I have been looking for a good mech that is in the 50-60 ton range. It doesn't matter if it is IS or Clan. I want something that can bear a decent amount of weapons, and a good amount of speed. A blend of ACs and lasers would suit me. I've been looking at the Shadow Hawk. I would prefer maybe 2 or 3 suggestions:
A 50 ton mech: Like the Hunchback, or something similar.
A 55 ton mech: I've been looking at the Shadow Hawk, but I'll take any other suggestions.
A 60 ton mech: Something like a Dragon. It is fairly fast, but I heard it's trash.
I'm starting to dislike heavier mechs for their lackluster speed, but I don't like doing little damage in lighter mechs. I'll settle for decent firepower, and good maneuverability.
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23 replies to this topic
#3
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- The Guide
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Welcoming Committee
Posted 10 November 2017 - 08:37 AM
Okay, as someone who has pretty much used them all, here's a short-hand guide.
50 tons:
Clan. You have three models.
The Nova is your classic suicide bait. Do NOT EVER use the default loadout. In Battletech this Prime build is great because of redundancy in a game where weapons are very easily destroyed through armor. In MWO, firing all 12 ER MLs will probably kill you; in fact in Battletech after losing a couple of heatsinks, it cooks the pilot alive. No seriously, it cooks the pilot in his seat and he dies.
Stepping past that bit about needing to change the default loadout, the Nova is a very solid Omnimech for what it is. It rocks STD armor and structure, however, so it has very limited tonnage options. Don't expect to carry much in ballistic weapons, though MGs of all types really compliment laser weaponry. A few parts can also carry missiles (bring a BIG launcher) and some arms are made for carrying heavier ballistic weapons. The Nova's incredibly small stature is one of its greatest selling points and in fact, in Battletech it is even smaller (8 something meters, basically as small as the MWO Locust...). Far as MWO goes, this mech is pretty solid. My personal advice is to give it some "Heavy" lasers and a variety if you insist on the 6 energy arms, set to fire on different groups. You can laser vomit this mech but the endurance is very low for simultaneous rainbow puke.
The Inner Sphere refer to it as the Blackhawk, because of two reasons. When one is legged, its final stand is very reminiscent of a real life event that earned itself a movie, and similar to the US helicopter of the same name, its primary role is actually to deliver battle armor infantry into the field and support them by obliterating rival infantry and vehicles, while sporting enough firepower and firing frequency to take on even 100 tonners in short engagements.
Hunchback IIC is a Clan Battlemech based on the HBK-2, a second generation Star League model. It has changed somewhat since then, however, it is intended to be a relic used by old Clan warriors that seek to die in the glory of combat... regardless of whether or not they seek to die. This mech is intended to be a coffin that can pack a heck of a punch so that the pilot can go out in a blaze of glory.
Going beyond the lore, it is true that even maxed out on armor this thing feels like a glass cannon. It packs an extremely deadly punch (btw, just a warning, fire UAC/20s in chain fire to avoid the ghost heat, it will also let you safely double fire the UAC/20s before they properly reload without getting ghost heat). Think of this as a reasonably fast weapons platform. It is every bit as versatile or better than the IS version in terms of weapons... but that's where the similarities stop.
Until after some years in the invasion of the Inner Sphere, the Clans simply referred to the Hunchback IIC as the Hunchback. The IIC was adopted later just to simplify eavesdropping on Inner Sphere communications as the IS used it to distinguish Clan Hunchbacks from their own Hunchbacks.
The Huntsman is a Clan 50 ton Omnimech that is the Clan's closest comparison to the IS Hunchback. They are known as Nobori-Nin in the Draconis Combine [Kurita] and Banner-Bearers or "Nobo" to the rest of the IS. Certain Davions have nicknamed them Sharkfins. Though this had nothing to do with their "flag-like fin" but instead due to their predatory nature of finding ambushes before those traps could be sprung and tearing them to shreds.
In MWO they are reasonably affordable (as most of them are 2 million or more off the price of their canon prices), very versatile as a jack of all trades and able to take abuse. Just like their lore, they are good at everything. But like anything that is good at everything this comes at a lack of being the best at anything.
Clans: 55 tonners.
The Stormcrow is a 55 tonner known in the Inner Sphere as the Ryoken (Hunting Dog). Capable of fighting any size mech, they excel at combat against light mechs due to their high speeds and mobility.
This was actually such an overpowered mech in Faction Play's Scouting Missions, the Clans have been restricted to 50 tons or less while the IS can still do 55 ton mechs. As such expect its torso twist to be limited in speed out of the box; a few torso twisting speed skill nodes easily fix this problem. This is sort of a semi-mandatory tax to keep you from overdoing it in other fields.
Clans: 60 tons.
The Mad Dog is known as the Vulture or Hagaetaka (by The Dracs in Kurita) in the Inner Sphere because it is a support mech that 'pecks' at weakened enemies to finish them off.
In MWO SRM builds are quite common, alienating everything about the Mad Dog's design philosophies. This mech can't take abuse and it isn't intended to. The pilot has a very high perch to help him see over cliffs and walls to aim and lob missiles while still maintaining the Clan creed of no indirect fire (not that it matters in MWO). I personally find that "ATM" launchers are exceptionally fun on this mech.
Okay, that's it for Clanners thus far...
Will do a separate post for the IS.
50 tons:
Clan. You have three models.
The Nova is your classic suicide bait. Do NOT EVER use the default loadout. In Battletech this Prime build is great because of redundancy in a game where weapons are very easily destroyed through armor. In MWO, firing all 12 ER MLs will probably kill you; in fact in Battletech after losing a couple of heatsinks, it cooks the pilot alive. No seriously, it cooks the pilot in his seat and he dies.
Stepping past that bit about needing to change the default loadout, the Nova is a very solid Omnimech for what it is. It rocks STD armor and structure, however, so it has very limited tonnage options. Don't expect to carry much in ballistic weapons, though MGs of all types really compliment laser weaponry. A few parts can also carry missiles (bring a BIG launcher) and some arms are made for carrying heavier ballistic weapons. The Nova's incredibly small stature is one of its greatest selling points and in fact, in Battletech it is even smaller (8 something meters, basically as small as the MWO Locust...). Far as MWO goes, this mech is pretty solid. My personal advice is to give it some "Heavy" lasers and a variety if you insist on the 6 energy arms, set to fire on different groups. You can laser vomit this mech but the endurance is very low for simultaneous rainbow puke.
The Inner Sphere refer to it as the Blackhawk, because of two reasons. When one is legged, its final stand is very reminiscent of a real life event that earned itself a movie, and similar to the US helicopter of the same name, its primary role is actually to deliver battle armor infantry into the field and support them by obliterating rival infantry and vehicles, while sporting enough firepower and firing frequency to take on even 100 tonners in short engagements.
Speed 81 kph. Can jump; jumpjets are not removable. (Reasonably tanky for a Clan mech. Rear is very wide, however, it is well protected from all front and side angles. I encourage Seismic sensors if you choose to use this mech for sharp shooting at range. Use torso mounts for energy sniper weapons, arms for brawling weapons. Most ballistic slots are in the STs as well, so choose between brawling or hill humping 'cause you won't get good performance by going for both. The together 12 energy hardpoints in the arms can make a devastating one two punch, but that runs hot. Be wary of side swipes, the side torsos are pretty large which is both a good and a bad thing.
WARNING: MWO has a limit of 16 weapons. It is possible to exceed this; don't, it won't let you play if you do.
Hunchback IIC is a Clan Battlemech based on the HBK-2, a second generation Star League model. It has changed somewhat since then, however, it is intended to be a relic used by old Clan warriors that seek to die in the glory of combat... regardless of whether or not they seek to die. This mech is intended to be a coffin that can pack a heck of a punch so that the pilot can go out in a blaze of glory.
Going beyond the lore, it is true that even maxed out on armor this thing feels like a glass cannon. It packs an extremely deadly punch (btw, just a warning, fire UAC/20s in chain fire to avoid the ghost heat, it will also let you safely double fire the UAC/20s before they properly reload without getting ghost heat). Think of this as a reasonably fast weapons platform. It is every bit as versatile or better than the IS version in terms of weapons... but that's where the similarities stop.
Until after some years in the invasion of the Inner Sphere, the Clans simply referred to the Hunchback IIC as the Hunchback. The IIC was adopted later just to simplify eavesdropping on Inner Sphere communications as the IS used it to distinguish Clan Hunchbacks from their own Hunchbacks.
Base speed: 81 kph. Variable depending on engine. High weapon mounts on torsos, rarely has arm weapons. Keep in mind the arms are far from the cockpit and should never be fired while going up hills. Be wary of high smoke weapons, their bright flash and smoke can obscure your view. Modest hitboxes are pretty fair with no discernable strength or weaknesses.
The Huntsman is a Clan 50 ton Omnimech that is the Clan's closest comparison to the IS Hunchback. They are known as Nobori-Nin in the Draconis Combine [Kurita] and Banner-Bearers or "Nobo" to the rest of the IS. Certain Davions have nicknamed them Sharkfins. Though this had nothing to do with their "flag-like fin" but instead due to their predatory nature of finding ambushes before those traps could be sprung and tearing them to shreds.
In MWO they are reasonably affordable (as most of them are 2 million or more off the price of their canon prices), very versatile as a jack of all trades and able to take abuse. Just like their lore, they are good at everything. But like anything that is good at everything this comes at a lack of being the best at anything.
Speed: 81 kph. All around pretty good. Be wary of ankle biters. WARNING: MWO has a limit of 16 weapons. Some Huntsman builds can exceed this. Don't bother doing it.
Clans: 55 tonners.
The Stormcrow is a 55 tonner known in the Inner Sphere as the Ryoken (Hunting Dog). Capable of fighting any size mech, they excel at combat against light mechs due to their high speeds and mobility.
This was actually such an overpowered mech in Faction Play's Scouting Missions, the Clans have been restricted to 50 tons or less while the IS can still do 55 ton mechs. As such expect its torso twist to be limited in speed out of the box; a few torso twisting speed skill nodes easily fix this problem. This is sort of a semi-mandatory tax to keep you from overdoing it in other fields.
At 97 kph for its base speed it is already really fast, but combined with its bouncing, tightly compact hitboxes, etc., this mech is capable of enduring lots of abuse while at high speed. Its survivability drastically reduces when stationary or at low speeds however and its legs are especially vulnerable. This is NOT a poke-and-hide mech. Hit and run tactics work best, brawling is a modest second. It can also be a running missileer. This mech has some ballistic options, however they are impractical. Too much weight is taken by the engine.
Clans: 60 tons.
