97 replies to this topic

[Bagheera]

xXBagheeraXx, on 09 March 2014 - 09:43 AM, said:

Hello there slightly-more-evil twin!

o7

[Kaeb Odellas]

Charons Little Helper, on 09 March 2014 - 04:34 AM, said:

I've gotta disagree. The death-balls simply never catch me.

I suppose that I should have been more exact when I said 'If you're pretty quick'. Brawling is still pretty weak for assaults - they're too slow. (except maybe max engine Victor)

The faster speed lets you both close the distance - and evade deathballs.

My slowest pure brawler is 86kph. (and even that has a couple of regular large lasers)

It depends on the map, but even if you can get away from a deathball, your lancemates might not necessarily be able to get away, especially if you've got a mixed lance. Even if they do, they're limping away with a few holes in their mechs. The end result is that your team may be up 3-2 on cap points, but you're down 10-12 on mechs.

This is especially true on Terra Therma with mixed-class lances. One team can decide to send a lance per point, and the other double-up or go all-in on another point.

YueFei, on 09 March 2014 - 12:33 AM, said:

Good (maybe excellent) scouting and use of speed and artillery and air strikes to cover retreats can counter a deathball in Conquest on some of the larger maps. Well, except they frakked up the cap points on Alpine...

For example, on Tourmaline, if you see 12 mechs stomping to theta you just avoid it and camp the other points. Then if all 12 enemies stomp towards kappa, the lance you sent to kappa retreats and you cap theta. Etc. Requires good scouting to keep tabs on the enemy and get info to your team early enough to be able to retreat before they get overrun.

Tourmaline is a very wide-open map, so it's unlikely you'll be surprised by a full company showing up at the point you're capping. Some maps (like Terra Therma) have a lot less visibility around cap points, so you might not get a whole lot of early warning if your scouts aren't on the ball, or if you don't have scouts at all, as is often the case.

[Mechteric]

Brawling isn't necessarily ineffective in all situations, the problem is that SRMs being bugged is truly holding them back.

[Charons Little Helper]

Kaeb Odellas, on 09 March 2014 - 10:56 PM, said:

Tourmaline is a very wide-open map, so it's unlikely you'll be surprised by a full company showing up at the point you're capping. Some maps (like Terra Therma) have a lot less visibility around cap points, so you might not get a whole lot of early warning if your scouts aren't on the ball, or if you don't have scouts at all, as is often the case.

Wait - your logic is that brawling is weaker on the maps with tons of cover that lets you get close without being seen first?

CapperDeluxe, on 10 March 2014 - 05:07 AM, said:

Brawling isn't necessarily ineffective in all situations, the problem is that SRMs being bugged is truly holding them back.

While still not perfect - SRM hit reg has improved over the last couple of months.

[Mechteric]

Charons Little Helper, on 10 March 2014 - 05:13 AM, said:

While still not perfect - SRM hit reg has improved over the last couple of months.

Well 50% is better than 25%, but still not enough to make me want to waste my tonnage on them. Its most noticeable if you group fire 20+ SRMs. Chain firing seems the only way to get around that, but it shouldn't be that way.

[Bobzilla]

Brawling still has no advantages.

Why risk covering a lot of ground getting shot at to just go toe to toe with another mech that carries the same firepower, but is useable at range as well as brawling and is picking the spot with his whole team. The AC20 is the only good short range weapon, so the only advantagous brawler is the ac40. They need to seriously take a look at SRMs, pulse lasers, LBx. Then take ghost heat out and up LRM20s in some way. PPC boats should be encouraged if there is a decent brawling advantage.

[Charons Little Helper]

Bobzilla, on 10 March 2014 - 08:10 AM, said:

The AC20 is the only good short range weapon,

Except for SRMs (I have pretty good hit reg for the most part)

And clumps of small lasers

And medium lasers

And clumps of machine guns

Plus the advantage of being within PPC range

[Varent]

Bobzilla, on 10 March 2014 - 08:10 AM, said:

Brawling still has no advantages.

Why risk covering a lot of ground getting shot at to just go toe to toe with another mech that carries the same firepower, but is useable at range as well as brawling and is picking the spot with his whole team. The AC20 is the only good short range weapon, so the only advantagous brawler is the ac40. They need to seriously take a look at SRMs, pulse lasers, LBx. Then take ghost heat out and up LRM20s in some way. PPC boats should be encouraged if there is a decent brawling advantage.

brawling has lots of advantages. Your basing your premise on the current state of hit reg with srm. Srm weigh less do less heat and take up less space. Ton for ton they also do more damage then ac. At 200 meters and closer your in brawling range. At under 90 meters PPC don't come into play. Brawling has tons of advantages in close.

