Best way to deal damage?

I'm not really sure to be honest. I kept alt tabbing out to check MechSpecs and the OForums as well as running around trying to just get XP here and there before I died so I could grab another Cicada. Elites are a bitch to master.

I agree and I don't agree. I'm known for being a Jenner pilot (first for 6MLas and then for 4Mlas and 2 SSRM2s) and sometimes it is stupid easy and sometimes it is not. Standing still too long will end you up dead dead dead. Most mechs can single shot, or double shot a Jenner and if you are the focus of fire you are done in seconds.

For or against? LOL

It will be an interesting Tuesday.

 

Fherot, have you noticed more success with UACs in certain situations than the AC/20? The DoT vs. burst concept was brought into one of the conversations I've had in TS, but the problem in this game is that the DoT is usually spreading damage all over, while the burst is taking out components. This means that while you might do more DPS in theory, you run into one of two likely situations:

1) You stripped most of the armor off the target before he cored you.
2) Before your damage outpaced his burst, he ripped off a component or two, and your sustained damage will plumet.

(Of course, option 3 is that he is a terrible shot and you out-DPSed him on spread damage, and option 4 is that he just sat there without twisting and you were able to bore through CT, but that means you only win when the other player is bad at his playstyle, and not because your build is better).

 

Its really more of a support role simply put as far as light AC's go as they've mostly always been across mechwarrior games and I feel its about right.

You're layin down suppressive fire on people at long to close ranges and just keeping the DOT going and punching through armor. Its simply not a pure brawler weapon and only supplements brawling builds if grouped with harder hitting weapons such as SRM6.

If you are not the focus your UAC5's will tear enemies up at their full potential from a more stable platform. Being an insane DOT with great range they have this drawback its a mechanic not unique to mechwarrior online.

Burst weapons like slow AC20 allow you to snap shots off while twisting and turning to mitigate damage.

It sounds like you want UAC5's to work in brawls and 1on1 when its not their strength. I think they're fine and shouldn't be exactly as effective as the extremely limited short range AC20.

Its 30mm rotary GAU-8 vs M114 155mm howitzer (if it was a snub nosed version..)

 

Paul posted a few tidbits related to weapon balancing coming on the 21st:

For reference, the PPC cooldown is currently 3 seconds.


And he posted a short while later:

 

Except the 155mm howitzer has an area of effect, and the GAU-8 will take out a target really fast with those DU shells.

I guess it makes sense from that perspective, but I feel a team full of UAC/5s would pale in comparison to a team full of Gauss. At least right now.

Honestly, if they nerfed PPCs (and I like the less but AoE damage idea) and got rid of CT-seeking missiles, the whole fad would go away.

 

I didn't mean literally including the types of ordinance.

If the team of gauss and team of uac5 were all standing in the field near epsilon in Alpine then I really don't know. Now if you're talking about an entire team of people hiding and sniping then yeah Gauss will win because it doesn't rely on keeping multiple shots on target steadily.

And that's another problem of MWO. There should never be an entire team of one thing which I hate... Like when a weapon is good like PPC, people want to mount all PPC because ppc good!

 

One thing to consider, despite the game being very alpha-heavy (heck, I run a 5 times SRM6+A Stalker for exactly that)

Apart from the PPC and Gauss, the ACs have less effective range the more damage they do... that being said, while the Alpha is nasty, if you try to advance on a Quad-AC2 Jager who starts fireing at you from 1 click away, you won't reach him with your AC20 before you have taken quite some damage.

I understand the discussion and see the arguments from both sides, but you just can't compare Alpha vs DOT without adding the range fact to the ACs.

Now PPCs, that's something different and seemingly might be adressed by PGI in the near future in some sort or fashion.

 

SRM6's are less about alpha, IMO. It's a shotgun that strips armor off everything, but isn't as effective as lots of PPCs at coring someone out.

PPCs having a 4 second cooldown still keeps them as highest DPS energy weapon, unfortunately. I think 5 seconds would have been right, but hopefully PGI changes things faster this time around if the meta doesn't shift towards something more balanced.

 

From my personal experience Dwergi, I use the SRM6's with Artemis to get a rather nasty centered impact area... is it as focussed as an AC20, Gauss or PPC? No, but when I fire all five at once I have a damage of 45 in one go... I have headshotted Atlai, Catapults and Highlanders or cored them in three volleys... with less heat build-up than someone mounting 4 PPCs.

But without the Artermis, which is a hefty investment weight and slot wise, I do agree, that it is meant as a crit seeker and armour stripper and not primarily a focussed burst weapon.

 

In response to Dustwalkers sharing of weapon info updates:

It's about damn time they make you take damage going way off the heat scale and still shutting down. Many times in my Jenner D I have over rode a shutdown to fire 2 Mlas, fire the 2 MLas and only going a couple of percent off the heat scale (back below 100% within a couple of seconds) and still watch my leg or even my head explode and blow off. Then to turn around and see PPC boats overheat shutdown every shot, obviously going much higher up the heat scale than I did when my leg blew off, and take no damage for it. You should take damage even if you shut down and am glad they are going to change that.