The Mad Dog is known as the Vulture or Hagaetaka (by The Dracs in Kurita) in the Inner Sphere because it is a support mech that 'pecks' at weakened enemies to finish them off.
In MWO SRM builds are quite common, alienating everything about the Mad Dog's design philosophies. This mech can't take abuse and it isn't intended to. The pilot has a very high perch to help him see over cliffs and walls to aim and lob missiles while still maintaining the Clan creed of no indirect fire (not that it matters in MWO). I personally find that "ATM" launchers are exceptionally fun on this mech.
81 kph, quite manueverable. Makes a solid run and lob mech. Be warned that the high head position would make it a prime target for headshots, but I have never been headshotted to death; some have tried...but none have succeeded in getting me. This mech has ballistic options, however they are impractical due in part to slot limitations; however if you drop all missiles you can get a few Gauss Rifles onto one... meaning you can get pretty much any gun on there.
Okay, that's it for Clanners thus far...
Will do a separate post for the IS.
Edited by Koniving, 10 November 2017 - 09:27 AM.
#4
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- The Mercenary
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Member
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Posted 10 November 2017 - 08:51 AM
To get a better overview I recommend going here.
There are 3 IS 60T mechs(Dragon, Quickdraw, Rifleman...all 3 obsolete if you ask me) and one Clan, the MadDog.
Four 55T IS Mechs (Bushwacker, Griffin, Kintaro, Shadowhawk, Wolverine...where the Bushi and the Griffin are pretty decent mechs, Shadowhawk is still okish) and one Clan 55T mech, the Stormcrow wich is still pretty ok even if it got a bit squishy.
6 IS 50T mechs, all mediocre or worse.
3 Clan 50TMechs all good or even great. (Hunchback IIC+, Huntsman++, Nova+)
If I got you right you like ACs and lasers (does Jedi Hand move) you do not like LRMs.
The prime kandidates for AC+laser builds would be the Bushwacker and the Hunchback IIC.
Both with UAC10 and little else...maybe 2 ERMLasers as backup.
There are 3 IS 60T mechs(Dragon, Quickdraw, Rifleman...all 3 obsolete if you ask me) and one Clan, the MadDog.
Four 55T IS Mechs (Bushwacker, Griffin, Kintaro, Shadowhawk, Wolverine...where the Bushi and the Griffin are pretty decent mechs, Shadowhawk is still okish) and one Clan 55T mech, the Stormcrow wich is still pretty ok even if it got a bit squishy.
6 IS 50T mechs, all mediocre or worse.
3 Clan 50TMechs all good or even great. (Hunchback IIC+, Huntsman++, Nova+)
If I got you right you like ACs and lasers (does Jedi Hand move) you do not like LRMs.
The prime kandidates for AC+laser builds would be the Bushwacker and the Hunchback IIC.
Both with UAC10 and little else...maybe 2 ERMLasers as backup.
#5
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- 148 posts
Member
Posted 10 November 2017 - 09:15 AM
The Basilisk, on 10 November 2017 - 08:51 AM, said:
To get a better overview I recommend going here.
There are 3 IS 60T mechs(Dragon, Quickdraw, Rifleman...all 3 obsolete if you ask me) and one Clan, the MadDog.
Four 55T IS Mechs (Bushwacker, Griffin, Kintaro, Shadowhawk, Wolverine...where the Bushi and the Griffin are pretty decent mechs, Shadowhawk is still okish) and one Clan 55T mech, the Stormcrow wich is still pretty ok even if it got a bit squishy.
6 IS 50T mechs, all mediocre or worse.
3 Clan 50TMechs all good or even great. (Hunchback IIC+, Huntsman++, Nova+)
If I got you right you like ACs and lasers (does Jedi Hand move) you do not like LRMs.
The prime kandidates for AC+laser builds would be the Bushwacker and the Hunchback IIC.
Both with UAC10 and little else...maybe 2 ERMLasers as backup.
There are 3 IS 60T mechs(Dragon, Quickdraw, Rifleman...all 3 obsolete if you ask me) and one Clan, the MadDog.
Four 55T IS Mechs (Bushwacker, Griffin, Kintaro, Shadowhawk, Wolverine...where the Bushi and the Griffin are pretty decent mechs, Shadowhawk is still okish) and one Clan 55T mech, the Stormcrow wich is still pretty ok even if it got a bit squishy.
6 IS 50T mechs, all mediocre or worse.
3 Clan 50TMechs all good or even great. (Hunchback IIC+, Huntsman++, Nova+)
If I got you right you like ACs and lasers (does Jedi Hand move) you do not like LRMs.
The prime kandidates for AC+laser builds would be the Bushwacker and the Hunchback IIC.
Both with UAC10 and little else...maybe 2 ERMLasers as backup.
That's right, I dislike LRMs but I can tolerate them. The bushwacker seems like a great option.
#6
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- The Bloodlust
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Member
- LocationAbbotsford, BC
Posted 10 November 2017 - 09:19 AM
I've always been fond of medium mechs; they seem to fit my playstyle well. I'd say the Huntsman and Bushwacker are both really nice and versatile mechs and would be the first pair of mechs I'd suggest taking a close look at. the Shadowhawk and Centurion are more the 'Old Guard' but both can step up and perform well. The Griffin is also a nice albeit older mech. Of the clan mechs the Hunchback IIC and Nova are solid, and while I've only recently gotten my first Stormcrow it's worked well for me so far.
From personal experience I'd suggest avoiding the Uziel. Not that it's 'bad', but it underperforms a bit compared to other mechs in the class. I also hear the Kintaro isn't very good, but I've no first hand experience with that mech.
As for 60 tonners I actually like the Rifleman. I own the Legend Killer (Rifleman hero mech) and it's worked well for me, but I'm very comfortable with the Blackjack (a 45 ton mech) and find it plays like a bigger Blackjack.
LOL yes, I remember when the Nova first came out the match would drop and several seconds after it started you'd get 'player' killed 'player', and you'd look and see he was running a Nova. People would do an alpha strike at the start of a match to test out the weapons and end up cooking themselves.
From personal experience I'd suggest avoiding the Uziel. Not that it's 'bad', but it underperforms a bit compared to other mechs in the class. I also hear the Kintaro isn't very good, but I've no first hand experience with that mech.
As for 60 tonners I actually like the Rifleman. I own the Legend Killer (Rifleman hero mech) and it's worked well for me, but I'm very comfortable with the Blackjack (a 45 ton mech) and find it plays like a bigger Blackjack.
Koniving, on 10 November 2017 - 08:37 AM, said:
The Nova is your classic suicide bait. Do NOT EVER use the default loadout. In Battletech this Prime build is great because of redundancy in a game where weapons are very easily destroyed through armor. In MWO, firing all 12 ER MLs will probably kill you; in fact in Battletech after losing a couple of heatsinks, it cooks the pilot alive. No seriously, it cooks the pilot in his seat and he dies.
LOL yes, I remember when the Nova first came out the match would drop and several seconds after it started you'd get 'player' killed 'player', and you'd look and see he was running a Nova. People would do an alpha strike at the start of a match to test out the weapons and end up cooking themselves.
#7
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- Veteran Founder
- 5,060 posts
Member
- LocationSouthern Wisconsin
Posted 10 November 2017 - 09:27 AM
Rifleman with non-stock engine.
#9
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- The Guide
- 23,384 posts
Welcoming Committee
Posted 10 November 2017 - 10:22 AM
The Inner Sphere:
All mechs on this list are Battlemechs.
Gonna start with the shortest list first, the 60 tonners.
IS 60 tons.
The Dragon is a Draconis Combine workhorse. High speed for an IS Heavy with more armor than most 85 ton assault mechs, with a short, stocky body and a gyro design quirk that effectively gives it a weight free 'Improved Gyro' so that even in fist-to-fist slug matches, this thing is gonna be standing over and kicking its enemies. It is notorious for the Dragon charge...
...which shortly after it became a thing in MWO, PGI removed knockdowns entirely due to a combination of technical issues and trolling, effectively removing MWO's only melee combat system. In MWO Dragons could knock down even 100 ton mechs.
In MWO, their armor is absolutely meaningless since anyone can pack on full armor. However they were given a plethora of armor and structure quirks that do rival non-quirked 80 ton mechs. So not quite as up there as they are in lore, but capitalize on armor/structure buffs in the skill tree and you'll be up there. Dragons, unlike in Battletech, are not very good at straight out brawls (actually they are, provided your enemy count is down to 2 mediums or 1 heavy as seen here however MWO players see brawling as being able to slug it out surrounded by 6 or more enemies), but are effectively similar in use to Clan Gargoyles. Hit and run.
Their exceptional arm range, good torso range, and high sideways visibility all give them great run and gun abilities. They work best when fighting while moving at top speed, circling their enemies. Even so, they can tank exceptionally well in long range roles even if moving slowly (but please keep moving). Dragons have EXCEPTIONAL climbing abilities. (Stop watching after 4 mins) This is still possible and is actually easier to do now than it was back then.
The Quickdraw is a mech aptly named for its ability to fire both forward in backwards and ability to deal with two targets at the same time without penalty to accuracy on the secondary target, as well as flip its arms despite having lower arm actuators AND hands.
None of this is carried over into MWO. Even so, the mech is pretty versatile. The hitboxes are pretty fair though its legs seem to draw fire that is not even aimed at it, leading to a joke in All Systems Nominal where friendly LRMs accidentally leg one. That's been fixed over the years. Still.
One variant loves laser vomit, the there's one that mixes lasers with missiles and a third that boats missiles with some lasers. That last one is great as a light mech hunter.
The Rifleman is the slowest among these mechs. This is intended to be an anti-air mech and as such it is lightly armored to make room for the sensor and targeting suites as well as the firepower it needed.
In MWO, it lacks its radar, despite being one of the only mechs to feature a full fledge radar (spoiler, Battletech radar is worthless for finding mechs, so that might be why). This is a weapons platform that can take a modest beating. But it is not fast. It makes a solid hill humper, is exceptional at its designed roles. It can brawl modestly. My Rifle 3C video shows it can tank without any survival skill tree. Its variants focus on energy or energy + ballistics.
55 tonners.
The Shadowhawk is a(n) (eventually) multi-role mech that made its debut as a scout commander's mech intended to support light mechs on scout missions. (Spoiler alert, it was terrible at it and actual combat for several years, however its ability to grab lighter mechs and slug them kept them around on the field). Later generations saw them outshining mechs of their own class in both performance and in expense, as well as significantly increasing their size.
