Nicholas Carlyle, on 11 February 2013 - 08:58 AM, said:
SRM's do need to be looked at. Arguably the best Centurion build is also a boat. 3 SRM 6's.
Stalkers are another mech that starts to get really scary when boating SRM's, especially when the pilot understands using cover on these stupidly small maps.
I think boating in general needs to be looked at. I mean look at the best mechs, it's always something like 3 Ultra AC 5's, 6 PPCs, 4 Large lasers, etc etc.
This game does not promote the build that has multiple weapon types for multiple ranges. IE 1 Ultra AC5, 1 LRM launcher, some medium lasers and maybe an SRM launcher.
You're totally correct when you say that "this game" doesn't promote having multiple weapons for multiple ranges. And while it's your right to be unhappy about that, I'm pretty sure that at this point, the game isn't going to be changed to somehow "Bring it back" to where you want it to be.
Specialization has always been the way to go. It's the reason all soldiers don't carry a sniper rifle, an assault rifle, and a shotgun. In a team game like this, this holds true even more. A team of two mechs armed with one short-, medium-, and long-ranged weapon apiece will lose pretty horribly to a team of two where one specializes in long-range and the other in short-range.
"Boating" is reflective of an entirely different set of skills than a traditional build: controlling the engagement range, positioning relative to your team and to your enemies so as to retain maximum effectiveness, knowing how to break off from unfavorable engagements, etc. And as long as all of this remains possible (and there's no reason why it shouldn't), boating will remain an effective (and fun!) strategy.