31 replies to this topic

[IronWatch]

I guessnthe big thing is that an Atlas can take morenthan one AC/20 hit

[Vxheous]

El Bandito, on 03 November 2018 - 01:02 AM, said:

Costs 50 tons.

That wasn't the question though, the question was "I don't imagine there's many mech's with a higher DPS, and none with a higher sustainable DPS." Tonnage was not asked.

Edited by Vxheous, 03 November 2018 - 06:14 AM.

[El Bandito]

Vxheous, on 03 November 2018 - 06:13 AM, said:

That wasn't the question though, the question was "I don't imagine there's many mech's with a higher DPS, and none with a higher sustainable DPS." Tonnage was not asked.

I doubt the Nova has higher sustainable DPS. Heat will become an issue sooner or later.

Edited by El Bandito, 03 November 2018 - 06:22 AM.

[Vxheous]

El Bandito, on 03 November 2018 - 06:16 AM, said:

I doubt the Nova has higher sustainable DPS. Heat will become an issue sooner or later.

I said it has enough sustain to kill the piranha, not that it'll sustain indefinitely. The Nova can put out a 43 damage alpha (0.6 burntime) every 2 seconds 7 times on Caustic Valley b4 shutdown, and that's without a coolshot. That is more than enough to kill piranhas. I would have thought that by now MS would've switched out their patented NSR Crab rush with Novas.

Edited by Vxheous, 03 November 2018 - 07:04 AM.

[Ilfi]

Vxheous, on 03 November 2018 - 06:13 AM, said:

That wasn't the question though, the question was "I don't imagine there's many mech's with a higher DPS, and none with a higher sustainable DPS." Tonnage was not asked.

Any Mech that can mount 2 RAC5 or better has higher sustained DPS. If you really want to heave out DPS, you can build any old Annihilator or Orion for it. Hell, the Shadow Cat has outright better DPS than a Piranha across the board, along with Jump Jets and MASC.

Moreover, this game is hardly in a DPS meta -- it's about burst damage, maximizing damage and minimizing face time. There's a good reason the meta favors Gauss Vomit, Laser Vomit, UAC Dakka and Heavy Gauss and it's not because they have good DPS.

[Vxheous]

Ilfi, on 03 November 2018 - 07:08 AM, said:

Any Mech that can mount 2 RAC5 or better has higher sustained DPS. If you really want to heave out DPS, you can build any old Annihilator or Orion for it. Hell, the Shadow Cat has outright better DPS than a Piranha across the board, along with Jump Jets and MASC.

Moreover, this game is hardly in a DPS meta -- it's about burst damage, maximizing damage and minimizing face time. There's a good reason the meta favors Gauss Vomit, Laser Vomit, UAC Dakka and Heavy Gauss and it's not because they have good DPS.

I'm well aware of what the meta is, please see team banner below in signature.

Edited by Vxheous, 03 November 2018 - 07:16 AM.

[El Bandito]

Vxheous, on 03 November 2018 - 07:02 AM, said:

I said it has enough sustain to kill the piranha, not that it'll sustain indefinitely. The Nova can put out a 43 damage alpha (0.6 burntime) every 2 seconds 7 times on Caustic Valley b4 shutdown, and that's without a coolshot. That is more than enough to kill piranhas. I would have thought that by now MS would've switched out their patented NSR Crab rush with Novas.

1. Nova is much slower than the Crab. Not to mention they are Clan mechs. If we wanna brawl rush with Clan mechs, we do it with Linebackers + Arctic Wolves.

2. If Nova has enough sustained damage to kill a 20 ton Piranha, then that's not impressive at all. Most big mechs that would have trouble with a Piranha would blow up the Nova without issue.

Edited by El Bandito, 03 November 2018 - 07:28 AM.

[thievingmagpi]

El Bandito, on 03 November 2018 - 07:24 AM, said:

2. If Nova has enough sustained damage to kill a 20 ton Piranha, then that's not impressive at all. Most big mechs that would have trouble with a Piranha would blow up the Nova without issue.

that's sort of how this game works. mechs counter each other. but the whole "team play" thing is lost on most people.

as much as I love running my Piranha, I also love running a stormcrow or nova with a butt-ton of small weapons and shredding any lights that come near us.

[Lykaon]

Yeonne Greene, on 02 November 2018 - 03:18 PM, said:

Whichever one is a more legitimate threat at that moment. I'm not going to worry about a Mauler with a potato mix of LRMs, SRMs, lasers and MGs. Similarly, I'm not going to worry about a PIR if a dakka MCII-B is eviscerating my team from afar.

The numbers don't really play out where the Madcat MKII B is a more viable threat under a situation where both the Piranha and the Madcat MKII are capable of engaging.

