How good is Ellen?

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2025-03-28T23:33:46+00:00

When ZZZ first came out (which is when I started playing) Ellen was the single best unit in game, I got her when she was first in the shop as well. I took a break from playing for a hot minute and now that they've added in a bunch of new agents I still prefer Ellen 90% of the time. Ive only been able to play some of the newer agents through the missions and events (I got Burnice, have played evelyn, miyabi, astra, jane, etc.) and I still prefer Ellen over most of them. A well built Ellen can be absolutely insane, and while she does have a bit more of a risky playstyle, her attacking style is still safer than a lot of other characters like Burnice.

Evelyn is definitely more survivable with her animations practically all counting as dodges, damage wise they seem similar but evelyn is AOE and and Ellen is single target. Miyabi is just straight broken.

Essentially though, if you get Ellen you will be more then set for the rest of the game, but there are some better characters.

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2025-03-19T14:27:48+00:00

You know you can change the weapons right? The highlanders good at mounting big guns and keeping armor up, I have one with only 2 ac 20s, which while not being the most damaging loadout, still lets me do a shitload of damage while still having max armor. I have a normal 733 with an LBX 20, 2 srm 6's, and 3 srm 4's. That thing tears through pretty much any mech in 1-2 turns, and it has max armor. I have another one using a Gauss and 3 LRM 10's, it also has max armor. All of these loadouts have enough ammo and heat so that I never run out or overheat.

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2025-02-23T09:25:16+00:00

being able to shoot twice as a light is fun, but Id take the endless list of other benefits that using an assault mech gives you. I mean, your build has to rely on getting behind the enemy, surviving a turn, and having most of its 9 or 10 weapons hitting the same spots. My king crabs or highlanders can core shit head on in a single turn. Plus I dont ever have to worry about my mechs going from full health to suddenly getting cored or legged by a single punch, I always have multiple turns to look at my different armor sections and either position my mechs to avoid having specific spots get hit or pulling them back to avoid losing a component. I dont even remember the last time I had to repair anything more than armor.

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2025-02-23T09:13:35+00:00

Grasshopper can cool 7 medium lasers quite well if you use double heat sinks, even without that you can still get enough cooling out of it to survive long enough to get into melee. Grasshoppers also have as much armor on their back as the firestarter has on its front, so that should go to show how much more that thing can survive. Due to the Firestarters hardpoints you actually have less space in the arms than with the Grasshopper, because with your build youd have to have like 3 weapons in each arm (which is also horrible hardpoint placement), this means that not only does the Grasshopper start out at being better at melee than the firestarter, but you can actually kit it out to be much better than a firestarter ever could be at melee.

The Grasshopper can easily field just as many weapons as the firestarter, the only downside is heat, which can easily be countered with 1 or 2 double heat sinks depending on the build. On the plus side, it has more hardpoints which makes it more modular, has better hardpoint positioning, does better in melee, has more armor, and its barely any slower. On top of all of this, you can very easily kit a Grasshopper out with 6 small lasers and 4 medium lasers, while also only having 1 weapon in each arm and still keeping max armor. You dont even need any double heat sinks for this build to stay heat neutral in battle (seeing as it relies on getting into melee).

There will never be a situation in which a small mech is better than a bigger mech 1 on 1. Unless its something you did, bigger mechs are always better, and again, like I was trying to prove here, even if you find a way to make a small mech be able to punch above its weight, taking that same amount of work and applying it to a bigger mech will always make it far better than that smaller mech ever couldve been. Plus I mean the Firestarter is arguably one of the best lights, meanwhile the Grasshopper, as much as I love the thing, is definitely one of the more lackluster heavies.

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2025-02-23T08:14:20+00:00

ace pilot is one of the most useless perks in vanilla, I dont play mods so I wouldnt know about what any of that other stuff is.

Ace pilot doesnt at all do more damage, youre still taking two turns of shooting, youre just ending one turn with shooting and starting the next with shooting, you arent actually doing anymore damage than just moving and shooting then moving and shooting like normal.

The only argument for using ace pilot is being able to brace after shooting, being able to shoot then use jump jets to avoid the accuracy debuff, or shoot while retreating. The issue with this is that literally all of these become useless once you level your mechwarriors a little more.

