136 replies to this topic

[CPT Hazel Murphy]

The idea with the "useless" left arm is actually brilliant, given you know how to play it. The left arm is a shield. You have a ton of armor on your left side to protect you. The Yen-Lo is all about playing your position. I don't mean role, I mean physical location. You need to keep your right side protected. Keep your left arm toward the enemy until your AC is ready to fire. Take the shot, then quickly rotate right to keep that heavy armor toward the enemy. I've had much success with this tactic. The same can be said for any Centurion. Just have to know how to play the mech. You'd be surprised how much punishment you can take. Endo, and Ferro are a must!

[RedrumnCoke]

The Centurion A variant is the only med mech with 3 missile hardpoints. Also, I believe it makes the best zombie mech as you can lose both arms and the right torso and still put out considerable damage. Even when you do finally lose your left torso, you still have 2 energy weapons in the center torso. Leave that right arm empty as a decoy, use that free tonnage to drop in a standard 260 engine, and have fun!

[Ashnod]

Me and a few clan mates of mine have had luck with this build.. I enjoy playing it, and it can take a huge beating while still pulling good damage. I play it mainly as a support for assault mech's and a generalized close range brawler.

Centurion CN9-A

Structure: Endo-Steel
Armor - Ferro Fibrous
H: 18
CT: 54
CTR: 10
RT: 39
RTR: 9
LT: 39
LTR: 9
RA: 32
LA: 12
RL: 23
LL: 23

Loadout
H: Streak SRM ammo
CT: Standard Engine 225, 2 Small Laser
RT: AMS, Standard heat sink, AMS ammo
LT: 3 Streak SRM 2, Standard heat sink
RA: LB 10-X AC
LA: Empty
RL: Standard heat sink, LB 10-X ammo
LL: Streak SRM ammo, LB 10-X ammo

Edited by Ashnod, 27 November 2012 - 10:10 AM.

[ElcomeSoft]

PropagandaWar, on 27 November 2012 - 09:31 AM, said:

My two main mechs are my Cent A and my Hunchy SP both very successful. The Wang IMO is useless. If you want a succesful Cent build try this:

200 eng with speed tweek, UAC 5 3 ton amo group one, 2 med lasers group 2, 3 streak srms or a SRM6 SRM 2. Two tons amo for either. I usually use srms for the build but with the jenner issue I rely on streaks right now.

Oh no, the Wang is an exceptional mech. Whether you choose to fit a Std engine and use the AC arm + zombie around when you've lost your arm or you shove the largest XL engine into it, the Yen-Lo-Wang is still a very flexible beast and the only one able to fit 1 AC/20 or 2 UAC/5's into an arm.

Not my most successful Centurion but certainly one that I am never afraid to take out and/or experiment with. I bombarded my friend with about 7 different YLW builds in less than an hour, all slightly different, trying to maximise the potential of having a larger engine. All of them would have been reasonable or viable for someone.

The YLW doesn't have the most hardpoints or the best placed hardpoints but it's unique and can still rock it with the other Centurions.

[DegeneratePervert]

I've had much better luck with Centurions than with Hunchbacks. The primary reason for this is that even with both my arms blown off, as they so often are, I am still a threat. Nothing is more rewarding than running circles around an Atlas, pulse laser-ing him to death.

[KharnZor]

Vassago Rain, on 27 November 2012 - 05:17 AM, said:

I have like 15k left. There are no more mechs incoming that I'm interested in, either



6/5 PPCs.



Would friend you on mechspace.

Try harder kid.

[Budor]

Bishop Steiner, on 27 November 2012 - 05:58 AM, said:

...my Wang, can cruise at 97.5 kph (yay speedtweak!) it the only mech in the game right now that can shoot up and down cliffs at close range (aka elevate and depress) with it's AC/20. I comfrtably pack 2 medium pulse lasers with it, for use against lights...

How? I can fit an AC20 and 2 med lasers with a standard 250 when having all upgrades (endo, ff,dhs). But how do you fit more?

Bishop Steiner, on 27 November 2012 - 05:58 AM, said:

And the Hunch-P is far easier to neuter...

Please dont tell me you XL a cent ^^

Edited by Budor, 27 November 2012 - 12:00 PM.

[Carrioncrows]

I am a fan of the Cent.

