188 replies to this topic

[Moonlight Grimoire]

Assaults kind of... Blow at the whole front line push the point. Pushing the point is as my Drop Commander says, meant for heavies to front line with mediums screening for them and assaults behind them. What does this do? Makes your assaults to be packages delivered by the rest of the team into a hopefully scrambling enemy team tied up with heavies and mediums running around while assaults act as a anvil for people to hammer the enemy team upon. Ideally your assaults carry a long range weapon or two, then mostly mid range to short range weapons. I recently picked up a Battlemaster 2C this is a fun mech and a decent build. For the most part I spend a long time in matches moving with the heavies and firing the PPC outside of optimal range causing pokers to bunker down. The 2xAMS will eat up almost all shaker mechs so the typical 3+ LRM5 builds are completely shut down. Bigger LRM clusters are thinned to a reasonable amount, and I laugh manically while being fired upon with LRM's because I just eat those up.

Still, not the most alpha build, but, I do find that it will beat up mechs. I plan on putting a Snub Nose PPC, and MRM20 with a LFE340 on it when 3067 tech drops. Maybe LAMS, depends on how toasty those run, though, standard PPC's are dang nice for that poke and Snub Nose will not help much on that front.

[Lucifaust]

DrxAbstract, on 07 March 2017 - 10:16 AM, said:

Armor 'sharing' is an often misunderstood and poorly employed concept usually used as a point of guilting people into taking damage, perpetuating questionable piloting behavior and promoting poor decision making habits. Teams lose for numerous reasons, armor 'sharing' being one of more egregious factors because of poor positioning and some people's willingness to throw themselves into the pit with the impression it'll make the difference when in reality it typically will not, creating a cascade loss of the team's overall Armor.

Armor in any other game would be Health, with the fundamental goal being exactly the same: Win by losing as little of it as possible. Armor is meant to be preserved just as much as weapons are meant to be fired. It's no coincidence long-range poke builds and stratagems proliferate drops, both competitive and pug alike... That doesn't mean you should never lose Armor, as taking damage is often unavoidable, but the pressure put on people to throw their Armor away "for the good of the team" around here is absolutely boggling given the considerable damage output in MWO.

Playing smarter and more efficiently with what you have should be paramount, which includes finding ways to take down enemies by expending as little Armor as possible, exercising thoughtfulness over careless action. This silly notion that your team is going to lose unless adequate sacrifices are made to the Armor God, and the subsequent shaming from it, needs to take a walk.

If you hide and conserve your armor, that's all well and good
until your buddy over there is focused on by enemies, dies, now your team has one less mech's firepower.
a lot of the time charges make or break the game. you sound like the type to stay behind as several of your mates charge into the fray. hmm, maybe that silly notion of hide&pew is what's killing your team

Support your friendlies. Spread the enemy's damage out. Keep as many of your guys alive as possible. Anyone being so selfish as to conserve their armor at the expense of a friendly life is doubly screwing over the team.

[DrxAbstract]

Lucifaust, on 21 March 2017 - 02:22 AM, said:

If you hide and conserve your armor, that's all well and good
until your buddy over there is focused on by enemies, dies, now your team has one less mech's firepower.

Nice try, but I'm not responsible for my teammate's actions that result in negative consequences.

Lucifaust, on 21 March 2017 - 02:22 AM, said:

you sound like the type to stay behind as several of your mates charge into the fray. hmm, maybe that silly notion of hide&pew is what's killing your team

Wrong. If I'm in a Mech with a build that supports front-line attacks and pushes then I'm right up in front or looking for a way to throw them off balance... Which i'm fairly successful at with just my little Locust. And the only 'silly' notion here is holding others responsible for your actions; I'm not killing my teammates - The enemy is. Typically because my teammates give them ample opportunities to do so. I would, however, love to hear what masterful stratagems you have that I may personally employ to save them from themselves.

Lucifaust, on 21 March 2017 - 02:22 AM, said:

Support your friendlies. Spread the enemy's damage out. Keep as many of your guys alive as possible. Anyone being so selfish as to conserve their armor at the expense of a friendly life is doubly screwing over the team.

I believe the general consensus here was to support the team... Opinions will vary on how to do it, and that's fine. But, in retrospect, 99% of my drops are solo Quick Play where my personal combat contribution is worth 3-5 teammates, which makes my Armor worth far more than theirs and yet you'll still find me positioned with/around my team, even the guys in the bad positions, trying to pull a win for the team. This often results in taking a lot of unnecessary damage and even meeting an early demise. Sometimes I go off alone and hunt stragglers or harass, and sometimes I sit in back and snipe with a purpose-built sniper to practice--I play how I feel like playing, which is often in beneficial manner to the team regardless of winning or losing and it takes some real gall to sit there and suggest my team's losses are my responsibility - Pro Tip: They're not.

