Tarogato, on 07 May 2017 - 08:14 AM, said:
If you're eating fire for a minute or more while approaching, then you're doing it wrong. Really, really wrong.
Let's look at maps, buddy.
Boreal Vault: Regardless of which gate you enter, you have to take the edge-skirting route. Going straight up the middle means taking a continuous crossfire the entire time, which sees you dead before you can close. Going along the sides means taking fire from less than the full team, spread across your whole team. But you're still eating free damage until you can hook into the buildings at G6/F7.
If the clanners are bad, you can get there without too much damage and grind them down in piecemeal engagements in that maze of buildings (or they had more than a couple skirmishers at E5 and got stomped when you entered). If they're good,
most of your team is heavily damaged by the time you get there.
Hellebore: You're taking fire two whole grid squares before you reach the gate from their poptarts. Once you're through, you're stuck in narrow corridors for 2-3 grid squares while they snipe from elevated positions with good cover. If you went north you can duck into the C3 canyon, which means you get to take plunging fire from the inevitable snipers on the bluffs above and get to come through a
second choke point at D3 while also getting shot in the back by their respawns. If you went South, there's no recourse. You get ****** by snipers on the F2 cliff and F3 plateau, either getting pinned down or getting shot in the back while you try to push through.
Sulfurous Rift: North or South, you're taking fire 1-2 grid squares before the gate, same as before. Once you're through, you get to wade through sniper fire for another 1-2 before you can close. If you went center things are a bit better, you have a decent amount of cover (but still long sightlines). If they're not positioned too far up you still have to eat damage to push through, but it's less awful than on other maps.
That's the story of playing brawlers on Siege maps. You are forced to walk through poorly covered routes for 3-5 grid squares just to reach the usual sniping positions. If the defending team is bad, they might position close enough to engage right as you come through the gate. If they're disorganized, they might spread fire badly enough for a meaningful number of people on your side to push through with armor intact. If they're focusing fire and positioned properly, you're going to lose most of your weight before you get a chance to do more than tickle them.
It's a different story for defense, of course, but that just means you get to deal with eating four or five clam alphas to the face because half your team is trying to beat them at the poke game in most pug matches. This is the heart of the imbalance: for pug play, and by maps, FP favors poke builds. Clan 'mechs are vastly superior for that sort of play, and have very few that are genuinely bad compared to IS standards. Even a bad clammer can still stick a cERPPC or two onto something with jumpjets and do just fine. If an IS pilot tries to do the same thing, they have a flatly inferior machine. If they run mid-close range brawlers, they have to eat cERLLas and PPFLD fire as they push through hundreds of meters of mostly open ground with relatively slow and vulnerable 'mechs.
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