201 replies to this topic

[Major Derps]

Vlad Ward, on 25 February 2013 - 08:43 PM, said:

I would kill that walking target in a single Alpha strike. It doesn't even have to be accurate with your XL engine.

So, you talk the talk but can't walk the walk. If you are as good as you make out, you would realise the XL engine is so buffered, that you have the same survivability as you do with a std with less firepower, armor and speed. Besides, if a mech has that sort of speed, and can still get alpha'd, then it's being piloted wrong.

Edited by Mokey Mot, 25 February 2013 - 08:50 PM.

[Vlad Ward]

Padic, on 25 February 2013 - 08:46 PM, said:

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is that, unlike lights, (fast) mediums carry enough armor and firepower to slam on the breaks and dump a pinpoint alpha into the rear armor of their target.

I find that heavies are slow and clumsy enough that they're basically obligated to achieve kills by blasting through the thickest part of their opponent's defenses. My Cent-D need not shoot through center torso armor very often (at least, not when I'm making good decisions).

This makes for an opportunity to play a medium as an assassin.


Also, while I'm here - a big enough alpha will kill lots of stuff. This does not strike me as a particularly meaningful statement.

Lights have the size and the speed to dodge the full brunt of a splash Alpha. Pinpoint Alphas are generally much lower on the damage scale, and a lot harder to hit Lights with.

Assaults have the armor to take a Splash Alpha, and Heavies have the guns to dish out both.

Mediums melt when they're hit with either type, and can't dish out the kind of pain their larger, I mean slower, er... I mean heavier cousins do.

Edited by Vlad Ward, 25 February 2013 - 08:51 PM.

[Nephero]

Redmond Spiderhammer, on 25 February 2013 - 06:29 PM, said:

my centurion has more firepower than either of my cats

LIEEEEEEEEEESSSS!!!!

[Vlad Ward]

Mokey Mot, on 25 February 2013 - 08:48 PM, said:

So, you talk the talk but can't walk the walk. If you are as good as you make out, you would realise the XL engine is so buffered, that you have the same survivability as you do with a std with less firepower, armor and speed. Besides, if a mech has that sort of speed, and can still get alpha'd, then it's being piloted wrong.

uh, what?

Buffered with what? The 4SP has huge shoulders. They're not 4G style huge, but still huge. Do you think I'm talking about crits? Do you think crits actually destroy mechs? What?

If anyone, in any Mech, can't hit a target that big moving only 90kph, they are just bads. Take the pug goggles off. Hunchies are not hard to hit.

[Soulscour]

Vlad Ward, on 25 February 2013 - 08:51 PM, said:

Lights have the size and the speed to dodge the full brunt of a splash Alpha. Pinpoint Alphas are generally much lower on the damage scale, and a lot harder to hit Lights with.

Assaults have the armor to take a Splash Alpha, and Heavies have the guns to dish out both.

Mediums melt when they're hit with either type, and can't dish out the kind of pain their larger, I mean slower, er... I mean heavier cousins do.

Centurions do not melt from splash damage. they have the big 32 armor arms that have nothing in them that absorb damage. For some reason everyone loves to shoot those arms too. Now if they were incapable of torso twisting I would agree with you.

[Vlad Ward]

Soulscour, on 25 February 2013 - 08:56 PM, said:

Centurions do not melt from splash damage. they have the big 32 armor arms that have nothing in them that absorb damage. For some reason everyone loves to shoot those arms too. Now if they were incapable of torso twisting I would agree with you.

List of things Centurions can do that other Mechs cannot do:
Shield with arms

Oh, no, wait, that's not a unique characteristic at all!

The problem is still relative. They will always melt significantly faster than comparable... everything else.

Edited by Vlad Ward, 25 February 2013 - 08:58 PM.

[Padic]

I think I agree with the direction of Vlad's commentary, just not the magnitude.

[Juicebox12]

Medium mechs are the most dangerous mechs in the game. Fast movement speed coupled with assault like damage alpha's means your ripping apart heavy mechs left, right, and center. Just don't get stuck in dangerous spots.

[Vlad Ward]

Juicebox12, on 25 February 2013 - 09:02 PM, said:

Medium mechs are the most dangerous mechs in the game. Fast movement speed coupled with assault like damage alpha's means your ripping apart heavy mechs left, right, and center. Just don't get stuck in dangerous spots.

