65 replies to this topic

[MakesBadChoices]

Quick play and group play are great-- I've put about 80 hours into the game and generally do excellent. I have a variety of mechs I like and do well in, the game feels good and there is only the occasional stomp where one team gets steam-rolled.

Cue CW. By chance, all the mechs I had picked up wound up being IS, so I decided to try CW as a merc for the IS side. Man oh man, was that a mistake. I have played about 4 hours of CW, both on teams where my side has a large unit, the other side has a large coordinated unit, and where neither side had any units. Every single game has been an absolute stomp with the clanners murdering entire waves of IS mechs with only 1 or 2 loses. Given it's been so bad, I know it can't be just me not getting some CW meta and it has to be pervasive to some degree. Literally, I have never won a game on the IS side of CW.

What's going on? How do I stop this from happening again?

(not ranting, I just want to enjoy another game mode being offered because losing so badly every time isn't fun)

[Carl Vickers]

It would help more if you listed the mechs you were using and their load outs. People can help you with advice then.

[denAirwalkerrr]

TBH best advise if you don't want to waste a lot of nerves on CW loses is to find some unit you can play with. Also I'm sure they'll be happy to help with meta builds.

[MakesBadChoices]

My bad on the mechs, didn't even think about it. I don't think there's anything too revolutionary going on with them.


Atlas ddc, UAC20, SRM6(3), med laser(2), ECM
Shadowhawk 2k, SRM6(3), med laser(3), JJx3
Marauder 5D, med laser (4), MRM30(2), JJ x 1
Wolfhound 1c, med pulse (3), large pulse (1)

The wolfhound is going to get swapped out for a spider at some point when I get enough points for the mech bays.

Edited by MakesBadChoices, 06 August 2017 - 06:26 PM.

[denAirwalkerrr]

Well ye, your mechs are kinda bad.. CW really requires some specified mechs for it: few laser vomit and erll blr/whm, few brawler heavies/meduims such as 4xSRM4 assassin-21 or 2xLBX-10+4xML marauder-3d, and a wolfhound/locust to fill up the deck. This is like a very 'starter kit' for CW because you really need to be able to have at least 2-3 mechs suited for any kind of map/gamemode combination you can face. Right now you can play only like really brawly maps which are minority.

[Trenchbird]

I'd also make a second long range deck. That brawler deck isn't bad. But it's not optimal, as was stated.

[MakesBadChoices]

So, I hear you on my mechs being ill suited for it, and rather expected it as it feels very pokey with all the clan laser I've been seeing. But I've seen entire IS teams get wiped every time (and one ill-suited mech shouldn't result in total wipes). What I'm really nailing towards here is the IS design envelope narrower?

[Vxheous]

Put 3 ERLL on your Shadowhawk 2K, and you have a good long range poke medium. Atlas...don't bother. Marauder 5D you can probably run 3LPL/2ERML (not ideal mounts, but will be better than your current build). Sucks you have a Wolfhound 1(C) and not a Wolfhound 2, having that 6th laser mount makes a difference, as it allows you to run 6 medium laser (30 alpha) + 280 LFE.

[Trenchbird]

Vxheous Kerensky, on 06 August 2017 - 06:42 PM, said:

Atlas...don't bother.

Would it be fair to say that having a first wave of twelve Atlases is "Viable" if one of them is piloted by the B33F?

[MakesBadChoices]

Oh, and the other mechs I didn't mention.
AWS-8Q
KNG-000
CPT-2k
QKD-5k

[Vxheous]

Catten Hart, on 06 August 2017 - 06:44 PM, said:

Would it be fair to say that having a first wave of twelve Atlases is "Viable" if one of them is piloted by the B33F?

That's if you're organized in a group, then yes, it would be useful, but then so would 12 Locust. Different story compared to pugging/small group FW.

MakesBadChoices, on 06 August 2017 - 06:46 PM, said:

Oh, and the other mechs I didn't mention.
AWS-8Q
KNG-000
CPT-2k
QKD-5k

AWS-8Q you can do 3LPL + 4ERML and it'll play pretty good (apart from having barn doors as torsos).
KNG-000 same as Atlas, don't bother, slow speed + high tonnage is wasted in your dropdeck especially pugging.
CPT-K2 you can do dual gauss + 4ERML
QKD-5K you can do 4ERLL in relatively high mounts

Unfortunately, none of your mechs are really FW meta (Battlemasters/Grasshoppers/Warhammers/Griffins/etc), but they can be serviceable, Personally, I just run 3x Grasshopper-H + Hunchback 4P as my default deck right now, 3x Warhammer-R + Hunchback 4P for hot deck, 3x Grasshopper-P + Shadowhawk 2K as long range. Occasionally sub in a Battlemaster 1G/2c and drop my Hunchback/Shadowhawk to a Firestarter-S/Wolfhound 2

Edited by Vxheous Kerensky, 06 August 2017 - 06:56 PM.

[Tarl Cabot]

MakesBadChoices, on 06 August 2017 - 06:24 PM, said:

My bad on the mechs, didn't even think about it. I don't think there's anything too revolutionary going on with them.


