8 replies to this topic

[Zh0u]

Hey guys,

It's me again.

Just a quick question, if you guys wanted to try a different build on the same mech, let's say the HBR-Prime, initially was Laser Vomit, but now you wanna try some laser dakka hybrid, would you re-spec the mech? Since you need to select a different skill tree.

Or just buy another HBR-Prime and equip a different loadout?

[Jonathan8883]

You can also just spend more skill points to unlock more nodes, and deactivate some existing nodes by clicking on them (they change to dark middle/outline).

[Roughneck45]

Either works. Depends how much you play it.

Swapping nodes would be cheaper, for sure. You'll have to pay to unlock the new nodes but if you want to switch back it only costs xp after the initial purchase.

Edited by Roughneck45, 03 December 2017 - 08:22 PM.

[Tier5 Kerensky]

No one should use the respec. It will unselect all nodes. There's zero reason ever to do so.

What you'd do, if you have full 91 nodes, is when you take different loadout, you drop some useless and less useful nodes, then take new priority nodes for your new loadout. Most of the nodes will remain the same, because they are very generic.

Later you can chance back and reselect them, for 400 XP a piece. At that stage the mech should have been mastered for some time and it should have accumulated the XP to easily do so.

People who buy more than 1 of same battlemechs or, similiar or same omnimechs, usually would have played long and do it for likely FP so that you can have the same good mech with different loadouts to either use at same time, or different time, as in FP you will see the map and mode when you select your mechs.

Any relative new player would not really do that, and should get different kinds of mechs to learn different aspects and styles of fighting.

[Tesunie]

Zh0u, on 30 November 2017 - 02:12 PM, said:

Hey guys,

It's me again.

Just a quick question, if you guys wanted to try a different build on the same mech, let's say the HBR-Prime, initially was Laser Vomit, but now you wanna try some laser dakka hybrid, would you re-spec the mech? Since you need to select a different skill tree.

Or just buy another HBR-Prime and equip a different loadout?

What I would do? I'd create the new loadout with the old skills still attached from the previous one. Then, if I like it more than the original, I'd switch up the skills as previously already mentioned.

If I like the new loadout as much as the old one, or just like it as a different flavor (and I had the spare mechbays available), then I would purchase and level out a new Hellbringer Prime (or any Hellbringer chassis that will work) so I would have each at it's peak options whenever I wished.


This of course, depends upon how much I liked the old build, how much I like the new build, and what my current resources available to my account is. I mean... I have seven different Huntsmen for different flavors of game play and builds... Not to mention the doubles some of the new packs gives you with the special variants and it's normal ones...

[The Basilisk]

Zh0u, on 30 November 2017 - 02:12 PM, said:

Hey guys,

It's me again.

Just a quick question, if you guys wanted to try a different build on the same mech, let's say the HBR-Prime, initially was Laser Vomit, but now you wanna try some laser dakka hybrid, would you re-spec the mech? Since you need to select a different skill tree.

Or just buy another HBR-Prime and equip a different loadout?

Short answer: HELL YES !!!

Long answer: Since you get certain maximum effects from different skill nodes, and to be frank this happens almost never since you will go for the most effect at a minimum invested SP, the effect you get out of the skill system for certain mech traits will seldomly be more than 15% something.
If you now take into account that the pure ammount of the "+/-15% something" is defined by its base value you begin to realize that you will only notice most of the changes in the borderline, extreme regions when you drive your mech along the thin line between scewed up and overextended your capabilitys and daring win.

So....should you change your skill tree ?
Well it depends. There are certain nodes you will use almost every time and others not.
Further I am sure there are certain preferences you have with your builds (torso speed over topspeed or turnrate f.e.)

All in all if you don't change, say from a missile boat loadout to a dakka loadout there won't be that many nodes you have to change.

Well change yes but respec no.

[Zh0u]

Thank you guys. I think I get it now. But as a new player, I will probably better be getting as many new mechs (with different loadouts) as I can, instead of trying out different loadouts.

[Tesunie]

Zh0u, on 01 December 2017 - 08:57 AM, said:

Thank you guys. I think I get it now. But as a new player, I will probably better be getting as many new mechs (with different loadouts) as I can, instead of trying out different loadouts.

There are two advantages of getting a new mech.
1. In FP, if you need the extra mech to fill in your drop deck, it will be available. For QP, you can quickly just select the other mech with no hassle, which is good especially if you are dropping in a group.
2. You can specialize your skill trees for maximum effect for each loadout. For a ballistic/laser loadout, velocity and beam duration are a bit more useful, where as pure energy, coolrun and laser duration is more important. If you ever went LRM/ATM, then Target Decay becomes very important.

There are also two distinct downsides I can think of as well.
1. It takes an extra mechbay for another chassis you already own. If you don't have many mechbays (you can earn more in FP for free), than this can make things start getting cramped. If you are trying to play FP, another Hellbringer may be too much tonnage (for example) for your drop deck...
2. It's a larger drain on resources in the short term (though less so in the long term if you end up liking both loadouts), as every time you change your skills around (turning nodes on and off) will cost you experience. Skilling out a whole new mech though will cost you C-bills for the mech's purchase, more for the skill unlocks, and the purchased weapons/omnipods/equipment/etc (presuming you don't own them already).

Just recall, you can always test a new build without changing your skills at all. It may not be optimized completely and in top form, but it should be "good enough" for you to see if it's a build that interests you. Then, you can always revert the build back for free (as you would still own all the equipment needed from before the changes). I tend to record builds on Smurfy, select save and share, and then bookmark the end page. This way, I can always go back. (Or you can screen shoot the build from the in game mechlab... Or write it down... whatever...)

[Rogue Jedi]

Lets say you change the Mechs primary loadout from Lasers to Gauss Rifles, and you no longer have any lasers on the Mech,
Lasers are hot weapons, so to balence the lasers heat you would have taken neat gen, heat contacinimt and cool run, as wel as the laser duration nodes.
Gauss Rifles are realy low heat, so the reat related nodes are worthless, you may go for Gauss Charge, and as Gauss are ammo hungry you may go for magazine capacity
then in the operations tree you would no longer need heat containment or coolrun, i is possible you could completely drop the ops tree so you could spend most of the "operations" skill points elsewhere.

worst case scenario that is about 50 points you want to reassign, but probably a lot less.
if you hit respec that is a total of 92 clicks to activate/reactive skills
if you deactivate a skill that also deactivates all skills below it, so if you deactivate the top skill of each tree for firepower and operations that would be 52 clicks maximum (and probably more like 20-30) to resisgn skills where you want them, and you could be a lot more selective in which skills to disable.

your HBR-Prime would still be a HBR-PRIME so you would likely keep more than half its skills as it is still the same Mech just with diferant guns