How to build a good melee mech

[Mhorge]

G'day,

As per subject title, what talents to take, and what mech to use. I've googled it but results I've got are of previous builds of the game when we still had Juggernaut (which was to knock enemy initiative back one right?)

At the moment my 'main' melee mech is a Banshee BNC-3M, but it's so ponderously slow (if not exceptionally well armed) that I'm sorta wondering whether it's really pulling it's weight.

[Shinobi273]

Originally posted by AikenAidan:

Originally posted by Shinobi273:

Banshee is a great melee mech that you can get early on. Check the melee and DFA damage stat for mechs. Also consider movement distance and add jump jets. Mount support weapons to fire while you melee. I would suggest piloting skill for increased hit chance and movement distance. I like to have a banshee early on while gunnery and tactics are low for the massive damage against mediums. Max armor and JJ, don't worry about too many medium range weapons or heatsinks. Sprint and jump to into melee range and forget about walking and firing.

Early on in the game? The 1st planet I flew to had the banshee for sale at almost 8 Million CBs . How did you start with over 8 million . Returning to the planet even if it was just short hop away and back it was gone. Just a TEASE.

I bought partial salvage and fielded 2 Banshee before I had heavy mechs [Arano Campaign]. So Much Fun.

[Shinobi273]

Originally posted by Mhorge:

Originally posted by terrycpa1972:

Did you already do the flashpoint where the Hatchetman is introduced? It won't appear in the opfor until you do that flashpoint.

I'm guessing that means you can't get them in the campaign then?

Not during the campaign. Only after.

[KDubya]

The Banshee is crippled by its over sized engine plus the super heavy assault jump jets. it just can't carry enough stuff.

For an Assault class mech that uses melee better to go with the Battlemaster, King Crab, Atlas or even the Cyclops. The Battlemaster has a good punch, gets the lighter jump jets and can load up on lasers and SRMs. The King Crab and Atlas have huge payloads and good melee, everything the Banshee does these do better. The Cyclops is hampered by the heavier jump jets but it can load up on lasers and this way it will be up front to soak some hits and output better damage than if it hid in the back with a few LRMS and contributed little besides the battle computer


The overall design goal is to build a heavily armored, mobile mech that Alpha strikes until almost overheating and then melees to cool down until it can Alpha again.

Start with max armor and full jump jets, load up with zero heat machineguns (you need the cooling aspect to allow another alpha, small lasers do more damage but take up all your cooling), add in one or two +damage arm mods or hatchets, load up on SRM6+++ and enough ammo for eight to ten shots, load up on medium lasers+++ to help spike your heat.

Coolant Vent and Sure Footing makes the best combo for this.

[danko9696]

Originally posted by Lack of Stuff:

I use a melee BNC with full armor 5 MLs, 3 SLs, 2 MGs and 1 ton of MG ammo and it's worked fine against up to 3 full assault lances so far. Have yet to lose a part. Neither JJs nor heatsinks have been useful since I'm in punching more often then shooting. I tried a Grasshopper before and it's armor was too low if it happened to catch a lucky shot I could lose valuable equipment.

Do you mean BNC as a single mech lance? when you tried the GRH was also without JJs?.

Originally posted by KDubya:

For an Assault class mech that uses melee better to go with the Battlemaster, King Crab, Atlas or even the Cyclops. The Battlemaster has a good punch, gets the lighter jump jets and can load up on lasers and SRMs. The King Crab and Atlas have huge payloads and good melee, everything the Banshee does these do better.

Not everything. Having more speed for the last mile is very important when meleeing, and to a lesser extent when closing distance. Not always (like if you can jump from behind nearby hard cover into walking distance) but very often if what you want is meleeing all the time.

[Lack of Stuff]

Originally posted by danko9696:

Originally posted by Lack of Stuff:

I use a melee BNC with full armor 5 MLs, 3 SLs, 2 MGs and 1 ton of MG ammo and it's worked fine against up to 3 full assault lances so far. Have yet to lose a part. Neither JJs nor heatsinks have been useful since I'm in punching more often then shooting. I tried a Grasshopper before and it's armor was too low if it happened to catch a lucky shot I could lose valuable equipment.

Do you mean BNC as a single mech lance? when you tried the GRH was also without JJs?.

I never run with single mechs unless I have to except for one time for the achievement. If I use a Grasshopper it always has JJs, it's too good of a backstabber to go without them.

