50 replies to this topic

[RickySpanish]

Pick up seismic sensor and you can more comfortably fit less armour. I would not put more than 10 points on rear armour, I usually do 2 points just in case someone bumps me at the start of a match. The reason for allocating all your armour frontward is that's the side facing the people you are shooting. 2 UAC 10 on the Night Gyr was too few guns. You only want as much ammo as you are going to use. Typically 1000 points of damage is enough, adding extra to account for accuracy - you can check accuracy on your stats page for each weapon.

[Lajur Kas]

Stab Wound, on 06 May 2022 - 05:26 PM, said:

Maybe it was my build.

Kanil, on 06 May 2022 - 05:47 PM, said:

I mean, it's entirely possible the Night Gyr just isn't the 'mech for you... ... but when you've got 12 tons of ammo...it's definitely "your build" at least a little bit.

Shave off a pile of ammo and try an ERMED and LPL instead. They match up well with the range on the UAC10s. https://mwo.nav-alph...=4380950c_NTG-H

[sosegado]

foamyesque, on 07 May 2022 - 01:33 AM, said:

Point face towards enemy, basically. Investing in at least one rank of seismic sensors (two is better but requires a pretty deep investment in sensors ATM) is also really useful at countering stealth lights. Otherwise, keep your eyes open and move with the team, which as a heavy mech pilot you ought to be doing anyway; you can't anchor a firing line in quite the same way an assault can, but you're still a key piece of one.

For myself I usually run a back armour of 2. Some mechs get a touch more: lights, to put torsos over certain breakpoints e.g. a dual PPC shot, and *really* beefy assaults like an Atlas, who both have the armour to spare and which people like to try to backshot. Or which eat accidental team fire because they're always leading pushes

Getting those twenty extra points of armour on the front side of your mech will make a huge difference to your survival. You get shot there far, far more commonly than you ever do from behind. It doesn't save you tonnage, per se, because you're always armouring your torsos as much as possible, but it puts your armour where it needs to be, which gives you more time to shoot back. Right now, you're playing heavies with as much frontal armour as your opposing mediums are going to have, which is putting you at a really hefty disadvantage.

For a So8 Night Gyr-H, with the limited hardpoints, the widely accepted best build is 2x Gauss 2x ERLL. The weapons rangematch well, the gauss run really cool so you don't need to carry many sinks for the ERLLs, and long range sniping (and gauss particularly) pair very well with the ECM + JJ combination the Night Gyr H has. The gauss, in particular, can be annoyingly difficult to trace back to source if you shoot & fade without firing the lasers, but if you've got clean shots the pinpoint fire can ruin a 'mech's whole day from 900m.


As for the Grasshopper, I like poke & fade: https://mwo.nav-alph...fa7cb725_GHR-5J

You can also do a pulseboat build as you currently have, but personally I dislike the short range of Sphere medium pulses.

Ok, so maybe it's just another thing I have to adjust from playing assaults.

It's been my experience that if I stop moving in my assault for any amount of time it's going to be stopped for good and that's where my smoldering mech will remain.
You have to keep those snipers and stealths guessing what your next move is and make them think to themselves , "why is that assault turning in random directions?"

Trust me, it hurts my soul to strip front armor from my assaults but I adapted my play to it by not offering my center for too long when pushing in.
Having a deeper pool of rear armor then those lights expected me to have has given me the time it takes to adjust myself and take them out.

I look at the posts on this forum from people complaining about getting popped by lights in 3 seconds because they have their back armor targeted and I think to myself, well that's because you had a 2 for your back armor. What did you think was going to happen? (no offense intended)
If I put a 2 in my back armor I'm going to get TK'ed by that pilot when we first drop that's always "just testing my weapons, bro!" (you know who you are)

Ok, so I hear you, seismic sensors huh? Oh well I die for many different reasons so it can't hurt to add, 'I just stopped to smell the daisies' to the list!

Oh, and I just want to say that if I don't reply directly to your post here please don't be offended!
I promise you that I'm reading them all, I'm taking you seriously and I'm working on the mechs you list and the suggestions you make. I'm overwhelmed by the amount responses and helpful information getting posted here. But keep it coming. It's my firm hope that others in this community are also getting better informed.

Edited by Stab Wound, 08 May 2022 - 07:13 AM.

[Sawk]

HMM you really need to learn JUMPJET--- at high speed, you turn so fast your head spins, thing is do have the computer to do it, i am running a SELF built PUTER, that is why i think you need spend some time in a timberwolf, he has ok speed and jets, you can build other mechs after mastering movement, and jet turning, and what it means to hit for 35+ points every time.
Then your ready and get a wing man to run with you, you can run a LIGHT that hits for 40 + alpha, yes they can, and you can learn how deadly and little guys is, i KNOW i get hunted from time to time, so i run a timberwolf i am solo, i may have to fight off 3 pilots--- so much FUN----

SAWK

[ScrapIron Prime]

Stab Wound, on 08 May 2022 - 06:41 AM, said:

Trust me, it hurts my soul to strip front armor from my assaults but I adapted my play to it by not offering my center for too long when pushing in.
Having a deeper pool of rear armor then those lights expected me to have has given me the time it takes to adjust myself and take them out.

I'm with you there. It took me a while to get accustomed to bare bones back armor after I came back from a 2+ year hiatus. I wanted to run a healthy amount of back armor, but I was finding that my FRONT armor just wasn't standing up long enough to the higher alpha strikes that are prevalent in game now. yes, stripping back armor can be exploited, but not having enough frontal armor is a thing.

