150 replies to this topic

[Davegt27]

ArcturusWolf, on 13 December 2015 - 04:54 PM, said:

What's the run-down on this? Could we get a summary?

Seems like something worth watching, but I'm stuck at work x.x

Sorry I tried to watch but my tablet is only getting 2g so I did not see much
Only like 4 people was watching from I can tell

[Tarogato]

Wildstreak, on 13 December 2015 - 05:19 PM, said:

Actually I think the next one should be IS vs Clan, been a long debate through changes on that without the IICs.
Just last night in CW, a PUG I was with ran into a 9 man from a Unit (not sure if the other 3 Kuritans were on comms with them). During the match, the Unit said on General Chat they switched from Clan to Kurita to prove IS is OP after the December 1 patch.

It was probably SW0L. They made a post about it on the forums - they split into two units so they could fight against themselves. The problem is, ... they're SW0L. At least today we had about 80% top-level players in this event, even if it wasn't well-balanced.

Maybe after Christmas we could set up a clan vs. IS event just like this one. Except with a bit more and better preparation. Sucks to have to spend so much time arguing about builds instead of just playing them...

[Mcgral18]

Sorry I didn't show, my game is still broken.

Expected result nonetheless.

[TheSilken]

Poor poor Tarogato in that ER PPC Arctic Cheetah. I feel for you bro. Having to assault our position like that on Crimson really sucked dude. xD

[Catalina Steiner]

Thanks for the event, especially TheSilken and Envisage, also everyone who streamed and helped to realize this.

Yes, it was fun, even if I was part of the LRM team that got stomped in every single match.

This event helped me a lot to get some things straight. To be honest, I wasn't aware of the dimensions of this event, I was invited via message and that's also the reason why I did not contact you, Envisage. I found this thread tonight when the link was posted in TS. Sorry for that.

***

I got some things straight... these are my thoughts:

1) It's not about LRM's vs. Meta. It's not even about LRM's vs any other weaponry. Every comparison of the incomparable is just unfair.

2) LRM's are not a competitive weapon, some people say. This event did not prove this theory to be right.
I was part of this event, this kind of test and I followed the standards. There were a lot of thoughts in the beginning and I respected that. But it was an experiment like made in a laboratory. It was artificial, not natural.
The biggest disadvantage was the fact that the enemy team knew about our mech configurations. They knew that LRM mechs were coming. There is no bigger advantage in battle than this. Certainly that proves that LRM's are a fragile weapon to choose, LRM's cannot win the match alone! But that only proves that the question was wrong in the beginning.

3) The most important point: the right question. It's not about the question if LRM's are competitive or not. It's about the way you are using it. That's also what I thought before: we had too much LRM mechs.
You know me as a LRM fanatic player, I love them and I can deal with nearly every mech and weapon configuration. Medium, heavy, even assaults, LRM20+Artemis, LRM10 or LRM5 spam... I love them all.
But I also think that one (yes, only one!) LRM mech is really enough in a team (and yes, also a competitive team). One skilled pilot in an approved LRM build may make the difference. If there is also a light mech who has installed some NARCs, it's really a match changer. Who else can take out the enemy ECM without even seeing them?
LRM pilots shall also stay modest. You are support, not the star of the team.
Direct fire is needed, yes! Direct fire kills even faster than missiles do. I hate to be driven into a corner with some LRM dogmatists which really have doubts about this. LRM's don't need to replace direct fire or the current meta. LRM's have a totally different assignment.
Everyone who ever wrote me in chat: "LRM's are bad" or "Try meta" has no idea how LRM's are used. I feel sorry for these guys. They only know about black and white but there is a lot between those two options.

3) Last but not least: the better team won. I already read about the fact that Envisage chose his players first which is a huge advantage but nonetheless the better team won. It was not a shame to lose against our enemies. Well played, Reds...

