70 replies to this topic

[random51]

RocketDog, on 16 December 2012 - 11:35 AM, said:

Lights should survive on the battlefield by stealth and agility.

There is no stealth and agility only factors with weapons that can't track as fast as the target is moving. Unless you're going to drastically reduce the torso twist speed, chassis rotation speed, and weapon convergence speeds agility isn't going to save a light without magical lag armor.

WoT went through the same thing. Once light tanks lost their lag armor they were ridiculously easy to kill. Going to be a tough balancing act.

[Ursh]

Killing one foolish pilot who just bought his first ECM Raven does not mean every one you're going to run into will be stupid enough to give you the perfect angle you need to pull off that ac20+3xSRM6+4 med laser fatal alpha strike.

Just saying.

[soarra]

Ursh, on 16 December 2012 - 11:50 AM, said:

Killing one foolish pilot who just bought his first ECM Raven does not mean every one you're going to run into will be stupid enough to give you the perfect angle you need to pull off that ac20+3xSRM6+4 med laser fatal alpha strike.

Just saying.

but when you kill one almost every match with ac/20s what does that say

[Chemie]

The best way to counter a ECM light is this:

run with 4 ECM raven lights; on comms. It is a great counter.

[soarra]

Chemie, on 16 December 2012 - 12:16 PM, said:

The best way to counter a ECM light is this:

run with 4 ECM raven lights; on comms. It is a great counter.

you sir are part of the problem not the cure. If you need 4 ecm lights on coms to win you either suck or enjoy pug stomping

[Revo13]

6x SRM6, makes the weasel go 'pop'.

[Raidyr]

Chemie, on 16 December 2012 - 12:16 PM, said:

The best way to counter a ECM light is this:

run with 4 ECM raven lights; on comms. It is a great counter.

It's fortunate that PGI has gone into the business of making easy video games for people who likely otherwise wouldn't be able to have fun in them.

As to the OP, ECM Streakmando. Laugh as enemy lights can do nothing while you do 15 damage alphas with no heat generation over and over and over again. My favorite is three shotting other Commandos who don't have my Streaks or my ECMs.

[Jman5]

Why am I not surprised that this thread immediately devolved into a "it's hopeless" circle jerk. I guess it's easier to just roll over and give up.

OP to answer your question:

• One thing I would do is look for a mech with decent weaponry on its arms so you can track and shoot a running light better. Personally, not a big fan of ballistics, but energy weapons on arms can rack up some damage pretty well. Mechs with mostly torso/head weaponry are going to have the hardest time.
  
• Reverse directions often and randomize your movements as much as possible. Lights want you to keep circling in a predictably slow pattern. Mix it up and you'll get opportunities to blast him.
  
• Never forget that you are bigger and stronger than the light. It doesn't matter if he hits you more. Be patient and wait for good shots. He can't take very many.
  
• Use your freaking thermal vision to spot the ECM mechs! Seriously just leave it on and get used to it for every map except Caustic. River City has too much smoke and dust in the air and Frozen City has a big *** blizzard in places. Just get used to thermals and you'll never lose sight of ECM mechs again.

Edited by Jman5, 16 December 2012 - 12:31 PM.

[Chemie]

soarra, on 16 December 2012 - 12:20 PM, said:

you sir are part of the problem not the cure. If you need 4 ecm lights on coms to win you either suck or enjoy pug stomping

No. I am not the problem. If PGI were too:

1. fix netcode (so I do not have more armor than an Atlas)
2. Put knock downs in (for the 4 ravens hit each other and had penalty for running around at 150 kph)
3. Fix ECM

Then that would fix the problem.

Edited by Chemie, 16 December 2012 - 12:41 PM.

[steelblueskies]

crap brawling fps? no problem. get yourself a big jenner[a 3m cicada] drop a quad of medium lasers[not pulse] and an ecm in.

two men short? facing an atlas a muromets, a hunchback and a pile of cataphracts? no problem. just make sure to tk the other fast mover on your team so he doesn't screw you over by base capping while you are busy landing the last few shots towards killing the atlas and muromets that's all that's left of the enemy team. don't even need teamspeak or, for that matter a team.



free photo hosting

note thats 904 damage 20 damage at a time. how much opportunity to get popped by the ballistic heavy enemy did that present??

funny thing is I put it to a vote if we surrender and let em cap or fight as we were down 2, with one afk to boot.( i was blue team btw, and the afk had 10 damage from friendly fire at start before going inactive).

shutting it down? well either i screw up, you get real lucky, or the game client simply shuts down leaving a zombiemech. those 2d ecm tag tristreak commando's are annoying, but not much work as singletons. raven's are a problem with a streak load but not insurmountable(although attrition from autohit does become telling if there's enough of them).

i feel dumber for piloting a fast mover without collisions and with ecm, and when collisions come back and ecm finally gets featured creeped or nerfed to a sane place, i'll be walking funny for weeks thanks to all these bad habits i'm picking up.

remember, most pilots are bad.

[soarra]

Chemie, on 16 December 2012 - 12:40 PM, said:

No. I am not the problem. If PGI were too:

1. fix netcode (so I do not have more armor than an Atlas)
2. Put knock downs in (for the 4 ravens hit each other and had penalty for running around at 150 kph)
3. Fix ECM

Then that would fix the problem.

you dont seem to realize that if you nerf ecm now without first fixing netcode it doesnt solve anything. Its like painting a room without first fixing the holes.

