10 replies to this topic

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

So I started up the PTS today and realized I kept on getting absolutely destroyed by a Scorch pilot. At first I got shot in the back and insta died and thought it was alright, I took an alpha from an assault to the rear in my Executioner, seems fair enough, they had 3 people flanking.

Then I swapped over the Kodiak to see how it was doing. I get face to face with a Scorch and my CT's gone so quick I don't know what hit me.

By the third match me and the person are talking about how much stronger LBX seems and the Scorch in general.

At this point I decide to go ahead and try it out myself. I throw in an XL350 so i move about 71kph, 2 LBX20s, and 4 ASRM6. I went and upgraded LBX entirely except range except where it blocked another skill and then also maxed out the SRMs. I also maxed out armor and structure and the coolrun/heatcontainment/quickignition tree except for a few things and got that bonus ammo for the LBX. Then I took it to a few matches myself.

The thing gets 3 kills and 4 kills just about every match. Its an unstoppable menace. With the LBX now having 20% less spread its essentially like dual AC20 up close then I have 4 ASRM6 with 10% less spread to back it up. On top of that cooldown quirks, and velocity quirks to make it even better. It absolutely demolishes KDK-3s in a fight, Heavies best not get near it or be two shotted, lights and mediums have a chance if they run away.

At first I was thinking the Scorch might not end up too great because its a mixed build using two weapon types instead of 1, but instead I just got rid of infowar stuff entirely and focused all my skills towards killing stuff and I got the strongest brawler I've ever used.

I know its likely to be over inflated in powerlevel because its 4v4 right now, no match maker, and everyone's brawling and can get into a brawl because the low amount of focus fire out there and it wouldn't have much ammo for a drawn out fight, but its still somewhat interesting to see how it works. Its a great example of a mech that got heavily buffed in the PTS without really needing any buffs in the first place.

[Tamerlin]

I can confirm this. My ACH got insta-legged by Scorchs several times.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Tamerlin, on 09 February 2017 - 05:27 PM, said:

I can confirm this. My ACH got insta-legged by Scorchs several times.

88 damage, ghost heat free, alphas that can be done twice before overheating now with reduced spread tend to do that. LBX20 seems mildy effective at its optimal range now at least.

[process]

With fewer players in the test server, low-heat, high DPS brawlers are king. You don't have the luxury of time and team armor to hang back and snipe or energy vomit.

Edited by process, 09 February 2017 - 06:49 PM.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

process, on 09 February 2017 - 06:19 PM, said:

With fewer players in the test server, low-heat, high DPS brawlers are king. You don't have the luxury or time and team armor to hang back and snipe or energy vomit.

Yeah, in general the meta in the live server is trash at the moment since you don't have the time to rack up damage with ERPPC snipers or mid range laser vomit skirmishers.

Really kinda funny that the PTS is so different from the main server more for the amount of players per match rather than the changes made in the PTS itself.

[Tarl Cabot]

process, on 09 February 2017 - 06:19 PM, said:

With fewer players in the test server, low-heat, high DPS brawlers are king. You don't have the luxury of time and team armor to hang back and snipe or energy vomit.

Basically think Scouting mode in FP....

[Snazzy Dragon]

Scorch is something you have to focus fire as soon as you see it-- hard twist and eat the volley in an arm as well. Finally, it can't shoot three times anymore because of heat nerfs under the skill tree- pressure it hard after its second shot. Taking out a side torso cripples the cooling as well since it doesn't take many heat sinks.

[justcallme A S H]

Dakota1000, on 08 February 2017 - 11:59 PM, said:

So I started up the PTS today and realized I kept on getting absolutely destroyed by a Scorch pilot. At first I got shot in the back and insta died and thought it was alright, I took an alpha from an assault to the rear in my Executioner, seems fair enough, they had 3 people flanking.

Then I swapped over the Kodiak to see how it was doing. I get face to face with a Scorch and my CT's gone so quick I don't know what hit me.

Why would you go face to face with a ranged assault vs a brawler assault?

Scorch is the Clan King of brawling since it came out. You wanna walk upto it and try brawl with LBX10s or UACs, you're always going to have a bad time...

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

justcallme A S H, on 09 February 2017 - 09:25 PM, said:

Why would you go face to face with a ranged assault vs a brawler assault?

Scorch is the Clan King of brawling since it came out. You wanna walk upto it and try brawl with LBX10s or UACs, you're always going to have a bad time...

If I'm honest, I didn't really know the Scorch was there, I saw it a ways back in a different area and moved up with the rest of my team and it ended up repositioning while we were and being right there to counter us.. I still expected a decent fight since I was using a UAC10+UAC5 kodiak and do 60 damage double taps and have a boatload of DPS and all those nifty armor and structure boosts and all my armor frontloaded but I ended up going down much faster than I thought I would is all.

Just as a side note, I'm realizing when it comes down to it though, KDK-3 is actually really nerfed compared to when it came out. Can't torso twist all the way anymore to arm shield in a brawl, which directly got me killed in the fight above, and the quad UAC10 loadout is dead so its alphas are 20 points lower, and UAC5 heat was increased, and UAC jam chance and jam duration was also increased. I don't think the thing needs any more kicks to the knee cap for balance at this point.

[Y E O N N E]

Dakota1000, on 09 February 2017 - 09:43 PM, said:

I don't think the thing needs any more kicks to the knee cap for balance at this point.

I wouldn't be so sure. Until there's something IS can bring for FW that's similar, it continues to be ridiculously powerful. Even in League play, those problems you outline are...not problems.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Yeonne Greene, on 09 February 2017 - 10:14 PM, said:

I wouldn't be so sure. Until there's something IS can bring for FW that's similar, it continues to be ridiculously powerful. Even in League play, those problems you outline are...not problems.

I'd say buff 100 ton IS assaults then instead of nerfing the Kodiak. Though the cost of bringing a Kodiak to FW is much higher for a clanner than it is for an IS player to bring a 100 tonner due to the tonnage differences given to each faction and how its generally a better idea to bring a deck of all heavies than add in assaults for a clanner unless you're organizing a 12 man team with a KDK wave... which a 12 man team organized enough to bring a wave of matching mechs is going to wipe the floor 9 times out of 10 anyway.

As for league play, it seems like a different world, especially given the common 8v8 instead of 12v12 nature of it and everyone coordinating great, and everyone being trained masters of focus fire and everyone only bringing the top tier meta builds that have been refined over time by the comp community. In league play the gauss rifle is apparently the strongest thing ever, but in pug queue without a team of players also focus firing on your targets from long range gauss is found to have terrible damage per second for its weight, high weapon tonnage, extreme liability to the mech carrying it for its 90-100% explosion chance, a long cooldown, a charge up time, lower range than an ERPPC, and ammo reliance all for the ability to have high velocity on 15 points of frontloaded damage for nearly no heat.

Usually I'm all for a top down approach to balance, but the reality of the situation here is that no one in the pug queue's in a comp match nor are most trying to make it one. In something like CSGO where everyone's learning tournament tactics, practicing aim, using only specific guns, and in general mimicking the comp leagues it kinda works out. Here it seems we need to modify the formula a bit due to the 8v8 and 12v12 differences, the coordination differences, the build differences, and lack of focus fire between comp and pug.

I mean really, just look at some of the stuff done in comp in mwo that no one would ever pull off in a pug match.