27 replies to this topic

[Nesutizale]

When you build your mech for a specific task like a brawler, medium range or sniping. What ranges, in meters, do you consider are typical ranges?

Also what weapons?

My impression would be

- Sniping: 400 - 1200m - PPC, AC2+5, LRM
- Medium: 200 - 400m - MRM, ML, AC10
- Brawling 0 - 200m - SRM, SL, ML, MG, AC20

PS: While the AC2 fires up to 2000m, does anyone concider that a useable range or the other way around. What is the max range you consider to be effective in the sense that the enemy hasn't moved on when the shot finaly reaches the range or that it gets to hard to hit something.

Edited by Nesutizale, 09 November 2021 - 07:36 AM.

[Aidan Crenshaw]

1200m-600m Sniping
600m-400m Midrange
400m-200m Brawling
200m-0m Facehugging aka preventing teammates to assist in a quick and decisive kill

[Nesutizale]

I just love the last point.

[Thorqemada]

Brawling to me is Mechcombat that is fought without using cover or with insignificant cover usage at ranges <350m.

Everything else is medium or higher ranged combat.

Sniping uses especially big hit or multipaired long range pin point damage weapons - attrition damage weapons are no sniper weapons.

[Curccu]

Aidan Crenshaw, on 09 November 2021 - 07:39 AM, said:

200m-0m Facehugging aka preventing teammates to assist in a quick and decisive kill

There is also that option not to stand between that enemy and friends... maybe to enemys side or past it make it turn and show back to friendlies. Harder for that enemy to shoot you too precisely if you are not gonna run straight toward it.

[pbiggz]

Its good to think of things more broadly. Brawlers, Strikers, and Snipers, fill certain range profiles because of the weapons they use, not the other way around, but you can have builds that blur the line between those roles. Fast snipers, medium brawlers, or heavy strikers, can and do exist.

Brawling denotes using heavy armour and high damage throughput to overwhelm someone no matter how much firepower they can put back into you. It doesn't matter that the double gauss double PPC marauder II can put high alpha down range when a direwolf with a 60 point alpha on a 3 second cooldown is 200 meters away.

Ideal ranges for brawling are wishy washy, but the weapons that you rely on, be that AC 20s, heavy lasers, SRMs, or even Micro Lasers, rarely do damage beyond 500 meters.

The "medium" combat you're referring to, i think, would be bet encapsulated by the striker role. Strikers hit hard and fast and use maneuverability to avoid taking return fire. Strikers aren't so much constrained by range as they are by speed. Light strikers are the most obvious and tend to rely on very high dps short range weapons like brawlers since they're tonnage limited, but lots of mediums can and do carry out the role well, and use their bigger available tonnage pool to leverage different, longer ranged weapons, like large pulse lasers and bigger MRM launchers. Again the focus is on throughput so theres a balance between high alpha and dps. High speed means you can leverage dps more effectively because you can have more time on target without risking taking return fire, and the weapons that do that best are generally constrained to below 600 meters, since we're casting a slightly different net than pure brawling weapons.

Snipers can absolutely work at up to 2000 meters. It just depends on the weapons and the map. A 6 ac2 direwolf, or an ER large laser direwolf, appropriately skilled and quirked, can basically delete anything it sees, anywhere. Snipers rely on high alpha. They're far away from the action so they don't need the raw DPS throughput to keep targets from shooting back. The fact that they can reach out from beyond a target's effective range lets them be overwhelming.

Edited by pbiggz, 09 November 2021 - 09:06 AM.

[1453 R]

Biggz has the right of it. It's best to avoid thinking in terms of "what range am I building for?" and more in terms of "what sort of engagement do I want?"

A brawler wants to get stuck in and punch their target in the meaty bits until either they or (ideally) their target fall over. They use cover to approach, but they eschew cover when they make their attack. A brawler wants to get in and then jump out of cover to hammer an exposed target into ruin before that target can escape, and they build to do just that.

A typical midranger's, or rather a 'trader's', best engagement is taking potshots while ducking in and out of cover. They pop out, sock you one in the jaw, and duck back behind their rock before you can effectively pop back. They DO NOT want to push unless their target is already crippled and they stand little risk of taking serious return fire. Traders will stick to cover like soy sauce on rice, and they simply will not listen when the brawlers yell "PUSH NOW!" They're not built for beat-down slugfests and they tend to perform poorly in that role. Think of how easy it is to pick apart an otherwise super dangerous laservomit Hellbringer when you catch it in the open and can pound on it freely.

