13 replies to this topic

[Viktor von Stompenstein]

Hi, new player, been meaning to join for a couple years now but RL has its way of distracting me.

1st Q: I see American/Euro/Oceanic servers. American is ~50 ping, Euro ~140, Oceanic ~300 for me. If I cross Oceanic off the list I assume that's fine, I'm not missing out on something?

2nd Q: I've goggled up a few Skill Tree and Getting Started guides, plus I've been reading forums here and there for a while now. So I'm good on basics. But all the skill tree info seems to assume you have 91 SP and can allocate a whole tree. Are there any pointers on which skills it is important to get first for new mechs/players?

TY, have a good one!

[Zoeff]

Yeah playing at 140 is completely fine on this game, it has something the devs have named "Host State Rewind" that almost literally rewinds the entire game back to see what your crosshair was seeing on your end when you pressed the fire button. It even accounts for things like enemy mechs torso twisting. I'm european but play on both american and euro servers equally.

Quite honestly the skill tree is so new that I have no idea what would be the best options to go for first when unlocking them one by one the normal way. I would suggest going with whatever you feel like would be best for your mech? Either enhancing what's you already like about your mech or trying to improve some bad aspects of it.

Hope this helps.

[Rogue Jedi]

1) unticking a server could mean slightly longer wait times for a match, but that is all you are missing

2) totaly depends on the Mech/build/pilot, you earn XP and Cbills in each match, those can be spent on skills, but only on owned Mechs, and each Mech has its individual XP pool,
buy a Mech, build it how you want then after each game decide what it needs, if it was too fragile take armor or structure skills, if too hot work towards coolrun/heat containiment, there is no perfect answer which would apply to every Mech, build and pilot. sorry.

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 24 May 2017 - 12:03 PM.

[Leone]

For manouverability, I like the left hand side as a good nine points can get you three torso twist speed buffs, and those're important to me.

Survivability is always a good one for me, and if you can get to the bottom, it's chock full off goodness.

Operations is where you'll usually wanna go for running cooler.

And lastly I'll put my remainder in firepower in whichever manner best benefits the load out.

But, For newly skilling up mechs, I'd go in that order, as it'll've given you time to find a load out you like, so the firepower tree, being the most loadout centric, can benefit from you having piloted the mech alot and figuring on what you wanna run with it.

~Leone.

[Kaethir]

Doctor von Stompenstein, on 24 May 2017 - 11:56 AM, said:

1st Q: I see American/Euro/Oceanic servers. American is ~50 ping, Euro ~140, Oceanic ~300 for me. If I cross Oceanic off the list I assume that's fine, I'm not missing out on something?

Personally, living in the US I just have US servers checked, and do fine. Expanding may make it easier to find drops? I don't know, I don't have many problems.

Doctor von Stompenstein, on 24 May 2017 - 11:56 AM, said:

2nd Q: I've goggled up a few Skill Tree and Getting Started guides, plus I've been reading forums here and there for a while now. So I'm good on basics. But all the skill tree info seems to assume you have 91 SP and can allocate a whole tree. Are there any pointers on which skills it is important to get first for new mechs/players?

I haven't seen any. My recommendation would be to use one of the tools for planning a skill tree, see which way you *think* you want to go, and then just start at the bottom of a tree you want and get a couple of skills and see what changes.

[Viktor von Stompenstein]

Ok TY for replies I will prob start with mobility since my mechs seem a bit slow.

[Rogue Jedi]

Doctor von Stompenstein, on 24 May 2017 - 12:32 PM, said:

Ok TY for replies I will prob start with mobility since my mechs seem a bit slow.

what Mechs do you have?
Mechs fall into 2 basic catagories;
Battlemechs which can swap out the engine, all the upgrades and do not have any fixed hardpoints
Omnimechs have fixed Engines, armor type, structure type, heatsink type and often have locked equipment, in exchange for this you can swap "omnipods" containing the componants hardpoints for a pod from another varient of the Mech, Omnimechs all have a -Prime varient.

if the Mech is a battlemech you can put in a bigger engine to make it walk/run faster, the higher the engine rating the faster a Mech will move, XL (short for eXtra Light) engines take up more space but about half the tonage of standard engines, but make the Mech die from 1 side torso loss if an IS XL, 2 side torsos lost if a Clan XL.
if you think the Mech is too slow and have no free tonage the endo/fero upgrades can save you weight allowing for a bigger engine or switching from a standard engine to an XL will allow you to put in a much higher rated engine.

in sumery, if you think a Mech is too slow the skill tree may not be the best way to fix it

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 24 May 2017 - 01:31 PM.

