well, welcome to the forum first off. But really, The only role the Victor can't pull off is an LRM boat. They can Jump snipe like Highlanders, Brawl better than highlanders due to their higher speed, and scout better than highlanders due to their speed. Highlanders are better sniping or LRM'ing. Victors are better at brawling and scouting.
Ya aside from the LRM boating, i'd say victors can beat highlanders on every level. except straight armor. but thats just me.
I guess it depends what your looking for from the mechs. If you consider the current meta that 3 PPC Gauss combo is very powerful at the moment even with the heat penalty then both mechs can carry this loadout. However the Highlander can do this effectively, with a standard engine and maintain high armour and cooling efficiency. The Victor however, can only do this effectively using an XL engine but is more manoeuvrable. The trade off really is survivability against manoeuvrability and less tonnage. Certainly at the moment most 8 man drop decks seem to be preferring the Highlander 732 so survivability is obviously a higher priority. For manoeuvrable jump sniper the Cataphract 3D is preferred. However this is without tonnage limits such as those in Last Mech Standing Tournament matches. For my merc unit both the Highlander and the Cataphract 3D feature in official unit drop decks, the Victor does not appear at any fixed tonnage level. This obviously ignores the many different builds across the 2 mechs and to be honest I enjoy both chassis. Which is the most fun to play? Both are fun to play with different styles of play. Which is the best mech in terms of performance? In my opinion the Highlander is the better chassis across the board.
I think my Highlander is way better at brawling than the Victor. No XL, still solid punch, great alpha and DPS, great heat management, better armor. The only thing the Victor does better is the Striker job, which its higher speed allows it to pull off better. I eat up Victors with my Highlander in brawls. The only time I don't is when a Victor is working as a Striker or Flanker and not truly brawling, but hit and running.
Thank you all for your opinions. I'm not into high level play but from what I have read, it's distinctively between mobility or armor. I think I like to stick with mobility. Armor means little IMO when you can utilize good flanking maneuvers and opportunistic flanking. But of course, that's just me as I detest the current meta, gauss and PPCs. Like, what's with the pop-tarting :whacko:
Never got along with the highlander myself, but I love all four of my Victor's and haven't really run anything else since release. I love the speed, the heat efficiency if running a balanced build, and I have been able to put up some really decent numbers. The Victor can lay down serious damage, and once crippled escape the brawl and start capping.
If you play the Viktors like overgrown Centurions, then you have a mean machine. Make it nimble, exploit the big engine size with XLs and the pretty even weapon loadout. The Highlanders are more there for mixed weapon carriage, a friend of mine has tweaked ALL his Highlanders to carry a combo of grand ballistic, LRMs, SRMs and various energy weapons and he has a field day with each of them.
Agree both these mechs allow you to get a good engine speed and using that is essential. Just dont think you can go toe to toe with a brawler mech like a Stalker or an Atlas. You can run round them, retreat let them engage someone else and go back in. Having a good spread of weapons as Tsume sais is very useful for this.
Analysis, (Excluding Premiums) Highlander: 64 more armor (max and max efficient). +8 armor and +4 structure per compartment. 2 Variants with lower arm actuators. Loss of right side = loss of almost all weapons. High-mounted LRM/Energy hardpoints implies long-range 'mech. Victor: +25kph max speed, +8kph for same engine rating. 1 Variant with lower arm actuators. Low-slung hardpoints implies brawler/skirmisher. Lower variety between variants (see no benefit to the 9B over the 9S). +1 JJ on average, JJs are 1 ton. Both: The premium variants of each 'mech mimic the hardpoints of the other 'mech. Same number of free crit slots. Delicious JJs. Wider view angle? For me: Victor: Cheaper to acquire. Speed is more in line with my playstyle. Perhaps more expensive, but may be able to share engines with Battlemaster. Highlander: Iconic. Perhaps less expensive overall (takes common Heavy Engines). Base variant comes with FF (ugh!). I learned a lot creating this comparison, but it didn't push me even an inch out of my analysis paralysis.
