245 replies to this topic

[De La Fresniere]

Novawrecker, on 28 December 2012 - 10:13 PM, said:

Curious. Have you tried replacing that SRM4 & its ammo for medium lasers? I too was tempted to carry and SRM in the early stages of testing out the Mad Dragon, I did not like the results at all. That took a complete 180 when changed to the arm mounted lasers.

As for missing with the AC. Like most ballistic weapons, they take time getting used to. I would fire blindly and too aloofly. After getting use to its trajectory, I've gotten to the point of hitting dead on with it to threaten even light & fast mechs. There are those that make me look like a blind man that can't shoot the broad side of a building compared to how good they are shooting ballistics.

I have, right between the first and second edit. While the lasers can be broken more easily, they are many, many times better than the SRM4. 10 damage you don't miss with and can place anywhere on your target VS a 10-damage spread with an unpredictable firing delay... there's no comparison.

I've seen people who'd gotten used to Ballistics' super-odd behavior enough to have great aim with them. And when I hit a Raven with my AC/20, it's very satisfying. Problem is... it's not rewarding. With 4xLL I can hit them for more damage from further away with minimal effort.

I'm gonna try the AC/20 and dual MLs for a few more matches, but overall they're just so inferior, I don't think I can afford running that loadout, even for the fun factor. It was nice while it lasted, but I want my awesome accuracy, better damage and much better range back.

[Novawrecker]

De La Fresniere, on 29 December 2012 - 07:57 AM, said:

..... but I want my awesome accuracy, better damage and much better range back.

Then you are faced with a couple of options including, but not limited to: 1) Change your Dragon's loadout. 2) Change mechs.
Even I'll admit that playing the AC20 variant Dragon takes getting used to and is more fun factor than anything else. The machine does put a hurt on enemies, but it is something one has to dedicate toward and grow accustomed to.

[NRP]

Speaking of ballistics, which would you guys prefer, an AC/10 or an Ultra AC/5? Seems like one might be able to put more rounds on target with the UAC/5 and thus do more overall damage.

[Novawrecker]

NRP, on 29 December 2012 - 08:43 AM, said:

Speaking of ballistics, which would you guys prefer, an AC/10 or an Ultra AC/5? Seems like one might be able to put more rounds on target with the UAC/5 and thus do more overall damage.

Problem with UAC-5 is the jam rate. If you have this weapon with an accompanying weapon (such as AC2 or AC5), combined with the UAC-5 you'll do sustained damage with little to no worry about jamming. If alone, it can be a detriment due to the unpredictability of when it will jam.

AC10s, I have had zero experience playing with them. However, on "paper" they look good as a consistant, low heat, heavy, ammo dependant, direct damage source that deals 10pts at a location.

Edited by Novawrecker, 29 December 2012 - 09:03 AM.

[De La Fresniere]

Switched back to 4xLL. It was awesome.

First game, wrecked a Raven from afar (another ECM Light finished it off with Streaks) and then murderized a Cataphract. Then I was like "I'm invincible!" and ran into 4 enemy mechs enthusiatically. Obviously I died about 30 seconds later, quite early into the fight... in my defense, the Atlas had such a stupid name I was sure it wouldn't be able to aim. Still did 418 damage despite my rather early death, and condidering I killed a Cataphract (already contributing more than my weight's worth) as well as get rid of an ECM Raven and damage other mechs... can you imagine what one can do with 4xLL when they aren't suicidal?

NRP, on 29 December 2012 - 08:43 AM, said:

Speaking of ballistics, which would you guys prefer, an AC/10 or an Ultra AC/5? Seems like one might be able to put more rounds on target with the UAC/5 and thus do more overall damage.

I despise Ballistics in general due to their huge weight, aiming issues, their heavy/limited (and often explosive) ammo. If I use one it's either a Gauss or AC/20.

If I had to pick between those two... it'd probably be the UAC/5, yeah. Lighter, more DPS, more damage per heat, more range. The high rate of fire means you'll need to keep it pointed the right way pretty much all the time though, so it's very focus-intensive.

[Wintersdark]

I hate the UAC/5's. With a passion. In my experience the jam rate absolutely destroys their on-paper dps, and worse leaves me with a large amount of my payload useless just when I really need it. So many times jamming UAC's have let mechs escape that would have died. And, in a duel, that can mean the difference between victory and death.

In short, I strongly believe that real-world, the ac/5 generates better dps.

[De La Fresniere]

Wintersdark, on 29 December 2012 - 09:43 AM, said:

I hate the UAC/5's. With a passion. In my experience the jam rate absolutely destroys their on-paper dps, and worse leaves me with a large amount of my payload useless just when I really need it. So many times jamming UAC's have let mechs escape that would have died. And, in a duel, that can mean the difference between victory and death.

