342 replies to this topic

[Marius Romanis]

Only doing this because the chance of getting a 2nd Pirates bane for conquest with cap accelerator build or MC for colors is too tempting

I have tested every mech listed in FP/CW and QP today all work well. 1k damage in my 1st BLR-2C game today in QP.

Firepower / Weapons Tree
Of note, all weapons now seem to have shorter range and higher cooldown than they used to.
Longer range Weapons benefit more from Range nodes (PPC, GAUSSE, ER LARGE) , shorter range weapons benefit more from the cooldown nodes (SRM's, Small pulse)


Survival/ Armor/Structure Tree
Only mechs with Armor / structure quirks should really bother with the Survival tree, focusing armor hardening nodes or Skeletal density nodes according to what existing quirks your mech has. This is the tree for brawler mechs, and brawlers require teamwork co-ordination which rarely happens in qp/skittles games.

Mobility/agility tree
I believe although Assaults are losing some of their twisting due to engine desync by investing in the left half of the mobility tree you can get enough torso speed and yaw to shield with arms still to an acceptable level, the right hand side half of the tree containing mainly nodes for fast decceleration and acceleration is mainly good for lights.

Jump Jets Tree

Left half great, right half, not so great(mainly useful for exploring the world in testing grounds). Good for poptarts.

Operations Tree
Is all about cool run and heat containment, if your good at managing your heat with override always on quick ignition is not that great a Skill node, if you suck at managing that, then this tree is even better for you.
This tree is Mainly for the High Alpha mid to long range laser vomit builds (LPL, ER MED etc.)

Sensor Systems tree
Target Info gathering is very important, Especially for brawlers, so you can focus the most damaged component. It is the best 1st node of any of the tree's, so If you can spare 1 Skill Node Point, get that 1st node in this tree.
Snipers need the 1st 4 right side nodes for Advanced zoom
Lurm Boats NEED target decay 5
Assaults and lights benefit the most from Radar dep / ECM

Auxillary/Miscellaneous "Consumables" Tree
A great place to burn through your cbills, where you can use up to 200,000 cbills in one game where according to PGI's latest shared data most people only earn 100,000 cbills per game.
2 Coolshots is great for laser vomit mechs
Capture assist great for FP/CW conquest, but worthless in QP.
Can get 5 consumable slots now, but to get to all 5 very Skill Point inefficient for most mechs, 3 Consumables beneficial for many mechs at SP cost, but most mechs have better things in other trees they need to get 1st.
You can have 2 Air Strikes on every mech in 1 game now (I am looking forward to TheBeefs 96 Airstrike on Boreal Vault Video (is there even enough time in a match for that ? I think not ... =( )

Below are 8 mechs with builds and skills trees, 4 for IS 4 for Clan, a great deck for starting your mech bay hunting in Seal Clubbing Hell
(coz they havent added a solo queue with matchmaker and grouped queue with bonus rewards YET (i live in hope)(and being the clubber gets boring, a close game is a great game.)

Great starter Clan deck.

65 ton EBJ
65 ton HBR
60 ton MDD
50 ton HBK-IIC-A

Why no 85 ton MAD-IIC (or other heavier mechs? because if you front load your deck with 1 big mech you risk being caught out of position once and there go's most of your potential output for the entire game)

EBJ (could also be built with 2 large pulse instead of ER-PPC, I prefer ER-PPC for whittling down opponent at 1000 meters before the engagement moves to <500 meters to switch to the ER-MEDS




I Would like to fit the laser Duration nodes in for twisting sooner after firing the ER-MEDS, but the EBJ is a glass Cannon with a huge CT nose so twisting vs a decent enemy is not as effective as on say a battlemaster with huge arms covering it from side view. So more heat reduction and cooldown are better




One heat containment node had to be sacrificed for 2 nodes in other trees, debating removing this vs removing 2 nodes in firepower tree.



HBR, 1st Image Description shows other good build for this mech not actual loadout which this build / skill tree is for.







MDD Fantastic brawler for its weight, Shoulders have bonus Structure, Arms have bonus armor.




Would be nice to get more Range/Cooldown/heat reduction but other trees are needed more I believe.





The 3rd Coolrun node for 2 Skill points would be nice to be able to pick up



Need fast information for where to take down enemies quickest.

HBK-IIC-A one of the best poptarts in the game.





Shock Absorbance great for saving your legs.




Have not yet concluded if this mech needs torso speed nodes for poptarting better.



Great starter deck for IS

85 ton BLR-2C
85 ton BLR-1G
70 ton GHR-5P
20 ton LCT-PB

BLR-2C one of the Best mechs in the game At shielding the important bits with the arms(why the lef thalf of mobility tree). And the Shoulder Structure keeps your ST's alive a long time to allow for the Xl engine in an assault. This mech is about finding balance between Skeletal density mainly because of quirks, armor hardening Secondary and LPL range and heat management. This is my 2nd iteration and I find it works better than my 1st too tanky not sustainable/ranged enough previous skill node build.







