153 replies to this topic

[Adrikk]

With the Black Lanner coming out, I wonder if 55 tonner clan mechs will be allowed back into scouting matches.

[Xavori]

I call this screenshot, "Of Course Scouting is Currently Balanced"

https://steamuserima...6FDBDC1ABB4706/

[Roland09]

Jun Watarase, on 02 November 2017 - 03:16 AM, said:

Ignoring what faction you are with, would you guys prefer to use a bushwacker or huntsman/HBK in scouting?

Personally? Not even a contest, bushwacker.

Easily done. Go IS, see hwo easy it is.

[Roland09]

Xavori, on 02 November 2017 - 08:04 AM, said:

Take a Bushwacker with dual RAC-5's and start chopping legs out from people (I do this in quickplay with my X1). You win.

And honestly, giving Clans back the Stormcrow won't fix that because the Crow is just bigger, easier to shoot legs with less firepower than the Huntsman.

Bushwacker legs 59 armor / 26 Structure
Stormcrow legs 52 armor / 26 Structure
Huntsman legs 48 armor / 24 Structure

Top firepower
Bushwacker (2xRAC5) 109
Stormcrow (5xSSRM6 1xERLL) 71
Huntsman (6xSSRM6 2xSSRM4) 88

Want to tell me again how scouting is balanced?

LoL at comparing firepower through RAC-5s with alphas from 6x SRM6+A. It's, like totally the same.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

C H E E K I E Z, on 01 November 2017 - 10:45 PM, said:

If clan stoped bringing mist MG myst linx/ppc/lrm adders/ERLL cheetas, and lrm hunchbacks, It might be a bit more close. Clan medums/lights can boat almost double the dmg IS can. 8 ERSM 4x MG nova, 6 srm6 huntsman, 8 MPL hunchie, 2ppc/8ERSM hunchie. 2x lb20 hunchie all boat waaaaaaaaaaaaay more dmg than anything in IS can. IDC if you bring a hunchie 4SP, or buschwacker, your legs are gone in 1-2 alpha's from any of those mechs.

Like 99.9999999999999999% of arguement on these fourms. Its the person driving the mech, and the person who built the mech, not the Tech of the mech.

TL;DR GIT GUD

Wut? Only one or two of those builds gets higher DPS than a bushwacker, and only 2 beat it in alpha, and out of those only one, the dual LBX20, doesn't hit ghost heat and that has both lower alpha and lower DPS than the bushwacker while being on a much more fragile mech that has to take an engine that makes it slower just to use the dual LBX20.

Bushwacker with skill tree has 105 armor per leg, even the most damaging builds you have listed there would take 2 hits to destroy just a single leg assuming you don't spread damage.

Xavori, on 02 November 2017 - 08:04 AM, said:

Take a Bushwacker with dual RAC-5's and start chopping legs out from people (I do this in quickplay with my X1). You win.

And honestly, giving Clans back the Stormcrow won't fix that because the Crow is just bigger, easier to shoot legs with less firepower than the Huntsman.

Bushwacker legs 59 armor / 26 Structure
Stormcrow legs 52 armor / 26 Structure
Huntsman legs 48 armor / 24 Structure

Top firepower
Bushwacker (2xRAC5) 109
Stormcrow (5xSSRM6 1xERLL) 71
Huntsman (6xSSRM6 2xSSRM4) 88

Want to tell me again how scouting is balanced?

You aren't really helping the Clan's case by thinking the RAC is anything more than a waste to bring into scouting. Main build of the Bushwacker is LFE280, 4 ASRM6, 2 RL20s. Has potentially to one shot kill any Clan 50 tonner and a very high probability to do it on the second shot if the first fails. It can also easily eat up legs on the Clan mechs with less boxy torsos.

Edited by Dakota1000, 02 November 2017 - 12:15 PM.

[Davegt27]

Lets see

if I can repeat the Clan playbook

1) get gud
2) stop taking LRMs to scouting
3) suck it up butter cup
4) cry me a river
5) stop taking junk builds into FP
6) FP is for teams so get on a team


that's all stuff I can remember being told since Dec 2014

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Davegt27, on 02 November 2017 - 12:24 PM, said:

Lets see

if I can repeat the Clan playbook

1) get gud
2) stop taking LRMs to scouting
3) suck it up butter cup
4) cry me a river
5) stop taking junk builds into FP
6) FP is for teams so get on a team


that's all stuff I can remember being told since Dec 2014

Difference between then and now is that Griffin 2n was mathematically balanced with the Stormcrow and most people were just whining about streakcrows instead of the ASRM based ones or SPL builds. Now the best stuff that the Clan has is mathematically inferior to the Bushwacker by a significant margin.

[Xavori]

Roland09, on 02 November 2017 - 11:56 AM, said:

LoL at comparing firepower through RAC-5s with alphas from 6x SRM6+A. It's, like totally the same.

