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I remember some time back a user post about adding another module slot to the timber wolf, claiming it was badly underpowered and required a buff. And if I remember correctly, everybody in thread laughed his suggestion out of question. This is because at the time, the timber wolf was Jack Of All Trades, and extremely good at most of them. It was fast, manouverable, jump capable, and could mount hybrid ballistics, laser vomit, terrifying brawl builds, and some REALLY weird and otherwise awful builds that could work simply because the TBR could outtank and outdps most other mechs in head to head battle. Even as the meta shifted last year with the introduction of superpowerful clan weapons platforms (MADIIC, KDK, NTG), the Timber Wolf still had a unique combination of traits that made it stand unique among the clan heavies, and thus worth a pick.
After playing with it alot after skill tree, it no longer has any of these things, thus does not stand out against the other clan heavies and needs a buff. Please note I have come to this conclusion based upon playing each of the covered builds on each of the covered mechs in detail. I have put in effort to unlock unique skill maze for each of the builds, which I believe is enough games to make a good judgement about a build's effectiveness.
I think the easiest way to show why the TBR needs to be buffed is by going through its archetypical builds. So I do not have to mention this in each paragraph, the Warrant's omnipods and other negative quirk-less omnipod arrangements of the following builds provide strictly worse performance for each of the following builds and archetypes.
2xLPL+ML+GAUSS:
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...0e0ff36cbe8a588
This build is completely outclassed by the Ebon Jaguar and Night Gyr. The Jaguar has a higher mounted gauss rifle, considerably better twist rate, accelleration, and deaccelleration, and doesn't lose too much from not having jump jets. The Night Gyr has better mounts, a better ridgeline and sidepeek profile, higher jumping distance, and better hitboxes for having the same torso speed as the timber wolf. It can also carry far more lasers or a second gauss rifle, which effectively doubles the DPS of the chassis. Omnipod combinations that don't rob maneuverability from this already sluggish chassis lose the high energy mounts, and even with maximal mobility tree, this mech cannot ridgeline or spread damage effectively anymore to fully expose. Before the Skill Tree the mech had already fallen out of favor, but afterwards it has become extinct and painful to play, severely outclassed by its alternatives.
2LPL+5ML
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...3402a8109ccab6f
This build is outclassed by the Night Gyr, Hellbringer, and Ebon Jaguar. The Jaguar's aforementioned maneuverability advantage and ability to add one more medium laser (due to better armour efficiency). The Timber Wolf's overall grouping wins out here, but has a badly defined side peeking profile thats easy to punish, whereas the Jaguar does. The Jaguar can also cut down to 2LPL+4ML and optmize its peeking pwrofile for hill humping or side peeking, whereas the timberwolf can't without dropping to 3 medium lasers. Once again, this wouldn't be a problem if the timber wolf had the maneuverability to reposition and fire its reduced alpha almost constantly, but it just doesn't compared to the Jaguar.
The Hellbringer has a CLEARLY defined side peeking profile that outperforms the Ebon Jaguar, and can offer ECM as support at the sacrifice of a few skill nodes. When the Hellbringer hero arrives, It will be capable of running this same Timber Wolf build but with better maneuverability and a clear side peeking profile that offers it a dead side.
The Night Gyr has enough jumpjets to sustain a full laser burn in midair, a torso that can spread opposing laser burns easier when twisting (especially when falling), better heat efficiency, and the capability of mounting SO MANY MORE LASERS.
Not only do all three of the Laser Vomit timberwolf's contenders have better utility and more opportunities to do their damage (and more of it), they have better defensive traits as well.
Before the Skill Tree, the Timber Wolf acted as a more flexible and heat efficient version of the lighter laser vomits, but its severe nerfs to mobility now make it unable to position effectively and outclassed by its competitors.
HYBRID 2xBallistic+MLs
This is a generic catagory for the dual gauss, dual UAC5, and dual UAC10 builds. The Hellbringer, Ebon Jaguar, and Night Gyr (once again) outperform the Timber Wolf in every single respect. Even the summoner makes a better UAC5 boat than the timber wolf does now, thanks once again to mounts, durability, and manouverability. Another rare configuration before the skill tree, the mobility nerfs and indirect buffs to the other mechs have made this useless.
Poptart
No build needs to provided, theres almost an infinite number of ways to configure a TBR poptart, all which have been superceded by the Night Gyr and Summoner. Both the GaussPPC and 2xPPC summoners have better sustained damage, higher jump height, and more flexibility in repositioning than the Timber Wolf. The Night Gyr has higher mounts than the TBR, with the ability to targeting computer boost its ppc velocity to near gauss speeds. It can also mount 2xGauss PPC, 2xGauss 2xPPC, and 2xGauss PPC 3xML. It has nearly the same mount flexibility as the Timber Wolf, except almost all of its mounts are higher mounted. It jumpss higher and can twist better in mid air, drastically reducing its profile when sideways. Before the skill tree, the Timber Wolf hovered as a middle between these two mechs, but thanks to its severely hampered mobility and lack of armour quirks, it can't hold a candle to either of them.
