27 replies to this topic

[tbl]

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this but almost consistantly in every match I play there is always at least 2 people boating Large Lasers in their stalkers. Now I do understand that stalkers are fulfilling their role as snipers. But to be honest it is getting a bit rediculous when they fire 3 and even 4 consecutive alpha strikes without overheating; stripping and killing heavy mechs like they are made of matchsticks.

Am I crazy or has anyone else noticed boating of large lasers has become a flavour of the month to couple with the always powerful 3Ls running around.

Edited by tbl, 13 April 2013 - 07:46 AM.

[Hedonism Robot]

[tbl]

Thank your for your valuable and thought out response.

[MadCat02]

tbl, on 13 April 2013 - 07:45 AM, said:

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this but almost consistantly in every match I play there is always at least 2 people boating Large Lasers in their stalkers. Now I do understand that stalkers are fulfilling their role as snipers. But to be honest it is getting a bit rediculous when they fire 3 and even 4 consecutive alpha strikes without overheating; stripping and killing heavy mechs like they are made of matchsticks.

Am I crazy or has anyone else noticed boating of large lasers has become a flavour of the month to couple with the always powerful 3Ls running around.

My 23 double heat sink stalker can fire 5 large lasers without overheating 7-8 times. Its the best close combat build at a moment . However effective range is 450m and you can get zoned on larger maps .

On alpine or tourmaline PPC and UAC have better punch .

Its a doubledge sword . Also good Atlas pilot can make short work of stalker at 450 meters . My D has 3 large lasers and 2 uac with armor upgrade . Nearly 50% more dps if it comes to brawling .


..............................

I have 4.o K/D on Stalker compared to 2.5 on Atlas . This deffirance is do to atlas not beeing able to shoot on elevated ground

Edited by MadCat02, 13 April 2013 - 08:11 AM.

[Tarl Cabot]

1. Learning where the weapons are located in a mech.
2. If possible strip that location to render weapons worthless (esp when CT is a buggy to hit consistently).
3. Keep range. The further away, the less damage those lasers will do to you.
4. Keep out maneuvering the mech.

Edited by Tarl Cabot, 13 April 2013 - 08:24 AM.

[Bloody Moon]

Large Lasers were always a decent weapon choice, but they were never overpowered.
At the moment they are taken more often for 2 reasons:

1. Missiles were a bit overnerfed.
2. Ballistics and PPCs lack state-rewind.

Fix those and LLs are balanced.

[Nebelfeuer]

How about preventing boating instead of giving advice how to beat boats?
Since a) u can not always prevent getiing hit by massive alphas of a boat(be it LL,PPC or another weapon) and being "oneshot" is never fun nor does it take skill to do so and These builds are wery limited and often a burden for their team regardless of their extreme dmg potentual. Normally Heat is suposed to limit these builds - unfortunately it does not currently in MWO.
a mech firing 5 or 6 LL or PPCs in an alpha should acording to lore imediatly shut down and kill it´s pilot - firing 2 gaussrifles at the same time would not even be possible due to the kerenski trilogie, if i remember correcly the clanonimechs get and energy problem if u try to do that and fire them seperatly. True storybooks do not make a good a game, but why one would want to insist on 1click-1kill mechanics and even reapeatedly so in a row without taking consequenses is something i probaly never will understand. Repeatable massive alpha concentrated on one point is the most stupid part of the game.

Edited by Nebelfeuer, 13 April 2013 - 09:14 AM.

[Bloody Moon]

Nebelfeuer, on 13 April 2013 - 09:12 AM, said:

How about preventing boating instead of giving advice how to beat boats?
Since a) u can not always prevent getiing hit by massive alphas of a boat(be it LL,PPC or another weapon) and being "oneshot" is never fun nor does it take skill to do so and These builds are wery limited and often a burden for their team regardless of their extreme dmg potentual. Normally Heat is suposed to limit these builds - unfortunately it does not currently in MWO.
a mech firing 5 or 6 LL or PPCs in an alpha should acording to lore imediatly shut down and kill it´s pilot - firing 2 gaussrifles at the same time would not even be possible due to the kerenski trilogie, if i remember correcly the clanonimechs get and energy problem if u try to do that and fire them seperatly. True storybooks do not make a good a game, but why one would want to insist on 1click-1kill mechanics and even reapeatedly so in a row without taking consequenses is something i probaly never will understand. Repeatable massive alpha concentrated on one point is the most stupid part of the game.

