32 replies to this topic

[Mole]

Hey guys. So not really a new player here, but I've got a newbie question. I used to just let my mechs stay with whatever back armor they came stock with and just pump up the front armor with any unassigned armor points. Never run my mechs with less than full armor except on the head sometimes. But as I get higher up in tier I am noticing people actually like to strip armor from their backs and put in on front. I even saw someone say that a guy who screenshotted his gargoyle with its stock rear CT armor of 20 had an 'obscene' amount of rear CT armor. So, how much rear armor do you guys normally run on your various weight classes?

[Riot Frost]

Well, im not great or anything, but i find that 5-8 points of rear armor is enough to keep me alive for the match

[Bilbo]

I've got 24/30/24 on my Atlas. I'll look but I believe I have 25 RCT on my heavies, 20 on my mediums, and I believe either 10 or 15 on my lights.

[Koniving]

This depends entirely on the chassis.

For the rear ends of my 'Mechs:
My typical number is between 8 and 12 armor.
Some of my mechs have as high as 30+ rear armor.
Others have as little as 2 armor.

As an example, I will never run a Raven or Jenner with more than 2 armor on the rear. It's damn near impossible to hit their rear armor plates to begin with considering how I drive them.

My Stalkers, however, have 32 rear CT armor. This is because Stalkers have horrific torso twist and turning capabilities. The front CT is relatively small. Stalker's large front side torsos can take all kinds of abuse, and as such I have significantly lower rear ST armor so channel more front ST armor. The CT, however, is huge on the backside and tiny on the front. Should an ST be destroyed, there is a 60% damage reduction on this incredible surface area before it transfers to my CT.

A Wolverine, however, gets 12 on all rears.

My Hunchbacks (all but 4SP) get 2 right rear ST armor. 12 rear CT armor. And used to get 16 rear left ST armor. The hitbox has since been fixed, and now it is 14 rear ST armor for the left ST. Because I don't trust my drum to be completely safe yet.

[Riot Frost]

Yes, i agree with bilbo if you are a more brawler type, but for a more modest play style, which i like to play, you really need more front then back protection

Just learn how you play, how the hitboxs are, and try around, see how you are killed most, if a light keeps eating up your back, you might want more, but if you find that you brawl, and your front gets eaten away, you might want more on your front

Edited by Riot Frost, 09 March 2016 - 04:42 PM.

[Bilbo]

Riot Frost, on 09 March 2016 - 04:40 PM, said:

Yes, i agree with bilbo if you are a more brawler type, but for a more modest play style, which i like to play, you really need more front then back protection

I do love a good brawl Probably to a fault.

[MechWarrior4023212]

My Hellbringer heavies run with 8 R/LT and 10 CT rear armour. I like to run with full armour in front.

[S 0 L E N Y A]

+1 for "it depends"

Most comp players and advanced players tend to play in groups they can trust. As such, the theory is your back is not likely to get hit much if you and everyone on your team is doing their part.

With some of the ginormous assault mechs you are more likely to get your back taken by an un-noticed light etc etc, so that may be cause to load up a little more on the rear.

That said, personally my range goes from 8 on the low end, and 12 on the high end.

This is one of the rare instances where you can be "meta" and "lore" at the same time, since in tabletop most mechs had very very little rearward armor.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

I usually keep between 2 and 5 armor on my rears (5 on the assault end, 2 on the light end). It gets me what I need. I rarely ever find myself being shot in the back except when I want to (rolling damage to use up those 2 points on the back sometimes). I like brawling a lot also, but I make sure to turn about 90 degrees max so my rear isn't exposed. I used to run 10 rear armor on everything, but I found I was having too many matches in which that 10 rear armor was useless to me and could have saved me if on the front, so I swapped it and have been happy ever since. My structure can absorb the few grazing hits from a laser stream I take occasionally.

I also only pug or play with a couple friends (who usually shoot me for fun).

Edited by Dakota1000, 09 March 2016 - 05:18 PM.

[Leone]

Never less'n 6-1 ratio of front to rear armour. Some of my brawlers plan on getting inna the thick of things, so they've more rear armour, but the question you should ask is, "Does my mech get shot inna back?" If the answer is often 'no' then start skimping.

I like to leave enough to help me survive the first knife in the back when the lights come calling, but otherwise run pretty light back there.

