67 replies to this topic

[Thrael]

just to words. If you need good teamwork to counter random LRM boats then something is wrong.

[Kazooal]

Sure, we will finally find a strategy to counter the new LRM supremacy. Maybe it will be a generalized power down at all start of game. Maybe the necessity to kill all enemies scouts first. Maybe another strategy.

But where I see an evident regression is that, whatever the final good strategy will be, the global strategy of the game is now more poor...

Before LRMS last patch, teams had a lot of very different strategies to win. Now you wil have only one : take care of LRMS before ANY other consideration..

A bit sad...

Edited by Kazooal, 07 November 2012 - 02:37 AM.

[Rutok]

Killing the scouts is useless. They dont need anyone scouting if they can kill you in 2-3 volleys while you try to rush close to them.

[Jaykay]

I played in several matches tonight, almost entirely in a Jenner. I am a terrible mech pilot, but went into almost all of those matches with Artemis LRM support.

I had some small success dodging from cover to cover to avoid enemy LRM fire. If you are careful, and time it so you run from cover to cover as soon as the enemy LRM boat(s) launch their missiles, you can make it safely to your next area of cover. I was able to do this on all maps tonight.

Using the caves was also helpful, but damn did they get crowded today.

One LRM-heavy team in my last pug match in Frozen City ran 3 LRM cats through the cave, and then rained down death from the cave entrance, staying under the overhead cover. The irony is they still would have lost if one (bad pilot) hadn't run off their cap point right before the timers wound down.


For scouts, the rule seems to be "if you're spotted, you're going to die" unless somehow you manage to get within 200m of the enemy mechs, or your LRM support is faster than theirs.

[Vrekgar]

In terms of defensive play, your kind of low on options but they are intuitive. Only 1 aspect has really changed.

1. AMS umbrella. Everyone MUST have it. You also MUST have 2 tons now instead of one.
2. Focus fire on spotters. IF they cant see you, they cant launch on you.
3. Break LOS from spotters/launchers. Missiles behave the same when lock is broken.
4. When going to cover, make sure you keep moving away from last locked position because missiles WILL hit there.
5. Vertical cover is your friend. This is ironic because on lake city the river rush is MORE effective because of the hard vertical cover spots.

Offensive play I feel has more change at this point.

1. Closing fast to LRM boats so they cant launch is essential. AMS cant carry enough rounds in an umbrella to withstand sustained LRM fire.
2. With the enhanced requirement for AMS and ammo for it, balistic weapons take it in the shorts because you have a hard time balancing so many tons of ammo. Go for more energy weapons without ammo requirements.
3. LONG RANGED energy weapons become more effective. Large and ER large lasers become much more attractive options because you can stand off and shoot boats, and have enough time to duck and run in cover before the bombs drop. All this without costing precious slots or tons on non ams amunition.
4. Maximixing your damage per slot at RANGE is attractive because your going to be playing Peek a boo against boats. You cant wheel and brawl as easily as before meaning short ranged medium pulse builds are way less attractive than larger energy weapons.

[Rathe]

Memory, on 06 November 2012 - 10:54 PM, said:

Getting killed by LRMs? Bring more LRMs!

This is what I have been doing. play better LRMs than they do. I've been running a hunch 4SP, tag, 4 ML, 2 LRM10. our LRM boats stay in cover and wait for the enemy to expose themselves. Scouts were doing really well getting behind LRM boat atlases so they couldn't be spotted. Doesn't work against LRM cats as much, but in order for them to turn to spot the scout, they have to show their back to our LRMs.

Memory, on 06 November 2012 - 09:50 PM, said:

Know any good spots on River City//Caustic where that has worked?

River city, G5, by the big building there is a roof you can go under. In one of our games we had 2 gauss cats hide there and snipe out 4 LRM boats while being immune to LRM fire. We eventually had a pug atlas brawler close and eat them, but we ended up losing that one.

For Caustic, hug that caldera like your life depends on it: if you get 'incoming missiles' warning, jump inside or out of the caldera to break their lock. Don't stand still once you break lock, the missiles will hit the exact point that lock was lost.

TL;DR: play more LRMs than the enemy, the devs will change it.

Edited by Rathe, 07 November 2012 - 09:17 AM.

[Memory]

I'll start by thanking everyone for all the input thus far. It still seems likeep the only reliable way to win is to bring more LRM than the enemy, but I have an interesting statement here from Russ Bullock off of a Q&A on Kotaku:

Q: "The latest patch (yesterday) changed LRM arcs substantially - something that was not noted in the patch notes. Can you confirm if this was a bug, or if this is intended LRM behavior? If it is intended, what is the counter supposed to be? Cover - even tall buildings or cliffs - is no longer effective in stopping incoming missiles as they simply fly over and then straight down on top of mechs."

A: "Bug. Got past our process, a failure. That is why Open Beta is so important we need to perfect our processes with a large player base. This should be hot fixed very soon."

Q: "Given that you stated earlier that having mech fights at close range is one of your goals, what is the purpose in continuously boosting LRMs and killing any heat-based weapons that brawlers would use?"

A: "Were always analyzing balance. Im currently wondering if were seeing too many LRM's in the air."

This is a really interesting series of responses to me as it shows pretty plainly that the current artemis setup is not working as intended, and the flight path (which is at least half the problem) is an outright bug.

Please spread the word about these two statements!

Edited by Memory, 07 November 2012 - 12:26 PM.

[pewnjeff]

This is definitely a problem in the game I've noticed so far. The devs need to address the community about what is being done, or if this is the intended style of play. I am very frustrated as I can only run LRM boats or lights to be effective in a match.