20 replies to this topic

[oldradagast]

I bought the charity Jenner when it came out, and eventually got 3 and leveled them, but I'm horrible with them. Oddly, I do fine in the Kit Fox (I use ECM, a large energy weapon, and 4 machine guns on the 2 I have.) I know the Jenner is (or was) mostly center torso, which is part of the problem, but I just cannot get the hang of it.

Most matches in my Jenners go like this:
1) Run around a bit early on to scout. Try not to die
2) Combat begins. Try to find something to do that doesn't involve dying, which is hard since medium lasers and SRM's only work up close
3) Eventually get in a fight and get legged or die.

At this point, I'm not sure if it's the mech, my playstyle, or how they interact. I do okay in Kit Foxes, but horrible in Jenners. Maybe I need an IS light that fights more like my Kitfoxs? I know Firestarters are tougher, but they run HOT. Panthers are slower (like the Kitfox) but with a mix of weapons, including PPC's. Not sure...

Ideas would be appreciated - thanks!

Edited by oldradagast, 19 June 2015 - 12:57 PM.

[InspectorG]

Kitfoxes are kinda regarded as pocket mediums.

Thing about Jenners are they can poke well. FS is the 'brawler' of the lights because of the hitboxes/speed/energy boat.

With the Jenner, a decent strategy is to hang with the assaults early to mid match, then as things build up or trench in - look for easy pokes while an enemy is engaged with someone else.

'Free Trade' like a lobbyist...If an enemy is tunnel visioned on focusing your team's Dire, slap him and quickly hide.

Once you get the hang of the places to do this and when, you can use it to harass and unbalance the enemy team...maybe get them to chase a cookie.

Anything a light can do to get fire diverted away from a teammate is good and [art of their 'role'.

[3xnihilo]

InspectorG speaks truth. The only thing I would add is sometimes I will flank wide of the team and the. When the enemy is distracted by our front line, start poking from the sides or behind. This does one of two things, I died be lots of free shots as the enemy ignores me in favor of the main force or they turn their attention towards me giving my team mates free shots. Both are good things. I do not scout a lot unless on a whim I circle wide and head towards the enemy side of the battle field. If I intercept them I can report. If I don't I head back towards the team hopefully sneaking in behind the enemy.

As far as different mechs, the Urbie is much like a kitfox but with 360 deg torso twist which is awesome and probably panthers as well. Jenners are tough wih the all ct thin going on, so you have to be sneaky and attack from unexpected places, no face tanking or getting into situations where you would roll damage in a heavier mech... Jenners don't roll

[stealthraccoon]

I have always been frustrated with the Jenners, I think they are played most successfully using hit n' run tactics. They just seem too large for me. I suppose at some point I should give them another shot, but they aren't exactly at the top of my list. I think the loadouts just aren't interesting (medium lasers and SRM4's get kinda yawn after a bit).

I have really taken to the Urbanmechs, but beware: once you get used to the 360 rotation, all other mechs are inferior! It can be difficult to be fast, but with the right loadouts and gameplay it can work (heck I ran my R60L with 3 tons of armor many many times. It's still pretty amazing how people can ignore you when you are filling their rear center torso with autocannon rounds. I do a lot of hide and seek - toss a few rounds at someone who is distracted, and reposition. Last night I managed 4 kills and over 700 damage - with an AC5 and 2 medium lasers (still lost) I swear every single round found a home, and enemies just didn't think I was worth shooting at.

Edited by stealthraccoon, 19 June 2015 - 09:17 PM.

[oldradagast]

Thanks for the help!

I WANT to understand Light mechs - I feel like I'm missing out on 1/4 of the game without "getting" them. Also, when I first started I didn't "get" Medium mechs, because I tried to play them like slow, weaker Heavies. Once things clicked - thanks to the folks on this forum - I probably play Mediums more than any other weight class. I also own more of them then any other weight class, too.

I may look into the Panther, and the Urbie is tempting.... I already play Hunchbacks and enjoy them, so what's a few more degrees of rotation? Lol!

[InspectorG]

oldradagast, on 20 June 2015 - 04:02 AM, said:

Thanks for the help!