[steelcoresoviet]

With it's high speed and support slots, the Dragon makes a decent melee build too. It's no grasshopper, of course.

The Battlemaster is underappreciated for this role, IMO.

[JC]

Originally posted by terrycpa1972:

Did you already do the flashpoint where the Hatchetman is introduced? It won't appear in the opfor until you do that flashpoint.

No

Originally posted by Mhorge:

I'm guessing that means you can't get them in the campaign then?

they do appear in the campaign, but i never collected all the pieces.

[wendigo211]

Originally posted by steelcoresoviet:

The Battlemaster is underappreciated for this role, IMO.

The Battlemaster only has 2 support slots, so, assuming +dam small lasers, it's giving up 125 points of damage in a melee attack to the Banshee. I like the Battlemaster, it's probably the best of the 4 speed assaults we have (the Cyclops does have the tactical computer), but it's going to be better off with a alpha strike than a melee attack at melee range.

Using an assault for melee is a bit of an iffy prospect to begin with. They don't really have the speed to close quickly and their alpha strikes are so powerful, melee attacks don't really help them. They hit hard in melee, but they're more swat anything that gets close as opposed to chase the enemy and hit them. Even in tabletop, if you're making a melee mech, you probably want a 60-75 ton mech with TSM, since they can make two punches a round with a 1/6 chance of destroying the head. More than that and you're losing too much tonnage to engine weight to make it effective.

[KDubya]

Originally posted by wendigo211:

Originally posted by steelcoresoviet:

The Battlemaster is underappreciated for this role, IMO.

The Battlemaster only has 2 support slots, so, assuming +dam small lasers, it's giving up 125 points of damage in a melee attack to the Banshee. I like the Battlemaster, it's probably the best of the 4 speed assaults we have (the Cyclops does have the tactical computer), but it's going to be better off with a alpha strike than a melee attack at melee range.

Using an assault for melee is a bit of an iffy prospect to begin with. They don't really have the speed to close quickly and their alpha strikes are so powerful, melee attacks don't really help them. They hit hard in melee, but they're more swat anything that gets close as opposed to chase the enemy and hit them. Even in tabletop, if you're making a melee mech, you probably want a 60-75 ton mech with TSM, since they can make two punches a round with a 1/6 chance of destroying the head. More than that and you're losing too much tonnage to engine weight to make it effective.

If you load up a Banshee with small lasers you'll do more damage but you'll also generate enough heat that your engine heat sinks will be maxed and you won't cool when you melee unless you waste tons and add heatsinks which you don't have the tonnage for.

You do more damage with Alpha strikes, especially if you use Called Shots. To consistently perform Alpha strikes you need a bunch of cooling which takes a lot of tonnage. A weight efficient mech like the Stalker can get both a massive Alpha and enough cooling to do this again and again.

A less efficient mech like the Battlemaster needs to intersperse melee in between Alpha strikes in order to manage heat. Since you'll be doing melee anyway, adding in a few melee damage mods makes the most of your melee.

A mech like the Banshee is even less efficient and ends up being a one trick pony who can only melee. Take a slightly slower King Crab and you can have almost as many support weapons but also have a massive amount of missiles and lasers which will give you a huge Alpha and then you can mix in some melee mod augmented melee to cool down.

[wendigo211]

Originally posted by KDubya:

If you load up a Banshee with small lasers you'll do more damage but you'll also generate enough heat that your engine heat sinks will be maxed and you won't cool when you melee unless you waste tons and add heatsinks which you don't have the tonnage for.

You cool when you don't melee, so no need to waste any tonnage on heat sinks. You either melee, sensor lock or brace.

A less efficient mech like the Battlemaster needs to intersperse melee in between Alpha strikes in order to manage heat. Since you'll be doing melee anyway, adding in a few melee damage mods makes the most of your melee.

Those mods do have tonnage (the ++ mods are 3 tons each), so you don't want to put them in a mech that's not designed with melee in mind. An extra 3 tons of armor or heatsinks will be far more beneficial to a Battlemaster that's using weapons than a melee mod.

A mech like the Banshee is even less efficient and ends up being a one trick pony who can only melee. Take a slightly slower King Crab and you can have almost as many support weapons but also have a massive amount of missiles and lasers which will give you a huge Alpha and then you can mix in some melee mod augmented melee to cool down.

I'm not disagreeing, but those aren't melee mechs. Those are mechs who use melee to supplement weapon fire if something is in range. Since the op asked about melee mechs, I.e. mechs designed specifically with melee as their primary purpose, the Banshee is going to perform better at that task than the others, even if it is a one-trick pony.

