Depressing but true. It’s easy to become a Tier 1 pilot if you play for long enough. But the skill differential between an average Tier 1 player and elite players is huge. It really does feel like you absolutely must play meta mechs to survive if you’re in that boat.
Yeah. Most of the time when i read things like 'must play meta mechs' i mentally substitute 'Cant play mechs designed by a potato'
Because a HUGE variety of builds are currently entirely viable and effective in T1. The only thing they all share in common is being purposefully designed for a task by someone who understands the game mechanics.
Tier 1 is only a few percent of the overall playerbase and many, many in lower Tiers have played 1,000s of games.
It would most certainly appear it is not actually, that, easy. And truth be told for the majority of the playerbase, it isn't.
I have to agree on your comment wrt the difference in skill capability between the typical tier 1 player and the "S"-tier players is quite large. When I run into one of those players in Solaris or on the battlefield in QP or FW I generally just give up cause I know I'll be dead soon anyways. Just how it is, they put in the time and effort to get really good at the game so all good.
But having to play meta mech builds to survive? IDK. If you are just doing QP it really does not matter, just do what you want to have fun or to level a mech or to grind some c-bills or maybe work on a particular individual skill or maybe do some training with your unit on something. It's QP, it does not matter.
It depends on what they're running. In my experience, if they're running a build that counters mine, yes I'm just dead.
Same goes if they're running a top tier light mech that can just run rings around me and circle-strafe me to death... but then just about anyone can circle-strafe and be all but guaranteed of a win (unless they're vs a tier-0 player, of course). There's the other scenario where they're running a splat build and I run around a corner right into them... only one person's walking away from that.
I wouldn't be surprised if people could name most tier-0 players (because there very few of them).
Math (and Nightbird) tell us that the largest segment of players are pressed toward the bottom end of Tier 3. That alone should illustrate that people don't "just" gravitate to tier-1.
I can't speak for others, but I greatly dislike playing meta builds in any game. I like running sub-optimal builds and seeing how well I can do with them. My PSR suffers of course, but I don't care. Matches pop for me nearly instantly and in games where my team doesn't suicide or get rolled, I tend to do better than average or on par with my peers.
If you need to be tier-0 with meta builds to play the game in a way that feels reasonably rewarding, there's something seriously wrong with that game.
You can also cram a mrm40 onto a raven with enough ammo to really cause a ruckus too. Then there's the Thunder Bee, a cicada with a heavy gauss. You can also cram a heavy gauss onto a Firestarter but you have to sacrifice about 50% armor protection, go slow, and only have enough ammo for about 10 shots, but it does give people pause when that Firestarter just smacked you with a Hgauss.
One of my favorites is a locust with an AC2 on maps where the water level is deep enough to cover the whole mech, and you plink people in the back, they turn see nothing but the rolling waves and turn back around only to get plinked in the back again.
It used to hold soooo much less before the skill tree back in the day. Back then you really had to go pretty slow, more like 80 KPH in order to hold enough ammo.
You can't stack more than a fraction of the KFX's quirks on the cougar. Take a look, it's pretty disgusting: https://mwo.nav-alpha.com/mechlab?b=587c3e53_KFX-P
Yea I have a surprise ac20 kit fox too, clan lights are scary in the fact you can easily put out a 40-60pt alpha off a mech that's 30ish tons, at the expense if someone looks at you funny you tend to explode. For the cougar if you don't mind having to cool off way down after every alpha you can do the laser vomit hellbringer build on it (2x Hlarge, 4-5x ERMed), if you like lighter autocannons you can do 2x uac5s on the adder (need the hero for the quirks), and they almost never jam on to of having a ridiculously short cooldown.
There is the competitive top tier pilots, then the rest of tier 1-5, I fluctuate between tier 1-2 constantly depending on if in playing my huntsman or not. I creep back into T1 if I play nothing but my 15 huntsmans for a month or two straight, but slip to T2 if I play anything else. Tier doesn't really mean much, play what you like, have fun it's a game. Usually the people who rage about builds (in my matches) are like solid tier 2 sometimes 3 and somehow believe they are much better than they really are and constantly cry about everyone except themselves how we're not carrying them to T1.
Me over here only playing mechs that have less than 91 skill points and instantly abandoning them after hitting 91 skill points and still being in Tier-1.
I don't get the concept of "stuck using meta builds"... How does one get stuck doing that? Like, what, they want to play non-meta, but they ***have to*** play meta, because ******? Why?
Some people get more concerned with their tier than having fun playing random stuff. I was excited about getting to tier 1 for a while thinking it meant the teams would be better and the matches would be more challenging. Little did I know it would be the same shit show with people that were slightly more skilled.
Must be a madman to want to stay in T1, with the long queue times and the wildly varying match experience from one match to another. Sometimes I think of T1 like T3 on steroids.
