14 replies to this topic

[ScrapIron Prime]

I was in another thread the other week, mentioning that you can tell what the good mechs are by how often you see people play them. And the reverse is certainly true... I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen an Uziel used in game. But I'd never actually played one, so rather than just dump on a chassis I knew nothing about, it was time to experiment.

So I slapped cBills down on an Uziel 6P and a half price tartan camo scheme, loaded it up, and began to drop in it. 2 Large Lasers, 4 Medium Lasers, lots of jump jets.

https://mwo.nav-alph...f594680e_UZL-6P

Fifteen matches later, I can honestly say that the thing is no rock star. Not because of its hard point load-out or mobility or armor, no. But because of this:



(Image courtesy of this post: https://mwomercs.com...localization-2/ )

The mech is not small, and its side torsos are VAST. You have to torso twist like a madman to protect them, hauling over a full 90 degrees. Anything less than that and they can still hit the side torso. Heck, you can even hit the side torso by aiming at the CROTCH. And the CT is visible from every angle.

Out of 15 games, I had perhaps 4 good ones. Never broke 600 damage, unlike what I can do with a similarly armed Phoenix Hawk. The Uziel just folds when people start shooting at it, as its large and not fast enough to get out of the way in a hurry. Ridge peeking with the large lasers was the best I could do in trades, as well as ambush play by working the jump jets and getting above the enemy.

If anyone has some award winning experiences in this chassis, I'd like to hear about it. Otherwise its going to take both a slight re-scale as well as some side torso armor buffs to get this guy back on the map.

[w0qj]

Perhaps a second MWO/Cauldron major mech quirk pass on the Uziel would help?

1. Actually Uziel already got its mech quirk pass back in Sept 2021 patch, but you probably know that already!
https://mwomercs.com...21september2021
https://mwomercs.com...auldron-changes

2. May I propose a second Cauldron mech quirk pass, as this might help?

3. Unfortunately mech rescaling looks off the table for now; MWO itself never mentioned anything about mech rescaling, as it's a lot of mech chassis to work with. (I personally would love a rescale of my favorite MWO mech, Mauler MAL-2P).

4. fyi, from a T3/T4/T5 perspective, I've seen a small number of Uziel Belial hero mech, probably because of its +1 HSL LIght PPC (ie: you can fire an additional one extra Light PPC without ghost heat penalty!)

- - - - - - - - - - -
Finally, a (shameless) plug:

Work has started on an update HSL list post-Caulron patches; it's a WIP (Work In Progress), in its early stages:
https://mwomercs.com...-hsl-quirk-list

Edited by w0qj, 22 December 2021 - 07:58 PM.

[ScrapIron Prime]

Right, weapon quirks were added, which is nice, but for survivability all that happened is that structure was removed and armor added. +8 torso armor is objectively not enough to keep the thing alive. Compare that to the Shadowhawk and Centurion. They got WAY more and their hit boxes are much better.

Point being, even after the quirk pass, the Uziel is rare as hen’s teeth. I wanted to see the reason. And the reason is that they didn’t buff the torsos enough. A second quirk pass is entirely warranted.

Edited by ScrapIron Prime, 22 December 2021 - 08:55 PM.

[ScrapIron Prime]

And today I was experimenting with changing up the armament, 2 PPC and 4 ERSL. I can break 500 with it fairly regularly between mid range sniping and pop-tarting with it, but it only does 1/2 the damage that a Vapor Eagle can do, so nobody should be rushing to field it this way either.

[ScrapIron Prime]

And since this exact mech is the free one this month, I’m gonna bump the thread. I’m up to 74 matches in the 6P and they did not go well on average. My opinion has not changed, the hit boxes are a distinct liability.

[Curccu]

ScrapIron Prime, on 07 March 2022 - 08:57 PM, said:

And since this exact mech is the free one this month, I’m gonna bump the thread. I’m up to 74 matches in the 6P and they did not go well on average. My opinion has not changed, the hit boxes are a distinct liability.

Think that as larger Jenner-F both are stupidly bad....

[VeeOt Dragon]

messing around the mech lab (its free so i wont be buying it) i found testing wise that a 2 ER LL 4 ML build might be useful as a sort of skirmish sniper. ER PPCs run to hot for any kind of sustained fire and you lose out on tonnage for more DHS. my test build also put in an AMS with 1/2t ammo because why not. still moves at 81+, not bad, not great for a medium IS but not bad.

years ago they gave away another free Uziel (i think i was the (C) variant). i don't remember since i sold it because i couldn't find a good build. i do remember it was one with the CT missile hardpoint.

honestly not much you can do with it and the quirks don't really do much for it (though the range boost does lend towards a sniper style build). sadly other IS mediums (its not fair to compare any IS medium to the Vapor Eagle.) still do that job better, even the Blackjack does it better. honestly its the crap hit boxes and lack luster Quirks that hit it hard.

Edited by VeeOt Dragon, 09 March 2022 - 02:47 AM.

[HGAK47]

So seeing as its the free mech and I have wanted to give this mech a try as ive never played it I thought I would look for builds.... Yea I expected that the hitboxes were terrible on it.

