the best in close, as you've pointed out, because it gets eaten by high-alpha mechs like the SRM6 TBR (which I run and love). So what does it have going for it?
It's tanky. Like WAY tankier than my TBR, I find, especially if you keep that standard engine. Those structure quirks make a huge difference. It also outclasses my TBR at medium range (270-700m), and has big arms that cover its torsos effectively, if you're good at torso twisting.

My advice is to learn two subtle arts: side peeking (preferably on the left with my build, as that's where your LPLs are), and PATIENCE. Stay in the second line, pick your targets, and fry 'em like bacon. Stick next to the Atlas or DWF, watch his back for him, and hide behind him when you need to, popping out to the side to fire.

Also, don't be afraid to mess around with the meta build if it's not working for you. I dropped the XL because I didn't have the money to spend, and adjusted lasers because I found that I overheated far too often. Find what works as a balance for you. It can be a great little (big) mech.

[SlightlyMobileTurret]

Once you get elites, 3LPL + 3/4/5 ML depending your playstyle are great.

2LPL + 5 ML and a huge engine (STD or XL) might be to your taste instead.

Never build them with just ML/MPL -- the Hunchback-4P and the BJ-1X are better if you want that. You want that big punch with this thing.

Edited by Keshav Murali, 17 October 2016 - 08:08 AM.

[Spheroid]

Black Knights are great. Are you using the stock engine? Durability quirks plus the ability to cram in 22-23 heatsinks combined with a large alpha pretty much guarantees a high match score.

My best builds are with the 7L and 6B, though I own duplicates of all variants. The builds themes fall into endo + standard or no endo + large XL.

I can post all my builds if you want.

[Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky]

You absolutely must twist the damage all around.

If you dont spread incomming damage; you will literally evaporate.

Remember, the mech is a laser platform, and these mechs run hot. Alpha once or twice, then cool down!!!

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...e39ba32bc86288b

You are not a brawler, you are not a sniper... You goal is to make favorable trades to open up opportunites for your team to snowball. Corner peak -> alpha -> reverse back to cover.

[Spheroid]

You can run 3x LPLAS in the BKT-7 in fairly highly mounts with a semi dead side and do well. Triple pulse can do well on many platforms.

Engine choices might be a 295STD or 360XL.

360XL + 20 DHS + 3x LPLAS + 3x mlas.

[Spheroid]

My complete Black Knight builds

BL-6-KNT = 340 STD, endo, 6x mlas, 2x mplas, 2x AMS, 20 DHS "Team player"
BL-6-KNT = 320 STD, 4x mlas, 4x mplas, 22 DHS "medium heat"
BL-6B-KNT = 340 STD, endo, 6x mlas, 3x mplas, 21 DHS "hot"
BL-6B-KNT = 325 STD, 6x mlas, 2x mplas, 23 DHS "ice"
BL-6B-KNT = 360XL, 2x mlas, 6x mplas, BAP, TAG, AMS, 23 DHS "ice XL"
BL-7-KNT = 360XL, endo, 3x LPLAS, 3x mlas, 20 DHS "medium range murder"
BL-7-KNT-L = 325 STD, 6x mlas, 2x mplas, 23 DHS "longer ranged ice build clone"
BL-7-KNT-L = 380XL, 6x mlas, 2x mplas, BAP, AMS, 23 DHS "fast ice"

Edited by Spheroid, 17 October 2016 - 04:38 PM.

[Rando Slim]

Hey thanks for the replies. I have been using standard engines in all of them, ranging from 300 to 340. I guess I accidentally did one build right then, as I did use 2 lpl and 5 mediums on one of them (coincidentally that one I did a little better in). I guess I was kinda using it wrong if your posts are any indication. Trying my best to twist and spread damage but I guess using it as a brawler is the wrong way to go then. I guess its just close/medium range support then for surprise attacks. Im sure part of it is I have been exclusively pugging with it, I usually try to just bring elited stuff to group drops and I'm still in the process of finding a unit anyway.

But yea I guess I'll try more large pulse lasers and just being more patient. I feel hesitant to use xl engines on it until I get better with it. Thanks again for the advice all.