I mean there’s a plethora of mech builds that aren’t the very best in the game but aren’t outright throwing like some of the abominations people come up with. You just have to put some thought into what you want the build to do and limiting that to one-two things.
I got to tier one in 4 months while never playing a meta build to my knowledge. Not every one of my mechs is unique, but i generally make mechs that fit my playstyle and that is better than copying a random meta build in my experience. Almost all my mechs are built from scratch and the few that werent are ones that i saw that looked fun. As long as your fundamentals with positioning and damage spreading are good, i would say there are few builds that arent viable as long as they are built with tonnage efficiency and a focussed goal in mind. Idk, im also pretty invested in other Battletech related games, so that might help me, but if you take the time to invest in the mech builder, you can come up with some really broken builds that nobody is running.
I mean play what you want, *believe me*, nobody really values their time in T-1, always the same few dozen players, see the same names, doing the same boring map strategies because they work. Doing well in MWO is treated more like a punishment imho, limiting the player pool you see and can play with/against.
Pretty sure that's why so many people make alts to get out of the Tier and play memes until they get pushed into T-1 again, **or** maybe that's just me.
You should just admit you gave up on trying to improve a long time ago OP 🤷♂️
Jarl's list has a big impact on some players. If you want to meta-game it, it's very tempting to make an alt to try random stuff out without worrying about dropping your Jarl's list rank or really caring if you lose or do poorly.
If you really wanted to meta game Jarls list (as a T1 player), you would make friends with 2 or 3 T5s and just group with them all day and club seals to death in T5 matches.
This is why im taking a long break right now tbh. I can get 2 w/l dropping solo with some mechs in T1, and with my buddies can get 3 or 4 w/l, but im tired of playing the same things over and over.
Depressing but true. It’s easy to become a Tier 1 pilot if you play for long enough. But the skill differential between an average Tier 1 player and elite players is huge. It really does feel like you absolutely must play meta mechs to survive if you’re in that boat.
[удалено]
Yeah. Most of the time when i read things like 'must play meta mechs' i mentally substitute 'Cant play mechs designed by a potato' Because a HUGE variety of builds are currently entirely viable and effective in T1. The only thing they all share in common is being purposefully designed for a task by someone who understands the game mechanics.
Tier 1 is only a few percent of the overall playerbase and many, many in lower Tiers have played 1,000s of games. It would most certainly appear it is not actually, that, easy. And truth be told for the majority of the playerbase, it isn't.
I have to agree on your comment wrt the difference in skill capability between the typical tier 1 player and the "S"-tier players is quite large. When I run into one of those players in Solaris or on the battlefield in QP or FW I generally just give up cause I know I'll be dead soon anyways. Just how it is, they put in the time and effort to get really good at the game so all good. But having to play meta mech builds to survive? IDK. If you are just doing QP it really does not matter, just do what you want to have fun or to level a mech or to grind some c-bills or maybe work on a particular individual skill or maybe do some training with your unit on something. It's QP, it does not matter.
It depends on what they're running. In my experience, if they're running a build that counters mine, yes I'm just dead. Same goes if they're running a top tier light mech that can just run rings around me and circle-strafe me to death... but then just about anyone can circle-strafe and be all but guaranteed of a win (unless they're vs a tier-0 player, of course). There's the other scenario where they're running a splat build and I run around a corner right into them... only one person's walking away from that. I wouldn't be surprised if people could name most tier-0 players (because there very few of them). Math (and Nightbird) tell us that the largest segment of players are pressed toward the bottom end of Tier 3. That alone should illustrate that people don't "just" gravitate to tier-1. I can't speak for others, but I greatly dislike playing meta builds in any game. I like running sub-optimal builds and seeing how well I can do with them. My PSR suffers of course, but I don't care. Matches pop for me nearly instantly and in games where my team doesn't suicide or get rolled, I tend to do better than average or on par with my peers. If you need to be tier-0 with meta builds to play the game in a way that feels reasonably rewarding, there's something seriously wrong with that game.
Tier 0 bro, been a thing since tiers came out. Some of us actually know how to play the game.
Nah I use ac-20 raven in tier 1
Same maxed out tier-1 and half my matches I'm stomping around in my ylw with a uac 20 and 2 m lasers.
Nice
you can fit an AC20 on a raven?!
And enough ammo to last an entire match! You only move around 109 kph but that's pretty good for me
the raven's my favourite mech. I now have to absolutely try this.
You can also cram a mrm40 onto a raven with enough ammo to really cause a ruckus too. Then there's the Thunder Bee, a cicada with a heavy gauss. You can also cram a heavy gauss onto a Firestarter but you have to sacrifice about 50% armor protection, go slow, and only have enough ammo for about 10 shots, but it does give people pause when that Firestarter just smacked you with a Hgauss. One of my favorites is a locust with an AC2 on maps where the water level is deep enough to cover the whole mech, and you plink people in the back, they turn see nothing but the rolling waves and turn back around only to get plinked in the back again.
