8 replies to this topic

[Archer Magnus]

Hello, folks

For the current event, getting the kills for lights and mediums was easy and enjoyable for me. But I am having a hell of a time getting kills for the Heavy and Assault classes. I did finally finish the 15 kills for the Heavy achievement and I hated every second of it. Now I have 15 more kills for the Assault achievement.

I need help, I know the problem is how I play.

Here is my problem:
In smaller fast mechs, I "hit and run" from the flanks. But in big slow mechs, I end up face tanking and getting cored. I always push to the front and end up over extending. Also I trade too much damage in the openeing of the game, so I don't make it to the end of the round to take out open mechs.



What strategies do you use for positioning?

How do you control engagements for your benfit?

What setups work for you to snag kills?



These are the mechs I have to work with:
Atlas D-DC
Battlemaster 2C
Battlemaster 1G
Cyclops 11-P
Cyclops 10-Q
Cyclops S


Thank you for your time!

[Gagis]

This Cyclops 10-Q is currently one of my favourite builds in the entire game. You need to stick with your team and move patiently until the enemy team tries to push into your position or your own team begins pushing into enemy positions, and then you can wreck absolutely everything by alphaing everything that comes around a corner, or by humping a corner yourself. It has enough firepower to get a few kills every game even if you lead a push, but if other players in the match go to a prolonged trading engagement, waiting patiently and then securing kills with SRM spam in the late game can give you some astonishing results as well.

When playing large mechs the greatest trick to positioning is to pay constant attention to where the rest of your team is going and to focus fire to make your superior firepower count.

As an alternative, either of the battlemasters will work as a medium to long range trading mech, which is more reliable than trusting for the engagement to eventually end up in SRM range but as a downside you need to know the maps well enough to actively seek positions where you can make advantageous trades from. 5 LPL 2C is the classic loadout, but nowadays it may feel a bit awkward when replacing extra large pulse lasers with ER medium lasers would feel so good, but the battlemaster is too hardpoint-starved to do it.

Edited by Gagis, 07 August 2017 - 06:20 AM.

[Archer Magnus]

Gagis, thank you mate!! I will certainly try that build out, and I am going to follow that advice. In fact, to remind my dumb ***, I am going to re-read your advice before I jump into a match to make sure I don't fall into my old bad habits.

I will also try out the battlemaster loadout, I think that would better than what I have now.

Thank you again, I appreciate the help!!

[Holy Jackson]

With assaults it is vital to pay attention to the minimap. You want to generally be in the middle of your team's blob, acting as their core. It really helps to be at least a medium range build for pug play because you're slower, and waiting to close into srm distance is very dependent on conditions beyond your control as to whether it's effective or not. Being able to go at least 60kph in pug play is basically necessary to stay in the middle of your team's position. Don't trade unless it's a free shot because you can't duck back into cover quickly. You can stand on a hill and suppress an entire area, but you can't really poke as well as a smaller mech.

So in summary, stuff your battlemaster full of large or large pulse lasers and a decently sized light engine and go roll over some squishies with your team.

Edited by Holy Jackson, 07 August 2017 - 11:34 AM.

[Lord0fHats]

I think Battlemaster's are pretty intuitive and you might have better luck with those than a very finesse and map awareness heavy mech like the Splatclops. Just slap 3 LPS into one side torso, and three mediums into the other. Now you can hill peek and laser vomit like a champ with lots of left over weight for more heat sinks and a large engine. My 1G runs 3x ER Medium, 3x LPL, and a Light 375 with 18 DHS. It's a lightning quick assault with a nice spammable alpha effective out to 500m with skills. personally though I think my 3M is much better (6x ML, 2x LPL)

Edited by Lord0fHats, 07 August 2017 - 01:51 PM.

[Muriel Steiner]

These are problems a lot of players have, so if it seems like I'm being to simplistic in the answers, understand I'm not making fun of you.. it's just that in the heat of battle, even the simplest answers become complex.


