14 replies to this topic

[Hop per]

I am looking for some tactics in this little fight. As a Founder I chose a Jenner, love them, fit my play style. I have my good runs and my bad runs, I have posted 600 damage before, as well as 10.

I have scrapped it out with my fellow Jenner pilots time and time again. And what I have come to learn is that I loath this fight more than anything else. There are bad Jenner pilots/builds that seem to go down pretty easy, but I will find my self up against competent pilots as often as not. They always tend to go the same way, and I am hoping that a few of you have figured out how to get the advantage and are willing to share.

We enter into what I will call the Jenner Jerk, spinning in circles, firing SSRM that hit rarely, as well as the laser that hit just as often. It is ended only when another mech breaks the circle, giving the advantage or I get bored of 3 minutes of pressing a single key (A or D) and try to break the monotony with a different tatic.

For the sake of this conversation lets assume you are the last two Mechs on the Field. What do you do in this fight, what do you do?

[Fedifensor]

Fight on the cap point for the enemy base. You limit the other Jenner's mobility, because every time you can get him out of the cap point for a few seconds while you're in it, you make progress towards capping.

However, the most important thing to do is to specifically design your Jenner to fight other Jenners. SSRMs are a good choice, as are Small Lasers (Normal or Pulse) and enough heat sinks to keep firing.

[Flapdrol]

You have to aim your lasers quite a bit in front of the enemy jenner for them to hit. If you're both running in circles just shoot your lasers in front of him, if he tries to break the circle fire the streaks.

[knight-of-ni]

Hey, it's like you are reading my mind.

I too have trouble getting Jenner's off my back, especially if they sneak up on me.
Lately, I just slam it in reverse and shoot at them while I run backwards. I can get them in my target reticule easier if I am turning while going in reverse. I still need to practice this more before I have any idea if this really works better.

[CG Chicken Kn]

The Jenner vs Jenner fight is a question of timing your shots, and forcing your opponent in to an error that allows you to land solid hits, while making his hits be glancing blows,

For this to work, one needs to make use of jump jets in combination with throttle variations to make you turn tighter than the other guy. If you get inside his turning arc, you win. If you find yourself in a circle fight with your opponent going the same way, as in both clockwise, let's say, snap the other way and hit reverse throttle for a split second while you reverse. Immediately hit full forward throttle again. Now you should be going almost straight at him. If sufficient range for a lock, take a streak shot, but don't wait for it if too close. Now jump OVER him, turning in the air to look back the way you came. Make sure you swing your legs to agree with the direction you will be facing when you land. Snap another shot off, and break left or right depending on what he is doing. Unless you have a speed advantage, do not continue to circle in the same direction.
However, if you forced an error and managed to land behind him, with him facing/moving away, hammer the throttle and tear in to his back.
You will now have to STAY on his back. Easier said than done.
If you are in a circle fight, he can turn harder than your streaks can, and you will get hit/misses that do little damage. Don't waste the ammo. Break and counter turn, and fire when you force him to straight line to stay with you.
Use your lasers when he is moving laterally (sideways) at speed.
Use your missles only when he is either closing or receding in a line at less than 30 degrees to your direction of travel.
This allows your streaks to track and stay with him. Preferably timing the shot so that they will strike just as he straight lines to you, so fire at the needed spot so he will be where you are aiming,
Never fire at where he is, fire at where he WILL be.

If you are more beat up than your opponent, try very hard to take the fight to a hilly spot, where you can use the up/down slopes to vary your speed while never actually backing off from full throttle. Judicious use of jumpjets to increase hillclimbing speed plays a big part here. Never ever stay on your jump jets for more than 3 or 4 seconds unless you have a specific reason for doing so. You lose too much speed. You should be tap-turning a lot tho. As in giving your space bar quick little taps at random times in your turns. This creates a stutter to your turn, and makes you harder to hit. And tightens up your turning circle, allowing you to get on his back, or at least closer to it.

