Hey everyone!
It’s that time of week again, where I spill out my deeepest daarkest seeeecrets and why am I typing like it’s Halloween fuck I need to go to bed.
Anyways, it’s also that time of year! I’ll probably spend nearly as much time on MetaMechs as I do normally, but it’s mostly going to be finishing half-started articles and editing old ones that need to be updated (TDR master guide, buying guide, comp building guide, just to name a few). And I don’t yet know my New Years’ plans so I may be mostly afk for a few days around then.
But I want to talk about the last week or so. Coming off of last week, I was tired. Before the KGC release patch, I was working on and off on a couple of articles, expecting a lull and so I wanted to put out some content that I had meant to put out a while ago, but then I had to (I say had to, I mean wanted to badly but wasn’t expecting it) do a master guide on the KGC and Gargoyle. And then the surprise CW content hit us early too, and I was working on that. And I was tired as hell, because my IRL sleep patterns and shit have been shifting massively and I was missing my sweet sweet caffeine…and I only got my energy back in the last few days, as illustrated by this recent burst of content (check the home page if you haven’t already, dawg). But now, hopefully things will be more regular and less bursty. I’m also going to go over the content I released over the last couple of when I’m well-rested to make sure it’s up to par, and probably do some editing…but if you’ve already read it that shouldn’t really effect you too much (though I’ll make a post if I change anything and you feel the need to review my changes :P). Anyways, I’m feeling spick and spam now (is that how the phrase goes?) and now my tired is like, physically rather than mentally. Seriously can not wait to go to bed. It looks so comfy and warm…
But I want to do this first. And I want to talk about identity. Because fuck it, it’s late at night and I’m listening to weird relaxing music. So if you don’t give a shit about my rambling (which has little to do with MWO), just skip down to the Build of the Week. I forgive you <3
A lot of people have labeled me in my life, with no ill intentions, but just based on what I do, what I spend my time on, etc. But I gotta say identifying people based on a passion they have or some attribute about them is a real pet peeve of mine. I play a lot (time-wise, not quantity) of video games. I don’t believe in a god. I study both in and out of classes. But I’m not a gamer. I’m not an atheist. I’m not a student. Those are things that describe me, attributes, but they are not who I am, they don’t identify me. The only label I accept is that of a human being. Because that’s all any of us are, meatbags with brains. And I do have enough pragmatism in me to understand why these labels exist, even why people choose to wear them proudly, but I can’t help but cringe whenever a person or a group of people are referred to by such a label as being representative of their identities. A lot of people forget, or maybe not forget so much as neglect, that these are all human beings, with their own stories and their own priorities, and most are nothing like you think they are. There’s no such thing as the average gamer, the average redditor, the average teenager. There’s no gradient by which to measure such a thing; identities and personalities themselves are far too nuanced and complex and it would take a supercomputer of unimaginable power to “understand” everything about a person (so I suppose it is actually possible, with enough technology, but that technology is light-years ahead of where we are, and may not ever exist anyways). I’m not delusional and it’s exceedingly unlikely that nobody’s written this sort of stuff before me, especially when you consider that I never really studied much philosophy or anything of the esoteric, the closest I’ve ever gotten being the writings of Eliezer Yudkowsky, and I don’t think that this paragraph is particularly deep, or whatever you’d like to call it. I’ve just have had these notions swimming around my brain for a while and felt like finally putting them down somewhere, and hey I have a sort of blog thing so why not, right? I also didn’t really edit it so it might be a bit…loquacious.
Anyways, I just want to say that I appreciate you all for who you are, no matter what. Just don’t do bad stuff, m’kay? Thanks, and I hope you have a fantastic end-of-December <3
Build of the Week
ppppbbfffffffff. That’s the noise I just made when I was thinking of something good for the BotW. Seriously, I should start actually thinking of this stuff ahead of time instead of pulling it out of my ass. But for this week, I’m gonna do something different. It’s not gonna be a super-silly build, or a specialized build, or a thematic one, or anything like that. It’s gonna be a good build. One submitted in the MetaMech forum by kravk.
I present, the sweet-as-fuck Thunderbolt TDR-9S (as built by GMan129).
Now this isn’t the first time I’ve seen the build, or even played it, but it went completely out my mind since then and, with the re-quirkening, it’s actually pretty bloody amazing. It has only a few downsides – the lack of asymmetry, the XL engine, and the lack of jumpjets, but other than that it’s a very solid mech. The AC/10 and ERPPCs sync up almost perfectly – the convergence is a bit off and the AC/10 is slightly slower than the quirked ERPPCs, but it’s a 30 point ghost-heatless alpha strike which you can repeat and repeat again and again at long range or short without having to worry about your heat for quite a while – longer than it takes for you to kill someone, at any rate.
For a lot of the match, you’ll want to keep at range with your ERPPCs, poking very frequently but pull back down behind a hill or back into your side cover between shots. If the range closes within around 600 meters, you can even expose yourself enough to add your AC/10 into the mix, so long as you’ve got teammates to help and are confident that your trades will be favorable. Just keep up the fire throughout the game, try not to get focused, and don’t be afraid to pull back if you feel you’re getting hit too hard.
Mech Modules: Radar Deprivation, Seismic Sensor
Weapon Modules: ERPPC Cooldown, AC/10 Range
Consumables: Cool Shot 9×9, Improved Air Strike
I’m not sure where it stands in competitive, because it doesn’t have the full-right sided mounts of the 3xERPPC TDR-9S, nor does it have its dead side or standard engine, but I can say that for pugs, this thing is the bomb. Shoutout to kravk, and I hope you all enjoy it too.
-G
P.S. I’m considering a new weekly schedule. Patch Rundowns and Tier List Updates (when applicable) still on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, but Master Guides on Thursday, Weekly Blogs still on Saturday, and I’ll try to put out weekly content on Sunday or Monday, just on whatever I feel like. I think that will reduce the stress of crazy Master Guide schedules where I do 3 a week because I’m crazy, and allow for more time to space out my work.
Soundtrack to this week’s blog post. That rising action starting at around 3:45 just drives me wild. Best climax I’ve ever heard.