[Charons Little Helper]

Varent, on 10 March 2014 - 08:43 AM, said:

At 200 meters and closer your in brawling range. At under 90 meters PPC don't come into play.

See - I think that some of the confusion comes from defining what 'brawling range' is. I consider 100ish-300ish to be mid range. Medium long - up till 600sih. Long beyond that. I don't consider myself brawling until I'm practically on top of them.

That could be one reason I have better luck with SRMs than most. They seem to have better hit reg when you're under 100 meters. (plus they don't spread as much)

[Varent]

Charons Little Helper, on 10 March 2014 - 08:56 AM, said:

See - I think that some of the confusion comes from defining what 'brawling range' is. I consider 100ish-300ish to be mid range. Medium long - up till 600sih. Long beyond that. I don't consider myself brawling until I'm practically on top of them.

That could be one reason I have better luck with SRMs than most. They seem to have better hit reg when you're under 100 meters. (plus they don't spread as much)

Artemis means 200ish is more or less brawling range. Protip.

[Charons Little Helper]

Varent, on 10 March 2014 - 08:59 AM, said:

Artemis means 200ish is more or less brawling range. Protip.

I use artemis. It's still easier to hit when closer - plus I like to get up behind assault and be close enough he has trouble shooting at me. (I'm not going to facehug a stalker in a medium)

Edited by Charons Little Helper, 10 March 2014 - 09:08 AM.

[Bobzilla]

Varent, on 10 March 2014 - 08:43 AM, said:

brawling has lots of advantages. Your basing your premise on the current state of hit reg with srm. Srm weigh less do less heat and take up less space. Ton for ton they also do more damage then ac. At 200 meters and closer your in brawling range. At under 90 meters PPC don't come into play. Brawling has tons of advantages in close.

Vs a ppc boat, yes brawling has the advantage if you are under 90m and can stay there but is totally negated by the fact it can shoot you mulitple times before you get to it, if you can get to it.

Hit reg with srms isn't the problem with them (tho a problem), its their lack of distance and spread damage. This negative is balanced by their weight/crits. But even with that, their damage is not enough.

Would you rather a weapon that does 16 damage spread (4 srm6) only up to 270m, or a weapon that does 10 damge not spread up to 1350m that takes less than 1/4 the heat. Same weight but less slots for the ranged weapon.

Scenario, you see a mech and want to take it down as fast as possible. With impecable aim, you take out its CT in say 5 shots, so thats 80 damage, spread out to lets say just 2 areas, 40 damge to ct to core it. With 4 SRM6's that takes 20 seconds. AC10 takes 4 shots to core the 40 armor in the ct in 10 seconds, and it can do it at range or close.

The SRMs lose in every aspect.

Clumps of small lasers (ML's beat small in all ways and would be a waste) or medium lasers or machine guns (just nope), gimmie a break. Maybe many medium lasers, which still spread and a crappy dps.

[Almond Brown]

Charons Little Helper, on 09 March 2014 - 05:22 AM, said:

When capping was fast - people didn't cover objectives. People just capped & ran off.

Now - when you see a point start to cap - if you're in the general area you can make it there before they finish capping - then fight over the point.

If a smart capper, that takes the Cap Accelerator, at worse, they can get a point half capped before your side can respond, then simply run off when you arrive and it forces your side, obviously without a similar Accer. module to waste your time making the point at least Neutral again.

And while your doing that, the cappers are on the next point one and you won't be to respond as easily to that one...

[Charons Little Helper]

Bobzilla, on 10 March 2014 - 09:18 AM, said:

Would you rather a weapon that does 16 damage spread (4 srm6) only up to 270m, or a weapon that does 10 damge not spread up to 1350m that takes less than 1/4 the heat. Same weight but less slots for the ranged weapon.

Scenario, you see a mech and want to take it down as fast as possible. With impecable aim, you take out its CT in say 5 shots, so thats 80 damage, spread out to lets say just 2 areas, 40 damge to ct to core it. With 4 SRM6's that takes 20 seconds. AC10 takes 4 shots to core the 40 armor in the ct in 10 seconds, and it can do it at range or close.

The SRMs lose in every aspect.

Clumps of small lasers (ML's beat small in all ways and would be a waste) or medium lasers or machine guns (just nope), gimmie a break. Maybe many medium lasers, which still spread and a crappy dps.

1st - You're bad at math. 4xSRM6 doesn't do 16 spread damage - it does 48 spread damage. Definitely better than 10 - even if pinpoint. (though with artemis 3xSRM6 is the same weight as an AC 20 - doing 'only' 36 damage) And AC10 is out to 1350? Technically - but it's really not worth shooting past 900ish.

