Chuck E Finley, on 24 February 2017 - 12:51 AM, said:
Hello! <o
I'm hoping to get a few opinions from more experienced players regarding the hunchback IIC. I haven't finished my first 25 matches yet and as of now i'm sitting on a little over 19 million cbills. 10 of the 18 or so matches I played have been with the hunchback. It just seemed to click with me. I have tried mechs from each weight class more than once. I will probably finish the other few cadet matches with that mech and I am seriously considering buy at least two of them. They seem pretty versatile between the variants but..........I don't want to end up having buyers remorse or anything. At the same time, I realize there are a buttload of other mechs that I haven't tried and won't be able to without buying them. I have just been fllowing a lot of supernovas, kodiaks and dire wolves around and supporting them. That would probably be my style. I've learned that to wander off is to die horribly.
I've also read that the Stormcrow and Timberwolf would be better but at the same time they are much more expensive.
Thank you in advance.
Good afternoon and welcome to MWO.
I will address this out of order. Forgive me.
The Stormcrow and the TimberWolf and by extension the Night Gyr are "better." because they are at the peak of their weight classes. Stormcrow and Timber Wolf especially since they are also incredibly fast. However, with great power comes great responsibility and in this case, the responsibility is in how you learn the game.
If you start with what is effectively the best 'equipment' you can possibly muster, anything else might seem sour in comparison, and any bad habits you learned will be difficult to overcome in the future. This said, those three mechs have their flaws as well as do any mech. The Stormcrow for example has long legs, and most people don't seem to think of this early on... but it wouldn't be nearly as "good" if people just shot the legs out.
The Timber Wolf has large front torsos; in fact they are freaking huge and so people often have very little armor on the rear... and in fact if they put "decent" amounts of rear armor on they are severely gimping themselves to an easy death from the front or sides. Also, many don't realize it but the Timber Wolf has a huge cockpit, and is heavily susceptible to a one hit kill against specific Inner Sphere designs. Jagermechs, certain Riflemen, Maulers, and King Crabs are especially likely to turn a Timber Wolf into mincemeat within an instant if given the opportunity and carrying two AC/20s. At maximum armor the cockpit has a total of 33 health. Two Inner Sphere AC/20s instantly delivers 40 damage into a single pinpoint location.
Night Gyr is considerably slower than the Timber Wolf, and like the Stormcrow and Timber Wolf it is an Omnimech and cannot change the engine size at all. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage. The disadvantage is obvious, lack of speed. The advantage is that the Night Gyr is designed to carry weapons. Lots of them and heavy ones too. It also has a humanoid design, which means unlike the Timber Wolf it cannot get away with massive amounts of frontal armor as the rear hitboxes are much larger.
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As for the Hunchback IIC, it is very similar to the Inner Sphere's Hunchback. Agile, versatile, capable of many roles and compatible with many playstyles. Both machines will serve you will, and since 2012's closed beta it has been among the most recommended "new player" mechs ever, since they are easy to use with little knowledge of the game and actually only improve as you learn more about the game.
For example their biggest weapons are on the torso. Hunchbacks have great torso twist and tilt ranges, so you won't feel gimped even when just starting out you probably have armlock on. That keeps you down to one crosshair and keeps aiming nice and simple.
Continuing the example: As you develop and grow confident in basic controls, you can unlock the arms... giving you a second crosshair. This second one will move much faster, and allow you to make the mech even more versatile than before by allowing you even greater vertical range, as well as the ability to engage more than one target at a time, as well as easily fret off light harassers from the assaults you are protecting while still providing heavy firepower to support the assaults in their tough endeavors.
Basically, a Hunchback, IS standard or Clan IIC, is a mech you will keep for life because it starts as very useful and as your skillset improves, its usefulness will improve with you.
I own every Hunchback. Even the ones you cannot buy. I have only ever sold one... and I bought it back within 3 weeks because I regretted that decision.
If this builds any additional credit, I own 217 mechs.
11 of them are Hunchbacks and Hunchback IICs. There are only 10 unique Hunchbacks. The 11th is the Founder's Edition 4G only available before the game went into open beta.
4G,
4G(Founder's edition)
4H
4J
4P
4SP (right side; I'm using the 4P on the left of this split screen two player mock-up view of me and a comrade.)
Grid Iron.
Each link leads to a video. I don't have any IIC videos up yet, I'm sorry.
Edited by Koniving, 24 February 2017 - 10:19 AM.