93 replies to this topic

[Felicitatem Parco]

El Bandito, on 20 May 2017 - 02:15 AM, said:

Technically the Dire Whale can out-alpha any other mechs in MWO. Ghost heat penalty will be a ***** to deal with but that's another story.

There is the Gigaspike loadout, too. Not as amazing as DireStar, but you can Gigaspike without overheating. 2 LPL, 6 ERML, 2 Gauss. Does about 98 damage with one alpha, all Direct-fire, no Ghost Heat.

[SplashDown]

El Bandito, on 19 May 2017 - 08:39 AM, said:

I saw plenty of Dire Whales in these past two days. With the agility nerf across the board, the Dire is actually doing somewhat ok.

PICS or it didnt happen

[Imperius]

SplashDown, on 20 May 2017 - 10:09 AM, said:

PICS or it didnt happen

He pretty much saw mine... on polar, and we got rolled, and then I met their whole team. Needless to say I didn't do well that match!

[MischiefSC]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 19 May 2017 - 09:12 AM, said:

I agree, but not everyone did that. Just a note, never go ERSL, SPLs are hands down better unless you really need that 35 extra meter range (which I guarantee you don't).

Spl is way better - unless you really need the 2 extra tons for ammo and the lasers get used like 2x a match. It's cool enough that the heat doesnt matter much and it's not like you're not staring at them anyway.

[MischiefSC]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 19 May 2017 - 09:22 AM, said:

Not really that strong given that is not really impressive firepower for a mech that is as easy to catch out now. I'd prefer the 2 LPL/6 ERML MAD-IIC over it at this point. I'd also prefer the 4 cAC10 (ghost heat penalty is extremely low for cAC10s) and ERPPC Kodiak over that build.

Just started playing with the cac10x4 build. I miss the double-tap but for puking up 40 pts again and again and again.... It's tighter than the 4xlb10x build.

However UACs on a MAD IIC are as good or better now and so, so much more useful. KDK3, gone the way of the TBR. Still good, just clumsy and out-performes by newer mechs.

Summon3r, on 19 May 2017 - 09:28 AM, said:

like wise i just looked and ended up putting it together lol... that said brawling with cerppc i dunno about that

For a long push up to a brawl or receiving one? It's doing more sustained DPS than your Gauss based builds. A good 180+ famage between you and heat cap, much more with coolshot. That's better than most brawling builds.

[Andi Nagasia]

i Wove my DWFs, i just wish they gots some Structure Woves,

[Felicitatem Parco]

Andi Nagasia, on 20 May 2017 - 10:34 AM, said:

i Wove my DWFs, i just wish they gots some Structure Woves,

By the time I got done with mobility and sensors and operations and consumables I only had 5 nodes left. I just put them in the fire power for a small range boost. I don't even have any structure notes for my wolf.

Didn't stop me from dealing 1600 damage last night.

[Sjorpha]

Shifty McSwift, on 20 May 2017 - 01:39 AM, said:

The problem is it is easily out alpha'd in damage by many builds including certain marauders and kodiaks, who are still much more mobile than the DW.

This is simply not true, like not true at all. If you want to compare alpha power honestly you have to look at builds with comparable role.

The Dire Wolf has significantly more firepower than those mechs for comparable builds. So a laser vomit DW will add 2 gauss for the infamous gigaspike build and easily out-alpha the laser vomit MAD-IIC. And so on.

For dakka the DW outguns both of them, adding one more UAC5 over the KDK dakka, MAD doesn't come close.

And so on, the only build type where DW doesn't outgun the others are PPFLD, and that's only because ghost heat prevents adding using a third PPC.

That's not to say the DW is the better mech of those three, I'd rate the MAD-IIC as the best assault in the game right now, but when it comes to functional alpha per build type it still wins the race.

[Shifty McSwift]

Sjorpha, on 20 May 2017 - 11:07 AM, said:

This is simply not true, like not true at all. If you want to compare alpha power honestly you have to look at builds with comparable role.

The Dire Wolf has significantly more firepower than those mechs for comparable builds. So a laser vomit DW will add 2 gauss for the infamous gigaspike build and easily out-alpha the laser vomit MAD-IIC. And so on.

For dakka the DW outguns both of them, adding one more UAC5 over the KDK dakka, MAD doesn't come close.

And so on, the only build type where DW doesn't outgun the others are PPFLD, and that's only because ghost heat prevents adding using a third PPC.

That's not to say the DW is the better mech of those three, I'd rate the MAD-IIC as the best assault in the game right now, but when it comes to functional alpha per build type it still wins the race.

