4 replies to this topic

[Zookeeper Dan]

From both playing and spectating after a KO, I see is a lot of new players liking LRM's but not using them to their potential.

The most important thing to remember when using LRM's is:

LRM's are direct fire weapons that can be used for indirect fire if needed. Only use indirect fire as attacks of opportunity as you approach optimum distance and line of sight.

Knowing this will improve you LRM use immensely. Your goal with LRM's should be to direct fire them from 200-400 meters. If you do this you will hit a lot more, and if you are using TAG or Artemis your LRM's will spread damage less. (TAG requires you to stay on target, and Artemis doesn't do any good if you don't have line of sight.)

If you fire indirectly you will probably miss. This is especially true if you fire from further than 500 meters or at light or medium mechs. At those distances or with fast mechs they will get to cover and break lock before the LRM's hit.

There are several other drawbacks to using LRM's as primarily indirect fire weapons.

1) If an enemy sees your missiles arching from away from the main fight they will hunt you down or call your position out to teammates. Nothing makes light pilots salivate like the thought of a defenseless LRM boat. If you are near the front firing directly your teammates can help you out.

2) If you are firing LRM's indirectly the rest of your weapons are under utilized. This is especially important when you have 1-2 launchers as secondary weapons to Autocannons and Lasers. By bringing all your weapons into play you will eliminate enemy mechs much quicker. I see lots of new players "scratching paint" with a single LRM launcher only to be overrun by the enemy team once the front lies go down.

3) If you fire indirectly you can't help focus fire as effectively. If you can see your targets you can help best by firing on the same enemy as your teammates in order to bring it down quickly.

4) Finally, if you fire indirectly you are relying on teammates to get locks for you. These teammates are more concerned with survival and firing on enemies then maintaining a lock. If you have line of fire you can get and hold your own locks until your missiles hit or you need to return to cover.

LRM's are fine weapons for new players in T5. They often help pad damage leading to bigger payouts, and (more importantly) they teach the value of hitting 'R' in order to lock targets. By starting with the simple rules above they become even more effective and better able to contribute to a team victory.

[Johny Rocket]

Do not go to the front line to use LRMs, they have a minimum range of 180m you will get over ran and relying on defensive weapons in a brawl. The optimal position is right behind the center of your line so you can support both flanks and the center, unless you are playing lrm5 spam with a fast medium, then you should be flanking to fork the enemy's cover. Basically making them have to chose which incoming fire they want to stand in. Heavies and Assaults are to slow to effectively do this. Some slower mediums like the Hunchback are not ideal for it either.
If your team is pushing you should be behind your fatties shooting right over them at their target.

OP is correct, Artemis is only effective if you have LOS. Artemis also adds weight to the launchers which could be used for more/ bigger launchers or ammo, my opinion on anything but a single lrm 20 its useless, the lrm 20 has horrible spread but packing 2+ on anything the Artemis gets expensive in tonnage.

If you are playing in public quick play, a tag is nice to have but requires face time to use. Team play the tag/narc should not be on the Lrm mech at all. If your team has any competency you won't have LOS to use either of them.
Also narc has a fairly short range of 450, a slow light/fast medium can close the gap from there to your min rang in about 6 sec. Narc takes a missile slot you can't afford.

Lrm travel speed is 160m/sec, to 1000m that's 6.25 sec. An assault traveling 60kph in open flat ground will travel 104m in that 6.25 sec. That being called optimal range for lrms in Mech lab is pure irony, it's max range and they detonate. Really the only time you should make a shot anywhere near that is when a teammate is in trouble and just the incoming warning is going to adds to their opponents plate, even if you miss the harassment helps. If you can't confirm hits pop a single tube guess short on the travel time and pop another single tube, you are just trying to keep the warning on their screen.

So at 500m they have a travel time of 3 sec which is not bad.

