67 replies to this topic

[mogs01gt]

Ultimatum X, on 26 August 2014 - 05:10 AM, said:

Listen I'm not a LRM hater, but there are a lot of maps where not even most "standard" cover is actually cover from NARC.
There are a number of situations and maps where having a giant vertical wall handy is just not possible.
You have to move with the team, you can't huddle under one rock for 5 minutes - that doesn't win matches.
So in these instances, he's correct. You will get NARC'd and if you don't die you will likely be crippled for the rest of the match.
At the OP, I don't even know if it reliably works - but if there is at least something to hide behind I make a run for it and shut down for a bit. Doesn't work very well in slow mechs.

So yet again you are one of those players who direct your issues in the wrong direction.
Your issues are simply:
lack of cover due to poor map design
Poor teammates not killing light mech(hit registration could also be used here)
pushing too soon. Turtling actually wins a lot of matches in MWO when done right.

Edited by mogs01gt, 26 August 2014 - 05:13 AM.

[Jor Jurgenson]

Since this seems to be a legit request for help, I'll drop my two cents.

First off, lights and assaults are perhaps the hardest chassis class to play. The light is perhaps the most because it has both a positioning AND a distinct get-one-shot problem. With the assaults, you have to know the maps inside and out as well as deal with (I'm assuming solo queue here) players that are not playing their roles properly.

So, in this case you got LRMed because (I have to make some assumptions here given what you've told us) you got narced by a light that either a.) was in the right place and right time (because sometimes that's just how it goes down) or b.) knew the maps and spawn points well enough to make a gutsy play and hope for a good outcome (which may also have been what happened).

For his part, he may have just as likely run into a striker or light hunter and died quickly. This happens a lot to the Kitfox in particular because it is so God awful slow compared to other lights. I have basiced two of my adders by just killing gutsy Kitfox that thought their ecm gave them God mode. Adder kills Kitfox at 1:30 first blood!

For your part, that's part of the risk of playing an assault. Massive firepower, but, slow as hell. The few counters to Dire Wolves, Warhawks and Atlai are 1.) focus fire (requires the lance to know wtf they are doing as well as comms) 2.) LRMs (they can't waddle out of the way fast enough before they die) or 3.) Another mech with a very high alpha and skilled pilot to punch through the armor.

I would do a couple of things in your position, because I've been there too.

Ok, so if you really are a big Stalker fan and you're getting a lot of LRM counter fire, there are a couple of things you can do before even changing your playstyle. First, there is a Staker variant with two AMS on it, it is REALLY good right now especially if you stack the ams boosting weapon mods with it.

Also, Radar Deprivation is pretty much a must at this point. If you don't have it, get it.

Also, if you're taking LRM fire in an assault, take it on your front armor, not your rear. You would be surprised how many assault pilots freak out, turn and run, and then explode because the rear armor is thin. So turn to face the missles. 60>20.

Most importantly, don't get frustrated, this happens to all of us. The LRMs are actually pretty wimpy if you're careful, it's only the guys that are way out of position that die alone.

Hope this helps and good luck. o7

[Ultimax]

John1352, on 26 August 2014 - 05:08 AM, said:

In my opinion, if you have an assault or heavy, for PUG games, and can't find the tonnage to fit an AMS + 1 ton ammo, you need to go back to the mechlab and try again.

In it's current implementation, AMS is just not compelling enough.


AMS is good if multiple people bring it. 1 AMS is pointless. 1 Ton of ammo is no longer sufficient.


The problem with AMS is that it is ALWAYS ON.

So you are often wasting ammo when you are already in cover (often at the start of matches) - and then you are out of ammo when you do need to cross open ground.


You waste missile behind cover, in tunnels, when you are under ECM but one guy next to you can't seem to stay inside the bubble and he's eating missiles for no reason.


If AMS was a toggle, and I could control when it was on - I would take AMS on every assault and most heavy and medium mech builds - and maybe even my lights.

[mogs01gt]

Ultimatum X, on 26 August 2014 - 05:20 AM, said:

In it's current implementation, AMS is just not compelling enough.
AMS is good if multiple people bring it. 1 AMS is pointless. 1 Ton of ammo is no longer sufficient.
The problem with AMS is that it is ALWAYS ON.
So you are often wasting ammo when you are already in cover (often at the start of matches) - and then you are out of ammo when you do need to cross open ground.
You waste missile behind cover, in tunnels, when you are under ECM but one guy next to you can't seem to stay inside the bubble and he's eating missiles for no reason.
If AMS was a toggle, and I could control when it was on - I would take AMS on every assault and most heavy and medium mech builds - and maybe even my lights.

