Build of the week - The "solo proof" Timber Wolf

As I briefly touched upon in my previous post about the Timber Wolf, this thing is a monster. Not only it handles like a medium and does 89KPH, it also has the armor of a 75 tonner. Despite its disadvantageous shape, it's hitboxes couldn't be any more perfect. With nearly full armor, it has 29 tons of space for clan equipment, which considering the lower tonnage of clan equipment, is just frightening. No matter what build you bring, it's impossible to do bad with.

That being said, there's one build that I've had far more success with than the conventional brawler, sniper or poptart builds as a lonewolf. Did you know that the C-LRMs weigh half as much as the IS LRMs? Tonnage-wise, they're so cheap that you can just tuck them on casually like you're filling out spare tonnage with medium lasers. It's also possible to combine them with other cost-effective weapons to create an essentially "dual mode" mech.

After getting the Timber Wolf, I decided to keep my Prime as a traditional AC+SRM+ML brawler, the S as a facemelting SRM boat and the C as a more laid back, ranged damage dealer. I quickly found the sweet spots for the Prime and S, but the C just felt lacking. Initially I used an AC+LRM build, but I found it to be a bit too vulnerable at close range where my LRMs were useless. Considering the idea in the paragraph before, I decided to make an all-in-one laser and LRM boat. The tonnage was definitely there, I just needed to juggle my critical slots a bit. Here's the result:


Note: Don't forget to enable arm actuators for both arms

So what do we have here? 4xC-ERML's mounted on arms, 3xC-ERSL's mounted in torsos, 3xC-LRM15's with 1080 missiles, a Clan Active Probe, one Jump Jet and 19 DHS. That's a whopping 21.85DPS and 89.50 firepower on your Timber Wolf. Seven lasers provide 40 damage focused alpha while your missiles provide the rest 49.50  damage alpha that spreads all over the enemy mech. This is basically a Catapult and an Awesome combined in one mech.

Why did I call it "solo proof"? Simply because how effective this is in pretty much any situation. The LRM's allow you to annoy and damage ranged mechs(LL snipers, other LRM boats, poptarts) at range, anyone(brawers, lights) foolish enough to close in on this "LRM boat" is punished by your seven lasers delivering 40 damage sustained easily by your 19DHS. That's enough damage to tear off legs, arms and damaged components in just 2 alphas.

It's also very easy to make this build work. You don't need to worry about your positioning or how your team is doing like brawlers, you're perfectly capable of holding off entire teams by yourself by simply spamming missiles and picking off weak mechs with your lasers. You'll be surprised by the psychological effect of that "Incoming Missile" warning. It's possible to force the enemy team into defensive all by yourself.

Apart from the psychological effects, this is a damage dealer build. It's very easy to break 1000 damage and get at least 2-3 kills along with it. Why? Simple, you can keep shooting all the time. You can't see an enemy? With Advanced Target Decay and friendly spotters, your LRMs can still keep damaging the enemy. Do you have a direct line of sight? Then you go into beast mode and bring that 21.85DPS into action. Is the enemy too close? Use your lasers, scare them off or use your jump jets and speed to get away. If you can't deal with them, just kite them so that you can use your LRMs. I found that the trick is chaining your LRMs and using them as a suppression and stun weapon. Since C-LRMs fire in streams, a stream of 45 missiles take a lot of time while impacting on the target, messing up his aim and disorienting with explosions for a long time. Plus, you get to avoid unnecessary alphas.

This is not a great group build though, especially during steamrolls where you have to fight to get kills, which is easier with traditional brawlers and poptarts.

In conclusion, this is a great build to use in the solo queue. I've had great games with it, and it's much less stressful than the usual brawler builds. I highly recommend you check out LRM+Laser combos on the Timber Wolf. Unfortunately I don't have any gameplay videos this time, as I'm still having issues with my laptop.


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About Rak

I'm an engineer who likes to write extremely long articles about games that border simulation and mainstream.
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