37 replies to this topic

[RickySpanish]

KDK3 is actually alright agility wise, but good God its torso movement and pitch range is so unbelievably bad, that it is perfectly possible to broadside it. Stalkers aint got nothing on this thing. You are forever required to reposition to get a bead on anything. I found that with my Atlas 'Mechs I was always short on either tonnage or space by the end of the build, although I have had great fun in a 3 mpl 3 lpl BH, it's hardly an optimal build.

[Jables McBarty]

FRAGTAST1C, on 30 November 2018 - 08:47 AM, said:

I'm asking that question out of frustration 'cause only a few people during my time in MWO tend to fight and push through the enemy line while others, even though they're not LRM boats, turn tail and run.

I've maxed out the Javelin 11F, Ares, Revenant and Bounty Hunter. In the 3 weeks that I've played this game, "scared Assaults" are the majority while only a couple of players seem to know what they're doing.

I'm thinking of using the Kraken or the Siren next but it looks like the firepower that I can mount on them is basically the same as the Griffin or Marauder.

Are there any good builds for the two assaults in my collection that I use to boost my firepower to something like 100+ and still be able to move at 60kph or something? Or are they just not good enough?

OP, my go-to build for a Kraken is roughly following (at work, and I don't have the build saved to Smurfy's, so this is from memory): AC/20, 2MRM20, 5MPL, LFE350

Honestly, this looks hotter than what I recall, so I might have it wrong, but it's built around a 4 second cooldown (+/- a few tenths). Idea is to be able to alpha, twist, then at the end of 4 seconds alpha again. Once you get hot you stop firing the lasers.

For the Siren, I started out with Baradul's Heavy Gauss + MRM40 build, but could never get the positioning right (I'm really, really bad with MRMs), so I swapped out the MRMs and MLs for 3LLs, retaining the HGR.

It's pinpoint and more pokey but I've had decent results. Not a great brawler, but solid performer in my experience.

As others have said, brawling in assaults requires good team support - you can't escape, and you'll be quickly focused if you're alone. Also, there are few builds that require more than 90 tons, so make sure you leverage your big Ballistic hardpoints (hence the HGR), and remember that part of what you're boating is armor.

[Escef]

Assaults are some of the hardest mechs to use well. They aren't fast enough to get out of a bad spot, so you need to be on top of your tactical positioning. The lack of speed means that faster teammates will often block your shots as they move past you, and you can't keep up with the flow of battle if things becomes mobile (you'll notice it's usually players in the slowest of assaults that whine the loudest about nascar; it's because they take a big mech and equip it with an engine that may as well be a hamster wheel hooked up to a turbine, they can't keep up).

This leaves assaults in a strange position. Able to bring the most firepower, cooling, and armor, yet many are so gimped in the speed department that they can't properly get into a position to put those attributes to use. (This is pat of why you see assault LRMboats. Indirect fire gets over terrain and teammates, negating the weight class's issues with maintaining line of sight or being blocked by faster friendlies. The decent range also mitigates the issues that come with trying to close the distance in mechs so slow that the only things that CAN'T outrun them are missing a leg.)

The three best ways to mitigate the speed weakness of assaults are: play something smaller, run LRMs, or coordinated teamplay.

[Mole]

There's a good reason people play timidly in Assaults. I know it sounds counter-intuitive to what the heaviest class of 'mech should be supposed to do, but the fact of the matter is that Assaults are so cumbersome with the exception of a select few like the Gargoyle and Victor that one wrong step spells death for your assault. You go around the wrong corner and find yourself face-to-face with the entire enemy team? This is not really an issue for lights at all, it's only a small issue for mediums, it's an issue for heavies, it's instant death for an Assault. Why, you ask? Because not only are you primary target as an assault, you are also too slow to get yourself out of trouble once you've gotten into it. I'm frankly more confident leading pushes in mediums and lights than I am in heavies and assaults. If a push is called and I commit in a light or a medium and then realize that nobody is coming with me, I stand a pretty excellent chance of being able to pull out of that dive in a light and a decent chance of pulling out of it in a medium. Heavies are a little trickier but the chance of pulling out is still there. But if I commit in an assault and nobody else does? I'm just dead. Game over. I have to finish the game with less than 100 damage because I was foolish enough to believe someone when they said they would push. This is why you see assaults refusing to push, because assault pilots have learned from experience that 90% of the time when they try to initiate a push they will just get caught out alone and die pointlessly while the rest of their team continues to hide behind a rock and just watch their buddy that they sent out there get his head ventilated. This really isn't an issue of "assaults are cowards", it's much more of an issue that assault pilots have been taught to be timid by teammates who constantly let them down.