If you can't alpha kill the Bushwacker (and you can't) then the RAC-5's will have time to eat legs. In fact, because of the shape of the Bushwalker firing CT with your SRM6+A's sees about 1/3 of the missiles flying between the torsos and arms. It's part of the reason I use nothing but streaks now if I'm missile boating in scouting because watching missiles miss a target I aimed center mass at drives me bonkers.

Of course notice how we're not arguing if the Bushwacker is better or not...just about which build would work

[UnKnownPlayer]

Dakota1000, on 02 November 2017 - 12:29 PM, said:

Difference between then and now is that Griffin 2n was mathematically balanced with the Stormcrow and most people were just whining about streakcrows instead of the ASRM based ones or SPL builds. Now the best stuff that the Clan has is mathematically inferior to the Bushwacker by a significant margin.

How has the GFN-2N ever been balanced with the stormcrow? The GFN generally brings some SRMs and a flamer or 2, the SCR can bring a HUGE laser alpha, 50% more SRMs, moves the same speed as an XL GFN and survives better due to clan XL.

As per usual, do not assume that the standard tactic of close and alpha will win the day, try different approaches, include some range, have a support mech in there, do a bait and ambush, rotate mechs better, focus fire, use flamers etc. etc. etc.

I personally dont use anything in the 55ton bracket for scouting and win the vast majority of matches with my unit mates because we move, fight, and focus as a team. In fact none of my guys use the BSW in scouting except for rare "im bored and trying a stupid new build" moments as we generally dont have it built fast enough for the way that we play.

[Pariah Devalis]

Xavori, on 02 November 2017 - 09:12 AM, said:

I call this screenshot, "Of Course Scouting is Currently Balanced"

https://steamuserima...6FDBDC1ABB4706/

I call this screenshot, "It's the meat, not the metal."



Funny how with identical technology and identical access to mechs, one can still end up with what appears to be a sweepingly one sided situation.

Maybe.... maybe it isn't the mechs or lack thereof... but the caliber of pilot? Maybe people need to rub more neurons together? Reassess how they are approaching things? Maybe stop putting the blame anywhere else but where it belongs: on themselves?

Na.

Whole thing is broken. Let's cry a river.

Or do you honestly think giving one side the Stormcrow, a whopping 5 tons extra per mech, would change that sort of outcome? Don't get me wrong. I want the Stormcrow back, precisely because it won't matter. It adds value to Clan 55-ton mechs. The limitation serves no purpose but to limit options for Clan players. It shouldn't change the outcome in fights, however.

Edited by Pariah Devalis, 02 November 2017 - 01:43 PM.

[Dee Eight]

Jun Watarase, on 02 November 2017 - 03:16 AM, said:

Ignoring what faction you are with, would you guys prefer to use a bushwacker or huntsman/HBK in scouting?

Personally? Not even a contest, bushwacker.

Huntsman.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

UnKnownPlayer, on 02 November 2017 - 01:19 PM, said:

How has the GFN-2N ever been balanced with the stormcrow? The GFN generally brings some SRMs and a flamer or 2, the SCR can bring a HUGE laser alpha, 50% more SRMs, moves the same speed as an XL GFN and survives better due to clan XL.

As per usual, do not assume that the standard tactic of close and alpha will win the day, try different approaches, include some range, have a support mech in there, do a bait and ambush, rotate mechs better, focus fire, use flamers etc. etc. etc.

I personally dont use anything in the 55ton bracket for scouting and win the vast majority of matches with my unit mates because we move, fight, and focus as a team. In fact none of my guys use the BSW in scouting except for rare "im bored and trying a stupid new build" moments as we generally dont have it built fast enough for the way that we play.

In a straight ASRM6 vs ASRM6 fight the Stormcrow had an advantage of a single ASRM6 more but in combat the IS ASRM6 had a tighter spread and Stormcrow legs were bigger, making it an easy win for the Griffins. The 12 CSPL Stormcrow had the ability to kill a Griffin in 6 volleys (fires 2 per recharge) at the legs, but had shorter range and could be shut down if the Griffin brought a flamer or two, throwing the win to the Griffin again. The Griffin would bring an STD 275 (250 if you have dual flamers) at the time because if you're bringing an XL on IS you're asking to get XL checked. The Stormcrow had the advantage of being faster but had the disadvantage of running hotter, having easier to destroy legs, and generally being countered by the quirks of the Griffin such as more accurate ASRM6 and flamers.

[Dee Eight]

Xavori, on 02 November 2017 - 08:04 AM, said:

Take a Bushwacker with dual RAC-5's and start chopping legs out from people (I do this in quickplay with my X1). You win.

