56 replies to this topic

[martian]

nanashi0110, on 29 July 2025 - 06:45 PM, said:

Hmmm... . from my perspective in T5, if I play 5 games, there is always a direwolf in 2 or 3 matches.
And usually a dakka...and sometimes an LLboat. I really do see the occasional missile boat... I guess that's the exception.
I think it's more accurate to say that it's stagnating rather than declining. There are more MECH than there used to be, and I don't think the percentage has changed, just that the numbers seem to have decreased a bit.

You can see Dire Wolf in all games - both low Tier and high Tier.

[w0qj]

As a dyed-in-wool Dire Wolf pilot perpetually bouncing between T3-T4
(and proud owner of double digit number of DWF-A(P), DWF-B(S), DWF-C(S), and DWF-UV mechs)

1) You definitely see less Dire Wolf mechs fielded after the Stone Rhino and the Warden Booster Pack (DWF-C) came out.

Before the Stone Rhino came out, Dire Wolf pilots fielded mostly DWF-UV albeit with omnipod swapping.
Nowadays you see DWF-A, DWF-B, DWF-C with ECM.
Occasionally, I still see DWF-UV mechs.

DWF pilots can choose other similar Assaults such as Stone Rhino, Bane, and Bullshark which have higher weapon hardpoints in both its LR/RT and its arms. These other Assaults can field superior weaponry and run quicker than Dire Wolf. Endo = bigger_engine. This is something that the poor Dire Wolf cannot have.

2) Case in point:
SR-4(S): UAC20 + 2xUAC10 + 3xUAC5, @53kph
DWF-any: UAC20 + 2xUAC10 + 2xUAC5, @48kph

Want four very high ballistic hardpoints above your cockpit?
SR-1(P): 4xAC10 + 3xPC (with 4xAC10 in LT/RT gun above your cockpit), @53kph
DWF-any: 4xAC10 + 3xPC (albeit with 4xAC10 in its low LA/RA arms), @48kph

Heck, the Stone Rhino can field RAC weapons via the Behemoth (aka IS version of Stone Rhino).

OK, the DWF-C(S) with 3ton penalty (ECM+JJ in CT) was surprisingly painful; a significant number of DWF-any builds needed to be watered-down or even deemed unworkable because of this.

~Stone Rhino: the only disadvantages are its massive side profile, and its dorsal guns protruding above its shoulder which can be shot at behind 'cover' if you're not careful, similar to the Marauder II/IIC

~Bane: fields better armament, bigger engine, but worse armor than Dire Wolf. Ultra-wide bane-style hitboxes. Hence Bane's reputation as a 'glass cannon'.

~Bullshark: this 95ton assault can field just a little less armament than the Dire Wolf, at faster speed and better armor. I personally wish the Bullshark was 100ton

3) On a personal note, I'm eagerly awaiting for the Legendary Dire Wolf and see what it will bring!

3a) Warthog-treatment to the Legendary Dire Wolf's arms? I'll buy multiples of this!
3b ) ECM (and without JJ) in CT of Legendary Dire Wolf's CT? I'll buy multiples! (Or add this into Clan Wave I as ultimate reward)
3c) Legendary Dire Wolf with two critical slots (ie: no DHS) in its left leg, that can also be used in DWF-C? I'll Buy!
3d) MASC version of Legendary Dire Wolf ==> I'll personally skip this; I hate MASC
(Just how popular is the AS7-M with MASC? 'What's that?' you said. Yeah, exactly.)

Edited by w0qj, 31 July 2025 - 04:04 AM.

[Void Angel]

None of our personal match experiences can trump the actual game demographics, though. The Actual Match Statistics trump anyone's anecdotal evidence; I'm sure there were fewer Dire Wolves played after the Stone Rhino and Bullshark were released - but it remains the top-played Assault chassis. Anyone who responds to that with "well, I'm not seeing them, so I think that's not true" is empirically wrong - on the level of someone who insists that 1+1 is 3.

[w0qj]

Wow, very interesting spreadsheet!
https://docs.google....#gid=1582927142

Where in the world can you get spreadsheets like this? Just curious!

