So I don't know if I'm just unluckily getting focused or what but the Blood Asp just feels STUPID under armored to me. So am I crazy or just unlucky af?
It' a clan mech, an assault, and well-known at that. It's going to attract fire and not have survivability quirks to back that up. The profile isn't to bad though, so it's possible to torso twist some damage away. If you run Gauss your side torsos also explode extra easy!
I'm having more fun in the BAS I have built without the obvious dual gauss solution. Sure the 2xgauss is perfect for certain situations, but they're also little flags on top of your head saying "shoot me in the good bit, pleeeeease! I promise I'll blow up as soon as you get through my armour!". I stay away from filling a Marauder's right torso with Gaussy Goodness for the exact same reasons, even though it's so very tempting. Of my 6 Blood Asps, only one is now dual torso gauss and that's an ECM one. I'm loving my BASs, but it's no better than an MCII (and in some situations the MCII remains king) and for that I'm glad. Perhaps it won't get nerfed to shit in a month
You still lose the CASEd location, you just don't take any adjacent damage. Goodbye arm, goodbye side-torso, hello half-armament, 2/3 engine hits and bugger all movement.
Yes, but CASE simply contains the explosion inside the same component so the damage won't spread to any "inner" component, but it does not prevent you from losing that said component and it does not protect any equipment inside it (no crit chance reduction, no explosion damage reduction). When a gauss or ammo explodes in a side torso, that same side torso will take all the damage and, if destroyed, any additional damage will not spread to the CT. That's it.
Good thing CASE will protect the rest of the mech if you have a catastrophic ammunition explosion in that ton of UAC ammo you stashed behind your pilot's chair.
Well, Fafnir has a whopping +12 armor per each side torso (which does stack with skills) and a huge -25% crit chance (or at least -10% on the other variants), which REALLY means a lot.