BLR-1G Standard Engine as not ST quirks to protect an XL, so can keep fighting if you lose 1 side, try to protect your 2 LPL side and tank with 1 LPL side arm 1st Apart from that, Similar Deal to the BLR-2C for what and why, slightly cooler mech so can go for more armor and less cooling nodes.








GHR-5P Great long range trader.







LCT-PB ecm, super fast, super small, can get some great harass damage off, tonnage filler with bonus cbill income.







Mechs I haven't built that I am most considering to skill up in the next 2 months before new weapons / new balance pass happen.

AWS-8R The only Lurm boat any IS player should own. With 4 LRM-15's AND IT SHOULD ONLY BE TAKEN . TO POLAR/BOREAL(DEFENCE)/ALPINE
GHR-5P large pulse/medium laser build
MAD-IIC's
MAL-MX90
AS7-D (dont own yet)
AS7-DDC
HGN732B (dont own yet)
MAD-3R
NTG

But i hope I will wait to save SP/Cbills

Would also like reports on how badly the LCT-1V and the SDR-5K were hurt by the cooldown quirk reductions on their ct lpl's

THIS POST IS NOW FINISHED EXCEPT THE POSSIBILITY OF THE FOLLOWING.

Alterations to the HBK poptart to increase torso twist speed
I may add notes on how not to play like a potato later (how best to utilise these mechs) and why these deck choices for starter decks.

game with the clan deck

Edited by CadoAzazel, 17 May 2017 - 07:35 PM.

[Bud Crue]

CadoAzazel, on 16 May 2017 - 06:26 PM, said:

Can anyone vouch for BUD giving stuff away?

Ill list some things soon.tm / reserved post.

This will be my third contest done through the forums and fourth overall (I did one just for 1st H guys on their website previously). My last contest was a mokery of PGI nerf efforts with mech packs given to those whose guessed which mechs were to be nerffed next. One before that was during Tukayyid 2. I know I had one before that as well, but it was a long time ago.

https://mwomercs.com...d-continuation/
http://mwomercs.com/...inners-wil-get/

Edited by Bud Crue, 16 May 2017 - 06:51 PM.

[Ced Riggs]

Here's my build for medium and heavy PPC Sniping Mechs.
(loadout is made with my clam ppc boats, based on a Summoner and Hunchie IIC-A, but should work for IS mechs just dandy)

My overall goal is to get as much valueable nodes without taking on too many dead nodes. In this build I have spent all 91 nodes, but each section will point out regions where you can skip some nodes to use elsewhere. In my perception, this build covers most demands of a PPC sniper. While the PPC sniper is close to the current meta, it's not without it's unique requirements which can easily confuse a new player - namely, "There are no PPC nodes" and "If I fight at range, I won't need as much armor", among others.

TL;DR versions right of the bat, explanations and step by step blabla following.
• SHORT TREE (64 nodes)
• FULL TREE (91 nodes)


FIREPOWER (31 nodes)
Not going to go over the general mech build, that's a given. Core principle here is, PPCs are the exclusive weapons - so, energy projectile weapons. These weapons have no explicit nodes supporting them, so the goal is to avoid specific nodes while maximising range, velocity and getting the heat in check. Primary importance is velocity, cooldown, heat generation in equal parts. Range is an acceptable stepping stone.

The absence of dedicated PPC nodes is deceptive, as PPCs are unique in that they fire projectiles, but don't use ammunition. They need to be kept cool to keep firing, and they need to fly fast and, with a sniper, far to be of best use. Thusly, many universal nodes are required, and specific nodes are dead investments. Finding a path to most velocity nodes that uses these prerequisites is paramount to make the most of the investment.



To save some points here, you could easily drop one of the arms below Velocity 3 or Velocity 4. The majority of HeatGen nodes are down there, though, so if you skim points here, you will run more hot per shot. This can be partially compensated elsewhere, though.


SURVIVAL (27 nodes)
The goal is to get the most armor and structure out of the skill tree, with the least investment necessary. Reinforced Casing is a decent stepping stone, if it leads to more of those nodes. The goal is to avoid pouring bad trades in, such as 2 nodes for 1 node you'd actually want. Armor is rated higher than structure, and structure is rated higher than crit chance reduction.

The path (and investment itself) was chosen because the PPC snipers of medium and heavy weight benefit from their relatively decent armor/structure modifiers - assaults get less out of this and light PPC snipers have even more specific demands to their builds, replacing armor with speed. The mediums and heavies, though, can find themselves in sudden brawls and well closer than their comfort zone, so armor, structure and general resilience are important.



To save/recoup some points, you could drop Shock Absorbance 4 and replace it with Reinforced Casing 4, netting you +1 node, and you could kill Reinforced Casing 5, netting you another 2 nodes. This will also drop Armor Hardening 3 and 4, respectively.


