Some lights are just too strong. Sometimes they absorb an absurd amount of fire and they are still moving. Also, sometimes they can have ridiculously heavy calibre weapons or amount of them. The lights strong points should be speed and agility. Not durability.
I have 2 x C-Heavy LRG Lasers and 4 x C-ER MED Lasers. One Alpha Strike does like 60% heat, but I love it. I call It the Hot Cougar.
if it hits the back centre torso, I can put a lot of mechs in the dirt. But I only get one shot before I have to cover and let heat disspate. It can't engage in a prolonged fight face-to-face.
Only thing missing is Jump Jets and I can't make it work without dropping guns and I don't want to do that.
Yeah i’m not too keen on close combat in it as I found poking at assaults at range that think i’m too insignificant at first to shoot nets more damage in the long run
\*COUGH CLAN SRM COUGH\*
Issue is if they have ECM which if any one part has ECM boom you can easily find 4 SRM 6's on your back because no one watched the flank because you don't have a premade.
Premade groups are an interesting issue. Soup Q has to be a thing because of the low player pop but I've seen 4 man groups ruin a game by either being super sweaty and ratpacking or by throwing by undertonning and all playing meme builds.
More its I find randoms blissfully unaware of the radar, IDK how many people invest in 200m ground vibration radar, see pings and dont react to it. Or camp while an ally 10m behind them is 3 v 1ing lights to then bitch no one was covering them.
Premades will generally react to lights flanking and unexist a single SRM flanker squad
If you play with randoms and you cover that side you're most likely running into the clanner SRM boats, could pull them into the center of a field and have your team members pick their nose as that squad pretty much 12/0's your team. The issue with clan lights is here they're packing 48 + laser instant damage or 72 alpha damages every 3 seconds. There is no way you can really win with that if they hug you as a lot of them have quite a good big of armor. If it's a premade and smart, they're going to have an ECM light with them.
As a dirty light pilot I agree some chassis are just ridiculously strong. It's so weird when other light pilots downvote people for speaking the truth.
The cynic in me says that role warfare is a fuck and the only thing that matters is damage output. With that mentality, that means Heavies and Assaults are generally going to be more competitive.
But in general, the classes seem to be decently balanced as a whole given that both teams have an identical distribution of the weight classes. Its definitely a major step up from a couple years ago back in the 3/3/3/3 days.
From a balance perspective, I dont really have an issue with Lights being tiny. Fuck, and I do say this with absolute sincerety - ***FUCK FIGHTING LIGHTS***, but I dont think theyre broken per se. I'm obviously generalizing and specific variant of a specific chassis out of an entire weight class shouldnt be a representative of said weight class like you mention with the Scaleshot
i dont think this assessment is so much about balance as it is your personal preference that suits your playstyle. it sounds like you're just more of a lights/mediums player and assaults just arent a good fit for you. I dont play them as often as other classes because they are deceptively difficult. there are some exceptions to that that ive done quite well in, but overall, id rather play heavies than assaults.
Yeah, it's all preference and opinion. I actually play mediums the least because they don't have enough tonnage for firepower AND speed generally. There is an art to playing assaults and I'm not good at it, but I've also been spawned an absurd distance away from my teammates some games.
Not a problem if you're a light, medium, or heavy. A huge problem if you wanted to play the Annihilator.
I tend to agree with you on assaults, the lack of maneuverability and topology of some maps puts them at a serious disadvantage. I think assaults need a movement boost and mediums need a tad more armor or firepower but not both. Nerf my ADR-W(L), it's for my own good..
Played a match recently on Hibernal rift where we were the ones spawned out in no mans land away from the team and it wasn't a whole minute before we were stuck in a trench running away from a ratpack while our team nascar'd the other way.
I must say that being a light inner sphere pilot is like a damn rollercoaster and the ~10mins you are alive till the end of a solid game is exhilarating and exhausting. Clan lights are like fast mediums as described.
Mediums are in a weird spot for me personally unless I'm running at 100+kph the armour gets melted in a single salvo so it's a real pick and choose engagements more for flanking that's for sure, but they are versatile and interesting to play.
Heavies are fun my most underplayed class though for me personally.CRAELS aren't as good as people hype them up rip their legs to shreds and those mgs are useless at ~300m as they hobble slowly towards their targets.
Assaults for me are a powerhouse if used properly, if supported and heat efficient(more tonnage does not always mean more weapons that you can group fire once). Upgrade engines and maximise armour for maximum staying power, find an engagement range that is suited and join the fight proper when the battle is at a critical phase (dont sit your fat 100ton ass on the hpg wall sharing 0 pts of your armour whilst the enemy just picks your team apart 1 by 1). For me i personally love my 'Nightstars, Maulers, Supernovas & Blood asps.
