5 Obsolete Mechs of MechWarrior Online 

Exactly what I did. I picked the Raven and Hunchback all the way back in '14, and been piloting them ever since

PitFighterPlus Love all of my little Hunchies, they may not be meta, but they are mine! Tbh, Hunchback pilots are getting kinda rare now-a days (unless they are 2c’s)

I agree Magic Man, 'So long as you git gud with your mech and understand how to play that mech you'll wreck shop'.

Amen brother. I've a MCII-B and use a UA/C 20, LBX-20, ER Large Lasers and LRM-10s. I get told constantly against a comptent player I'll get shredded. I get around 200 damage and a kill or two. Suck it metagamers.

it also depends on how well you build any given mech. magic builds absolutely exist. and you need to min max some mechs to the nth degree to make them competitive. the dragon and the awesome are good examples

It is like WWII, battles will never be like they were.

Sick burn.

You think you got issues? My precious Highlander IIC was DOA because of what the Dragon Slayer did.

At least clan mechs are somewhat viable, ol' Victor should be euthanized

You think you have it rough? I have a Heavy Metal, 330 engine cap and class 1 jumpjets. Can't move fast, can't jump high and can't carry any real firepower. I still run it once in a while for the war horn sound.

Bull fucking shit! Clan mechs are NOT viable any fucking more. You fucking IS pansies!

Don't know if you have seen the results of the current MWO event.

Agreed. I like the Crusader CRD-3R from the 1985 rules. It only has 10 heat sinks but the variety of weapons means it can combat at any range with hardly any heat. Also it's armoured and has average heavy mech mobility. However, in MWO I find you need far more heat sinks than heat gen to combat said heat generation.

the new strategy game Battletech is about management skills. MWO is more about careful shooting or if you're a bastard, do the cheap trick of camping with Artemis LRMs and a Tag laser.

True, but the statistics should be the same, so 3 heat sinks should sink a single medium laser every time it fires, no more, no less.

@Aeiou So you saying you want to be able to control Tanks, Armored cars and etc. in addition to the Mechs. There isn't a FPS/ 3rd PS Battlemech game like that but the closest would be Mechcommander 1 & 2. I've played Mechcommander 2. It's a RTS game and there are Artillery vehicles, Repair Vehicles, Mine sweepers and etc. but those are more like limited "power" where you spend mission given resources to deploy. You don't get to customise them. It's the closest I can think of. It's also an old game so might be tricky to get it to work.

​@Aeiou You're definitely right. Oh wait!!! I just remembered something!!!! Cyberstorm 2 : Corporate War. You can buy tanks, mechs and flying thingies and customise them. Customisation is limited to how much tech you have researched. However, the game lacks tank and flyer variety (there are only a few). You must also take note that there has never been any badass tanks in any games in the Battletech universe. In fact they created mechs to surpass tanks. One more thing to note is that Cyberstorm 2 can be moderately a short game and is somewhat mediocre. It's got nice ideas but the graphics does not look polished compared to the first game. Missionforce Cyberstorm was my first introduction into the Battletech universe. I briefly lost contact it during the "Tribes" games. Didn't get to play Tribes.

The "Meta" mindset is what is wrong with people. "I want to win, therefor I should use only the best stuff."

That the biggest problem i have with this channel.

You joking? you would must be an idiot to not use the best gear for the job, the only reason to use shitty mechs/builds is for troll builds, yea they are fun, but then complaining that people with better mechs kill you? LUL

+OldBob 10025 thanks Bob

Sorry I was watching and its awesome.. The music the clips etc and you talking on your subject.. Good editing

I was gonna say something different, but with that same meaning ;)

my poor Heavy metal... :(

Yep, the Dragon Slayer was just a replacement for the -733C in comp play after it got nerfed.

Dragon bowling!

@@MrEric622 glad to see people are still using the term 'Dragon bowling' even after this long

@@ElcomeSoft played MWO since the beginning, but I fell off the wagon.

@@MrEric622 I was in the closed beta back in the day. Late 2012, I think it was. Then I quit because I saw the direction PGI was heading with it.

