45 replies to this topic

[Surn]

Several inner sphere Cw players have become frustrated to the point of quiting MWO due to the indestructible Artic Cheater/Cockroach.
They seem to take 1/2 damage and require several mechs to kill. We are surprised that clan dropdecks haven't become 2 or more artic cheaters...and believe they will eventually become so.
Shooting legs doesn't seem to be effective, 5ac5 hits that take down direwolves are laughed at by ACH..even when standing still. So, any suggestions?

Edited by MechregSurn, 21 November 2015 - 10:42 AM.

[InspectorG]

Ugh...

Shoot the legs?

Seriously, aside from the C-XL is about as tanky as a FS. it loses its arms faster though, IMO.

[Darian DelFord]

The problem, is currently the legs are buffed to the point of a 40 to 45 ton mech. However Dec 1st patch removes all their leg quirks.

[John1352]

Taking a look at the maxed armor values: ACH-A

As the Arctic Cheetah spreads damage well, and people have the silly idea that they should try to CT it, let's calculate how much damage it can take from the front. (ignoring head as it is tiny)

20 + 10 (LA) + 20 + 10 (RA) + 26 + 14 (LT) + 26 + 14 (RT) + 38 + 20 (CT)

198 Armor + Structure. That's 5 shots out of a 7 MPL Thunderbolt 5SS, where the entire duration hits the mech.

Even with the leg structure quirks, it will die much quicker if you shoot its legs. As soon as one leg is destroyed, it is game over for the poor cheetah.

TL;DR Aim for cheetah legs, kill it, stop whining.

[Mad Porthos]

Kill it with FIRE!

No seriously, it was odd the other day, saw someone over heating two of them, then killing them, using a commando. Weird.

[Tarogato]

Option 1: don't shoot the legs. Aim specifically for the side torsos (not CT). It won't take long to tear off both arms and after one torso is gone, the ACH is left with a single laser and is relatively harmless and can be ignored in favour of more threatening targets. As a Cheetah pilot, I can't possibly explain how unfathomably annoying it is to have both your arms blown off and then get sticked down to a single cSPL. It's infuriating. It goes like this: a sticked Cheetah is not as threatening as a Cheetah with two cored legs, and you're actually more likely to blow both its arms off first than you are to destroy one of its legs.

Option 2: shoot the legs, but aim above the knees. If you aim below the knees, like on all mechs, this is where the legs move the most and spread the most damage. Also, on the ACH the leg hitbox thins out a little bit on either side of the shins. So aim for the thighs.


Detailed analysis of the hitboxes: https://www.reddit.c...depth_analysis/

Edited by Tarogato, 21 November 2015 - 09:06 PM.

[Kira Onime]

Oh.. an other ACH QQ thread.

If you can't shoot the legs, shoot the side torsos. Not that hard to kill them.

[Surn]

Thanks to all that have made useful suggestions. However, simply shooting the legs and comparisons to a firestarter are ...not realistic.
Shooting at thighs may help. However, the broken hitboxes are the actual problem. Mech 101 gunnery is NOT the problem. For those who say the artic cheater is not that hard to kill...there is a reason everyone but you sees it differently...it is called selective cognition. You do not want to see the truth.
The only thing that I find to work is bumping them with another mech to make them warp into a wall or whatever to get stuck on.

Edited by MechregSurn, 21 November 2015 - 10:52 PM.

[Prussian Havoc]

Comparisons to Firestarters are quite accurate... before Firestarter hit boxes were nerfed to where they are currently, NOTHING would drive Clan CW gamers to greater distraction than House Marik's patented 3 Firestarter/ 1 Other Mech Drop Decks.

How did Clan gamers beat such Inner Sphere use of Firestarters?

We didn't.

We lost battles.

We lost worlds.

If the battle for a certain world was important enough we just campaigned within our units to "get out the vote" (get more fellow Unit gamers into CW rather than Public Queue) thus locally overwhelming in numbers what we could not take through strength of arms.



After a time, the smarter members of our Units constructed and structured the use of Streakcrows and then Streakdogs as well as organized our Unit's Horizontal Drop Decks to include 1 to 3 "Goalkeepers" (Streak-centric fast Mechs) to hang close to the net (generators) and guard specifically against Firestarter Rushes.

I think this is the point where many Inner Sphere gamers find themselves, what has always worked before (old builds and old tactics) will not work moving forward. New builds (material solutions) and new tactics (organizational solutions) are called for...


...will the Inner Sphere prove capable of developing acceptable and effective counters to the Arctic Cheetah?

...or will threads whining to PGI that the Arctic Cheetah is OP and MUST BE NERFED further propagate throughout our forums?

Edited by Prussian Havoc, 21 November 2015 - 11:41 PM.

[Tarogato]

MechregSurn, on 21 November 2015 - 10:35 PM, said:

Shooting at thighs may help. However, the broken hitboxes are the actual problem. Mech 101 gunnery is NOT the problem.

