19 replies to this topic

[Toast001]

The past few months i have been learning how to correctly pilot a assault, and for the life of me regardless of build i fear anything that moves over 100kph. I thought i will just pump my clan mech with streaks and destroy those little shits, but if a light gets into your face before you can get a lock and hopefully know something off its nearly impossible to get a lock when there running around you. Its just so frustrating how one sided a assault vs light can be.

[Bartholomew bartholomew]

Lasers and sweep the legs. Put you back to something if you can.

Edit if you cannot, walk in a BACKWARDS circle. you will get slightly longer on target time for the most part.

Edited by Bartholomew bartholomew, 23 December 2014 - 04:34 PM.

[John80sk]

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...de958e166871b20
Turn off arm lock (you can lock with just your arm reticle), make sure to include the BAP for reduced lock on time, use the cooldown AND the range module. Will 2 shot 35 ton lights more often than not (or at least blow off 2 arms and a leg).


Or just, y'know, learn to shoot.

[Pjwned]

If you have a clan streak boat and find that it does something other than make light mechs melt, especially considering the speeds of anything <85 tons for clans and the extra range on clan streak missiles, you might want to re-evaluate your piloting methods.

[SweetJackal]

Are lights the ultimate 1 vs 1 Brawler? No, not by a long shot.

Lights trade massive amounts of tonnage (which equals Firepower and Armor) for speed and mobility. Assaults generally make the reverse trade to that, meaning that if a light uses it's strengths to your weaknesses then you will find yourself in a situation where a light mech will earn solo kills on assaults.

By that same respect, if the assault acknowledges their weaknesses and shores them up with good positioning and prediction then the mobility strengths and weaknesses matter less. You can then use your advantage in tonnage (read again: firepower and armor) to squish the light mech before they can get out and dodge.

A basic tactic used by light mechs is to try to circle their target. This is good in that it makes it harder to get a lock but this is actually a pretty bad tactic overall. Circling puts them in a very close range and within reach of not only close range weapons but also the limited movement of their target. It requires the target to not be near any movement obstructions and relies upon the target trying to play catch up to get shots in.

Circling is generally bad as the light pilot is intentionally putting themselves in the firing line of something much bigger than themselves at regular intervals when to be able to start circling their target they have to approach from the flanks or behind. A stronger tactic is to keep yourself at speed and in a blind spot of your target, breaking off when you would have to slow down, stop, or intentionally cross your target's line of fire.

As anything slow that is being circled, your two best defenses are to not panic and have friends. If you have anyone nearby then the light mech in question will be forced to run toward them and away from them in a straight line when they circle you, basic geometry. This makes them an easy target and provides a fire line to them where they won't commit friendly fire. The second means of dealing with a circling fast mover relies upon your skills as a pilot.

You can turn against his rotation instead of following and with a little bit of prediction based aiming based on the circling mech's speed and knowledge of your weapons you can plant a full damage volley right into them. Front loaded damage like PPCs and SRMs are obviously the best for this, spread damage weapons will often scarf off massive amounts of armor and leave them exposed (and should scare them off) or pinpoint damage could outright kill them (Almost every IS fast mover is running an XL.) Or if you are having trouble landing hits like that you could use over time weapons to do a sweep of the legs, which is easier but eats through their leg armor much more slowly and even an alternative to that is to simply move your big fat butt into their path.

That last one is the real clincher for why Circling is a bad idea against players that know that they are doing. Giving your opponents a chance to be able to body block your movement should be an instant death sentence as you are pulled to a dead stop. Once stopped the advantages of mobility become zero and you are looking at a firepower vs armor race. Something that assaults are very, very good at.

Edited by SuckyJack, 23 December 2014 - 05:27 PM.

[GRiPSViGiL]

No...I soloed 2 FS9-As in Terra Therma with 1LPL5ML Gargoyle. Legs get evaporated now that hitreg is fixed.

[Brody319]

yes the Locust is the deadliest thing within 100 meters.

[mogs01gt]

If the light as ECM(assuming you do not have BAP), is going over 140 and you are stuck with Medium lasers, the yes they will eventually get you.

[Mcgral18]

1 VS 1? WubShee beats just about anything. Nearly a 60 hitscan alpha.

It can pump out nearly 200 damage in 10 seconds. It has gigantic shield arms. It's (moderately) fast.

