Rak's Comments: "Which 'Mechs need more quirkening?"

Somebody on the forums asked which 'Mechs need better quirks. I quickly assembled a few suggestions.

Lights:

Commando: A has good quirks, but the rest are underwhelming. I'm sure PGI can see their usage is still on the lower end. The Commando cannot boat any weapon, so quirks have to be proportionally better.

Mediums:

Vindicator: Massive redo is required. Basically Vindis need some quirks on the magnitude of 9S' quirks. 1AA is decent, but it could use a PPC heat reduction. 1X needs a massive(50% DPS boost) bonus to one of the autocannons, 1R needs to be focused on lasers only, remove PPC bonuses. Make them glass cannons. SIB needs 4SP levels of laser and SRM boosts. Give every VND mobility quirks (torso twist speed, acceleration, turn radius).
Cicada: X-5 is woefully underpowered compared to the rest. Give it more missile tubes and a little missile cooldown bonus. It'll do well.
Centurion: A could use a bit more boost to its AC10 cooldown.
Trebuchet: Give Trebs arm armor and structure bonuses. They lose those gigantic arms too easily.
Kintaro: Side torso structure boosts are needed to bring its survivability up there with the other mediums. Quirks on non-18 variants need to be revised up as well. This 'Mech is still pretty bad and lacks a niche.

Heavies:

Dragon: 1N is unproportionally good compared to the others. Either boost the other Dragon quirks more, or bring 1N in line with them. 5N UAC5 quirk is underwhelming. Give it a blanket ballistic cooldown reduction (~20%) and let players choose the weapon they want.
Quickdraw: Everything except 4G is still underwhelming. 5K needs to focus on ML quirks. Boost CT/ST structures a bit to make this mini-Awesome more durable.
Cataphract: This thing is still not used because it's too wide and dies very quickly. It can't snipe because of low hardpoints and it can't brawl because of its wideness. PGI needs to make up their minds about the indended role for non-3D variants and adjust quirks accordingly. 10% here and there makes no difference. I'd say non-3D variants need TDR levels of quirks to be made viable again.
Orion: Where to begin. It suffers from the low mounted hardpoint syndrome as well, but thankfully it's not as wide as the CTF. PGI needs to focus these on being STD engine brawlers. Focus VA on SRM4's and AC20, keep V's AC5 quirks, give K ML and AC20 bonuses (speed is a must), give M AC10 and LL bonuses and finally refocus the Protector on being a "general purpose" Orion. No specific quirks but general boosts to everything (Say -15% Energy heat reduction, -15% Ballistic cooldown, 15% Energy Range, 15% PPC speed and so on). Give every Orion torso twist and turn radius bonuses. This is probably the most important of all.

Assaults:

Awesome: This 'Mech is still beyond redemption. Wide and low mounted hardpoints. Give 9M 9S levels of ERPPC quirks. It's much easier to deal with so there's no reason not to give it better ERPPC quirks. 8Q could use more laser focused quirks instead of PPCs. Maybe keep the PPC quirks but buff lasers a bit more. 8T still sucks. 8V and 8R are fine.
Victor: The gigantic rear-CT hitbox needs to be trimmed. Refocus Victors on being XL brawlers. Structure bonuses to arms and STs are needed.
Highlander: Still absent from the battlefield and honestly as a HGN enthusiast I can see why. Fix Class I JJs and it will help these beasts immensely. Give its JJs better initial impulse and less heat. Currently they suffer too much from running too hot (due to low engine cap and less internal heatsinks and JJ heat), so they could use heat reduction/dissipation quirks all across the board. I'd say improve JJ usability first and then see if any weapon system needs boosting.

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

Rak's Armory