238 replies to this topic

[Wolfways]

Bishop Steiner, on 11 May 2014 - 01:54 PM, said:

Because in any decent Elo bracket jumpsnipers will have cored you out before the missiles arrive, anyhow.

I don't tend to see many jumpsnipers. I assume it's because i'm not high ELO and that means i have to assume that those complaining about LRM's are circling the bottom of the barrel.

[KharnZor]

TimePeriod, on 11 May 2014 - 12:50 PM, said:

For all our sakes Bitc-Bishop Steiner, you may very well improve the average odds for the PUG.

Stop the stupid. The gene pool is polluted enough

[poopenshire]

MortVent, on 11 May 2014 - 05:46 AM, said:

If you are top damage with lrms.

1 - Your team isn't doing anything. besides possibly getting killed in rambo rush mode...
2 - The other team isn't much better, unless your top damage is only for your team (because they ignore you and kill the real threats)
3 - You're the only one at the keyboard...

Not quite true....

1. When I drop in lances we drop 1 spotter, 2 LRM boats, and 1 light killer. everyone has a role and they play it well. Yesterday alone I had a 10,780 EXP match (love that first win of the day boost).
2. Our spotter (which is sometimes me) knows what they are doing. We drop often as lances and practice this. Now with private matches we do this more often and against our other teammates in hunter mechs trying to distract us.
3. Just not a valid argument. your just trying to be mean.

Had you said when PUGging by yourself in random drops, well then yes I would agree.

[Screech]

Thunder Child, on 11 May 2014 - 01:36 PM, said:

I love LRM Boats. My Locust can run around in circles at a distance of about 800m and have all the enemy boats lobbing at me like there's no tomorrow. Meanwhile, my team can advance unmolested, because the Boats just HAVE TO KILL THE LOCUST! Now.... if it had been a Poptart or two, my Locust would have turned inside out in under a minute.

So Poptarts are drilling time and again mobile locusts at 800m? Wow they must be pretty damn good because that sounds a little fishy to me.

[Rogue Jedi]

by the Aeten's logic

SPLs and MGs are easy mode, I have got more than 600 damage and 3 kills + 7 assists using SPLs + MGs on my Ember

Gauss is easy mode, I have had games where I have killed 3 mechs with headshots from 2x Gauss.

SRMs are easy mode, I have got past 600 damage using only SRMs.

the champion spider is easy mode, I usually get around 450 damage when using that build, well above my personal average.

all these incidents have happened in the last 3 months but (with the exception of the spider) are unusual, more often then not I finish with less than 300 damage and 0 kills ( I have a 0.57kdr).

I have great difficulty using PPCs or LRMs, allegedly the 2 most overpowered weapon types, successfully, if I use ether as my primary weapon I have an good chance of finishing the match with 0 damage, this does not mean the weapons are bad, what it means is that I lack aptitude for using them. by the same token, I like lights, if I find an unescorted heavy or assault while piloting an unsupported light I will usually kill or badly damage it, and score some damage doing so, if I come up against another light one on one I usually ether run or die.

[Livewyr]

TimePeriod, on 11 May 2014 - 01:20 PM, said:

That's the whole point of these games in my eyes. To have fun in all its aspects and yet you and everybody else is putting it in a box with a label and saying "YOU MUST DO THIS". That ain't fun in my eyes which is why I get into so many arguments with the 'box-label-people'.

And not one Sirlin reference to counter, in the whole following page? Interesting.

(I personally like the satisfaction of completely destroying someone without them even having an opportunity to fight back... the height of "Work smarter, not harder.")

This includes, but is not limited to:
LRM'ing the living **** out of someone who put himself in a bad position.
Headshotting them on sight.
Jumping behind them in a brawl and shoving a pinpoint high alphs (like 2LPL/AC20) in their back.)
Sneaking up behind someone with a high pinpoint alpha.
Seeing a shut-down light mech. (That leads to a *lot* of personal satisfaction.)

I see a success as "Low damage, high kills/assists" Particularly when my whole team has low damage because I contributed to making the enemies' death swift.

---------------------

The caveat to all that is: I want the swift deaths to be a result of my skill- not the weapons or mechs that I'm using.

Thus: I try to view all weapons objectively. Qualitatively, or Quantitatively balanced against each other as many aspects as possible.

