4831 replies to this topic

[Fox With A Shotgun]

I just had a terrifying thought.

So the LCT-1E's backstabbing build had 6 SPL, right? So 6 tons of weapons?

People have a lot of trouble shooting at a Locust ever since it got scaled down. So how do you make it even smaller?

You put some distance between it and the target. What weapon, do you ask, would be capable of being mounted on a humble Locust? What small weapon could possibly be used at these immense ranges?

The Light PPC. Two of them, mounted on a single arm for better convergence. Strip one arm of armor, and move it all to the other arm.

You can move at 150+ kph. You can also fling PPC bolts at ERPPC ranges with LPPCs. And since you're so small, good luck to the potatoes trying to shoot you back.

Edited by Fox With A Shotgun, 23 June 2017 - 02:49 AM.

[Old dirty B]

My first locust was an er-ppc LCT-3M that i have used a lot and to a certain level of success, at least enough success not to call it a troll build. In any case it was a lot of fun. In the end, these builds aren't any where near as effective as the knife-fighter builds. The main issues are no big alpha strike, no dps and pretty low damage per heat. You have to be constantly firing non-stop trough out the whole round, timing your fire precisely to sustain your fire, to squeeze out a fair amount of damage, enough damage people wont start complaining that you didnt contribute to the game. Its hard work to justify your presence in that round...

With that in mind, if these light ppc's offer a significant boost in dps and at the same time a significant boost in damage per heat it could be effective, if not its a slightly less troll build then the er-ppc one. I wouldn't call it "terrifying" rather more "annoying" which can also be a lot of fun

A snubnose ppc for the 1V seems more effective similar to the large pulse laser version, but even the latter requires constant shooting and aggressive movement to keep up with the short range builds.

Afterall, the locust size and speed is ideal to get close and be awesome, why not exploit that?

Edited by Old dirty B, 23 June 2017 - 05:06 AM.

[Arkama]

As a dedicated 1V lover who just came back to the game, I'm just staring at my screen throwing my hands up in the air. I knew it was going to be bad... Just not this bad. Looking at the numbers for agility makes me want to hurl. And I just have no idea what to do with myself.

[Old dirty B]

My fellow locust pilot, you seem to have lost the true way of the locust - adapt and overcome and we will be victorious!

The 1V is still the most mobile mech in the game - most other mechs have been hammered as well. Avoid frontal poking as that only leads to face tanking which you could get away with the pre-patcxh accell and decell. Instead use your speed, size and clever movement to get into a vantage point on the flanks / rear where you can deal damage from a great angle on their weakspots and where you can keep the ideal distance to stay safe and minimise return damage. Hide when you get attention, re-appear when they turn and show you their backs

I have always loved the 1V but in the end i prefer my Locust to be more of a knifefighter (1E is my most used mech). At the moment im enjoying ny triple MPL Pirates Bane, this build is a geat hybrid between the 1E and 1V. Anyway, both the 1E and PB have slightly less mobility then the 1V and both are still great to pilot. You just have to re-adjust, use your mobilty to be stealthy rather then a "hard to hit" (sooner or later you get too much damage anyway) and pick your targets, dont dive into the whole enemy team but find isoltated, lagging behind or over-extending mechs - preferably mechs that you have a mobilty advantage over (heavy - assaults).

Edited by Old dirty B, 26 June 2017 - 11:14 PM.

[Old dirty B]

Hello my fellow Locust pilots!

Ive created a youtube channel dedicated fully to pure Locust gameplay, i hope to upload frequently and show you some interesting situations that i encounter.

Here's my latest (third lol) video, hope you like it!

[TheFourthAlly]

Shaddap and take my subscription.

I'm stll having fun with my PB (put 4 ML on it) and trying with my 1E (not sure about loadout yet with changes to lazors).

[Tim East]

Sooo, I ran a PB on the test server with stealth armor, 2 heavy MGs, and a Light PPC. It is... the trolliest thing ever. I was fighting a lance of 4 assaults largely by myself (I had help from an allied mech with jj's up on the rim on HPG) and it was amazing. I took more damage from my team than the enemy as one of them mistook me for a foe and hit my arm with a PPC shot of some sort.
After I killed one guy by attacking his exposed rear with my HMGs, the enemy team just started quitting one at a time.

