20 questions: new tech and weapons, asked by a long-time absentee

I took another long break from the game (before the new tech), but I recently picked up Descent Overload and that brought me right back into thinking about MWO. I'm curious how the game has fared, in particular how are all of the new weapons. I have a TON of questions, which I've probably asked before the tech came out, but now people have actual answers!

So...there's a lot of tech, which means I have a lot of questions. Feel free to only answer specific questions as this is a long list!

1. Have any of the weapons that already existed in MWO been changed in a significant way?
2. Do IS UACs have the same penalty as Clan UACs, or can you just fire a 40 pinpoint alpha with an IS UAC?
3. How do rotary ACs work, and how do they compare to regular ACs or ultra ACs?
4. What are ATMs and how do they work?
5. What are the uses for rockets? (I can see either ridiculous alpha builds, to use missile slots on lights, or to use missile slots on energy builds)
6. MRMs, to me, seem to be a missile version of lasers, what with their duration and spread. Are they basically long-range SRMs? Are they more useful for stripping armor or getting kills?
7. How useful are micro lasers?
8. What is the purpose of a C-Heavy Laser over pulse or ER lasers?
9. What is the use of heavy gauss/light gauss?
10. What is the difference between light/medium/heavy machine gun?
11. How would you decide which PPC to use on a Mech?
12. Has the addition of IS SSRM4 and IS SSRM6 been noticed?
13. How does L-AMS compare to AMS?
14. Do you find you use TAG or LIGHT-TAG more? Same for CAP vs. CLAP
15. How do the IS TCs compare to Clan TCs?
16. What is stealth armor "stealth mode"?
17. How has the addition of Light engines changed IS mechs?
18. Is there any new tech I missed?
19. Do you have any advice for specific weapons that wasn't asked above?
20. What kinds of weapons tend to go together into certain types of builds? i.e. which new weapons are useful in the brawl, direct fire support, skirmish, light-hunting, etc.

Okay, that's a lot of questions, and I'm sorry to ask. I'd just like to have some orientation before jumping back in!

 

Large Pulse Lasers are now garbage: IS has ERML and cLPL has been heavily nerfed, plus clanners now have Heavy large Lasers (same tonnage as ERLL, more slots occupied, slightly longer duration, hotter but way more damage). Another thing has been added is ghost heat with gauss and ERPPC: you can't poptart anymore with 2 Gauss + 1 ERPPC or 2xPPC + 1 Gauss, you will incur in heat penalty.

No, heat scale will start with a 3rd UAC10, but it will start with a 4th AC10 (non ultra). More info here

Just hold your trigger and they will spit out a tremendous amount of DPS, but will jam in a relatively short time. They are really hot and they do not have any sort of alfa strike, so they are best used to support a push while being next to a cover, so you can hide to unjam and cool.
IMHO they are a niche weapon for medium or fast heavy mechs: due to long face time you can be easily focused, you can't win any trade by poking due to the fact you have no alfa strike ("classic" pokers will probably win any trade against you) and being very hot and could potentially , but at least they provide a nice suppressive fire due to explosive ammo (yup, even better than LRMs).

Short range low altitude LRMs. They deal no damage below 120 meter, they deal 3 damage per missile between 120-270 meters, 2 damage per missile between 270-540 meters and 1 damage per missile up to the max range. They are kinda slow and susceptible to AMS, but can easily wreck ANY light if you manage to fire those missile in the sweet spot. ATM are now a common sight in both Pug and scout matches (A game mode in faction play which involves only medium and lights).

They could be usefull for very niche, very troll builds. Basically useless because they don't get any bonus from the new skill tree. I nearly forgot they exist.

To be continued....

 

I meant that they fire like a burst-fire rifle instead of like a giant slug.

 

No, IS UAC10 fire 2 slugs per burst, while IS UAC20 fire 3 slugs.
IS UAC: 1, 1, 2, 3 (2/5/10/20)
Clan UAC: 1, 2, 3, 4 (2/5/10/20)

 

So they do go burst-fire, it's just less than the clan version. Got it.

Thanks!

 

MRM are my least favourite weapon: atrocious spread, they have a sort of "duration" (you won't fire them all at once like SRMs) and kinda garbage alfa strike / tonnage ratio. I see then mostly as a money grabbing damage farm weapon, especially if you are good at aiming.

Edit: if you are good at aiming, you will prefer lasers or other pinpoint weapons every time.

They are best used as a suppressive weapon to be used against big and slow heavies and assaults. Mediums and lights can ignore MRMs unless you are point blank range.

