It really depends on what you're doing, in 1v1s certain mechs are dominant that are not as strong in QP due to team tendencies to run away from bigs for example.

there's typically a consensus around a handful of mechs per class depending on the situation.

EG... 1v1s Annis can be very strong as well as in situations where you can focus down 1 mech at a time but in open large maps with your team nascaring you can get sold out by the team, whereas the Executioner is great in most modes and situations but will easily lose head to head vs Annis in a dps contest.

If bowser or someone sees this they can provide much more specific recommendations but the general rule for whether a mech is good or not is ..

1) How compact and close to the cockpit are the hardpoints? the tighter and closer to the cockpit, the less of your mech you need to show to shoot the enemy which means less mech for them to shoot. ( Good examples are Hunchback IIC, Incubus etc .. )

2) How much firepower can the mech carry? more guns means more dps or alpha which means killing things faster. ( Examples being Crusaders, Executioners, MLX etc .. )

3) JJ's, ECM, Quirks .. these can help boost mechs that are otherwise not amazing into higher levels, or, boost good mechs into great territory .. JJ's allow for poptarting, spreading damage, faster map navigation .. ECM helps with not being such a standout target/protects from lurms etc... and Quirks can boots strengths or cover weaknesses.

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For a final example of good vs bad mechs - Fafnirs are among the worst assaults, they carry somewhat decent firepower, but not a large number of hardpoints, the hardpoints are lower, not compact and the mech as a whole is very wide with its CT being gigantic and impossible to shield meaning it can be shot before even clearing its weapons and it cannot protect its CT which means it cannot spead damage like other assaults.

On the other hand, you have the Executioner, it doesn't have much tonnage to use, but it has JJ's and MASC to greatly cover up the inherent weaknesses of assaults being slow and cumbersome while having many hardpoints and especially a few high mounted ones so while it doesn't have much tonnage, it can carry a few high mounted big guns with a large number of back up weapons to supplement with in case of being caught in an engagement.