57 replies to this topic

[Wildstreak]

[Mole]

El Bandito, on 29 September 2017 - 07:32 PM, said:

And Mist Lynx is back from the dead.

What do you mean, 'back from the dead'? In order to come back from the dead it had to have been alive in the first place. The Mist Lynx is not back from the dead, it's just finally been truly born.

[El Bandito]

Mole, on 01 October 2017 - 04:04 PM, said:

What do you mean, 'back from the dead'? In order to come back from the dead it had to have been alive in the first place. The Mist Lynx is not back from the dead, it's just finally been truly born.

It was a stillborn. And now it came back from the dead.

[Y E O N N E]

MischiefSC, on 01 October 2017 - 02:18 PM, said:

I've been playing the MAD 5D with 2xmrm30, 4ml, 1mpl, lfe300. No, not meta but over 30 matches my average damage is over 540 in QP. All 60 MRMs, because both launchers are packed tight and slanted upward end up packed super tight, less spread than an srm6 griffin. t's fun and I loved the MAD in TT, nice to have one that doesn't suck. I'll rotate the meta BH in too.

So when they get nerfed I'll blame you.

It's good to have a plan in place.

I mean, I may have been responsible for getting the MAD-5D nerfed in the first place. When it came out, I was an absolute powerhouse with that 'Mech. An XL 350 with 1x LPL, 4x MPL, and 2x SRM4A combined with its compact size and the ability to keep any target in front of you to make it an excellent brawl 'Mech. The splat TBR may have had a bigger alpha, but it went everywhere from more than 100 meters away where the MAD's 52 points were concentrated and fast-firing out to 297 meters and remained more potent than the TBR out to ~400 m.

Man, I miss that build synergy.

[MischiefSC]

Yeonne Greene, on 01 October 2017 - 04:34 PM, said:

I mean, I may have been responsible for getting the MAD-5D nerfed in the first place. When it came out, I was an absolute powerhouse with that 'Mech. An XL 350 with 1x LPL, 4x MPL, and 2x SRM4A combined with its compact size and the ability to keep any target in front of you to make it an excellent brawl 'Mech. The splat TBR may have had a bigger alpha, but it went everywhere from more than 100 meters away where the MAD's 52 points were concentrated and fast-firing out to 297 meters and remained more potent than the TBR out to ~400 m.

Man, I miss that build synergy.

Do the MRM 60 on it. Just play them like SRMs. It's 80 pts and it's not hard to get almost all of it on target. It's not the single hitloc joy that the 2x4As are at 120-210m on that thing but still. It's a firehose of hate and very, very cool running.

[Y E O N N E]

MischiefSC, on 01 October 2017 - 07:34 PM, said:

Do the MRM 60 on it. Just play them like SRMs. It's 80 pts and it's not hard to get almost all of it on target. It's not the single hitloc joy that the 2x4As are at 120-210m on that thing but still. It's a firehose of hate and very, very cool running.

I think I'd tighten that up a bit.

Edit: Also, I hate MRMs. They absolutely suck at converting damage into kills.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 01 October 2017 - 08:19 PM.

[panzer1b]

Honestly, i think its relatively balanced tech base wise, with a few notable exceptions (bad mechs, certain weapons are DOA and remain DOA to this day, ect). IS dominates short range brawl since they can generally take much more damage, and with LFE, they are nolonger forced to throw away one of the 3 things: firepower, mobility, protection. Yeah cXLs are still better, but the LFE has actually given IS a very solid fighting chance, solong as you dont insist on breaking 80kph in a heavy.

Worth mentioning is that alot of new tech came out not that long ago. LFE engine (flat upgrade for 95% of IS mechs that has STD, may or may not be good option for previously XL builds). Then you get one of the most useful generalist weapons for IS, the ERML. It has range, and like the clan one, its relatively weight efficient provided you have the slots to boat them. IS now has both LBXs are UACs (LBXs are trash, obviously, uacs are a flat upgrade unless you really need PPFLD or minimal weight per gun). Then you got MRMs (longer range stream fire SRMs, generally bad unless ur shooting dires). Finally, IS gets 2 new gauss rifles, the light (dont bother unless you are having fun), and the heavy, which is hard to fit and make work due to the weight and perhaps even worse the slots. That said, it has the advantage of incredible DPS (better then AC20), very high PPFLD (50 with 2), and being super badass and satisfying to use (the think rocks your mech around and feels like an actual super heavy cannon and not some peashooter AC20). On clan side, you get ATMs (unique and viable even if very situational and many weaknesses) which are liek LRMs, but have the potential do do almost twice as much damage per launcher (ATM12 does 36, LRM20 does 20) if you get up close and still retain viability at mid range up to ~500m. Then the most important thing, the heavy lasers. While they have critical issues (burn time, long reload, trash range), they allow for mechs with low hardpointg count to actually get solid alfa strikes out them with no ghost heat issues (SHC before maximum was 31, now it can actually do 46). In the case of pokers or hit and run, the longer reload time is irrelevant and helps keep you running cool as well (the lasers may look hot at first, but they are no worse then traditional vomit on teh heat scale). Other then that, we got some micro lasers, but they just suck since there is no mech that has stupid amounts of energy hardpoints and is so strapped for tonnage it cant just use the ERSL or even the HSL.

