After the last one provided some fruitful discussion, Patrick decided to get all keen, including throwing around heretical phrases like 'Regular Staff Meetings', 'Topical Discussion Points' and 'Invite People In'.
Joy.
Kenneth was actually looking ill at the prospect of having to do some work for a change.
So, onto this weeks round table discussion, and the subject matter:
40 ton specialists... is this the purvey of multiple KotM winners only, or can others use this effectively?
Associated question, what are the best mechs in this class and what would be the lightest you would realistically use? Also consider equipment load-out, are there any do's or don'ts?
Kenneth : One of my favorite 40T specs I've seen out there is run by a clanmate of mine and it's all crystal mecha. All crystal you say? That's because he runs solid Nephilaxes with Zadoks as back up. Tons of guns, leveling abilities for higher levels, a lot of bang for the buck.
Of course the traditional 40T lineup has to be Keradons. Tough, scrappy, at 35T they really do withstand and dish out the punishment.
I've recently seen a lot of people incorporating the Buccaneer which is the best laser mech for it's weight class. Also, the Buc has leveling bonuses well into the 100s so it just keeps getting better with age.
Orcuses and iMechs get used, but my personal opinion is they melt away to a good Keradon barrage, and I've seen a select few people pull it off with Axebots.
David : There's no doubt that Nephs and Zadoks are effective, but I wouldn't exactly consider them as crystal mechs per se... you can only get them through repeated gold medals in 2 events.
I have seen those formations, and they are either run by long term campers or pay players (both of which tend to have a negative connotation to the newer members of the community) or in one very notable case, a crystal based hard leveling KotM junkie.
I guess that loops back to the first question... do the KotM winners essentially have this division locked out from everyone else?
Joel : Yeah, I can't call either mech crystal considering it usually takes a niode expense to pull off a win to acquire either
Kenneth : Considering the weight class, I agree with your statement that campers and veteran accounts definitely have this class sewn up. Unless someone wants to spend $1500 on solid Keradons and Bucs with gear and weapson, then they could do it. But there are so many accounts with 1-4 years in lower ranks that have done nothing but gain these mechs as clan war prizes, KoTM prizes, etc., that there's no piercing it as an "average" new account coming up.
Joel : Pretty much yeah.
Patrick : Honestly the lowest tonnage mechas I own are a Vizi, Zadok, ( 45&35 tonners respectively) and a Megazome at 65 tons. Only reason I keep them is they are winnings and every now and again I find it fun to equip them with big toys and let them run amok in the enemy lines. With that said however I don't go for lower tonnage, like at all. My play style has always been... I've out grown it? What can I get in sell back, cause I'm not going to realistically use it much any more. Yeah, yeah, but everyone should have a formation of whatever for clan wars and KOTM. Okay knock yourself out getting that many mechas. Me I can barely keep up with the upgrade costs on what I have, much less a whole hanger of obsolete mechas I only kick the dust off of once a month. Admittedly I am more comfortable in the 75 ton and up range.
But if I HAD to pick a 40 tonner to use I'd choose the Nifthel. I love ice mechas that's a solid choice. Don't remember all the slots and what goes where, been so long since I had one. I do remember the few I had were work horses and could take an ice arsenal and make it a thing of destructive beauty. Sorry on this one I couldn't be more in depth but as I said once I have decided I'm done with a tonnage range, for the most part it's sold off.
David : Actually Pat, you are possibly more help than you imagine (and I never thought I'd hear myself say that..).
On the understanding that you are a reasonably experienced pilot and know how to put a formation up when sober, if we had a hypothetical situation where the Powers That Be hit us with a mandatory 40 ton spec in a war and Joel turned round and said, "Pat, you're going to be fighting as a 40 this war, to bad, so sad, sucks to be you...", would you go for a solid Nifthel wall or try and mix and match?
And of course if its the latter, what would you use, where and why, building from the ground up?
Joel : 40t's are one of the trickier spec's to flesh out well......if you're going to talk ABSOLUTE crystal you're talking a Nifthel for sure......if you're talking prize mechs you're talking a Nephilax hands down HOWEVER for clarity here on which mechs perform best there should be "crystal [*coughs* or rather...niode] clarity"
At this point Joel popped some vid slugs into the machine to show us some noteable 40 ton battle replays.
Or rather he did after a few false starts; I'm reasonably open minded but even I was reaching for the brain bleach...
Joel : So what I'm saying is Nephs are great...especially when properly & equiped BUT you can't overlook the flying purple people eater.
Now it's more reliable for most gold medal winners to fill their 55t spec with Vizi's where possible but you'll all have to watch those MMI & Zeon replays in your own time if you've not already (if you've not the battles are fun to watch) pew pew pew!
Although the Buccaneer is decent I don't believe it will ever be a more viable mech when compared to a Keradon for instance and although I've seen some Banshee heavy formations I wasn't impressed when considering the costs.......unless you're willing & capable to swallow oceans of xp hunting mechs in limited availability missions you'd better have the gold medal wins to back up the formation with those mechs that can only be won if you're intent on running a strong either 40t or 55t with confidence.
