402 replies to this topic

[KharnZor]

Pr8Dator, on 18 December 2012 - 10:37 PM, said:

I dunno but I've managed to kill EVERY SINGLE Stalker I've met in the last 2 hours in my Ilya Muromets and never got killed by one yet... feels squishy too me... or is it just that everyone's ganging up on them? LOL!

Hehe i cant wait to see you on the battlefield i've killed every single Ilya Muromets i've looked at today. lub my stalker

[Tenri]

I'd make my stalker into a streakingstalker with some MPLs with a big engine so I can run spew stuff in mechs faces.

[Like a Sir]

Question: I haven't played today yet. How easy is it to shoot out a side torso on one of them? Is covered like the Cat, or is it pretty easy to hit? Thanks in advance!

[Inveramsay]

whenever I now see a stalker in one of my light mechs I make a little victory dance right after targeting it. They are incredibly bad for fighting off lights unless you run some kind of 3-4xSSRM set up and most don't.

[inquisitor]

One Medic Army, on 18 December 2012 - 12:56 PM, said:

Let's face it, the real problem is that the Awesome sucks.

^This^

[MustrumRidcully]

Well, theoretically not having fully actuated arms should be a drawback. It seems to me that the torso twist limit on the Stalker is a bit too strict, however. I do not think it should have the extreme angle the Catapult can have.

[QuantumButler]

MustrumRidcully, on 19 December 2012 - 02:05 AM, said:

Well, theoretically not having fully actuated arms should be a drawback. It seems to me that the torso twist limit on the Stalker is a bit too strict, however. I do not think it should have the extreme angle the Catapult can have.

of course not, the Catapult shouldn't have that extreme range either.

[MustrumRidcully]

Khobai, on 18 December 2012 - 10:33 PM, said:

Yep point being the stalker has incredible up and down motion range for its weapons. No other mech in the game can fire that many weapons in the full up or down range. So it's only fair that it gives up some left to right motion.

For now. As new mechs are introduced, more weapon hardpoints will become more common. Should all these mechs also have limited torso twist rates?

Hardpoints should never have been treated as a balancing factor, only as an "aesthetic" factor IMO and to introduce some differences between variants. The balancing in Battletech comes from critical slots and tonnage.

Maybe the Stalker simply doesn't have too many hard points, but other mechs have too little?

[EnigmaNL]

inquisitor, on 19 December 2012 - 02:01 AM, said:

^This^

I would take an Awesome over the Stalker any day. I regret buying my Stalker, it's slow moving and slow rotating and big and everybody focuses fire on you if they see your giant hindenburg body appear. Awesomes are relatively quick.

[Shiinore]

We like to justify our lickings in MWO with terms like "balance", but really- in an 8 v 8 environment, the lack of hardpoints can be negligible. Yes, the Stalker has more hardpoints. It also runs hotter than the Awesome. You can't even say for certain if it beats the Awesome 1v1. Are they brawling up-close? Are they having a snipe-battle? In an environment where there are 7 other potential targets who have various weight-classes, does it matter?

It's fun to say stuff is imba and all, but the matter of the fact is, in MWO there is going to be 16 'Mechs on the battlefield, and if your Mech can move and/or shoot, it's viable. You can theorycraft into next week about how one chassis might be superior or inferior to another, but when you're in-game, it really doesn't matter- the only thing separating you and defeat is your experience and skill with the game and your 'Mech. You can cry and moan about those 3 extra hardpoints all you want when you get your dumb self blown open on the battlefield, but don't delude yourself into thinking that it's the game's fault, when you're the one who simply can't play it.

[Vapor Trail]

Played a Stalker for quite a bit tonight, and the torso twist is quite restrictive...

Going to reserve final judgement until after unlocking the Elites and Basics, but I'm leaning toward "loosen it up a little... not much, but a little."

The restrictive twist makes playing it as a brawler or close range support (city fighter) extremely challenging. But the weapons available make it one of the more deadly choices.

Until we get something with the capability of hauling multiple AC/20s and some backups, I think the Stalker's going to be the Assault platform of choice for "max-alpha" fighting.

Edited by Vapor Trail, 19 December 2012 - 02:18 AM.

[Vassago Rain]

MustrumRidcully, on 19 December 2012 - 02:07 AM, said:

For now. As new mechs are introduced, more weapon hardpoints will become more common. Should all these mechs also have limited torso twist rates?

Hardpoints should never have been treated as a balancing factor, only as an "aesthetic" factor IMO and to introduce some differences between variants. The balancing in Battletech comes from critical slots and tonnage.

Maybe the Stalker simply doesn't have too many hard points, but other mechs have too little?

Yeah, stalker kinda makes all the other assaults look very undergunned. They need to seriously revise the hardpoints for all other big mechs. A dinky jenner has about the same firepower as an atlas.

Edited by Vassago Rain, 19 December 2012 - 02:19 AM.

[Elkarlo]

For the Stalker you have to stay in the correct angle. when you take them frontal they are on thstrong side.

You will spread Damage all over both Torso and Arms

When you take them form 1:30 or 10:30 you will take them almost evertime in the Side torso and little Arm and Center Torso From 3 or 9 the Side Torso is covered and you need to noseshoot.

The good think is that the Torso twist is slow and that you can go in the angles.