The more you practice these techniques, the more natural they become.
Short version of above? Never move in the same arc/direction for more than two seconds, ever, for any reason.
As you improve, that will change to one second. Or less.

If you took your jump jets off your Jenner, you deserve to die. I absolutely garantee that if we are at full health, and you have no jump jets, I will win that fight in a one vs one.

Knniggett made a comment about reversing to get a lock and snap a shot or two off. This is a valid tactic, but can only be used once (MAYBE twice, last time for a kill shot) per fight. And you should only be backing away for a few seconds, then hammering the forward throttle and getting lateral movement (sideways relative to your opponent) as fast as possible.
Then resume turn/counterturn as needed.

All of this happens incredibly fast, as all you Jenner pilots know. I hope you can picture in your mind what I am describing.
I use modified tactics learned from thousands of hours in a C1 strider in MW3. ( 149 kph, 14 Clan ER meds in two groups, the Nuclear Strider)
There is no "toggle throttle direction" button in MWO, or you could re map the "S" key to that instead of reverse. That allowed my Strider to INSTANTLY go from full throttle forward to full reverse. And back again. multiple times per second sometimes.
In a game where you had to lag shoot, you can imagine what this did to my opponent's ability to hit me.

Within the game mechanics of MWO, variations on the above will stand you in good stead.
Think in three dimensions, not two. Maintain map awareness of your surroundings, and use the terrain to force errors from your opponent.

Oh and one more thing. Let loose with the cry of the Light pilot!

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!

Because these things are just too much fun for words....

[TungstenWall]

I would like to hear opinions on dealing with these "jenner jerks".

I myself am not a Jenner pilot, but i do play as a rather tick skinned COM with SSRMs and a Tag.
My build is designed to intercept enemy scouts, and chase them off or kill them.
After that, my SSRMs are almost useless against anything lager than a Raven, so i use the TAG to help boost LRM damage of teammates (But my COM does not usually last this long before it expires).

Fighting against Ravens, (most) COMS, and (some) Cicadas are rather easy for me, but Jenners seem to be in a sweet spot between mobility, and firepower.

[Foxfire]

Don't be afraid to use your jumpjets to help you turn tighter(and throttle control as well).

[SquareSphere]

CG Chicken Kn, on 31 October 2012 - 07:10 PM, said:

There is no "toggle throttle direction" button in MWO, or you could re map the "S" key to that instead of reverse. That allowed my Strider to INSTANTLY go from full throttle forward to full reverse. And back again. multiple times per second sometimes.

There isn't an "instant" toggle for the throttle (multiple times per second isn't possible in MWO due to their accel/deccel rates). BUT there is a way to manually increase the Forward/Reverse throttle rate.

Right now most of your are probably using only W/S to manage your Forward and Reverse. The draw back is that you have hold down S while the throttle slider goes from full Forward to full Reverse which takes probably takes close to 2 full seconds. Instead tap X for full stop (this sends the throttle slider to "neutral") THEN hold S for reverse. You'll notice that you can go from full forward to full reverse in about 1.5 seconds. It doesn't seem like much but when you're in a "Jenner Jerk" (great name btw :3) even a .5 sec advantage to grab lock and fire SSRM on a straight line target is significant.

[Athomahawk]

TungstenWall, on 31 October 2012 - 07:29 PM, said:

I would like to hear opinions on dealing with these "jenner jerks".

I myself am not a Jenner pilot, but i do play as a rather tick skinned COM with SSRMs and a Tag.
My build is designed to intercept enemy scouts, and chase them off or kill them.
After that, my SSRMs are almost useless against anything lager than a Raven, so i use the TAG to help boost LRM damage of teammates (But my COM does not usually last this long before it expires).

Fighting against Ravens, (most) COMS, and (some) Cicadas are rather easy for me, but Jenners seem to be in a sweet spot between mobility, and firepower.

Short answer is you need to lead with the streaks; easier said than done against a good jenner pilot. As a Commando you're out classed in a light brawl so try to keep range and get good hits with your streaks (over 100m or so). Don't stray too far from friendlies and drag the jenner back toward your teams lrms and big guns if he starts chasing you.

