104 replies to this topic

[Appogee]

@OP: could you also try SRM boating to see how that goes?

In the name of science, we should strive to be missile-agnostic.

Edited by Appogee, 18 December 2017 - 10:45 PM.

[MrMadguy]

Brain Cancer, on 17 December 2017 - 04:07 AM, said:

Normally, I pilot a Supernova-A. ATM loadouts. It does pretty good, and at the beginning of this, I was a healthy 1.22 W/L and 1.77 K/D. Heck, last game before this experiment was a six-kill one.

So of course, I wanted to see how terrible it'd be with lurms instead.

One day's worth of play was enough to knock that down to 1.16/1.58. No stopping power whatsoever. LRM 70-80(with Artemis) did noticeably less effective damage than ATM 36, and worse still didn't really benefit from firing at targets in line of sight- salvos that would have broken something with ATMs simply failed to do any really noticeable damage, in part because LRMs actually don't reward you much for doing so. You get no better clustering, no improved damage,nothing but exposure to fire. This encourages hiding, which in turn means your team gets more fire instead.

Moreover, teams actually got worse over time as things shifted from US primetime to European. Depressingly, the lurmboat, even with repeated stomps and the most incompetent basement-humping-on-HPG teams was still barely scoring higher...but given spread, it was right down there in the toilet with the direct fire types. Kills were rare- one game out of a dozen was a 2-kill game, with most being one or zero. The gentle damage of LRMs also emboldens opponents, who rightfully see an easy kill (and yes, I had lasers too). That is, to experience players LRMs are no longer much of a threat. There's no stopping power at this point, with the last spread nerf having defanged the launchers even further than before.

And yes, I know that's old news. What's sad is that it's actually gotten noticeably worse since the Artemis nerf. Sure, you can play aggressively and rack up damage, but it takes dozens more missiles to do serious harm with an LRM now, and more time. Time your opponent has to shoot you or your team. So just don't. Clantech LRMs are probably the worst balanced weapon in the game, closely followed by IS ones.

This just means, that you don't know, how to use LRMs. Being LRM boat - is an art of keeping optimal distance, position and picking right targets.

[MischiefSC]

ATMs are brutally effective - if you play from the front. All but brawling, playing at about 200m. I'll prioritize a good ATM mech playing up front over a Deathstrike every time.

[MischiefSC]

LRMs are bad, but they help bad players farm bads. ATMs have serious issues but they can play pretty strong in QP.

[Vellron2005]

It's so funny reading this thread.. people keep comparing LRMs to "more effective weapons"..

Pardon me, but how stupid ARE you people?

Arguing how LRMs spread damage and don't get kills in an effective way is just as stupid as saying TAG lasers don't do much damage..

Bloody DUH.

LRMs are a SUPRESSION and BATTLEFIELD CONTROL weapon.. They are NOT MEANT to do effective damage.

They are artillery. Not sniper.

When are you people gonna get it through your thick skulls?

Example of bad LRM use: LRM Supernova going agains Dakka Annihilator in 200 meters, without cover.

Example of good LRM use: LRM Supernova pinning down Dakka Annihilator from 600 meters and from behind cover, making him unable to move from behind cover and use his big Heavy Gausses, or risk getting stripped and hammered by a hail of damage. (did this to an Annihilator yesterday on Tourmaline. Had the guy pinned and suppressed for a good 2-3 minutes, then my guys got up to him and smashed him, finding a nice, stripped target).

Stop comparing LRMs with any other weapon. There is no other weapon in the game that's anything like LRMs.

LRMs don't need nerfs.

LRMs are not a bad weapon. They do their job well if you know how to use them.

Edited by Vellron2005, 19 December 2017 - 01:25 AM.

[UnofficialOperator]

Vellron2005, on 19 December 2017 - 01:18 AM, said:

It's so funny reading this thread.. people keep comparing LRMs to "more effective weapons"..

Pardon me, but how stupid ARE you people?

Arguing how LRMs spread damage and don't get kills in an effective way is just as stupid as saying TAG lasers don't do much damage..

Bloody DUH.

LRMs are a SUPRESSION and BATTLEFIELD CONTROL weapon.. They are NOT MEANT to do effective damage.

They are artillery. Not sniper.

When are you people gonna get it through your thick skulls?

Example of bad LRM use: LRM Supernova going agains Dakka Annihilator in 200 meters, without cover.

Example of good LRM use: LRM Supernova pinning down Dakka Annihilator from 600 meters and from behind cover, making him unable to move from behind cover and use his big Heavy Gausses, or risk getting stripped and hammered by a hail of damage. (did this to an Annihilator yesterday on Tourmaline. Had the guy pinned and suppressed for a good 2-3 minutes, then my guys got up to him and smashed him, finding a nice, stripped target).

