12 replies to this topic

[WereGenie]

I am just curious but why does it seem that light mechs have way too many advantages compared to bigger models? I don't care what mech I am using, once a light attacks me it's over, I can't out maneuver it, jump jets don't help and worst of all, it seems they are almost invincible to fire. Even my teammates commented in a game yesterday when I smacked a Fire Moth square in the face with twin LB20x and 4SRM6 and he just smiled and kept coming.
Are lights overpowered?


I don't want to hear any smart *** answers, I want real discussion.

[epikt]

WereGenie, on 27 January 2026 - 10:21 PM, said:

I don't want to hear any smart *** answers, I want real discussion.

I'm sorry but you'll get smart *** answers, because the topic is beaten to death and most people are tired of it.

The short anwser is that light mechs are not OP.
Check the stats and you'll see they globaly perform worst than other classes.

[WereGenie]

you know what never mind, once again the MWO community responds with attitude, not helpful information. I wasn't in on the "beating to death" or I would NOT have asked.

Mods close the thread please. Ask for help, get attitude.

[Commander Racha]

Mald.


There's a clear disconnect I see with building a mech in the mechlab, going into training grounds, and seeing usually a commando first and two hitting it instantly. Then jumping into quickplay.

This is for several reasons.
Most of all that mechs piloted by a human have quirks, skills, and are actively moving and more importantly trying to kill you back.

That said if it was a square one on one where both mechs were fresh a bigger mech is going to kill a light mech in a direct fight.

WereGenie, on 27 January 2026 - 10:21 PM, said:

I smacked a Fire Moth square in the face with twin LB20x and 4SRM6 and he just smiled and kept coming.

Yeah 6 weapons firing at once, all with spread, at one of the fastest mechs in the game.

Next time you are facing a singular light mech calm down, take a breath, I'm serious. If you step up to another mech and assume you're going to die. Well. You probably are more likely to die. Press R, and cover your back with a wall and focus on getting *accurate* fire.

Any intelligent light mech pilot will either run, trying to circle you, or try to jump into your legs or back.
If they run assume they are going to come back unless you are with the group, be mindful of the rear of your mech, where you're exposing yourself.

Most light mechs kill by a thousand cuts. They wait and loop around until you aren't looking or engaged to score hits.

If they try to circle you or try to jump into your shoulder and back, hold down L Shift, most mechs have arms that move. That will help you get more accurate fire. If you get in the habit of pressing R on what you're shooting you'll see their paper doll. You'll see where they have taken the most damage and have a better time effectively destroying or doing enough damage they'll want to run.

In a perfect world you would be able to alpha strike a light mech's CT into oblivion. This is not a perfect world.

[WereGenie]

Dude!! What are you smoking?!?! I was just killed in a Battlemaster by a Pirate's Bane and was completely helpless to hit him. COMPLETELY. He killed a 90% mech with MGs. And that's NOT OP???!!!??? Jesus, how do you guys define OP??

[martian]

WereGenie, on 28 January 2026 - 07:43 AM, said:

Dude!! What are you smoking?!?! I was just killed in a Battlemaster by a Pirate's Bane and was completely helpless to hit him. COMPLETELY. He killed a 90% mech with MGs. And that's NOT OP???!!!??? Jesus, how do you guys define OP??

Which BattleMaster variant were you running?

[Commander Racha]

Battlemasters are kind of mid in my opinion. But I don't really like the 80 tonners.

Can you describe what your build is and actually explain what happened in the encounter?

[KursedVixen]

WereGenie, on 28 January 2026 - 07:43 AM, said:

Dude!! What are you smoking?!?! I was just killed in a Battlemaster by a Pirate's Bane and was completely helpless to hit him. COMPLETELY. He killed a 90% mech with MGs. And that's NOT OP???!!!??? Jesus, how do you guys define OP??

By chance did your pirates bane have stealth armor? Was that battlemaster out by himself??? away from the rest of his team? the last one left?

Edited by KursedVixen, 28 January 2026 - 01:16 PM.

[Void Angel]

He was the Battlemaster, and it's possible that he was last, but that's not the point of his anecdote. His experience was that a Pirates' Bane killed him in his Battlemaster from fresh status to dead, and he felt helpless. It doesn't matter if he was off by himself, or that the Pirates' Bane only has two MGs and most of its damage is lasers - he's asking about the relative balance between Lights and other weight classes.

WereGenie, on 28 January 2026 - 07:43 AM, said:

Dude!! What are you smoking?!?! I was just killed in a Battlemaster by a Pirate's Bane and was completely helpless to hit him. COMPLETELY. He killed a 90% mech with MGs. And that's NOT OP???!!!??? Jesus, how do you guys define OP??

