Radical eliminator, on 22 July 2014 - 12:28 PM, said:
You are both right and wrong. You do not know what others have fit either and have no time to learn that by mistake. Some mechs have missiles, they do not have to run in as they likely die, but do rely on locks. In which case jumping your nova and providing those locks, however brief, is the first thing to try.
Others have fits that are very high power and overheat quick, they just need a direct line of sight for a moment and then it is best to back off afterwards. Again, knowing where the enemy is is crucial here. And to keep space free for movement. You will find those mechs more wall hugging so others can shoot. Except for the typical trigger happy heavy in the center.
I seen people "order" everyone else in, only for all to die in a blaze of fire. Rushing trough a narrow space, simply never is a great idea when you do not outnumber and outclass the enemy. Without this advantage you cannot force things to go your teams way.
No, universally and without exception the best solo queue tactic on TT is rush center. You control center, pin the other team in a narrow space, win by attrition or forcing them to feed into a killbox or watch them trickle in out of boredom.
LRMs? You still rush in because until the center is secure you need to help draw a bit of fire and there are few if any indirect fire locations from outside in. LRM boats inside the center area are one of the most powerful, deciding factors in taking and holding the ring.
Burst-fire laser boats and the like? Same thing. You rush in, push to a pillar and hump-shoot-fade. This lets you do all your damage without blocking your team.
Same for every single other build.
The biggest two mistakes that any pug team can make on terra-terma:
Going in, taking some shots and stopping to back up. You bottleneck the guys behind you and stop the entire team. There are 10 mechs behind you - you're not backing up. You push in, cut sideways and let your team fire on the enemy. THAT is your cover - suppressive fire. You take too much damage you drop in the lava.
Second is just meandering slowly towards the center. The first 30 seconds on TT are the most important on that map - same with River City. You know right out of the gate if your team is going to take center - in which case the odds strongly favor you. Otherwise you just pray the other team is terrible.
Same with River City. You drop top of map - if everyone sprints D2 you're golden. If people linger in B2 or B4, you're screwed. They're going to get killed and leave you several mechs down.
You drop top of map - get out of D2. If the rest of the team helps provide cover fire to get Charlie out of D2, you're golden. You're going to settle into D4, you've got the better position and can fade into the buildings and draw the enemy into the D4 killbox or just snipe/LURM them down in the water.
This is where a leader comes in. They need to know this stuff and put it in chat. The biggest problem actually is that most people meander, with this idea that 'you don't wanna be first'. I am the first mech into TT in, I kid you not, 95% or more of my matches. Even when the whole team says 'yep, go center'. I run heavies and assaults. For this reason if the other team isn't a bunch of sandbaggers they are already there and we start out boned.
The pug hivemind can be pugbossed. You need to start out polite but sometimes get assertive. I've had people get shirty the first time we drop together and, of course, when we lose because they hid and prayed the other team just walked into the open and stood there instead of actually pushing and driving the win that I warned was going to happen if we tried to camp, the next time they tend to listen. They stay quiet in chat because they hope I don't recognize their name and that last match they didn't follow the plan and got the team stomped but I do -
and I don't care. Because the last loss means nothing, the current match and winning it is what matters.
This idea that 'you need to adapt your strategy to your team' is the problem. That's not viable, it doesn't work, it's not relevant. There are a few tactics that work well on every map.
Sprint center on TT. Pin other team in one approach, bleed them out and don't leave the effing center until you're 4 kills up or more. Then rush together.
D2 on River City (D4 if you drop bottom), don't effing wagon-wheel unless you're all fast (XL375 Banshees, speedy LRM boat Awesomes, Timbys and the like being your slowest mechs). Take the radio tower and don't push into D4 from D2 unless you have both sides of the radio tower under control and can suppress the other team in the buildings. Generally most pugs are not bright enough to fade into the buildings and will stand and die at the statues. From the other side, keep the radio tower and kill them in the water. If you can't keep them off, fade to the buildings, draw them to the statues in D4 and arty/airstrike/crossfire the the **** out of them. Stay north structures, they'll take the south ones and have only a few narrow approaches.
Sprint top of the mountain on Alpine - that ridge on the north side, whoever takes that first generally wins. If the team that starts closest to the hill takes it they have cover and the approach has none. If the approach team (the slope, not the cliff side) takes that ridge they have cover and can shove the other team back down into Death Valley.
On Forest don't run River without an ECM or THREE. If you run Tunnel, you run Tunnel and Road at the same time. Push Tunnel ahead, drop arty/airstrike first and road pushes same time. The tunnel exits are actually pretty *bad* places to set up - narrow, little room to maneuver and tend to favor the aggressor. It's the opposite in group queue where you can trust everyone to hold position, in pug queue the push works WAY better than the hold. You get a nice tunnel/road hit on either exit on the Tunnel and you've got a solid roll in the making. If other team runs river you hold the area near your spawn and kill them in the open for being stupid and hope they ARE stupid and not very quick and very aggressive - which, with a River Run with solid ECM cover will generally split and destroy pug teams.
Frozen... it used to be all about the shuttle. Now it's about the low town rush. Get those buildings and get them fast. There is too little cover on either side; you take the cover of the buildings and you butcher the other team in the open. You'll spread out a bit but stay out of the effing open space between bottom of the shuttle and the buildings or the hump near the buildings. Look there at the end of every match; there will be dead mechs scattered there.
Tourmaline - That big chunk in D7, that fort where the fight takes place. That's the best spot. Rush there and take it. If other team is already there run up the valley to the side. No map is more important to stick together on; lots of open space, often your best cover is suppressive fire. You can get 10 mechs comfortably in the same space shooting the same target. That's better protection than any mountain most of the time.
HPG.... honestly, hard to say. A very fluid map. Stick together, wagon wheel but do it slow so you all keep up. There's a lot of crap in the way of moving and if your team does a better job sticking together and the other team doesn't you'll gobble them up. Try to hold the corner of the center structure closest to you; that high ground can be killer. If the other team is LRM-heavy then get down below and turtle if you don't have ECM - or take the dead center and hold it at all costs. Any other option is just going to get you all killed.
Finally...
PUSH and PLAY AGGRESSIVE.
Defensive play requires more coordination than offensive play. For pugs if you can get them to grow a pair and play fast and hard you'll win way more than you lose. The aggressor chooses the cadence, position and form of the fight. They push the other team, prod, divide and hammer them. The defending team just tries to adapt. Adaptation is too slow and too hard without good coordination so aggressive play wins in pug matches.
In the end... better to follow a bad plan than no plan. A lot of support and commitment can make a bad plan with with a little luck and against a moderate or bad team. A bad plan with no support and no commitment is just throwing yourself into a 12-1 loss. May as well just arty your team for standing in the open and being dumb then run out of bounds. It's not any more certain to get you all killed.
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