FF Armor and Max on torsos
13 Sinks
AC/10
x2 Med lasers
x3 SSRM2's

I dropped my engine down to a 170 for a speed of 55kph.

Some of you may hate that idea, some of you may not. Personally the speed isn't a big issue for me, dropping 15 kph is no big deal IMHO since most of the time you are pacing with heavies and assaults.

Murders lights, out performs mediums and can take most of the heavies shy of a streak cat, even taken an assault or two a few times.

What works best is to Chain the SSRM's while working your AC10. You can lay into them for a surprisingly long time before the heat starts to build up.

Use the left arm as a shield to Tank LRM's or other sniper type weapons. Once they take the arm, switch sides and let them work on your AC10 Arm, most times they absolutely love to try and do this, but what you are doing is buying time for your x3 SSRM's to go to work on his CT.

By the time they burn off my AC10 Arm I have them cored and follow up with the Med lasers and SSRM's.

I love the AC10 but I use it as a jousting weapon at range and commonly snipe at targets 600-700m. The range gives it some damage drop off but that's no big deal as x2 tons is 30 shots, more than enough for more engagements and allows you to get assists until everyone close's.

As I said above I love the AC10, but the real work horse is the x2 Med Lasers and x3 SSRM2's. If I lose it, the world isn't over.

I like my cent a lot.

But you really need to stick to the group. Anytime you can't control where you are getting hit is generally when you end up going down hard IMHO

-Crow

[Hammerfinn]

For bad pilots, centurions are terrible. But if you know what you're doing and have a decent loadout that you know how to use well, it can take on a good role for the team. The same goes for every mech--I tend to pilot commandos, for instance, because people tend to ignore me and I cna run around their assaults and get kills. Now, the basic loadouts for most of the mechs are terrible. A commando with a stock engine is just toast, same for centurions. But it's about how you play it--a centurion with an AC10 and three Artemis SRM6s can make your day very bad if it's well piloted--and you can't do that loadout on a HBK. Centurions also make some of the best light-killers (second only to streak-cats, IMO, but without the cheese and requiring actual skill.). The point is: are bigger mechs gonna last longer in a brawl? Yes. Does that mean the centurion is trash? If all you do is stand toe-to-toe and brawl, yes. If you actually pilot and position yourself well, no.

TL;DR: centurions are only trash if you don't know how to use them.

[Molachai]

First let me say that centurions are amazing mechs. I pilot mostly medium mechs but have ventured into lights, heavies, and assaults. Medium mechs are wonderful mechs for a team. They can fill many different roles and add considerable value to a team if you can move beyond the lone wolf mentality and get others to support a team mentality (this is addmitedly impossible when pugging). Most of the hunchbacks are at a disadvantage because they concentrate their fire power into one giant torso that you can only miss if you are on a 12 year old computer using a dial up modem. Then you get to the 4 sp which turns into a beast if done right. If you are trying to make a medium mech work as an assault or heavy geuss what your going to get beat down badly. The true benefit of these is their balance of speed, manueverabilty, firepower, and survivability. Are mediums the best at any one of these? Not a chance, but if you look at them as a whole can any mech match any medium in all of these not in all of them at the same time. It is in exploring the balance between these factors that you find the true strength of mediums. They can fill so many different roles on the battlefield, but to take full advantage of them you need to step out of the lone wolf mentality.

Centurions are mechs that you have to actually core to take out of a fight (unless the mech is fitted with an xl engine). Anyone who has been on a team with me in one of my centurions could have witnessed me continuing to fight on effectively even without team support when I had no arms or left/right torsos. You can kill other mechs using only two medium lasers if you are fast enough and smart enough to use the environment to protect you, and you have good enough aim.

Piloting mediums takes a little more to master than piloting many of the other weight classes but once you get it down you will be in love with the weight class. Dont give up on your mediums you just gotta learn your place. If you look into the different houses you will find many people gathering already to play as teams. I have been working mostly with House Stiener (www.housesteiner.com) but the other houses and some merc companies have them as well. I know for a fact that house kurita and i am pretty sure house liao have already started gathering their loyalist units. The main point here is that leaving behind the lone wolf mentality is what it takes to be succesful in this game..

Bluten, on 27 November 2012 - 12:56 AM, said:

Centurion is trash. Sorry pal, but I say it like it is. At least your YLW has a boost on it.

