Every Single Meta Build: LASERBOAT, LASERBOAT, LASERBOAT

[Swaggaccino]

Early game meta: Nova w/ ER S Lasers
Midgame meta: Timberwolf w/ MP Lasers
Endgame meta: Direwolf w/ MP Lasers

Did the devs forget to balance? Surely at least one dev pointed out "hey shouldn't we make precision weapons with limited ammo like Gauss hit the hardest? You know high risk, high reward?" Did he get fired for suggesting that or what? MW5 Mercenaries had a ton more variety builds, Clans is just "LASERBOAT BRO"

[Ninjafroggie]

mercs also had very few mechs you could even build a viable laserboat on. It wasnt better balanced, the lasers were just as good and the balistics and missiles were just as crap, you were just forced to use them because of the hardpoint + slot size restrictions. There are not many mechs in that game that even have 6+ energy hardpoints at all, off the top of my head the only ones i can think of are a hunchback 4P and the black knight.

[Death a Barbar]

The devs lifted the TT rules where you are rolling dice and put it into a fps simcade.

[hilburnashua]

Originally posted by Ninjafroggie:

mercs also had very few mechs you could even build a viable laserboat on. It wasnt better balanced, the lasers were just as good and the balistics and missiles were just as crap, you were just forced to use them because of the hardpoint + slot size restrictions. There are not many mechs in that game that even have 6+ energy hardpoints at all, off the top of my head the only ones i can think of are a hunchback 4P and the black knight.

Going to disagree with you. The energy weapons in vanilla MW5 are good, but not so good they completely overshadow everything else. I had quite a few very good mechs that used ballistic and missile weapons and were every bit as good as the energy weapon boats.

[Swaggaccino]

Originally posted by Death a Barbar:

The devs lifted the TT rules where you are rolling dice and put it into a fps simcade.

At this point just bring back MechAssault then or split the franchise. I love both series but it feels like Warrior is shifting into a Warrior/Assault hybrid.

Nova w/ ER S Lasers is stupid ridiculous even into the late game.

[Jebe457]

Originally posted by Swaggaccino:

Early game meta: Nova w/ ER S Lasers
Midgame meta: Timberwolf w/ MP Lasers
Endgame meta: Direwolf w/ MP Lasers

Did the devs forget to balance? Surely at least one dev pointed out "hey shouldn't we make precision weapons with limited ammo like Gauss hit the hardest? You know high risk, high reward?" Did he get fired for suggesting that or what? MW5 Mercenaries had a ton more variety builds, Clans is just "LASERBOAT BRO"

Translation:
People on the forum hyperoptimize for max damage at the expense of range, and Confirmation Bias prevents them from acknowledging their antics may be not be as clever at they think.

The OP, who doesn't own the game, demonstrates he actually doesn't own the game and that the notion of stacking UAC/20s, SSRMs, or SRMs, is an alien concept to him... Incidentally that approach is also "viable" and heavily used by people hyperoptimizing for damage at the expense of range...

[Swaggaccino]

Originally posted by hilburnashua:

Originally posted by Ninjafroggie:

mercs also had very few mechs you could even build a viable laserboat on. It wasnt better balanced, the lasers were just as good and the balistics and missiles were just as crap, you were just forced to use them because of the hardpoint + slot size restrictions. There are not many mechs in that game that even have 6+ energy hardpoints at all, off the top of my head the only ones i can think of are a hunchback 4P and the black knight.

Going to disagree with you. The energy weapons in vanilla MW5 are good, but not so good they completely overshadow everything else. I had quite a few very good mechs that used ballistic and missile weapons and were every bit as good as the energy weapon boats.

You are completely right. Other guy completely doesn't remember MW5 Mercs.

If you look up tier lists or top 10 mechs for MW5 Mercenaries, there's really no clear community consensus. I've seen dozen of mechs and different builds and different variants (including and excluding hero variants) make different lists from Nightstar to Atlas to Raven to Shadowhawk to etc.... You had a ton more variety. Nightstar could snipe, Atlas could bullet sponge, Raven and Shadowhawk could do super fast SRM shotgunner boat and be absolutely filthy while doing it, I'm talking 2 shots or less or destroy mechs, and of course you had the LRM boats as well providing massive artillery from a distance.

In Clans it's pretty much just, pick best light/medium/heavy/assault mech and strap a laser build onto it and call it a day. I'm currently in the endgame and using Direwolf laser boat and it's just super boring but shreds everything SIGNIFICANTLY quicker than PPC or Gauss and is super forgiving if you miss with a rapid cooldown like wtf is this balancing did devs even remember to balance?

[saliddry]

beside the totallaser focus baslance... i wonder that they ddint put there super stupid ghostheat in ........... but hey atleast we have the stupid uncannon and more than dumb fixed slots again......totaly ruining some mechs cause you cant armor up

lastmech i noticed is the warhawk .. the left or right tose with 4 fixed doulbe heatsinks so your stuck with an lousy 52 armor sidetorso ..... on an 85 tonner in an arcade game with 80+ enemies comming at

last time i ever paid something to this ♥♥♥♥ company

someone make an mod to remove this fixed component ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

[Swaggaccino]

Originally posted by Jebe457:

Translation:
People on the forum hyperoptimize for max damage at the expense of range, and Confirmation Bias prevents them from acknowledging their antics may be not be as clever at they think.

