58 replies to this topic

[Trissila]

Most pilots strip armor from their legs to save tonnage for other things.

I've got a 72-damage SRM alpha, and on a target like the leg of a non-light mech, it's effectively PPFLD.

If that leg is anything past "just got the paint scratched" status, it's coming off in one alpha.

I've double-legged three 'mechs in a match before. Too bad it usually doesn't count for a KMDD.

[MischiefSC]

FupDup, on 21 September 2017 - 01:23 PM, said:

Shooting the torso is usually better than the arms since the ST loss will immediately destroy the arm with it. The exception is if you're dealing with a mech that has most of its firepower loaded into the arms.

People who complain about Mist Lynx and Cheetah are people who don't realize both lose their arms with stupidly little effort. an ACH with 2 lasers isn't that big a threat, leg it at your leisure. Same with a Lynx with 2 lasers on its right torso. Legging a light is hard - pulling the arms off of those two is pretty easy.

Legging is good if you're in a position to pull 1, maybe 2 legs before they're into cover. It's stupid to do when just poking. However I admit - legging someone who is stupidly in the open in pug queue is one of the best possible ways to get your teammates to play more aggressive. A legged enemy in the open is like a magnet, even the most cowardly pug will get brave to chase that easy kill.

Legging is a powerful tool in pug herding. Pugs are inherently cowardly most the time. You need to dangle treats for them if you want them to crawl out from under the bed.

[GuardDogg]

The other day, had a Raven running away from my team mates, towards me. I was aiming at the raven (CT), and after the shot, its leg was destroyed. He was running towards from my team mates, without him self thinking. After that leg was destroyed, a friendly fired on it, and the raven then became shattered onto the battlefield. Now, if you come face to face, and your thinking, well I am going to shoot the legs (a leg), and the enemy is firing on you. While your shooting a leg, the enemy is aiming for your head or CT. Who is going to die first? I see a lot of pilots do this, specially on my team.

[Shifty McSwift]

Basically if a pilot skimps any armor in the legs and is running a 2ST to die or more mech, particularly STD engines, then the legs actually tend to become the quickest way, other than a headshot or full CT core damaging, to take a mech down, a good pilot can basically only use their broken leg to try and hide their functional one, once one goes down, and with your movespeed impaired its only a matter of time before the other goes (or you just cop a CT coring that you cant escape).

The main reasons legs aren't a more popular target is because not everyone strips legs, some buff them for this exact reason in fact, and because the benefit of taking out an ST while trying to core someone twisting is usually pretty great, so while it may be a little slower to try for, the benefit of them losing the weapons they are shooting at you or your team tends to outweigh that slight bonus in TTK.

[Jun Watarase]

The main reason is that in most cases, you do not have the time to stop and think whether you should aim for the legs or not. Unless you already have the paper doll active (because a friendly has the enemy targetted, giving you extra time for target info gathering), you wont even know what his armor status is. If you are like 500m away and running towards a target, and you can see his legs are red armor, then yea obviously you have the time and luxury to think about shooting his legs. But if you are being blinded by ballistic fire from a mech that just turned the corner and you cant even see anything, you wont have his paper doll visible yet and all you can do is aim for center of mass and hope to hit.

And when trading, everyone aims for the torsos because you cant wait for the paper doll to show because you have a limited window of opportunity to fire and get back int ocover. So you often get into a situation where an enemy assault MIGHT have low leg armor, but your team already dropped his torso armors down to red so you may as well just shoot the torsos anyway.

Another case where you have the luxury to go for the legs is when you are in a fast mech, you are running circles around an assault and he has near full hp armor. You probably wont get through his torso armor anyway so you may as well go for the legs.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Light mechs and fast mediums depend on their speed to survive, so when facing such mechs, the legs are obvious targets. Even against heavier mechs though, legs are still useful to destroy. Legging a brawler before he makes it to the front line keeps him from bringing his close range weapons to bear. Legging a sniper prevents it from effectively poking, as it takes longer to peek out from cover and step back in. Legging a mech while it's moving between cover leaves it stranded in the open, and an easy target for the rest of your team. Legging a slow assault mech and leaving it keeps it from rejoining the main force.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

im seeing in Spectator a Raven (last teammember) follow a direwolf and and firing Alpha by Alpha salvo his left Leg ..the Direwolf ignored the Raven for 30 Seconds and lost a leg ...twist the Torso and destroy the Raven with one Alpha ...better to shot of the Back as of the Leg by a Direwolf

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 22 September 2017 - 02:30 AM.