Sorry, but after over two hours of staring at the hitboxes for this mech and meticulously checking for any thing that could be described as "broken", I can honestly say I don't buy this argument anymore. There is nothing broken about these hitboxes aside from the few discrepancies that I pointed out in the image I posted above, which are not game breaking. The issue is Mech 101 gunnery or hitreg. Personally, I'm more inclined to believe that it's gunnery and that hitreg is having minimal effect. The reason you can't hurt ACHs is the same reason you can't hurt Spiders - they're small, slender, they spread damage well, and in particular have thin legs.

[Prussian Havoc]

Tarogato, on 21 November 2015 - 11:55 PM, said:

Sorry, but after over two hours of staring at the hitboxes for this mech and meticulously checking for any thing that could be described as "broken", I can honestly say I don't buy this argument anymore. There is nothing broken about these hitboxes aside from the few discrepancies that I pointed out in the image I posted above, which are not game breaking. The issue is Mech 101 gunnery or hitreg. Personally, I'm more inclined to believe that it's gunnery and that hitreg is having minimal effect. The reason you can't hurt ACHs is the same reason you can't hurt Spiders - they're small, slender, they spread damage well, and in particular have thin legs.

Fighting Harder (improving Mech Gunnery 101) is not the answer.

Fighting Smarter (use of Streaks, 3 on 1 Drills/Practice, "Goalkeeper" Tactics, etc) will bear out greater benefit.

[Vlad Striker]

Well-known practice is to use multiple BAPs in group and SSRM.

[WANTED]

Mad Porthos, on 21 November 2015 - 08:27 PM, said:

Kill it with FIRE!

No seriously, it was odd the other day, saw someone over heating two of them, then killing them, using a commando. Weird.

He's right actually! Group m8 of mine loves to run flamers on his mechs for fun and damned if he didn't overhear two AC. Then we focused fired them. I never laughed so hard.

The streaks sound like a nice defense but IS cannot carry Ssrm 4 or Ssrm 6 like clans do against our firestarters so that's apples to oranges

[Chados]

Unlike the clans, IS doesn't have the SSRM boat option. At most, IS can run two or three SSRM2, which is not effective. And I've had game after game where an ACH gets behind me and stays there because I can't get my back against a wall and an assault mech is too slow to turn. And two of them are worse. One's always behind you even if you can leg the one in front.

In numbers we can counter. I managed to leg one of them yesterday because he overheated and between me and a couple other PuGs we pounded him. But they can take an insane amount of damage, that one had ERLLs, PPCs, and uAC5s all shooting at him before he went down. Leg one and he can't dance around. Then you can pound him. But those are real small targets for an assault mech that can't move fast.

[Prussian Havoc]

WANTED, on 22 November 2015 - 06:38 AM, said:

He's right actually! Group m8 of mine loves to run flamers on his mechs for fun and damned if he didn't overhear two AC. Then we focused fired them. I never laughed so hard.

The streaks sound like a nice defense but IS cannot carry Ssrm 4 or Ssrm 6 like clans do against our firestarters so that's apples to oranges

Many times missile slots on IS go unused. Rather than dedicated Streakcrows, it would just have to be a concerted effort by the 12-man team to share responsibility for equipping/using Mechs SSRM-2's. Just like it is a tactic to "Share Armor", responsibility for Light Fighting would have to be shared when it comes to loading SSRM-2's on Mechs. Even LBX-10's could be the IS response to the challenge of Arctic Cheetah hunting.

[Lukoi Banacek]

Remember when the indestructible was the Spider? Ah, happy days or yore.

[Tahribator]

Don't shoot the legs unless you have a massive alpha and a very steady aim. Not only they're very small, but they also get +15 leg structure quirks that make them extremely durable.

Instead, go for the arms and side torsos. Try to aim for the shoulders to ensure both the arms and the side torsos take damage. Once you take off its arms, you get rid of 60-66% of its firepower which makes it pretty much useless. It'll still run around shooting 1-2 lasers that it has left, but at that point you can either switch targets or finish it off.

[WANTED]

Yes true Tah. I have seen more AC on my teams and opposite team with no weapons cause of destroyed torsos. Heard the LBXs might be effective as well.

[Bud Crue]

Gotta add my two cents here.

Preface: As an exclusive IS driver, I oft advocate for making Clan mechs better or stronger for several reasons including that I like the challenge and I think from a lore perspective the clans ought to be OP. However...

The AC is indeed too OP. The changes on the test server are a step in the right direction. The thing needs the extra armor and structure quirks seriously nerfed. But what about the hit boxes?

Someone above mentioned forcing the AC into shut down. Insufficient, If damage just doesn't register.
To wit: Just left in a match where we had 7 mechs left and grouped up against the last AC of the enemy. He danced around for over two minutes, and shut down twice in the midst of us all. We lit him up like a christmas tree both times. He came back each time and kept going like the energizer bunny. Slightly more than two minutes of game time to leg and then kill the thing against 7 mechs. No mech should be able to stand for two full minutes getting repeatedly alpha striked during that time and survive.

Can or could a firestarter do that?

I hate nerfing, but that mech is just ridiculously tough.

[Bud Crue]

One more thing:

In CW the clan all AC wave or waves are becoming common. There is a reason for that, and it isn't because they lost their streak crows.