79 replies to this topic

[Y E O N N E]

If I want to earn C-bills to fund my derp-'Mech addiction or stat-wh*re, I drop in a BJ-1X or BJ-A. They are my most consistent performers, regular 700+. Them, and my LCT-1E.

So, I dunno. I don't know that Mediums are really hurting right now. There are a lot of unfortunately bad ones (RIP Kintaro), but there are also some that seem to be almost as powerful as the heavies in terms of how they can influence a match.

[Ruslan Savelyev]

Valhallan, on 01 August 2017 - 04:39 PM, said:

there is 0 reason to taking anything other than a heavy if you just want to powergame.

While certain heavies are clearly the optimal choice for balancing damage output with survival, mediums have a lot of options in terms of mobility and size. If you aren't having fun, you are doing it wrong, and perpetually dropping in the same optimal geometry chassis doesn't seem fun. If you ever want to do comp or switch to group queue, your team will appreciate someone who can run a medium(or light) as effectively as a heavy. It is more satisfying for me to have a good game in a medium, where I need to play to the strengths of the 'Mech and take care with my positioning, than to just run something that has a MechLab advantage.

[Ruccus]

Personally I'm fine with mediums. I consider myself a 'medium mech pilot' and seem to do better in medium mechs than in heavies (in season 13 my average match score was 343 in medium mechs but only 255 in heavies). I just feel more comfortable with their agility while I feel a bit cumbersome in heavy mechs. I did recently buy Tempest (Archer hero) and Legend Killer (Rifleman hero) so hopefully I can get more comfortable with the heavy mech playstyle.

About the only suggestion I'd make about medium mechs is with regards to mediums that have a maximum engine cap under 250 (the 5 Blackjack variants and 2 Vindicator variants that have 235 caps). Upping the engine cap to 250 isn't a huge difference in top speed but it would give the option to run builds without external heatsinks. Increasing the top speed of the slowest Blackjacks and Vindicators by 6kph isn't exactly game-breaking and could help fit ferro or light ferro on builds that otherwise couldn't because of the required external heatsink using up three slots.

[ice trey]

The queue is shorter, and they're almost as good as heavies anyway.

Besides, most IS heavies only move at 64 if you keep the stock engine.

I'd also use lights, but my ping means rubber-banding is a real issue, especially in tightly confined maps. Also, I will see myself behind cover but take a full 300-or-whatever-clanmechs-can-do alpha out of nowhere. There's good reason why the light mech queue is usually under 10 percent.

Edited by ice trey, 02 August 2017 - 12:26 AM.

[chucklesMuch]

In general i agree with the OP.

I still like to drop in fat lights but in general unless there is a weight limit I'm most likely to drop in a heavy or assault atm.

Mediums were my perfered weight class pre skill tree and engine decoupling, currently most of the mediums I have, lack enough of a turning/acc/dec difference for me to favour them over taking heavier mechs (with their significantly greater cooling/ammo/armour/fire power)

Edited by chucklesMuch, 02 August 2017 - 12:43 AM.

[Aggravated Assault Mech]

What's the point of taking Assaults if there are Heavies that can carry equivalent firepower and armor while being more agile?

What's the point of taking Mediums if there are Heavies that are just as fast and carry more firepower and armor?

What's the point of taking Lights if there are Mediums that are just as fast with more firepower and armor?

[ingramli]

I just use it more or less the same way as heavies, even i usually lose on trading on armor and firepower. Skirmishing in most games are not quite viable as u easily got spotted and killed soon, more often than not, you are left with 2 options,

1. Go trade with the heavies or assaults, even u are short on armor and outgunned;

2. Doing literally nothing until the very late part of the game, where people start to brawl, and you do the cleanup if your team is winning, or be the last stand if your team is losing.

I personally choose 1 most of the time.....

Edited by ingramli, 02 August 2017 - 01:29 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

What's the point of taking Assaults if there are Heavies that can carry equivalent firepower and armor while being more agile?

What's the point of taking Mediums if there are Heavies that are just as fast and carry more firepower and armor?

What's the point of taking Lights if there are Mediums that are just as fast with more firepower and armor?

pretty much.

role warfare is still severely lacking in this game.

[davoodoo]

ingramli, on 02 August 2017 - 01:29 AM, said:

I just use it more or less the same way as heavies, even i usually lose on trading on armor and firepower. Skirmishing in most games are not quite viable as u easily got spotted and killed soon, more often than not, you are left with 2 options,

1. Go trade with the heavies or assaults, even u are short on armor and outgunned;

2. Doing literally nothing until the very late part of the game, where people start to brawl, and you do the cleanup if your team is winning, or be the last stand if your team is losing.

I personally choose 1 most of the time.....

Pretty much yes, consider them as heavy mechs with less armor and weapons.

Sit on 2nd line and push right behind heavies.
Ppl underestimate mediums and rarely target them but i took out quite a few assault courtesy of my 3 ermeds + uac20 hbk4g, mere 55dmg at 320m.