And yes, I've always run seismic sensors on the majority of my mechs, even back in the "Elite 3 variants to Master" day of modules. its an input and a battlefield awareness that you otherwise don't have, and all it takes is stopping and reversing or pausing and making a turn to get a few pings out. With it you can see who is above or below you, with it you can see the Small Pulse Laser or Micro Laser ankle-biter before they can get in range to open up on you.

to me, avoiding damage, be it with seismic or with tons of Radar Deprivation, is more armor for later. In that respect, its as useful as bulking up on the survival tree.

[Xmith]

Stab Wound, on 03 May 2022 - 01:59 PM, said:

I'm pretty much an Assault pilot that dabbles occasionally in Mediums and Lights.

I don't play Heavies because I've never seen the point of their existence. I've always thought of them as useless and weak Assault wannabees.

But I'm willing to try them out again if there are any chassis that are worth investing my time to learn.

I don't care if they are IS or Clan.

There are specific criteria I'm looking for though:

1) AMS (dual if available)
2) ECM
3) Speed (80kph or faster if available)

Dakka or Face melters please, Missile boats need not apply.

Thanks!

I would recommend the HBR-Prime It comes standard with AMS and ECM. It also has the speed you are looking for.

[Ekson Valdez]

This topic was moved to the more apropriate subforum Heavy Mech Builds

[Void Angel]

Stab Wound, on 06 May 2022 - 10:07 PM, said:

Ok, you guys got me..seriously..am I being punked right now.

I look at some of your builds and although I'm extremely impressed by the offense, I am stupefied by the lack of defense!

A back armor of 4?

You're literally playing a different game then me.

If I put together a mech in the mech lab with a back armor of 4 I can guarantee that a stealth light would sneak into my mech lab and assassinate my mech as I tried!!

So what gives? Do you invest all in offense and neglect defense or please tell me what I'm missing here?!?

As other people have pointed out, this is normal - you can never get enough armor on the rear torso to truly safeguard your 'mech. And since you can't shoot behind you (and all mechwarrior games are battles of attrition) it makes sense to shift armor forward and rely on situational awareness to protect the rear arcs. The only reason we have any armor on our rear torsos is to prevent critical hits from small bits of damage during the fight. Situational awareness and positioning will allow you to protect that rear armor well enough to justify the forward shift, and things like Radar Deprivation or Seismic Sensor will help you further (by denying positional information to your enemy or giving it to you, respectively.)

You've already gotten a lot of input on 'mechs, and you can use Heavies in a wide variety of roles. But I have developed a tactical doctrine that I believe might help you learn to use Heavies in close combat, particularly since you are already familiar with Assaults: the HunchBuddy.^™

HunchBuddy tactics (so named because I developed mine using a Hunchback) center around two players on the battlefield: the HunchBuddy, and his Big. The goal of the Big is to do big-mech things; you know,. throwing a laser rave, administering high-velocity metal injections, serving up helpings of piping-hot blam. The Hunchbuddy's goal is to help the Big do that. So conceptually you just follow your Big around the battlefield and do what he does: if he peeks, you peek after him; if he flanks, you go with; and if he leaves cover to brawl, you go with him.

There's a bit more to it in practice, of course. If you're following him wrong, for example, you'll be in his way when he needs to back up, and you want to make sure that you time your "support peek" to come just after any enemies have returned fire. You also want to join your Big in a brawl by flanking his opponents, forcing them to choose which of you they want shooting at their back armor. But in general, your build and your job should be to add your damage to the Big's, and to punish Lights who want to mess with him. For builds, you can pick a middle-range primary weapon (e.g. AC/10s or Large Lasers,) and build around that, or just take a close-range smashing build with some poke potential - but just about any build can be used as a HunchBuddy, depending on which Big you choose.

Edited by Void Angel, 10 May 2022 - 10:02 AM.

[Sawk]

NOW that is WELL said, i have run with PILOTS like you, running my TIMBERWOLFS, LOL i have seen 2 light pilots take my kills, i may get 1 they get 1 OR 2, hmm THE 4 man group working as a TEAM, its is called a lance, in CLAN WORLD.

READ THE battle notes 4 on 4 soon

SAWK

[foamyesque]

Void Angel, on 10 May 2022 - 09:59 AM, said:

As other people have pointed out, this is normal - you can never get enough armor on the rear torso to truly safeguard your 'mech. And since you can't shoot behind you (and all mechwarrior games are battles of attrition) it makes sense to shift armor forward and rely on situational awareness to protect the rear arcs. The only reason we have any armor on our rear torsos is to prevent critical hits from small bits of damage during the fight. Situational awareness and positioning will allow you to protect that rear armor well enough to justify the forward shift, and things like Radar Deprivation or Seismic Sensor will help you further (by denying positional information to your enemy or giving it to you, respectively.)

Yeah. Like getting ganked from behind in one volley stinks, but there aren't actually all that many machines that can do that to a heavy mech unless you've screwed up, and none of them are stealth lights. If you let a Fafnir circle behind you, that's on you.

In general, mechs die from the front. That's where the armour needs to go, because only the absolute beefiest of machines can comfortably spare frontal armour. Some lights, where you might well get shot in the back while trying to shoot *other* people in the back, might warrant more total armour on the back just because they have almost no structure (whereas heavies and assaults can have pretty substantial amounts), can also benefit: the Urbanmech would be a good example, because it has lots of armour quirks but it still has the same breathe-and-it-dies structure of any other light.

[Corvus Antaka]

Thanatos, ac20, mrm20, 4 mlaser for brawling fun.

or 2 ac10/2 gauss the usual flavor.

orion is nice cause it has tons of armor

vulture can melt faces

madcat versatile and fun

hellfire void with 2 uac10 is great fun