33 replies to this topic

[VeeOt Dragon]

i run a 4L (2 RAC/5, 2 AC/2, 2 MLs) it runs alright. i can use the 2s while getting close to plink (most of the time just one shot shot or two is enough to get an enemy at range to take cover). when you get within rang of the RACs you unload mixing in the 2s adding the MLs when you get even closer. ECM helps against the locking missiles. though ammo can be a bit of an issue i often run out of AC/2 ammo before the match is done.

[justcallme A S H]

Heavy Money, on 11 September 2021 - 12:56 AM, said:

SRM Loadouts:

Grimmechs ranks the 4SRM6a+4SRM4a build as A tier.

Give this a crack

MAD-4HP

[caravann]

VeeOt Dragon, on 19 September 2021 - 11:40 PM, said:

i run a 4L (2 RAC/5, 2 AC/2, 2 MLs) it runs alright. i can use the 2s while getting close to plink (most of the time just one shot shot or two is enough to get an enemy at range to take cover). when you get within rang of the RACs you unload mixing in the 2s adding the MLs when you get even closer. ECM helps against the locking missiles. though ammo can be a bit of an issue i often run out of AC/2 ammo before the match is done.

It's not even near to be acceptable for an assault.

This an example of a build for an assault
https://m.youtube.co...lHoFVovk&t=321s

RAC is such low tier because, what are you going up against?

People who already are in cover, who knows how to shoot without being shot.

They won't sit there for 5 seconds for you to gain an effort in a rac.

[VeeOt Dragon]

never said it was meta (i couldn't give two shits about meta) just that it works alright for me. not fantastic but alright.

also your example is NOT the 4L, it is no comparison at all and not worth the time you took to link it.

[Heavy Money]

Well, well, well, look what found its way into the patch notes!



Several of us gave feedback to the Cauldron, and they have made some changes. We'll see how they go, and they say they may make more based on further feedback. So, a big special thank you to the Cauldron for listening! (Note: I don't know if it was this post or my arguments specifically that caused changes. A lot of people made suggestions about the MAD II. Its nice to see that they are listening!)

The Triple Heavy PPC with low exposure and perfect convergence was apparently causing some issues in Faction or Comp or something, so that got removed. I guess this is good because we don't want a situation where a mech is very powerful in some small niche and so can't be fixed in other areas.

Anyhow, the MAD-4A and also several other IS assaults have gotten various Large Laser HSL quirks. Let's see how they work out! And the 4L is going to have a nasty PPFLD alpha size to make it worth how much it has to expose (there's also some King Crab builds that can do similar stuff, so its not the only one.)

I'm looking forward to testing these out, and then will do further analysis. I suspect the Marauder II will still need more help in addition to this, just based on the dps numbers compared to the alternatives. But its certainly a step in the right direction!

Edited by Heavy Money, 15 October 2021 - 08:15 PM.

[ScrapIron Prime]

Heavy Money, on 15 October 2021 - 08:11 PM, said:

Well, well, well, look what found its way into the patch notes!



Several of us gave feedback to the Cauldron, and they have made some changes. We'll see how they go, and they say they may make more based on further feedback. So, a big special thank you to the Cauldron for listening! (Note: I don't know if it was this post or my arguments specifically that caused changes. A lot of people made suggestions about the MAD II. Its nice to see that they are listening!)

The Triple Heavy PPC with low exposure and perfect convergence was apparently causing some issues in Faction or Comp or something, so that got removed. I guess this is good because we don't want a situation where a mech is very powerful in some small niche and so can't be fixed in other areas.

Anyhow, the MAD-4A and also several other IS assaults have gotten various Large Laser HSL quirks. Let's see how they work out! And the 4L is going to have a nasty PPFLD alpha size to make it worth how much it has to expose (there's also some King Crab builds that can do similar stuff, so its not the only one.)

I'm looking forward to testing these out, and then will do further analysis. I suspect the Marauder II will still need more help in addition to this, just based on the dps numbers compared to the alternatives. But its certainly a step in the right direction!