@@ElcomeSoft im a new player, just joined 2022. Care to tell me more? Even if its long

+hoko popular doesn't mean it's not obsolete. Currently there's still nothing that the CTF 3D is the best at

oh yeah? find a heavy mech that runs double uac10 better than 3D. thats right theres none. every other mech jams like a bitch because they have no jam quirks, and those that do, like Jagermech, have shit hitboxes and no armor, while cataphract has atleast 100 frontal CT armor. thanks to it's quirks, 3D has no competition at brawling with big UACs (10 and 20) which without jam chance quirks are otherwise useless

Ebon Jag, Night Gyr, Black Widow, now the Sun Spider.... All can carry 2xUAC5 and a UAC10, which has better DPS than 2xUAC10 even with the jam chance quirk. Not only that, but they carry the ACs in better hardpoint locations.

I use the cataphract 0X (stealth varient) and usually use gauss or uac20 with medium lasers to scare the hell outta people.

Nomad Chad It was mostly that damn size increase. So huge. Though the speed nerf didnt help either. My heart broke when those happened.

So "Size it should be" actually. it's a 30-ton robot, ffs. course, the Mech that REALLY needed the size up was the Firestarter. that thing was damn tiny for a 35 tonner. it was half the damn size of the Cicada, despite being only five tons lighter.

I feel like clans ruined it all.

You clearly have a terrible memory..

I remember everybody complaining incessantly that the game was subpar and dying until PGI's split with IGP and then the introduction of things like quirks, CW, community events, improved earnings, new maps as well as substantially improved communcations and relations with the community almost immediately outside the game was breathing new life into the game. I guess that renaissance must've really short-lived. If I had to guess what happened I'd say it was too many clan mechs were introduced too quickly (they were pushing it already with Wave II so early) and that they didn't introduce quick match queues that balanced for clans and IS.

Hi, I'm a new plyer. Care to tell me about it?

Yep I got sucked into buying their mech packs. 2 months later they are mothballed by the newest meta. 140 mechs and 3/4 of them are basically useless.

Granted, that's going to happen anyway is it progresses through the Battletech timeline.

if this process took place without newest mechs being buffed just long enough to be sold then i would be on board. But PGI does what is necessary to boost sales....

Not really... PGI essentially tries to make every mech perform as it's meant to without giving an unfair advantage to any one type of mech. Just because you suck too much to understand how to MAKE your mech get kills and do damage doesn't mean they're forcing your mech to be useless. I mean for fucks sake, I pilot the same Shadowhawk build I've piloted since 2014 and I have been kicking serious ass with it. Those mechs are only obsolete for pilots who rely more on OP gear rather than skill. It's like people who would complain about not having a nuke when they have infinite airstrikes in call of duty. Just lazy people with little to no skill or knowledge of the game.

Yeah, let's make all new mechs worse than the old ones, so nobody buys them. I think it is more a problem of people who have only fun when they can powergame. Had a few +700dmg games with the years old cataphract hero Ilya muromets yesterday for example. Just 2lb10x and 3 med laser and an xl340. Or also a few similar (800-900dmg) games with the "obsolete" dire wolf and just 6 ultra/ac2. None of those games were inbalcanced. The new quirks and powergaming mechs (double heavy gauss builds etc.) might be awesome and maybe in some cases they are also stronger than the old ones. But the differences aren't really that huge. I think positioning, tactics and communication are still the main factors that let a team win.

I discounted how mechs were in the early days of MWO because there wasn't very much competition between chassis at the very beginning. Since 2014 or so the RVN-3L and JR7-F had played very different roles so they were no longer directly comparable.

That's a nice idea

Here's what comes to mind immediately, in no particular order: 1. Phoenix Hawk 2. Archer 3. Mist Lynx 4. Ice Ferret 5. Gargoyle

Joshua Unsay gargoyle is good as a fast tank, lynx is a decent dps light, and the ferret is a great light hunter.

Is it weird that I like archers? If all you want is ballistics or wtfbbq laser vomit, there are better mechs, but I've had a lot of fun with mixed laser and missile builds, usually a quickly disposable supply of lrms in 5 or 10 packs and then plenty of ml or mpl.

TBH I can't think of a single mech that was DOA... and +Joshua Unsay that list is a bit mind boggling.... Wasn't the Archer very successful and popular for LRm and SRM builds? Mist Lynx was popular for CW as it fills a tonnage slot not present previously and it's good JJ and SRM spammage allowed it to easily nail generators behind enemy lines / defencess Ice Ferret too since it hits the magical speed limit to literally run on walls over gates on several maps and it's high speed ensures it to be an amazing harraser or sniper. I average quite often when solo'ing on Faction warfare over a k or two of damage in the ice ferret alone with mostly precise PPC strikes to the enemy CT's and stuff. Phoenix hawk? can't comment, I haven't purchased it. Gargoyle? well I do not have it, planning to get it soon (30 dollars away), but I did use the trial variant which was the stock prime with it's pitiful ammo and even then I averaged 600 damage games in it, it's like a Stormcrow with double the armour. Nothing to scoff at really.