[Deathlike]

Thunder Child, on 11 May 2014 - 01:36 PM, said:

I love LRM Boats. My Locust can run around in circles at a distance of about 800m and have all the enemy boats lobbing at me like there's no tomorrow. Meanwhile, my team can advance unmolested, because the Boats just HAVE TO KILL THE LOCUST! Now.... if it had been a Poptart or two, my Locust would have turned inside out in under a minute.

I always want to facepalm every single time people attempt to lurm a light mech in the early part of the match.

MortVent, on 11 May 2014 - 12:05 PM, said:

nope. When you consider the full weapon chart.



Missiles are far more inaccurate due to weapon spread, vs direct fire weapons. Especially when you mostly pug drop and those locks go bye bye quickly, most of my direct fire shots are against pop tarts or close range vs lights.

I don't usually get to line up shots too often. Hence the large number for the mediums and launchers. Course this is the current list and not the archived, had rl between the changes.

I'm not even sure how I go about saying this nicely...

LRM 5 + ARTEMIS 50 33,900 14,535 42.88% 04:50:12 16,829
SRM 4 + ARTEMIS 46 11,316 5,879 51.95% 03:43:37 12,468
NARC 34 257 57 22.18% 03:46:42 0

I'm not even sure what game you're playing, but my ALRM5 accuracy is probably one of the least impressive stats of the bunch.

Maybe NARC doesn't work with me either, but when you're collecting ~ 20% acc on the medium laser, I seriously question what you are doing... whether it is arm lock you have enabled and/or using mechs that have no arm energy hardpoints. Lasers are just not that hard to use.

At least SRMs are usable to me...

Edited by Deathlike, 11 May 2014 - 03:29 PM.

[Mcgral18]

Roland, on 11 May 2014 - 10:48 AM, said:

What's funny is that a lot of the folks who try and minimize the skill required by direct fire weapons, are also the same people who complain that light mechs are too strong and hard to hit... which would suggest that they are actually incapable of that kind of aiming.

....You mean the skill for direct fire weapons can be even lower? How?

They already all converge on the same spot...

[Impyrium]

FFS. Why are you complaining about LRMs when CLEARLY it's FLAMERS that need nerfing.

F1AM3RS T00 OP!

But seriously, LRMs are right where they need to be; just as effective as direct fire weapons, but with their own drawbacks/advantages. Just because they work differently to direct fire doesn't mean they take less skill.

[MortVent]

Deathlike, on 11 May 2014 - 03:29 PM, said:

I always want to facepalm every single time people attempt to lurm a light mech in the early part of the match.




I'm not even sure how I go about saying this nicely...

LRM 5 + ARTEMIS 50 33,900 14,535 42.88% 04:50:12 16,829
SRM 4 + ARTEMIS 46 11,316 5,879 51.95% 03:43:37 12,468
NARC 34 257 57 22.18% 03:46:42 0

I'm not even sure what game you're playing, but my ALRM5 accuracy is probably one of the least impressive stats of the bunch.

Maybe NARC doesn't work with me either, but when you're collecting ~ 20% acc on the medium laser, I seriously question what you are doing... whether it is arm lock you have enabled and/or using mechs that have no arm energy hardpoints. Lasers are just not that hard to use.

At least SRMs are usable to me...

Mostly torso weapons. till my griffions didn't have any arm weapons other than launchers.

Usually drop with pugs, so having to scoot and shoot for locks. Only time I used srms was on trial mechs.

[Novakaine]

Aeten, on 11 May 2014 - 05:07 AM, said:

Yesterday I got sick of brawling in my HBK-4SP so I figured what the hell - I'll slap some LRM 5s on there in place of the SSRM 2s I'd been using. See if the buff was really that big. Only put 2 3 tons of ammo on the thing.

Never ever approached the battle - never had reason to fire any of my 4 lasers. Simply stood on a little hill near spawn (this was River City Night) and repeatedly fired my missiles.

The result: ~350 damage; 110k c-bills. For doing nothing. Just sitting there and not ever even being shot at. I could have taught my cat how to do this.

