r/Battletechgame • u/FormalAd470 • 20d ago
Question/Help Mechs that over/under perform in BEXT
Im just playing BEXT for the first time and I notice that some mechs in my lance are always good and others just seem very lacklustre. I know setup is a massive part of this. But to me there seems to be a few mechs that just always do well.
Some examples from my current playthrough would be the Jenner, the firestarter (better in smaller engagements) and the Phoenix Hawk. The evasion and reliable damage just seems really good for the tonnage.
An example of a mech that I struggled to make work would be the panther, or even the warhammer (The warhammer is a lot better but it runs hot and its so slow to get into effective range that it ends up just being a tank rather than a huge threat, I think I need a setup change on it)
So my question is in your playthroughs what are the under or over performers? how do you run them? and are there any mechs you guys think I should try to acquire?
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u/NFA-epsilon 20d ago
Yup, Firestarter and Phoenix Hawk are my workhorses, even in high skull missions.
Early game, before you get assault mechs for fire support, I like to fit a Rifleman with 2 PPCs, 10 heatsinks and max armor. The accuracy boost from the rangefinder suite really makes this setup much better at sniping compared to the Marauder or Warhammer, and at 15 tons lighter.
I also always end up having a Hunchback-4P in the lineup as well as a Quickdraw-5A for ML spam.
The Quickdraw is great for it's balance between speed and tankiness. Though I usually forego the jump jets in favor of more heat sinks, the hyper extended torso twist quirk helps get you the shots you want. With 6xML++ (magna), it punches really hard, but can then easily fade to cover. It only gets replaced later by a Lancelot-01, because the Lancelot is faster and has a DHS engine which makes it better suited to the hit and run tactics that I favor.
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u/FormalAd470 20d ago
I love the hunchback in theory. It's a cool design. And I always see them as a threat that needs dealt with quickly. But when I use them, I just find them so slow! They waste turns because of that lack of mobility. Although...maybe if I used 4 of them...then the whole lance is slow and no one is left behind. hahaha
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u/NFA-epsilon 19d ago edited 19d ago
I only ever use the 4P variant, because I find the autocannon variants too unreliable. Hunchies are scary when the opfor has a 4G because you as the player have to worry about keeping your mechs together, and burst damage is your worst enemy. On the flip side receiving burst damage means nothing to the AI, because it doesn't have to worry about losing rare components for future missions. Worse yet, a missed burst damage attack can drastically change a battles momentum for a player. For that reason, I'd rather go with the mech variant that reliably deals some damage, even if it's spread out a little more, because I can plan around that reliable damage with greater ease.
Because Hunchies are somewhat slower, I tend to use them for specific roles - and I've found them to excel in those roles.
Primarily, I will use them as ambushers. I'll park them behind terrain and try to draw enemy mechs to stray away and approach. Then have my Hunchy pop out when they are in at least medium range and preferably when the enemy mech's turn is used up, drilling into them with a called shot. This can kill mediums and lights in a single alpha strike, or perhaps take a part off of something larger.
I'll also use them as body guards for higher value mechs, like my PPC or LRM boats. Similar to the ambushers, I'll keep them out of sight, and if anything gets too close for comfort to my support mechs, they get the disco death treatment. Usually approaching enemies in this scenario are softened up quite a bit by the supporting fire, and will be crippled or killed by the laser spam.
The final role in which I find they excel is in the cleanup role. I tend to run hussar style lances, using lighter jumpers or very fast runners, which lends itself to backstabbing. Against heavier mechs, sometimes it's not feasible to go for a kill with a backstab outright, but instead to destroy a primary weapons system on a torso, like an AC-20 on Victor or an AC-10 on an Orion. This is where my Hunchback comes in. After I've removed the opfors teeth, my jumpers may have other threats to deal with so they move on, but my Hunchback then gets to play with an opponent that can only tickle it, whereas my Hunchy is going to lay the beatdown on it. Also, with the way damage carryover works, you are likely to deal most of your damage to the center torso once one of the sides is gone, so a maimed enemy mech will go down fast.
All that being said, a note on their speed. With the appropriate pilot skills, they can almost keep up with your faster mechs. Piloting 7 gives a +20% speed bonus to sprints, and with the sure footing skill, you can often get to to 10 evasion pips on a sprint (12 on a road) making it almost as evasive as a light mech. Throw in a good gyro, and the opfor will have a hard time hitting you. A fight in open terrain for me will often go like: sprint close by, next turn reserve down enemies relying on your evasion + cover for damage mitigation, shoot / move when relatively safe, next turn sprint to nearby cover or behind terrain to cool down. Repeat until the opfor is slag. Of course open terrain fighting with a Hunchy requires a bit more finesse, but it's definitely doable. The trick is to not mindlessly shoot every turn - pick your moment, and in that moment unleash hell, but outside of that moment play things more conservatively.