I'm 100% using stealth armor when the new tech drops. The heat penalty is absolutely worth it. Also, what IS Mech with ECM boasts the greatest number of ballistic hardpoints? I'll want to know that.

[Nerokar]

Tim East, on 29 June 2017 - 09:00 PM, said:

I'm 100% using stealth armor when the new tech drops. The heat penalty is absolutely worth it. Also, what IS Mech with ECM boasts the greatest number of ballistic hardpoints? I'll want to know that.

How can you dare?! Have you ever seen an christ/muslim/jew/pastafarianism-follower asking for a better god at any of their holy places?!

There is no IS mech with ECM and more than two balistic hardpoints...

Edited by Nerokar, 29 June 2017 - 11:17 PM.

[Virlutris]

Nerokar, on 29 June 2017 - 11:08 PM, said:

How can you dare?! Have you ever seen an christ/muslim/jew/pastafarianism-follower asking for a better god at any of their holy places?!

There is no IS mech with ECM and more than two balistic hardpoints...

Went and looked at smurfy's.

Plenty of energy, srm, and combo loadout with ECM. Nothing on the IS roster with more than 2 ballistics, even in the assault class.

Could you imagine a stealth-armored MG boat? Or even more apocalyptically, a heavy/assault stealth Gauss boat? Eep.

[Nerokar]

Virlutris, on 03 July 2017 - 09:30 AM, said:

Went and looked at smurfy's.

Plenty of energy, srm, and combo loadout with ECM. Nothing on the IS roster with more than 2 ballistics, even in the assault class.

Thats what I said

Virlutris, on 03 July 2017 - 09:30 AM, said:

Could you imagine a stealth-armored MG boat?

Imagination... I remember... A long time ago I was used to use it... but than came google and replaced it by Links and pictures :-/
This could be your solution (depended on theoretically possible MWO implementation):
Solution

Virlutris, on 03 July 2017 - 09:30 AM, said:

Or even more apocalyptically, a heavy/assault stealth Gauss boat? Eep.

NSR-10P... 35$ in preorder... IF you count a pair of gausses as a boat...

Edited by Nerokar, 04 July 2017 - 01:07 AM.

[Blind Baku]

So, that 3MPL build, kinda fun... thanks!

Edited by Blind Baku, 04 July 2017 - 07:24 PM.

[Tim East]

Yes, I did envision a HGauss ECM Stealth Armor 'Mech, but unfortunately due to the lack of crit splits it is not possible. The CTF OXP comes close, but you can't fit HGauss in because of crit limit.

[Old dirty B]

Blind Baku, on 04 July 2017 - 04:23 PM, said:

So, that 3MPL build, kinda fun... thanks!

You are welcome! I really like this build but because this is a hybrid and not a specialist build like the 1E or 1V, i have to make sure to myself to knifefight ranged / poke mechs and to fight close ranged builds at range. Im so used to the 6xSPL build that i tend to dive onto everything that moves... which often doesnt work, when that happens to be a pure close ranged brawler (apart from assaults), with the triple mpl build.

Edited by Old dirty B, 06 July 2017 - 12:23 PM.

[Virlutris]

Nerokar, on 04 July 2017 - 12:59 AM, said:

Thats what I said

Imagination... I remember... A long time ago I was used to use it... but than came google and replaced it by Links and pictures :-/
This could be your solution (depended on theoretically possible MWO implementation):
Solution

NSR-10P... 35$ in preorder... IF you count a pair of gausses as a boat...

Forgot about the Nightstar, thanks for the reminder. I don't pre-order these days, so it quickly fell out of my awareness after the brief flash of attention when it was announced.

I count 2 as a boat on the IS side, particularly because 2 on an IS heavy is pretty much all it can do. that, and the point of doing it on an IS ECM heavy/assault is to do it heatlessly, with utter impunity. If all it's doing is One Thing ™, then by definition it's a boat

[Burning2nd]

I dont know what changed.. BUT being a locust pilot has gotten really really hard in the last 2 weeks..

they must have changed something, because im getting Ct'd left and right,

when i use to run up and assassinate people left and right.. Now i struggle just to survive,

@ first i had to double check my build make sure i didnt do any drunk skill tree'n or building...

Both of my PB's are in the same order they have always been...