Sadly BT doesn't really matter here. As such all Shadowhawks are tall (though they shrunk almost 2 meters since their debut into MWO and have lost the title of the tallest 55 ton mech in the game). This thing is akin to a Hunchback, and prior to HoverJet[tm] technology, was the top dog in MWO. Between old nerfs since uplifted, HoverJets, and The Quirkening[tm], they have since fallen from grace. Still die hard fans profess how awesome this mech is, but must admit they can only say that after maxing out its mobility tree and giving it a big engine because without that speed, it pales in so many ways to the Hunchback.
The Wolverine is among my favorite mechs. This one is one of the most armored "all rounders" to ever exist in Battletech history and it is most famous for (prior to the 2800s) throwing its AC/5 at an enemy and then bashing it to death with its fists and kicking its knee actuator out before smashing the cockpit, and then tearing off that mech's arm to throw at another enemy... only to pick its AC/5 back up and make the kill shot.
But welcome to MWO. At least MWO gives a nod to that if you look at the right hand, the guns for the right arm are modular and held by the hand itself, connected to a gauntlet that is visually detachable.
The Wolverine still holds the title for the shortest 55 ton mech in the game. Its perfectly even hitboxes allow it to take endearing punishments, and thanks to popular belief that scolds it for reasons that I have never actually understood (probably 'cause 80% of its firepower is in the right arm and arms could be easily destroyed though it almost never is for me)... it gets nearly Hunchback level armor buffs for the CT and right Arm. The hero also gets it on the right torso, due to focusing the missiles there instead of the left torso like all the others.
If the Wolverine had anything else going against it, perhaps it has small launchers capable of only 10 tubes each, and players would rather have giant launchers to compensate for some issues of an obviously personal nature... I find this helps for heat management even when carrying LRM 20s and significantly reduces their spread without any quirks. Sadly it has absolutley no effect on MRMs, even MRM 40s.
Wolverines, due to their nature, must capitalize on advanced control knowledge to maximize their potential. This is perhaps the real reason they aren't more popular in MWO.
Kintaro aka Golden Boy in Japanese is a Draconis Combine battlemech that is designed to bring SRMs up close and personal after delivering a NARC and firing NARC-enabled SRMs so that they would rarely miss.
In MWO, NARC-enabled SRM ammo doesn't exist, and unlike LRMs which have all the general subtypes combined, the SRMs didn't get that treatment. Why? PGI, I guess. Kintaro got bad press when it first released due to a broken hitbox that caused PGI to redesign how it does hitboxes on ALL mechs. It has never shaken this bad reputation off.
The mech itself is actually pretty amazing, though if you want to bring LRMs do not put them into the arms.
Unless you don't like arms... 'cause you'll lose them quickly if you do.
This said, Kintaros are pretty solid, reasonably tanky mechs with better damage soaking abilities than Griffins even before quirks. However, Kintaros favor mixed loadouts and do not actually handle "Boated" loadouts well. Seriously my worst experience with them has been trying various boat designs. A mixed bag of weapons and at least 3 or more firing buttons has made this mech very awesome.
Griffin is canonically a long range sniper mech, known to enter a prone position or kneel to double its accurate range and even has a seat that adjusts to compensate for laying on the mech's stomach.
But this is MWO. We can't have nice things. Players here like to load this thing up with SRMs, get right into your face and brawl because yeah, that's totally smart. Even so, this mech is pretty venerable for any role and generally fills some roles far better than a Shadowhawk...except sniping. This is MWO afterall. Though if you use the torso weapons instead of the arm weapons, you can snipe pretty well. Since few variants really have that, however, it is best to use this mech as a high speed ranged harasser. Most players lack the concept of "range" however.
One must say, the view from this mech is spectacular. It has the most open view of any mech, as such sneaking up on a Griffin is usually pretty difficult.
Bushy-wacka aka the Bushwacker is an absolute failure from TharHes industries that was only saved by stealing schematics to the Vulture (Mad Dog)... which makes absolutely no sense. Also this mech is supposed to be less than 9 meters tall (similar to the Ebon Jaguar which is supposed to be less than 10 meters tall) and its over 14 meters tall in MWO.
Yet another one of those "Hey, you're in MWO" moments. This mech was hard for me to like at first. It screams that it wants varied loadouts... but it doesn't do well with varied loadouts. It seems really hard to figure out what this mech wants. So much potential versatility but for the life of me I cannot make it work.
Even so, there's a lot of praise for this mech... So some people, somewhere, have figured it out.
50 tonners
The ever venerable Hunchback is an antique that hasn't been built in ages, but there are so damn many of the things with such a short supply of the Tomodzuru AC/20 -- which holds the second largest caliber to exist in Inner Sphere space as a 5 shell per cassette weapon with 20 damage per cassette and a full cassette capable of ripping a gaping hole through a mech without having to deal with the extraneous armor around the target location (i.e. if you had 80 armor, I wouldn't need to blast through 80 armor to get through it, just the 10 on the front, the 5 structure and the armor on the way out.)
In MWO, the gun does 20 damage in a single shot instead of a single volley, and while it has the biggest AC/20 on a 'Mech in the Inner Sphere, every other mech has the same AC/20. What the 4G has going for it is a really fast firing rate for that AC/20 and a crapload of armor buffs to help emphasize the fact that it has the second most armor of any 50 ton medium mech in the Inner Sphere (rivaled exactly by the Nova in terms of BT armor, and only the Centurion AL stands higher).
The other variants are made from what is called a "Refit kit", so all variants are 4Gs that have been modified with a do-it-yourself kit. All of these other variants are called "Swaybacks" because it reduces the size of the 'hunch' significantly on these other variants.
MWO's Hunchbacks are known for being slow to relatively fast damage sponges with a deadly punch that helps to hook in new players by letting them feel good with their hefty noob tube. The fact that they are cheap to get off the ground (upgrade to double heatsinks and that's all you need) helps to bolster their position, and while completely viable for players of any level, their utility expands after discovering how to use arm weapons.
A good example of a Hunchback can be found here. This is with NO quirks, no new skill tree, and you can see how well this thing tanked even back then. At the beginning it is even built from the ground up. You will notice viability in both the + and o crosshairs, as well as some extreme tankability even when under heavy fire from an enemy that would shred a lesser mech in seconds. Another example, this time with skill tree, quirks, etc., can be found here and the hero is here.
The Corean Enterprise Twins: Centurion is best known as an exceptionally tall mech that leaps into the air, flies and takes down Aerotech fighters with its laser-firing AC/10... oh wait that was the Battletech cartoon.
The Centurion doesn't jump though apparently custom modded ones do. It has a host of problems and was almost replaced by the Enforcer. As a concept mech, the Centurion is an escort mech designed to protect its missile lobbing twin, the Trebuchet. The LRM-10 that comes stock is meant to supplement the Trebuchet's fire, its slower speed is to allow it to tangle with the enemy intercepters while the Trebuchet gets away.
In MWO it does do well in supporting and escorting pretty much any mech. For a long time it was known as the quintensential zombie mech, known to reach as low as 5% health and still dishing out damage.
Centurions no longer tank that much but they can still take a pretty decent beating. Another sample.
The Corean Enterprise Twins: Trebuchet is a 50 ton LRM boat that is made to be faster than its escort, is designed to be able to get into position, deliver its payload and rush back to get reloaded.
While there aren't any reloads to be found here, the affordability of XL engines in MWO ensure that you could load more ammo than ever canonically possible into your Trebuchet. As well as more weapons than you know what to do with. Well for its time.
The Trebuchet basically functions like a 50 ton Kintaro, minus the arm size issue if you load up the arms with LRMs. But lets be honest, don't load up arms with LRMs; that's where your SRMs should be. There's a LOT of variants for the Trebuchet, including a ballistic variant. That one is sampled here in this eternally cold brawler build. Skip ahead to 1:50 for action if a lore reading doesn't interest you.
Despite never making a remarkable outlier of itself, Trebuchets are actually good mechs. They just don't 'stand out', kind of like an Enforcer. Their jumping ability on some models is just insane.
Your Local Enforcer is best known for getting Corean Enterprises to get their **** together and fix the Centurion's many flaws. Beyond this, the Battlemech's roles are to deliver intense firepower to surpress enemy vehicles and as a trooper to deal with brawl with enemies at near melee range without actually entering it, using a tactic where they jump right into the enemy's face, tank their shots and blast them to kingdom come... a truly Amero-French way of doing things... Wait, didn't you know? The Enforcer is Davion in origin, home of both space America and space France.
Davions in a nutshell, their favorite tactic... jump in your face guns blazing. Shame the Davions in MWO don't seem to know that. Yet everyone knows about the Steiner Scout Lance....
In MWO, due to the lack of variants, the P variants are made up by MWO. These generally work well in tankability, just don't overdue it on heavy guns. That kinda makes the 5P somewhat hard to find a viable build for that has enough ammo. All the others are pretty decent and Enforcers score pretty reasonably high on meta mechs. I find them a bit niche, these are straight forward fighting mechs. Their canonical disposition to DPS fire makes the Rotary AC an interesting idea, though many tend to enjoy pumping the left arm full of lasers.
When you've got Crabs, there's nothing better than sharing them. The Crab is a walking sensor suite so advanced that canonically, the "Battletech" tabletop game we play is actually a computer simulation of real combat being played on a bored pilot's sensor suite inside a Crab. It also has 8 redundancies because this system, which can keep track of all known enemy positions planet wide and predict local enemy movement after it has been lost is very fragile and usually after a skirmish 6 of the 8 redundancies tend to be destroyed by weapons fire.
But while MWO has acknowledged the Cyclop's Tactictron 2000 computer with +200 meters sensor range (despite how this was a planet wide system that could coordinate artillery, airforces, naval forces, etc... and went extinct over 150 years prior to this game), the blatantly superior Crab system (which only lacked the holographic display and satelitte hacking capabilities) gets no acknowledgement.
What MWO does have is a very energy-focused mech with 10% damage resistance on any arms with pinchers while the pinchers are closed, which you can open and close at will with the / key. It is very cheap, very high engine cap and most high speeds can be achieved with viable firepower without resorting to an XL engine.
Defiance Industries Uziel doesn't have much canonical lore that I know about. They look weird and Clanny, and yet they are IS designs. What I do know is that these things are trying to be the IS answer to Clan Huntsman, and seem to very similar in terms of being weapons platforms. In actuality it plays more like a lighter more fragile Stormcrow.
They generally have all the upgrades already so it is just a matter of kitting them out. They have a very wide peripheral vision with lots of bars in the way. The arms are high and very meta. All the hardpoints are high, in fact. It jumps but they feel like Shadowhawk hover jets. Their armor seems soft, however.
And done.
All mechs on this list are Battlemechs.