Same here. Wait for updates. May be some of them will shine =\

Filthy clanners. You will never know the joys of popping fragile clan mechs in glorious steiner atlas, best scout mech in all of inner sphere

I have 3 of them, and know to SCORH them every time!

VeroSatchiel please tell me you at least fit a standared. so many idiots are packing xls into their atlas that I no longer even bother shooting the CT. not to mention I have more headshots against the Atlas than any other mech.

what... who the fuck runs xls on slow is assaults? Also, how do you not have more headshots on something with a fuckhuge hit box like the hunchback?

+Chris Williams thx

we are still missing soo much in MWO though.. where are triple strength myomers to run with MASC.. where is MASC on many of the mechs to begin with.. only a tiny handfull even get them... how about a proper melee system as well.. i miss the Highlander having an axe.. for that matter where is its little brother the Hatchetman.. theres at least one mech with a sword too... maybe its too much to ask as other more vital areas of the game are still broken.. like heat management and its bandaid..GHOST heat....

I think the 2X can brawl better than the 3D honestly and the 2X isn't one of the better IS heavy brawlers. That'd probably go to the SRM Catapult and AC20/SRM Orion.

My favorite Cataphract brawler is the 0XP, obviously because of the ECM. It gives you and your team a huge tactical advantage. Especially when I play with a full lance of 70 ton mechs (+/- 5 tons) at a speed of 70-80 kp/h. You show up in the flank of the opponent and fire the first shots and then roll up the enemy team.

The point is if you pull 1k+ damage with the Dire you'd pull 1.5 or whatever with some other mech in the same situation. As I said in the video several times, obsolete doesn't mean bad.

A lot of your audience didn't get the memo and immediately though most of the listed mechs were worthless and proceeded to bitch about PGI.

I totally disagree about comparing the Dire Wolf with a kodiak

Yep good point

These mechs are still obsolete. The KDK-3 may make this list if I updated it today. For lights, examples would be the Oxide and Ember.

Still outclassed by the Jenner IIC-A with better range (ERML) or damage (MPL) or the ACH with ECM and better range. On the IS side the WLF-2 is a better striker because of toughness and weapon quirks.

There used to be a really popular weapon combination where you'd use long or mid range lasers and one or more gauss rifles. This combo has gone out of style now.

WHK was never a top tier assault, that's why it didn't make it.

BlackhawkSC how about highlanders? I know that it's the same story as Victor essentially, but why not include it in a two way tie?

Mainly I didn't want to include 3 poptarts in this list. But the HGN has a couple of variants that are stronger than the Victors now like the 732 and 732B, which can both do asymmetric 3x(ER)LL Gauss builds.

BlackhawkSC true type for the response though it is slower.

A few of those points others have mentioned already. 1. The global resize affected every light mech, including the Jenner IIC. It was really other factors that caused the JR7-F to go down. 2. IS assaults were still stronger up to May 2016, then it's the Kodiak. February 2016 IS assaults were still better overall 3. I'm not sure how good of a measuring stick that event is. Just by looking at the top 5 scores though the Battlemaster also performed better than the DWF. Regardless, the criteria for "obsolete" is that in any situation another mech is better. That's true in the case of the DWF. At extreme range, the BLR is better. At long and mid range the KDK is better. At short range, many other mechs are better.

yeah, in fairness, the Resize was NEEDED. mean, the Firestarter, Wolfhound and Panther were HALF THE SIZE OF A CICADA. A mech that was only 5 tons heavier, and barely larger than one that was TEN tons lighter, the Commando. the Resize actually meant Firestarter and Arctic Cheetah had to learn how to dodge or tank fire, rather than being shoty-mcshort to avoid damage.

Most notably the higher damage and lower heat LPLs which they later scaled back in 2017. SRMs had a spread reduction which combined with the IS structure quirks, improved IS brawling for a while.

All of them are still obsolete, although if I made this today I'd probably add the Black Knight to it.

It definitely was the medium of the poptart era, but I didn't want to include too many of them and instead chose the DS and 3D as two main representatives. This is because I think the SHD wasn't as big of a force as the heavies and assaults were. Also one of the Shadowhawk variants, the 2D2, found its way back to being a pretty solid medium brawler in competitive matches recently.

