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Author Topic: Mechwarrior Online  (Read 108549 times)

Flying Dice

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Re: Mechwarrior Online
« Reply #405 on: December 20, 2015, 09:45:04 pm »

I just started playing last night and am looking to buy my first mech, but I really can't decide! I'm assuming I should stick to buying either clan or inner sphere if I want to play the faction mode? How do you tell if a mech is clan or inner sphere when you are buying them? I've played mechwarrior before so I know some of them, but there are a lot that I am not familiar with.

The clan mechs were introduced after launch, so only the mechlab (and not the store) differentiates between IS and Clanner mechs. But yeah, it's best to stick with one at the start. Clan mechs were OP when they launched (and were P2W for a while), but they got hit with the nerf bat and IS mechs were buffed, both with the quirk system. Hover your cursor over a mech in the shop; most clan mechs only have negative gameplay quirks and a minor exp boost, while IS mechs generally have a long list of positive quirks (which also generally align with the hardpoints on IS mechs, so ferex a model that's set up to be a good LRM boat will have missile-related quirks.

If you're looking for advice on what to buy, here is a good list of regularly updated tier lists, and here is a guide for buying mechs for organized team play. I'll give a general summary as well:

1. Start with a set of three light 'mechs. They're cheaper initial investments and you'll need some to fill out the fourth spot on your lance when you play CW/faction play. If you want to go IS, either the Ravens or the Firestarters are good buys. If you want to be a Clanboy, get the Arctic Cheaters. Firestarters are the dominant IS light for classic "run around constantly being an annoying circle-strafing asshole" play, Ravens are no-competition the best support/sniper lights in the game. Arctic Cheaters are Firestarters except with ECM. My experience is with Ravens, here's how they break down:

3L: Best sniper in the game. No competition. Comes with ECM; strap on two ERLLas, unlock the module for extended ERLLas range and do constant poke damage from as far as ~1500 meters out. Equip the best(?) XL engine in the game at the same time so that you can run away at 150km/h.
4X: -30% laser duration, +30% laser range, but with no ECM. This is an excellent platform for 2x LPLas, because their firing cycle is reduced to almost nothing, so you can peek nothing but your upper right corner for ~1 second, drop your 22 damage alpha onto a single point, and be back in cover before they know they've been hit.
2X: I don't really like it, but it's a laser boat that can hit above its weight class. Has lots of quirks for making lasers more effective, and you can fit it with 2x LLas and 2x MLas, then alpha those for 28 damage or rotate them while being nearly heat-neutral.
Huginn: Premium, but it's an obscenely nasty SRM boat.

2. Remember, you need at least three variants of a mech to be able to get the Elite and Master skills for it. Master your light variants, sell any you don't enjoy/do well with, and start working towards an Assault or Heavy.

If you're going Clan, the Dire Wolf, Timber Wolf, and Ebon Jaguar are all very good. In CW that's pretty much all you'll see the Clanboys pulling. If IS is more your speed, you have more options, but the Stalkers, Battlemasters, Banshees, and Quickdraws generally have the most good variants. IS also has some exceptionally good premiums if you're willing to drop real money: I got two of the best, the Misery (which combines the super-troll hitboxes and zombie potential of all Stalker variants with the 2x PPC + AC/20 "40" build that will ruin anyone's day at any range) and the Ilya Muromets (which is still excellent despite brawlers and ballistic mechs being somewhat off-meta). The Stalker line in particular is worth pursuing: Misery as above is super-trolly if you torso twist and use cover well, the 4N is one of the best laser-vomit mechs in the game, the 5M is a superb LRM boat, and each of the 5S, 3H, and 3F are also good or above average laser boats or generalists, mostly thanks (again) to the high weapon mounts and hitboxes.

3. For filling things out, or if you want to grind trial mechs more before making your initial buy, there are good mediums as well. The Stormcrows, even post-nerf, are obscene. The Blackjacks are likewise exceptional.

Basically for CW it doesn't matter what you pick beyond personal preference, because outcomes are wholly derived from the matchmaking: groups beat PuGs 99% of the time; PuG vs PuG is a coinflip, though defense usually wins because it's easier for a bunch of idiots to camp a base than organize an effective attack.