I do what I can with what I've got, as I suspect a lot of people here do, and when you've got 8-10 teammates of questionable cognitive capability it gets rather dicey.

[Humpday]

I have seen the shift lately, and I very much understand why, though previously I would get annoyed that assaults would be hiding in the rear but since I bought my KD-3, I get it.

I routinely have to shelf my KD-3 based on the team dynamics for the day.
I honestly don't even really like the KD-3. I prefer my mauler to the KD-3 as odd as that is. Probably because people don't' focus it as much. Then again, I also dont' like the dual UAC 5/10 or the dual ppc/gauss that is the meta.

Anyway, more often than not you get stuck leading the so called "charge" that no one else is committed to but yourself.

PUSH!! GO GO GO! Ok going in! And when you're leading the charge, yes, there is some expectation that you could get focused and die. I'm fine with that IF I see that my team has followed though and my death was not in vein.

NOPE. Most the time the team stops as soon as their meat shield is dead.

Eff that, no thanks, I want to play the game too, I'm not going to walk out in front of the other team and get focused every time. Its already a KD-3 which is a priority target... the hell if I'm going to stick my neck out for other people who are not going to stick their neck out for me.

So now, I stay back and make sure the team pushes before I do and come in at second line.

This happened last night over and over and over. I had to switch out to my Maulers and Banshee which can engage further away because teams would not get behind the assaults and utilize them like they should.

Its simple, and this is how it SHOULD and does work if you have a good team:

Everyone pushes(or at least a 4-5 group does), enemy team sees assault...they shoot assault(expected). This means the attacking team isn't receiving or is receiving little to no return fire. This means, shoot the f*ck out of whatever the assault is shooting...then murderball through while locking and calling targets.

This then takes the focus fire off the assault, assuming he's not already dead, and now the enemy team has too many targets to figure out what to focus on and they start to back up, shoot random targets, or better yet, they try to turn around.

The advent of LRM assault is due to the poor team dynamics and the way this game has a notion of how an "assault should be played".

[G4LV4TR0N]

Quote

When Your Team's Assault Mechs Are Turning Into Fire Support Mechs....

...PUG game begins.

[Humpday]

By the way I piloted all classes and have been most successful in the light and heavy class...So i'm well aware of both sides of the so called "coin"....

I feel for assault and light pilots, their jobs just suck because of too many expectations.

Lights: YOU SUCK get back here protect your assaults!!!...No you ******, dont' let your slow *** get singled out and left alone without lateral support. I'm not going to baby sit you because you have an inability for this thing called spacial awareness. Stay close do your teammate, then you wont' get picked off by a light.

Assaults: YOU SUCK GET IN FRONT. No d!ckface, I'm not going to sit up there alone and get shot to hell while ya'll get to play the game and have fun.

Meds and Heavies are where the most fun as there are no expectations except poke poke poke, alpha...poke poke poke...alpha.

Edited by Humpday, 21 March 2017 - 07:01 AM.

[mogs01gt]

Wildstreak, on 20 March 2017 - 07:46 PM, said:

I can still brawl, you just have to be patient and wait for one of two things.

• Your team decides to push.
  
• The opponents push so you ambush.

When does that happen? Other than going for the center or theta, its a poke-fest anymore.

Edited by mogs01gt, 21 March 2017 - 07:10 AM.

[G4LV4TR0N]

I bought few Clan Assault mechs recently. For brawling/pushing/skirmishing with them. By BT lore, obvious choices - Gargoyle and Executioner. By MWO mech design those mechs are much easier to kill than probably any Heavy mech out there. Mech size, mech hitbox localization, poor arm shielding just to begin with. But it's not the problem. Problem are people who don't want to push or share armor when pushing. You always end alone, no matter how good you are. I am playing some QP PUG games. In few I had team and we coordinated well - I ended shielding push for whole party dealing like 600 damage and scoring 6 kills without being cored. They were there with me, success guaranteed. Then in remaining 85% of games I was forced to push alone. 200 damage, 1-3 kills on average, death. Those were better situations for pushing than in those games that I won, but nobody followed, and nobody cared. Everybody was up to their poking game. My advice? Don't push in PUG's or make mixed build that can both push and fight at med range. I swapped few C-SMPulse lasers for ER-Med lasers and my PUG game scores grew rapidly, even when I consider med/short range build completely inferior to my pure brawling one.