2nd - Your scenario assumes an open field - MWO has tons of cover. And your scenario showing SRMs suck is based on both no cover and your previously stated bad math.

3rd - If you can close the distance - small lasers are the most weight & heat efficient energy weapon. They also have a lower duration than other lasers. Machine guns are solid in groups on faster mechs and do zero heat - just check all threads complaining about the Ember .

[HammerSwarm]

Charons Little Helper, on 08 March 2014 - 08:33 PM, said:

Every so often - people claim that brawling is dead. And the meta builds are all long-range based.

If you want to see brawling - just play conquest.

When people deathball in assault/conquest - long range is king. In a 12v12 scenario - the 1st person to stick their head up gets hit by 12 people.

In conquest - the cap points force mechs to split up to come degree. In a 4v4 scenario or less - brawling is quite effective. If you're pretty quick - you close to brawling range from 2-4 mechs long-range firepower.

Long-range firepower is still effective - but it doesn't totally outshine brawling.

So - as more objective-based scenarios get in the game - brawling will inherently get better.

I don't know about everyone else - but I can only hope for those scenarios to come. Until then - I'll be playing conquest 95% of the time.

Brawling is alive, but the patient is on life support and the only cure IS TO FIX THE SRMS.

Short range weapons designed to pack a punch are few in number, the best of these are the SRM, low tonnage high damage output weapons.

Currently hit detection on SRMS is abysmal. It's beyond bad, it's unpredictable. This needs to be fixed before any further balancing is done. If you balance first then you're introducing another unstable element and the house of cards falls down.

Brawling lives, but it's in the ICU and doctor METAGAME isn't taking very good care of him.

[Almond Brown]

Bobzilla, on 10 March 2014 - 08:10 AM, said:

Brawling still has no advantages.

stuff

I think I found your problem.

Quote

"as well as brawling and is picking the spot with his whole team."

So your covering open ground while getting shot at and then arriving at the enemy position by "yourself".

That should be a problem.

[Joseph Mallan]

Come on Almond if every team had multiple roles Missile boats would be raining on the enemy while he advances saving him some precious armor. Them a long with his teams snipers poking players in the eye to keep em honest.

[Varent]

Bobzilla, on 10 March 2014 - 09:18 AM, said:

Vs a ppc boat, yes brawling has the advantage if you are under 90m and can stay there but is totally negated by the fact it can shoot you mulitple times before you get to it, if you can get to it.

Hit reg with srms isn't the problem with them (tho a problem), its their lack of distance and spread damage. This negative is balanced by their weight/crits. But even with that, their damage is not enough.

Would you rather a weapon that does 16 damage spread (4 srm6) only up to 270m, or a weapon that does 10 damge not spread up to 1350m that takes less than 1/4 the heat. Same weight but less slots for the ranged weapon.

Scenario, you see a mech and want to take it down as fast as possible. With impecable aim, you take out its CT in say 5 shots, so thats 80 damage, spread out to lets say just 2 areas, 40 damge to ct to core it. With 4 SRM6's that takes 20 seconds. AC10 takes 4 shots to core the 40 armor in the ct in 10 seconds, and it can do it at range or close.

The SRMs lose in every aspect.

Clumps of small lasers (ML's beat small in all ways and would be a waste) or medium lasers or machine guns (just nope), gimmie a break. Maybe many medium lasers, which still spread and a crappy dps.

I have not experienced this. I regularly use srms. I use cover well. Even with the hit detection issues I regularly beat ac users once Iclose to effective brawling range. I could argue this back and forth the whole time but in general it comes down to playstyle and skill I feel. Either way its simply an opinion stated on both ends.

[Bobzilla]

Yes my math was bad, but what i'm saying still stands.

If the brawling weapons are so great, how come noone is brawling????

And as far as using cover don't put words in my mouth. You can advance using cover, you can just as easily take a position to have a clear shot. It's about the weapons, not skill, as for every tatic there are counter tatics.

I would like to see more brawlers but, I guess we can just stick with the current meta if everyones happy with the short range weapons, that's cool too.

[Varent]

Bobzilla, on 10 March 2014 - 10:04 AM, said:

Yes my math was bad, but what i'm saying still stands.

If the brawling weapons are so great, how come noone is brawling????

And as far as using cover don't put words in my mouth. You can advance using cover, you can just as easily take a position to have a clear shot. It's about the weapons, not skill, as for every tatic there are counter tatics.

I would like to see more brawlers but, I guess we can just stick with the current meta if everyones happy with the short range weapons, that's cool too.

no one is brawling because of hit reg. Also that said ive seen ALOT more people brawling... actually from what ive seen the groups that are winning right now are brawling and lrming with the changes to JJ.