I hated my cougar

[JC]

I tired for the longest time to love it. I tried pulse builds, and heavy laser builds nad SRM builds and nothing clicked. I just died horrible deaths. But after laying in bed pondering about the days of Yor and mech warrior 4 and my old fav, the LRM cougar i decided to make a new build..


2 ERLL's and 2 LRM10's.. (basically my mini ebon, 2 ERLL's +2 aLRM20s)


whoa.. i love it! Sure it is no 6SRM6 huntsman, but it is a fun build

[Ishan451]

COU-PRIME[mwo.smurfy-net.de] Try this one on for size.

[ChaosKhan]

I've seen Cougars ripping stuff up like you would never expect from a light, running just your regular laser vomit. You just wait until the big guys draw opponents fire and then peek with your alpha. If you have the patience to do so, you'll easily do somewhere between 600-800 damage/match with 2-4 KMDD. 62+ pinpoint alpha with a 35 t mech is no joke and helps your team tremendously by stripping specific components of their armor, enabling easy follow up kills...

Your current build might work, because you are just running away from the fight and snipe mechs from afar, but considering the usefullness of it, it's a far cry from the Cougars strenghts. Sure, you now survive better, but not because you found a "good" build for it, but because you never managed to master the mech properly in the first place. I am not trying to reprimand you for it, not at all. If you can play the Cougar only this way properly, it's perfectly fine; I just wanted to make you aware that you basically ran away from the issue and didn't find a "viable alternative". BUT, this game isn't about beeing as usefull as possible for your team, it's about having fun with mechs and builds that you personally like to play. Therefore it's fine I guess. ;)

[Nero]

Slow and light does not go well together.

[ChaosKhan]

Originally posted by WitchingSnake:

Slow and light does not go well together.

I disagree... Fire support lights are actually pretty viable in quick play.

[Ishan451]

Originally posted by ChaosKhan:

you are just running away from the fight and snipe mechs from afar

That is how you die in a cougar super easily. Every light pilot in a quick machine will go "thanks for the fish" and tear you open.... you are moving at heavy mech speeds with the (back) armor of a light mech. Light mechs will love you if you leave the herd..

As cougar you stay with the pack and be brothers little helper... as you hide behind your assaults and be that guy in the group that shouts insults from behind the biggest guy in a the group in a street brawl. You should be heard, felt, but not seen in a cougar.

[JC]

I have no idea what you are talking about "running away" Long range lights are typically the first mechs to engage. The whole point of a long range fast mech is to engage first and soften them up before the medium to short range battles start.

as far as i'm not running my cougar right.. I have other mechs if i want to Boat SRM's or ML's to brawl with fat mechs. I find the cougar not nimble enough to brawl/twist as well as say a kitfox has added ECM or AMS as well, or the adder which i just find a bit tankier for a heavy hitter. If i really want a 60+ light, i'll ply my PIR 2. I'm not spreading damage with SRM's, i pin-point with short duration lasers. Besides we are talking QP, which often can take half the match before a fat mech even gets into short range and by that time the long range fighting has often already decided the match. Your team gets bad trades you are screwed . So by the time you are engaging the match is already decided.

My 15 matches the other night had me at +11 250 or higher match score, +30 saviors kill's with 8 solo. I had 3 crap matches the rest were solid. (i checked the stats because of the events) I kept playing even after i was done with all of them because i was surprised how well the mech actually played so i figured i would post the build here in case anyone else wasn't having fun in a cougar.

[Azure]

I have a lot of fun with the Cougar Hero loaded with a pair of LRM 15s with 4 ERSL as a back up. Tend to loiter around the Big guys to give them ECM coverage on the way to where ever they are going and make it rain on the way

[Maddermax]

The problem with slow lights is that a medium could almost always do the job better - more armor and tonnage to work with. They need a good gimmick to make them worth giving up their speed, and the cougar doesn't really have one - it's still very squishy, has ok but not exception hard points. It's best defense is that it's "just a cougar", so it gets ignored (AKA kitfox syndrome). The next slowest lights you see still go 97+ generally, and that's a fair difference in speed really - even most mediums outrun a cougar.

The cougar can definitely be made to work, but... well, you have to put a lot of effort in to make it just OK, and putting that effort into other mechs will likely reap you better rewards. A challenging mech, for when you want to be a little different though can be fun.

[Ishan451]

Originally posted by Maddermax:

They need a good gimmick to make them worth giving up their speed, and the cougar doesn't really have one

It does have a good gimmick, but few people realize it does, because pretty much everyone uses the ECM.. which prevents people to realize just how high that Head Energy hardpoint is.. and how high the cockpit is riding in this mech.

Combined with the two you can pretty much hide your entire body, use TAG across the ridge and fire an LRM salvo over while remaining in near perfect cover.

Alas.. most people do use ECM... :)

[JC]

Originally posted by Maddermax:

The problem with slow lights is that a medium could almost always do the job better - more armor and tonnage to work with. They need a good gimmick to make them worth giving up their speed, and the cougar doesn't really have one - it's still very squishy, has ok but not exception hard points. It's best defense is that it's "just a cougar", so it gets ignored (AKA kitfox syndrome). The next slowest lights you see still go 97+ generally, and that's a fair difference in speed really - even most mediums outrun a cougar.

The cougar can definitely be made to work, but... well, you have to put a lot of effort in to make it just OK, and putting that effort into other mechs will likely reap you better rewards. A challenging mech, for when you want to be a little different though can be fun.

for QP, you are probably right... But if tonnage is limited that 10-20 tons can be huge.


That is why the Large damage 35 tonner is actually a thing. Load up with a ERLL supernova, or a Medium IS treb, or a catapult, or other LR mechs. Trust me, even if DPS isn't as high as a short range mech.. I can still toss out 120 damage before needing to cool. That is a ton of armor off an out of position heavy or an assault.. and if i hit my coolshot, i might beable to take one down to cherry.

everyone knows that one mech down is a good thing for any sort of aggressive play.




As for the gimmick, IMO the cougar needs more armor quirks.. Just like the adder and kit-fox.. (upper torso only)