Void Angel, on 30 July 2025 - 12:32 PM, said:

None of our personal match experiences can trump the actual game demographics, though. The Actual Match Statistics trump anyone's anecdotal evidence; I'm sure there were fewer Dire Wolves played after the Stone Rhino and Bullshark were released - but it remains the top-played Assault chassis. Anyone who responds to that with "well, I'm not seeing them, so I think that's not true" is empirically wrong - on the level of someone who insists that 1+1 is 3.

[Void Angel]

w0qj, on 30 July 2025 - 06:15 PM, said:

Wow, very interesting spreadsheet!
https://docs.google....#gid=1582927142

Where in the world can you get spreadsheets like this? Just curious!

They post them on the Cauldron Discord from time to time. It's official game stats, the kind of thing you need to know in order to look at balance.

That's where Magic Pain Glove got it when he posted it to the first page of this thread, I'm sure.

[l33tworks]

Void Angel, on 30 July 2025 - 06:31 PM, said:

They post them on the Cauldron Discord from time to time. It's official game stats, the kind of thing you need to know in order to look at balance.

That's where Magic Pain Glove got it when he posted it to the first page of this thread, I'm sure.

I also had no idea this was a thing.

[BlueDevilspawn]

It's data that has been available for the better part of 2 years and refreshed on a quarterly basis. It's typically posted on the cauldron feedback discord for all to access. I will note a few things -

1. WLR doesn't mean much at all, not in the context of soup queue with groups
2. An immediate reaction of some people is to go "this chassis/variant is not popular so it must suck, buff please." Popularity is not an indicator of how good a mech is. Some good previous examples are the Vulcan-5S and any Executioner. Previously low popularity and even low to middling performance, but in reality two of the strongest mechs in the game.
3. This data is still just one point amongst others used to make balance decisions.

[Davegt27]

back in the day the DW was a terror (2014 -2015)
way before the urbi

so its really a tale of 2 MWO's
1) when we had an assault lance
2) when groups area ended and the merged every thing into QP

[1453 R]

I fail to see how a single letter of that is relevant, Dave.

But yeah. The Dire Whale is perfectly fine. Funnily enough, Goonhammer recently did a review of the tabletop version of the 'Mech, and their notoriously Clan-hating, Periphery-s***bucket-loving, extremely cost-averse Tex Lite of a content reviewer admitted that he'd bagged on the Whale too hard in his earlier articles. To quote:

"That is really what you are paying for with a Dire Wolf: Raw damage numbers. A Kingfisher will last longer under fire, an Iron Cheetah is faster, and a Regent is dirt cheap, but the Dire Wolf has just so much gun on most variants. If you can make that work for you, getting long sight lines and ripping people up as they close before swapping to the second assault mech worth of close range guns that some variants cram on, the mech will do pretty well. If, like 90% of the people I have ever seen using one of the things, you over-estimate it and run it forwards at maximum speed, then get surprised when it is overwhelmed, outmaneuvered, and killed by a mech half the price, it won’t do you any good."

Emphasis mine, but the point remains. The Dire Whale in MWO works much the same way. It is not a tip-of-the-spear 'Mech, and frankly it never has been. The Whale sucks as a tip-of-the-spear 'Mech, and every time I've tried to use it as a close-range brawlmonster thing it's come apart on me.

The Dire Whale anchors the battle line and commands sightlines, and frankly what experience I have with the 'Mech backs up Quicksilver's comments that pure dakka boating isn't what the Whale does best. Everyone tries to cram a bananagorillion autocannons into it because that's the Big Slow Assault 'Mech Norm, but those builds are better on the Rhino or Bane. The old Warden DWF-C with dual gauss, dual ERLL, and a three-pack of ERML alongside all three jump jets like the gods intended used to be one of my best 'Mechs, and recent experiments with the Prime running a UAC/10 and LPL split with a bunch of ERML running sidecar have been promising. The 'Mech runs mixed weapon builds very well and can easily overwhelm the alpha damage of a Rhino, Bane or most Bullsharks while maintaining reasonable DPS with the ballistics. Or it carries some of the scariest Giga-Gaussvomit builds in the game.