 

Not very much, they are so short ranged that so far the only mech I found they are mostly usefull is the piranha... You can boat 8 of them without incurring in heat penalty, but they have little alfa strike and short range. I prefer to boat heavy small lasers.

In short, they sacrifice range for more damage, but with other cons like more heat, duration (but they have more damage over duration) and slot occupied. HLL + ERML are without doubt the new meta on heavies: you can deal a tremendous amount of damage in little time, so whoever doesn't torso twist will be next to cored or dead if he gets focused. 18 damage for HLL(max 2 HLL without penalty), 10 damage for HML (max 4 lasers) ~6 damage for HSL (max 5 lasers), are a dreadful sight if you have a long face time.

For these very reasons (plus recent nerfs) LPL are no more worth it as before (ERLL are too similar as per damage and duration), MPL are usefull only for the reduced duration and slight better range compared to HML (they have nearly identical DPS and HPS!).

Small pulse lasers are now plain garbage and only for the memes.

 

Heavy gauss are now part of the brawling IS meta: 25 damage at 220 meters, still 15 damage at nearly 500 meters, but you have to fit a STD engine to use them and youcan only mount them in your side torsoes. With 6xML, you can achieve 80 pinpoint damage at optimal range, a WTF-PWNED for most light and mediums. Oh, HGauss have the same cooldown and bullet speed than vanilla gauss. They are gorgeous and OP in the proper hands.

Light gauss are garbage: AC2 are better. Faster cooldown and lower charge time don't make up for the heat generation, damage per ton of ammo and overall DPS. Don't bother...

 

Light Machine gun deal 0.7 dmg/s with double range (near 250 meters) with the same weight as the normal MGs. They are nice when boated for med-short ranged criticals.

Heavy machine guns IMHO are worthless: they weight the double, they deal only 1.4 dmg/s and have the worst damage per ton of ammo.

Be carefull that MGs have been buffed and internal components HPs has been nerfed (or crit chance has been overall increased... I can't recall exactly). Whatever the reason, now MGs are able to crit your internal components in no time, so be really carefull if you have no more armor, because they can easily wipeout whatever is inside.

Quirks, heat dissipation, expected range of engagement and hardpoint positioning. I'm not the best guy to give you advice on PPCs, I only use the best variants with PPC quirks (like the BJ-3 or the WHK-Prime)

Heavy and Light PPCs are new tech.
Heavy PPCs behave like a PPC (non ER), but weights more (10 instead of 7), has a longer cooldown, generate more heat but deals 15 damage instead of 10. It was OP because it had the same cooldown as vanilla PPC, but the +1s cooldown nearly killed any purpose to actually use it over standard PPC

Even Light PPCs behave like standard PPCs, but weight less (3 instead of 7), has the same cooldown but deals only 5 damage. Light PPC can be fired 3 at a time without heat penalty (so you can fire basically 1 and a half PPC with the same weight and slightly worse overall heat).

Interestingly enough, not at all in Quick Play. Despite sharing most stats with non-Streak SRMs (e.g.: cooldown and range), I found out they are only used in Scout mode (and not so often), but they are indeed powerful if fitted on the right mech with the right quirks.

LAMS performs exactly as a AMS (as for shooting down missiles) and is mostly useful on very cool builds: it does generate a lot of heat when active and overall I don't find it very usefull considering as for the heat it feels like a RAC2. I'm not a fan of AMS in general (despite being very usefull in scout, especially versus ATMs), so I'm not really recommending it if heat could be an issue. LAMS is a no go on any laser vomit / hybrid vomit build.

Light Tag on ATM and streak boats, otherwise (LRM) vanilla TAG.
cLAP should have overall similar bonuses to the cAP, so it only depends on the spot / targeting / range bonus. If your only reason to fit any AP is to lock ECM mechs and/or shutdown mechs, you should fit the cLAP.

Very slightly worse, but in the end they are as good as the clan counterpart. The same overall rules apply (TC1 whenever possible, TC2 or more only for snipers or for extreme projectile speed).

Long story short, you can't be spotted or targeted as long as stealth is activated, BUT you won't dissipate heat... Usefull only on cool builds or in cold / neutral maps. Stealth armor will also make you invisible to UAVs and heat vision, but it won't protect you from seismic sensors, TAGs and NARCs. Very niche upgrade, useful only for a couple of builds (dual gauss Thanatos, Pirate's Bane and a few others).

A very welcome addition: IS now has quirks AND somewhat between STD and XL engine and with the same survivability as clanners, so most heavies and assaults can now fit even more weapons while being still tanky. You will love it.