[Alexander of Macedon]

Assault brawlers need support and teammates who aren't selfish cowards to not die like chumps. Both are in very short supply in QP.

[FRAGTAST1C]

Spheroid, on 30 November 2018 - 11:20 AM, said:

Marching into firing lines is suicidal. Your teammates are playing rationally. Generally living longer is rewarded with more matchscore and c-bills. How is what they are doing wrong?

Sorry, what? They're getting massacred anyway. An increase in 30 MS and less than 40,000 C-bills is that important than a try-to-win attempt?

Mole, on 30 November 2018 - 01:46 PM, said:

This really isn't an issue of "assaults are cowards", it's much more of an issue that assault pilots have been taught to be timid by teammates who constantly let them down.

I really would love to team up with the brave assaults on a regular basis. Some of the matches that I played in the Bounty Hunter, I'd be dead inside the first 4 mins but I'd get a solo kill on their assault or heavy. Why would I be so stupid? Surely if I was capable of solo-killing a fresh heavy or assault mech, I'd be of better service to the team if I played a bit more conservatively, right? The reason is I don't chase after Lights while half the team does and the rest just stand there like cockpit items. Mind you, when that happens, it's a 12-3 loss. But when a new match begins and I end up winning by the same margin, the enemy team were behaving exactly like how I described before.

Edited by FRAGTAST1C, 30 November 2018 - 06:05 PM.

[Spheroid]

I stand by my statement. Don't be in such a hurry to die. How about your team has the firing line, instead of breaking theirs. Play something faster or stop complaining.

[FRAGTAST1C]

Spheroid, on 30 November 2018 - 06:18 PM, said:

I stand by my statement. Don't be in such a hurry to die. How about your team has the firing line, instead of breaking theirs. Play something faster or stop complaining.

Right, let's try this instead. I'll "complain" while you collect your meagre C-bills, ok?

[Maddermax]

One of the reasons I like the Cyclops Slipnir is it’s an assault which moves like a heavy - you really feel the difference from playing any of the larger assault options. It means the option to twist damage, and duck in and out of cover, making areas like the top of HPG less suicidal, and allowing a fair bit more aggressive play. The only issue is the top speed is a little low for serious nascar, so short cuts across the top are needed.

but that said, as much as there’s a lot of griping about Assaults being fragile or left behind, they’re still consistently the biggest damage dealers and ge the highest match scores of any class, so obviously they’re not actually bad, they just occasionally get into positions where there is no good option, only death. No one likes that feeling, of course, but they’re not actually weak, just occasionally feast or famine mechs.

Edited by Maddermax, 30 November 2018 - 07:13 PM.

[UnofficialOperator]

It really depends on which tiers you are playing at. T4 to T5 play is super passive. You'd see the worst pilots driving the biggest mechs who can't aim and just turret way at the back. In this type of meta, you actually need to preserve your armor and ensure you can carry the match in its last stages. Unless you are ECM or light.

For T1, the winning strategy is different. Its more of a ball up and push together strategy.

PS: plus I think most bad pilots are mistaken about brawling. You don't brawl until you need to brawl even as a close range brawler. The brawling phase depends on which part of the match you are at.

Source: my 99th percentile alt in T4 and T5 plus my main

Edited by UnofficialOperator, 30 November 2018 - 07:24 PM.

[Mister Maf]

To the handful of people in this thread looking for Kraken and Siren builds, I have your brawlers right here. This is a post I made not long ago for somebody looking for Solaris pack builds:

Spoiler

Mister Maf, on 30 October 2018 - 01:29 PM, said:

Sure.

