15 replies to this topic

[Kin3ticX]

Controversial topic? Mayyyybe.... Lets dive right in!

This is important for CW players because there is a lot of extreme special snowflake going on and people are getting rekt partly because they are losing in the Mechlab.


Bracket builds are 'Mechs with a wild mix of weapons. I can totally understand new players going off in this direction because many of the stock builds are bracket builds of some sort. We can also call them "high mix" builds for simplicity.

The key point here is that weapons on bracket builds do not synergize or compliment all of the other included weapons well. Bracket builds or generalist builds try to do everything but wind up not doing any one thing well. An example of this would be combining LRMs, Autocannons, and Lasers and anything else with all the colors of the rainbow. If you are not sure what I mean, look at the stock Stalker-3F, the CN9-A, or even the Direwolf Prime.

Proponents of using generalist builds operate on this classic table top idea that you soften your target as you close distance. However, specialists will try to fight you in their element and keep you there. This means generalist builds are very vulnerable to being outgunned (having a large portion of their payload canceled out, never used, tonnage that goes to total waste AKA...you lose).

You see simple mixes in a lot of the metabuilds in circulation. A perfect example are the 3xLPL + 3-4 medium laser combos. Inner Sphere Medium lasers do half damage out to 450m so all the weapons can be fired together and compliment each other well. The exact same sort of thing goes on with the Clan LPL and Clan ERML combos. There are others but I will stick with those to keep this as short as possible.

There is a lot of bad information posted throughout the mwo forums and everyone has their own opinion, sometimes based, very often baseless. Players call it cookie cutter, metahumping, and min-maxing without really knowing what it all means. All that has been done with a "metabuild" is that the postive attributes of the mech are maximized while all the BS from the stock build are totally minimized. Some mechs can be retooled while others are considered garbage tier because they cannot be fixed via the Mechlab.

Anyways, a lot of people already know this stuff but there are some new players floating around and maybe a few will see this.

o7

Edited by Kin3ticX, 27 January 2017 - 11:14 PM.

[Leone]

Okay, I like where you're coming from, but... but... meta builds? I think that's going a bit far. I find too many meta builds run too hot and are built for a different playstyle than I run.

That said, I understand my play style is the in close vicious knife fight, which fewer people seem to like to play. Which of course means, I tend to out-damage my opposition within my preferred engagement range, which makes me love it that much more. It's a downwards spiral towards fun.

~Leone.

Edited by Leone, 27 January 2017 - 10:40 PM.

[Aiden Skye]

FW is already a cesspool of meta or total wtf builds with very little invetween. TBH I'd prefer it if mixed builds were the real workhorses.

[Kin3ticX]

Leone, on 27 January 2017 - 10:38 PM, said:

Okay, I like where you're coming from, but... but... meta builds? I think that's going a bit far. I find too many meta builds run too hot and are built for a different playstyle than I run.

That said, I understand my play style is the in close vicious knife fight, which fewer people seem to like to play. Which of course means, I tend to out-damage my opposition within my preferred engagement range, which makes me love it that much more. It's a downwards spiral towards fun.

~Leone.

Well CW has its own subtle differences in meta from quickplay and the comp scene. I meant metabuilds as CW meta in this instance. Some of it is very similar, some of it is very different. Being able to stack 12 mechs of any kind into 1 wave and knowing the map opens up possibilities. If someone argued there was a multi-meta, I wouldnt disagree. Theres still a limited number of good builds/decks and a lot of bad ones.

I only hope that new players work from a "what we know works good" framework as a starting point rather than try to invent their own thing whole cloth and fail.

Edited by Kin3ticX, 27 January 2017 - 11:21 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Bracket builds are one of those things people *want* to work. So people bring them, fail, then complain that the game is broken because it doesn't work.

This is one of those things where people who adapt do well and people who want the game to adapt to them don't. Not all mechs, builds and play styles are equal. Nor is there really a way to make it so; some builds are terrible.

If someone is losing and playing bad builds the problem isn't the game design, it's their ability to adapt and make successful choices - from positioning on the map to mech choices and builds.

