9 replies to this topic

[627]

We wanted to join the recently buffed LRM meta, mostly because PPC-Warrior is some kind of boring and LRMs require some teamplay which means at least some thrill.

So i rebuild my X-5 for scouting. Why X-5 and not a 3M? Because of NARC - lets see how it works with the recent buffs.

X-5 Scout

We had my scout and 3 assaults (1x stalker, 1x Atlas, 1 Highlander) all with a good load of Artemis LRMs and played some matches on all maps, some good, some meh.

And Narc? Viable! At least in a team. Viable - far from OP or superior, but it isn't wasted tonnage like prepatch.

With enough speed, i could run through the enemies and narc one or two of them. ECM is a big problem as it disables the beacon but whenever i find a lone heavy i set a beacon on him and called the target.

The uptime is really long now 30 or 35 seconds (don't know the exact value) is enough to run back to my mates, regroup and start to the front again. Actually we thought there was a second Narcer with us, that long did it last.

What is limiting narc is the damage fall off - you do 2 volleys of damage and narc is no more. That is not a big problem, though. Normally i stay near the targets, tagging them or stay in cover and narc them again. but you need 4-6 Narc shots to really kill someone.

Firing Narc itself s easy, 450m is a good range and speed is good enough. It flies in a straight line (no drop it seems) and as you only narc heavy or assault mechs it gets pretty easy.

Last but not least there's a fine psychological effect on the painted mechs - they stop chasing me or my team and run for cover without one single LRM coming in.

Can you kill em better with Narc? It depends. On Caustic or alpine, this gets cheesy, narc 'em, dodge 'em, narc 'em, done. But on city maps or canyon, there's to much cover, your LRM boats run dry before any mech dies.

Would I do it again? Yes, but only for fun. For the scout, there is spotting bonus and a tag/narc bonus but that's it. No kill assist, no damage, no XP. It is fun and good teamplay and all, but it won't buy you a new mech.


btw if you start with 4 man these days, expect another 4man on the other side. We didn't had one match without another team. So much about pugstomping.

[Hellen Wheels]

627, on 24 June 2013 - 02:30 AM, said:

Would I do it again? Yes, but only for fun.

Is there some other reason to play this GAME that I'm missing?

Aren't GAMES supposed to be fun? Their raison d'etre?

If someone is logging in for something else, they're doing it wrong. IMHO.

[627]

ok you got me wrong. what i'm trying to say is: you don't play it to win. because it has not enough impact on the match. Too many luck variables.

It's like running a 6MG jager, pure trolling fun without a chance to play "serious" or trying to win.

And that is something for what many people play this game actually. To win, to progress, to earn some virtual space bucks.

Like me you're a founder, which means you have likely seen every aspect of this game. But i have some mates who are in the grind, having 3 mechs or so and trying to get the next one. If i ask them to play some troll round i only got "uhm, i need to level this mech first"

you can't say they are doing it wrong because of that. So, enough OT lol, this was about narc

[Pycckuu]

I made a NARC Jenner-7K today and tried it with an LRM buddy. It works OK, but nothing to write home about. In my opinion the duration of the signal is plenty, as it gives you time to run through the enemy mechs and reNARC them.

I'm not a huge fan of the beacon destruction mechanic, though. If I shot the enemy mech twice with my 4ML alpha after NARCing, I have to deploy another beacon right away. If other friendly mechs are shooting the same target, the beacon dies immediately. I ended up having to find guys that were off on their own way behind the enemy pack and narc them, and hope that the beacon duration is enough for my buddy to get in range. I would either narc 2-3 mechs per pass if I was lucky, or die horribly to massed PPC fire.

NARC is alot of fun to use on a light mech and it gives you a second mini objective within the game which is alot of fun. They should get rid of the damage mechanic on the beacons, though. I think the 30 second duration is enough of a handicap, in addition to actually needing the scout mech to get in range and fire an unguided beacon at the enemy. With this one change I think they might become pretty viable.

Edited by Pycckuu, 24 June 2013 - 11:16 AM.

[IceCase88]

I used Narc on my Raven 3L that I returned to its original electronic warfare mode. I thought it was pretty effective for me. I am not sure how it performed overall to help the team. We did win 8-1 but I am not sure if that was from my use of narc, the havoc I created as the enemy tried to chase me down, the other team was just that bad, or a combination of some/all. My results were 77 damage, some assists, over 142,000 cbills, and 771 XP. I received a ton of narc and tag bonuses. Personally, it helped me with cbills and XP but not sure how it helped the team.

[aniviron]

Got two buddies I just convinced to try the game and are relatively new, both LRMing, so I dust off my 3L and load it up with TAG, NARC, and all the good stuff. If narc only took one ton, I'd be more than happy with how it works, providing they doubled the ammo again to make the whole system two tons for 24 shots. As is, it takes four tons to mount NARC with just 12 shots, which is waaaaaaay too much to be viable for a light mech playing spotter; especially when one or two salvos destroys the beacon. Since PGI seems unwilling to change weapon weights, I'd say triple the damage threshold or make it invulnerable, leaving duration as its only limit. I will grant that a few times it came in handy, and let my friends get off a few more salvos, but given how long it takes LRMs to kill an assault, if you are just NARCing without TAG you will go through 8-10 shots of NARC before the target is dead.

I will say that playing scout/spotter was a lot of fun once I was able to get my friends clued in to how the LRM platform/spotter relationship works. Heck, with ECM, TAG, and NARC I was pretty much untouchable to other lights; I'd just light them up with my beacons and watch them melt. Spent a couple games undetected 400m behind the entire enemy formation, letting both my friends rack up 700+ damage each, and it was incredibly effective. Lucky for me I don't really need money or XP or anything like that anymore; I ended every match at the very bottom of the scoreboard, even though there's no way the team would have won had I been playing a combat light instead. It's a shame there's really no reward for doing something so useful/fun.

[627]

I think ammo count is good at the moment. 2 tons are 24 shots, which means in theory you can narc everybody 3 times, thats ok. Or it would be ok if it sticks to the mech more than one volley.

The narc itself is heavy, yes, it's the weight of an SRM6... but it's not too heavy it just needs to be a bit more useful.

[Dracol]

Had the chance to run in a 4 man built around narcing. It was pretty darn effective.

Outside of the commando, we had a cat lrm boat, my treb with a lrm20 and meds (anti light role) and an assault with lrms and large lasers.

The key we found was to snyc launch all missles. The narc would be destroyed quickly, but usually not quick enough for the remaining inbound missles to miss.

By the time an enemy got to engage our assault, they were so torn up they dropped easily.

[General Taskeen]

People don't use them since they don't offer the extra utility and functionality they did in TT and other Mech games. They would be a tremendously competitive piece of equipment if they simply added what it is supposed to do; tracking of Regular SRM's and LRMs.

The changes that should happen to combine what other games did

• SRM tracking (quasi-ssrm, locking ability), LRM beacon-seeking (only when dumb-fired)
  
• Get rid of "narc falls off after 40 damage of missiles" as ECM is already its canon counter to shut off the beacon AND additionally PPC makes NARC beacons fall off instead after a few hits (PPC idea borrowed from MW:LL)

The ceveat here is that SSRMs and NARC-SRMs must be changed to have minimum turn angles/not turn as fast. They then become a utility item that can be used competitively solo or in team play.

[Shae Starfyre]

Does this damaged deal with destructing the narc work from the LRM's too?

Another thought, if you narc the rear of a Mech gliding by their rear, does the damage have to come to the rear to detroy the narc?

Interesting questions for me.