So since AMS sucks, I agree a bit, nerf LRMs more so they can barely be used? Soo that means multiple mechs will become useless...

[Voidcrafter]

I predict.... the next 10+ pages of LRM thread
The more I read those topics, the more I get to agree that:
1) LRMs should be more of a direct fire weapon.
2) LRMs should be in-direct fire weapon ONLY when applied to NARCed target(it could go under discussion about how would TAG will work in that case)
3) See thing - kill thing - while watching the ECM target you should still be able to direct-fire it(TAG could actually take place here).
4) NARC > ECM. And that's that.
5) LRMs get their damage increased significantly - since they would be no more mainly indirect fire weapon.

Even if you don't like some of the points - I would like to see those LRMing much actually put their asses to danger instead of just waiting on the backs, praying to not get bashed by multiple ECMs around the field and preying on the weak.
That's stupid. Really it is.
And the argument that ECM/AMS makes it "unvaluable" is silly too - the whole idea of a weapon being effective only if there aint/there is some piece of equipment is seriously wrong in my eyes.

But hey - what do I know about stuff.

[mogs01gt]

Voidcrafter, on 26 August 2014 - 05:38 AM, said:

Even if you don't like some of the points - I would like to see those LRMing much actually put their asses to danger instead of just waiting on the back

Any good LRM player is constantly putting their selves in harms way to make sure they get the proper angle. This is why I get kills in my LRM Griffins. If I get the angle I want, Im coring you!

Of course this is also why if I cant get a good angle...I do **** damage and most likely lose the match..Like most missile builds, its feast or famine.

Edited by mogs01gt, 26 August 2014 - 05:42 AM.

[Voidcrafter]

mogs01gt, on 26 August 2014 - 05:41 AM, said:

Any good LRM player is constantly putting their selves in harms way to make sure they get the proper angle. This is why I get kills in my LRM Griffins. If I get the angle I want, Im coring you!

Of course this is also why if I cant get a good angle...I do **** damage and most likely lose the match..Like most missile builds, its feast or famine.

All my games while soloQ-ing with LRMs(clan side at that, mind you) ending with more than 700 damage without even getting an orange armor anywhere beg you different.
Those btw are more than 70% of the games I played with LRM boats.
You don't *NEED* THAT perfect possitioning - even though it helps - you need to have BASIC possitioning knowlege.
That paired with the BASIC "aiming" skills you need to posses to makeyourself REALLY effective is kinda a touchy subject
One would say "NAY" other "YAY" third will be more like "MEH" - either way it's thing that's hard to ignore you see?
Any, and I mean ANY, other weapon in the game puts you in danger - like in REAL danger - if you're quite away from the term I'll try to explain it a bit better:
arm that griffin with SRMs and try going against the current game state.
I'm not saying you'll do bad - I'm just saying it would be really harder for you to do well and it will certainly require way more effort to do so.

Make LRM (mostly)direct fire weapon and there we go - those guys would have to sweat a bit for their kills.
There won't be any more claims that LRMs are point-and-click-adventure, that ECM really breaks the game, that LRMs are not easy/hard mode, that LRMs actually require skill, that they're way too useful/useless, etc. etc. etc.
Boost the damage, make em more deadly, but more teamplay-based(NARC) and make em require the target to be in LOS.
What could go wrong?

[Escef]

waterfowl, on 26 August 2014 - 12:52 AM, said:

Let's say I start a match in a heavy assault medium, w/e. An enemy light runs up to me and NARCs me, then disappears. We have no ECM. I die from LRMs.

Where is the counterplay? There is literally nothing I can do except eat **** on my way to cover, which I won't make it to, because the other team has 200 LRM tubes.

Where's the god damn counterplay? The only reliable counterplay to LRMs is praying that you'll have ECM on your team. That or everyone drops in a DDC.

Allow me to counter your question with one of my own.

Which map is so small and empty that a light can rush your spawn point, NARC you, and the enemy LRM boats will be in range, AND you won't have nearby cover? I'm serious, which map is this? This won't even happen on Caustic, perhaps the most LRM friendly map in the game.

[mogs01gt]

Voidcrafter, on 26 August 2014 - 05:52 AM, said:

All my games while soloQ-ing with LRMs(clan side at that, mind you) ending with more than 700 damage without even getting an orange armor anywhere beg you different.
Those btw are more than 70% of the games I played with LRM boats.
You don't *NEED* THAT perfect possitioning - even though it helps - you need to have BASIC possitioning knowlege.
That paired with the BASIC "aiming" skills you need to posses to makeyourself REALLY effective is kinda a touchy subject
One would say "NAY" other "YAY" third will be more like "MEH" - either way it's thing that's hard to ignore you see?
Any, and I mean ANY, other weapon in the game puts you in danger - like in REAL danger - if you're quite away from the term I'll try to explain it a bit better:
arm that griffin with SRMs and try going against the current game state.
I'm not saying you'll do bad - I'm just saying it would be really harder for you to do well and it will certainly require way more effort to do so.