4) Nothing to do with this event but something historical: you remember the times when LRM's were the meta before they got nerfed into the ground? Everyone drove LRM mechs... for a reason. The same guys who are laughing about LRM's today were driving LRM mechs yesterday. Meta players don't really care for the weaponry itself, they care for alpha strikes and damage output per second. And they don't care which weapon it delivers.
LRM's can be even meta... if Russ makes it possible.

***

So, what about a resumee? This isn't a justification that LRM's are competitive. They are not competitve in the way we tried tonight in this event. That's a fact.

But they are also not useless and "non-competitive" if you are using them in a right way. Dogmatic meta players will doubt this but I also doubt that they can drive their meta mechs forever. Meta is changing and that's needed because meta means exploitation of the game mechanics. The LRMageddon was also an exploit and needed to be stopped.

Meta mech players should not discuss the general value of a weapon system. LRM's are definitely not meta right now and that's why they don't use them... not because LRM's are really bad. Meta players don't train with anything else than the current meta configs and that's why they are obviously the wrong ones to judge about the value of another weapon system. That's also the reason why they are so annoyed if the meta changes, they really need to train something else. They are not allrounders, they are mostly specialists. That's why they think, LRM's are bad... because they are bad when they play LRM's.

LRM's can be useful in the right hands, in the right moment of a match. I enjoyed playing with so well known names tonight but as for myself, I could not unlock my potential as I do usually with my unit. The success of playing LRM's is highly depending on the team. Direct fire is simple compared to that. That's true and that's an advantage for direct fire, absolutely. But I did not say, driving LRM's is easy, quite the opposite. A skilled player is needed for that.

***

Don't choose the simple way and judge too fast about something that isn't just black and white. MWO is too multilayered for simple judgements and answers. Watch the streams and see for yourself...

Again, thanks everyone for helping me to get some things straight. I had most of this in mind for a long time now and that's the right moment to write it down.

Special thanks go to Proton, who isn't only an exceptional player (as for me the best player in MWO) but also a fair opponent. I can learn a lot by watching him play. He is one of those who is using meta but he is also able to think outside the box.
That's also true for most of the players who were there tonight, so I also want to thank the enemy team. There was no poor sportsmanship or scorn when they beat us. I really appreciate this and this makes you real mechwarriors, in my opinion.

[Tarogato]

TheSilken, on 13 December 2015 - 06:27 PM, said:

Poor poor Tarogato in that ER PPC Arctic Cheetah. I feel for you bro. Having to assault our position like that on Crimson really sucked dude. xD

haha, I got a lot of work done, though! I think it was 3rd damage on the team. I just wish I had a bigger alpha... I could have one-shot any of those BJs or even one of the HBRs if I was in my ******** 6 med build because they simply weren't paying attention to me. xD

I tried playing the ERPPC in solo queue for 4-5 matches... and it was a lot of fun. But it was just so frustrating because even if you nail every shot the damage output is so low. Envisage didn't want me dealing damage, he wanted me turning heads... but if you're not dealing good damage then you're not effectively turning heads...

[Wildstreak]

Tarogato, on 13 December 2015 - 05:43 PM, said:

It was probably SW0L. They made a post about it on the forums - they split into two units so they could fight against themselves. The problem is, ... they're SW0L. At least today we had about 80% top-level players in this event, even if it wasn't well-balanced.

Maybe after Christmas we could set up a clan vs. IS event just like this one. Except with a bit more and better preparation. Sucks to have to spend so much time arguing about builds instead of just playing them...

No, it was DERP. Still got the screenshot from after that match, the Jaguar player in our Clan PUG was saying they were not a good team and he could not believe they were winning.

Edited by Wildstreak, 13 December 2015 - 08:28 PM.

