16 replies to this topic

[Neutron IX]

So, I've played this game for years now, and though I'm really into my Light mechs, for one reason or another, I'd never picked up the Firestarters, even back when they were ubiquitous, effective, and dominant.

Yesterday, realizing that it was the only Light mech I had yet to buy, I finally thought, "What the hell, why not?", and picked up the bundle.

Now I find myself, wondering "What the hell? What do you even do with this thing anymore?"...

Took one into the testing ground, and even with a max engine, moving faster than the fastest Urbanmech, it somehow feels so much slower, and more sluggish really.

Hitting F2, I realized that that may be based on the fact that it's almost the same size as a Centurion, so you're a pretty big target on the battlefield.

Hardpoints aren't bad, but it seems like it might be squishy, especially being as big as it is.

My question is, is anyone out there managing anything cool/fun with these poor little ******** right now?

It makes me sad since they used to be so good from what I understand.

[Audacious Aubergine]

Most of the 35t mechs suffer the same problem post-rescale - they're too big for their squishiness. But they're still fast and agile, but due to their size you'll have to use that speed to pop and poke instead of the old days of running rings around people. I haven't taken my Firestarters out since forever but maybe try playing it as a jumping Wolfhound?

[Neutron IX]

It's truly weird how freaky tall the Firestarter seems to be though. Is it actually the tallest/slowest feeling of the lot? My WLFs feel pretty agile by comparison.

In the FSs I feel like a pretty big target. Only played one match so far though. Ember with max engine, 4 MLs, 4 LMGs, 2 JJs and AMS. Polar Highlands, Assault. Didn't do too badly, 1 kill, 6 assists, 312 damage. Trying to remember to play it like I would a Phoenix Hawk or Cicada, with less armor and no possibility of ECM.

Looking at some Pulse Laser builds also...doing some tinkering till I find something that sticks. Liked the Ember well enough so far anyway.

[Koniving]

Rip Snorgan, on 02 March 2018 - 02:20 PM, said:

It's truly weird how freaky tall the Firestarter seems to be though. Is it actually the tallest/slowest feeling of the lot? My WLFs feel pretty agile by comparison.

In the FSs I feel like a pretty big target. Only played one match so far though. Ember with max engine, 4 MLs, 4 LMGs, 2 JJs and AMS. Polar Highlands, Assault. Didn't do too badly, 1 kill, 6 assists, 312 damage. Trying to remember to play it like I would a Phoenix Hawk or Cicada, with less armor and no possibility of ECM.

Looking at some Pulse Laser builds also...doing some tinkering till I find something that sticks. Liked the Ember well enough so far anyway.

It's almost as tall as a Hunchback if memory serves me. Not dissimilar from the Panther which if I remember correctly is almost 13 meters.

HBK, one of the shortest 50 tonners pre and post rescale, is 13.6 meters tall. (Note: In BT that's the height of an Atlas.....)

So yeah. Its big.
Personally I slap a Gauss Rifle into it and call it the Hollander, the most notably tallest 35 tonner to exist.


(What's funny is the Hollander is less than 11 meters tall when standing fully erect in BT... but nothing is scaled to BT... and the size differences of lights to assaults would be slight, considering the tallest BT mech is 14.4 meters tall [the Executioner]. Executioner is slightly taller than the Atlas in MWO, and the Atlas in MWO post rescale is 17.8 meters tall.)

Edited by Koniving, 02 March 2018 - 02:44 PM.

[Koniving]

Sadly this was before the rescale...

....Though I've had some good success with the Panther and Wolfhound whom are both of similar height. so it stands to reason I could pull this off again.

[Neutron IX]

Firelander! I can dig that. Tiny-barreled Gauss and all!

Capping out at 81 kph? What engine are you rolling in that?

[Neutron IX]

Toyed with the Firelander a bit. Excited to give it a shot. Also found a different build I have been able to live with on my Ember for now, but time will tell if it sticks.

It does okay, though it still feels slow to me, and a bit ungainly. I went the cluster of LMGs for the range and considered swapping a couple of them out for more ammo maybe, but the truth is, I have yet to actually run out of ammo so far, so, for now, this will work.

Been kind of a fun experiment though, trying to find something useful on the poor little guys.

Thanks for the input!

Doh! Forgot. I have the ammo in the head on the actual build, not the CT.

[mad kat]

Ember is a problem child for sure,

2 x flamers, 2 x ml and 4 x hmg is the only build i can find that works but you literally have to spend the first half of the match hiding then dive in and find a lone target, kill steal it then run away but watch your heat like a hawk with the stupid flamer ramp.

My OCD prevents me from not putting flamers in the arms though.

Edited by mad kat, 18 June 2018 - 01:43 AM.

[Brizna]

@Rip Snorgan,

Firestarter's main problem is that it's not small at all, it's way too large

[SlightlyMobileTurret]

Firestarter has horrible base agility compared to other lights. Heck, it's only got 2/3rd the base accel/decel of a Viper.

It would probably be close to being okay if they fix that first.

[Guy Humual]

Firestarter is the worst mech I own. I love the light mechs, the locusts are my favorites, but there's a lot of lights that can do some really cool things. My problem with the firestarter is it's the worst. It does have okay hard points, but it doesn't compete with later mechs like the piranha, and they're low mounted so poptarting isn't great and peaking can be iffy. It's big, which makes it a big target, but it's also incredibly squishy. It's not super fast. Not really slow. With it's size you're probably not sneaking up on anyone and if you do they'll have a far easier time killing you than they would if you were in just about any other mech.

If it had armour quirks, if it had speed, or high mounts, or if it was smaller. if, if, if, it might be a better mech, but it doesn't have any of those things because it's the worst.

[Koniving]

Rip Snorgan, on 02 March 2018 - 05:11 PM, said:

Firelander! I can dig that. Tiny-barreled Gauss and all!

Capping out at 81 kph? What engine are you rolling in that?

Sorry for not responding I never knew I had one.

Xl 180. Same as for the raven 4x Gauss crow and for the Ac/20 raptor.

Ac/20 raptor is 5 years old now.

[mad kat]

Funnily the firestarter is a very viable mech in HBS battletech. Especially if you can field it on a hot map and get a laser boat on the Opfor. It can single handedly render blackknights, hunchback 4p's grasshoppers, awesome's etc useless. And to top it off can even be built as a crit seeking monster.

It's why I always focus fire those things in BT now.

[CFC Conky]

The -S(C) isn't too bad, those five MPL's can do some good work.

Good hunting,
CFC Conky

[Cronicus]

If your gonna grab a firestarter get the FS9A. It's got the most energy hard points and the most free tonnage. This means you can do max engine with 8 small pulse lasers and jump jets.

Yea the firestarter is big but with an xl 295 JJ's and 8 small pulse lasers you can put out a lot of hurt and have the mobility to counter it's post rescale size.

[Jonathan8883]

The worst part is the limited torso pitch. HPG, Canyon, and a bunch of other maps are rough when you can't hit with half of your guns.

[Pain G0D]

It would help a lot if my firestarter could actually start a fire . XD