As for the current meta, its primarily gauss/laser vomit, at least in solo drop and group QP. Pretty much every other clan mech is either boating the relatively new HLL (along with ERML/HML/MPL) to achieve stupid levels of alfa strike (78 is the maximum amount before ghost heat kicks in), or running 1-2 gauss rifles alongside some combo of energy weapons, with most alfa strikes being 50-80. Its not impssible to play against such builds, but you should be aware that poke warrior is the thing right now, and if you dont have a high alfa of your own, its best to use cover and minimize the enemys ability to get free damage in. One special mech to look out for is the deathstrike (108 alfa on the stupidest builds, the more "tame" ones or the CB variant: MCII-1, has ~80 or so which is still enough to strip a ST in 1 shot). Also, most clan heavys (i see this pretty often on mad2cs and hellbringers but almost any clan heavy or assault with 8+ energy can do it) are capable of running the 76-78 alfa strike aids-vomit as i like to call it. Its not as brutal as gauss vomit since you have no PPFLD and beam durations are appaling, but its still a crazy amount of raw damage that is likewise capable of removing your ST reliably if you dont twist away the second it fires on you.

The vast majority of random players are running either what was mentioned above (gauss/laser puke), dakka boats, or some sort of brawlers which often use the new IS uac20 to good effect (its really brutal if you dont get shat on by RNG and it jams on the 1st shot). There is also a good deal of RAC and MRM users, but neither of those weapons are what id call "meta" or even all that reliable against decent opponents. Both are mid range DPS, but the RACs need facetime of multiple seconds, during which you are gonna get cored if its not 1v1, and MRMs spread like crazy on anything that isnt the size of a dire (or perfectly stationary at point blank). Even then, MRMs are more or less high alfa SRM/LRM, they just dont do enough focused damage to kill stuff quickly, and cant even guarantee hits past 300m.

Anyways, just play around with the new tech and see for yourself what you like/dislike and what works or not. Myself i generally stick to gauss+ERML boats on clan (most reliable, good combination of alfa strike, DPS, and most of your damage is pretty pinpoint). SOme mechs that lack energy hardpoints i stick HLLS on, but they are less weight efficient so not that great unless you really need to get something out of 2-4 hardpoints. Alternatively for colder FW maps, i run ERLL/HLL/LPL (cLPL sucks, but some mechs i end up running out of slots before tonnage so LPLs are still superior to ERLLs but arent really worth the 2 extra tons) with ERML or even the rare MPL boat on my mechs, not quite following the alfa warrior meta game, but i like being able to play agressively and not just fire once or twice and then spend then next half minute cooling down. On IS, well i only have 3 mech at this moment i truly enjoy. The mad3r with some type of gauss rifle (i alternate between HGR and the regular depending on my mood, both with a combo of ERML and ERLLs for secondary). The warhammer with the rejuvenated dual GR 4 ERML build (LFE really made this one a keeper, its actually better then clan tech on most maps, walks over people if i can keep them at 400-600m). And finally the BSW which i have set up for brawling with 4 ERML and 1 uac20 (i really wanted to like the ac20's PPFLD, but i just cant justify doing 50% as much damage with it as the uac, assuming RNG doesnt really hate me ofc and instajam the thing 3 times in a row). Ive also been able to make GR work on that mech, but it feels like a waste since not enough DPS, and not enough secondary weapons either to do something akin to clan tech.

Edited by panzer1b, 01 October 2017 - 08:39 PM.

[Humpday]

Yeonne Greene, on 01 October 2017 - 07:53 PM, said:

Edit: Also, I hate MRMs. They absolutely suck at converting damage into kills.

Yeah theyre pretty terrible at securing kills. Fun to pester people with though. I specifically bought the trebuchet-7m(i think, the one with 20% cooldown, heatgen, and velocity) an hour ago, to run around with MRM60...went 757 and 628 damage back to back in the first and only 2 times I've used it...though was only able to secure one kill even though the dudes were cherry red CT...kinda annoying.