Stop comparing LRMs with any other weapon. There is no other weapon in the game that's anything like LRMs.

LRMs don't need nerfs.

LRMs are not a bad weapon. They do their job well if you know how to use them.

Me having 1 AMS with 2 AMS nodes

Edited by UnofficialOperator, 19 December 2017 - 05:38 AM.

[Brain Cancer]

MrMadguy, on 18 December 2017 - 10:52 PM, said:

This just means, that you don't know, how to use LRMs. Being LRM boat - is an art of keeping optimal distance, position and picking right targets.

I spent T4-T2 in LRMboats. They're notably weaker since then, and that's the whole reason for the OP.

Don't "you don't know how to use LRMs" me. I'm saying that used properly, they are now even weaker than before. That's the issue. Case in point:



I was direct-firing and watching 60 LRMs hitting targets with internal damage repeatedly, and the entire target was being covered in hits. That's because thanks to the Artemis nerf, spread is worse. Those 2 KMDDs ate literal tons of ammo without losing a component- the two components shot off were on a Warhammer with vestigally armored arms. We're not talking "hide at 900m" here, we're talking up front, get your own locks, 500m or less range shooting.

Same tactics, ATM 36 instead of LRM 60:



Kills instead of KMDDs, components torn to pieces, 200 less damage and yet 3 KMDDs more than the exact same build with LRMs instead because the targets simply were torn open and killed, rather than being worn down to skeletons before something finally gave out. That's part of why spread nerfs hurt. The less focused damage from a weapon becomes, the more damage it takes to get similar results, and increasing spread actually has disproportional effects as you apply enough of it.

A little spread may mean you're hitting all the torso hitboxes. More and you're now pinging the entire robot. Make it even worse and you may be spamming damage and getting big numbers, but now you're so scattered that a killshot with LRMs is an exercise in slow, agonizingly slow eroding of the target. We've gotten to the point of smaller launchers being AMS vulnerable and larger ones losing so much efficiency (and they're hurt worse by the Artemis nerf because it's percentage based- and they had a larger spread number to begin with) as to only fit for sandblasting.

Compared to other weapons, even other missiles- the TTK is now past too high.

[Mystere]

Vellron2005, on 19 December 2017 - 01:18 AM, said:

LRMs are a SUPRESSION and BATTLEFIELD CONTROL weapon.. They are NOT MEANT to do effective damage.

Hmm! The MW4 intro video seems to suggest otherwise.

[Brain Cancer]

Vellron2005, on 19 December 2017 - 01:18 AM, said:

It's so funny reading this thread.. people keep comparing LRMs to "more effective weapons"..

Pardon me, but how stupid ARE you people?

Arguing how LRMs spread damage and don't get kills in an effective way is just as stupid as saying TAG lasers don't do much damage..

Bloody DUH.

LRMs are a SUPRESSION and BATTLEFIELD CONTROL weapon.. They are NOT MEANT to do effective damage.

Any weapon that doesn't do effective damage isn't an effective weapon, period.

Quote

They are artillery. Not sniper.

Amusingly enough, artillery deals more focused damage than LRMs do in MWO. (In TT, LRMs and artillery hit in five-point flights, and it's SRMs that scatter individual missiles across a target)

Quote

Example of good LRM use: LRM Supernova pinning down Dakka Annihilator from 600 meters and from behind cover, making him unable to move from behind cover and use his big Heavy Gausses, or risk getting stripped and hammered by a hail of damage. (did this to an Annihilator yesterday on Tourmaline. Had the guy pinned and suppressed for a good 2-3 minutes, then my guys got up to him and smashed him, finding a nice, stripped target).

So after two-three minutes of sustained fire, you did so little damage that you didn't even breach his armor?

I rest my case.

Quote

Stop comparing LRMs with any other weapon. There is no other weapon in the game that's anything like LRMs.

That's correct. They've been nerfed horribly and are so underpowered as to be ignored by skilled players in competitive play, screamed at by potatoes, and nerfed further whenever anyone actually tries to do something beyond their limited capacity, and even nerfed just trying to nerf SRMs instead.

Quote

LRMs don't need nerfs.

LRMs are not a bad weapon. They do their job well if you know how to use them.

They're a third-rate weapon that takes extraordinary effort on the user's part to produce a proportionate effect on the battlefield relative to the tonnage required to mount them. And barring best-case scenarios, doesn't come close. That's a shame.

Edited by Brain Cancer, 19 December 2017 - 09:59 AM.

