78 replies to this topic

[Novakaine]

Get outta here ya back shootin varmint.

[Bilbo]

I'm honestly still just trying to figure out how anyone allows themselves to be shot in the back long enough to allow their opponent to actually overheat from the effort.

[adamts01]

Coralld, on 18 December 2015 - 07:14 AM, said:

Crabs are 50 tons, Shadow Cats are 45 tons. I know 5 tons does not seam like much, but in the world of Mediums, its a big deal when it comes to armor and structure for them.

I must have misread that on Smurfy's.
where is SD are you? I was stationed at Miramar and spend the last 10 years in OB. I miss that beach. Not the gun laws though. Or all the free loading hippies.

[Lily from animove]

Bilbo, on 18 December 2015 - 08:05 AM, said:

I'm honestly still just trying to figure out how anyone allows themselves to be shot in the back long enough to allow their opponent to actually overheat from the effort.

It does work, you would wonder. because some insane quirks make it possible.

At least if you wanna push damage into his back. because with current internal quirks you either overheat (not as in shut down, but as in not able to deliver damage anymore), or you simply cannot shoot the back anymore because the opponent even if a slot can react to his back being shot. Which totally scraps the assassination role for many mechs.

Edited by Lily from animove, 18 December 2015 - 08:10 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

I only ignore as much armor as they decide their rear torso warrants not my fault they lacked foresight (and seismic for that matter).

Um nobody puts more than like 5-10 armor on their rear torso unless theyre an idiot.

You put just enough to stop an arty strike from breaching your armor or to prevent machine guns from rattlling around in your internals getting crits. Thats all you need. The vast majority of your armor should ALWAYS be on the front of your mech or youre doing it wrong.

Quote

Crabs are 50 tons, Shadow Cats are 45 tons. I know 5 tons does not seam like much, but in the world of Mediums, its a big deal when it comes to armor and structure for them.

scaling is the bigger issue for mediums. scaling is what makes or breaks a medium. if its got bad scaling its unuseable.

crab is scaled good. trebuchet is not. trebuchet is as tall as a friggin awesome and height is the absolute WORST dimensional characteristic for a medium mech to possess since it makes you easier to hit from the front, sides, AND back. width makes you easier to hit from the front/back. length makes you easier to hit from the sides. but height makes you easier to hit from EVERY direction.

youd think the trebuchet would get massive structure quirks to make up for its excessive height, but nope... trebuchet doesnt even get a CT structure buff at all, which is where its mostly likely to get hit, since thats where people aim.

again the problem is that the structure quirks make NO sense at all. the mechs that need them the most dont get them, the mechs that dont need them at all get them excessively, its a complete mess. theyre entirely arbitrary like PGI picked them using a dartboard or something.

Edited by Khobai, 18 December 2015 - 08:19 AM.

[NeoGenesis For Answer]

Khobai, on 18 December 2015 - 08:06 AM, said:

Um nobody puts more than like 5-10 armor on their rear torso unless theyre an idiot.

You put just enough to stop an arty strike from breaching your armor or to prevent machine guns from rattlling around in your internals getting crits. Thats all you need. The vast majority of your armor should ALWAYS be on the front of your mech or youre doing it wrong.

Then they put it on the front and I get to go pew pew in their butt. Everyones happy.

Novakaine, on 18 December 2015 - 08:02 AM, said:

Get outta here ya back shootin varmint.

lol you cant see me in ma black camo ecm SHC on boreal vault. supa stealthy.

Bilbo, on 18 December 2015 - 08:05 AM, said:

I'm honestly still just trying to figure out how anyone allows themselves to be shot in the back long enough to allow their opponent to actually overheat from the effort.

That is relative A. You continually position yourself to hit them, whether or not they are trying to stop you or B. they're steam pugs and have no idea what they're doing. Which is infuriating because I have to dwell on a mechs rear f'n torso for a minute on a ret*** who isnt moving and just dropping LRM20s on the rest of my unit.