Going to mess about with High explosive and spread reduction, wonder if that'll do anything.

[MischiefSC]

Yeonne Greene, on 01 October 2017 - 07:53 PM, said:

I think I'd tighten that up a bit.

Edit: Also, I hate MRMs. They absolutely suck at converting damage into kills.

I know you like dem ERMLs but the heat is important and much beyond SRM range the accuracy of the MRMs starts to fall off fast.

Dropping a 30 to a 20 gives you the tonnage to go with a 325, but is the 6 kph really worth it? I find a lot of times I'm up close on a King Crab or Atlas or especially when you get into the side of any of the long bodied Clan mechs (EBJ, TBR, MADIIC, MKII, WHK, etc) I'm absolutely able to get it all on target. The extra 10 damage per alpha translates to an almost 20% increase in sustained DPS, which I find far more relevant in QP than precision competitive play.

I get the logic of wanting to try and pull another in engine heatsink but it's not really getting you anything but a few empty spaces - it doesn't convert to anything. One of the biggest strengths of the MAD is its ability to eat damage and stay alive, so the extra ammo comes up.

This is pretty much what I run. I tried dropping a ton of MRM ammo for a JJ and it's fine. I could drop the single MPL to a ML, shave 0.44 tons of armor and go to a lfe305 for... some millions but I already had the 300lfe, so meh.

At the moment though it's my best QP farming mech for total damage, which in turn gives me KMDDs and truly stupid component damage. Just never cared about KDR. I play QP to relax and grind endless loot.

I tried the BH2 build - too damn hot.

[Y E O N N E]

MischiefSC, on 01 October 2017 - 09:31 PM, said:

I know you like dem ERMLs but the heat is important and much beyond SRM range the accuracy of the MRMs starts to fall off fast.

Dropping a 30 to a 20 gives you the tonnage to go with a 325, but is the 6 kph really worth it? I find a lot of times I'm up close on a King Crab or Atlas or especially when you get into the side of any of the long bodied Clan mechs (EBJ, TBR, MADIIC, MKII, WHK, etc) I'm absolutely able to get it all on target. The extra 10 damage per alpha translates to an almost 20% increase in sustained DPS, which I find far more relevant in QP than precision competitive play.

I get the logic of wanting to try and pull another in engine heatsink but it's not really getting you anything but a few empty spaces - it doesn't convert to anything. One of the biggest strengths of the MAD is its ability to eat damage and stay alive, so the extra ammo comes up.

This is pretty much what I run. I tried dropping a ton of MRM ammo for a JJ and it's fine. I could drop the single MPL to a ML, shave 0.44 tons of armor and go to a lfe305 for... some millions but I already had the 300lfe, so meh.

At the moment though it's my best QP farming mech for total damage, which in turn gives me KMDDs and truly stupid component damage. Just never cared about KDR. I play QP to relax and grind endless loot.

I tried the BH2 build - too damn hot.

I wasn't having heat issues at all. With either the MRM 5D or the BH2.

For the engine, I actually run it with Mobility rather than Armor, so I'm actually getting 11 kph. Granted, I also typically run it with Snubs and SRMs these days and I didn't bother to change anything when I tried the MRMs, but still...heat wasn't getting in the way of anything.

For the BH2, I think you're fighting too close. You should be going for maximum Cool-Run and as many Heat Gen nodes as you can get such that one shot should put you at around 50% when you finish the cool-down cycle. It is hot, but the wait time between shots is similar to one of those 71-point Clan laser vomit alphas.

E: Play the BH2 not like a Heavy, but as a pocket Assault.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 01 October 2017 - 09:41 PM.

[MischiefSC]

Yeonne Greene, on 01 October 2017 - 09:41 PM, said:

I wasn't having heat issues at all. With either the MRM 5D or the BH2.

For the engine, I actually run it with Mobility rather than Armor, so I'm actually getting 11 kph. Granted, I also typically run it with Snubs and SRMs these days and I didn't bother to change anything when I tried the MRMs, but still...heat wasn't getting in the way of anything.

For the BH2, I think you're fighting too close. You should be going for maximum Cool-Run and as many Heat Gen nodes as you can get such that one shot should put you at around 50% when you finish the cool-down cycle. It is hot, but the wait time between shots is similar to one of those 71-point Clan laser vomit alphas.

E: Play the BH2 not like a Heavy, but as a pocket Assault.

Yep, all but 5 nodes in Operations, all the heat, most the range and the ammo/laser burn in firepower, rest in survival.

