43 replies to this topic

[ROSING]

Objectively is one better? Is the brawler's versatility all that good? How do their turret modes compare? Which one is better at smashing into the front line and coming out alive? Is one of them more of a team player?

Thanks!

[Miscellaneous]

Well... They're both very different mechs.

 

The vanguard is limited very much to close-to-mid range, sustained damage with it's weaponry (AKA Miniflak, SMC and Vulcan). With the brawler, and it's flak, Hawkins and vulcan, can fit into mid-to-long range attack with the hawkins+TOW combo, slide into close-range burst with Flak+TOW, and close range sustain with Vulcan and TOW.

 

When it comes to turret modes, Vanguard has -60%-damage-from-the-front-super-turret, whereas the brawlers is a slow self-heal turret with only a -10% damage buff from the front.

 

In conclusion, depends what you want really. I don't play either mech that much really, ask Leonhardt about the Manguard and Saturnine about Brawler. They should be able to help.

[CraftyDus]

I'm for supporting the crowdfunding required to help all those C classes using vulcan-D to repair their horribly disfigured souls.

We can do great works of good if we pool our resources. One farthammer heavy at a time.

[Amidatelion]

Purely by the numbers? Brawler. Dat fat.

 

Most people will do better in a Vanguard due to its better manoeuvrability though.

[ticklemyiguana]

Despite both being C classes, and being capable of similar weapon loadouts (miniflak vanguard versus flak brawler) they are actually starkly different and require a pretty different playstyle.

 

I would say objectively, Flak Brawler could be argued as the better mech for its burst potential and its health pool. The turret mode of the brawler neither produces enough health nor reduces damage enough to be considered viable, whereas the attacking a turreted vanguard from the front is essentially attacking the highest health pool in the game.

 

The brawler is slow, one of the slowest in the game. The vanguard is quite fast for a C class and has a fuel tank that supports it. Its playstyle is actually pretty close to the infiltrator, whereas the brawler is most easily comparable with the scout.

 

While with the right movement and positioning, you can conceivably do just about anything, flak brawler is without a doubt the easiest mech to dispatch multiple enemies in a single fight with- though don't push it. If you're good, you can solo engage two A classes of comparable skill, but Hawken isn't a game that makes that sort of engagement favorable in any mech.

[Hyginos]

Adding to what has been said:

 

Hawkins Brawler (aka the cowbell) is map dependent but it hurts like hell at long range. It takes very good aim to pull off but it can be very potent.

 

Of the two, Vangaurd is probably easier to play because it is a good deal faster and can mount an SMC, which is easily the easiest weapon in the game to use.

 

As for teamwork, Vangaurd is probably a bit easier to work with in TDM pubs because it can keep up with death balls more easily, but in C heavy modes like siege or line map MA the point of engagement is more static so the Brawler may be able to apply more pressure.

[Amidatelion]

 (aka the cowbell) 

 storytiem nao plz

[Saturnine]

Unless you're a freak like me, there's not really an objectively better one. Miscellaneous is right - I can't speak to Vanguard really well, but I play Brawler almost literally exclusively. I only switch off it if I find myself in a server too far below my skill level, so I switch to another mech so that I'm a lot worse to match with the other players better - ironically this is usually to the Vanguard for me. 

 

Here is a bit of a wall of text I wrote a loooooonnngg time ago, that's half Brawler pep-talk and half playstyle suggestions. The game has changed a lot since then, and I think some of the references are out of date, but the general idea still applies, I think. 

 

Spoiler

Brawler strategy, in its' most basic form, boils down to one phrase: reach out and hug someone. You have THE explicitly dangerous close range weapon of the game, and you can do some serious damage if you are close enough to make real use of it, but then...

 

You don't have to worry about missing shots when most of your screen is being taken up by your enemy's soon-to-be scrap metal ass.

If you get up close, you are taking control of the situation, and you stop worrying about the fight, and they start worrying about the fight they started with the fatty that is right there in their face.

 

Guess what; your opponent sure as hell doesn't have nerves of steel in that situation, no matter what their skill level. They are going to make one of a couple decisions: 

 

1) They panic and run the hell away leaving themselves open to your flak and tow shots.

 

2) They panic and try to run the hell away, but mess up because 850 health worth of angry is right there pulling off chunks of their armor with all the purpose of The Terminator pulling strips of metal off that car they thought they were safe in.

 

3) They try and shoot you, but since you are the one who got control of the situation and initiated the wonderful romance that is a mech-on-mech hug, they can't keep track of you, and are panicking as you circle strafe them. You know what's going on, you know where you and the enemy are, and all they know is that there is fat ass behind them that is tearing them a new one.