Brawler
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...62f7d6587564178
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...f61f8d9368794fb
Two flavours of the same signature build. Completely outclassed by the Linebacker, Mad Dog, Summoner, and Orion IIC.
The Linebacker has manouverability, allowing it to engage and disengage better than any other clan heavy. its armour quirks and torso speed allow it to tank even further than max survival tree Timber Wolf, and it can successfully hunt down lights. It also makes a devastating wolfpack or charge leader for those reasons. Keep in mind, the Linebacker is still not a good mech and is less tonnage efficient than the Stormcrow. Things aren't looking good for the brawling Timber.
The Summoner has excellent manouverability, better jump height, the ability to spread damage far more naturally, and the ability to side peek with with its srms. It, like the linebacker, is not that great of a brawler due to its poor SRM convergence, but it can outtank, out manouver, and outDPS the brawling Timber.
The Orion IIC is the clan incarnation of the pre-skill tree Atlas. It is THE clan brawler, able to spread damage and face tank far more effectively than the Timber Wolf can for the same weight. It can actually twist (unlike the timberwolf) and has harder to focus hitboxes due to their asymmetric nature. It doesn't mind the inability to jump, as it can use sheer power to pressure enemy lines into its optimal position.
The Mad Dog is a glass cannon. Its functions in a similar role to the Summoner, except far more effectively.
This is obviously the catagory that the Timber Wolf has fared the worst in. Not only can all of its brawling equivilents carry the exact same build as the Timber Wolf far more effectively (the linebacker would prefer the switch to small lasers though), they each have their own brawling niche that they perform even better in, leaving the Timberwolf Brawler's old niche open with nothing to fill it. I didn't include the ballstic missle hybrid brawlers because they've historically performed worse than the Energy Missle Hybrids and from my testing the same holds true after the skill tree.
A note about the Timber Wolf's survivability: The Timber Wolf was previously considered a very tanky mech due to its largely ambiguous hitboxes. At range, its sloping transition between CT, ST, and arm allowed it to spread burns and UAC fire beautifully. However, post skill tree, the TBR torso twist slower (reducing its ability to spread damage), the TBR torso twist accellerate slower (allowing the STs to be focused when they are most vurnerable, when they are exposed by the side during a torso twist), and the TBR gets NO armour quirks, which shows significantly in a meta where time to kill has risen and where the glass cannons hit much harder.
With Close Range builds, the TBR's SRM torsos allow for damage to be more evenly spready at close range by LBX shots, SRMs, and burns, but suffers considerably at range due to how boxy the STs become. This before was an acceptable tradeoff, forcing the brawler to get into effective range to make best use of its excellent durability. However, the TBR no longer accellerates, turns, or more importantly, SLOWS DOWN. This makes its extremely hard for the Timber Wolf to reposition, engage, and disengage at close range. Due to its bulbous shape, the TBR gets easily stuck on things, and must change speeds rapidly to manouver. Because its turning circle is now massive, the TBR relies far more on its accelleration and decelleration to make turns. Because the TBR slowly accellerates, the TBR has difficult times safely disengaging, but far worse is the fact it can never slow down, making it unable to make tight turns unless its already moving the speed of a slow assult, suicide for a brawler. Combine this with the slow torso and you have a 75 tonner that feels like a standard engine Victor in all the worst ways.
So the TBR is superceded by other clan heavies, lost the previous traits it had, has no niche provded by skill tree customization that differentiates it from other clan heavies. It is wasted weight in a Clan Drop Deck, and in my honest opinion, feels like a truck with no brakes, even with no negative quirk omnipod combinations AND maximal mobility tree.
I suggest this is fixed by bringing its accellerate, decellerate, and twist speeds up considerably, while eliminating its negative quirks. Why this route? Before the skill tree, the Timber Wolf was already suffering from issues of hardpoint placement and efficiency obselesence when compared to the same mechs I've compared current Timber Wolf performance with now. However, the combination of its 75 ton armour and manouverability were considered an acceptable tradeoff in comparison to these faults, and they offered a change of flavour for pilots who wanted a bit more speed, tankiness, or flexibility out of their mech. It wasn't just extremely capable, but also quite fun. The old Timberwolf was also capable of running WEIRD off meta and often mediocre builds with moderate success since the base qualities of the mech didn't actively cripple whatever strong points those builds had. (heres an example of one: http://mwo.smurfy-ne...16b17d857c88662). Currently there is no mech in the game capable of running these kinds of builds on a universally competent chassis.
I'd suggest boosting the Timber Wolf's accelleration and deaccelleration rates to at least 32kph/s, and its pitch and traverse rates to 60d/s and 90d/s respectively. Lastly, the negative quirks on its omnipods should be removed, as (has been pointed out by other commentators in the past years) it doesn't incentivize using lower hardpoints in return for utility, it instead incentivizes grabbing an entirely different mech, a problem made worse now by skill tree node calculations being made based upon percentages of the base values instead of flat rates.
Thank you for consideration, and I apologize for the length of this post.
EDIT: clarification- suggested values are maximized skill maze values, not base values.
Edited by SUCTION, 12 June 2017 - 10:33 PM.
