49 replies to this topic

[Grantham Besat]

Lily from animove, on 12 December 2014 - 09:13 AM, said:

I don't have a unit with members at all, so I can not test this coordinated, since PGI doe snot allow me to prepare drops as a group made of other people. I need to go with whatever the MM gives me.

you could join a unit

[Veritae]

InspectorG, on 13 December 2014 - 05:21 PM, said:

Fast enough for you, old man. (Christoper Walken voice)

I don't have to take this! I was in Jaws! (Richard Dreyfuss voice)

[Veritae]

Kiiyor, on 13 December 2014 - 05:00 PM, said:

I racked up 6 kills in about one and a half minutes with this last night:

STREAK CRAB

After a very tense and close fight, the vast majority of our remaining guys had (foolishly) pushed out to camp the last wave from the attacker's dropship. They all dropped in lights. I ejected from my WubJack, and just made the spawn timer to drop as a lonely crab at our base.

7 lights had made it past our guys.

They chose to ignore me and go for the generator, despite the gyrating and claw pinching threat display I made as they approached, and despite my first shot turning a Jenner into a canoe upon realizing they weren't going to be intimidated by my posturing.

After 3 more kills in quick succession, they re-evaluated and decided that leaving an AC40 mech with 4 streaks un-molested was a poor life choice. I managed to take 2 more down as they swarmed around me, while realizing myself that having only 12 rear armour was a poor life choice of my own. They took out my non-streak torso, the rest of our team arrived and took out the last light, and while we were successful, our generator was barely clinging to life.

I've since upped the rear armour, but haven't had a chance to test it since.

For most, taking 100 tonnes as a light deterrent may not be the best strategy, but fortunately for me the WubJack is hands down my favourite mech, and i'm able to round out my deck with three of those.

I think that within the next week or so, people will have figured out how best to kill non-stop streams of lights that start the Zerg Rush immediately. It's pretty easy to do, you just have to prepare for it. I'm working on similar mech archetypes for Defense mode.

That is the reason for my Maneuver. Misdirection to start as you set up the later rush. People should be camping the guns right now, ready for the rush as soon as the timer starts.

Once they have confirmed they're not facing a killer light swarm, the goal is to draw them away from the guns. If not, and they're mainly equipped with light killers, Phase 1 & 2 mechs will make short work of them after dropping the turrets.

[Kiiyor]

Veritae, on 13 December 2014 - 05:36 PM, said:

I think that within the next week or so, people will have figured out how best to kill non-stop streams of lights that start the Zerg Rush immediately. It's pretty easy to do, you just have to prepare for it. I'm working on similar mech archetypes for Defense mode.

That is the reason for my Maneuver. Misdirection to start as you set up the later rush. People should be camping the guns right now, ready for the rush as soon as the timer starts.

Once they have confirmed they're not facing a killer light swarm, the goal is to draw them away from the guns. If not, and they're mainly equipped with light killers, Phase 1 & 2 mechs will make short work of them after dropping the turrets.

Sounds good.

You're right about camping the generator at the start. Everyone likes to head to the gates in the hopes of landing a few glancing blows on anyone trying to hit the generators. Maybe only faster mechs should do this, so they can RTB quickly if the ominous chittering of the swarm sounds at the gates.

In all my defences, the ones we have lost were those where we were out of position. I love the balancing act of having to advance far enough to prevent the attackers getting a foothold, and remaining close enough to base to blunt a decent thrust. You need to be able to make them pay to take the turrets, but avoid heavy losses doing so.

Having even one high PPFLD mech watching the rear of the generator is great. Dual gauss, AC20, or even massed SRM's seems to work. That way, any damaged enemies that make it to the rear have to contend with something that can, in all likelihood, one shot them.

So far, i've seen lots of people complaining about this and that, but all I see is an opportunity for decent commanders to command, and for a good plan to carry the day rather than the cheesiest amount firepower.

[Veritae]

Kiiyor, on 13 December 2014 - 07:24 PM, said:

So far, i've seen lots of people complaining about this and that, but all I see is an opportunity for decent commanders to command, and for a good plan to carry the day rather than the cheesiest amount firepower.

^^ This, exactly.

1 unit member and I just took down CWI with a pug group on Harvest.

If the Puggers had focused on turrets on the gauss platform sooner, we woulda been in better shape, but we won with 44 dead mechs.

Huzzah!

[Ariana Rifkin]

I won on defense with 2 DC's...Defense is OP. It's not that Attacking is too hard (It is...) It's that defending is too easy. I can just be afk the whole round my team will probably still win.

[Veritae]

Ariana Rifkin, on 15 December 2014 - 07:54 AM, said:

I won on defense with 2 DC's...Defense is OP. It's not that Attacking is too hard (It is...) It's that defending is too easy. I can just be afk the whole round my team will probably still win.

I agree completely, IF the attacking force treats the mission like a skirmish. This is an asymmetrical combat mode. By definition, the defenders should win against an equally skilled force that tries to destroy the defending mechs. Enter Strategy, FTW.

