17 replies to this topic

[Heinous Atrocity]

New Avalon Institute of Science, Military College

Guest Speaker: Henious Atrocity,
Topic: Are light mechs getting you down?

Tired of light mechs running circles around and ripping you to shreds? and what if there are more than 1. There you are, just minding your own business raining death upon the enemy, in that BIG Atlas, and along comes 2 or 3 lights. and then your dead!

Well, I may not be the best out there at laying the smack down on light mechs, but i've learned a few things.

1 They are fast, you are not, when shooting at them, lead your cross by a good margin before you shoot.

2 always leave your mech equipped with short range fast recycling weapons. Use of SRMS and LBX 10 also work nicely. That missile boat you use might seem cool. but it has no weapons when those little buggers get near you.

3 Use your friends, as you are being circled, get them to shoot for you.

4 get your back to a wall. Its better than lots of rear armor. and it forces them to give you more shots at them.

5 your getting swarmed, but friends are near by, don't try to run away from all that combat, right str8 for your friends, as the lights chase you, they often line up for others to shoot with ease.

Not every strategy works every time, it depends on how the battle is going, and who is piloting the light mech.

[FupDup]

6. Moving in reverse allows you to turn faster than moving forwards, making them easier to track.

7. Shoot them.

[Cyborne Elemental]

Eh, I'm just tired of lights soaking up more damage than it takes to completely annihilate an Atlas, and still run away with yellow armor.

[Brody319]

Hey. You keep your useful tips to yourself. Don't make me get out the Firestarters!

[Mcgral18]

FupDup, on 06 December 2014 - 11:18 PM, said:

6. Moving in reverse allows you to turn faster than moving forwards, making them easier to track.

7. Shoot them.

8. Wub their legs.

9. Wub their face. (or other leg, if you don't want to farm damage on their small and easily spread hitboxes)

[Mazikar]

Been running my Wolverines, two of them are quirked to eat lights alive, 2 LPL with the same heat as 2 med lasers and the same cool down, with the bonus range making it darn near normal LL... lots of legless spiders tonight, even ripped the legs of a couple heavies that didn't expect that at all. I just stick with the heavies back their play and swat the flies, works good with LRM boats also, run cover for them and get some easy kills.

[Onyxian]

Mister D, on 06 December 2014 - 11:40 PM, said:

Eh, I'm just tired of lights soaking up more damage than it takes to completely annihilate an Atlas, and still run away with yellow armor.

A million times this. SO tired of watching ravens/firestarters/jenners waltz through my entire team while everyone is shooting at them and then tap dance their way out with almost no damage

[Bracchus]

I'm most often running builds and mech involving Ballistics which is really good at executing lights. I can't even hurt your garden variety firestarter with lasers, even if they run straight towards or from me, just super broken. But those AC cannons work wonders

[Equalizer]

There are actually a couple of reasons for lights to feel immortal (because they sure don't when you're piloting one):

1. Most of them are Firestarters with broken hit boxes.
2. And this is really the important part - to do well in a light you actually need good situational awareness. That's why no sane light will charge even 2 enemy mechs, let alone the whole team. However, they do that when said team is distracted because nobody cares about a light when facing TWs on the other flank. Also in a light you can usually move in such a way as to block most enemies' lines of fire, which creates the illusion that the whole team's firepower is miraculously soaked by it.

Everyone on forums whines how they got owned by a light in their uber assault but in reality this doesn't happen that often at all and is super hard to pull off. As mentioned above big guns = dead light 90% of the time and most assaults tend to carry those.

[Satan n stuff]

FupDup, on 06 December 2014 - 11:18 PM, said:

6. Moving in reverse allows you to turn faster than moving forwards, making them easier to track.

7. Shoot them.

It doesn't technically let you turn faster, you're actually forcing them to cover more ground to stay out of your sights.
If your mech is fully elited and you have your doubled basics it's literally impossible for a light to stay out of your sights when you do this, unless you've got a very low rated engine for your chassis and/or your variant has a negative turn rate quirk.
Going through the quirks list on smurfy, since the unnerfing of the Victor the only mech that currently has negative turn rate quirks is the Kitfox, and even then only on the S leg pods. The Kitfox is more than fast enough to compensate for that, even without any efficiencies unlocked.

[The Wakelord]

Equalizer, on 07 December 2014 - 02:59 AM, said:

Everyone on forums whines how they got owned by a light in their uber assault but in reality this doesn't happen that often at all and is super hard to pull off. As mentioned above big guns = dead light 90% of the time and most assaults tend to carry those.

I take mild offence at this I am an assault-hunter. My locusts and huginn are all about stabbing backs and shanking assault ankles. Anything going above +80kph can track me too well.

