With the Catapult re-scale here, I decided it would be fun to give this baby a try. After theory crafting in smurfy's, my mouth started to salivate. This build looked fantastic on paper, and it does not disappoint. After ~40 games, I can confidently say I've only had a handful of bad matches in it. If you play it right, it's an absolute beast. It has the speed and firepower to flank and ruthlessly slaughter anything you run into. You have to play extremely aggressive, but still smart. look for opportunities, flank wide without letting go of "W". Look for mechs that you can single-out. The combination of high DPS SRMs and the short burntime and extra punch of the MPL makes this a great mid-short range mech. I take shots with the MPL at anything under 400m (not great damage). If you have the opportunity to get closer though, wait until you are ~300m away before starting to shoot, so you don't waste your heat on less damage. By that time, you're ready to open up with the SRMs only moments later. One thing to note about SRMs on the Catapult in-general. MUCH better convergence now. Your SRM cluster is tight and brutal. I've focused all of this mech's damage onto single components of my enemies many times. Lastly, another beautiful part of this build is its ability for follow-up shots. You can typically get 2 alphas off before you are heat-capped and have to worry about cooling down. I present to you, the CataButter. Mostly because my first experience piloting this last night for 4 hours was being high as a kite. Here is the full 4-hour stream of nothing but CataButter: >>>4 hour stream of the CataButter<<< Enjoy
How much difference between mpl and ml in regards to heat/damage trade off? I seem to risk heat shut down often with the ml and I fear the mpl would make the change not worth it. Will look at the stream tomorrow to see how you managed.
Well, the change to ML from MPL would net you only ONE more DHS (due to slots), another JJ, and maybe a max XL engine. So the HEAT performance would be almost no different. ML and MPL generate the same heat now (have for a long time now). The advantages of MPL is that you get more damage and a shorter burn time. Those two things combined make it much more effective IMO. You get the higher damage per shot up close AND more efficient damage because of the reduced burn time over the Medium Lasers. IMO the MPLs are a lot more MIN/MAX
Looks sweet on paper, albeit a bit hot indeed. A nice compromise might be to cut one of the MPLas for another JJ and an additional ton of SRM ammo, thus focussing on the SRMs a bit more. This change alone rises the heat efficiency to a level a lot of players might be more comfortable with, and damage wise 3 MPLas are only 2 points short of using the 4 MLas version. More ammo for the SRMs also allows for a slightly more foregiving play style. @Solahma 's works on a very high skill level a lot of us can only dream of, so those changes will probably lead to better results for most of us.
Did this match with the above loadout and even included a rare tie; out of ammo Dire vs weaponless phoenix hawk. Finding the 3 mpl works better for me due to less chance to overheat. However, can also tend to run a streak (heh) of low scoring matches if your PUG teams don't have a clue.
