55 replies to this topic

[Risen Trash]

So here's my totally well-considered and not-a-hot-take-at-all thing. I came here and started posting only after I thoughtfully considered my own PUG-team's performance in my most recent match, which ended about forty seconds ago.

Your PUG LRM boat is straight garbage. I don't care what your PSR is. Or your KDR. If you got that score down on the LRMspam-farm, that is a sorry way to play the game, and your numbers are almost entirely dependent on other teammates engaging with the enemy while you play with your foot.

Full disclosure: when I started playing this game I used an LRM boat. I had a craptop computer and it seemed like a good way to participate while I learned. It took literal years to undo the straight garbage play I taught myself in the time it took me to start listening to the better players around here. To this day I have to overcome that timidity, that instinct to position myself behind my teammates, to think just hitting an enemy is good enough. I have to consciously remind myself that good players find the enemy before they're found. I push myself to position aggressively; I remember that that good players shoot hitboxes.

This is a PSA. I'm trying to help you, cous.

I don't care that we won. We won because a few of us carried a bunch of LRM boat busters and got tore up holding locks for you.

I put that. Change my mind.

[feeWAIVER]

People are playing the archer LRM boat as part of the event.
Like, it's required for the event.

[Meep Meep]

I have been running a cat c4 with lrm and I stick with the push and share armor. IS lrm works best right at the front line due to their all at once fire pattern and I feel the target audience for your rant are the clan lurmers who lurch along in a 120 tube ecm bas doing nothing.

Try this.

cplt-c4

800~1000 damage games are not uncommon and as long as my team has a reasonable push going on I can get in the 500~700 range easily. Even on maps like solaris city you can get in damage as long as you are pushing along with your brawlers and shoot over their heads.

Also if you run in premades then two 120 tube bas with an ecm raven providing tag and narc? Welp...

[pbiggz]

Anti-Missile System

[Meep Meep]

pbiggz, on 02 June 2023 - 11:33 AM, said:

~snip~

Anti-Missile System

Doesn't work with my method of up front lurming. I alpha fire as soon as the lock is done and even if the lock is instantly lost afterwards and the mech starts to evade they can't move fast enough to dodge since I was only a few hundred meters away. A few missiles might miss but the bulk are going to hit something.

Was thinking about the premade lurmageddon roster and I think this would be optimal.

Hunter: rvn-3l

Shooters: dwf-c

[pbiggz]

I couldn't help it,

I make the same joke every time LRM discourse comes up.

[Risen Trash]

feeWAIVER, on 02 June 2023 - 11:08 AM, said:

People are playing the archer LRM boat as part of the event.
Like, it's required for the event.

Understood. My position is that this makes the state of play worse.

Meep Meep, on 02 June 2023 - 11:09 AM, said:

800~1000 damage games are not uncommon and as long as my team has a reasonable push going on I can get in the 500~700 range easily.

None of this challenges my position that LRM boats can't consistently sit anyone down except the worst f*@king players. You can't be counted on to carry it when the match is close at the end. I can't remember the last time I saw a game in which the last mech standing was an LRM boat. On the other hand I've spectated on so many pristine garbage LRM boats throwing an up-two end game that I've lost count.

I'm not doubting your numbers, and as you say I'm not talking about fast LRM builds with direct fire options, piloted by players who contribute meaningfully at all stages of a match. I'm talking about builds and play that *require* teammates to play harder and keep LOS, often through withering direct fire, just to coax some faculty from an otherwise severely troubled heat wagon that will throw a match as soon as there are no more of those teammates to hide behind.

[Meep Meep]

I get solo kills and kmmd quite often in that cat c4. A well placed uav on a crowded corner fight where they can't get to cover and I just pound away. And it shines late game when everyone is beaten up and open due to the extra crits missiles do. Can I do last mech standing vs some fresh mechs? Eh not really but if they are beat up then its open season and anyones match.

But yes I get your point that ~overall~ most lurm play is lazy and unproductive. But thats not due to lurms or its mechanics its due to player apathy wanting an ez mode option and those types would underperform with any build.