[JC Daxion]

Spheroid, on 17 October 2016 - 04:36 PM, said:

My complete Black Knight builds

BL-6-KNT = 340 STD, endo, 6x mlas, 2x mplas, 2x AMS, 20 DHS "Team player"
BL-6-KNT = 320 STD, 4x mlas, 4x mplas, 22 DHS "medium heat"
BL-6B-KNT = 340 STD, endo, 6x mlas, 3x mplas, 21 DHS "hot"
BL-6B-KNT = 325 STD, 6x mlas, 2x mplas, 23 DHS "ice"
BL-6B-KNT = 360XL, 2x mlas, 6x mplas, BAP, TAG, AMS, 23 DHS "ice XL"
BL-7-KNT = 360XL, endo, 3x LPLAS, 3x mlas, 20 DHS "medium range murder"
BL-7-KNT-L = 325 STD, 6x mlas, 2x mplas, 23 DHS "longer ranged ice build clone"
BL-7-KNT-L = 380XL, 6x mlas, 2x mplas, BAP, AMS, 23 DHS "fast ice"

thanks for the info.. I to just bought the resistance II package.. (mainly because of all the colors, bays, and extra's!) But the crab, and mauler both seamed pretty cool.. Not sure about the wolf hound or BK, but i heard they were decent.

I noticed you used all laser builds, Despite 1 having what seams like pretty good PPC quirks, and the other at least passable. Do you just not like PPC's Or just find they don't work well ont his particular mech, or run them on others? I don't really have many mechs i run PPC's on. One griffin, cicada, spider, EXE, and my K2.. so it seams like one could be a natural fit.

I was thinking about a pair of PPC's + 5 SPL's if things got close.

I don't wanna spend a ton of engines atm, but i have XL-300, XL340, and STD 320,325, 330, so i figured something could be made with those, while i get my groove..

I do run a MPL thunderbolt, so i have experience with them on heavies, One has 8 hard points, so 2 groups of 4, might be good, yes?

ahh well, thanks for the other info non-the-less

[SlightlyMobileTurret]

IS ERPPCs are just too hot.

6B-KNT has best ERPPC quirks, but the -10% energy heat gen generic just means it does lasers better. (lacks range though)

[Spheroid]

@JC the Black Knight has so many hardpoints laser vomit is the natural conclusion. PPCs weigh so much that you are never going to use more than six energy hardpoints even with secondaries, so you might as well use another chassis since fewer hardpoints are quirked more favorably generally.

Plus ghost heat caps PPC at a two weapon max. Effective boating would logically lead to a lighter dual platform or 2x PPC + AC-10 or 2x AC-5. That is not the Black Knight. It would be waste of tonnage to go the PPC route.

Edited by Spheroid, 18 October 2016 - 09:19 PM.

[Cato Phoenix]

XL big engines are really the way to roll it. Whenever I roll mine in pug queue it's generally wreck face, and it can go nuts in FP.

3LPLAS and 6MLAS (yes...yes) works the best for me.

Edited by Cato Phoenix, 18 October 2016 - 09:33 PM.

[VitriolicViolet]

I still run them and find them fairly meh compared to when they were released.

That said you can do well but you have to make them that bit faster and use them as 'shock troops' or 'cavalry' as someone else said.

I run the BL-6-KNT the most, its actually near the top of my most played mechs (only Heavy Metal and Ravens beat it). I recommend using standard engines, ive seen people XL but i dont use them much myself. Also dont necessarily feel like you need to use all the hardpoints as its covered in them.

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...fa5620904e807ae

[SlightlyMobileTurret]

When they were released, they had big CT issues and mediocre quirks. I guess you mean after the Dec Patch, when they were super-buffed.

Far better quirks and hitboxes right now than on release.

[Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky]

JC Daxion, on 18 October 2016 - 12:12 PM, said:

I noticed you used all laser builds, Despite 1 having what seams like pretty good PPC quirks, and the other at least passable. Do you just not like PPC's Or just find they don't work well ont his particular mech, or run them on others? I don't really have many mechs i run PPC's on. One griffin, cicada, spider, EXE, and my K2.. so it seams like one could be a natural fit.

I was thinking about a pair of PPC's + 5 SPL's if things got close.

(Sorry, I wanted to respond to this earlier, but I have been super busy with work.)


Before I talk about the black knight, I will delve into role combat as it exists in mwo. This is going to be a long post so Ill try my best to seperate topics.

So lets start off with the topic of Snipers. In MWO, there are many different types of snipers: Extended Range Laser snipers, PPFLD snipers (pin point front loaded damage), poptart snipers, ecm snipers, high mount hill humping snipers. (Sometimes a mech will overlap into multiple different Groups).

Now about sniping: a generalized idea of sniping is to deal the maximum amount of damage while taking minimal incoming damage from enemies. We call this favorable trading. When one takes on this combat archetype, the pilot should maximize all available resources towards achieving this goal.