I might not have considered some DW variants, but its the combination builds that get alphas over 100 anyway. For example the benchmark I run by these days is actually the KDK5, 2lpl and 6mpl, or 2 lpl and 6 erml, is the optimal vomit number, but having a UAC20 or 2 uac10s alongside that increases it exponentially. If there is a DW variant that gets 8 energy slots and 2 ballistic slots, then yeah I concur it does have the best alpha capabilities by that measure, I just don't remember seeing one.

Also you can't say "not true at all" then concur with me on how it out DPSs most everything in the game, dakka is DPS, and yeah it is boss at that no doubt.

Edited by Shifty McSwift, 21 May 2017 - 02:52 AM.

[QuantumButler]

LordNothing, on 19 May 2017 - 06:43 PM, said:

i finally tried specing out my dire for cooldown, range, and armor. i think i screwed up because it really needs more agility, im going to have to remove some of the weapon upgrades and stack em on the agility tree to get those speed tweaks.

Don't bother, the base agility values on the DireWhale are so low you're just wasting points, a 25% increase to a 6.1 kps accel rate is barely noticeable and won't help you out at all, better to put those points into firepower, survival, ops, anything else really.

Imperius, on 19 May 2017 - 08:19 PM, said:

Think about the new player. Yeah I'm still getting good damage and killing things, the learning curve for an assault is too high for new people.

The engine decoupling needs to be reverted and then we can go from there.

TBH accel/deccel being decoupled from engine size makes **** all sense, that's the one agility thing that made perfect sense to be linked to the engine size.

[QuantumButler]

Shifty McSwift, on 20 May 2017 - 01:39 AM, said:

See in relative circumstances I can agree, and it can be decked out as a PPFLD or DPS beast better than most (if not all). The problem is it is easily out alpha'd in damage by many builds including certain marauders and kodiaks, who are still much more mobile than the DW. I guess that is where they fall down, but they probably shouldn't, if they are supposed to be that slowest/shootiest style, there should be variants that out alpha everything too IMO with that being the case.

The thing is most of the direwhale gun mounts aren't great.

Yeah if they were all as high as the mauler's torso guns then the direwhale as it currently is would be more than strong enough, problem is a lot of it's firepower is low to the ground.

[Sjorpha]

Shifty McSwift, on 21 May 2017 - 02:50 AM, said:

I might not have considered some DW variants, but its the combination builds that get alphas over 100 anyway. For example the benchmark I run by these days is actually the KDK5, 2lpl and 6mpl, or 2 lpl and 6 erml, is the optimal vomit number, but having a UAC20 or 2 uac10s alongside that increases it exponentially.

"Increases exponentially" wut? Adding weapons increases the max alpha by a flat value, nothing exponential about it. I suspect you don't actually mean that: Exponential growth.

Quote

If there is a DW variant that gets 8 energy slots and 2 ballistic slots, then yeah I concur it does have the best alpha capabilities by that measure, I just don't remember seeing one.

The Dire wolf prime variant has 2 ballistic 8 energy in it's stock configuration, do you even Dire Whale bro?

FYI you can build a DW to have 4 ballistic and 15 energy mounts (but I think the game limits your weapon count at 16 or something like that.)

Quote

Also you can't say "not true at all" then concur with me on how it out DPSs most everything in the game, dakka is DPS, and yeah it is boss at that no doubt.

I only meant the specific claim about the DW being "out-alpha'd" is not true (at all), and it isn't.

[Andi Nagasia]

sadly the DWF is one of my Favorite mechs, and with its current stats its less agile then the KDK,
has weaker Hard Point locations, less speed, larger easier to target hitboxes,

yes it can take alot of weapons, but it lacks the ability to use all of them, effectively,
doing so will leave the DWF over heating after firing all its weapons,

whats the point of 15 energy if you cant use those hard point effectively, due to over heating problems,
whats the point of 8 ballistic slots if AC2s are your only choice, and staring will just lead to getting cored out,
whats the point of taking smaller weapons if by doing so you have tonnage left over and cant take a larger engine,

the DWF is sadly a relic of a time long past,

soon we are to only see them in museums as they will soon be extinct in the wild,

[MischiefSC]

15 cermls. 3x5. Coolshots. 3x5. 110 damage in 3.5 seconds. Find somewhere to cool down.

Otherwise... It's not really intended to run 15 energy. Just that you can end up with that by mix/match.

Ac2s are the only option because tonnage. 56 tons just for the 8 uac5s isn't going to work. Not with an extra 16btons of ammo minimum, plus 40 slots total.

4 ballistics and 6 energy is an option. 4x uac5s, 6 cerml. A lot of options that people don't use because that level of boating is rarely viable.