[Coolant]

I'm assuming the OP is a light pilot. Light pilots are supposed to scout, spot, relay information, support, not get within 50m of a mech. That's the problem with light pilots in MWO...they want to brawl. Your speed is for getting out of harm's way, but because of too much firepower afforded lights and structure quirks, or broken hitboxes on certain light mechs they want to take on heavies and assaults. How about instead of complaining that you can't take out a heavy or assault as easily as you want to, you go about doing what ur supposed to?

[NeoGenesis For Answer]

in other news **** business law. Easiest and most annoying class ever.

[Bishop Steiner]

adamts01, on 18 December 2015 - 06:56 AM, said:

No one feels sorry for your 6SPL cheetah

But I do hear you on the IS quirks. I somehow thought a crab was a light, so I've been losing trades with my LL shadowcat to them. Then I checked them out. Not only does it have way more armor at my same weight, it was 15% heat bonus and massive structure quirks. I get it has a weird shape, but so does the Shadowcat

yeah, my Crab doesn't feel too sorry for you. My endo and Ferro cost twice as many crits, and my XLs suck.

Issues with Shadowcats is they need non sucking MASC, and more hardpoints, overall.

[Mystere]

Khobai, on 18 December 2015 - 08:10 AM, said:

Um nobody puts more than like 5-10 armor on their rear torso unless theyre an idiot.

You put just enough to stop an arty strike from breaching your armor or to prevent machine guns from rattlling around in your internals getting crits. Thats all you need. The vast majority of your armor should ALWAYS be on the front of your mech or youre doing it wrong.

Meh! My lights geared for assassination get as much if not more armor in the back to help in escaping dicey situations. If the enemy sees me, especially if they see me facing them, then I did something terribly wrong.

Edited by Mystere, 18 December 2015 - 08:32 AM.

[Khobai]

Quote

Meh! My lights geared for assassination get as much if not more armor in the back to help in escaping dicey situations. If the enemy sees me, especially if they see me facing them, then I did something wrong.

most of the lights I play have crazy torso twist so its not an issue. I can just turn to face the enemy even when im running away from them.

[Mawai]

In my opinion it is pretty simple.

Getting behind someone gives a situational and firepower advantage but it should not be an insta-kill.

Take the blackjack as an example. It has 28 CT internal structure. Folks probably put less than 10 armor on there typically. So all it requires is one 38 point alpha strike to kill the unquirked blackjack from behind. ONE.

Some of the blackjacks have an additional 28 CT structure. Admittedly a lot but I would guess PGI decided to make the BJ more durable. However, this still means that you only need to do 66 points of damage to core it from behind.

A typical clan loadout of 6 C-ERML does 42 points of damage in one alpha strike. This will core an unquirked BJ in one volley from the rear. Even with quirks, it only requires 2 volleys.

On the other hand an Atlas has 62 CT structure plus 31 in a structure quirk for a total of 93. So it will take at least three alpha strikes from 6 C-ERML to core.

However, you choose to drive a SHC, which is extremely maneuverable but has limited hard points. So it fits two C-LPL with an alpha of 26. This will take two volleys to core an unquirked blackjack and three to core one with quirks.

That doesn't seem like too much to me. Three alpha strikes shouldn't overheat a SHC and in fact it seems a bit too low if anything. Furthermore, the three shots will only take 9.75s to execute. On the other hand, if the target doesn't give you that 10s window you will have trouble landing the third alpha ... but like I said, getting behind someone should NOT be an insta-kill ... which is what you seem to be asking for if you want it to be better than it is currently.

Finally, if you are not having success shooting mechs in the back then I would suggest the issue might be more aim related than mech structure related since a lot of mechs can be killed in just a couple of alpha strikes by clan lasers. On the other hand, if you spray the laser fire all over the back of the mech you will hit ... LA, RA, Rear-LT, Rear-RT and Rear-CT without any problems ... and in that situation it will take a lot more shots to core the mech from behind.

Edited by Mawai, 18 December 2015 - 08:33 AM.

[adamts01]

Bishop Steiner, on 18 December 2015 - 08:23 AM, said:

yeah, my Crab doesn't feel too sorry for you. My endo and Ferro cost twice as many crits, and my XLs suck.

Issues with Shadowcats is they need non sucking MASC, and more hardpoints, overall.