[Hop per]

Excellent advice all around, sounds like I have practicing to do. I defiantly do not use my jump jets to their fullest ability, as said I think that may be were the biggest advantage lies. Thanks all!

[CG Chicken Kn]

Good advice about the "X" button. My instincts are not to use anything that causes me to stop, and I haven't been using this to my advantage. Half a second is a lifetime in high speed fights, every little bit counts. Gaining that 1/2 second every 10 seconds would mean you are now on your opponent's backside in a few repetitions.

I am guilty of being lazy when picking apart easy targets, (Trial Awesomes and Ravens come to mind here) and maintaining your rythym of being hard to hit even when you don't really "need" to is something we should all practice.
In fact I would suggest making it a goal to not allow the "easier" targets to touch you, at all.
Besides, when the risk is a little lower is a good time to practice moves you don't have perfected yet.
The penalty for a mistake is a much reduced.

[knight-of-ni]

This thread is golden!
Thanks for the advice, I've read it over & over several times already.

[CG Chicken Kn]

Is it kind of making sense knnniggett? As in, can you visualize what we are referring to?
Putting in to words what happens in fractions of a second is not the easiest thing to do.
Biggest thing for less experienced light pilots to understand is that it will take MONTHS to be "good"
Not days or weeks.
Keep in mind when I use "good" , I mean in the top 10%.
This is not a slight against anyone, and should not be taken as any form of epeen comment.
I die just like the next guy if I make a mistake, sometimes in seconds.
Be ready to die, A LOT, if this is where you would like to get to.
Your mistakes teach you more than your easy kills, and running solo/pug forces you to make decisions very rapidly based on what people are doing, who are not communicating with you.
We had a very good light mech guide in the beta forums, I need to find it and condense it down for re-posting.

"Good" light pilots will finish top three on their team, every single game or very nearly.
Since the endgame ranking is a combination of more than just kills, it is a pretty good indicator as to whether you are doing your job or not.
If you run solo and got rolled by a premade, do not let that make you think it had no value.
Did you finish at or near the top of your team?
Did you see spotting XP roll by during the game on a regular basis?
Do you feel you responded to the highest threat to your team quickly?
Do you have a consistently high number of kill assists?
Did you survive for a period of time even after their entire team decided you had to die?
Did you trigger the "Base" alert by running on to their cap for a few seconds to force them to redeploy units, thus giving your team a numeric advantage?
All decisions that you have seconds (some times split seconds) to make.

And that is where the rush of lights lies.
"Big stompy robots" = Booooooorrrrrrrriinnnngggg!
"Float like a butterfly, Sting like a bee" = that is what does it for me!

"Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Edited by CG Chicken Kn, 01 November 2012 - 07:20 PM.

[knight-of-ni]

The mind is willing, but the fingers are weak!
Yes, I can indeed visualize everything you just told me. I think my past experience with mechwarrior games helps me understand what you have said. I only played them in single player glory, and as we know, mwo demands a level of skill much higher than that.

I've read several guides front-to-back multiple times, and I feel that I have learned as much as I can from them.
I have gone from not knowing what I am doing wrong, to knowing what is wrong. However, I am still learning to fix it.
The advice in this thread will help significantly.

Case in point, last night I held off a Hunchback, Atlas, and Catapult from capturing the base. I felt like a pinball bouncing around inside my little blue square (I'm still a little clumsy). I killed the catapult the moment he stepped into the box (he must have been previously injured. it only took one shot), the hunchback backed out of the square entirely, and it took that Atlas what seemed like an eternity to finally take me out (oh boy did I put some hits on him). Yeah, none of them were skilled pilots, but neither am I... and experiences like this are how I measure my improvement even if ultimately I loose the match.

While the above is technically off-topic (it's not Jenner-vs-Jenner), I give credit to those who take the time to document how to get better. Thanks guys.