A Headless Chicken, on 01 July 2018 - 05:40 PM, said:
If these two styles are truly well and alive as you say they are, there would be no need to fix the damn vomit "oh 94 alpha OP" problem to begin with because there would be playstyles that were not vomit and viable as counters.
Poptarting is still viable, it's just not "Meta". You can poptart with a larger variety of weapons than you seem to think.
Brawling is also still viable, but it's not the "meta". A good brawler build can still do well.
To call each "dead" insinuates that they "can't be done with any effectiveness", which isn't true at all. Why, tonight alone I poptarted with my Huntsmen (LPL and 4 MPL), and despite poping up from nearly the same exact spot, I manged to almost core a Warhammer (3 LLs and I think 4 MLs) with minimal damage before he wised up and just ran away. Poptarting fears PPFLD. Poptarting also isn't viable on everything that can jump. If it isn't nimble enough, it can't do it very well. But it can still be done and do decent.
For the record, I can still even do this in the Victor with dual L Gauss and twin ERLLs, though to be fair it's not as good as other mechs at it (mostly because it's an assault). The Huntsmen and Nova make good platforms, though a lot of people don't utilize the JJs on those mechs, which is where they gain some of their strength from. Of course, I placed skills into the JJs, so that may have something to do with this.
I think it's incorrect to say that poptarting is dead, when I still see plenty of it. It can still be done, and done well. it's just not nearly as powerful as it once was is all.
As Mischief and Greene already stated, this game is a trade and then push game. (They each are correct.) This game rewards trading at mid to long range till one side gains an advantage. Then, once an advantage is gained, the team with an advantage tends to then push the other team, and a push often times (almost always) ends in a brawl.
This can be done by some teammates being set up for the ranged combat, and others meanwhile being set up for brawling. Right now, mid ranged high alpha poke builds are the ones that are the meta. That is, of course, until something else is seen as "more powerful", either by nerfs/buffs or a counter build/strategy that can beat the poke builds. It's the nature of this game.