Stop trying to make it compete with other 'Mechs its size within their specific wheelhouses and use what it does well.

Edited by 1453 R, 31 July 2025 - 03:09 PM.

[AvocadoKai]

BlueDevilspawn, on 30 July 2025 - 09:28 PM, said:

It's data that has been available for the better part of 2 years and refreshed on a quarterly basis. It's typically posted on the cauldron feedback discord for all to access. I will note a few things -

1. WLR doesn't mean much at all, not in the context of soup queue with groups
2. An immediate reaction of some people is to go "this chassis/variant is not popular so it must suck, buff please." Popularity is not an indicator of how good a mech is. Some good previous examples are the Vulcan-5S and any Executioner. Previously low popularity and even low to middling performance, but in reality two of the strongest mechs in the game.
3. This data is still just one point amongst others used to make balance decisions.

I do want to see the Warhawk buffed. It would be nice to see it do better than be a lesser direwolf or ppc boat.

[HenryFA]

AvocadoKai, on 01 August 2025 - 05:31 PM, said:

I do want to see the Warhawk buffed. It would be nice to see it do better than be a lesser direwolf or ppc boat.

Yesss, give the Prime So8 stronger PPC buff (current is +25% velocity , make it 40% + more heat buff maybe?)
and the C So8 LPL HSL+2

[a 5 year old with an Uzi]

Didn't the Jenner use to be a little f***ing menace?

It's now definitely tamer from what I gather.

[AvocadoKai]

HenryFA, on 02 August 2025 - 04:26 AM, said:

Yesss, give the Prime So8 stronger PPC buff (current is +25% velocity , make it 40% + more heat buff maybe?)
and the C So8 LPL HSL+2

Personally I want to see something silly, like 40% cooldown on plasma ppcs and heat sink load or share the Gargoyle Prime's ballistic cooldown.

[1453 R]

Think the issue there is that Tcomped cERPPC sniper is still a brutal build if handled well in high-level competition, and that's what the Cauldron primarily gives a spank about. I'm not good enough to do it consistently, but I've had a few games in my WHK-Prime where I've ripped it from an excellent vantage point and easily dealt over a thousand damage while suppressing the entire enemy team. They buff the dang thing too hard and it'll just eat souls until it gets knocked on the head again.

[Ilfi]

So, uhh... what Mechs HAVE fallen off more than the Dire Wolf? I couldn't make heads or tails out of the Excel sheet since there wasn't a before/after to compare against.

[1453 R]

Ilfi, on 04 August 2025 - 01:50 PM, said:

So, uhh... what Mechs HAVE fallen off more than the Dire Wolf? I couldn't make heads or tails out of the Excel sheet since there wasn't a before/after to compare against.

Most 'Mechs that were once awesome but now aren't, honestly. The Dire Whale hasn't really "fallen off"; it released as a massively busted monster beast and has bounced between that and "still pretty fantastic, just a bit more specialized and harder to sweep with" for its entire run. Fifty tons of Clan guns will never not be able to do work.

Most any 'Mech that once had a super amazeballs SuperMegaUltraQuirk that was taken away has fallen off harder. Lots of Inner Sphere 'Mechs that were really powerful Way Back When - anyone remember when the Raven 3L was considered generally overpowered and was an impossible nightmare hassle to deal with using its viciously murderous armament of...three MPLs and two Streak 2s? Yeah, wanna talk about a 'Mech that's "fallen off", the poor RVN-3L drove off a cliff into the Marianas Trench. The Atlas used to be an incredibly dangerous wall of a 'Mech, now it's mostly a meme. The same story plays out over and over, but the Dire Whale remains alive.

Despite what some goobers might think.

[GreyNovember]

a 5 year old with an Uzi, on 02 August 2025 - 06:34 AM, said:

Didn't the Jenner use to be a little f***ing menace?

It's now definitely tamer from what I gather.

It still is, surprisingly.

XL295, max jump, 6 ML, but the burn duration, cooldown, and heat generation buffed SIGNIFICANTLY such that it's not something you can shrug and ignore.

