I thought it might be fun to put up some tricks and tactics I've learned in my time as a wee Mechwarrior. These are probably not that much help to veterans, but might bennefit newbie players looking to up their game.
Jiggly tip #1: Find a larger friend.
Scenario: You're out there trying to get some shots in on the other team when you suddenly realize that a pair of evil glowing mech eyes are watching you!!! It's an enemy mech, it's large (or very small), scary looking, and it's being driven by somebody really good.... yikes! What do you do? You could stay and take your chances, but you may want to look instead at your tactical map. It shows you exactly where your friends are!!! Amazing right?
So, go ahead and run, but run toward the nearest group of your friends. Hopefully the scary enemy mech will follow you just closely enough to be focus fired by your buddies.
Oh, and when you get to where your buddies are, turn around and help them fight! See:
Edited by JigglyMoobs, 20 September 2014 - 10:05 PM.
Not much to be said about this one. You see that hill right there? It's your friend and it comes with benefits Use it like a dirty
OK, but a couple of items to watch out for:
1. Do not keep popping out from the same side. People will anticipate your entrance and shoot you before you even know what's going on. Instead, move around the hill and fire from random positions on people who are not expecting you. (As a side benefit, those people who are on the lookout for you are not then trying to shoot your friends. So you've effectively distracted one mech while damaging other mechs).
2. If you have high weapons mounts, trying firing over the hill. If you have low weapon mounts, fire around the hill.
3. Bonus points for hill + radar derp. With this equipped even a small knob will break missile lock.
GL and HF!
Edited by JigglyMoobs, 20 September 2014 - 10:51 PM.
Jiggly tip #3: Hold your fire to get a better shot.
You've noticed that an enemy mech has a vulnerable component just begging to be destroyed. However, the willy ******* has torso twisted to shield! Should you just shoot his arms instead?
Of course not! As long as he is twisted away, he cannot shoot you, so just calmly track him with your crosshair and wait. Sooner or later he will have to turn around. The moment he does - BANG.
A mech pilot that is torso twisting and shielding is expecting to absorb your hits with his less damaged components. He is then able to return fire during your reload / cool down. By holding your fire, you give yourself the perogative to shoot him when he is most vulnerable and you can then shield right when he is just ready to shoot you. This allows you to do more critical damage and take less critical damage back, a win - win that is too good to be ignored.
Edited by JigglyMoobs, 20 September 2014 - 10:52 PM.
Is it sad that my first thought on seeing the title was to expect something about the mini-jump bug?
Spoiler
IE: how rapidly tapping the JJ buttons (if you have JJ equipped) can make you harder to target
TBH I haven't had that much experience using that bug. Never had much need for it as I usually adopt a more cowardly less aggressive "forward deployed" tactical posture than the likes of Gman (who's famous for using this). The only time I use something like this is against LRMs, where I will actually use JJs to spin all the way around to spread missile hits 360 degrees. I think it probably does work on direct fire weapons, as you clearly get worse hit registration and component convergence on jump jetting targets than grounded targets, but I don't have videos of it.
PS - Thanks for the encouragement guys, I'll try to put up more tips as I get more videos.
JigglyMoobs, on 20 September 2014 - 10:51 PM, said:
Jiggly tip #3: Hold your fire to get a better shot.
You've noticed that an enemy mech has a vulnerable component just begging to be destroyed. However, the willy ******* has torso twisted to shield! Should you just shoot his arms instead?
Of course not! As long as he is twisted away, he cannot shoot you, so just calmly track him with your crosshair and wait. Sooner or later he will have to turn around. The moment he does - BANG.
A mech pilot that is torso twisting and shielding is expecting to absorb your hits with his less damaged components. He is then able to return fire during your reload / cool down. By holding your fire, you give yourself the perogative to shoot him when he is most vulnerable and you can then shield right when he is just ready to shoot you. This allows you to do more critical damage and take less critical damage back, a win - win that is too good to be ignored.
I would add to this that you can have a single wep in 1 group,hit him with that to make him think you wasted a shot,then hit him with everything else once he turns.
Malavai Fletcher, on 21 September 2014 - 01:28 PM, said:
I would add to this that you can have a single wep in 1 group,hit him with that to make him think you wasted a shot,then hit him with everything else once he turns.
Well guys, after a year's hiatus, I've been playing a bit more MWO. So here are a few more tips.
Jiggly tip #4: Harassing the enemy flank.
The concept of flanking is pretty simple. The enemy is arrayed in a certain way relative to your team, and you want to get to the side of their formation or their cover so that you can take shots at them. Some times you can do this as a team. At other times, even a solo mech, "you", on your own, can make the enemy team's position untenable.
Before you do this however, you should run through a mental check list:
Can my team defend their current position if I leave them to flank?
Do I have adequate cover to harass the enemy from the flank?
Do I have a safe way of getting to that cover in a reasonable amount of time (remember, your team's current position is weakened by your absence).