Where i use to get 600-800 damage solid every round, now i struggle to stay alive, And the struggle is real

im getting 200-400 damage now.. (about half of what i normally get)


what changed? what did i miss?

someone was trying to explain to me the other night about how they did something with chance or something?
he said "everyone is rolling a 20 now"

i didnt understand that

Edited by Burning2nd, 14 July 2017 - 01:41 AM.

[TheFourthAlly]

My PB is not a happy camper either atm, but I lack skill and playstyle to explain that. Although I can still put the hurt on with my 1E.

SPLs took a nerf recently iirc. I was happy with a 4 spl, 2 MG PB, but that didn't seem to work much recently. Dunno what to change to, 4 ML I never got the hang of.

[Nerokar]

Burning2nd, on 14 July 2017 - 01:42 AM, said:

I dont know what changed.. BUT being a locust pilot has gotten really really hard in the last 2 weeks..
they must have changed something, because im getting Ct'd left and right,
when i use to run up and assassinate people left and right.. Now i struggle just to survive,
@ first i had to double check my build make sure i didnt do any drunk skill tree'n or building...
Both of my PB's are in the same order they have always been...
Where i use to get 600-800 damage solid every round, now i struggle to stay alive, And the struggle is real

Maybe an unlucky streak against some of good T1 players/teams?
Or better netcode/hitreg since last patch (do not belive that)
Or you lose packages. Try to trace the route to the server... one bad connection node can cause that...

Burning2nd, on 14 July 2017 - 01:42 AM, said:

im getting 200-400 damage now.. (about half of what i normally get)

That's what I experienced by stepping up from T3 to T2, since in many matches T5 is filtered now...
But that is not your problem I guess. As far as I remember, you were an longterm T1 player. Have you changed your playtime? That could offer other enemies...

Burning2nd, on 14 July 2017 - 01:42 AM, said:

what changed? what did i miss?

someone was trying to explain to me the other night about how they did something with chance or something?
he said "everyone is rolling a 20 now"
i didnt understand that

I have no Idea if he could point to BattleTech TT... but rolling a 20 on a dice could be a reference to WotC/(A)D&D.
Rolling 20 means guaranteed hit, ignoring the chance to miss and all defences of the enemy (in this case: YOU) and it allows to roll a second time, if the roll hits, you first roll results in a crit that rises the DMG by x2... as far as I remember.

So in the World of Dungeons and Dragons your LCT-PB simply dies if someone rolls a 20 when attacking you.

EDIT: Browser crash and restoring content messed up the formating

Edited by Nerokar, 14 July 2017 - 03:36 AM.

[Blind Baku]

Yeah, if you have SPLs on a mech, remove them. The nerf to SPLs has hurt a lot of builds and has put MLs in a much better spot. The added heat is a pain, and the longer burns don't help, but that really could be a big part of the problem.

the 3MPL PB works pretty well as a rule, but I was also finding the need to be more skittish in the LCT recently. The tried and true 1v LPL does okay, but don't expect the work horse it used to be.

Once new IS weapons come out expect a breath of fresh air (Snub and Light PPCs are going to be fun for LCTs IMO).

(Edit: removing SPLs from ALL mechs, is a little dramatic, take with some salt)

Edited by Blind Baku, 14 July 2017 - 06:06 AM.

[HIGH LORD KIT FAWKS THE WATCHFUL]

No no, Baku...I think you're right to want to remove them from all mechs.

Even on paper that nerf was...harsh.

I own the PB, 1V, and 3S LCT's. I'm sad to hear that they have seemingly gotten the hammer yet again, but screw it

challenge bloody accepted.

Nothing encourages me to be better on my game than running hard mode UM or LCT.

[Blind Baku]

THE GOD KING URBIE LORD OF MECHS, on 14 July 2017 - 08:55 AM, said:

Nothing encourages me to be better on my game than running hard mode UM or LCT.

I have a love affair with Urbies too...
UM-R60L
UM-R60
UM-R63
(ignore the massive amounts of back armor, I was just lazy in smurfy's)

That said, all the nerfs that have been handed to the LCT should be somewhat mitigated with new tech, and the 3M (5ml) and the 1E (6SL) are still great, solid mechs. It is just a bit more difficult to lone wolf at the moment. the PB with Stealth armor should prove fun, and Snub PPCs will be perfect for "Zoom and Boom" Mechs.