The worst part is that my full brawling fit on this mech; 2 LPL, 2 ML, 2 SRM 6 typically does not do this well. I usually do less damage and get less c-bills. Looks like I found my new c-bill farmer. I can't even imagine how much damage you would do with a dedicated LRM boat. Probably break 1000 easily. I mean 2 LRM 5 is not even an LRM fit. It's an afterthought; and yet it rewards 350 damage with no risk to the mech pilot...

Simple solution brawler-boy.
1. Quit making things up.
2. Prove that you can make 350 damage with just 2 LRM5's.
3. As follows.......
LEARN TO PLAY

Edited by Novakaine, 11 May 2014 - 03:57 PM.

[Karl Marlow]

Aeten, on 11 May 2014 - 05:25 AM, said:

Things an LRM mech generally doesn't need to worry about:

- Heat (if set up by someone with any semblence of intelligence)
- Damage
- Aiming
- Positioning
- Poptarts / alpha strikes

This is incorrect. LRM mechs have to worry about all of the above.

Heat: Almost every mech has to worry about heat. Alot depends on ho far you are wanting to push the envelope. The main difference between LRM mechs and mechs with more direct fire builds is you generally are not alpha striking with an LRM mech. Therefore the Heat efficiency is off. This isn't anything a mech relying on lasers or Autocannons couldn't do. It's just a matter of trigger discipline.

Damage: I am assuming you are referring to incoming damage. LRM mechs take damage just like any other mech. If anything they have a harder time doing the defensive jukes most other mechs do since they tend to have to keep their reticle on the target the entire time.

Aiming: IT is simply not true that an LRM mech does not need to aim. We aren't after pin point accuracy becasue the nature of the LRM's prevent pinpoint damage. IT's always a spread. You do need to follow and maintain a lock through your entire arc if you want the LRMS to track. The abundance of ECM and pilots that know WTF they are doing makes that diffiuclt. Lights and fast mediums can be especially hard to deal with in this regard and usually the faster you are the less missiles will hit anyway.

Positioning: This is the bullet point that made my jaw drop. Positioning is EVERYTHING for an LRM mech. Especially one that is using IDF. You have to know the maps. You have to know the arcs. You need to pay attention to see if you are even hitting. just firing at and random triangle that appears on your screen is the sign of a novice. You are firing at stuff you can't see. You have to know the maps in order for that to be successful. It's also helpful if you have a spotter that can actually talk to you and let you know if your missiles are getting through.

There is also the problem of enemy positioning. You start raining down LRMS you are going to get some of the enemy team trying to sniff you out. If you are just out in the middle of no where you are going to get creamed by whatever light decides to engage you. Alot of fights have some give and rake. Lances are actually circling around each other trying to get position on each other. if you ignore that as an LRM boat you will get overrun. If you are in an LRM boat and you didn't have to worry about positioning then it is more a testament to how good the other players were in containing the enemy than how good you were.

Poptarts/alpha strikes: LRM boats fire from behind cover. Poptarts jump up from behind cover to fire at things on the other side. How exactly does an LRM boat not have to worry about that? Especially since the LRMS let everyone on the map know where they are.

Dedicated LRM mechs are heavily dependent on the rest of the team. Yeah you need them to get locks but you need them also to contain a the enemy and give you good intel on where they enemy is. You have to move as an LRM mech just as much if not moreso than any other mech. Without teamwork you aren't going to be doing much IDF. That just leaves you with the direct method of bringing your LRMS into play. Which adds the ability to Dumb fire the missiles when needed which is a skill all it's own. LRMS have far more challenges to successfully using them than any other weapon system in the game.
-They have a severe minimum range penalty
-Most weapons don't have to deal with ECM. LRM's do. The only other weapon system that is penalized more is the Streak SRM2 and that is because it literally will not fire without the lock.
-The missiles arc can take some getting used to and make it difficult to fire at something directly in front of you. Some rock overhang on Touemaline, the little hut on top of the HPG manifold, or any interior location makes LRMs completely useless.
-The missiles are slow compared to every other weapons system. It is a telegraphed punch that can usually be dealt with and announces to anyone paying attention where you are.
-It is also all splash damage which makes it very difficult to bring enemies down without unloading a significant portion of your ammo.
-Despite being called Long range missiles they are actually a medium range weapon. Most ballistics and the longer range Energy weapons out distance the LRM. Which means that fighting poptarts or any other meta build team can be problematic since they can keep you are range alot easier than you can. Getting close enough to effectively use the LRMs causes other roblems. See minimum range.