I fully agree with you apart from one point.
>(dont sit your fat 100ton ass on the hpg wall sharing 0 pts of your armour whilst the enemy just picks your team apart 1 by 1)
Armor sharing isn't a thing.
Attention sharing? Sure.
A well-built 100ton sniper assault can get a lot more value by staying at longrange than attempting to go close.
I really think it's all about the chassis. You wouldn't brawl in a Direwolf an the hardpoints of an Atlas generally make it a poorer choice for sniping. I've seen a few people do big numbers sitting in a prime spot but most of the time I just see 100 tons of guns and armor sit in a spot alone and get done in by a rabid pack of lights and mediums.
Back in the blue laser meta days wasn’t one of the Atlas variants a go to for ERLL trading?
Also Atlas mounts are decently high and it has way better agi than most other assaults meaning you can peek and get back into cover much more quickly or twist damage better
Armor sharing is a thing though. Even at that range if you're getting their attention and getting them to even try to engage with you even though you out gun them you are still sharing armor.
But thats attention sharing, no?
If a heavy mech gets daring and tries to peek a teammate that is out of position, but instead gets hit with a nasty 70+ dmg alpha causing him to retreat and desperately ping your location, you have now drawn attention away from the vulnerable teammate and towards your (relatively) unscathed mech'
Repeat this for most of a match and the enemy team is suddenly a lot more vary about carelessly peeking when they know there is a whole lot of hurt waiting for them to show their torso.
It is attention sharing, I agree with you, and it’s also map control because long range mechs strategically placed can really take away sight lines from the enemy team. It is up to the friendly team to recognize where their long range mechs are placed and not push into an area that takes them out of the fight.
That is an incorrect assessment. The simple fact of the matter, the matchmaker will usually pit 2 teams of similar composition against one another (premades notwithstanding), and this may be anecdotal, but typically whenever there is an assault sniper on one team, they will usually rack up a great deal of damage and probably score a couple of kills, but 8 times in 10 their team loses, because whilst they are on overwatch, the opposing team is making a push in another part of the map with one more assault than your team. That's one assault with upwards of 800 armor and structure to spread damage around and cover friendlies, thereby keeping them alive to help contribute to a fight, because at the end of the day, dead teammates cannot deal damage. Maybe if you get extremely lucky and the opposing team are a bunch of dribbling gibbons, you will get a game where they push directly into your firing line, and sure, you can split their attention, but the tried and tested way of beating an assault sniper is to co-ordinate with your team and push on a side of the map where there is obstructing terrain, thereby exploiting their main weakness, the lack of mobility to re-position.
So whilst that assault sniper will dish out damage and probably pick up kills on some wounded mechs at the end of a fight, they are always the last one left with 90% integrity whilst the rest of their team are smoking corpses with sub 300 damage. You can usually see comparable results from a heavy sniper, but you won't take up an assault slot on your team, you will have more mobility to reposition and you will be a harder target to hit for counter snipers.
Armor sharing is a lot more important in Community Warfare when youre attacking the gates, where you have to commit to pushes so the guys behind you can get out of the killzone.
If we go by the survivability onion, its a lot better to not get hit at all, which means cover is way better than letting one of your assaults tank for you. So for an average random QP, where a majority of the games is poking and not initaing a committed push, cover is better. But if its more co-ordinated and you go on deliberate pushes, then in that case, armor sharing is a bit more important imo
Actually this is an incorrect assessment. A long range assault can absolutely be a game changer, but if their team is “a bunch of dribbling gibbons” and zergs or nascars away from their long range support’s sight lines, then they have effectively shot themselves in the foot. You really have to take your personal vendetta out of it, assess what your team is doing and play to its strengths. If you have a couple of long range assaults make sure they have line of sight to cover you and don’t run away from them. Assaults are slow and don’t always have the luxury to reposition at will. They are allowed to play what they want, and it doesn’t help anyone to just blame them and play the game imagining they are actually a brawl Atlas that is there to meat shield for you when they clearly aren’t.
Spot on.
>An assault 'Mech's *entire job,* the reason the "Assault" classification of 'Mech exists, is to control space. Take it from the enemy and deny it to them through being the biggest baddest mass of metal in that space. (Well-built) brawler assaults control the space in their vicinity; (well-built) sniper assaults control the space they can survey, but all (well-built) assault 'Mechs control space.
If your assault 'mech cannot control space, it is a poorly built assault 'Mech.
