Tesunie, on 15 January 2014 - 08:54 AM, said:
Although this is mostly up to preference, I find that with my Battlemaster (true I only have completed Basics and is half way through Elites) can't seem to turn far enough and have the arms rotate enough to be able to walk sideways and maintain a lock on a target. And if I need to get my Med Lasers to work? Those are chest mounted, so they become harder to track targets with.
Yeah, if you don't have Double Basics, that's pretty much your
entire problem right there, and probably why you have such a bum opinion of the angles.
Tesunie, on 15 January 2014 - 08:54 AM, said:
The Battlemaster also seems to gain and loose speed much slower than my Stalker does. Twisting side to side also appears (I can't overly tell) a little faster with the Stalker, but that might be because it has a larger twist rate. The twist rate of the Stalker is enough to make it about the same as (or at least feels this way to me when I'm playing) the Battlemasters twist plus arm rotation. (The Stalker 3F has a larger twist rate than a lot of other Stalkers.)
Engine size = impacts twist speed. A proper LRM Battlemaster will have a huge engine and very responsive torso movement.
Tesunie, on 15 January 2014 - 08:54 AM, said:
The Stalker has more defensive weapons that can be located in better locations. The Battlemaster has most of it's weapons in the right side, the Stalker it's evenly spread out. The Stalker has it's lasers in it's arms, unlike the Battlemaster which has it's LRMs in it's arms. LRMs don't need to be in the arms. I want my lasers there. This makes it so I can shoot high up targets (jumpers, people on a cliff above me, or bellow me, etc) easier.
A recurring theme in this guide is that the most important things are speed and dedication. While granted an assault is big enough to carry a few backup weapons (unlike skirmisher mediums) the Stalker fails in the speed department. In short, a fast moving BattleMaster would utterly decimate your Stalker build.
Tesunie, on 15 January 2014 - 08:54 AM, said:
Speed isn't everything for an LRM mech. And neither is distance control. My Stalker and Battlemaster will LRM targets, or get in their grill and go for the close range. Light mechs don't want to mess with me and tend to want to play with someone else, or I end up breaking my little toys. (This one here is how I have my Stalker set up.) One does not need to make an LRM design pure LRMs.
Speed
is everything, as is range control. You need to maintain that optimal sub 750, above 180 range to get effective damage, and also, it's a huge part of how you evade incoming LRMs yourself.
You might be going "Well I have both, so I can do whatever" which a lot of people do, but all it means is you fail either at both, or at one of those things. A dedicated brawler will destroy you up close. A dedicated boat will destroy you at range.
Instead of being superior at two ranges, you are being inferior at all of them this way.
Tesunie, on 15 January 2014 - 08:54 AM, said:
Stalker also has a nice spot to hide ammo in, called the arms. I rarely loose the arms in combat, and the arms also get that 10% reduction because of the missile doors. (weather that is to the arm "component" themselves or the weapon "components" inside the arm, I haven't figured out yet. I keep hearing it's the arm itself that gets the 10% damage reduction, but that doesn't seem right...)
This seems... unwise. LRM ammo is very very explosive and those arms get hit all the time on accident. If you're running XL it'll kill you all the same from damage transfer, too.
Tesunie, on 15 January 2014 - 08:54 AM, said:
The Battlemaster does have an advantage over my Stalker in speed, as it can get a much larger engine. But to use that engine it really needs to be XL, giving it the added weakness of weaker side torsos, which means it can drop easier. If you go standard 400 engine, that's a lot of weight, but will increase your survivability. It also has the advantage (for the moment till the Stalker tubes get the upgrade, and then it will be unknown till/if/when it happens) of being able to shoot up to 15 missiles each arm in one pass, where as (at least my Stalker 3F) can only shoot 10 in a pass. However, this is also a strength as well. My Stalker shoots in bursts of 20 and 10 with two LRM15 launchers. I find that AMS chews the first wave up much more than the second wave. This means that, most times, at least 10 LRMs will normally hit it's mark.