[Lykaon]

GuardDogg, on 21 September 2017 - 09:02 PM, said:

The other day, had a Raven running away from my team mates, towards me. I was aiming at the raven (CT), and after the shot, its leg was destroyed. He was running towards from my team mates, without him self thinking. After that leg was destroyed, a friendly fired on it, and the raven then became shattered onto the battlefield. Now, if you come face to face, and your thinking, well I am going to shoot the legs (a leg), and the enemy is firing on you. While your shooting a leg, the enemy is aiming for your head or CT. Who is going to die first? I see a lot of pilots do this, specially on my team.

The light mech uses evasion not armor for defense. Take the leg off and there is no evasion only paper thin armor.

So if a Raven is running straight at you...well that pilot just sucks. But a jinking and dodging light mech (in particular a Raven) the legs are an option to remove the capacity to evade.

In your example we seem to have two pilots not performing any evasive or defensive manuvers. If one mech is face tanking another then obviously aim for the kill but, believe me as your opponents skill levels increase the encounters with the face tankers will be few and far between.

When I pilot a light mech an Arctic Cheetah for example, you will have to take out both my arms and both side torsos before you kill me because I will not allow you clean shots on my center mass. Routinely my mech is destroyed only after losing a leg and both arms and a side. It's the loss of the leg that finally nails the coffin for me.otherwise I would still be plugging away with an Er- Medium laser till the end of time

Now if we tally up the total armor and structure of both arms both side torsos and of course some of the center torso (since I will be using as much armor as I can by twisting) it will of course be far more than one of my mech's legs. But believe me once I lose one leg it's over for me. I will only beat an opponent that is so badly damaged that a stiff breeze would take them out if I have lost a leg because they will not miss me.

And of course...

There will be times when you will be faced with mechs specificly designed to "dead side" ( a mech built with the specific purpose to have a sacrificial arm and side torso) and the pilot will turn their sacrificial side towards you to absorb damage.

Under these circumstances you mayneed to destroy an arm and a side torso before hitting the center all the while the damage being reduced by "passing through" the previously destroyed segment. The potential damage soaked with this technique can exceed the armor and structure values of both legs of the target. So maybe under these sorts of encounters consider legging. Many mechs without arm hardpoints are built to perform as a "deadsider" a common example is the Centurion.

Essentially there is a right time to aim low.

[Kroete]

FupDup, on 21 September 2017 - 12:44 PM, said:

The advantages of shooting legs:

A. Legs are much harder to protect than torsos (can twist to hide torso, hard to hide leg).

B. Depending on the size of the mech, people might strip off leg armor (less damage needed).

C. Depending on mech and build, there might be ammo in there (potentially faster/easier kill).

D. Depending on speed/size, legs can be just easier to hit than the body.


The main downside of legging though is that not everyone does it, so you might end up with some people shooting legs and some shooting torso. Broadly speaking it's better if everybody is shooting the same area, and since the torso is the most intuitive/obvious target that causes most people to gravitate towards it.

If you CAN get everybody on the same page then legging is absolutely brutal against any mech. The issue is just getting everybody on the same page...

E: Removing both legs its faster then destroying a mech with a pilot that knows how to twist.
F: You can fire on the legs from every angel giving more options for assists on the same spot.
G: You will piss of pilots using "shield&sword" metabuilds: Empty side? Shield arm? Doesnt matter!

MechaBattler, on 21 September 2017 - 12:49 PM, said:

I think the biggest downside is that in pug queue everyone shoots for CT.

Not using r is the biggest downside,
you know that new player or tryhard thats firing on the 80% center on a mech with deep red sides and only a unarmored leg left because he dont know about r or dont want to play as team?

MischiefSC, on 21 September 2017 - 07:11 PM, said:

Legging is a powerful tool in pug herding. Pugs are inherently cowardly most the time. You need to dangle treats for them if you want them to crawl out from under the bed.

Nah, lot of pug players just recognized (and have read a lot of times) that comp and group players in pugs try to use them as meatshields to pad their stats.
They have learned to use teammates as meatshields from the comp players.

Edited by Kroete, 22 September 2017 - 03:41 AM.

[PyckenZot]

There is no 1 way to go about this, but in general, you can say the following.