I WANT to understand Light mechs - I feel like I'm missing out on 1/4 of the game without "getting" them. Also, when I first started I didn't "get" Medium mechs, because I tried to play them like slow, weaker Heavies. Once things clicked - thanks to the folks on this forum - I probably play Mediums more than any other weight class. I also own more of them then any other weight class, too.

I may look into the Panther, and the Urbie is tempting.... I already play Hunchbacks and enjoy them, so what's a few more degrees of rotation? Lol!

Advice i give for lights is fight like a p*ssy.
Think like a RPG thief archetype.

If they see you, you did it wrong.
If its a fair fight, you did it wrong.
If you are doing more brawling than the heavies(and it aint working), you did it wrong.
If you are getting only even or bad trades, you did it wrong.

Sometimes you have to wait the first half of the match out...just escort the fat guys to keep enemy lights off of them. They will love you.
Second half the match is where you can bust out. Heavies and Assaults dont care about you when they have full armor.
They get very scared of you when they are cored and short ammo or running hot.

The days of Commandos/Jenners/FS's running wild trough the enemy team lag shielding everything are gone.
Now you gotta play like a ghetto punk, that means playing dirty.

And you will develop the spidey-sense of when to run like a coward. Then you learn to turn that into a tactic to get some fool to follow you into a trap.

[oldradagast]

I've been doing somewhat better: I played a bit Sunday, and I had 6 kills and decent damage across 2 games in my Kitfoxes, and 1 or occasionally 2 kills in my Jenners across several games. Monday was back to the scrap heap, though - I just wasn't playing well at all.

I'll start a different thread about the situation I ran into Monday that left me baffled as to what to do that's useful in a Light.

Thanks!

[Tim East]

InspectorG, on 20 June 2015 - 08:08 AM, said:

If you are getting only even or bad trades, you did it wrong.

If you're trading at all, you're doing it wrong. The only reason to ever even let the enemy shoot at you is to get them to miss and waste ammo or overheat, and even then, it's unnecessarily risky, really.

[Kahadras]

With Lights mobility is the key. Hit and run, hit and run, hit and run. Don't stop moving unless you are 100% sure that nobody on the enemy team can see you. Basicaly you are trying to make it as hard as possible for people to hit you. If you are 'scouting' then don't engage. When you see the enemy, hit R, pull back out of sight and type a spot report into chat (or let people know over teamspeak).

In combat you are there to distract and annoy the enemy team. Wait until the rest of you team has engaged then try to work your way around behind the enemy. The best thing you can do is to hit an enemy in the back as it forces them to turn around to engage you and by this time you should already be running away.

[InspectorG]

Tim East, on 23 June 2015 - 07:31 AM, said:

If you're trading at all, you're doing it wrong. The only reason to ever even let the enemy shoot at you is to get them to miss and waste ammo or overheat, and even then, it's unnecessarily risky, really.

Thats what i meant. You can time the cooldown on most mechs...but i wouldnt on a Grid Iron.

[DA BAWSS]

If you'd like an IS light that plays like a kit fox, Ive got one in mind:

The COM-2D.
It can play just like a kit fox, but slightly faster, and much smaller:

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...echlab#modified


Now: as for the Jenner.
Don't expect the ammount of damage you get from heavies and mediums, but expect to get lots of destroyed components and stolen kills.

Remember the main key to being a good light pilot is: SPEED IS LIFE

There are 4 main fighting styles used by the Jenner:
1: The circle of death
2: The jousting match
3: Guerrilla fighting
4: Camping

The circle of death is a commonly used tactic by light pilots in order to harass and even kill lone mechs.
Keep a keen eye out for any mechs drifting away from their herd. using your swift speed, rush to them and open fire, circling them. They will struggle to aim at you, but attempt to juke you by quickly turning the other way. Be prepared for this by changing the direction of your circle every now and then.
REMEMBER: DO NOT TUNNEL VISION THEM.
Keep an eye out if their allies have come to aid them. if so, run away.

The Jousting match is a commonly employed method during large brawls with multiple mechs.
swerve and scoot between enemy mechs that are distracted with your larger cousins.
Move in patterns of straight dashes at one mech, then quickly turning another direction. Rinse and repeat.
aim for components that are likely to have large, powerful weapons in them, like the jagermechs arms.
If you find a mech that isn't brawling with another mech, use the circle of death on him.