1: In big slow 'mechs I end up face tanking and get cored.:
The easy answer is to not face-tank. Use weapons that have low "face time" so you can just swing toward your opponent, click the mouse to fire, then swing away as if in one fluid motion. In fast 'mechs you never stop moving, but in slow 'mechs you still never stop moving.

2: I always push to the front and end up over-extended:
Again.. the answer is actually incredibly simple.. don't over-extend. recognize the causes of your over-extending and actively counter those causes. This isn't as simple as just looking at the mini-map to see where your team is.. you have to think about where your team WILL BE. The fact is it's very common for the faster line 'mechs to advance into unsustainable positions at the start of a fight by the time you can get to those positions, those faster 'mechs will almost certainly be destroyed or will have retreated. A bunch of light and medium 'mechs isn't a "front" until they have a slow beefy assault 'mech to help them hold it down. Until then there might be some guerilla fighting, but there isn't an actual line.

3: I always take to much damage in the beginning of the fight, so I'm not really in fighting condition when it's my turn to do the work:

Keep your head down at the start of the fight. Always look for the shortest path to get you where you want to go.. which means a path that won't get you destroyed before you reach your destination. Even when you've caught up to your team, you sometimes have to worry about flankers trying to play peekaboo.. make sure to call them out and target them.. if your team seems unable to deal with them, that's when you might consider pushing, before you've lost too much of your combat effectiveness, but hopefully the fast movers on your team will come back to fight flankers and make the push unnecessary.

what strategies do I use for positioning?

The biggest thing, as I mentioned, is keeping in mind where the teams WILL be. I Plan on positioning just behind the front lines, with the understanding that there are no lines until I am there with my team. I look for place near the front with good cover so I can assess the situation.

How do I control engagements for my benefit?

Planning and communication. don't just charge the enemy.. first look for the best way and time to approach the enemy. If it looks like my team has a lot of peple who want to fight at long range, I'm going to just charge the enemy.. I'll give them time to do their ranged fight, an I'll look for avenues that the enemy might use to attack and I'll set up to repel an attack from those avenues. If it seems like my team is losing the ranged fight, the I'll look for the best way to approach the enemy and I'll tell my team I'm getting ready to push what location, and I'll give them about 30 seconds to start reacting before I actually start pushing. Once I engage the enemy, I target one guy and sink everything into him.. If I don't kill him, I'll at least get the KMDD.. I also make sure to move my torso's a lot and spread incoming damage. the longer I can keep enemies focused on me, the more damage my team can do to them.

What setups work for snag kills?

Honestly, I don't "snag" kills. I consider my number 1 job in any match help the rest of my team get kills, by drawing enemy fire while my team shoots at the enemy. I want to make sure that, when I finally drop, the bad-boy on the enemy team either has dropped, or is about to drop and has lost a friend or two as well. For me, assault game-play isn't about kills. it's about putting my team into a good position to win the game.. however, if you focus-fire in a slow tanky assault 'mech, you'll probably get at least 1KMDD per battle, even if you're wading into the entire enemy team and shooting at their beefiest 'mech. (and I'm not saying you should try to do that, but if you did you'd still make some progress on these missions.)

[Buenaventura]

Or you could use the trial Stalker with 4xLRM10 and 4ML - worked great for me. Since KMDD also counts, a decent amount of LRMs should help with kills and/or KMDD and/or kill assists.
At least for the weight classes you mentioned. I didn't have to rely on the heavy trial mechs, so I can't say anything about them

[Leone]

I offer advice and tactics.

~Leone.

Edited by Leone, 07 August 2017 - 06:10 PM.

[Archer Magnus]

I really appreciate it. You guys are awesome, thank you!!

I read your comments (and your post Leone) and I whipped through the Assault kills in a quarter of the time it took me to get the Heavy kills.

I knew what I was doing wrong, but seeing your advice helped me rewire my in game patterns.