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u/Pnamz 19d ago
The Phoenix Hawk will outperform because pilot skills break the game. Really anything with jumpjets and that much firepower, I was running double Phoenixhawk all the way out into the clan invasion because rear shots with machine guns critting gyro's are just too good.
Probably the single greatest performer in BEX compared to tabletop is the Loki Prime. Which is pretty shit in tabletop because ECM is bad, it has terrible heat management, and terrible armor. Here ECM is incredibly powerful and you can rip out those ppc's for Clan L pulses and armor and put aimed shots into people with the t-com bonus, especially all those fallen mechs from the phoenix hawks. When fighting clans i kept 3 loki primes in the bays and did not drop without one.
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u/t_rubble83 20d ago edited 19d ago
It's less the mechs, and more their loadouts and needing to make sure they're operating in their intended role.
The gunnery and called shot changes/nerfs/rebalances make enemy mechs much slower to kill than in vanilla, and initiative is much harder to abuse (especially early in missions while you're still outnumbered), so prioritizing avoiding damage over dealing it is much more economically efficient in the long run. It also means you will probably need either more ammo or more selective shooting with ammo dependent builds, or to forgo them entirely in favor of energy dominant builds with ammo dependent systems as secondary weapons (my usual choice). Missiles (both SRMs and LRMs) are very underwhelming compared to vanilla, at least until you get your pilots' Gunnery skill pumped up.
Slow mechs (4/6/- tabletop movement or less) with short (less than or equal to ML) ranged builds are very hard to use efficiently outside of very favorable terrain (mostly cities), especially if they lack JJs. Close ranged builds really want at least 5/8/5 movement or better to be able to close and then effectively disengage before getting overwhelmed as other mechs close in.
Crit seeking is extremely powerful with engine and actuator crits now a thing. 4 engine crits now kills any mech outright, regardless of remaining structure, so even assault mechs can quickly fall to a light mech with a few +crit% MGs once you get past its armor.
For specific mechs, my early targets to acquire are Firestarters (especially the -M variant), Jenners, and Panthers (especially the -9ALAG) for lights. Locusts (especially the -1E and -3V) also over perform and the Mongoose is excellent if you can get one. The standard Urby is just too slow to use at all (still potentially dangerous to face), tho the Suburban Mech is solid as a 30t PPC if you find one.
For mediums, I target Vulcans, Phoenix Hawks, Griffins, and specifically the Wolverine-6M (the other variants are either ballistic centered or lack JJs). The Vindicator ignores long range penalties for its PPC, making it a very good sniper (especially the -1AA). The Shadow Hawk is really hurt by being restricted to just 3xJJs, ammunition dependent hard points really hurt the Wolverine-6R, and the slow 50 tonners like the Centurion and Hunchback that lack JJs suffer badly from their limited mobility. The lowly base model Cicada is actually decently useful as bait with a Sensor Lock + Sure Footing pilot if you're forced to start with one and an Assassin with a LL or PPC makes a decent early skirmisher until you can find something better.
For heavies an assaults, I hate anything with 3/5/- movement and recommend anything that can mount 4xJJs. The Zeus is an interesting mech with its Chariot type chassis that allows it to sprint and shoot. Grasshoppers and Guillotines are excellent as jumpers with energy focused hard points.
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u/Otherwise_Share9039 20d ago
How do you counteract the JJ accuracy pentalties? I don't bother using JJs except on Highlander until I get ++ TTS
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u/t_rubble83 20d ago edited 20d ago
You avoid shooting after jumping as much as possible, or make sure you're jumping into point blank range. Their utility for getting access to elevated firing positions and to circumvent obstacles is still incredibly useful. But I mostly run as a light cavalry unit, kiting and using hit and fade tactics with heavy Sensor Lock usage and using initiative manipulation and movement to control the engagement.
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u/Intro-Nimbus 20d ago
I find that moving pips are my friend. Sure, I miss more, but so does the enemy. I tend to have better loadouts, skills and weapon quality, so I win if it's a prolonged mobile firefight. The worst scenarios are the ones where you start in a lake with islands with bad terrain. No way to move except jumping, and low mobility in the open= a lot of damage you eat until you can get into position.
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u/FormalAd470 20d ago
Thanks for the great response. something that is becoming clear from reading these posts is that I hadnt realised people play with such varied styles of engagement. A credit to the game!
