15 replies to this topic

[rook]

Looking at all the mechs I have left to skill (most of them), I wanted to know what everyone's strategy for skilling a mech was. The biggest question I had was: do you:

• Find skills that improve that mechs already top skills, ie - give more agility skills to agile mechs, or do you
  
• Try to makeup deficiencies with skills, ie - give agility skills to sluggish mechs
  
• Ignore the mechs inherent skills and try to blanket apply skills

Also, do you ever ignore trees completely, or do you dabble in all trees?

[Exilyth]

I usually go with this:

• If ECM: grab ECM nodes from sensor tree (else: ~60% radar derp)
  
• Grab most of mobility, ignoring as much torso yaw/pitch as possible
  
• Grab the first two pairs of heat/coolrun nodes from operations
  
• Assign the rest depending on chassis and loadout (firepower, survival, but also operations for hot loadouts).
  
• optional: if narc, grab inarc nodes from aux tree.
  
• optional: if 2+ ams, grab ams overload from survival tree.

I'm currently skilling a PXH-1B on which I'm going to test the jumpjet tree (can't say anything about that yet).


UAV goes on every mech, more consumables would ruin my match earnings, so I mostly ignore the aux tree.

Edited by Exilyth, 31 May 2017 - 01:30 PM.

[Scyther]

First I plan to avoid anything useless (UAC Jam, Mobility on the super slow 100-tonners etc).

Second I normally skip Auxiliary, JJ, Survival trees (this allows me to focus points for effect).

Third I put in some baseline needed functions (Radar Dep, Mobility on most mechs, Cool Down and Heat Containment).

Fourth I see how many points I have left and tune those to the mech's strengths (better to improve a strong point than try to plaster over weaknesses).

[Xiphias]

If you are willing to use consumables Aux tree to get double coolshots and strikes. These give the best bang for skill points spent, but are expensive in c-bills.

After that:

Max Firepower tree (to relevant weapons)
Max Structure tree (tuned to quirks)

If needed, half a tree of Agility
If needed, part of Operations tree (laservomit)

If you have too many nodes at this point then start trimming things based on role.

If the mech is hot, drop cooldown nodes from Firepower tree and get cooling nodes from operations.
If a mech has lots of heat to spare, drop heatgen skills.
If a mech has significant armor/structure quirks focus on getting the applicable ones and start dropping the others as needed. When possible trim ones that allow you to drop other skills that are worthless.

For some mechs I run specific builds, e.g. on the Locust instead of maxing structure I go full Agility since it relies on not getting hit. The Jenner benefits both from structure quirks and agility so I take a half Agility tree and max the Structure tree while dropping a few armor nodes.

If you have good positioning and situational awareness the Sensor tree is mostly garbage (I suppose you would want it if you run LRMs. Don't do that.). Radar derp does help against LRMs, but Firepower helps with killing all things so it's more broadly useful.

The Jump-jet tree is trash (I might take the first node for heat on a mech with a lot of jets and an extra point), the Sensors tree is usually not worth taking unless you want to take ECM and fully invest, and the Operations tree is situational.

[cazidin]

I'm just going to leave this here.

https://mwomercs.com...or-new-players/

[Wattila]

Xiphias, on 31 May 2017 - 02:18 PM, said:

If you have good positioning and situational awareness the Sensor tree is mostly garbage (I suppose you would want it if you run LRMs. Don't do that.). Radar derp does help against LRMs, but Firepower helps with killing all things so it's more broadly useful.

You don't primarily take the radar derp for LRMs, you take it on lights, flankers, and pokers because it makes it more difficult to locate you. Also, seismic is valuable to brawlers (don't want to run into a firing line), but can be replaced to some extent by UAVs. But yeah, frontline mechs don't really need the sensors tree.

Agree with your other points, though. Most of my heavies and assaults max firepower and survival, and don't worry about mobility too much. Might take some torso speed if I really need to twist faster or have difficulty tracking stuff with torso mounted weapons. Lights and mediums are more of a mixed bag.

[process]

The only must-have skills for me are speed tweak and maximum seismic, the rest depend on the build. I will say the trees I'm finding little-to-no value in are Jump Capabilities (not enough benefit), Mech Ops (Heat Gen > Cool Run), and Miscellaneous (don't do coolshots).

Edited by process, 31 May 2017 - 02:43 PM.