It has no ECM, but it can be anywhere.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

a 5 year old with an Uzi, on 02 August 2025 - 06:34 AM, said:

Didn't the Jenner use to be a little f***ing menace?

It's now definitely tamer from what I gather.

Jenner hasn't really been relevant since the Ember replaced it during the poptart era. It could have had a place with the 4 LPPC build, but the Jenner IIC with 4 Plasma is just straight up better.

I think there was a brief period where the Oxide was stupidly strong but iirc it didn't last long.

Edited by Quicksilver Aberration, 04 August 2025 - 04:57 PM.

[l33tworks]

a 5 year old with an Uzi, on 02 August 2025 - 06:34 AM, said:

Didn't the Jenner use to be a little f***ing menace?

It's now definitely tamer from what I gather.

Its still good you just need to run the oxide or clan jenner with a lot of smrs.

1453 R, on 04 August 2025 - 02:08 PM, said:

Most 'Mechs that were once awesome but now aren't, honestly. The Dire Whale hasn't really "fallen off"; it released as a massively busted monster beast and has bounced between that and "still pretty fantastic, just a bit more specialized and harder to sweep with" for its entire run. Fifty tons of Clan guns will never not be able to do work.

Most any 'Mech that once had a super amazeballs SuperMegaUltraQuirk that was taken away has fallen off harder. Lots of Inner Sphere 'Mechs that were really powerful Way Back When - anyone remember when the Raven 3L was considered generally overpowered and was an impossible nightmare hassle to deal with using its viciously murderous armament of...three MPLs and two Streak 2s? Yeah, wanna talk about a 'Mech that's "fallen off", the poor RVN-3L drove off a cliff into the Marianas Trench. The Atlas used to be an incredibly dangerous wall of a 'Mech, now it's mostly a meme. The same story plays out over and over, but the Dire Whale remains alive.

Despite what some goobers might think.

The raven 3L was good because back then we didn't have host state rewind, had a lot of hitreg issues, and the mech had ecm so it could run around with impunity without being targeted by Lrms or streaks. Same with mechs like the comando 2d and spider with ecm.

The Atlas was never really that powerful. You could dispatch them with Catapult K2s with dual ac20s or gauss and 4 medium lasers or jaggermech DD, Cataphract 3d, Muromets. The stalker 3f with 4erppcs or 6 before ghost heat could easily as well. I would argue its a much much better mech these days with all the quirks. A Warold or some of the srm heavy variants can dispatch a dire wolf if played properly.

The direwolf however was from the getgo a wall of mech and guns, and it was relentless. Its still a GREAT great mech, I admit I was wrong in judging its state, but I'm a big direwolf fan and compared to launch it has definitely gradually diminished to the point Its very hard to play, and mainly been relegated to sniping at the back of the map because it runs hot, doesn't stand up too well in brawls and when you are at 80% heat there is no point having a bunch of weapons like ultras and lasers, if you cannot even fire 1/4 of them without overheating.

If you fire 1/4 of your weapons and have to wait for your heat to drop again before firing, your initial 1/4 weapons have already reloaded, so you can just fire them again,The need to fire the next 1/4 i.e carry the extra weapons in the first place kind of becomes moot, or at least much less important, unless you want to hide and alpha, but ghost heat has for the most part dispatched with this too.

You may as well be in a lighter chassis, carry less weapons, that is balanced between not running too hot, having your weapons recycle at the optimal time, not running into ghost heat, speed, and bonuses, quirks etc, than simply being slower with more of the same weapon.

I think some nice flat mech wide heat dissipation quirks (more than 7.5%) or HSL +1 or 2s for brawling weapons would suit the mech nicely.

Edited by l33tworks, 04 August 2025 - 07:52 PM.

[Void Angel]

Quicksilver Aberration, on 04 August 2025 - 04:56 PM, said:

Jenner hasn't really been relevant since the Ember replaced it during the poptart era. It could have had a place with the 4 LPPC build, but the Jenner IIC with 4 Plasma is just straight up better. I think there was a brief period where the Oxide was stupidly strong but iirc it didn't last long.

I wouldn't trade my Sara's Jenner for love or money - but I don't play it much any more.