[JediPanther]

C4 does great with its 900m tag and 15% cd for lrms. It's almost as if pgi made the mech for lrms. Except people still can't doge that under 200ms lrm yet will happily tank ppc and guass which goes 4x faster and doesn't have that flashing warning sign.

[Risen Trash]

JediPanther, on 02 June 2023 - 12:55 PM, said:

900m tag

Yeah, nothing better than the teammate running next to you with their TAG toggled to "on." Glad I brought this ECM; too bad everyone on the red team knows exactly where we are at all times.

[Meep Meep]

Tag is useless on the lrm mech though as los gives you the same bonus and of course you have to be in los to use tag. Tag is for marking targets for other missile slingers.

edit: I should add that tag can counter ecm so if you are trying to shoot a distant ecm boat it can help but for me I'm always within the range ecm is busted anyways with los.

Edited by Meep Meep, 02 June 2023 - 03:11 PM.

[Risen Trash]

Meep Meep, on 02 June 2023 - 03:10 PM, said:

edit: I should add that tag can counter ecm so if you are trying to shoot a distant ecm boat it can help but for me I'm always within the range ecm is busted anyways with los.

LL works for that, too.

[foamyesque]

Meep Meep, on 02 June 2023 - 11:09 AM, said:

I have been running a cat c4 with lrm and I stick with the push and share armor. IS lrm works best right at the front line due to their all at once fire pattern and I feel the target audience for your rant are the clan lurmers who lurch along in a 120 tube ecm bas doing nothing.

Try this.

cplt-c4

800~1000 damage games are not uncommon and as long as my team has a reasonable push going on I can get in the 500~700 range easily. Even on maps like solaris city you can get in damage as long as you are pushing along with your brawlers and shoot over their heads.

Also if you run in premades then two 120 tube bas with an ecm raven providing tag and narc? Welp...

Personally I still prefer the C1. The quad lasers put in work. The Timber Wolf LRM + lasvom layout is pretty fun, too.

EDIT:

It is however nevertheless true that lockon weapons aren't in a great place. It feels like they're getting balanced around what a squad can do with them with support and/or how punishing they can be to unprepared players, which leaves the solo use against people with even moderately effective play (and/or countermeasures) in a spot where it's difficult to do well. And streaks get punished for LRM's sins, to boot.

Edited by foamyesque, 02 June 2023 - 06:49 PM.

[LordNothing]

ive posted several times how much i think the new trial archer sucks, and its not because its a lerm boat. my opinion holds.

i think the trial mechs should primarily be easy to use for new players in lieu of good knowledge of the game mechanics. it should perform well enough in tiers 4-5 and be fairly straight forward to use. meta features, like the 4 points of rear armor, i feel are better at higher tiers. one of things new players need to learn is to watch their back, and if it goes up in seconds you are going to frustrate them. they need to learn to read and pay attention to their damage indicator.

another thing i found is that it doesn't have any bap and the only means of breaking ecm is the tag laser (and i can go on all day about how much the tag sucks). you are going to force new players to stare down the enemy while trying to figure out why their missiles aren't locking. then i look at the ammo, plenty to teach new players about the crosshair turning red. but its also way too much, encourages wastage and inefficient use, and most importantly its not cased. the mech is a tinderbox (and the thin back armor doesnt save it). if the ammo gets hit, the mech dies. it could do with 2-3 tons less and some case.

its built for tag teaming, which is the high skill coordinated approach to lerming. not something a new player will have a clue about and being new to the community will have a no buddies to lerm with right off the bat. the cadet period is where players should be learning the core mechanics and not the high level stuff. so a build that requires advanced tactics is not good for npe. one thing it does right is have plenty of cooling, so new players done get screwed over by needing a lot of heat management skill. it does use every crit slot, but thats not really important and is a product of somone's ocd.

so what would i do different. first thing is id remove 3t ammo. take a ton off the left torso and each leg, id put case on the leg and right torso ammo. head ammo is pretty safe in lower tiers and acts as a good ammo reserve incase you lose the rt. though you can move it to the rt if you want it cased (like if you want to strip head armor). with 3t less you could upgrade the engine or the backup weapons or upgrade sensors. minus the 3 tons and stripping the existing lasers, you get 6.5 tons and 6 slots to work with. several options:

5ml + tag
more short range firepower, less explodie. perhaps with bap.

