Loki

[BlueFlames]

After the debacle that was my attempt to make use of the Jaegermech, I knew that I needed my heavy mechs to be faster. And the damnedest thing of all is that throughout the entire process of examining the Jaegermech and theorycrafting builds for it and buying the first variant, I had a set of Lokis sitting in my hangar. Instead of spending money on another heavy, let's do the intelligent thing and build out those Lokis.

As with the Shadowcat, the Loki is an omnimech, with nothing particularly unique about its center torso omnipod, so I'll be splitting the builds up by their main weapon system, rather than by variant. I will note, though, that the HBR-B variant comes with Artemis IV by default, so if you are planning to use a missile build that utilizes Art.IV, it can be cheaper and easier to use that variant, if you already own it.

Finally, before the builds, I'll note the left torso. Take the Prime omnipod for the left torso. You want the ECM, and you want the tight, high cluster of energy mounts. A single energy hardpoint is obviously inferior, and a single missile hardpoint, while unique still isn't an adequate trade.


Missiles & Energy

The Loki's omnipods offer a really good combination of energy and missile hardpoints for a short-range brawler. it's a little squishy in that role, but ECM and high speed in its weight class allows for the mech to sneak about and get a couple of kills in the enemy team's back row, before anyone can deal with you.

The obvious starting point, then, is a load of ER small lasers and SRMs, combined with all the heat sinks you can fit. This is a feast or famine mech. If you sneak effectively, then you'll get quickly and easily two or three kills, with little fuss. If someone with a sharp eye spots you, or you get swarmed by light mechs, trying to do the same thing to your team, then you'll have a short, disappointing match.

Since the above is such a feast or famine mech, if you're willing to accept the good with the bad, why not double-down? You don't have to give up much to upgrade the ER small lasers to small pulse lasers, but you are clipping your range even shorter, making you that much more reliant on being stealthy.

It's worth noting that I have a shedload of builds that use smaller SRM launchers in favor of ER medium lasers and medium pulse lasers, which I'm not sharing in this post. The reason is, clusters of Clan ER medium lasers and medium pulse lasers run far too hot for a short-/mid-range brawl, without offering enough additional range over the ERSL build to mitigate the risks of being so close to the hostile line.


Long-Range Ballistics & PPCs

Let's jump to the other extreme, then. A pretty typical Loki build centers around a Gauss rifle and four ERMLs. While I can see the appeal of this build, I think it's a relic of the time period before ERMLs had their maximum range reduced. The two weapon systems used to compliment each other quite well, but these days, at the range where you'll be using the Gauss rifle, the ERMLs are less than helpful, and the Gauss can't keep up with the damage that other ballistic weapons put out, when you're close enough to use ERMLs to their maximum effectiveness. It's not terrible, but I think that there are better options available.

One such alternative is to swap the Gauss out for a pair of UAC5's. This offers similar capability at long range, but UAC5's are able to provide better short-range defense as well. Where it falls down is in how many heat sinks it has to give up to free up tonnage for the UACs. This limits the usefulness of the ERMLs, eliminating the whole point of switching from Gauss to UACs.

Let's try non-ballistic sniping then, with a pair of ERPPCs. Sadly, despite the twenty-one double heat sinks, a pair of ERPPCs is still way too hot to be terribly effective, and ERPPCs are the only type of PPC available to the Clans.

Remember the PPC Shadow Cat build? Remember the solution to its heat problems? The same one-for-one swap of PPCs-to-LPLs helps the Loki as well. You have to risk a little more exposure time, when sniping with LPLs, as opposed to PPCs, but at least you can take more than two shots, before overheating.


General Ballistics

In another post that I'm drafting, I mention that, except for a select few maps, most engagements in the solo queue occur within six-hundred meters. That in mind, I revisited the Gauss build, swapping the rifle for a UAC10 and additional heat sinks. While the damage numbers suggest slightly better performance, the truth is that the damage winds up being a bit underwhelming, since the burst-fire autocannons allow for targets to spread damage across multiple components. In order to actually keep up with that Gauss rifle, using Clan tech, you need your damage output to be quite a bit higher.