Padic, on 25 February 2013 - 09:00 PM, said:

I think I agree with the direction of Vlad's commentary, just not the magnitude.

Posts like the above and the fact that threads like this pop up about 3-4 times a week (all with the same crap as above) are part of why the magnitude of my commentary is as extreme as it is.

I play with some damn good Medium pilots, but they excel because they're damn good - not because Mediums aren't underpowered. I think PGI really screwed the pooch with their Medium Chassis sizes.

[Thorqemada]

The thing i am unhappy about is that the Medium is the "Jack of all Trades" that is not allowed to fullfill that specific role as boating is way more efficient.

[Asmosis]

with the way ELO and the new weight matching as opposed to weight class matching works, medium mechs can act as heavily armored scout mechs if they want, thats what i was considering doing with a cent. Theres not much point overloading it with firepower at the expense of movement speed (much like gauss raven) as you'll get blown up pretty quick.

[eaglemaster42]

Vlad Ward, on 25 February 2013 - 09:04 PM, said:

I play with some damn good Medium pilots, but they excel because they're damn good - not because Mediums aren't underpowered. I think PGI really screwed the pooch with their Medium Chassis sizes.

I haven't had the fortune to play with too many super skilled medium pilots. You wouldn't believe how many medium pilots try to face hump me and I'm just like bro, I have 20 tons of firepower/armour on you. Circle strafing doesn't really work for them either, since as Vlad said, they are too big to be considered hard to hit.

I'd say mediums can deal some good damage, so long as they don't peek out of cover longer than they have to and let the heavies/assaults take most of the heat

[Major Derps]

Vlad Ward, on 25 February 2013 - 08:54 PM, said:

uh, what?

Buffered with what? The 4SP has huge shoulders. They're not 4G style huge, but still huge. Do you think I'm talking about crits? Do you think crits actually destroy mechs? What?

If anyone, in any Mech, can't hit a target that big moving only 90kph, they are just bads. Take the pug goggles off. Hunchies are not hard to hit.

First, *face palm*, yes, crits destroy mechs.

Secondly, if an alpha is enough to drop a mech, it would have to be a rear shot, or a shot at a damaged mech, and therefor would have dropped most mechs.

Third, buffered with SRMs, and DHS'. A spread alpha would not be enough to one hit kill a hunchback, so crits come into play. Now by buffering the side torsos it is the same as if the engine was STD, and only occupied the CT. And in the same instance, if it were an accurate alpha in the back CT, it will destroy a STD engine, and therefor irrelevant.

Finally. No, they arent hard to hit, but with people using them as heavies and assaults, you have apparently got the false impression the mediums are just easy kills for you.

[armyof1]

Juicebox12, on 25 February 2013 - 09:02 PM, said:

Medium mechs are the most dangerous mechs in the game. Fast movement speed coupled with assault like damage alpha's means your ripping apart heavy mechs left, right, and center. Just don't get stuck in dangerous spots.

It's the last sentence really that is the most important, dangerous spots. There are so many dangerous spots when driving a medium. If you're in large open maps like Caustic or Alpine all the mediums that can't go beyond 92kph have trouble going from cover to cover and be a good target to heavies and assaults. If you're in a place with lots of buildings like upper River city you can maneuver about and fight slower mechs pretty well, but lights can do that better than you and you'll have trouble with them. I find you often end up between a rock and a hard place between the lighter or heavier mechs. And now when weightclass matching has stopped, you might well end up not seeing a single medium amongst the opponents. When the Trebuchet fad is over, it'll be less and less mediums as people gravitate more towards more effective builds.

Edited by armyof1, 25 February 2013 - 09:21 PM.

[Elizander]

Asmosis, on 25 February 2013 - 09:08 PM, said:

with the way ELO and the new weight matching as opposed to weight class matching works, medium mechs can act as heavily armored scout mechs if they want, thats what i was considering doing with a cent. Theres not much point overloading it with firepower at the expense of movement speed (much like gauss raven) as you'll get blown up pretty quick.

It should work. I do play scout on my Pretty Baby (because on some games, we just do not get any light mechs)



That was a room full of heavies and assaults and the matchmaker gave us 1 token Treb to each team just so we wouldn't feel lonely.