[Davegt27]

The event was both interesting and sad at the same time
Hats off to all participants thanks

The subject is more complex then I first thought, I narrowed it down to three areas
Weapons, pilots, tactics

Can anyone overcome the other two?
Or could the LRM team have won with different tactics?
Being out in the water on the first drop had me scratching my head

[Xiphias]

Davegt27, on 13 December 2015 - 09:11 PM, said:

The event was both interesting and sad at the same time
Hats off to all participants thanks

The subject is more complex then I first thought, I narrowed it down to three areas
Weapons, pilots, tactics

Can anyone overcome the other two?
Or could the LRM team have won with different tactics?
Being out in the water on the first drop had me scratching my head

The reason for going out in the water is that it creates a lot of open space without cover. The goal when you have LRMs is to force the other team to cross open space to get to you so that you can pummel them on the way in. Going into the water is an effort to pull the other team towards you. Had they gone into the city they would have been in a worse spot since LRMs are useless at close range.

Effectively, going into the water sets up a kill zone where you hope that your team can out trade the other team through shear firepower. Had the meta team been running brawlers and not ranged builds they would have taken damage trying to close distance (probably would still have won easily though). The best place for LRMs is a wide open field, the worst is a close range area with lots of cover, hence why the team went to the water.

[Rattazustra]

Watching the videos I don't get the feeling that this had anything to do with LRMs or "The Meta". The team with the better players won. The drastic ~0-12 results say it all. LRMs are no magical cripple system that throws off your aim, breaks one of your legs and tints everything purple. It's not as if they had been running a 12 Hunchbacks 4J group without TAG.

Also, you need to define "The Meta" first, before you can actually fight with that against anything. The reason is that you have to stick to your definition then and the opposing team has the same advantage as you have from knowing what you can and likely will field. Remember back when LRM Stalkers and Streak-Cats were "The Meta"?

All in all very interesting, nonetheless.

[50 50]

Hmmm... interesting.

I agree with Catalina's assessment, particularly in regards to knowing what your opposition is fielding.
From what I understood, this was to try and validate LRMs as a useful tactical, area suppression weapon.
I am not sure that really came through.
Perhaps due to mechs taken, the strategy used, familiarity with it all etc.

It would be interesting to try and evolve the tactics through more testing and combinations.

Edited by 50 50, 14 December 2015 - 12:21 AM.

[Kamikaze Viking]

I just watched this all from Celyths View.

Teams were not very even from what I see. The meta team clearly had people who were extremely familiar with each others play as the core members.

That said, I saw very little LRM damage overall. and even on the final match on Bog when they swapped sides the guys running LRMS said they did very little damage anyway.


This basically proves nothing much.
LRM supporters will find some justification here in what they do.
Everyone else will just say REKT, GG and keep doing what they are doing.

Catalina makes good points above. Its not about stacking LRM or even building a team around it, but if you have a good LRM driver, its about teamwork and just knowing how to use them and fit them into the otherwise meta deck.

Best example I saw of this was Jman5 playing for QQ mercs in the MLMW tournament and pulling top damage supporting the rest of his team using meta mechs.

[Colonel ONeill]

So still all the LRM lovers think they are good? even tho LRMs did more or less no dmg? funny

[Catalina Steiner]

Rattazustra, on 13 December 2015 - 11:37 PM, said:

Watching the videos I don't get the feeling that this had anything to do with LRMs or "The Meta". The team with the better players won. The drastic ~0-12 results say it all.

Fully agree here, as I also wrote in my post above.

Rattazustra, on 13 December 2015 - 11:37 PM, said:

Remember back when LRM Stalkers and Streak-Cats were "The Meta"?

Also my thoughts. The weaponry system is disposable. It's about the ability to win a match. And every weaponry can be the meta, if values of weapons change. One patch can change the battlefield... it did and it will do it again.

50 50, on 14 December 2015 - 12:20 AM, said:

From what I understood, this was to try and validate LRMs as a useful tactical, area suppression weapon.

I wanted to include this into my first post here but I forgot it. Yes, that's an important task of LRM's. There are also other weapons (like ER LL) that are able to do it but LRM's are also an option.

Kamikaze Viking, on 14 December 2015 - 02:51 AM, said:

Teams were not very even from what I see. The meta team clearly had people who were extremely familiar with each others play as the core members.