MOBILITY (15 nodes)
Can't go slow. The goal here was to get 3 out of 5 speed tweak nodes at an optimal path that avoids torso yaw, grabs as many hard brake and kinetic burst nodes as possible on the way and uses torso speed and anchor turn as stepping stones. It's a harshly calculated path, that doesn't make many apologies. It's stingy alright. But it werks just fine.

Mobility is a redheaded stepchild for sniper builds, as you want to get into position fast, but you also won't move all that much once you are in position. It's a matter of poke/jump, fire, repeat. Thus, the investment in the mobility tree is equally half-hearted. Your goal isn't sprinting, but decent speed. Some torso twisting may be required, and if you want to poke properly, accel/decel has value. This path makes heavy sacrifices to get the bare necessities somewhat covered and certainly is a lot weaker than on a light skirmisher or a brawler that twists heavily to survive.



If you want to recover some points here, you will find yourself hard-pressed to call where to cut. If you must, cut out Torso Pitch 5 and subsequent nodes, freeing up 5 nodes - but you'll lose all speed bonus. Tough.


OPERATIONS (17 nodes)
The two important things here are Heat Containment to increase the buffer until a mech shuts down and Cool Run to dissipate the heat again. Improved Gyros is an acceptable stepping stone to improve steady aim under fire. Nevertheless, this tree is also specc'ed with a hot knife and little flrill. Speed Retention is avoided here at all cost, Hill Climb is dodged where possible (even though some slipped in). Quick Ignition is deceptive, as it can help in some overheating into override situations. It's barely acceptable as a stepping stone.

Again, this path was chosen to maximize effects with lowest possible investment and circumnavigating the highly situational and "strategy for failure" Speed Retention. Hill Climb has at least some merit, but, eh. I opted to make the plunge in the lower region of the tree, picking up the Quick Ignitions and Improved Gyros on the way to the double Cool Runs at the bottom, both to improve heat curve and to have a quicker response coming out of overheat.



If you want to use more points elsewhere, I would say, cut out Quick Ignition 3 and subsequent nodes. You might want to activate Hill Climb 2 and Cool Run 3 instead. If you do that switch, you free up 6 nodes, if you just make the cut, 8 nodes. You'll start running more and more hot, though.


MISCELLANEOUS (1 node)
Haha. Just getting my slot back for UAV/Cool Shot here. No elaborate explanation other than that. I mean, somethiong's ghotta give, and with 90 points spend in the other trees, that's as deep as the rabbit hole goes. Really, this is personal preference. Feel free to drop this node entirely. I, for one, like to have the emergency Cool Shot around, and UAVs are always useful.



If you do decide to go deeper here, I would suggest going down the Cool Shot lane in the middle, over UAV Duration, to Consumable Slot 4, so you can equip 2 powerful Cool Shots and an UAV.


JUMP JETS (0 nodes), SENSORS (0 nodes)
Well, as the old saying goes, you can't dance on too many weddings at once (It's a German saying). JJs are obviously the weakest link and thus dropped without a second thought, but sensors ... sensors hurts. if only for the Radar Derp. Thing just is, neither the Summoner nor the Hunchie are ECM mechs, so an investment in sensors for radar derp does not even synergize with the need for the ECM nodes. As a result and with heavy heart, I dropped sensors, too. Getting the offensive skills to supplement the primary weapon system struck me as more important.

If you are hype for sensors, then you want to focus on Target Info Gathering, Sensor Range, and make your way towards Radar Deprivation. At the end of the day, I find this investment not as usefull as the other options, which is why I skipped this tree entirely. On a scout, or a missile boat (Streaks, LRMs, soon ATMs), that'd look a lot different, but PPC sniping does not benefit as much from these things as other builds. Keep in mind that targeting info is shared, and with most PPC sniping being a bit behind the line, you'll have other people doing the scanning for you. Target Decay might help with following an enemy's movements, but, still - not eclipsing "nice to have" in value.

ARMOR (Minmaxing)
Once you have your survival tree sorted out, make sure to check your armor for the magical rollover round-up value. For example, with this build, that number is 7. 6 armor isn't enough to be rounded up for +1 armor, but 7 is. So, for 1 point of investment, 6 armor becomes 8. The gain is minuscule, but might be worth a thought. Explained with an image:



RT has my old armor loadout, after survival effects. LT: Took 1 armor from the front, put it on the back, and got 2 out of it.

So, how much armor and structure does this 70t mech even gain? Another image, unskilled Summoner for comparision:



+12 armor & +14 structure CT
+8 armor & +20 structure ST
+8 armor & +11 structure Legs
+5 armor & +5 structure Arms.
+2 armor & +4 structure Head

And that's it. *mic drop*
_____________________________________________________________________

For bonus points:
NCIX Cent, fire power only in explanation, because it's been quite amusing trying to marry all these different weapons with just 31 nodes. The other trees are similar to the one posted for the PPC mechs, as they are already tailored to suit most applications - and a mixed bag like the Centurion has a girl in every port, too.