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now, with that information in mind, I would like to discuss the Black Knight.

First off, its only arsenal available to its hardpoints are energy weapons. it has zero other options across all Variants; lacking a balistic hard point means It cannot equip the fabled Gauss Rifle. This limits its sniper weapons to PPC type weapons, as well as ER Large Lasers.

It also does not have access to jump jets. This eliminates the ability to pop tart.

Most of its weapons (aside from a head energy hard point which only has an allowance of one open critical location) are slung low at about waist height. With a lack of High mounts available to equip multi-critical weapons, the Black Knight is relegated to corner poking as its only available option at trading.

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Now with all this info at hand, let us compare the Black Knight to other snipers.

The Black Knight is a 75 ton inner sphere mech with the capability to equip engines large enough to keep it fairly agile. The problem is, it is also has an extremelly large frontal profile, and in order to fire its weapons, one must expose a large portion of its silhouette to the enemy.

Due to current ghost heat limitations, one can only fire 2 PPC type weapons, any more will incure massive heat penalties. Since we stated earlier, without being able to combine with a gauss rifle, we are limited to only 20 points of damage.

Mechs around equal tonnage are able to mount 2x c-er PPC and a c-Gauss (35 pinpoint damage + an additional 10 splash damage) with jump capability as well as 2x c-gauss rifle + c-er PPC (40 pinpoint + 5 splash damage) all while still being jump capable.

In this match up, the risk versus reward is not favorable, and will lead to lost trades.

Going with lighter mechs, there are many mechs capable of equiping dual gauss rifles (30 points of pinpoint damage with fast projectile speeds) while either being high mounted, and/or jump capable. Once again, you loose out on trades versus these targets.

Going even lighter, (towards the 50 ton bracket) is a very popular mech that equips 2x c-er PPC in high mounts with jump jets....

This list goes on about mechs that weild sniper weapons better, at lighter tonnage, but even more devistating are the mechs at greater tonnage. Mechs that can equip 2x gauss + 2x ppcs are monstrosities that will completelly obliterate a black knight during a trade.

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Now lets look at the strength of the black knight. For the following topic, we will use a template taken straight from metamechs.com :

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...5a6928945440c4b

At a glance, we can see that it has 3x LPL and 5x ML for its armament. With weapon modules, these weapons sync up fairly nicelly and can be fired together without ghost heat penalities for a alpha totalling 58 points of damage if the pilot can maintain the full duration of the lasers burn time on the target.

The mech also has an XL engine equipped that can achieve a kph of 81.3 after speed tweak.

So with such a high alpha, the risk versus reward becomes much more favorable on a peek, especially since the agility granted by the mech is fast enough that the pilot can dive into cover fairly quickly. The pilot can probably peak twice before over heating, and can then stay hidden until cooled off.

Remember, a fairly large portion of the Black Knight needs to be exposed so expect to take incomming damage every time you peak. Where as with a 20 point alpha, the trade would rarelly be favorable; 58 points of damage in the other hand is quite sizeable (2 volleys of this should critcally open up most mechs in the game, and out right destroy a few of them) and generally worth risking.

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Sorry i would like to post more, but I am all of a sudden busy. i might return to this thread to edit this post at a later date...

Edited by Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky, 19 October 2016 - 02:04 PM.

[JC Daxion]

interesting.. But i could swear i see Maruder 3D, which are 75 tons, with Quad PPC builds, though IMO that would be a bit hot. at only 34% cooling, and 3.4 dps, 40 points, 2x20 for no ghost heat.

anyways,, just thought i would ask.. I'll give some laser builds a try, as if there were any other options..

[Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky]

JC Daxion, on 20 October 2016 - 07:29 PM, said:

interesting.. But i could swear i see Maruder 3D, which are 75 tons, with Quad PPC builds, though IMO that would be a bit hot. at only 34% cooling, and 3.4 dps, 40 points, 2x20 for no ghost heat.

anyways,, just thought i would ask.. I'll give some laser builds a try, as if there were any other options..

Most of the viable marauder builds I see combine ballistics and energy weapons.

The following is an example taken straight from metamechs.com
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...80e7c0162273b8e

Lets take a look at this mech.

First off, we can see that it has 2x uac5s and 2x ppc.

Alpha (with a double tap) totals 40 damage which is pretty good FLD. (All of which doesnt inflict ghost heat)

Also, because of the ballistics; when the mech gets too hot, it can fall back on its pair of uacs which has a good recycle rate.

If an enemy gets within the 90m of the ppcs, the uacs are a pretty good platform for defence.