[Void Angel]

A good place to start; the skill tree can be daunting, but all you really need to do is pick what you want to do with your 'mech and decide how much to invest in it. Once you decide what you want to do, the skill build really writes itself.

Treat the tree like a part of your 'mech's build, along with its actual loadout, and customize your skills to first mitigate any critical weaknesses, and then (primarily) to enhance whatever it's good at.

My Atlas, for example, has nearly all of the survival tree bought out, while my Ebon Jaguar ERPPC build is focused on heat mitigation and weapon skills - both with moderate investment in the mobility tree as well as a little auxiliary and the "left" half of the sensor tree (for radar deprivation.) My Pirates' Bane, on the other hand, is sporting every last point of the mobility tree, with most of the rest in weapons - and the Thunderbolt 5S brawler trades out some survival for better weapon effects.

All of these skill choices are (aside from insisting on that left half sensor tree for 60% radar deprivation) a reflection of what I want to do with that 'mech and how effective I've found the skill build to be thus far - the Thunderbolt, for example, started out with more Survival, but felt too weak in the guns department; hence the change.

It's also important to note that if you decide to replace a skill point you've bought, you do not need to spend a skill point to reactivate it later - you'll only need to spend a small amount of experience. Thus, if I decide later that I really don't want that first point in Auxiliary any more, I can remove the skill in favor of another choice; I will have to spend a skill point on the new skill if I haven't bought it before, but in order to go back and use that first Auxiliary skill node later, I'll only need to spend 400 chassis exp.

[Viktor von Stompenstein]

2 mechs so far, Marauder 3R and Blackjack 3 I think it is. Picked them because I always liked Marauders and PPC weapons in older MW titles. Not enough C-Bills yet to gear them up too much and maybe about 10 skill points worth of exp on either of them. I'm fine with learning what to do / not to do by experimenting along the way though, I generally like to try out various ways of doing things in games.

[Rogue Jedi]

both are Battlemechs, the Blackjack 3 stock loadout would probably benefit from Endo Steel internals and an XL 235 engine ^{(the biggest that Blackjack can take, if a Mech can take a 250 or bigger engine always try to do so as the 10 in engine heatsinks of the 250+ engines are all full 2.0 heat capacity and disipation double heatsinks, as opposed to the 1.4 disipation and cap of other DHS)} allowing for a higher top speed with the same weapon loadout, then you could maybe drop the PPCs for ether LPLs or to upgrade the MLs to MPLs ^{(pulse have a shorter beam duration making it much easier to hold the beam on target for the whole burn time and thus do more effective damage).}

the Marauder can suvive a lot of damage if it has a standard engine, stock loadout is this note all the free space, you have 32 spare slots on the stock Mech, adding in Endo Steel and Double Heat Sinks gives you slightly better cooling and 9 free tons which can be used to add more armor, more ammo, upgrade weapons, engine or other equipment, at the cost of 2.25 million you open up a lot of options, which of course will cost more cbills to explore. you could add in more Double Heat Sinks for improved cooling, or put in a bigger AC or another AC5, if you are keeping the AC5 you will probably want more ammo, and of course there is nothing ^{(other than cbills)} to stop you from completely changing the Mechs loadout.

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 24 May 2017 - 03:19 PM.

[Gwahlur]

Doctor von Stompenstein, on 24 May 2017 - 11:56 AM, said:

2nd Q: I've goggled up a few Skill Tree and Getting Started guides, plus I've been reading forums here and there for a while now. So I'm good on basics. But all the skill tree info seems to assume you have 91 SP and can allocate a whole tree. Are there any pointers on which skills it is important to get first for new mechs/players?

