82 replies to this topic

[pwnface]

I seriously can't believe the amount of QQ there is on the forums about light zerg rushes. This tactic is 100% counterable by the defending team. Our unit has used the light zerg rush to defeat enemy teams many times, we've also been stopped twice by teams who were actually prepared for the possibility of a light rush. No team has successfully used the light mech zerg tactic against our unit. It isn't that difficult to scout the gates and see a wave of light mechs running at your base.

Let me give you guys some really easy ways to beat a light mech zerg rush:
1) Bring your own 12 light mech first wave. This lets you scout and react quickly. If they decide to rush, you can easily keep up with them and leg them as they charge in. Don't bother finishing off legged lights as your turrets will easily kill them once they are legged. The enemy team will have at most 2-3 light mechs actually make it to your orbital cannon where you can easily finish them off before they get more than 25% damage on your cannon.

2) Scout the gates with light mechs and keep a few heavy and assault mechs by your base until they have been properly scouted. The reason light mech rushes are successful are because the defending team moves their slower mechs away from the orbital cannon and can't make it back in time to stop the light mechs. Keeping them within range of the orbital cannon until you are sure there isn't a light zerg coming in will block the light mech zerg rush completely.

3) Can't aim? No problem, bring a lance of anti-light mediums running streaks! Anti-light mediums should be fast enough to move quickly from the gate to the base generator, chasing and maiming light mechs the entire way.

Now you know how to beat the light mech zerg rush. Please stop QQing about it on the forums and begging PGI to fix something that you can EASILY defeat if you just use your brain for a minute. If your team isn't coordinated enough to pull off any of the 3 counters I listed, you are going to lose anyway.

[Felix7007]

You are forgetting the root cause of the problem. The maps are set up so that rushing is the only option.

[KraftySOT]

You mean the maps are set up so that the attacker has to do the objective?

[Felix7007]

Do the objective ONE way. right. Rushing.

Why would the attacking team NOT do the objective?

Edited by Felix7007, 15 December 2014 - 11:42 AM.

[Lily from animove]

lol yeah wanna see your anti light system vs a real coordinated team, you won't come far with your streaks.

your tsrategy has amnot chanc eof success in case the opponents will truly rush and be half decent, of they got skill, it won't work.
and if they aren't rushing your team divding into scouts and base campers will just get deathballed.

Edited by Lily from animove, 15 December 2014 - 11:43 AM.

[KraftySOT]

To be fair, you can also rush the generators, counter its ECM and narc it.

Then yer lrm boats can kill it from the gate.

[pwnface]

Lily from animove, on 15 December 2014 - 11:42 AM, said:

lol yeah wanna see your anti light system vs a real coordinated team, you won't come far with your streaks.

your tsrategy has amnot chanc eof success in case the opponents will truly rush and be half decent, of they got skill, it won't work.
and if they aren't rushing your team divding into scouts and base campers will just get deathballed.

Streaks are a viable option if your team has trouble hitting lights, mine does not have this problem.

How is dividing the team a problem if your scouts can move fast enough to run back to the base to help in defense? Obviously you are sending FAST mechs to scout right? Have you even used a light mech zerg rush before? You think base defenders would get deathballed but in reality this would cause the attacking team to fail. The entire tactic relies on the light mech zerg force to focus on the orbital cannon and ignore defenders.

My team is very organized and has been running the light mech zerg rush against defenders with great success. We've been stopped twice by teams who have been prepared for it in probably 20-25 matches. Guess how many times a light mech zerg rush has worked against us? ZERO. It really isn't that hard to stop if you use your brain and coordinate with your team.

Edited by pwnface, 15 December 2014 - 11:56 AM.

[pwnface]

It is actually much more difficult for the attacking team to adjust when running a 12 light mech wave and seeing the defending team is set up to defend against it. These on the fly calls make the difference between losing 12 light mechs without completing the objective and actually doing something useful with your light mechs like opening gates, taking down turrets, and killing defending mechs.

[C E Dwyer]

Its not the rush that's the issue its how close the generator is to the gates, or the fact that a rush is the only way to win I'm not talking about a light rush, the last one I was in an atlas.