Think im just going to go for a ppc sniper type of build and see what happens. I expect to be dissapointed. I just cant imagine this thing getting in to close or even medium range, it looks like a terrible idea in a mech with those hitboxes.

[ScrapIron Prime]

HGAK47, on 11 March 2022 - 04:01 PM, said:

So seeing as its the free mech and I have wanted to give this mech a try as ive never played it I thought I would look for builds.... Yea I expected that the hitboxes were terrible on it.

Think im just going to go for a ppc sniper type of build and see what happens. I expect to be dissapointed. I just cant imagine this thing getting in to close or even medium range, it looks like a terrible idea in a mech with those hitboxes.

Having played it dozens of games, yes. I found PPC sniping works best on it, as it minimizes your exposure to return fire. 2PPC +4ERSL. I also tried just 2ERPPC, but it runs too hot and doesn’t dish enough damage when you get jumped.

[CFC Conky]

VeeOt Dragon, on 09 March 2022 - 02:46 AM, said:

...

years ago they gave away another free Uziel (i think i was the (C) variant). i don't remember since i sold it because i couldn't find a good build. i do remember it was one with the CT missile hardpoint.

...

It was the -3P(C).

Good hunting,
CFC Conky

Edited by CFC Conky, 11 March 2022 - 07:59 PM.

[HGAK47]

So I played a single game in it last night, granted a very bad game and I wasnt really able to get a good feel for how the erppcs would be on it but my god the hitboxes are even worse than I thought. I dont even want to play that thing again it felt horrid lol.

[panzer1b]

There's no sugar coating it, the uzel because of things like geometry and hardpoint locations is anywhere from meh to utterly bad. All the useable builds force you to bring an XL engine, and that exasperates the hitbox issues as its very easy to drop a ST on the mech.

Anyways, to add something positive, 2 builds ive seen that arent absolutely useless is 6MPL with a massive XL engine in it, and 2HPPC taking advantage of JJs to poptart and instantly get out of LOS before the inevitable 60+ laser vomit alpha smacks you in return. Laser vomti is bad cause of the wide arms forcing you to expose way too much to justify it (they arent low, but the ST torsos stick out too high unlike mechs like blackjack). ERPPCs are too hot on pretty much anything without quirks and tonnage to bring loads of DHS (and +1 HSL cause 20 PPFLD is not enuff to justify exposing like at all).

Honestly, if PGI wants to make this mech useable, it needs at least 20+ armor on the torsos/CT, and that would at least cut down on the hitbox issue to a degree. Preferably make it smaller, but thats hard to do...

[Dekallis]

For the 6P My build is simply run 5 or 6 Light PPC's. You can do this with the XL engine by moving one heatsink in the side torso's out to the arms you can also max out armor with the weight saved compared to the default ppcs or ER ppcs. OR you can switch to a Light engine and drop a heatsink but you won't be able to improve it's armor without dropping either a PPC. Or you can downsize the engine, to a light 225 which is the same weight as the XL it came with you drop to 73kph which is still reasonable movement an XL 225 is just light enough to allow for quad large lasers.Might be something else you can do with that but I haven't meddled with it much yet, the Uziel wasn't a mech really on my radar, even in MW4 I never cared for it much but I kinda like this thing as a mid-long range harasser in the medium weight class. Most of my mediums are brawling glass cannons so it's a nice change.

Running light ppc's makes it a decent anti-ecm/stealth tool to make all the red doritos appear for the oblivious pilots out there, and the refire rate is high enough to keep it disabled...assuming you hit. Light PPC's are surprisingly slow projectiles, I'm bad with them and miss A LOT, but I still managed a 500dmg game just abusing high ground and poking aggressively and using cover.

Whatever you do with it though, basically use it as a purely hit and run ambusher/poptart and don't still be there when the enemy turns to face you if at all possible. It's not going to win any damage races next to a hunchback or a nova but it's not meant to.

Obviously I haven't fully skilled it out yet so there's room to see if skill points make things more bearable. I don't think every mech needs to have like 60points of ST armor to be playable, it's a medium for crying out loud. As it is it's duability comparable to a Nova(A mech I used to use regularly) with very similar armor values and structure and the Nova has the same issue of losing it's ST's but the Nova can't trade out it's engine for more weight and yet plenty of people figured out how to make that usable. I think giving it an XL as a default might've warranted a SLIGHT structure bonus to ST's but not armor it's not meant to be a hardened target so if it were to get a buff it should be structure so it has to deal with crits to the ST's instead of becoming a psuedo heavy by virtue of armor quirks and it isn't engine locked like clan mechs so there's no real reason to give it huge bonuses just because of the downsides of the XL.

[ScrapIron Prime]

Free mech achieved. Now I have two of them. Huzzah?

One kitted out with 2PPC+4ERSL for jump sniping, one equipped with 2LL+4ML. The second seems to die a lot more.

[The Basilisk]

Since the mech is too fragile for a direct fight anyway I kittet it out as dedicated glasscannon.
3JJ 2 HPPC 280XL