[SgtExo]

Veritae, on 15 December 2014 - 08:32 AM, said:

I agree completely, IF the attacking force treats the mission like a skirmish. This is an asymmetrical combat mode. By definition, the defenders should win against an equally skilled force that tries to destroy the defending mechs. Enter Strategy, FTW.

This is true, I have never lost a defence because I had run out of mechs, that cannot be said about attacking. On the other hand, I have never been able to win a defence without killing all the enemy mechs, but have won most of my attacks with barely any damage or kills (and not enough match score for the event).

Your strategy is in the same line as the one my unit uses, but ours is allot simpler and straightforward.

The pattern of waves is assault/heavies - light/fast - assault/heavies - light/fast.

First wave tries to take out as many turrets as possible and hit the gen if anyone gets there.

Second wave is a fact one to throw the opposition off, this wave wins the match as often as not.

Third wave if a push for the gen in big guns again, often this is the wave that wins the match for us if we have not won yet.

If we reach the fourth wave, the generator should be low enough on HP that a couple of lights getting thru should have no problem getting it down.

This works great for us, and by last night, it was working flawlesly once most of the team had done it a couple of times. This is the basic framework for our attacks, but we have different ways of pulling it of in Sulfur and Boreal. I will just say that we prefer to open up all the gates on sulfur and usually one lance gets to go allot deeper into the base and destroy more turrets while one or both of the other lances take the brunt of the defenders attention. On Boreal, always go left, as on there is no cover on the right.

[Veritae]

SgtExo, on 15 December 2014 - 08:49 AM, said:

This is true, I have never lost a defence because I had run out of mechs, that cannot be said about attacking. On the other hand, I have never been able to win a defence without killing all the enemy mechs, but have won most of my attacks with barely any damage or kills (and not enough match score for the event).

Your strategy is in the same line as the one my unit uses, but ours is allot simpler and straightforward.

The pattern of waves is assault/heavies - light/fast - assault/heavies - light/fast.

First wave tries to take out as many turrets as possible and hit the gen if anyone gets there.

Second wave is a fact one to throw the opposition off, this wave wins the match as often as not.

Third wave if a push for the gen in big guns again, often this is the wave that wins the match for us if we have not won yet.

If we reach the fourth wave, the generator should be low enough on HP that a couple of lights getting thru should have no problem getting it down.

This works great for us, and by last night, it was working flawlesly once most of the team had done it a couple of times. This is the basic framework for our attacks, but we have different ways of pulling it of in Sulfur and Boreal. I will just say that we prefer to open up all the gates on sulfur and usually one lance gets to go allot deeper into the base and destroy more turrets while one or both of the other lances take the brunt of the defenders attention. On Boreal, always go left, as on there is no cover on the right.

I think variations of our respective plans will be the de facto attack strategy for a while. People need to understand that the ONLY advantage the attackers have is surprise over which mechs drop in each wave. Once people stop complaining about hitreg and IS lights being the boogeyman, they'll start working as a team with a plan.

To be fair, alot of heartache would be solved by having separate attack and defend dropdecks. If you click attack and have to defend a counterattack, it is a real race to swap mechs in time.

[SgtExo]

Veritae, on 15 December 2014 - 09:03 AM, said:

I think variations of our respective plans will be the de facto attack strategy for a while. People need to understand that the ONLY advantage the attackers have is surprise over which mechs drop in each wave. Once people stop complaining about hitreg and IS lights being the boogeyman, they'll start working as a team with a plan.

To be fair, alot of heartache would be solved by having separate attack and defend dropdecks. If you click attack and have to defend a counterattack, it is a real race to swap mechs in time.

Right now I am just switching 1 mech between attack and defence. Most of my mechs are stuck in basic until I get more money for a third battlemaster and more xp to finish my locust basic. I have no modules in them, and I use no consumables (but that might change for the attacks on sulfur). The real thing that matters is group coordination and piloting skill.

I am pretty sure I can defend against the leading attack strategy that is not zerg rushing, described as the 12 JJ and ignore everything. I have not had the chance to go against it. I also have only had the chance to defend Boreal, but had over a dozen matches there. The counter to the strategy is to locate the push, but a lance of mechs infront of it, and the rest of the team can shoot them up like in a tower defence game.

My only difference in my decks are that I bring a shadow hawk with a guass on defence or my cicada on offence.

The boreal map looks allot easier on both offence and defence for our unit due to the fact that we have so much time to shoot down the attackers, but when we attack, defenders are always to much up front and we can outpace them even in our assaults and heavy mechs.

Sulfur looks allot harder to defend and attack at the same time because the defenders are always on top of the generator, and it can go both ways, because you can pull them to one side and send a lance from the opposite direction.

I am loving this allot more than the normal group queue where we would lose most of the time (or at least it felt like it). Now there seems to be allot of people in units that would only play in the solo queue grouping up, but their teamwork and coordination does not seem to be up to par.