128 replies to this topic

[GreyMatter51]

I do have another question on the mechs, do I need to focus on the quirks on the mechs or the hardpoints more? In figuring out how to loadout the mechs, I have tried to keep the quirks in mind but from some of the posts I have seen in the thread it almost seems like I shouldn't focus on trying to "match them up" with the loadouts. Not sure if this makes sense or not.

[Jingseng]

GreyMatter51, on 01 August 2017 - 04:52 PM, said:

I do have another question on the mechs, do I need to focus on the quirks on the mechs or the hardpoints more? In figuring out how to loadout the mechs, I have tried to keep the quirks in mind but from some of the posts I have seen in the thread it almost seems like I shouldn't focus on trying to "match them up" with the loadouts. Not sure if this makes sense or not.

Quirks change. Hardpoints almost never do. Flavor to risk tolerance level and playstyle tactics.

[Gagis]

GreyMatter51, on 01 August 2017 - 02:33 PM, said:

Not sure how I feel about missiles right now. The trial mechs that have them I have tried but didn't really like the LRMs. So I will probably stick with ballistics and energy weapons for now.

LRM's in general are not very effective since they can not focus damage on specific components. SRMs on the other hand are quite competitive, and offer the ultimate fire-and-forget damage potential at short range. Mechs such as Griffin 2N with 4 SRM6+Artemis dominate the Scouting game mode.

[BTGbullseye]

Gagis, on 01 August 2017 - 09:53 PM, said:

LRM's in general are not very effective since they can not focus damage on specific components.

That's like saying nukes aren't very effective because they can't take out just a single person. You entirely missed the point of the weapon. It is exceedingly effective at making the vast majority of enemies stick to cover, causing significant damage, and both visual shake and disruption. It is one of the 2 best suppression weapons in the game, and the easiest to use for getting a hit on a target between 150m-and 890m range.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

[GreyMatter51]

BTGbullseye, on 01 August 2017 - 11:19 PM, said:

That's like saying nukes aren't very effective because they can't take out just a single person. You entirely missed the point of the weapon. It is exceedingly effective at making the vast majority of enemies stick to cover, causing significant damage, and both visual shake and disruption. It is one of the 2 best suppression weapons in the game, and the easiest to use for getting a hit on a target between 150m-and 890m range.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

I was in a match last night where the enemy team had several mechs with LRMs on I believe caustic valley. It was almost non-stop streams of missiles streaking across the sky. Needless to say, after a few minutes of this they ended up moving in and slaughtering what was left of my team.

[Jay Leon Hart]

GreyMatter51, on 01 August 2017 - 04:52 PM, said:

I do have another question on the mechs, do I need to focus on the quirks on the mechs or the hardpoints more? In figuring out how to loadout the mechs, I have tried to keep the quirks in mind but from some of the posts I have seen in the thread it almost seems like I shouldn't focus on trying to "match them up" with the loadouts. Not sure if this makes sense or not.

To echo Jingseng, never pick a 'mech based on quirks, you will only be disappointed when they change.

[GreyMatter51]

Jay Leon Hart, on 02 August 2017 - 09:08 AM, said:

To echo Jingseng, never pick a 'mech based on quirks, you will only be disappointed when they change.

In other words, pick a mech based on SharePoint an great the quirks as a bonus? When I picked the 3C it was due mainly to the quirks compared to the 3N.

[Jay Leon Hart]

GreyMatter51, on 02 August 2017 - 09:40 AM, said:

In other words, pick a mech based on SharePoint an great the quirks as a bonus? When I picked the 3C it was due mainly to the quirks compared to the 3N.

I would say so, yes. Hardpoints (type, quantity and placement on the 'mech), engine cap and whether they can equip ECM/Jump Jets/MASC are what I would focus on first, then see quirks as an added extra.

Unrelated point - the Rifleman RFL-3N is still my most played IS 'mech, closely followed by the Raven RVN-2X.

[Koniving]

GreyMatter51, on 02 August 2017 - 05:01 AM, said:

I was in a match last night where the enemy team had several mechs with LRMs on I believe caustic valley. It was almost non-stop streams of missiles streaking across the sky. Needless to say, after a few minutes of this they ended up moving in and slaughtering what was left of my team.

