629 replies to this topic

[1453 R]

martian, on 12 December 2021 - 06:39 AM, said:

Just some personal advices:

1. Do not sleep at start.

2. The only speed, that Assaults should use, is the full speed.

3. Learn the map.

4. Anticipate your team's route and the enemy team's route.

5. Use larger engine (or if the engine is hard-wired, use a different OmniMech).

Whenever I pilot my Warden Charlie Whale, I never really have trouble keeping up with the team. A big part of that is efficient movement. Don't spend time standing still that you could spend moving, instead. I still can't figure out why, in the three years I took off this game, everybody completely bum-*** forgot how to come out of the Leopards with their throttle already engaged.

Don't sleep at start, and don't get hung up on trying to sit in your favorite sniper hole. The rest of the team will chickendick plenty long enough for a motivated assault 'mech to keep up - there's been more than one game in my DWF-C(S) where I ended up leading the charge simply because I pointed my bulbous oversized zeppelin nose in the general direction of the enemy, hit "100% throttle", and didn't scale back until I had radar contacts.

It's not difficult to keep up with a team in a Whale. Nobody moves remotely efficiently, at least down here. If you move with even just a modicum of efficiency, you can easily stay with a group.

RickySpanish, on 11 December 2021 - 10:36 PM, said:

As if anyone in T4 can shoot straight enough to gib a Light 'Mech. That is assuming they even have complimentary weapon systems. Sorry low blow, but I didn't want to light your carefully constructed field of strawmen on fire with a useful reply.

As Brauer said, nobody in T4 can evade for beans either. I'm not great at it myself, mostly because the HMGs I favor require facetime and I can't evade well whilst also maintaining 100% facetime in short range. Nevertheless, the 'yeah but your tier is low' argument doesn't really hold much water - everybody in my tier has **** skills one way or another, and a majority of people in the Gold Tier report the same thing - light 'Mechs simply don't perform well. They're more of a problem in my tier than in Gold Tier, which I've already openly acknowledged, and they're still incredibly dicey and difficult to play.

Just last night I was tooling around in an ER PPC snipey Adder, taking good positions and landing more shots than I'm used to landing. Had an absolutely beautiful game-ending snapshot kill against a jumping, midair Shadow Cat after a game where I'd pushed that Adder about as hard as I've ever pushed the thing, aaaaand...~350 damage.

Sitting there saying to myself "I just busted my *** for around 350 damage, when I could've gotten that with a bonehead hold-W suicide charge in my STK-7S. God damn. This thing is hella fun to pilot but it is useless..." Kinda like, y'know...everybody's always saying is the case with light 'Mechs.

[ThreeStooges]

1453 R, on 12 December 2021 - 05:27 PM, said:

Just last night I was tooling around in an ER PPC snipey Adder, taking good positions and landing more shots than I'm used to landing. Had an absolutely beautiful game-ending snapshot kill against a jumping, midair Shadow Cat after a game where I'd pushed that Adder about as hard as I've ever pushed the thing, aaaaand...~350 damage.

Sitting there saying to myself "I just busted my *** for around 350 damage, when I could've gotten that with a bonehead hold-W suicide charge in my STK-7S. God damn. This thing is hella fun to pilot but it is useless..." Kinda like, y'know...everybody's always saying is the case with light 'Mechs.

350 is a dam good match for a light mech in low tier. I managed to get 2 kills with junk rvn4x running er mls and hmgs in a solaris dom match tonight. I didn't even get 280 damage in. All the ecm and power creep has pretty much killed light mech play that isn't running a meta mg or s/mpls build. The "new" map re-skins favor the er ppc/guass play so that you have a really hard time even moving across the map in a light.

I rarely use xls any more. Lfe 200 at the minimal for my is lights and seismic a must. People that think lights are omg ez god mode should be forced to play a mere 4 hours in an is xl light then they would quickly see how horrible using lights can be.

Oddly enough I like going really fast so I use heavies and lights. The 100ts just move to slow for me even with that 360 cramed into it up to 58ish speed.

[ScrapIron Prime]

1453 R, on 12 December 2021 - 05:27 PM, said:

Just last night I was tooling around in an ER PPC snipey Adder, taking good positions and landing more shots than I'm used to landing. Had an absolutely beautiful game-ending snapshot kill against a jumping, midair Shadow Cat after a game where I'd pushed that Adder about as hard as I've ever pushed the thing, aaaaand...~350 damage.