 

4) They try and shoot you, and in their panic fire off their explosives at short range. Good. You have more health than they do, and you'll be damned if they don't regret that Pilot Error gun as they wind up causing themselves more trouble bouncing their TOWs off your glorious metal beast. Even if you're up against another C class, if you are the initiator of this hug, you have the control. You started this, and you're sure as hell gonna finish it. This means they're starting off disoriented, and you got the first hits off on them.

 

You are the big fat metal bastard in the world of Hawken. If you are going to leverage that position you have as the fat mech, then you need to act the part. You are the biggest, scariest thing out there, and if you get up in the face of your enemies and let them know with the sweet sweet caress of super heated metal raking across their windshield, you can bet they're going to remember it.

 

You'll be the hardass with the nerves of steel, and they'll be the ones who are panicking and shooting wildly when they see you stomping down the battlefield at them.

 

You are a brawler. You take your throne at the top of the food chain and you show those mini mechs who the real badass is.

 

Now for a more relevant explanation of it for the way things are now.

 

Miscellaneous hit the general ideas of what kinds of roles Brawler can be in earlier. Flak is great for close range burst fighting, and it's what I prefer personally over the other options. It's also the base option when you get a Brawler, so there's no waiting to get to use it. Though the Brawler is the slowest mech in the game with the C class two second dodge cooldown, the raw power available to you in a Flak/TOW combo alongside the most HP in the game (800) means you are surprisingly capable of wading into a combat and doing the dance alongside other, faster mechs.

 

If you're coming from the play perspective of a zippier mech (any of them), this transition will probably be difficult for you. You may be used to dodging and boosting and playing rocket tag with your opponents at high speed, but with Brawler the dance is different. Where the Scout and Berserker's dance is more of a swing dance - moving back and forth all the time and jumping into the air and stuff, the Brawler's dance is more Jazzy. You still make the movements, but they are a bit slower, less back and forth, but each movement has more weight to it, and is more important to the dance as a whole. 

 

Basically: You'll be dodging less often, and you probably won't be taking into the air, but you'll be watching your opponent, their positioning, what they firing pattern is, and keeping a very solid mental map of exactly where you and your opponent are in reference to one another and the terrain around you. While the fast classes are probably dodging and boosting at every available moment to keep themselves from being hit as much as possible, you don't have that luxury. You can dodge/boost/dodge, of course, but your dodge speed is slower, your boost speed is slower than a technician walks, and your dodge recharge is as slow as it gets: You aren't getting as much value per maneuver flat out as a scout would doing the same thing. Instead, you gain your value in predicting and knowing:

1. Where your opponent will be when you can fire
2. When your opponent will dodge
   • Where they are likely to dodge to at any given moment
   • Having a lot of experience will give you an instinct for exactly which direction an enemy will dodge, when they dodge, based on their class, whether they are burst or sustain, and by what the terrain near them is like. People will tend to dodge where they will have the room to do so, and when it will bring them closer to, or into cover. 
3. Where is a good place for YOU to dodge to - dodging in itself isn't what's valuable to you, it's where you can dodge to maximise the advantage the terrain will give you.
   • Things like dodging behind cover right after firing to make the opponent come to you if they want to engage, or just hit the cover instead of you. 
4. When your opponent will fire, so you can dodge right as they are firing to minimize damage taken.
   • You can get a feel for this by paying attention to which weapons the enemy has, as well as the rate people fire them at. People develop a pattern of firing unique to their class and their setup in order to maximise their ability to damage opponents, and you can exploit this pattern to maximise the potential of each of your dodges

This applies more directly to Flak brawlers, since they will be up close and personal and have the burst potential to maximise the effectiveness of strategies like these, but these kinds of survival skills are useful all the time, regardless of your loadout. 

 

As for the SA Hawkins: It's great for long and mid range encounters. It's a sustain weapon, so keep in mind its merits and demerits as such. If you can hold up in a specific position at a good range from the fight zone, turret mode works great with the Hawkins, since you should be too far for people to effectively engage you from behind, and the defense bonus plus the healing makes you a lot more difficult to kill. The movement loss hurts a bit, but since you are a sustained damage dealer, it's not a big problem.

 

Vulcan is hard; because you can't always turret mode up; you need to be at close range and people will just hop behind you. On top of that, you can't take advantage of close range burst strategies as much because you need to sustain your damage. However, your high hp will make tanking damage up close more feasible for you, and it can make chasing opponents more dangerous for them. 