Urbanmech Street Cleaner:

Spoiler

Loadout

Ab:920O0|AO|EP|<dpD0|f?|i^qD0|i^|PGrD0|c?|c?|c?sD0|U@|U@tL0uL0vB0|EPw908080

Skills

a57410006000e5844dadfffffff62101cff7f0000d8670030214300000000

Consumable: Artillery

The Street Cleaner is the fastest Urbanmech, and so is best suited for objective modes. It's a little more strapped for tonnage than the standard variants, but you can still pack a good amount of firepower for quickplay and I challenge you to find a more durable mech for the speed. Includes one jumpjet for climbing up steep surfaces.

Firestarter Firestorm:

Spoiler

Loadout

Ac:920T0|Kd|Y?|Y?pH0|f?|Y?qH0|Y?rH0|U@|U@sH0|U@|U@|EPtP0|FPuP0|AOv<0|EPw808080

Skills

a4543070f600f9a14b6efefffffc2101cf37f0000000000b021c3a0000000

Consumables: Artillery, Cool Shot

The Firestarter, like many 35 ton mechs, isn't the most popular light, but this one with four HMGs can do a heck of a lot of damage to the enemy's back and is reasonably durable with the full survival tree (which for the Firestarter you really do need due to its size). It's a little strapped for ammo so either save it for open components only or trade the AMS for more ammo; I like having AMS on lights because every single hit you take has an impact and IMO it's worth rationing the ammo for.

Griffin Ares:

Spoiler

Loadout

Ad:83081|i^|Rg|OGpd0|@@|@@|i^qd0|i^|i^|i^rS0|c?|c?sS0|c?|c?td0ud0|nOv20|_Ow000000

Skills

ab773b30ffe0c7c5cbbefffff7f00000000000000e877c60e000000000000

Note: This is a Solaris build

The Ares is one of the best Griffin variants for brawling thanks to its structure quirks, giving it a raw HP value comparable to a Thunderbolt with skills. With the Season 3 division changes, the Griffin Ares has actually become a high performer in Division 6, which is what I use it for since it's otherwise pretty redundant with the other mechs I have for quickplay. If you prefer (and this also works for quickplay), you can downgrade the lasers to standard mediums and stick some big MRM launchers on the shoulder. Great mech to use jump jets with if you can fit them.

Mad Dog Revenant:

Spoiler

Loadout

Ah:L<581|lB|UCp`0]X7|SC|l^|l^q`0[X7|SC|SCrX0ZX7|l^|lB|7SsX0^X7|lB|7Sta0_X7|6S|6Sua0`X7|6S|6Sv>0YX7w808080

Skills

a3f33f319de11df56bccff7fb7f00000000000000e86f0230614381000000

Consumables: Artillery, Cool Shot

The Mad Dog in general is a fantastic chassis, and the Revenant in particular is unique for its center torso hardpoints and mobility-based quirks. There's a lot you can do with it by swapping around omnipods, but I decided to take advantage of the mobility offered by the set bonus by making it into an ATM thrower, as ATMs benefit greatly from positioning.

Banshee Siren:

Spoiler

Loadout

Af:830f1|i^|i^|i^|i^|ag|GP|@Op=1|i^q=1|X?r01|c?|c?|c?|i^s01|Z@t=1|@Ou=1|GPv>0|@Ow203030

Skills

a3b7c1803de003110b0efffffff3d081ede4f0000d86f0200000080000000

Consumables: Artillery, Cool Shot

I didn't expect the Banshee Siren to become my favorite mech in the set, especially with how much I wrangled with it trying to make it work in Solaris. It took a long time to work out this build, but I have to say the thing has surprised nobody more than me. Its relatively high speed for its class and powerful arm mounts make it surprisingly nimble for a 95 ton mech, and the heat management is solid. Its weakness is its huge profile, so the armor is heavily frontloaded; you must stay with the team in this mech and watch your rear arcs, but it will punish any foe at close to mid range — especially ones that think they can get the drop on you by using elevation to avoid your torso mounts. That's the biggest thing the Banshee Siren brings to the table, and in practice it's worth a lot more than it sounds on paper.