[Axeface]

Hatchetman is a bit slow, but I built one like this and it strips torsos and legs with pretty brutal efficiency (not that I do this other than for the laughs) https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1727489132

Yeh, 210 damge. Might be good now that I have ecm, to swat anything that enters the bubble.

[KDubya]

Originally posted by wendigo211:

Originally posted by KDubya:

If you load up a Banshee with small lasers you'll do more damage but you'll also generate enough heat that your engine heat sinks will be maxed and you won't cool when you melee unless you waste tons and add heatsinks which you don't have the tonnage for.

You cool when you don't melee, so no need to waste any tonnage on heat sinks. You either melee, sensor lock or brace.

A less efficient mech like the Battlemaster needs to intersperse melee in between Alpha strikes in order to manage heat. Since you'll be doing melee anyway, adding in a few melee damage mods makes the most of your melee.

Those mods do have tonnage (the ++ mods are 3 tons each), so you don't want to put them in a mech that's not designed with melee in mind. An extra 3 tons of armor or heatsinks will be far more beneficial to a Battlemaster that's using weapons than a melee mod.

A mech like the Banshee is even less efficient and ends up being a one trick pony who can only melee. Take a slightly slower King Crab and you can have almost as many support weapons but also have a massive amount of missiles and lasers which will give you a huge Alpha and then you can mix in some melee mod augmented melee to cool down.

I'm not disagreeing, but those aren't melee mechs. Those are mechs who use melee to supplement weapon fire if something is in range. Since the op asked about melee mechs, I.e. mechs designed specifically with melee as their primary purpose, the Banshee is going to perform better at that task than the others, even if it is a one-trick pony.

I agree with your points if the goal is to 'self-gimp' and go with melee only. I like to supplement my way too hot Alpha strikes with melee as a cooling mechanism.

With regards to the Battlemaster I'm already at max armor, max jump jets, max medium lasers and an SRM6. The choice is then heat sinks or melee damage mod. Since three tons of heat sinks will not let me sustain my ranged damage output I'm going to have to melee to cool anyway and here I find the extra single location damage from melee to be better for my playstyle but YMMV.

[danko9696]

Originally posted by Lack of Stuff:

Originally posted by danko9696:

Do you mean BNC as a single mech lance? when you tried the GRH was also without JJs?.

I never run with single mechs unless I have to except for one time for the achievement. If I use a Grasshopper it always has JJs, it's too good of a backstabber to go without them.

Then why would you lose parts with a GRH?. I mean, the GRH may not have so much armor but still have enough not to be easily one shotted with max armor. If you get damaged, having other mechs as support you can have a good margin to back down next turn with better init. And having JJs makes that much easier to retreat while keeping optimal facing, changing the target or switching to a harasser only role, using just MLs + JJs, that's why I added the extra cooling. Because after adding the arm mods 2x60 + 2x10 you have room for it while dealing only slightly less melee damage.

[Lack of Stuff]

Originally posted by danko9696:

Originally posted by Lack of Stuff:

I never run with single mechs unless I have to except for one time for the achievement. If I use a Grasshopper it always has JJs, it's too good of a backstabber to go without them.

Then why would you lose parts with a GRH?. I mean, the GRH may not have so much armor but still have enough not to be easily one shotted with max armor. If you get damaged, having other mechs as support you can have a good margin to back down next turn with better init. And having JJs makes that much easier to retreat while keeping optimal facing, changing the target or switching to a harasser only role, using just MLs + JJs, that's why I added the extra cooling. Because after adding the arm mods 2x60 + 2x10 you have room for it while dealing only slightly less melee damage.

Cause I did lose parts with the GRH. Even under ideal circumstances probability dictates you will take hits. This isn't really a theoretical. I used the GRH and with high evasion it still took structural dmg. I have been using the Banshee and it hasn't, obviously the BNC takes more hits due to it's size and speed. I got unlucky with the GRH and it cost me, the difference is it hasn't mattered with the BNC cause it can just tank it.

As for harassing or changing role priorities I have no interest. This thread is about the best melee mech, not the best general purpose or best overall. As long as precision shot exists shooty mechs will be the most efficient and melee will take a back seat. However, for the singular purpose of doing damage with melee I find the BNC superior to the GRH.

Now as to why I would use something less efficient overall, I would say it's because I don't want to treat a videogame like a job.