Edited by davoodoo, 02 August 2017 - 02:58 AM.

[Lily from animove]

Khobai, on 01 August 2017 - 12:13 PM, said:

mediums are still inferior to fast heavies

they need to give mediums like 12.5% speed tweak instead of only 7.5%

that would give mediums 5% extra speed for speccing into speed tweak

yes this or again more acc/decc/and turn rates by their default archytpe. Speed and agility is Life for these mechs. Especially those 40t and 45t mediums. But they aren't superior enough in these regards to their heavy counterparts.

davoodoo, on 02 August 2017 - 02:55 AM, said:

Pretty much yes, consider them as heavy mechs with less armor and weapons.

Sit on 2nd line and push right behind heavies.
Ppl underestimate mediums and rarely target them but i took out quite a few assault courtesy of my 3 ermeds + uac20 hbk4g, mere 55dmg at 320m.

so why should someone then not simply pick the heavy by default. in QP SQ there is no real need to take a medium when a heavy can do the same + more. I's doesn't means heavies don't work. But practically there is not special place for mediums that the available heavies can't do better.

Edited by Lily from animove, 02 August 2017 - 03:22 AM.

[davoodoo]

Lily from animove, on 02 August 2017 - 03:15 AM, said:

so why should someone then not simply pick the heavy by default. in QP SQ there is no real need to take a medium when a heavy can do the same + more. I's doesn't means heavies don't work. But practically there is not special place for mediums that the available heavies can't do better.

Tonnage.

Drop decks have a limit and matchmaking in qp operates on tonnage.

Your typical ebj packs 4 erml and 2 lpl or 50 dmg
hbk2c packs 6 cmplas or 42 dmg on top of better heat efficiency.
65/50>50/42

mech for mech heavies are better but ton for ton mediums have clear advantage in firepower they can take and sustain.

Edited by davoodoo, 02 August 2017 - 03:34 AM.

[Weeny Machine]

mogs01gt, on 01 August 2017 - 10:09 AM, said:

Cats and Cicadas still have their place due to ECM but most other mediums out side of Crows and Novas are a bit useless. They are typically stuck in one style of play. Its typically long range, short range or be a weaker skirmisher vs a heavier mech. Either way, they typically have less alphas and have to wait until their teammates applied damage.

It still comes down to heavies and some assaults being too 'agile' then they should be.

One role of faster elements like lights and meds in BT lore is to keep the fatties save from being flanked and harassed. Mediums are also referred to as the "workhorse".

Not so in MWO. Heavies are indeed too agile. You can see it at the queue length which is the longest by a good margin nearly all the time. Simply because the heavies are agile enough not to worry about lights, have alphas rivaling those of assaults

SuperFunkTron, on 01 August 2017 - 11:17 AM, said:

I'm assuming you haven't figured out how to use the Ice-Ferret, Hunchback IIC, Phoenix Hawk, or Griffin yet. Those are just a few I can think of that can not only score very well, but serve as great distractions and open up enemies for team mates to work on.

If you are looking at damage alone, mechs with more weight for weapons should logically have higher damage potential in a single volley, but if you consider things like speed and size, you'll find that many of those mechs with less fire power have their own methods to dish out damage and survive.

I think the real issue of the OP is that he simply hasn't figured out how to pilot medium mechs yet and is upset about it.

Wow, so many words for "get gud". Seriously?

[Lily from animove]

davoodoo, on 02 August 2017 - 03:27 AM, said:

Tonnage.

Drop decks have a limit and matchmaking in qp operates on tonnage.

Your typical ebj packs 4 erml and 2 lpl or 50 dmg
hbk2c packs 6 cmplas or 42 dmg on top of better heat efficiency.
65/50>50/42

mech for mech heavies are better but ton for ton mediums have clear advantage in firepower they can take and sustain.

do you read, like QP SQ? didn't know that they added dropdecks to them.

And even in the dropdecks it doesn't changes the fact that you use the medium just because you have no choice, except many even decide to use some truly nimble lights to buff their heavies with tonnage instead of choosing mediums (espeically the IS dekcs often cosnist of 3xheavy 1x light)

Edited by Lily from animove, 02 August 2017 - 03:44 AM.

[davoodoo]

Lily from animove, on 02 August 2017 - 03:40 AM, said:

do you read, like QP SQ? didn#t know that they added dropdecks to them.

And even in the dropdecks it doesn't changes the fact that you use the medium just because you have no choice, except many even decide to use some truly nimble lights to buff their heavies with tonnage instead of choosing mediums (espeically the IS dekcs often cosnist of 3xheavy 1x light)

QP matchmaking also operates on tonnage, but you dont read...
If i can bring to our 800 ton drop 50 ton mech with firepower close to 70 tons then its win for the team.

and idk what is decks are consisting of 3 heavies and 1 light...
Most i know are 2 blr, 1 warhammer and locust
or 2 annis and 2 urbies.
or you can go 3 warhammers and bushwacker.