In short, I strongly believe that real-world, the ac/5 generates better dps.

The jam rate *is* pretty high, but it has to be or the weapon would just be too superior. Keep in mind, you get an enemy mech close to death and get a jam, it makes you feel like another weapon would have let you finish it off, but the other weapon might not have let you get that same mech so close to death so soon in the first place.

I'll agree about it being unreliable though. Having a weapon be better most of the time might not be worth it not working when you really, really need it to.

I, too, prefer the ordinary AC/5 to the UAC/5. But that wasn't in the offered choices, so...

[NRP]

Thanks for the opinions, guys. I'm still a noob trying to make sense of all the awesomeness this game lays at your feet.

[Wintersdark]

De La Fresniere, on 29 December 2012 - 09:50 AM, said:

The jam rate *is* pretty high, but it has to be or the weapon would just be too superior. Keep in mind, you get an enemy mech close to death and get a jam, it makes you feel like another weapon would have let you finish it off, but the other weapon might not have let you get that same mech so close to death so soon in the first place.

I'll agree about it being unreliable though. Having a weapon be better most of the time might not be worth it not working when you really, really need it to.

My argument is that it's not better most of the time. It's only better when it defies luck and fails to jam as often as it "should" based on jam rate.

I can never get more than a couple seconds of fire before jamming at best. If you include jam time in calculating the UAC's dps, you'd find it far inferior to the AC.

So, I don't think the UAC gets the mechs near death better than an AC, simply because it can't actually generate the advertised dps.

It's stats look awesome, but it's a trap!

It wouldn't be so bad if you could better avoid double shots; but I've found it frequently jams on single shots and also tends to doubleshot sometimes even when I'm just tapping the fire button.

I'd like it a lot more if it didn't jam or doubleshot at all, and instead only fired slightly faster for the extra ton and critical it costs. The doubleshot option+jamming ruins it IMHO.

[Ophidian]

Right now I'm driving a standard LB10x, 4 medium pulse laser, SSRM2 build, but I'm looking to upgrade to something different.

I've been poking at this build for the last two days and I'm not sure of any way to optimize it further.. What do you guys think?
FLAME

[Wintersdark]

I've been running variations on this build for some time (some builds posted previously in this thread), but I've found the following to be the absolute best for me.

DRG-FLAME
Endo Steel
Double Heat Sinks (14 total, inc. engine)
336 armour
RA - PPC, Medium Laser
LT - Gauss Rifle
LA - 2x Medium Laser

I used to run ERPPC's, but the heat generated was too difficult to manage effectively. Once fights got close, I was finding I had to simply stop firing them entirely. However, I really wanted the PPC's in there because particularly at long range I can never hold my lasers (I tried Large Lasers too!) on a single hit location for the entire burst. PPC's run nicely alongside the Gauss rifle to hammer single target locations at long range for substantial damage. The PPC is on the opposite side of the Gauss Rifle, so losing one from heavy damage to a side doesn't cost me both, and to allow me to fire either if I'm poking partially out of cover to either side.

In this configuration, heat is entirely a non-issue. It's possible to overheat, but takes sustained firing of all the energy weapons for quite some time, and the reality is that once you're very close the PPC is less effective, so you can lay off it a bit in those circumstances.

I used a variety of engines in my builds, and while I really appreciated the extra firepower I could get mounting a smaller engine (a lot of my builds used a XL255 I had sitting in my garage) I have to say I get vastly better results out of more speed, so the XL300 is IMHO the smallest I'll use from now on.

The Gauss rifle is critical to the build's playstyle. The idea is to hammer hard at long range with single shots "from nowhere" with the Gauss and PPC: Move to a firing position, strike hard with pinpoint accuracy, then move. Do NOT fire and wait for a response, or try a second shot, just ****. Get a new position, fire, ****. Do this until the two sides meet in combat, then stop being a punkass sniper and switch to a quasi-jenner style skirmisher. Run in, hit fast and hard, and keep moving at top speed. Ideally, you peel off slower heavies disrupting their focus fire, but even without the speed allows good rear shot options, and a 40pt alpha can really put the hurt on rear plating.

I'd love to try an XL350, but I'm too poor at the moment, and have no idea how I'd manage it. As I said above, the Gauss is pretty critical to the build - heavy damage, low heat to supplement the energy weapons for best DPS:heat ratios. Could swap it for an (U)AC/5.. but it's just not the same. The *AC/5's require more time-on-target, making them poor for hit-and-run attacks. Probably go to Gauss+4MLas (ironically, where I started) ... But I wouldn't do it happily. Going to 4xMLas would gut your hammer damage; and require more dancing rather than in and gone.

[Wintersdark]

Actually, along those lines, I think I'll try a middle ground.