[Mechi Messer]

The problem with meta is as follows:
A lot of metabuilds require actual teamwork which means teammates should have your back and focus fire is needed. For example the laservomit-ebj. This thing can spit out 68 or so alpha once or twice. You need to disengage after that to cool off. This works perfectly in oiled machines like EVIL. In the current enviroment where a lot of pugging is going on (which I like, because I pug exclusively) these builds don't work that well because nobody really has your back. I toned the medlas down due to this fact. It was just too hot for pugging because you have to rely more on your own than on others to back you up.
My advice to pugs would be: Look at metabuilds and tone them down a bit if they are pure laservomit. Strip one or two medlas to put in more heatsinks
What is absolutely true is the worthlessness of mixed builds. When I see an enemy heavy with one AC2 and a couple of other weaponsystems with only medium to short range staring at my nightgyr tickling me with rounds at 800m I don't even bother to twist. 2 to 3 dualgauss + erppc and he pops. I see something like this a lot. A waste of tonage. I wouldn't do that against 4 to 5 erll.
There are metabuilds that don't need to be toned down though. 5lpl battlemaster for example. Works always well.

Edited by Mechi Messer, 27 January 2017 - 11:46 PM.

[Starbomber109]

I actually enjoy mechs that use Gauss and medlas even though it's a little bit of a "bracket build", but it exells at midrange combat so maybe not. I also have a silly Atlas RS that has LPLs and SRMs. I find it to be...Decent enough.

Idk I guess even back in MW4 I was the guy who tended to use weapons with same range except for LRMs because they were awesome in that game and worked well at nearly any range. I feel like the only bracket builds are ones relying on LRMs to pepper people at range so in a sense is this another "stop bringing LRMs" topic?

[Kin3ticX]

Starbomber109, on 28 January 2017 - 06:57 AM, said:

I actually enjoy mechs that use Gauss and medlas even though it's a little bit of a "bracket build", but it exells at midrange combat so maybe not. I also have a silly Atlas RS that has LPLs and SRMs. I find it to be...Decent enough.

Idk I guess even back in MW4 I was the guy who tended to use weapons with same range except for LRMs because they were awesome in that game and worked well at nearly any range. I feel like the only bracket builds are ones relying on LRMs to pepper people at range so in a sense is this another "stop bringing LRMs" topic?

Gauss synergizes with ERML, LPL aka Gauss Vomit due to its low heat profile. Replacing the Guass with an ERPPC crowds out the other lasers with insane heat.

PGI since dropped the DPS on gauss significantly so it isnt as shinny as it used to be. The weapon is worse at close range where as it was satisfactory before. There was also the range nerf to ERML which impacts that. This is why we dont see as many Gauss 5x ERML Timbers and Gauss 4x or 5x ERML Hellbringers anymore.

Edited by Kin3ticX, 28 January 2017 - 10:29 AM.

[MischiefSC]

As UACs got nerfed to be flat out useless however you're going to see gauss + cerml as a medium range trade build more often. 2 LPLs + cermls is too bloody hot to deal with a push - if you're good with gauss you can get a ST open and when the push comes finish it with the gauss even if you're otherwise too hot to shoot.

The 2 LPL 4 cerml build trades reasonably well in a team but is bad to pug with because you'll heatcap and have nothing. The gauss + cerml build is a solid pugging Clan option IMO. The real problem is that you're going to be trading within the IS optimal range.

I'd say you're better off with 2 LPL, 6 SPL on an EBJ. 2 LPL for range isn't a bad choice as you'll get your licks in from 800 and closer and when they get to brawling range you've got a lot of precision damage you can keep puking up with manageable heat. 7 MPLs on a TBR is also an exceptional brawling build, along with the splat TBR. My Clan deck at the moment would be a TBR, EBJ or HBR, HBKIIC and a Nova.