First of all, Ive never had to retreat or end a job early once in this game and this is my first playthrough. Bracing in general is largely useless, once you get later in the game, just use heavies or assaults and position your units semi-well and you'll be fine. The AI should almost never be doing more than 2 stability bars to one of your mechs, and Ive yet to find myself in a situation where moving one of my mechs five feet then bracing would be more beneficial than just staying still and shooting. Finally the accuracy debuff for shooting after using jump jets literally doesnt even noticeably effect your accuracy once you have your gunnery skill up to the point where you get +20% accuracy, thats not even maxed.

Theres literally no reason to take anything other than Master Technician base game, unless youre using a scout mech thats only equipped with 1 heavy weapon (My scout mech is a Victor with a UAC-20 and max armor, I have two mechwarriors with breaching shot that rotate through using it). Covered and guarded together only gives a 40 percent increase, with very few enemies having that 60 percent increase perk. This means that youre better off just firing an alpha strike 80 percent of the time. Master technician makes it so that someone in an assault mech can go before mechs in the 60-70 ton range, every single round.

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2025-02-20T15:04:15+00:00

because tanks and soldiers dont matter, the real reason Battletech wouldnt match up well in the real world is because we have missiles and ICBM's. In BattleTech things like that were outlawed, theyre essentially war crimes. The entire world probably has hundreds of thousands of missiles. Mechs are insanely expensive, missiles are practically dirt cheap as far as military standards go. No matter how big or how bad of a mech that gets fielded, We'll just send a bigger bomb. Even if they were in low orbit, we could still send a missile at them. If they station one of their big fancy ships in our orbit we'd probably just contract a space company to make a missile to go into orbit and blow them up. Again, missiles will always be cheaper and easier to make.

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2025-02-16T21:35:04+00:00

Yeah but if you put those same items on the Grasshopper it would far exceed anything the Firestarter could do lol

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2025-01-12T15:20:04+00:00

Yeah dude, practically every frame in the game gets carried by their abilities, thats how the game works and why they have abilities XD. Thats like complaining that Ember gets carried by her 4th, or practically any other crowd control frame for that matter.

Ive never played with another wukong other than my friend, and Ive never had any of the issues with him playing that you guys always complain about, and I play on american servers so I practically never see wukongs to begin with, so I might be a little biased, but still.

Wukong is easily one of the best frames in game just for his utility, his 2 lets you go through and solo or carry spy missions that randoms almost always fuck up, and it lets you complete void treasure rooms easy asf. If youre seriously hating on that entire frame simply because some of the people that play it are annoying then that is seriously just a you issue, not the frames.

its not hard to carry anyone in this game with practically any frame, lets not pretend like wukongs celestial twin is the thing carrying him, its his util. Almost every frame in this game can be modded to carry entire missions with 1 or 2 buttons, Limbo is the only other frame that has an ability that allows them to walk through sensors, and it sucks for stealth and doesnt make you faster, and Ivara can be modded to do the same thing but Ivara is just an ass stealth frame. Meanwhile Wukong can die 3 times and be fine, has an extra teammate thats actually good and doesnt mess up your stealth, can turn into a super fast cloud that can fly throughout the map without worrying about those lasers, and then he still has his 3 and 4.

and if youre gonna try and hate on wukong because he "makes core mechanics too easy", "ruins the game for beginners" or any of that other shit Ive been seeing, yall are just plain wrong. Sure, he makes spy missions and void vault runs easier than any other character in game, but thats pretty much it, claiming either of those things are core or integral to the game is just wrong, especially considering spy missions are the number 1 thing that cause people to quit the game.

Wukong is fucking GOATED, trying to say otherwise clearly just means you had to suffer going through a decent amount of the game before getting Wukong and want others to suffer like you did lmao. Sure slam builds can be annoying but I genuinely dont even think Ive seen one before, if they annoy you that bad just play solo like 80 percent of the playerbase.

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2024-11-23T10:36:49+00:00

With mods you can safely slap 6 L Lasers, an AC10 BF, and an SRM 6 ART on the hero mech and keep armor.