I agree but I have to say that the meta players also were a motley crew. No team has had a "unit-advantage". But the current meta is easy to drive without too much tactics, you need skilled single players. A good leader and tactics make this way of playing even worse for the enemy non-meta team. I watched some streams and what I saw was a solid leader work from team "Meta". That was one reason for the devastating results, yes I agree.

LRM's need very skilled players and the best teamwork possible if they should work. And that's why a big part of the community have no trust in LRM's... there are not much of these. They see an ATLAS with LRM's standing in front of a wall, launching missiles against it and they think, all LRM mech pilots are the same.

Every match with my own unit was running better than these test matches last night. That's the best evidence for me that real teamwork is needed, not only good single players.

Kamikaze Viking, on 14 December 2015 - 02:51 AM, said:

Catalina makes good points above. Its not about stacking LRM or even building a team around it, but if you have a good LRM driver, its about teamwork and just knowing how to use them and fit them into the otherwise meta deck.

Best example I saw of this was Jman5 playing for QQ mercs in the MLMW tournament and pulling top damage supporting the rest of his team using meta mechs.

That's exactly the best example for what I was talking about.

Colonel ONeill, on 14 December 2015 - 05:11 AM, said:

So still all the LRM lovers think they are good? even tho LRMs did more or less no dmg? funny

No dogmatic LRM lovers in this thread, sorry. Everyone here is interested in a perceptive analysis. Things aren't that easy, as I mentioned in my former post.
Current meta beats LRM's in a direct comparison. Yes, if you want to hear that, here it is. As for me, I did not doubt that.

Edited by Catalina Steiner, 14 December 2015 - 05:48 AM.

[Wildstreak]

Davegt27, on 13 December 2015 - 09:11 PM, said:

The event was both interesting and sad at the same time
Hats off to all participants thanks

The subject is more complex then I first thought, I narrowed it down to three areas
Weapons, pilots, tactics

Can anyone overcome the other two?
Or could the LRM team have won with different tactics?
Being out in the water on the first drop had me scratching my head

Well they could have. I was unaware Envisage was deciding what LRM Mechs to use and how they would be used. It is known by people who use them now that what was seen is not how to use them. These matches were more about Pilots and Tactics than weapons, nothing was proven about weapons.

Xiphias, on 13 December 2015 - 09:31 PM, said:

The reason for going out in the water is that it creates a lot of open space without cover. The goal when you have LRMs is to force the other team to cross open space to get to you so that you can pummel them on the way in. Going into the water is an effort to pull the other team towards you. Had they gone into the city they would have been in a worse spot since LRMs are useless at close range.

Effectively, going into the water sets up a kill zone where you hope that your team can out trade the other team through shear firepower. Had the meta team been running brawlers and not ranged builds they would have taken damage trying to close distance (probably would still have won easily though). The best place for LRMs is a wide open field, the worst is a close range area with lots of cover, hence why the team went to the water.

Going into the water is bad tactics, not good. By going in the water, you make it easier for the enemy to find and eliminate you. LRMs like other weapons of thier nature can be used among buildings, it just requires skill to do so. Also the LRM team relied a lot on spotters and UAVs, things good LRM pilots today treat as bonuses, not requirements.

Rattazustra, on 13 December 2015 - 11:37 PM, said:

Watching the videos I don't get the feeling that this had anything to do with LRMs or "The Meta". The team with the better players won. The drastic ~0-12 results say it all. LRMs are no magical cripple system that throws off your aim, breaks one of your legs and tints everything purple. It's not as if they had been running a 12 Hunchbacks 4J group without TAG.

Also, you need to define "The Meta" first, before you can actually fight with that against anything. The reason is that you have to stick to your definition then and the opposing team has the same advantage as you have from knowing what you can and likely will field. Remember back when LRM Stalkers and Streak-Cats were "The Meta"?

All in all very interesting, nonetheless.

