11 replies to this topic

[Charronn]

Gawd.I am confused.The new skill tree (what is considered a good load out?)
Light engines?(whats the good/bad about these suckers?)
New weapons?(I have no idea whats considered good or bad).
I played a few with my mechs and did ok,then realized they all had free skill points lol.
In my opinion this new system would utterly confuse new players to the game,much more than the old ones which was bad enough.
Be gentle on me,use lube.

[Nine-Ball]

Skill Tree helps with "personalizing" your mechs. Also replaces the quirkening so its gives more mechs playability.

Light engines are lighter then standards and allow you to lose a side torso rather then die like an XL. They only take up 2 slots per side torso as opposed to 3 for an XL as well.

You got new PPCs to give more options, MRMs for splash damage, RAC5s for DPS and overheating, ERML's to content with clantech, light gauss just to stir the pot and so on.

I'd say the Skill Tree is a better alternative then giving all mechs overpowering quirks that generally limit useful chassis to one or two or make it so they can only play a certain way to be viable. More weapons means more fun in using different setups and finding out what works for you.

Is that enough lube for you?

Edited by Nine-Ball, 27 November 2017 - 02:06 PM.

[Davegt27]

watch out for the skill tree don't hit respec

ask questions before you do anything

Edited by Davegt27, 27 November 2017 - 10:24 PM.

[Xiphias]

For the skill tree you want to spend points as follows:

Aux tree if you are willing to burn consumables (double coolshots/strikes OP).
Structure tree
Operations to get the cool run nodes (based on how hot your mech is)
Firepower tree with remaining points to taste (always get the laser duration if you're boating lasers)

Skip all the worthless nodes you can (like AMS cooldown). If you find yourself short on points you can trim nodes out as needed.

Agility is wasted on most mechs and the JJ tree is a complete waste of time. Sensors can be useful, if you're going to run ECM you need to get the ECM nodes and at that point you might as well get seismic. If you run lock on weapons you might also want to spend points in this tree.

[mouser42]

hi welcome back

[Mcgral18]

LFEs are like cXLs
Only, they give less benefit for the same penalty


Hurray balance!

[MechaBattler]

Mcgral18, on 27 November 2017 - 07:01 PM, said:

LFEs are like cXLs
Only, they give less benefit for the same penalty


Hurray balance!

[BrunoSSace]

The new tech is nice. ER medium are like Swiss Cheese on crackers. Pair them with ER Large lazors and its a match made in heaven. My Grasshopers love the new tech, the range boost is nothing to sniff at and its nice to have options now. I rarely use large pulses now unless I wanted to get close and wub wub. The light engines gave nearly all heavies and assults more tonage to play with if they were stuck with a standard beforehand. Its a win win for the IS.

[Y E O N N E]

Charronn, on 27 November 2017 - 01:54 PM, said:

Gawd.I am confused.The new skill tree (what is considered a good load out?)
Light engines?(whats the good/bad about these suckers?)
New weapons?(I have no idea whats considered good or bad).
I played a few with my mechs and did ok,then realized they all had free skill points lol.
In my opinion this new system would utterly confuse new players to the game,much more than the old ones which was bad enough.
Be gentle on me,use lube.

In order?

Rule of thumb for the new skills is to prioritize points for heat gen, cool run, and armor skills unless you have a specialist build that demands something else.

Light engines take the same critslots as cXL and can survive a single side-torso loss with the same penalties as cXL, but they don't offer as much weight savings as cXL. It is the go-to engine for most IS builds now, unless you need more than 10 side torso slots for a loadout.

New guns are pretty hit and miss. The best addition is the IS ER Medium Laser, but you'll still probably end up taking standard Medium lasers about half the time you think you wanted ER Medium. Heavy PPC is passable. IS UAC/10 is passable. None of it is "good" except the Heavy Large Laser, and even then you end up taking cERLL more often. Oh, and Light Machine guns, for all the crits from a safe distance.

[arcana75]

Charronn, on 27 November 2017 - 01:54 PM, said:

Gawd.I am confused.The new skill tree (what is considered a good load out?)
Light engines?(whats the good/bad about these suckers?)
New weapons?(I have no idea whats considered good or bad).
I played a few with my mechs and did ok,then realized they all had free skill points lol.
In my opinion this new system would utterly confuse new players to the game,much more than the old ones which was bad enough.
Be gentle on me,use lube.