Pugging with a sniping build is the embrace of defeat; hoping to farm damage while your team is certain to lose. Conversely a strong mid and brawling Clan deck with 1 or 2 long range options in the first wave is about ideal. The mistake I see people make in Clans all the time is front loading tonnage. It's a horrible, horrible idea for Clans right now because it means you have trash for 1 or 2 waves compared to the heavies most IS will have. There are no Clan assaults right now worth it in FW because you lose too much on wave 4. 2 heavies, 2 mediums. You need things that can compete in all 4 waves. Especially pugging.

[Leone]

MischiefSC, on 28 January 2017 - 01:20 PM, said:

There are no Clan assaults right now worth it in FW because you lose too much on wave 4.

I beg to differ. The Brawl-Goyle is an excellent investment of 80 tonnes, at just five tonnes more'n your vaunted Madcat (Timberwolf.) An arctic cheetah is not the worst thing in the world to bring into an endgame brawl, and as much as I love my Novas, does allow for a dual Cauldron Born (Ebon Jaguar,) and Cheetah to follow the 'Goyle. Conversely, one could just load up three Nova's and a giant 80 assault built to mimic em.

But yeah, higher'n that and I start to feel the weight differential.

~Leone.

[meteorol]

MischiefSC, on 28 January 2017 - 01:20 PM, said:

You need things that can compete in all 4 waves. Especially pugging.

Like 9 of 10 of my CW matches are decided before it even comes to wave 4, and i only pug.

I'm currently using a trial MLX as fourth mech. I won't even buy that POS mech, because it won't make a difference in the vast majority of matches (and i'm sitting on 450m cbills, that's how little i really need it). Either it gets farmed off the dropship or i don't need more than 3 mechs.

Heck, i can't even remember when i had the last match in which wave 4 really was the deciding factor. More often than not, puggels simply don't recognize that the match is already lost unrecoverable on wave 2.

Edited by meteorol, 28 January 2017 - 02:44 PM.

[Ghogiel]

Pretty much anything that is T1 works good, even having a brawler or 2 in the dropdeck, because the game modes are quickplay most of the time and you don't need to worry about faffing with the invasion mode metas/maps where things are actually different.

Just take what you would to normally conquest/skirm/dom modes in comp/group/QP. My only advise is lean on at least one mech that can sustain. I usually have to ditch my ammo dependant mechs after 800-1100dmg even if they at 70%. Which isn't optimal due to the time sink of respawning hurts overall dps.

Edited by Ghogiel, 28 January 2017 - 04:18 PM.

[Davegt27]

to make this thread fly you really need examples of builds so people can pick them apart

this is my old CW TW build from phase II, I was Clan at the time and was mad they had just nerfed Clan
lasers (cant seem to see any evidence of that nerf these days)

anyways
fire suit on

[Starbomber109]

Davegt27, on 28 January 2017 - 04:40 PM, said:

to make this thread fly you really need examples of builds so people can pick them apart

this is my old CW TW build from phase II, I was Clan at the time and was mad they had just nerfed Clan
lasers (cant seem to see any evidence of that nerf these days)

anyways
fire suit on

You tapped into Ghost Heat so much....but you did OK (but my Quickdraw does the same. I tap Ghost Heat all the time on 4xLL boats, but I hardly ever alpha in 5xLL boats.)

I'll have to try this build someday.

[Kin3ticX]

Davegt27, on 28 January 2017 - 04:40 PM, said:

to make this thread fly you really need examples of builds so people can pick them apart

this is my old CW TW build from phase II, I was Clan at the time and was mad they had just nerfed Clan
lasers (cant seem to see any evidence of that nerf these days)

anyways
fire suit on

4xCERLL timber was a thing in early phase 2 because that was before the most recent burn time nerf to the clan ERLL

Ever since then I havent even touched the weapon


also there was a 50-50 chance to get the ice invasion map

Edited by Kin3ticX, 28 January 2017 - 05:18 PM.

[Davegt27]

my 5 ERLL CAT I use only for CW sometimes (the warhammers work better)
also in this vid is my bracket build Jager A (I hated LRMs so much so I built this back in 2014 and never took it down)



ok flame away