37 replies to this topic

[Jackole]

I'm new to mech warrior basically because I have been in the beta version til my CPU crashed so now I need help getting back into the game plz help

[The Basilisk]

Best way is to bring at least one other light or it will take too long to eat through his armor.
If you meet him alone and you are sure he's sufficiently far away from his backup just stay in his back.
Jumpjets are incredibly usefull for that.
But be warned hitting and hurting lights has gotten much easier since beta.
So stay sharp never run straight ways towards him or away from him or you are cold, dead, meat.

[Redshift2k5]

It used to be simple- Shoot them in the butt.

The butt is now divided into each leg and a strip of CT down the middle instead of all CT.

Getting behind them (preferably unseen by anyone) and shooting them square in the back is the best thing you can do. Use your speed & mobility to stay out of their arc of fire and you can take down any Atlas who doesn't have friends backing him up.

[MrEdweird]

There is no easy way for /a/ light to take down an assault, much less an Atlas.

To consider this doable you must look at what advantages a light has against an assault.
Those are speed, maneuverability and size.

In any game where small meets big, small must get around the big and, well, shoot it in the back.
You want to dodge and weave, use jumpjets if you have them to get around back and fool the assault into going one way rather than the other.

I've had a multitude of cases where an Atlas turns to shoot at me after I've gotten behind him and I just stop there to see which way he turns...after that it's just minor corrections back and forth while he's completely confused which way to turn in order to face me. Just by doing this you can eat away all back armor and maybe turn something down to red.

Depending on how lost the assault pilot feels, you might even kill them before they can really act.

Which works best when they are preoccupied with larger, easier to hit targets. It always comes back to using your speed and going for weak spots (helps to have the Target Info Gathering module to find these faster).

Try to stay out of their usually limited forward firing arcs (especially with Stalkers) and make use of their slow turning speed. Never stop in front of one.

As for countering this, if I find myself being played with by a light I just back into them and force them to change their position.

Also, as others have said and always will be said, bring friends. Disorientation is your best weapon against anything bigger than you.

Edited by Edweird, 01 December 2013 - 06:24 AM.

[Bront]

1) Legs - Seriously, some of the "competitive" DDC builds sacrifice so much leg armor they're easier to get though than the CT, and can be hit from almost any angle. Take a shot there, and if it turns orange/red, keep firing.

2) Rear - there are some atlasses who run 1 point of rear armor. Even when they don't, it's less than the front, and they can't shoot at you.

3) Up really close - Small mechs can hide in the Atlas's crotch, so making a frontal pass really close can make it hard for you to get hit.

4) Take out a side torso - Usually the RT, but often either will work to drop the firepower of an atlas significantly. Once that's done, you can often change to a higher priority targe.

[Nick Makiaveli]

The "easy" way is to hang back, wait for others to core him, then snipe with a ERLL

However the above advice is much more likely to get you more C-bills/XP in the long run, as sitting still to snipe will you get you murdered by another Light....

[Bront]

Nick Makiaveli, on 01 December 2013 - 06:38 AM, said:

The "easy" way is to hang back, wait for others to core him, then snipe with a ERLL

However the above advice is much more likely to get you more C-bills/XP in the long run, as sitting still to snipe will you get you murdered by another Light....

Sniper lights are generally not a good thing. They don't distract as much, the don't draw fire, they can't clean up dying mechs as easy, and the damage output on them is poor. That doesn't mean you can't do a bit of sniping in a light, but dedicating yourself to it isn't a great idea and helps the team less than you think.

So, that "easy" way will usually result in more dead teammates than nessessary.

[Stingray Productions]

yup, against the atlas i find it's good to snipe or get up behind and take out their rear.

[Nick Makiaveli]

Bront, on 01 December 2013 - 09:26 AM, said:

Sniper lights are generally not a good thing. They don't distract as much, the don't draw fire, they can't clean up dying mechs as easy, and the damage output on them is poor. That doesn't mean you can't do a bit of sniping in a light, but dedicating yourself to it isn't a great idea and helps the team less than you think.

