98 replies to this topic

[justcallme A S H]

I can draw a bunch of lines on the picture but the major issue with some teams and how they do the Anni defence...

Well... That's secret squirrel business on how to do it properly and the teams I've seen do it, don't do as good as it could be done IMO.
If you do it right it is incredibly hard to beat, there is actually a strat that works even better IMO but can't give out all the secrets now. That would ruin the fun of thinking on the fly if you know where I'll be and what I'll be doing

[Hobbles v]

Don T, on 25 February 2018 - 10:57 PM, said:

In chess I learned: Never listen to your opponent


I like how these IS players are coming with IMO useless suggestions... (I guess they would love you to try these things)

ATM/LRMs.. on Vitric.. lol

Poptarts.. lol... after 20 minutes you might have killed 3 mechs.

A wave of LBKs? Not for fighting them... 12 Anni's will kill 2 wave of those...



So think outside the box...


Either go IS. (If you can't beat them... join them)

or just objective rush (Incoming Justcallme A S H triggered in 3... 2... 1...)


(btw the "go piranhas" suggestion was especially laughable... yes the Anni you're hugging won't shoot you.. the 11 others will)

Guess he didnt watch my video

This guy to me embodies the clan loyalists in general. They give up so easily compared to inner sphere. Any slight change in the balance of power or a fotm mech happens they all give up. IS isnt without its salt but at least they show up.

Even though weve only been in IS for two of the weeks since christmas we are probably back to clan this week, because the competition is abysmal/non existent.

Clanners need to get thier heads out of thier butts and adapt for once. Clan Power has set the meta in FP for years and now that IS has a clear advantage in a limited scenario (close range corner poking defence) there is only tears.

Edited by Hobbles v, 26 February 2018 - 03:58 AM.

[Sjorpha]

Pure anni drop sounds pretty easy to outmaneuver on Vitric as they can't really cover both gates + omega effectively.

I'm not even sure full anni drop is a good idea, seems very inflexible. 6-8 annis and some faster mechs including a couple jumpers to prevent the clanners from controlling the roof seems much stronger to me.

I think on the clan side you'll want the usual pretty much, speed, good trading mechs, jumpjets to control the rooftops and so on. Or a MK2-B rush is also very strong.

[LanXang]

IT's SO EASY.

Just drop 12xERPPC MLX and shoot faces.

(This may or may not actually work)

[Hal Greaves]

Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood, on 23 February 2018 - 03:37 PM, said:

Looking at the video I'm kinda wondering about some of the builds there. Dual MRM40 cyclops Q, Annihilator with just dual heavy gauss and nothing else at all (the rest only had 3 ERML usually), a Mauler with 2 AC10s and 6 ERML, the Orion with about a 35 damage brawl alpha (3SRM4+LBX10), having two king crabs.

Then the coordination not even being high enough to have more than 6 Annihilators rather than a full 12 man Anni Team. Infact they couldn't even get 12 assaults on first wave. It just seems like they were heavily out coordinated.

Though I've only checked wave 1 of that match so far.

I know it's hard to see exactly how it was kind of playing out, but I was in that match. I was on the Alpha-gate side of the map with another team member (November) and what we were doing was picking at mechs that were completely exposed on the right flank. Our PUG was with us as well but he was kind of doing his own thing.

November and I were constantly shooting targets from that side, however, as every time they moved in to set up a line or what have you they would expose themselves from our end, so we were able to lay down constant fire on them. This kinda forced them to use the back way around the map to Beta side, which is a huge bottleneck for such big mechs, and they couldn't get around us to flank our team without taking sustained damage from our position.

In the middle of that, I assume they might have thought that there were more of us at the Alpha gate side, so they had sent 3 annihilators over to our side to kinda deal with it. November and myself instead moved back in with the rest of the group on Beta side since I knew that those annihilators they sent on the left would take forever to get back, so we just used our own speed to move back into the group and reinforce them against the mechs that were left on that side, thus effectively outnumbering them in the end when they made their push.

I think, ultimately, the weakness of the annihilator is really split pushing and harassing them on the flanks, especially with the many places you can actually engage them from on the Alpha side without exposing yourself. Especially if the objective is to take down the team (Which is what we like to do) and not focus on the objective as much.