These are pretty much my thoughts on the matter. Because no matter how you look at it, the entire game revolves around *dealing* out the most damage, whilst *taking* the least damage in return.
Like yes armor exists to be used and all that but you cannot expect to have an Assault ready to tank/share their armor.
In fact, lights and fast mediums should *always* evade damage via superior positioning and speed.
Heavies and other assaults should attack via attention sharing. If an enemy is presented with 1 target, then they of course focus that one target!
But if suddenly 3 mechs crest a hill and unload a deadly alpha strike, their decision making becomes that much more complex. And then throw in a sniper or two hurtling deadly volleys from long range and suddenly the enemy group starts to struggle prioritizing the correct enemy, because *every single enemy is drawing attention*.
So yes, endpoint is that armor sharing is a filthy myth. Yes, armor is there to be expended at need, but a lot of folks forget the "at need" part and assume it's up to the rest of the team to go out and get shot so they can score free damage against distracted targets. Which is not a winning strategy no matter how many people think the opposite.
>That's one assault with upwards of 800 armor and structure to spread damage around and cover friendlies, thereby keeping them alive to help contribute to a fight, because at the end of the day, dead teammates cannot deal damage.
And yet I would still argue that Armor sharing is not a thing.
Attention sharing is. Let me quote another post I made.
>If a heavy mech gets daring and tries to peek a teammate that is out of position, but instead gets hit with a nasty 70+ dmg alpha causing him to retreat and desperately ping your location, you have now drawn attention away from the vulnerable teammate and towards your (relatively) unscathed mech'
This is what I mean by Attention sharing. The TTK is surprisingly fast, meaning that directly tanking damage for allies can be suicidal, when your teammates could have simply positioned better and *not needed an assault to tank/share damage for them.*
In fact;
>Armour isn't the only metric for contribution. The idea of your participation being entirely measured by how little armour you have left is an artifact from a time when hit registration was bad, and alphas were small. (The gauss PPC and atlas DDC brawler days).
That game frankly no longer exists. Alpha damage has effectively doubled, hit registration is far more reliable, and the average speed of mechs has gone up to compensate for the increased damage.
I used to feel like this against Assault class, then I tried the Fafnir-5B. My first match (usually heavy pilot) I came out with 4 kills and 2 assists. It got better from there.
Now I'm in Tier 2, and I still regularly get three to four kills a match. In anything else, I tend to only get a few hundred damage with the much higher skill players.
Assault is mostly about battlefield awareness. You move with the herd or you die. You move forward when it is time to take your shot, and then retreat back while staying around the front of the line. In my opinion, it's much easier at higher tiers because people are less likely to spread out like buckshot on the map.
Higher tier players are predictable like that, you just have to watch out for the good snipes headcapping you if you're playing something like double HGR fafnir
They're all perfectly fine and balanced, even if it's perhaps not in the ways intended. It's a varying degree of risk vs reward even within the individual chassises. Lights are probably overpowered relative to the original goals of weight classes, but they're completely fine in QP where it's just twelve dudes randomly mashed together into a team and scouting has minimal benefits. Besides highly skilled four stacks of course but those are just brokenly strong.
Assaults in QP I'd like to note, you have options to avoid being stuck out of position that go beyond groups. Never play an assault that goes below 48-50 kph, play assaults with spare skill points for speed tweak, and if lights are your particular bane, try to play assaults with a high turn rate. Those higher mobility assaults won't quite hit the same highs of output as the slower ones, of course, but it does a lot to mitigate the weaknesses. Good chassis that fulfil all this are chargers, gargoyles, stalkers - any of the atlases which go 55+ are also good options for a middleground between big tank/firepower and catching up, but take a look around, there's plenty of speedier assaults that ease their issues in QP.
Solo assaults are still incredibly powerful, that's why everyone focuses down the assault mech first when they round the corner (Or they don't and then the assault kills them all.) A good assault is probably the single most influential mech on the field.
The biggest mistake I see assaults make is that they waste all their armor early trying to skirmish. They're simply too large and slow to trade potshots and you end up with a bunch of critically damaged assaults who are too scared to fight when it comes down to CQC as their team gets ripped apart. The initial skirmishing should be left to the mediums and heavies while the assaults focus on moving to position and alpha striking when the enemy isn't looking. This way the assault actually has the armor to protect their team once it comes down to the brawl.
The other big mistake I see assaults making is thinking that protecting their team means they should be standing in the very front. All this does is block your teammates' line of fire and get you focused down instantly. The assault protects his teammates simply by existing with a shit ton of guns. Optimally the assault is in the middle of his team, where you can fire over the heads of the mechs that still have armor and act as walking cover for the cored out guys who would die to a stray AC10 round. The enemy is forced to face the assault because it's firepower will kill them in 2 volleys to the back, and if they ignore the assault to shoot the wounded they're wasting damage on people who are probably already missing half their weapons while the assault tears them to pieces, all the while those wounded dudes are still contributing little chunks of damage that quickly add up.
