The exception seems to be the Vapor Eagle. It can pack the firepower of a heavy while still having most of the upsides of a medium in terms of agility, size, and mobility. It has multiple top rated builds across multiple variants. And while it has pros and cons, they synergize very well for the builds it excels at. Sure, its not as durable as a heavy and its tall for a medium. But when you're poptarting triple or even quad ERPPcs, the agility, size, and JJ advantages it has over heavies that can do the same are more valuable than a bit of armor in most cases.
The Vapor eagle seems to simply outclass other equivalent mediums. The Huntsmen is a solid if not exceptional mech, but its totally outclassed by the vapor eagle in the same roles of poptarting PPCs or ATMs. And even in less meta roles like dakka, the veagle runs more of it with more speed and durability. Part of the Huntsman's problem is being an omnimech that can't dump its engine as much, but other clan battlemechs and IS mechs aren't competing either.
The Hunchback is the medium that's supposed to run a ton of firepower, and it pays for it with terrible speed, mobility, hitboxes, etc. The Veagle does not.
The problem of course isn't any particular quirk or deliberate thing. Its just that the vapor eagle happens to fall in the sweet spot of being a 55 tonner with the advantages of clan weight and slot saving from their more efficient weapons, engines, and upgrades. I've seen people suggest stripping it of its JJ quirks, but that's not really the issue. It can fit a ton more firepower due to this and the ability to drop its engine a lot in favor of more firepower.
If it was forced to take a large engine (like omnimechs) it wouldn't really be an issue. Run a big enough engine to go 90kph+, and its no longer carrying a heavy mech's worth of firepower. It might then eclipse other mediums in ratio of firepower to speed, but that's less upsetting to overall balance than what its doing now. (Nobody really runs it like this at the moment, but it's not bad if you do compared to other mediums in similar roles.)
But it also feels odd to single it out. If it was too strong because it had some quirk or another, then it'd be easy to just say to remove that. But its harder to figure out how to penalize it. Forcing a minimum engine size would do, but it'd be the only battlemech in the game doing that. It could lose weapon hardpoints, but that doesn't really address the issue as most of the meta builds are running a few big weapons. It could have negative, penalty quirks, but again it'd be the only mech in the game to do that.
Should something be done about it? What could be done?
Edited by Heavy Money, 18 February 2021 - 02:14 PM.