Can you just spam missiles from relative safety all game? It depends on who and where you are fighting. It is rare to find a game where you are not harassed throughout the game. People tend to go for LRM mechs just because of the difficulties the weapon system faces. You have to maintain a lock, you have to keep them at range. An LRM mech is meant to soften up a target. a team who is willing to use massed LRM fire can do a number on an unsuspecting enemy but, you generally cannot get the kind of coordination required to make that a consistently successful tactic out of Pugs. It's a team player mech. You aren't there for the kills. You are there to help your team get the kills.

Edited by ThomasMarik, 11 May 2014 - 04:20 PM.

[Splitpin]

WOW LRMS are weapons like any other, how dare PGI do that. The weapon stats above are interesting and a dam_m sight more believable than the OP's

[wanderer]

poopenshire, on 11 May 2014 - 02:28 PM, said:

Not quite true....

1. When I drop in lances we drop 1 spotter, 2 LRM boats, and 1 light killer. everyone has a role and they play it well. Yesterday alone I had a 10,780 EXP match (love that first win of the day boost).

Note that was also with the double exp, so you had a double exp weekend 2x, then you got the 2x from first win on top of that. Still, a 2500xp match is a good one, lots of savior kills/assist exp that way.

[Deathlike]

MortVent, on 11 May 2014 - 03:48 PM, said:

Mostly torso weapons. till my griffions didn't have any arm weapons other than launchers.

Usually drop with pugs, so having to scoot and shoot for locks. Only time I used srms was on trial mechs.

Are you using mechs that have only that have only torso weapons, or are you refusing to put weapons in the arms?

Even then, it's not that hard to fire medium torso lasers into various mechs... including lights. Even the recent Thunderbolt-9S giveaway had lots of torso energy hardpoints. It really isn't that hard to fire medium lasers into stuff...

[MortVent]

Deathlike, on 11 May 2014 - 04:58 PM, said:

Are you using mechs that have only that have only torso weapons, or are you refusing to put weapons in the arms?

Even then, it's not that hard to fire medium torso lasers into various mechs... including lights. Even the recent Thunderbolt-9S giveaway had lots of torso energy hardpoints. It really isn't that hard to fire medium lasers into stuff...

My usual rides are catapults

[Roland]

Honestly dude, there's really no justification for that kind of inaccuracy with medium lasers, on any chassis.

[Deathlike]

MortVent, on 11 May 2014 - 05:00 PM, said:

My usual rides are catapults

They have an exceptional torso twist (you need to disable arm lock to max out on your torso twist speed).

I'm not even sure how you could get < 50% acc with Streaks... (well, it's possible, but you'd have to be firing them when you're not even within range).

Roland, on 11 May 2014 - 05:10 PM, said:

Honestly dude, there's really no justification for that kind of inaccuracy with medium lasers, on any chassis.

Well, I still see people trying to "snipe" at stuff beyond the medium laser max range (and not limited to that weapon)... so...

[Mycrus]

Lurms need a buff.

[Tesunie]

Aeten, on 11 May 2014 - 05:07 AM, said:

Yesterday I got sick of brawling in my HBK-4SP so I figured what the hell - I'll slap some LRM 5s on there in place of the SSRM 2s I'd been using. See if the buff was really that big. Only put 2 3 tons of ammo on the thing.

Never ever approached the battle - never had reason to fire any of my 4 lasers. Simply stood on a little hill near spawn (this was River City Night) and repeatedly fired my missiles.

The result: ~350 damage; 110k c-bills. For doing nothing. Just sitting there and not ever even being shot at. I could have taught my cat how to do this.

The worst part is that my full brawling fit on this mech; 2 LPL, 2 ML, 2 SRM 6 typically does not do this well. I usually do less damage and get less c-bills. Looks like I found my new c-bill farmer. I can't even imagine how much damage you would do with a dedicated LRM boat. Probably break 1000 easily. I mean 2 LRM 5 is not even an LRM fit. It's an afterthought; and yet it rewards 350 damage with no risk to the mech pilot...

Only about 350 damage? Well, maybe if you got in and used your lasers as well as your LRMs, using your LRMs as you approached, you could see damages of 400-550...