Atlas Kraken:

Spoiler

Loadout

Ag:230g1|i^|i^|i^|i^|bg|d?|d?p>1|X?q>1|i^|Z@r21|d?|f?|@O|i^s21|i^|d?|d?te0|@O|GPue0|@O|HPv<0|AOw506060

Skills

a5b783007d80c5854d2dfffffff32081cde7f0000d8670000000080000000

Consumables: Artillery, Cool Shot

The Atlas Kraken is worth your time for the paintjob alone. This build is a close-quarters meat eater inspired by some of my early Solaris experiments. It's admittedly pretty similar to the Banshee Siren, but it trades the flexibility of powerful arm mounts for the extreme staying power of Atlas armor and massed small pulse lasers. This is about as close as you'll get to bringing a Solaris gladiator to the battlefield; just hold down that heat-efficient alpha strike button and it'll rip apart one enemy after the other in a brawl — just be careful about torso pitching and try to keep your enemies in front of you. Like my Siren build, it includes an oversized engine and speed tweak to quickly close to brawling distance.

I skipped the Rifleman for reasons already stated and you apparently already have one you like. Hope this is helpful. I have a lot of success with these mechs.

Edit: Immediately after making this post I played this game in the Banshee Siren on Mining Collective and used the arm mounts to catch enemies at the varying elevations around the middle of the map and pick apart the lights that like to use it to jump jet around over your head. At 64 KPH I was also able to easily relocate with the heavies and mediums that went on flanking actions, and maintained a comfortable heat level the whole time; it really is a great mech with the right build.

Anyway, if you're new to the game, you're probably playing in tier 4 or 5, where you shouldn't really expect much out of your teammates. Assault mechs are the axis of your team and require forethought to pilot effectively, which makes for a lot of poor assault pilots at lower level play. A well-supported assault mech makes for a great brawler, but an unsupported assault mech of any kind is just a target.

[FRAGTAST1C]

Mister Maf, on 30 November 2018 - 10:07 PM, said:

To the handful of people in this thread looking for Kraken and Siren builds, I have your brawlers right here. This is a post I made not long ago for somebody looking for Solaris pack builds:

Thank you. Especially the SC build. I was experimenting with the RAC2 and Snubnose PPC on different builds but wasn't liking them a whole lot.

UnofficialOperator, on 30 November 2018 - 07:20 PM, said:

PS: plus I think most bad pilots are mistaken about brawling. You don't brawl until you need to brawl even as a close range brawler. The brawling phase depends on which part of the match you are at.

Until I refitted my Ares to carry Snubnose and SRM6+A, I wasn't brawling much at all. The Revenant was the first mech that I used in this game and it had LRMs and some MPL. I'd stay in the second line and mostly out of sight until the balance would tip in our favour. The Javelin was the second and I did some scouting and backstabbing but I believe I kind of ruined the handling for myself as I picked almost all of the Anchor Turn nodes. Just torso twist and kinetic burst would've been better. Then came the Ares, where the default loadout was crap for me and it was after the halfway point that I got tired and changed the loadout. I just finished maxing the Bounty Hunter and it was an experience heavily dependant on the Assaults and Heavies in my team. But again, I would use the ERPPC to poke people at long range and move in with the 6ML and AC20 once the distance between both teams reduced enough for a full-on fight to commence.

Having witnessed how the majority of the Assaults are piloted so far, I just find myself frustrated that so easily they turn tail and run or don't venture into danger at all even when the match is winnable if they just supported a bit more. Hence why I'm now leaning towards piloting an Assault. At least this way, I can have an IS deck.

Edited by FRAGTAST1C, 30 November 2018 - 10:31 PM.

[Jackal Noble]

Doesn't matter when every game is decided by mob tactics

[Karl Streiger]

I really want to know which stupid is responsible for this? I know it's a common mistake already to consider short range fighters as trawlers. But no Sir - Brawl comes from taking and giving hits. Range is not important - you can brawl with Gauss and ERPPC.