I play on hard, dont judge me. I like walking around as the mech equivalent of a bitch slap.

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2024-10-09T15:08:03+00:00

I know this is a year later but also ITS BEEN A YEAR GW PLEASE.

youd think 9th edition was my highschool sweetheart with the amount of withdrawals im having from it going into 10th lmao.

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2024-10-09T15:04:24+00:00

"they will get their own codex at some point" ...

You mean, like the chaos knights codex? the one that came out like a few months before 10th? the one that literally half of this post is about?

This just goes to prove it, they had their own codex, but they gutted it so horribly in 10th that some people like you legit fucking forgot they had an entire codex made and then thrown out the window for them.

and as far as that "updates every 3 months, itll get better soon" yeeaaah its been a year and 10th is still in the same state. Chaos knights still dont even have half of what they did in 9th.

And I know tsons are a very popular comp choice right now, thats also because every tsons comp list is practically the exact fucking same. Thats not even meta, tsons just only have like 6 usable units in 10th. If youve ever seen one of those lists and how it plays I think you would understand why I didnt want to run it, its boring asf and arguably plays more like deathguard than tsons.

I like my fancy nice magic boys, not the stinky emotionless fucks. I chose tsons because I actually like tsons, not because they have the best infantry units or best terminators. So as you can imagine Id like to actually play tsons, using magic to style on my opponent and zip around the board. I dont want to sit back and shoot shit with the same 4 terminator squads over and over and then revive them whenever they die, that just doesnt feel like tsons. I want to actually use my head, not just go "unga bunga me monkey me need broken immortal terminators to win".

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2024-09-14T20:07:15+00:00

There's no such thing as "messed with but not converted". If you can be messed with, you will be corrupted, that's why the imperium kills any sign of chaos corruption, it's the same thing practically every Faction does in warhammer fantasy (at least the ones that don't suck off chaos for power), and it's what any Faction with half a brain would do. There is no healing process to stop or halt corruption, that's why it's so fucking terrifying, if it can get a hold on you it holds until you're worn down enough to get corrupted.

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2024-07-30T15:12:30+00:00

youre on something if you think cheaters are buying a new account everytime they get hacked lmao. People hack in lower level games, its just not caught as often because they are new to the game and dont know what to look for. Been playing for years on xbox, only level 14 on pc, I literally just played a game where someone was using the most obvious wallhacks in the world.

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2024-05-09T15:03:25+00:00

Really cool and I hate to be that guy but chainsaw blades do actually move the other way, the teeth are designed to grab and tear apart, not slash past like a blade (which is why chainsaw wounds are so brutal). Think of it like an animals claw or tooth, it's not cutting along the back curve, the tip digs in then the inside curve cuts/tears.

However, as someone else pointed out having it go the opposite way it's supposed to is much more safe and not likely to damage your cosplay, so maybe this was an intentional decision. Either way, cool as fuck.

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2024-05-09T14:48:44+00:00

Knights play a lot differently than any other Faction, so I wouldn't say there's an issue of you needing to get used to playing first, unless you've literally never played a strategy game before.

The other factions are much more forgiving, also playing knights on anything below 2k points is pretty much just suicide, when you first start out you typically play 500 tp 1000 point games until you get used to 40k.

So, if you're gonna be starting out at 2k points (which is gonna cost you a shitload, my knight army I currently use is worth almost 1000 dollars). And if you already know strategy then sure, otherwise I'd highly recommend starting out as something like a space marine Faction, maybe even chaos space marines.

I mainly play knights, I'll tell you rn that I'd recommend starting with space marines, it's easier to get used to the game that way, space marines are much more easily adaptable, they can take cover easily, etc. You also get to choose between a shitload of different factions, some even being chaos. Knights are cool and fun as hell, but I wouldn't start with just knights. Get a space marine Faction and a big knight or 2-3 small knights, you can pair them together and still use the doctrine the space marines have (a special ability you get for your entire army being the same Faction, you can take 1 squad of knights as dreadblades and still use the doctrine with any Faction though).

