Ember-Fest Again?
#1
Posted 26 February 2014 - 05:04 PM
Those firestarter mechs are making a complete mockery of the whole way PGI deliver on XP and C-bills.
This past 3 nights I have dropped, Light mechs make up the highest Damage and kill ratio, with Embers grabbing top spot.
Now I understand certain game mechanics have to be in place to allow for semi balanced (I was going to say balanced, then realised, that ain't ever gona happen.) game-play.
But come on.........
in fact the reason this post has gone up was the last drop i was in tonight, the opposition had 8 out of the 12 mechs being lights and the Roffel-stomped the team i was in which had 4 Assaults 5 heavies and 2 Mediums and 1 Light.
Guess I should really just buy some light mechs and join the Gravy train......
#2
Posted 26 February 2014 - 05:08 PM
Now you can actually stand up against the big boys on the block. I honestly haven't noticed the Embers being a threat.
#3
Posted 26 February 2014 - 06:17 PM
Bulvar Jorgensson, on 26 February 2014 - 05:04 PM, said:
If you haven't already then absolutely, buy a light 'Mech. They are, or can be, very fun. However, be prepared for them to not be the invincible atlas eaters you are expecting. A streak boat will ruin your day in a heartbeat. An invisible pebble will turn you from a 150 km/s bullet into the easiest, softest target on the field. Your legs will fall off of their own accord after you've run three laps around the map. Overheating will make your internal structure melt like butter left on Mercury.
Edited by no one, 26 February 2014 - 06:35 PM.
#4
Posted 26 February 2014 - 06:21 PM
#5
Posted 26 February 2014 - 06:30 PM
I got one word for you: Streaktaro
This is truly a great time to level any mech with 4 (or more) missile hard points.
#6
Posted 26 February 2014 - 06:39 PM
#7
Posted 26 February 2014 - 07:11 PM
Also to the OP, as a light mech specialist I can say without a shadow of doubt that light mechs can wreck your face if you give them the time.
A drop is basically a prison brawl, we've got shivs and we're short and fast. We're gonna duck and hide under a table until you turn away from us. Then we jump up and shank you 50 times in the kidneys. That's how light mechs work.
Also, I've been playing the Firestarter chassis a lot recently (they are the new light on the block) and I can say that they are easy to kill. However, if my Ember survives 5 minutes into the game with over 70% health. I can pretty much solo 5 mechs 1v1. 4MGs will crit kill EVERYTHING on the battlefield by that point.
Wait until you see Embers and FS9-Hs with Gauss rifles on them. THAT's the really ridiculous stuff.
When playing in a light only lance our average time for wolf-packing an atlas and killing it is about 13 seconds. Unless they have friends, no mech can survive a wolfpack of any type for longer than that.
#8
Posted 26 February 2014 - 07:30 PM
Griffin first to the scene. Griffin survives until all is done and over with.
Ember; face to face with AC/20 Blackjack and wins (while fighting like a closed beta Centurion).
Twin AC/5 Ember. (Includes how to build it).
#9
Posted 27 February 2014 - 12:33 AM
This is probably worsened by a tendency for newer players to use LRM boats - which can be neutered by proper light piloting in the support-less environment of pugs - and the PPC/AC5 metastyle, which is lethal to all players in the hands of those who can aim, but are effectively useless against lights for those who cannot aim reliably. Doesn't help that blobs+PPCs equals to minimum range mayhem. People should notice that optimum range for MGs/Small Lasers = minimum range for PPCs.
I recently had a game piloting a Firestarter-S on Alpine. Found a SRM-ERPPC-Gauss Atlas trying to flank all on his lonesome, and tied him up for 3 minutes going round and round. During that time, the rest of my team made mincemeat of the main body. In all that time, including my closing the distance over open ground from 900m, I only took one ERPPC hit to a leg, and was only chased off by the arrival of an SSRM-Shadow Hawk. Of course, things were almost over by that time, and I soon received reinforcements in the form of another FS9 and a Blackjack, letting us tear the pair apart.
Anyways, the key point is that lights are lethal against meta-pinpoint damage builds, when they are wielded by people not yet capable of aiming reliably. If the Atlas had had a couple of lasers, I could never have occupied him for so long.
Edited by Scurry, 27 February 2014 - 12:35 AM.
#10
Posted 27 February 2014 - 12:54 AM
#11
Posted 27 February 2014 - 02:30 AM
I've played the hell out of the Ember, FS9-H, and FS9-K (hey, they're fun). I'll describe some typical tactics, and I'll give you some pointers as to the things that either partially or completely countered me. It's not exactly intuitive, but bear with me.
The first thing that you'll want to note is that the Firestarter has a fair bit more survivability than other lights but are slightly slower - this matters. It ends up playing more like a very light medium mech than a light, with the exception of the jumpjets.