Gonna start with the shortest list first, the 60 tonners.
IS 60 tons.
The Dragon is a Draconis Combine workhorse. High speed for an IS Heavy with more armor than most 85 ton assault mechs, with a short, stocky body and a gyro design quirk that effectively gives it a weight free 'Improved Gyro' so that even in fist-to-fist slug matches, this thing is gonna be standing over and kicking its enemies. It is notorious for the Dragon charge...
...which shortly after it became a thing in MWO, PGI removed knockdowns entirely due to a combination of technical issues and trolling, effectively removing MWO's only melee combat system. In MWO Dragons could knock down even 100 ton mechs.
In MWO, their armor is absolutely meaningless since anyone can pack on full armor. However they were given a plethora of armor and structure quirks that do rival non-quirked 80 ton mechs. So not quite as up there as they are in lore, but capitalize on armor/structure buffs in the skill tree and you'll be up there. Dragons, unlike in Battletech, are not very good at straight out brawls (actually they are, provided your enemy count is down to 2 mediums or 1 heavy as seen here however MWO players see brawling as being able to slug it out surrounded by 6 or more enemies), but are effectively similar in use to Clan Gargoyles. Hit and run.
Their exceptional arm range, good torso range, and high sideways visibility all give them great run and gun abilities. They work best when fighting while moving at top speed, circling their enemies. Even so, they can tank exceptionally well in long range roles even if moving slowly (but please keep moving). Dragons have EXCEPTIONAL climbing abilities. (Stop watching after 4 mins) This is still possible and is actually easier to do now than it was back then.
81 kph Base speed. Advanced player skills suggested (independent arm control, ability to aim while zig-zagging.) A very solid mech with some bad press due to the early days of bad hitboxes. It has never shed that negative stigma. However the bad press wouldn't be so bad if people gave them a chance. Still, if you lack skilled arm control, you will be unable to tap into this mech's potential.
The Quickdraw is a mech aptly named for its ability to fire both forward in backwards and ability to deal with two targets at the same time without penalty to accuracy on the secondary target, as well as flip its arms despite having lower arm actuators AND hands.
None of this is carried over into MWO. Even so, the mech is pretty versatile. The hitboxes are pretty fair though its legs seem to draw fire that is not even aimed at it, leading to a joke in All Systems Nominal where friendly LRMs accidentally leg one. That's been fixed over the years. Still.
One variant loves laser vomit, the there's one that mixes lasers with missiles and a third that boats missiles with some lasers. That last one is great as a light mech hunter.
81 kph stock speed. Pretty fast top speeds with bigger engines. The cockpit as a bit of an odd obstruction in the form of the vertical bars. Beyond this my only other complaint is that this mech is relatively generic for something with such a flashy history and combat style that we just can't play in MWO.
The Rifleman is the slowest among these mechs. This is intended to be an anti-air mech and as such it is lightly armored to make room for the sensor and targeting suites as well as the firepower it needed.
In MWO, it lacks its radar, despite being one of the only mechs to feature a full fledge radar (spoiler, Battletech radar is worthless for finding mechs, so that might be why). This is a weapons platform that can take a modest beating. But it is not fast. It makes a solid hill humper, is exceptional at its designed roles. It can brawl modestly. My Rifle 3C video shows it can tank without any survival skill tree. Its variants focus on energy or energy + ballistics.
Base Speed: 64.8. Good view. Solid mech. Arms far enough apart as to not obstruct view with heavy smoke/flash weapons (is a liability at point blank range (under 30 meters) however).
55 tonners.
The Shadowhawk is a(n) (eventually) multi-role mech that made its debut as a scout commander's mech intended to support light mechs on scout missions. (Spoiler alert, it was terrible at it and actual combat for several years, however its ability to grab lighter mechs and slug them kept them around on the field). Later generations saw them outshining mechs of their own class in both performance and in expense, as well as significantly increasing their size.
Sadly BT doesn't really matter here. As such all Shadowhawks are tall (though they shrunk almost 2 meters since their debut into MWO and have lost the title of the tallest 55 ton mech in the game). This thing is akin to a Hunchback, and prior to HoverJet[tm] technology, was the top dog in MWO. Between old nerfs since uplifted, HoverJets, and The Quirkening[tm], they have since fallen from grace. Still die hard fans profess how awesome this mech is, but must admit they can only say that after maxing out its mobility tree and giving it a big engine because without that speed, it pales in so many ways to the Hunchback.
Base Speed: 81 kph. Exceptionally high engine cap. Venerable loadouts, most variants are very ammo reliant, however. Poor visibility (ballistic weapons blind you, no peripheral vision due to no side windows). Mech is easy to get into for new players due to the general lack of importance for arm weaponry. It also has a misleading 'powerful' feeling. Perfectly even hitboxes allow this mech to take good abuse despite significantly inferior armor to the Hunchback. Arms are good for soaking up bullets. Slow turning, sluggish torso twist are both remedied with mobility skill tree. Worst. Jumper. In. The. Game.
The Wolverine is among my favorite mechs. This one is one of the most armored "all rounders" to ever exist in Battletech history and it is most famous for (prior to the 2800s) throwing its AC/5 at an enemy and then bashing it to death with its fists and kicking its knee actuator out before smashing the cockpit, and then tearing off that mech's arm to throw at another enemy... only to pick its AC/5 back up and make the kill shot.
But welcome to MWO. At least MWO gives a nod to that if you look at the right hand, the guns for the right arm are modular and held by the hand itself, connected to a gauntlet that is visually detachable.
The Wolverine still holds the title for the shortest 55 ton mech in the game. Its perfectly even hitboxes allow it to take endearing punishments, and thanks to popular belief that scolds it for reasons that I have never actually understood (probably 'cause 80% of its firepower is in the right arm and arms could be easily destroyed though it almost never is for me)... it gets nearly Hunchback level armor buffs for the CT and right Arm. The hero also gets it on the right torso, due to focusing the missiles there instead of the left torso like all the others.
If the Wolverine had anything else going against it, perhaps it has small launchers capable of only 10 tubes each, and players would rather have giant launchers to compensate for some issues of an obviously personal nature... I find this helps for heat management even when carrying LRM 20s and significantly reduces their spread without any quirks. Sadly it has absolutley no effect on MRMs, even MRM 40s.
Wolverines, due to their nature, must capitalize on advanced control knowledge to maximize their potential. This is perhaps the real reason they aren't more popular in MWO.
Speed 81 kph. Great jumping ability. Good horizontal and vertical range. Fantastic brawler. Great to good at most other roles. Holds the record as the only mech that I have for over 3 years which has NEVER been legged. Can often slug it out and come out of a match with 15% health; a nearly impossible feat for most mechs.
Kintaro aka Golden Boy in Japanese is a Draconis Combine battlemech that is designed to bring SRMs up close and personal after delivering a NARC and firing NARC-enabled SRMs so that they would rarely miss.
In MWO, NARC-enabled SRM ammo doesn't exist, and unlike LRMs which have all the general subtypes combined, the SRMs didn't get that treatment. Why? PGI, I guess. Kintaro got bad press when it first released due to a broken hitbox that caused PGI to redesign how it does hitboxes on ALL mechs. It has never shaken this bad reputation off.
The mech itself is actually pretty amazing, though if you want to bring LRMs do not put them into the arms.
Unless you don't like arms... 'cause you'll lose them quickly if you do.
This said, Kintaros are pretty solid, reasonably tanky mechs with better damage soaking abilities than Griffins even before quirks. However, Kintaros favor mixed loadouts and do not actually handle "Boated" loadouts well. Seriously my worst experience with them has been trying various boat designs. A mixed bag of weapons and at least 3 or more firing buttons has made this mech very awesome.
Base speed: 81 kph. Great mech for advanced players looking for something that can put all their skills to use. Good, tanky hitboxes, good view. Arms can really bulk up; best to avoid that. CT missile variants have up to 20% additional damage resistance while missile doors are closed [this is not mentioned on the quirks].
Griffin is canonically a long range sniper mech, known to enter a prone position or kneel to double its accurate range and even has a seat that adjusts to compensate for laying on the mech's stomach.
But this is MWO. We can't have nice things. Players here like to load this thing up with SRMs, get right into your face and brawl because yeah, that's totally smart. Even so, this mech is pretty venerable for any role and generally fills some roles far better than a Shadowhawk...except sniping. This is MWO afterall. Though if you use the torso weapons instead of the arm weapons, you can snipe pretty well. Since few variants really have that, however, it is best to use this mech as a high speed ranged harasser. Most players lack the concept of "range" however.
One must say, the view from this mech is spectacular. It has the most open view of any mech, as such sneaking up on a Griffin is usually pretty difficult.
81 kph. Pretty versatile. If you don't use hills, the "not good at sniping" tidbit doesn't apply. No ballistic options, though that is likely to change next year when the loyalty Griffin variant becomes available for non-loyalty cbills. Exceptional jumping and bunny hopping capability. Good for players in general, exceptional in the hands of advanced players making solid use of its arms and lock-on weaponry.
Bushy-wacka aka the Bushwacker is an absolute failure from TharHes industries that was only saved by stealing schematics to the Vulture (Mad Dog)... which makes absolutely no sense. Also this mech is supposed to be less than 9 meters tall (similar to the Ebon Jaguar which is supposed to be less than 10 meters tall) and its over 14 meters tall in MWO.
Yet another one of those "Hey, you're in MWO" moments. This mech was hard for me to like at first. It screams that it wants varied loadouts... but it doesn't do well with varied loadouts. It seems really hard to figure out what this mech wants. So much potential versatility but for the life of me I cannot make it work.
Even so, there's a lot of praise for this mech... So some people, somewhere, have figured it out.
81 kph. Decent hitboxes but seems fragile. Lots of loadout potential but never enough space or enough weight, depending on STD or XL engine. My personal advice is don't try to use everything it offers, it just doesn't seem possible to use all it can have at once.
50 tonners
The ever venerable Hunchback is an antique that hasn't been built in ages, but there are so damn many of the things with such a short supply of the Tomodzuru AC/20 -- which holds the second largest caliber to exist in Inner Sphere space as a 5 shell per cassette weapon with 20 damage per cassette and a full cassette capable of ripping a gaping hole through a mech without having to deal with the extraneous armor around the target location (i.e. if you had 80 armor, I wouldn't need to blast through 80 armor to get through it, just the 10 on the front, the 5 structure and the armor on the way out.)
In MWO, the gun does 20 damage in a single shot instead of a single volley, and while it has the biggest AC/20 on a 'Mech in the Inner Sphere, every other mech has the same AC/20. What the 4G has going for it is a really fast firing rate for that AC/20 and a crapload of armor buffs to help emphasize the fact that it has the second most armor of any 50 ton medium mech in the Inner Sphere (rivaled exactly by the Nova in terms of BT armor, and only the Centurion AL stands higher).
