37 replies to this topic

[Bishop Steiner]

topgun505, on 09 December 2012 - 09:23 PM, said:

I do indeed see a TON of such Commandos and Ravens set up in a similar fashion. Cookie cutter units that everyone is going to. But just because they hear it's easy to win with those builds doesn't make them actually good. Gives them an edge, yes. And if they ARE already a good light pilot then they can be a nightmare in the build sure.

Honestly I've been experimenting with anti-light builds that do NOT rely on Streaks. With the net code being what it is though it isn't easy and I haven't found anything yet that is a dead ringer but some things are promising. I'm running a Raven at the moment, just to give my group additional ECM capability ... but I do NOT run dual streak racks like everyone else, and just had 5 kills in a game going up against at least 2 ECM-lights and 1 ECM-Cicada.

ECM isn't really a problem so much as the net code is (making it so hard to hit fast moving targets that most everyone resorts to streaks) .... but ECM definitely heightened the problem and made it more obvious (even more so than the previous FOTM builds).

To all those pilots out there trying to jump in to a light ECM expecting to find an "I WIN" button. It's not a guarantee of suddenly making you L33T.

Best Light Mech counter?

Large lasers. I have found that 2-4 Large Lasers are great (even better when backed with Streaks though), because even "sweeping" it only takes a few passes to remove a leg form a Light. And then, it's "Lights Out".

[shabowie]

Davers, on 09 December 2012 - 09:06 PM, said:

Just more examples that a light mech pilot is only as elite as his streaks.

Jenners with SRMs can dominate almost all heavier mechs one on one if played correctly.

Commandos are still too squishy to be good. You still only need to hit them one or two times hard and baby mech arms and legs go flying.

Raven 3L is the new best light hunter.

All of these lights will be defeated one on one by the correct D DC build.

All of these facts will remain true until ECM isn't so OP for its tonnage req.

Edited by shabowie, 09 December 2012 - 11:15 PM.

[DrxAbstract]

I just want to point out i'm still driving my Jenner D with SRMs...

The only commando i ever play with is my gf.

[Jman5]

I faced a couple trollmandos today. After getting beat up a bit by a squad of them triple teaming me, I powered down my mech. They stopped circle strafing me and just sort of looked at me confused because their weapons didn't work. Then I suddenly powered up and alpha striked one of them in the face.

trolololol

Edited by Jman5, 09 December 2012 - 11:23 PM.

[SirLANsalot]

topgun505, on 09 December 2012 - 09:23 PM, said:

I do indeed see a TON of such Commandos and Ravens set up in a similar fashion. Cookie cutter units that everyone is going to. But just because they hear it's easy to win with those builds doesn't make them actually good. Gives them an edge, yes. And if they ARE already a good light pilot then they can be a nightmare in the build sure.

Honestly I've been experimenting with anti-light builds that do NOT rely on Streaks. With the net code being what it is though it isn't easy and I haven't found anything yet that is a dead ringer but some things are promising. I'm running a Raven at the moment, just to give my group additional ECM capability ... but I do NOT run dual streak racks like everyone else, and just had 5 kills in a game going up against at least 2 ECM-lights and 1 ECM-Cicada.

ECM isn't really a problem so much as the net code is (making it so hard to hit fast moving targets that most everyone resorts to streaks) .... but ECM definitely heightened the problem and made it more obvious (even more so than the previous FOTM builds).

To all those pilots out there trying to jump in to a light ECM expecting to find an "I WIN" button. It's not a guarantee of suddenly making you L33T.

Best anti light gun I have found has been the AC/20. Its like ske3t shooting, only in a hunchback shooting commandos. Lasers used to be the best thing to pop a light, but with the code as it stands even slicing them isn't working well. Ballistics are about the best thing to use against a light right now IF you have the skill to use them (and the ping, mines around 90-100 during a match). Line up that shot once you have figured where that lag shield is and POP goes the weasel....err light. So much anger from commando and raven pilots alike from when that happens......

Other mech that seems to do well at popping mechs is the cataphract-4x with 4 AC/5's, Endo Steel, DHS, 2 ML in CT, 1 streak in head, 1 ton of streak 6 tons of AC/5, XL 225 (total 10 HS only no more). It uses every crit available on the mech, but it is by far the most effective mech I have ever used. You fire the AC/5's in alpha, you don't chain them (you can for MG fun but there more effective in alpha mode). They act like an AC/20 that fires every 1.7 sec, it will core out a gauss cat faster then he can blink...or reload for that matter. Makes lights cry when they get hit by it, and if your lucky to not be ECM'ed....well that one streak works very well to help finish them off, or soften them up when the AC/5s. The two ML in the CT are great backup for that extra push to kill something and work well for when/if you run out of AC5. It is aptly named, AC DEATH, for it dose its job well....almost too well.

Edited by SirLANsalot, 09 December 2012 - 11:49 PM.