No one is going to be able to explain that fight with just the information given, but a few things stand out. First, Battlemasters tend to be a bit cumbersome, and if the Locust had terrain he could use to his advantage - and was a better pilot, let's be frank - it's not surprising he was hard for you to fight. But without being in your cockpit with you, I can't really answer your question except to say that I cannot remember the last time lost a 1v1 in an Assault versus a Light. It can happen; there are pilots out there who could merk me in that fight, but on the rare occasions that I have fought a Light mano a mano, they've either disengaged to find an easier target, or been destroyed. But without being in your cockpit, nobody can really tell you why you lost that fight, how you could have won it, or if the enemy Locust was just a better pilot.

Now, better pilots exist; but that's just why anecdotes aren't strong evidence for balance. For that you need stuff like the performance demographics like Epikt linked. If you check that spreadsheet, you'll find that only seven Light chassis have a positive win/loss ratio for average play - compared to 17 Heavies, for example. You also have to look at demographics by skill level, and that's something we don't have access to. Regardless, my point here is that our personal experiences feel real to us, but the larger story is told with data. I was getting headshot a lot, a couple years back - including two back to back matches - and I said, "well, that's suspicious," and went offline to work at the problem. Turns out, the Thunderbolt's head hitbox is narrow vertically, but horizontally it's a relatively giant slot - and when you're using an X-Pulse starebear build against top-level players at close range, well... Sleepy Human will put two Gauss rounds plus lasers through your face-hole, and actually having been twisting at the time doesn't make the difference you'd like it to. I adjusted my builds and tactics, and the headshots went back to normal. You felt helpless against that Locust, but it doesn't mean you were helpless, or that the 'mech is overpowered. There very likely was something you could do, either in maneuvering your 'mech, or in avoiding or using terrain.

Another point is scatter weapons, hitbox size, and convergence. Don't expect Lights to explode when you hit them with shotguns and dumbfire missiles. The nature of those weapons, combined with the Light's small model, means that more of your damage than you likely notice in the moment is not hitting the component you're aiming at - much of your damage may not hit the 'mech at all, especially if you're shooting for the legs, as you should be. And since all of your guns are converging on whatever's behind your reticle when you pull the trigger, a moving target (even with a low-deflection shot, running at you) is going to affect the round-strike of projectile weapons, particularly when they're being fired from as far from your 'mech's centerline as, say, a Battlemaster's Left Arm. The need to lead any competent Light pilot when shooting at him means that your rounds are converging at a variable point beyond his 'mech. Weapons fired from opposite arms will often hit different parts of his 'mech, or one will miss entirely. Even lasers can be affected, particularly at close range.

There are mobility tricks you can use to better track and destroy enemy Lights:

• If Throttle Decay is off in your settings, turn it on: there is a bug in CryEngine that imposes an artificial cap on your acceleration and deceleration if you are using the "normal" throttle - even if you use a keybinding to set your speed to max. Throttle Decay is a must, and will let you start and stop faster.
  
• Walk backwards, and swap ends when a circling Light is leaving your field of view. What I mean is, if a Light is circling clockwise (to your right,) back away and turn to your right while twisting right to follow and shoot at him - then immediately twist and turn left while continuing to back up in order to reacquire him. If he tries to stop and circle backwards, you can sort of pump-fake him and then keep turning right like you were before. This limits the exposure of your back armor, and maximizes the time you have to engage and kill him.
  
• Target the Tangent: this is more for targeting Lights circling your teammates, but the principle is the same when they try to disengage to reposition against you. Think of a Light running in a circle (around your teammate, for example.) You can draw a line from your position to the outside edge of that circle, and at this point the Light will be running either directly toward or away from you. You no longer have to lead him, so convergence and marksmanship is much more forgiving - this is where you want to shoot at a Light. Obviously this is much harder to do from inside the circle - but Lights will often attempt to run over/around terrain to break line of sight and reposition to attack again. If you understand their needs and anticipate their route, you can get your licks in.

Which brings me to the most important bit of advice I can give you: you need to play some Lights. Not to "prove" they're not overpowered; that whole thing about anecdotes versus data cuts both ways. Rather, I want you to play Lights so you can see what they're capable of, and what they need to do in order to treat much larger 'mechs like that Pirates' Bane treated your Battlemaster. Expect to get merked a lot, at first. Lights have a higher skill floor than other chassis. But as you get the hang of moving and fighting in them, your ability to fight back when you're in the larger weight classes will improve, because you better understand your opponent.

Edited by Void Angel, 28 January 2026 - 04:18 PM.