That's true. even now, it's still a pretty solid Chassis. Lots of people overlook it but when ignored it can even carry matches in PUG drops. :)

Some of them are still good for hill-humping, and as mentioned the 2D2 is a good brawler-it was the answer to the Streakcrow scout meta.

I might add the Timberwolf there, but it's still a decent mech. I feel the mechs on this list still fell the hardest. Black Knight also got hit pretty hard.

Haven't heard anything about the Firemoth

I don't see them around at all

So, obsolete doesn't have to do with how popular or how good (on the absolute level) the mech is. It's a pretty specific criteria. Obsolete means that it's relatively worse in every playstyle to some other mech, which the Victor DS and Stalker is still after the patch. You also may be seeing more Victors being run lately because the Victor's missile hardpoints have been fixed, so people want to try it out. I've ran Victors in the last week also for that reason.

Gauss charge? That was mentioned.

can confirm with BHSC, itt was mentioned.

Moral of the story is: Don't pay money expecting something blatantly OP from a company that like games that are genuinely balanced. Another way to think of it is: Git Gud.

The thing with the Scorch is it can't shield at all. Survivability is just as important as firepower in a brawl.

One big thing they can do is to make the missile hardpoints 6+ tubes so if you're doing an SRM build, the missiles will come out at the same time. I believe they mentioned it will happen. It does also need better weapon quirks I agree. I hope they don't go with structure quirks since the Victor isn't supposed to be a very tanky mech in BT.

+Flagron it's when you jump jet over a hill or ridge, shoot, then fall back down. Minimal exposure.

Given there are no mechs going nuclear in MWO... eh. Also machine guns can also absolutely shred wiring and such inside a mech once the armor is dealt with. So as far as do I think machine guns need to be nerfed... HELL NO. Because wires aren't bulletproof. No even close. And know what goes through those wires? A very, VERY crucial element of battlemech operation... ELECTRICITY. Without power to a leg, you're stuck dragging it. Without power to your energy weapons, you aren't gonna be shooting anything with em. Not to mention the other countless internals that can probably be ripped apart by .50's. For example hydraulic systems, ammunition. Then there's the sensors, and other countless parts of mechs in general. Personally I think the jump jet shake killed poptarting and is the most effective and acceptable way to do so given those jump jets aren't exactly super efficient or very smooth. As for the Alpha strike leading to an instant detonation of your mech... I'm going to say no for quite a few reasons. The first and most noteworthy two being projectile weapons and brawling. Projectile weapons I don't need to explain. Because the only power you need to fire most projectile weapons is the power to essentially pull the trigger. For brawling... imagine this... you are in a medium mech with exactly two weapons. An ER Large Laser and an LBX 10 autocannon. A cicida rolls up on you and your reflex is to do as much damage as fast as possible. Resulting in firing both weapons at the same time... also known as an Alpha Strike for your mech since those are it's only two weapons. Now the idea is you can either explode because you want to shoot more than one weapon at a time or you can actually keep fighting. I know what most people would choose. Most people would call exploding for firing two weapons at once, an absolutely retarded game mechanic in a game where you only respawn in a specific game mode. That being said (Alpha Strike topic continued) For an alpha strike with enough Gauss rifles or lasers of a certain degree of power you absolutely should shut down or experience some damage or some indication that you're straining your mech by using so much power at a time. But it's a resounding HELL NO to having your mech randomly explode for an alpha strike unless you use 6+ ppc's (Which does indeed shut your mech down from heat instantly, and you will only get two or three alphas before you explode from the heat destroying the components in your core. Yes. It has been done, and resulted in a couple one shot kills.). Also, for the record... I've read the books and alpha strikes do NOT make the mech explode, though I'm sure it's happened in one or two of the books I haven't read, the ones I have put extra oomph into every weapon system it can for the alpha strike and it results in the mech shutting down. Often used as a last resort given if you don't disable the enemy mech and you're outnumbered, you will be vulnerable and you will more than likely die. Now on to TAG and Missiles... eh. I haven't read up on how it's supposed to work lore wise. But as is I don't see a problem with it. If a modern day jet can have a laser to guide in bombs and missiles they launch I figure it'd be fine, even for mechwarrior, if mechs have a laser or a beacon launcher to do the same thing. But I guess at some point the technology to have your own missiles guided by your own targeting laser was lost even though all it requires is a laser and missiles set up to be laser guided? Moral of the story: Balancing a game is a very tricky process. You have to punish and reward without making it so bad as that the punishment for firing all your weapons at once, even if it's just two at a time, means immediate death, and without the rewards being something so blatant as if you use a specific mech you get to add 20-30 tons over your weight class. If a meta doesn't make the game sucky to play for everyone else then I have no issues with it. For example poptarting. Poptarting got boring because there was a lot less brawling and more people just poptarting at a distance, and really made people play the game... but not in the spirit of how the developers intended the game to be played. It lead to a ton of matches being incredibly boring and was definitely detrimental to the game and the quality of the experiences people were having with the game. But streak SRM's with tag, they have to get close and live long enough to use it effectively. If you play right and work with your team, chances are you'll be close to several of your teammates and you'll annihilate them. They'll do damage but they'll die first from starting health values. But say you're a light mech and you run into a medium running Streak SRM's and Tag. Chances are you'll be on your own and you have a chance to escape but you'll probably be heavily damaged. Simply put... because that's how mechs work in battletech. Tactics over all, weight class matters, and you have to think to win. The absolute minimum you can be allowed to think and win is to think about cover and how close you are to your teammates every now and again. Because no thought at all will almost always lead to a certain loss unless your team is all on the same mindset... which if your team is practically sharing brainwaves without having to think about it, then you'll probably win via an absolute steamroll at a fairly decent speed.

