72 replies to this topic

[KinLuu]

Vassago Rain, on 28 November 2012 - 06:58 AM, said:

Cents can go faster than dragons, and hunchbacks have more firepower. They're mediums. Dragon is heavy.

Cats are heavy, too. So are catas.

My vote still goes to the raven.

[Tastian]

I'm working on my third Dragon now. I love them. I don't think they are good for ACs tho because, like the Centurion, that arm gets targeted most. With 2 Large Lasers, a 350XL engine (which works well because of the small side torsos and travels at 101.6kph with speed tweak), and a missile or two (depending on the variant), its a great Jenner killer, med range sniper, and fast brawler. The only bad part about them is that they give the opposing force a catapult or cataphract (which arguably are better mechs). I am having great success with them. I'm often ignored probably because people do see the Dragon as not a threat.

Any mech is good with a good pilot, a good loadout, and practice. That being said, I voted Raven.

[Crayzed Lyon]

Tastian, on 28 November 2012 - 07:05 AM, said:

I'm working on my third Dragon now. I love them. I don't think they are good for ACs tho because, like the Centurion, that arm gets targeted most. With 2 Large Lasers, a 350XL engine (which works well because of the small side torsos and travels at 101.6kph with speed tweak), and a missile or two (depending on the variant), its a great Jenner killer, med range sniper, and fast brawler. The only bad part about them is that they give the opposing force a catapult or cataphract (which arguably are better mechs). I am having great success with them. I'm often ignored probably because people do see the Dragon as not a threat.

Any mech is good with a good pilot, a good loadout, and practice. That being said, I voted Raven.

I found a good way to shift damage away from the Dragon's right arm is to put some more tonnage of weapons in the left side.

[Roughneck45]

Vassago Rain, on 28 November 2012 - 06:58 AM, said:

Cents can go faster than dragons, and hunchbacks have more firepower. They're mediums. Dragon is heavy.

Cats are heavy, too. So are catas.

Which one of those can fit a gauss, SRM6, 4 Mlas, max armor, and move 87.1 kph?

I love my dragon

Edited by Roughneck45, 28 November 2012 - 07:17 AM.

[Tastian]

Crayzed Lyon, on 28 November 2012 - 07:08 AM, said:

I found a good way to shift damage away from the Dragon's right arm is to put some more tonnage of weapons in the left side.

I should have said in my post that I just don't care for ACs. Its probably because I'm not a good shot with them and fighting circling lights with ACs (or Gauss or PPCs) makes me want to pull my hair out. On my 3 Dragons, I run 2 Large Lasers and either a LRM10, 2 SSRMs, or SRM6. On the 5N I add 3 MGs. With the Dragon I actually look for Jenners and go after them instead of seeking refuge in my teammates.

[Kurayami]

Raven. Not only it have crappy hardpoints and limited engine it also wont be the only EW carrier in weight class.
Just try yo compare it with most common light - JR7-D which will also receive ECM after patch.

[Clay Pigeon]

I'm torn between raven and mando. The mando at least has one good variant.

[LethalMezzle]

Raven is the worst I think. It's too slow and doesn't really have anything to make up for it. Commando is a similar deal.

Honourable mention goes to the Dragon but it's actually a good mech, it's just that mounting an XL Engine is necessary to be viable.

Roughneck45, on 28 November 2012 - 07:14 AM, said:

Which one of those can fit a gauss, SRM6, 4 Mlas, max armor, and move 87.1 kph?

I love my dragon

I had this exact build way back in July when I first started playing the game. It's a fantastic build.

[Broceratops]

Heh.

[Aidan Malchor]

Ravens are pretty solid these days I find. Seeing them a fair bit and buddy of mine regularly gets 400-500 damage in his. Might not be the fastest mech but with the right pilot it's a deadly and versatile mech that commonly gets underestimated.

[BlakeAteIt]

I just dislike Metal Babies.

[Ricama]

Grokmoo, on 28 November 2012 - 06:49 AM, said:

The Dragon is a really solid mech. Faster than other Heavies and Assaults, and able to pack a strong punch. I don't understand the Dragon hate on these forums. My Dragon eats anything below 70 tons for breakfast.

1) gigantic ct.
2) balistics take up too much available weapon tonnage to risk on an arm.
3) most people who want a varied loadout go Atlas.
4) unless it's a trial, you almost never see it.

Besides the giant CT poking out it's not a bad mech per say, it's just a niche mech. It's not a failure of the community to run a proper dragon, it's the fact that the mech doesn't mesh with most people's style. It's a mech that's trying to do everything at once and most people do better with specialization.

[Budor]

Roughneck45, on 28 November 2012 - 07:14 AM, said:

Which one of those can fit a gauss, SRM6, 4 Mlas, max armor, and move 87.1 kph?

I love my dragon

The dragon you described is my dragon

Edited by Budor, 11 December 2012 - 08:47 PM.

[pied]

To me it's the awesome. Most all of the hardpoints are around waist level so it has to crest a hill in order to shoot over, and it is such a huge target that it can be easily nailed at long range. In close range it is terribly easy to pick any torso to rip into. And since many players are running xl engines in them, they are fragile.