Edited by Hal Greaves, 26 February 2018 - 09:03 AM.

[Charles Sennet]

Hal Greaves, on 26 February 2018 - 08:57 AM, said:

November and I were constantly shooting targets from that side, however, as every time they moved in to set up a line or what have you they would expose themselves from our end, so we were able to lay down constant fire on them. This kinda forced them to use the back way around the map to Beta side, which is a huge bottleneck for such big mechs, and they couldn't get around us to flank our team without taking sustained damage from our position.

From the video I was wondering how they didn't crush your mechs on the other side--had to be a bad approach for them.

I think you guys laid the blueprint for how Clans can do this but it takes a high degree of coordination. Helps too if the enemy team makes mistakes.

From a game balance perspective, I do not see many Clan players, let alone units, being able to pull this off while IS PUGs can simply drop their Anni's and wait near Omega for things to shoot.

At some point PGI will have to give Clans a more direct answer to this or IS will pretty much dominate 5 of the 6 Siege maps and dominations on short range ones.

Edited by Charles Sennet, 26 February 2018 - 10:49 AM.

[Charles Sennet]

Hobbles v, on 23 February 2018 - 03:17 PM, said:

Thanks for sharing this. As I said in my other post, you guys laid the blueprint for the Clan side although I don't see a lot of players, nor units, being able to duplicate it. We are working on learning from this.

Edited by Charles Sennet, 26 February 2018 - 10:59 AM.

[Hobbles v]

Charles Sennet, on 26 February 2018 - 10:46 AM, said:

From the video I was wondering how they didn't crush your mechs on the other side--had to be a bad approach for them.

I think you guys laid the blueprint for how Clans can do this but it takes a high degree of coordination. Helps too if the enemy team makes mistakes.

From a game balance perspective, I do not see many Clan players, let alone units, being able to pull this off while IS PUGs can simply drop their Anni's and wait near Omega for things to shoot.

At some point PGI will have to give Clans a more direct answer to this or IS will pretty much dominate 5 of the 6 Siege maps and dominations on short range ones.

its capitalizing on the anis weakness they are slow. Even when they did push they were only about to catch a couple of us. The job of anyone getting pushed is to draw it out as much as possible and if you are getting pushed to avoid the natural instinct to run to your team. Instead draw the enemy between you and your allies. Deathballs are great vs grouped up players, they are a turkey shoot for spread out lines.

[Eisenhorne]

Charles Sennet, on 26 February 2018 - 10:46 AM, said:

From a game balance perspective, I do not see many Clan players, let alone units, being able to pull this off while IS PUGs can simply drop their Anni's and wait near Omega for things to shoot.

At some point PGI will have to give Clans a more direct answer to this or IS will pretty much dominate 5 of the 6 Siege maps and dominations on short range ones.

If the Anni's wait near Omega, you simply kill them with laservomit pokes from 500+ meters, where they are minimally effective. Unless they stack the gate, you should have some room to maneuver and get shots off. The Clans can hit the gates before Anni's are even in position on the gate usually, so if you just IMMEDIATELY rush the gate after dropping you should be able to get through before their in a great position to stop you.

[Hal Greaves]

Charles Sennet, on 26 February 2018 - 10:46 AM, said:

From the video I was wondering how they didn't crush your mechs on the other side--had to be a bad approach for them.

they WERE engaging us, the issue on their end was that in order to get to us effective they had to cross open ground, stand in the open to bring all their guns up, or waddle around behind the gun, while November and I were completely covered. I had a UAC10 Night Gyr, and all I did was poke them with the shoulder mounted autocannons and dip back into cover. Whatever fire we were taking was inconsequential, as most of the time it would hit the ground or just be an LBX hit splashing over our armor.

Really, some of the faster mechs on their end should have responded, not so much the annihilators. Which is why I just think they thought maybe there was more mechs in that area than there really were.

Edited by Hal Greaves, 26 February 2018 - 02:24 PM.

