Patience and communication. Especially if you're running your brawler atlas. As someone who has enjoyed brawling builds even when SRMs were broken, I'm getting better performance out of my brawlers now than ever before. Unfortunately, as brawling usually happens later in the match, you're usually going to have damage numbers equal to or less than the meta poptarts. But where they apply a lot of damage over time, you can wreak a lot of havoc in a short period of time. Although I too rarely get over 1000 dmg in my brawlers, I also very rarely drop below 500-600. And most of that damage usually occurs within a 1-2 minute period.
Unless you're doing a coordinated rush (extremely rare), you should almost always be staying under cover for the first few minutes of the match. Don't poke your head out trying to see what's going on, let the poptarts do their thing. You're going to miss out on the first few kills, just accept it. Your job is not to take pot shots,
it's to turn the tide of the battle by initiating a brawl mid-late game in an unscathed mech.
You need to bide your time and stay undamaged until the opportune moment presents itself. Running out into the middle of 12 mechs will always get you toasted before you have time to yell at your teammates for not following you. Hang out until the first few kills go down and your enemy is bruised up a bit. Then start looking for your time to push. Some key factors to look for:
-How far is the enemy? You should never be charging more than a few hundred meters to get in optimal weapon range. If you find yourself running on open ground for more than a few seconds before you can hit the 270m needed for your SRMs, you picked the wrong moment.
-How many of them are there? Making a blind charge is a huge gamble. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes you turn a corner and find 9 mechs staring at you in a firing line. Make sure you're not diving into the lion's den.
-Where are your allies? Leading the charge is okay
as long as your allies are nearby and ready to capitalize on your charge. They don't need to follow you (although it's good if they do), they just need to step out and pour on the fire while you go barreling in. You'll be taking most of the fire (especially if you're an atlas) and may very well die. But your death could be worth it if while the enemy is spending their time killing you, your allies take down 3 of them. It's okay to be the sacrificial lamb so long as your allies are ready to capitalize. I do this frequently in my zombie cent and often turn the tide of the match by allowing my team to drop a few of them while they drop just the one of me.
-Communicate. This is the only way to push if you're in an atlas. If you're going to push, make sure your team is grouped up tight with you (no stragglers) and say "PUSHING". The nice guy that I am, I usually say, "DDC Pushing. Follow please." I will happily die in my Atlas every single time if my team follows me during the push and takes advantage of me drawing fire.
-If you're in a medium, have an out. An Atlas push is usually all or nothing so you have to be 100% committed. But with a medium, you should have the speed to bail out once things have gotten hot. Your out can be making an arc and coming back to your team, or going straight through the enemy and around nearby cover to get out of their arcs. It all depends on the situation, just plan ahead where your out is.
-Sometimes, you're just going to die. Wreak as much havoc as you can before you go down.
-Alpine Peaks... gg.
Don't give up on it if you're like me and enjoy brawling way more than the sniping meta. Brawlers can be extremely vicious when used right. I just had a game where me in my brawler DDC, a Daishi and a brawler phract snuck through the tunnel on River City to flank an unsuspecting group of 8-10 mechs. We were able to use cover to get on top of them unseen and chewed through 5-6 of them before they could react. When the remainder finally regrouped to engage us, the rest of our team pushed in and wiped them out. That match alone was worth 3 boring poptart matches!
Edited by Impavid, 30 June 2014 - 10:39 PM.
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