Skill nodes depends on your loadout. General rules apply, eg take armour/structure nodes if you have armour/structure enhancements/quirks as the bonus is amplified, take heat/cool run/heat management nodes if you have a hot build, ECM nodes if you have ECM, ammo/missile/gauss/lbx nodes if you have them, etc.

LFEs are literally the middle line between XL and STD engines. Use LFEs if you run IS mechs.

Don't know about new weapons cuz I joined in late 2017 so there hasn't been new weapons added thus far. But there have been adjustments to existing weapons, the biggest thus far are the Artemis and Medium Laser nerfs.

As a new player I think it's even more confusing for older players due to the many changes. For new players it is what is it so there's no change to adapt to.

[Charronn]

Thanks for the responses guys.
Good to see the MWO community is as helpful as always.You guys are awesome .

[ForceUser]

Regarding the Skill Tree, there isn't any one perfect/best build, but there is some good general guidelines that will help you get the most out of it. The most important thing to remember is that the Skill tree allows you to customize your mechs to fit your play style. You will notice that many of you mechs will eventually settle into similar skill tree builds with minor differences here and there depending on the actual mech build however your Skill Trees will look vastly different to other people's skill trees. And everyone swears by theirs.

That said my suggestion based on my personal 'default' skill tree would be to get Radar Deprivation 60% on anything that isn't an ECM mech. This costs 9 skill points for Radar Deprivation 60% and ECM costs 13.

For Aux it depends. I either grab double coolshots OR double strikes. Yes you can bring 2 of each costing more skill points and more importantly costing you 160k cbills per drop. I can cover that easily, even without premium time but still that's a lot of cash to burn each match. It'll depend heavily on the mech. I tend to only bring coolshots for my MRM or SRM builds. A UAV is useful as well but I find I generally don't have the points for it.

The majority of my points ~50 or so tends to go into Weapons tree. Mostly because that fits my playstyle as extremely aggressive and very focused on doing damage and riding the heat curve. Range/Heat Gen/Cooldown nodes + the special nodes and sometimes even velocity (MRM/PPC builds) are critically important in my opinion if you want to do a lot of damage and make a lot of cbills. I tend to skip Ops tree because I grab all the heat gen nodes as a matter of course of picking up all the range/cooldown/ammo/velocity nodes. Speaking of, ALWAYS pick up the ammo and/or missile rack nodes depending on your weapon loadout. It adds 20% extra ammo that can equate into multi ton savings. You can generally skip heat gen nodes on LBX and gauss builds.

The rest of my points then tend to go into Survival, grabbing 75-100% of the armor nodes. On mechs with bonus armor quirks I try to grab more of the armor nodes since there is a stacking effect with the armor quirks since they count as base. Some mechs do have structure quirks as well but those aren't as valuable to build the skill tree around in my opinion. You tend to lose the weapons sooner rather than later anyways once your armor is gone.

On lights I tend to go lighter on weapon quirks and get at least 3 if not all 5 of the speed tweak nodes in the agility tree. Survival tree is also quite important for lights, especially armor quirked lights.

Some of the heavier mechs, depending on the builds and weapons I also grab some agility nodes, especially for Gauss/LBX builds as they can get away with minimal heat nodes

As to new weapons/tech, LFE is amazing, Light Ferro armor is surprisingly useful on a number of mechs to squeeze out an extra heatsink or ton of ammo and I am an absolutely huge fan of MRM boats. It does seem to be hit and miss in that half the people I know have absolutely atrocious hit reg while I've had matches where I got 1800+ damage with MRMs. Light gauss has it's place on some mechs like riflemans, ERML is a game changer (mix them with LL), Dual HPPC mechs are a lot of fun, especially poptarts, Dual LB20s and Dual Heavy Gauss is amazing on the right mechs and the new UACs are pretty baller if used right. Heavy Lasers mixed with cERML is strong but the duration is brutal. Great if used right but can get you killed. Snubs comboed with AC20s on some assaults has great synergy. Interestingly enough the new IS Streaks aren't used all that much and Clan streaks are also a lot less common. Haven't used ATMs. New machine guns offer good utility on many builds.

Overall the new tech is good without completely invalidating the old tech.