Instead of the 350, I'll give a 325 a go: FLAME

Loss of 1 heat sink, 1 medium laser, and a tiny bit of armor, in return for an extra DHS in-engine (mitigating the external loss) and 7.5 more sweet, sweet kph. It's just a little more speed, but I've found that those little bits make a substantial difference in mobility in battle and, more importantly, whether you can get clear of pursuers or not. Getting away one shot earlier can very easily mean the difference between being crippled/killed and continuing to fight at 100%.

[The Captain]

I've really been enjoying my FLAME with XL320, Endo, 19 DHS, 368 armor, 2 PPC and 2 MPL. I've been routinely getting 800-1000 damage in games, about double my usual. MPL's clean up at close range and scare lights, and the PPC's do the major damage over 1-200m. It has enough DHS to stay cool as long as you're reasonably careful.

It's an offshoot of my "joke" build of a flame with 4xPPC, XL280 (my clan had a competition to see who could get the fastest 4 PPC mech that didn't overheat after two alphas).

I wasn't too impressed with 4xLL in the dragon (I prefer that in my Phract 3D, actually), and I really prefer the ppc/mpl build over it. Measnwhile, my previous flame was 4xML 1x AC20 Std 300, which is a pretty solid build if you want something with an AC/20 that runs at dragon speed.

Edited by The Captain, 31 December 2012 - 04:30 AM.

[De La Fresniere]

The Captain, on 31 December 2012 - 04:25 AM, said:

I've really been enjoying my FLAME with XL320, Endo, 19 DHS, 368 armor, 2 PPC and 2 MPL. I've been routinely getting 800-1000 damage in games, about double my usual. MPL's clean up at close range and scare lights, and the PPC's do the major damage over 1-200m. It has enough DHS to stay cool as long as you're reasonably careful.

It's an offshoot of my "joke" build of a flame with 4xPPC, XL280 (my clan had a competition to see who could get the fastest 4 PPC mech that didn't overheat after two alphas).

I wasn't too impressed with 4xLL in the dragon (I prefer that in my Phract 3D, actually), and I really prefer the ppc/mpl build over it. Measnwhile, my previous flame was 4xML 1x AC20 Std 300, which is a pretty solid build if you want something with an AC/20 that runs at dragon speed.

That certainly is impressive, but... I very rarely get above 800 damage per game with 4xLL, it's even uncommon for me to get above 700. I can only theorize about your build's efficiency (I don't even own PPCs), but I can't figure how it would be possible to routinely do 900 with a build that's significantly less heat-efficient and usually doesn't have access to all its weapons (due to severe range limitations). Especially if you play with competent people (opponents die too quickly for you to deal much damage).

You do have 20% more range on those PPCs. Do you snipe a lot?

Is your damage "useful" damage or are you just looking to generate some extra C-bills?

[Wintersdark]

I'm dubious about results where you're pulling over 500 damage in a match, unless you're the only one doing any damage in which case there are substantial team issues that render those results somewhat useless. Or, perhaps, if you're regularly playing really heavy drop-weight matches such as 8 atlas's. It's been my experience that once you're doing that, you're generating too much wasted damage (unless, I suppose, you're just cbill farming). You can cripple/kill most mechs with far less damage done, and the faster they are disabled, the less damage they do to your team.

I don't mean to pick on anyone in particular here, rather, it's just my feeling of my own performance: If I'm pulling huge damage numbers, I'm doing something wrong.

[Lanessar]

Wintersdark, on 31 December 2012 - 09:53 AM, said:

I'm dubious about results where you're pulling over 500 damage in a match, unless you're the only one doing any damage in which case there are substantial team issues that render those results somewhat useless. Or, perhaps, if you're regularly playing really heavy drop-weight matches such as 8 atlas's. It's been my experience that once you're doing that, you're generating too much wasted damage (unless, I suppose, you're just cbill farming). You can cripple/kill most mechs with far less damage done, and the faster they are disabled, the less damage they do to your team.

I don't mean to pick on anyone in particular here, rather, it's just my feeling of my own performance: If I'm pulling huge damage numbers, I'm doing something wrong.

I can't say for certain whether you're wrong or not. I played a number of matches with different loadouts. The best for me was 300 XL engine, with 2xLL, ERPPC and SRM6. Match after match I scored damage in the 500 range, sometimes 385, sometimes 650. It just seemed to be a good synergy. There were probably terrible matches where I scored 150 or so (granted, I'm running all PUGs during this testing), but the LL and LL + PPC combo seemed the best on the damage charts.

That being said, most of the high-damage games I only got 1 or 0 kills. Most of the bonuses were assists. The dragon's basic design makes it terrible for a brawler - start brawling, and you're dead rather quickly, I noticed. The best utilization of the chassis is a lot of sniping or hit and fade. So you don't get many kills with these tactics, but the assaults and the brawlers end up downing them in a couple of hits as opposed to slugging it out.

