Lacerators also seem to work best vertical, unless you’re playing them in low PS where there aren’t many hovers.
And if you’ve only got one harvester (like me), you kind of have to play it horizontal. Single harvester builds can work ok if you don’t go too high PS, but you don’t see them much anymore.
I don’t think many people mount maulers vertical, although I suppose they could potentially slice through hover frames from below. Might work against spiders, but would be useless against all other ground builds.
Other than that stupid American Flag bot, I can’t remember the last time I saw one in PVP.
I was running two builds today… biggest was 13541. Smaller was something like 10500.
I literally don’t remember the last time I played harvesters. I reverted back to the lacerators, maulers & borers - not necessarily for the lower PS, but just because they seemed to work better than the harvesters. That was a few buff/nerf cycles ago, so maybe I should pull 'em out of mothballs. When they work, they’re a hoot to play.
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You might have missed the window of opportunity.
With all the spiders now you really need to wait for When it’s mostly hovers. (I try to only pick hovers as targets)
Also, I’m talking a big PS build. (16k+)
Sometimes you have to push your PS past a current points to get to builds that are weak to it.
My current double harvester runs 2 harvesters and 2 flashes on a beholder.
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Agreed… and that’s a hard thing to grasp early in the game. Harvesters are a joke down low because there are a lot of tracks & legs that all but nullify them (thus mounting one over the other).
Retchers and other slow aiming weapons are like this as well. The smaller builds are harder to hit & track. They’re not useless down there, but they don’t come into their own until much higher in PS.
Really odd… enjoyable, but odd.
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And people think if something sucks at low to mid PS then it has to suck at high PS.
Which is not always true.
Back when Lance/spark/harvester highbred dogs where popular they clocked in right about 14-15k PS
If you logged in solo and got guys your own PS or lower you might do OK, but your not going to be a super star.
But if you had a 17k PS buddy team up and pull you into a high PS match then watch out! Because if they other side was all hover you had the potential to be able to kill the whole other team.
Games with 3-4 kills would happen all the time.
And I’m not talking about some MG guy hitting someone with one bullet, I mean you really killed 3-4 guy yourself.
Before this last patch when everyone was on hovers was the time to take advantage of that same opportunity.
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I don’t want them you have them
But yeah, it wasn’t a glitch doing that to my posts
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So I went on your account and had a look at the build you’re complaining about. The problem you’ve got is that you’re attaching the parts to gun mounts… Put them on frames, you need to listen to these people above, I don’t get why you don’t understand the mechanics of a game you say you’ve been playing for years. 2 shots with most guns will completely disarm you, I tested it in your garage on a range of weapons and all were the same. I then re-created your build myself and put them on frames and the results were far better.
Multiple smaller frame pieces gives you redundancies that you don’t gt by having 2 Borers on one gun mount.
Feel free to go onto my account and see the melee build I am currently using to great success. The melee weapons attached to an Omomori and 2 frame pieces.
EDIT: Below is derp_drivers build on their account.
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I’m going to assume that is how he changed his build, after people in this thread recommended using gun mounts instead of frames.
Personally, I think either one can work, but frames seem to need to be protected more.
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Frames are easily hidden, it’s why I would use them personally, gun mounts are large and easily targeted, especially having 2 borers on each one, that’s a recipe for easy disarmament.
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Seems like that build ought to work fine at 4.2K. I don’t know why it wouldn’t…other than the BS matchmaker in PVP setting him up for failure. But, that’s not going to influence the durability of those saws or the gun-mounts, only give him crap maps and optimal opponents.
That’s a good point, though.
I hope that post wasn’t meant to mock his build (“Hey, look at dummy’s build, guys. Haha”), but was to offer insight for advice.
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Absolutely not. I’m a big proponent of positive reinforcement and helping everyone build better. It’s what the games about after all.
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Well… the advice is to use more then one connection point. Which that build does not.
Also, the thing they are mounted to are out in the open. Which is not good.
One of the connection points can be frame, but a second needs to be shot through.
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Lol. when you try help someone and he dont even understand your message and get angry.
BTW.
First of all, you should not BUMP with frames, but bumpers or something else. If you want bump with bumpers you need expect you loose them, so you need connect them good way.
End of topic lol.
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Seems like good advice.
At 4.2K, personally, I didn’t think that would be much of an issue, since the weapons at 4K aren’t generally that beefy, but this update has changed a lot. They are a fat target right up front like that, though.
I’ve never really considered any of this stuff in regards to active melee, since in the past they were always very simple builds to execute. I never gave it much thought. I would just slap a row of Borers to the frame (often a single 2x6 or 2x8), a little armor around’em and then go pwn kids. It was maybe too simple. If they made that more difficult with this update, then good, I say. I was very sick of the low PS Boring-Trucker META.
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Here is a harvester mounted with 3 shot through pieces. Some people forget they have mounting points on top. I removed armor to show what is under it.
Here is two elbows connected behind the harvester:
And then this is a gun mount connect to the side (which is the top, but these are vertical.)
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Something to keep in mind about both frames and pass through parts is that they are vulnerable to direct collisions.
So make sure you cover those spots that could get slammed into with bumpers or passive melee. You don’t need much, as many of those parts will block impact damage beyond their visual model, and there are only so many angles you’re likely to get rammed anyway.
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Yes. Very true. That’s a good bit to mention, I think.
While I don’t do much active melee, I do run a lot of passive melee. It’s one of my favorite weapons, and I have noticed recently, whether it’s this update or another recent patch, IDK, but I have noticed that players using the frame or pass-through-part exploit for armor, (like hovers) will crumble like nachos beneath my blades and knives much easier than they used to, while at the same time being almost invulnerable to my guns.
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Yep… and that’s the point I was making regarding his 8x4 frame build. If you use FOUR 1x8 frame pieces to do the same job - any job - you have identical mass, durability & resistances, but on pieces that will be knocked of incrementally instead of all at once. Meaning, if that cluster of 1x8 is taking damage from one side, what’ll get knocked off isn’t the ALL the frame pieces, but the outer-most mounted one first.
You’ll end up with the same PS, same mass, and same durability. Of course, depending on what melee pieces you’re mounting, you may not be able to get all of those mounting points to work, but the premise is sound.
The same logic goes with armor.
If you have available pieces in your build, you should typically replace larger pieces with same pieces of the same class/type.
Here’s an example:
Replace THIS:
.
.
.
With THIS:
There are exceptions to this - for example, if doing so would mean those extra pieces are simply mounted to the one piece that’s affixed to other parts, so the additional pieces could be all shot of very easily.
The takeaway is to mount your melee on as many pieces as possible… using structural pieces with appropriate resistances, bumpers, and frames primarily. The more mounting points the better.
Hide what you’re mounting them to so what they’re mounted to can’t be shot off.
This is a method I’ve used quite a bit that works quite well. If you’re mounting higher up, use the straight pipe or similar 1x4 piece inside the Screeners.
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All I can say after reading this thread.
If you are attaching ANYTHING on your build to a single part you are doing it wrong. (exceptions are cabin mounting)
It does not matter if you are melee or a sniper. don’t do it.
do not attach your weapons to a single part (oma and averter are exceptions). And for godsakes make sure the parts you do use add up to more effective durability than the weapon.
Melee/Firedog frame.
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This 100% - and make sure those parts are strong. (Frame, shot through, cabin)
We are not talking about small and weak armor pieces.
That is why many art builds will be sub-par, because they will skip this rule for the sake of looks.
I don’t give a 
what it looks like, if my weapons don’t have multiple mounting points OR hooked to my cabin then it’s not going on my build. Period.
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