The second thing you'll want to note is that it has arms. These are poorly-armored compared to the rest of the mech (as arms often are), and the majority of the weapons are situated there. The one exception is the Ember, which has half of its weapons in its torsos - but these are all ballistic.
The third thing you'll want to note is that it has a relatively wide profile, as it basically looks like a miniature Atlas.
All right, so typical tactics. Your typical successful Firestarter will never initiate a fight. He can't alpha strike you down (heat issues), he can't get away from other lights, and he can't survive a missile volley. This means that he's going to hover around his teammates and act as a flanker or backstabber. He's going to attack you in the sides/back and whittle you down rather than go for the throat, and he's going to run behind obstacles instead of trying to circle-strafe you. Machinegun-wielding variants (Ember being the most noteworthy) are going to try to be more like vultures and go in for the kill when your armor is depleted due to the wonderful bonus critical damage. Once he gets your attention and you start turning toward him, he's going to run straight at you, jump over your head, spin around and shoot you in the back - and then while you're turning around, his teammates have already killed you.
There are some fairly straightforward tactical counters to these methods. The first is a typical anti-light tactic: stand with your back to the wall. If he tries to run around you or jump over your head, he'll just ram into the wall and you get free hits. The second tactic is particular to the Firestarter: shoot his arms off. It's easy with LRMs and SSRMs, moderate difficulty with ballistics (wait for the right moment; the arms don't take much) and SRMs, and hard with lasers. This doesn't work well with other lights because most of their weapon are in their torsos. The Firestarter has a decent amount of armor in its torso sections, so that's probably your worst choice. If he's being a dodgy twerp and you can't knock his arms off, sweep his legs and disengage - eventually you'll wear him down.
What is the Firestarter good against? Heavies, assaults, and LRM boats of all flavors - provided that they aren't dropping their LRMs on you, of course. A Firestarter's moderately high firepower combined with moderately high agility and speed mean that they can successfully dodge slow mechs' attacks/movements while simultaneously doing enough damage to be a threat. Lasers are not particularly effective because the Firestarter can spin around/jump/etc to spread out their damage on the occasions that you do hit, and he's got enough armor to soak it up.
What is the Firestarter neutral against? The Spider. They have a hard time hitting each other. It's one of the most frustrating and simultaneously boring 1-on-1 battles you can fight. PPCs are also generally neutral; they are effective if you can hit, but hitting with them is somewhat difficult.
What is the Firestarter weak against? Well, first, as other posters have mentioned - Firestarters don't like SSRMs. They aren't immediate death for the Firestarter, however, because they have enough armor to survive a few missiles. Against slow mechs with SSRMs: once he finds out that you have SSRMs, he'll avoid you and shoot you from out of range once your attention is drawn to someone else. Against medium mechs with SSRMs: he will avoid you like the plague, because you are agile and can keep him in range long enough to blow his legs off with your ballistics (most likely scenario). Against fast mechs with SSRMs: he will cry and hide behind his company's Atlas - if he can. Firestarters are also not particularly fans of ballistics; they often have fast refire rate (i.e. decent accuracy) and concentrate damage so they tend to blow arms (and sometimes legs) off.
What specific mechs should I take to get killed by a Firestarter? Stalkers, Dragons, Cataphracts, most Highlander builds, most Atlas builds, most Victor builds, and most Catapult builds. If it's big and doesn't carry SSRMs, the Firestarter has an advantage. AC/20 builds are a special exception - a lucky hit can ruin the Firestarter's day, so they can be effective if used correctly.
What specific mechs should I take to beat a Firestarter? Kintaro, Shadowhawk and Jenner. The Kintaro is the slowest of these by far, but it carries many SSRMs that it serves as a very effective bodyguard; stand near your heavier mechs to ward of Firestarters and other lights. The Shadowhawk is an opportunity exploiter - you're slow enough that the Firestarter can keep away from you, but you carry enough firepower that you can sheer off a leg in one salvo. Shadowhawks make good bodyguards, like the Kintaro, but are also capable of hunting down Firestarters who aren't actively targeting them. The Jenner deserves a special mention. If you're in a Firestarter and you see a Jenner with missiles, run back to your teammates and beg your teammates to kill him with/for you (ideally, another Jenner with missiles). He's faster than you, he's got jump jets (unless he's the Oxide, in which case you're even worse off), he's incredibly hard to hit with your lasers and machineguns, and he's got SSRMs. He doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And he absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead. Other similar mechs fall into these three categories too (X-5 is more like a Jenner, Wolverine and Griffin are more like a Shadowhawk, Trebuchet is more like a Kintaro - different variants vary, of course).
When I'm playing my Firestarters, I cheer every time I see a Jenner die. Even if he's on my team.
