Honourable mention for the Firestarter! It can melt almost any heavy mech.

For a light mech, the firestarter with 6 small lasers and full armor jump jets does crazy damage and 1 shots a lot of light/medium mechs. Especially when meleeing

Odd to not see a grasshopper here. It's got a silly amount of utility hard-points meaning it's capable of running truly ridiculous builds. On that list is the "how many ppc's," "the bbq pit", the "you can't hit the large lasers, they're on the other side of the map," "captain laser vomit," and "comrade machine-gun face" builds

An Atlas can also comfortably mount 2x AC 20s ,2x srm 6s and 4 medium lasers.

I can't believe this game is still around. my brother, cousins and I used to play the battletech board game back in the early to mid 90s. mechwarrior 4 for the pc was my favorite online game. miss those days. awesome that this game is still around and looks like it's going strong. might have to get back into it. thanks for the video

How can you have no love for Orion when majority of the players say that it's the best heavy mech?

The enforcer is quite good, has a good selection of hard points. I usually put a ac 10 on it. What else I put on it is subject to change.

Also the difference between crab and atlas is atlas has a little better melee and the crab has slightly better hard points. That's really about it.

Honorable Mentions:

Firestarter (Flamer or Light Laser loadouts are excellent)
Dragon (Fast for it's size.  Easy to load with close range weapons that put a lot of hurt on then get to that range while having good armor.)
Awesome (It's name is a fitting self descriptor.  Excellent loadout, armor and good battlefield endurance)

It is always good to use the 'jack of all trades' mech in your fire team. As I can see they are (from light to assault) jenner, shadowhawk, thunderbolt, and highlander. These are the best for all-around battles. If someone wants to get into specifics on what is the best support or brawlers that is a separate list. It has also been adjusted since the hatchetman came out. FYI, hatchetman with the arm mod and melee gyro can take down a heavy mech in one hit. Also, before you respond saying my list is off due to your favorite mechs (I have some I wanted to list as well) remember that I made that list off of well rounded mechs. So it had to be decent in all categories like speed, durability, heat, weapon load out along with weapon range effectiveness. I also only looked at stock mechs. The atlas is a beast, but it is meant for brawling and being a bullet sponge.

After witnessing an Urbie walk up behind an Atlas an rip into it and have the Atlas turn around and start shooting the teammate in the distance. Since he thought he was the one attacking him, then seeing the Urbie get the kill. I knew not to mess with them.

The other light mech standout, IMO, is the Firestarter.
Not in it's stock configuration so much, since that's only powerful if you're very good at predicting and positioning to hit an enemy mech while it's hot enough to push over the edge into shutdown (or just prevent it from using any of it's weapons for a turn, but that takes yet another dose of forethought and timing). Instead, equip the Firestarter with either 5 machine guns and 3 medium lasers, or 6 mgs and 2mls.
And then go wipe out almost any light mech in one salvo. Or run up to bigger mechs with little armor left and fill them with bullets to knock out systems, or better yet, pilots. Watch your critical hit count climb!
I also carries a respectable amount of armor and is very fast.

Maybe I'm in the wrong place since I've only played Campaign up to now, but I find the Firestarter to be an excellent light 'mech. Perfect for either softening up or dealing the killing blow to mechs up to heavy class, while still being very fast and carrying armor on par with many medium 'mechs. My current campaign build carries 2 Small Lasers++, 2 Small Lasers, 2 Medium Lasers and 2 MGs for crits - with around 600 points of armor. Fast enough to get from cover into close range quite easily, where it can dish out up to 170 points of damage. Let him get into your back, even with a heavy, and you're in for some serious pain. Even more so with a precision strike, O.O

I had a bushwhacker build I used to rock.  LRM 10, large laser, lbx ac10.  Did a surprising amount of damage at range and could hold it's own rather well up close for its weight.  Also had a black knight build centered around a gauss rifle replacement for the PPC.  Ahhhhhh. Good times.

I find the Griffin-1N to be a good all around work horse once you hit mid game.

I haven't done MP, but as far as single player my best assaults are highlanders with gauss. Mix of armor, damage and jump jet mobility makes it very dangerous. Also using coil lasers on your fast lights and mediums to zip behind and one shot heavy targets

I managed to pick up a warhammer early on, before I even got the quickdraw storyline fight. Comes with a 20% bonus to energy weapons module.

I give it to someone who has high gunnery or has the bonus to called shot from tactical, and two ppcs. Its my new fav... I guess I was just lucky to find it early on though.

Grasshopper is possibly one of the best mechs period. Only a heavy acting an initiative phase earlier, capable of mounting 6 small lasers and 5 mediums (comfortably). You then realise that with medium +++ you can get +10 dmg making your mediums hit for 35, all your small lasers hit for 25 (with + variants) and congrats you have 325 points of damage. You pinpoint that baby with master called shot and congrats, every mec in the game dies one hit. What’s better? The grasshopper is mobile af, so you just jump behind your enemy, aim ct, use a third of your weapons and voila.

in the campaign i used my Kintaro as a close range missile boat with 2 m lasers and 5 SRM4. SRM4 and not 6 because they are WAY more heat efficient so i wont overheat too much. the punch was great with good dmg and stability dmg, with good mobility to hit from any angle. JJ included.

I have been very happy with the Blackjack-1DB, aka the Davion Special. 2 LLs and 2 MLs makes for a good punch, and the jumpjets and 6 extra heat sinks help keep it nice and mobile.

Marauder 3R with dual UAC2s and some medium lasers makes a VISCOUS head hunter with a high skill pilot and called shots.
Chance with max skills should be around 35% per attack... and with 4 attacks at least, one is likely to hit.