Best mechs?

[Jonathan Hunt]

Light -
Medium -
Heavy -
Assault -

Your opinion?

[danko9696]

Light: Firestarter

Medium: Phoenix Hawk 1B

Heavy: Marauder 2R

Assaults: undecided between A-II and ANH


My global tier list would be (no particular order within each tier):

1. All Marauders
   
2. BSK-M3 (only as LRM boat), A-II, ANH
   
3. Warhammer-7A (lostech), Black Knight B (lostech), Phoenix Hawk 1B (lostech)
   
4. Highlander 733 (non lostech, as LRM boat)
   
5. BSK-M3 (as non LRM boat)
   
6. Highlander 732b (lostech), Warhammer-6D/6R (non lostech), Black Knight (non lostech)
   
7. King Crab, Stalker

[maerchen]

Firestarter - Vulcan 2T - Warhammer - Marauder. No need for Assaults.

[Valen]

Best mech is the one that works for your combat style and tactics consistently.

Asking what the best mech is like asking what the best ice cream is. Everyone is going to have their favorite favor.

[danko9696]

Originally posted by Valen:

Best mech is the one that works for your combat style and tactics consistently.

Asking what the best mech is like asking what the best ice cream is. Everyone is going to have their favorite favor.

Very much disagree. It's not like choosing your favorite ice cream but more like deciding which food is healthier. Some food you may not like it but it's going to be better for you, some other food taste delicious but it not good for your health, and some food is both good and tastes good, although maybe not that good as the junk food. Then, within the the good foods you may have preferences between them or it may be hard to discern which is better than other, but definitely some are better than other.

Here is the same, easier in fact, because the process is much faster. You can set benchmarks, try repeatedly with different "foods" and "diets" and quickly see the results. You don't need to wait months to see the results of a healthier diet but hours testing loadouts under pressure tests.

And if the competitive scene was much more important, with matchmaking and so on, you can bet some "diets" and "foods" would be much popular than others, because they're proven to be better and only within the top tier of those would be where the discussion would be. It happens all the time in all sorts of competitive play.


The context also matters, so some "foods" might be better for some "jobs" and worse for others, and some "foods" will be better in a much wider variety of "jobs". Ingame is the same, some mechs/tactics are going to be better in some scenarios and some mechs/tactics will be better in a much wider sprectrum of scenarios.

[vectorViridian]

I personally love the variety of mechs in this game and all the different things you can do with them. Even after 220+ hours, I'm still finding ways to mix it up. There are still some mechs or builds of mechs I haven't tried. Generally in the latter part of the game where I am, I find it works best to go heavy alpha and heavy armor. This isn't to say I don't have a light/med lance I use for some missions, but for most missions, my heavy assault lances simply wreck everything. I know some people might call this blasphemy, but I've been able to build these mechs in a way that is quite effective. My A-Team is an Atlas II, King Crab, Atlas I and Bull Shark. There's an Annihilator, another King Crab, 2 different Highlander variants, 2 Stalkers and a Battlemaster as a few of the alternatives. My favorites for each class would be:

Light: Firestarter
Nothing beats the versatility and sheer destructive ability of this thing for a light mech.

Med: Kintaro or Griffin 2N
Kintaro is basically better than many heavies in the short range department, Griffin 2N is the very solid Star League variant that can sling missiles with the best of them.

Heavy: Marauder 3R
Haven't been able to try the 2R yet. The 3R still brings a lot to the table. Lance command mod, solid armor, decent mobility, very interesting weapon options. I love anything with an AC.

Assault: tough one, but I'd say the Atlas I or II. They're just so versatile while still being able to mount tons of armor and keep their heat in check as well. My Atlas II is built for long range mostly, but can also hit pretty well short range. Meanwhile my Atlas I is a short range powerhouse, so I bring both of these on most missions and clean up.

["The" SeanMacLeod]

I recently salvaged a Catapult CPLT-C4, the one that has two LRM-20s stock. Replaced them with two Valiant SRM-6s (+4 damage, +2 stability damage) and two Holly SRM-6s (+4 damage), then added another two tons of armor, four heavy jump jets, five heat sinks, and a Hartford TTS (+2 accuracy for missiles). Its combat performance has exceeded my expectations; now I'm looking for another two Valiant-6s to replace those Hollys

[Lord Holland of Wessex]

Light - Firestarter
Medium - Shadow Hawk SHD-2D - may change if i manage to find Phoenix Hawk 1B
Heavy - Marauder 2R
Assault - Annihilator

[Wither]

...
Ligt is of course firestarter, but with machine gun
Medium and Heavy is all the same for me
Assualt would be kingcarp, just jet pack mofo and shoot that heavy canon at point blank.

[rosariodoamaral]

At least for the vanilla game, I basically go all Assault

Atlas II> As Energy Platform,
Anihhilator> as ballistic Platform,
King Crab> as Short-range, Melee/Tank
King Crab> as Missile Boat

Also, amazingly, out of those, the one with the LEAST damage potential is the Atlas, who *should* be the top dog in the galaxy...

[Bovril Brigadier]

Originally posted by rosariodoamaral:

Also, amazingly, out of those, the one with the LEAST damage potential is the Atlas, who *should* be the top dog in the galaxy...

Since when has the Atlas ever been the top dog Assault? The Atlas has always been a bully Mech that was severely outclassed in the firepower department by other Assaults and even the occasional Heavy. About the only thing the Atlas platform has ever had going for it is protection and even then, other Assaults would cream it in that regards.

[rosariodoamaral]

Originally posted by Strayed:

Originally posted by rosariodoamaral:

Also, amazingly, out of those, the one with the LEAST damage potential is the Atlas, who *should* be the top dog in the galaxy...

