40 replies to this topic

[Onimusha shin]

EDIT: Added my meta summary at the bottom of the post.

Long story short, I decided to math science the heat skills (ignored Firepower's Cooldowns, way too much math) after finding many advocating Cool Run over Heat Containment. I set out to find the truth of the matter.

In summary, across multiple build types with constant -9% Heat from Firepower tree, 5 Cool Run + 4 Heat Containment nodes seem to give the best improvement to your DPS (both max & sustained) for the SPs invested. Play around here in the spreadsheet if you wanna with your build's heat profiles.


So in conjunction with Tarogato's guide which made me realize, how important the Survival tree (33 SPs for max HP gain) was, there's this revelation that maximum toughness and DPS is pretty much the meta of the Skill Maze isn't it? Another 5 SPs for double CoolShots, that gives you 12 SPs left to grab any other important nodes in Firepower tree.

And frankly, Mobility isn't all that great if you know how to position yourself right. So there, come voice your disapproval!

META SKILL TREE CRACKED
So here it is, what you really should do if you want to better your game:

• Boost your Survival tree by 26-33 SPs. The math here shows your post-(10+10 armor & structure skills) HP is equivalent to a 5ton heavier mech. If you have quirks of the same nature, they make you a virtual tank. More HP = more DPS if you do things right. Pic below courtesy of Tarogato.
  
• Balance your heat skills like so and so. They give you best bang for your SPs spent even if you waste 1 SP on a Velocity node for a laser build. Spreadsheet here for sciencing.
  
• Get your module slot and extra Coolshot like this.
  
• You'll have 10 or more SPs left depending on whether you skimped on Survival tree. Use them on Firepower first then Mobility.
  
• Mobility skills aren't necessary if you have learned how to position yourself appropriately. Spec some into accel/decel skills if you're not confident. Spreadsheet here for comparison across your class, courtesy of /u/20ae071195 Reddit thread here.
  
• Ignore Sensors, it's a waste of SPs if you stick to the team most of the time. 12SPs for Seismic Sensor is too much, similarly so for Enhanced ECM (13 SPs).
  
• Ignore JJ tree. It's just for flavouring.
  
• CAVEAT #1: You can spec into Mobility/Sensors if you aren't a fighter build (ECM RVN-3L w 2 erLL, LCT-1V/3V, SDR-5V w 1LPL/LL). Basically, anything that isn't going to stick to the team's deathball, won't need as much Survival tree buffs, but do buff relevant skills if you have the armor/structure quirks.
  
• CAVEAT #2: Cool builds like Gauss-only Jager or 2UAC5 ENF can use no Heat skills or less Cool Run skills respectively. Use some common sense to path the trees according to your build. ;-)
  
• General overview below

P.S. If you still don't know which Skills to spec after seeing above, I have a tier guide of skills you should prioritise.

Edited by Onimusha shin, 22 June 2017 - 08:00 PM.

[Wattila]

Thanks for doing the math, not much to disapprove. And yeah, 13-15 points (left side) in ops is good for laser vomit builds with lots of heat sinks, but most of the time it's better to just get more firepower, or double coolshots and strikes.

And yes, I also max firepower and survival on most mechs these days, don't really miss the mobility all that much. Mobility is still good for lights, since speed = armor, though.

Couldn't access the spreadsheet, by the way, might want to check the permissions.

[Onimusha shin]

Try again now, new to this sharing thing

Tks for stopping by and congrats on winning the contest.

Edited by Onimusha shin, 08 June 2017 - 09:54 AM.

[TLBFestus]

Cool shots are an abomination that's been allowed/accepted in the game and act as a crutch for poor heat controlled builds.

They should never have introduced them, especially since they were initially just trying to make a buck off the player base after telling us that "coolant flush" wouldn't be a part of the game design.

Edited by TLBFestus, 08 June 2017 - 10:23 AM.

[Elizander]

But I get -10.5 heat reduction, 10% cool run, 15% heat containment and 2x max coolshots

Screw defense.

