A slightly different topic than Archwright's question regarding 1C & 1N, can anyone advise on getting the Fang when it happens to be on sale again? Note that I already do own & love the Flame. Additionally I also mastered the 1C as well and went all the way to completing elite on both the 1N and 5N, so I do know a lot about Dragons. My gut feeling tells me that the 1C can already mount all the best builds the Fang can do, so the only significant difference seems to be the ability to mount 2 ballistics. Now, double AC5 backed up by double ML and SRM4 certainly looks nice, but ... really? Maybe somebody is out there who is experienced with both 1C and Fang? What about the other Dragon experts on this website?
I see it this way, if you have the 1C already, you probably don't need Fang. Unless you want a setup that includes 2x AC2/5, 1C can do all the cool tasks. And IF you like things like 2x AC2/5 and the like, there is the 5N, which is nice for those things. Get Flame instead, it has a different setup, and the paintjob is the same (comes with different default colors, but you can paint them the same). The side torso ballistic point is high so it is ok for some long range snipery actions. If you don't have the 1C already, you can think about Fang. I have Flame, 5N, 1C, 1N. I don't like 1N though.
Mastered every regular variant but the 1N and the Flame as well. Time has come and FANG is on 50% sale now... get him or leave him alone?
i'd say leave him alone unless you are a Collector. The Fang is definitely a not really awesome hero-mech.
Fang would be a good case for a poll if it should be able to use an AC20 & dual UAC5 by removing it's lower arm actuator. It would be a novum, but one that would help pushing both the chassis as a whole as well as this hero mech quite a bit. There are already precedents on how the arm movement can be done (see: YLW and HGN-733C), so that shouldn't be a problem at all.
Yes, XL Dragon at max speed with AC20... that would be great. Fang is a slightly better 1N, with one less CT missile and a an extra energy. Given that 1N is not that nice to start with, not really worth it. If you like that camo get Flame. looks the same (change the colors) and is much better and unique. I have it though, got it during sale for completeness sake.
Time for some theory crafting? PGI obv overlooked my proposal to make Fang unique and give it an AC20, so we need to work with what we've got instead. Despite having double ballistic HPs the quirks for Fang point to a certain kind of build. Let's see what we can make out of it. 'The classic builds' These builds try to utilize as many as HPs as possible while also making use of the upcoming quirks. Not bad, but not too spectacular as well, although the second one can certainly some very devastating strafing runs and skirmishes. What about skipping the missile launcher for more quirk abusing? This is a classic example of a build trying to get most out of the quirks, but which looses a lot of punch in the process. Me not likey. 'More quirks!' This idea tries to use a lot more of the new quirks and the firepower is pretty nice as well. The first version mounts one of the LPLas in the high shoulder HP to allow some limited sniping while the second build is very brawl oriented. Both of them still look very classic to me and also are somehow screaming 'DRG-1C' (but as are a lot of builds for Fang). 'LPLas bitch' As we can only mount a single AC10 on this mech, any try to somehow abuse the upcoming quirks has to be done with LPLas. The build shown is faster than all the other builds in this post, has a lot of cooling and double MG for additional crit seeking. A STD version is possible as well. This would be pretty slow for a Dragon and also resembles the idea of shielding with a whole side. The big nose-like CT makes this concept pretty moot on a DRG, though. Short summary The quirks for Fang a pretty impressive. I tend to like some of the builds shown above, but not enough to be convinced of this variant. Which makes me kind of sad as I really wanted this thing to work and be good.
Be still my heart..... Fang - avge 1.83 kills and 503 pts damage per match. Not bad for an awful mech.
Aaaaaand it's on sale AGAIN. Argh! And yesterday was payday. Don't know if I can hold myself back this evening.
Quirks are AC10+2xLPL, hardly optimal for this honestly pretty mediocre variant hard-pointwise (2x AC5 builds would be fine, but no quirk support!)
Yeah, this isn't the size of mech where one can reasonably take advantage of the quirks in every hardpoint available. But if you take a look at the builds proposed above right after the quirks were anounced, there are quite aome good ones among them. Some of them are build especially because of the quirks (e.g. 3 LPLas @ STD engine) while others simy use the fact that the weapons used are very good for a 60t mech and are getting buffed by the variant's quirks as well. Since the quirks were split to be half depending on the specific weapon and half depending on the kind if weapon used (e.g. ballisitic... ), a dual AC5 build would be better afterwards than prior to the quirks as well - allbeit not that crazy much better than on the DRG-1N.