Light Ferro Fibrous: some builds with exactly 7 slots empty can now be upgraded with light ferro fibrous, so you can add some armor that you had to strip previously... You can also go for 14 + 7 (endo + light-ferro) instead of 14 + 14 (endo + ferro). This further enhances IS builds.

Nope

HLL + ERML
Gauss + ERML
Heavy Gauss + (ER)ML
L(P)L + ERML (avoid LPL, unless really needed due to tonnage / hardpoints, it's better fit more DHS)
ERLL (+ Gauss)
PPCs... All alone, unless you want to fit some short range backup weapons

Those are the most common pinpoint builds...
Something else could be:

SRM + AC/LBX20
ATM + LTAG + HML/MPL/HSL
UAC10 + UAC5 (mostly clan)
UAC10 + ML (warhammer)

 

So it actually makes your Mech invisible to the eye as well? Can you shoot while stealthed?

Regarding PPCs - what about snub PPCs?

 

No, you can be seen only by naked eye, enemy won't be able to lock on you or target you as long as you stealthed. Be careful though: stealth relies on ECM, so if your ECM will be countered while stealth is offline, even if you will reactivate it you can be targeted / spotted / locked

Snubnose PPCs are a niche weapon: they can be very powerfull in the right hands because one snubnose is basically an energy half AC20, but they are very hot for being a short range weapon. Best used with LBX20 / AC20 for maximum pinpoint or with other cool weapons... Or simply on a troll build, like mine UM-R60L "Hipster" (2xSNPPC, 2xMG, 1xJJ, XL180)

 

@skribs In case you are interested to some builds with the new tech, these are some examples I still own and use today.
The builds with an asterisk (*) are recommended. Most recommended builds have a gameplay video.

Spoiler: Heavy Gauss builds

(*) ANH-1X "Young Chuck Norris" (2xHGauss, 6xML, TC1, STD300) + alt
(*) ANH-1X "One Punch Man" (2xHGR, 6xMPLas, 1xERSL, STD275)
(*) MAL-2P "King Tonberry" (2xHGauss, 6xML, STD280) + alt

Spoiler: Heavy Laser vomit builds

Deathstrike "Dire Cat" (2xcGauss, 2xcHLL, 4xERML, TC1, cXL325)
(*) HBR-F "Hell Quirk" (2xcHLL, 5xcERML)
(*) HBK-IIC-A "Ultima pocket weapon" (2xcHLL, 6xERML, cXL255)

Spoiler: Rotary / MRM builds

UM-R68 "Bad but good" (1xMRM20, 3xERML, TC1, 2xJJ, XL180) + ALT
MAL-1P "Fire Storm" (2xRAC5, 2xMRM20, LE325)
(*) BSW-X1 "Double Barrel, Double Fun" (2xRAC5, AMS, XL275)
WHM-6R "Salty FunHammer" (6xERML, 1xMRM30, 1xAMS, TC1, LE325)

Spoiler: SNPPC builds

UM-R60L "Hipster" (2xSNPPC, 2xMG, 1xJJ, XL180)
(*) MAL-1P "Kapow!" (2xLBX20, 2xSNPPC, STD295) + alt
WHM-6R "Spike head" (2xSNPPC, 1xUAC20, LE310) + alts

Spoiler: IS UAC

WHM-6R "5 dmg per bullet" (2xUAC10, 2xLPPC, XL320)
(*) BSW-X1 "Double Barrel, Double Fun" (2xRAC5, AMS, XL275) <--- Replace RAC with UAC10, remove AMS

 

Not only that, if there is a variant for that said mech (or a similar mech) with more ballistic hardpoints, it's more efficient to simply switch to that variant / mech with standard MGs.

Spider 5K is an example: you will get more DPS by switching from 4xMG+1xLPL to 4xHMG+1xLL (same tonnage), but that's because you are limited by hardpoints... Any other IS light mech with 6 or more ballistic hardpoints will have more DPS for less tonnage and more potential damage per ton of ammo. IMHO HMGs are too niche to be considered anywhere good.

 

Thanks for all the advice. I tried downloading the game last night and...well for some reason it has to go through every patch instead of just giving me the latest one, and it wasn't going fast last night.

 

This.
I've downloaded the game from the launcher at least 3 times: every time I've tried to install the game from the launcher, the installer was corrupted.
I'm not a huge fan of steam, but in these cases it saved my time and sanity.

 

If it isn't downloaded by the time I get home, or if it's corrupted, I'll try Steam.

I do have a follow-up question: how many builds haven't been changed by the new tech?