LRMs are heavy enough you pretty much always need to go XL.
Those missile tubing issues are a huge deal, since the BattleMaster can deliver similar firepower
all in one cluster. Also, your missile weapon layout is pretty bad and forces you to split it.
You are using:
20+10+15+15 = 60 missiles [forced split fire to avoid Ghost Heat]
You could be using:
20+20+5+5 = 50 missiles [Can fire the full salvo every single shot with no Ghost Heat.]
Yeah it's 10 less missiles, but given they all come in at once (and swam AMS to pieces in the process) you'll get far, far, far more damage out of it.
Tesunie, on 15 January 2014 - 08:54 AM, said:
For a medium vs my Stalker, I don't know which would be better. I think that would depend upon situation. If you are within 270m to me, you'll be getting my full force of weapons, not just LRMs. If you are outside that range, then it's anyone's game, possibly in your favor.
Except I'm moving almost 90 and am not forced to stay inside of your minimum range, and at a distance, it's decidedly in the medium's favor every single time. Why? Because the medium can run at 90 degree angles to you and your missiles will hit about 80% dirt, where the slower, larger Stalker will take almost every single missile fired from the medium straight to the chest. It's a night & day difference.
Tesunie, on 15 January 2014 - 08:54 AM, said:
(Don't forget the Stalker can roll damage to a side easily enough.) It will also depend upon teamwork too, as there are more than just us two on the field. (I'm also not one who will likely stand still and let you just hit me. That is why walking sideways to a target is so important to me. Maintain distance while still being on the move.)
The advantages my Stalker does have over your proposed medium LRM boat, a light isn't about to "keep up with me and kill me and I can't do anything about it". Sure, a light can keep up with me, but he isn't going to like me for very long. I can very easily defend myself. If we get surprised by an opponent that managed to somehow sneak behind us, you will be forced to run away, if they didn't punch through your thinner armor. That is a bonus to you. You can escape. My Stalker though can still fight it out, and survive the surprise longer. Maybe even reverse the "surprise" and possibly kill my target with my close in weapons. Maybe.
The problem is you're expecting the light to be directly engaging you.
If 90% of your firepower is LRMs and you are engaging heavy, serious threat targets, some ECM lights can literally shut your whole 'mech down. Hopefully you are using BAP to counter at least one though. Still, a few medium lasers isn't enough to deter a
skilled light pilot, in particular from such a slow turning 'mech.
Tesunie, on 15 January 2014 - 08:54 AM, said:
So far, even on bad matches, I've been dealing at least 300 damage a match, with a larger average of 400-600 damage. In the ten matches I've played, I even got a match with 3 kills, 7 assists, 876 damage. I'm not saying that these numbers are exact proof of anything really, but they make me feel better about my new Stalker build working so well.
My final note would be, this Stalker works well for my style of play (among other similar LRM designs on other mechs I have). Is it for you? Is it for everyone else? Maybe not. Same goes for your perspective on LRM designs. I'm just saying that there are lots of ways to play LRMs and still remain very effective in a match. This Stalker works very well for me, and it works just fine as an LRM platform, with it's own strengths and weaknesses on the field. Just like the Battlemaster, as the same tonnage, has it's own strengths and weaknesses, even with the same exact build as my Stalker (besides engine size and a bit of ammo here or there).
As I've always said, everyone should feel free to run what they want, but I can say that this style is objectively inferior for LRM usage. It's easy to gain huge amounts of damage in pug games with just about any LRM boat, but I've blown away enough LRM Stalkers/Awesomes/Highlanders to know they aren't even remotely threatening to a proper Shadow Hawk or Griffin.
I have killed more Stalkers with a similar setup to yours without even taking a scratch (in a pretty much stand up fight) that the flaws in the design are really apparent. It's just hard to do much when all your shots are JUST missing, and all the incoming shots are landing into single-locations, center-mass.
20
" Guess what? I ended up having to basically get most of my own locks, and ended up with the highest damage on the team (but everyone else got the last shot to kill, my luck). I thought it was funny!
