# of missiles destroyed by AMS does not equate to the same amount of damage prevented to your team. Your AMS shoots down missiles that have lost their locks, would have hit terrain, would have hit some useless component, or would have missed the target due to spread. I feel many people overestimate AMS effectiveness based on number of missiles destroyed ECM delays a lock, which combined with cover hugging and high alpha/high burst damage playstyle, can prevent a lock from occurring. If you're sitting out in the open you'll eventually get locked on if you're being TAG'd. If you're not seeing a benefit from ECM, look at where you're positioned and what you're doing after taking a shot. Do not react to "incoming missile" but be proactive in getting back to cover before they get that lock.
What do suppressing comply? It is not knocking down or slowing down or in any means stopping the target. Military focus on stopping-power as suppressing and machine-guns as psychological weapons who make lots of sound and makes the opponent aware in what danger they're opposed. In mechwarrior it is to tell the other side that there's a mech there. But it doesn't help much when one side is not defending. LRM was common on faster mechs who used them as secondary last resorts. Like Mike Tyson said; those martial arts have too many tools to pick that I have already made the decision to take them down.
Most LRM players don't know how to use them. They're a support weapon to be used best at mid range just behind a push. The point is to spam the shit out of the other team's heavy hitters so they're more concerned about running from the barrage. Always equip lots of ER Medium lasers to take out components in places where your missiles stripped the armor off. I normally go with a Maddog Prime because it has a velocity and rate of fire bonus. Out of 900 damage in a match, at least 400 is from my lasers. My damage isn't what matters, it's the extra damage the brawlers got to do because my close support missile spam reduced the damage they took. I like to fire at around 400 meters or less as part of the rear of a push. Anything over that is a waste of missiles normally. I use a Tempest with LRM 15s and 5 medium lasers to great effect with the same tactic.
^THIS^ My standard heavy loadout out is 2 x LRM15's with Artemis and 4 medium lasers (ERML for clan mechs). Fill the rest of the space with heatsinks and you can fire everything almost indefinitely. Likewise, staying with your team also helps reduce the risk of being taken out by a Piranha or two. As with all team games. Staying together, working as a team and communicating are way more powerful than any build or playstyle.
I disagree on the AMS: Sacrificing 1.5 tons for any single AMS setup helps greatly if you stick together, often massing 4+ AMS onto incoming fire. Even without 100% interception rate the damage is still greatly reduced and most of the time, 3 seconds delay from ECM will not prevent you getting hit by a salvo, even if you immediately seek cover (because I'm pretty sure the missile warning only goes off when the missile is already in the air). Additionally, AMS will also engage any other type of missile. The fact that most Mechs do have an AMS hardpoint suggests to me that this is exactly the way to go and ECM is just the cherry on top. Maybe I haven't played enough but it always seemed that my team's chance to win increased proportionally with the amount of grouped AMS domes, the only exception being when there's no missiles at all on the enemy team (which tbh, rarely happens).
Yes if your team happens to mass AMS then it could be effective. You just don't see that a lot in solo queue. One thing you learn in solo is not to rely on what your teammates are carrying or doing, and so learning to position well is a better investment than taking whatever equipment. ECM is meant to delay the initial lock. You're not supposed to stand out in the open even with ECM. You still should be hugging cover, maintaining minimal exposure. This is something a lot of people misunderstand about it. With cover nearby and ECM, you should be able to do your alpha or whatever and get back before missiles reach you, as long as you're getting back to cover immediately after you fire.
lol.. lately ive seen 2 or 3 triple ams mechs in same fight on same team.. usually nova's... and yes they do seem to always be near each other.. and its not just one fight.. its match after match after match... one would think they are trying to stop LRM boats from becoming a thing again... ill still use my quad 15 with artimas though...
Mike Whitaker its a trend I noticed too... but its dying out. Those mechs are hate builds. If the enemy composition doesn't include LRMs... those triple AMS builds are like oversized paper weight. I agree that AMS needs a buff. I say that as an LRM user. Those mechs with just one AMS slot are sad. Ams shouldn't weight more than a ton and should only take 1 slot. Basically... include some damn ammo with the module. Dammit, these ammo shouldn't explode or take a slot... they are intended to take down missiles! Not tanks or freakin' mechs! It a counter-measure ... not a fully fledged weapon system. make the energy variant take 2 slot (but same weight) cuz unlimited shots (make them more heat efficient tho). Leave their stats for damage as is. Then it be worth taking.