You're right on the first paragraph, the second is the fault of those who call themselves 'Top Tier' and I do use that term VERY loosely for some of them. They were the ones who wanted LRMs put down and today blame PGI for the state of LRMs when the fault lies with those players.

50 50, on 14 December 2015 - 12:20 AM, said:

Hmmm... interesting.

I agree with Catalina's assessment, particularly in regards to knowing what your opposition is fielding.
From what I understood, this was to try and validate LRMs as a useful tactical, area suppression weapon.
I am not sure that really came through.
Perhaps due to mechs taken, the strategy used, familiarity with it all etc.

It would be interesting to try and evolve the tactics through more testing and combinations.

Indeed, this just proved to be more about knowledge, use, tactics than about whether a weapon is valid or not.

Colonel ONeill, on 14 December 2015 - 05:11 AM, said:

So still all the LRM lovers think they are good? even tho LRMs did more or less no dmg? funny

What's funny in a sad way is how people on your team think they proved something about a weapon that is not proven. Add onto that that people from your position, some of them are the reason for LRMs being what they are today yet they lie to newer players over the past few years telling people, "Blame PGI." Some even tried doing it in the Twitch stream saying this is all PGI's fault when a number of us have been around long enough to know better.

[The Lost Boy]

Lemming of the BDA, on 10 December 2015 - 09:51 AM, said:

But the WHOLE premise is flawed. You know the LRMS are out there. Play style, and strategies WILL be adjusted out of the norm. In the old days you never went out without your ams, and learned to be under the bubble, and hug cover. The BEST LRM heavy teams just dont have it against the BEST of everything else. Get under 90 and killem. Why waste the time?

What I said there.

[MavRCK]

A lot of great players with proven pedigrees got involved because they genuinely care about the community and want to help people avoid frustration learning what is good and what is not good. Hats off to TheSilken and Envisage for organizing the event. Hats off to the player who donated their time (instead of farming cbills 2hr = ~2million cbills, watching football, etc.) Remember, espousing an opinion not supported by expert group consensus is misleading - and the purpose of this exercise was to give credence to one position or another.

Nonetheless, there is still a lot of beating-around-the-bush and nerdy theory-crafting going on.

The TL;DR answer is:

1. No LRMs are not competitive - they are a niche weapon which work randomly 10% of the time in 10% of situations.
2. Meta works 90% in 90% of situations.
3. Competitive players are so much better than your average enthusiast player (even that BS experience bar called Tier 1) that mixing teams with them or using their ideas / builds make games very lopsided.

If you want to play LRMs, do it. Have fun.

You've been warned should you bring them to competitive play.

Finally here's a post I hope helps people understand better LRMs:

MavRCK, on 08 December 2015 - 06:40 AM, said:

This is an advanced point which 99% of MWO doesn't understand and only the top 10 competitive teams do:

- (your team's COMBINED effective health + damage taken) if greater than (your enemy team's combined effective health - damage DONE) = win

The problem is LRM boats is that you remove your armor / structure / attention to draw enemy damage from your team's COMBINED effective health.

So unless you are taking fire and rolling damage, your team is at a disadvantage with you playing LRMs (at this current meta / moment).

My strong suggestion is to not play them but if you are, look at the lightest most tonnage effective mech to play them, ie a medium mech like the Hunchback-5J. And get your own locks with tag.

[Xiphias]

Wildstreak, on 14 December 2015 - 06:34 AM, said:

Going into the water is bad tactics, not good. By going in the water, you make it easier for the enemy to find and eliminate you. LRMs like other weapons of thier nature can be used among buildings, it just requires skill to do so. Also the LRM team relied a lot on spotters and UAVs, things good LRM pilots today treat as bonuses, not requirements.

What tactic would you have recommended instead? These aren't new players who have no idea what they are doing. What is your competitive MWO background? If you haven't played competitively in a league, no offense, but you have no idea what you are talking about. Competitive matches between good teams are very different from any other game play, group queue is nowhere close.

Can LRMs be used in buildings? Yes. Can they be used effectively against a competitive team in buildings? No.

