152 replies to this topic

[kalashnikity]

I've watched pilots in a LCT-1V (multiple times) with a single SNPPC absolutely beat down opponents in single combat. I'm not a fan of that setup, but I've seen it played well.

Way I figure it, each time you expose to counter fire you should do more than 15 damage.... so I striped down a flea-19 and put a SNPPC with MRM 10 on it (25 alpha) and got MVP multiple times.


LCT-1M can run the same setup as the Fle-19 (SNPPC + MRM10), they both have 40% cooldown, but the LCT-1M has a massive ammo quirk. I would run out of ammo on the Fle-19 almost every match with only 1 ton. But that same ton on the LCT-1M gets ~3.5 x more ammo after skills, so even using 1/2 ton is still has significantly more ammo.


Both with a 125XL SNPPC and MRM10

FLE-19

A:;:20;0|kc|I@p;0|X@|GP|i^|i^q;0|i^|i^|i^r00s00t;0u;0v30w303030

vs

LCT-1M

AH290:B0|I@|kcpA0qA0r00s80|X@|[<2|HPt:0|h^|h^u:0|h^|h^v00|h^w303030

These are great for close range peaking, as top speed matters less than acceleration.

[Livingvicarious]

1453 R, on 11 March 2025 - 06:11 AM, said:

I'm honestly not sure the Locust is in a great spot, though...

I shelved them when the Flea came out. Sometimes I play the PB but that's about it. The 1V with a large x-pulse laser is strong but it's only because it abuses a quirk it really shouldn't have. I was taking out the 3M because it has some neat quirks I thought would work with X-Pulse. It was fun for a few matches but it's nothing great. Better off as just an AMS boat which isn't worth much when damage is more important than support.

I think some mechs just get relegated to the proverbial trash heap only to be taken out for nostalgia or memematic purposes.
The PB got me up to T1 years ago back when people argued it was broken and OP. I still think it's really cool, especially with all the lasers in the torso. Looks mean. I wish the 1E had all the lasers in the ST and CT. It'd be cool to see them take the PB model and remove the MGs to replace them with lasers, remove the ECM, and throw a 200XL in it for shiggles. Call it the Crop Duster or something. Give it a fart warhorn. It still wouldn't even be that great compared to the Flea-17 or the Piranha let alone the Fire Moth but it'd be funny.

Joking aside, the locust as a whole still has more capability than some mechs that time forgot. I still cry when I look at what they did to the JR7-F. There are so many chassis in this game that are just there to pad the number of mechs in the game. It's unfortunate that such an iconic mech got the short end of the stick. At least it isn't useless, just anemic, like you said.

[kalashnikity]

Locust is not weak...



I'm almost hesitant to post these, in fear of getting it nerfed. I never played a LCT-3S before, this thing is sweet.



I never would have played it if not for playing the FMT-C (3xSMR4)

[Void Angel]

1453 R, on 11 March 2025 - 06:11 AM, said:

I'm honestly not sure the Locust is in a great spot, though.

The Locust feels decent in regard to other Lights; in fact, it's one of my go-to IS 'mechs. Not the best meta 'mech, but it's viable and fun. The problem is that it has a high skill floor, and above-average dependence on team play. If I'm blasting people with an Assault, or even using LPPCs or cLPLs on a different Light, I can do what I need to do more autonomously than with a Locust 1V HMG brawler. Even if I go to 3/4 LMGs and an LPPC or LL (respectively,) I still need to be able to expose myself to keep firing, and that makes my effectiveness more dependent on the enemy having other people to shoot at - in relation to my own positioning skill and tactical decisions. This makes other Lights like the Incubus and its high mounts a lot more consistent than my Locusts, but often there was a risk that I chose to take that cost me durability during the match (which of course limits how much risk I can assume in future engagements, limiting my subsequent effectiveness.)

[Void Angel]

kalashnikity, on 11 March 2025 - 09:27 PM, said:

I'm almost hesitant to post these, in fear of getting it nerfed.

They're not nerfing anything because of forum posts - forum feedback is important, but they're going to look at game telemetry in order to see how a 'mech or build is performing.