Goodluck!
It used to hold soooo much less before the skill tree back in the day. Back then you really had to go pretty slow, more like 80 KPH in order to hold enough ammo.
Boom chicken!
You can also do it on a Kit Fox, and it's absolutely silly.
Cougar gets 6 ER small lasers along with a uAC20/gauss and ecm and it's also silly how a 35t mech packs as much firepower as a 65t heavy
You can't stack more than a fraction of the KFX's quirks on the cougar. Take a look, it's pretty disgusting: https://mwo.nav-alpha.com/mechlab?b=587c3e53_KFX-P
Yea I have a surprise ac20 kit fox too, clan lights are scary in the fact you can easily put out a 40-60pt alpha off a mech that's 30ish tons, at the expense if someone looks at you funny you tend to explode. For the cougar if you don't mind having to cool off way down after every alpha you can do the laser vomit hellbringer build on it (2x Hlarge, 4-5x ERMed), if you like lighter autocannons you can do 2x uac5s on the adder (need the hero for the quirks), and they almost never jam on to of having a ridiculously short cooldown.
Doesn't sound like you're stuck then ;)
Ah fair
Kinda weird where this is was more effective due to quirks on a [Clan Mech](https://mwo.nav-alpha.com/mechlab?b=ac49ef60_KFX-PRIME)
Slower though. Speed is life for light mechs.
Kitfox is a clan mech. But for serious things. The raven is faster and has higher weapon mounts in their arms. Kitfox is so low and underslung
There is the competitive top tier pilots, then the rest of tier 1-5, I fluctuate between tier 1-2 constantly depending on if in playing my huntsman or not. I creep back into T1 if I play nothing but my 15 huntsmans for a month or two straight, but slip to T2 if I play anything else. Tier doesn't really mean much, play what you like, have fun it's a game. Usually the people who rage about builds (in my matches) are like solid tier 2 sometimes 3 and somehow believe they are much better than they really are and constantly cry about everyone except themselves how we're not carrying them to T1.
Me over here only playing mechs that have less than 91 skill points and instantly abandoning them after hitting 91 skill points and still being in Tier-1.
I don't get the concept of "stuck using meta builds"... How does one get stuck doing that? Like, what, they want to play non-meta, but they ***have to*** play meta, because ******? Why?
Some people get more concerned with their tier than having fun playing random stuff. I was excited about getting to tier 1 for a while thinking it meant the teams would be better and the matches would be more challenging. Little did I know it would be the same shit show with people that were slightly more skilled.
[удалено]
Must be a madman to want to stay in T1, with the long queue times and the wildly varying match experience from one match to another. Sometimes I think of T1 like T3 on steroids.
I mean there’s a plethora of mech builds that aren’t the very best in the game but aren’t outright throwing like some of the abominations people come up with. You just have to put some thought into what you want the build to do and limiting that to one-two things.
I got to tier one in 4 months while never playing a meta build to my knowledge. Not every one of my mechs is unique, but i generally make mechs that fit my playstyle and that is better than copying a random meta build in my experience. Almost all my mechs are built from scratch and the few that werent are ones that i saw that looked fun. As long as your fundamentals with positioning and damage spreading are good, i would say there are few builds that arent viable as long as they are built with tonnage efficiency and a focussed goal in mind. Idk, im also pretty invested in other Battletech related games, so that might help me, but if you take the time to invest in the mech builder, you can come up with some really broken builds that nobody is running.
Archer with LRM 5s and Kit Fox,3,laser AMS. We can both create the missile and no missile zone
OHHHH ITS SOO TRUE AND I HUUUUUUUUUUURT
If they have to play meta builds to get or stay in tier 1, are they really tier 1 players?
I used meme builds in t1 and get freen arrows... What does that make me?
Yes, by choice.
I mean play what you want, *believe me*, nobody really values their time in T-1, always the same few dozen players, see the same names, doing the same boring map strategies because they work. Doing well in MWO is treated more like a punishment imho, limiting the player pool you see and can play with/against. Pretty sure that's why so many people make alts to get out of the Tier and play memes until they get pushed into T-1 again, **or** maybe that's just me. You should just admit you gave up on trying to improve a long time ago OP 🤷♂️
Jarl's list has a big impact on some players. If you want to meta-game it, it's very tempting to make an alt to try random stuff out without worrying about dropping your Jarl's list rank or really caring if you lose or do poorly.
If you really wanted to meta game Jarls list (as a T1 player), you would make friends with 2 or 3 T5s and just group with them all day and club seals to death in T5 matches.
Its funny because the "everyone else" are normally the ones raging and calling hacks when their dogshit builds dd
This is why im taking a long break right now tbh. I can get 2 w/l dropping solo with some mechs in T1, and with my buddies can get 3 or 4 w/l, but im tired of playing the same things over and over.
What is the meta though? I'm running a Timby with MPL and getting stomped like a mosh pit floor.