Mechwarrior Online

[Samprimary]

http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/mechlab#i=173&l=c7b9a4f42595142015a216caf5bb211ecd27b619

[Merusk]

Whelp, they didn't count my prior 300+ games for that promo. So much for their "all games since last September" statement.

[Shannow]

Worked for me , did you check the challenge page?

[Merusk]

Worked for me , did you check the challenge page?

Yes, it says 6%. That covers the matches I played after their reset.  My archived stats indicate I had almost 650 matches (332 wins/ 314 losses) none of which apparently counted.

Glad I didn't have to reinstall to check.

[Shannow]

Ok so I have 10 mil burning a hole in my pocket.

BLR, HGN, BNC or STK? Or do I get a DDC? (Is the DDC so good its worth putting up with driving an Atlas?)

[Hoax]

First you should probably wait for this quirk pass they keep saying they are getting to because that could increase the upside on HGN and/or BLR a lot maybe.

If you cannot wait. The other 3 I'd say DDC > STK > BNC.

DDC = best brawl mech on IS side for 3/3/3/3 matchmaking purposes in the assault slot. ECM. Great in pugs and groups.

STK = good lrm boats, decent srm boats, top tier ultra competitive sniper w/ the 3F 4xLLAS build thanks to crazy high hardpoints but its really not that great in pubs or low level pick ups. But its a great chassis in terms of hardpoint location and variety, hitboxes etc. It will probably never be bad.

BNC = a really fun mech but not amazing power level wise. But really fun, so fun its almost FOTM and if it gets quirk love maybe it becomes more of a player.

[Shannow]

I'd like to amend a previous statement I made to fuck all LRMs in general.

I lost a fully armoured Atlas in under 15 seconds last night without seeing anything but two mechs.

Yes, that's battletech it could be said but I have a feeling LRMs might be getting a nerf again.

[Ironwood]

Then your team sucked or you decided Lone Wolf was a good idea.

[Shannow]

While my team did suck, I was grouped with 4 other decent pilots. How that would've stopped the rape is beyond me though.

Mind you it was canyons so that may have played into it, but we moved as a group and 15 seconds after initial contact I was dead.

[Hoax]

Its highly unlikely that they will or that they should do anything to LRM's until they are also messing with the various EWAR systems. If you are spotted/tagged/narc'd in an assault all good pilots with lrms are going to fire on you because they know you can't get back to cover easily and you are a high value target. Its actually one of the best ways to deal w/ fat slow DWF's.

The one exception is they could reduce LRM impulse again although the change they did make was noticeable and its much better now than it was.

***

On the I can't help but pay attention and get hype side of things.

Russ has posted that they are looking at tonnage limits instead of weight classes for CW. Right now they continue to focus (far too much imo) on the Dropship game mode so that was the context where he posted his current idea:

Each player has 4 mech slots.
They must fill all 4 slots.
Max tonnage of each players combined mechs is 240.
Each mech is worth its maximum tonnage, you can't strip a Locust down to try to gain tons for instance.

I think this would be a massive step in the right direction and I would expect a tonnage system to be such an improvement to chassis diversity that it would eventually spread from just that one gamemode.

I even couldn't help myself and have started thinking towards the 3 most common setups I'd run with my current mechs:
50, 55, 55, 80 or 50, 50, 55, 85 and if I felt like we needed the DDC I'd go 35, 50, 55, 100.

As always when talking CW, they have lied for two years and never worked on CW during that time. There are no screenshots of actual finished work this time around so no reason to think its not more lies and certainly no reason to think they can finish it by 12/21/14 which is their latest promise.

PGI is also the masters of "our position at the time" bullshit and the clearly are still making up game systems on the fly without thinking them through. So odds are like so many exciting sounding things this will never be in the actual game.

[Lantyssa]

Tonnage would be awesome.  I could have two lights and two heavies and be very happy regardless of map.

[Ironwood]

While my team did suck, I was grouped with 4 other decent pilots. How that would've stopped the rape is beyond me though.

Mind you it was canyons so that may have played into it, but we moved as a group and 15 seconds after initial contact I was dead.

If you don't have sufficient AMS and ECM, you can get raped hard by LRMs, same as it ever was.  They're no more or less strong at the moment, I don't think.

Canyons is bad for lurms tho. 

I've had my fill of fucking idiots in PUGS tonight tho.  Time for bed.

[Ironwood]

http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/mechlab#i=173&l=c7b9a4f42595142015a216caf5bb211ecd27b619

Interesting Build.  Don't have the cash for it right now, but I'll take a look.

As I'm getting more leveled with it, the results are getting better, but it really, really needs support to be the effective ball-kicker that it clearly can be.  I'm doing mega fuckloads of damage on my build, which currently uses 2xUAC2, 2xUAC5, 4 ML and a large UAC10.  Shit getting in the way just gets torn apart.  The trouble is making sure they get in the way.  I had a nice wee partnership going with a light who would get people to chase it into me;  that was a really fun match.  However, it can be over all too easily if caught lumbering in the open.  I find the Metal Map Capture to be the best, since you just head down to Theta and annihilate anything that comes through the door.

Hey ho.

I'm slowly getting rid of all my crap IS mechs and replacing them with Clans.  3xKitfox, 3xNova and a single Dire Whale.  I can't be arsed with the Summoner tho.

I am seeing a LOT of MadDog rapage tho.  It seems to be quite a strong mech.

[Hoax]

You might try to hold onto your crap IS mechs until after the quirk pass in case they make them more fun to play.

[Ironwood]

I'm keeping the ones I like now and just binning ones that I can't stand.

[Hoax]

I have to say prior to the quirk announcements I was getting ready to bin the Thunderbolt. Its just too much of a mess outside of stock matches.