[MischiefSC]

There is no such thing as 'battlefield control/suppression' weapons. Every weapon does that. If you shoot 60 LRMs at someone in the hopes of maybe splattering 30 damage over them after 3 seconds of travel time unless they decide to get into cover that's significantly less effective than a nearly 80 pt laser alpha that blows their ST off in 1.3 seconds.

LRMs are a bad weapon. ATMs are a version of LRMs that can actually be useful, and deadly, at just outside of brawling range by people who play like they're not going to pee every time someone shoots at them.

I make two LRM assaults, in my toilet, every morning before breakfast.

[Plastic Guru]

Noob input...

My favorite build (that I seem to do well in) is a fast medium with a mix of LRM's and ML's. I like to play 2nd line and lob missiles over the heads of the 1st line. I really like that I don't have to step out from behind whatever meat shield is 50 meters in front of me then face tank to shoot SRM's. Nor do I have to angle ATM's over shoulders. Light them up with my TAG and hold down weapon button 3...hahahah...I just troll the **** out of larger mechs...only downside is when the 1st line crumbles you got several much bigger mechs coming straight for you so you need to carry good Dakka or Laser too.

[General Solo]

@OP
Rermember you did it for SCIENCE

[Jingseng]

the question is, how much will it ruin MY (your teammates') rating

[Brain Cancer]

No more than any other semi-messed-up build will.

You can build a good lurmboat. The problem is that being good at LRMs means you are now fully two steps behind everyone else thanks to repeated nerf/whine cycles.

[MischiefSC]

Brain Cancer, on 22 December 2017 - 01:08 PM, said:

No more than any other semi-messed-up build will.

You can build a good lurmboat. The problem is that being good at LRMs means you are now fully two steps behind everyone else thanks to repeated nerf/whine cycles.

Not the nerf/whine cycles. Nature of LRMs, always have been bad. ECM got nerfed to **** too, also engine desync slowed everyone down, mech rescale made most bigger and as such eat more LRMs, LRMs have had a *lot* of direct and indirect buffs.

Lock on indirect fire weapons however are an absolute **** mechanic for a FPS and as such are going to play like ****. Can't really address it though because so many people are saying 'LRMs are amazing if you use them right, while they float a 1.0 w/l or less and can never actually back that up with testing.

[Brain Cancer]

Quote

Nature of LRMs, always have been bad

Let's see.

LRMs dealt 1.2 damage at one point. They now deal 1.0.

LRMs had 175 base velocity. It's now 160.

LRM spread has been nerfed. Artemis has been nerfed for good measure, just in case you wanted to try compensating.

LRMs did NOT have an incoming warning system to begin with. It was literally added in because players complained LRMs were too good. Heck, eliminate that and you'd significantly buff LRMs right there, simply by people not knowing until they're hit.

Like every ballistic and energy weapon. Or SRMs. Or MRMs. Or even Streaks or NARCs, which were so ninja they put a NARC indicator on the victim to let them know some Raven just podded them on the buttcheek.

ECM can still utterly cancel locks. AMS has become even better, repeatedly (not that most people use it).

We have monthly "LRMs are too good" threads, inevitably from newer players who barely understand the function of the W key or the power of a nearby rock.

LRMs may have been always second-rate, but good grief, have they done their best to systematically make them even worse.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Brain Cancer, on 22 December 2017 - 01:39 PM, said:

LRMs had 175 base velocity. It's now 160.

LRMs did NOT have an incoming warning system to begin with. It was literally added in because players complained LRMs were too good. Heck, eliminate that and you'd significantly buff LRMs right there, simply by people not knowing until they're hit.

Increased velocity & no warning looks like a good place to start, along with a flat trajectory when fired with no lock (so they can be used in, say, a tunnel).

[ANOM O MECH]

Brain Cancer, on 22 December 2017 - 01:39 PM, said:

Let's see.

LRMs dealt 1.2 damage at one point. They now deal 1.0.

LRMs had 175 base velocity. It's now 160.

LRM spread has been nerfed. Artemis has been nerfed for good measure, just in case you wanted to try compensating.

LRMs did NOT have an incoming warning system to begin with. It was literally added in because players complained LRMs were too good. Heck, eliminate that and you'd significantly buff LRMs right there, simply by people not knowing until they're hit.

Like every ballistic and energy weapon. Or SRMs. Or MRMs. Or even Streaks or NARCs, which were so ninja they put a NARC indicator on the victim to let them know some Raven just podded them on the buttcheek.

ECM can still utterly cancel locks. AMS has become even better, repeatedly (not that most people use it).

We have monthly "LRMs are too good" threads, inevitably from newer players who barely understand the function of the W key or the power of a nearby rock.

LRMs may have been always second-rate, but good grief, have they done their best to systematically make them even worse.