It will greatly change the game though. A lot more people will be committing over heat suicide and suddenly flamers are one of the meanest weapons against PPC boats.

 

In the TT game heat management is crucial, very few mechs run without over heating, and keeping your heat manageable is a core part of the gameplay. Overheating also imposes serious risks , reduced speed, reduced targeting ability, damage to the pilot, chances for the ammo or engine to explode as the heat level increases. Not all of these are applicable, but if you are on 90% then fire off 4 ppc's I think a little damage is applicable.

Sure this game if different to the board game, but heat is still a crucial factor, its pointless to wish for a better heat use system (eg. increase the heat scale but add in targeting errors, reduce speed / response times , % chance of ammo explosion etc ).

One thing I would like though - if you are targeting a mech and it shuts down due to overheating, you should still be allowed to keep your lock on it (without BAPS), I suspect that would make overheating much more punishing on larger mechs.

 

Internal damage from overheating is the way to go. It forces you to be a better pilot, might make people use chainfire, makes overheating to deal the final blow a big decision, and hurts heavier weapons more than smaller ones (in general).

Adding a heat scale that makes it hard to fire more than one of the same weapon makes the alpha problem WORSE, not better. After all, there are some designs built around a bunch of energy hardpoints often mounting a lot of smaller weapons (Hunchback-4P, all the Jenners and Awesomes, many of the Blackjack variants). This nerf would still allow you to fire 6 PPCs at one time, but firing 9 medium lasers repeatedly becomes impossible.

I stand by my area of effect thing as a good balance for PPCs. They should be able to figure that out, they are already doing it for SRMs. Maybe make big ballistics jut out of the mech more so that you can't torso twist as easily? This is at least partially implemented for energy weapons.

 

I don't disagree, but just to be clear, the concept is that if you are high on heat then targeting gets iffy, not 'for one type of weapon' just in general. however this would effect different weaps differently, point effect weapons ( ppc/gauss ) would have huge issues with this, lasers less so. however this is vastly off-topic, and likely something we'll never see in-game.

just the concept of being able to fire 6 ppc's as an alpha suggests to me that it needs nerfed in some way,

 

Just had an absurd proposal. Right now, if you overheat by any margin, you shut down right away. Maybe there should be some threshold at which autoshutdown breaks, like if you spike up to 150% heat, your 'mech will continue to run and take massive damage.

 

That would just not make any sense at all imho. And one could still just press "P" after Alphastrike.

 

http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/11...be-penalized/page__view__findpost__p__2315687

I don't see why there's a safety valve built into the heat system at all. If you alpha 4 PPCs (or whatever) at 90% heat, you should die (or at least have something happen).

The only time I shut down when I'm piloting is when I don't hit the override in time, and I very rarely go above 100%. I can't tell you how many times I've been dueling another mech that blasts me, shuts down, blasts me, shuts down, blasts and kills me, shuts down; all while I'm intelligently managing my heat and weapons to stay active the whole time. Skill and strategy? Why bother when there's no hard penalty for just mashing your face across all your weapons at once?

In previous Mechwarrior computer games there was no "grace period" heat. If you spiked to 150%, you were almost certainly going to go up in a ball of flame.

http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/11...be-penalized/page__view__findpost__p__2319625

I feel that PPCs and energy weapons are a bigger part of the sniper and "burst over sustained" problem than ammo weapons simply because of the size, weight, and ammo of non-energy weapons.

To mount a Gauss you need 7 slots and 15 tons, although 10 slots and 18 tons is more reasonable once you account for some ammo (30 rounds). A Gauss has the added drawback of being dangerous if it is destroyed (like ammo).

To mount a PPC you need 3 slots and 7 tons. There is no ammo*. PPCs are not dangerous to mount in your mech.

*The "ammo" for energy weapons are heatsinks. Sniper and poptart builds right now can ignore putting on heatsinks (energy ammo) and still be viable because they're not properly penalized for it.



This thread from the official forums (that I've quoted twice here) has a good discussion of overheating and such:
http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/116227-consecutively-overheated-mechs-should-be-penalized/

 

I agree that making an alpha with similar weapons being a penalty is a bad idea, because of how it would affect smaller boats like Jenners and the HBK-4P, but also it would affect more conservative stalker builds, like 5xML + 5xSRM4.

 

I agree with most of this post but this part in particular. I believe one of the most major issues they are forgetting here is the increasing chances of ammo explosions as you heated up even before shutdown. There was no graceful take damage here and there and maybe die from it criting you. Things were fine and hunky dory with you waiting to cool down till the heat finally gets to that ton of AC20 ammo then the damage happens. This random damage you take when you over ride is pretty silly. I find it pointless to override in a light as it will cost me a limb or life every time. With heavier mechs having more health it slants the system in their favor. I believe we should do away with the random damage and put in a random core failure instead. In the end it's all the same but at least to me it makes more sense to suddenly go BOOM as the core over heats and catastrophically fails.