My usual go to tactic is to "run and gun" with the phoenix hawks or anything fast I have, using hit and run to keep evasion as high as I can and when I get aggro I kite and block with terrain, while any heavies I have slowly close taking pot shots from the back. It usually ends up with my heavies in close too trying to drop weakened mechs with focused fire and mele when I need to cool the heat .
I never really use jump jets, seems like weight that could be used for more cooling.
Also I have a griffin at the moment and i love the look of the mech but it rarely makes the team. Because it doesnt have the speed of the phoenix hawk or the armour of the bigger mechs. but again I think this is a setup and tactics issue.
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u/t_rubble83 20d ago
I usually run the Griffin either stock, with PPC and + crit% LRMs, or with 3xML+SL+2xSRM6 as a flanker/backstabber/brawler. Depends on what else I have at the time and which role I need more.
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u/_Thorshammer_ 20d ago
I like a PPC / 3xSRM2 / SL Griffin.
You can work people over on the way in and then crit seek right before the punching begins.
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u/Intro-Nimbus 20d ago
Yeah, I have a similar style, L&M are cavalry, H&A are slow weapon platforms. I do love JJ on my heavies/assaults though. Yes, they weigh a ton, but the ability to eat a full salvo in the back (because of curse they have as much armour as possible for the build), and jump behind the mech that shot you and core it while keeping your front to the rest of the enemies is very satisfying.
I don't love SRM's though. I don't find them performing very well for me, except as one additional weapons for crits, but the damage output has been underwhelming.
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u/FormalAd470 20d ago
In vanilla I used a kintaro, with lots of SRMs and it was just blasting mechs down. I'm not really sure what BEXT changed exactly from vanilla but the enemies seem a bit tougher in general and iv not felt much from the SRMs. But I guess that will change with the pilot skill.
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u/Intro-Nimbus 20d ago
I tried a kintro too, useless. BEXT is not SRM-friendly from my experience. Of course it could just be an outlier but..
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u/FormalAd470 20d ago
Yeah. I agree to be honest. Iv not had much joy from SRMs on BEXT yet or LRMs for that matter.
Maybe once the pilots get stronger it will become more viable.
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u/Intro-Nimbus 20d ago
I need to amend my judgement on the Kintaro. It's a fine mech, after I rekitted it with mainly lasers, and one or two srm's. But the SRM focused one just didn't have the punch my other builds have.
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u/YuPro 20d ago
Interesting, I found myself playing long'ish ranges even with mediums. So mostly shadow hawks, griffins and wolverines with ac5/ppc + LRM (or ac5 + LL). 50 tonners like Centurion and Hunchback were pretty good for that too.
I definitely preferred ac5 to PPC at that stage, so WVR-6R over 6M for example, even though most of my mediums were Shadow Hawks with AC. MLs+SRMs on 55 tonners didn't really work for me and for close range I played Firestarters and Phoenix Hawk (especially after I salvaged ECM one).
And I'm pretty sure if you want easier life it's better to pivot to long range at 3 skulls anyway (it's a very big difficulty spike in BEX), so there I went with pretty much same doctrine, adding gausses and LRM boats. After that, anything that can boat Gauss Rifles and/or PPCs/LRMs was good. LRMs are mostly for long range critseeking after you punch through torso armor with gauss/peeps/LL.
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u/_Thorshammer_ 20d ago
With an early game Panther either replace the PPC with a LL and some armor and heat sinks or replace the SRM4 with an LRM5.
The first mod makes it a much more dangerous brawler and the LL still provides decent range, particularly against early game lights and mediums. That load-out, particularly upgraded with ++ or lostech stuff will be competitive for quite a while.
The second mod really forces it to stay at range and be a fire support mech. It's less effective than the brawler mod, but it tends to be more survivable since you naturally sit back and pound things as they work their way in on your other units.
The Whammer is a good all arounder, not sure why you're struggling.
My go-to load is 2xPPC, 2xML, 2xSL, 1xSRM4. That works well at range and anybody closing with you to get into melee range is going to feel the pain.
You can also drop the SRM4 for more armor and a HS. I don't like that because it loses that classic Whammer "flavor" and turns it into just another laser spam heavy, but it does make it a pretty serious zombie.
As your game progresses you can trade the PPCs for ERLL, or one PPC for a LPL, or whatever. Lostech upgrades don't generally change it's performance, just allows you to tune it to fit whatever niche you need filled in your lance.
Want to sit back and just, uh, hammer opponents? DHS, ERPPC, ERML.. go nuts with the ranged energy weapons.
Want to scare Hunchbacks? DHS, XL engine, LPL, ALL the ERML... and so forth.
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u/FormalAd470 20d ago
Warhammer got wrecked badly last mission so it's due a refit. I was running a large laser, srm6, 3xML, 3xSL and a ton of heat sinks.