[Falconeer]

Have you always wondered if your 'mech sucked, or you were actually a very bad player? Now you can check the official tier list and find that out. Tier 1 is OP, tier 5 is a suicide machine.

[Hoax]

And vindication as the two TDR's I own (5S and 9S) are right there in t5. They suffer from AWS hitboxes, bad setup for brawling, odd mix of hardpoints, can't xl, can't arm shield.

[Falconeer]

If they can't manage to fix the Awesomes, and especially the Pretty Baby, this time around I quit.

[Ironwood]

I fucking hate the Victor.  I have no idea why it's so OP.  It's such a shit drive.

[5150]

I fucking hate the Victor.  I have no idea why it's so OP.  It's such a shit drive.

I'm guessing because of the jump jets.

I wonder what period this data was taken from and how much of it came from after the jj nerf?

[Ironwood]

Could be.  I never really got into the pop-tarting thing.  I do love my two Highlanders and I score well with them (also I mastered them then sold one), but I never ever felt the urge to put the jump jets back on.

[Lantyssa]

Ahahahaha.  All Tier 5 and 4.  Out of twenty 'mechs I have two in Tier 3, and I never pilot them.

It's a wonder I do as well as I do at times.

[Hoax]

I fucking hate the Victor.  I have no idea why it's so OP.  It's such a shit drive.

I'm guessing because of the jump jets.

I wonder what period this data was taken from and how much of it came from after the jj nerf?

The current most sensible understanding of the tier list is that the tiers reflect the variant's value after:
-all quirks are removed from it both positive and negative. This is why AWS are t5, thats without all those quirks that actually make them decent. its why HGN's aren't lower because all the negative quirks are gone ditto why VTR's are t1.
-this is taking into account the jj changes that are coming. That's what keeps VTR and HGN on higher tiers because PGI intends to unfuck jets without giving back the poptart meta. Its also the only explanation possible for the CTF-IM being so low.

what nobody knows is are these tiers based on tonnage or weight class or a little of both?

I think the Vindicator and Cicada tier placements surely indicate that its done by tonnage, which I can only hope is because we're slowly shifting the fuck away from weight class based team building. Because its bad and stupid.

[Ironwood]

It's interesting because I've seen Awesomes who totally rock the party since they got quirked.

[Hoax]

I think I posted poorly. I'm saying that the AWS are placed on t5 because the tier list reflects each mech with ZERO quirks positive or negative.

It may even be possible that the number of quirks and the values they gave the Awesome are roughly what PGI plans to do with all t5 mechs. So basically the AWS might be unchanged after the quirk pass because they've already been given the t5 treatment and is operating as PGI's blueprint as I think those quirks did bring it up to at least average.

Or it could be that the AWS quirks represent t4 or t3 level of quirk buffs and they are going to give the AWS line even more love with the quirk pass. I've heard the very good suggestion of exempting the PPC Awesomes from PPC ghost heat for instance.

[Ironwood]

I'd really like it if they would exempt the Nova from Med Laser ghost heat.  Those things just pop.

[Ironwood]

http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/mechlab#i=173&l=c7b9a4f42595142015a216caf5bb211ecd27b619

Hmmm.  If you lose your arms, you're kinda fucked....

[Samprimary]

Tier S: Timber Wolf, Dire Wolf

[Hoax]

http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/mechlab#i=173&l=c7b9a4f42595142015a216caf5bb211ecd27b619

Hmmm.  If you lose your arms, you're kinda fucked....

Look at the armor values and the ammo distribution, you would win any fight if they try shooting your arms. You are never losing an arm without losing that side's torso and pretty much everyone just goes for the pure core out vs DWF's because its not like they bother to torso twist while killing 3 teammates in the time it takes you to down them.

[Ironwood]

Yeah, I've actually been playing with it and with the Wolfie, it's much more likely that you just get gored and cored.

Fair enough.

[Samprimary]

Yeah. I have rolled over scores of people in that hyperbeast and have a 2.12 KDR on the DWF Prime after over 400 matches, and I have literally not once found myself de-armed as opposed to de-torsoed. I guess I could make a variant version that uses the nose laser just in case, but your arms are never a critical consideration, ever. I even wantonly torso twist the LRM side as a shield during brawls after I've exhausted the missiles and entered the fray, and I can't even get the arm to lose its armor in this case.

One interesting side effect of its composition is that it is both a missileboat and a heavy roller. When exhausting my initial stash of missiles, I'm usually out back by the other missileboats. Some centurion or whatever will gloriously sneak back to pick on the boats and you just turn around and flat murder the poor son of a bitch.

Getting more purchase with the LRMs? Add more ammo! Hate LRM's? Strip them and go with more autocannons. One of my variant builds is 4 UAC5 and 2 UAC2, which rocks enemies so much that they can't aim.

[Ironwood]

Yup, I was running with tons of uac but its not as good in pugs where the missiles are much more use. Still, you cant beat it for pure dakka.

[MahrinSkel]

[eldaec]

So I've played this a bit over the last couple of weeks following a 9 month break.

Thoughts:

 - PUGs are less dumb than they were and it makes for a better game. People run off in different directions much less.

 - Game 'feels smoother and faster' whatever that means.

 - The new lobby UI is a fucking abomination. Information is never where you expect it to be.

 - Clan mechs don't spoil the game as much as I expected. I get that IS vs clan would be stupid, but playing IS mechs in pub matches is just fine.

 - Coming back to an fps is usually a nightmare since the community gets better and better at the game. I haven't found it a problem. Still feels like a good fps for old people.

 - Balance actually seems better than when I left. When I die I inevitably know it was my own damn fault.

 - Stupid hidden mechanics like ghost heat suck monkey balls, and I dislike not remembering how that shit works.

So, still a fun thing for throwing down some pew pew for half an hour now and again.