4831 replies to this topic

[Imapropirate314159265]

TheFourthAlly, on 02 May 2017 - 05:07 PM, said:

I recently put 4spl and 2 mgs on my PB, instead of the 4ml I had before... *insert maniacal laughter here*

That is so fantastic to play with. It's like arming a mechanical Roadrunner with a set of knives and tell it to go stab Uruk-Hai in the butt, make the big buggers squeal.

Meep Meep!

I need to get the 6spl 1E now and see if I can make that work for me.

Thank you anyone who ever posted on the joy of the Locust anywhere on these forums or in other places. I have perfectly good fun with my Hunchies, Warhammers and Timberwolves when it comes to shooting people in the face, and even the ACH I got are pretty sneaky buggers when they work for me, but Locusts with spls... I don't care if I die early a lot, when you don't it's hilarious to play.

Most of the fun I get from running locusts is being in a constant state of "ohcrapohcrapohcrap" where one bad move ends up being dead. The 1E will need a little more effort to get in close with without the ECM. On the plus side with the energy hardpoints in the arms you can better track targets, really useful hitting high components at high speed up close. Have fun!

DeeHawk, on 03 May 2017 - 07:52 AM, said:

However, lights and especially locusts are often the ones to take out weak targets in the back and finish off the enemies who refuse to share their remaining structure as armor on the front line. Those are the kills I refer to as 'stolen'.

As for "stolen" kills I respectfully disagree - what you just said here I call taking advantage of the tactical situation. If an assault decides to hang back and not engage until everyone is banged up or dead (think the 2xERPPC, 2xGauss builds) I make that pilot pay. And it's not my fault they decide to put no rear armour on their mech either, I just take advantage of their gamble. Same goes for weak/damaged mechs who are trying to hide, withdraw or whatever. If anything it just means lights are fulfilling the role of scout and harasser well.

I will concede that usually it is locusts picking off weak out of position targets but it's kinda pragmatic... against anything else they'd be annihilated!

Edited by Imapropirate314159265, 03 May 2017 - 11:29 PM.

[Old-dirty B]

Imapropirate314159265, on 01 May 2017 - 08:34 PM, said:

...

Thanks for sharing your experience with the locust, you seem to have good understanding of how to pilot a locust - what the locust can and cant do, also you have some nice statistics to back that up. Your stats look pretty similar to mine with some minor differences and i did some comparisons to see if i could find or determine a difference in playstyle and how that affects personal and team performance. Anyway, hope you don't mind using your stats for "science"

By any means this is not a comparison to determine or to point the better player i'm just wondering about the effects in playstyle...

In general, without looking at your stats, i always have the impression that my playstyle is a tad to aggressive which result in more deaths and i wondered if my win/loose ratio would have been negatively impacted because of that.

We have similar amount of rounds in the LCT-1E (287 vs 252), you have a slightly higher kill/death ratio (3.15 vs 3.00) while i have a slightly higher win/loose ratio (1.61 vs 1.86). Then i converted absolute kills, deaths and total damage to a per round ratio and that showed that although i die more often (0.5 vs 0.57) i also get more kills (1.58 vs 1.63) and do more damage (375 vs 420) per round played. Then, i converted total damage and total kills to a damage per kill ratio (238/kill vs 257/kill). Lastly i converted total damage and total deaths to a damage per death ratio (750 vs 773).

If i could extract any sort of conclusion from these very limited and narrow stats i would say that i have a more aggressive playstyle, before i go down i do more damage on average probably because im slightly more involved into the main fight which leads to slightly more kills AND deaths per round. I wonder if my higher win/loose ratio is a direct result of the more aggressive approach.

A very general description of my gameplay per round is going out solo in the first phase (long range poking) often all the way to the other side of the map finding/assassinating isolated mechs and such and in the second or final phase when the main fight or final brawl is happening i'm very much on the front line putting pressure on the enemy.

I wonder how you approach a round in general and what you can say about your gameplay? I hope you are willing to give some insight on that.

Ps. another stat that im very interested in is your "accuracy" with the small pulse lasers which could indicate or give some more insight in our playstyle differences, mine is at 87.25%, it dropped down from 89.5% when i switched to a more mobile way of combat (i used to pauze briefly to aim and shoot more carefully which i now do less).

Edited by B3R3ND, 03 May 2017 - 11:57 PM.

[Old-dirty B]

EDIT:

To add to my general playstyle description and to my comparison conclusion. Looking again at the stats and evaluating my play i believe i do not search for weak mechs / weakspots as much as you do, it seems you search more for weakened enemies and take them out. Do you recognize that?