So, that "easy" way will usually result in more dead teammates than nessessary.

Man I am on a roll today...when I said "above advice" I meant what you guys had posted, as the sniper advice was meant semi-sarcastically. Well at least I have you batting cleanup. Don't go anywhere, I am working a 12 hour shift so you have 7 more hours of my posts to clarify!

[Bront]

Nick Makiaveli, on 01 December 2013 - 09:55 AM, said:

Man I am on a roll today...when I said "above advice" I meant what you guys had posted, as the sniper advice was meant semi-sarcastically. Well at least I have you batting cleanup. Don't go anywhere, I am working a 12 hour shift so you have 7 more hours of my posts to clarify!

Again, you're fine. I was simply noting why the "sniper" light is a bad idea in general.

[Victor Morson]

The answer OP is legs. Go for the legs. Preferably with a nice, high damage on-target weapon like the MedLas or SPL.

This works better if you are playing with friends joining you, but really, unless the Atlas already has critical damage from another fight, it's best to run around and saw it's knees off.

Bront, on 01 December 2013 - 10:06 AM, said:

Again, you're fine. I was simply noting why the "sniper" light is a bad idea in general.

2 ER Large Laser Ravens have become fairly popular now; I personally balked at the idea until I've seen them in action. Only exception I'd make, though.

[Corvus Antaka]

take a flamer and when their looking at you, flame their face, when your behind them, shoot em. and stay really really close to the atlas, OR really really far away.

[Victor Morson]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 01 December 2013 - 12:32 PM, said:

take a flamer

Three words that should never be spoken by man.

[Corvus Antaka]

Victor Morson, on 01 December 2013 - 12:35 PM, said:

Three words that should never be spoken by man.

hehe.

Keep the newbs stupid victor. You seem to be good at that.

[Bront]

Victor Morson, on 01 December 2013 - 12:26 PM, said:

2 ER Large Laser Ravens have become fairly popular now; I personally balked at the idea until I've seen them in action. Only exception I'd make, though.

They aren't pure snipers though, as they can mix it up a bit. I'm more worried about the AC2 spiders or PPC Jenners. (or rather, not worried)

[Koniving]

Jackole, on 01 December 2013 - 06:13 AM, said:

Needing easy ways for Lights to take down an Atlas.

Redshift2k5, on 01 December 2013 - 06:21 AM, said:

It used to be simple- Shoot them in the butt.

The butt is now divided into each leg and a strip of CT down the middle instead of all CT.

Get behind enemy Atlas when it is alone and busy. Aim "high" on its butt (rear pelvis). Shoot. Kill. Laugh. Run. Even with the pelvis hitbox split, high pelvis is still Center Torso.
-----------------
Or, as Victor suggested early on go for the legs. Most Atlases weaken their legs to around 50 points of health.

Shoot their legs. If you can see a drastic color change, keep shooting. If you do not see a big color change, get out of there.

This is Lordred taking out legs.

----------------
CPV (Pada)'s flamer suggestion is valid. Flamers are excellent in large numbers for running down low-spec players. It also makes it hard to see what they are shooting at.

However A light mech should never carry more than 2 flamers, and even then I think that's too many. And thus beyond a blinding "ninja flash," I would not expect superb results from a single flamer and a light should never consume its only energy hardpoint with a flamer.

What happens in this video no longer works. But it was glorious when it did. Flamers were dealing 0.117 damage per second at the time. All mechs had 1x armor (we currently have 2x armor).

Edited by Koniving, 01 December 2013 - 12:59 PM.

[Victor Morson]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 01 December 2013 - 12:36 PM, said:

hehe.

Keep the newbs stupid victor. You seem to be good at that.

Anyone suggesting a flamer for any reason has already fallen behind the newbies, honestly.

Telling them how to build good 'mechs and avoid terrible weapons isn't keeping people stupid. People telling new folks to try to force this game to run TTish configs and gimmick builds that it clearly cannot accommodate however...