Sitting there saying to myself "I just busted my *** for around 350 damage, when I could've gotten that with a bonehead hold-W suicide charge in my STK-7S. God damn. This thing is hella fun to pilot but it is useless..." Kinda like, y'know...everybody's always saying is the case with light 'Mechs.

Agreed. "that was a s**t load of work for 300 damage," is something I say to myself a lot whenever I take my Firestarter or Sarah's Jenner out of mothballs.

I am happy to see the Light PPC HSL change on the Jenner K, though. Perhaps I'll clear 400 damage in one next week.

[Meep Meep]

Getting consistent high damage totals in a light can be difficult given how squishy you are. Get the right map and enough tunnel vision players on the enemy team and you can pile up 1000+ damage and multiple kills and kmmd. Next match you poke out to take a peek and get instantly cored by someone who just happened to be looking at that spot.

I love the lppc changes too. Gives lights a different sniping weapon that isn't ammo reliant or weighs too much to boat.

[Curccu]

ScrapIron Prime, on 12 December 2021 - 06:00 PM, said:

Agreed. "that was a s**t load of work for 300 damage," is something I say to myself a lot whenever I take my Firestarter or Sarah's Jenner out of mothballs.

I am happy to see the Light PPC HSL change on the Jenner K, though. Perhaps I'll clear 400 damage in one next week.

Hmm very small engine or small amount of DHS with 4x LPPC
jr7-k... dunno starting to get stupid slow

[ScrapIron Prime]

Curccu, on 13 December 2021 - 03:20 AM, said:

Hmm very small engine or small amount of DHS with 4x LPPC
jr7-k... dunno starting to get stupid slow

Yeah, a 195 engine is too slow to survive. I went with a larger engine and 2 less heat sinks.
https://mwo.nav-alph...=4a7cd722_JR7-K

[Curccu]

ScrapIron Prime, on 13 December 2021 - 04:00 AM, said:

Yeah, a 195 engine is too slow to survive. I went with a larger engine and 2 less heat sinks.
https://mwo.nav-alph...=4a7cd722_JR7-K

I think unfortunately even with these additional quirks it's greatly inferior to urbie IMO.

[pbiggz]

Meep Meep, on 12 December 2021 - 06:14 PM, said:

Getting consistent high damage totals in a light can be difficult given how squishy you are. Get the right map and enough tunnel vision players on the enemy team and you can pile up 1000+ damage and multiple kills and kmmd. Next match you poke out to take a peek and get instantly cored by someone who just happened to be looking at that spot.

I love the lppc changes too. Gives lights a different sniping weapon that isn't ammo reliant or weighs too much to boat.

And those are edge cases.

People advocating for a comprehensive rebalancing of light mechs specifically because in narrow circumstances, with a multitude of things going right for the light, and wrong for the assault, the light mech can "overperform" is silly.

You don't balance for the edge case.

[ScrapIron Prime]

Curccu, on 13 December 2021 - 04:32 AM, said:

I think unfortunately even with these additional quirks it's greatly inferior to urbie IMO.

Agreed. i run it on principle because Sarah's Jenner. Only its the K that's getting the buff, not the D(S). Pity.

[1453 R]

I've never actually figured out a light peep build I can get behind on Sphere lights. You'd think they'd be really good, but Sphere lights just never have the weight to sling more than a couple of them efficiently and still move at any kind of speed. It feels like light peep light 'Mechs should make really awesome skirmisher builds, but almost any light 'Mech skirmisher is better off taking scads of medium lasers over light peeps. UrbanMooks aside, but then again UrbanMooks don't count. UrbanMooks never count. DX.

It kinda sucks, because I'd really like a good light-peep skirmisher but I have yet to figure out anything that's both fast enough to use them decently and able to carry enough of them to matter. Blugh.

[pbiggz]

1453 R, on 13 December 2021 - 08:06 AM, said:

I've never actually figured out a light peep build I can get behind on Sphere lights. You'd think they'd be really good, but Sphere lights just never have the weight to sling more than a couple of them efficiently and still move at any kind of speed. It feels like light peep light 'Mechs should make really awesome skirmisher builds, but almost any light 'Mech skirmisher is better off taking scads of medium lasers over light peeps. UrbanMooks aside, but then again UrbanMooks don't count. UrbanMooks never count. DX.

It kinda sucks, because I'd really like a good light-peep skirmisher but I have yet to figure out anything that's both fast enough to use them decently and able to carry enough of them to matter. Blugh.

Light PPCs are one of the few places I legitimately disagree with the cauldron's approach. They've basically made them a niche alternative to the medium pulse laser. Lowrey's high damage long cooldown approach meant a trio of light PPCs hit harder than an AC20, they were the single most tonnage efficient damage dealers in the game. I feel like for them to be worth taking on a smaller mech, they needed that punch, but they're just short of worth taking right now.

