While there are always exceptions, its generally best to leg light and some fast medium mechs, and against almost everything else fire at the CT simply because most people are going to shoot there and thus your damage gets compounded by anyone else shooting that mechs center of mass. Otherwise, if you have target info and you notice anything low on armor or opened up, shoot that to either kill them outright or at least neuter their offensive capability. Do not ever shoot components that are damaged as the transfer is so pitiful. Ofc if its a destroyed ST and their CT is cherry red, go ahead and shoot the destroyed ST as you only need a tad of damage to kill such a mech, but otherwise avoid destroyed components.
Anyways, as for exceptions to the general rules:
Jenner and lolcust hit their center of mass. Even after the changes to hitboxes these are more or less walking CTs, so you have a good chance of killing them with like 2-3 solid laser burns to the center of mass. Lolcust especially so since its got so little HP that anything more then 30 dmg is gonna hurt nomatter where it hits.
Commando go for center of mass, itll spread the damage nomatter what you do, but he doesnt have enough HP to tank anything with decent DPS or high alfa strike and you have a decent chance of XL killing him if you can pull off a burn on a open ST. Legs are just too hard to hit on the thing.
Nova hit the arms, almost all builds on that rely on boated arm lasers, and with how big the arms are, his firepower goes from very scary to anemic with relatively low alfa strike required per arm.
Shadowcat hit the RT if you have a clean shot, every build that isnt a derpy joke one has the vast majority (or even all) of its primary weapons on the right side, and removing those 2 energy hardpoints leaves it kinda helpless. Its got so little total HP that a single 60+ point laser vomit alfa strike is going to instantly strip the armor off that component and even if it survives the mech is gonna either go cry behind a rock for most of the game or loose that ST the instant a single ML hits him there. The MG version is an exception, at short range his MGs may very well be deadlier then his LPLs/ERLLs so it may be a good idea to hit the LT to take down his short range ability and remove most of what little DPS the energy weapons get.
Hellbringer shoot LT since all laser builds are predominantly left sided and the ECM is also located there. A HBR with no ECM and at most 3 lasers left is basically useless for the rest of the game if it doesnt die on the next shot ofc. Notable exception for the rare dual uac5 build and possibly gauss vomit where you might be better off destroying the RT first if it doesnt have more then 4 cERMLs as a secondary.
Ebon jag always shoot STs if the missile/weapon pods above teh shoulders are present. Its very easy to isolate a torso even if he is doing everything possible to shield the damage when the pod sticks out like that, and removing those pods renders the ebon nothing more then a laughing stock. LT is priority for laser vomit, RT for triple ballistics, anything else is a judgement call although probably you wont see such builds in the game since anyone who plays the ebon (and isnt just derping around with some purely fun build) is either boating energy or uacs or a combo of those 2 with the occasional gauss version.
Dragon always shoot RT if you can. Half teh time he is running an XL engine to get any sort of mobility and firepower out of the mech, and even if he is not, destroying the RT means the primary threat of that ballistic arm is gone and he becomes far less scary to face later on. Notable exception is that one variant that has a ballistic in the LT, but those are incredibly rare so just focus the RT.
Marader shoot the RT on all variants but the 5D. All of them (besides the extremely rarely encountered missile variant) have their main firepower on the right side in the form of 1-3 ballistics with 2 energys in the accompanying arm. Take that away and the most he has left is 2 PPC/LPL (although usually its just 2 MLs), which a far less scary thing to face then a gauss, uac-10 or dual uac/rac5s supported by 2-5 energy weapons. Also, any pure energy builds you might even wanna go for the arms as thats where all but 1 of the lasers are stored.
Marader IIC basically the same as above for the 2 ballistic models, and LT for the energy boat with 9 hardpoints. The scorch is a judgement call depending on build, CT is prolly best since half a scorch is still a grave threat, but if hes wiggling around and refusing to give you that CT then you may as well pick a ST and remove that.
Direwhale shoot the STs if he is making any attempt at shielding the CT. Obviously if the dire is full on potatoing and staring in a single direction shoot the CT to kill asap. But if hes semi competent and trying to shield the CT, fire at the huge bulging STs that arent protected by arms or anything else located near the top of the mech, pop one and hes less less scary then a medium mech.
Kodiak as above, STs are the size of a barn door and removing them is easier then trying to get that CT killshot especially if you have autocannons or SRMs which are going to spread a bit by their nature.
Warhawk shoot the arms on anything but a LRM boat. If hes running the most common ppc boat, shooting off arms makes him a stick, if hes running any other direct fire weapons shooting the arms usually results in ammo loss for what little ballistics are in the RT.
Any mech that has all of its weapon on a side, shoot the weapons side to render him worthless for the rest of the game. Normally pretty easy to see especially in the case of laser boats where the beams are all coming out of one half of the mech and nothing from the other side. Wait patiently if he is shielding during cooldown, and nail the ST when he turns to face you or someone else on the team.
Any mech that has no weapons (or like 1 laser left) should be ignored unless there is nothing else to shoot at. I know its tempting to get that killshot, but zombies can take some time to drop (ive seen good players get their mechs to under 20% before death) and their ability to kill basically doesnt exist anymore so its best to save your precious 60 point alfa for someone that actually threatens you or the team.
If you have a shot at someone's backside and dont have in excess of 50 alfa strike it is probably best to hit a ST and instantly core it out. Loosing a ST from behind is almost guaranteed if you hit with 50+ damage (unless the guy has 20-30 armor on the back which is plain dumb), and its better to neuter someone then gamble for a quick CT killshot, if you dont kill him to teh CT in the first shot you are very unlikely to get a 2nd try, may as well target the ST for near guaranteed neutering.
And ofc any IS heavy mech that is keeping up with or outrunning clan heavys and isnt carrying anemic firepower (15tons of weapons or less) is very likely running XL engine. Pick a ST and shoot it to kill him with alot less damage required compared to CT coring. Its a little hard to judge this in game, but most of the time if a IS heavy is going 80 or more then its a XL engine, if its going 70 or less its almost always LFE (or the rare standard engine nowadays) and thus just focus CT if he isnt deadsiding.
Anyways, thats my 2c, i follow these rules and have a easy time taking people down at least when they run the fairly expected meta builds on common mechs. There will always be other exceptions to the rules but the really important things to remember is to always target open components if possible, and if you have no idea about the enemy mech's loadout or damage state, just fire at the center of mass sicne most people are going to shoot there and you may as well take advantage of it even if the CT shot spreads a little to the STs, and dont fire on anything that is destroyed since the damage transfer is pitiful.
Edited by panzer1b, 26 July 2017 - 11:46 AM.