 

 

Hopefully this is enough detail for Brawler specifically; I can't write much more due to lack of time, but when I can come back to this, I can add more if it seems necessary.

Edited by Saturnine, 10 May 2015 - 10:25 AM.

[Hyginos]

 storytiem nao plz

 

Ask weezl3. It involved bunker siege and Funtime Friday.

[Amidatelion]

Ask weezl3. It involved bunker siege and Funtime Friday.

 

you mean that guy who never posts and barely plays?

[SoldierHobbes11]

The brawler is more defensive and the vanguard is more offensive. I'll post a link to my two videos talking about them.

The Vanguard


The Brawler

[MomOw]

My personnal experience is that the flak brawler is somewhat confusing when coming from assault / CT-recruit, I also heard in-game new players making the same remarks. The SMC vanguard is easier to handle at start (faster, sustained weapon).

 

Once you've learned how to hit with the flak the brawler can be a beast, whereas the vanguard is more like a "big B-class" whith the most efficient turret mode

Edited by MomOw, 14 April 2015 - 10:37 AM.

[ROSING]

Thank you for all the replies! Brawler sounds like a fun challenge that I want to try out, but I will probably end with both at some point!

[devotion]

brawler> unless you're a turret mode fetishist

[PoopSlinger]

MANGUARD.   Equip it with air compressor , RK, mini extractor.  Vulcan, miniflak and SMC all offer hella good sustain damage. 

[Leonhardt]

MANGUARD.

 

Nuff said.

[Nept]

Unless you're a freak like me, there's not really an objectively better one. Miscellaneous is right - I can't speak to Vanguard really well, but I play Brawler almost literally exclusively.

 

False.  Brawler is objectively better.

 

In all seriousness, we run Brawler constantly in competition.  We sometimes run "Manguard" as well, but not nearly as often.

[BaronSaturday]

I can't speak from experience, however, as an almost exclusive Tech, I can tell you the types of engagements I find myself in when dealing with either. If I'm reinforcing a Brawler it means we're pushing. It means my dodge game is going to have to be on point more so than with any other C class aside from the G2 raider. Brawlers have an inherent presence on the map and peoole usually don't want to dance with it, usually opting to poke and move me off of it.

For the Vangaurd I'm usually there to reinforce it's position no matter what it is. While it's not the best for a direct push, it can do it well provided support is inbound and having it in turret mode to reinforce a push is ususlly great. In close quarters, it can be good, but I find it a better mid line or second wave fighter.

[Reippers]

What you use in their internal Brawler?

[devotion]

What you use in their internal Brawler?

fusor3 then either defl2/ext1 or rk3 depending if i'm flak or hawkins.

[IareDave]

fusor3 then either defl2/ext1 or rk3 depending if i'm flak or hawkins.

That's so low tier. I stole this off Xacius and it works well on C's: Kit 2, fusor 2, extractor 2. 

 

It's god mode. 

 

(obviously with 3 orbs because every other item is shittt)

Edited by IareDave, 09 May 2015 - 11:05 PM.

[devotion]

i ran that build on assault for a bit to try to lord my orb out even harder, but a brawler is so thick that it is a little less orb dependent imo.

 

so an orb heals 170 flat and rk gives 15% which is a 26~ hp improvement per orb assuming you take the whole orb. fusor 2 gives you 13% on kill and half on assist which is 104/52, and fusor 3 gives you 20%/13% or 160/104 assuming 800 hp.

 

2/2/2: 196 per orb, 104/52 fusor, 30% uptake

3/3: 213 per orb, 160/104 fusor

 

just me personally, but i think that people don't and shouldn't focus brawlers because it's easier and more important to kill the lower hp accessible targets, and it's fat gives it more leisure time to pick up orbs, both which make it less extractor dependent.

 

but we'll see. i just bought some internals and i'll do some testing.

[IareDave]

i ran that build on assault for a bit to try to lord my orb out even harder, but a brawler is so thick that it is a little less orb dependent imo.

 

so an orb heals 170 flat and rk gives 15% which is a 26~ hp improvement per orb assuming you take the whole orb. fusor 2 gives you 13% on kill and half on assist which is 104/52, and fusor 3 gives you 20%/13% or 160/104 assuming 800 hp.

 

2/2/2: 196 per orb, 104/52 fusor, 30% uptake

3/3: 213 per orb, 160/104 fusor

 

just me personally, but i think that people don't and shouldn't focus brawlers because it's easier and more important to kill the lower hp accessible targets, and it's fat gives it more leisure time to pick up orbs, both which make it less extractor dependent.

 

but we'll see. i just bought some internals and i'll do some testing.