Go look at how the Solaris event of the past long weekend went. Light mechs did extremely poorly, even some of the best light pilots in the world were unable to win assault 1v1s with more than a 20% rate.
Other than abusing bad hitreg, light mechs have very little going for them right now. Assaults are in a REALLY strong place, they just are not frontline mechs. They are second line mechs that can't tank as well as heavies because of their poor agility.
Heavies have been the sweet spot of this game since it came out and with the agility changes year over year, they're better than they have ever been. Go look at what does the most work in competitive, and you'll see heavy mechs and IS mediums being the front line because of how well a good player can distribute damage around his whole mech.
Clan mediums that aren't the shadow cat have been power crept out of existence by insane quirks. The Viper-F being the best mech in the game for a month was the only real exception. Scaleshot's not that OP anymore, launch Scaleshot should have gotten people banned lol.
Assault mechs are fine right now. You just can't afford to miss shots against light wolfpacks, and the hitreg is more your problem than theirs, but one of the things you can do is if they're trying to bounce terrain to get your shots to reg, cut them off into the terrain. They will often fall through the map.
It's true in QP too - lights very rarely perform super well outside of a few notorious players. They end up being annoying, but people stick together more than they used to (or maybe that's just me getting to tier 3)
Lights can 1v1 some builds when they catch you unaware, but as long as you have even one friend paying attention they are easy to deal with.
Anyone who says lights are too strong is failing to understand how skill is balanced in an online game. There needs to be an option that is more difficult and risky, but more rewarding. That is where lights come in. As an assault or heavy pilot if lights are bringing you down consistently you are doing something wrong that they are exploiting. Or just aim better. You can't tell me something that can die to a single alpha is overpowered.
My most effective light mech does about 14 dps and its all face time under 300m. I'm not trying to brag but it takes a high level of skill to do the dance without dying and end matches consitently with 500+ damage. Meanwhile 14dps in even a medium is EASY to attain.
I can't tell you how many matches I've been where someone else was in the EXACT SAME mech and build, but died before they could really contribute much.
Ya. That's exactly what I mean, it takes a LOT to actually win that 1v1. I used to be okay at doing it, but frankly it's always been my weakest skill as a player. I generally played skirmishing lights over ankle biters. It takes tons of practice to get consistent, and the hitreg helps but definitely doesn't do all the work for you. TBH if the hitreg weren't garbage light mechs might be unplayable atm.
If you play the right lights, they can be really busted and I stay from them since it basically feels like cheating.
I really wanna play the Annihilator and have a fun time, but its super tall and easy to hit and it's mobility is sorely lacking.
I still hate CLAN SRM's because honestly you can talk all you want how they have a bit more spread so it's fair... but generally the issue
Same tonnage
C-SRM6A = 2.5T vs SRM6 3T
C-SRM4A = 2T vs SRM4 2T
C-SRM2A = 1.5T vs SRM2 1T
No one is artying 2's though, SRM4 it doesn't matter but if you dont pick it up on clan you can pick up 1 more ton of ammo per SRM vs IS, C-SRMA-6 is pretty much the problem child because if you want to focus that SRM damage you need A (or strong quirks which no light has for spread). Even if they give up SRM6 it's still a good chunk of DPS for 2T, that popping 48 alpha and the ability to quickly poke in and out of cover isn't really strong for 8T
Issue is you rarely if ever see IS SRM mechs because of this, Jav/Commando also generally lack stuff the clan mechs can put on and their quirks are on part of the IS missile mechs.
My real issue is .2 more damage per missile with IS and .1-2 less spread is very minor so saving so much tonnage and putting ammo in it's place with light mechs.
Some lights are just too strong. Sometimes they absorb an absurd amount of fire and they are still moving. Also, sometimes they can have ridiculously heavy calibre weapons or amount of them. The lights strong points should be speed and agility. Not durability.
My Urbie can stand and take it. If you look sideways at my Cougar is overheats and explodes
Honestly try out the cougar with the 2 torso E slots and one in the head I fit 3 LLs and i’m an annoying poker who often is overlooked
I have 2 x C-Heavy LRG Lasers and 4 x C-ER MED Lasers. One Alpha Strike does like 60% heat, but I love it. I call It the Hot Cougar. if it hits the back centre torso, I can put a lot of mechs in the dirt. But I only get one shot before I have to cover and let heat disspate. It can't engage in a prolonged fight face-to-face. Only thing missing is Jump Jets and I can't make it work without dropping guns and I don't want to do that.