As for the Guerilla fighter, hit and run tactics at mid range are the way to go.
use this in the beginning of the match, drifting torwards the sides and rear of the enemy.
Get close enough just to do minimal damage, then run away.
remember: STAY ALIVE. you will be a bigger benifit to your team later on.

Finally: Camping.
when an enemy mech is focused on a single teammate, stick to his rear and lay down as much fire as you can on a specific hardpoint. BE AWARE: in this state you are not moving much, and another enemy mech comes to help its ally, be sure to have a getaway plan.

[Glenn Cain]

well here's my story.

I bought alot of assaults early on and had always been training on them but my inherent playstyle was a rush-head, so I died on my assault a lot, only succeeding mostly on the atlas ddc with ecm and classic brawling setup that could do one short front loaded stack of damage in an instant (srm and ac20).

Then i bought the jenner with the fabled ML setup. i was doing 400 to 500 damage rather consistently. I had access to mobility that I never had for all the time. It allowed me to creep into urban areas and play havoc on any sized mech. I'm dealing 30 damage per salvo, or 15 per side if want to conserve my heat quota. I can poke at 500m out for just for fun if I want to. and run well.

Indeed as mentioned by many already, you do not seek to attack head on and hold your fire on your enemy. you seek to hit them when they are not directing their attention to you in the first place, ie you buddies are already engaging them, or when you know where to run right away after you hit them, or if you can really circle around them well, or if their armour is already stripped. lots of specific conditions to catch, but not hard to find when both sides are tossed up.

and then i had my oxide with 4 x srm4. same rules, only this time i run up close and fire and run away while my srm4 reloads. almost a guaranteed shot when up close.

be sneaky with a light. you will be rewarded.

[Barkem Squirrel]

To get better in lights I had to slow down, forcing myself to be sneaky. The Kitfox and adders allow for better targeting due to the speed and they make you think can I get out of there if I am charged.

That resulted in me always trying to hit from the sides or rear. I can not remember how many Jagermechs just after they came out that I killed due to ammo explosions in the legs, but it was a great learning experience. Then I started to increase the size of the engines. Even now I am comfortable running 124 to 142 kph in lights.

Learning Mediums and heavies also helped me learn the lights better.


Matthew 7:12 Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets

Luke 6:31 And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.


So after some soul searching and reflection on how to act, there is only one conclusion.

Do unto others before they do unto you.

Edited by Barkem Squirrel, 25 June 2015 - 08:48 AM.

[3xnihilo]

Barkem Squirrel, on 25 June 2015 - 08:46 AM, said:

To get better in lights I had to slow down, forcing myself to be sneaky.

Matthew 7:12 Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets

Luke 6:31 And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.


So after some soul searching and reflection on how to act, there is only one conclusion.

Do unto others before they do unto you.

Barkem, your hermeneutics may be a little sketchy, but you are absolutely spot on with your advice Sneaky is the big things with lights. If I understand right, there was a time with the lag was so bad that it was almost impossible to get a hit to register on a mech moving 150 kph or more. I get squashed enough going 169 kph to know that lagshield is not a reliable defense.

Like you said, learning Urbies/Cicadas/other mediums taught me a lot about finding a good position and moving from cover to cover and not being seen. If you want to deal a lot of damage in a light the best way to do it is like a ninja don't ever let them know where they are getting hit from.

Squirrel tactics are a little different, you want them to know where you are and chase you. . . but that usually doesn't score the damage and kills, but it can definitely influence the match in your teams favor. Another squirrelly tactic that I don't think has been mentioned, is that you can help a lot by distracting lrmboats and running their ammo down. Instead of getting bent our of shape every time you get into a match where that boat decides he is going to continually rain on only you, use it to your advantage. If he is focusing on you, give him just enough of a chance to lock you and fire, then use your speed to get to cover. If your opponent is like a lot of guys running lrms you can keep poking out and keep him firing at you, wasting all of his ammo and damage potential on the rock/building/tree that you are hiding behind. And, he isn't harassing your slower more vulnerable friends. Ideally, you will do this as you close the gap between yourself and the lrmer so that you can charge him and take him out of the equation completely.

[Glenn Cain]

speaking of lrm boats, i remember a time when an enemy catapult was firing away close to his side of the base and his buddies were up front. i was closing on him and realized he had no other weapon at all. it was a free kill literally.