My build is implying you can actually get kills and steal their mech souls. But for people with tremendous difficulty obtaining frags your build sounds superb. 

 

I'm happy for you. 

[Miscellaneous]

My build is implying you can actually get kills and steal their mech souls. But for people with tremendous difficulty obtaining frags your build sounds superb. 

 

I'm happy for you. 

 

Passive Aggressive much? lol

Edited by (KDR) Miscellaneous, 10 May 2015 - 05:55 AM.

[Sp3ctrr]

Orb Lord Vanguard is sick. Now that I think of it Orb lordin' is pretty sick in general.

 

MK 3 orbs + Extractor + Repair kit + 60% damage reducks is pure insanity. I just tried this out today and Oh lord I wish I tried it sooner.

 

The amount of damage this soaks up is crazy. 

 

Vangurrd is a new favourite.

[devotion]

My build is implying you can actually get kills and steal their mech souls. But for people with tremendous difficulty obtaining frags your build sounds superb. 

 

I'm happy for you. 

wouldn't getting kills and fragging mech souls objectively favor fusor 3 over fusor 2? ;)

[IareDave]

wouldn't getting kills and fragging mech souls objectively favor fusor 3 over fusor 2? ;)

The issue is fusor kills don't stack like orbs can and there's the issue of getting a kill and then having the effect getting over written by an assist. 

[PoopSlinger]

If you orblord on like 2 orbs in turret vanguard how many bullets can you take to the face? 

[Hyginos]

If you orblord on like 2 orbs in turret vanguard how many bullets can you take to the face? 

 

Number is to large to compute.

[Kopra]

If you orblord on like 2 orbs in turret vanguard how many bullets can you take to the face? 

232 SMC bullets.

Edited by (KDR) Kopra, 16 May 2015 - 05:18 AM.

[Meraple]

Does Composite Armor stack with the Vanguard's Turret Mode? (should be 75% dmg reduc)

 

And does Failsafe?

I wonder what it'd do with -115% damage recieved from your own grenades in your face.

[Kopra]

Does Composite Armor stack with the Vanguard's Turret Mode? (should be 75% dmg reduc)

 

And does Failsafe?

I wonder what it'd do with -115% damage recieved from your own grenades in your face.

When Failsafe was 90% reduction I tried to combine it with Deflectors for 110% reduction, but in actuality it was only 92% reduction combined, so from that I gather that it's multiplicative. [1-(1-0.60)*(1-0.15)] = 0.66 = 66% reduction for Composite Armor + Vanguard Turret Mode.

Edited by (KDR) Kopra, 16 May 2015 - 05:17 AM.

[Fulano2]

Between them, I would get the vanguard, with no doubt. I find it more versatile, due to its speed (faster than some B mechs), has the best turret mode in the game (killing a turreted vanguard by the front needs some hardwork and serious DPS).

 

Also, it combines great weapons, the SMC (that a monkey can use), the mini flak and the vulcan, and the grenade launcher, which can be quite easier to use than the TOW, once the grenade travels more slowly, and this is great mainly for who plays constantly with hight pings, when you have delays between what you do and what happens.

 

Worths the higher price than the Brawler. But its your choice. In the right hands, any mech of this game can make serious damage.

[spinningchurro]

The issue is fusor kills don't stack like orbs can and there's the issue of getting a kill and then having the effect getting over written by an assist. 

 

I did not know this.

 

Should fusor kills stack?  I think they should.

[TAZ_]

I prefer brawler, looks like an obesity scout.

[hellc9943]

Vanguard.

[Kindos7]

Brawler.

[spr1nterJam]

Grenedier

[Ennihilation]

I cant really seem to find a use for C class mechs at all. Any experinced A class pilot is just gonna run around you in circles, while you try to figure out what direction they went. Scout, zerker, reaper seem to be the king mechs on this game, everything else is just meat shields for the A classes on the team.

[Amidatelion]

I cant really seem to find a use for C class mechs at all. Any experinced A class pilot is just gonna run around you in circles, while you try to figure out what direction they went. Scout, zerker, reaper seem to be the king mechs on this game, everything else is just meat shields for the A classes on the team.

 

This is going to sound terrible, but learn to aim. Well, position and aim.

 

C-classes are objectively better in every way to A's because no amount of dodging is going to save you from someone who can track you. At that point, more HP wins. Period. At the competitive level, mechs are limited to 3 of any given class because otherwise everyone would be running as many C's as they could fit on a point, with an Assault and maybe a Raider or SS for flavour.

 

Aim is the hard counter to zippy little A's, its just that very few pilots bother to bring theirs up to a standard that can actually counter them.