And honestly, giving Clans back the Stormcrow won't fix that because the Crow is just bigger, easier to shoot legs with less firepower than the Huntsman.

Bushwacker legs 59 armor / 26 Structure
Stormcrow legs 52 armor / 26 Structure
Huntsman legs 48 armor / 24 Structure

Top firepower
Bushwacker (2xRAC5) 109
Stormcrow (5xSSRM6 1xERLL) 71
Huntsman (6xSSRM6 2xSSRM4) 88

Want to tell me again how scouting is balanced?

LOL...boy you're naive if you believe the "in game" firepower values. That 109 for the dual RAC/5s... is based on FIVE SECONDS OF CONTINUOUS FIRE. Its not near instantaneous firepower like the huntsman and crow can bring to play. The Huntsman can get off 44 SRMs which have a lot less spread than a pair of RACs do against anything other than a stationary target with a stationary firer... in 0.5 seconds without any ghost heat, or jamming, and then do it again 4 seconds later. At best a RAC/5 is a slightly under 11 damage per second each. For ten tons and six crit spaces, and a spin up delay and then jam cycle.

Edited by Dee Eight, 02 November 2017 - 02:10 PM.

[UnKnownPlayer]

Dakota1000, on 02 November 2017 - 01:57 PM, said:

In a straight ASRM6 vs ASRM6 fight the Stormcrow had an advantage of a single ASRM6 more but in combat the IS ASRM6 had a tighter spread and Stormcrow legs were bigger, making it an easy win for the Griffins. The 12 CSPL Stormcrow had the ability to kill a Griffin in 6 volleys (fires 2 per recharge) at the legs, but had shorter range and could be shut down if the Griffin brought a flamer or two, throwing the win to the Griffin again. The Griffin would bring an STD 275 (250 if you have dual flamers) at the time because if you're bringing an XL on IS you're asking to get XL checked. The Stormcrow had the advantage of being faster but had the disadvantage of running hotter, having easier to destroy legs, and generally being countered by the quirks of the Griffin such as more accurate ASRM6 and flamers.

OK I always brought XLs before the civil war tech, always. You torso twist to prevent XL checking, if you cant torso twist then you are going to lose anyway.
You are talking about really marginal differences here, pilot skill is much more important, if you know you are going to be faster than your opponents then you would bring range and kite them, why would you brawl with SRMs or SmlPls if you think they have an advantage?

Looking at the other posts.....
the armour and structure values are close enough to make little difference, accuracy is more important, jinking and dodging negates more damage than armour or structure any day of the week, hence why mist lynx and locusts survive more than 5 seconds in a brawl.
BSW have the majority of their weapons in the left torso and arm (unless you brought a slow *** dakka version to scouting O.o ) so shoot the torso off and it is virtually neutered.
If they brought LFE or STD BSWs then you have speed advantage so you can kite at range or get behind them, i cannot find a single reason why the BSW is "overpowered" in scouting, all i can find is weaknesses to exploit.

[TWIAFU]

Jun Watarase, on 02 November 2017 - 03:16 AM, said:

Ignoring what faction you are with, would you guys prefer to use a bushwacker or huntsman/HBK in scouting?

Personally? Not even a contest, bushwacker.

Neither.

Both junk to me in Scouting.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

UnKnownPlayer, on 03 November 2017 - 12:38 AM, said:

OK I always brought XLs before the civil war tech, always. You torso twist to prevent XL checking, if you cant torso twist then you are going to lose anyway.
You are talking about really marginal differences here, pilot skill is much more important, if you know you are going to be faster than your opponents then you would bring range and kite them, why would you brawl with SRMs or SmlPls if you think they have an advantage?

Looking at the other posts.....
the armour and structure values are close enough to make little difference, accuracy is more important, jinking and dodging negates more damage than armour or structure any day of the week, hence why mist lynx and locusts survive more than 5 seconds in a brawl.
BSW have the majority of their weapons in the left torso and arm (unless you brought a slow *** dakka version to scouting O.o ) so shoot the torso off and it is virtually neutered.
If they brought LFE or STD BSWs then you have speed advantage so you can kite at range or get behind them, i cannot find a single reason why the BSW is "overpowered" in scouting, all i can find is weaknesses to exploit.

With an XL you can torso twist, but with an LFE (or an STD engine back in those days) you can torso twist for longer, once one side is blown off it can be used to deadside to greatly reduce damage to the CT. Deadsiding is the reason I picked the bushwacker build where all the SRMs are on one side, but its very easy for you to split them to both sides and move the RLs to the arm if you'd rather spread to all sides than use the game mechanics that just cause damage to be absorbed.