Centurion CN9-A (NCIX) FIREPOWER (31 nodes)
The goal was to be good with all three weapons, maximize ammo carried for sustained fire, and get both heat and firerate to comfy levels. High Explosive & Mag Capacity are the highest rated nodes, followed by velocity, cooldown and heat gen. Range is an acceptable stepping stone. Two Laser Duration nodes for the medium lasers, to reduce facetime.

The other trees looks similar (with mild variation) to the ones above, but the firepower tree of this mech was quite something. I wish I had more nodes, as another Velocity, several Heat Gen, Cooldown, or the second Missile Rack node are all in short reach, but, alas. T'is how it is.

• LONG TREE (91 nodes)




And finally, should this entry win something, I'd like the Assassin Standard pack. I skipped those derpy fellas when they came out, and they do seem fun, now that I've seen them in action. As the lighter mechs are growing on me, and my confused Medium, the Viper, is giving me lots of joy, maybe it is time to add one more to the flock.

Edited by Ced Riggs, 17 May 2017 - 03:10 AM.

[Bud Crue]

Cado and Ced,
That's some nice work.

[Bud Crue]

Come on folks, get to posting. I don't think we can give this a full month. People are desperate for some guidance.
Players who have been paying attention and understand the game, please get your suggested builds/node paths up. Players need your help.

[Ced Riggs]

Bud Crue, on 17 May 2017 - 03:38 AM, said:

Come on folks, get to posting. I don't think we can give this a full month. People are desperate for some guidance.
Players who have been paying attention and understand the game, please get your suggested builds/node paths up. Players need your help.

... I could splurge out tree after tree for each of my mechs/mech classes, but that's not in the spirit of your contest, now is it?

[Bud Crue]

Ced Riggs, on 17 May 2017 - 03:41 AM, said:

... I could splurge out tree after tree for each of my mechs/mech classes, but that's not in the spirit of your contest, now is it?

Do it out of the goodness of your heart then. People need help. Look at the threads. Even if you think they are idiots and full of shi7, and that they are talking out of their a$$ with the assertions of I'm "giving up" and "leaving", that vibe is increasing and suggests a real level of frustration.

If it helps...if you post a bunch, I am certainly open to awarding those post(s) that are the most well liked by the community even if they all came from the same person. Remember though the goal here is to try and help. Be as broad as possible. Try to give more guidance for a potential broad swath of mechs or play style than a specific mech if possible.

[Ced Riggs]

Bud Crue, on 17 May 2017 - 03:50 AM, said:

Do it out of the goodness of your heart then.

I'm an independent young black female with rheumatic athrosis anyway, I am not doing this because I want to skim your 20 bucks, my man. I'll post some more guides for different build categories when I get to it. Wanna make it look pretty, and not just link the skill-builder thang. While I am at it, anything you are interested in yourself?

Additionally, I don't foresee a lot of likes flowing in to these posts. Many people will skim the topic, or stop liking on the first page and what not. Nevertheless, good luck with your contest, and I'll add some more ideas coming forth.

[invernomuto]

Hat off to your initiative Bud, very appreciated. This forum is full of salt sometimes but in the end this is a wonderful community .

Edited by invernomuto, 17 May 2017 - 04:21 AM.

[Xetelian]

General 91 point skill tree for all purpose

https://tarogato-mwo...4c-611dec1bb070

Weapons 0/68
Survival 32/35
Mobility 21/40
JumpJet 0/20
Operations 21/25
Sensors 17/27
Auxiliary 0/22


Generally speaking this is an easy setup for getting back some movement and cooling while adding survival. The sensor tree has 2 Seismic and 4 radar dep nodes to help.

The only thing I would change would be adding firepower for cold builds like Dual Gauss. This is where you would drop Operations for firepower.





This tree in my opinion is essential for every mech out there unless you are absolutely specialized for long range fire and wont be taking return fire. 32 points gets everything except 3 nodes that I find to be not worth their investment and easy to ignore.










The Mobility tree is really good for many mechs, from slow and lumbering assaults to ninja lights. This path gives you all but 1 anchor turn and all speed tweak nodes while racking up 7% acceleration and 14% deceleration. More investment could be made but only at the cost of other necessary points. You could stand to skip some operations and sensors if you really need to maximize your movement.













Operations is not 100% necessary for every build, with low heat weapons you can skip this tree but if you bring anything that causes heat greater than 1 you will find yourself blessed to have taken dissipation and a higher threshold.












Here we finish with points in the sensor tree. 4 nodes of radar deprivation and 2 seismic to take away locks when out of line of sight and spot approaching enemies you can't visually see. The only time I'd invest heavier into this tree would be when I have an ECM mech or an LRM boat for target decay.







https://tarogato-mwo...4c-4d2642b25f9c

This is how I would do things with Dual Gauss. Operations heat savings not needed so those points fit into the firepower tree.