And I'd honestly would like to see those LRMs preform against my dual AMS Thunderbolt. The Dual AMS (yes, just two of them) typically eat from 8-10 LRMs from my experience. My Thunderbolt typically does 300-400 damage a match, with 2 PPCs and a LPL (plus two AMS).

Also, statistically speaking, about 60% of my LRMs miss. You must be getting better LRM accuracy than I am to get that score with only two LRM5s and three tons of ammo. (3 tons ammo (540 rounds) x 40% = 216 damage total average for the tonnage you are carrying, based upon my current stats.)

Kyynele, on 11 May 2014 - 05:17 AM, said:

Since we're dealing with such undeniable proof, my Thunderbolt 9S has seen 8 matches so far. Because it has 2 AMS, it has won every single match. This obviously means that with dual AMS it's impossible to lose.

Seriously, if you did 350 damage with using only those 360 LRMs, you had the luckiest match of your life.

Hum. My Stalker 3F I had 12 matches with 21 kills, few loses and only one death. A 21.0 K/D! (It was too good to last, as match 13 and 14 saw only one more kill and 2 more deaths and losses. K/D is not 7.33... I expect it to continue to plummet knowing my typical luck.)

For the record, with that Stalker build, I've crunched the numbers and my close range weapons deal more damage per match than my LRMs actually do... and deal more damage per ton invested into each system (LRMs one system, Med/SSRMs as second system). Though I like my LRMs, I find that my close range weapons carry my mech through the day every match.


For technical information:

Spoiler

Stalker 3F: 85 tons.
14 matches played. 10 wins. 4 loses.
22 kills. 3 deaths.
Total damage 7879. Average damage per match 563. Average damage per match per ton 6.62

Unfortunetly, I can no longer provide solo LRM/MedlaserSSRM damage stats for this lone mech, as the weapons are shared with other mechs. However, back when I did a test with my Griffin 3M, I found that my LRMs did far less damage than my direct fire weapons, and the same continues with my Stalker.

Griffin 3M: 55 tons.
47 matches played. 29 wins. 18 loses.
45 kills. 30 deaths.
Total damage 19,139. Average damage per match 407 (Hum. It went done since last I checked). Average damage per match per ton 7.4.

For the sake of putting it up: (These numbers are not build specific anymore.)
Med laser: 149 matches played. 20,826 damage total done. 140 damage per match.
SSRM2: 109 matches played. 15,278 damage total done. 140 damage per match. (Total close range damage per match 280.)
ALRM20: (For Griffin) 51 matches played. 10,733 damage total done. 211 damage per match. (Compared to 280 per match.)
ALRM15: (For Stalker) 13 matches played. 5,882 damage total done. 453 damage per match. (Well... but something seems off with the match count, as it should be 14 matches. Which places it at 420 damage.)

The Stalker's ALRM15s see more "damage" per match because it takes it longer to get into the fight. However, I find most of it's stopping power is still in the close range weapons. However, I'll also breakdown the tonnage investment for the two builds I've presented.

Stalker:
ALRM15 x2 is 16 tons. 8 tons ammo. (I shall excluse BAP.) 24 tons total dedicated only to LRMs.
4 Med lasers is 4 tons. BAP is 1.5 tons. SSRM2 x2 is 3 tons. Plus 1 ton ammo. I'll even incluse the 6 DHS, at 6 tons. 15.5 tons total.
So, 453 damage per match/24 tons = 18.875 damage per ton invested into LRMs.
280 damage per match/15.5 tons = 18.065 damage per ton invested into close range weapons. (Recall I included DHS that also help out LRMs into this.)

Griffin 3M:
ALRM20 is 11 tons. 4 tons of LRM ammo. 15 tons total.
2 med lasers is 2 tons. BAP is 1.5 tons. SSRM2 x3 is 4.5 tons, with 2 tons ammo. 1 DHS. 11 tons.
211 damage total/15 tons = 14.667 damage per ton.
280 damage total/11 tons - 25.455 damage per ton.

I know my weapon math is now contaminated from other mechs being used, however the trend does still seem to continue. Either I am close to the same damage per ton invested, or my close range weapons deal more damage per ton.

Edit: Stats are drawn from completely PUG matches. I very rarely get into a group, and I haven't been in one since the new stats.

Edited by Tesunie, 11 May 2014 - 05:37 PM.