73 replies to this topic

[Scout Derek]

Just wanted to share some thoughts on these things, since they're coming more prevalent with the coming days. in short summaries, I'm just going to list off how well I think some of these Mechs will perform.

Cougar: Slow as hell, but on the other side, it's a bigger adder. with more hardpoints. Fancy.

Uziel: So uhh.... I guess this is what happens when you put the ballistics high mounts of a hunchback and the slicker body of a blackjack together. (has some really good ballistic mounts though too.)

Annihilator: Dire, meet Annily, your older prehistoric DOA blimp.

Mad Cat MKII: So uhh.... poptarts anyone? (dual lb20s sound delicious though.)

Osiris: Mmm. Feels like it can be alongside reliability of a bushwhacker. (nostalgia feels and 285 engine rating. we're talking locust speeds!)

Arctic Wolf: Hello there. would you care for Omni, or Battlemech variant with 9M? Clearly not Stronk in any way or form... (basically better Jenner iic)

Nova Cat: Oh. you wanted a worse night gyr? here ya go, lucky for you you can't dual Gauss unless you get a reinforcement pack there buddy.... clearly not limiting people's options. not at all....

Nightstar: Victory Screech Okay. now that's done, I feel like it'll be a different Marauder iic, just with Is tech. Dual Gauss ftw woot woot.

[El Bandito]

Gonna be farming them component destructions with the MCII. It is gonna be sweet. Don't think Deathstrike is particularly worth it, since the base MCII can PPFLD just fine.

Nightstar heavily depends on how good the new IS weapons are gonna be, due to relatively low amount of hardpoints. 3xUAC10 is tempting. Too bad IS weapons are too damn bulky to be boated.

Don't give a damn about the rest. Osiris could be a great 30 ton option for CW Conquest mode, better than a Spider, at least.

Edited by El Bandito, 09 July 2017 - 10:40 PM.

[RestosIII]

I like the Cougar, but I honestly wish we got the Pouncer instead. Just personal preference.

Uziel and Anni are old flames of mine that I'll have to pick up eventually for nostalgia reasons, but I don't expect much from them.

Osiris is... Nice. Gonna watch to see how it fairs before I snag one.

The Nightstar looks like she'll be a good addition to the IS line-up, and I'm happy for those who wanted her. If I liked IS assaults (I don't) I'd snatch her up right now.

The Nova Cat is just classy, and is probably going to replace my Night Gyr fully eventually.

And this is me every time I remember that I'm about to get the Mad Cat MKII.

Spoiler

[Aggravated Assault Mech]

Annihilator will be sweet. Godzilla mech with high, tight torso hardpoints and mega boating potential for builds that were just too tight on the Mauler or lacked backup weapons. Osiris will also be cool.

Uziel is kind of meh. Maybe it'll end up being an IS HBK-IIC (as perverted as that is), but I have trouble getting stoked for yet another 50t mech. Nova Cat is another nostalgia hit for me, but I don't play a lot of heavy- don't really need a 70t Night Gyr.

Mad Cat mk.2 looks hot, but I'm on a budget and I already have the Boiler and Scorch so I'm not super excited for it. If it gets blasted with Timberwolf-tier mobility and is basically a 90t Dire Wolf I'm going to laugh. Arctic Wolf is also pretty strong looking.

I'm not going to get excited about the Nightstar until I see a model of it. The art leaves a lot of room for it to get ducked over considering it has hand actuators. I'm assuming it'll be a 95t King Crab with a bloated Marauder torso.

Cougar is a hard pass.

[DrxAbstract]

Annihilator is going to launch with negative quirks to balance its ability to see the entire map.

Osiris looks nifty. Might be the 30 tonner we all hoped the Spider would become... and Nightstar... Omnomnomnomnom.

[DGTLDaemon]

El Bandito, on 09 July 2017 - 10:28 PM, said:

Don't think Deathstrike is particularly worth it, since the base MCII can PPFLD just fine.

Deathstrike should be able to run 2xUAC10+6xERML. Not PPFLD, but a pretty decent loadout nevertheless. Should be a step up from MAD-IIC-C with 2xUAC10+5xERML.

[Requiemking]

Cougar doesn't do anything you can't already do with the Adder or Kit Fox.

Arctic Wolf is an Awesome that went on a diet and had it's legs swapped(so expect the same hitbox issues).

Nova Cat brings nothing new.

People are seriously blinded by nostagia to think that the Timby 2 will compare to any of the decent Clan Assaults. I mean come on, it's literally an overweight EBJ with even more debilitating missileboxes and that massive hunch. Oh, did I mention that it's a 90 tonner, and that those have terrible agility by default?

Osiris might be good. I'm not terribly optimistic, mainly due to PGI's track record of nerfing Lights into the ground, regardless of whether or not the nerf is warranted.

Uziel has a belly-mounted cockpit.

Nightstar has similar problems as the Timby , except it trades away the Clantech advantage in exchange for some slightly better hitboxes.

Anni is DOA with that body shape. Always was.