Edited by Victor Morson, 01 December 2013 - 01:09 PM.

[Israel Finklestein]

Play a Jenner or a Raven if you want to go assault hunting, most other lights don't have the firepower to kill an Atlas reliably solo.

Shoot the legs first if you're attacking from the front, test the armor. If it melts it means they tanked it down too far and you can leg them quickly. If you can't get in behind an Atlas, take pot shots at his legs or his right torso (AC20 and LBX both get critted off ridiculously easily once armor is stripped) and distract him. If attacking from behind, aim for between the two big rectangles on its back, this will guarantee you concentrate damage on rear core armor.

Typically in a JR7-F, you can do 2 alpha strikes plus 4 chain fired shots without overheating. With the standard 6ML build, that's 80 damage at optimal range. Atlases rarely carry over 30 back armor. So generally dropping your full load without overheating yourself will strip the back armor and bring them to a red core with an asshair of HP left. Usually by this point they catch on and try to kill you, you can either continue dueling (one or two good hits will usually kill, 3 full alpha strikes almost always kills for me) for a kill or leave him alone, knowing that he's now basically crippled and will die very quickly in any brawl he attempts to get into. Sometimes you even get a nice surprise and run into one of those guys who runs less than 10 back armor, two alphas and they're gone every time.

People always say you need to always be moving on a light, which is usually true, but when you're behind an Atlas and have the element of surprise, you should slow down a lot or even stop outright if the Atlas is isolated to ensure you get full damage concentrated on one hitbox.

If you choose a Raven, the best build is 2 ER large.It's only 18 alpha compared to 30, but with Raven you also have an ECM, and the ERs have way longer range which allows you to be very annoying at a distance where most Atlas builds won't be able to do much to you. You should generally aim for the same spots.

Edited by Israel Finklestein, 01 December 2013 - 01:10 PM.

[Victor Morson]

By the way to elaborate, the main reasons I suggest going for legs on an assault:

1: You want to stay out of the front arc as much as possible, but can't count on staying in the back arc either. You can hit legs from any angle, so that you can completely run circles around the Atlas and always, always hit the area you want. Why I suggest lasers over random weapons like Streaks.

2: A shocking number of people stick all their ammo in their leg, some of which even run XL, causing amazing chain reactions.

Koniving, on 01 December 2013 - 12:57 PM, said:

CPV (Pada)'s flamer suggestion is valid. Flamers are excellent in large numbers for running down low-spec players. It also makes it hard to see what they are shooting at.

For all new people: No it's not. At all. It's a really dumb gimmick that produces really bad results, and the flamer is frequently and rightfully placed in the "Worst weapon in the game" polls directly below the NARC.

It's a trash weapon that doesn't transfer heat or do damage at a remotely justifiable level, and these people are relying on it's blinding" ability, but since it doesn't blind the HUD, it won't do anything to someone even slightly experienced.

It's a terrible weapon and any 'mech mounting one is terrible by extension, period.

Edited by Victor Morson, 01 December 2013 - 01:09 PM.

[Koniving]

Blinding people. Screenshots.

Spoiler

By that definition, flashbangs on other first person shooters are completely worthless, yet everyone cries about them.

It deals 0.7 damage per second, up to 1.0465 "real" damage per second against structure. It transfers heat exponentially over time using a mechanic called "Heat Retention". This only came with a fix within the last 3 months, meaning since the dinosaurs before then the flamer was absolutely worthless. It's far from perfect but it is no longer 'worthless'. With the merits mentioned, the downfalls are it requires approximately 5 seconds to produce noticeable extreme heat results on any target that is not using lasers or PPCs regardless of how many flamers are in use, and it can never shut down the mech by itself (gee, thanks Paul).

The weapon is useless on cold maps. It is usable on regular temperature maps but the results depend largely on the target. On the three hot maps (Caustic, Tourmaline, Terra Therma), even a single flamer can be quite useful against most meta rigs.