[DowncastAcorn]

Jman5, on 09 December 2012 - 11:20 PM, said:

I faced a couple trollmandos today. After getting beat up a bit by a squad of them triple teaming me, I shut down my mech. They stopped and just sort of looked at me confused that their weapons didn't work. Then I powered up suddenly and alpha striked one of them in the face.

trolololol

Very true. The thing with cookie-cutter specialized builds is that people who jump on the bandwagon don't tend to think about how the build could go wrong. For this reason I dropped an SSRM2 in favor of a MPulse. Less fwoosh, but the FREEM makes up for it and gives me more staying power. Mechs who shut down on me get a face-full of Pulse until they start up so my missiles can lock.

shabowie, on 09 December 2012 - 11:11 PM, said:

Commandos are still too squishy to be good. You still only need to hit them one or two times hard and baby mech arms and legs go flying.

Was true before ECM, is still true now. The Commando's ability to do damage is kinda hindered by just how much it likes to explode. Lead your shots and you won't have a problem with the thing.

[Codejack]

MouseNo4, on 09 December 2012 - 09:02 PM, said:

Its official.

I have resorted to cheese builds again. Haven't done this for a couple months now, but what else can i do?

Latest cheese build - Code name "Trollmando''
Commando [insert whatever variant it is, cos i forget]
- 3 SSRM
- Enough HS to spam missiles
- Whatever engine the POS came with.


Irony is... im consistently getting 2-6 kills per match. /shudder

LRN2PLAY NOOB COMPLAINING ABOUT ECM!

Sorry, had to say it; I've been getting that all weekend.

Yea, I upgraded mine a little more (XL 195 engine does wonders) and call it the Halfcat (because it's like half of a streakcat).

But it's not "cheese." It is an optimized build for an unbalanced game, and anyone who criticized the people who pilot them are, IMO, just poor mech builders.

[Aym]

MouseNo4, on 09 December 2012 - 09:02 PM, said:

Its official.

I have finally figured out why people use certain builds. I now have a fast commando with ECM and Streaks. My KDR is improving. Thank you for paying attention to me

I fixed your post.

[Stone Wall]

MouseNo4, on 09 December 2012 - 09:02 PM, said:

Its official.

I have resorted to cheese builds again. Haven't done this for a couple months now, but what else can i do?

What else can you do?

How about play the game the way you want to play it.

[CDLord HHGD]

Davers, on 09 December 2012 - 09:17 PM, said:

Yup, and now Jenners are complaining how they aren't viable anymore.

'Streaks are OP and A1 cats should be nerfed!!!' Then it turns out that the only reason lights were any good is because of streaks too.

My favorite Jenner build didn't have any streaks at all. My current Founders does, but I haven't played it yet and if it's anything like the last time I tried streaks on a Jenner, it wasn't my cup of tea....

[MustrumRidcully]

Stone Wall, on 10 December 2012 - 05:23 AM, said:

What else can you do?

How about play the game the way you want to play it.

If you want to play in a PvP game, you will always have to deal with "the cheese". That's why balance is so important.

If you don'T engage in it yourself, you know you're fighting at a disadvantage. And you never really get the feeling that it was your skill or lack of skill that decided the match - if you lost, it was quite possibly because someone on the other side used "The Cheese" you didn't want to use. If you won, it may be because someone in your team relied on Cheese.

If you don't - it's pretty much the same deal, you either won because of your uber build, or you lost because someone of your team didn't but the enemy did.

The only way you can feel that it's about your skill and your abilities is when you happen to fight people that avoid the cheese, or everyone uses it.

Overall, the subset of games where you feel you are in control of the outcome of the match and not some imbalanced item or build is too small, you have less fun, and at some point, there is no good reason to play the game anymore if you can have the same or more fun for less time investment.

Edited by MustrumRidcully, 10 December 2012 - 06:01 AM.

[Rex Budman]

SomersetStriker, on 09 December 2012 - 09:11 PM, said:

They should remove the ability to have streaks and srms on lights. That would at least remove (or at least soften) the light fest that's happening right now.

As much as I'd LOVE to see little lighties running around with pewpew lasers only; your idea would really leave them as flacid as a garden hose with a broken clip.

[Havyek]

I have my Trollmando set up as support/ECCM/ECM harasser.

I run 3 SSRM2s, ECM and TAG.
I can run ECM in disrupt mode and TAG someone for LRMs/SSRMs and will just run around chasing the ECM Raven/Commando/Cicada

[Kaspirikay]

Jman5, on 09 December 2012 - 11:20 PM, said:

I faced a couple trollmandos today. After getting beat up a bit by a squad of them triple teaming me, I powered down my mech. They stopped circle strafing me and just sort of looked at me confused because their weapons didn't work. Then I suddenly powered up and alpha striked one of them in the face. trolololol

Only naabmandos go around without a ML as a back up.