[Xiphias]

Wattila, on 31 May 2017 - 02:34 PM, said:

You don't primarily take the radar derp for LRMs, you take it on lights, flankers, and pokers because it makes it more difficult to locate you. Also, seismic is valuable to brawlers (don't want to run into a firing line), but can be replaced to some extent by UAVs. But yeah, frontline mechs don't really need the sensors tree.

Agree with your other points, though. Most of my heavies and assaults max firepower and survival, and don't worry about mobility too much. Might take some torso speed if I really need to twist faster or have difficulty tracking stuff with torso mounted weapons. Lights and mediums are more of a mixed bag.

I'm primarily a light (and fast medium) pilot. Breaking contact is useful (and why I took radar derp before the tree), but there are other things that are better. As a flanking light you should be trying not to get spotted. If you get spotted, they know where you are, radar derp or not. It's mostly useful for disengaging, but if you get into a light on light battle the other trees will help more.

You can compensate for sensor dep through good movement. You can't really compensate for firepower or structure. For poking you just need to spend more time behind cover for them to lose the lock. With the persistence of the target spotted feature it doesn't matter if you break lock, because you will still show up on radar.

As for brawlers, seismic is nice, but UAVs and good situational awareness should be able to prevent you from running into a firing line. Most of the time you're going to be farther than 200 m away from a firing-line. I just don't see it being as useful as more DPS, more health, or more speed. Play smart and you won't need it that often.

[Dracol]

Only must have for me is 1 pt on consumables ro get the second slot open. Got to used to running with an UAV and airstrike to not have it on a mech.

After that, I take an overall approach to the mech and skills. I id what role and playstyle I want to run with it. Majority of the mechs I am skilling up were stripped of equipment long time ago. So, as I am rebuilding it, I am also looking at its skill tree.

Some things I am considering while building/skilling:
-Skill nodes for extra ammo to free up a 1/2 ton or more
- BAP v radar rng skills
- speed tweek or a larger engine
- balancing heat gen with skills, DHS, and weapon selection
- weight savings of 1 jj with skill investment (I make good use out JJ and almost always max out JJ pre-skill tree)

[CFC Conky]

Hello all,

I don't now about the rest of you, but I like to buff up sensor range and info gathering for increased situational awareness even if most of my builds are short/med range.

Good hunting,
CFC Conky

[panzer1b]

For my playstyle i tend to get 100% speed tweak and radar derp. The latter is more of a quality of life thing as i mainly play pokers or mid range builds that rely on taking as little damage as possible, and having 100% radar derp is well worth it when the enemy has a much harder time to pin you down or anticipate where you are going to poke (id honestly rather have 100% radar derp then the entire armor tree but thats just me i guess). Then i usually get (depending on mech, some of them just dont need or benefit from it) as many accel/decel nodes as i can without bringing any junk nodes i have no use for. The rest goes into cooling and range, since those are the only 2 stats that really matter offensively if you are playing clan mechs Id rather have 10% more DPS then 10% more armor since clan mechs even with the whole armor tree are still cannon fodder and ~20 more HP to the CT is meaningless in practice with 50+ pinpoint alfa strikes everywhere at least at higher tiers. If its a FW drop i usually get a bit into consumables (at least the 2nd slot) so i can have arty/air raid alongside uav, but in random games ive found it not worth bothering as anything but the UAV is a waste of credits and oftentimes doesnt even do much damage if RNG hates you or the enemy is super aware.

Now for most IS mechs and some uac boats on clan side i tend to forego any range skills (range on anything that isnt a laser/gauss rifle is basically a waste as there is no way to reliably hit stuff past ~800m with them unless its assault size or afk) and stick those saved nodes into armor or structure (depending on whether its quirked for one or the other, if no quirks then armor as structure is less useful imo). I still stand by my original opinion that the entire armor tree is a utter waste of points. Everything maxed will get you around 20HP to the CT, and the vast majority of players in my tier arent going to spread their damage all over my mech but focus all of it at either CT killshots or attempting to degun something thats assymetrical (cant wait for the CB version of the HBR-F omnipod, then i can actually run a build that doesnt need the stupid arms and cant get instantly wasted by shooting the huge LT off). Still, given there is absolutely nothing else useful to put points into (if you dont need range and dont need maximum heat skills then might as well get essentially free armor).

Trees i generally stay away from would be auxillary (aside from the first node that unlocks a 2nd consumable and thats ONLY for invasion mode/FW useage), jump jets (if you are in a clanner with 6+ locked JJs there is absolutely no reason to go any higher/further, and if you have only 1-2 JJ, it doesnt do anything noticeable imo), and survivability (ill throw points in here if and only if there is nothing else that i can benefit from, just cant justify a miniscule HP boost of 1/2-1/3 the average alfa strike when i can get 10-20% boost to DPS through heat skills).