[Zangief79]

Seriously, its just a game of attrition. you poke em to death with your large pulse, er ppc, guass, whatever. Pop out, shoot, duck back to cooldown. Alpha strike and cool down, over and over. It takes longer than rushing in and brawling them to death sure, but odds are you'll lose that fight. When I see a bunch of Anni's, I just think of how high my damage numbers will be, not "this is impossible". There are many many great places to poke and trade from on vitric, and plenty of places to fall back to. And that's actually a general roadmap for how alot of clan mechs should be played, minus the obvious brawlers like a Kodiak, or a Linebacker. Hellbringers, Ebon Jags, Hunchie's, and Night Gyr's are all great trading mechs.

[Cataphractos]

Eisenhorne, on 23 February 2018 - 11:52 AM, said:

Or the modern and updated, "Zap Brannigan's Big Book of War"

"You see, Annihilators have a pre-set kill limit. Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of Adders at them until they reached their limit and shut down. Sa-Khan, show them the medal I won."

[El Bandito]

Strikes work extra well on those slow moving 100 tonners. Every mech should have 2xStrikes.

[Alexandra Hekmatyar]

Hobbles v, on 26 February 2018 - 03:57 AM, said:

Even though weve only been in IS for two of the weeks since christmas we are probably back to clan this week, because the competition is abysmal/non existent.

Well if that's a problem why not handicap yourself and give yourself a challenge with mediocre builds, limit everyone's tonnage higher risk strategies in your matches?
And do it to the point where you're actually quite challenged.

El Bandito, on 27 February 2018 - 03:10 AM, said:

Strikes work extra well on those slow moving 100 tonners. Every mech should have 2xStrikes.

Whenever I drop call in a group I always tell people to get rid of their anni's and other slow mechs, even on defense.
Strikes is one reason but also the inflexibility it brings suck so much.
My strategies always involve high mobility and slow mechs are like a stick someone putts between a bike's wheels.

[r4zen]

Yo Charles Sennet, it's been a week.

Any opportunities to try out what's been discussed so far?

[Charles Sennet]

r4zen, on 01 March 2018 - 11:09 AM, said:

Yo Charles Sennet, it's been a week.

Any opportunities to try out what's been discussed so far?

Yes, some. Toughest map to attack might be Emerald Taiga. The Heavy Gauss meta for brawler maps on the IS side posses some real balance concerns (70+ mostly pinpoint damage every ~4s with ST and quirks). Even Clans tankiest mechs like the Highlander-IIC go down quickly. Its akin to when Clans outranged IS on long range maps and it was almost auto-win.

Edited by Charles Sennet, 02 March 2018 - 04:33 PM.

[Grus]

the strongest 12 ANH defense ive seen so far is on the Sulfur "yellow" map. THAT was hard to crack, just had to wether the storm, use speed and take out the objectives. win.

[Charles Sennet]

Grus, on 02 March 2018 - 02:10 PM, said:

the strongest 12 ANH defense ive seen so far is on the Sulfur "yellow" map. THAT was hard to crack, just had to wether the storm, use speed and take out the objectives. win.

It might be Clans best option on some maps. Just be prepared for the 'lame' comments. My unit is working on other strats even though they are more difficult to execute in the hopes we can avoid gen-rushing.

[Grus]

Charles Sennet, on 02 March 2018 - 04:38 PM, said:

It might be Clans best option on some maps. Just be prepared for the 'lame' comments. My unit is working on other strats even though they are more difficult to execute in the hopes we can avoid gen-rushing.

They can cry lame all they want. if they are dropping in 12 anh then its their own fault. I'm gonna try to walk away with a W as quickly as possible and by any means necessary

[Wulfe09]

Charles Sennet, on 23 February 2018 - 10:57 AM, said:

Clans are seeing many organized IS teams load up on Annihilators when defending maps like Vitric Forge or pushing the circle on Domination. Other than light-rushing (which my unit is trying to avoid) are there any Clan teams having success on kills? A lot of Clan teams I know of are finding virtually impossible versus organized IS teams in FP modes that force short range confrontations with the current ANH and Heavy Gauss meta (not to mention 300 extra tons) on the IS side.

An IS player said just bring ON1-IIC's but this has been tried and they do not hold up against mechs that are essentially 120 tons when you factor in quirks.

What did you bring? How did you win? Actual results only, no theory crafts please.

tl;dr "reeee cheese is only okay when clams do it!"

IS will stop using cheese waves of anni's when clams stop using extreme range gunline cheese turretwarrior mechs, and actually play the game mode as clams.