Death ball. Tune chassis' for speed, 70-80kph average, lots of short cycle beam weapons, ams, some ecm (although if you're aggressive, the missile boats will be the ultimate weakness of a clan team). Trick is to stay tight, move together, and focus fire on legs. You have to be able to swarm the clans, engage them as a murderball and melt the legs out from underneath everything that's moving with a nacho dorito above it's head. As you gain control of their drop area, you keep hammering them as they hit the ground, with objectives as an afterthought to clean up after the defenders are neutralized.
The key is to stick together at all times, and to make sure you're brawling proper. Keep the CT moving left and right when the enemy is shooting at you, especially when moving across open ground or when you have to cross an ambush zone. Speaking of ambushes, you have to remember to GET OFF THE X! The spot designated for the ambush is chosen to be your grave site. The best way to deal with an ambush is to fight directly through it. The enemy is counting on catching you off guard, and hope to take the upper hand before you can organize a counter to the ambush. Move through the point, and immediately go on the counter attack as the enemy floods the ambush zone to pursue. This, in turn, puts them on the X.
Having weapons that can function in long or close range helps, so chassis' that boat LL or ERLL along with some medium ranged energy weapons or SRMs are good. If you move in a loose formation, with the ability to assemble a firing line at any point, you can melt everything that tries to play whack-a-mole in seconds, but you have to be able to immediately slip into go mode afterward to keep the pressure up. Avoid situations where you can't put the majority of your firepower on the heaviest enemy occupied quadrant, with fast movers ready to respond to attacks from the rear while the muscle keeps the line moving forward. This keeps your assaults and heavies from getting left behind. Just remember to use proper weapon discipline. In close range, use torso twisting with pops from auto cannons and SRMs. Spread that damage as much as possible as you get hit, and deliver accurate strikes to legs (smaller mechs) or noses (Timerwolves, Direwolves, Warhawks, etc.) Save the beam weapons for ranged accurate poking so you don't overheat too quick in CQB.
LRMs, leave them at home. You might get lucky a few matches and score a few kills with 2000k+ damage, but your team mates are punished heavily for your success. Having a full deck of direct fire weapons ensures you're able to lay down the firepower at any time, anywhere, whether the enemy team has ECM or not. Technically, the natural progression of warfare for ECM should evolve towards keeping your team invisible as you move, and to help delay or deny locks from streak boaters rather than a deterrent against LRMs. Keep the attack pressing and LRMs are nullified anyway, even clan LRMs. Watch those LRM boaters start to sizzle when they fire off their missiles under 180 meters along with their beam weapons. Having a deck full of AMS also helps to mitigate damage from streaks.
Your goal, is to always establish fire superiority and keep the enemy team thinking on their feet. If they aren't trained to deal with that level of confusion, they will fall in minutes. If they are trained to deal with it, you're gonna have a good fight. As long as you keep that aggression level up, it will at the least be a very close match.
TL;DR
Murderball, Direct fire weapons, aggressive tactics, speed, legs, legs, legs, legs, legs, legs, shoot for the effing legs = win
Edited by DaemonWulfe, 01 March 2015 - 09:16 AM.
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