[- World Eater -]

TLBFestus, on 08 June 2017 - 10:21 AM, said:

Cool shots are an abomination that's been allowed/accepted in the game and act as a crutch for poor heat controlled builds.

They should never have introduced them, especially since they were initially just trying to make a buck off the player base after telling us that "coolant flush" wouldn't be a part of the game design.

Have never used coolshot and never will.

[Zolaz]

ThoseWhoFearTomorrow, on 08 June 2017 - 11:35 AM, said:

Have never used coolshot and never will.

<3s using Coolshots and will maximize everything to his own advantage when he is fighting.

[N a p e s]

Thanks for the science and the link to Tarogato's thread as well!

[PhoenixFire55]

I, for one, enjoy slaughtering potatoes with no nodes in mobility tree ...

You can cool off faster all you want, but if you can't turn quick enough to even see the mech shooting you or lose half of your mech because of your atrocious torso twist rates, it won't help you.

[SteelMantis]

Interesting OP.

While I am usually going into firepower and almost always spending a few points in consumables (which I fully agree we would have a better game without) I am still taking skills mech by mech.

In particular I'm not finding Mobility vs. Survival to be a cut and dry decision. The Direstar I use in QP needs every km of speed to try to keep up with the nascar. My Maddog SRM CW deck has two with the extra armor and two with higher speed to get back to the team faster if I die late in a push.

[N a p e s]

PhoenixFire55, on 09 June 2017 - 12:38 AM, said:

I, for one, enjoy slaughtering potatoes with no nodes in mobility tree ...

You can cool off faster all you want, but if you can't turn quick enough to even see the mech shooting you or lose half of your mech because of your atrocious torso twist rates, it won't help you.

The mobility tree definitely offers benefits but its necessity is totally dependent on the mech and on the build. And the opposite to the argument you propose is also true; turn/twist as fast as you want but if you can't dissipate heat quickly enough (and possibly shutdown on overheat) you'll be a sitting duck as I continue pummel your mech!

[PhoenixFire55]

N a p e s, on 09 June 2017 - 05:38 AM, said:

The mobility tree definitely offers benefits but its necessity is totally dependent on the mech and on the build. And the opposite to the argument you propose is also true; turn/twist as fast as you want but if you can't dissipate heat quickly enough (and possibly shutdown on overheat) you'll be a sitting duck as I continue pummel your mech!

Yep. And that is why it is entirely pointless to generalize things when talking about skill tree builds.

[Ultimax]

Onimusha shin, on 08 June 2017 - 09:21 AM, said:

Long story short, I decided to math science the heat skills (ignored Firepower's Cooldowns, way too much math) after finding many advocating Cool Run over Heat Containment. I set out to prove the theory that Cool Run is useless in low heat sink builds and found the following results.

In summary, across multiple build types with constant -9% Heat from Firepower tree, max Cool Run (10%) has the lowest effect of raising your DPS compared to running max Heat Containment (15%) in conjunction with moderate Cool Run (6%) with the figures shown below as reference.

ROI per SP was lowest as well so why not spend the SPs saved on the Misc tree for those extra CoolShots? 25-26 SPs were needed for 9% Heat Gen in all build types. Play around here in the spreadsheet if you wanna with your build's heat profiles.



So in conjunction with Tarogato's guide which made me realize, how important the Survival tree (33 SPs for max HP gain) was, there's this revelation that maximum toughness and DPS is pretty much the meta of the Skill Maze isn't it? Another 5 SPs for double CoolShots, that gives you 12 SPs left to grab any other important nodes in Firepower tree.

And frankly, Mobility isn't all that great if you know how to position yourself right. So there, come voice your disapproval!

1) Thanks for putting in the hardwork of mathing this out, very useful.

2) Happy to see I was already on track doing this with my builds, I've been skipping top two Coolruns as the investment just seemed to be too much for the return.

3) That being said, I don't often take max -Heat Gen.

