67 replies to this topic

[LordBraxton]

they don't seem fine to me

their damage seems fine

but they often hit your CT even when hitting you directly from behind

cover and torso twisting are the two main ways to mitigate damage in MWO

LRMs seem to overlook both cover and torso twisting to cause CT damage way too often

[General Taskeen]

How about LRM 5's get buffed, but wait they made it so all missiles are all the same damage and speed. Well shucks, that's a problem.

[AlmightyAeng]

Theodor Kling, on 11 June 2013 - 10:34 PM, said:

I actually agree: There nearly there. My dual LRM20 Jäger is having a good time without dominating the battlefield. And becomes real good when a light with tag scouts and spares you the need to expose yourself in that slow walking slow turning tower of a Jägermech Because that is the reason to choose LRMs despite the dmg spread: indirect fire.

And for the record: It's just 2xLRM20.. no real boating. If I would rip out the secondary weapons for knife fighting I could fit more

I've experienced the same thing. I have often run a pair of 2xLRM20 Jagers with a friend, artemis, no narc or tag, and they consistenly do around 250-400 damage a round. I know, not an insane amount...but keeping an eye on where the brawling is, waves of missiles coming in makes the targeted enemies VERY inneffectual in the brawl, and our efforts help our team collapse their line SO much more effectively.

I feel like they're currently pretty damn close to being a balanced support weapon. I'm good with that.

[Revorn]

Its simple, What type of weapon you see most on the Battlefield? LRMs?

LRM are as useless as ever. Oki you can be lucky and get an Enemy, who dont know to use AMS, ECM and or Cover. If your are unlucky, chances may depending on your ELO, LRMs are wasted Tonnage. imho

Edited by Revorn, 17 June 2013 - 08:40 AM.

[Lukoi Banacek]

Outside of LRM's clearly focusing on CT to an excessive degree.....I too think they are basically where they need to be.

They are a threat, especially when massed, and lethal when a dedicated TAG spotter is in your backfield -- which I think is fair. That's teamwork and coordination kicking my ***, not an OP weapon. They are reasonably avoidable outside of that and they don't do huge amounts of damage but still manage to land those killing blows on occasion. At least in my experience.

They *feel* like a support weapon to me, which is where I'd like them to stay.

[Voivode]

For the first time....yes....lrms are exactly as they should be

[Kibble]

I think LRMs are great now. Having atleast two dedicated LRM support mechs on a team works wonders, especially when a scout has a UAV....gives me chills.

I also like how TAG stacks with Artimis. When them baddies come running our in the open those two bonuses takes down mechs super quick. The LRM support mechs should also stick close to the team and always be looking for advantageous angles to make the enemies cover null in void.

Being a support mech isn't as easy as it seems but it is easier than most roles. However, it's almost essential for a balanced composition.

Edited by Kibble, 17 June 2013 - 09:27 AM.

[MischiefSC]

I would say they're pretty close to perfect. I've been toying with them on my highlanders to very good effect. On something bigger where I've got room for 45-60 launchers and still room for an LPL or two for defense it's a very solid, well performing mech if used intelligently.

Don't get caught alone, use your maneuverability (such as it is but even 1 JJ helps) to compensate for the enemies use of cover and most importantly combine your fire with that of your own team-mates - don't shoot at the guy off alone, shoot at the guy trading fire with your own team.

Finally, have 1 launcher on a single fire option to force people into cover. In many ways this is the single most effective use of LRMs. When those two guys with the sniper builds are pinning your whole team down you just drop shots on them and force them back. When one guy falls back with LRMs raining on him, everyone behind him in cover pauses as well. This gives your team time to close or position. This has a huge impact on your teams overall chance at victory.

[Fate 6]

The problem is that they target CT with the majority of the missiles in a volley. They can never be balanced until that is fixed. It's that simple.

As to the comments on spotting not being worthwhile, if you spot well it works quite nicely. I've been going out in my 3M with BAP+ECM+TAG for maximum information warfare and lighting people up for my whole team to see.