Yup, this may be the mech pack I buy now to get this year's Loyalty reward. The 4A with 5 Large Lasers is looking good, and the 4L with dual ERPPC plus dual Gauss is some nice competition.

[w0qj]

Yeah, the only thing missing from MAD-4A is the "Crit Chance Receiving"... otherwise it would be perfect!

MAD-4A looks very good as it is though;
also tempted to buy that MAD-4A(S) special variant

[MechWarrior5782621]

TBH I'm not even sure if the Atlas is the best brawler. The armor quirks are great, but I think it should have an overall cooldown quirk so that it can out-DPS Fafnirs & Annihilators at close range. The 5LB10 ANH, or FNR with 4LB10 & 4SRM2 can outbrawl an Atlas imo. And possibly the Mean Baby. Superior hardpoints go a long way.

I agree on the MAD-II. It should have something like -15% heat, because it isn't really a dakka mech & it relies on a lot of mixed builds which include energy weapons. That, with a few more survival quirks would get it closer to viability.

[Heavy Money]

Alright, so we got changes to the 4A and 4L in the October Patch (thanks again Cauldron!) I’ve spent some time with them both since, as well as some other similar mechs to try to get a feel for where they’re at. Are they good now? Are they too strong? We’ll start with a look at the MAD-4L.

MAD-4L TLDR;
- It gained the ability to fire 2 Gauss Rifles + 2ERPPCs for 50 PPFLD.
- Before it did 1LGR+1GR+2ERPPC for 45 PPFLD and wasn’t considered that good.
- It is the best 50 PPFLD sniper due to much better heat, ECM, and JJs.
- It should lose the energy heat quirk if it’s going to stay as it is.
- 50 PPFLD sniper assaults don’t seem to be breaking quickplay to me, but might be too good in the hands of better players.

In my original post, my assessment of the 4L was that it didn’t snipe hard enough for how big and slow it is, but my suggestions were tentative. I was worried about what it would do to Comp and Faction play if it got stronger, as those tend to be more long range dominated. And Sniping in general is something that is very skill tier dependent as its effectiveness is extremely accuracy dependent. It is easy for snipers to be crap for players with ~50% accuracy, and be too strong in the hands of players with ~75% accuracy (which is part of why pretty much all shooters have comp metas skewed towards sniping or high precision 1 shot kills.) And this effect may be even larger in MWO where average players cannot reliably snipe harassing lights (among other things), but top players can, meaning at one tier the snipers get hard countered, and at the other only harassed.

The 4L got -10% Gauss cooldown and another +1 ERPPC HSL. The GR and ERPPCs now have better synced cooldown, which make it much nicer to play (especially over the previous GR+LGR build) and it does more DPS and Alpha. It is one of several mechs now capable of 50 dmg PPFLD alphas at long range. PPFLD alphas this high are relatively new. AC20+3Snub builds have been around for a bit, but those are closer range. And now we have stuff like King Crabs doing 2AC20+3Snubs for 60PPFLD, but those have lots of drawbacks.

I put some data together to see how things compared. Hopefully it is useful or at least interesting.

Sniper Loadout Comparisons:
Here's some loadout comparisons. The stats are from MechDB and so don’t include skills. Here’s the full spreadsheet.

I’ve included a bunch of the heat/cooling stats like Alphas to Overheat, Time to Cool an Alpha’s worth of heat, and overall time to cool.



Note that:
- The main things to compare are the MAD-4L and King Crabs.
- The 4L has ECM and the option of Stealth and Jump Jets.
- Both mechs are huge and slow with various geometry and hitbox issues. King Crab’s giant CT is a huge liability. MAD II has its dorsal gun. Both have low arms. Overall though, MAD II comes out ahead due to good front hitboxes and better mobility.
- The proper relationship between these mechs ought to be that the King Crab has more offense as it has worse defense and mobility, and lacks the ECM/JJs. They have more offensive quirks to this end.

4L vs KGC Observations:

- The MAD-4L has amazing heat efficiency due to its -15% energy heat quirk. Even if it runs less DHS in order to use JJs, etc, it has way more ATOs than the others. I get the best results playing this of course. I mostly credit that to the JJs letting me get good positioning, and that I’ve been playing it for nearly a year even when it was much worse.