Edited by davoodoo, 02 August 2017 - 03:49 AM.

[Aggravated Assault Mech]

Khobai, on 02 August 2017 - 01:32 AM, said:

pretty much.

role warfare is still severely lacking in this game.

I think the roles are pretty well defined. Brawlers are very distinct from snipers or poptarts or scouts etc. The problem is that outliers like the Dragon or Assassin are simply better than lower-tonnage offerings in a particular role- more agile, more armor, more tonnage for armor.

Mediums just get the short end of the stick. The only ones that are good are those that carry as much firepower as a Heavy (HBK-IIC, Huntsman, Bushwacker, Stormcrow), or those that are fast enough to be fat lights (Assassin, Cicada).

I don't really see a clear solution other than just selectively nerfing the offending mechs- then there end up being two issues.

First, how do you break the stranglehold Heavies have, in order to create a niche for mediums, when Clan heavies go 81kph, and many IS mediums only go 64kph, stock. This is unavoidable but nonetheless in quick play Heavies just end up having a much higher carry potential than most of the classic Mediums like Centurion or Vindicator. Heavies were just engineered in BT to be good at everything, while mediums were spun into either underdogs or cannon fodder. Far downstream in MWO, if you want to maximize your chance of winning, you will just sit in queue in your Hellbringer or Marauder or whatever. It's just inherent in how the build system operates.

The second, sort of related bind is where bottom-tonnage-in-class mechs, especially old chassis like the Dragon or Victor simply lack the hardpoints and hitboxes to be competitive without these megaquirks. With these quirks, both end up playing like supercharged versions of the lighter class, but without them they're complete dogs. The Dragon is just the best medium, but if it wasn't a super medium, why would you ever play it? On a pure hardpoint/hitbox level these chassis just are not competitive.

[Lily from animove]

davoodoo, on 02 August 2017 - 03:49 AM, said:

QP matchmaking also operates on tonnage, but you dont read...
If i can bring to our 800 ton drop 50 ton mech with firepower close to 70 tons then its win for the team.

and idk what is decks are consisting of 3 heavies and 1 light...
Most i know are 2 blr, 1 warhammer and locust
or 2 annis and 2 urbies.
or you can go 3 warhammers and bushwacker.

QP matchmaking takes tonnage but doesn't cares about the old 4/4/4/4 anymore or classe sin general so you can end up in QP without any lights or mediums at all.

and if you ahven't seen the 3 heavies + light combo, well then you haven't played much during the tukayyid even

[davoodoo]

Lily from animove, on 02 August 2017 - 04:20 AM, said:

QP matchmaking takes tonnage but doesn't cares about the old 4/4/4/4 anymore or classe sin general so you can end up in QP without any lights or mediums at all.

and if you ahven't seen the 3 heavies + light combo, well then you haven't played much during the tukayyid even

Which you wont as matchmaking still tries to put ppl who play mediums into game.
Now because you took 50/55 tonner instead of 65 tonner someone else in the team now can run 85 instead of 70/75 tons.

lets take this theoretical scenario and put 3 heaviest heavy mechs.

3x75=225
265-225=40
You can still easily put medium...but that aint even the case as 75 tonners arent exactly pride of is, so more likely are warhammers or grasshoppers.
3x70=210
265-210=55
you still can put even heaviest medium.
and if we drop to 65 tonners we can put 1 70 and 3 65.

Edited by davoodoo, 02 August 2017 - 05:01 AM.

[Lily from animove]

davoodoo, on 02 August 2017 - 04:59 AM, said:

Which you wont as matchmaking still tries to put ppl who play mediums into game.
Now because you took 50/55 tonner instead of 65 tonner someone else in the team now can run 85 instead of 70/75 tons.

lets take this theoretical scenario and put 3 heaviest heavy mechs.

3x75=225
265-225=40
You can still easily put medium...but that aint even the case as 75 tonners arent exactly pride of is, so more likely are warhammers or grasshoppers.
3x70=210
265-210=55
you still can put even heaviest medium.
and if we drop to 65 tonners we can put 1 70 and 3 65.

no adfaik ther eis not upper tonnage limit for QP, you probably never have been in an match wehre evertyhign is about all assaults or heavies, haven't you? if no one uses mediums no one gets matched with mediums, it's not a must have it's an optional thing. in SP QP it's just you and the mech you choose. And MM is havign mediums as an optional thing. They don't have to be there.

Edited by Lily from animove, 02 August 2017 - 05:13 AM.

[Mechteric]

This thread is wrong, mediums are amazing.

Edited by CapperDeluxe, 02 August 2017 - 05:16 AM.

[Lily from animove]

CapperDeluxe, on 02 August 2017 - 05:15 AM, said:

This thread is wrong, mediums are amazing.

Any mech is amazing when your opps derp hard and half of your team too. Thats then like seal clubbing in T5. But in this situation with a better armed and better cooled mehc you coudl exceed way further.

Edited by Lily from animove, 02 August 2017 - 05:37 AM.