4) #2 & #3 are because, as you stated, there's more easy value to be had in just getting a second coolshot - as I can control my heat through the match normally without max coolrun or max -heat gen, but there are times when it gets out of control (getting pushed when you have a heavy energy buld) where a few extra % mean nothing but a coolshot has gigantic impact on your burst potential.

5) I don't disagree with the importance of the survival tree as Tarogato laid it out, but I think he also loses sight a bit of the reality of maxing it because it's a very rare selection of mechs that need ALL OF THE HITPOINTS EVERYWHERE.

What I mean by that, is that yes you get +HP but they go everywhere, even to places you don't care if you get shot such as empty arms, cockpit (rarely hit) or legs if you are an Assault/Heavy. So the % of "total HP is increased" but the reality is that total increase isn't the whole story as the sections of your build that are HP critical might not literally be every single mech component.

33 SP is a whole hell of a lot, that's more than 1/3rd of your entire possible investment.




*Lastly, for players who think that the new skill tree can't be min/maxed - this is the kind of info you will continue to see until the entire tree is basically "solved" from a meta perspective.

Edited by Ultimax, 09 June 2017 - 07:11 AM.

[Coolant]

while i totally appreciate the effort of the table OP, what is the deal with the mechs you chose to test with? They speak "meta" all over. Please try and think outside the box.

[N a p e s]

Coolant, on 09 June 2017 - 07:09 AM, said:

while i totally appreciate the effort of the table OP, what is the deal with the mechs you chose to test with? They speak "meta" all over. Please try and think outside the box.

Most people won't min/max this exhaustively but if you're running meta builds there are probably more chances that you'd also want to min/max your ST configuration.

[Onimusha shin]

Sorry for replying late, had a shitload of work and family stuff to clear today. Added my opinion of the meta Skill Tree path. It IS meta, at least weapon performance wise. You can choose to disagree about Survival vs Mobility (they're sorta linked after all) so it's up to you.

N a p e s, on 08 June 2017 - 12:48 PM, said:

Thanks for the science and the link to Tarogato's thread as well!

You're most welcome.

PhoenixFire55, on 09 June 2017 - 12:38 AM, said:

I, for one, enjoy slaughtering potatoes with no nodes in mobility tree ...

Hence if you're a player with bad situational/tactical awareness and bad positioning, you COULD spec into Mobility. Or a pure scout like a LCT-1V/-3S or SDR-5K. But if you're bad at those, you will find yourself in danger often anyway, sometimes fatally.

SteelMantis, on 09 June 2017 - 01:38 AM, said:

Interesting OP.

While I am usually going into firepower and almost always spending a few points in consumables (which I fully agree we would have a better game without) I am still taking skills mech by mech.

In particular I'm not finding Mobility vs. Survival to be a cut and dry decision. The Direstar I use in QP needs every km of speed to try to keep up with the nascar. My Maddog SRM CW deck has two with the extra armor and two with higher speed to get back to the team faster if I die late in a push.

Yeah, it's really situational. Just that I find more HP = more time to DPS if you don't do stupid things. Your rationale of "trying to get back faster" for CW can be avoided if you use a varied dropdeck. That 4.5-7.5% Speed Tweak doesn't amount to much through most of your match unless NASCAR'ing. And NASCAR'ing usually ends up bad one way or the other, LOL!

Ultimax, on 09 June 2017 - 07:05 AM, said:

1) Thanks for putting in the hardwork of mathing this out, very useful.

4) #2 & #3 are because, as you stated, there's more easy value to be had in just getting a second coolshot - as I can control my heat through the match normally without max coolrun or max -heat gen, but there are times when it gets out of control (getting pushed when you have a heavy energy buld) where a few extra % mean nothing but a coolshot has gigantic impact on your burst potential.

What I mean by that, is that yes you get +HP but they go everywhere, even to places you don't care if you get shot such as empty arms, cockpit (rarely hit) or legs if you are an Assault/Heavy. So the % of "total HP is increased" but the reality is that total increase isn't the whole story as the sections of your build that are HP critical might not literally be every single mech component.