This is very common. Naysayers will downtalk LRMs as a primary weapon and I agree, as a lone player sporting nothing but or almost entirely LRMs you re likely to be screwed. However when accompanied with others it is incredibly effective.

Case in point, the LRM support found here.

Even in the comments section there's mention of "dat LRM support."

Other examples: Most of what is stated here is still true (and is probably why people naysay LRMs)

(546 damage in a matter of maybe a minute, 1 kill, 1 assist at the time of death [note that on this troll build my Catapult had less armor than a stock Locust.]

And this one showing solo-oriented use of LRMs as a primary weapon.

Quite effective. More so if you add a NARC. On medium mechs such as the Griffin, Wolverine (sometimes), the Kintaro and some others I will sport at least a single LRM-20 alongside my other weapons to reasonably great effect (softening the enemy even slightly before getting close can tilt any fight in your favor).

Side note: When you're looking to play the hero...

Also: Just gonna say Friday for the Rifleman videos; 12 hour shifts are very draining.

[Throe]

Although I prefer Inner Sphere weaponry, I highly recommend Clan 'Mechs for beginner pilots, and specifically either the Summoner or Timber Wolf. Both 'Mechs can swap Omnipods, which allows them a great variety of builds to choose from. Both have fairly large engines which gives them great mobility for their size, and both can mount jump jets(the Summoner always has jump jets, they're optional on the Timberwolf).

Yes, the upfront cost is higher, but as has been mentioned, you've got to consider that, barring specific weapon purchases, the Clan 'Mechs aren't really going to cost you any extra after the initial purchase. Their basic chassis specs are already very nearly optimized, so literally all you have to worry about is how much armor you want, and which weapons you're bringing.

Specifically regarding LRMs, they're great for Quick Play + grinding CBills, and have some plausible use cases in Faction Play, but are of severely limited practical use in top tier competitive team play. You really never see them in the World Championships, for example. Pin point, direct fire, and/or instant damage weapons rule that battlefield almost exclusively.

Edited by Throe, 02 August 2017 - 11:51 AM.

[Alexander of Macedon]

That's kinda the rub, LRMs decrease markedly in effectiveness when: they're boated, they're used by an individual with no support, they're fired from extreme range, they're fired at poor targets, they're used against good players, they're used to assist teams that don't understand how to use a LRM teammate, they're used on maps with tall cover.

You need more mitigating factors to perform well with LRMs than with basically any other weapon system in the game, which makes them very hard to employ with consistent efficacy.

[Mechwarrior Ellis]

Have you tried the trial Hellbringer? I watched a Youtube video by BlackHawkSC called, "New player guide: Which mech to buy first?" supporting it as a good first mech. It shows how to make a good basic build then he takes it into a match and shows you how to play the mech. He explains everything very well. I have played a total of 137 matches and 109 of those have been with my Hellbringer Prime. The rest of my matches were in trials back during my cadet days and an Arctic Cheetah that I later traded in toward a Warhammer 6R. Just because my beloved Hellbringer descended from the Warhammer. No regrets.

[GreyMatter51]

Mechwarrior Ellis, on 02 August 2017 - 05:09 PM, said:

Have you tried the trial Hellbringer? I watched a Youtube video by BlackHawkSC called, "New player guide: Which mech to buy first?" supporting it as a good first mech. It shows how to make a good basic build then he takes it into a match and shows you how to play the mech. He explains everything very well. I have played a total of 137 matches and 109 of those have been with my Hellbringer Prime. The rest of my matches were in trials back during my cadet days and an Arctic Cheetah that I later traded in toward a Warhammer 6R. Just because my beloved Hellbringer descended from the Warhammer. No regrets.

I cannot remember if I have tried that or not at the moment. I did find the video and watch it and it looks interesting and the concepts are ones that I have to try and keep in mind.