Edited by G4LV4TR0N, 21 March 2017 - 07:15 AM.

[R Valentine]

G4LV4TR0N, on 21 March 2017 - 07:11 AM, said:

I bought few Clan Assault mechs recently. For brawling/pushing/skirmishing with them. By BT lore, obvious choices - Gargoyle and Executioner. By MWO mech design those mechs are much easier to kill than probably any Heavy mech out there. Mech size, mech hitbox localization, poor arm shielding just to begin with. But it's not the problem. Problem are people who don't want to push or share armor when pushing. You always end alone, no matter how good you are. I am playing some QP PUG games. In few I had team and we coordinated well - I ended shielding push for whole party dealing like 600 damage and scoring 6 kills without being cored. They were there with me, success guaranteed. Then in remaining 85% of games I was forced to push alone. 200 damage, 1-3 kills on average, death. Those were better situations for pushing than in those games that I won, but nobody followed, and nobody cared. Everybody was up to their poking game. My advice? Don't push in PUG's or make mixed build that can both push and fight at med range. I swapped few C-SMPulse lasers for ER-Med lasers and my PUG game scores grew rapidly, even when I consider med/short range build completely inferior to my pure brawling one.

Pretty much. Peek meta and peek maps make brawling assaults a dull(and dead) boy. Even on my heavies, my match scores with LRMs are higher and more consistent than my match scores with SRMs. I can always apply LRM damage to something. SRMs require a lot more patience and positioning, and one misstep means I get murdered.

[Dimento Graven]

Dear Potato players:

1. Don't ***** about assaults not leading the charge, when from the very first second of the match, you idiots have run off full tilt leaving your assaults completely by themselves.

2. Don't ***** about assaults not pushing when you repeatedly call for a push, get the assaults to push, then fade back like little shitheads, watching them die (only to then ***** that "no one pushed" when you ordered it)...

3. Don't expect assaults to come immediately rescue your ******** *** when you think you're going to be "sneaky" and try and flank 8 enemies solo.

4. Don't expect assaults to be willing to be your "anchor point" as you try for that 'flanking maneuver' that for whatever reason seems to route through Tokyo Japan. If you want to flank DO IT F'ING QUICKLY...

5. Don't expect the assaults to happily stand there at the front of the line while you, the INSTANT a small laser is pointed in your direction, suddenly back up and fade away...

You want assaults to brawl more? Don't outrun 'em.
You want assaults to not hang back so much? Stay with them and help them fend of lights, AND/OR, target those missile boats, so the very large 'broadside of a barn' sized Assaults don't 'catch' so many missiles...

[TamerSA]

Skanderborg, on 06 March 2017 - 11:41 AM, said:

My atlas is in the hanger almost permanently now due to how this game has evolved (rather changed).

Because the prevalence of much longer ranged clan weapons and everyone playing the peekaboo trade game every match it really doesn't have a place. If i decide to push I just get torn apart (the open area maps don't help at all) my team at most gets a few good shots in while the enemy exposes themselves to shoot me.

So i decided to play "smart" with my atlas , sticking with the team and waiting for the enemy to close so i can give my team amazing close ranged dps they don't typically have. However most of the time i get yelled at for not pushing (lol) or not contributing to the ranged trade. This is justified however , why have an atlas hanging out when you could have a long ranged assault to help trade?

"why are you hiding atlas?" "why don't you push into them atlas?" "You're an atlas , you are meant to get shot at"

it never stops and its quite annoying when i'm just trying to play appropriately and get into a favorable environment for brawling instead of taking alphas from 10 mechs trying to "push"

One might argue "put some ranged weapons on the atlas". The hard points simply are not suited to trading and it only hampers my brawling capability. The best build I've come up to "compromise" is 3 large lasers , ac20 , 2 srm 6 with a std 325 and its a bit toasty. But its not nearly as good in cqc as the typical build.

So i gave up. I bought a timber wolf and trade with my gauss and lasers.

Trust me , the most fun I've had in the game is brawling in my atlas , taking on guys in the most bad *** mech in the game at point blank range. But these days it simply doesn't work 90% of the time.

Mostly this.

Started playing again after a year of being AWOL from the battlefield. Loved my brawler Atlas and Misery builds, and they are still fun depending on the maps. But the game has certainly become a poking man's shooter.

It sort of reminds me of the South African way of playing Battlefield... Everyone is a sniper camping at the edge of the map hoping to get kills.