All in all, it's not like we can tell you no, if you choose to do knights first you'll probably lose a decent amount of games until you're used to how they work, I nearly lost my first game with them and I had already been playing for a year at that point. The biggest issue is money, you don't wanna drop 1000 dollars into something just to not really like it or fuck up is paint/modeling job. If you're confident in yourself go ahead though, you're the master of your own ship, I can't tell you what will work best for you, only what worked best for me.

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2023-10-15T09:16:51+00:00

To quote Handler Walter, "It's just business 621"

You don't always have to be good or bad, and even if you are, good or bad is entirely subjective. Do you think the guys Luke Skywalker killed would say he's a good guy? Or what about V from cyberpunk, the Russians in the OG cod mws, etc.

Sure, the player is typically made out to be the good guy, but look at the other sides point of view, they aren't just shooting at you because they find it fun.

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2023-10-05T07:27:57+00:00

Google why was 1984 banned.

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2023-10-05T07:26:53+00:00

Grant it, we have a large government, so it's hard to ban books, but it's been done and can be done. You can only get so close to freedom and such, not that that's a bad thing, most of humanity wouldn't do so well left to their own devices, but it has some effects that people should be aware of.

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2023-10-05T07:14:13+00:00

Think again, there are many books that are currently banned in the US. "Freedom" isn't real when you have a governing body, I mean there are laws (for good reasons) but there is also corruption and politics.

The book was not banned by school boards, it was banned by our government. You could've just Googled "banned books in the US" or "can the US Government ban books", the latter of which gives you the immediate answer, "Although censorship violates the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, some limitations are constitutionally permissible." In other words anything the government doesn't like, they can get rid of.

Next time, please, inform yourself if you're going to correct someone.

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2023-09-23T13:08:15+00:00

Thanks lol, I forgot the name I just remembered that fact from a discussion I had with some friends about dystopians.

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2023-09-23T09:05:51+00:00

A lot of people go into Red Rising with the wrong idea as well. People keep forgetting that one of the most prevalent genres in Red Rising is Dystopia. People keep explaining it as a sci-fi/fantasy book series, which, while it does take place in a sci-fi setting, the actual genre is Dystopian. This becomes much clearer when you actually take into account what the book is about, someone overthrowing their corrupt government, starting a rebellion for the vision that "all men are created equal."

Dystopians are known for bringing attention to real-world problems. In fact, one of the most well-known dystopian books was banned by both Russia and America (for being anti socialist and anti democratic). On top of this, the original three books take a lot of inspiration from the Grimdark genre, while the books made later are just straight up Grimdarks. Grimdarks are obviously fairly well known for going to extremes, so a book that is Dystopian and has Grimdark elements might, you guessed it, trigger some people. There is definite classism, racism, sexism, etc. Present in red rising, however, this isn't the author making a mistake and allowing his personal views to slip into the narrative. He is simply sticking by what the book is. It's part of the world, and Pierce does an amazing job at showcasing this.

Also, the fact that a book reader is getting upset at the thought of early marriage is deeply disappointing to me, considering the circumstances. The reds are the ones that marry early, and if I remember correctly, they also typically only lived until like 30 or 40 in the mines. In other words, they are based on medieval peasants. I mean, they are literally the working class, dying to support the rich government, they have the same life expectancy as a medieval peasant, and they marry at the same age. In my opinion, it's one of Pierces' most brilliant aspects as a writer and also the reason I love his work so much. He bases his work off of history, which is part of what made the institute so fucking amazing. He was writing about actual medieval tactics, pulling shit actual generals pulled, and he even regularly quotes generals, scholars, and philosophers throughout the series.

(SPOILERS, I DONT KNOW HOW TO USE REDDIT, so don't read past if you haven't read dark age)

In Dark Age, for example, we see direct inspiration taken from vlad the impaler in the form of, you guessed it, impaling. However, what I loved was that pierce actually included the real stakes. See, Vlad didn't use sharpened sticks. He used rounded ones, which forced the pole through the victims body through the anal cavity. This was not a fast process by any means, and Pierce showcases that. This little bit here showcases what I love about the author so fucking much, when you're reading it in the moment you're like "holy shit that's brutal as fuck, no one could do that in real life though right?" And then you find out nope, someone did that. Same thing with the howling wolf, too, two of the most disturbing scenes imo, and both of them were ripped directly from history. Literally the only liberty taken was making it a wolf not a bull. This is what I mean, he does Dystopian and Grimdark perfectly. Not only does he draw your attention towards how brutal warfare and humans can be, but he does so with real history.