I am getting a little impatient at this point (my own fault I think) and think I will purchase a mech pack (possibly the Marauder as I fell in love with the mech when I was playing the first Mechwarrior game back in the 90s). It looks and possibly sounds like I may not go wrong with that mech since it looks very solid and I can keep the loadouts simple and scale them up as I need to. The other reason that I am looking at the mechpacks is for the hero mech for the increased credit grinding so I can feel like i am getting decent credits for my matches.

I might also need a change of mechs as I think the 3C version of the Rifleman is causing me to try and snipe outside of the effective range of my uac/5 (switched back to them and I think I am handling them better than I was originally. Still jamming but not as often since I'm not trying to spam them). I will probably get the other variants of the mech and also try out the other loadouts suggested in this thread once I have built up more credits to get the weapons.

I do plan on purchasing a pack but am still uncommitted to which pack I will purchase. I am looking at a few of them and all of those seem like they would be good packs to get.

[Ruccus]

Just remember to visit both the MechWarrior Academy and the Training Grounds. Both will allow you to learn your mech in a more controlled environment and the Training Grounds will allow you to explore the various maps to find interesting quirks and terrain features that may be of use to you in battle. It could just be that you still have to get used to whatever build you're using or tweak it slightly to better suit you.

It's harder to learn things about your mechs when people are shooting at you; even though I've played MWO for years I still regularly drop into the Training Grounds (Tourmaline Desert mostly) to gauge the performance of my new builds before I take them out against real people. Knowing how quickly you heat up, how quickly you cool down, what weapons you can and can't use when you're hot, and when you can and can't deliver an alpha strike without overheating help to avoid that critical shutdown mistake that can end your game early.

For newer players another good use of the Training Grounds is to take a UAV, pop it, then back up and practice shooting it down. Quickly and efficiently destroying enemy UAVs is very important to winning a game. While the consumable will be 'used' as in a game, it will return to your mech when leaving the Training Grounds so it won't be consumed and you can re-drop and try again. With lasers it's easy to hit a UAV since you just put your target on it until you see the correct range pop up then fire, using a ballistic to drop a UAV can be a bit tricky because of projectile drop.

Edited by Ruccus, 02 August 2017 - 08:52 PM.

[BTGbullseye]

Ruccus, on 02 August 2017 - 08:51 PM, said:

While the consumable will be 'used' as in a game, it will return to your mech when leaving the Training Grounds so it won't be consumed and you can re-drop and try again.

All consumables get refilled when you walk through the 'repair and reload' circle in the Academy, so that is a better location to use to get experience with consumables of any kind. Pop an airstrike, and then grab another, and try again... You'll get to see what it can do to grouped or individual Mechs, as well as what it does to each class of Mech. (everything but Assaults tend to die after the same number of strikes in my experience, Assaults take 1 more hit to kill on average)

[Gagis]

GreyMatter51, on 02 August 2017 - 06:32 PM, said:

I do plan on purchasing a pack but am still uncommitted to which pack I will purchase. I am looking at a few of them and all of those seem like they would be good packs to get.

Warhammer is probably good value for money at least. Very few mechs have more than one variant that is actually competitive, but the Warhamster has three.

The 6R is one of the best platforms to put ballistics on in the entire game, with builds like dual LB10-X + dual PPC or dual UAC20 and so on.

The 6D is one of the best platforms for high alpha strike laser vomit in the game with a very large number of energy hardpoints, some of which are high on the torsos.

The Black Widow can do the same as 6R, plus its one of the best platforms for dakka spam with builds like 4 UAC5's and so on, which the 6R can't do.

I'd have bought the pack myself already if I didn't find the arms too damn ugly to look at.

[Gagis]

You might also be interested in the Marauder IIC, the Clan assault version of the Marauder. It also has 4 legitimately good variants.

The base MAD-IIC is one of the best laser vomit platforms in the game, with a total of 9 energy hardpoints and the tons to use them.

The -A is great for dakka with some laser backup

The -D Can do dual Gauss with dual ER Large Laser under ECM, which isn't good enough against skilled teams, but is absolutely brutal in the chaos of Quick Play.

The Scorch is a brutal brawler with 20 LB10-X + 4 SRM6+A. It also used to be great with dual Gauss + dual PPC, but those weapons were recently nerfed.