In FW with a team (or group queue, when I rarely play it) it's probably fine. In QP it's too easy to get yourself on a bad map for it or just pushed by the enemy team or wolfpacked. For QP I find that, in the aggregate, my w/l is better if I've got something that can shoot more often. I find that if you're any good at poking you'll often draw lights from the other team and even if you're standing in the middle of your allies they'll often run away and leave you to it.

Dat pug queue.

[MischiefSC]

Addendum -

So I've decided to run an experiment and literally only play Marauders in QP this whole month and no group queue. So my stats for the month will only reflect that.

I'm playing the BH2 build you recommended (gaussvomit), the MRM60 build I talked about and a 3R built like this.

Interestingly I'm having my best overall month in QP (still only 17 matchs for sample though) in the last year. Admittedly I tend to run builds to test stuff and it impacts my metrics accordingly, however....

they're all 3 really good. Solid, excellent in their niches even. More fun than I've had in QP in a long time.

Curious to see where my stats end the month.

[Y E O N N E]

Interesting 3R build. Allow me to improve upon it. Higher DPS, higher sustained DPS, better velocity synchronization between AC/5 and RAC/2 (difference of 350 m/s vs. 500 m/s).

This is the MAD-5D I prefer to run, though if XL makes you queasy you can always trade damage to go with LFE (or LFE again).

Still scores high, much better at securing the kills.

[Athom83]

Bombast, on 29 September 2017 - 07:21 PM, said:

The Blackjack is fine, though the skill tree and RAC/2 kind of took all the fun out of the BJ-1 (No longer Mega quirked for AC/2s).

UAC/2s benefit from standard AC/2 quirks, and UAC/2s with even a tiny bit of quirking is vastly better than a RAC/2 in terms of DPS and sustained damage. 20% from quirks plus 15% from Skill Tree, you get the UAC/2 firing at 0.468 cooldown , then you get double tapping on top of that. You get ~8.5 DPS each gun and UAC/2s can sustain that for quite a while and unjams very quickly when it does jam. Blackjack with 2 of those... wow its fun.

[Bombast]

Athom83, on 03 October 2017 - 06:54 AM, said:

UAC/2s benefit from standard AC/2 quirks, and UAC/2s with even a tiny bit of quirking is vastly better than a RAC/2 in terms of DPS and sustained damage. 20% from quirks plus 15% from Skill Tree, you get the UAC/2 firing at 0.468 cooldown , then you get double tapping on top of that. You get ~8.5 DPS each gun and UAC/2s can sustain that for quite a while and unjams very quickly when it does jam. Blackjack with 2 of those... wow its fun.

I don't find UAC/2s nearly as satisfying and fun as the RACs (Though their undoubtedly better), and I was mostly referring to the loss of the BJ-1s AC/2 mega quirks. As it stands, it's AC/2 quirks are about on par for most other IS medium's general AC quirks. As I recall, it's only got a mild velocity advantage over the other Blackjacks, which all have quirks that cover 2s, 5s, and 10s.

[Athom83]

Bombast, on 03 October 2017 - 07:02 AM, said:

I don't find UAC/2s nearly as satisfying and fun as the RACs (Though their undoubtedly better), and I was mostly referring to the loss of the BJ-1s AC/2 mega quirks. As it stands, it's AC/2 quirks are about on par for most other IS medium's general AC quirks. As I recall, it's only got a mild velocity advantage over the other Blackjacks, which all have quirks that cover 2s, 5s, and 10s.

I mean, 20% cooldown for AC/2s (BJ-1 has 10% AC/2 + 10% ballistic, BJ-1DC has 20% ballistic) still seems like quite a bit to me. And yah, there are a few other mediums (and 2-3 heavies) with the same 20%, but they all have either low mounts or only 1 slot for ballistics. I know you like RACs better, but if you got a Blackjack 1(DC), just try out a 2 UAC/2 build for a little while. Trust me, its fun. DakaDakaDakaDakaDaka.

[C E Dwyer]

not balanced would be the best way of putting it

[MischiefSC]

Yeonne Greene, on 02 October 2017 - 10:53 PM, said:

Interesting 3R build. Allow me to improve upon it. Higher DPS, higher sustained DPS, better velocity synchronization between AC/5 and RAC/2 (difference of 350 m/s vs. 500 m/s).

This is the MAD-5D I prefer to run, though if XL makes you queasy you can always trade damage to go with LFE (or LFE again).

Still scores high, much better at securing the kills.

In FW or Group queue securing kills is good - in QP kills are the cookies your puggles will chase.

End of the day the only metric I care about regardless of queue is "did I win the match".

I like the 3R build a lot. I went with the 2s because I likes the range but I find I'm usually around 600 anyway. I'll try it.