Let's say the Madcat IIB is using one of the loadouts I have success utilizing. 2 UAC5/2 UAC10 2 hvy mediums.

At optimal range (270m for the Hvy meds) the Madcat IIB dishes out 6.81 DPS with a front loaded firepower of 50. However the UACs will jam eventually and the Hvy Meds have a 5.5 second cooldown. So the Madcat IIB will not sustain this performance under actual combat conditions.

Meanwhile the PIR-1 (let's again use one of my actual builds) 12 MGs w/ 3 tons ammo a heavy small laser and 2 ER micro lasers.

Well that's 14.85 DPS with 23.3 front loaded damage and the PIR-1 will never jam or have a concern of over heating. Under practical use the PIR-1 dishes out three times the damage of Madcat MKII-B over a similar time period.

Or it could be an energy based PIR-2 with the capacity to deal nearly 60 damage every 4-5 seconds... (more front loaded damage than the Madcat II without the worry of poorly timed jams.)

The PIR also has a much easier time at evading the enemy and escaping. The Piranha can and frequently does significant damage only to escape reprisal only to repeat the attack again and again escape. A Madcat II can dish out some serious offense but it's not going to slip away only to ambush you later from a radically different location on the battlefield. It will be generally where it was when it first attacked you for the forseable future.


Under most circumstances when engaged the PIR will be the higher threat.

[Astrocanis]

Vxheous, on 03 November 2018 - 07:02 AM, said:

I said it has enough sustain to kill the piranha, not that it'll sustain indefinitely. The Nova can put out a 43 damage alpha (0.6 burntime) every 2 seconds 7 times on Caustic Valley b4 shutdown, and that's without a coolshot. That is more than enough to kill piranhas. I would have thought that by now MS would've switched out their patented NSR Crab rush with Novas.

How does it do against assaults? I play one of the Novas, and you have to be a pretty fancy dancer to put a dent in an assault. PIR-1 does it much faster.

Nice play, though. Changing it from "which should I buy" to "what can kill a PIR". If the PIR is fine, why are there so many discussions about them?

[Vxheous]

Astrocanis, on 04 November 2018 - 06:37 AM, said:

How does it do against assaults? I play one of the Novas, and you have to be a pretty fancy dancer to put a dent in an assault. PIR-1 does it much faster.

Nice play, though. Changing it from "which should I buy" to "what can kill a PIR". If the PIR is fine, why are there so many discussions about them?

This wasn't a "what should I buy thread". My point with the Nova was that you can always counter something with something else. You could bring a streak Kit Fox or Adder to counter a piranha if you really wanted to, but then you'd be worse off against everything else.

As to why there are so many complaints about the piranha? Multiple reasons:

1. Easily 75% of the playerbase can't aim and fast lights (not just piranha) become impossible for them to kill.

2. Compounding #1 above, the piranha is an actual threat that can't just be ignored if you don't want to die from the back/lose your weapons. Light re-sizing, spl nerfs and other factors had severely nerfed lights (apart from Wolfhounds and Mist Lynx to an extent) and players got used to not being threatened by light mechs.

3. Compounding #2 above, there is a portion of the playerbase that thinks that the higher tonnage your mech is, the stronger you shluld be, and strong lights run counter to that train of thought.

Im sure Im missing a few more ut those are just some of the reasons that come to mind.

[Bud Crue]

Astrocanis, on 04 November 2018 - 06:37 AM, said:

If the PIR is fine, why are there so many discussions about them?

Because no other mech can do what it can do in the hands of a good player. That doesn't make it OP.

Is it OP? Perhaps, it is if you frame the question in terms of other light mechs' performance, then I'd say yes.
Is it OP relative to all other mechs? Then no. Lots of mechs can 1 shot it, streak boats can easily kill it, etc.

I see the PIR as "problematic" mostly because of what it allows truly good players to do. They and only they can dominate a match to a greater degree than any other mech and at a lowest tonnage cost. It is a high skill, high risk, high reward mech that in the right hands is better than any thing else. But still that doen't make it OP. When the masses try and play it, the average perceived performance of the thing drops like a rock. To average players the PIR is just an easier mech to die in but also perhaps to get lucky in.

Its those pesky good players that make playing and dominating in the PIR look so damn easy, but the reality for most of us is that we are going to get get out of position and get one shot, run into a streak boat because we aren't paying attention, etc. If the PIR was as OP as folks keep saying its all we would see being played (it is damn near the only light being played...see my comment above), but it isn't because the thing takes a lot of skill to do well in.

Edited by Bud Crue, 04 November 2018 - 07:08 AM.