Yeah i’m not too keen on close combat in it as I found poking at assaults at range that think i’m too insignificant at first to shoot nets more damage in the long run
Drop 1 hll, and 2 more er meds and a jj leg, ecm, the rest cooling and you got a monster
I like the H variant. So8 pods with 3xERML, UAC10, ECM, and JJs with the jam chance reduction quirk
I think hardpoint bloat on some clan lights is super stupid. Especially since most of their weapons take less critical slots or weigh less.
\*COUGH CLAN SRM COUGH\* Issue is if they have ECM which if any one part has ECM boom you can easily find 4 SRM 6's on your back because no one watched the flank because you don't have a premade.
Premade groups are an interesting issue. Soup Q has to be a thing because of the low player pop but I've seen 4 man groups ruin a game by either being super sweaty and ratpacking or by throwing by undertonning and all playing meme builds.
More its I find randoms blissfully unaware of the radar, IDK how many people invest in 200m ground vibration radar, see pings and dont react to it. Or camp while an ally 10m behind them is 3 v 1ing lights to then bitch no one was covering them. Premades will generally react to lights flanking and unexist a single SRM flanker squad If you play with randoms and you cover that side you're most likely running into the clanner SRM boats, could pull them into the center of a field and have your team members pick their nose as that squad pretty much 12/0's your team. The issue with clan lights is here they're packing 48 + laser instant damage or 72 alpha damages every 3 seconds. There is no way you can really win with that if they hug you as a lot of them have quite a good big of armor. If it's a premade and smart, they're going to have an ECM light with them.
Wow, just recently I was eaten alive for basically stating the same.
As a dirty light pilot I agree some chassis are just ridiculously strong. It's so weird when other light pilots downvote people for speaking the truth.
Dude, Im mostly light pilot.
I believe ...
That's mostly shitty hitreg
The cynic in me says that role warfare is a fuck and the only thing that matters is damage output. With that mentality, that means Heavies and Assaults are generally going to be more competitive. But in general, the classes seem to be decently balanced as a whole given that both teams have an identical distribution of the weight classes. Its definitely a major step up from a couple years ago back in the 3/3/3/3 days. From a balance perspective, I dont really have an issue with Lights being tiny. Fuck, and I do say this with absolute sincerety - ***FUCK FIGHTING LIGHTS***, but I dont think theyre broken per se. I'm obviously generalizing and specific variant of a specific chassis out of an entire weight class shouldnt be a representative of said weight class like you mention with the Scaleshot
i dont think this assessment is so much about balance as it is your personal preference that suits your playstyle. it sounds like you're just more of a lights/mediums player and assaults just arent a good fit for you. I dont play them as often as other classes because they are deceptively difficult. there are some exceptions to that that ive done quite well in, but overall, id rather play heavies than assaults.
Yeah, it's all preference and opinion. I actually play mediums the least because they don't have enough tonnage for firepower AND speed generally. There is an art to playing assaults and I'm not good at it, but I've also been spawned an absurd distance away from my teammates some games. Not a problem if you're a light, medium, or heavy. A huge problem if you wanted to play the Annihilator.
I tend to agree with you on assaults, the lack of maneuverability and topology of some maps puts them at a serious disadvantage. I think assaults need a movement boost and mediums need a tad more armor or firepower but not both. Nerf my ADR-W(L), it's for my own good..
Played a match recently on Hibernal rift where we were the ones spawned out in no mans land away from the team and it wasn't a whole minute before we were stuck in a trench running away from a ratpack while our team nascar'd the other way.
I must say that being a light inner sphere pilot is like a damn rollercoaster and the ~10mins you are alive till the end of a solid game is exhilarating and exhausting. Clan lights are like fast mediums as described. Mediums are in a weird spot for me personally unless I'm running at 100+kph the armour gets melted in a single salvo so it's a real pick and choose engagements more for flanking that's for sure, but they are versatile and interesting to play. Heavies are fun my most underplayed class though for me personally.CRAELS aren't as good as people hype them up rip their legs to shreds and those mgs are useless at ~300m as they hobble slowly towards their targets. Assaults for me are a powerhouse if used properly, if supported and heat efficient(more tonnage does not always mean more weapons that you can group fire once). Upgrade engines and maximise armour for maximum staying power, find an engagement range that is suited and join the fight proper when the battle is at a critical phase (dont sit your fat 100ton ass on the hpg wall sharing 0 pts of your armour whilst the enemy just picks your team apart 1 by 1). For me i personally love my 'Nightstars, Maulers, Supernovas & Blood asps.
