Posted 11 April 2020 - 09:34 AM
Okay, time for a small confession. I am a Tier 2 LRM player. Mind you not exclusively. I do have some gunboats and "laser vomit" mechs to take out to clear challenge objectives and just see for myself what the heck the "big deal" is. But I do win more often using LRMs than with other weapon types.
It's not a big difference, though. For example, I have a Jagermech JM6-S with 3 LRM 10s, a Narc, and set of medium pulse lasers and light machine guns as backup that has a win-loss ratio of 1.24. That's 63 wins, 51 losses over 114 matches. I also have a Jagermech JM6-A with 4 AC2s and a TAG that has a win-loss ratio of 1.19. 70 wins and 59 losses over 129 matches. Incidentally, my best winning mech is Stormcrow SCR-D with 3 LRM 10s, Narc, and an arm full of 1 tag and 3 ER small lasers. 58 wins, 32 losses over 90 matchses, which means a 1.81 W/L. Considering the Stormcrow is the only mech ever to be banned from scouting matches, I think it's the mech itself that's great. My second best is a Spider SCR-D with PPC, TAG, and ECM. 69 wins, 45 losses, so 1.53 W/L, in spite the fact it usually does very little damage. My absolute worst is the Dire Wolf DWF-B. 33 wins, 59 losses, so 0.56 W/L ratio. I just can't find a set of ballistics that can win in spite the fact that it has more room for ballistics than any other Clan mech.
Since the missile balance patch, LRMs haven't felt either overpowered or underpowered to me. However they certainly were bad enough for the veterans to give up on them before that missile patch fixed things. So that early bad reputation is still around, although no longer deserved. In fact, I think the bigger issue is not a bad weapon, but bad players.
One of my favorite bits of wisdom is, "Teamwork is essential. It gives the enemy someone else to shoot." Two mechs with stripped armor is still twice as deadly as a dead mech and an untouched mech. So when the big armored guys get shot down on the front lines and start spectating pristine LRM boats, they tend to get salty. That actually goes the other direction as well. Getting separated from the herd whether deliberately or not is an open invitation for some small or stealthy scout mech to start chewing on your rear. LRM or not, it is much easier to get a squirrel of of someone else's back than it is to get one off of yours, so your best defense against lights is having someone else around that can support you. That will only happen if you stay with your team. (Incidentally, LRMs are actually really good at chewing up squirrels that have gotten on someone else's back.) On a related note, nothing is more frustrating than a team that charges ahead leaving its slower members behind when facing an opponent that actually works together. Unfortunately, both the chargers and the slowpokes are more than happy to point their fingers at each other instead of reflecting what they did wrong. So all the salt just starts accumulating.
And that is the picture I'm seeing.
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B0oN, on 09 April 2020 - 04:29 PM, said:
