26 replies to this topic

[Feral Clown]

LowSubmarino, on 09 September 2019 - 02:42 AM, said:

Awesome is a mech for ppl that perform exceptionally well in almost any mech. Im not talking about okayish stats in pretty strong mechs. If youre somebody that does okay, gets 500 plus dmg pretty often, then I wouldnt take the Awesome. You gotta play it like a weaker heavy mech. No matter what ppl aim at, theyll hit your ct. Even with max armor via skill tree the Awesome is just way too easy to core.

Even the massive quirks have no hope to compensate those evil disadvantages. You need perfect positioning and you need to do the opposite of what most assault pilots I see do: trailing somewhat isolated behind the main formation, peaking and poking ineffectively for 100 - 300 dmg matches, engaging multiple mechs either cause they failed to keep up or because of bad trading.

Awesome will melt faster than you can scream SOS.

ALl you will achieve is that half your team or your entire team will hate you cause you brought an awesome while team red has a Mad Cat MK II in that spot. Awesome is terrible for trading. They can easily hit yout ct when you havent even cleared your cover to start trading. ****, you can take out an awesome in so many mechs cause it goes down so easily.

Its just a trash mech. YOu need skills to do well. Assault pilots have a tendency to not perform well though, as they almost always understimate how vital speed truely is in this game. They watch streamers and copy their usually über slow assault builds and get owned in literally basically every single match.

Its a team game. Know your own skills and try to contribute cause your team might really want to win. FIelding über weak mechs when you yourself arent really that strong a player to begin with is just a way to annoy ppl. Its basically the same as suiciding in lights ten seconds into the match by running directly into the combined death ball of team red. Griefing your team. I dont see a difference there.

Awesome sucks so hard that you need to invent a new category of trash.

Id say maybe 0.001 % of players can actually own in such a mech. So chances are massively high that you will be just that and nothing more:

Cannonfodder.

LOL WUT???

The mech is great fun. Not that hard unless you find yourself on your own (I often like to wonder off on my own but can hit lights). Bad hitboxes? Sure but then look how many taters are running around in lurm Atlas or XL King Crabs....

[ShiverMeRivets]

LowSubmarino, on 09 September 2019 - 02:42 AM, said:

Awesome is a mech for ppl that perform exceptionally well in almost any mech....

Even the massive quirks have no hope to compensate those evil disadvantages....

Awesome will melt faster than you can scream SOS....

ALl you will achieve is that half your team or your entire team will hate you cause you brought an awesome...

Its just a trash mech...

Awesome sucks so hard that you need to invent a new category of trash...

Id say maybe 0.001 % of players can actually own in such a mech. So chances are massively high that you will be just that and nothing more:

Cannonfodder.

WTF?!
While the Awesomes are not exactly the IS answer to the Madcats II-B, they are far from aweful.

The wide frame also means it is short - it makes it easier to find cover and the low hard points are not actually that low from the cockpit (only relatively so, not absolutely). The bad hitboxes are somewhat compensated by good shield arms and fast torso speed - it is a shielding mech, not a RAC idiot staring mech.

The ability of the -8Q to fire 3HPPC makes it equivalent to firing 3GRs = 45 PPFLD from a good range. The other awesomes have unique traits as well - the -8R has superb hardpoints and quirks for MRM - It can easily run MRM100 and hill hump like a boss. The 9M has a higher engine cap, and you can run it as a brawler pulse laser boat with an STD engine - including 3 MPLs in the head and CT so you can lose torsos and keep on going with a significant chunk of your firepower.

It is not the best, but it is definitely serviceable.

[Ignatius Audene]

3+ w/l and k/d. At least the hvy ppc boat works quite well for me. Quite good pinpoint and is fast enough for yolo q.

Edited by Ignatius Audene, 10 September 2019 - 01:33 PM.

[Rosh87]

Ignatius Audene, on 10 September 2019 - 01:32 PM, said:

3+ w/l and k/d. At least the hvy ppc boat works quite well for me. Quite good pinpoint and is fast enough for yolo q.

Just as a follow-up (OP here) - I agree with most of what's been said here by Awesome fans and non-fans alike. I generally think it's ....challenging (more so than most mechs of its weight class) if you try the Triple PPC / Heavy PPC setup.

This is anecdotal, of course, but I had two matches with the Triple-H PPC's and 4 Medium Laser setup, that were relatively crappy (250-350 dmg, both losses, one 12-2 slaughter, so - meh). The issue is still that a single triple H-PPC blast takes you to 52% Heat Bar filled up (even with the Quirks and all my skill nodes). You have so little flexibility in terms of firing pace and if more than one enemy closes on you, you are essentially toast.