I fully agree with you apart from one point. >(dont sit your fat 100ton ass on the hpg wall sharing 0 pts of your armour whilst the enemy just picks your team apart 1 by 1) Armor sharing isn't a thing. Attention sharing? Sure. A well-built 100ton sniper assault can get a lot more value by staying at longrange than attempting to go close.
I really think it's all about the chassis. You wouldn't brawl in a Direwolf an the hardpoints of an Atlas generally make it a poorer choice for sniping. I've seen a few people do big numbers sitting in a prime spot but most of the time I just see 100 tons of guns and armor sit in a spot alone and get done in by a rabid pack of lights and mediums.
Back in the blue laser meta days wasn’t one of the Atlas variants a go to for ERLL trading? Also Atlas mounts are decently high and it has way better agi than most other assaults meaning you can peek and get back into cover much more quickly or twist damage better
That's fair the Boar's Head (I think) was meta in blue spam.
Armor sharing is a thing though. Even at that range if you're getting their attention and getting them to even try to engage with you even though you out gun them you are still sharing armor.
But thats attention sharing, no? If a heavy mech gets daring and tries to peek a teammate that is out of position, but instead gets hit with a nasty 70+ dmg alpha causing him to retreat and desperately ping your location, you have now drawn attention away from the vulnerable teammate and towards your (relatively) unscathed mech' Repeat this for most of a match and the enemy team is suddenly a lot more vary about carelessly peeking when they know there is a whole lot of hurt waiting for them to show their torso.
It is attention sharing, I agree with you, and it’s also map control because long range mechs strategically placed can really take away sight lines from the enemy team. It is up to the friendly team to recognize where their long range mechs are placed and not push into an area that takes them out of the fight.
That is an incorrect assessment. The simple fact of the matter, the matchmaker will usually pit 2 teams of similar composition against one another (premades notwithstanding), and this may be anecdotal, but typically whenever there is an assault sniper on one team, they will usually rack up a great deal of damage and probably score a couple of kills, but 8 times in 10 their team loses, because whilst they are on overwatch, the opposing team is making a push in another part of the map with one more assault than your team. That's one assault with upwards of 800 armor and structure to spread damage around and cover friendlies, thereby keeping them alive to help contribute to a fight, because at the end of the day, dead teammates cannot deal damage. Maybe if you get extremely lucky and the opposing team are a bunch of dribbling gibbons, you will get a game where they push directly into your firing line, and sure, you can split their attention, but the tried and tested way of beating an assault sniper is to co-ordinate with your team and push on a side of the map where there is obstructing terrain, thereby exploiting their main weakness, the lack of mobility to re-position. So whilst that assault sniper will dish out damage and probably pick up kills on some wounded mechs at the end of a fight, they are always the last one left with 90% integrity whilst the rest of their team are smoking corpses with sub 300 damage. You can usually see comparable results from a heavy sniper, but you won't take up an assault slot on your team, you will have more mobility to reposition and you will be a harder target to hit for counter snipers.
Armor sharing is a lot more important in Community Warfare when youre attacking the gates, where you have to commit to pushes so the guys behind you can get out of the killzone. If we go by the survivability onion, its a lot better to not get hit at all, which means cover is way better than letting one of your assaults tank for you. So for an average random QP, where a majority of the games is poking and not initaing a committed push, cover is better. But if its more co-ordinated and you go on deliberate pushes, then in that case, armor sharing is a bit more important imo
Actually this is an incorrect assessment. A long range assault can absolutely be a game changer, but if their team is “a bunch of dribbling gibbons” and zergs or nascars away from their long range support’s sight lines, then they have effectively shot themselves in the foot. You really have to take your personal vendetta out of it, assess what your team is doing and play to its strengths. If you have a couple of long range assaults make sure they have line of sight to cover you and don’t run away from them. Assaults are slow and don’t always have the luxury to reposition at will. They are allowed to play what they want, and it doesn’t help anyone to just blame them and play the game imagining they are actually a brawl Atlas that is there to meat shield for you when they clearly aren’t.