The rush is the only tactic to win, it doesn't even have to be a well co-ordinated one as long as people group up, and don't break off to get personal kills or bottle it, the rush is going get you a result more times than it doesn't.

While its fun now and makes the blood pump a bit now give it a week, and it will be extremely dull.

There is no other way to win, the turrets and the drop ships ensure that you can't be subtle, you have to blitz, now this can be a 12 man blitz or an 11 or 10 man blitz while two erll lights go hassel the other gate generators, but this remains the only tactic with a chance of winning..

Already after less than one week its clearly one dimensional, and within a month, if that, people will not bother with it because of the added wait times, and no variation of play.

There is nothing worth having, by gaining faction points, no fancy camo, no badges, transfers to put on your mechs, nothing.

Sure sure its Beta but the maps are uncreative, though admittedly great to look at, but its a rush job, because it had to be out before December re end of autum or the game was dead in the water with another broken promise, there is nothing to fight for except a few clan,regiments egos as the planets get their faction acronym next to a planet whoopie..for them.


Now I'm committed to over seven months of play and i know it will improve over time, but if it is going to be fast enough to keep enough people playing, thats another matter, what with how buggy it is, I'm not confident, that by the time faction rewards are worth having, there will be anyone but the die hards still playing it.

Ironically, generator zergs don't net you enough points to get a tick on your challenge score..
which is another minus for the launch.


PGI I strongly advise you to make turrets and generators immune to arty and air strikes, at least make the bloody things harder to kill

Edited by Cathy, 15 December 2014 - 12:01 PM.

[Xetelian]

They might have to raise the minimum if this is widely used.

[-Natural Selection-]

With drop ships coming in brappin people, just focusing the base is easier than fighting.

[pwnface]

To say that the ONLY way to win is rush the base is completely unfair. Maybe it is easier to win this way in your experience, but my team has had no trouble eliminating 90-100% of the defending enemy force on many occasions. If your team has capable snipers and can win in long range trades, the turrets are a non-factor because your team isn't going to be in range of them. If you can't win at range, you don't really have another choice besides trying to push their base aggressively and hope that you brought enough armor to get you there.

Mickey Knoxx, on 15 December 2014 - 12:04 PM, said:

With drop ships coming in brappin people, just focusing the base is easier than fighting.

I agree, but only once your attacking team has reached the orbital cannon platform. You still need to fight your way in, which is the hard part. Boreal Vault seems to be much easier to defend compared to Sulfurous Rift though.

[MischiefSC]

An attack is not a rush. A fast attack is not a rush. Attempting to paint every complex tactical shell game that results in several attacking mechs having time and opportunity to destroy Omega as a rush is bordering on dishonest.

A rush of 12 lights worked for like the first 8 hours on the first day of CW. You do that against any practiced unit and you're in for a rude, painful surprise.

Murderballs are inferior to mixed group tactics now. That's something we're all having to unlearn and adapt to.

Invasion mode is an inherently asymetric game mode and that throws a lot of people off. Attackers objective is *not* to kill mechs but to kill the objective. Defenders objective is to kill mechs and protect Omega. So yes, the attacker does, can and should deploy tactics focused on the objective and not killing defenders.

You want to make the Attacker have to kill all defenders and objective, remove turrets from the base and the dropships and we'll just have another identical version of pug/group queue. Hell, just bring the same maps in and we'll play the same game we have for years already just with faction maps in the background.

Or don't, realize that CW plays completely differently than group/pug queue and adapt.

Damn right the attackers attack instead of peek-and-shoot. If CW was all peek-and-shoot just like group/pug queue has been for years then it would have been an absolute pointless failure.

It's not and the problem now is getting people to adjust to change, which is never easy.

Edited by MischiefSC, 15 December 2014 - 12:10 PM.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Yeah, and when CW really takes off its going to be dead cuz the meta will be light rush....

[pwnface]

I agree with you for the most part MischiefSC. I don't think attackers necessarily need to be super aggressive in pursuing the orbital cannon though. If your team is capable of fighting at range, there isn't a reason not to trade at range for 20-25 minutes to weaken the defending force for your final push to victory. The problem arises when half the team wants to push in aggressively and the other half wants to sit back and snipe. The pushing group is sure to get wiped if the rest of the team isn't with them and even if the snipers are winning trades at range it won't make up for the mechs in the pushing force that were just lost.