[G4LV4TR0N]

If PGI would want it, they would make lurmers best friends of brawlers. How? Like this for example:

http://www.sarna.net...i/Smoke_Warhead

Now something for those who like to lurm and hate poking:

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Swarm_LRM

Edited by G4LV4TR0N, 21 March 2017 - 11:14 AM.

[Humpday]

Dimento Graven, on 21 March 2017 - 08:05 AM, said:

4. Don't expect assaults to be willing to be your "anchor point" as you try for that 'flanking maneuver' that for whatever reason seems to route through Tokyo Japan. If you want to flank DO IT F'ING QUICKLY...

hahahaha this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[PiperJ3]

The problem isn't the Assaults. Its the rest of the team. THEY don't understand that their role is to support the assaults and keep them alive. The longer assaults last on the clock, the more damage that gets delivered.

So often in quickplay, everyone just races out to the middle of the map for the expected brawl.

Assault drivers are well aware how easy it is for them to get killed....and have adjusted accordingly.

Assaults that lead out front all alone, die within seconds. That's a lot of firepower your team instantly doesn't have any more.

I think if more people understood the dynamic of roles and teamwork...you'd see a little more aggressive builds and play style from the assaults, because their teams support would allow it to be successful.

[Weeny Machine]

PiperJ3, on 22 March 2017 - 12:10 PM, said:

The problem isn't the Assaults. Its the rest of the team. THEY don't understand that their role is to support the assaults and keep them alive.

That's true. It is either that assaults stay about 900m+ away from the front and snipe or they use mediums and lights as meat shields. When a wolfpack rips them a new one they yell on the chat how everyone has abandoned them...despite they had plenty opportunity to follow the main force.

And no, not everyone has to babysit your assaults and cater to you. It is a giving and taking. That's why it is a team game. However, here we see what egos sit in those mechs.

Edited by Bush Hopper, 22 March 2017 - 12:48 PM.

[Wildstreak]

mogs01gt, on 21 March 2017 - 07:10 AM, said:

When does that happen? Other than going for the center or theta, its a poke-fest anymore.

It happens sometimes.

Had a match earlier, Conquest Plexus. Our AS7-D said he was a fighter but needed people with him so I tried keeping the MPL Thunderbolt nearby.
Enemy had rushed Kappa then covered Theta from around E6/F6 area. Our Atlas and Kodiak pushed in with a few people including me. I shot at their guy on Theta then just pushed into the side of the E6/F6 area and sat near the crest harassing them with MPLs, they ignored me for a while so that helped.
Just got crazy at that point as the Atlas and Kodaik with support pushed right into them, we had a chaotic brawl in that area.

Think I got video of it, have to look when the event is over at all the vids I got.

G4LV4TR0N, on 21 March 2017 - 07:11 AM, said:

I bought few Clan Assault mechs recently. For brawling/pushing/skirmishing with them. By BT lore, obvious choices - Gargoyle and Executioner. By MWO mech design those mechs are much easier to kill than probably any Heavy mech out there.

Executioner needs to know how to use MASC and I prefer Right Arm shielding for a while due to shoulder pad size, usually works well.

[oldradagast]

The game has changed, for sure. Heck, I bought a KDK-3 this week (naturally, the day before they went on sale because I'm great at stuff like that... ugh... ) and while it can hit like a truck, it is impressive how fast a priority target 100-tonner without defensive quirks can die. Yes, yes, armor is heavily front-loaded, but you get the idea. Point being that everything can get torn to shreds fast these days, and the more useful the mech you're playing is, the more people will focus you down.

Now, I'm not saying this excuses nutty assault mechs with 60 LRM's that hide at 900m, or brawlers that never try to push, or so on, but mechs die FAST with any real focus, and assaults get focused on when they show up, so its not surprising that the game has slid towards fire support, poking, and hiding. It's sad and not really in the spirit of MWO and Battletech, but it is what we've got these days in-game.

[Shifty McSwift]

While people's opinions about the specifics of roles will vary somewhat, and people can flip those understandings on their head with a bit of ingenuity at the end of the day, the point is the general idea that assaults are packing much higher armor values than other mechs and as such make for the best shields when utilising twist and the like due to that fact alone, this idea is somewhat countered by the massive damage alpha strike potentials and the variations in armor/movement rates and actual tankability when comparing mechs, but still, that idea holds water.

Undamaged assaults (or tanky mechs) should be the ones soaking up hits in that initial push into fire if it occurs, target saturation and co-ordinated firing is the key there, as the idea is, as soon as an assault (or tankier mech like this) takes any kind of fire, not only should that assault get at least 1 volley off, his teammates should be taking full advantage of those hits not hitting them, and the heat and CDs being spent on the shots, returning fire damage as though they themself had been hit (consider the armor values of the team as a sort of whole).