And the Stalker has a Weakness: The higher the Opponent is the mor likely is it to gain a Headshot...
From the front small target from above medium target.

Normaly i don't tend to do Haedshots and go for the Left or right Torso on Mechs but today i had several hits from above on enemy Stalker and dearmored the Head...


For Stalker Pilots:
Watch Enemy above you and point your nose at them.
And if you played WoT: Inversered Tigertactics for taking shots. Take enemy head on or when not possible with the broadside, not trying to track them for lon time our you will be dead, because when you try to track you present your Weak Spot.

A stalker tried it today and i removed his side Torso with 2x M-Laser and 2x SRM4 and he was helpless... and it was fast done.

Edited by Elkarlo, 19 December 2012 - 02:27 AM.

[Sniper061]

I have to say that I really like the stalker. Once you tweak it a bit, it really isn't too bad.

My current loadout:

STK-5S (I had enough C-Bills lying around and liked the layout)

Ran a match with it and I agree, the heat management on a base model is terrible. Also, with the way the side torso is mapped you are much more likely to die with an XL engine.

So, once I got back the first thing I did was was just dump everything out of the mech. Then I pulled the XL engine and traded it for a 300 Standard. I also upgraded to DHS and added two into the engine.

Next the actual loadout. I decided this would work best at near to mid ranges but not quite a brawler.

4x MLas
2x LLas (got rid of the pulse. Too much heat)
4x SRM6
2x AMS
18 DHS

2 tons SRM ammo and 2 tons AMS ammo.

Loaded up ever remaining crevice with DHS and then tweaked the armor. (400 total).

Groups are:

LLas
MLas
SRM

Every battle since then has been pretty decent. I've gotten in the 400's on the lower ends either from being on the wrong side of the map from the fight or from being on a team that can actually shoot. Best performance for the evening was 995 damage with 3x assault mech kills and 2x assists. The DHS and standard engine make a BIG performance difference. Firing any one of my weapons groups by itself and waiting for the next refire ensures that I'm back at 0% heat. Firing all of my weapons groups I can get basically two alpha strikes off before I'm in serious heat territory. Considering that the amount of damage those two alphas put out though (196 total max), I'm not complaining.

[Rushin Roulette]

Vassago Rain, on 19 December 2012 - 02:19 AM, said:

A dinky jenner has about the same firepower as an atlas.

You really, really, really need to revise your Atlas setups if this were true. If you are getting as little firepower in an Atlas compared to a Jenner, then you are doing it completely wrong. Even the absolutely minimum semi-usefull joke Atlas armament (2 large lasers) is impossible to fit on a Jenner without some really serious drawbacks in speed armor and heat.
Add to the fact that you can add a Gauss and an LRM15 launcher with a few tons of ammiuniniton for each weapon to the Atlas, then you will be carrying about as much weapons in the Atlas than the Jenner weighs itself.

[Alilua]

it is tough to say, awesomes run alot cooler than stalkers, but have less weapons. Also unless you get the xl engine they have the same speed. An awesome will have easier times with light mechs though. Overall I say they are pretty equal, would be nice to see the awesome get a tad more armor but its not too bad. Have to have the xl engine in the awesome. If you get a shoulder blown off you are just as good as dead because of loosing all the weapons.

[Vassago Rain]

Rushin Roulette, on 19 December 2012 - 02:30 AM, said:

You really, really, really need to revise your Atlas setups if this were true. If you are getting as little firepower in an Atlas compared to a Jenner, then you are doing it completely wrong. Even the absolutely minimum semi-usefull joke Atlas armament (2 large lasers) is impossible to fit on a Jenner without some really serious drawbacks in speed armor and heat.
Add to the fact that you can add a Gauss and an LRM15 launcher with a few tons of ammiuniniton for each weapon to the Atlas, then you will be carrying about as much weapons in the Atlas than the Jenner weighs itself.

Jenners come with 6 lasers, or 4 lasers and 2 missiles.
My atlas has...a very heavy gun that doesn't really help much, and the same amount of other guns - at best. I don't feel that's in character with adding 65 tons to my giant robot.

[Taizan]

EnigmaNL, on 19 December 2012 - 02:09 AM, said:

I would take an Awesome over the Stalker any day. I regret buying my Stalker, it's slow moving and slow rotating and big and everybody focuses fire on you if they see your giant hindenburg body appear. Awesomes are relatively quick.

Not like Awesomes don't have that huge barn door chest and are the easiest mechs to core, even by accident. Taking an XL in an Awesome doesn't really make a difference, because you usually will loose your core before anything else.

The Awesome does not compare well to any of the two Assaults, its more like a heavy that ate too much junk food and sweats all the time. Having to outfit it with tons of ML/MPL and run around like a Medium to make the 9M viable is very silly.

[Aedensin]

Like a Sir, on 19 December 2012 - 12:55 AM, said:

Question: I haven't played today yet. How easy is it to shoot out a side torso on one of them? Is covered like the Cat, or is it pretty easy to hit? Thanks in advance!

It's pretty much all side torso. I still love mine though, 5M makes a great support mech and with the right load out you can rip peoples faces off.

[w0rm]

Badass if they dont have to turn. Easy prey for anything fast enough to stay out of their pitiful torso radius.