8 replies to this topic

[Tesunie]

I've decided to just log each match as I play them as feedback on the PTS. I'm going to try and stay to a format; build I used, how it felt, overall match play.
WARNING: I will be updating this first post with each additional match.

---

First match I dropped in was with my Huntsmen with two HLLs and two ERMLs supported by an LRM10.

Dropped on Mining Collective. Ended up crashing into a Hellbringer who had ERLLs and ERMLs. I used JJs to my advantage as much as I could, jumping and trying to land as much damage as I could. Eventually, I was pinned into a corner. Ended up dealing over 100 points of damage, just barely breaching the armor of my Hellbringer opponent. I ultimately died because my keybindings where off and, instead of popping a Cool Shot or a UAV, I shot weapon group 1 and 2... which obviously exasperated my heat problems.

Overall, the HLLs seemed to produce a lot of heat but felt like they didn't exactly have enough punch for the heat they produced. However, for a first match/test, Clan vs Clan seemed rather interesting and balanced. It felt better, but only as Clan vs Clan. Didn't see a single IS mech yet.

---

Second match I dropped in my Huntsmen "Scrapmaker", a LPL and four MPL build.

Dropped onto HPG network. Found two assaults fairly early on at the top of the structure. One of my allies seemed to suicide charge them, but together we managed to kill one assault mech how mistakenly overheated. Despite him being badly damaged before overheating, it took three pulses of my MPLs to finish the target off. Then, a Dual Gauss Kodiak slammed me hard in the CT. I dealt heavy damage to his CT in return before falling. Dealt about 300ish damage I believe...

Overall, my pulse build seemed to run cooler and, once again, against pure Clan opponents felt reasonable so far. They may have been a little underwhelming, but not too bad as a general consideration at this time. Dual Gauss still hurt... maybe even more than the Quad MPLs did...

---

Third match, taking out my reliable Crab 27B. Two LLs and four ERMLs. It seemed like time to introduce an IS mech into the test.

Met up with a team with two assaults, a heavy and a medium vs our side of two mediums, a light and an assault. As an IS Crab, I seemed to survive a little better, but when fighting against an Ebon Jaguar, I seemed to still quickly lose armor when hit.

Overall, I think the Ebon was running a new build with triple LLs on it, which really kept it's alpha high. Then again, I was in a 50 ton mech verse a heavy mech... I wasn't exactly expecting to win. And when one on our already light weight team just charges in blindly... and our assault dies from a head shot... Well. Only so much you can do. Conclusion here is, not conclusive.

---

Fourth match, repeating with the Crab from above.

Solaris City. Walked along the ramps and upper road around the center. Ended up crashing into the entire enemy team in an unexpected area. Couldn't see them along a dip in the road/train until all of them could see me suddenly as we could see past the dip. Needless to say, I was alone (the team was originally right behind me, but turned to the center just before I met up with the enemy) and promptly died. Well, four mechs to one Crab, yeah. Saw it coming once I saw them...

Conclusion: In the match there was me in a Crab and someone else in a Roughneck. The two IS mechs in this case each died with less damage than our clan mech counterparts in the match. Each of our team ended up separating (just as the enemy got to them), so we each died systematically one after another...

Edited by Tesunie, 13 July 2018 - 04:15 PM.

[Tesunie]

Fifth match, decided to take a Jagermech out. Dual LB2s and dual LB5s.

Dealt 161 damage on Solaris city. Normally I expect more, but I moved forwards with my team right behind me, and then noticed (once again) that my team was... back peddling away from the enemy as I moved forwards. Got sandwiched by an Adder and a Huntsmen, so I kept getting shot in the back. In the end, my team won with only myself dropping. I think I got fed for the team (because I don't know why they didn't follow me). Whatever. It worked. (Enemy team kept using strikes...)

Conclusion: IS mechs still seem to drop easily. Then again, I got surrounded by two mechs, so I was always being shot in the back... Once more, Clan mechs seemed to still quickly and easily get higher damage.

---

Sixth match, took my Marauder with four ERMLs and dual Lt Gauss.

Frozen city. Ended up getting into a solo fight early on with a Marauder IIC. Despite twisting, I still quickly lost my right torso, and never manged to breached any section of my opponent, despite dealing 250ish damage in the match. Ended up surviving, but my team had to bail me out.