So I've been having a look at this. How's the grind? Compared to, say, WoT?
Trivial. I got my first set of three 'mechs almost fully kitted out and with all skills elited in ~50 combined matches between the three, maybe, and have also finished almost all the basic skills and reoutfitting of the mechs I bought with real money, plus another Heavy I picked up with C-bills. The only real limiting factor is that mechbays cost ~$1.30 each, but you can get close to a dozen by running short contracts and playing 2-3 matches for each faction in CW, and you can also get gold currency &c. from the weekend challenges and higher CW rewards. I think that if you played a single faction in CW up to the top rank you'd have, what, 3 free mechbays and enough MC to buy 10 more? And of course once you've mastered a set of variants you can sell off the ones you don't like or use to make room.

By the by. Pilot skills/modules. The only mech modules worth getting are the one that instantly drops enemy radar lock when you move into concealment and the seismic sensor one. Don't waste GEXP on any of the others, use it for weapon modules instead.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2015, 09:47:03 pm by Flying Dice »
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etgfrog

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Re: Mechwarrior Online
« Reply #406 on: December 20, 2015, 09:53:39 pm »

You are forgetting the IIC mechs that came out, they are clan battlemechs, they don't have omnipods but you can change the engine in them, not that you would want to use a standard engine over a clan xl engine.

Good recomendations regardless.
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Flying Dice

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Re: Mechwarrior Online
« Reply #407 on: December 20, 2015, 10:01:43 pm »

Yeah, I knew there was something slipping my mind. Haven't actually seen any of them around for some reason, apart from a Jenner IIC in a random battle.
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etgfrog

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Re: Mechwarrior Online
« Reply #408 on: December 20, 2015, 10:10:21 pm »

To be honest, they are a bit underperforming, anything the IIC hunback can do, the IS hunchback can do better thanks to quirks...on the other hand they have jump jets. The jenner...can be scary, think of a 6 srm 6 light. You have to downgrade the engine down to 130kph though.
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Wiles

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Re: Mechwarrior Online
« Reply #409 on: December 21, 2015, 01:07:36 am »

Thank you for the well thought out reply Flying Dice. I decided to side with the clans so I ended up going with the C variant of the Timber Wolf for my first mech.  It suits my playstyle well, I prefer to be in the back lines firing my long range weapons as opposed to being an up close brawler.
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Flying Dice

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Re: Mechwarrior Online
« Reply #410 on: December 21, 2015, 09:32:40 pm »

So if you were unsure whether you'd want to play MWO over the coming two-ish weeks, here's the event:

7:00 AM EST Dec. 22nd - 7:00 AM EST Jan. 4th.

Every time you get 150 match score in Quick Play or 100 match score in Faction Play, you get an event point, up to a maximum of 75 from Quick Play and a further 50 from Faction Play, for a total of 125. (You can also get 25 more on top of that if you buy an Archer collection pack, but fuck that noise). Each point gets you a random prize from the grab-bag, which can include any of the following:

1. Varying quantities of MC, C-bills, and GXP.
2. Premium time.
3. MC-tier consumables.
4. Christmas cockpit items.
5. A Centurion AH + bay (only one per account)
6. "joke" rewards of a flamer or SLas.

So that's 125 shots at a sorta-okay (and very goddamn old) Medium brawler, but more importantly the opportunity to accumulate a good pile of free MC (though how good will depend on what sort of quantity and roll chance we're talking about). Or, y'know, Christmas lights for your cockpits if that's more your thing. As long as you're half-competent you can knock out the QP ones in a couple days, but goddamn it'll take a week or two just to find 50 FP matches.
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BuriBuriZaemon

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Re: Mechwarrior Online
« Reply #411 on: December 21, 2015, 09:39:28 pm »

I was a founder and just now getting back into the game after being absent for too long.

My favourite mech was the Catapult CPLT-C1, but that was before they added a whole bunch of new mechs into the game.

What is the current meta for sniper and LRM mechs?
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Flying Dice

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Re: Mechwarrior Online
« Reply #412 on: December 21, 2015, 10:06:26 pm »

The CLPT-C1 is still a very solid LRM boat. That said, LRM boats are only really in-meta in Quick Play PuG games, as least as far as I've seen. A lot of heavier Clan mechs (the Dire Wolf players in particular) will carry a launcher or two, but that's mostly just because cLRMs don't have an arming distance and make for a good long range poke tool--they don't show up much in FP or group skirmishes because they can be hard-countered by cover and ECM. If you want to run a heavier LRM boat in PuG skirmishes, some good ones are:


STK-5M I run mine with 4x LRM 10 set to sequence-fire and 2200ish ammo; an alpha will damn near overheat you, but you can keep up a literal constant stream of missiles if you don't, and you'll rarely run totally out of ammo even if you spam 80-100 at every decent target you get; it also mounts a single MLas in the CT so you can zombie if you run out of ammo in a long game. It has range, cooldown, and velocity quirks, as well as an energy mount for your TAG.