[Burning2nd]

Im quite confident In locust'n around

Edited by Burnin2nd, 04 May 2017 - 12:26 AM.

[Old-dirty B]

I conclude you play the PB quite frequently

[Burning2nd]

Just a bit.....

from my point of view, its the most powerful mech in the game...

1v1 there isnt anything i cant kill.. out run... out turn or out hide,

although as of recent, i believe that people have started to build specifically to kill me

Edited by Burnin2nd, 04 May 2017 - 12:58 AM.

[Old-dirty B]

Interesting point of view...

The PB is a great mech but for me the 1E works way better then any other variant or mech in the game.

Sometime ago i decided to commit fully to the 1E after switching from the PB because the ECM and limited torso mounted (energy) hardpoints were gimping me in the end. I was confident that to be stealthy you don't need an ECM and the added firepower of the 1E helps out a lot in time to kill.
Sure the ECM helps with the stealth but i kinda forced myself to work on that by running a non ECM mech - by now im experienced enough to turn a failed stealth approach into something beneficial.

[DeeHawk]

Imapropirate314159265, on 03 May 2017 - 11:12 PM, said:

Most of the fun I get from running locusts is being in a constant state of "ohcrapohcrapohcrap" where one bad move ends up being dead. The 1E will need a little more effort to get in close with without the ECM. On the plus side with the energy hardpoints in the arms you can better track targets, really useful hitting high components at high speed up close. Have fun!



As for "stolen" kills I respectfully disagree - what you just said here I call taking advantage of the tactical situation. If an assault decides to hang back and not engage until everyone is banged up or dead (think the 2xERPPC, 2xGauss builds) I make that pilot pay. And it's not my fault they decide to put no rear armour on their mech either, I just take advantage of their gamble. Same goes for weak/damaged mechs who are trying to hide, withdraw or whatever. If anything it just means lights are fulfilling the role of scout and harasser well.

I will concede that usually it is locusts picking off weak out of position targets but it's kinda pragmatic... against anything else they'd be annihilated!

I don't think you get the point of my quotation marks. I do not believe you can steal a kill in MWO. In every sense I think we agree. But in any FPS it would be considered a killsteal, which is why I use that term. It is the correct way to play any light in MWO. To be perfectly clear: """"""""""""""""Stolen kills""""""""""""""""" = Not stolen, but non-solo kills.

Well this just turned into a hurricane of individual debates about the locust, and it seems like everybody is commenting on anyone without structure I'm out, peace!

[Burning2nd]

My bane is called asajj Ventress

[Old-dirty B]

DeeHawk, on 04 May 2017 - 01:15 AM, said:

""""""""""""""""Stolen kills""""""""""""""""" = Not stolen, but non-solo kills.

I call that "securing" kills. Damaged / weakened mechs tend to backoff a bit, move out of the front-line and get more into a supportive role from which they still are able to contribute and deal damage. The locust is perfect to rush in, hit that critical component, destroy the mech and move back into cover / to the team. Nothing stolen here, its called "securing"

The locust might be great for such opportunities, its also very much capable to take out mechs on its own, aka "solo-kills". These include the backstabs, dogfights or continuous "hit 'n run" strikes on the same mech / component.

Speaking from my experience, i think its more or less 50/50 how these kills were made.

Edited by B3R3ND, 04 May 2017 - 01:27 AM.

[invernomuto]

Burnin2nd, on 04 May 2017 - 12:50 AM, said:

Just a bit.....

from my point of view, its the most powerful mech in the game...

1v1 there isnt anything i cant kill.. out run... out turn or out hide,

although as of recent, i believe that people have started to build specifically to kill me

I am quite surprised that a T1 player considers the PB the best mech of the game.
How do you play your PB? I am asking for general strategy respect to a specific build. The problems that I have with PB are:
1) if I am using 4SPLs I need to get near the enemy and ECM become quite useless.
2) if I am using a build with 4MLs, I have no range and no firepower to stay hidden and fire.

I thought that with ECM my PB would be the best Locust avaliable, but have better results with 1V and 1LPLs...

Edited by invernomuto, 04 May 2017 - 01:30 AM.