[KursedVixen]

Boldkill, on 18 February 2025 - 02:47 PM, said:

I really like it! I max the armor, but minus 4 points off the head on all the variants. My favorite custom build so far is 4 ER Small Lasers and a Plasma Cannon.

how'd you fit that?

[Void Angel]

KursedVixen, on 12 March 2025 - 01:16 AM, said:

how'd you fit that?

Like This, or else Like This, if you want max arm armor - although I don't find either build to be optimal. You get so much more clobber for your Kerenskies with micro lasers and/or mgs.

[kalashnikity]

Void Angel, on 12 March 2025 - 12:44 AM, said:

The Locust feels decent in regard to other Lights; in fact, it's one of my go-to IS 'mechs. Not the best meta 'mech, but it's viable and fun. The problem is that it has a high skill floor, and above-average dependence on team play. If I'm blasting people with an Assault, or even using LPPCs or cLPLs on a different Light, I can do what I need to do more autonomously than with a Locust 1V HMG brawler. Even if I go to 3/4 LMGs and an LPPC or LL (respectively,) I still need to be able to expose myself to keep firing, and that makes my effectiveness more dependent on the enemy having other people to shoot at - in relation to my own positioning skill and tactical decisions. This makes other Lights like the Incubus and its high mounts a lot more consistent than my Locusts, but often there was a risk that I chose to take that cost me durability during the match (which of course limits how much risk I can assume in future engagements, limiting my subsequent effectiveness.)

As a 20 ton SRM brawler, I can either distract a larger mech and get them to turn their back on the real threat (the enemy firing line).

Or I can be the real threat, coring them out while they face the enemy firing line (ignoring me at their peril).

It's a wicked paradigm. Communications between red team members is my main threat.

If one vs one their main hope is backing up against a wall, I've never played this style successfully until the firemoth event gave me many days of training, but I suspect a lot more people have learned the hard way to communicate and put their back against a wall. .

I can reposition at will, and as long as I don't do something stupid (hold my beer), I can do this for the whole match.

The main problem I keep having is lag when I try to circle around behind in tight quarters, and the server decides to get me stuck between another mech and a wall, so I need to learn to compensate (for when red decided to put their back against a wall) and make sure I will have at least twice as much space as I actually need. Several times this month I've ended up inside an enemy (or even friendly) mech (literally seeing the other mech from inside their polygons) and the server has to bring be back outside of the other mech... which often has disastrous consequences for me if I end up face tanking an assault after the server does it's calculations.

[Void Angel]

"Walling" is generally a newb tactic, for pilots who can't maneuver their 'mechs to hit lights. If you're getting wolf-packed, maybe, but I've never walled against a single Light. As for rubber-banding through enemies, that's actually a glitch that some Commando pilots like to use. They run through an enemy 'mech, and the rubber-banding screws up the larger 'mech long enough for the Commando to turn a corner. Shooting them on the approach tends to discourage that behavior, and they mostly just get merked once people are on to them.

[1453 R]

Bit tangential, but I've always hated and was kinda baffled by the absolutely venomous hatred people have for light wolfpacks. Like...okay. If you're alone and isolated and you get caught out by thrtee or four other 'Mechs, you should be up a creek without a boat? You wouldn't complain at all if the "wolf pack" was made up of medium and heavy 'Mechs, you'd just admit you got overrun and move on, but when it's a passel of light 'Mechs suddenly it's some sort of pernicious pox against all of 'Mechkind?

I know it's just an extension of the general ongoing hate the average Puglandian has for all light 'Mechs no matter the situation, but that hatred in general has always been soo bloody god dang weird. The 'Mech Dad hatred is strange because light 'Mechs have been staples of BattleTech since it was invented, and the Modern Gamer hatred is equally weird because the 'High Speed Twitch Reflexes Cracked Out Playstyle Option' in MWO, i.e. light 'Mechs, is dramatically weaker in MWO compared to almost any other game where such a distinction exists.

The hecc, MWO?

[KursedVixen]

kalashnikity, on 12 March 2025 - 12:24 PM, said:

As a 20 ton SRM brawler, I can either distract a larger mech and get them to turn their back on the real threat (the enemy firing line).