[Birthright]

Aggravated Assault Mech, on 09 July 2017 - 11:36 PM, said:

Mad Cat mk.2 looks hot, but I'm on a budget and I already have the Boiler and Scorch so I'm not super excited for it. If it gets blasted with Timberwolf-tier mobility and is basically a 90t Dire Wolf I'm going to laugh.

Since the skilltree and the following patches they made it so that basically every mech has the same mobility in their weigth class (except for the TBR which has even ******** mobility due to negative quirks haha) .

So basically every 90t mech has the exact same mobility,
Mad IIC used to be more mobile than other 80-85 ton mechs, then they nerfed it.

Basically they streamlined every mech and adjusted mobility based on tons.

Imo one of the worst design decisions they made recently but who am I to judge.
But since they also removed all good quirks on every mech basically,
all that separates a mech from another mech now is hardpoints and hitboxes.

The rest is almost the same for every mech and it will be the same on the new mechs too.
Its just the same **** with new colors.

Edited by Birthright, 10 July 2017 - 12:07 AM.

[Zergling]

Just a shame Stealth Armor takes 2 slots in each arm or else the Nightstar 10P would be able to run dual Gauss with Stealth Armor.

Best it'll be able to manage is twin Light Gauss as a result, which is rather meh given the stats of the Light Gauss in the last PTS.

Edited by Zergling, 10 July 2017 - 12:17 AM.

[The6thMessenger]

Sure wish i got money for MCII, but i have to wait for next year for the CBills version.

I really like hybridizing, so having ATMs, ERML, and UACs on the MCII would be a damn treat.

Edited by The6thMessenger, 10 July 2017 - 01:54 AM.

[MustrumRidcully]

DrxAbstract, on 09 July 2017 - 11:49 PM, said:

Annihilator is going to launch with negative quirks to balance its ability to see the entire map.

Osiris looks nifty. Might be the 30 tonner we all hoped the Spider would become... and Nightstar... Omnomnomnomnom.

I think the negative quirk will be that everyone can see you anywhere on the map.

[FunkyT]

I'm pretty excited for the Nightstar. Not because of nostalgia though, gotta admit MWO is the first MW/BT game I've ever come in contact with.

But it looks to be an IS assault mech with very similar boating capabilities like the King Crab, without the 100t mobility handycap. Saw a spreadsheet on Kanajashi's channel recently, and according to that one 95t mechs basically have twice the base mobility stats of 100tonners, which makes me hope that it won't be a stranded whale.
Plus it should get pretty close to the Marauders in terms of hitboxes and hardpoint locations, which I think is something the IS is sorely missing. Too many hip-shooting mechs.

The Mad Cat looks interesting, and I generally think you can't really go wrong with a Clan Battlemech, as the Kodiak, Supernova and Marauder IIC have shown. Those arms look pretty big and good for shielding, which might be a problem since it seems to boat a lot of firepower in those.
I'd say it's gonna be a good mech on launch and will probably turn out to be great, making a long lasting presence on the battlefield.

The Annihilator...I honestly think this one is a bust.
It's geometry just looks incredibly impractical. It's gonna feel like you're firing from your knees. With it's giraffe neck it's gonna be hard to take cover on many maps and the engine size cap of 300 makes this one go Dire Wolf speed at most. And I think everybody has an opinion about Dire Wolf speed.
If supported by a team, it will probably be a pretty scary turret for FW base defense, but I don't think it's gonna be really good on most other modes. Just my opinion of course.

The rest, honstly no idea. I'm mostly an assault and heavy pilot and as such not really interested in the other mechs. And If I would be interested in the Nova Cat, I would probably just by a Night Gyr for C-Bills. Looks like it's gonna be nice and toasty, energy only version of that one.

Edited by FunkyT, 10 July 2017 - 02:54 AM.

[FupDup]

Scout Derek, on 09 July 2017 - 10:20 PM, said:

Nova Cat: Oh. you wanted a worse night gyr? here ya go, lucky for you you can't dual Gauss unless you get a reinforcement pack there buddy.... clearly not limiting people's options. not at all....

It's not completely worse. Its lack of FF makes it way easier for this mech to build itself around energy weapons or other heat-intensive builds, while the Nite Gear is forced to focus on ballistics because it needs to spend tonnage much faster than critslots.

The Nova Kitty basically will have much more build variety, although it can't match the raw power of 2 Gauss + 2 ERPPC on the Nite Gear.

[DGTLDaemon]

FupDup, on 10 July 2017 - 03:05 AM, said:

It's not completely worse. Its lack of FF makes it way easier for this mech to build itself around energy weapons or other heat-intensive builds, while the Nite Gear is forced to focus on ballistics because it needs to spend tonnage much faster than critslots.

