Posted 21 March 2015 - 11:38 AM
Some assaults, notably the Atlas, definitely feel like they're helpless against poptarts - unless your team is there to help you shoot back to ensure that the poptart loses whenever he tries to trade.
I frequently find myself admonishing my team for repositioning without notifying the assault lance. Many's the time I've spent a minute of hard fighting only to suddenly get rushed by the entire enemy team, glance at my minimap, and realize my entire team bailed on me and left me for dead, no warning, no thought to take a position to cover my retreat.
That being said, a good assault is really the backbone of a strong team. The primary function of an assault 'mech is to be difficult to kill. High-damage striking is a job for heavies and mediums. The fatties take hits. When a proper Atlas rounds a corner and sees two enemy heavy 'mechs, they'd better retreat or they'll regret it more than he will.
Unless an enemy light 'mech has amazing cover all the way up to my ******, I have find surprisingly little issue dealing with light 'mechs who want to jump my back-armour. The exception is during the heat of battle, when a clever light pilot allows me to engage one or more enemies such that I've got to focus the brunt of my attention in one direction, giving the light a chance to flank and stay on my flank. While I've always found it incredibly easy to engage enemies from behind in a RVN-3L, I suspect this was mostly due to poor piloting and situational awareness on the part of my quarry.
The issues I see in-game relate to poor teamwork (pub queue nascar meta heavily disfavours assaults, and the people who play nascar meta apparently see no problem with this) and poptart issues. The latter are especially pronounced with any chassis where your workhorse weaponry is installed in a torso; a PCP Panter can relocate fast enough between volleys to make snap shots incredibly difficult unless it's with arm-mounted weaponry. And even then, you have to be ready - the first hit's usually free, but after that you have to be making damn sure that you win on trades, or they'll keep at it while your whole team watches and eats popcorn.
All told, I think one does not choose to pilot an assault 'mech for its firepower or its heavy weapon mounts (Dyer Wool being a conspicuous exception) so much as for its endurance and its battlefield presence. If you pilot a fattie, you're doing it for the team. Remember, the tank part comes before the spank.