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Close-Range Combat


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#1 CrazyDave1313

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Posted 29 October 2014 - 12:28 PM

Hello, everyone! As a (relatively) new player to MWO, I've got some basic playing strategies down. However, I'm looking to improve my play, which brings me to this question.

How do I play as a short-ranged medium? (Or any short-ranged 'mech, really)

My Centurion build (Smurfy: CN9-AH) uses SRM6's with ARTEMIS for as its primary armament. This requires me to close the distance between myself and the target, to at least 270 meters. The problem is that I usually am torn to shreds by doing this. I know that the normal solution is to follow a heavy or assault mech, so that the enemy focuses them instead of me, but with many players running LRMs, ERLLAS, or ERPPCs, they never actually close the distance unless our team has already crumbled - and enemies with said weapons can take me down long before I can even fire, much less have a chance at a kill.

How do I play better?

Thanks in advance!

#2 Josef Nader

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Posted 29 October 2014 - 12:44 PM

Howdy!

First off, I would move the ammo in your CT elsewhere. My preference would be to push the MG ammo into your arm and the SRM ammo into your head. The reason for this is that putting it in your CT can drastically shorten your time up. If the enemy cooks it off, your mech goes up instantly. By moving it to "safer" places (areas your enemy is less likely to target) you minimize this risk.

That said, brawling is about patience. You need to very carefully conserve your armor as the match progresses. Resist the urge to peek out of cover at long range! You will do no damage to the enemy, and you are offering them free shots on your precious, precious armor. Stay inside of cover and wait. One of two things will happen:

1) Your team is brawler heavy, and the brawlers will begin to push.

In this instance, move with your brawlers. Make sure you aren't the first one around the corner, as you can be crippled quickly, but once one of your bigger mechs commits, you cannot hesitate. Back them up immediately and focus their target!

2) Your team is long-range oriented, and they will camp.

This one is less exciting early on, but eventually the enemy team will try to close and push you guys out of your nest. Things can look dour for you if your team lost the long range fight, but their mechs are probably fairly significantly damaged at this point, so having a fresh brawler can really turn things around! Remember, be patient and play an ambush predator. Protect your team from harassers, and resist the urge to break cover and engage without the rest of your team backing you up! It takes patience, but you can win this kind of fight!

As far as the Centurion specifically:

- Shield with your right side. Those machine guns are not worth losing your SRMs. Force them to burn through your right arm, your right torso, and then your left arm before you risk losing your valuable SRMs or CT armor. Protect your LT at all costs! If it gets removed, you no longer have any firepower.

- When piloting a centurion with a lower arm actuator (the -A, -AL, or -D) quickly move your mouse to the top left or right of the screen after taking a shot (depending on which side you're shielding with). This moves the gun barrel/shield arm of that respective arm in front of your torso and twists your torso away from the enemy, making it easier to absorb shots with that respective arm!.Unfortunately, this doesn't help with the -YLW or -AH, but it's a good tip regardless.

- Smart pilots aim for the Cent's legs! A good cent pilot can burn up most of his mech without going down, but shooting the legs off of a centurion is the fastest way to take it down! Keep this in mind when fighting and try to keep your legs protected, and aim for the legs of other Centurions! If you get legged, face the broken leg towards the enemy, and stand still (unless they're way outside your effective range. Then get to cover). Done properly, the enemy shots will hit your broken leg and transfer to your torso with significantly reduced damage! You can stay alive a surprisingly long time while the enemy wonders why they're having so much trouble shooting your other leg off!

- Finally, as with all medium brawlers, always, always, always engage from the side and then DISENGAGE. Don't stand around pounding a single target long enough for them to turn around and get a bead on you. You might have a lot of firepower, but you don't have nearly enough armor to face tank an assault or heavy mech. Land your SRM volley, then break line of sight. Wait a few seconds, then rush out of cover and do it again. Don't pop out of the same place repeatedly, or you'll catch some nasty counter fire to the face.

Edited by Josef Nader, 29 October 2014 - 12:47 PM.


#3 CrazyDave1313

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Posted 29 October 2014 - 12:50 PM

Thanks for the reply - very helpful! That's my problem, I think - normally I'm not very patient, so I tend to get caught out and killed. Would I be correct in saying the 'mech is better thought of as a "skirmisher", not a "brawler"?

Again, thank you for the thorough reply! I'll adapt my strategies and (hopefully) win more games! Cheers!

#4 Koniving

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Posted 29 October 2014 - 01:02 PM

Some visual demonstrations using other Centurions.

Ballistic-based Centurions. Both close and medium-long range engagements. The first video is mostly close with elevation differences. The second has a long series of close range engagements against multiple heavy and assault class enemies, all in an open theater and at times completely surrounded.
Spoiler


Missile-based Centurions. Only the first one is truly close range brawling with missiles, the others are a mixture of NARC, LRMs, Streaks and MGs.
Spoiler


#5 Rogue Jedi

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Posted 29 October 2014 - 01:02 PM

Slow lights and most mediums with a hard hitting short range load-out are best used as skirmishers rather than a pure brawler, they just do not have the armor to go face to face with a heavy or assault and exchange fire.


however if several of you come across a single enemy Mech you can kill it very quickly, so it may be easier to just kill it, but if you are up against a group including heavy or assaults it is always better to hit and run

#6 Josef Nader

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Posted 29 October 2014 - 01:03 PM

Skirmishers are generally characterized by high speed and a longer range weapons loadout. They focus on kiting slower enemies around and using their smaller weapons payload to gradually grind them down. You're definitely a brawler, as you have a big close range punch and good speed, but your brawling strategy is different than that of a heavier mech. It is important to stay agile and out of sight, but you do want to be close enough to see the spinach in the teeth of the enemy pilot. It's hard to do in open ground, but it's doable on most maps.

Patience really is the most important quality for a brawler. Your armor is ammunition, and every point of armor lost before you're within SRM range is less damage delivered when you're finally up close.

If you're really having a hard time staying patient before the brawl starts, give yourself something to do. There's a reason I use a single LRM rack on my Atlas, and on many of my brawlers with missile hardpoints. Not only does it give me an option when the enemy is out of range, it gives me a tool to suppress them and it keeps me occupied in the early parts of the match. You could also drop the machine guns if you wanted to keep Artemis, but keeping them helps you stay effective at brawling despite the loss in up-close punch.

Both builds are effective, but play very differently. Both can work very well in the current game. I only recommend the second one if you're finding it too difficult to stay patient.

#7 Sadistic Savior

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Posted 30 October 2014 - 01:38 PM

View PostCrazyDave1313, on 29 October 2014 - 12:28 PM, said:

Hello, everyone! As a (relatively) new player to MWO, I've got some basic playing strategies down. However, I'm looking to improve my play, which brings me to this question.

How do I play as a short-ranged medium? (Or any short-ranged 'mech, really)

My Centurion build (Smurfy: CN9-AH) uses SRM6's with ARTEMIS for as its primary armament. This requires me to close the distance between myself and the target, to at least 270 meters. The problem is that I usually am torn to shreds by doing this. I know that the normal solution is to follow a heavy or assault mech, so that the enemy focuses them instead of me, but with many players running LRMs, ERLLAS, or ERPPCs, they never actually close the distance unless our team has already crumbled - and enemies with said weapons can take me down long before I can even fire, much less have a chance at a kill.

How do I play better?

Thanks in advance!

Avoid the temptation to suicide-run an enemy. Attack and evade and attack again after maneuvering.

After years of playing this game I still catch myself in Lemming behavior. Try to attack targets that are focused on someone else (then evade before they can target you back). If you are not an advanced player, you should not be leading the initial attack...let the more seasoned players do that, and then follow up on their attacks.

A recent patch changed the rules and you will now be rewarded in CBill and XP for hit and run attacks. But it will also contribute to your wins. If you are dead you are of the least use to your team. Hit and run attacks should actually be more effective in a medium than in a heavy or assault.

A short ranged medium brawler is going to be hard to play in any case. You wont have the speed of the lights or the armor of the heavies. So you are basically stuck as support for heavy/assault mechs. At least until you get XP...the Radar Depravation module will help a lot (for LRMs), and getting a more powerful engine will as well (both with targeting and evading return fire).

Edited by Sadistic Savior, 30 October 2014 - 01:39 PM.


#8 Vlad Striker

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Posted 31 October 2014 - 07:01 AM

Problem it is: you are keep not distance 150-300m.Watch and don't close. <150 m = instant death. Long range weaponry may be neutralised by obstructions.

#9 Satan n stuff

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Posted 01 November 2014 - 03:59 AM

View PostCrazyDave1313, on 29 October 2014 - 12:50 PM, said:

Thanks for the reply - very helpful! That's my problem, I think - normally I'm not very patient, so I tend to get caught out and killed. Would I be correct in saying the 'mech is better thought of as a "skirmisher", not a "brawler"?

It can do both, but you'll generally want some sort of AC on it so you aren't useless beyond SRM range. If you have the cbills you can upgrade to an XL engine so you can add one or more ACs of some type, I would also suggest using SRM4s instead of ASRM6s, as they are much more weight efficient and have about the same accuracy. It's one third less firepower but you save half the weight of the ASRM6s, freeing up 6 tons to invest in heavier ballistics. With the SRM4s and an XL engine of any size you can easily fit an AC/20 or anything lighter.

#10 Josef Nader

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Posted 01 November 2014 - 07:49 AM

I would advise against running the Centurion with an XL. While it does have nice side torsos for an XL engine (hard to aim at), it has a fairly low engine cap (You can't even get to that nice 280 XL with the AH, which weighs the same as the 275 and gives you a little extra speed), and it's legendary toughness comes largely from having a standard engine. I'd die a lot faster if I went down as soon as I lost a side torso in my Centurions, and half of the strategy that comes with playing Centurions is getting your enemy to chew through your empty side torso before they start actually hurting you. It just takes a really tough chassis and makes it more vulnerable, and you don't get a lot of returns from it.

If we were talking about the CN9-D, that'd be a different story, but for the -AH an XL engine isn't going to improve your game much. Same goes for small-caliber autocannons. You're gonna take too much damage plinking away at distant targets and not be as effective as you could be when things close in. Much better to just be patient and save your armor for your berserker rampage.

#11 Elizander

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Posted 01 November 2014 - 08:09 AM

View PostCrazyDave1313, on 29 October 2014 - 12:50 PM, said:

Thanks for the reply - very helpful! That's my problem, I think - normally I'm not very patient, so I tend to get caught out and killed. Would I be correct in saying the 'mech is better thought of as a "skirmisher", not a "brawler"?

Again, thank you for the thorough reply! I'll adapt my strategies and (hopefully) win more games! Cheers!


If you like to brawl but get impatient, you can always put an LRM5 or LRM10 with 2-3 tons ammo so you can do something in the first part of the match.

#12 LT. HARDCASE

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Posted 01 November 2014 - 09:39 PM

Playing the close range medium is way easier when:

1. You run over 95kph.
2. You have jump jets.

These factors make it much more feasible to be able to attack then disengage.

I don't feel good about brawling in any medium that can't outrun a Timber Wolf.





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