23 replies to this topic

[FupDup]

Lasers have a low skill floor and medium-high skill ceiling.

Or in other words, somebody who just downloaded the game can probably use lasers and do okay, but there's also a large effectiveness gap between a crappy laser user who "lightsabers" the beams across their enemies and experienced ones that can pick out which hitbox they want to delete with pinpoint precision. This especially applies to longer-duration beams.

[ScrapIron Prime]

Kanil, on 23 February 2022 - 02:24 PM, said:

I must be less than a child then, because I sure find using FLD weapons a vast amount easier than trying to hold a laser burn on a specific component.

I can put up some damage with laser boats, sure, but if I actively want to kill 'mechs instead of splash damage all over them, I have to use ballistics.

You're all just saying the same thing. WASHING someone with a laser is child's play. Keeping the beam on a single component while the target is moving is what takes some skill.

[YueFei]

ScrapIron Prime, on 23 February 2022 - 06:47 AM, said:

Agreed. Try as i might, I can't make a Griffin take fire very well. A Shadowhawk is better, and a Centurion rolls damage like a boss. It isn't the speed of the torsos, its the geometry combined with the quirks. A Griffin with PPC/MRM or 4LL can dish it out, but a Centurion with a rapid fire AC/10 can tank it.

Brawling is indeed not dead. The meta changed, like it always does, and the chassis that are good at certain roles have to adapt along with it.

Yeah I guess it really is heavily dependent on mech durability. You really do need to be able to take a couple hits on the way in without it being crippling.

Although the HBK-4SP got fairly generous armor and structure quirks (an extra 26 hitpoints in each shoulder), the problem is that the skinny arms cannot be used to reliably deflect enemy fire.

On something like a Shadowhawk or Centurion, if you can use up all the hitpoints in the shield arm(s), that is a lot of extra hitpoints. There's 88 hitpoints in the Centurion's shield arm, and the Shadowhawk has an extra 66 hitpoints in each arm (for a total of 132 hitpoints). So in those mechs, I can tank a couple hits on the shield arms of those brawlers as I'm closing in, and my shoulders are still clean.

Whereas in a HBK-4SP, I can't do that. I take a couple hits on the way in, and one shoulder is already nearly wrecked (while the attached skinny arm is totally clean, LOL), often with the ASRM6 in it crit out. So, unless mech geometry can be changed, for some mechs it will take some truly epic giga-durability-quirks to pull them up. Or, maybe some combination of only slightly more generous armor+structure, combined with crit chance reduction quirks and more dangerous levels of burst DPS via increased cooldown quirks.

Edited by YueFei, 23 February 2022 - 11:44 PM.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

Blood Rose, on 23 February 2022 - 10:49 AM, said:

Tracking with lasers takes a pigeons level of skill. You put the marker over the target and keep it there, its one of the easiest things out there. Hence laser vomit is so popular, along with long range sniping because hey, the maps are almost all configured in a way that explicitly favours sniping builds, to the point that of the three city maps two are split by gigantic open areas and the other one has a convenient island situated in a place that lets anything on it enjoy direct fire straight onto the most popular engagement area with no cover in between.
Brawling is not dead, but for every game I have where I do well, get a few kills, and do a lot of damage there are six or seven where I get torn to bits by long range fire, or spend the entire match hunkering down just waiting for a chance to close, or get shat on by snipers on the way in and am completely ineffective when I get there. Or, the real killer, get killed by the snipers when I do manage to get in.
Maps need redesigning. Sort range weapons need an overhaul. Convergence time needs to come back.

and all maps have the possibility not to storm blindly through the open area and instead to flank with a little longer way and the city map with the island has great possibilities not to take the shortest and stupidest way, but most of them also run in Battlefield 2 kharkand on the shortest way into the MG fire like lemmings.All waiting by the citadel in Cover ! oh fun ..lets go straigt in the open Area before and play Peek a Boo in open Water.You could also just try to take the space base over the bridge and the short way trough to fall into the flank of the opponent...oh thats is to tactical.

Edited by MW Waldorf Statler, 24 February 2022 - 05:31 AM.