Furthermore, my defense against Light Mechs is nonexistent - as the H-PPC's are useless at those Point-blank ranges they dance around you at, and the Med Lasers are all relatively high mounts too (usually a good thing, but less so against Leg Huggers)

-------

On a whim, I tried to change up the configuration I was using, to this:

5 Medium Pulse Lasers
2 Heavy Pulse Lasers (in the Right Arm mounts)
AMS w. 1.5 tons of Ammo
LFE-300 (max possible, 60.8 kmh speed)
TC-2
Beagle Probe
5 Double HS (external in mech torsos and right arm) + 2 more inside the Engine itself = Heat Management of 1.26

Alpha Damage comes to 50...fired out approximately every 2.75 seconds....quite nice (though Heat Buildup eventually becomes a problem and requires cool-down or a Cool Shot)

======

With THIS alternative (more conventional) setup, which still benefits from several of the Awesome 8Q's Quirks....I produced a 440 dmg Win (didn't see much action, as it was another 12-3 style beat-down, this time for us)....and a 770-damage Win, on Frozen City Assault.

The main benefits to this setup, was my Range was not "that" much worse than the Heavy PPC's were able to offer, with the Quirks and Skill Nodes I've applied, giving a Large Pulse Range of 472 m, and a further 284 m for the Med-Pulses. I was able to consistently engage foes with something like "Large Pulse firing....Medium Pulse firing.... large Pulse...Mediums....Large...and barely one more Medium blast" before being near 100% Heat and having to cool off a bit. Compared that kind of sustained and repeated damage output to the ONE blast of Triple Heavy PPC = 52% Heat...and then several seconds of "downtime" as you wait for it to recharge / cycle, and cool below 48%, so you dont immediately shutdown after another blast.

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Another issue with PPC's that you don't have with the basic Energy Weaponry (granted this is somewhat minor, but still worth noting), is that to get best results with them, you seem to want to take all 5 Velocity Nodes (and even then you can still miss at extreme ranges - though Awesome 8Q seems perhaps the best for scoring hits given huge PPC-Velocity Quirks, added to your skill tree). By 'needing' to take the Velocity slots, you end up spending 5 more Skill Points that you'd otherwise have to spread out in the other Trees, as you wanted. Minor point, of course, but something I still thought was worth mentioning.

===========

Overall - I still find it more "generally workable" to simply use Pulses or standard Laser weaponry, than trying to make the Heavy PPC's work for this thing, which is ...kind of disappointing, but oh well. Further thoughts / suggestions welcome :-)

[Funky Bacon]

^ All valid points I would say.
Pulse lasers (or any laser really) is very easy to rack up damage with (tho I get a little sad every time I see an 8Q with a laser build :c ).
The main advantage of the triple H-PPC build however is instantly putting all that damage in a single component just like triple Gauss used to be able to do. But that also means your damage score will be less as you generally need less damage to kill a mech if your aim is true.
With skill tree you should be able to fire three times before the next shot overheats you if using only H-PPC.

Also a triple ER-PPC build with a TC-7 squeezed in there is pretty fun to use. 1000m range and just over 3000 in velocity makes hitting targets even at long ranges fairly easy, and while 30 damage is not that amazing getting pounded by that a few times before even getting into combat range is not very fun for the guy on the receiving end.

[ShiverMeRivets]

Rosh87,

For the AWS-8Q 3HPPC build, small lasers are better close range self defense than medium lasers. The dps of small lasers is almost identical to MLs, but the heat efficiency is significantly higher and beam duration is lower - not to mention that for 4SL vs. 4MLs you save 2 tons than can go into DHSs. You still want to stay close to friendlies though.

3HPPC is a completely different style and purpose from a pulse lasers brawler. Dps is less significant, what you do is deliver one decisive blow where it matters. Seeing the damage map of your target before shooting gives a huge value, when instead of removing armor from a random component you can remove an entire damaged component in an instant, then immediately twist and/or retreat to cover to receive an ineffective return fire.

If you want a pulse laser awesome look at the AWS-9M. It has 3 central hard points and a higher engine cap.

[Curccu]

ShiverMeRivets, on 12 September 2019 - 09:44 PM, said:

For the AWS-8Q 3HPPC build, small lasers are better close range self defense than medium lasers. The dps of small lasers is almost identical to MLs, but the heat efficiency is significantly higher and beam duration is lower - not to mention that for 4SL vs. 4MLs you save 2 tons than can go into DHSs. You still want to stay close to friendlies though.

Love SLs in my HPPC Grasshopper