Nova Cat has 5 energy hardpoints at best, so you can't build a proper laser vomit out of it. And besides, we already have the Hellbringer, the Ebon Jaguar and the Timber Wolf covering most of the Clans' heavy laser vomit needs. You might be able to do some combination of PPCs and LPLs, or maybe something with heavy lasers, but that's about it. I don't see any obvious meta builds for the Nova Kitty. Maybe the hero will be good for 4xSRM6a+4xMPL (same thing you can run on a Timber Wolf, but 5 tons lighter), but it still doesn't impress me.

[FupDup]

DGTLDaemon, on 10 July 2017 - 03:21 AM, said:

Nova Cat has 5 energy hardpoints at best, so you can't build a proper laser vomit out of it. And besides, we already have the Hellbringer, the Ebon Jaguar and the Timber Wolf covering most of the Clans' heavy laser vomit needs. You might be able to do some combination of PPCs and LPLs, or maybe something with heavy lasers, but that's about it. I don't see any obvious meta builds for the Nova Kitty. Maybe the hero will be good for 4xSRM6a+4xMPL (same thing you can run on a Timber Wolf, but 5 tons lighter), but it still doesn't impress me.

Leaning on bigger energy weapons is advised regardless because they are often more heat and slot efficient than spamming a bunch of ERML. The Nova Kitty has plenty of tonnage for those guns.

[kapusta11]

DGTLDaemon, on 10 July 2017 - 03:21 AM, said:

Nova Cat has 5 energy hardpoints at best, so you can't build a proper laser vomit out of it. And besides, we already have the Hellbringer, the Ebon Jaguar and the Timber Wolf covering most of the Clans' heavy laser vomit needs. You might be able to do some combination of PPCs and LPLs, or maybe something with heavy lasers, but that's about it. I don't see any obvious meta builds for the Nova Kitty. Maybe the hero will be good for 4xSRM6a+4xMPL (same thing you can run on a Timber Wolf, but 5 tons lighter), but it still doesn't impress me.

What is proper laser vomit? It can do Gauss, 2 LPL, 3 ERML build with 19 DHS.

[DGTLDaemon]

kapusta11, on 10 July 2017 - 03:28 AM, said:

What is proper laser vomit?

Before the last energy rebalance, that would be LPL+ERML. Now LPL+MPL is also possible, due to reduced MPL heat... Oh crap. I totally missed the point that it's an omnimech, not a battlemech. Got it all confused with the Mad Cat Mk II Then I guess I'll have to retract my earlier statement. 7 energy hardpoints might be actually interesting. Given that it has plenty of spare tonnage due to the small engine, something like 2xLPL+4xMPL might be viable...

Edited by DGTLDaemon, 10 July 2017 - 03:36 AM.

[Cy Mitchell]

Cougar - Slow but able to carry a great load-out for a Light. Due to its lack of speed it will most likely need IS level of armor/structure quirks in order to be somewhat successful. Need the re-inforcement packs to make the interesting builds and improve mobility a bit.

Uziel - I bought this one mostly for nostalgic reasons but it will be the only IS Mech that I use since the Hunchback that I bought when I first started the game in 2012. I believe it will be better than most people are giving it credit for. It is kind of a blend of a Stormcrow and a Nova. The arms are at the same level as the cockpit and the rest of its weapons are above the cockpit. It has JJ and a 390 engine cap so it can be very fast if you want to sacrifice firepower. A lot is going to depend on hitboxes. If the entire shoulder area is ST then it is going to need some serious armor/structure quirks. If part of that outer circular area is arms then it might not be quite as vulnerable but the arms will become large targets. Stance and size needs to be between the two Clan Mechs also.

Mad Cat MKII - This will replace my Kodiaks which I have always hated and regretted buying from day one. I do not enjoy Assault Mechs but I feel that I have to own one. This will be it. It has the ingredients to be on par with any other Assault in the game and I like its looks. I will probably chose one variant and level it so I have that one Assault in case I need one.

Annihilator - It is an Assault, It is IS. It is ugly. Three strikes and you are out.

Edited by Rampage, 10 July 2017 - 03:44 AM.

[Brain Cancer]

The Uziel reminds me of the Vindicator, only no glacial engine cap. You got the jump capacity, the arms for PPC/Gauss/LGauss or twin PPC/SNPPC(even HPPC) with good hardpoint location.

The Cougar with it's H head will find that ECM pod riding on top of most configurations. If you can't be speedy, maybe you can't be seen. It can do respectable amounts of splat with 4 missile hardpoints, but like the Kit Fox it's an escort, not a scout. Cover the big guys, then dart out and smash something.

[Vincent DIFrancesco]

I generally like them all. (Well, the Annihilator looks like it was squeezed out of... nevermind...) But the ones I went with for purchase were the Osiris, Arctic Wolf and Mad Cat II, with hero mechs for the Wolf And Kitty. The Osiris and Arctic Wolf look like solid light and light-medium mechs with good weapon options. The Angry Kitty is a 64 kph assault with jump jets and arms at cockpit level. I don't do a lot of pop-tarting. But I can definitely see the advantages of those features. Both heroes I purchased were because their mounts were different enough from the base set of mechs to make having them worthwhile. Plus, how can you say no to a shark motif camo? :-)