~Leone.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Front load front armor when you take most damage.

Unless brawling where your more likely to have things all round you.

[Rogue Jedi]

my armor distribution is dependent on Chassis and role, some chassis can get away with little rear armor regardless of role, others need to be able to take a few hits to the back.

as a rule
30+ ton Lights I put enough armor on the back to allow them to survive a single AC20 hit, so that is a minimum of 21 hitpoints, armor + structure, most 55 ton or heavier Mechs get enough rear armor to survive 40 damage,

There are, of course, exceptions, Stormcrow goes much lighter on rear armor than my other 55 ton Mechs, if a Mech rarely suffers damage to its rear armor I will strip it back further, if I frequently take a lot of damage to the rear then I may put 1/3 or more of the armor on the back.

I mostly pilot Lights and love the fact that many people put less than 10 armor on the back of the slow assaults, get behind them and if the target is not playing attention I can often take down a fresh Atlas inside 5-10 seconds ^{(occasionally 2-3 seconds)} using Ember or Spider 5K. the best complements I have received were being accused of hacking when doing that.
If someone gets behind you especially if they have Machine Guns you will regret not putting on enough rear armor.

[Doctor Dinosaur]

As a fast light mech user I, too, can only suggest putting all the armor at the front. Also leg armor is overrated.
Jokes beside, if you play a sniper put your armor at the front, if you are getting shot in the back you (or your team) failed anyway and those tons there most probably won't save you. I could not imagine an assault of mine with little back armour, too.

EDIT: 18 seems to be a good value for armor, that's
Most of an AC20/ two AC10/ four AC5
1 PPC, LPL, Gauss
2 LL
3 MPL
4 SPL
completely blocked (you may complete this excerpt list via http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/equipment )
Of course there are some other smaller and bigger softcaps, with 2 being the smallest blocking a full AC2 shot (yay!)

Edited by Doctor Dinosaur, 10 March 2016 - 04:37 AM.

[ImperialKnight]

4 points rear, always. the best back armor is called map awareness and positioning. if you get to the point the enemy has your back, you either placed yourself in that position, or the game is pretty much over anyway.

and get into the practice of swinging left and right on the move, that way even if a sneaky ECM light get behind your lines, you make a poor choice of target. and even when you get shot, it's distributed across the 3 rear torso and arms.

[Mole]

Thanks guys. All this input has been really helpful. I'm gonna start frontloading more armor on a lot of my 'mechs. Especially my Awesome that has, I've noticed, less CT armor than some of my heavies which seems just weird for an Assault.

Edited by Mole, 10 March 2016 - 09:00 AM.

[LordSkyKnight]

I rarely run more than 6 rear armor on any mech I own. Every point of armor you can put on the front is more armor to win trades with. Back armor only helps you when you get surprised and are out of position anyway.

[Moomtazz]

6-10 is the consensus as you can see. I would suggest you experiment by starting at 0 and see how often you die to rear shots. Then add 2 and repeat until you get a a number that seems acceptable to you (i.e. you are ok with how often you die to rear shots).

You aint got nothin to lose

[Sandpit]

It depends entirely on the build. If I'm in a mech that's going to be fighting under 600 meters a good chunk of the time, I make sure (on mediums thru assaults anyhow) to put no less than 12 armor on ST and 14 on CT.

The guys you see complaining about getting cored out in 1-2 volleys from those pesky jenners tend to be the ones that don't bother putting a decent amount of armor on their rear

[Khereg]

Front load your armor for more survivability. If you're getting shot in the back a lot, you're making positioning mistakes, which is an entirely different problem.

One approach I've seen used is to play a bunch of matches with the intent of tweaking your back armor. Every time you die from the front, move a point of armor from the back to the front. Likewise, if you die from behind, move a point of armor from the front to the back.

Do this for a while and you'll settle in on a point where it's about 50/50 on your deaths. That's where you want to be. You'll find that this value (which I'm guessing is going to be 10 points or less on the back, no matter what) is where you can safely set all your mechs in that weight class. Lights will probably wind up in the 4 - 6 range on the back and assaults might be as high as 10. Everything else will be somewhere in between.

Edited by Khereg, 10 March 2016 - 09:58 AM.

[Kira Onime]

I never put more than 3 back armor.
As long as I don't tunnel vision and/or play stupid, being shot in the back won't be a problem.