What's my escape route if the enemy advances on me?
It's essential to have a miniature plan that runs through the above checklist before you flank because once you get going, you might only have time to react.
Having done that, here's some tips to know about your attack:
Move to the site - carefully. Check for unaticipated enemies or lights.
Fight while you move. Don't stop shooting at the enemy for a long period of time. This will take too much pressure off of the enemy team, giving them the option of moving or attacking your weakened position.
Let your team know what you are doing. Now that we have voice comms, a simple: I'm moving to X-position to harass will suffice.
Once you are at the flank, remember that your mission is as much to survive as it is to do damage. Your very presence on the enemy's flank creates huge psychological pressure. As long as you are there and firing, they are distracted from engaging your team, which is the main point of your harassing fire.
Use strikes to create more distraction and chaos.
Lock targets and report enemy positions to help your team with missile locks and scouting info.
Check tactical map often to make sure your team isn't getting too far away from you.
Be ready to take your escape route at the first hint of trouble, eg, your team leaving or enemy lights headed your way.
So here's a classic example of a flanking position. ON Canyon Network, both teams tend to fight around the Theta hill. The rocks at D4 provide the perfect cover for harassment of the enemy team. The canyon between the plateau and your position provides a natural barrier against the enemy reaching you. If the enemy has not secured that area of the map, you can use the cover at D4 to harass at your leisure.
So, what do you do if the positions were reversed and you've been flanked? Well, there are some choices:
Shift positions immediately: the enemy has out positioned you. Rather than hang out in the same spot, fall back to a more defensible area.
Push ahead, HARD. If there is a large flanking force, chances are the position in front of you is weakened. Push hard on the divided enemy team and kill them before the flankers can get in their damage, then turn around and kill the flankers.
Lights, here's your chance to shine! Large mechs cannot get to individual flankers quickly, but 2 or 3 lights can absolutely wreck the guy's day. Move to the flanker's position, harass and provide target locks for your LRMs. He'll be out of there faster than you can say RUN!
Edited by JigglyMoobs, 03 October 2015 - 09:32 PM.
Malavai Fletcher, on 21 September 2014 - 01:28 PM, said:
I would add to this that you can have a single wep in 1 group,hit him with that to make him think you wasted a shot,then hit him with everything else once he turns.
This. When things get srs and it's 1v1 or something I certainly won't be twisting back to fire until something hits my arm first.
I've had some matches where me and my opponent are both critically damaged and we circled each other twisted away for 30 seconds or more. Sometimes no one would shoot until reinforcements arrive. Usually happens with Atlas vs Atlas brawls.
The counter strat is to bait out the hit by doing a half twist now and then to make them think you're about to fire but immediately twist away. Sometimes it works but if latency is bad you might get hit in the critical area anyway.
Jiggly Tip #5: Lower your sensitivity to get better Hit Reg
Ok, we've all had this happen to us: you bring your lasers onto a target, you hit click, it looks like your lasers are tracking a single component, but damage actually lands all over the place (and if you are new and haven't noticed this, trust me, it's happening).
What happened? The game server thinks you are hitting all over the place -even though you are not-!
Here's a hot tip: This gets worse with higher mouse sensitivity even if you have perfect mouse aim.
Why? When you move your mouse, the game calculates where your reticule is pointed, which maps onto a vector from you to the target. To do this it probably takes into account your mouse sensitivity.
The problem is even though you may have a 500 Hz or 1000 Hz mouse, the game server only works at <60 Hz, or even 25. So all of those little actions you take to control your mouse, never registers on the server.
The mouse commands that the game sees ends up being a lot more "jittery" than what's happening on your screen. The higher your sensitivity, the greater the degree of jitteriness, the worse your hit reg.
So for best hit reg, try a lower sense. Lower the better, but not so low that you can't move around, torso twist or aim effectively.
Edited by JigglyMoobs, 11 October 2015 - 04:14 PM.
Jiggly Tip #6 if you are losing Nascar on Caustic, cut across the crater to hit the enemy team from the side.
The idea is that if you turn back, what ends up happening is that you might not get good fighting spots for everyone on the team to get their shots in. Plus most people's builds tend to have heavier weapons on the right side, favoring the counter-clockwise NASCAR direction. So, if you are caught out, and don't have good fighting spots, some of the team can head into the crater to hit the enemy team from the side or rear.
You have to stay within supporting distance of your guys, so don't go too far, and you have to watch for LRM locks, etc, but it's often a good choice.
We did that in this game and it worked great:
Also here you can see how effective a laser Timberwolf can be if you get effective hitscan registration. Lower sensitivity is key.
Finally, pay attention to the tactical map. On this one I used it to find and kill a Crab that was isolated from its team, and then used it to attack the enemy team from directions they weren't looking at.
Edited by JigglyMoobs, 11 October 2015 - 07:48 PM.
1
Use it like a dirty 