The main reason there isn't as much kiting in scouting as there could be is that it generally is risky to pull off, you're going to have pretty bad DPS because you have to shoot then start running, otherwise the enemy catches up due to chasers taking more optimal paths directly to the runner who also must accelerate and decelerate to take shots. Other than that the teams will have to converge eventually on the dropship location, many kiting teams have been blocked by my own, usually those Locusts and Mist Lynxs you talk about surviving more than 5 seconds don't last past the first shot, much less a second.

Of course, I usually have a brawler as my main mech for scouting then a fast mech as a secondary usually for cases when I'm on a Clan contract and get a large sized map with little cover thinking that I can hedge my bets instead of relying entirely on hoping the enemy unit didn't bring a squad of meta brawlers. Even then its usually not that effective, the DPS of a kiting mech is too low to really matter. 5 ERML on an Ice Ferret, for example, gets 35 damage alpha strikes with over a second long duration, would take 6 alpha strikes with no missing at all just to take out a single Bushwacker, that's nearly 30 seconds of continuous fire just to kill one Bushwacker through legging, we all know accuracy isn't perfect, my stats say I have almost a 90% accuracy rate with ERML (though I know this doesn't count spreading, so lets say 75% damage gets on target), This brings it up to 8 alpha strikes against a single enemy mech to kill it, I'll overheat firing at max DPS, but with all the running I have to do I know I won't be able to get to that anyway. So we're sitting on at least a minute of time just to kill one enemy mech under ideal conditions, If they get lucky with a shot at around 360m with the dual RL20s they can oneshot my leg and my kiting is over.

Kiting requires a whole lot of things to go great for the kite, if you trip up on a rock its pretty much over. I guess you could go super long range ERPPC kite, but there's only maybe 2 or 3 maps where that range is even possible to use and at least 80% of the time the enemy isn't dumb enough to just walk on up at you without cover and the DPS is even lower.

I'd rather be on the team that can oneshot the enemy than the team that has to kite for a minute for a chance to kill the enemy. Especially when the IS could also just bring a couple Assassins for an anti kite deck, not much an Ice Ferret with 5 ERML is going to be able to do against an Assassin with 4 SRM4 with the whole being faster and having double the maximum DPS thing. Even some Wolfhounds could do the job of stopping a kite deck, but with Assassins you can pair them up with the Bushwackers without really reducing your team's brawling power.

[UnKnownPlayer]

Valid points but they are based on you working solo, only 1 mech needs to kite, the others should be spread out around the targets, they shoot rear torsos or hit with LRMs, I have seen shadowcats do it really effectively, if the enemy split and each case one of you then you ambush them with 4 of you because you have mobility advantage.

Like I said, it's about teamwork and organisation, not solo skill.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

UnKnownPlayer, on 03 November 2017 - 08:24 AM, said:

Valid points but they are based on you working solo, only 1 mech needs to kite, the others should be spread out around the targets, they shoot rear torsos or hit with LRMs, I have seen shadowcats do it really effectively, if the enemy split and each case one of you then you ambush them with 4 of you because you have mobility advantage.

Like I said, it's about teamwork and organisation, not solo skill.

I usually run scouting as a 4 man though. You split up to kite and you tend to die one by one while the other players on your team don't even have the DPS or alpha to back core the enemies in time to save you. If one guy splits off to kite while the rest brawl then the 3 brawlers die and leave just the kite left because the kite's damage output is too negligible to make up for them being a man down in the brawl.

My team has tried out a lot of things when we get bored of meta from quad LRM20 Hunchback IICs to long range laser loadouts to dps to kiting to high alpha laser builds, and obviously brawling. I was even the 16th best Shadow Cat Pilot in the game last time they did a medium mech leaderboard, but I'll tell you now that dual LPL just won't cut it anymore, if the enemy team has an Assassin I'm pretty much a dead man, if the enemy team is all 82.5 kph or slower I can kite a bit up until my MASC starts running too hot for me to keep up a sizable speed advantage.

The enemy team being baited into splitting up when they have an obvious advantage by sticking together is a failing of the enemy team's organization and skill.


I already know that I can still win matches on IS or Clan with my team because we have some level of organization and teamwork and decent builds, but I'm arguing for balance here between the top chassis available to each team. Balance should be done objectively through the equipment each team is given, you shouldn't have to have a massive skill advantage to make up for the enemy's advantage in mech choice.

IS has the best brawler with the Bushwacker, IS has the best anti kite with the Assassin, IS has the best light mech with the Wolfhound (mpl) or Oxide, IS has equivalent kites with the Wolfhound (erml), Locust, and Phoenix Hawk.

The only option where Clans really have a chance of parity in tech would be kiting but that is kept in check because once you start kiting in the queues the teams swap to anti kite.

[Davegt27]

I think there are so few people playing MWO you will have a hard time finding someone to argue with

[Wolfways]

Finally got my 50 clan scouting wins!
That was only slightly less fun than when I crashed my bike and ripped my happy sack open.