Make LRM (mostly)direct fire weapon and there we go - those guys would have to sweat a bit for their kills.
There won't be any more claims that LRMs are point-and-click-adventure, that ECM really breaks the game, that LRMs are not easy/hard mode, that LRMs actually require skill, that they're way too useful/useless, etc. etc. etc.
Boost the damage, make em more deadly, but more teamplay-based(NARC) and make em require the target to be in LOS.
What could go wrong?

You must be on a different server. Every LRM'er I see that sits in the back does zero damage unless they are a stalker with a **** ton of ammo.

SRM's suck. Why would I want to put my already low armored, XL running, slow(relatively) and oversized medium in harms way?

Edited by mogs01gt, 26 August 2014 - 06:02 AM.

[Kaspirikay]

Just so you guys know, I got killed by a stalker with LRMs. I had the high ground, broke lock as much as I could, hid as soon as I fired. The Stalker? He was in the open, trudging towards some of my guys. All he had to do was look my way and get locks. With Decay, he could easily reacquire and have the LRMs in midair reacquire me.. I couldn't rush him because LRMs from previous encounters took one of my legs out.

I didn't have Radar Dep. Seems like that is a must have now. Anyway, this is pretty much what I've been seeing lately.

Edited by Kaspirikay, 26 August 2014 - 06:11 AM.

[Voidcrafter]

mogs01gt, on 26 August 2014 - 06:00 AM, said:

You must be on a different server. Every LRM'er I see that sits in the back does zero damage unless they are a stalker with a **** ton of ammo.

SRM's suck. Why would I want to put my already low armored, XL running, slow(relatively) and oversized medium in harms way?

Exactly!
And that's why you go with LRMing stuff from a place noone can get you right?
While the other guys like me go brawl that evil dakka/meta DWF/TBR/Banshee/whatever, putting their backs to danger and wasting so much patience, skill and effort to pull out that 700+, 3+ kill score.
And any LRM boat should have a huge load of ammo - the one with the lowest numbers I have is with a bit more than 1000 LRMs(my 2xCLRM10, 1xCLRM15 Stormcrow, that I would hardly consider as a boat).
There aint a punishment for that kind of play and I'm quite certain that there should be.
You get punished for sniping, laser boating, not to mention brawling - at some point or another.
The only pushment you can take as a LRM boat is a bad/none NARC-er and/or ECM mechs - both should be and are really optional equipment.
Wanna have some test?
I said it - let we have just one ECM-less weekend and you'll see my point.
The sky would be blue alright - whenever it aint yellow.

I don't know about servers and stuff - but most of the LRM boats I encouter are from the really dangerous type - something like LRM boating stalkers, Battlemasters and in some ocassions Awesomes, that sit in the back(not behind ALL their teammates though), wait for target and then just unload the scrap outta LRMs on it, with zero risk of getting in the harms way.
So basically, if you cut the ECM, the team with the most LRM support always win.
If you don't cut it - the team that have better ECM cover wins more than half of the times - ooh and I can tell you - it has nothing to do with the pilots not having enough info for where to land their direct fire weapons.
It's all about the LRMs really - same counts for group play.
Even if those people will tell you all the time that LRMs are not competitive weapon, try to convice you that you're bad player and stuff, the very same will ALWAYS have at least two ECM mechs in their team.
I wonder... why is that?

[Ultimax]

mogs01gt, on 26 August 2014 - 05:26 AM, said:

So since AMS sucks, I agree a bit, nerf LRMs more so they can barely be used? Soo that means multiple mechs will become useless...

At no point did I say that.

[Troutmonkey]

Kilo 40, on 26 August 2014 - 01:22 AM, said:

communicate with your team.