[Burning2nd]

i just had a match i thought about taken a pic to share but didnt,

550 damage 2 kills 2 solo kills zero assist,

that was a assassination one was a fresh king crab... we both started @ each other untouched... i was about to kill him, some of my other team members got a shot in or 2 b4 i killed him cored rear ct

the 2nd was marauder llc same thing...

ran the hole outside of the map.. came up and killed to assults solo..... that puts my team at a good advantage we had 1 dc, i died shortly after the 2nd assult... but 19.9 ton killed 175tons

[Burning2nd]

invernomuto, on 04 May 2017 - 01:30 AM, said:

I am quite surprised that a T1 player considers the PB the best mech of the game.
How do you play your PB? I am asking for general strategy respect to a specific build. The problems that I have with PB are:
1) if I am using 4SPLs I need to get near the enemy and ECM become quite useless.
2) if I am using a build with 4MLs, I have no range and no firepower to stay hidden and fire.

I thought that with ECM my PB would be the best Locust avaliable, but have better results with 1V and 1LPLs...

OK.. long story short, I was a spider pilot k5, then i went to a Anansi, It was very light on its feet...
I then went to a 1v locust because it was so much lighter and nimble.... I played that for a long time with a single er large and the cooldown was more then enough to make the same output as 2 er large's

when they gave away the bane, I decided that i would win that and give it a try... I knew from the second i got in it.. this was the most glitched mech Almost impossible to hit, and tiny..
I dont remmeber if the resize came b4 or after i won it,

But i use it, improved uav and airstike, capture accel, advance sensor range small pulse cooldown and range and radar derp

4 small pluse thats its,

This game has never been since that first mechanic change like the 3rd of 4th patch right after beta about firepower, it turned to fire rate,

[Old-dirty B]

invernomuto, on 04 May 2017 - 01:30 AM, said:

I am quite surprised that a T1 player considers the PB the best mech of the game.
How do you play your PB? I am asking for general strategy respect to a specific build. The problems that I have with PB are:
1) if I am using 4SPLs I need to get near the enemy and ECM become quite useless.
2) if I am using a build with 4MLs, I have no range and no firepower to stay hidden and fire.

I thought that with ECM my PB would be the best Locust available, but have better results with 1V and 1LPLs...

In general all locust go by the same principle, you avoid fire / damage and deal damage when the enemy is not focusing on you. The variant and its weaponry determine from where and what range you do so.

The 1V in that respect is more accessible and user friendly because it pokes like no other (most acceleration / deceleration of all mechs in the game) and you have a lot more range. This means you do not have to move out that much on your own and get close to the enemy, but from distance, closer to your team you can still be very effective.

On the other hand, a small pulse locust (also the pirates bane) needs to get within hugging distance, preferably at the back of your target where you can hit the weak rear armor / ct. When you are in range you preferably stay there in your targets back to avoid fire and to prevent him to lock on to you. To get there you need to use stealth, thats where the ECM of the PB helps out a lot.

Similar a PB with medium lasers can stay at a bit more range and remain undetected (because of the ECM) while you need to expose for the duration of your medium lasers, again you want to fire when the enemy is not facing you...

In short the ECM helps you to move away and operate more on your own, extend further even completely to the other side of the map.

Edited by B3R3ND, 04 May 2017 - 02:34 AM.

[Burning2nd]

I do best by my self with my team listening to whats going on out there

[IraqiWalker]

TheFourthAlly, on 02 May 2017 - 05:07 PM, said:

I need to get the 6spl 1E now and see if I can make that work for me.

Let me re-paint that picture for you: You're running around at 170Kph, with an infinite ammo AC 20. You put the BOOM in Boom & Zoom with that mech.

The 1E is my second favorite after the 1V, and it's probably my best performer of the bunch.

[TheFourthAlly]

IraqiWalker, on 04 May 2017 - 03:47 PM, said:

Let me re-paint that picture for you: You're running around at 170Kph, with an infinite ammo AC 20. You put the BOOM in Boom & Zoom with that mech.

The 1E is my second favorite after the 1V, and it's probably my best performer of the bunch.

I played with the C-marked trial version, had good fun regarding the speed and scouting activities. That made me pick up the PB, as I liked the ECM and extra earnings. I bought the 1E a while back to tick the basic skills, but sold it to make room in the stable. Didn't realise its potential at the time, still a learning newb and all. I picked up a good number of mechbays last sale, so this one is now bought and using the PB's enigine.

Had 1 match in total, annoyed the heck out of several assaults, killed one Timby. Yeah, this one feels good alright.

I have a move coming up, anyone want to bet how fast the new place is connected to the internet?

See you in a while, fingers crossed.

Edited by TheFourthAlly, 04 May 2017 - 04:02 PM.

[Imapropirate314159265]

B3R3ND, on 03 May 2017 - 11:50 PM, said:

Thanks for sharing your experience with the locust, you seem to have good understanding of how to pilot a locust - what the locust can and cant do, also you have some nice statistics to back that up. Your stats look pretty similar to mine with some minor differences and i did some comparisons to see if i could find or determine a difference in playstyle and how that affects personal and team performance. Anyway, hope you don't mind using your stats for "science"

By any means this is not a comparison to determine or to point the better player i'm just wondering about the effects in playstyle...