The OP, who doesn't own the game, demonstrates he actually doesn't own the game and that the notion of stacking UAC/20s, SSRMs, or SRMs, is an alien concept to him... Incidentally that approach is also "viable" and heavily used by people hyperoptimizing for damage at the expense of range...

It's free on Gamepass. Nice try Mr. Pseudodetective.

I went on YouTube, Reddit, Steam forums looking up for decent and varied quality builds (not even meta) and literally video after video, thread after thread, person after person, "just build a laserboat bro." So I tried making some varied builds myself and everything was significantly harder. Not just a little, a lot. Both PPCs and Gauss feel somewhat weaker than Mercs. I distinctly remember PPCs shredding enemies faster in Mercs maybe it's bias who knows. SRM and LRM just waste ammo just due to shot spread and they still have high heat and weight requirements. There's a dramatic lack of available tonnage. No matter what you try, five tons of ammo will never ever fit into any loadout. Thus the meta is Light/Medium ER S Laser or Heavy/Assault MP laser boat.

The range is ridiculous for S lasers and that's probably because most maps are small with tight corners. Even if the lore is "clans are more powerful than IS because distance" - the maps themselves favor close combat. That's another factor favoring lasers. Worse case, the AI is dumb so just take cover and let them come to you even if you are outranged in the sub 5% of large maps.

[Bovril Brigadier]

Originally posted by Swaggaccino:

In Clans it's pretty much just, pick best light/medium/heavy/assault mech and strap a laser build onto it and call it a day.

I feel like saying this is the reason why there's a good chunk of people who don't like Clan Mechs.

[Swaggaccino]

Originally posted by Bovril Brigadier:

Originally posted by Swaggaccino:

In Clans it's pretty much just, pick best light/medium/heavy/assault mech and strap a laser build onto it and call it a day.

I feel like saying this is the reason why there's a good chunk of people who don't like Clan Mechs.

There's also a serious lack of mechs. There's 16. Mercs had 50 core without hero or variants. I understand the excuse is lore accuracy but it doesn't make for good game content. Not in the slightest.

[Bovril Brigadier]

Originally posted by Swaggaccino:

There's also a serious lack of mechs. There's 16. Mercs had 50 core without hero or variants. I understand the excuse is lore accuracy but it doesn't make for good game content. Not in the slightest.

Mean they are Omnis with multiple pod configurations. Ideally they should be enough in terms of variety but the problem comes more down to both mission design and also that Omnis are inherently pick the most efficient design at available tonnage and role with it.
PGI could let the player play with the Mechs from Mercs but they just physically would not be up to the task of dealing what is thrown at them except maybe some Royals
There really isn't much PGI had they could have added outside a few exceptions not without jumping forward in timeline and developing a separate entire Mechlab system for non-Omni Mechs.

[Death a Barbar]

There is also the issue that most fights are sub 500, and you are lucky of you can shoot enemies from 800m, there are some designated shooting galleries, and the PPCs, LLas and LRMs shine there, but after that back to brawling. SRMs eat ammo extremely fast, and ballistics are just generally underperforming, UACs are trash, and only the solid lbx5 is worth it, but it still not as good as lasers.

[Swaggaccino]

Originally posted by Death a Barbar:

There is also the issue that most fights are sub 500, and you are lucky of you can shoot enemies from 800m, there are some designated shooting galleries, and the PPCs, LLas and LRMs shine there, but after that back to brawling. SRMs eat ammo extremely fast, and ballistics are just generally underperforming, UACs are trash, and only the solid lbx5 is worth it, but it still not as good as lasers.

100% agreed.

In Hold the Line mission for Warden, you start off with a pretty neat vantage point reminiscent of the final defend mission from MW5 Mercenaries, but the enemies rush you so much quicker than in Mercs and there's more numerous enemies too so it quickly turned into a close quarters duel. So it's like on 80-90% of maps it's a close quarters duel. Even on 10-20% of distance maps, there's plenty of cover so Gauss or PPCs don't really get to shine like ever despite the lore preaching "oh yeah clans win battles in inferior mechs because of distance." What distance? Where is it? It's disappointing tbh.

But at any rate I hope the series succeeds. I'm gonna buy it within a month or two to support the devs. I don't want them to go the way of FASA Studio or Smith & Tinker. I feel like the MechWarrior series is cursed. Every dev that touches the series doesn't survive longer than a game or two.

[Bovril Brigadier]

Originally posted by Swaggaccino:

I feel like the MechWarrior series is cursed. Every dev that touches the series doesn't survive longer than a game or two.

That unironically explains the state of Crytek.

[Azrelus]

I'm not sure what's forcing you to use only lasers. I beat the game on expert using a mix of everything just fine. UACS, LBXACs, LRMS all did fine on both story paths.