The other variants are made from what is called a "Refit kit", so all variants are 4Gs that have been modified with a do-it-yourself kit. All of these other variants are called "Swaybacks" because it reduces the size of the 'hunch' significantly on these other variants.
MWO's Hunchbacks are known for being slow to relatively fast damage sponges with a deadly punch that helps to hook in new players by letting them feel good with their hefty noob tube. The fact that they are cheap to get off the ground (upgrade to double heatsinks and that's all you need) helps to bolster their position, and while completely viable for players of any level, their utility expands after discovering how to use arm weapons.
A good example of a Hunchback can be found here. This is with NO quirks, no new skill tree, and you can see how well this thing tanked even back then. At the beginning it is even built from the ground up. You will notice viability in both the + and o crosshairs, as well as some extreme tankability even when under heavy fire from an enemy that would shred a lesser mech in seconds. Another example, this time with skill tree, quirks, etc., can be found here and the hero is here.
Base speed 64.8 kph. Low engine cap (high end is somewhere between 85 and early 90s). Good field of view, slightly obstructed to the right. Incredible twisting range. Tanky. Can play any role. Personal advice is to funnel armor forward on the Hunch side to make it tankier to stupidly insane amounts.
The Corean Enterprise Twins: Centurion is best known as an exceptionally tall mech that leaps into the air, flies and takes down Aerotech fighters with its laser-firing AC/10... oh wait that was the Battletech cartoon.
The Centurion doesn't jump though apparently custom modded ones do. It has a host of problems and was almost replaced by the Enforcer. As a concept mech, the Centurion is an escort mech designed to protect its missile lobbing twin, the Trebuchet. The LRM-10 that comes stock is meant to supplement the Trebuchet's fire, its slower speed is to allow it to tangle with the enemy intercepters while the Trebuchet gets away.
In MWO it does do well in supporting and escorting pretty much any mech. For a long time it was known as the quintensential zombie mech, known to reach as low as 5% health and still dishing out damage.
Centurions no longer tank that much but they can still take a pretty decent beating. Another sample.
Base speed 64.8 kph (81 for the D). Lost its favor after fixing the 'destroyed arms' hitbox and their oversized 'residual box' which basicually cut damage by 50% followed by another 50% through the side torso once it was gone (effectively reducing damage by 75%). Currently any destroyed hitbox reduces damage by 60%, and 60 + another 60 if going through two... So that's a mixed bag. Hitboxes favor STD engines, however it is safe to run XL.
The Corean Enterprise Twins: Trebuchet is a 50 ton LRM boat that is made to be faster than its escort, is designed to be able to get into position, deliver its payload and rush back to get reloaded.
While there aren't any reloads to be found here, the affordability of XL engines in MWO ensure that you could load more ammo than ever canonically possible into your Trebuchet. As well as more weapons than you know what to do with. Well for its time.
The Trebuchet basically functions like a 50 ton Kintaro, minus the arm size issue if you load up the arms with LRMs. But lets be honest, don't load up arms with LRMs; that's where your SRMs should be. There's a LOT of variants for the Trebuchet, including a ballistic variant. That one is sampled here in this eternally cold brawler build. Skip ahead to 1:50 for action if a lore reading doesn't interest you.
Despite never making a remarkable outlier of itself, Trebuchets are actually good mechs. They just don't 'stand out', kind of like an Enforcer. Their jumping ability on some models is just insane.
Base speed 81. Some have absolutely insane engine caps (as in completely impractical but if you want to race the fastest light mechs... you could). Modest mech that likes XL engines. Imagine they would be phenomenal with LFEs. Kinda curious to dust mine off and try MRMs.
Your Local Enforcer is best known for getting Corean Enterprises to get their **** together and fix the Centurion's many flaws. Beyond this, the Battlemech's roles are to deliver intense firepower to surpress enemy vehicles and as a trooper to deal with brawl with enemies at near melee range without actually entering it, using a tactic where they jump right into the enemy's face, tank their shots and blast them to kingdom come... a truly Amero-French way of doing things... Wait, didn't you know? The Enforcer is Davion in origin, home of both space America and space France.
Davions in a nutshell, their favorite tactic... jump in your face guns blazing. Shame the Davions in MWO don't seem to know that. Yet everyone knows about the Steiner Scout Lance....
In MWO, due to the lack of variants, the P variants are made up by MWO. These generally work well in tankability, just don't overdue it on heavy guns. That kinda makes the 5P somewhat hard to find a viable build for that has enough ammo. All the others are pretty decent and Enforcers score pretty reasonably high on meta mechs. I find them a bit niche, these are straight forward fighting mechs. Their canonical disposition to DPS fire makes the Rotary AC an interesting idea, though many tend to enjoy pumping the left arm full of lasers.
Base speed 64.8 kph. Modest engine cap. Reasonable field of view, pretty middle line on the mobility side, good jumpjets, evenly sized hitboxes. No discernable problems. Nothing especially stands out good or bad, with this mech.
When you've got Crabs, there's nothing better than sharing them. The Crab is a walking sensor suite so advanced that canonically, the "Battletech" tabletop game we play is actually a computer simulation of real combat being played on a bored pilot's sensor suite inside a Crab. It also has 8 redundancies because this system, which can keep track of all known enemy positions planet wide and predict local enemy movement after it has been lost is very fragile and usually after a skirmish 6 of the 8 redundancies tend to be destroyed by weapons fire.
But while MWO has acknowledged the Cyclop's Tactictron 2000 computer with +200 meters sensor range (despite how this was a planet wide system that could coordinate artillery, airforces, naval forces, etc... and went extinct over 150 years prior to this game), the blatantly superior Crab system (which only lacked the holographic display and satelitte hacking capabilities) gets no acknowledgement.
What MWO does have is a very energy-focused mech with 10% damage resistance on any arms with pinchers while the pinchers are closed, which you can open and close at will with the / key. It is very cheap, very high engine cap and most high speeds can be achieved with viable firepower without resorting to an XL engine.
Base speed 81 lkph. Akin to its canonical nature, this mech started small but was enlarged due to the fact that its high speeds made it almost impossible to hit. It can still be difficult to hit despite this. Decent view, good fun. The hero with twin LB-5x can stand toe to toe against a King Crab at point blank.
Defiance Industries Uziel doesn't have much canonical lore that I know about. They look weird and Clanny, and yet they are IS designs. What I do know is that these things are trying to be the IS answer to Clan Huntsman, and seem to very similar in terms of being weapons platforms. In actuality it plays more like a lighter more fragile Stormcrow.
They generally have all the upgrades already so it is just a matter of kitting them out. They have a very wide peripheral vision with lots of bars in the way. The arms are high and very meta. All the hardpoints are high, in fact. It jumps but they feel like Shadowhawk hover jets. Their armor seems soft, however.
Base speed 97 kph with an exceptionally high engine cap. The key with this mech will be finding a balance of compatible firepower.
And done.
Edited by Koniving, 10 November 2017 - 06:38 PM.
#10
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- Överste-Löjtnant
- 319 posts
Member
Posted 10 November 2017 - 01:14 PM
Feezou, on 10 November 2017 - 08:29 AM, said:
A 55 ton mech: I've been looking at the Shadow Hawk, but I'll take any other suggestions.
A 60 ton mech: Something like a Dragon. It is fairly fast, but I heard it's trash.
I'm starting to dislike heavier mechs for their lackluster speed, but I don't like doing little damage in lighter mechs. I'll settle for decent firepower, and good maneuverability.
The Shadowhawk is a fantastic mech, there are a lot of great poking builds for certain variants (3 X LPL, 3 X AC2), though my favorite is a 2D2 with an LBX-10 and 4 SRM4. It still has a fast engine (over 90 kph), but sacrifices a lot in ammo and heat. I'd basically built it for MRBC, and kept it for scouting matches, and it's proven pretty great in QP, though heat management is pretty tough with so many targets. Its alpha is real brutal.
The Dragon has been perennially one of my favorites, but many of the variants have been nerfed pretty hard. Currently boating light ballistics ballistics on the 5N is one of the stronger builds of any mech, as long as you know when to disengage and seek cover. The DPS is great, but having to stare at an enemy while firing leaves you open to taking more damage. Its speed is one of the biggest strengths, if you can use it to re-position to where you won't get focused. I've seen a lot of people taking these with 3 UAC2s, though I can't ever seem to get enough ammo in those builds while still moving as fast as I want to.
I'd also mention how much I love the Wolverine; back when every drop deck had an SRM Griffin, I stuck with the missile Wolverine, even though it lacked a fourth missile hardpoint. The quirks then made up for it, but I think subsequent balance changes ended up hurting it.
The Quickdraws used to be very popular as well, but 3 LPL builds aren't really what they used to be, and they're not in my normal rotation anymore.
#11
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- The Guide
- 23,384 posts
Welcoming Committee
Posted 10 November 2017 - 01:52 PM
(Your heat issue is from boating SRM-4s and firing them simultaneously. You could solve the problem by dropping one launcher or switching to fire 2 then 2.)
#12
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- 148 posts
Member
Posted 10 November 2017 - 03:53 PM
Koniving, on 10 November 2017 - 10:22 AM, said:
The Inner Sphere:
All mechs on this list are Battlemechs.
Gonna start with the shortest list first, the 60 tonners.
IS 60 tons.
The Dragon is a Draconis Combine workhorse. High speed for an IS Heavy with more armor than most 85 ton assault mechs, with a short, stocky body and a gyro design quirk that effectively gives it a weight free 'Improved Gyro' so that even in fist-to-fist slug matches, this thing is gonna be standing over and kicking its enemies. It is notorious for the Dragon charge...
...which shortly after it became a thing in MWO, PGI removed knockdowns entirely due to a combination of technical issues and trolling, effectively removing MWO's only melee combat system. In MWO Dragons could knock down even 100 ton mechs.
In MWO, their armor is absolutely meaningless since anyone can pack on full armor. However they were given a plethora of armor and structure quirks that do rival non-quirked 80 ton mechs. So not quite as up there as they are in lore, but capitalize on armor/structure buffs in the skill tree and you'll be up there. Dragons, unlike in Battletech, are not very good at straight out brawls (actually they are, provided your enemy count is down to 2 mediums or 1 heavy as seen here however MWO players see brawling as being able to slug it out surrounded by 6 or more enemies), but are effectively similar in use to Clan Gargoyles. Hit and run.