In general, without looking at your stats, i always have the impression that my playstyle is a tad to aggressive which result in more deaths and i wondered if my win/loose ratio would have been negatively impacted because of that.

We have similar amount of rounds in the LCT-1E (287 vs 252), you have a slightly higher kill/death ratio (3.15 vs 3.00) while i have a slightly higher win/loose ratio (1.61 vs 1.86). Then i converted absolute kills, deaths and total damage to a per round ratio and that showed that although i die more often (0.5 vs 0.57) i also get more kills (1.58 vs 1.63) and do more damage (375 vs 420) per round played. Then, i converted total damage and total kills to a damage per kill ratio (238/kill vs 257/kill). Lastly i converted total damage and total deaths to a damage per death ratio (750 vs 773).

If i could extract any sort of conclusion from these very limited and narrow stats i would say that i have a more aggressive playstyle, before i go down i do more damage on average probably because im slightly more involved into the main fight which leads to slightly more kills AND deaths per round. I wonder if my higher win/loose ratio is a direct result of the more aggressive approach.

A very general description of my gameplay per round is going out solo in the first phase (long range poking) often all the way to the other side of the map finding/assassinating isolated mechs and such and in the second or final phase when the main fight or final brawl is happening i'm very much on the front line putting pressure on the enemy.

I wonder how you approach a round in general and what you can say about your gameplay? I hope you are willing to give some insight on that.

Ps. another stat that im very interested in is your "accuracy" with the small pulse lasers which could indicate or give some more insight in our playstyle differences, mine is at 87.25%, it dropped down from 89.5% when i switched to a more mobile way of combat (i used to pauze briefly to aim and shoot more carefully which i now do less).

B3R3ND, on 04 May 2017 - 12:06 AM, said:

EDIT:

To add to my general playstyle description and to my comparison conclusion. Looking again at the stats and evaluating my play i believe i do not search for weak mechs / weakspots as much as you do, it seems you search more for weakened enemies and take them out. Do you recognize that?

For science!

Oh yeah, I totally prioritize weak mechs... can't hit what you don't expect!

I pretty start the same way you do, only thing I can think of that might be different is at the start if I don't find any vulnerable mechs I spend a decent amount of time observing and reporting hanging around the 1000m range. Figure if I'm way out there and can cleanly spot the enemy team it'd help my team out (can't force them to take advantage of it though...lol). I think my main phases are culling the weak, information is ammunition (ah ha!) and sowing chaos. The last being focused on drawing attention, harassing, turning flanks, etc.

Truthfully and simply put I play for the tactics of the situation, I feel the kills and damage are simply byproducts of good tactical play. When I think about my play style I do factor in "survivability" of the engagement in context of how the match is going, while being effective for my team to give us the best chance of winning. So yeah, I'm likely quite less aggressive than you! What's your "surviability" compared to me relative to wins? From my numbers my absolute survivability is 50%, but for wins (with the simplistic assumption I'm dead with all losses) it goes up to 82%.

Oh, and SPL accuracy is 90%.

Edited by Imapropirate314159265, 04 May 2017 - 08:54 PM.

[Imapropirate314159265]

DeeHawk, on 04 May 2017 - 01:15 AM, said:

I don't think you get the point of my quotation marks. I do not believe you can steal a kill in MWO. In every sense I think we agree. But in any FPS it would be considered a killsteal, which is why I use that term. It is the correct way to play any light in MWO. To be perfectly clear: """"""""""""""""Stolen kills""""""""""""""""" = Not stolen, but non-solo kills.

Well this just turned into a hurricane of individual debates about the locust, and it seems like everybody is commenting on anyone without structure I'm out, peace!

*raises hand* Sorry, that's my fault...

Oooooh, ok... yeah see I don't think of MWO as a FPS, but from that perspective I totally kill steal. Not my fault someone can't finish their kill

[Virlutris]

Kills are a team stat during the match. Kills secure the win. Winning rewards the best.

At least that's my general response, and my perspective in match. The sooner that mech's down, the less they're shooting blue team, drawing blue team attention and fire in some way, or interfering with our objective-warrioring. Life's just better the sooner that kill is "secured."

Fun warhorn sounds, with big crooked numbers on my row of the stat sheet after the match, and the accompanying reward payouts, are admittedly a bunch of fun. Stat sheets and rewards tend to look better after a win, and kills secure that win