24 replies to this topic

[RiotHero]

That's it.


There is no ultimate lesson you are going to learn here. Just don't stand behind your teammates. It should seem like common sense but, guess what? It's not. Allowing your teammate to walk backwards is actually very beneficial to you. It lets him dodge lasers and later save your life.


Well, there you go an easy tip that will help you win.





Don't say I never gave you anything.

[ThatBum42]

Oh yeah, of course. It's especially annoying when I'm running a peakaboo harassment type role and a teammate comes along having the same idea as me. He decides to hide behind the same corner as me, therefore jamming up my back and forth motion and exposing me to the enemy longer than I should have been.

[RapidFire7]

I'm getting sick of it to the point where I am tempted to alpha the next guy who does that in the Centre Torso...

[Training Instructor]

RFMG567, on 17 April 2014 - 12:29 AM, said:

I'm getting sick of it to the point where I am tempted to alpha the next guy who does that in the Centre Torso...

Make sure you alpha his CT rear. If that doesn't kill him, alpha it again until he's dead.

[Linksdx]

as a Atlas pilot i support this post since it happens almost every game to me since they think its a Atlas lets hide behind it

[Evil Ed]

I have to disagree. Using team mates as shields can sometimes be a valid tactic. For example If I am damaged and have right side dominance (Victor-DS, Cataphract-3D) I try to stay alive by using a friends to shield parts of my mech and still being able to lay down damage. Same thing when in AC40-Jager, find an friendly assault, stay behind him until within range and hope that the enemies focus on "wrong" target. This tactic is of course not the same as blocking a friendly who is working a corner. I think using friends as shield, and more important: accept that your mech (ATLAS - get up front!) is suppose to be shielding friends, is one of the least developed skills in general.

I think that 3/3/3/3 will put the spotlight on how assaults are used. Can a team afford to have the most armoured mechs standing far behind the front line and snipe/LRM while the lighter elements are up front and taking damage? Again, this has nothing to do with blocking friends movement, I think everyone should work on that - not only when someone is peeking around a corner.

Edited by Evil Ed, 17 April 2014 - 02:28 AM.

[Evil Ed]

Linksdx, on 17 April 2014 - 02:16 AM, said:

as a Atlas pilot i support this post since it happens almost every game to me since they think its a Atlas lets hide behind it

And they are correct. You bring the most armoured mech with huge shield arms and a standard engine to that - you are the one that should get in front and absorb damage. Someone behind you isn't a problem at all, because Atlas that is reversing is doing it wrong. You also don't bring that much focused fire power compared to your armour which means that you are the one that should die first while your medium/heavies kill your after shooting at you overheated enemies.

Edited by Evil Ed, 17 April 2014 - 02:27 AM.

[Magna Canus]

I have a nice example of shielding from yesterday: Conquest, Alpine peaks. We took I6 looking to hit Theta but were flanked over H7 by Pop-tarts (HGN's & CTF-3D's). Me in my Wang, I was constantly circling between I6 and H6, pot shoting with my AC20. Eventually I lost my left arm and most of the armor on ST's/CT and in pretty bad shape. By then the enemy team decided that H7 was the "push lane" and I had to back off since we were 2-8 by then (team melted like ice cream in hell again). Our illustrious LRM Atlas had finally made it to I6 and was pretty healthy (go figure), so I decided to use him as a shield. We lost in the end, but his armor allowed me to stay alive long enough to get 2 final kills with my AC20.

And of course a wonderful example of retreat blocking from this morning: Terra Therma, assault. It started out with the gathering of the death ball and continued in a conga line to the E5/F5 entrance to the cauldron. A spider and a Jenner went in first breaking left and right respectively to get an early foothold, so far so good. The next one to get to the entrance was a Cicada (ECM) who promptly stopped in the entrance. That led the LRM griffon to stop right next to him and also wait... which caused a traffic jam. By then the enemy came charging in, Atlas DDC's in the lead and swarming the cauldron en mass with all 12 guys. The spider and the jenner were doomed and dead quickly. The Cicada and Griffon stood still and fired PPC's & LRM's and continued to block the entrance. By then the heavies/assaults had seen the action and wanted in. When the Cicada and Griffon got cored they tried to back away, but could not because they had most of the team in their backs (by then I was heading over into D5 with a Battlemaster to try to flank). From the kill messages and all the disappearing blue triangle both got killed and the rest decided to single file it into the PUG-zapper, lemming style, and feed themselves to the enemy. The match ended with 2 kills on our side, one for the BM and one for me, and the rest of the team sub 200 damage.

2 lessons here, don't stand behind guys on the front and don't all bunch up behind a choke point.

[Remarius]

Evil Ed, on 17 April 2014 - 02:24 AM, said:

And they are correct. You bring the most armoured mech with huge shield arms and a standard engine to that - you are the one that should get in front and absorb damage. Someone behind you isn't a problem at all, because Atlas that is reversing is doing it wrong. You also don't bring that much focused fire power compared to your armour which means that you are the one that should die first while your medium/heavies kill your after shooting at you overheated enemies.

That doesn't really make much sense as most of the lance run Atlas's I see nowadays (usually DDC's) have a lot of long range firepower ... usually LRM's paired to direct fire weapons. They certainly seem effective and operate in the mid range - usually 2 DDC's, 1 Raven 3L and a bodyguard Heavy. The extra armour is just that. In fact I notice more Banshee 3E's leading charges nowadays as they have almost as much armour and generally carry a far higher direct fire payload.

Edited by Remarius, 17 April 2014 - 03:05 AM.