If you are facing a fast light or medium: shoot the legs. (exception example: Jenners and their huge torso)
If you are facing an other mech with unknown loadout: Shoot CT (you may even get a lucky HS)
If you are facing an assault or know assymetrical/XL build: Shoot ST (exception example: Known underarmored leg builds)

Overal, current, example: When facing a pack of ASNs, you will be happy when your team has been going for their legs

Just my 2 C-bills.

[Lily from animove]

Antares102, on 21 September 2017 - 12:47 PM, said:

I have seen it many times that people desperately shoot well armored legs even though the torso is cored orange or something.
I agree with the OP that shooting legs is not always the best choice. Check enemy paper doll sometimes folks espcially when the enemy mech has less than 80%.

omg this, so much this, cherry red torsi and some people go for legs so hard as if the damagedoll never existed.

buit atm, with the challange, yeha shooting legs blowing ammo means a laod of damage done

[ocular tb]

Legs are a good choice for those lights and mediums that are fast, tanky, and hard to hit - Commandos, Locusts, Javelins, Spiders, Assassins, etc... Most other mechs I usually just go for a torso since they tend to be a bigger and easier target to hit.

[Bigbacon]

i only shoot legs if A: it is already ready to pop or B: lights.

[LordNothing]

i usually go for whatever is weak (screw the guesswork and press r). if i encounter a fresh mech, i usually either go side or center torso. if i encounter a mech with significant damage somewhere im going to exploit that. i will go after legs on mechs that i know have weak legs though. there is the light mech exception of course. i like to aim about crotch level for those, where you either hit the hip or torso depending on angle.

Edited by LordNothing, 22 September 2017 - 06:40 AM.

[Mole]

I might agree OP on larger 'mechs but if you are fighting a fast light and you are not trying to leg it you're doing it wrong, plain and simple.

[MischiefSC]

Kroete, on 22 September 2017 - 03:25 AM, said:

E: Removing both legs its faster then destroying a mech with a pilot that knows how to twist.
F: You can fire on the legs from every angel giving more options for assists on the same spot.
G: You will piss of pilots using "shield&sword" metabuilds: Empty side? Shield arm? Doesnt matter!


Not using r is the biggest downside,
you know that new player or tryhard thats firing on the 80% center on a mech with deep red sides and only a unarmored leg left because he dont know about r or dont want to play as team?


Nah, lot of pug players just recognized (and have read a lot of times) that comp and group players in pugs try to use them as meatshields to pad their stats.
They have learned to use teammates as meatshields from the comp players.

I'm no comp player, however I play with a few of them. They don't 'use their teammates as meatshields'. They just know how to trade well, which involves using good positioning and staying aggressive.

Someone who ends a pug match with 700-800 damage using direct fire weapons and likely 3 or 4 kills is, in no way shape or form, like someone who just hides in the back and hopes their team more or less wins the match for them and ends the game with 100-400 damage, regardless of the number of kills.

I had a pug queue match the other day where one guy actually calls the drop and comes up with a reasonable strategy. 1 guy says more or less he does what he wants and charges the enemy and dies alone with like 150 damage saying he wants to make sure we lose, because he doesn't want... the team... to use any strategy.

We still won because that guy was an idiot and nothing of any value was lost while even a tiny bit of coordination is a huge advantage in this game. Letting that guy go die isn't using him as pug armor - it's recognizing that a lot of pugs are horrible, horrible at this game.

Most of those left are absolutely cowardly. Players who are good at trading are not cowardly; they just understand positioning and trading and when it's good to push and when the situation is good to push. They're always aggressive - usually one of the first people shooting and shooting the most frequently. They're always putting pressure out. Always trading damage, drawing fire that is twisted off or negated by cover. They're just good at it.

[Novakaine]

When I'm not lurming legs are always my primary target.
Reason is simple less mobile targets are a lot easier to kill.

[GETREKT4K]

The only time my team has been so dominated I had to sit back and say wow, was when the enemy had 4 or 5 mechs working together taking out our legs. It was a spectacle.

[GETREKT4K]

In addition, and slightly offtopic...this kind of coordination doesn't seem that hard to program. A coop vs difficult ai game mode would be quite fun to play I think.

[Brain Cancer]

Quote

When I'm not lurming legs are always my primary target.
Reason is simple less mobile targets are a lot easier to kill.

Even with missiles, if I see a weak leg, I'll put secondaries into it to mobility-kill a target.

After all, if you can't get away, I can skulk around you and finish bombing you back to the stone age. Alternatively, it's a good time to use that strike for much the same reasons.