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. I only just started solaris but I get the feeling that division four is a really good division, if not the best of the seven. At the very least I personally am having tons of fun in it. The primary threat in this division is definitely the cheesy jaegermech builds you can see people using on the div four leaderboard. But those mechs are not impossible to defeat. On the contrary, the jaegermech has some serious weaknesses that can be easily exploited by pilots in the know.Im going to go over some of the common mechs that i've faced off against in div four and briefly give some tips on how to defeat them. The best and most important tip I can possibly give you is to ban maps that are not good for your mech's playstyle. For example, if you're in a brawling bushwacker then you absolutely want to ban the boreal map every single time because of how wide open it is. If your opponent doesn't ban boreal themselves they are probably in a long range cheese build that will completely destroy you before you ever get into range with your SRMs or MRMs on that map. Banning the right maps is a major part of winning your games, period. Without further ado:
Highlander IIC:
The Highlander IIc's dual uac10s can be very dangerous if you allow them to use it on you however they want to. Focus your own firepower on that right arm and force them to spread out their damage across your components and you will be fine. Their firepower without their cannons is somewhat weak and they run very hot even without their cannons. Every other time I fight them they cook themselves to death firing their energy weapons at me after i've destroyed their cannons. I don't really run any really fast mechs in division 4 but I absolutely think the same tactics would apply, just with hit and run tactics to destroy that arm and then continuously controlling the engagement with your superior agility to finish them off.
Zeus:
I love this ugly cockroach to death, but it has several weaknesses. First up, it doesn't have many hardpoints and the hardpoints are simultaneously spread all over the mech and concentrated in one location. It has awkward weapon symmetry and your ability to sync the weapons onto your target can be difficult under pressure. This sometimes means exposing its weakened components to the enemy for just a little too long while shooting off a salvo. Experienced pilots will take advantage of this particular weakness to destroy its most dangerous weapons first. Secondly, it has half or more than half of its hardpoints collected in one location, making it easy to target and disable its primary firepower. When you're facing off against a zeus, destroying the component with all the guns or missiles sticking out of it will make your fight much, much easier.
What this thing does have going for it, however, is decent speed and okish armor and structure. Especially with a standard engine in it, this mech can be surprisingly tough to finish off, especially if you've lost most of your firepower during the fight. I've won many fights where having a standard engine won the game for me simply because I had a pulse laser in my CT and was still able to fight despite losing everything else. Shoot the arm or torso with all the weapons sticking out of it and the work of destroying this mech becomes easy.
Jaegermechs:
Jaegermechs, the DD variant specifically, are often much harder to deal with in div four than any other mechs. Lots of people don't know what to do when they go up against someone in a jaegermech with maximum cheese x6 ac/2s pounding down on them from afar. Winning against them is definitely not impossible, though. Their firepower is almost all in their arms, and their arms have a large profile with not much armor to protect them. The mech is pretty fragile in general, aim and shoot well at your chosen component and you might be surprised at how quickly you managed to remove it from the fight.
The first thing to do when facing a jaegermech is to check its weapons in the pre-combat deployment scene to determine if its running XL. Usually, but not always as i'll go into detail about soon, if its running 6 ac/2s or a similar amount of lbx 2s then it probably has an XL engine. If he's running XL then all you have to do is focus all your firepower on a side torso and congratulations, the fight is yours. Having good aim is critical to winning any fight, but when fighting cheesy jaegermechs landing all your shots on one chosen component is a matter of life or death. Shooting wildly all over a jaegermech's torso and arms will result in your loss if the pilot isn't braindead.
If you're in a brawler and you're up against one of these beasts, ban the maps with lots of open area (steiner colosseum and boreal specifically, liao jungle has just enough cover to approach people without taking too much fire). Once the match begins decide on a route to approach the other side of the map that has enough cover to protect you from their long range fire. I can't stress this part enough, stay in cover until you are close enough to charge him. Conserve your armor and structure for as long as you can until you're ready to make your move. Find his location and again figure out the best way to approach him while staying in cover. When you're in the open and charging him, and he's begun shooting you, torso twist hard to spread the damage he's dealing to you until you're on top of him. At this point you should be right in his face, jostling him and making it harder to aim at your weaker components. He's going to be shooting you the entire time, just accept it and keep spreading out the damage he's dishing out on you across your components. When you're in his face its your time to shine, start obliterating his arms in well timed strikes in between twists. Destroying one arm usually halves the jaegermechs firepower and the fight will instantly become easier. Destroying his firepower without losing your own firepower is the most important part of the fight. Many times once you've destroyed both his arms he wont have any weapons left and the fight will be over. If he's sporting a light engine and torso mounted lasers then you have to carefully guard your wounded components while striking out at his damaged torsos with whatever weapons you have left.
Last tip, one thing really excellent jaegermech pilots do is use the cheese 6 ac/2 and or lb2 build with a tiny light engine that makes them slow as hell instead of an XL engine, so don't necessarily expect to win a fight against a jaegermech that has a ton of guns on it just by destroying a torso. The best pilots tend to build their jaegermechs in that way.
Everything else:
Treat any mech you see on the field as an extreme threat, no matter what it is. I've gone up against brawling kit foxes that do a tremendous amount of damage very quickly. Torso twisting and shielding your more critically damaged components is a major part of winning any fight, in solaris, QP or FP. Get good at it. Practice it and practice sniping components off a mech at point blank while twisting. Lastly, if you somehow don't know for sure what the enemies loadout is or what you should be shooting, just shoot the component with the most amount of guns or missiles on it.
Hopefully this short guide helps some of you guys who are becoming frustrated at division 4
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