Or I can be the real threat, coring them out while they face the enemy firing line (ignoring me at their peril).

It's a wicked paradigm. Communications between red team members is my main threat.

If one vs one their main hope is backing up against a wall, I've never played this style successfully until the firemoth event gave me many days of training, but I suspect a lot more people have learned the hard way to communicate and put their back against a wall. .

I can reposition at will, and as long as I don't do something stupid (hold my beer), I can do this for the whole match.

The main problem I keep having is lag when I try to circle around behind in tight quarters, and the server decides to get me stuck between another mech and a wall, so I need to learn to compensate (for when red decided to put their back against a wall) and make sure I will have at least twice as much space as I actually need. Several times this month I've ended up inside an enemy (or even friendly) mech (literally seeing the other mech from inside their polygons) and the server has to bring be back outside of the other mech... which often has disastrous consequences for me if I end up face tanking an assault after the server does it's calculations.

yeah lag has killed me in my firemoth a couple of times

[Void Angel]

1453 R, on 13 March 2025 - 05:46 AM, said:

Bit tangential, but I've always hated and was kinda baffled by the absolutely venomous hatred people have for light wolfpacks. Like...okay. If you're alone and isolated and you get caught out by thrtee or four other 'Mechs, you should be up a creek without a boat? You wouldn't complain at all if the "wolf pack" was made up of medium and heavy 'Mechs, you'd just admit you got overrun and move on, but when it's a passel of light 'Mechs suddenly it's some sort of pernicious pox against all of 'Mechkind?

I know it's just an extension of the general ongoing hate the average Puglandian has for all light 'Mechs no matter the situation, but that hatred in general has always been soo bloody god dang weird. The 'Mech Dad hatred is strange because light 'Mechs have been staples of BattleTech since it was invented, and the Modern Gamer hatred is equally weird because the 'High Speed Twitch Reflexes Cracked Out Playstyle Option' in MWO, i.e. light 'Mechs, is dramatically weaker in MWO compared to almost any other game where such a distinction exists.

The hecc, MWO?

Wolfpacks which are coordinated can simply wreck an enemy before the team can react. This was a bigger problem earlier in the game, particularly before quirks. You'd have a pack of four Jenners run by one of your flanks and each throw a 37.2 point alpha at the same leg - and this is a period when an Atlas only had 126 total points of leg durability available. And that doesn't even count Jenner Football during closed beta...

Of course, the counterpoint was that an optimized Jenner still only had 47 points of durability on its front torso, and an AC/20 to any rear armor location would often instantly kill you. If your team sees them coming, there were a number of builds that would instantly merk the heaviest Light in the game in one hit. So it wasn't all one-sided, but it is frustrating to be ganged up on with local numerical superiority by an enemy you can neither catch nor escape, even if your team manages to avenge you; it's that frustration that fuels the resentment of wolfpacks.

It also bears noting that the role of Lights in MWO is not the role they have in tabletop - essentially because you're piloting a single machine, not commanding a lance or whatnot. So Lights in MWO are much stronger than in tabletop, which makes some of the gatekeeper types salty. On the twitch reflex side, everything in MWO is less twitchy than other games; it's one of the selling points, actually. But people who hate Lights for being "op" are often reacting to the fact that Lights which are strong enough to be a threat disrupt those players' intended playing style. They might want to snipe from the back, or be a big, slow brawler, or a midrange dakka boat - but Lights force them to split their attention away from that role and watch for attacks from behind. If you check the Jarl's List for players who are salty about Lights, I suspect you'll find that many of them prefer the two highest weight classes, and have not played Lights enough to learn how to fight them in large 'Mechs.

Edited by Void Angel, 13 March 2025 - 08:04 AM.

[Meep Meep]

Void Angel, on 13 March 2025 - 07:56 AM, said:

If you check the Jarl's List for players who are salty about Lights, I suspect you'll find that many of them prefer the two highest weight classes, and have not played Lights enough to learn how to fight them in large 'Mechs.

Hehehe.. There are several cauldron members who hate lights too and they are in the pro heavy/assault bracket. Luckily they get outvoted but the 'debate' tends to be ~quite~ steamy. I just love when I drop into their matches.