Joseph Mallan, on 27 May 2014 - 02:10 AM, said:
Yes Let me point out the part that you miss. Those are Both builds that are reinforcing my point! If you have direct fire ECM is not that scary/impressive. I am not in either of those Mechs, and I still agree with Funk. ECM only truly messes with Missiles, which was not supposed to be the case. ECM was only to counter ART4, and TAG! I have had little to no problems with ECM since 3 days after it was introduced. I switched from LRMs to direct fire weapons. Now I hit R an if I don't get Lock, I just point and click with ACs, energy and standard SRMs.
Funk is correct, If you bring the right weapons mix (Not LRMboat) ECM is a nuisance at best.
So rather than being a support mech, you want to be a brawler or sniper because you can no longer play the support mech you originally wanted to. If you're fine with being completely unable to support the vast majority of teammates who do not have a direct line of sight to you that's cool.
I don't even care about LRM boats (though I do have one and am perfectly capable of using a TAG on it to
try to "counter" ECM), the fact is the implementation of ECM is just completely broken. Most weapons and chassis have at least stuck to the general themes established by previous Mechwarrior titles (right up until ghost heat, gauss rifle 'fixes' and several other things anyway). This one just completely turns it inside out.
I *liked* the way it worked in MW3. It was annoying as hell, but it didn't completely lock out a perfectly legitimate build. You can try to tout BAP as the magical hard counter it's supposed to be, but if you're in an LRM boat guess what? That's right in your minimum range. "But teamwork!" Yeah, good luck with that in a pug match. Even if you DO stick with your team, chances are you're just a big target for the first enemy to come dashing by your lines, and if not, guess what? Half your team chases them down, leaving you exposed to the lance charging in right behind him.
They're broken in pugs, and they're broken in organized 12v12 (Notice how there are just about zero LRMs? Yeah, about that...). It seems like PGI is either unwilling to admit they made a mistake (again?), they're only picking and choosing feedback that suits the plans they've already made, or tend to follow positive feedback, even when in a minority. I mean, I don't have numbers, but just looking at posts about it, I'm pretty sure it's mostly negative about how broken ECM is.
Lastly, ECM is not stealth armor, which is an entirely different component with its own drawbacks. You want to run around in the open with impunity (from LRMs anyway), you sacrifice several things for stealth armor, not toss in a 1.5 ton 2-crit item or stick to a teammate who did.
Edited by Kassatsu, 27 May 2014 - 02:21 AM.