I just ran a three lrm 10, five med pulse Mad Dog B for a couple of hours. I did for the experience as I haven't run them in a while and on another threads folks were talking about launchers.

It was pretty miserable. I just got it so when it's skilled I imagine it'd be better and switch to ersmalls will help until I get into heat skills.

If I was a guy who liked lurms and spent money on the game I think I would be pretty pissed off right now. More like fuming. So I think I am at the point where I am much more sympathetic to folks who love the lrms. Also the useless rhetoric and bashing folks trying to have fun and play a game is over the top. I won't be a part of that.

I say all this so that you take what I say next for what it is and not from someone who'd call someone names for choosing to bring lurms (I will from time to time in mention in CW maps that are just not good for lrms, if folks listen that's great but nothing I'd fuss over).

The warning has to stay for me. It has to. It is a part of the imersion for me. It has been a part of the vast majority of games I have played where missiles are launched at you. So much so I can't think of a title that doesn't.

I see it on TV where missiles are launched. On-board a ship, on the Discovery channel reinactments. This warning is a part of my life.

LRM's should be a crap ton faster in my opinion. They should be better, so that I win you over to my side, and you want that poor bleepidy-bleep, to get that warning know that there is sweet Franklin D Roosevelt he can do about it as a second later the salvos poor down on him.

[MischiefSC]

The nerfs to LRMs happened because it's not like any of that makes them worse against good players but at least it helped with them being a potato farming weapon.

You make them flat trajectory, require TAG/NARC for indirect fire which works like it does currently. Then with direct fire you make them accelerate - so they're 170ms within 300m, accelerating up to AC2 speed at max range - this makes them inferior to SRMs up close (did I mention get rid of minimum range?) and far more accurate at long range.

[Lykaon]

Brain Cancer, on 17 December 2017 - 04:07 AM, said:

Normally, I pilot a Supernova-A. ATM loadouts. It does pretty good, and at the beginning of this, I was a healthy 1.22 W/L and 1.77 K/D. Heck, last game before this experiment was a six-kill one.

So of course, I wanted to see how terrible it'd be with lurms instead.

One day's worth of play was enough to knock that down to 1.16/1.58. No stopping power whatsoever. LRM 70-80(with Artemis) did noticeably less effective damage than ATM 36, and worse still didn't really benefit from firing at targets in line of sight- salvos that would have broken something with ATMs simply failed to do any really noticeable damage, in part because LRMs actually don't reward you much for doing so. You get no better clustering, no improved damage,nothing but exposure to fire. This encourages hiding, which in turn means your team gets more fire instead.

Moreover, teams actually got worse over time as things shifted from US primetime to European. Depressingly, the lurmboat, even with repeated stomps and the most incompetent basement-humping-on-HPG teams was still barely scoring higher...but given spread, it was right down there in the toilet with the direct fire types. Kills were rare- one game out of a dozen was a 2-kill game, with most being one or zero. The gentle damage of LRMs also emboldens opponents, who rightfully see an easy kill (and yes, I had lasers too). That is, to experience players LRMs are no longer much of a threat. There's no stopping power at this point, with the last spread nerf having defanged the launchers even further than before.

And yes, I know that's old news. What's sad is that it's actually gotten noticeably worse since the Artemis nerf. Sure, you can play aggressively and rack up damage, but it takes dozens more missiles to do serious harm with an LRM now, and more time. Time your opponent has to shoot you or your team. So just don't. Clantech LRMs are probably the worst balanced weapon in the game, closely followed by IS ones.

Yep LRMs need something to encourage LOS engagments. As it is now LRMs are the worst option to be actually seen by the enemy using them.

I very rarely use an LRM "boat" mine is more like an LRM kayak, 35 ton Cougar with 30 lurm tubes TAG ecm and a pair of hvy meds.

For me,when I do use this mech I do so to directly take advantage/compensate for some of the issues you listed.

If I'm hiding I try to be close to a friendly so my ECM is on them as well. If not possible when I'm hiding I am deliberatley putting fire on the largest concentration of enemy firepower trying my best to keep that enemy locked into cover and not shooting so my team is taking less damage not more from a lack of front line targets to share armor.

I frequently bait the enemy into chasing down the "easy" kill and pull them into kill boxes or outright duped them into horrible positions.The ECM and cougar low profile makes it fairly easy to give a pursuer the slip and leave them out in the middle of nowhere.

I was recently playing in group queue with an old friend I have not played with in a very long time. He was insisting on using an LRM cyclops so on one drop I pulled out my Cougar and at the end of the match his damage output was only around 25% higher for a mech nearly triple the weight,and I was TAGing for him.( I had 450ish he had around 550ish map was Crimson Straight) Simply not worth the assault mech when a light mech can do it .