Hunchback/Centurion: Both of these are outclassed by the Dragon and now even more so by the new Cataphract. All 4 of these Mechs are basically brawlers, but the Cataphract is the toughest/best choice for it. The Dragon clocks in second and utterly stomps the Centurion. The Hunchback is tied for 3rd but at least has unique hardpoints.

First you are comparing mechs across weight classes and I'm geussing trying to pilot them using the same tactics. Second in a one on one fight no dragon or cataphract has ever taken down one of my centurions. Centurions dominate the heavier clases because of speed and manueverability. These two mech chasis do make great brawlers but you have to think of them as lightweights in boxing matches moving in and out avoiding hits rather than heavywieght in boxing matches who can move straight in and take a few hits in the face and still keep fighting. (who wants to get hit in the face anyway that sounds painful). I've even taken on assaults alone in my centurions and managed to do better than the trash you consider them to be

Bottom line if you dont feel comfortable maintaining high speed and watching the environment so that you can protect yourself than you need to look into heavier chasis. Medium mechs do not have the speed of light mechs but they do have speed (one of my centurions has a speed in the 90s with a standard engine and speed tweak proficiency). They do not have the firepower or armor of some of the heavier mechs but they have enough to keep you alive and can still put a hurting on your enemies.

[Wrenchfarm]

Oh jeeze, I feel like a big weirdo in this thread. I actually like both Cents and Hunchbacks. Both great mechs with different applications. I think on paper the Cent does look a little weak, but I'm not sure it works out that way in practise. I've had plenty of success in my Yen, AL, and A. I wouldn't say I felt crippled or limited using them compared to any other mech. Losing the cannon on the Yen is an annoyance to be sure, but you can say the same for a Hunch shoulder, a Cat's missile box, or a Jenner's legs. Most mechs have some big obvious weak point or another that hurts to lose (except the Atlas, but that is kind of the point).

Are we sure about the team balance thing? I'm pretty sure it balances it per every unit. I know when I start a match and see 4 Jenners on my team, sure enough a pack of enemy Jenners flies over a cliff to annoy me seconds later.

[Chameleon Silk]

CN-9-A
I use AC/5 (60ammo), 2 x MPL, 3 x SRM4's + artemis (200ammo)
322 armor factor

standard structure, but DHS and Ferro upgrade

this thing is really good i've had a few 700 damage matches, and taken on a few "bad" atlases 1v1 head on. aim for their face... use the SRMs soon as its within 270m and try only to focus them on big targets or stationary, although a volley will hurt lights use your medium pulse lasers instead since they are on your torso and easier to aim.

great build been doing so good with my cent that i couldn't make myself sell off its engine.... nothing like taking down heavies with a medium... i don't know why everyone sells SRMs short they are big time damage, enough to make my medium pack a very mighty punch and one thing my variant has going for it is the 3 missile hardpoints...its the 2nd heaviest mech that carries 3 missile hardpoints AND a ballistic hardpoint... the only other is the atlas at 100 tons!

highlighted in bold why it owns.

47 firepower
1.05 heat efficiency

just don't wander and stay with other heavies and assist them the 60 auto cannon ammo is enough that you can and should still be using thermal and engaging at <= 750m.

edited to add: using XL engine 195, although that is not the optimum choice.

also to those who say the cent is trash how can it be so if i'm constantly doing most damage on my team in a medium mech and winning, explain that!

Edited by Chameleon Silk, 27 November 2012 - 04:35 PM.

[Ryft]

Wow, lotta hate in this thread. Some good wisdom buried in there, though, and a lot of experience on both sides of the discussion.

Re: matchmaking vs. mech balance, absolutely tonnage needs to get taken into account, eventually. It just makes sense. That Commando can still be a fine scout mech for a lance if it buys a few extra tons for the other mechs to throw around.

Re: some mechs being inherently superior to others... there will always be certain advantages to any given chassis, but in a general sense, yes, some mechs are inferior in an overall speed/armor/weapon loadout metagame. I think once tonnage is taken into account, the more subtle differences between chassis will become more important.

Re: is the Centurion crap? Depends on what you do with it. Perhaps some rhetorical examples can shed some light here.