[Koniving]

Since it's 20 dollars either way, go Marauder IIC; their cbill ones are really expensive. Marauders for cbills are kinda easy to get and modding them isn't all that expensive even when you factor brand new engines which they generally don't need. But Marauder IICs? Getting them for cbills takes some dedication.

Far as getting a hero, going through the packages is almost always cheaper than going for it with MC, in fact until you get into lights, the "30%" off sale price that occasionally comes up gets them kinda close to just under or just over the 15 dollar price tag on "packaged heroes."

My Marauders...for fun.

Top 3: Marauder IIC.
Remainder: Marauder.
I don't own any paint patterns for them yet.
Time for me to sleep.

Edited by Koniving, 03 August 2017 - 02:27 AM.

[GreyMatter51]

Koniving, on 03 August 2017 - 02:26 AM, said:

Since it's 20 dollars either way, go Marauder IIC; their cbill ones are really expensive. Marauders for cbills are kinda easy to get and modding them isn't all that expensive even when you factor brand new engines which they generally don't need. But Marauder IICs? Getting them for cbills takes some dedication.

Far as getting a hero, going through the packages is almost always cheaper than going for it with MC, in fact until you get into lights, the "30%" off sale price that occasionally comes up gets them kinda close to just under or just over the 15 dollar price tag on "packaged heroes."

My Marauders...for fun.

Top 3: Marauder IIC.
Remainder: Marauder.
I don't own any paint patterns for them yet.
Time for me to sleep.

Now that's not fair teasing like that.. I like the coloration on the 4th which I think is the special variant from the pack?

I may follow this advice and probably will get the assault first when you put it in terms of cost like that. I wouldn't mind getting in to faction play at some point but not sure on which side.

Edited by GreyMatter51, 03 August 2017 - 05:13 AM.

[Koniving]

GreyMatter51, on 03 August 2017 - 03:55 AM, said:

Now that's not fair teasing like that.. I like the coloration on the 4th which I think is the special variant from the pack?

I may follow this advice and probably will get the assault first when you put it in terms of cost like that. I wouldn't mind getting in to faction play at some point but not sure on which side.

Good eye, to qualify for the top tier loyalty program I needed to have two IS collector editions, so I got a collector Cyclops and a collector Marauder. For the Clans I got the Huntsman collector and the Kodiak collector, at the time the Marauder IIC wasn't available though I think I still would have gone the same route (the Huntsman looks awesome to me and its versatility is on par with a Hunchback; I do exceptionally well in mediums; I also protest the "blatant superiority" the Marauder IIC has over the Warhawk.).

If you get into faction play, 'currently' if you went Clan you'd be able to bring 2 Marauder IICs and then have 80 tons to divide up between 2 more mechs. (250 is the Clan weight limit at the moment.)

Each one (except the (S) ) has got colors I've collected over the years (for a long time I made it a point to only buy heroes on sales -- which there were a number of 50% off sales during holidays so I got a lot of them, and so beyond that my MC only went to mechbays, colors and occasionally patterns; all acquired while on sale).

Repainted the 3R (Special).

Its current loadout





These things pack quite a punch. As such though, enemies are quick to target them. By using standard engines (though in the case of Clans this doesn't matter, I just didn't want to field the cbills for another XL engine), I can capitalize on the fact that only 40% of damage transfers from the side torso to the center when the side torso is destroyed (and the HUUUGE side torsos as seen from the sides) to add an extra layer of tankiness. Similar to a Stalker, though not quite as effective (since Stalkers have a lot more going for their tankiness given super narrow center torsos).

75 tons and 85 tons are the apex of tonnages for the heavy and assault classes, as engine speed, armor, weapons, etc. are about as balanced and optimized as possible within these two weights.

Sadly the 85 tonner assaults don't have any real old preorder packages other than the Marauder IIC, so no real variety there the rest should go for cbills. There's at least another 75 tonner out there for packages, the Warhammer. Then 'Mechs like the Timber Wolf, Orion, Orion IIC, etc. are all cbill ready.

If you think you'd like hundred tonners, the Kodiak's out there. The Cyclops is similar at 90 tons. Don't recommend the SuperNova though (primarily energy with little variation).