Their exceptional arm range, good torso range, and high sideways visibility all give them great run and gun abilities. They work best when fighting while moving at top speed, circling their enemies. Even so, they can tank exceptionally well in long range roles even if moving slowly (but please keep moving). Dragons have EXCEPTIONAL climbing abilities. (Stop watching after 4 mins) This is still possible and is actually easier to do now than it was back then.
The Quickdraw is a mech aptly named for its ability to fire both forward in backwards and ability to deal with two targets at the same time without penalty to accuracy on the secondary target, as well as flip its arms despite having lower arm actuators AND hands.
None of this is carried over into MWO. Even so, the mech is pretty versatile. The hitboxes are pretty fair though its legs seem to draw fire that is not even aimed at it, leading to a joke in All Systems Nominal where friendly LRMs accidentally leg one. That's been fixed over the years. Still.
One variant loves laser vomit, the there's one that mixes lasers with missiles and a third that boats missiles with some lasers. That last one is great as a light mech hunter.
The Rifleman is the slowest among these mechs. This is intended to be an anti-air mech and as such it is lightly armored to make room for the sensor and targeting suites as well as the firepower it needed.
In MWO, it lacks its radar, despite being one of the only mechs to feature a full fledge radar (spoiler, Battletech radar is worthless for finding mechs, so that might be why). This is a weapons platform that can take a modest beating. But it is not fast. It makes a solid hill humper, is exceptional at its designed roles. It can brawl modestly. My Rifle 3C video shows it can tank without any survival skill tree. Its variants focus on energy or energy + ballistics.
55 tonners.
The Shadowhawk is a(n) (eventually) multi-role mech that made its debut as a scout commander's mech intended to support light mechs on scout missions. (Spoiler alert, it was terrible at it and actual combat for several years, however its ability to grab lighter mechs and slug them kept them around on the field). Later generations saw them outshining mechs of their own class in both performance and in expense, as well as significantly increasing their size.
Sadly BT doesn't really matter here. As such all Shadowhawks are tall (though they shrunk almost 2 meters since their debut into MWO and have lost the title of the tallest 55 ton mech in the game). This thing is akin to a Hunchback, and prior to HoverJet[tm] technology, was the top dog in MWO. Between old nerfs since uplifted, HoverJets, and The Quirkening[tm], they have since fallen from grace. Still die hard fans profess how awesome this mech is, but must admit they can only say that after maxing out its mobility tree and giving it a big engine because without that speed, it pales in so many ways to the Hunchback.
The Wolverine is among my favorite mechs. This one is one of the most armored "all rounders" to ever exist in Battletech history and it is most famous for (prior to the 2800s) throwing its AC/5 at an enemy and then bashing it to death with its fists and kicking its knee actuator out before smashing the cockpit, and then tearing off that mech's arm to throw at another enemy... only to pick its AC/5 back up and make the kill shot.
But welcome to MWO. At least MWO gives a nod to that if you look at the right hand, the guns for the right arm are modular and held by the hand itself, connected to a gauntlet that is visually detachable.
The Wolverine still holds the title for the shortest 55 ton mech in the game. Its perfectly even hitboxes allow it to take endearing punishments, and thanks to popular belief that scolds it for reasons that I have never actually understood (probably 'cause 80% of its firepower is in the right arm and arms could be easily destroyed though it almost never is for me)... it gets nearly Hunchback level armor buffs for the CT and right Arm. The hero also gets it on the right torso, due to focusing the missiles there instead of the left torso like all the others.
If the Wolverine had anything else going against it, perhaps it has small launchers capable of only 10 tubes each, and players would rather have giant launchers to compensate for some issues of an obviously personal nature... I find this helps for heat management even when carrying LRM 20s and significantly reduces their spread without any quirks. Sadly it has absolutley no effect on MRMs, even MRM 40s.
Wolverines, due to their nature, must capitalize on advanced control knowledge to maximize their potential. This is perhaps the real reason they aren't more popular in MWO.
Kintaro aka Golden Boy in Japanese is a Draconis Combine battlemech that is designed to bring SRMs up close and personal after delivering a NARC and firing NARC-enabled SRMs so that they would rarely miss.
In MWO, NARC-enabled SRM ammo doesn't exist, and unlike LRMs which have all the general subtypes combined, the SRMs didn't get that treatment. Why? PGI, I guess. Kintaro got bad press when it first released due to a broken hitbox that caused PGI to redesign how it does hitboxes on ALL mechs. It has never shaken this bad reputation off.
The mech itself is actually pretty amazing, though if you want to bring LRMs do not put them into the arms.
Unless you don't like arms... 'cause you'll lose them quickly if you do.
This said, Kintaros are pretty solid, reasonably tanky mechs with better damage soaking abilities than Griffins even before quirks. However, Kintaros favor mixed loadouts and do not actually handle "Boated" loadouts well. Seriously my worst experience with them has been trying various boat designs. A mixed bag of weapons and at least 3 or more firing buttons has made this mech very awesome.
Griffin is canonically a long range sniper mech, known to enter a prone position or kneel to double its accurate range and even has a seat that adjusts to compensate for laying on the mech's stomach.
But this is MWO. We can't have nice things. Players here like to load this thing up with SRMs, get right into your face and brawl because yeah, that's totally smart. Even so, this mech is pretty venerable for any role and generally fills some roles far better than a Shadowhawk...except sniping. This is MWO afterall. Though if you use the torso weapons instead of the arm weapons, you can snipe pretty well. Since few variants really have that, however, it is best to use this mech as a high speed ranged harasser. Most players lack the concept of "range" however.
One must say, the view from this mech is spectacular. It has the most open view of any mech, as such sneaking up on a Griffin is usually pretty difficult.
Bushy-wacka aka the Bushwacker is an absolute failure from TharHes industries that was only saved by stealing schematics to the Vulture (Mad Dog)... which makes absolutely no sense. Also this mech is supposed to be less than 9 meters tall (similar to the Ebon Jaguar which is supposed to be less than 10 meters tall) and its over 14 meters tall in MWO.
Yet another one of those "Hey, you're in MWO" moments. This mech was hard for me to like at first. It screams that it wants varied loadouts... but it doesn't do well with varied loadouts. It seems really hard to figure out what this mech wants. So much potential versatility but for the life of me I cannot make it work.
Even so, there's a lot of praise for this mech... So some people, somewhere, have figured it out.
50 tonners
The ever venerable Hunchback is an antique that hasn't been built in ages, but there are so damn many of the things with such a short supply of the Tomodzuru AC/20 -- which holds the second largest caliber to exist in Inner Sphere space as a 5 shell per cassette weapon with 20 damage per cassette and a full cassette capable of ripping a gaping hole through a mech without having to deal with the extraneous armor around the target location (i.e. if you had 80 armor, I wouldn't need to blast through 80 armor to get through it, just the 10 on the front, the 5 structure and the armor on the way out.)
In MWO, the gun does 20 damage in a single shot instead of a single volley, and while it has the biggest AC/20 on a 'Mech in the Inner Sphere, every other mech has the same AC/20. What the 4G has going for it is a really fast firing rate for that AC/20 and a crapload of armor buffs to help emphasize the fact that it has the second most armor of any 50 ton medium mech in the Inner Sphere (rivaled exactly by the Nova in terms of BT armor, and only the Centurion AL stands higher).
The other variants are made from what is called a "Refit kit", so all variants are 4Gs that have been modified with a do-it-yourself kit. All of these other variants are called "Swaybacks" because it reduces the size of the 'hunch' significantly on these other variants.
MWO's Hunchbacks are known for being slow to relatively fast damage sponges with a deadly punch that helps to hook in new players by letting them feel good with their hefty noob tube. The fact that they are cheap to get off the ground (upgrade to double heatsinks and that's all you need) helps to bolster their position, and while completely viable for players of any level, their utility expands after discovering how to use arm weapons.
A good example of a Hunchback can be found here. This is with NO quirks, no new skill tree, and you can see how well this thing tanked even back then. At the beginning it is even built from the ground up. You will notice viability in both the + and o crosshairs, as well as some extreme tankability even when under heavy fire from an enemy that would shred a lesser mech in seconds. Another example, this time with skill tree, quirks, etc., can be found here and the hero is here.
The Corean Enterprise Twins: Centurion
The Corean Enterprise Twins: Trebuchet
Your Local Enforcer is best known for getting Corean Enterprises to get their **** together and fix the Centurion's many flaws. Beyond this, the Battlemech's roles are to deliver intense firepower to surpress enemy vehicles and as a trooper to deal with brawl with enemies at near melee range without actually entering it, using a tactic where they jump right into the enemy's face, tank their shots and blast them to kingdom come... a truly Amero-French way of doing things... Wait, didn't you know? The Enforcer is Davion in origin, home of both space America and space France.
Davions in a nutshell, their favorite tactic... jump in your face guns blazing. Shame the Davions in MWO don't seem to know that. Yet everyone knows about the Steiner Scout Lance....
When you've got Crabs, there's nothing better than sharing them. The Crab is a walking sensor suite so advanced that canonically, the "Battletech" tabletop game we play is actually a computer simulation of real combat being played on a bored pilot's sensor suite inside a Crab. It also has 8 redundancies because this system, which can keep track of all known enemy positions planet wide and predict local enemy movement after it has been lost is very fragile and usually after a skirmish 6 of the 8 redundancies tend to be destroyed by weapons fire.
But while MWO has acknowledged the Cyclop's Tactictron 2000 computer with +200 meters sensor range (despite how this was a planet wide system that could coordinate artillery, airforces, naval forces, etc... and went extinct over 150 years prior to this game), the blatantly superior Crab system (which only lacked the holographic display and satelitte hacking capabilities) gets no acknowledgement.
What MWO does have is a very energy-focused mech with 10% damage resistance on any arms with pinchers while the pinchers are closed, which you can open and close at will with the / key. It is very cheap, very high engine cap and most high speeds can be achieved with viable firepower without resorting to an XL engine.
Defiance Industries Uziel
Taking another break.
All mechs on this list are Battlemechs.
Gonna start with the shortest list first, the 60 tonners.
IS 60 tons.
The Dragon is a Draconis Combine workhorse. High speed for an IS Heavy with more armor than most 85 ton assault mechs, with a short, stocky body and a gyro design quirk that effectively gives it a weight free 'Improved Gyro' so that even in fist-to-fist slug matches, this thing is gonna be standing over and kicking its enemies. It is notorious for the Dragon charge...
...which shortly after it became a thing in MWO, PGI removed knockdowns entirely due to a combination of technical issues and trolling, effectively removing MWO's only melee combat system. In MWO Dragons could knock down even 100 ton mechs.
