262 replies to this topic

[MischiefSC]

Again, not saying every other class isn't critical to success or useful. However the lights are the dynamic part of that. If a medium goes down early it's a problem but not critical. Almost every single match in the 2016 and 2017 semifinals and finals the early loss of one or both lights ensured a loss where as the loss or crippling of any other class did not. Essentially the other med/hev/assaults can try to fill in for a downed m/h/a but can not do what the lights did.

It's all teamwork and yes good lights but bad med/heavy/assault is still a loss against a team that's all good. Given however that every top tier team has a stellar roster of pilots in the medium+ classes they're pretty close. Proton in the Dragon pushing up a lot was a great exception to that and shook up the regular cycle. However the lights were the dynamic piece of that success. They created the openings that were exploited and drove a crap ton of damage and kills. From an analytics perspective in MWOWC semifinals, final 3 and finals the lights performance was the single strongest indicator.

As a caveat though especially 2017 was all Canyon and it strongly played to the lights. Your post was the one that said they were the weakest part. I was pointing out that isn't the case and that I the last two season on MWOWC they were arguably the strongest factor in a win.

[Xiphias]

MischiefSC, on 10 June 2018 - 11:43 AM, said:

As a caveat though especially 2017 was all Canyon and it strongly played to the lights. Your post was the one that said they were the weakest part. I was pointing out that isn't the case and that I the last two season on MWOWC they were arguably the strongest factor in a win.

The reason lights are important in comp is primarily cap control (due to speed). You were arguing that lights were potentially the strongest class in comp. They simply aren't.

Your original point was this:

Quote

How do you control caps when your lights are the weakest and not potentially strongest mechs in the match,

If your point was that lights are currently the strongest because they are able to take caps then the point that lights become the weakest (when they will be fast relative to everything else) doesn't follow. If your point was that current lights are powerful fighters (the strongest) then you're wrong. In a 1v1 almost any mech in comp can take on a light.

I've played lights in comp and I'd like to consider myself a pretty good light pilot. I've had plenty of comp matches that I've managed to pull wins out on as a light. I've also had plenty of matches where regardless of what I did as a light I couldn't win a match.

Strongest and driving wins aren't the same thing and you're clearly arguing that lights are combat strong in your first point. You are correct in that having a team lose its lights will usually result in a loss, that's not the same as lights driving wins though. Losing lights loses matches for primarily one reason, speed. Once you lose your speed you can't respond to caps and you lose the match. The reason other mechs can't fill in is because the mechs that are taken generally don't have the speed to fill in for lights.

Take away the class restriction and suddenly you can take fast mechs from heavier weight classes to fill in. Assassins and Arctic Wolves can run at light speeds put out solid damage. Without limitations Linebackers can make a good stand in for lights. You certainly won't win a 1v1 against a Linebacker in a Wolfhound. The point being that lights aren't strong because of their combat ability, they are strong because of their ability to put out map control AND because the current rule set requires that lights be taken.

You see lights being important because they are required. Without restrictions you'd see teams dropping a light for an extra assault. I doubt you'd see many teams dropping an assault for an extra light.

[MischiefSC]

Xiphias, on 10 June 2018 - 06:53 PM, said:

The reason lights are important in comp is primarily cap control (due to speed). You were arguing that lights were potentially the strongest class in comp. They simply aren't.

Your original point was this:

If your point was that lights are currently the strongest because they are able to take caps then the point that lights become the weakest (when they will be fast relative to everything else) doesn't follow. If your point was that current lights are powerful fighters (the strongest) then you're wrong. In a 1v1 almost any mech in comp can take on a light.

I've played lights in comp and I'd like to consider myself a pretty good light pilot. I've had plenty of comp matches that I've managed to pull wins out on as a light. I've also had plenty of matches where regardless of what I did as a light I couldn't win a match.

Strongest and driving wins aren't the same thing and you're clearly arguing that lights are combat strong in your first point. You are correct in that having a team lose its lights will usually result in a loss, that's not the same as lights driving wins though. Losing lights loses matches for primarily one reason, speed. Once you lose your speed you can't respond to caps and you lose the match. The reason other mechs can't fill in is because the mechs that are taken generally don't have the speed to fill in for lights.

Take away the class restriction and suddenly you can take fast mechs from heavier weight classes to fill in. Assassins and Arctic Wolves can run at light speeds put out solid damage. Without limitations Linebackers can make a good stand in for lights. You certainly won't win a 1v1 against a Linebacker in a Wolfhound. The point being that lights aren't strong because of their combat ability, they are strong because of their ability to put out map control AND because the current rule set requires that lights be taken.

You see lights being important because they are required. Without restrictions you'd see teams dropping a light for an extra assault. I doubt you'd see many teams dropping an assault for an extra light.

Okay, clearly I miscommunicated my point. I didn't intend to say that they were the combat strongest but that they drove wins. Hence why I said "The quality of the light pilots and how they're positioned is often the decisive factor." Not that they're able to 1 v 1 mechs down but that 2 WLFs or (depending on season) 2 ACH or 2 MLX *required* a response and could quickly kill a mech that wasn't well protected and that the lights could, if not carefully accounted for, do a lot of damage very quickly.

A locust with 2 MLs and 2 smls or a ML and 2 MGs isn't going to be a significant threat to mechs with 20+ armor on each rear location. None of the lights seem to be dangerous and survivable enough to do that, so the need to position your team to deal with that is gone. Pretty much everyone who's going to threaten you isn't significantly faster or more maneuverable than you.

That's what I mean by strong vs weak, especially for the tonnage. Call it 2/2/2/2 or call it 480 tons you've got to take lights, at least one, especially without a list of good mediums. The difference being that where the lights in MWOWCs prior were strong enough to be a decisive factor in wins and force responses from the other team if they were not directly set up to address them.

Without that you don't have to set up to really deal with lights at all, aside from caps.

We're using the word 'strong' two different ways. I mean strong as in ability to project threat and impact positioning and enemy team performance in a big way. That it's a big factor in deciding your positioning and approach; where are the other teams lights, what do we do if they do X, etc. From an analytics perspective that's a strong factor. From that same maths perspective the teams HBKs are strong in the context of ability to project damage but they're not dynamic. If the other team puts an HBR or a HBK IIC or even a poptart SMN in a key position the value changes slightly but it's not a strong factor in performance. The player may be strong because he wins trades really well and gets his shots in but the other team isn't building their deck and strategy based on if it's a HBK or a HBR there.

Yeah you'd take bigger mechs/stronger mechs that can play the same role. There are none in this new rule set.

I absolutely concede to your experience on how comp matches are played. My objection was to saying lights are 'weak' - historically for MWOWC they were not in terms of the win. However if I made my point poorly that's my bad and it's turned this into way more of an argument than it should have been.

So, to fix my point, there's no fast and dangerous mechs this season, nothing that can force teams to be careful about spreading out a bit or worry about getting caught out before they're in position or that they need someone watching their backs on the whole approach. That whole dynamic, the one that was the biggest indicator of success in the last two MWOWCs, seems like it's going to be totally gone.

Edited by MischiefSC, 10 June 2018 - 08:46 PM.