Bushwacker Prime VS Bushwacker E

[Cloudburst]

Cougar Prime is good. Like, god-tier good.

[IG142]

This is all somewhat subjective, but...

Fafnir Prime is obviously not garbage. Warhammer Prime is definitely not garbage. I've used the Madcat prime more than any other heavy, to good effect. Novacat Prime is no worse than any of the other variants. Raven Prime is a perfectly fine NARCer. Thanatos prime is a bit anemic but extremely survivable. Harasser Prime is fine now that it has more armor. Oro prime is a well balanced tank. Morrigu Prime is deadly and accurate.

Primes may not be as min-maxed as some of the other variants, but that does not make them all garbage by any means. Just unpopular.

[CHHš Sturmadler]

^QFT.

[xInVicTuSx]

I use lots of primes, lets review them.

Owens: good in tonnage based drops, otherwise not useful.
Raven: best support mech in game.
Osiris: decent considering the chassis.
Uller: wonky but great starter.
Puma: 'nough said.
Cougar: with each patch becomes more and more deadly.
Hollander: watch a KoS match and tell me its bad.
Uziel: best overall variant.
Buswhacker: trashy.
Scat: pinpoint damage like a boss.
Catapult: situational but tough.
Vulture: bad.
Thor: awesome but only good players use.
Loki: god tier.
Madcat: be afraid everytime LRMs get buffed.
Warhammer: god damn sexiest mech in the game.
Thanatos: garbage.
Novacat: best overall Ncat outside the JJF.
MKII: great but ammo dependent.
Awesome: Awesome.
Mauler: not what it used to be, best at combined arms warfare.
Atlas: Horridly underweight but best design philosophy of the bunch.
Fafnir: much better staying power than iHgauss ammo.
Basp: How can it be bad?
 
Let's review.
Bad -  4
Good - 13
Great - 7

I'd say that is pretty good. Not sure where this idea about non-boat primes being bad came from... its basically the broken/flawed ones that are bad. (lol worthlessly implemented weapons, total lack of heatsinks, laughably underweight)

EDIT: forgot hollander.

[=KoS= Tripod]

Now that LRMs don't such nearly as much I really gotta try like 90% of all primes again (especially Madcat)

[Defender]

We dine on your tears and revel in your cries of woe.

[Cloudburst]

Since the dev's are actively posting, is there any chance of someone like myself getting a shot at designing new variants for some of the Light 'mechs (mostly Osiris)? In addition, some of the variants for light 'mechs in general go sorely underused...

[DFDelta]

Don't think so, since they would have to reveal their build rules, which they are most likely not quite ready to do yet.
Best we can do is throwing out configs that sound reasonable and hope some dev picks them up thinking "yup, might work".

[KingLeerUK]

Since the dev's are actively posting, is there any chance of someone like myself getting a shot at designing new variants for some of the Light 'mechs (mostly Osiris)? In addition, some of the variants for light 'mechs in general go sorely underused...

Unfortunately no.  We don't necessarily build variants to specifically try for "the best possible builds" nor do we always try for "role" type loadouts (but some are).  Some variants are put out to test a combination of weapons or to force the presence of a particular type of weapon in the game ('tis a beta TEST release after all).  Also the whole concept of playing variant-flavour-of-the-week is played enough internally without opening up the gates of hell.   

[~SJ~ Xarg Talasko]

Personally, I'd love it if there was a contest to submit designs for new variants (or redesign an unpopular non-canon variant).

[Cloudburst]

Makes sense for variants to be constructed in a testy-manner. At which point, it's best left to the devs who know what they want tested

[Wulfbane]

on the old game my type was this. one clan gauss, 15clrm, csrm6 ,2x er lasers
but yea i see what you mean