Edited by pbiggz, 13 December 2021 - 08:33 AM.

[1453 R]

pbiggz, on 13 December 2021 - 08:32 AM, said:

Light PPCs are one of the few places I legitimately disagree with the cauldron's approach. They've basically made them a niche alternative to the medium pulse laser. Lowrey's high damage long cooldown approach meant a trio of light PPCs hit harder than an AC20, they were the single most tonnage efficient damage dealers in the game. I feel like for them to be worth taking on a smaller mech, they needed that punch, but they're just short of worth taking right now.

I could see that. Right now they deal piddling damage, but they deal it rapidly and with good distance (on top of the usual PPC benefits vs. stealth/ECM). The 'piddly damage' part means it's difficult to run them singly or in pairs, you need a bunch of the little jerkwads to get anything done, but anything big enough for "a bunch of" light peeps is also big enough for a couple of snubs, and snubs will almost always outperform lights in the whole steady-damage role.

Just tried a match with an SHD-2K outfitted with three light peeps and three MRM-10s (i.e. the only tonnage-efficient option) as a midrange skirmisher-poker, and frankly I was left with the distinct impression "this does absolutely nothing I couldn't do much more effectively with three large pulse lasers and no heckin' missiles, instead" (and was also reminded of how unpleasantly restrictive the Shadow Hawk's cockpit is. Take off the horse blinders, old chum). I can't imagine how I'm supposed to make these podunk Leetle Baby Guns work on light 'Mechs. I can't even afford the weight for pulse lasers half the time on lights, where am I finding three tons for a single medium laser's worth of damage regardless of its range advantages?

Edited by 1453 R, 13 December 2021 - 08:58 AM.

[CFC Conky]

At my PSR level, my best use for LPPC's is to get my 'Hit and Run' numbers up during events, but that's just me.

Good hunting,
CFC Conky

[Meep Meep]

So far the only lppc slinger I like is the loyalty urbie with 4 of them along with the ecm buffs so you can sling them at optimal and still be out of sensor range. Kinda like stealth armor but without any of the drawbacks. That 55% reduction to targeting range is fairly powerful. Been having a bit of fun with the flea20 and pirates bane with 2 lppc and stealth armor just banging out a constant pewpew stream from every possible nook and cranny since the heat generated is paltry. Will try that jenner k quad lppc fit but agree with the others the urbie with ecm is the much better platform.

[Curccu]

pbiggz, on 13 December 2021 - 08:32 AM, said:

Light PPCs are one of the few places I legitimately disagree with the cauldron's approach. They've basically made them a niche alternative to the medium pulse laser. Lowrey's high damage long cooldown approach meant a trio of light PPCs hit harder than an AC20, they were the single most tonnage efficient damage dealers in the game. I feel like for them to be worth taking on a smaller mech, they needed that punch, but they're just short of worth taking right now.

At least light mech POW I think they are on pretty good place right now, cause not that big alpha but to help with that good CD(you get to shoot twice while enemy usually once), good enough range and no min range which makes them good instead of deathtrap. good alternate weapon for ML/ERML/MPL/LPL/SNPPC builds.
Vs lazer vomit builds they got that PPFLD with very small exposure but requires more skill to land meaningful shots (nail that CT multiple times a row) vs lasors with bigger alpha with longer exposure and easier control because hitscan.

[DaZur]

I love when discussion become disagreements and then folks start whipping out and declaring the length of their Long Toms.

All that's missing is Godwin's law to be be proven...

[pbiggz]

DaZur, on 14 December 2021 - 07:45 AM, said:

I love when discussion become disagreements and then folks start whipping out and declaring the length of their Long Toms.

All that's missing is Godwin's law to be be proven...

I think you just proved it. Doesn't mentioning it count?

Edited by pbiggz, 14 December 2021 - 07:52 AM.

[DaZur]

pbiggz, on 14 December 2021 - 07:52 AM, said:

I think you just proved it. Doesn't mentioning it count?

dammit...

[Curccu]

DaZur, on 14 December 2021 - 07:45 AM, said:

I love when discussion become disagreements and then folks start whipping out and declaring the length of their Long Toms.

All that's missing is Godwin's law to be be proven...

This thread hasn't been discussion mostly clueless people taunting lights are OP.... oh did I just whip out my long tom?

[Saved By The Bell]

I can confirm, its harder to play Flea-17, then Atlas.

huh