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[1453 R]

Here’s a question for y’all so we can talk about something other than the sad state of MWO or our feeble hopes the Cauldron can pull it out of its infinite nose dive for a bit. What’re your favorite garbage configurations in MWO? Note: your favorite Tater Fits, not “let’s make a lulzmeme”. I wanna see stuff you regularly pilot and do well with (reasonably) consistently, even though the Rules of Comp tell you your build is terrible and you should feel bad for it.

TBR-PRIME “Spicy Stock”
This TBR fit is mostly because I actually super appreciate the stock Timber Wolf Prime as a splendidly versatile (if under-supplied) weapon of war in an actual campaign-type setting. As it bloody well should be, given that the Clan build rules were tailored to this specific ‘Mech. In MWO, of course, a multirole ‘Mech with armaments for every range is MaDnEsS...but they’re still fun, and besides. I decided I wanted to try and use the TBR’s full suite of set-of-8 quirks. Why? Because I like fun, that’s why.

This ‘Mech acts like a bit of a fusion of the Prime and the canonical H variant, focusing primarily on the heavy lasers. Downgrading the LRM launchers a step and adding an extra ton of ammo means they last decently well throughout a fight, given that they’re generally support and soften-up weapons rather than the focus. The extra pair of ERMLs thickens up the medium-range direct alpha, and if I’m in range to hit within the nominal bands of all three chief weapon groupings, this thing can rack up damage quickly on top of the psychological suppressive effect of LRM fire.

The light machine guns are a toy, yeah – but less of one than some folks expect. The ROF quirk stacks up quick with extra guns, the pair of them can help me hose down idjits in close and/or let me always have something to fire. Crit fishing is never a real waste. Flamer ‘Mechs especially are always surprised when I start dinking them with the machine guns while they’re molesting my heat bar.

HLF-2 “Heckin’ ATMs”
The Hellfire is a dirty pleasure of mine, and this relatively recent acquisition has been absolutely glorious to pilot. ATMs are absolutely terrible...but they’re a little less so on a ‘Mech that moves 93 before M.A.S.C. and which is far from helpless when enemies close in under the ATMs’ minimum range. I deeply enjoy both M.A.S.C. and heavy lasers, so Hellfires kinda feel like an obligation. Fortunately, they’re also super fun.

Heckhottie-2 here is simpler than the Timber Wolf, playing to its ATM cooldown reduction quirk and mostly engaging at medium-short range with the missiles and the Pudgebeam. I get a surprising amount of kill-steals with long-range ATM fire, though. A lot of folks forget that ATMs have a chokin’ large maximum range number and are totally capable of doing damage out to Sniper ‘Mech distances and receive a faceful of Surprise Missiles for their troubles. Yes, ATMs are best inside their unreasonably, punitively narrow “Close Range” band, but they work everywhere else. As This Hellfire has conclusively demonstrated to me.

MAD-5D “Chonka Snubbs”
I bought this Marauder on sale specifically because despite mostly being a filthy degenerate Clammer, I wanted to experiment more with the Sphere’s great chonking bevy of alternative PPCs, since most of my remaining Sphere ‘Mechs are things that are...not good...at PPCs. The ‘Mech has proven hellaciously fun and made a big heavy peep fan out of me, even if the damned gun is too fat to use most anywhere else. The game complains at me vociferously for putting this many peeps on one non-AWS ‘Mech, but hell with it. Fun is fun, and different peeps have different jobs.

The dorsal Hpeep is fantastic for the chickendickery pokefest most matches start out as. I get a Goose Waffle with infinite ammo and snapfire, if albeit much slower projectiles. The snubs are less impressive, though I find myself occasionally surprised at how much of a psychological effect staggered PPC fire has on targets. Sometimes Chonka Snubbs here scares off targets it has no business scaring off simply because they keep getting slapped by PPCs both long and short. Chonka Snubbs is unpleasantly slow, but it’s very heat efficient when I lay off the medium lasers and focus on its signature weapons. And the full set of jets helps.

LACERATOR “Laser Paradise”
I bought the Lacerator mostly out of a love affair with both Stormcrows and multi-AMS machines, with the former being strong enough to convince me to shell out money for a 30% C-Boost Stormcrow even though I already have a Prime(I). This machine has proven well worth the investment to me, however. Plus, Lacerator is just pretty. I don’t ever get to see it except in the ‘Mech bay, but I know. And that’s enough.