- The KGC-001 is running the same weapons as the 4L, but without the ECM or JJs, worse mobility, heat, etc. The DPS gain is basically irrelevant. The velocity quirk is nice though. Overall, it’s kind of crap. I struggled to get results playing it, and the arm width drove me nuts.

- The Kaiju is a less direct comparison. It is all right sided, with the usual pros and cons of that. When right side peeking, it can keep itself shielded and negate some of the issues of peek time and exposure. It has more DPS even after accounting for heat and the 4L’s crazy ATO. But it is much more vulnerable to being pressured up close due to heat capping so much sooner. It has a huge amount of ERPPC velocity, which makes it significantly easier to land hits with, especially on fast targets. I got great results playing it, especially when I could play to its strengths as a right side peeker.

Is that Alphas to Overheat Advantage really such a big deal?

The MAD-4L’s heat efficiency has caught many people’s attention. It seems like it needs to go, at least to fix up the internal balance between these three mechs (and the 001 needs buffs. The Kaiju is probably in about the right place.) And the above numbers don’t really tell the full story of how big its heat advantage is because it doesn’t include skills. I tested several mechs with all the heat nodes available in the skill tree (both firepower and operations), and waited to fire the ERPPCs until they could be fired at the same time as the Gauss, because that’s how they’re normally played. Here’s the true ATO after skills of some of the mechs (I don’t have all of them):



The 4L has a massive gain compared to the others. It cools to like 2% before the next volley. Of course, this is an extreme because if you spend this many skill points on heat, you’re missing out on survivability, and you don’t need to be able to fire 18 volleys in a row in real circumstances. The energy mechs get less of an ATO gain from all these skills, but they still have a big benefit in reducing the time to cool an individual alpha. So this picture isn’t telling the full story either. It’s pretty rare to fire 4 alphas in a row without a pause (unless the enemy is not shooting back and you’re just farming). In regular circumstances, the Kaiju will not find itself heat capping either (unless it gets pushed) due to down time while taking cover or repositioning. Some of the others have serious cool down time problems though (looking at you, 6S!)

The bigger takeaway is that currently, the 4L can get away with not bothering with cooling skills, and so take more in other areas, possibly even putting its DPS above the others (and there’s also Coolshots, of course.)

Exposure and time to peek:

The main balancing factor on having snipers with this level of firepower is how big and slow they are. They are going to drop 50PPFLD on someone, but then how much damage are they going to take in return fire before having to withdraw into cover? Does their amount of armor make up for this? I measured how quickly they could peek. It’s not super accurate because I just timed it with a stopwatch, but it gives you the general idea.



This doesn’t include time to actually acquire a target and fire. In circumstances that you know exactly where your target is, you’ll be able to shoot without much extra time. Otherwise, it’ll probably take a second or two longer, depending on skill level and other circumstances. I also tried loading up the full mobility tree on the mechs I had to see how much of a difference it makes. It’s the Accelerate/Decelerate nodes making the biggest contribution as far as I can tell, but it isn’t huge. Probably not worth the skill points. But if the mobility tree gets improved, it might be.

These numbers show the MAD II’s mobility advantage over the KGC. The MAD can move its whole mass out and fire with both arms in the same time it takes the Kaiju to expose only its right side up to the cockpit. And the time for the KGC to expose both arms is just painful.

What we can see here is that there’s a good deal of time for enemies to notice you peeking and shoot you. There’s plenty of time to see you emerging and do a full laser burn, or even hit you with lock-on weapons. If they know you’re there, they could even complete two volleys of many weapons.

We also see the advantage the Heavy mech has. 3 seconds is much less, especially if they’re not aware of you until you fire. The WHM-6R can get back into cover faster than many players can acquire it as a target. So if you peek intelligently, you can be dropping 40PPFLD with minimal return fire. Even against experienced players who can aim and fire quickly, you’re likely to avoid eating a full laserburn. But the bigger mechs are allowing critically more time to return fire.