Conclusion: Heavy vs Assault... Clans can still get plenty of weapons on their mechs. However, Heavy vs Assault... Still rather inconclusive, but so far all my IS vs Clan matches (lets face it, most people are using Clan tech for this) has ended poorly still...

---

Seventh match, decided to take my Linebacker for a spin. Good old two HLL and triple ERMLs.

Polar Highlands. Traveled with my team (as before), and did a little scouting to locate the enemy. Once located, I engaged in peak and poke warfare, as would be expected. Heat still seemed rather high, but that isn't unusual for the build. Did seem to take more shots to deal damage to the enemy, but once again Clan on Clan didn't feel bad. No IS mechs were found in this match. In the end, I survived with minor damage (still had armor) and dealt 421 damage for the match.

Conclusion: The speed of the mech, coupled with it's health quirks, seemed to make this continue to be a strong contender for fast paced poke play. Hellbringers seem to be a pain to kill now... Not sure how this balance pass seems to be for others, but Clans still feel powerful to me. Then again, it might be because most Clan mechs still hit harder for their speed and cooling rate compared to IS counterparts... rather than the weapons themselves.

---

Eighth match. Taking my Marauder IIC out for a spin, with it's two HLLs and six ERMLs. A solid test for laser changes?

Just dropped in an interesting match (by far the most interesting so far). It was on Grim. It was strange, but nice. Here's the tale. At first, we had odd teams, the enemy team had a DC, then an AFK that DCed as well. So, we decided to do the match in true Clan fashion, 1v1s! When proposed, someone on our team (who was AFK at first) decided to DC. So, it was 2 vs 3 for a while. Eventually, they got everyone reconnected, but we held to the 1v1.

I was going to fight one person, but someone else shot at them first, so I waited. Then I saw a third enemy mech (a victor) walk out from some buildings and shoot into a fight. As it was now 3v3, he had to have been double teaming someone, so I took him as my opponent. He had dual H Gauss (someone is now telling me it may have been triple LBx10s), and I ripped him apart. As I finished my opponent, a Mad Cat MKII stepped into his place. After a tough fight, I ended up getting wrecked by the MKII, but not before I dealt a total of 360ish damage for the match and claimed the Victor as a solid kill.

The honor was so great in the match that the last opponent told my last teammate to turn around, then once he was seen he shot the him (rather than drop him from the back). In the end, my team won (barely), and it was a wonderful match.

Conclusion: A Marauder laser boat vs a Victor... Victor got melted. The changes permitted the Marauder to continue even longer with more alphas more often than previous, letting me land more damage without the need of a cool shot the entire match.

Edited by Tesunie, 13 July 2018 - 07:13 PM.

[Grus]

Clan mech's fall apart in the brawl when you're in a Sliphner with Hgauss.. I don't fear clan lasers with it.

[Tesunie]

Grus, on 13 July 2018 - 05:08 PM, said:

Clan mech's fall apart in the brawl when you're in a Sliphner with Hgauss.. I don't fear clan lasers with it.

The test is mostly for Clan lasers, as such most people are running with Clan lasers. Maybe if I was seeing more IS mechs we might get better data on that, but so far I've done poorly with my IS mechs. Part of it has been positioning. Part of it has been lack of teamwork (partly my bad). Part of it seems to also be lack of damage output (I mostly run medium mechs, not assaults or heavies so much).

As I've mentioned, so far it seems inconclusive for my own personal results. Possibly poor luck when running my IS mechs and better luck when running my Clans. Seven matches isn't exactly very conclusive nor extensive data sets...

[Tesunie]

Grus, on 13 July 2018 - 05:08 PM, said:

Clan mech's fall apart in the brawl when you're in a Sliphner with Hgauss.. I don't fear clan lasers with it.

You wouldn't happen to know if that Victor had dual H Gauss, or triple LBx10s? My brother thinks it was LBx, but i thought it was Gauss... Either way, he got melted (poor Victor).

[Tesunie]

Ninth match, decided to actually customize a mech to try and take advantage of the new GH limits on ERLLs. So I made a (probably still insane) five ERLL Maruader IIC. Certainly not meta, but why not? It's the test server.