In MWO, their armor is absolutely meaningless since anyone can pack on full armor. However they were given a plethora of armor and structure quirks that do rival non-quirked 80 ton mechs. So not quite as up there as they are in lore, but capitalize on armor/structure buffs in the skill tree and you'll be up there. Dragons, unlike in Battletech, are not very good at straight out brawls (actually they are, provided your enemy count is down to 2 mediums or 1 heavy as seen here however MWO players see brawling as being able to slug it out surrounded by 6 or more enemies), but are effectively similar in use to Clan Gargoyles. Hit and run.
Their exceptional arm range, good torso range, and high sideways visibility all give them great run and gun abilities. They work best when fighting while moving at top speed, circling their enemies. Even so, they can tank exceptionally well in long range roles even if moving slowly (but please keep moving). Dragons have EXCEPTIONAL climbing abilities. (Stop watching after 4 mins) This is still possible and is actually easier to do now than it was back then.
81 kph Base speed. Advanced player skills suggested (independent arm control, ability to aim while zig-zagging.) A very solid mech with some bad press due to the early days of bad hitboxes. It has never shed that negative stigma. However the bad press wouldn't be so bad if people gave them a chance. Still, if you lack skilled arm control, you will be unable to tap into this mech's potential.
The Quickdraw is a mech aptly named for its ability to fire both forward in backwards and ability to deal with two targets at the same time without penalty to accuracy on the secondary target, as well as flip its arms despite having lower arm actuators AND hands.
None of this is carried over into MWO. Even so, the mech is pretty versatile. The hitboxes are pretty fair though its legs seem to draw fire that is not even aimed at it, leading to a joke in All Systems Nominal where friendly LRMs accidentally leg one. That's been fixed over the years. Still.
One variant loves laser vomit, the there's one that mixes lasers with missiles and a third that boats missiles with some lasers. That last one is great as a light mech hunter.
81 kph stock speed. Pretty fast top speeds with bigger engines. The cockpit as a bit of an odd obstruction in the form of the vertical bars. Beyond this my only other complaint is that this mech is relatively generic for something with such a flashy history and combat style that we just can't play in MWO.
The Rifleman is the slowest among these mechs. This is intended to be an anti-air mech and as such it is lightly armored to make room for the sensor and targeting suites as well as the firepower it needed.
In MWO, it lacks its radar, despite being one of the only mechs to feature a full fledge radar (spoiler, Battletech radar is worthless for finding mechs, so that might be why). This is a weapons platform that can take a modest beating. But it is not fast. It makes a solid hill humper, is exceptional at its designed roles. It can brawl modestly. My Rifle 3C video shows it can tank without any survival skill tree. Its variants focus on energy or energy + ballistics.
Base Speed: 64.8. Good view. Solid mech. Arms far enough apart as to not obstruct view with heavy smoke/flash weapons (is a liability at point blank range (under 30 meters) however).
55 tonners.
The Shadowhawk is a(n) (eventually) multi-role mech that made its debut as a scout commander's mech intended to support light mechs on scout missions. (Spoiler alert, it was terrible at it and actual combat for several years, however its ability to grab lighter mechs and slug them kept them around on the field). Later generations saw them outshining mechs of their own class in both performance and in expense, as well as significantly increasing their size.
Sadly BT doesn't really matter here. As such all Shadowhawks are tall (though they shrunk almost 2 meters since their debut into MWO and have lost the title of the tallest 55 ton mech in the game). This thing is akin to a Hunchback, and prior to HoverJet[tm] technology, was the top dog in MWO. Between old nerfs since uplifted, HoverJets, and The Quirkening[tm], they have since fallen from grace. Still die hard fans profess how awesome this mech is, but must admit they can only say that after maxing out its mobility tree and giving it a big engine because without that speed, it pales in so many ways to the Hunchback.
Base Speed: 81 kph. Exceptionally high engine cap. Venerable loadouts, most variants are very ammo reliant, however. Poor visibility (ballistic weapons blind you, no peripheral vision due to no side windows). Mech is easy to get into for new players due to the general lack of importance for arm weaponry. It also has a misleading 'powerful' feeling. Perfectly even hitboxes allow this mech to take good abuse despite significantly inferior armor to the Hunchback. Arms are good for soaking up bullets. Slow turning, sluggish torso twist are both remedied with mobility skill tree. Worst. Jumper. In. The. Game.
The Wolverine is among my favorite mechs. This one is one of the most armored "all rounders" to ever exist in Battletech history and it is most famous for (prior to the 2800s) throwing its AC/5 at an enemy and then bashing it to death with its fists and kicking its knee actuator out before smashing the cockpit, and then tearing off that mech's arm to throw at another enemy... only to pick its AC/5 back up and make the kill shot.
But welcome to MWO. At least MWO gives a nod to that if you look at the right hand, the guns for the right arm are modular and held by the hand itself, connected to a gauntlet that is visually detachable.
The Wolverine still holds the title for the shortest 55 ton mech in the game. Its perfectly even hitboxes allow it to take endearing punishments, and thanks to popular belief that scolds it for reasons that I have never actually understood (probably 'cause 80% of its firepower is in the right arm and arms could be easily destroyed though it almost never is for me)... it gets nearly Hunchback level armor buffs for the CT and right Arm. The hero also gets it on the right torso, due to focusing the missiles there instead of the left torso like all the others.
If the Wolverine had anything else going against it, perhaps it has small launchers capable of only 10 tubes each, and players would rather have giant launchers to compensate for some issues of an obviously personal nature... I find this helps for heat management even when carrying LRM 20s and significantly reduces their spread without any quirks. Sadly it has absolutley no effect on MRMs, even MRM 40s.
Wolverines, due to their nature, must capitalize on advanced control knowledge to maximize their potential. This is perhaps the real reason they aren't more popular in MWO.
Speed 81 kph. Great jumping ability. Good horizontal and vertical range. Fantastic brawler. Great to good at most other roles. Holds the record as the only mech that I have for over 3 years which has NEVER been legged. Can often slug it out and come out of a match with 15% health; a nearly impossible feat for most mechs.
Kintaro aka Golden Boy in Japanese is a Draconis Combine battlemech that is designed to bring SRMs up close and personal after delivering a NARC and firing NARC-enabled SRMs so that they would rarely miss.
In MWO, NARC-enabled SRM ammo doesn't exist, and unlike LRMs which have all the general subtypes combined, the SRMs didn't get that treatment. Why? PGI, I guess. Kintaro got bad press when it first released due to a broken hitbox that caused PGI to redesign how it does hitboxes on ALL mechs. It has never shaken this bad reputation off.
The mech itself is actually pretty amazing, though if you want to bring LRMs do not put them into the arms.
Unless you don't like arms... 'cause you'll lose them quickly if you do.
This said, Kintaros are pretty solid, reasonably tanky mechs with better damage soaking abilities than Griffins even before quirks. However, Kintaros favor mixed loadouts and do not actually handle "Boated" loadouts well. Seriously my worst experience with them has been trying various boat designs. A mixed bag of weapons and at least 3 or more firing buttons has made this mech very awesome.
Base speed: 81 kph. Great mech for advanced players looking for something that can put all their skills to use. Good, tanky hitboxes, good view. Arms can really bulk up; best to avoid that. CT missile variants have up to 20% additional damage resistance while missile doors are closed [this is not mentioned on the quirks].
Griffin is canonically a long range sniper mech, known to enter a prone position or kneel to double its accurate range and even has a seat that adjusts to compensate for laying on the mech's stomach.
But this is MWO. We can't have nice things. Players here like to load this thing up with SRMs, get right into your face and brawl because yeah, that's totally smart. Even so, this mech is pretty venerable for any role and generally fills some roles far better than a Shadowhawk...except sniping. This is MWO afterall. Though if you use the torso weapons instead of the arm weapons, you can snipe pretty well. Since few variants really have that, however, it is best to use this mech as a high speed ranged harasser. Most players lack the concept of "range" however.
One must say, the view from this mech is spectacular. It has the most open view of any mech, as such sneaking up on a Griffin is usually pretty difficult.
81 kph. Pretty versatile. If you don't use hills, the "not good at sniping" tidbit doesn't apply. No ballistic options, though that is likely to change next year when the loyalty Griffin variant becomes available for non-loyalty cbills. Exceptional jumping and bunny hopping capability. Good for players in general, exceptional in the hands of advanced players making solid use of its arms and lock-on weaponry.
Bushy-wacka aka the Bushwacker is an absolute failure from TharHes industries that was only saved by stealing schematics to the Vulture (Mad Dog)... which makes absolutely no sense. Also this mech is supposed to be less than 9 meters tall (similar to the Ebon Jaguar which is supposed to be less than 10 meters tall) and its over 14 meters tall in MWO.
Yet another one of those "Hey, you're in MWO" moments. This mech was hard for me to like at first. It screams that it wants varied loadouts... but it doesn't do well with varied loadouts. It seems really hard to figure out what this mech wants. So much potential versatility but for the life of me I cannot make it work.
Even so, there's a lot of praise for this mech... So some people, somewhere, have figured it out.
81 kph. Decent hitboxes but seems fragile. Lots of loadout potential but never enough space or enough weight, depending on STD or XL engine. My personal advice is don't try to use everything it offers, it just doesn't seem possible to use all it can have at once.
50 tonners
The ever venerable Hunchback is an antique that hasn't been built in ages, but there are so damn many of the things with such a short supply of the Tomodzuru AC/20 -- which holds the second largest caliber to exist in Inner Sphere space as a 5 shell per cassette weapon with 20 damage per cassette and a full cassette capable of ripping a gaping hole through a mech without having to deal with the extraneous armor around the target location (i.e. if you had 80 armor, I wouldn't need to blast through 80 armor to get through it, just the 10 on the front, the 5 structure and the armor on the way out.)
In MWO, the gun does 20 damage in a single shot instead of a single volley, and while it has the biggest AC/20 on a 'Mech in the Inner Sphere, every other mech has the same AC/20. What the 4G has going for it is a really fast firing rate for that AC/20 and a crapload of armor buffs to help emphasize the fact that it has the second most armor of any 50 ton medium mech in the Inner Sphere (rivaled exactly by the Nova in terms of BT armor, and only the Centurion AL stands higher).
The other variants are made from what is called a "Refit kit", so all variants are 4Gs that have been modified with a do-it-yourself kit. All of these other variants are called "Swaybacks" because it reduces the size of the 'hunch' significantly on these other variants.
MWO's Hunchbacks are known for being slow to relatively fast damage sponges with a deadly punch that helps to hook in new players by letting them feel good with their hefty noob tube. The fact that they are cheap to get off the ground (upgrade to double heatsinks and that's all you need) helps to bolster their position, and while completely viable for players of any level, their utility expands after discovering how to use arm weapons.