[Vlad Ward]

Mokey Mot, on 25 February 2013 - 09:17 PM, said:

First, *face palm*, yes, crits destroy mechs.

Secondly, if an alpha is enough to drop a mech, it would have to be a rear shot, or a shot at a damaged mech, and therefor would have dropped most mechs.

Third, buffered with SRMs, and DHS'. A spread alpha would not be enough to one hit kill a hunchback, so crits come into play. Now by buffering the side torsos it is the same as if the engine was STD, and only occupied the CT. And in the same instance, if it were an accurate alpha in the back CT, it will destroy a STD engine, and therefor irrelevant.

Finally. No, they arent hard to hit, but with people using them as heavies and assaults, you have apparently got the false impression the mediums are just easy kills for you.

Geez, dude. Misinformation overload.

Critical Hits can't kill you. They just knock off your guns and ECM and crap, and occasionally cause your ammo to go boom (who keeps ammo in shoulders?). If your engine gets brought to 0 HP from crits, guess what, it doesn't do anything. Back in "the day", it used to increase your repair bill, but it's never destroyed your Mech.

All a 90 point Alpha has to do is deal ~66% of its damage to one of your side torsos to completely remove you from the fight. That's it. You're down in one shot. That same Alpha will knock pretty much any Medium on its ***, front or back. Whether it's killing it outright, or removing enough of its weapons payload to make it insignificant in a brawl, Mediums need no more than to be sneezed at by an Assault that knows what it's doing to be down for the count.

And last I checked, Assaults can hide behind cover and shoot, too. That's not a Medium only trick or something, just like blocking with arms and twisting isn't either.

[valkyrie]

It used to help keep the enemy team from getting an extra D-DC, -3L, Splatcat, etc.

Now? Pfft, your guess is as good as mine. Being Medium Mechguca is suffering.

[Soulscour]

Vlad Ward, on 25 February 2013 - 08:58 PM, said:

List of things Centurions can do that other Mechs cannot do:
Shield with arms

Oh, no, wait, that's not a unique characteristic at all!

The problem is still relative. They will always melt significantly faster than comparable... everything else.

No. Cataphracts melt way faster. As do stalkers because they cant cover thier own ***. Dragons with thier tendancy to run xls melt faster. All of those mechs also lose significant weapons when thier arms get blown off.

[Nathan Bloodguard]

I just want to throw my two cents worth. As a relatively new centurion pilot I've noticed a few things people do. The first of which is to ignore the medium in favor of the heavy right next to him that has more weapons. When they do this i just aim for the weak spots and wreak it, destroying half their weapon, then the heavy normally finishes the job. the second would be that they focus on me, unto which i hide behind a building or some like substance and let them chase me, while exposing their backs to my heavy friend that they wanted to ignore.

I do admit that sometimes I just end up at the wrong place at the wrong time, but that goes with any mech you pilot, unto which i get out gunned and die a horribly painful death in seconds.

[Vlad Ward]

Soulscour, on 25 February 2013 - 09:27 PM, said:

No. Cataphracts melt way faster. As do stalkers because they cant cover thier own ***. Dragons with thier tendancy to run xls melt faster. All of those mechs also lose significant weapons when thier arms get blown off.

Aaaaaaand here we go back to the same, old "You're fighting bad players" deal that so many people just do not seem to realize.

Bads do bad things and die easily no matter what they're in. When people get moderately good at this game, they have a tendency to think whatever they're driving is the best thing on the planet and everything else falls into these huge, cliche weaknesses (Atlas = slow, Stalker = no twist, Phract = huge CT).

Yes, the Phract has a huge CT, but he'll still take a hell of a lot more of a beating than a Mech 20 tons his Junior with a pilot of equivalent skill. Note the qualifier there. Of equivalent skill. It is the only fair way to compare any Mech to another.

Good Atlases and Stalkers designed for close range combat are moving more than fast enough to keep a slow Medium (90 is slow) off their back. Good Atlases and Stalkers designed for long range combat are more than mobile enough to keep slow Mediums in their ideal attack range for the very short period required to demolish them.

The large, lumpy targets people talk about in these sorts of threads (you know, the ones that never use cover, stand still when trying to look for a harassing Medium, and can't turn for squat) just don't exist at the high level of play these pilots are talking about.