Stackpole novels are not relevant in MWO anyway. There were plenty of stupid things in them.
Mech nukes anyone?
Could you quote a TT sourcebook on this matter?

Edited by Bloody Moon, 13 April 2013 - 09:30 AM.

[MasterErrant]

Stalkers pay for this ability with the smallest arc of fire and slowest turns. teamwork and maneuver are the fix for it. A couple of team alphas is enouth to settle a stalkers hash,

[Deathlike]

I hate to say this, but "working as intended".

They stopped tweaking LLs a while ago (whenever the last heat reduction to LLs were), so it stands to reason it is currently balanced as is. There's nothing to be done with the LL at this moment (what could you ask for really?) and I don't see people whining about LLs in general. They are fine. If you were to argue ERLL, I'd be with you, but LL is a staple on bigger mechs, so I don't see a problem that actually needs to be addressed.

5-6 LL Stalkers are somewhat common. 4 LL Flame (or K2)... 2LL Ravens (usually not 3Ls, but they all can use 2LL).

Edited by Deathlike, 13 April 2013 - 11:00 AM.

[Nebelfeuer]

Bloody Moon, on 13 April 2013 - 09:30 AM, said:

Stackpole novels are not relevant in MWO anyway. There were plenty of stupid things in them.
Mech nukes anyone?
Could you quote a TT sourcebook on this matter?

True novels are not TT - on the other hand they offer a way to prevent "nukelike" dmg with boated weapons here.
Besides were again allow TT rules aimed shots with 2+ weapons to a single location? And when does the decision of the gamecreators that aiming shots is more skillfull get represented better: if you have to aim one time and unload massive damage to a single location or if you have to aim multiple times since you can not fire your weapons all of your boated weapons at the same time without more dire consequences then implemented right now?
Mechwarrior dmg/conciousness and heatconsequences are basic core TT rules and they are represented poorly in this game. The balance between stockmechs (created with weaknesses and differend roles in mind) and mechlabcreations(often created with pwnage in mind) is another thing that that throws of the balance. So looking a novels might help sometimes to get right idea. If something does not make a fascinating battletale in a novel it might not in a game you know. Just imagine Mechwarriors battlestories would all sound like this:
>>5 blue laserbeams hit the surprised mercenary centurion right in his center torso and melted away all of his armor, so I could see the internal struckture blinking through "Damned" I thought , while the pilot, otherwise unimpressd, started to accelerate to 100 kmp "I aimed for his head! - Well, 5 more alphas until I get a heat problem, probably 2 before he leaves my effective weapon range - time to start aiming..." 5 more blue laserbeams made short work of him<<
Try the tale again by replacing the LLs with 5ppcs or 2gaussrifles and tell me when it starts to gets boring - a have a ac20 version in the making;-)

[Zyllos]

Boating is not the issue.

Pin-point accuracy is the issue.

There are ways to remove all weapons hitting a single point without adding a RNG.

Edited by Zyllos, 13 April 2013 - 02:25 PM.

[MuadXDib]

Just another day, just another build, just another counter.

[Eternal Hunter]

No way.
A 6 LL stalker can alpha twice without shutdown.
Sure it's good, but it's slow and prone to having lights\mediums tapdance around it.
Unless it gets an XL engine. But those side torsos go out as fast as a candle in the wind.

If you're trying to play poptart\hit and run against it then you'll probably get owned.

[Kamelkaze]

Always hitting both torso sides on a slow stalker. If you have more range, use them. Such enemys are easy targets.

[Eternal Hunter]

I disagree.
You don't want to play sniper war with it in most cases, unless you got a lot more range or can do a pop out fire and retreat before it can return fire. An alpha strike hitting you will most likely do more damage then you can (6x9=54 dmg alpha)

Better to flank it \ brawl with it so you can spread the dmg and dance around its back.
Easier said then done if you got the usual pug sniper war tough *shrug*

But if you can get a light in the back to get it's attention for a bit, then you can pummel it to oblivion with a yawn.