Well in the MRBC matches of 2013, unless it was a ranged map the JR7-F was still used. The resize affected all the lights so it was a factor but not as large as others. It really was a nerf to lights in general.

It was just an mp3 I had on my computer. I don't have an actual title for it except "background music" heh.

I think the Spider was only good on two occasions, first being when hitreg sucked, and second when the 5K was the MG crit king. In the first case, the SDR was good because of a game bug, not because of anything that has to do with the chassis itself. And the second case, the MG playstyle was good, but in QP, it wasn't the best light available.

Ah yes, I remember when I used to be a jump sniper.

+Falconium yea TBRs are alright at the moment. Playable but lost a lot of mobility

Unlikely

It was better than normal vision in every way and let you easily spot mechs across an entire map, so it was perfect for snipers. It was just too powerful, so they removed it.

I'm not sure about the color scheme but heatvision before had much greater range than it does today, which made it too powerful. They could have kept the color scheme but reduce the range.

because heatvision was pretty much broken. Night/day, cold/hot map, just press H and there you go.

believe it or not, actual HV on gunscopes and so on isn't predator vision. it's actually a lot like what it's been changed to now.

Jenner is better than it was a year ago because of the ML heat buff and heat skills

+wkLeoTrooper yeah even with the AC5 CD quirk, I don't think the 1N was top tier. Same with the grid iron.

Daishi is the inner sphere name for the mech. The clan name is the Dire Wolf, and since it's a clan mech, it's more popular among hardcore BT people. The old MW games used the IS names for some reason so a lot of people got used to them.

@@BlackhawkSC Ah, ok. Thanks for the explanation. I know that there are a few 'Mechs that have different names between IS and Clan (Mad Dog/Vulture...etc), and I always wondered why. Looks like I need a refresher on my MW Lore.

A mech that can be effective can still be obsolete.

We need more light pilots in the game too. If you play lights well, you're a huge asset to your team, more than any other individual mech

I'm decent I just favor the sneaky small mechs that are fast and able to dance while exploiting each mechs build with focused skills.

Aka jump shooting. You take a jumping mech like the summoner or highlander, and fire your weapons as the mech is midair

little more detailed explanation here, Poptarting is when you take a mech with jumpjets and long-range weapons, and sit behind a hill or something, use jumpjets to fly up, and take potshots while you're midair, then drop back down into cover.

Yes, well if we want to be specific, it's not limited to long range. The only requirement is that the weapons you fire are frontloaded (ie, all the damage is applied to the targetted mech at once, not over time). SRM and LBX poptarting is a thing, as well as SNPPC. You can sort of do non-frontloaded poptarting, just not as well, like pulse lasers, cUAC5/10s.

thanks for the info guys! Very much sounds like a tactic i used to cheese in older mechwarrior games!

+Komsija RedBull not quite quit, just busy with other things in real life. Thanks for your comment

I run 2xLL 2xUAC5 currently on the 9B. Very meh, but at least it's not just a worse version of the 9S.