Arkhangel, on 23 January 2017 - 04:47 AM, said:
In fairness, the mounts on the Orion are why it'll never be seen as "meta" but anyone who's ever run into someone who's taken the time to really get to know and learn that chassis should know not to underestimate the thing. hell, the fact a lot of mechs DON'T have easy-aim hardpoints can actually give pilots who've taken the time to..well.. for lack of a better word, bond with the chassis an advantage, as opponents either have no idea how to counter said mech (since they've hardly ever fought it), and surprise the ones that have in the past by being far more accurate and possibly devastating than they're used to.
(snip)
honestly, Metabuild guys would get a lot less kills if other people stopped getting instantly intimidated by the mech itself. I've bullrushed dozens of Meta-built Dires, Kodiaks, etc in my Yen-Lo, and it actually tends to surprise the hell out of them about 80% of the time, and usually even tends to screw their aim up, thus helping my survivability, and given my team a chance to nail them while i take fire.
That and also.. Metabuilds usually have some pretty glaring weaknesses, which, given how commonly they tend to show up, usually become pretty well known pretty fast, like, say, the fact that Streak Crows with just SSRMs actually kinda suck at doing appreciable damage to IS mediums other than the Cicada, or the fact the Kodiak, like all Clan Assaults has a pretty borked torso turn, meaning an attack from both sides and/or the rear generally means the poor sap can't even retaliate before it's maimed or destroyed, which is why it's pretty rare to see a Kodiak alone. Granted, an assault alone isn't a good idea anyways, but a fair amount of them would at least stand an appreciable chance of tearing one of their attackers a new one in that situation just by virtue of the fact they'd actually be able to get a firing arc on on them.
(snip)
Thank you! This is something I've been saying for a very long time, and it's something that most players fail to realize. I'm one of those players who can wrack in strangely high scores in off-meta mechs. I mean, among the players I do group queue with; when I play with them, they know they're in for a treat when I pull out an Adder; or an Ice Ferret, or a Gargoyle... hell; I've got photos showing 1150 damage, eight-kill match using a Streak Dog. And that's just on the Clan side; I've done some pretty cool things with off-meta IS mechs as well.
Now; on the point of meta mechs; the over-prevalence of them at higher tiers actually can play into the favor of pilots who learn the weaknesses... but take the time to master off-meta picks. I very rarely run meta builds on my mechs because I like to experiment with the things I can do with less-seen sets. For example; the old meta of the 2xERLL Raven-3L had one key piloting failure; and that was pilots standing still for maximum burn time... relying on the ECM to stop them being seen. As if a giant blue ruler wasn't giving away their position every time they hit the trigger... The counter to those mechs was simple counter-sniping. Now; the more modern metas... well; every mech has it's flaws. The Kodiak; barring the Spirit Bear; is roughly as agile as an Atlas; so while they have great firepower in the front arc; anything that gets to the side or behind them has the upper hand. Spirit Bear normally runs contrary to that thanks to MASC letting it hit up to 80kph; but to negate the traditional Kodiak weakness; it also loses space on-board for weapons and equipment. Dire Whales are just plain slow and easy to hit; with zero ability to react to anything that attacks from the side or behind with the common sense to keep moving when it tries to turn. As far as the IS is concerned, the weaknesses are mostly build-based; since some chassis are gated by the meta use of the XL; while others are gated by hardpoints. But even then... they've got weaknesses in maneuverability; firepower, or armor.
The key here is learning not to sheep other pilots; not to purely play the flavor of the month, but to experiment and find how you pilot best. Things that are meta are meta because they offer lots of damage over time for barrage fire (UAC boats; laser boats) or they've got good pinpoint damage (PPC/Gauss snipers). But; why do you think that lore mechs have such stupid builds? Because over-specialization is a huge problem; and most meta mechs fall into that trap.
16
Purposefully didnt make plans for tonight to get it ah well such is life.