A Centurion has less than optimal hardpoint configuration... there's no nice way to say it. You can say whatever you want about the uses of the shield arm... but what it all comes down to is that the left arm doesn't have a good use in MWO (in tabletop you can melee with it or what have you), but skilled pilots will do whatever they can to give it a use. And some of them do that decently, but it still sucks to have an arm that does very little. Sure, it protects your core.... but an Atlas can do the same thing, except he can do it with either arm and not feel too bad, because at most he's losing only 1 arm that bears weaponry. In fact, he can spread the damage across both arms and keep both arms in the fight that much longer. That's no weaponry lost, and a torso still protected on both sides, whereas the Centurion is vulnerable on his left half that much more quickly.

Know what else a Centurion can't do that well? Pop off shots from the left side of its body around a piece of terrain. I do that all the time with other mechs... left arm is left mouse, right arm is right mouse, and I expose as little of my body as I have to, and still squeeze the shot off around the corner because my arm has reach. Just the Centurion only does that on one side. You can sometimes choose your cover, but not always... probably 40% of the time you have to come completely out of cover, or risk shooting a wall or hillside or something. Say what you want about the durability of that left arm, but a building is stronger to hide behind.

Hardpoint configuration is hugely important... take the same issue on a different mech. Say a Hunchback HBK-H. Would it be better if it pulled two laser hardpoints out of the hunch, and paired them on either arm the same way the SP does? Hells yes it would! That would be an awesome mech, right there. Could be a good idea for a hero mech, in fact. Hardpoint layout is important, and the Centurion layout kind of stinks.

So the rhetoric, right. I'll try to make it entertaining.

The other day I'm playing in my HBK-P, which is packing a PPC in the hunch, and large lasers in either arm. I do some sniping with it, and it's fun to play... the large lasers give it far less reliance on the hunch, for certain. So I'm in Caustic Valley, and I'm in the wooded portion of the map dueling a Centurion with an AC10 in his arm, and the usual two medium lasers in the torso. Not sure about missile hardpoints... he may have been out of SRM ammo. And by dueling, I mean that both our teams had vaporized around us, so it was just the two of us, with the other remaining team members on the other boundaries of the map.

Now I'll say up front that I'm a pretty mediocre player. I think a good game, but my reflexes are average. The Centurion pilot had obviously had some practice. He was using the shield arm to good effect, twisting his torso dramatically to fend off my attacks while waiting for his AC to reload. What he didn't know was that I'm a terrible shot with projectile weapons up close. I wouldn't be able to hit him with that PPC if my life depended on it. So I abandoned that and went all large lasers, not the least of which was because I risk overheating on caustic valley if I go all out, anyway.

So he's going uselessly for my hunch, and I'm going for his arm. Our speeds were matched pretty evenly. My mech could go 87, so he had to be within 8 or so kph of that, up or down I couldn't say. Both in medium 50 ton mechs... a classic evenly matched battle. He missed a lot with that AC10... was it because he had to look away from me every few seconds? The first disadvantage of arm blocking is seen when I switched direction suddenly as he looked away, and I was able to get a few good hits on his center torso because of it, and also come away with a slightly better position to boot, with a less damaged side of my torso exposed. I negated his arm blocking by chain firing my lasers. Constant barrage means he has to look at me and take the hit sometime... and right there is a second reason why the arm-block thing isn't as awesome as people say it is. Works great against an AC or gauss or whatever, but useless against rapid firing builds. Nearly useless against streaks.

I think he ran out of ammo about 30 seconds before I seared his arm off, because he had already started in with the lasers exclusively. So that was a waste of time. It was now his two medium lasers against my two large lasers, and I had the advantage for the time being. The dual continued, and now he didn't have that arm block nonsense holding him back, and I definitely took more damage.

He blew up my hunch... I didn't get lucky that time, and the arm went with it. Sometimes that happens, sometimes it doesn't. So it was then my single large laser against his two mediums, which is now his advantage. The fight took a sudden turn for the worse!

Somehow I pulled out with the kill, though my team lost. It was a really exciting matchup, but one that I think also illustrates why arm-blocking, while worthwhile, isn't the trump card that many Centurion pilots tout.

Second example: Dragon, Catapult, Cataphract, or what have you... sniping from behind their team lines. Twin ranged weapon build, with gauss or ERPPC or whatever. They take some stray shots from LRMs or whatever... a limb holding a key weapon gets damaged. A light mech sneaks up behind them and alpha strikes the limb off. They notice the limb missing (who wouldn't?) and chase the light mech off. They still bring a lot to the fight, with hardpoints spread out all over their body. A Centurion losing that limb can't say the same thing... that's about 1/3rd of his weapons, and probably one of his hardest hitting ones.