[Arcturious]

Desintegrator, on 16 December 2012 - 10:44 AM, said:

Hmm ?

So i should go to the Mech Lab and put some 4 Large Lasers in my Jenner !?
Or better a AC 20 or a Gauss ?

Then it would be possible to shoot their legs away...fast...but i probably cannot build this setup.

And with the normal setup of a Jenner - Medium Lasers - it can take some minutes until one leg is crushed...and you have to aim good with your medium lasers while constantly Streaks impact in your face and running with 150 kph...

To be honest - you have no chance out there with a Jenner in comparision to a ECM Commando or ECM Raven.
So there is obviously a big disbalance in the game in the group of Light Mechs !

The trick here is to swap your lasers to your chain fire grouping when up against a light.

Have a third / fourth or whatever group that has all of your lasers in it set to chain fire. When fighting other lights, just hold down that button and aim for the legs. You will whittle them down much faster than lots of missed aphas, as on each shot you can adjust and compensate for lag shield.

Even if each laser only does half it's damage to the leg, you will still get it down faster than missing entirely.

Also, once they start taking damage they usually run off to try easier pickings.

[J0anna]

Commando's and ravens - sweep the legs. Best if you can gang up on them. Normally another light chasing them while a medium/heavy adjusts to combating their lag shield. A faster (non-ecm) mech can normally get into a 'rear-chase' with them and easily wipe them out, but without a doubt, teamwork is a must.

Cicada's I go for body shots, as their hit area is large enough, that their 'lag shield' normally isn't that bad. But again without ecm, they are tough.

Another tactic I like is to setup a defense close to base. I have found many ECM mechs will out race their support once the enemy base is in sight. My goal is to quickly outnumber them 2 or 3 to 1, kill them and return to the defensive alignment before their heavies/assaults can get into range. It works more often than you would think.

One on one, I find that a good pilot in a fast mech (light or medium) can beat an average/bad pilot in an ecm mech fairly consistently (which happens quite a bit as ecm is currently FOTM), but good ecm pilots acting together can only be beaten by more ECM or (much) greater numbers. I find people are beginning to understand what's involved when I type "3 ravens inbound to base" (6 guys on my last 'team' turned around to defend/head to base while the other 2 (in assault mechs) fell back towards base and kept their assaults at bay. This turned out to be a very intense 2 minute fight as we took out the 3 ravens (losing one of our mediums in return) and raced back to our assaults just as the enemies were maneuvering around them. Perhaps then my best stragety is to 'stick together', however make no mistake, if the enemy has 'stuck together' and advanced as a group w/ecm shielding non-ecm mechs, I have never been able to beat them without having more ecm on my side. In this case fights are normally very one sided and over very quickly.

[BoomDog]

Revo13, on 16 December 2012 - 12:21 PM, said:

6x SRM6, makes the weasel go 'pop'.

The only mech where I'll literally run away from. lol

[BoomDog]

I'll probably stick to the LB10x. I've learned that I can't hit fast movers with the other ACs.

I'm not bad with SRMs, but there's no mounts on my current mech.

I'm going to try the "put my back against a wall" trick. My instinct has always been to keep moving, but if they're using nothing but streaks, it doesn't matter if I'm moving, they'll hit anyways.

[Taizan]

Use TAG or a laser to find out how many mech lengths ahead you have to lead (for me its between 2 - 4), then engage laz0rs and pray that at least half the damage registers.

[Kaijin]

The best answer for me has been simply to not play.

[Wolfways]

Kaijin, on 16 December 2012 - 03:18 PM, said:

The best answer for me has been simply to not play.

This. Or at least i'm getting very close to this. My wife on the other hand is sick of "Light mech online" as she calls it and will only play if i'm playing and she's extremely bored.

As an example of how fun the game is now, i just had a game where our team tried for a while to destroy two enemy Ravens while they just ran about through us. We barely scratched them, and at the end of the match the Ravens had the highest damage and half the kills.
Until the netcode is fixed (which i believe will be never) or they slow mechs down the game is pointless if light mechs are in the battle.

And please don't anyone reply with "It'll be better when they put collisions back in." Being dependent on the light mech pilot sucking at driving is not good game design.

[Lucian Nostra]

I haven't found a good counter myself other than landing some lucky hard hits BUT the most effective counter I have SEEN is a Commando or Raven with ECM and SSRMs. Yeah.. the same thing you have an issue killing is it's own worse enemy, but it's true SSRMs eat lights and they have the ECM to get the shots off.

Thing I fear the most in my Cicada's are those exact mechs I generally lose as I can't make my Lasers hit as hard as their SSRMs.. btw I'm buying a 3L tonight.

[DocBach]

Chemie, on 16 December 2012 - 12:40 PM, said:

No. I am not the problem. If PGI were too:

1. fix netcode (so I do not have more armor than an Atlas)
2. Put knock downs in (for the 4 ravens hit each other and had penalty for running around at 150 kph)
3. Fix ECM

Then that would fix the problem.

this

this game right now is broken in favor for the cheese builds that arised from the cheese builds they tried to nerf.