[FrostCollar]

Broceratops, on 11 December 2012 - 08:29 PM, said:

Heh.

You really shouldn't have dredged this thread up - things are completely different now with ECM. If you took another poll today, things would certainly look very different. Especially for the Raven and Commando.

Anyways, I'd be more interested if you had options for different variants. Take the Raven - I love the 3L and play it more than anything else (even before ECM), the 2X is substandard, and the 4X is garbage.

[Broceratops]

FrostCollar, on 11 December 2012 - 09:03 PM, said:

You really shouldn't have dredged this thread up - things are completely different now with ECM. If you took another poll today, things would certainly look very different. Especially for the Raven and Commando.

Anyways, I'd be more interested if you had options for different variants. Take the Raven - I love the 3L and play it more than anything else (even before ECM), the 2X is substandard, and the 4X is garbage.

Yeah I don't know why I zombied this thread. Boredom I guess. I just remember making it a scant 2 weeks ago and everyone was bagging on the raven myself included. Now that I look at the L though, even without ECM, having 3 ML / 2 SSRM and going 130 wasn't too shabby. I would have done a variant breakdown but I thought it would dilute the votes too much.

I'm going to go ahead and hop on the awesome as the new worst mech in the current patch.

[Jman5]

Broceratops, on 11 December 2012 - 09:06 PM, said:

Yeah I don't know why I zombied this thread. Boredom I guess. I just remember making it a scant 2 weeks ago and everyone was bagging on the raven myself included. Now that I look at the L though, even without ECM, having 3 ML / 2 SSRM and going 130 wasn't too shabby. I would have done a variant breakdown but I thought it would dilute the votes too much.

I'm going to go ahead and hop on the awesome as the new worst mech in the current patch.

It gives you an indication of how much exaggeration gets thrown around when people talk about "best" and "worst". ECM does change things a lot, but if the Raven was really as bad as people were making it out to be in the last few months, then no amount of radar cloaking would save it.

Edit: My vote is going to go to the commando because I think it's too unforgiving. One or two bad moves next to a particularly strong enemy and you can be easily alpha striked to death.

Edited by Jman5, 11 December 2012 - 09:28 PM.

[FrostCollar]

Jman5, on 11 December 2012 - 09:21 PM, said:

It gives you an indication of how much exaggeration gets thrown around when people talk about "best" and "worst". ECM does change things a lot, but if the Raven was really as bad as people were making it out to be in the last few months, then no amount of radar cloaking would save it.

Now that's not true. The trouble with the Ravens was that the best Ravens were strictly worse than Jenners in every respect. The only exception was the 4X, but that's because it's uniquely bad. You can run with a gauss or 2 AC/2s in there, but it's not like that build will pull its weight in a team.

However, ECM changed that equation with the 3L. The best Raven has now become extremely powerful indeed as it (usually) is completely immune to SSRMs, the previous bane of most lights. The other Ravens look even worse in comparison. The irony is that the 4X was supposed to be a combat variant of the Raven. Look at all the good that did.

[Jman5]

FrostCollar, on 11 December 2012 - 09:28 PM, said:

Now that's not true. The trouble with the Ravens was that the best Ravens were strictly worse than Jenners in every respect. The only exception was the 4X, but that's because it's uniquely bad. You can run with a gauss or 2 AC/2s in there, but it's not like that build will pull its weight in a team.

However, ECM changed that equation with the 3L. The best Raven has now become extremely powerful indeed as it (usually) is completely immune to SSRMs, the previous bane of most lights. The other Ravens look even worse in comparison. The irony is that the 4X was supposed to be a combat variant of the Raven. Look at all the good that did.

I wasn't trying to contest whether the jenner was the better choice pre-ecm or not. I was talking about degrees. My point is that once the community has decided on what is best, the other choices become viewed as inferior in an exaggerated way. So a minor speed advantage, or weapon advantage gets blown way out of proportion. Nevermind the fact that pilot skill and team work is much more important in deciding matches. Or that perhaps there are less obvious qualities to the "inferior" choice that might actually balance things out.

People just need to be careful about getting into that mindset where you overvalue the advantages of the "best" choice and undervalue the other choices.

[FrostCollar]

Jman5, on 11 December 2012 - 09:45 PM, said:

I wasn't trying to contest whether the jenner was the better choice pre-ecm or not. I was talking about degrees. My point is that once the community has decided on what is best, the other choices become viewed as inferior in an exaggerated way. So a minor speed advantage, or weapon advantage gets blown way out of proportion. Nevermind the fact that pilot skill and team work is much more important in deciding matches. Or that perhaps there are less obvious qualities to the "inferior" choice that might actually balance things out.

People just need to be careful about getting into that mindset where you overvalue the advantages of the "best" choice and undervalue the other choices.

You don't understand. Regardless of skill, the Raven was inferior in every way. Worse top speed, worse hardpoints, lack of elbow joints, high profile, lack of jump jets... the list goes on.

Sometimes the community is right, and defending the underpowered as balanced only perpetuates game imbalance.