Edited by pwnface, 15 December 2014 - 12:17 PM.

[AlmightyAeng]

Felix7007, on 15 December 2014 - 11:40 AM, said:

Do the objective ONE way. right. Rushing.

Why would the attacking team NOT do the objective right away?

FTFY. And the answer is, we want C-Bills. Farm the enemy for kills and assist for 3 waves, then destroy the cannon.

Everyone running 12 mechs in the first wave makes me laugh...enjoy your low rewards.

[Agent 0 Fortune]

pwnface, on 15 December 2014 - 12:09 PM, said:

To say that the ONLY way to win is rush the base is completely unfair. Maybe it is easier to win this way in your experience, but my team has had no trouble eliminating 90-100% of the defending enemy force on many occasions. If your team has capable snipers and can win in long range trades, the turrets are a non-factor because your team isn't going to be in range of them. If you can't win at range, you don't really have another choice besides trying to push their base aggressively and hope that you brought enough armor to get you there.

I agree, but only once your attacking team has reached the orbital cannon platform. You still need to fight your way in, which is the hard part. Boreal Vault seems to be much easier to defend compared to Sulfurous Rift though.

It sounds like you have all your ducks in a row, which begs the question what was the point of this thread?
You aren't trying to do the reverse psychology thing are you?

[MischiefSC]

pwnface, on 15 December 2014 - 12:17 PM, said:

I agree with you for the most part MischiefSC. I don't think attackers necessarily need to be super aggressive in pursuing the orbital cannon though. If your team is capable of fighting at range, there isn't a reason not to trade at range for 20-25 minutes to weaken the defending force for your final push to victory. The problem arises when half the team wants to push in aggressively and the other half wants to sit back and snipe. The pushing group is sure to get wiped if the rest of the team isn't with them and even if the snipers are winning trades at range it won't make up for the mechs in the pushing force that were just lost.

I agree completely - especially if you can peel off the first 2 waves of defenders you'll often break the back of their best defending mechs. Some of the best tactics I've seen involved exploiting narc/tag lights and LRMs + sniper ERLL and ERPPC setups that brutally thinned the defenders. On team I pugged with intentionally legged/crippled defenders on one side while intentionally letting themselves get picked off, the reinforcements not going back to the front but massing for a push up the other side. The damaged mechs couldn't move to counter the opposite side when the push came and by the time they ejected and came back it was largely over.

That's the whole point though; at some point the attacker needs to kill Omega. If he can waltz in over a field of defender bodies all the better. If not he needs a plan that combines effective covering fire and a coordinated, intentional advance. Possibly a feint or two, possibly not. Often a couple lf light mechs that can tie up 4 or 5 enemies can shift the balance of power dramatically enough to let the attackers range-roll the remaining defenders and move to striking distance of Omega. This works awesome on Sulfur where you can attack Omega at range and not have to stand in front of it.

Want to thank you again for teaching me the magic of the Dragon 1N by the way. It's got a respected home in my drop deck now and it's been fundamental to the death of many generators and helped grind several would-be advances to a halt.

Like a riot cop with a fire hose. She's a deadly little beast.

[pwnface]

MischiefSC, on 15 December 2014 - 12:26 PM, said:

Want to thank you again for teaching me the magic of the Dragon 1N by the way. It's got a respected home in my drop deck now and it's been fundamental to the death of many generators and helped grind several would-be advances to a halt.

Like a riot cop with a fire hose. She's a deadly little beast.

I'm glad I could be of assistance . I honestly don't think there is another mech right now that is better for fighting off any kind of rush on the base. People ignoring an 18dps glass-cannon monster to try to kill the orbital cannon get wrecked quickly. Being able to move at 90kph with that kind of firepower is incredibly potent for reacting to different sides of the battlefield in CW.

[Scratx]

Part of the problem with the "Light mech zerg rush QQ" is that hit registration is much less reliable since CW was released (player base overloading server capacity, maybe? ).

Until that's fixed, QQ about it will remain legitimate.