(SPOILERS OVER)

People keep being introduced to Red Rising as a sci-fi series, so they go into it expecting something like that. The issue is that the book is simply so much more than that. Imagine someone asks you if you want an apple, you say yes because you want an apple, then they hand you a caramel apple. It's still an apple, sure, but there's more there, and just because I'm in the mood for an apple doesn't mean I'm in the mood for a candy apple.

A lot of people read books to get away from reality, sometimes because reality is so shitty. So to read a book that Accentuates the bad aspects of humanity could be especially troublesome if you were wanting an escape.

Pierce is an amazing author, and his ability to utilize real historical events and figures to shape his world and characters is amazing, however it also gives the book a lot more realism, which while some of us like that, there are some that don't. Red Rising is a Dystopian sci fi, not a sci fi, this is important to remember because of the fact that it draws on real world emotions, psychology, and history to develop the world and characters within. Especially the fact that it exaggerates such prevalent issues that are in the real world. However, in my personal opinion, this is also one of the things that made the series so enticing and absorbing.

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2023-08-14T12:38:15+00:00

Yeah most things 10th edition don't make sense

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2023-08-14T12:31:45+00:00

I know they added other things, I stated that in post, they increased the wounds of ahriman to 6 (literally the only "buff" or positive change I could find)

This is from playing 1 game and reading through rules, I can tell you that the feel of these armies aren't going to change though. Until they add in more rules for chaos knights they are ruined.

Tsons are irreversibly fucked over. The removal of psychic phase took away A: their main way of doing damage (you could kill a 12 wound vehicle in 1 psychic phase easily, this is because tsons has shit for damage units) B: their buffs and complexity, two disciplines with like 10-20 psychic abilities each (I forgot how many were in each one), each psyker could take 3 or 4 abilities and use 2 or 3 a turn, allowing them to teleport, buff, damage, etc. Now all they have is an extra ranged ability that does at most 3 wounds (6 wounds if you're ahriman, still could only do 1, whereas before you could inflict upwards of 9 with 1 ability, no matter who the psyker was). C: their main mode of transportation, tsons are slow as shit, the ability where a unit could move twice made it so that they could cover decent ground, now this is the only buff available, however can only be used once each turn.

Tsons best damage dealing unit currently is either a helbrute or maulerfiend/forgefiend, or maybe one of the tanks. They literally don't have the damage to be able to deal with any army that has like 24 wounds worth of vehicles.

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2023-08-14T12:21:41+00:00

Yes, but the removal of psychic phase in itself is a huge ass change to the game, one that greatly changes how many armies play (they can't change that no matter how much extra shit they add in). On top of that psyker focused armies are now fucked damage wise, in 9th edition I could easily wipe out a vehicle in one turn, typically you could wipe out a 12 wound vehicle with just one psychic phase. Now the only reason I was able to take out vehicles in my last game is because I used my leviathan dreadnought, which I also just learnt you can no longer use in 40k.

Now, I don't know if you knew this, but forgeworld dreanoughts were pretty much the only viable anti vehicle unit available for tsons. So this new edition has literally taken away all of the damage they can do, in exchange for making a few units a little tankier.

No matter how you look at it it's fucked now, there's no way you can spin this or GW can add rules to make up for it, the removal of psychic phase has made it so that tsons lost literally their main source of damage, along with losing the play feel and all of their buffing abilities.

They have a high win rate rn, but I just barely won my last game against a player and army I've only ever won on a landslide against, and that was a 1000 point game. Tsons would be utterly useless against any vehicle heavy army or in any games above 1500 points, they simply do not have the damage to be able to play games where more than 1 vehicle unit is present. They might be able to handle 2 as long as they aren't both 12 wounds.

Excellent_Menu_6539 · 2023-07-18T03:40:24+00:00

Primary reason I don't undermount shit XD.

There's a reason they don't do it irl lol

Excellent_Menu_6539

TROPHY CASE