[Equalizer]

The Wakelord, on 07 December 2014 - 04:01 AM, said:

I take mild offence at this I am an assault-hunter. My locusts and huginn are all about stabbing backs and shanking assault ankles. Anything going above +80kph can track me too well.

I'm sorry, didn't mean to offend anyone - was just sharing my experience for what it is. I have nearly all lights mastered and tend to mostly pilot lights but, despite the quirks, find it very hard to solo any assault that isn't a LRM boat. Of course, when I see a lone Dire, regardless of build, I will always go for it because it's a good trade off - even if I die, it usually takes a while and that's a lot of firepower entangled with me and not tearing apart my team.

[Mawai]

Why does running through a group with a light mech sometimes work?

Lights are fast ... they keep turning and moving ... people have reaction times ... if they do not immediately see the light they start to turn to track it as soon as they do ... but with a mech doing 150kph at close range that is often too late. At best the targeting reticle might barely catch up with the light ... often it just gets close. Folks pull the trigger in desperation anyway and then wonder why they didn't do any damage. In addition, it is more challenging to turn the mech and keep the mouse moving at the same time ... so hitting a close, fast target consistently is also harder.

The end result is that light mechs can survive this type of situation. I saw it happen yesterday when a firestarter ran through a group of 6 mechs ... when I hit it then it took damage but because I was moving, it was moving and all my team mates were also moving and firing ... it took longer to kill than a heavier mech in the same situation ... because most of the time, most of us missed... or if we did hit it spread the damage everywhere.

The tips above for dealing with lights ... particularly backing up while turning ... turning the opposite direction from the way the ligth is circling .. and trying to get your back up against decent terrain are all great suggestions.

The best though is probably to stay with the group for support. A couple of days ago, I ran across a direwhale all on its own while I was in a stormcrow. Fired into its rear twice before it began to take notice. A team mate in another medium showed up and we finished it off. This would not be possible if they had stayed with the group.

[Tarogato]

I'm pretty sure stopping or moving backward slowly does let you pivot faster and get that light in your sights.

But hey, it depends on the light pilot...

sneeking, on 07 December 2014 - 04:31 AM, said:

When you walk backwards they will try to stick with you so fake them out by backing up in a turn and torso twisting one way at the same time ... nail them in the back when they try to peel off.

A competent light won't fall for this trick. When I park behind a < 70kph assault, I just watch their legs. It doesn't matter what their torso is doing, as long as I keep myself positioned square behind their legs I can usually keep hitting their rear CT with no fear of them pulling me into view. Your best bet in that situation is to call either your grid or relative location to the team in all caps with a very aggressive "HEELLLPPPP" and hope that somebody figures it out and rescues you. Sometimes I even tag a friendly with a laser to get their attention - it usually turns them around and they finally see they have something to shoot out behind them. Remember, if you can't even target the light, your team will never even know it's there. But if you can target it, spam your R button so they hear the chime and glance at their map.

Worst case scenario: bring a UAV and make sure they see you launch it. That'll ruin their day, because they know they have to leave the area so they can shoot it down safely.

Edited by Tarogato, 07 December 2014 - 05:14 AM.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Meh, if the game didnt lag so much even on low settings, Lights wouldnt be so bad. They are easy to rip to shreds once I can draw a bead on them.

[Violent Nick]

* Use UAV.
* Use Art Strikes.
* Only let off shots you know will hit.
* Torso Twist.
* Jump to turn.
* Do not overheat.

[Evil Ed]

Onyxian, on 07 December 2014 - 01:19 AM, said:

A million times this. SO tired of watching ravens/firestarters/jenners waltz through my entire team while everyone is shooting at them and then tap dance their way out with almost no damage

Interesting fact is that when lights comes anywhere near main body when I play with my unit the lights insta-dies, but while pugging enemy lights can run around for ages without taking any significant damage. Maybe the hit detection isn't the same in the group queue...

[oldradagast]

Here and there, I keep hearing this cry about how "lights are broken!" and "lights rule MWO!" Even some of my friends in real life just can't stop beating this dead horse... and every day I play, the Light queue sits at about 10%... sometimes less... because Lights never need to wait for games because few people play them.

So, either the entire MWO community is full of people who decided to stop playing Light mechs because they are "just too powerful" and have gone on to play Heavy mechs as "hard mode," or the claims that Light mechs regularly ignore most damage and tear apart entire lances single-handedly are exaggerations.

Everyone remembers that "one time" a light mech ignored their AC20 hit. They forget the more frequent times where they kill or crippled a light easily, like swatting a fly. They also forget the times heavier mechs ignore their hits, too, which can happen - bad netcode favors fast, small targets, but it can happen to anyone.

Edited by oldradagast, 07 December 2014 - 06:38 AM.