Edited by Xetelian, 17 May 2017 - 05:04 AM.

[mogs01gt]

DGTLDaemon, on 16 May 2017 - 12:11 PM, said:

Here's my Skill Tree for the standard laser vomit HBR-F(L) running 2xLPL+3xERML. Can be adapted to any laser vomit Clan mech; however, if it doesn't carry ECM, small adjustments will be needed (see below).

Let's start with the screenshots:





And now let's see why we're building it like that.

1) Sensors. In this branch, we're taking the shortest path to the two Enhanced ECM nodes that are required to unlock the full potential of our ECM. This requires a total of 13 skill points. On a non-ECM mech, you would go for Radar Deprivation instead. This would require a total of 16 points. Note that you have a choice betwen Sensor Range and Target Decay at the beginning of the tree. I chose Sensor Range because it felt more useful to me, but it's not a critical choice.

2) Operations. This branch is responsible for our heat management, and is absolutely essential for laser boats. We need to pick up all Heat Containment and Cool Run nodes. Taking the shortest path allows us to avoid five non-critical nodes (2x Improved Gyros, 2x Quick Ignition and 1x Hill Climb). Those five skill points we saved here will come in handy later

3) Mobility. Due to the overall mobility nerf brought by engine desync, heavy investment in the Mobility tree is absolutely mandatory. Without it, even a reasonably agile mech like the Hellbringer handles like a brick, and is barely playable. There are no "filler" nodes in this branch - every node is valuable. In this build, we're taking all 40 nodes under Mobility.

4) Firepower. Here we're taking the shortest path to the four Laser Duration nodes that are essential for laser boats. We're also picking up a bunch of Range nodes (very useful for LPL+ERML builds) and a couple of Heat Gen/Cooldown nodes along the way. Note that in the bottom part of the tree we're taking Range instead of Velocity. This is important, as lasers have no velocity, and, therefore, the Velocity node would be useless for our build.

And this makes a total of 91 skill points - exactly as much as we have available. For non-ECM mechs (such as laser vomit Timberwolves, Ebon Jaguars or Marauder IICs which can run similar builds, but with 4-5 ERMLs instead of 3), you would need to sacrifice 3 points in the Mobility branch, because unlocking Radar Deprivation requires 3 more points than unlocking ECM. Which points to sacrifice is entirely up to you.

And that's the end of my little guide I've tested this Skill Tree configuration on my HBR-F(L), and found that it handles very similarly to my pre-patch Hellbringer, and produces similar match performance. One thing to note is that the mech does run hotter than before as a consequence of Cool Run/Heat Containment nerfs, but it can't be helped. Hope this helps someone build their laser vomit mechs

I ran my TBR similar to this but it ran way too damn hot compared to before the patch. I feel like I have to go full weapons tree to get all of the reduction in heat.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Bud Crue, on 16 May 2017 - 03:06 AM, said:

*awesome*

Please note - all values are for an IS Medium 'mech

Jay's Basic Bare Bones Build (JB4)

Survival - 17 SP

Spoiler

15.2% armour
6.8% structure
-4% crit damage
-30% fall damage

I find that, once a location loses armour, anything equipped gets destroyed shortly after. As such, I don't put much value in extra structure. The obvious exceptions are Light 'mechs (to avoid legging) and IS 'mechs that run an XL (to extend ST life). Still, as a general rule of thumb, armour > structure. With just 17 points of investment, you get the most armour for your SP.

Agility - 16 SP

Spoiler

+4.5% top speed
+21% acceleration
+10.5% deceleration
+5% turn rate
+4% torso speed
+4% torso pitch

Speed Tweak is the real draw of the Agility tree for me, followed closely by Kinetic Burst. Using this side of the tree you maximise your Acceleration gain with the fewest SP spent. Easy expansion for more deceleration or turn rate, with only 8 more points required to max Speed Tweak.

Operations - 9 SP

Spoiler

+9% max heat
+4% heat dissipation
+5% hill climb
-35% screen shake
-7% startup duration

It has been pointed out that Heat Gen skills from the Firepower tree can be better at keeping your 'mech cool, than fully investing in Cool Run and Heat Containment from the Operations tree. That said, there are points where it goes either way, so as a general build I would invest some points into Operations, just not all the way down to the bottom. You're missing out on 6% max heat and 6% heat dissipation, but saving 11 SP in the process. I'll take 50% of the bonuses for less than 50% of the SP.

Sensors - 6 SP

Spoiler

+100 seismic sensor range
+14% sensor range
+7% target info gathering
+200 360 target retention range
+0.7 target decay duration

I have some to rely on Seismic Sensor as something of a crutch. Oh well, good job I can get half of it back for only 6 SP! 2 SP more gets you 1 point in Radar Deprivation. 4 SP gets you 2 points in it. If you go to the other side, 9 SP gets you the other half of Seismic Sensor and 3 points of Radar Deprivation. I don't think any of my 'mechs will invest less than 6 SP in this tree.