This exposure time is the main reason I don’t think big 50 PPFLD assault snipers are inherently a problem. But it assumes that pressure is put on them to force them back into cover. If they just get to stand there and farm, it is devastating, much like AC2 boats, or even some ERLL boats. So we will see this happen in lower tier matches where people don’t return fire properly.

Other Observations:

- The NSR-9J is pretty unimpressive in these comparisons. I don’t have it, but just running around in the testing grounds, I can tell how tedious the arm width is. It should be a bit weaker than the Kaiju due to being 5 tons lighter, but probably not this much. Can anyone who has both tell us how they compare?

- We’ve all already noticed that the 4ERPPC MAD-6S is far too hot. And now that we can see its numbers in a straight up comparison, we can see just how far behind it is. Being so ERPPC heavy is a huge hit to efficiency, and there’s very little gain. You’re actually more vulnerable to gauss explosions than the 4L because the one you’ve got is in your torso. Due to being so energy heavy, it would need even larger quirks than the Kaiju to become efficient, which matches my original assessment.

- The MadCat looks bad on paper, but remember that MechDB isn’t factoring in splash damage (I think?) I tossed it in out of curiosity. Clans don’t have these giant PPFLD options like IS (either snipers or close range SNAC), but they’ve got their own stuff instead (like giant non-PPFLD laservomit and gaussvomit alphas.)

Conclusions:

So, are these big 50 PPFLD assault snipers too strong? In my completely subjective and anecdotal experience, it doesn’t seem like it to me at my level of play. I’m a competent Tier 1 player, but there’s lots of people much better than me. It’s nice to see 4L’s other than me on the field now and then, but they don’t seem to be dominating quick play. I get good scores in them, but I get comparable scores in lots of other things too. I can’t speak for even higher level play, or Faction or Comp, so if these mechs are causing problems there, please tell us about it.

The 4L is clearly the best of these snipers right now, and probably will be even if it loses its heat quirk due to ECM and JJs, and the KGC being held back by its own issues (mainly hitbox). I started writing this with the assumption it was too heat efficient compared to the others, and found it was even more ahead than I’d thought (I mostly play the 3 JJ build which isn’t as much.) The bigger takeaway from looking at these numbers is the state of the other snipers. Some could really use work, especially the MAD-6S.

Suggestions:

- Remove the MAD-4L’s energy heat quirk, or perhaps change it to Lasers only. It’d be fine for it to be this efficient while running 2GR+2ERLL (which some people do) as that build is worse. (Not PPFLD, gives away location more, more exposure to finish burns, etc.) It’d probably take some other laser quirks to make it worthwhile though. Beyond that, I’d let it be for now.

- Kaiju is pretty much fine in my experience other than general KGC hitbox problems that we can’t fix right now, but the 001 could use some help. Give it the 4L’s level of heat quirk instead, and perhaps even more velocity? Also might want to bandaid King Crabs more with even larger CT armor bonuses (I’m not sure how this would impact close range builds. I haven’t played them much.)

- MAD-6S is difficult, as said. It’s gonna take a lot of quirks to make it work.

- If it is decided that the 50 PPFLD is too much for the MAD-4L, I suggest moving it back to 40 with 2GR+ERPC, but let it keep the cooling, and give it some good velocity and range. It was too weak before, and it would be again. If it’s going to be lower alpha, let it have the quality of life stuff (Target Info time would be great too.) Alternatively, it could be quirked in such a way that GR+LGR synced up better to be less tedious to play, and let it be 45 alpha like before.


Thanks for reading

[pattonesque]

The 2GR/2ERPPC MAD-4L is extremely strong, and if you manage to establish a good high ground position you can punish folks with a great deal of effectiveness. Where it struggles and where I think it's balanced is that it can't poke well against a good firing line, as they'll just hit the dorsal gun before you can bring the gauss rifles to bear. The GRs are also so low and wide that you have to be way, way out of cover before you're guaranteed not to clip terrain with your shots. There are times where the only safe thing to do is to use the ERPPCs, and while it's nice to have them as a snapshot option it basically reduces you to a fat, slow Shadow Cat.

I don't think you'll see much of it in comp. It probably could be effective in certain FP maps. QP is where it really shines.