You are looking for a Juggernaut- this guy is to take hits upon hits before getting in range - in MWO it's similar to the Pickett Charge.
Pure close range fighters need carefull planing map knowledge and either a good or two very bad teams to work. Speed is helpful to get you through the no-mans land, but nothing beat map knowledge not every map allows to play juggernauts. (River City or Crimson look decent but are deadly for Juggernauts, Polar sound strange but has some roads that allow you to circle behind enemy formation but a Assault is to slow.

The second meaning of the misused word brawl is the dog fighter- you need speed high alpha as much sustained dps you can get (for the price of alpha) and good twist-ratings.
Laser is the ezpz skillor weapon of choice. The Zeus prior to the Rescale that has broken this great Mech was a perfect dog-fighter.
Currently I would not look for dog-fighters in the Assault segment (exception of Mr Gargle and the Pony to come)

[JP Josh]

assult brawl mechs were really popular back when there were way less mechs in the game. now in days they are a blue moon due to power creep.

[Dee Eight]

There are five fundamental reasons why Assault mechs are less useful brawlers than they were in Battletech, and most of the previous mechwarrior games.

#1 Is the armor / structure values are higher in MWO. In order to increase the TTK for players of this game, they doubled all the health values of the mechs (and that's before the addition of quirks and skill nodes) while weapon damages are pretty close if not identical to how theyw ere in Battletech. Head health is nearly triple what it was in Batletech. So light mechs don't need to fear an AC/20 hit to the face or center torso being an insta-kill like it was in Battletech.

#2 There are no rear firing weapons in MWO... so mechs which get behind an assault have a distinct advantage in that they don't risk being shot back at. It was pretty common for heavy and assault mechs in battletech to mount a pair of rear firing medium lasers for example. Given the more fragile nature of mechs in the game, two lasers doing 5 pts per hit meant a lot more to a locust which only had a single medium laser to shoot with when approaching an Atlas from behind, especially since the rear torso armor of the atlas was twice as thick as the front torso armor on the locust.

#3 PGI threw out the movement rules of the original game in such a way as to cripple the agility of assaults and heavy mechs while also buffing the crap out of lights and mediums. In Battletech, All mechs changed the direction their legs were facing at the same speed, and all changed the direction their torso was facing at the same speed, and all had the same range of torso twisting. The standard front firing arc of every bipedal battlemech was 180 degrees without twisting. You could then twist 60 degrees beyond that to either the right or left from center, extending your potential engagement zone to 300 of 360 degrees. This made sixty degrees directly astern the only zone a mech couldn't twist to fire its weapons into, and this is why larger mechs carried rear firing weapons.

#4 Another way they crippled mech movement, is how they adopted the movement system as far as simply moving forwards/backwards or jumping is concerned. Because of the days of the poptart-PPC era in MWO, all jump jet ranges were cut significantly (60-80% is typical) compared to battletech. A highlander with 3 jump jets in battletech can leap 90 meters. In MWO... about 21 meters. A viper with 8 is supposed to go 240 meters in a single jump and not the 102 I think it does now. Then there's the simple matter of mech speeds. In battletech, the engine rating determined the walking speed in a unit called movement points, and the running speed was 1.5 times the walking speed, and you rounded up fractions. Thus a 4MP walk became a 6MP run but a 3MP walk became a 5MP run. Now because 1MP was the amount of movement needed to cover a map hex that was supposed to be 30 meters across... and a game turn was 10 seconds... simple math got us mech speeds in kilometers per hour or meters per second. However PGI doesn't apply the rounding up rule in the formula for this game, thus we end up with any mech who's walking MP is an odd number, moves slower in MWO than it does in Battletech and this is made worse because of the speed run skill then simply slapping a percent bonus onto whatever the top speed is. In Battletech, the running speed of an Atlas with a 300 rating engine for example is 54.0 km/h but in MWO its 48.6 km/h. Meanwhile a locust with a 160 engine is doing 129.6. Because of how the skill node system works, mechs like assaults with already low engine ratings and speeds cannot achieve the speeds in this game that they could in Battletech (for the same engine rating) even with massive skill node investment in the mobility tree. Lights on the other hand pick up much greater values . The mobility tree is one which SHOULD scale the percentage bonuses per node the same way that happens for the survival tree (with larger tonnages getting bigger percentage bonuses than smaller ones) but it isn't. Its a fixed value tree that pays huge dividends for lights which already have broken agility/mobility values compared to Battletech.