Dual overloaded cLAMS does a lot of work against enemy missile spam, and I can let it run however long I want. The more missiles the enemy feeds my Lacerator’s Rave Nipples, the better my team is. It’s got a very healthy Alfalpha Spike number for a medium ‘mech at 62 points, and enough heat dissipation to scrap decently well with the arm-mounted lasers and save the extra torso beams for key shots. Yes, laser AMS interferes with dissipation for an already very hot-running build, but the freedom from ammunition concerns is worth more to me than the dissipation. Especially since there’s this super nifty thing you can do in the game’s settings called “bind the ‘Turn Off AMS’ button” for times when you need dissipation more than missile defense.

* * *

What about you guys? Any cool Tater Fits you nevertheless really like and do well in? Unsung heroes of your ‘Mech bay whose time for a verse or two has come? Or just rip all mine apart, that’s an amusing discussion too. Either way.

[Duke Falcon]

Quote

the Rules of Comp tell you your build is terrible and you should feel bad for it

Who cares? Some of them taunted my builds. Why? I tried their "suppa-shinny-muttaloader-meta-guys", and while they works, are absolutely and hopelessly repetitive. You know, self-repeating is an insect-like thing, so that much about compies and their methamphetamin-builds... Have you ever seen any of them brawling in a Summoner (TAG + 3LRM15s) with a meta-Urbie? You know I did it a few times and sometimes I even won...

My builds are all "comp-sorry shitloads" and some are literally. Like my Executioner with 4 cER-PPCs. Everyone said not do that, it's insane! Yeah, but could rock and dish out ~500 damage per match on non-siege maps.
My current fav is a Highlander 2c armed with an UAC10, 3xMPL and 3xLRM15 backed by an AMS. It could jump, have heat-management of 1.2 but without the heat-bug this build remain cool up to two alphas in a row (on Terra Therma).
Another dump-load build is a Stormcrow. Armed with an LB-10X, 2x MPL and 2xSRM6. Bad because prone to heat and because hit-boxes (forget that) but I killed even Awesome with it. To bad I can not got close enough in FP with it to enemies for a few well-placed alphas...

But you may have a look on my thread in the New Players Guide\Battlemechs because some of the "insane builds" mentioned there I actually use. And many times use them well. I realised since a while that not my skills or builds kept me in the lower levels of the playerbase but my style of fight: Aggressive attack 'till defeat or victory no matter how many others are present... But f***ing feels good to play like this, like a clanner!

[pbiggz]

I had an old summoner build that used a single CERPPC and a smattering of SRMs. It was actually kinda mean but I haven't built or run it since the cauldron patches, so it may have been left by the wayside.

[JediPanther]

Any IS Jenner before rescale. Upgraded C1 with all the dhs,counter ecm stuff and mls.

[Bud Crue]

1453 R, on 28 August 2021 - 08:58 AM, said:

What about you guys? Any cool Tater Fits you nevertheless really like and do well in? Unsung heroes of your ‘Mech bay whose time for a verse or two has come?

2ATM-9, 2ERML Shadow Cat. Under gunned yet still runs hot, and not nearly enough ammo to make a big impact, and yet, I almost always have a good game in it.

Classic 4 SRM4 Oxide. Despite the consistent, though mostly correct, complaining about how bad the Jenners are, whenever I bring out the old Oxide I have nominal to great games in it.

2LPL, ECM or JJ Cicada. It just works and always has.

Stalker 3FB with a mere 5LL, and ECM and 2 rocket 10s for the missile door bonus. Used to be my go to assault for Shi77y mech Wednesday, but I kept having great matches in it.

Dead arm IV-4. 2 SRM4s, 2MPL, 1AC10. With quirks and tree, everything fires at around 2.5 seconds. I almost always take it by mistake, and I am almost always shocked that I survived the match (for a change) and did way better than I thought possible.

Edited by Bud Crue, 29 August 2021 - 05:26 AM.

[RickySpanish]

Spider 5V, 1 Large Pulse Laser. 3 or 4 jump jets. Works great in T4 against all these "Teh T1 Playerz Are Jerksh!" builds, so you guys should try it out!

[Ekson Valdez]

Moved this general 'mech building discussion to BattleMechs.