That said, the Centurion D variant, if packing a large XL engine, is a cool thing to watch in action. It can hit hard for something moving that fast. And its arms have nice large hitboxes (on both sides!) that protect the side torsos decently for a mech of that size, and I can't say the same thing for a Jenner or Cicada. The Cent-D definitely brings something new to a match, and I can totally understand why someone would want to pilot one. And to boot, at 100+ kph, it's a lot harder to target its arm with a devastating blow, so it stays in the game longer.

I think the hardpoints being less than optimal is a solid trade off for a fast 50 ton mech on the D variant. The other models are far less attractive to me.

[Chameleon Silk]

i have to disagree about hard points, the 3 missile hard points is UNIQUE with the only exception being that it is also possible with an atlas, i can tell you right now if i faced a medium mech 1v1 my SRMs would eat them alive, they consistently do in online matches all the time, here is an example before i did a lot of major upgrades.

[gregsolidus]

So I guess no one has seen MY Centurion in battle?

[Poptimus Rhyme Wallace]

3 reasons I think, The centurion is the sweetest mech currently available:

1: I go 124.9 kph in my CN9-D and i love chasing down scouts.

2: my loadout is so un-impressive that they ignore me and let me get to top 3 of the boards most rounds..

3: I can Entertain 3 enemy support mechs while the rest of my team eats their frontline cookies.

[Sassafras]

Bluten, on 27 November 2012 - 02:16 AM, said:

Actually, it is. The current matchmaking treats all Mechs the same unless one of them is an Assault. I'm not sure where you pulled out this bogus MM theory. Hopefully one day such will exist but currently what you said is just a fantasy. It doesn't care about your weight class or weight at all unless you're an Assault. Also, the Dragon is not just an inferior Cataphract; they have very different hardpoints. The Centurion however is little different in loadouts than the Dragon. I explained all this in my previous posts...

Can you please let us know where you are getting this information, since I haven't seen it anywhere on the forums. The 1.0.142 patch notes (http://mwomercs.com/...10142-06112012/) state that the matchmaker is based on weight classes:

Quote

The Match Maker still checks to make sure there are even Mech weight classes on both teams.

[Ryft]

Chameleon Silk, on 27 November 2012 - 04:53 PM, said:

i have to disagree about hard points, the 3 missile hard points is UNIQUE with the only exception being that it is also possible with an atlas, i can tell you right now if i faced a medium mech 1v1 my SRMs would eat them alive, they consistently do in online matches all the time, here is an example before i did a lot of major upgrades.

Way to bold unique and then point out that, oh wait... the Atlas has it too. And you forgot the Commando, which also has a 3M variant. And two Awesomes. And don't forget Catapults that can mount 4 or 6 missiles.

Someone doesn't grasp the definition of unique, I guess.

[Garth Erlam]

Quote

Hunchback/Centurion: Both of these are outclassed by the Dragon and now even more so by the new Cataphract. All 4 of these Mechs are basically brawlers, but the Cataphract is the toughest/best choice for it. The Dragon clocks in second and utterly stomps the Centurion. The Hunchback is tied for 3rd but at least has unique hardpoints.

o_0

I feel like just a short while ago the Dragon was considered 'awful'.

[Butane9000]

The Centurion is built as a Assault/Heavy support mech. Meaning to be truly effective you have to pair up with another mech and support it to do well. Learn to use your shield arm to absorb incoming LRMs and stock heavier on the torso hard point side of the mech. My Centurion uses 3 Streak SRM2's, 2 Medium lasers and an AC5 and does well.

The downside to the Centurion is that the Hunchback has so many more interesting variants for the weight class it's in. Not to mention the Hunchback can stand on it's own easier then the Centurion can. However it's all a matter of piloting and once you get it down you can rock in a Centurion.

As for the Cataphract and Dragon these are heavies which aren't in the same weight class. If you want to define them by their battlefield category (brawler) you need to add in the Atlas to that list because it's also one. Really comparing mediums to heavies is like apples to oranges especially when there's a difference of 10-20 tons.