[PropagandaWar]

I like them. I ran the green Meanie last night (Cat LRM15/Artemis, LRM 20, ERPPC, Med Laser Tag /or 2xlrm 15/Artemis 2x large laser, Tag & Mods Adv Sensor, Targ Decay, Target Gather). It fieled over 300 points on averge per battle. One teamate earlier in the day was bitching about them not being effective. I told him did you see what you were shooting at? Ok then why are you complaining. He was averaging 1/3rd damage over ammo. Hell Id rain my pain and move in. Maybe I get a tad more damage because I try and get LOS as much as possible I dunno. Anywho its not my bread and butter mech but its fun. Now fix my SRM Damage. Oh and HSR is still borked on SRM's. Seems like not much has changed.

Edited by PropagandaWar, 17 June 2013 - 09:37 AM.

[NRP]

If I can take my Awesome 8T (2 ALRM15s) out and get a few kills before getting totally ravaged by an angry enemy, I'd say LRMs are pretty close.

[East Indy]

They really feel good -- effective at softening up targets in windows of opportunity, and deadly with spotters or against 'Mechs out of cover.

Value is almost certainly colored by the direct-fire meta, and should improve when Piranha makes some adjustments.

[Lightfoot]

Oh yes, ready for Clan LRMs here.

The only bugs I am seeing is that a few mechs are relatively immune to them and that the TAG, BAP, Artemis, with Line of Sight, buff is unreliable. Frankly, when I am unloading LRMs with that set-up into a mech that is charging straight at me and firing direct fire guns/lasers at me, the missiles should make them regret that. They should be sitting in their smoldering mech thinking, "hmm, that was dumb". Reason is the 180 meter minimum range. Direct fire with LRMs is usually from 650-180 meters. And sometimes it works pretty well, just not reliably.

Indirect fire LRMs are very weak, but it's indirect fire, so it's ok.

Edited by Lightfoot, 17 June 2013 - 10:54 AM.

[Sir Wulfrick]

I agree with the OP. I don't use LRMs myself but am on the receiving end fairly frequently. I think if anything the center-torso missile magnet effect could be toned down just a little bit but otherwise they're more balanced than we've seen in a LONG time.

Well done PGI.

[Shalune]

The Cheese, on 11 June 2013 - 10:25 PM, said:

When your team has multiple boats, yeah, they're good. Otherwise, they're still wasted tonnage.

The main problem with LRMs is the same as the LBX.

I mostly agree with the point, but not the reasoning. LRMs are still very weak, and appear somewhat strong, because of varying skill levels. Against a mixed PUG you can do very well with LRMs. Against a team full of any kind of veterans 1 of 2 things happens. They are exposed from cover too briefly before any main engagement for you to accomplish any real damage, or you are overrun trying to play more aggressively with them.

For my part LRMs' niche is not defined well enough. It is ideally used with direct LOS and is functionally similar to a volley of SRMs at medium-close range. Without more unique functionality it will be too equivalent to other weapons and thus be quickly embraced or shunned as OP and UP in various stages of balancing.

[warhuhn]

In my Opinion, LRMs are perfectly fine when you're playing with your friends (who know how this game works) in a group.

Otherwise, if you're alone and are playing PUGs, they're useless and unnecessary and wasted tonnage.

I just played a game where an Awesome was standing in front of an enemy Cataphract and didn't even bother targeting it.
I had to jumpjet up the hill with my Catapult to target that guy manually.

People in PUGs fail to keep their targets or don't target at all- My experience.

Also, 50% of my missiles get destroyed before the reach their designated target because everyone seems to be running an AMS. And of the missiles that go through, about 60% hit their targets (i have Artemis and TAG in my Catapult). And those 60% are spread all over the place. I can't even finish off a guy with a deep red Center Torso if i fire 30 LRMs directly at him from 500 meters!

And let's be honest what good is an indirect fire weapon if you have to fire it directly so it actually works.