Since when has the Atlas ever been the top dog Assault? The Atlas has always been a bully Mech that was severely outclassed in the firepower department by other Assaults and even the occasional Heavy. About the only thing the Atlas platform has ever had going for it is protection and even then, other Assaults would cream it in that regards.

Lore-wise, the Atlas II is supposed to be the most powerful Mech.

[danko9696]

Originally posted by rosariodoamaral:

Also, amazingly, out of those, the one with the LEAST damage potential is the Atlas, who *should* be the top dog in the galaxy...

I don't know what you have equipped in your A-II but post-HM my bread and butter A-II setup does over 700 dmg.

[Bovril Brigadier]

Originally posted by rosariodoamaral:

Lore-wise, the Atlas II is supposed to be the most powerful Mech.

Calling something the most powerful is very subjective especially with a Mech that was never really designed around optimising its firepower. Lore-wise I can think of at least a dozen Mechs that could eat it for breakfast if we dug into Star League era fluff and some 3025 stuff that could certainly give it a run for its money. For arguments sake just going to stick with what is in game which leaves the other 100 Tonners and the Royal Heavies and other Assaults also would certainly give it something to worry about, just by sheer virtue of the fact they have more optimised loadouts. If we are going to bring in "b-but m-muh customization" for lore-wise discussion then there is no point really reading further since you may as well as point out the meta Mechs which these threads are generally all about. Incidentally Heavy Metal DLC and the update that came it must have been balanced by a Miller's Marauders fan considering the meta is 2R or bust. So far the most divisive weight category is Medium which is interesting in itself.

Mechs like the Annilihator even without a Star League tech base would carry more than enough firepower to pound an Atlas II into submission just through sheer force of dakka alone. It would be initially outranged as Annilihators are slow but they are all about carrying a lot of big guns. If the 1E was in game it would be horrifying to face its ungodly PPC fire.

King Crab would certainly have a tougher time of it but it's no slouch, it is designed to basically beat any Mech 1vs1 in a brawl. Pretty surprised they never added the Star League variants of it when they did for pretty much everything else. That said even the Succession Wars downgrade is not to be trifled with. It's an area denial weapon since by some miracle you did beat it in a duel it's going to take an arm and a leg usually before going down.

For a bonus point round I'd actually bring up the Awesome 8Q. My money would be on the Atlas II in the fight but I would wager that it would certainly mess it up, just cause big busty PPC Mech. Versus a regular Atlas I could see the Awesome beating it though.

That's the main difference between the Atlas and even the Atlas II compared with other 100 Tonners. They are general purpose machines meant to not have any great strengths or weaknesses while the other Assaults are often far more optimised. Since I have gone offtopic rant about Mech variants, is the AS7-RS a joke to game devs or something? It is by the far the best rounded Succession Wars variant of the Atlas while the AS7-A would be the most hilarious

[rosariodoamaral]

Originally posted by Strayed:

Originally posted by rosariodoamaral:

Lore-wise, the Atlas II is supposed to be the most powerful Mech.

Calling something the most powerful is very subjective especially with a Mech that was never really designed around optimising its firepower. Lore-wise I can think of at least a dozen Mechs that could eat it for breakfast if we dug into Star League era fluff and some 3025 stuff that could certainly give it a run for its money. For arguments sake just going to stick with what is in game which leaves the other 100 Tonners and the Royal Heavies and other Assaults also would certainly give it something to worry about, just by sheer virtue of the fact they have more optimised loadouts. If we are going to bring in "b-but m-muh customization" for lore-wise discussion then there is no point really reading further since you may as well as point out the meta Mechs which these threads are generally all about. Incidentally Heavy Metal DLC and the update that came it must have been balanced by a Miller's Marauders fan considering the meta is 2R or bust. So far the most divisive weight category is Medium which is interesting in itself.

Mechs like the Annilihator even without a Star League tech base would carry more than enough firepower to pound an Atlas II into submission just through sheer force of dakka alone. It would be initially outranged as Annilihators are slow but they are all about carrying a lot of big guns. If the 1E was in game it would be horrifying to face its ungodly PPC fire.

King Crab would certainly have a tougher time of it but it's no slouch, it is designed to basically beat any Mech 1vs1 in a brawl. Pretty surprised they never added the Star League variants of it when they did for pretty much everything else. That said even the Succession Wars downgrade is not to be trifled with. It's an area denial weapon since by some miracle you did beat it in a duel it's going to take an arm and a leg usually before going down.

For a bonus point round I'd actually bring up the Awesome 8Q. My money would be on the Atlas II in the fight but I would wager that it would certainly mess it up, just cause big busty PPC Mech. Versus a regular Atlas I could see the Awesome beating it though.

That's the main difference between the Atlas and even the Atlas II compared with other 100 Tonners. They are general purpose machines meant to not have any great strengths or weaknesses while the other Assaults are often far more optimised. Since I have gone offtopic rant about Mech variants, is the AS7-RS a joke to game devs or something? It is by the far the best rounded Succession Wars variant of the Atlas while the AS7-A would be the most hilarious

No offense, but I DID specify LORE-WISE, didn´t I?

Your entire post, while undoubtly true (My Anihilator has UAC-10s, and its potential is almost 800 dmg. That Mech TRULY lives up to its name), is all about GAME MECHANICS, and I didn´t mentioned those.

[rosariodoamaral]

Originally posted by danko9696:

Originally posted by rosariodoamaral:

Also, amazingly, out of those, the one with the LEAST damage potential is the Atlas, who *should* be the top dog in the galaxy...

I don't know what you have equipped in your A-II but post-HM my bread and butter A-II setup does over 700 dmg.

Like I said, I made my Atlas 2 an energy platform.

It has 4 ER PPCs++ and 2 Medium Pulse Lasers++

Whats your own setup?