Just let me stop out in the open and try to convey my message to my team then. While I eat all the lrms

[mogs01gt]

Voidcrafter, on 26 August 2014 - 06:11 AM, said:

Exactly!
And that's why you go with LRMing stuff from a place noone can get you right?
While the other guys like me go brawl that evil dakka/meta DWF/TBR/Banshee/whatever, putting their backs to danger and wasting so much patience, skill and effort to pull out that 700+, 3+ kill score.
And any LRM boat should have a huge load of ammo - the one with the lowest numbers I have is with a bit more than 1000 LRMs(my 2xCLRM10, 1xCLRM15 Stormcrow, that I would hardly consider as a boat).
There aint a punishment for that kind of play and I'm quite certain that there should be.
You get punished for sniping, laser boating, not to mention brawling - at some point or another.
The only pushment you can take as a LRM boat is a bad/none NARC-er and/or ECM mechs - both should be and are really optional equipment.
Wanna have some test?
I said it - let we have just one ECM-less weekend and you'll see my point.
The sky would be blue alright - whenever it aint yellow.

I don't know about servers and stuff - but most of the LRM boats I encouter are from the really dangerous type - something like LRM boating stalkers, Battlemasters and in some ocassions Awesomes, that sit in the back(not behind ALL their teammates though), wait for target and then just unload the scrap outta LRMs on it, with zero risk of getting in the harms way.
So basically, if you cut the ECM, the team with the most LRM support always win.
If you don't cut it - the team that have better ECM cover wins more than half of the times - ooh and I can tell you - it has nothing to do with the pilots not having enough info for where to land their direct fire weapons.
It's all about the LRMs really - same counts for group play.
Even if those people will tell you all the time that LRMs are not competitive weapon, try to convice you that you're bad player and stuff, the very same will ALWAYS have at least two ECM mechs in their team.
I wonder... why is that?

I've reduced my ammo to 900-1000 in favor of AMS or heatsinks. I typically only fire with LoS or I know I have an ECM spotter.

[Wolfways]

Kaspirikay, on 26 August 2014 - 06:08 AM, said:

Just so you guys know, I got killed by a stalker with LRMs. I had the high ground, broke lock as much as I could, hid as soon as I fired. The Stalker? He was in the open, trudging towards some of my guys. All he had to do was look my way and get locks. With Decay, he could easily reacquire and have the LRMs in midair reacquire me.. I couldn't rush him because LRMs from previous encounters took one of my legs out.

I didn't have Radar Dep. Seems like that is a must have now. Anyway, this is pretty much what I've been seeing lately.

Breaking LOS and using cover (i.e, hugging terrain) are completely different. Hugging just about any terrain bigger than your mech stops LRM's from hitting you.

[Parazaine]

So many LRM haters.....have you guys ever tried to use an LRM mech? If you did, you would quickly discover that far from being 'no skill' it takes skill to be effective with them, especially against savvy opponents using the terrain, AMS and ECM.

The LRM mech is also very vulnerable, often left completely unsupported by its own taem and almost always undervalued.

If you are being regularly killed by LRM's YOU ARE DOING SOMETHING RADICALLY WRONG.....I personally, don't use AMS but if i'm being targetted by missiles, i seek cover...immediately.

The main chants you regularly see in chat from clueless players are 'LRM's are OP', various expletives from players who have been killed by an LRMer ....'get your own locks' etc etc.

LRM's are a support weapon..if only team-mates would realise that the LRM mech rarely gets the kill, almost never gets any praise and always takes varying amounts of abuse from both teams BUT can be a valuable asset, can help YOU get YOUR KILLS by stripping armor off the enemy.

Before you complain about 'no skill' LRM ......, try it yourself an dsee how easy it is....it might just change your mind.

[Kaspirikay]

Escef, on 26 August 2014 - 05:54 AM, said:

Allow me to counter your question with one of my own.

Which map is so small and empty that a light can rush your spawn point, NARC you, and the enemy LRM boats will be in range, AND you won't have nearby cover? I'm serious, which map is this? This won't even happen on Caustic, perhaps the most LRM friendly map in the game.

If you spawn in Alpha Lance on Tourmaline you're pretty close to the enemy's Alpha Lance.

[Vinhasa]

Kilo 40, on 26 August 2014 - 12:56 AM, said:

you should always be close to cover. Narc or not.

If you're away from cover you dun goofed.

Except there are plenty of places where there's no hard cover near, and for strategic purposes you have to move through it.

[Kaspirikay]

Vinhasa, on 26 August 2014 - 07:01 AM, said:

Except there are plenty of places where there's no hard cover near, and for strategic purposes you have to move through it.

This is the main issue I have with LRM. As it stands, it is extremely effective suppression. It literally controls the flow of the battle.

[Escef]

Kaspirikay, on 26 August 2014 - 07:00 AM, said:

If you spawn in Alpha Lance on Tourmaline you're pretty close to the enemy's Alpha Lance.

In which game mode? I'll admit, I've avoided skirmish like the plague ever since there was an option to not play it.