Auxiliary - 1 SP

Spoiler

+1 consumable slot

Personally, the best single SP you can spend in this entire skill tree. The ability to take a UAV, Cool Shot and a Strike on every 'mech is a real game changer. A further 5 SP investment to maximise your preferred consumable.

Total cost - 49 SP

Spoiler

[Bud Crue]

Ced Riggs, on 17 May 2017 - 04:12 AM, said:

I'm an independent young black female with rheumatic athrosis anyway, I am not doing this because I want to skim your 20 bucks, my man. I'll post some more guides for different build categories when I get to it. Wanna make it look pretty, and not just link the skill-builder thang. While I am at it, anything you are interested in yourself?

Additionally, I don't foresee a lot of likes flowing in to these posts. Many people will skim the topic, or stop liking on the first page and what not. Nevertheless, good luck with your contest, and I'll add some more ideas coming forth.

As to your question, no. I know exactly how I am building all of my mechs...but as a terribad I have no business advising others on how to optimize anything. Thus this contest. I want competent and ideally good, well informed players posting node paths so as to help others who are trying to cope and trying to git gud.

As to your commentry...this aint my first rodeo, its always slow at first, then when competitive minded folks start posting and criticizing one another then the views and participation goes up. In any case, keep posting. Keep helping.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Bud Crue, on 17 May 2017 - 04:53 AM, said:

I want competent and ideally good, well informed players posting node paths so as to help others who are trying to cope and trying to git gud.

Ah sugar, I need to delete mine then!

[R Valentine]

It should be noted yet again that unless your mech has huge structure and armor quirks, you should be skipping the surivival tree in its entirety. You get that armor once. You get firepower every trigger pull. Agility every time you twist, throttle up, aim. Operations every time you shoot. Very few mechs can make half decent use of the survival tree. Keep all points out of it. Lots of very over-confident brawlers last night who ended up being 100% worthless in matches.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Kiran Yagami, on 17 May 2017 - 05:37 AM, said:

It should be noted yet again that unless your mech has huge structure and armor quirks, you should be skipping the surivival tree in its entirety. You get that armor once. You get firepower every trigger pull. Agility every time you twist, throttle up, aim. Operations every time you shoot. Very few mechs can make half decent use of the survival tree. Keep all points out of it. Lots of very over-confident brawlers last night who ended up being 100% worthless in matches.

By the same logic, we should run 'mechs without armour and spend it on a bigger engine / more HS / more/bigger weapons.

I understand what you're trying to say, invest in skill nodes that have a lasting effect, but armour (and structure) are obviously very useful, otherwise more builds would completely strip each location of armour.

[Ced Riggs]

Jay Leon Hart, on 17 May 2017 - 05:41 AM, said:

By the same logic, we should run 'mechs without armour and spend it on a bigger engine / more HS / more/bigger weapons.

The difference between a gauss rifle blowing up or not, the difference between getting legged or not, the difference between ammo exploding or not, the difference between being back-cored or not doesn't matter to some people. That is fine. I am not going to go out of my way to fight a forum war over the pros and cons of durability. A broken gun does not shoot, exploded ammo does no damage, a legged light does not live, a dead mech does not threaten anyone. It's a religious debate, and those never go well.

To each their own, I guess.

[Marius Romanis]

I didnt take me very long to Cave in and level 3 more IS mechs =( I saw another IS deck build thats GREAT for co-ordinated team dropping, My above post was for dropping with skittles to maximise your own personal damage. But this decks for winning matches as a team.

Yeah I just tested my new dropdeck for 12 man co-ordinated dropping, im in love.

Edited by CadoAzazel, 17 May 2017 - 06:27 AM.

[R Valentine]

Firepower:

Skills are all based on your weapons load out and your need for speed never changes, so figure out what weapons you want to pack first. Bear in mind, DPS as a whole took a much bigger nerf than PPFLD, so use the biggest, hardest hitting weapons you can for your hard points.

Next, correlate said weapons with necessary skills. There’s skills weapons must have and skills that are nice to have. Take SRMs. Range is a must have on SRMs. They do you no good if they detonate before reaching maximum distance, which is already pitiful. Cool down and heat, however, are just nice to have. Sure they help, but being able to hit targets takes priority over how many times you can hit said targets. 5 misses < 1 hit.

The entire point of “Must Have” and “Nice to Have” skills is that must have skills means you must hit all skill nodes of that type to maximize your weapon effectiveness. Nice to haves can augment, but make a lesser impact on that weapon. These are nodes you pick up after acquiring all other must have nodes from all other trees. Also be aware of what skills are 100% useless to your weapons. Laser duration does nothing for your PPCs, and heat gen isn’t going to make your gauss rifles cycle any faster. In fact, those 2 weapons have the least amount of skill nodes affecting them.

