Jherek C, on 13 October 2015 - 02:58 AM, said:
3. Lights are for scouting and to nag the enemy. Your purpose is to lock targets, report about flanks and mess up the fireline of the enemy by running among them and try to distract their firepower from your attack lances. Each shot the enemy tries to place on a squirrel, is spared on your assaults. You have speed, use it. Occasionally a light pilot will return to their team into the third line and watch for threats among the legs of the heavier mechs.
This... is an oversimplification of two out of several possible specializations (scouting and harassment) that makes lights sound like they're exclusively for supporting roles. Do lights make good scouts? Yeah, some do, because they can reposition faster than other 'Mechs and therefore get sightlines that other 'Mechs couldn't. But... well, honestly, lights are the most varied class in the game. You just can't put them all in the same box and say "lights are for this."
Some 'Mechs have geometry that is very, very bad for traditional scouting duties, or 'squirreling' as you've suggested. Take the Jenner, for instance. Good firepower, good speed, jets... GIGANTIC CT HITBOX. Squirrel through the middle of an enemy team in that and you die. Ridge-peek to hold locks and you die. Use it as a hit-and-run assassin, which is what it was made for, and suddenly it can pull its weight and then some.
Adders, Kit Foxes, Urbanmechs, and even Panthers are most emphatically not scouts, and aren't even particularly good at flanking enemies. What they are good at is carrying big guns around and punching out 'Mechs with them, a job they do best when they stick with the team and rely on the enemy paying more attention to the bigger, supposedly more dangerous assaults. Now, arguably the slower lights should be considered advanced user platforms, but if a newbie should happen to buy one and use it as you've suggested? All they'll be is a free kill. Slow lights stick with the team- they are glass cannons. If they go out on their own, they tend to draw more fire than if they stick with the bigger, more attractive targets... nevermind that they don't have the legs to run away from striker lights like the FS9 and ACH.
Once you're in a light with a ~30 point alpha strike or more, then your proper role is that of a straight-up killer and frankly you are misusing your 'Mech if all you do with it is run around holding locks and playing squirrel.
A further note on scouting with light 'Mechs (or any 'Mech):
If you want to provide locks, you need a UAV. Period. You carry it on a fast light to get it into position, find a place where the enemy isn't likely to notice it, and deploy it over a cluster of enemies- hopefully without exposing yourself to enemy fire at all (seismic sensor helps with that). A single light 'Mech holding locks is more or less an exercise in suicidal lunacy with the current pinpoint, high-damage, laser+Gauss and ECM meta. You're in a 'Mech that can take exactly one alpha from an enemy heavy or assault before it's either dead or crippled, and you can't hard cancel enemy ECM unless you get super close with your own ECM/BAP. NARC is unreliable (only works if you peg it on the ECM carrier, and only then if you've pegged every ECM carrier in the area) and TAG is suicidal (since it requires you to stare for long periods at things that can instagib you). Bring a UAV (and seismic!) if you're serious about scouting as a role.
Edited by PS WrathOfDeadguy, 18 October 2015 - 02:38 PM.