51 replies to this topic

[Kin3ticX]

There is always a different opinion on how much rear armor is the right amount.

Stock armor values can really confuse new players. On many newly purchased stock mechs, rear armor can regularly be pretty high, possibly leading new players to keep rear armor excessively thick. Another pitfall a new players can fumble on is reactionary rear armor increases. This is when a new player gets backstabbed, then hits the configure button and goes to town on rear armor.

On the one hand, many experienced players use paper thin rear armor. The only exception might be a few more points for their brawlers. This is not what I am asking new players to go out and do here. Not at all. Keep your rear armor at what you are comfortable with. But...keep this in mind for down the road as you get better map knowledge, better positioning, and generally improve at MWO.

and here it is.....drum role.....not really.......

If you did an experiment where you increased your armor in the direction you died from each time by 1 pt, your rear armor would theoretically gravitate to a really low number.

That's right, you just realized you die from the front more often then you die from the rear. Backstabs happen, even to the best of us, but extra front armor will save you in the long run folks.

I am not saying you must keep your rear armor that low. Just realize that if you can handle thin rear armor, those rear armor pts are going to waste.


May your damages be high and your cbills plenty!

That is all.

Edited by Kin3ticX, 18 April 2015 - 05:26 AM.

[Tim East]

I run something like 2-4 points of armor on my Locusts' backs.

[Tarogato]

Tim East, on 18 April 2015 - 05:26 AM, said:

I run something like 2-4 points of armor on my Locusts' backs.

Wow, that much? Geez, where did you get the spare tonnage for that? The most I can fit on mine is 1 point before my front CT starts feeling like flypaper for stray AC rounds.

[luigi256]

So is 10 to 14 points on my heavy/assault mechs too high? Seems a little low to me personally but I do it anyways.

[Zionkan]

Anything over 4 point is a waste in grp and CW play. If u get cored from behind u just did something wrong.

[Skarlock]

Zionkan, on 18 April 2015 - 05:45 AM, said:

Anything over 4 point is a waste in grp and CW play. If u get cored from behind u just did something wrong.

I keep 10 points on the backs of most of my assaults mostly to absorb stray laser fire from my teammates. I mostly single queue so it's only natural there is more friendly fire there than group play or CW. For my lighter mechs I tend to take less.

Edited by Skarlock, 18 April 2015 - 05:52 AM.

[Zionkan]

Aje solo is a hard quarter with its own rules

[Kin3ticX]

luigi256, on 18 April 2015 - 05:40 AM, said:

So is 10 to 14 points on my heavy/assault mechs too high? Seems a little low to me personally but I do it anyways.

Thats fine. I think I have 10/15 pts on my DWF rear only because the slowness leaves me open to the occasion stray crack shot to the back. I think I have 5 pts of rear armor on my HBR laser torso. Shame on me should be 4!

Skarlock, on 18 April 2015 - 05:51 AM, said:

I keep 10 points on the backs of most of my assaults mostly to absorb stray laser fire from my teammates. I mostly single queue so it's only natural there is more friendly fire there than group play or CW. For my lighter mechs I tend to take less.

Yeah, the friendly fire backshots happen a lot there.

[Leone]

I run 20/25/20 Rear Armour on my Banshee, but then, I do brawl. and when I'm not, I'll sometimes turn to present my back when I've lost my front armour.

~Leone, Raid Leader of the Crimson Hand.

[Graves24]

Yeah I think you frontload on a sniper and depending on the brawler mech you want rear armor. (I only run 8 armor on the Centurion because his twist is ultra fast)

[Kenyon Burguess]

flanks are so easy to pull off in pub and cw, esp in a light or fast medium, and the new maps are very brawl friendly. even if your back is to a wall, if one mech causes you to turn to the right to take a shot, that exposes your rear armor to anyone with an alpha ready from the left. if you only have a couple armor points back there, you will be cored. as an example, the other day we focused our 12 lights on brawling enemy mechs only instead of even trying for gens. we were 12 heavy kills into the match before our first casualty. all we did was call a target and make a circling pass around the mech shooting leg or back depending on the side he was facing. every 2-3 seconds, a heavy or assault died, and we just kept going to 17 total.

Edited by Geist Null, 18 April 2015 - 03:34 PM.

[bad arcade kitty]

well, as a noob i use smurfy's default approach of 2/3 at front and 1/3 (rounded down) at back
but i began to shave 1 point from the back already, may be it can take more... but i should say with my fps i am being shot from all directions :3

Edited by bad arcade kitty, 18 April 2015 - 04:12 PM.

[Omi_]

I generally keep my back armour to around whatever gets me killed from the rear 50% of the time. That turns out to be between 4-10 points ranging from light to assault.

[Tim East]

Tarogato, on 18 April 2015 - 05:29 AM, said:

Wow, that much? Geez, where did you get the spare tonnage for that? The most I can fit on mine is 1 point before my front CT starts feeling like flypaper for stray AC rounds.

It wouldn't be fair to the other guys if I put that armor on the front.

Edited by Tim East, 18 April 2015 - 08:04 PM.

[John80sk]

Front loading armor is pretty common, as being shot in the back is generally a positional mistake that can be avoided. Even with a brawler if you're diving into the middle of the enemy team you're probably doing it wrong. Brawlers should engage isolated targets, or if engaging the main body they should be attacking mechs on the outer edge of the deathball. This not only puts the enemy team in front of you, but also limits the other team's lanes of fire on you by placing their teammates between you and them.

[OznerpaG]

depends on your mech top speed and whether you like to keep moving or not. i rarely pilot mechs that go less 75kph and i like to constantly reposition so even on my 400XL Banshee-M i go with 8 side torso and 10 CT rear armour, since the internals can take a massive rear shot and still survive

as far as my Crab and Dire i go 18-20 rear since they are hard to reposition and i end up getting flanked much more often

[Dagon Zur]

PUG friendly back armor:

4-6 on lites
6-8 on meds
8-10 heavies
8-14 assaults (8 Victor, 10 Atlas, 14 Direwolf)

..for organized group play i could go lower, frontloading even more armor.

..

[Asmosis]

I keep about 15 points on my assaults (atlas/dwf/stalker) so that I can fend off light mechs that catch me solo, also so I can pull a figure 8 when brawling someone that is circling that much faster than me (usually light/med vs heavy/assault).

hit X, put it in reverse, turn opposite direction. for any light that just blindly circle strafes it throws them wide out in front of you with a clean shot. You need some rear armor though since you might have to do it a couple times to get the shots, and your rear is often exposed while doing it.

On a light mech I do the opposite though. The way you drive, JJ spin and run all over the place, I tend to take pretty even amounts of damage all over. My main goal on a light is to try and avoid OHKO's from well placed ac20 rounds, and if you have paper thin rear armor (unless your really good at driving in reverse, urbies) having decent rear armor on a light isn't a bad thing.

Also don't skimp on leg armor.

[Mazzyplz]

i used to run 20/26/20 rear armor but since the meta changed i have switched that to 11/16/11

i do that thing where you present your back as well - to soak a few shots. but even with 16 pts people are not coring me from the back. i must have been thinking wrong

[xMintaka]

I run 2/4/2 on pretty much everything and very rarely get cored from behind. But I don't really run brawler assaults, in that case I'd consider putting more on the back purely for the friendly fire.