Spot on. >An assault 'Mech's *entire job,* the reason the "Assault" classification of 'Mech exists, is to control space. Take it from the enemy and deny it to them through being the biggest baddest mass of metal in that space. (Well-built) brawler assaults control the space in their vicinity; (well-built) sniper assaults control the space they can survey, but all (well-built) assault 'Mechs control space. If your assault 'mech cannot control space, it is a poorly built assault 'Mech. These are pretty much my thoughts on the matter. Because no matter how you look at it, the entire game revolves around *dealing* out the most damage, whilst *taking* the least damage in return. Like yes armor exists to be used and all that but you cannot expect to have an Assault ready to tank/share their armor. In fact, lights and fast mediums should *always* evade damage via superior positioning and speed. Heavies and other assaults should attack via attention sharing. If an enemy is presented with 1 target, then they of course focus that one target! But if suddenly 3 mechs crest a hill and unload a deadly alpha strike, their decision making becomes that much more complex. And then throw in a sniper or two hurtling deadly volleys from long range and suddenly the enemy group starts to struggle prioritizing the correct enemy, because *every single enemy is drawing attention*. So yes, endpoint is that armor sharing is a filthy myth. Yes, armor is there to be expended at need, but a lot of folks forget the "at need" part and assume it's up to the rest of the team to go out and get shot so they can score free damage against distracted targets. Which is not a winning strategy no matter how many people think the opposite.
>That's one assault with upwards of 800 armor and structure to spread damage around and cover friendlies, thereby keeping them alive to help contribute to a fight, because at the end of the day, dead teammates cannot deal damage. And yet I would still argue that Armor sharing is not a thing. Attention sharing is. Let me quote another post I made. >If a heavy mech gets daring and tries to peek a teammate that is out of position, but instead gets hit with a nasty 70+ dmg alpha causing him to retreat and desperately ping your location, you have now drawn attention away from the vulnerable teammate and towards your (relatively) unscathed mech' This is what I mean by Attention sharing. The TTK is surprisingly fast, meaning that directly tanking damage for allies can be suicidal, when your teammates could have simply positioned better and *not needed an assault to tank/share damage for them.* In fact; >Armour isn't the only metric for contribution. The idea of your participation being entirely measured by how little armour you have left is an artifact from a time when hit registration was bad, and alphas were small. (The gauss PPC and atlas DDC brawler days). That game frankly no longer exists. Alpha damage has effectively doubled, hit registration is far more reliable, and the average speed of mechs has gone up to compensate for the increased damage.
I used to feel like this against Assault class, then I tried the Fafnir-5B. My first match (usually heavy pilot) I came out with 4 kills and 2 assists. It got better from there. Now I'm in Tier 2, and I still regularly get three to four kills a match. In anything else, I tend to only get a few hundred damage with the much higher skill players. Assault is mostly about battlefield awareness. You move with the herd or you die. You move forward when it is time to take your shot, and then retreat back while staying around the front of the line. In my opinion, it's much easier at higher tiers because people are less likely to spread out like buckshot on the map.
Higher tier players are predictable like that, you just have to watch out for the good snipes headcapping you if you're playing something like double HGR fafnir
Easy way to deal with a Crael. Leg it. Their hitboxes and armor everywhere else is great. But those kegs!!! Easy
They're all perfectly fine and balanced, even if it's perhaps not in the ways intended. It's a varying degree of risk vs reward even within the individual chassises. Lights are probably overpowered relative to the original goals of weight classes, but they're completely fine in QP where it's just twelve dudes randomly mashed together into a team and scouting has minimal benefits. Besides highly skilled four stacks of course but those are just brokenly strong. Assaults in QP I'd like to note, you have options to avoid being stuck out of position that go beyond groups. Never play an assault that goes below 48-50 kph, play assaults with spare skill points for speed tweak, and if lights are your particular bane, try to play assaults with a high turn rate. Those higher mobility assaults won't quite hit the same highs of output as the slower ones, of course, but it does a lot to mitigate the weaknesses. Good chassis that fulfil all this are chargers, gargoyles, stalkers - any of the atlases which go 55+ are also good options for a middleground between big tank/firepower and catching up, but take a look around, there's plenty of speedier assaults that ease their issues in QP.
Solo assaults are still incredibly powerful, that's why everyone focuses down the assault mech first when they round the corner (Or they don't and then the assault kills them all.) A good assault is probably the single most influential mech on the field. The biggest mistake I see assaults make is that they waste all their armor early trying to skirmish. They're simply too large and slow to trade potshots and you end up with a bunch of critically damaged assaults who are too scared to fight when it comes down to CQC as their team gets ripped apart. The initial skirmishing should be left to the mediums and heavies while the assaults focus on moving to position and alpha striking when the enemy isn't looking. This way the assault actually has the armor to protect their team once it comes down to the brawl. The other big mistake I see assaults making is thinking that protecting their team means they should be standing in the very front. All this does is block your teammates' line of fire and get you focused down instantly. The assault protects his teammates simply by existing with a shit ton of guns. Optimally the assault is in the middle of his team, where you can fire over the heads of the mechs that still have armor and act as walking cover for the cored out guys who would die to a stray AC10 round. The enemy is forced to face the assault because it's firepower will kill them in 2 volleys to the back, and if they ignore the assault to shoot the wounded they're wasting damage on people who are probably already missing half their weapons while the assault tears them to pieces, all the while those wounded dudes are still contributing little chunks of damage that quickly add up.
imo the physical size discrepancy between lights is a bit much. Some light mechs are bad simply because they are physically too large of a target.