[WereGenie]

You guys are right, I didnot provide enough information. My fault, I was still running on mad from the match.
I was running a BLR-1G(S) (Xmas free mech) with 6 ERLLs. All my weapons were Torso mounted. I was not the last player or alone, I was on the flank of a fight on Canyon. My teammates tried to help, but the closest were Assaults limited to 48-50kph and they just didn't make it in time. He stayed behind me no matter how I tried to twist or turn, and matters were aggravated when I fell in the ravine trying to maneuver (and out of line of sight of my team).

*Edit*

Void Angel, thank you for actual advice. I now know that I couldn't have beat him with my original loadout, a Battlemaster's torso twist and yaw are not good enough. I have since reworked the mech, put a slightly slower engine in, moved a Laser to the right arm and added 2 MGs to the left arm, as well as tweaked my skill tree. I may not win the next one either, but at least I will be able to fight back.

Edited by WereGenie, 29 January 2026 - 07:23 AM.

[Commander Racha]

Canyon can be a tricky map, always try to keep the high ground on that map. Try to keep your team on the high ground. Treat all low ground as risky to traverse and a dead zone to hunker in for very long. What often happens is you're getting banzinga'd by a light mech and other mechs are shooting down at you.

The canyon walls can be tricky because they're sloped. So a light mech might be able to climb it and try to dig into your back. But if you find yourself in that situation put your back to the wall and remember to hold e and call for help if you can.

With the MGs never forget they're just hit scan, my advice is make sure they're light mgs for the range. Anyone comes near you you just hold them down and don't think about it.

[WereGenie]

Commander Racha, on 29 January 2026 - 10:25 AM, said:

With the MGs never forget they're just hit scan, my advice is make sure they're light mgs for the range. Anyone comes near you you just hold them down and don't think about it.

You are the second person to recommend LMGs. a Teammate also did during a recent game, Thanks.

[Void Angel]

WereGenie, on 29 January 2026 - 07:08 AM, said:

I was still running on mad from the match.

Trust us, we knew. It's ok.

WereGenie, on 29 January 2026 - 07:08 AM, said:

Void Angel, thank you for actual advice. I now know that I couldn't have beat him with my original loadout, a Battlemaster's torso twist and yaw are not good enough. I have since reworked the mech, put a slightly slower engine in, moved a Laser to the right arm and added 2 MGs to the left arm, as well as tweaked my skill tree. I may not win the next one either, but at least I will be able to fight back.

You might be surprised at how little many Lights want to fight that build, but you have to be in the right spot to make it hard for them. A Light that gets the drop on you, particularly one with MASC, can be very hard to shake, as you've discovered. But if you make them approach you over a killing field, they will often go bother someone else. Canyon has a ton of avenues of approach for a Light, though, and the trade-off from the superior protection and convergence of torso-mounted weapons is that they can only depress so far, and only track so quickly.

Adjusting your build may pay dividends, but also pay attention to your positioning. That ERLL build is a great long-range poking build (I believe it was designed for faction warfare matches,) but it struggles against brawling or highly mobile opponents, simply because of its weapons. Positioning yourself within the general mass of your team would grant you more protection; a Battlemaster is an 85-tonner, but its broad silhouette and relatively low mobility make it hard for you to reposition quickly, and can make it seem more fragile than you'd expect.

On that note, there are a couple things I should mention:

First, there's "walling." This is, as the name implies, simply turning your back to a wall and backing up. This prevents the enemy Light from endlessly circling you, and you can turn back and forth to engage him - this is not a tactic I recommend, particularly for your Battlemaster. A knowledgeable pilot can simply camp next to your Battlemaster's leg and gnaw through their armor while your torso guns cannot depress - it's also a desperation tactic that screams to any experienced pilot that you've decided you're unable to counter their 'mech. They may leave you alone for a while, but they will be back. It may serve to buy time for help to arrive, however, and it can help you survive while you learn to better counter Lights.

The final point is about Machine Guns. Yes, they are hitscan (the weapon effects are just fluff,) but they are also the only hitscan weapons in the game with a cone of fire effect. You'll scare off some pilots, because Lights hate taking damage. Any damage. But an experienced Light will know that your LMGs are spreading their fire across multiple components, and that he can core out a component or leg you before you do serious damage. Even if they were pinpoint, and the target was standing still, those two guns are only doing 1.7dps between the two of them. A stealth brawling Pirates' Bane can top 11dps and run 30 armor on each torso before skills. If you rely on the LMGs to do meaningful damage, they can leg you and run away laughing. This doesn't mean you might not get value from those two LMGs, but be aware.

The ERLL in your arm will also be unusable for your primary purpose of ridgeline laser poking, so you'll probably get more mileage from ditching the MGs and putting a Small or Medium Pulse Laser in the arm, if you're looking for backups.