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Just don't walk into 100 enemies fireing at you unless you know what you are doing and or have proper support. If you are solo make sure to consider return fire. 8) I always see people walk into large groups and not limit what mechs can fire back and then wonder why they are dead or out of armor. You have to learn proper tanking skills. Espeically if you do not have allies near you to help punish the enemy while you tank wiggle.
And for those who don't know, which seem to be a lot, cone frontal tanks are design to forward wiggle tank(Never expose your arms side in this setup,unless armored like the awesome. This is an intentional weakness that goes with wide angles of return fire being more likely to kill components and weaken your DPS abilities.). This means you move approximately an even amount from side to side from center, or a similar motion, back and forth to spread damage. The geometry helps it get from CT to ST and arms quicker to make it spread evenly. It is designed to limit the time while tanking to get crosshairs back on the enemy and return fire. It is good for pusher mechs and other similar designs. And all mechs geometry and tank abilities are fit to their purposes and other design aspects. For instance the Direwolf cannot move it's arms sideways independent of the CT. Only up and down. The geometry optimizes this limitation. The Annihilator will be different, it has a more interesting nose, because it has moving arms. It is optimized to whatever it does differently because of what it can do differently. Just remember when you wiggle tank take into account the mechs ability to take fire from increasing side angles. Try to keep the enemy generally right in front of you(exact amounts may very per mech), and keep distance to reduce angles if needed. Always think out enemy movements and vulnerabilities to this problem. It is your main weakness.
The other small mechs have similar geometry and are basically death from above mechs or a combo of that and hill crestor or other things the geometry and other things give advantages too. They will be adding unique abilities to the game.
They will all be interesting!
the annihilator will be great for IS also. It should add more angles of attack to help get IS into and or on top of Clan for to help their weapons packages closer to deal with normal IS vs Clan strategic issues. It should greatly help IS go straight over hills more to get in Clan faces if used with other mechs by getting initial fire out of the way and getting in in between clan volleys. The Annihilator pilot will just need to learn to tank properly to deal with it.
Although some of that may depend if the ST goes up the head or not... If not it may be something to simply avoid getting hit and the geometry helps it take less damage with great miss chances at the head reducing overall weapons damage. Especially from being at a higher vantage point.
Either way, the Annihilator will be like the IS version of the Direwolf combined with the Supernova and IS weapons. It will be a massive IS pack leader and pusher. And be very when combined with proper teamwork at helping clear out the field.
I think the mad cat will work similarly to the annihilator but have the ability to walk with it's cockpit relatively angled up to enemy units. Then aim down on them between enemy fire. It will then need to aim back up to get it's cockpit, missile hardpoints, and the front of the arm guns out of direct line of fire to protect them. This combined with torso twisting, like I menetioned with frontal tanking, back and forth will spread damage.
The annihilator will also have the ability to aim up to protect it's cockpit, help cresting and protect it's frontal arm and chest guns.
These needed aspects will allow them both to crest hill into enemy fire better than other mechs to allow pushing in new ways or the ability to get long range fire on them from above to clear out enemies and take on enemy movements in new ways.
The Uziel definitely shares these characteristics. So does the Cougar to some extent.
These mechs might also have a reality of needing to expose expose the top without exposing the croch/legs. Those might be weaknesses when standing still on a hill. It might work differently when charging though or be compensated by groupwork or something else involving angling or general movement. Maybe the reality of that many guns from the annihilator hitting you with combined IS weapon fire.
You will also notice the slender nature of the Annihilators arms and head compared to the Mad Cat 2. This is to increase tanking effectiveness even more. If it's not spreading laser and other fire ill be more likely to miss for a few more ticks. This is better than bigger mech fronts because they sill generally get the full volley. But this will reduce overall damage taken over time on top of damage to each part being merely spread around.
It's guns are like the mad cat with frontal guns likely weak to direct fire destroying weapons. So, likely will it's front chest guns. It needs to aim up also to avoid direct enemy fire(The head is like this also). So both will likely aim up to avoid direct weapon fire and wiggle tank. The annihilator being the new king of damage mitigation in the entire game! It may out do the direwolf. this would be out of necessity because the IS weapons are weaker so it would naturally need to tank longer to go toe to toe with what it is designed to. Being the likely IS equivalent of the Direwolf. That means everything in the game!
All of this will give it the most interesting characteristic of any mechs in game so far. And add whole new strategies to the game.
Edited by Arugela, 02 June 2017 - 03:18 PM.
