43 replies to this topic

[Kitty Bacon]

The Annihilator is a major Yay for me. It has become my 100 tonner IS mech of choice. It can carry all the things I love in this world. Mainly, 4 LB10s with enough armor to push through enemy teams. Run a LFE 300 with 4 LB10s and 2 Mlas and you will tear mechs apart. Or, if you want more dakka, 2 UAC5s 2 UAC10s with your arms to shield with. Those huge arms are great for blocking damage.

I normally would suggest dual heavy Gauss but with so much MG madness around, and how bad those HGs blow up... Its a no go. One goes pop and you will die, regardless of the STD engine you have. 6 AC5s is another viable build on it. Great sustained DPS and can do a lot of pinpoint damage. And if you have the 1E, 6 LLs and 2 Med pulse. 23 Double Heatsinks allows you to fire 3 on each arm and cut components off mechs. While the 2 med pulse allow you to zombie in it.

It is not a very easy mech to use. It is large, the cockpit is high up and if a light hugs you and you got torso guns, you can't aim low enough to shoot it. Its why I love the 4 LB build since you got 2 in the arms.

Another build you can run is dual MRM40s on the hero with 2 LLs and 4 Mlas as backup. The MRMs are located on the neck and, if done right, you can shoot over the top of some buildings to hit people on the other side, since the mech is so freaking tall!

[Angel of Annihilation]

invernomuto, on 28 August 2017 - 08:39 AM, said:

Why are you assuming that the Nightstar will be a good Assault mech? I already preordered one, I am just curious since we do not know hitboxes, quirks, etc.

I will answer at least part of this one.

First of all the Nightstar pretty much shares the Marauder/Marauder IIC torso design so honestly I don't expect there to be any issues with the hit boxes. Your just going to have to point your nose at the enemy and wiggle back and forth a bit to easily spread damage wherever it needs to be spread. That right there is going to make them tough to take down.

Second, all your hard points are high, at cockpit level so your going to be able to hill hump like there is no tomorrow. Also based on the arm locations your likely going to be able to corner peak pretty good as well.

Third, all variants have a decent engine cap with one having a 400 cap. This means you should be able to get at least enough speed out of the mech to at least somewhat be able to keep up with the NASCAR that is so common. Alternatively if you prefer firepower, you can down engine it to the same 300 engine most Annihilators use and have near the same firepower.

Fourth, at 95 tons, your probably not going to get stuck with the crappy agility 100 ton mechs get by default. Now I am not expecting miracles but a 10-12 acceleration rate is probably likely which is significantly better than the 6.88 100 ton mechs all get.

Fifth, all variants get a good mix of both Energy and Ballistic hard points so build choice and quality should be good. Your going to be able to go heavy energy, heavy ballistic or mixed energy and ballistic with equal ease.

Sixth, it has a true chicken walker leg design. This tends to reduce the mechs height significantly which will make it easier to hide from enemy fire.

As for quirks, well you can't really count on quirks because PGI changes them all the time. The Annihilator is ONLY good because of its armor quirks. Without them it would be mediocre. However, I don't think the Nightstar will have that issue because even without quirks, it still has all those characteristics and features I mentioned above which should be enough to carry it at least into the above average range as far as performance goes.

Now we honestly don't have a clue what PGI can and will do to screw it up but at a glance baring some sort of huge design flaw such as PGI making the entire forward area of the mech, back to the arm socket, all CT, then I think it might actually be a very solid mech.

[Jun Watarase]

Is there any reason to take an Atlas over the Annihilator when both will be avaialble for c-bills evnetually?

The Annihilator is obviously FAR tankier than the Atlas...which is one of the reasons you want a 100 tonner in the first place, to tank during a push. It has better hardpoints and can boat ballistics while the atlas is stuck with a weird mix. And the skill tree only encourages boating one weapon type.

Its basically the whole "direwolf made atlas obsolete" thing again except the annihilator is an IS mech and you dont have to worry about FP restrictions.

[Xetelian]

Get the Marauder IIC instead, especially the Scorch.

Or get the Madcat MKII, especially the Deathstrike

Both go quite fast with plenty of weapons.

I wouldn't recommend an ANH to anyone but the most extreme of Assault pilots.


I rarely have a game where we have an ANH that knows how to pilot an Assault mech.


Yes it brings a lot of fire power but it is also really slow and cannot be made any faster than 52KPH with tweak.

With this kind of Assault you need to know when to commit and when to hide, and on maps like Polar and Frozen you'll be doing a LOT of hiding because poking for trades is not possible.