#12
Posted 27 February 2014 - 02:52 AM
Not only will he learn that running around at high speed, while dodging terrain etc. and trying to hit enemy mechs while simultaneously trying even harder not to get hit yourself is actually very hard. Playing a Light isn't Easy mode.
The OP will however also gain fantastic insight into the weaknesses of Lights and how to exploit them. Every time he gets splattered across the battlefield will be a valuable lesson, if you're willing to learn it.
#14
Posted 27 February 2014 - 03:44 PM
Soon as they fixed that, the number of regular light mech players dropped by almost 90%. Then LRMaggeddon came along and the ECM lights became the coolest kids on the block. Once that was fixed they dropped back down to almost never used.
I remember in March of 2013, it was quite a hassle for your team if you brought a light along that wasn't a RVN-3L, JR7-F, or JR7-D. Anything else, and people wanted to kill you for choosing a "bad" mech and costing them the game (mind you this was by the time we started power-up. The match hasn't even begun and you were under threat of TK sometimes).
Then the PPC meta came, oh boy if there ever was a scrap storm it was that one. 6PPC stalkers were pretty much mandatory on the field. Either match that firepower or get out. That meta got super ingrained in people, to the point where Ghost Heat was the rough equivalent of an apocalypse at the time. People were running around like headless chicken for a bit trying to figure out what to do now that they can't fire all 9 lasers on HBK-9P, or the 6PPCs on the stalker. That was the time light mechs started shining really. Once the possibility of being killed from 1800 meters, with one shot, without any warning was removed (Somewhat) from the game we started dancing around other mechs again and dishing out some hurt on people.
All was good and happy in so-fast-they-almost-can't-render-me-land, until ECM got nerfed (BAP got buffed) and another meta shift happened (for the better in my opinion as non-JR7-F and non-ecm light mechs were almost unseen up until this point.) and the light mech community had to adjust to the idea that the other mechs had virtues now that ECM wasn't a deal-breaker for lights anymore.
Which leads me to where we are right now, PPCs and Autocannons (namely the 5) are reigning supreme in the meta, those two weapons can wreck a light mech's day, but the come with the caveat of needing good aim and patience. two virtues that are thankfully lacking in the twitchy young shooters, and new players not familiar with the game or franchise. The more seasoned veterans on the other hand have done this for forever and have been in circles of death in their sleep.
Honestly, you want to deal with lights, get SSRMs, with artemis (weightless upgrade), and BAP. Find them, lock on them, and annihilate them. Also, get your hands on ER modules for SSRMs, if you have the space for them.
#15
Posted 27 February 2014 - 11:46 PM
yep once a fs9 gets hit by this they tend to run off to find easier targets. now against 2 or more lights with out help i am toast but i will not be going to Valhalla alone.
to me yeah the fs9 is a powerful light mech, but it is just a light mech. all mechs have weak spots/counters learn them, exploit them, kill them.
#16
Posted 28 February 2014 - 01:34 AM
#17
Posted 02 March 2014 - 08:07 AM
That said, lights being damage kings isn't a new thing. Good Jenner or Raven pilots have been able to pile up the damage for a while. Sure they can't boat the weapons an assault can, but in the hands of a good pilot, a light can maneuver to get better shots easier, and can strip components with ease (causing ammo explosions, which ad to damage done), as well as place accurate Air/Arty strikes easily (I've done over 250 just from a single arty strike)
#18
Posted 02 March 2014 - 06:49 PM
Many of these medium are build for "kill shot-ing" and cannot really handle lights, so the lights come out to feast.
Have been running my light hunter Griffin 3M the past couple of days and racking up on kill counts, but still cannot break the minimum 2k score to get into top 10.
#19
Posted 02 March 2014 - 07:52 PM
xengk, on 02 March 2014 - 06:49 PM, said:
That's how I feel when I'm in my Commando or Firestarters. If you ever run into a crazy light pilot who decides to charge head first into a line of assaults, that's probably me. Pay me no attention and hit my teammates instead. Especially if I shoot you in the back.
Although honestly, the main reason you're seeing lots of Embers is the fact that people need to farm C-Bills for their Firestarters. Since the ember is one of them we're hitting two birds with one stone:
1-Get loads of C-Bills
2-Pile enough XP on it to master it immediately once we elite two more Firestarters.
#20
Posted 02 March 2014 - 10:35 PM
IraqiWalker, on 02 March 2014 - 07:52 PM, said:
That's how I feel when I'm in my Commando or Firestarters. If you ever run into a crazy light pilot who decides to charge head first into a line of assaults, that's probably me. Pay me no attention and hit my teammates instead. Especially if I shoot you in the back.
And if a Griffin 3M with 4x SSRM2 and dual Pulse Medium is chasing you down at 114kph and blowing away your legs, please pay me no mind. A working class medium mech have mouths to feed too.
Have been killing Firestarter, Jenner and the occasional Locust on the weekend, I haven't had kill count like this in months.
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