MASC is pretty cool for acceleration, but definitely not worth the 2 tons. I love the Shadowcat though, I think it's incredibly unique and have great luck with a couple very different builds. More laser hardpoints would make it considerably better but then it would be just like all the other cookie cutter Clan mechs. We'd be better off if every mech was dropped to it's level.

[Tristan Winter]

I think it's fine.

And Inner Sphere structure quirks are fine. Inner Sphere mechs need something to make up for their lack of Clan XL engines.

[Bilbo]

Khobai, on 18 December 2015 - 08:10 AM, said:

Um nobody puts more than like 5-10 armor on their rear torso unless theyre an idiot.

You put just enough to stop an arty strike from breaching your armor or to prevent machine guns from rattlling around in your internals getting crits. Thats all you need. The vast majority of your armor should ALWAYS be on the front of your mech or youre doing it wrong.
...

I'll happily remain an idiot. I've never had less than 20 on rct in my assaults. 15 on the heavies and 10-15 on mediums depending on the mech. It's hard enough spreading damage in the front. Giving someone free access to my internals from the rear is not my idea of fun.

[Malagant]

NeoGenesis For Answer, on 18 December 2015 - 06:56 AM, said:

I don't have a cheetah, I've been running SHCs.\

Besides plenty of people felt bad for IS mechs, enough so to give some of them 50% more HP...

I find it hilarious, that IS whine all day about the damage they take from Clan mechs, PGI buffs IS mechs to be more tanky, yet the Clans are still taxed with higher heat, longer burn times, lower heat sink efficiency as compensation. Clan mechs don't have nearly the durability of IS mechs, yet they are overpowered... IS get everything they want and the Clans get ****.

[Bishop Steiner]

adamts01, on 18 December 2015 - 08:34 AM, said:

MASC is pretty cool for acceleration, but definitely not worth the 2 tons. I love the Shadowcat though, I think it's incredibly unique and have great luck with a couple very different builds. More laser hardpoints would make it considerably better but then it would be just like all the other cookie cutter Clan mechs. We'd be better off if every mech was dropped to it's level.

I love to pìlot the Scat. Even if MASC is weak (needs the "snap to that the EXE gets). It's when it's time to fight that the honeymoon ends. And this is from a guy used to using a perennially underarmed Summoner Prime (stock!). It's just undergunned, period. Even a single pod with 4-6 e hardpoints, like the Nova, would allow a small amount of kick to complement either a bigger energy, or missiles, or ballistic. Yes, the lemmings will just slap as many SLs as possible on it.... I know, but fear of lemmings is no reason to keep baby in a corner.

[Gas Guzzler]

adamts01, on 18 December 2015 - 06:56 AM, said:

No one feels sorry for your 6SPL cheetah

But I do hear you on the IS quirks. I somehow thought a crab was a light, so I've been losing trades with my LL shadowcat to them. Then I checked them out. Not only does it have way more armor at my same weight, it was 15% heat bonus and massive structure quirks. I get it has a weird shape, but so does the Shadowcat

Not quite true, the Crab is heavier than the Shadow Cat by 5 tons, it has no armor quirks, and its structure quirks are not that enormous, I think one variant has 12 to the STs but thats the biggest, most others are like 7 or something.

[adamts01]

Bishop Steiner, on 18 December 2015 - 08:53 AM, said:

It's when it's time to fight that the honeymoon ends.

Very undergunned. It's like a game of chess with that thing, that's why I love it. Same reason I love my Mist Lynx. If I was good enough to carry in those two I'd never drive anything else.

[Gas Guzzler]

Malagant, on 18 December 2015 - 08:40 AM, said:

I find it hilarious, that IS whine all day about the damage they take from Clan mechs, PGI buffs IS mechs to be more tanky, yet the Clans are still taxed with higher heat, longer burn times, lower heat sink efficiency as compensation. Clan mechs don't have nearly the durability of IS mechs, yet they are overpowered... IS get everything they want and the Clans get ****.

Lol, top performing Clan mechs are still just fine. Maybe at a SLIGHT disadvantage in some situations, but you guys can handle that right? The IS handled being at more of an advantage for a while.