Snipers are specifically looking to engage a target beyond that target's effective range. That's the definition of 'sniper', for MWO. Specific range bands don't matter nearly so much as "can I shoot you from far enough away you can't properly shoot back? Good. I'ma do that, then." Their ideal engagement could be as low as your given 400m minimum, provided the enemy is something armed exclusively with SRMs or red lasers with no real ability to reach out to 400m.

None of these people want to engage each other, by the way. A brawler's least faovirte choice of targets is another brawler. Snipers hate dealing with other snipers. And midrange traders prefer to catch their targets unawares and not take any trade-backsies. One of the reasons midrangers dominate as much as they're perceived to is they're also one of the build types that best tolerates a mirror match. Midrange cover-based trader 'Mechs can engage another such 'Mech without issue, so long as they other 'Mech isn't looking at them when they do.

You can apply each role at different range bands, mix and match a lot of them. A massed AC/2 spam Dire Wolf is both a sniper and a brawler - it's perfectly content to outrange you, but it's also perfectly content to catch you out in the open and simply pound you into confetti with raw DPS. Its ideal engagement is both - catching you out of position at 800+ meters and blasting you into commemorative sporks before you can escape. Light, fast striker-type SRM-bomber 'Mechs like the Arctic Wolf are close-range traders - they don't want to deal with your return fire and they hate getiing caught in a brawl, they'd rather use their speed and mobility to dump a few alphas into your delicates and then scoot behind another rock.

A brawler will try to outlast you, force you into an engagement you can't escape or win. A sniper will try and force you into an engagement you can't even compete in (thus why everybody carps on them all the time). A trader will try to avoid 'engaging' you at all. The methodology is more important than the distance.

[caravann]

it's a little messed up how snipers are alias; brawlers since direct fire mostly has no limited range.

there's some categories.

Snipers = anything with direct fire and heavy enough to deal a chunk of damage from long range.
Lurms= anything with indirect missile fire and include some missile mechs as well.
shotguns = SRM and MRM direct fire single shot, includes short range laser shotguns.
squirrel= Useless light mech who tend to request for a duel with another squirrel in a squirrel-tournament

[pbiggz]

caravann, on 09 November 2021 - 11:31 AM, said:

it's a little messed up how snipers are alias; brawlers since direct fire mostly has no limited range.

huh?

caravann, on 09 November 2021 - 11:31 AM, said:

Snipers = anything with direct fire and heavy enough to deal a chunk of damage from long range.

This definition is too restrictive.

caravann, on 09 November 2021 - 11:31 AM, said:

Lurms= anything with indirect missile fire and include some missile mechs as well.

Lurms are a different beast entirely from whats being discussed here.

caravann, on 09 November 2021 - 11:31 AM, said:

shotguns = SRM and MRM direct fire single shot, includes short range laser shotguns.

Brawlers are not shotguns. This is again an overly restrictive definition. Also, brawlers frequently boast the highest dps rates and highest alphas. They trade range for this. If you think brawlers entirely rely on high alphas, you don't understand how they work.

caravann, on 09 November 2021 - 11:31 AM, said:

squirrel= Useless light mech who tend to request for a duel with another squirrel in a squirrel-tournament

I'll bet you die to "useless squirrels" alot.

[Curccu]

pbiggz, on 09 November 2021 - 11:55 AM, said:

I'll bet you die to "useless squirrels" alot.

I would so wanna squirrel his mech to pieces...

[LordNothing]

Thorqemada, on 09 November 2021 - 08:44 AM, said:

Brawling to me is Mechcombat that is fought without using cover or with insignificant cover usage at ranges <350m.

this is a good distinction between brawling and skirmishing, the latter involving the use of cover and the former being on open field and requires active twisting to spread damage. brawling isnt really worth it unless you have an advantage. a dedicated brawler can usually best any non-brawler when its in its element. but you got to make sure you are not over exposed first. range really doesn't matter provided your target is inside optimal. ive been in shorter range skirmish situations and longer range brawls. its kind of why i want a vgl or mech mortar so i can lob aoe shells over hills and counter shorter range hill humping. thus you can force a skirmisher to commit to brawling and make it a little less situational.

[caravann]

pbiggz, on 09 November 2021 - 11:55 AM, said:

huh?



This definition is too restrictive.



Lurms are a different beast entirely from whats being discussed here.



Brawlers are not shotguns. This is again an overly restrictive definition. Also, brawlers frequently boast the highest dps rates and highest alphas. They trade range for this. If you think brawlers entirely rely on high alphas, you don't understand how they work.



I'll bet you die to &quot;useless squirrels&quot; alot.

No I don't. They die by another heavy or assault shooting an ac20 in their face while running around.

It is not restricted. Snipers are ac2 gunners with 6 ac2 who win close encounters.

Lurms are medium range weapons, mech who have only missile hardpoints are lurms because they are stuck using medium range.