[Jason1138]

i've been running mine with 3 SSRM's and 1 med laser since closed beta

recently i dropped 1 streak for an ECM. works like a charm, esp against other non-jenner lights.

[DisasterTheory]

Timelordwho, on 09 December 2012 - 09:50 PM, said:

When knockdowns were in the game I dubbed them the "I've fallen, and I can't get up" mech. I used to feel bad about killing them because they felt like child soldiers.

This just about made me spray orange juice all over my monitor and keyboard from laughter.

[Kraven Kor]

To be fair... Commando's fold like lawn chairs...

I have been on the receiving end of the SSRM Trollmando, but, really, they die really, really fast if you just shoot at them.

I have spectated a friend of mine running said build. He gets like 4, 5, 6 kills per match.

Want to know why?

He follows behind someone, unloading into their back, while they largely ignore him. Every now and then someone wakes up and actually puts some fire on him, which does not always end his reign of terror but it helps...

Yet when we face a similar tactic, the Commando nearly always dies before getting a kill... and we aren't that good. (Note: Yes, on occasion, a better team has managed to keep us off the commando enough to let it do it's job, and I've seen a few good players do the same all on their lonesome. For crissakes I saw a medium laser Cicada build rack up 6 kills one match... mad props to that pilot.)

Solution: Watch each other's backs, identify the commando, focus it down (without having your whole team chase - the lil' ****** will circle back around...)

Or just make sure you have more ECM than they do.

[topgun505]

I shake my head whenever people post 'examples' but they don't give complete context.

This example means nothing without more details.

If you ran into ONE commando and you had 2 ECM units in the area of course you are going to slaughter him. But if he had another Commando or Streak-packing Raven buddy with him and you only had 1 ECM yourself ... odds are you WON'T be walking away from that encounter.

The main problem is NOT ECM so much as it is the netcode. Sometimes it isn't so bad ... other times you can absoutely forget about trying to lead the target with weapons (especially ones that normally require significant lead to begin with like SRMs and non-gauss ballistics). The only weapon that hits reliably were Streak missiles and everyone got used to packing one or more (or 6) on their mechs to help offset this issue. Now that ECM is in and was made stackable this invariably lead to the ECM arms race where the side with the largest quantity of ECM means that team will likely be able to use their streaks a majority of the time while denying the opponent the use of theirs and thus the light mechs on the ECM-heavy side will smash the others (given pilots of equal skill). Once the lights are down and that team has thus been reduced further with ECM the other team is freed up even more to start using their LRMs (if they have them), along with their streaks, and can generally use it to disrupt the order of battle (the commander won't see ANY of his units on the map and thus will find it more difficult to coordinate his side of the battle).

Prior to the patch you would typically encounter 1 or 2 lights per team... which is about what you would expect in a canon-like army. Now because of this turn of events, however, it is pretty common to see 4 or even more lights ... which also will tend to roam in a pack (whereas before they were more likely lone wolves who were covering different avenues of approaches of the enemy advance). So now, if you are a lone light, you are just likely to end up dead (regardless of how good you are), unless you stay glue to the rest of your team , which pretty much negates your usefulness as a scout.

If you brought back knockdowns, fixed the netcode, and eliminated ECM stacking so that it no longer pays to flood the field with ECM units then the entire ECM 'problem' would fall to the wayside and we could put this issue in the history books.

In the mean time you either play cookier-cutter with one of those units and hope like hell the other side doesn't have more ... or you do what I did which was find a different loadout that could potentially kill lights without needing a net-code-ignoring weapon. The problem is ... that isn't easy. When you are traveling at 150 kph and so is your target, focusing a beam weapon long enough to burn its FULL damage (especially on a specific location) is d*** difficult. Sure you can sweep the target but you are only doing a few points at a time. SRMs are a way to go ... but again .. the ping and netcode make lead vary from game to game and make things pretty difficult as well.

Yes you can take them down if you're good ... but it usually takes a prolonged fight to do so. There's been plenty of times I've tangled with a light and by the time I've killed him either the whole other team is about dead ... or mine is. Far longer of a fight than it should be.

CrockdaddyAoD, on 09 December 2012 - 10:12 PM, said:

I am not trying to make light of this topic or the original poster, but generally speaking we slaughter Streakmando's out of hand with little thought. I laugh, because it seems many Raven 3L / Commando 2D's seem to believe they are invisible with their ECM. I always strafe them with laser fire as they run by or I call out a light team mate to help out if needed. I have ONLY seen these builds as highly effective when part of a cooridnated group, and is that so bad? The Commando class was utterly useless to 98% of us until ECM came out. As a Jenner pilot I still hold Commando's in derision, but I can't just outright ignore them anymore. Which is how it should be.




Best and well thought out post of the day.

Edited by topgun505, 10 December 2012 - 04:35 PM.