What I love is that the TDR-9S drop deck has been going in IS vs IS since day mother ******* ONE. 228 was using it when they were Kurita playing against Davion. It's been over a month now, we all adapted and moved on. Now that the Clanners are seeing it and seeing organized units deploying it instead of ROFLSTOMPing pugs in crappy pug queue builds it's TEH WURST THNG EVAR!
Let's make this clear. Comp teams like 228 and ilk of that caliber will roll the **** out of you with Orion streak-boats with SPLs and LB10Xs. They are comp teams and they min/max everything and are really, really good at it. The issue isn't the TDR-9S - it's that a comp team who practices relentlessly on coordinated fire uses them and puts all that damage on the same location. There's a video of them doing it with 12 king crabs with dual-gauss; they rolled an entire team 48-0 with dual gauss King Crabs. Cuz FUNNY.
I'm going to cheat and tell you the magic tricks we all use to deal with this:
1. Actually scout the other team composition before you go blundering in.
2. Jump the gate - bring NARC and TAG, send in 6 lights with UAV, NARC and TAG. Make sure you get all the ECM cover they brought (it's probably a couple raven 3Ls or Spiders). Have the other 6 be LRM boats. Clanners rock those. Make it rain.
3. Send in 2 suicide mechs to JJ over by the generators and blow the gates. There are a ton of rock solid high damage, fast burst suicide builds. 6xSRM6 comes to mind; you only need to live a couple of seconds to open a gate with one. You cross just behind the generator, gives you cover from most of them.
4. Lemming-run. You'll lose a couple of guys but 1 solid lemming run from all 12 will open Alpha.
5. Rush to brawl. Quit staying out and poking; buy them out of the 2 waves of 9S's they probably have and then you're running Scrows and Twolves against Wubberbolts and Firestarters. Make your first 2 waves Twolves (no Dires) and Scrows with a couple LRM5s for the screenshake and laservomit. Focus CT, they'll almost all be STD engines.
We dealt with this issue a month ago in IS vs IS. It's not even the meta, aside from high-comp teams that really only every have done focused fire. In the end it's a crutch for them in a lot of ways; there are better tactics they could employ and that other teams employ, they're just good enough at the focused fire they don't have to use the more complex stuff.
I called this before. Clanners were all 'it's not the mechs, we're just better' right up until they started running into regular comp teams instead of rolling pugs in pug-queue builds or small 1-3mans derping around. Now they're running into what the rest of us have been playing against since day freaking number one and they're all 'this is unplayable and unfun and we're just going home until we don't have to fight against stuff we can't easily win against'.
THIS is why I never liked the Clans in TT. Everyone tries to say and has always tried to say 'Pfft, Clanners have plenty of limitations, lower numbers offset the tech advantage!' and in MW:O 'No no, it's just that better players play Clan mechs. They're TOTALLY BALANCED. The TW isn't the best heavy in the game and the Scrow isn't the best medium hands down, they're just above average.' All this gets parroted
so long as they are consistently winning. The moment things actually get balanced out or they end up in a fight that's not stacked in their favor the tears fall like rain. I hate to generalize but most people who play Clans flat out
expect to have a significant advantage. They have no interest in a fair or balanced fight or even worse an actual challenge.
Mcgral18, on 07 January 2015 - 08:21 AM, said:
It's not limited to one role; it brawls just under how it snipes.
It's more heat efficient than most brawlers. That's part of the reason it's so laughable. It's almost like you've never used it.
I'd say you've never played the TDR-9S then. It's alright. Not amazing but alright. It's only dangerous in groups and groups that focus fire well at that. If you think it brawls well.... really? It's got about 10 DPS. Bit under. You can make a medium with better brawling DPS pretty easily. If you can't roll a TDR-9S as close range with a Shawk you need to practice more.
Here's the other thing -
We've been playing against and beating that meta on the IS vs IS matches for about a month now. In fact we've pretty much moved past that meta already; it's already old hat because you can beat it consistently if you know what you're doing. High comp groups still use it because, well, they can. They're rockstars at focused fire. They'd do the same thing to you with dual gauss King Crabs or poptart Cataphracts or whatever gives them a giggle. The Lightning Vomit setup just out-ranges Clanners and so works especially well at crushing the face of people who still want to stay back and poke, because that was EZ-MODES against pugs in pug-queue builds who've been populating the Clan border for the last month.
Go run one in pug queue and tell me if it's better than your Timberwolf, or even Scrow. Be honest.
Edited by MischiefSC, 07 January 2015 - 08:32 AM.