204 replies to this topic

[Tyler Valentine]

lordtzar, on 04 June 2015 - 09:19 AM, said:

Well, as a spider pilot I can say the first thing I do is find the enemy team and target all of them for the scouting bonus and then rake a laser across the entire enemy team for an easy 10-12 assists. Damage isn't usually going to be high, so you gotta get the cbills where you can. I then focus on shooting them in the back until I get chased off.

You'd be surprised how effective the harassment can be. Once you've stripped the back armor off they aren't going to risk getting shot in the back again and they'll more often than not back up into a corner and are useless right up until my team finds them and 8v1s the guy. Sometimes they'll chase the squirrel. At the very least it'll maintain parity by having to send a mech to chase you off.

I gotta agree with lordtzar even though it's not popular opinion here. LL ravens can be very effective at finding and annoying the enemy. When that whale turns around to see who's shooting him in the back I pop around the corner and alpha strike that same section of armor, and if a couple guys from the other team decide to run off and chase that Raven at the beginning of the match, we're up 2 nothing. It's all about the pilot, like every other 'mech. Tell me you're not equally annoyed (if not more so because of the wasted tonnage) by the Atlas/Dire pilot that tries to stand behind other 'mechs and play peek-a-boo instead of pushing around the corner and starting the rush.
However, to answer your original question... no, nothing takes less skill. it's firing a single weapon system, that has no lead time, with [usually] no return fire. I don't see how it can be easier than that. Just keep moving and, thanks to AWESOME hit detection, they can't even hit you for full damage

[Gattsus]

Clan mechs require little skill, I feel like enabling easy mode.

Tbr > Scr > Hbr > thunderbolt > 3L

[Madcap72]

Bishop Steiner, on 05 June 2015 - 10:51 AM, said:

go for it. If you actually play in a way that benefits the team, I could care less what you drive.

In honor of continued lack of reading comprehension, I'll keep not giving a crap.

What is there to comprehend, you made a thread singling out a specific build you dislike players playing, who don't preform to a standard you've arbitrarily placed upon them.

[Xetelian]

RVN 3L needs a certain amount of skill to pull off,

[Bishop Steiner]

Xetelian, on 05 June 2015 - 12:24 PM, said:

RVN 3L needs a certain amount of skill to pull off,

yes, to actually be useful.

As the OP states, this is referring to the vast majority of Large Laser Jedis who are anything but.

[DAYLEET]

I just looked at my 3L yesterday and it made me grin in an evil way. It has an lrm10 a Tag and a LL. Back then the missile would fire 1 by 1 and slowly too(it's been changed they now all fire at the same time). Basicaly what that did was disable the mech i was shooting at because he could neither see nor fire with accuracy. It was a terrible mech for the front line but when i spotted a medium flanking for some brawling i would follow and target his target. He would be free to do the circle dance while his target was blind, deaf, and dumb 60% of the time. It was a **** loadout lol. Didnt do much damage and much less kills but i can tell you it was very effective none the less. Not easy to play either because ammo count was low (2ton)so i had to make sure it wasnt being wasted in a big brawl(theres always a **** with an ams=)), and yeah some matches it was useless and others awesome.

Edited by DAYLEET, 05 June 2015 - 02:20 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

BTW, just got out of a match with a cat who was the antithesis of the type of pilot mentioned in the OP. Guy named pinhead, who was the last alive, but engaging at all ranges, and racked up 891 dmg before going down.

AKA, piloting the mech effectively, not lightsabering away. SALUTE to that guy. Shame I don't see more like him.

[patataman]

Wow, so much hate for the erll raven-3L. I sold my 3l when the ssrm build was popular (for me it was boring and op), and buyed it back for cw, with a 2erll and tag build. It worked well for me this past months, i didn't know or notice that it was obsolete, but i don't play it like a lone wolf sniper, i'm usually near the assaults providing ecm cover, painting enemy ecm mechs and taking care of uavs/lr targets/focusing fire. If the 3l is on the other side of the map and the main group doesn't have ecm... something is very wrong.

I think that positioning and timing are the most effective skills in this game. But i have bad aiming and perhaps i'm trying to compensate that with other skills.

[Soy]

Well fact of the matter is anyone sitting behind a boulder going forward and reverse for 7-8 mins straight hitting spacebar is a colossal ******.

Regardless of the mech they're in.

[KinLuu]

Bishop Steiner, on 05 June 2015 - 10:51 AM, said:

[...]If you actually play in a way that benefits the team, I could care less what you drive.[...]

Nothing you can do, will change anything about the players tendency to value their own success above the success of their team. Especially not posting on a forum.

[Bishop Steiner]

Soy, on 05 June 2015 - 10:46 PM, said:

Well fact of the matter is anyone sitting behind a boulder going forward and reverse for 7-8 mins straight hitting spacebar is a colossal ******.

Regardless of the mech they're in.

which I suppose I could have simply stated in the OP. But I think it's made things much more colorful my way. Also exposed how many people either have really poor reading comprehension, or are just looking to argue for the sake of.

[Mudhutwarrior]

The game forces 3l drivers to act in the way being discussed. When I got mine I was new to lites and terribad. Trying to help my team in the usual roles was pretty pointless and I was usually first to go with little or no dam to count. The team doesn't care to look out for me so why should I look out for them?

Once I adopted the hit everyone at least once, poke and hit from the rear tactic I actually started to earn XP to level it. It takes a good long time to get used to and be decent at lites and I am still working at it.

