46 replies to this topic

[Cato Phoenix]

I saw 3 raven 3l's in a pug game.

[Vassago Rain]

My games feature russians in A1s, and used to feature 4 golds trying to back cap in ravens. Maybe you need to climb out of the gilded trench?

[BulletProofPanda]

Easy fix, Make lasers into a pulse rather than a beam Mw2 merc stylee..

[Lykaon]

Inyc, on 21 February 2013 - 12:17 AM, said:

6 PPC stalkers or 4 PPC Catapults, or Gauss / AC Phrac, Catapults. Splat Cats, Splat Cents...

See a trend? Everyone is using high burst direct damage. I wonder why.

I will tell you why this is.

1) Burst damage is how to kill stuff.The game has evolved to the point where a handful of efficent builds are dominant.

2) Direct fire burst damage suffers the least with the super cloak ECM we got stuck with.

3) Many of these "optimized" builds had their counter effectivley removed from the game.ECM has made indirect LRM support fire nearly exstinct.This was a strong counter to SRM boats or AC20 K2s.They removed the paper from the paper/rock/scissors.

4) ECM sensor cloaking has allowed these previously nitch designs to flourish.The mechs with short ranges like Splatcats or Blatcats (the twin AC 20 Catapult K2) have a significantly easyer time closing range without detection or without revieling specific loadout info due to ECM jamming effects.ECM prevents efficent use of focus fire for groups not using 3rd party VOIP thus improving their survival chances.

Poptarts like the cataphracts are no longer passivley highlighted as they break cover during a pop up.Allowing for safer cheesy poptarting with reduced risk of being seen.

Direct fire PPC boating Stalkers also gain improved survivability by being sensor cloaked by ECM.Allowing many to simply park and fire away at the less observant targets.

[AlexEss]

PPC's are popular because they have long range, decent heat to damage and disrupts ECM on hit, does not require ammo, does not take up to much crit space, do not weight too much and pretty much any model can mount them.

Simply there is nothing not to like about them right now.

Ergo they are everywhere. =P

[Rift Hawk]

Inyc, on 21 February 2013 - 12:35 AM, said:

Wasn't this supposed to be a tactical game and not a "burst the **** out of each other" game? Why don't they just drastically up the heat generation for concurrent fire of the same "high power" weapon? So SRM 6s, LRMs 15s and 20s, Large Lasers and PPCs, ACs 10 and up. All of those should get a drastic heat gen increase if you fire 3 or more at a time. Or maybe have a drastically increased cooldown to show your systems having a hard time reloading all those high power weapons at the same time? Just something...

I'm used to Mechs with a variety of weapons for long range and then close in encounters. Trying to play like that now is miserable. Its all about stack as much of the biggest weapon you can carry, and then throw in a few medium lasers.

I really wish they would add some sort of stacking penalty to weapons. Heat seems an appropriate way to do it I suppose. Have heat increase by an extra 2-5% on top of the normal heat for every weapon over 2 of the same type. So 6 SRM6s would generate an extra 8-20% heat beyond what it normally does, where as two of them would be normal heat with no penalty. Also, PPCs and SRMs need to take up more crit slots. 3 slots for PPCs and 7 tons, should be increased to 6 slots and 10 tons.

[aptest]

Inyc, on 21 February 2013 - 01:36 AM, said:

I don't see how LRMs could ever be considered OP as long as cover keeps working. And I don't see how they have any use as long as ECM stays as it is.

I'm not saying that it's a good or a bad build. I am just saying that as I was playing the game it was raining LRMs all day long and it is my observation that the ratio of LRM launchers to mechs in the games that I personally played in at the time was well over 1.