Lrm5 spam is probably the most effective way to play them in today's game and it stays effective far up the tiers. When you hit them on the front side it blinds them with explosions and causes screen shake no matter where you are hitting them. They literally can not engage you unless they have a death wish. You need at least 4 lrm5 on chainfire to do it. On an assault it is a very good way to go because its only 8 tons + ammo (a ton each is good) so you can run a nice primary punch. Its not hard to catch people in the open unless you are in top tier comp play, light them up with the lrms and take your time with your lasers or cannons. Majority of the time they run for cover having to guess where it is.
My opinion mediums are the best weight class for this because you can flank out around the cover they are using, forcing them to push out to your team or retreat to new cover.

Area denial. Lrms are hands down the best area denial weapon in the game. You can claim a huge deadman's zone allowing your team to advance. You can steer a pushing enemy. You can stop an enemy pushing thru a bottleneck or around a corner.
Setting up a deadman's zone you have to have LOS or a uav up. You target fire hit, new target fire hit, new target fire hit... When you get good you will be able to judge if you can break lock early and still hit.
Lrm5s are once again best at this because of low weight and fast cooldown, in this situation I would take chainfire if the enemy is more than 300m away. Volly and by time they hit you are reloaded and waiting.

Peeking cover, high mounted cockpits are the best for this, you can expose enough of your mech to see and target the enemy with out exposing enough for the to target you. Watch in game when people are poking cover, you'll see what I mean. Unlike every other weapon in the game you can fire from behind that cover.

Use coms, if you don't have LOS ask for confirmation you are on target. Instead of asking for locks pregame ask if anyone wants to call targets. In CW there is no excuse to not have a shot caller.

Pay attention to the arc of the missiles at different ranges, you will get a feel for what tall objects or buildings you can clear.
Your target symbol has the range to target and your crosshairs has range to what ever you put it on, using the 2 and know the arc will tell you if you can hit them.

Map knowledge is a must, more so than for any other weapon or role. When you are judging your shot over cover as above, you need to know whats on the otherside that may block your shot.

Lrm5 and 10 hold much tighter groups than 15 or 20. on the 10 you may have a few miss but you will get most in the same place as a 5. The weights of the launchers 5=2t, 10=5t, 15=7t, 20=10t. So 4 5s do as much damage as a 20 but weigh 2 tons lighter overall.

This is rocketry, like ya know, rocket science, you have to be able to do these guestimate calculations on the fly intuitively. It takes a lot of practice.

Any fool can jump in a 85+ ton assault and fling missiles all over, you might even get a good score once in a while, but to be a Lurmer takes work. You will suck when you start and if you don't pay the dues that won't improve.

[Unreliable Mercenary]

[Rogue Jedi]

Tractor Joe, on 23 December 2015 - 05:01 PM, said:

OP is correct, Artemis is only effective if you have LOS. Artemis also adds weight to the launchers which could be used for more/ bigger launchers or ammo, my opinion on anything but a single lrm 20 its useless, the lrm 20 has horrible spread but packing 2+ on anything the Artemis gets expensive in tonnage.

while you are not wrong, an Artemus tightens spread, I occasionally run an 4-6 LRM5+Artemus chainsaw build, designed to chain fire, with line of sight, working as an LRM skirmisher, the Artemus makes the LRM5s much more accurate, especially with the help of TAG, to the point that the LRMs rarely miss CT if you are firing from about 400m, but it is still very effective at 200-600m provided you are going 85+kph, I kill Mechs much faster with Artemus on those builds than without,

if you are after farming damage then do not bother with Artemus, if you want to kill Mechs then the tighter spread is very useful,
the more tubes you fire at a time the more useful Artemus is, because firing more than about 20 tubes at a time without Artemus, at a heavy some of the missiles will probably miss, however 30 tubes fired at once with Artemus assuming you fires with LOS and can keep the lock all are likely to hit a heavy Mech

Edited by Rogue Jedi, 24 December 2015 - 10:07 AM.

[Zookeeper Dan]

Great video, Owen!

The gameplay footage is especially worth watching for new players.

From the footage you can also see that if you are playing a mech with 1 LRM launcher and backup weapons (like the Ebon Jaguar) you can use all your firepower once you have line of sight.

I've been playing a Hunchback IIC-B with 4 LRM 15's, a TAG, and one ERLL. Most players aren't expecting that extra laser fire when I'm lobbing LRM's. It also allows me to focus fire on an open component with the laser for a quicker kill.