Atlas ddc, UAC20, SRM6(3), med laser(2), ECM
Shadowhawk 2k, SRM6(3), med laser(3), JJx3
Marauder 5D, med laser (4), MRM30(2), JJ x 1
Wolfhound 1c, med pulse (3), large pulse (1)

The wolfhound is going to get swapped out for a spider at some point when I get enough points for the mech bays.

4-5 pts on rear armor, front load the rest

Shadowhawk 2 or 3 LL (or ERLL) 3SRM4
Wolfhound - MPL, ML or ERML

The others I do not play enough.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 06 August 2017 - 06:48 PM.

[denAirwalkerrr]

Well in my opinion it's not very good to have just long and brawl decks. And to start with I'd rather recomend to make one balanced dech which will be able to perform on most of the maps more or less reliable.

Here's what comes in my mind in upcomming 250 tons for IS:
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...3a4ae2c79ecc27c
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...1582e821deb2dcb
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...0483c5aa82d94e5
http://mwo.smurfy-ne...f5185d9cffd9b41

Just look at builds and it should be kinda easy to figure out on which maps it's best to start with each of them)

Pretty much every of these guys is able to deal at least 300-400 dmg wit relative ease when you'll learn to play them and position on the map, so getting at least 1k at each game is a good goal to start with.

UPD: Forgot jumpjet on assassin - fixed

Edited by denAirwalkerrr, 06 August 2017 - 07:00 PM.

[denAirwalkerrr]

And yes.. Kinda comletely all of your chassis are off CW meta

[LordLeto]

Find a group to play with. That's rule 1 of FP. If you try to solo you're going to experience, well, what you experienced so far. There are some TS hubs around that people for pick up groups for FP in, the FRR/DC hub is fairly active and has two nights of coordinated drops. Friday's and Sunday's.

Drop the assaults. IS will be losing tonnage soon and they don't bring enough to offset their weight currently and certainly won't once tonnage drops. Plus the assaults you have are kinda subpar. Atlases can be fun if everyone runs them but that is rare. You have a half decent hvy deck if you work on your builds. The MAD-5D is far from the strongest MAD but it makes a half decent brawler either 1 lpl 5 ml and 2 srm4a, or 5 mpl and 2srm4a. The 3 lpl 2erml build isn't half be either for greater range. The catapult and QuickDraw are good, not great, mechs but I don't have builds for them off the top of my head as I don't own them personally. That will leave enough tonnage for your shadow hawk as your last mech. Which can do the long range pokey builds in addition to your brawler build.

Ideally you need two drop decks. A hvy mech laser vomit midrange deck, grasshoppers are strong for that. And a cool running ballistic deck, there's no one chassis that does that across variants well, but MAD-3R, WHR-6R(I think) and a couple others are staples for this. Roughnecks drop this week and seem to fill a lot of these roles on different variants so look at those Tuesday. Last spot for either deck is usually recommended to bring a fast brawling medium. Which you have.

There is a RKA drop deck guide on the FRR board that is being updated currently that has a lot of good builds to look at. Some haven't been touched but start there. If you drop on the FRR hub a lot of those builds will get used.

[denAirwalkerrr]

^links would be nice I guess

[Vxheous]

After looking at your mechs again, run them like this:
Awesome: http://mwo.smurfy-ne...3629083fcd3bd4d
Catapult: (still working on a build for the K2)
Quickdraw: http://mwo.smurfy-ne...03a3d5c875c6775
Shadowhawk: http://mwo.smurfy-ne...7a201ee2ebbe710

This should put you at 260 tons (of 265 right now).

[MakesBadChoices]

Thanks for the tips guys, the common theme seems to be that I need to retool for generally longer range engagements after perusing the builds you guys are putting forth. I guess I had too much fun brawling in quick-play!

As for the non-meta chassis (arrrgh!), at least I got to have a blast in the other queues.

I'll try out the pokey-long range style of play to see how like it. Laser vomit never really felt fun to me, which is I guess why I've gravitated towards brawling.

[LordLeto]

denAirwalkerrr, on 06 August 2017 - 07:17 PM, said:

^links would be nice I guess

On my phone, links are a pita. But this is the RKA drop deck thread, the spreadsheet for a lot of common builds are there. But like I said it's in the process of being updated for new tech so not every build is current:
https://mwomercs.com...ck-composition/


And the FRR/DC hub thread:

https://mwomercs.com...-hub-ts-server/

Edited by LordLeto, 06 August 2017 - 07:24 PM.

[LordLeto]

MakesBadChoices, on 06 August 2017 - 07:21 PM, said:

Thanks for the tips guys, the common theme seems to be that I need to retool for generally longer range engagements after perusing the builds you guys are putting forth. I guess I had too much fun brawling in quick-play!

As for the non-meta chassis (arrrgh!), at least I got to have a blast in the other queues.

I'll try out the pokey-long range style of play to see how like it. Laser vomit never really felt fun to me, which is I guess why I've gravitated towards brawling.

Brawling is still strong, it just needs everyone on the same page the make it work in FP. Hardest thing for us to consistently beat right now is a coordinated Linebacker brawl rush. These recommendations are more forgiving/flexible in general and a good place to start.


The best place to start is finding a group.