#5 Finally..and this is the big fist difference... there's no physical combat in MWO unlike most previous mechwarrior video games, and classic battletech. Because PGI lacked the coding skill to ever handle collisions properly in the game engine they used, we have physical impacts above a certain speed with any other mech, doing a mere 1 pt per impact. That 1% loss of health a lot experience on drops... that's the guy beside you ramming his leg into yours because PGI drops the mechs too close together. In Battletech, there wasn't other players face hugging your mech by being in the adjacent hex on a map unless their intention was to engage in physical attacks, because it invited physical attacks in response... A punch did 1/10th a mech's tonnage in a single hit, that regardless of a mech's height, always struck the upper torso areas with a 1 in 6 chance if striking the head (as opposed to with weapons fire where it had a 1 in 36 chance of hitting the head) and you could do up to two punch attacks in a game turn so... do you really wanna run your 20 ton light mech up to the atlas that can remove your head with either punch ? Do you want to be within jump range of a higlander ?

https://battletech-m...hysical-attacks

[tutzdes]

Dee Eight, on 01 December 2018 - 01:48 AM, said:

A viper with 8 is supposed to go 240 meters in a single jump and not the 102 I think it does now.

In TT these are horizontal jump distances. The one shown in mech lab is the jump height. I did some experiments in testing ground.The verdict was: only heaviest mechs have lower jump ranges. Range is dependent on mech max speed. The lfaster mechs have HIGHER jump ranges than TT ones. Unskilled Viper can cover ~300m in one jump, skilled one can do ~360m hops.

If the jump jets had the fixed jump speed/distance as in TT, there will be zero reason to use faster mechs over JJ capable ones. Victors and Highlanders would be just as good as Wolverines, Griffins, Shadow Hawks mobility-wise while being much stronger offensively and defensively.

As for other stuff:
#1 Thanks PGI for not turning the battles into 15 seconds of game and then back to the hangar. Scouting matches can end in a minute already. Turning MWO into one-shot fest would be a terrible idea. Good change!
#2 Implementing this thing in FPS? Good luck, thankfully PGI converted rear-mounts and leg-mounts into proper forward facing torso mounts that make more sense in any real-time game with direct aiming.
#3 Also a good change.
#4 The part is misunderstood by players, like the real jump distance values. The mobility part is like #3
#5 Dragon Bowling 2.0 No-aim auto-hit RNG component choice will greatly benefit facehugging biggies and will turn the game into RNG potato-fest, no thanks. If the aiming is required, lights will benefit from it more. Something like Viper will spam 4 damage attacks on Atlas's or Annihilator's back while taking no damage in return. Arctic wolves or Linebackers will instagib your fatties, as this 4-6 damage extra is what they needed to turn you red backside into dead one.


All things combined: Assault is the strongest weight class in the game according to the statististics and has the biggest impact on the game outcome. Lights are the weakest weight class with least impact, but at least PGI managed to make them viable and fun to play.

MWO has a lot of issues, but the weight class balance here is MUCH better than I would ever expect from the game like this.

If the mechs had fixed JJ distance, fixed agility, TT weight-to-size ratios, HP vs Damage pools, I would never play lights or mediums. Why should I if there is a Highlander, Victor etc. There will be the only reason to play smaller chassis: FP-like tonnage (BV) limits for each player or planetside-like system where you accumulate points to field each vehicle, with stronger ones costing more. For which we will need something totally different from MWO. I would be super excited to see Planetside 2-like BT-Mechwarrior game, but blaming PGI for making different genre-one would be silly.

[Captain Caveman DE]

these days, assaults are something for FW.

ofc you can do well with a fattie in QP, too. but in these days of nascar... nah. the few faster assaults are still very good in QP, but I wouldn't run anything else there; the "team" will see to it that it's no fun.

try faction-warfare +teamspeak and have fun with assault-WAVES there

Edited by Captain Caveman DE, 01 December 2018 - 05:51 AM.