Actual squirrel is not a shotgun built prianha or any of your favorite meta builds.
Take the most useless light mech you can find and put a fast engine on it.

[Hela Centrella]

I kind of agree with caravann on the light mech point. At least in T5, a good use of light on light is running something like an urbanmech and using it to keep light harassers off of your assaults' backs. Having a superfast engine isn't helpful so much because chasing down the enemy isn't the point, you just need to be maneuverable enough to respond to your assaults when they're getting bitten by mosquitoes.

Edited by Hela Centrella, 09 November 2021 - 02:13 PM.

[ThreeStooges]

0m-150m is anti-light range. 150m-200m brawling. 220m-300m mid 300 or more sniping it seems out in t4-5 land. It really just depends on the optimal range of a weapon.

[pbiggz]

Hela Centrella, on 09 November 2021 - 02:13 PM, said:

I kind of agree with caravann on the light mech point. At least in T5, a good use of light on light is running something like an urbanmech and using it to keep light harassers off of your assaults' backs. Having a superfast engine isn't helpful so much because chasing down the enemy isn't the point, you just need to be maneuverable enough to respond to your assaults when they're getting bitten by mosquitoes.

You can't judge an entire playstyle based on the people least experienced/equipped to play or counter it.

Lights in low tier play either don't perform well at all, or overperform to a wacky extent, because t5 players tend not to perform well in lights, and can't counter when someone turns up who can perform in a light. Its why you hear people screeching about how overpowered they are, while other players simultaneously (and rightly) point out how badly lights do compared to other classes.

And again, we aren't talking about weight classes in this game, we're talking about strategies. Strategies exist on a higher order than weight classes. There are light mechs that are excellent snipers. There are assault mechs that are excellent strikers. There are medium mechs that can brawl.

You have to think based on what engagements you want. A micropulse LBX direwolf wants to delete anything within 200 meters. Its armour and absolutely overwhelming dps means anything inside that range that doesn't have the same firepower is gonna be lunch.

A well piloted stealth armour locust however, stands an excellent change of ripping the back out of a poorly piloted sniper, or skirmisher, because what a stealth light wants is close range engagements with isolated targets that can't afford to shoot back, with easy avenues for escape if the target's friends show up.

Put any of the above strategies in the hands of a fresh cadet who made their account last august, and its got a good chance of sucking, that doesn't mean the strategy sucks, and my issue with Caravann's proclamations are just that, he doesn't seem to understand what he's talking about, but he proclaims to.

[PocketYoda]

Hela Centrella, on 09 November 2021 - 02:13 PM, said:

I kind of agree with caravann on the light mech point. At least in T5, a good use of light on light is running something like an urbanmech and using it to keep light harassers off of your assaults' backs. Having a superfast engine isn't helpful so much because chasing down the enemy isn't the point, you just need to be maneuverable enough to respond to your assaults when they're getting bitten by mosquitoes.

Depends on the players skill, some light mechs spend the whole match doing nothing.. they imo are squirrels.. Others are running a list of kills from 3-8+ those light pilots are imo not wasting theirs and our time and all light mechs should be given attention.

[ccrider]

It offends me that "face hugging" is universally viewed as bad. On a map with restricted passage, like solaris, if your team pushes then backs off and leaves you alone, face hugging is the optimal move. You cut off the fire lanes of your opponents and turn a 3v1 into a 1v1 until the mech your hugging dies. And in many cases, the people in back get so excited to shoot an isolated mech that they do as much damage to your opponent as you do. I'm not saying to face hug all the time, but there are definitely moments where it is very useful and cuts down how much damage you take.

[R Valentine]

Saying "sniping" is 400-1200M is somewhat laughable. 400M is the bottom of the mid-range. Long range needs to be able to shoot at least 1000M. There's no real floor to it, since no common long range, direct fire weapons have a minimum range.

Long Range 1000+
Mid Range 450-800M
Brawl < 200M

Between midrange and brawl is the traditional skirmisher range, that's your pokey mediums with MLs, MPLs, and ERSLs.

[D A T A]

brawling 0-300
vomit 400-550
mid range 550-750
sniping 900 minimum

Edited by D A T A, 09 November 2021 - 05:48 PM.

[Kanil]

ccrider, on 09 November 2021 - 03:43 PM, said:

It offends me that "face hugging" is universally viewed as bad.

I'm not sure it's "universally viewed as bad"... but I will say if your 'mech can't secure a "quick and decisive kill" at <200m without your teammates help, then you shouldn't go facehugging. If it can, then go for it, who needs teammates when you just obliterate anything dumb enough to stand next to you.

Edited by Kanil, 09 November 2021 - 06:27 PM.