Cewnturion missle boar or all around fighter

Shadow Hawk for recon flanking evasion and sensor locking Decker using it entire game except last mission.

Catapult missle boat poor ppc boat-

Orion close up and mobile fighting

Highlander just about anything use a bulwark pilot and stand in the forest attacking.

Have not got a stalker yet.
Dislike the Banshee.

I also like using JJs to get evasion.

So what do you like?

Stalker is big enough to support 2xLRM20, 2xLRM15, nine tons of ammo, four heat sinks, and still have just barely enough armor to take one decent hit in case you screw up and let it get sensor locked. 70-missile salvos are beastly; Stalkers are amazing LRM boats.

My favorite 'Mech that you can reasonably get by early midgame (usually not long after freeing the Argo) is the Thunderbolt. Tough as nails, so you can fill it with armor and still use it as your tanking 'Mech even on 4 - 4 1/2 skull missions. Doesn't hold much in its arms so you can still have a decent weapon loadout and know that you can turn your side and sacrifice an arm without losing your lethality.

med game = DFA
https://vimeo.com/279265921

Mechs I like :

Light : Firestarter !

Mediums :
Centurion - the Energy + 2 Missile ones

Heavies :
Jagermech - Missiles and Energy Variant
Thunderbolts - the 5SE Variant

Assault :
Stalker
Highlander

Mechs I dislike :
Catapult --- Why does the model have 35 missiletubes in each arm, but one 1 Missile Slot in each arm?
It is that thing that drives my crazy. Always try to get a second LRM launcher into the arms.

If I saw this yesterday I would've stated Shadow Hawks for Mediums, and nothing else stood out to me really, until today I got a pair of sentinels and those are bar none my favorite mechs now.

King Crab and Cataphract both look good though. I like uniqueness. There wasn't a hardpoint limit before, there is now.

Just salvaged an Atlas on a 5 skull mission and a Stalker on a 4 skull mission.

They are really nice. Stalker is firiing 50 missles at a time with a tts missle computer and range finder and jump jets. Now my favaorite missle boat.

Early on, I'm rather partial to up-armoring a Shadow Hawk (either), maxing out its Jump, and outfitting with a single AC20 and several tons of ammo. Its almost an instant kill on anything lighter than a Centurion and it has that really nice 'Stock while OP' flavor.

Once you start getting into the Mid game grind, its less useful, and I like switching to Jegers and Thunderbolts. Orions are nice but they are fire magnets for the Stock AI.

I generally put the best Leg Actuator mods I can find into the legs of a SH-2D along with flamers or MGs and DFA a lot too, once the one AC20 hit and done trick stops working.

Late game, its a slugfest. Awesome, Stalker, Grasshopper (for Melee), and if you can score one, an Atlas makes for a nice GP Assault lance. That said, I think my favorite late-game lance is Battlemaster, Highlander, Dragon, and Shadow Hawk or Griffin.

Really, a lot depends on your playstyle and the mission your trying to accomplish.