[Linksdx]

Evil Ed, on 17 April 2014 - 02:24 AM, said:

And they are correct. You bring the most armoured mech with huge shield arms and a standard engine to that - you are the one that should get in front and absorb damage. Someone behind you isn't a problem at all, because Atlas that is reversing is doing it wrong. You also don't bring that much focused fire power compared to your armour which means that you are the one that should die first while your medium/heavies kill your after shooting at you overheated enemies.

im fine with being hid behind as long as you give me enough space to back up when needed i don't like it when your gun is up my rear plating

Edited by Linksdx, 17 April 2014 - 04:38 AM.

[mailin]

On a related topic though, if you're on a ramp, bridge or an entrance to the middle on terra therma, don't stop or back up. Otherwise I completely agree with this: Mechs need room to move. This is especially true when red smoke suddenly appears in front of a mech.

Edited by mailin, 17 April 2014 - 04:46 AM.

[Trystan Thorne]

Standing behind Mechs is not an issue as long as you leave enough room for the Mech in front of you to manoeuvre backwards and into safety.
Just be prepared to get that alpha strike that was meant for your team mate in front of you when he manages to move away just in time.

Blocking your teammate to move backwards is always bad.

Saying that. Suddenly appearing in front of your teammate is also bad. I don’t know how often I had my AC20 ready for the nice hit only to suddenly have a teammate in front of me.
Luckily in the most cases I managed not to fire my AC20 in the back torso of my teammate.

[Androas]

RFMG567, on 17 April 2014 - 12:29 AM, said:

I'm getting sick of it to the point where I am tempted to alpha the next guy who does that in the Centre Torso...

What a lucky man you are, still int "only tempted to" phase

[Malcolm Vordermark]

Very good suggestion. I'm going to add a bit of advice for if you're on the other side of things though.

Do not reverse in a choke. If you're not prepared to charge through the choke and possibly get shot in the process wait somewhere safe and out of the way until the rest of your team has gone through. This applies for all chokes but is especially true for Terra Therma.

[Fut]

Evil Ed, on 17 April 2014 - 02:18 AM, said:

I have to disagree. Using team mates as shields can sometimes be a valid tactic.

Using them as a shield, and blocking their retreat are different things.

[Garegaupa]

I agree that standing directly behind team mates and thus blocking their chances of retreat is not a good thing, and I try my best to avoid doing so myself. I try to stand a bit to the side and behind instead, where possible - that way I'm not blocking my team mate, and as an added bonus I can shoot at his target as well.

There are two notable exceptions here, though:

• As quite a few people have said already, if a 'Mech is blocking a choke point, that player has to expect that his retreat is blocked by other team members who would like to follow him through. If you go for a choke point, either commit to it fully, or let someone else go through and follow them instead.
  
• Sometimes when I'm shooting at a target I've had a friendly 'Mech cut in right in front of me, blocking my line of fire so as to be able to shoot at my target himself, and then backing up straight into my face when the enemy team suddenly shows him that there was a reason I hadn't moved that far forward myself...

In these two cases one can't expect a clean retreat, but in all other cases that I can think of I agree that all players should consider carefully how they place themselves in relation to other 'Mechs on the battlefield.

[Graves24]

100% agree and a crucial tipp. Sometimes the guy standing infront of you is taking pot shots at enemies and has his retreat carefully planned out. There is insane rubberbanding if you bump into mechs and the guy you are blocking will only realize this once he already took 1-3 shots.

[Werewolf486 ScorpS]

Thank you RiotHero for the inspiration to do my post "Don't walk in front of teammates!"

Great post btw!

[MoonUnitBeta]

I had a team mate nice enough to walk behind me as he was shooting at a mech and decide to shoot through me. Apparently I was "in his spot" and it was "my fault" for getting "caught in his line of fire.". I wasn't even moving lol...

I'm just ranting because that excuse was hilarious.

But I did get team killed because someone backed up into me. Two of us are running down this open field, and I get pinged in the right side, so I turn, stop and unload. The guy beside me runs past and does his own thing. Thing is though... I was fighting my own battle facing down a different valley (this is in canyon map), and then *bump* on my left arm and it goes yellow. I torso twist to see what direction this guy is moving and I see his back and he's back-stepping in place, so I walk forward and in the minimap I see that he's then moving behind me and all is good.
And then my back armor is getting stripped off and I die in a couple seconds. I didn't think there was enemies that came around that way because there was nothing targeted. And I knew the right side was clear because that was our starting area and everyone's fanning from that point. The camera pops to 3rd person and it's that same guy who was backing up.

I got him talking and he killed me because I was in HIS way and he got hit with 1 extra shot than he should have, apparently.
Then he goes on try to say that I shot him in the back when, infact, I did not. It was collision damage when his royal hinie bumped into my arm.

So, just because you're backing up, doesn't give you right away. Look in your minimap, and actually get a sense of awareness.

Your back is not an excuse to blame others. There's still a sense of responsibility that you must take whenever you put yourself in any situation, and backing up is one of those. And when you back up, look at your minimap. There was an entire field that this man could have retreated to, but because of his lack of awareness, he slams into me and says it's my fault. All because he took one extra hit. Sorry bud. That's not how it works.

So, I just wanted to remind everyone of this that backing up doesn't mean you can be ignorant. I'm not endorsing people to stand directly behind people because that is a no-no, and I actually do not even endorse going through bottle necks because of that very reason. Give people space. But when you're too stuck up to accept that you're in the wrong, that just plain rubs me the wrong way.

Also, don't stand behind people.

Edited by MoonUnitBeta, 17 April 2014 - 07:56 AM.

[Harathan]

Linksdx, on 17 April 2014 - 02:16 AM, said:

as a Atlas pilot i support this post since it happens almost every game to me since they think its a Atlas lets hide behind it

If youre reversing in an Atlas, youre doing it wrong.