Use flamers sparingly. Heat retention backfires, as it builds up on you as well. For you it disappears quickly. For them, it disappears within twice the time it takes for you to recover. So hose, cool off, hose, cool off.

What Vic here is so afraid of is you ruining his twin PPC + AC/20 rig by having him ride 90% heat.

However I honestly don't even think Victor has tried using them since late closed beta, if ever. Many players haven't.

Unfortunately when it comes to his advice, it has proven itself to be often behind the times on things like engine limit upgrades (he still earnestly believes Hunchbacks are slower than all Centurions when in fact they are the same speed except in one instance), weapon tweaks, and so on. He preaches SRMs when SRM hit detection is at its worst since the game began. He preaches 3 laser Shadowhawks when no Shadowhawk can carry 3 lasers. When it comes to Centurions he swears by them changing to 15 tubes with LRM 15s being inserted, when they do not currently and have not ever except during 2 very short weeks back in March. To me this suggests he hasn't used the builds for it that he preaches for Centurions or Centurions at all since then.

The saying goes "If you're going to vouch for something, you should run it yourself." No offense, Victor, but some of us only read and try out the meta log book. It's not law nor is it perfect. In fact it is often flawed.

I do run any build I vouch for myself whether at some point in time or recently and after I prescribe them I run them for a while to make sure things haven't changed. I find out for myself what works and what doesn't. The game keeps changing. The meta log book is months behind.

This vid is from before the flamer tweaks, and it's reasonably effective.


Here at 2:15 and onward, you'll get an idea of how blinding it really is to the enemy.


Before changes and under not-so-perfect-conditions.


Meanwhile, this is after the flamer tweaks. (The overheating is due to not having changed my rig after unannounced changes in ghost heat against SRM-4s, nothing more. During the flamer usage my heat actually goes down because I keep 'letting off' of them on and off.).



Flamers, when fired at the ground, create a very large smoke screen as well. Screenshots below.

Spoiler

Are flamers useful as the only weapon? No. A flamer is useful as something to blind or reduce the enemy's cooldown rate. It is tangible and usable on any DPS or brawling rig. It is not feasibly useful on a point and click meta rig. And all Victor cares about is his click-and-kill rigs.

Interestingly enough, there are four banes of the meta rig's existence. 1) Another meta rig. 2) A highly maneuverable DPS rig that can out perform it by stamina / endurance (remember who beat the hare? The tortoise). 3) Either rig at close range + flamers. 4) Getting shot in the face.

Flamer facts:

• Flamers can bring an enemy to 90% heat.
  
• Flamers follow the laser rules for hit registration, but not for range.
  
• Flamers always do 100% damage at any range they make contact with.
  
• The particle effect of flamers mean nothing. All hits are to the crosshair. Do not worry about trailing flames. This is why so many people think flamers are useless, they are erroneously trying to use the 'fire'. The fire means nothing. Just point and click.
  
• A single flamer can overheat the 27 DHS Victor (the mech) using it. This is due to self heat retention. Twin flamers in chain fire cannot the 26 DHS Victor (the mech) using it (as the alternating fire does not stack up retention upon yourself). And yes, I did in fact say 27 and then 26. Actually with 15 SHS you can use 2 flamers safely with chainfire, but not a single flamer.
  
• Certain surfaces will not create a smoke screen.
  
• When blinding an enemy, aim below the cockpit not at the cockpit. At the cockpit will not blind.
  
• Unlike machine guns, flamers do not have a cone of accuracy.
  
• Surface area covered by the flamer means nothing, damage won't change if your target is three Awesomes wide or as narrow as a Spider's finger. Just as long as your crosshair is on the target.
  
• Flamers by themselves are useless. It's what you mix them with that counts.
  
• Flamers are not ideal pieces of equipment for new players. They take practice, coordination, and work best against high heat energy and ballistic rigs which require 'dodging' skills to take on.

Edited by Koniving, 04 December 2013 - 01:03 PM.