Drop on Grim again. Nothing of real note here. Moved with the team, got some good long range shots in. Moved in close (because they hid, smart of them), had an even fight with an Ebon Jaguar. Took a mystery head shot, despite twisting and moving. Okay, stray head shot (masked within LRM fire). Whatever. Continued to fight, almost killed the Ebon but someone else finished them off. Engaged an AC2 Dire, then promptly died of a heat shot... (second one in the game).

Conclusion: The new GH limit for ERLLs seems acceptable, but it just moves the meta from ERML boating, to ERLL boating. Didn't do much more damage than my average clan builds, with 261 damage dealt for this match. Maybe with more careful play and staying at longer ranges...

---

Tenth match, the final one needed for the "event". Timberwolf freshly bought (never owned one before). Decided on triple LPLs, two ERMLs and two SRM4s. Because... why not?

Dropped onto Alpine for this match. We stuck together (despite it being Conquest...). I protected our flank from a Viper for a bit before taking on a MKII head to head. First shot I received from the MKII (despite twisting and moving), was a head "check" with his Gauss. Been coming across a lot of "head checks" during these PTS matches... ANYWAY, dealt 284 damage with the build. Probably would remove the SRM4s for more DHS, as it ended up being a little hotter than I would prefer.

Conclusion: Don't take on the MKII in the MKI... It has more weight and thus more tonnage. Still, I almost ripped off a side torso... Oh. And Triple LPLs wasn't bad...

---

Going to stop the reports after this one unless a match does something worth reporting, as my "conclusions" keep being "inconclusive".

Anyway, reconfigured the previous build by removing the SRM4s for more DHS. Worked much better and ended up dealing 500+ damage the next round on Mining Collective. I did some intuitive teamwork with a Hellbringer. He would shoot around a corner and duck back, then I would go out and shoot and then duck back. We kept doing that and wrecked an Orion IIC and Supernova with relative ease. From there, two of my teammates went to their base looking for them, while an assault and myself looked for the remaining two opponents. The assault found them first, a Kodiak and MKII. I moved to support as fast as I could, but was too late. Ended up ripping into (and killing) the Kodiak just as help arrived. Then, the MKII quickly fell.

Both myself and the Hellbringer each had damages scores just a few numbers apart, each just over 500 damage.


I'm going to just comment that, the ERML nerf may have been too far, but the GH buff really helped to counter it by a fair bit. Right now, I can just change my builds to have triple LLs instead of boating MLs (with ML additions). Don't think these changes would do much to alter the laser meta, besides a little shifting here or there and mostly hurting smaller, lighter mechs.

I can't comment on how well it would work when against IS, as not very many IS targets presented themselves. So far, the changes seem to be okay...? (Not enough data.)

Edited by Tesunie, 13 July 2018 - 08:40 PM.

[Jesse Custer]

The changes to C-ERLLs seems like a bit much, IMHO. As you said, just shift to them and the meta shifts and everyone runs heavies and assaults to compensate. Pleasure playing against you, btw.

[Tesunie]

Jesse Custer, on 13 July 2018 - 08:26 PM, said:

The changes to C-ERLLs seems like a bit much, IMHO. As you said, just shift to them and the meta shifts and everyone runs heavies and assaults to compensate. Pleasure playing against you, btw.

Can't say I specifically recall the match we shared, but the PTS seems to have a reasonable crowd most times.

I think I'm going to agree that, for the most part, the meta probably will just shift to ERLLs, meaning we can expect heavier mechs on the field to "compensate" for the shift. The Timberwolf with the three energy hardpoints in the shoulder will probably do well. Even the Adder can get in on this, which reminds me. I wonder how well my old triple ERLL Adder (which i replaced with a different build) would do on the PTS...?

[Tesunie]

Something I've noticed over the 13ish matches I've played so far on the PTS, every time I see an IS mech on a team, they always seem to have less damage at the end of the match than nearly all Clan mechs played.

For example, my last match my team was half IS and half Clan mechs. The two Clan mechs took the top two damage (and match score) slots. My opposing team had a single IS mech, and that mech scored second to last for their team (a Timberwolf had scored slightly lower in damage and match score).

Not sure how indicative this is...