*Lastly, for players who think that the new skill tree can't be min/maxed - this is the kind of info you will continue to see until the entire tree is basically "solved" from a meta perspective.

Hey salty Ulti, I remember ya! Well, I'm not really fond of giving away my hard earned CBills to PGI because of the Coolshot atrocity and it's really not wise for new players to do so either. But for meta vet players, it's REALLY OP.

What you said is true for both heat-gen/HP. The thing is, aside from build specific nodes, I don't see anything else you'd NEED to spec into badly. Assault mechs need more speed/twist? If you're a DWF/KDK-3/AS7/KGC (poor KGC, what did it do to Paul?!), you're ****** either way. Those little % increases ain't gonna help you much. I personally feel that Survival/Mobility are somewhat interchangeable so switch it around as you see fit. But for the comp scene? Survival should easily be the meta along with maximum weapons performance, even if those % increases are spread all across a Mech that has stripped arms.

Coolant, on 09 June 2017 - 07:09 AM, said:

while i totally appreciate the effort of the table OP, what is the deal with the mechs you chose to test with? They speak "meta" all over. Please try and think outside the box.

The spreadsheet link is there for you to use on your non-meta builds. I did a test run of this LRM40 MDD and the numbers don't change much, i.e. max Cool Run is still way less efficient than Max HeatContain or Balanced (6% & 15%). The Max HeatContain or Balanced (6% & 15%) approach to Ops skill tree is clearly the meta for weapons performance.

Edited by Onimusha shin, 09 June 2017 - 09:43 AM.

[ScrubLord1]

Incredible effort here.

Some preliminary thoughts here, damage output is a combination of max dps and sustained dps. Your calculations is based on max alphas, which only take into account max dps, and heat containment will always win out here. Cool Run affects sustained dps, and time to return to 0 heat, which Heat Cont. doesn't. While heat containment extends the time you can stay at max dps, once you reach heat cap, it basically does nothing. Aside from that, cool run also has a greater contribution in fights where you don't reach heat cap.

Also in the spreadsheet, the max # of alphas has the same value as time to overheat, think there might be an error in the equation there.

Personally I run 12% Heat Cont. 10% Cool Run at a cost of 18 points for my hot builds, which really isn't that much different from your suggested path. I don't really advocate one over the other, I use 12-10 just because it suits my style, its the most optimal path and the significance of the actual dps difference, I find its just too marginal to be worth considering

Edited by ScrubLord1, 09 June 2017 - 12:26 PM.

[Ultimax]

Coolant, on 09 June 2017 - 07:09 AM, said:

while i totally appreciate the effort of the table OP, what is the deal with the mechs you chose to test with? They speak "meta" all over. Please try and think outside the box.

This would be the equivalent of optimizing the engine of a clown car, no one cares but the clowns and its a complete waste of time.

[Joe Decker]

Just wanna remember everyone it is still a Game. When I create a Mech in Mechlab I have a Goal in Mind. I want a good Light with great Sensor Skills and Speed. My Goal is maybe not to have great Firepower in the Light Mech. I want a fast evasive Brawler, then I might build a Cicada with ECM, Speed, Armor. Wanna have a good Sniper then use what increases Range, Vision and ERPPC Buffs. Wanna have a front Line Tank for your Team, put everything in Armor, Structure, Speed. And so on and on.

The Goal of the Skilltree is to give you the Ability to play whatever you want. Armor, even Radar Deprivation or Speed Tweak might not be that important if you build a Mech with a different Goal. Use what enhances the Role that your Mech should play. In Teamplay pick the Nodes that improve your Role in the Team.

It should not be possible to generalize the Skill Tree. If that is possible the Skill Tree might need a Rebalance.

Edited by Joe Decker, 09 June 2017 - 01:00 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Joe Decker, on 09 June 2017 - 12:56 PM, said:

It should not be possible to generalize the Skill Tree. If that is possible the Skill Tree might need a Rebalance.

I have some bad news for you...