When it comes to must have skills, the goal is to hit every skill of those types while using as few skill nodes in the firepower tree as possible, but you must also be sure to hit as few skip nodes as possible along the way. Take velocity for example:

Notice that alternate paths will also become available by using weapon specific nodes, but your entrance into the tree with velocity in mind will always be the same:

Also note that, in velocity’s case, you cannot avoid heat gen in order to hit all 5 nodes. This will be true for many types of nodes. They will be gated. Even though heat gen might not be a priority(or even a skip), it is a necessary evil to maximize the effectiveness of projectile weapons. Thankfully, only Gauss Rifles don’t use heat and they don’t need velocity as much as other, heat generating ballistic weapons.

Survival:

The Survival tree is one of the least useful trees of the bunch. This may seem counter-intuitive at first, but armor and structure bonuses can only be used once a match. Once your mech has lost said armor or structure, you never get it back. Movement is there every time you… well, move, and firepower is there every time you pull the trigger. Those are constant buffs. Armor and structure is not. For mechs without strong structure or armor quirks I recommend skipping the survival tree in its entirety. For mechs with strong armor structure quirks, like the Cyclops or Roughneck, use the tree sparingly and play to your strengths.

Armor or Structure? Pick one and stick with it, preferably the one with the higher quirk bonuses. Trying to get both only gimps your other trees. In 95% of cases I would prioritize armor over structure(the exception being huge structure quirks and no armor quirks). There is no penalty on your mech for losing armor. You can take armor damage all day and still remain 100% combat effective. It’s only once the armor is gone that you start losing weapons, limbs, or blowing up. Structure may help prevent the latter 2, but does nothing to keep your weapons from falling off.

AMS. Does your mech have AMS? If not, then those nodes need to be avoided. If it does, then you can take the first AMS Overload node. Note, however, that doing so requires 1 extra skill point in order to get to armor:

Notice that the left side of the tree has more armor nodes and the right side of the tree has more structure nodes. These will determine whether your mech is armor or structure centric. Sample structure build(15 nodes):

For most mechs, even with good armor quirks, you’ll only want to use around 11 nodes in this tree. If you have 2 AMS or more, you can add in that last AMS Overload node for a total of 13:

For the few mechs that require less in the firepower or operations department, you can use up to 16:

Mobility:

Probably the most important tree among the bunch along with firepower, most mechs took a mobility hit with the engine de-sync. Skimping here essentially ensures that you’re a slow target that can’t twist to keep up with a Dire Wolf or aim high enough to hit a Grass Hopper’s cockpit. The mobility tree also has nodes with the highest percentages, so you’ll notice the most bang for your buck by investing in them.

Speed Tweak. Speed is life. Being slow as a light means you die in one hit. Being slow as an assault means everyone leaves you behind and you take 1,000 hits before finally getting to cover. Being slow as a heavy means assaults can catch up to you. Being slow as a medium means you don’t quite die in one hit like a light and assaults can’t quite catch you, but you still take way too much damage and get caught by things you should be able to out-maneuver. Get all speed tweak nodes. Period.

Accel and deccel. Which to take? Well, both but not every node. I can’t think of any reason why one is more important than the other, but lacking one definitely sucks. Taking forever to get up to speed is the same as being slow, and taking forever to stop essentially means hill humping and peeking is out of the equation.

Twist or turn? This choice will depend entirely on your mech and play style, but in general faster mechs like turning speed while slower mechs like twisting speed. Ideally, if you have points left over after firepower and operations, you should take as much of both as you can. Also, mechs with mostly torso guns need as much twist speed as they can get.

Pitch or yaw? Even though having more yaw is nice, you can always yaw more by simply turning. Pitch, however, is a much more limited resource, and mechs with torso guns suffer from a lack there-of to a more extreme degree. Ever had that one UAV that you can see, but can’t hit because it’s above you? I would always take pitch over yaw.

The bare minimum you should ever take in this tree is 28 points. Depending on your mech and hard point locations, you can take either more turn speed or more twist speed, or equal amounts of both. Here’s a sample half and half build:

You can tweak whether you want more twist or more turn speed by which side of the tree you spend more points in. The left side of the tree has more twist speed while the right side has more turn speed. Also note that picking up the nodes on the very left/right edges takes more points than going straight down the tree.

More Turn Speed:

More Twist Speed:

Jump Jets:

Another relatively useless skill tree. It’s plague by dismal percentages and odd choices of avenues to buff. Heat shielding in particular is nearly meaningless. Unless you’re really going to try to make a pop-tarting Victor or see if you can send the Viper to the moon, I’d avoid this tree even if you do have jump jets.

