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martian, on 06 September 2023 - 11:40 AM, said:
From the technical point of view, there should be no problem. They would be just another pair of Hero 'Mechs.
But PGI has been offering mostly Assault-class 'Mechs so far.
But PGI has been offering mostly Assault-class 'Mechs so far.
I think a lot of the choices being made with the Legendaries and the SR release point towards the "quiet part being said out loud".
I can't actually blame PGI for making choices that will result in sales at this point. Assaults are strong as a class. These assaults range from strong to very strong. The Stalker is baseline a good chassis, War Emu's lack of quirks simply puts it around that baseline without it being screamingly OP like, oh, I don't know, Moonwalker at release (though a good part of that was the actuator goof). Hardpoint number and type is a pretty big deal.
Gausszilla is an Annihilator (strong Assault chassis with the caveats of very poor mobility and attention-magnet status). An Annihilator that trades IS survivability for Clan Battlemech perks, and with the release of HAGs absolutely ungodly amounts of firepower. It makes sense that it would sell, and it's not surprising as many seemed to sell as they did.
Stone Crusher is, with the Blazer release, absolutely ******* terrifying and I have no idea how there aren't more of them being fielded.
Moonwalker is a Mad Cat II with no major downside. It has all the hardpoints one could ask for with a Mad Cat II, to the point of outmoding a number of other Mad Cat IIs, quirks be damned. It's not an ubertanky Assault, it doesn't NEED to be, it fields absolutely withering amounts of firepower in its popular builds (UAC10s and 5s, 3 LB20X and SRMs come to mind).
Dreadnought is a Marauder IIC whose only real downside is being slightly limited by tonnage. Marauder IICs are excellent mechs overall, this one leans very hard into the chassis' typical strengths and a couple of the current metas and adds the ability to spam strikes on top of it. Its only shortcoming comes from comparison to embarrassingly strong chassis that have emerged since its release.
Seraph is a Supernova that is only really limited by the fact that the Supernova chassis typically has questionable hitboxes and mounts, though they're hardly the worst out there. It plays strongly to the highly dominant Gaussvomit meta. Were it not for the fact that it's "only" 90t I'd call it something that takes the Direwolf down a peg, and its coolshot spam ability probably brings it ahead.
Arges is a Cyclops that isn't WOW amounts of strong, but that Seismic quirk and its mounts make it at least as good as the strongest Cyclops variant. Sleipnir still has something the others don't (quad LB10X), but I'd say the Seismic quirk and panoply of E hardpoints allow Arges to do DHG BETTER than Sleipnir. It has enough energy mounts to be pretty damn strong with the recent Blazer weapons, even if you ignore the ballistics.
I'm not even going to dive too deep into the Stone Rhino and I'm surprised I'm even seeing less of them at all. Hitboxes and mounts have been cited as questionable, but the only reason it even seems as fragile as it is is likely because it's become an attention magnet due to its pretty damn ludicrous amounts of firepower. Koloss in its current state smacks of outright P2W. That chassis is absolutely ******* nuts. I look at anyone who says it's not a big deal with an EXTREMELY jaundiced eye. Its available tonnage, Clan Battlemech flexibility and number of mounts alone catapult it above so many other chassis that I call ******** on "it's not P2W". No mech is outright immortal, some are unreasonably stronger than alternatives (this points to alternatives NOT being brought up to par with powercreep and that needs to be addressed across the board at this point, all these new chassis and weapon systems have absolutely forced that).
Arguments that "no chassis is a substitute for skill" are a moot point. That has never NOT been the case. Some chassis allow for things that absolutely tip the balance in an otherwise balanced matchup, and that is indicative of the powercreep associated with P2W. Assaults being unforgiving for lower-skilled players is a moot point with the state of MM and the PSR/Tier system. The gulf now can be widened even further except MM/PSR can't account for it. Better players do better, a truism is not an argument. Given the state of things right now, the needed nerf for Scattershot now looks a lot more like "Mediums, get back in your suckbox. Assaults are the only ones that deserve to be terrifying." Scaleshot's impending nerfbat will be both necessary and cheeky as ****. The assaults currently extant quite possibly can't be nerfed into line with other chassis, and a lot of other chassis show no sign of catching up yet. Howl and Desperada are both in the realm of "just very strong", with Blazers making Desperada pretty ******* scary for a QKD and HAGs giving Howl even more potential for pushing past other TBRs combined with its Battlemech status.
So yeah, I do see a problem with any proposed Light/Medium legendary releases, in the sense that they're unlikely to emerge and if they do will be almost certainly more subject to rebalance than their fatter kin because their existing limitations offer some kind of framework for walking them back slightly. People complaining about War Emu being underpowered come across to me as "I PAID YOU MONEY PGI NOW GIVE ME MY BALANCE BREAKER TO COMPETE WITH THE OTHER BALANCE BREAKERS". Blazers and HAGs are both tipping things towards heavier chassis' favor. XPulses will languish in a poor status a bit longer.