How do you use LRMs against a team with ECM+Cover without using UVAs and spotters? By standing in the open with a tag laser getting locks? By trying to get close and use NARC? That is a quick ticket to the destroyed screen against this kind of a team.

There are very few good LRM pilots in the game. JMan is one of them. Unless you've used LRMs in a competitive drop I highly doubt you have more insight into this than he does. Evidence from pug or group queue have little bearing on competitive play.

Were LRMs proved to be invalid by this set of matches? No, they were proved invalid by months/years of competitive players trying different builds and determining which ones were the most valid. The "meta" didn't just spring out of nowhere, it was/is based on what systems are the best. The good players and teams either adapt and change or lose, simple as that.

Competitive teams have experimented with LRMs in drop decks, they have done scrims with these sort of setups to see if they are effective. The prevailing wisdom of those with this experience is that LRMs are not as effective as meta is the majority of circumstances.

Want to prove LRMs are valid in competitive play? Here's how you can do it. Form a team and be successful in a league using LRMs. If you can't find 11 other competitive players who are willing to run a team that is using LRMs, perhaps that is telling to the effectiveness of the weapons system.

As for me, I believe that actions are far more convincing that words. Until someone actually uses LRMs successfully in competitive matches (props to JMan for his efforts) you can say all you want about their effectiveness, but it's nothing more than empty rhetoric if you can't back it up with action.

[Johny Rocket]

Xiphias, on 14 December 2015 - 10:15 AM, said:

What tactic would you have recommended instead? These aren't new players who have no idea what they are doing. What is your competitive MWO background? If you haven't played competitively in a league, no offense, but you have no idea what you are talking about. Competitive matches between good teams are very different from any other game play, group queue is nowhere close.

Can LRMs be used in buildings? Yes. Can they be used effectively against a competitive team in buildings? No.

How do you use LRMs against a team with ECM+Cover without using UVAs and spotters? By standing in the open with a tag laser getting locks? By trying to get close and use NARC? That is a quick ticket to the destroyed screen against this kind of a team.

There are very few good LRM pilots in the game. JMan is one of them. Unless you've used LRMs in a competitive drop I highly doubt you have more insight into this than he does. Evidence from pug or group queue have little bearing on competitive play.

Were LRMs proved to be invalid by this set of matches? No, they were proved invalid by months/years of competitive players trying different builds and determining which ones were the most valid. The "meta" didn't just spring out of nowhere, it was/is based on what systems are the best. The good players and teams either adapt and change or lose, simple as that.

Competitive teams have experimented with LRMs in drop decks, they have done scrims with these sort of setups to see if they are effective. The prevailing wisdom of those with this experience is that LRMs are not as effective as meta is the majority of circumstances.

Want to prove LRMs are valid in competitive play? Here's how you can do it. Form a team and be successful in a league using LRMs. If you can't find 11 other competitive players who are willing to run a team that is using LRMs, perhaps that is telling to the effectiveness of the weapons system.

As for me, I believe that actions are far more convincing that words. Until someone actually uses LRMs successfully in competitive matches (props to JMan for his efforts) you can say all you want about their effectiveness, but it's nothing more than empty rhetoric if you can't back it up with action.

Actually the guy calling all the shots on the Lrm team has less than a months experience playing MWO and that bit with going in the water was absolutely stupid. He let pokey meta mechs have cover while his team sat in the open. If they would have positioned a 1000m to their left in the back back city and formed a picket in front of their lurmers they would have been fortress unmountable.
He also has very little experience with individual chassis and loads.

They never used a couple of lrm spammers behind their assaults and wrecking balled either. From what I saw they played defense the entire time.
A Hunchie and a KTO lobbing right over their fatties heads on a push would have meat grindered em. (we use this in cw regularly but never more than 2 lurmers and never on 1st drop)
The other team would have had to choose between taking the rain or taking cover and being over ran where the Medium lurmers could have switched to lasers for the close work or used their speed and rolled the flank got the high ground and spammed who ever their team was focusing.

