29 replies to this topic

[General Solo]

Try it your self OP, if your aims up to par, record the data and you will have your empirical result.

Monday Wednesday Friday = Dont shoot arms
Tuesday Thursday Saturday = Shoot arms

Record data

Sunday = wash mechs

[Gilgamecc]

I always just aim for a shoulder, but with the MCII I'm just more generous with the arm portion of the shoulder. Usually the first few shots show me where to place the rest of them.

[Extra Guac]

Toha Heavy Industries, on 13 February 2019 - 01:53 PM, said:

With a hard hitting mech (like a fafnir etc) you can neuter a MC-IIC B in like 5 seconds if you go for the arms. (Arms are stupidly easy to hit from the side). It's a lot easier to hit the arm then to hit the CT.

Just to add some thing to clarify, of course if the MC doesn't move might as well shoot the CT (or the cockpit) that obviously will do the trick as well.
In reality, the target moves, there is partially cover, other mechs etc etc.
Not every mech fields pinpoint damage, a lot of the "meta" runs spread damage, like assassins with srms, quickdraw/cyclops with mrm, LB-10-X boats (sleipnir etc) those mechs have a spread, they compensate for that with high dps.
If i field an assassin with quad srm4 or 6, an IV4 with mrm60 or a sleipnir with quad LB-10-X i simply can't center on a MC-IIC's center torso, i'd guess half if not more of the damage will go to either side torso. I can't center on the STs as well, half the damage will go to the CT and the arm. What i can do is drop most of the damage on the arm, i will lose very little spread on the attached ST. Especially if i circle the mech.

It's arguably healthier to approch a MC-IIC from an angle (the side) then face it head on.
And i think this is part of the reason why the Deathstrike is so strong. Shooting off the arms of a deathstrike doesn't impairs it's abilities nearly as much as shooting the arms on a MC-IIC B, hench people rather shoot center on a DS which ultimately keeps the DS longer in the fight.

If you're attacking it from the side, then shooting the arm closest to you is clearly the best option.

In your Fafnir example, if the MCII-B is facing directly towards you, then aiming CT might be the best bet. From that angle the CT is roughly the same size as each arm. There's no reason to think that damage will be spread when aiming for CT, but there won't be any spread when aiming for the arms.

Another thing to consider (although this doesn't happen very often) is that the MCII pilot could protect their remaining arm, after the 1st arm is gone. At that point they can use the opposite ST as a shield. This would be similar to the 2017 world championships where 1 EON guy was in a DRG-5N with 3UAC2 all in 1 arm, and he kept that arm protected the entire match. The point is, if the pilot is situationally aware, then shooting off the 2nd arm could be a lot harder than the 1st.

[General Solo]

I think dat was proton from EMP with the dragon, wasn't it?

[justcallme A S H]

OZHomerOZ, on 21 February 2019 - 05:38 PM, said:

I think dat was proton from EMP with the dragon, wasn't it?

Correct.

And the MCIIB cannot use the arm to shoot anywhere near like the dragon can while shielding.

[MischiefSC]

Spheroid, on 09 February 2019 - 01:59 PM, said:

I'd rather people promote empiricism in support of an idea over "common sense". What is the empirical basis for the arm tactic? No one has provided that yet.

Same benefit to shooting legs on Linebackers. The strength of the MC MKII builds is always the arms, because they're cockpit high mounts and it's got Marauder-grade torsos so it's easy to twist with, which makes it relatively tanky.

Sure - if you've got focus fire from several people with great aim at the same time and can smash one in the CT before it can twist off then CT it. However in the average fracas in FW of poking, hill humping and feathering the JJs while twisting two people can easily strip 1/2 the firepower off a particularly deadly and effective assault in a single trade with lasers or ballistics.

[Prototelis]

The real deal though; When you stick a MCII leave it the **** alone. Make that **** eject, waste their time. Thats a 3 count minimum before dude can get to deck screen. Mech is already dead, don't waste your heat on that in the middle of a fight.

[Hobbles v]

It really depends on the situation you're shooting them in. If you were ganging up on one I'd say go CT every time cuz it will die quicker. If you are one on one trading with one I often go arms because it is easy to pick one off without exposing to the other arms Firepower.

[Sjorpha]

Looking at the answers to Spheroid so far the gist of it seems to be: "There is no evidence but a reasonable common sense argument for it."

Same can be said for the more conventional wisdom that you should shoot CT on most mechs and legs on lights etc. I'm not aware there has been any empirical evidence of those claims either, they just seem to make a lot of sense.

So Spheroid, if you're going to demand this standard of evidence for claims within MWO you need to remember that a lack of evidence for "shoot the arms" wouldn't default to shooting the CT being better, "shoot the CT", or "shoot the ST" are claims that would demand evidence as well.

And so would other very basic claims such as "focus fire on a single component", how do you know it's not better to spread damage all over a mech when there is no empirical test proving that? All you can do is say that according to my knowledge about the game it makes sense to focus a component, and everyone knows that's true, but any given individual won't be able to give you evidence for that claim.

I'm not actually sure if shooting the arms of MC2s are the strongest tactic, it probably depends a lot on the situation and whether or not the rest of your team are on board. Just like shooting legs is a great tactic if your whole team does it, not so great when everyone else is shooting CTs. What is my evidence that tactics are stronger if done in coordination? I can only appeal to a general understanding of game theory an MWO, I don't have any empirical evidence there either.

Alpha size should be a factor as well btw, if you need 2 alphas to destroy an arm and the same 2 alphas would destroy a ST or even the CT, then it makes more sense to shoot the torso IMO. But if you need 2 alphas to kill the arm and 3 or more to kill the ST or CT, then it makes more sense to kill the arm, this would be an argument from time and heat efficiency.

In short, most of the things we as a community claim to know about MWO strategy are deductive, not inductive (empirical), it's probably unreasonable to demand anything beyond good arguments for anything except bleeding edge competitive strategy in tournaments, where there is indeed proper experimental testing going on.

It's also worth noting that games are closed universes with a limited enough data set that deduction, when done carefully, is actually a reasonable path to knowledge in games. Unlike the real world where deductive reasoning is usually very unreliable and our intuitions tend to fail us, mastery of games can and does translate to near perfect intuitions among the best players, so it makes sense to assume most of what they say is correct.

Edited by Sjorpha, 14 April 2019 - 03:18 AM.

[McGoat]

Do a barrel roll