[Eternal Hunter]

MadCat02, on 13 April 2013 - 08:03 AM, said:

My 23 double heat sink stalker can fire 5 large lasers without overheating 7-8 times. Its the best close combat build at a moment . However effective range is 450m and you can get zoned on larger maps .

On alpine or tourmaline PPC and UAC have better punch .

Its a doubledge sword . Also good Atlas pilot can make short work of stalker at 450 meters . My D has 3 large lasers and 2 uac with armor upgrade . Nearly 50% more dps if it comes to brawling .


..............................

I have 4.o K/D on Stalker compared to 2.5 on Atlas . This deffirance is do to atlas not beeing able to shoot on elevated ground

I'd like to see that build, heh.
I just tested training ground with 4xLL and 24 DHS - got 4 alpha off (Tourmaline) before i overheated.
Now in real game, you'd get pilot skills, faster heat dissapation and such, but this was tested with one less LL then you said, and 1 more DHS.

On frozen city i got off 5 alpha before overheating.

Edited by Eternal Hunter, 14 April 2013 - 04:35 AM.

[Kurayami]

when something works better (easier to use etc) masses will use it and, if possible - boat it. this is natural way of things.
remember lrm 80 builds? 3uac5 builds? 3gauss builds? swaybacks? all of those were "cured" with balancing. well sort of)

[Fooooo]

Nebelfeuer, on 13 April 2013 - 09:12 AM, said:

How about preventing boating instead of giving advice how to beat boats?
Since a) u can not always prevent getiing hit by massive alphas of a boat(be it LL,PPC or another weapon) and being "oneshot" is never fun nor does it take skill to do so and These builds are wery limited and often a burden for their team regardless of their extreme dmg potentual. Normally Heat is suposed to limit these builds - unfortunately it does not currently in MWO.
a mech firing 5 or 6 LL or PPCs in an alpha should acording to lore imediatly shut down and kill it´s pilot - firing 2 gaussrifles at the same time would not even be possible due to the kerenski trilogie, if i remember correcly the clanonimechs get and energy problem if u try to do that and fire them seperatly. True storybooks do not make a good a game, but why one would want to insist on 1click-1kill mechanics and even reapeatedly so in a row without taking consequenses is something i probaly never will understand. Repeatable massive alpha concentrated on one point is the most stupid part of the game.

Even tho most of what you say I disagree with you did give me an interesting idea in there.

If according to lore, you cant fire 2 gauss at the same time because it will draw too many amps etc, then add another "scale" that shows the total power output the mechs engine is generating, and then have firing of weapons use that output.

So , this is all just mockup obv.....

say a LL took 1000amps to fire at full power, and a 300 engine was rated to 5000amps max.

If you had 6 LL and fired all of them at the same time, you would overdraw and basically fry your electronics, or at least the cables supplying the power would melt etc......However for MWO, just have it shut your mech down, or decrease the power of energy weapons.

Have the amps / current recharge over time also (capacitors in the mech charging up) etc and its almost like a 2nd heat scale in a way, however with no need for HS and no way to increase the amps other than engine size.


Anyway, yea....that was the idea......nothing really to do with OP tho....sorry.

Edited by Fooooo, 14 April 2013 - 05:13 AM.

[tbl]

Fooooo, on 14 April 2013 - 05:11 AM, said:

Anyway, yea....that was the idea......nothing really to do with OP tho....sorry.

Not so, you may be on to something.

In the state that MWO is in at the moment boating is almost encouraged. While under TT rules things like firing more than one gauss at a time is impossible/would destroy the mech and does not work so well in a FPS where everything is dynamic. The idea of a power system which can be overloaded by simultanious fire can work.

Say an XL300 engine can only provide enough power to fire 4 large lasers at once, firing any additional would weaken all of the lasers logarithimically. The more you fire at once the weaker they become, this encourages the use of Pulse lasers AND forces people to not sacrifice engine ratings for more weapons, thus discouraging high damage alpha strike one-shot kills. Tie heat to the logarithic curve and we have an anti-laserboating mechanism.

Edited by tbl, 14 April 2013 - 08:58 PM.