Your experience may be different, but I usually don't go for kills. I soften them all up so the kills happen faster.

EDIT: I'm playing 4-mans now, but only have been able to use my Flame a couple of times. He's much more successful when supported by a team. However, I have to play more matches with focused fire on targets. It's a different playstyle when you're coordinated, and I did notice my kills go up to 2-3 with 300 or so damage (one or two matches, IIRC), so PUG vs. Premade might make a drastic difference in how you use this mech.

Edited by Lanessar, 31 December 2012 - 10:07 AM.

[Wintersdark]

Lanessar, on 31 December 2012 - 10:04 AM, said:

I can't say for certain whether you're wrong or not. I played a number of matches with different loadouts. The best for me was 300 XL engine, with 2xLL, ERPPC and SRM6. Match after match I scored damage in the 500 range, sometimes 385, sometimes 650. It just seemed to be a good synergy. There were probably terrible matches where I scored 150 or so (granted, I'm running all PUGs during this testing), but the LL and LL + PPC combo seemed the best on the damage charts.

That being said, most of the high-damage games I only got 1 or 0 kills. Most of the bonuses were assists. The dragon's basic design makes it terrible for a brawler - start brawling, and you're dead rather quickly, I noticed. The best utilization of the chassis is a lot of sniping or hit and fade. So you don't get many kills with these tactics, but the assaults and the brawlers end up downing them in a couple of hits as opposed to slugging it out.

Your experience may be different, but I usually don't go for kills. I soften them all up so the kills happen faster.

EDIT: I'm playing 4-mans now, but only have been able to use my Flame a couple of times. He's much more successful when supported by a team. However, I have to play more matches with focused fire on targets. It's a different playstyle when you're coordinated, and I did notice my kills go up to 2-3 with 300 or so damage (one or two matches, IIRC), so PUG vs. Premade might make a drastic difference in how you use this mech.

I generally don't push for kills either, I cripple. Typically, I start out sniping until close combat with our assaults happens, then switch to hit and run. I don't aim for high damage done or even kills, but instead try to move through a combat at high speed, utilizing cover (much like one would do with a Light mech), hammering damaged or vulnerable parts to cripple the mechs in combat with our assaults.

Leg a stalker on the run by, and he's pretty much doomed. Shear the arm of the centurion, etc. The dragon, particularly with gauss/ac20+ppc+lasers can really hit very hard on a run-by. But like you noted, the dragon is particularly bad at brawling: It's huge center torso and limited maximum armour lend to an easily cored mech if you brawl.

[Pariah Devalis]

Personally, I always try to analyze the target if possible, before attack. For example, if I see a fast moving phract, I aim for side torsos. Otherwise, I almost always either aim for the center torso or head. Yes, you can bet your life savings that if I see a centurion, catapult, or awesome I will be aiming for the face. In this way, every shot I take is made to be a kill shot, and if it does not manage to kill the target, it leaves the enemy that much more vulnerable to a friendly mech's attack.


One nice perk to the 4 llas Dragon is that k2s tend to pull stupids all the time. The mech can have an awful lot of center front torso armor, and gaussapults or ppccats tend to underestimate that and try to stare you down. At this point, when I see that I just line up my shot, ignore getting hit once, and focus on that pretty head of theirs. The armor can take two gauss hits two and a smidge times before being blown out. Their face cannot take a single alpha of four LLas. It is good math.

The "downside," if it is such a thing, is that my end of game damage is low. I average around 160 damage per kill at the end of a game. Clean kills result in low damage numbers at the end of the game, so I feel the damage dealt is a bit of an irrelevant number, and a flawed metric for determining success of a build.

Edited by Pariah Devalis, 31 December 2012 - 11:23 AM.

[De La Fresniere]

Indeed, that's what I meant about "useless" damage.

You can swipe your lasers across mechs the whole match and end up with 700 damage... almost none of which contributed to disabling or destroying enemy mechs.

Or you can fire at a Swayback's hunch two or three times to neuter the mech, then four-shot an Atlas from the back and headshot an Awesome, doing only 350 damage total but being incredibly valuable to your team.

Of course, high damage doesn't necessarily mean you've been wasting it, and sometimes battle conditions make it so you have to brute-force your way through a few Cataphracts' and Stalkers' CTs from a distance.

But as I mentioned earlier, with 4xLL I don't break 700 often at all (it should be impossible unless most of my teammates and opponents both have fairly bad loadouts and accuracy). *Routinely* doing 900 with a much less heat-efficient build... the more I think about it, the less I buy it.

[Ophidian]

So....back to my question, what should be the targeted heat efficiency be for a 4 LL Dragon? I'd find out myself, but I can't afford it yet.