Ofc i do change this around for some niche builds (gauss night gyr doesnt need any heat gen, 100t dont benefit at all from mobility tree, ect), but this is basically the skills i prioritize for clan mid range builds that rely on poking and DPS, and need range to keep away from IS (at least until the update hits that gives them ERMLs and similar options).

[El Bandito]

If it is laser vomit, I spend 20-40 SP on Weapons tree and 20ish points on Operations tree. Unless it has crap Mobility like that of MAD-IIC--in which case I heavily invest in Mobility tree.

[Onimusha shin]

Take this you lazy bugger!

https://mwomercs.com...ill-tree-guide/

Telling us what you want to build would help

[Ruar]

I don't really worry about the mech's inherent skills. They are all mostly the same in the end. Maybe one's a bit faster at torso twisting or the other might have a bit more structure.

Instead I look at what I want the mech to do for me and then buff those areas.

For example, I just got a Quickdraw tonight. I've been moving the weapons around a lot but I know I want to use lasers are my primary weapon. So I went with laser duration, heat gen, and some cooldown.

I also know I like to roam around a lot so I like having some radar deprivation to help avoid all of the LRMs that get directed at someone who's constantly peeking out. Right now I have 60% but I might increase that later.

Next I want to go faster so I'm working towards getting all of the speed tweaks and the boosts to mobility.

Last I'll probably look at reducing the firepower some and increasing the survival to see how that works out. The mech is surprisingly tanky so maybe a bit more armor and structure will help instead of all the firepower nodes.


In the end I pick mechs that fit how I want to play, figure out what weapons I want to use on those mechs, then use the skill tree to help augment the areas I consider essential to the play style I've chosen.

[Lynxx]

rook, on 31 May 2017 - 11:58 AM, said:

Looking at all the mechs I have left to skill (most of them), I wanted to know what everyone's strategy for skilling a mech was. The biggest question I had was: do you:

• Find skills that improve that mechs already top skills, ie - give more agility skills to agile mechs, or do you
  
• Try to makeup deficiencies with skills, ie - give agility skills to sluggish mechs
  
• Ignore the mechs inherent skills and try to blanket apply skills

Also, do you ever ignore trees completely, or do you dabble in all trees?

Hey,

I use a "default" skill setup on most of my mechs.
https://tarogato-mwo...4c-2df0c1e0b5c6
16 Suv left side down. That gives 8 armor hardening and 4 -crit.
9 Mobility to get the +~20% Acceleration and ~10% Deceleration.
9 Sensor to geht 60% RadarDerp
1 Aux to get second Slot.

That are 35/91 points, after this it depends on the mech/chassi

Rule of thump:
Light mechs get 100% RadarDerp and more mobility.
Heavy + Assault get mor Survival.
Medium are "in between".

Weapons Tree: Depends on the Loadout, i like the +crit chance for lrm/srm. Most mechs get 10-30 Points in this tree.
My pewpew mechs get a lot of -Heat. And the Ballistic mechs tend to get +ammo.
Surviaval: min. 16 on Most mechs. Assaults/Heavys tend to geht full tree.
Mobility: 9 on most mech to get Ac-/Decelleration.
Jump: Ignore
Operations: Somethimes i go for the -ScreenShake. CoolRun and HeatCap are not worth the points in my opinion. -heat in Weapon Tree tends to get more.
Sensor: 9 Points on most mechs to get 60% RDerp. Lights tend to get 100% RDerp. Lrm Boats get maxTarget Delay.
Aux: 1 Point to get 2 Slot, then it depends. Cool Shot for hot mechs, or +uav on some scouts..

It mostly depends on my Playstlye with each mech. I try the mech without Skills an look for things to improve.
And i check "is it worth the points" the [Max Torso Inclination +10%] and [Max Torso Twist +10%] are worthless on most mechs, 10% get often somethink like +3° to +9°. Sadly only mechs that dont need the skill would really profit from it.
I would like it if they change some notes to +Value instead of +%. Like +2° Pitch/Yaw or +5°/sec Speed.

Edited by Lynxx, 01 June 2017 - 12:17 AM.

[Sjorpha]

If the mech has big armor or structure quirks I amplify those by maxing out the corresponding durability nodes.

Otherwise I go for maximizing whatever weapon system I'm packing and some mobility.

I think all the trees are worth investing in for some builds actually.