[Ravni]

4L got a fair amount of use by some of the best comp teams last weekend and seemed to perform well from what I could see on the broadcast.

As for my personal experiences after about 100 games of solo-QP: it is on par with my best performing mechs. Averaging about 600 damage, almost 2:1 W/L & over 2:1 K/D. I'm also primarily a light pilot and rarely play assaults or snipers, much less 100-tonners, and I've purposely attempted all kinds of stupid things with it just to see what I can get away with.

Hitboxes on it seem pretty great: I'm regularly taking over 800dmg to die in spite of running an XL engine (!) on it. Obviously that wouldn't hold up against an organized group with good aim but XL seems to work just fine for me in QP, especially as its kind of pointless to survive if the RT gets focused down. Spreads damage across torsos very well and it's raw-HP are only behind the Atlas & Fafnir I believe.

Good agility for a 100-tonner (and I run it full mobility) along with the low arms & lower arm actuators on it's dual gauss provide it with spectacular defense against light/pseudolight mechs attempting to gank it when compared to torso-mounted snipers. It also runs ice cold which lets it sustain continuous fire well when getting pushed: significantly heat-negative with 40 alphas, and about heat neutral alternating between 40/50, and that is with zero points in operations and only about half the firepower heat nodes.

Edited by Ravni, 02 November 2021 - 07:26 AM.

[pbiggz]

I've been quite enjoying the Marauder II. Stealth armour and double gauss double ERPPC is an absolute hoot.

[pattonesque]

Ravni, on 02 November 2021 - 07:21 AM, said:

4L got a fair amount of use by some of the best comp teams last weekend and seemed to perform well from what I could see on the broadcast.

As for my personal experiences after about 100 games of solo-QP: it is on par with my best performing mechs. Averaging about 600 damage, almost 2:1 W/L & over 2:1 K/D. I'm also primarily a light pilot and rarely play assaults or snipers, much less 100-tonners, and I've purposely attempted all kinds of stupid things with it just to see what I can get away with.

Hitboxes on it seem pretty great: I'm regularly taking over 800dmg to die in spite of running an XL engine (!) on it. Obviously that wouldn't hold up against an organized group with good aim but XL seems to work just fine for me in QP, especially as its kind of pointless to survive if the RT gets focused down. Spreads damage across torsos very well and it's raw-HP are only behind the Atlas & Fafnir I believe.

Good agility for a 100-tonner (and I run it full mobility) along with the low arms & lower arm actuators on it's dual gauss provide it with spectacular defense against light/pseudolight mechs attempting to gank it when compared to torso-mounted snipers. It also runs ice cold which lets it sustain continuous fire well when getting pushed: significantly heat-negative with 40 alphas, and about heat neutral alternating between 40/50, and that is with zero points in operations and only about half the firepower heat nodes.

Oh that’s interesting regarding comp. any specific matches where it stands out?

And it does seem to have an easier time against lights than most snipers. The arm gauss helps quite a bit

[caravann]

The arms make you reinvent the wheel where you use the arms instead of the dorsal cannon to shoot and back jump.
Dorsal cannon is not that good at it, the cannon is by lore a case holder of a heavy gauss cannon since it was too cumbersome to be fitted on any mech that they put it on this mech to be fearful.

the arm and the dorsal are disconnected from each other and sure you can use gauss on it but there's no real benefit.

night gyr is likely the best example of making it work where the gauss is followed up by a laser mounted in the sidetorso.

mad 2 do not use side torso and instead all weapons are in the arm or in the dorsal. this means that left arm and right arm do not have any supporting weapon for each shield side of the mech. instead the dorsal is the side torso when the dorsal is a box mounted on the mech and not part of the standard paperdoll.

there's one example of a mech who has a side torso in the arm , hellspawn has side torso weapon in the arm and mad 2 would benefit by having the dorsal in the arm instead of the side torso.

this would solve everything wrong with the dorsal cannon, everything would be solved because the dorsal would gained everything from the arm and able to shoot in any direction.

Edited by caravann, 02 November 2021 - 12:36 PM.