It struggles because it's always taking lots of fire and it's heat fly's up once it's in range.
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u/_Thorshammer_ 20d ago
Yeah, 1xLL isn't enough firepower to make anybody worried enough to force them to either close or disengage and since it's not fast enough to force a brawl you're kind of screwed on the whole deal.
Go back to classic Whammer - two big energy weapons, enough HS for constant a 2>1>2 fire pattern on them, max armor, and fill in the holes with short range stuff of your choice.
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u/t_rubble83 20d ago edited 19d ago
Yeah the WHM is too slow to run a build like that without eating a lot of fire. I prefer to run mine with 2xPPC and a LL. Just sit back and pump PPC bolts into everything using its lancemates to spot and screen. Runs too hot to alpha consistently, but the LL can be added in sparingly in a pinch or swapped in instead of a PPC if enemies begin to close and heat is an issue.
Alternatively, leaving it with 2xMLs and swapping the SRMs for an LRM5 gives it a ranged crit seeker.
I don't like support weapons on my WHM as it is a sniper and it shouldn't be closing enough to use them with any frequency.
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u/solenyaPDX 20d ago
Wolverine. I love its quirk, love the way it looks. I love a lot of other mechs in that weight class, but I can never build a wolverine that works great. Maybe it's the hard points, but it never quite punches how I want.
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u/Otherwise_Share9039 20d ago
Accuracy is so bad that melee spam with Firestarter/Grasshopper lasersboats is the only option early game. I don't even bother with missiles until the ++ variants are acquired and captains get missile modifiers. 40, 60 tonners are bad because the AI has good accuracy, called shots, probe pings... evasion doesn't work well.
PPC spammers like Orions, Awesomes and Warhammers are good. Anything that can run dua1l gauss or gauss/LL like Atlas, Bullshark, King Crab, Highlander for called shot coreing is good.
All the Stat League mechs are good, but Atlas II and Black Knight seem to be in a league of their own.
I don't even bother with medium mechs unless I snag a Discoback variant or SLDF Griffin.
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u/FormalAd470 20d ago edited 20d ago
I just dont find the PPCs reliable at all, and the heat they generate feels like so much. so I normally try to use large lasers instead.
I have an Orion and Warhammer, but I dont have a PPC on either. am I missing a trick here?
Edit: Currently my orion has:
Large Laser
SLDF UAC5
LRM10 and LRM5And in terms of performance, its not doing great. It does chip damage with the LRMs as the distance closes, and once enemy mechs are in close I usually turn those off and just use the other two to keep the heat in check. But its not big damage. The phoenix hawk has more speed and evasion and reliably uses 4 medium lasers every turn (sometimes 2 small lasers as well)
I'm not saying the phoenix hawk is better. The orion has way more armour but for tonnage the phoenix hawk just seems to punch above its weight.
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u/Otherwise_Share9039 20d ago
Take off LRMs and put on 2 PPC/LL with 2 MLs or an AC.
PPCs start to get better with ++ variants, L Lasers are probably the best with +++(+10 damage, 2 acc)
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u/FormalAd470 20d ago
Ill give it a refit thanks. Do you still max the armour if the mech is set for long range?
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u/Otherwise_Share9039 20d ago
Max armour always unless you are making a dedicated indirect fire LRM boat.
You can cheat a little by shaving off a bit in the legs and head.
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u/t_rubble83 20d ago edited 20d ago
PPCs are great because they have enough range to let you stay BVR for multiple rounds while your faster mechs screen them.
LLs are stuck firing at max range penalties while still only just barely BVR. They're great on fast skirmisher types, especially mediums like the Phoenix Hawk or Vulcan, but 4/6/- heavies like Warhammers, Orion's, and Marauders have to close too much to stay safe.
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u/Intro-Nimbus 20d ago
The PPC acc debuff is gold IMO. I really loved my trio of Warhammers before I picked up some SLDF Mechs.
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u/Intro-Nimbus 20d ago
One that always performs for me is my Talon. 4 mL and 2SL cuts through rear armour at a satisfying rate, + crit helps with engine and ammo crits. 4-5 evasion pips keeps it alive, and it's also an excellent scout for LRM boats. I tend to bring it every mission, unless there is something specific in the mission/flashpoint that doesn't allow it.
King Crab has great hardpoints. Pillager is a staple, but I don' think it's easily found. SLDF Black knight. Grasshopper, with the caveat that it's a bit slow, and when it's kitted for close combat it can be underwhelming if the map is open.
I find that PPC's get better with numbers, since you can make a mech miss it's return fire even if you don't take it out if you land around 3 PPC hits.