Patrick : Alright I have given it some thought. Given it's me I'd probably do a wall formation of Nifthel mecha. I'd weaponize them much like my Boreas with ice and projectile combos. So I'd have Polar Vortex's going off with Winter Grasp's, and add in Chronysis Rails, Vadhars, etc to top off the damage front. Make an ice sculpture out of the enemy and smash it is the basic effect I'd be going for. Load them up with Zirconium Windshields, Hip Hopper Hips, and mix up the engines with Scrub Grubs, as well as Omnigrav Rotationals.
Or switch it up slightly and lean towards the laser damage with some of the big bastards they have available. Then add in a full compliment of shields either crystal or niode. I'm still of the opinion equipment is mainly useless as long as it is detrimental to your mecha in some way (Speed negatives, vulnerabilities etc)
So by and large I try to save time and resources by pretending those pieces don't exist/ never happened. I honestly resent the fact they charge us such astronomical prices for crap that actually can hurt your mecha, but that's another rant for another day.
Kenneth : The crystal account I talked about earlier belongs to a Lvl 108 who loves his comics and loves his KotMs. The Buccaneer is the only 40 T that I know that gets upgrades as far as it does.
David : Unfortunately I don't own one of the Buccaneer's although I have seen it at low levels and it does look a bit tasty, but further than that I can't really comment.
Tell you what I can comment on... the Banshee. It's got those same long upgrade paths that the Buccaneer does, and even though you might consider it too light in this weight class, mine is carving up Nifthels and Holmes.
Now admittedly with it being that light (10 tons underweight for the class we are discussing) it has access to unused freebies I've gathered over the years, so it is not skimped on for gear... but it is currently destroying or mission killing 3 or more mechs per fight on average, which is a pretty fair exchange rate in anyone's books.
I'm looking forward to seeing how it fares against the niode and prize mechs.
It's fast becoming a favourite.
It was at this point that Kenneth and myself realised that the Brotherhood contingent were not necessarily playing with a full deck. I know that the Smurfs and Bunnies run some serious contraband stimulants, but these guys had been imbibing something decidedly dodgy.
Joel : By the way, the dinner table that I have in the kitchen....it's a round table......
Thing is....I don't like tables that aren't round.........worse yet those rectangular ones I frequent where I'm asked to sit at the head of..........it may provide me a better view but I've never appreciated feeling like a spectacle or center piece and I really dislike past experience or knowledge dictating that I assume the head of the table......having said that I believe that it is well past time that most of this information was publicly available but my loyalties are as they always will be to the brothers & sisters that join us in war from the hood alone.
There was in my opinion only one absolute master of the specialist & it's not <redacted> <giggles>....it never was....that guy still doesn't test all the options when it comes to equipment & weapon combinations.......let alone apply needed theory so he just ends up throwing niodes at problems........now <redacted> on the other hand.....now we're talking some theory application to get me interested.....but still pales when compared to the true master of the specialist.
Having said that.......yeah....there are PLENTY of do's & don'ts for 30-55t equips & weapon load outs......hmmmmm can I smell a Multifuel Turbine vaporising itself again or is it the scent of my last smoke calling me towards another
Okay......55t....don't try to outWarg a bunch of Vizi's... It's a health hazard.....
Ron : One sentence of four words, six syllables total....."Nifthels with Holmes support"...maybe not as hard a punch as an all KotM reward mech formation....but, it can, and has, beat one as well as hold its own.
This is an example of how equipping and arming your mechs can many times be far more important than the mechs themselves.
David : Positioning and arming in the line? or would that be giving away Brotherhood secrets?
Ron : I don't think that's a big secret mate.....positioning your mechs, arming them, equipping them, etc etc etc. is the most important, hardest to learn, and longest to get down, skill that every player needs to have in their arsenal.....
What I am saying is, yes a formation composed entirely of 40 ton KotM prize mechs is a Goliath to fight, but a formation of 40 ton Nifthels with Holmes support, if properly equipped and armed, as well as being appropriately deployed, can be the David that kicks that Goliath's <redacted> into the dirt
Joel : Just don't argue with the purple people eaters!
Kenneth : <Pops in a vid slug>
Here's one example of a solid Nephilax formation. And while he levels slow, I wouldn't really call this account a true camper.
Joel : Oh Kenneth....he camps harder than than a refugee detention centre. If you're looking for total nephs just look at his hits....unimaginative as they are <giggles>.
At this point the conversation degraded into the never ending slanging match around levelling versus camping.
But I think at the end of the day, everyone agreed that the best 40 ton mechs to have in your formation are...
Novums!
And on that bombshell, GOODNIGHT!
Contributors : Pat Willis #224534, David McCallum #701548, Kenneth Hicks#846092, Ron Frye #879655, Joel Parras #637457