Hate all you want, your influence means nothing in comparison to my match scores and cbills earned. The issue is PGIs setup of the game not the players in it. If they are not exploiting the game like warp idiots I am fine with it.

[Kyle Travis]

I tend to stick with the pack to provide ECM cover and TAG locks - be that with my Raven 3L or Pirates Bane - unless I am grabbing objectives.

I used to help with the BAP as well but that seems to be pretty useless these days?

[Bishop Steiner]

Mudhutwarrior, on 06 June 2015 - 02:40 AM, said:

The game forces 3l drivers to act in the way being discussed. When I got mine I was new to lites and terribad. Trying to help my team in the usual roles was pretty pointless and I was usually first to go with little or no dam to count. The team doesn't care to look out for me so why should I look out for them?

Once I adopted the hit everyone at least once, poke and hit from the rear tactic I actually started to earn XP to level it. It takes a good long time to get used to and be decent at lites and I am still working at it.

Hate all you want, your influence means nothing in comparison to my match scores and cbills earned. The issue is PGIs setup of the game not the players in it. If they are not exploiting the game like warp idiots I am fine with it.

No, it really doesn't. But nice excuse-

[Wildstreak]

Ted Wayz, on 05 June 2015 - 11:18 AM, said:

if only we could go back to the hard days of Highlanders sitting half way across a map and poptarting their Gauss. Cuz that was skillz.

Did you ever think that the guy in the Raven might be new and this is the play style they feel the most comfortable with?

And you think a Raven 3L takes less skill than any of the tier 1 mechs? If I was noob I would head straight for a Dakka Whale. You just need "W" and "Mouse 1" to profit.

Or grab a streak Crow or Maddog, throw on a BAP and profit.

In any case I gave up expecting ECM in the pug queue from using their ECM for support, rather than hunting discos, about 2 years ago. My suggestion is you lower your expectations and focus on your own piloting.

Old days of Gauss, hell no.

Now I will agree on the Dakka Whale, that needs a nerf even more now that Clan ACs got buffed. The Crow & Dog are not as bad.

ECM in the PUG queue seems rare now.

Gattsus, on 05 June 2015 - 11:56 AM, said:

Clan mechs require little skill, I feel like enabling easy mode.

Tbr > Scr > Hbr > thunderbolt > 3L

Play stock Omnipods.

[Ian Grahame]

I run my 3L with 2 ERLL and a Tag, and how I play it depends on the map and the teams. If I'm the only ECM I try to stay close. If there are missleboats I tag a lot - it paints a line back to you but it is an effective focus fire tool in the Pug que where you don't often get it. If you paint a mech and light it up it tends to get shot, LRM's or not.

Do I solo snipe? Sometimes... if the situation on the map is in favor, if I can take back armor, legs, make them turn and pursue. Sometimes I just find a position where I am a walking UAV, get somewhere that most of their team shows up on radar and hang as long as I can before I get run off. Sometimes I get them to chase the rabbit. Sometimes I get killed really quick doing this stuff. Ridge humping and sniping is a damn sight less risky.

That's all Pug. With the team it is completely different, although I don't run it with them too often.

[MechWarrior5152251]

Lots of builds let you stay at a safe distance. Some people hate to die. LRM builds can stay out of things pretty well and take even less skill....

[Sjorpha]

Bishop Steiner, on 05 June 2015 - 12:31 PM, said:

yes, to actually be useful.

As the OP states, this is referring to the vast majority of Large Laser Jedis who are anything but.

That makes it a rather pointless question though, as it doesn't take any skill at all to be useless no matter what mech you drive.

The only relevant question, for any mech, is what it takes to make it work best for the win, and 2 ERL raven requires a steady hand like all long duration lasers, and also understanding what ECM is best used for, when to give your team ECM cover, when to hide, when to counter enemy ECM and so on. I'd say it's a pretty complex mech to max out the impact of.

[Bishop Steiner]

Sjorpha, on 08 June 2015 - 06:31 AM, said:

That makes it a rather pointless question though, as it doesn't take any skill at all to be useless no matter what mech you drive.

The only relevant question, for any mech, is what it takes to make it work best for the win, and 2 ERL raven requires a steady hand like all long duration lasers, and also understanding what ECM is best used for, when to give your team ECM cover, when to hide, when to counter enemy ECM and so on. I'd say it's a pretty complex mech to max out the impact of.

quite a difference between "using" and "maxing out". As in, while the skill ceiling may be high, the skill floor is laughably low, also. Speed, Small Size, ECM and Dot Ranged weapons..... all the ingredients to an effective tool are also all the ones that make its even easier to be, and stay, BAD.

[Trolzylulzy]

I would say that I'm an effective 3L pilot that uses 2ERLLs almost exclusively, averages 300 damage a game and sticks with his team to provide ECM while the lights that aren't made of wet tissue paper go scout, but that wouldn't be the point of this thread.

The issue that isbeing presented is the fact that bad players gravitate toward long range mechs, woth the cheapest options being the Spider and the Rav3n, onpy one of which has a good hero and two other good variants. Just think of it like this;
Bad players play cheap mechs, not because they want to, but because they must, not throug some compulsion of their own, but because they can't make the money to buy the bigger and move expensive options.

No mech in this game is legitimately bad *cough*exceptVindicatorsandQuickdraws*cough*, it's just the mechs that are easily available to the bad players that achieve this stigma of being bad mechs.