A good example of a Hunchback can be found here. This is with NO quirks, no new skill tree, and you can see how well this thing tanked even back then. At the beginning it is even built from the ground up. You will notice viability in both the + and o crosshairs, as well as some extreme tankability even when under heavy fire from an enemy that would shred a lesser mech in seconds. Another example, this time with skill tree, quirks, etc., can be found here and the hero is here.
Base speed 64.8 kph. Low engine cap (high end is somewhere between 85 and early 90s). Good field of view, slightly obstructed to the right. Incredible twisting range. Tanky. Can play any role. Personal advice is to funnel armor forward on the Hunch side to make it tankier to stupidly insane amounts.
The Corean Enterprise Twins: Centurion
The Corean Enterprise Twins: Trebuchet
Your Local Enforcer is best known for getting Corean Enterprises to get their **** together and fix the Centurion's many flaws. Beyond this, the Battlemech's roles are to deliver intense firepower to surpress enemy vehicles and as a trooper to deal with brawl with enemies at near melee range without actually entering it, using a tactic where they jump right into the enemy's face, tank their shots and blast them to kingdom come... a truly Amero-French way of doing things... Wait, didn't you know? The Enforcer is Davion in origin, home of both space America and space France.
Davions in a nutshell, their favorite tactic... jump in your face guns blazing. Shame the Davions in MWO don't seem to know that. Yet everyone knows about the Steiner Scout Lance....
When you've got Crabs, there's nothing better than sharing them. The Crab is a walking sensor suite so advanced that canonically, the "Battletech" tabletop game we play is actually a computer simulation of real combat being played on a bored pilot's sensor suite inside a Crab. It also has 8 redundancies because this system, which can keep track of all known enemy positions planet wide and predict local enemy movement after it has been lost is very fragile and usually after a skirmish 6 of the 8 redundancies tend to be destroyed by weapons fire.
But while MWO has acknowledged the Cyclop's Tactictron 2000 computer with +200 meters sensor range (despite how this was a planet wide system that could coordinate artillery, airforces, naval forces, etc... and went extinct over 150 years prior to this game), the blatantly superior Crab system (which only lacked the holographic display and satelitte hacking capabilities) gets no acknowledgement.
What MWO does have is a very energy-focused mech with 10% damage resistance on any arms with pinchers while the pinchers are closed, which you can open and close at will with the / key. It is very cheap, very high engine cap and most high speeds can be achieved with viable firepower without resorting to an XL engine.
Base speed 81 lkph. Akin to its canonical nature, this mech started small but was enlarged due to the fact that its high speeds made it almost impossible to hit. It can still be difficult to hit despite this. Decent view, good fun. The hero with twin LB-5x can stand toe to toe against a King Crab at point blank.
Defiance Industries Uziel
Taking another break.
Whoa.
#13
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- The Blood-Eye
- 52 posts
Member
- LocationThe Frozen Wastes
Posted 10 November 2017 - 04:03 PM
If you want just a handful of suggestions instead of an enormous list, I can give you a couple.
The Huntsman (50T, Clan):
This mech is a literal jack of all trades as far as clan mechs go. It's both our most reliable scouting mech on the clan side, boasting the most firepower, and an effective quickplay mech. If you have the hero, it can boat the most SRMs that a medium can take, effortlessly loading up 6 SRM6+As, or 8 SRM4+As which i would highly recommend instead. But, that's not it's only advantage. It has jumpjets, and a decent top speed, allowing it to poptart relatively well with a 2x PPC or a single gauss rifle, 3T of ammo and 5 ERMLs. It's not the tankiest thing in the universe, but due to all of those characteristics it's also great for taking multiple strikes into combat, since you will have height and the jets to drop them on enemy groups.
The Stormcrow (55T, Clan):
This mech isn't what it used to be, and contrary to popular belief at this point it would hardly be considered overpowered in scouting with the meta where it stands and all of the nerfs clan energy weapons have gotten. It is, however, still forbidden in scouting. Regardless, it plays as one of our most effective skirmishers with an energy loadout, and can do acceptably with missiles. Good old two large pulse and 4 ERMLs will make you a solid threat from a sizable range, and with 97kph as your top speed you can make good use of that range.
The Bushwhacker (55t, Inner Sphere):
This mech is an undeniably strong one, boasting as much armour as a 75 ton heavy with good hitboxes. If an enemy doesn't focus fire your legs, it's _very_ hard to take down a cautious bushwhacker. It can run a number of passable medium range builds, but really excels in a brawl with a missile loadout. It can very effectively shield from damage, turning only to deposit a large burst into the enemy's legs or torso. No jumpjets, but a respectable top speed with a light engine. And hey, you can run flamers if you want. They're sort of problematic for most people.
The Griffin (55t, Inner Sphere):
The Griffin's the inner sphere's classic missile brawler and it does what it needs to do. It has access to missiles, decent hitboxes, jumpjets, and ECM. While ECM a good mech does not make, it can be very helpful to your teams in quickplay. Some people also take flamers just for the added shutdown potential. It has enough JJ potential to clear most sizable jumps, like the bottom of crimson straight to the top platform through the holes without a problem.
Also, honorable mentions to the hunchback, hunchie IIC, centurion and nova. The nova is surprisingly good at legging mechs now thanks to the heavy lasers.
The Huntsman (50T, Clan):
This mech is a literal jack of all trades as far as clan mechs go. It's both our most reliable scouting mech on the clan side, boasting the most firepower, and an effective quickplay mech. If you have the hero, it can boat the most SRMs that a medium can take, effortlessly loading up 6 SRM6+As, or 8 SRM4+As which i would highly recommend instead. But, that's not it's only advantage. It has jumpjets, and a decent top speed, allowing it to poptart relatively well with a 2x PPC or a single gauss rifle, 3T of ammo and 5 ERMLs. It's not the tankiest thing in the universe, but due to all of those characteristics it's also great for taking multiple strikes into combat, since you will have height and the jets to drop them on enemy groups.
The Stormcrow (55T, Clan):
This mech isn't what it used to be, and contrary to popular belief at this point it would hardly be considered overpowered in scouting with the meta where it stands and all of the nerfs clan energy weapons have gotten. It is, however, still forbidden in scouting. Regardless, it plays as one of our most effective skirmishers with an energy loadout, and can do acceptably with missiles. Good old two large pulse and 4 ERMLs will make you a solid threat from a sizable range, and with 97kph as your top speed you can make good use of that range.
The Bushwhacker (55t, Inner Sphere):
This mech is an undeniably strong one, boasting as much armour as a 75 ton heavy with good hitboxes. If an enemy doesn't focus fire your legs, it's _very_ hard to take down a cautious bushwhacker. It can run a number of passable medium range builds, but really excels in a brawl with a missile loadout. It can very effectively shield from damage, turning only to deposit a large burst into the enemy's legs or torso. No jumpjets, but a respectable top speed with a light engine. And hey, you can run flamers if you want. They're sort of problematic for most people.
The Griffin (55t, Inner Sphere):
The Griffin's the inner sphere's classic missile brawler and it does what it needs to do. It has access to missiles, decent hitboxes, jumpjets, and ECM. While ECM a good mech does not make, it can be very helpful to your teams in quickplay. Some people also take flamers just for the added shutdown potential. It has enough JJ potential to clear most sizable jumps, like the bottom of crimson straight to the top platform through the holes without a problem.
Also, honorable mentions to the hunchback, hunchie IIC, centurion and nova. The nova is surprisingly good at legging mechs now thanks to the heavy lasers.
#14
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- The Guide
- 23,384 posts
Welcoming Committee
Posted 10 November 2017 - 04:05 PM
Feezou, on 10 November 2017 - 03:53 PM, said:
Whoa.
Should probably snip big quotes.
#15
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- The Guide
- 23,384 posts
Welcoming Committee
Posted 10 November 2017 - 06:44 PM
So there you have it, a comprehensive, "short-hand" guide to all the 50 to 60 ton mechs currently in the game. All done.
#16
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- Urban Commando
- 1,497 posts
Member
- Locationnestled in a burlap sack, down in the root cellar
Posted 10 November 2017 - 07:10 PM
Bushwhacker is one ugly puppy, but it tears things up way outside it’s weight class. Hunchback is an old favorite, makes a great can opener when paired with AC20.
#17
Posted 10 November 2017 - 07:56 PM
You want speed and firepower? The Clan 50ts and the Maddog are slow (but have great firepower). IS mediums struggle to have speed and heavy hitting power.
My top contenders for you would be the Quickdraw with a large engine + srms and mls [http://mwo.smurfy-ne...44a8111f6dd6a3] or a stormcrow with whatever you want [the mech can really do everything). Both have great agility numbers, can go around 100kph while packing a punch
My top contenders for you would be the Quickdraw with a large engine + srms and mls [http://mwo.smurfy-ne...44a8111f6dd6a3] or a stormcrow with whatever you want [the mech can really do everything). Both have great agility numbers, can go around 100kph while packing a punch
Edited by Cato Zilks, 10 November 2017 - 08:01 PM.
#18
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- The Handsome Devil
- 4,452 posts
Member
- LocationOutreach
Posted 10 November 2017 - 08:53 PM
Koniving, on 10 November 2017 - 08:37 AM, said:
here's a short-hand guide.
lul
who you kidding, Kon?
#19
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- The Guide
- 23,384 posts
Welcoming Committee
Posted 11 November 2017 - 06:07 AM
Roughneck45, on 10 November 2017 - 08:53 PM, said:
lul
who you kidding, Kon?
who you kidding, Kon?
Well for each mech, it is reasonably short hand.
There's just a LOT of mechs in the 50 to 60 ton range.
#20
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- The Mercenary
- 4,697 posts
Member
- LocationPoland
Posted 11 November 2017 - 12:10 PM
Feezou, on 10 November 2017 - 08:29 AM, said:
I have been looking for a good mech that is in the 50-60 ton range. It doesn't matter if it is IS or Clan. I want something that can bear a decent amount of weapons, and a good amount of speed. A blend of ACs and lasers would suit me. I've been looking at the Shadow Hawk. I would prefer maybe 2 or 3 suggestions:
Quote
A 50 ton mech: Like the Hunchback, or something similar.
IS Enforcer if you want agility and better targeting in brawls due to arm mounted weapons. XL-compatible and has decent hitboxes for it. The 4P model can do UAC/20 with 4 medium lasers.
Quote
A 60 ton mech: Something like a Dragon. It is fairly fast, but I heard it's trash.
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