Though there were a few renowned lurmers in there, it really was the noob show.

Edited by Tractor Joe, 14 December 2015 - 10:56 AM.

[Lyoto Machida]

Wildstreak, on 14 December 2015 - 06:34 AM, said:

Well they could have. I was unaware Envisage was deciding what LRM Mechs to use and how they would be used. It is known by people who use them now that what was seen is not how to use them. These matches were more about Pilots and Tactics than weapons, nothing was proven about weapons.


Going into the water is bad tactics, not good. By going in the water, you make it easier for the enemy to find and eliminate you. LRMs like other weapons of thier nature can be used among buildings, it just requires skill to do so. Also the LRM team relied a lot on spotters and UAVs, things good LRM pilots today treat as bonuses, not requirements.


You're right on the first paragraph, the second is the fault of those who call themselves 'Top Tier' and I do use that term VERY loosely for some of them. They were the ones who wanted LRMs put down and today blame PGI for the state of LRMs when the fault lies with those players.


Indeed, this just proved to be more about knowledge, use, tactics than about whether a weapon is valid or not.


What's funny in a sad way is how people on your team think they proved something about a weapon that is not proven. Add onto that that people from your position, some of them are the reason for LRMs being what they are today yet they lie to newer players over the past few years telling people, "Blame PGI." Some even tried doing it in the Twitch stream saying this is all PGI's fault when a number of us have been around long enough to know better.

Xiphias, on 14 December 2015 - 10:15 AM, said:

What tactic would you have recommended instead? These aren't new players who have no idea what they are doing. What is your competitive MWO background? If you haven't played competitively in a league, no offense, but you have no idea what you are talking about. Competitive matches between good teams are very different from any other game play, group queue is nowhere close.

Can LRMs be used in buildings? Yes. Can they be used effectively against a competitive team in buildings? No.

How do you use LRMs against a team with ECM+Cover without using UVAs and spotters? By standing in the open with a tag laser getting locks? By trying to get close and use NARC? That is a quick ticket to the destroyed screen against this kind of a team.

There are very few good LRM pilots in the game. JMan is one of them. Unless you've used LRMs in a competitive drop I highly doubt you have more insight into this than he does. Evidence from pug or group queue have little bearing on competitive play.

Were LRMs proved to be invalid by this set of matches? No, they were proved invalid by months/years of competitive players trying different builds and determining which ones were the most valid. The "meta" didn't just spring out of nowhere, it was/is based on what systems are the best. The good players and teams either adapt and change or lose, simple as that.

Competitive teams have experimented with LRMs in drop decks, they have done scrims with these sort of setups to see if they are effective. The prevailing wisdom of those with this experience is that LRMs are not as effective as meta is the majority of circumstances.

Want to prove LRMs are valid in competitive play? Here's how you can do it. Form a team and be successful in a league using LRMs. If you can't find 11 other competitive players who are willing to run a team that is using LRMs, perhaps that is telling to the effectiveness of the weapons system.

As for me, I believe that actions are far more convincing that words. Until someone actually uses LRMs successfully in competitive matches (props to JMan for his efforts) you can say all you want about their effectiveness, but it's nothing more than empty rhetoric if you can't back it up with action.

In Wildstreak's defense (and keep in mind that I only watched the first game that Col. O'Neill uploaded), that spot in the water on Crimson was bad for LRMs. There wasn't really that much room in terms of water that the other team had to cross to get to them. In fact, they didn't have to cross the water at all to kill them...

Fast forward to 9:06...the three mechs on the other side of the water are probably only 550-650m away from O'Neill's BJ-A. Too close to shore and nowhere to maneuver...kinda negates "making the enemy cross the water to get to you" when they don't even have to cross any water. Had the LRM team been on the island, maybe they would have had a better shot with that expanse of water but I doubt that would have changed things much.



Of course, I don't think anyone even needed these games to be played out to know what was going to happen...