Others beyond those two that I haven't played much/any of: BLR-1S, JM6-A, QKD-4H, WHK-B, TBR-S, SMN-B.

Non-LRM snipers?

The STK-3H, most of the Stormcrows, Timber Wolves, and Hellbringers, Quickdraw-5K and 4H, most of the Ebon Jags and some of the Dire Wolves, the Shadowhawk-2K. Among lighter stuff, the Raven-3L, the Adders, and the Cicada-3M. That's off the top of my head.
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etgfrog

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Re: Mechwarrior Online
« Reply #413 on: December 21, 2015, 11:10:42 pm »

Any stalker has the potential to make people rage because of its high energy hardpoints. Find a hill, hide most of your body behind it. PPCs are suppose to be getting a buff since the standard is er large lasers for sniping. Gauss got nerfed on its rate of fire, so its not used as much.
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Kyzrati

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Re: Mechwarrior Online
« Reply #414 on: December 21, 2015, 11:25:51 pm »

Gauss got nerfed on its rate of fire, so its not used as much.
Was it nerfed again at some point in the past 5 months?

I had to stop playing because my laptop can no longer handle all the new stuff they've been adding to maps, so I'm not sure about the most recent developments, but last I played gauss was the ultimate sniper weapon on a DWF.

No one could stop me and my 4x gauss build, which can single-handedly pick apart entire lances from half way across a map. Fun times :D. Too bad I can't run it anymore... I have about 50 fully upgraded mechs sitting in my bays :'(
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Dostoevsky

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Re: Mechwarrior Online
« Reply #415 on: December 22, 2015, 12:44:50 am »

Was it nerfed again at some point in the past 5 months?

In early December there was a slightly major balance update... not nearly as extensive a changeup as PGI was initially indicating, but perhaps that's for the best.

As part of that, gauss rifles got an extra 1.5 seconds of cooldown (4 secs to 5.5 secs).

(patch notes of that update here: http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/215830-patch-notes-1438-01-dec-2015/)
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Kyzrati

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Re: Mechwarrior Online
« Reply #416 on: December 22, 2015, 12:54:21 am »

Ah there it is. I was looking back through all the patch notes but I missed that one. Stopped following ever since I couldn't play :/

It was inevitable, I guess. Still, when you have 4 of them combined with maxed out weapon buffs, even with that nerf they're pretty damn awesome. Alternating firing in pairs you barely have to stop firing, so with a zoom module and respectable aim you can punch holes through fresh mechs at range, or aim for damaged locations and finish off targets quickly.

That said, I wouldn't want to use 1~2 gauss rifles; they were already kinda mediocre compared to some of the other options.

Hm, they even increased the speed of streaks, which were already pretty OP for boating. I should know :P

Argh, wish I could get back in the cockpit for a while...
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BuriBuriZaemon

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Re: Mechwarrior Online
« Reply #417 on: December 22, 2015, 07:15:37 am »

Flying Dice, thanks for the advise. I'm gearing up for Factions Play, but it seems that my mechs aren't the most optimised for it. I'm wondering if I can make the mechs I have work or should I stick to meta-popular mechs?


My list of mechs (basic, unless noted):

Light
Jenner x1
Locust x3

Medium
Hunchback x3 Elite
Centurion x2
Griffin x3
Shadowhawk x3
Wolverine x3

Heavy
Catapult x3 Elite
Thunderbolt x3

Assault
Atlas x2
Battlemaster x3
King Crab x1
« Last Edit: December 22, 2015, 10:18:33 am by BuriBuriZaemon »
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Anvilfolk

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Re: Mechwarrior Online
« Reply #418 on: December 22, 2015, 10:13:20 am »

holy crap, you have a lot of bays :O

etgfrog

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Re: Mechwarrior Online
« Reply #419 on: December 22, 2015, 11:14:20 am »

You get them very easily through events or using the mc you get from events to get mech bays. Oh, and free ones from faction warfare.
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