[Narcissistic Martyr]

They have greatly improved the Jenner's hit boxes so it's pretty darn durable now. Not firestarter broken hitreg durable, but durable.

I mostly play jenners, ravens (AC20 Raven is best Raven), and fast medium SRM assassins.

I typically start the match by scouting the side they're less likely to be on because our forces will be headed to the more probably location. This allows me to call out if there's going to be a flanking maneuver.

After that... well it depends on the map and the mode. I typically end up sitting still in cover waiting for our forces to properly engage, dealing with any flanking lights/mediums. Once the battle is joined however, I prefer to get around behind them and take out their rear armor. If I can't do that, I treat my jenner like a brawler medium, and support our big brawlers because no one shoots the jenner when there's an atlas in your face. Also, if I see a flank that's slightly weak I'll rush to bring my weapons to bear there. An extra 30 points of damage can save a mech for your side. While doing all of this I'm constantly looking for targets with an exposed body part to laser off. Removing 50% of your enemy's weaponry, legging them, or outright killing them is worth a little risk.

For combat, I like a combination of hill humping, and hit and run fighting. Circle strafing doesn't work so well anymore, except against a lone dire wolf or king crab. Even then it's a high risk move considering they only have to hit you once to kill or cripple you.

For armor distribution, I like 10 in the rear so I still have 12 HP left if I eat 2PPC or an AC20. You even have 2 left after dual Gauss but you won't live long that way.

Also, while fleeing (which you'll do a lot!) I suggest you run in a serpentine pattern.

[WatDo]

First thing you're doing wrong is you're playing a jenner. The second most meh light, first are the commander and that bad spider variant.

You say you play your foxes with machine guns and atleast one big laser. You literally want the Spider 5k. 1 uberquirked ER large laser, 4 machine guns and jjs. Poke with the ridiculous er laser all day long because with quirks it runs cool and reloads almost as fast as the beam fires, then when things are winding down you can use machine guns and the crazylaser to #rekt broken mechs. It even has machine gun quirks, just for you.

Alternatively you could try the ravens, they seem up your alley, especially the 3L with 2 erlls and ecm. My personal favorite is the 2x with 2 largelasers, 2 meds.

Second thing to remember is outside of the firestarter, light mechs are in a pretty bad place with the PowerSprinting going on. Unless you're a good pilot and know what you're doing light mechs are harsh. That might be another reason why you're doing poorly, the other reason is indeed your playstyle. You say you like the pokey ecm foxes. Don't force yourself into brawling lights, as i said they're in a bad place right now and there's plenty of other lights like your fox.

IF you must brawl in a light though, drop the jenner and get the firestarters and their magical hitboxes will carry you to victory.

[oldradagast]

Thanks for the thoughts and suggestions!

Yeah, brawling lights is a rough place. I've had some better luck lately by sticking with another light and basically "doing what he does" - provided it isn't blindingly stupid, of course. This helps since two lights harassing another mech works more than twice as well as just one, even if we move off from the group, annoying some people, and then run back. Odds of survival for both mechs goes up a good deal since the enemy can't keep his weapons on both of us - one is usually behind him. So, that's a valid tactic that's helping.

[Plaguetongue]

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...c488bac5bdc0b36

playstyle: just stand at your team

[Taldaron]

Thanks for this post man!!! I like the light mechs but I was really struggling with them, then got 3 kills the game after reading ^.^

It really is a rougish playstyle isn't it?

InspectorG, on 20 June 2015 - 08:08 AM, said:

Advice i give for lights is fight like a p*ssy.
Think like a RPG thief archetype.

If they see you, you did it wrong.
If its a fair fight, you did it wrong.
If you are doing more brawling than the heavies(and it aint working), you did it wrong.
If you are getting only even or bad trades, you did it wrong.

Sometimes you have to wait the first half of the match out...just escort the fat guys to keep enemy lights off of them. They will love you.
Second half the match is where you can bust out. Heavies and Assaults dont care about you when they have full armor.
They get very scared of you when they are cored and short ammo or running hot.

The days of Commandos/Jenners/FS's running wild trough the enemy team lag shielding everything are gone.
Now you gotta play like a ghetto punk, that means playing dirty.

And you will develop the spidey-sense of when to run like a coward. Then you learn to turn that into a tactic to get some fool to follow you into a trap.

Best advice ever given.