Why not double-up? When this mech works, it's great fun. You can hypothetically belch out shells for about twenty-five seconds and do a thousand damage in that time. Realistically, you're not going to. What winds up happening is one or both guns jam immediately, and your target then has a free shot to pluck off your right torso, and then you're done. If the chassis had a UAC jam chance quirk and/or a structure quirk for the ballistic right torsos, then this build could be amazing, but without that, this winds up being frustrating to play.

Trading the two UAC10's for a UAC20 allows you to spread your eggs across multiple baskets. Six ERSLs in the left side ensure that you have something to shoot in the event of your UAC20 jamming or being destroyed, and the autocannon provides similar damage output to its two smaller cousins, if at shorter range. Maybe it's because this behaves like an oversized Hunchback, and the HBK-4G was my first mech in MWO, but of all the builds I've tried, this has been the most consistently successful.


Final Thoughts

What final thoughts do you need? ECM is ludicrously powerful in the solo queue, since everyone relies so heavily on the target indicators. The Loki is a fast heavy with ECM. Go stab people in the back.

Actually, after leveling my Shadow Cats and Lokis, I've gotten a feel for Clan tech, as it exists since the last round of balance changes. I have a lot of general thoughts on Clan tech that I want to share in a separate post, when time permits. That general material wouldn't be appropriate to leave dangling off the end of a post focused on a particular chassis.

But yeah, go murder; sew chaos, and be a really fat pest of a mech.

[BlueFlames]

Because I didn't have one come to mind in the moment, and I just had a great game....

Amusing Anecdote

So there's a King Crab build rolling around the solo queue that runs with six AC2s and a *lot* of ammo. It's not a bad build, because the AC2s fire fast enough to eat through armor, and once the armor is open, AC2s cut internals apart just like machine guns.

Just a moment ago, I had a match on Mining Collective, where I ran directly up the B/C line, while the rest of my lance ran toward the center. As I approached the halfway mark, I caught sight of an Atlas too briefly and from too far away to fire. I sidled up to the north-center building and stopped to watch my seismic sensor. A contact showed up immediately, slowly approaching my corner.

Round the corner came a six-AC2 King Crab, which apparently spotted me take cover, because he was facing me and immediately let rip. Despite only being two-thirds his weight, I stood my ground and returned fire with my AC20 and ERSLs. Because he was chain-firing his autocannons, and I was burst firing, I was able to twist about and use the armor on all sections of my mech to absorb damage, while he took every single hit to his center torso. I got lucky with my UAC jam rolls and took the King Crab down in just a handful of salvos, overheating on the very last shot.

Our team's light mechs caught sight of what I had locked and rushed over, albeit too late to chip into the King Crab. With a little bit of armor remaining and lights available as backup, I decided to push forward and see what other victims I could find. Worst case scenario, I've already blown up a mech 35 tons larger than my own.

Turns out, the Atlas wasn't too far beyond the smoldering husk of the King Crab. Now, unlike the King Crab, which had a build that could work well under certain circumstances, the Atlas was god-awful: three LRM15s (no Artemis, not that it really helps that much with the large launchers), ECM, and *nothing else*. I was already quite close, and the Atlas knew it, so he locked and fired at another, more distant mech, while I was left free to core out his center torso.

While I was doing so, a couple of the light pilots and myself spotted more LRM fire originating from the fuel tanks in sector C2. We went hunting. This time, the light mechs missed the mark, proceeding into D2, well past the target.

I circled around and turned toward the C2 alleyway, and spotted a Catapult A1 LRM boat above, with his back turned. I was just within optimal range of all of my weapons, so I let rip. He tried to run, but didn't get far.

AssaultLancePoop.jpg

Save for a Mad Cat, which I never so much as spotted, I just got credit for solo kills for the entire enemy assault lance. I later out-brawled a dual-UAC5 Marauder for an assist and picked off a Spider that was the last enemy mech standing for my fourth kill of the match and a total of 959 damage. The King Crab, Atlas, and Catapult scored a combined 324 damage. I fired every last UAC20 shell that I had loaded. Lessons learned: Don't bring LRMs and AC2s to a UAC20 fight.

[BlueFlames]

And I just cracked 1,000 damage on Terra Therma of all maps, with the UAC20 build. It's a beast, I tell you.