Vent Calibration and Lift Speed. The two most useful nodes of the bunch. Unfortunately Lift Speed is split up with half buried deep in the tree. They both do essentially what they say and add the stats you’re looking for, jump jet duration and thrust power.

Vectoring. More of a hindrance than help. Often your ability to pop tart relies on you jumping straight up and down. Vectoring ruins this by giving you more forward component.

I’d never put more than 5 or 6 points in this tree. There isn’t much here that can be gained that you can’t do by simply adding more jump jets, and the jump jet tree can’t really replace jump jets either. The percentages are too small to allow you to strip a jet off. If do you want the maximum benefit, it takes 12 points to reach all Vent Calibration and Lift Speed nodes, which sadly forces you into vectoring:

Operations:

At least as important as Mobility, operations directly determines how well your mech handles heat. This tree was not among those that received a rebuild prior to release, so many skills are gated by less useful ones.

Heat Capacity and Cool Run. These are the skills to look for, but cool run is what you want the most. Though heat capacity gives you a higher heat cap, cool run really determines how often you can fire. All the heat capacity in the world won’t help you if you can’t cool off.

16 points gives you all but 1 Cool run and 2 Heat Capacity nodes. Since even in the module days, speed retention was useless, the nodes to take to get to what you need should be limited to Hill Climb and Improved Gyros, which while situational, can at least have an impact:

For energy mechs or anyone with a heat problem, you can spend another 3 points and pick up the last cool running and another Heat Cap for a total of 19 points. If you have 2 points left over you can add in the last Heat Capacity, but I think you’ll find the difference it makes is imperceptible.

Sensors:
Sensors is another tree that did not receive a restructuring before launch, so it is also gated with a lot of crap you just don’t need. The most common modules used from this tree were Seismic Sensor and Radar Deprivation, both of which are now split up along the two different branches of the tree and buried deep within it.

ECM. Also located within this tree and annoying locked behind Radar Deprivation. If there’s one time I won’t take Radar Dep it would be when I have ECM. It is also split up between the two branches and buried relatively deep. If you are not actively making use of your ECM bubble to cover other mechs, skip ECM in this tree completely.

Target Decay. Good for LRMers. Bad for everyone else. Even before the patch I never used this module. Take at your own discretion.

Advanced Zoom. One of the greatest noob traps. Advanced Zoom is a good way to miss that Atlas that rounded the corner right next to you while you try to snipe off that Locust that’s out of range. Practice and appropriate mouse sensitivity settings will aid in your ability to hit targets at range much more so than this skill will. Avoid it unless you want people to laugh at you.

Everything else. All other nodes are more or less gate skills to getting to Seismic, Radar Dep, and ECM. Target retention is extremely situational. Sensor Range and Targeting Info Gathering are neither here nor there, and the percentages are small enough to make the effect not all that noticeable.

For most people, 10 points will get you what you need. You won’t get the maximum effect of Radar Deprivation or the maximum range of Seismic Sensor, but you can get a good chunk of both.

For the full effect of Radar Dep and Seismic, you’ll need to spend at least 19 nodes.

For full ECM with no Seismic you need to spend 13 points. If you want Seismic add 4.

Edited by Kiran Yagami, 17 May 2017 - 10:49 AM.

[Oberost]

So, IS laser vomit heavy mech...

BOUNTY HUNTER II

Here you have the skil tree nodes:

https://tarogato-mwo...4c-c1a823722da3

And a brief explanation.

You are using a STD, so you're slow and you're going to need all the speed bonuses that you can stack to keep with the pack and relocate if necessary, so Speed Tweak maxed. I've took the shortest route because with the engine decoupling the Marauder feels responsive enough.

The Operations tree is a must have in a laser vomit mech, so once again almost maxed. I have skipped some Quick ignition nodes that can be useful for a new player with bad heat management skills. In that case you can skip some nodes in the Firepower tree in exchange for the ones that I missed in the Operations tree.

In the Firepower tree I spended 35 SP. All the heat generation nodes and nearly all the range ones. The cooldown ones are forced choices and in my opinion not needed for this already hot build, but if you want to invest heavily in this part of the tree you have to take several ones...

Sensors Tree with the 12 points needed to get full Seismic, plus some other "useful" nodes.

And finally 3 points in the Auxiliary tree, just to get back the second consumable slot and improve a llitle the Coolshot efficiency

Personal opinion: a good build/skill tree for a new player. Hitscan weapons and just two groups, one jump jet for some added mobility (I said some...) and all the heat management skills that you can have. The STD engine in this low engine cap mech can be useful for added survival of a new player and the profile of the mech make it a good choice for the stare contest that it's going to happen, where small movements of the torso spreads damage quite well.

For an experienced player it's just an easy mech (and not the best for sure...) to pilot. You can probably add a head medium laser (as per Metamechs build) in exchange for one heatsink, but I find this build more "newb friendly".

Edited by Oberost, 25 May 2017 - 11:35 AM.