This is kind of a good question. So far, I've found it a lot harder to skill the mechs i'm gradually getting skill points for, as you lose the big picture compared to placing all 91 at once.
I'm expecting to do some respeccing once i get all my unmastered mechs to 91+ sp.

[Marius Evander]

MAD-3R get the tank tree 1st

BlackJack get mobility or firepower tree 1st (depends on build, mediums go mobility 1st, er large go firepower 1st)

You want to emphasise your mechs best assets.

Also, Looks like your Inner Sphere, thats 75 and 45 tons ? = 120 tons, So try to make your next 2 purchases = 145 tons so you have 4 decks for Faction play/ community Warfare (and make sure they are 2 more Inner Sphere mechs) So you can get more mech bays in FP/CW

(I would probably get a BLR and a 55 tonner)(to have a 55 tonner for Scouting if you want to scout) (or 2 GHR-5P)(or another MAD-... and 1 GHR-5P)

My Preferred BJ-3 build

Probably the best Build for MAD-3R if you must have PPC's

My preferred MAD-3R build

This is Why you should put skill points in armor tree 1st for this mech, those structure quirkjs the mech already comes with get massive bonus's from investing in this tree.

The nodes you should get 1st for MAD-3R in my opinion because you want to stack on that structure bonus the mech arlready gets.

Edited by Cadoazreal, 25 May 2017 - 12:28 AM.

[Koniving]

Doctor von Stompenstein, on 24 May 2017 - 11:56 AM, said:

Hi, new player, been meaning to join for a couple years now but RL has its way of distracting me.

1st Q: I see American/Euro/Oceanic servers. American is ~50 ping, Euro ~140, Oceanic ~300 for me. If I cross Oceanic off the list I assume that's fine, I'm not missing out on something?

2nd Q: I've goggled up a few Skill Tree and Getting Started guides, plus I've been reading forums here and there for a while now. So I'm good on basics. But all the skill tree info seems to assume you have 91 SP and can allocate a whole tree. Are there any pointers on which skills it is important to get first for new mechs/players?

TY, have a good one!

If you cross Oceanic off the list, you'll miss out on Australian quips, Korean/Japanese dialects over the comms (sometimes this is pretty fun to listen to), and well that's about it.

The skill tree recently changed, but it sounds like you are already well set on the new setup.

Priorities should depend on how you intend to play, though they might vary with different machines. For example if your mech can't use autocannons or ballistic weapons, then purple "UAC," "Gauss," and "LBX" related skills will be worthless to you. If you can't use missiles, then green missile-related 'skills' will also be worthless to you. If, in the rare occasion, your mech cannot use energy weapons (these are few but do exist), the laser (color???) skills will do nothing for you.

A ballistic focused mech won't have as much use for heat generation quirks and might not benefit as much from faster cooling as a missile or energy focused mech would.

Depending on your weight, the percentages that skills provide differ, light mechs get the highest percentages out of mobility. Assault mechs tend to get the higher percentages out of firepower. Some mechs get unexpected differences in percentages for some skills (for example a mech known in lore to be considered exceptional in the sensors department might be average at the get-go, but the percentages under the sensor tree might be higher than average). Not always the case; some mechs that should have it don't, but others that do are well known for it.

You should play the mech as is, experiment with building it in different ways, and then start taking nodes on the skill tree. Perhaps look at it occasionally and plan on how you could maximize the way you play with your mech.

For example if you like long range combat, nodes like range, velocity (for ballistics and missiles), duration-reduction (for energy weapons), zoom, target info gathering (to get information on enemy status and health faster) and increased sensor range would all help to reach that goal.

Welcome to MWO and good luck.

[Viktor von Stompenstein]

TY for the replies, definitely helpful. Also, I pesteredsuggested one of the skill tree thread guys to make a 'starter' tree example. It's in the Skill Tree builds thread, https://mwomercs.com...now-with-index/, page 14 I think. Definitely a handy thread for those of us new to the skill tree.