[Nicholas Carlyle]

Shalune, on 17 June 2013 - 02:49 PM, said:

I mostly agree with the point, but not the reasoning. LRMs are still very weak, and appear somewhat strong, because of varying skill levels. Against a mixed PUG you can do very well with LRMs. Against a team full of any kind of veterans 1 of 2 things happens. They are exposed from cover too briefly before any main engagement for you to accomplish any real damage, or you are overrun trying to play more aggressively with them.

For my part LRMs' niche is not defined well enough. It is ideally used with direct LOS and is functionally similar to a volley of SRMs at medium-close range. Without more unique functionality it will be too equivalent to other weapons and thus be quickly embraced or shunned as OP and UP in various stages of balancing.

This is what I'm seeing as well.

You occasionally see terrible teams that you ROLL over. Then you get the mixed teams where they work ok...but generally you'd be better using PPC's etc. And then there are those games where all 8 players on the other team understand LRM mechanics and you are lucky to do 100 damage.

I'd say they are "fine". But they aren't "good" and they are definitely "bugged" in multiple ways.

[Vodrin Thales]

Kibble, on 17 June 2013 - 09:26 AM, said:

I think LRMs are great now. Having atleast two dedicated LRM support mechs on a team works wonders,

Very true in 4mans/ pugs, not so true in 8mans. At least until PPC's are nerfed.

[MasterErrant]

The Cheese, on 11 June 2013 - 10:25 PM, said:

When your team has multiple boats, yeah, they're good. Otherwise, they're still wasted tonnage.

The main problem with LRMs is the same as the LBX. When you've got a choice between putting your damage exactly where you want it or spraying it all over the place, it would be stupid to choose the latter unless there's some kind of trade off. Right now, the indirect damage tradeoff is just as attractive as the LBX's crit potential.


The problem with balancing them comes down to this randomised spread. If every rocket hit, it would be OK to bring the damage down. However, since they don't all hit, they need to make each missile do more damage to make up for the lost damage, otherwise our damage output per ton is too low to make the weapon worthwhile.

Then we throw in art/TAG/narc, and all of a sudden all of our powerful rockets are hitting, and now they're OP.

So we nerf the damage of each rocket so that when people use the accuracy boosters, they're not OP anymore. But now they're useless without the boosters because too many of them miss the target. Round and round we go.

Then we consider the missile trajectory, which adds a whole new level of complexity. I really can understand how the devs are having such a hard time with this weapon...

On top of that, no one wants to play a spotter because there's no benefit in it. Without spotters, LRMs are too unreliable because most people know exactly how to evade them. Spotters are forced to be exposed in order to maintain locks, and in the current high-alpha meta, being exposed for too long is a great way to get knocked out of the game without doing anything meaningful. On top of THAT, the spotter bonuses are laughable compared to raw damage rewards. Even if the spotter does well, they get nothing out of it.

TL;DR
If LRMs could reliably do their advertised damage, they would be worthwhile.

you know pugging with either my pretty baby or Heavy metal with ONE lrm 20 just about doubles my damage lrms are fine you just have to use them correctly.
I'm a team player. I couldn't give a s**t about my ELO. I couldn't Give a s**t about whther I'm the top scorer. I want a good competitive team game. I support my team even in pugs. and find thet they reciprocate. except for the minimaxing jerkwads who are only out for them selves spending match maximizing their number rather than winning.
And in that context LRMs are just fine.

[Sephlock]

YueFei, on 12 June 2013 - 08:19 AM, said:

LRMs allow for a concentration of fire that's difficult to achieve with direct-fire weapons. Basically, if you don't wander into the open and give every single enemy mech LOS, you're not going to get focus-fired by nearly the entire enemy team.

Of course, assuming that you aren't facing Scooby and the Gang, every single enemy mech is going to get LOS on you at roughly the same moment.

People do split up, of course...and sometimes they outright scatter...



But relying on that leads to some rude awakenings .

Edited by Sephlock, 17 June 2013 - 03:22 PM.