2lppcs + bap
plenty of ppc to keep ecm disrupted and bap if that doesnt work. alternatively lose the bap and put the other lppc in the arm to take advantage of the lower arm actuators.

snppc + bap + lfe295
faster frontline support version.

ll + 2erml + bap
more intermediate range standoff version.

i would probibly use the second one in the arms free config, though id find a way to get bap on there, perhaps downgrading an lrm15 to a 10, 40 tubes is good enough. for a new player i think id go with the fourth (or the 1st with the bap option). i intentionally did not do an erppc or erll version, because that's just encourages rear play.

Edited by LordNothing, 02 June 2023 - 07:05 PM.

[foamyesque]

Honestly, the trial Archer build isn't bad at all. I enjoyed playing it in the event. I'd juggle things around a bit if I were designing it -- go to 2xLRM20A, trim down to 5t of ammo, goose the engine to 295, fully armour the arms -- but it's absolutely a workable machine.

Edited by foamyesque, 02 June 2023 - 11:07 PM.

[LordNothing]

feeWAIVER, on 02 June 2023 - 11:08 AM, said:

People are playing the archer LRM boat as part of the event.
Like, it's required for the event.

and it took me 5 bloody games to get the 500 damage. thus the weaker of the trials. most were completed in 1-2 games. i usually do better than that with lerms. of course in 3 of those games the team kept fighting in the choke by the spawn and i couldnt get locks through the mountains without walking into a murder ball. i resorted to dumb firing them, but that was really inefficient.

Edited by LordNothing, 02 June 2023 - 07:17 PM.

[foamyesque]

LordNothing, on 02 June 2023 - 07:09 PM, said:

and it took me 5 bloody games to get the 500 damage. thus the weaker of the trials. most were completed in 1-2 games.

That's not the fault of the mech

(The Cyclops trial, on the other hand, I had a lot of problems with. The strongest ones, I felt, were the two Marauders.)

Edited by foamyesque, 02 June 2023 - 07:13 PM.

[LordNothing]

foamyesque, on 02 June 2023 - 07:03 PM, said:

Honestly, the trial build isn't bad at all. I enjoyed playing it in the event. I'd juggle things around a bit if I were designing it -- go to 2xLRM20A, trim down to 5t of ammo, goose the engine to 295, fully armour the arms -- but it's absolutely a workable machine.

there is nothing wrong with the variant though. its got good quirks, plenty of hardpoints. i just think the build missed the target, no pun intended (though would have been had i thought of it first).

[RickySpanish]

I put my team mates between me and my enemy when I'm brawling. Screw you guys OP, I'd rather you explode than me. I mean yay team!

Edited by RickySpanish, 02 June 2023 - 07:33 PM.

[LordNothing]

foamyesque, on 02 June 2023 - 07:12 PM, said:

That's not the fault of the mech

(The Cyclops trial, on the other hand, I had a lot of problems with. The strongest ones, I felt, were the two Marauders.)

the blood asp was done within the first 3 minutes of the first match. the summoner was short by 18 damage which i attribute to a lack of uac skills (it jammed a lot and took to long to recover). the mauraders i think were also one game runs. the linebacker was strong, being a fast pulse boat, but took 2 games. the cyclops was also a one game run, ended up in a brawl against mechs not designed to brawl, i think i bagged 3. but that was a bit of situational luck. i dont remember what the other mechs were or how well they did.

like the cyclops the archer is situational and famined multiple times from a team that allowed themselves to be spawncamped. my options were to stick with the team or do something stupid. neither tactic worked. in retrospect i think i should have dropped it earlier in the match before the team realized they were outclassed and started acting like spuds (starch is contagious). i normally do 300-500 when using lerms (and usually better backup weapons than 5sl).

Edited by LordNothing, 02 June 2023 - 07:50 PM.