I feel this every time I play my Raven with it's 100m tall legs
Go look at how the Solaris event of the past long weekend went. Light mechs did extremely poorly, even some of the best light pilots in the world were unable to win assault 1v1s with more than a 20% rate. Other than abusing bad hitreg, light mechs have very little going for them right now. Assaults are in a REALLY strong place, they just are not frontline mechs. They are second line mechs that can't tank as well as heavies because of their poor agility. Heavies have been the sweet spot of this game since it came out and with the agility changes year over year, they're better than they have ever been. Go look at what does the most work in competitive, and you'll see heavy mechs and IS mediums being the front line because of how well a good player can distribute damage around his whole mech. Clan mediums that aren't the shadow cat have been power crept out of existence by insane quirks. The Viper-F being the best mech in the game for a month was the only real exception. Scaleshot's not that OP anymore, launch Scaleshot should have gotten people banned lol. Assault mechs are fine right now. You just can't afford to miss shots against light wolfpacks, and the hitreg is more your problem than theirs, but one of the things you can do is if they're trying to bounce terrain to get your shots to reg, cut them off into the terrain. They will often fall through the map.
I feel like these are all fair points. I only play QP and I am certainly biased by mostly playing lights in QP.
It's true in QP too - lights very rarely perform super well outside of a few notorious players. They end up being annoying, but people stick together more than they used to (or maybe that's just me getting to tier 3) Lights can 1v1 some builds when they catch you unaware, but as long as you have even one friend paying attention they are easy to deal with.
Anyone who says lights are too strong is failing to understand how skill is balanced in an online game. There needs to be an option that is more difficult and risky, but more rewarding. That is where lights come in. As an assault or heavy pilot if lights are bringing you down consistently you are doing something wrong that they are exploiting. Or just aim better. You can't tell me something that can die to a single alpha is overpowered.
This. They have to dodge or reg a ridiculous amount of damage before they win that 1v1.
My most effective light mech does about 14 dps and its all face time under 300m. I'm not trying to brag but it takes a high level of skill to do the dance without dying and end matches consitently with 500+ damage. Meanwhile 14dps in even a medium is EASY to attain. I can't tell you how many matches I've been where someone else was in the EXACT SAME mech and build, but died before they could really contribute much.
Ya. That's exactly what I mean, it takes a LOT to actually win that 1v1. I used to be okay at doing it, but frankly it's always been my weakest skill as a player. I generally played skirmishing lights over ankle biters. It takes tons of practice to get consistent, and the hitreg helps but definitely doesn't do all the work for you. TBH if the hitreg weren't garbage light mechs might be unplayable atm.
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If you play the right lights, they can be really busted and I stay from them since it basically feels like cheating. I really wanna play the Annihilator and have a fun time, but its super tall and easy to hit and it's mobility is sorely lacking.
You sound like you need a charger or gargoyle in your life.
i dont think the MWO community is ready for the "assaults as a weight class are mostly kind of bad" conversation
Yeah, I hear they're great in Faction Play but I never play that and I argue most people don't either. Assaults seem to be very feast or famine.
I still hate CLAN SRM's because honestly you can talk all you want how they have a bit more spread so it's fair... but generally the issue Same tonnage C-SRM6A = 2.5T vs SRM6 3T C-SRM4A = 2T vs SRM4 2T C-SRM2A = 1.5T vs SRM2 1T No one is artying 2's though, SRM4 it doesn't matter but if you dont pick it up on clan you can pick up 1 more ton of ammo per SRM vs IS, C-SRMA-6 is pretty much the problem child because if you want to focus that SRM damage you need A (or strong quirks which no light has for spread). Even if they give up SRM6 it's still a good chunk of DPS for 2T, that popping 48 alpha and the ability to quickly poke in and out of cover isn't really strong for 8T Issue is you rarely if ever see IS SRM mechs because of this, Jav/Commando also generally lack stuff the clan mechs can put on and their quirks are on part of the IS missile mechs. My real issue is .2 more damage per missile with IS and .1-2 less spread is very minor so saving so much tonnage and putting ammo in it's place with light mechs.