[Kenyon Burguess]

you'll find most of the light pilots like to slow down or even stop to line up a shot on the back armor. that's when turn and I gank them with an alpha. its all about situational awareness

[TheGallows]

I'm not trying to be rude, but if you can't beat a light 1 vs 1 when you are packing streaks, you are simply a bad pilot. Improving your game require you understand your mistakes and correct them, not blaming game balance when you are being outplayed.

Practice your aiming skills so that you can reliably hold a lock with streaks. Maneuver your mech so that you either have cover to put your back against or allies that can protect your rear.

[RangerGee412]

1 on 1 no problem. When there are 2 of them then you might have a problem lol

[mogs01gt]

TheGallows, on 23 December 2014 - 07:00 PM, said:

I'm not trying to be rude, but if you can't beat a light 1 vs 1 when you are packing streaks, you are simply a bad pilot. Improving your game require you understand your mistakes and correct them, not blaming game balance when you are being outplayed.

Practice your aiming skills so that you can reliably hold a lock with streaks. Maneuver your mech so that you either have cover to put your back against or allies that can protect your rear.

Geez more troll posts. Did you bother reading what he posted?

If you cant see them, probably because you didnt see them to lock on to anything, then you cannot lock onto them. The issue the OP is referring to is that they are scaled down too much.

[SweetJackal]

mogs01gt, on 23 December 2014 - 07:57 PM, said:

Geez more troll posts. Did you bother reading what he posted?

If you cant see them, probably because you didnt see them to lock on to anything, then you cannot lock onto them. The issue the OP is referring to is that they are scaled down too much.

The OP referred to the speed and the circle tactics, how that brings the light mechs out of his field of fire and causes him to lose the lock before the lock finishes. At no point was there a reference to them being scaled down too much and light mech scaling isn't the issue at hand at any point

[Corrado]

TheGallows, on 23 December 2014 - 07:00 PM, said:

I'm not trying to be rude, but if you can't beat a light 1 vs 1 when you are packing streaks, you are simply a bad pilot. Improving your game require you understand your mistakes and correct them, not blaming game balance when you are being outplayed.

Practice your aiming skills so that you can reliably hold a lock with streaks. Maneuver your mech so that you either have cover to put your back against or allies that can protect your rear.

improve your ping. fixed.

seriously.. high ping and bad netcode makes your wubs and dakkas less efficient than a good old cssrm6 boat.

[MountainCopper]

Lights having a high chance of winning against an Assault is one of the major annoyances with the game. A design choice I don't agree with.

Certain (fast) Lights have an 80%+ chance of winning a 1v1, an estimated 95% if it's a Spider or Firestarter on steroids...

[Rear Admiral Tier 6]

Only thing giving me trouble is Firestarters,they just refuse to die or register damage,hell even Spiders are easy to take down compared to those broken POS .

There is something wrong when you can pump 2 58 point laser alphas (2 LPL 6 MPL) to FS that is running directly towards you aka. not evading in any way and it just shrugs it off.Or 2 2 PPC+Gauss alphastrikes barely peel of the armor.

With clan lasers its easier because with the longer duration you can find the actual hitboxes more easily.

And no,im not moving into any 3rd world country to get a lower ping.

[Rehl]

I can't count the number of times some overconfident Firestarter or Locust started zipping around my King Crab only to get smoked 3 seconds later by 2 well placed AC20 rounds. You've just got to anticipate where they're going to be. Not that that's easy, mind you, but it's very doable. And seismic helps tons.

[Kiiyor]

Toast001, on 23 December 2014 - 04:21 PM, said:

The past few months i have been learning how to correctly pilot a assault, and for the life of me regardless of build i fear anything that moves over 100kph. I thought i will just pump my clan mech with streaks and destroy those little shits, but if a light gets into your face before you can get a lock and hopefully know something off its nearly impossible to get a lock when there running around you. Its just so frustrating how one sided a assault vs light can be.

To be honest, I only have issues with lights when piloting assaults. Generally, anything lighter has the footwork to keep the crosshairs in the right place.

Which is good. I like that Assaults pretty much have a hard counter in a well piloted light. Even then though, with a bit of practice, even the most ponderous assaults can pull out enough tricks to at least make a light work for it's meal - and while a light might be able to force an assault to suffer the ignominy of a death by a thousand cuts, an assault generally only needs to land one good hit.

[generalazure]

Sometimes, it takes an obscene amount of hits to take them out. Sometimes a single ac20 round is enough. Hitreg is a fickle god, but when brawling I usually find them easier to deal with than most assaults.