Circumstances and tactics will vary, but that idea of damage exchange works and is very well regarded for a reason.

Edited by Shifty McSwift, 24 March 2017 - 09:50 PM.

[Maker L106]

I'd like to weigh in on this discussion as a pilot who's struggling in assaults though feel the Mad-IIC is treating me quite well.

As a non TT player, I have no real concept of TT rules / BT lore that I didn't just read off of Sarna upon being bored.

Also this is based purely on QP /w friends, solo, and with randoms from both the solo and group que (of which i vastly prefer the group que)

With that out of the way even though the assaults have more armor, at least down in tier 4 though i'd bet it happens in higher tiers as well, you're not likely to see people equip mechs that can get in and get out, be it poke a corner / cooldown, rush / run away, etc: as the openers to a fight, not the assaults wading in face first to brawl.

The reason for this one would hope is a simple concept. Firing lines and position combined with speed make assaults a very tasty target up front. Which admittedly, yes that's the point... but when you have a LOT of people focused on just that... then yeah... that assault pilot is gonna have a real bad 10 second life, if that long because focus fire. That's just the nature of "gunfights" if you will in this particular instance.

Thus the evolution of this is to mitigate through ECM / AMS / Cover and use faster mechs to initiate the fights where you can bring the firepower of the assaults in at a time that's more suited to how they actually operate in game.

Now again I'm not a great player, but I'm not terrible. My most successful mech is the ******* Shadow Cat... yes... the Shadow Cat .

Now I know it's not a good comparison but i can't be hit by something If i'm not in there in the first place, range / cover / acceleration are what you're looking for in this right now. Without that the additional armor only matters in trade situations, in which speed / cover / etc: can negate.

Now this doesn't make LRMS's work but lets say for example... we have an LRM boat (100 tube stalker anyone?) that just sits back and waits on NARC's. They've got a few members in the drop group so maybe more than one LRM user but I'd highly doubt that. while one could argue the armor is wasted at the back, it would also make more sense to have that amount of weight in firepower not armor since in this situation more often then not getting the **** out of the way matters a great deal more than raw armor values (unless were talking IS Dakka / Gauss in general) But even then mobility will assist with not taking more than you absolutely must to get your work done.

I just played a game with a guy running a KDK-1 /w two LRM-20's... some small lasers and god knows what else, he did have tag though IIRC... anyway he rained down a lot of LRM's likely farming up good damage numbers... but I saw the same thing on the enemy team. (Similar tactics, can't confirm the mech specifically but it was a LOT of LRMS)

granted I was narc'd (or just didn't have radar dep) and didn't have mobility... you can guess about how well that turned out. Oh sure I could say that I got outplayed but in reality i tried to get out of the way of the incoming fire and it didn't matter... I could have moved to cover from the LRMS only to get chewed up by the enemy team.

Same true to the team vs the LRMS... either way though I was going to take a lot of damage no matter what I did, and this is just in a heavy.

I tried to get away but the missiles just chewed me up. 2-3 mechs firing will do that. I've had the same happen in assault mechs (particularly the King Crab) and it's just more of the same that you'll see in any shooting environment. Catch 22's and the way ranged gun combat work is not conducive to having someone faceroll into the enemy team, regardless how well its setup, unless he can do so, not block friendly fire, cause absolute havoc himself, and realistically break the defensive line.

Which leads me to the following issue... That I'm sure more than a few of you will agree with.

Not only do the gunfights not support this but the MAPS don't either. Even the DPS mechanics of lasers / dakka / etc: are not conducive to tanking anything . Yes you can roll damage, you can physically plant that mech somewhere but it won't be a threat long, you will most likely die in the process, and unless you can guarantee success and the elimination of more than one foe, you have, in my eyes anyway, failed the group as a whole.

That's not a jab at assault pilots either. As I stated early in this post, I'm not great, average at best. But it's how I've come to see things play out time and time again.

I've even gone so far as to look into other mechs with MASC simply because that acceleration advantage you get adds so much survive-ability to any mech that 9/10 its worth the weight / space. Unlike the additional armor.

My 2 cents. Opinions? Flames? etc: ? all welcome. I need to improve with assaults.

[Anjian]

I had a game where the a teammate Kodiak went too far ahead to attack the enemy flank with one or two lights. He got killed then shouted on the channel complaining about where is his team support.

He was one of only three casualties our team suffered as we rolled over the enemy.

Edited by Anjian, 25 March 2017 - 06:06 PM.