first i should point out that either AMS was able to be used like a machine gun against mechs and vehicles..albeit only on table top and lore... as you said they are speciallized for countering missiles... that being said.. even tabletop had the AMS and ammo seperate on the mech sheets.. and laser AMS doesnt need to take 2 slots either as its counter to not needing ammo is the heat gain.. naturally due to PGI's messed up heat system this makes laser AMS virtually worthless.. though i still see people using it.. at which point i make an effort to target them to force an overheat from their mech.. even if i'm using LRMS.... i will agree that one AMS is slightly underpowered... but when a mech has 2 or more it almost becomes overpowered.. the 3 and 4 AMS mechs definitly so.. but that is also why a mech should have 2 weapon types...my Stalker for example has 4 LRM 15's with artimas, 4 er med lasers, and an AMS.... also if your worried about AMS ammo exploding then you need to place it in a component that wont matter if its hit.. i usually place my AMS ammo in the head because odds are i'm dead already if they dmg that location enough to crit ammo...
Right, is this where you said you addressed the point about AMS? You really didn't, though. You copped out about how not enough people run AMS in solo queue for it to be a viable counter to LRMs. But my point was that you should have spent even thirty seconds in the video explaining that if all twelve mechs in a company each run one AMS, that is a much more effective counter than just one or two, instead of just writing it off as not viable. People seem to hate it when I use Baradul as an example, so I'm going to go right ahead and do just that. Whether you think he's a good player or not, the fact is that people watch his videos and that affects their choices in MWO. On any given day, I can count on seeing one mech running whatever loadout he showcased that day. So whether he's giving good info or bad, it's getting out there. In the same way, you are affecting the choices that players make after watching your videos. So if AMS would be good if everyone ran one and covered each other, then say exactly that instead of talking about why you don't run one.
I disagree with AMS being useless. If every player would take it and the team stay together, that would be very strong counter to LRMs. Because most players think the same as you or for whatever reason they do not take AMS you are only doing a favour to LRM players.
sadly we arnt playing tabletop though.. where we could easily configure a mech to add ECM and MASC.. that makes a scary combo on some assault mechs who can still maintain a lot of firepower and armor as well.. specially when you also have a melee weapon and triple strength myomers... thats one reason PGI has yet to add mechs like the Axeman and Hatchetman... then again adding MASC to an Atlas would be scary enough too.... then again.. tabletop was more a strategy game as apposed to an FPS style play... but was still fun to see results when you rolled double box cars "headshot..crit...".... easy salvage when that happened...
Thing that is funny is that running an AMS heavy mech like a PIR-A or NVA-S with quad or triple AMS respectively can also pad your match score and I think is a good way of helping lesser players protecting them from LRMs but if someone says "I have quad AMS" that is your queue to get aggressive and know that you have portable cover so stuck it up and act like a warrior instead of a wimp.
About AMS, it isn't terribly effective but you shouldn't expect 2 tons of investment to stop 40 tons of investment. Where it is great though is when 4+ people on your team invest a ton or two, you can just ignore most missile fire.
I understand, but the thing is why even bother with it at all if it does so little? I think the more effective course of action is just to position better. Especially with 1 AMS, you'd die with or without it if you're way out of position.
LRMs "feel" bad to be killed by. Someone you have no line of sight to is dishing a ton of damage into your face. However they don't realize they are simply out of position. I could be in a poptart mech and deal the same damage, LRMs are just super noticeable due to the INCOMING pop up and the long duration of incoming fire. I personally very rarely die from LRMs. I had no problems with these buffs. LRMs will always have huge damage numbers because of the spreadfire nature of the weapon. When I launch 90 LRMs at a target the damage is spread out to almost the entire enemy mech. You basically have to super saturate an enemy with basic lrm packages to overwhelm their CT or get a ST. This is why a lrmboat runs 1k damage easily. You don't really ever destroy anything... LRMs are a weapon system designed to soften up a target as distances close, just like in mechwarrior. It's just the match based system which encourages single weapon boating. Stock load outs maintain this level of Canon, as they carry weapons for a variety of ranges. However in a purely PVP scenario min max takes effect and we boat. When you take a "evenly spreads damage over enemy mech" weapon, and take six of them, you will spread a lot of damage to most enemy mechs (indirect fire) and get huge damage numbers and lots of assists.
the thing to remember is that LRM's and other missile systems are there for a reason... look at how the US Air Force tends to fight.. primarily with missiles... even the US Navy has gone this route.. the idea is to deal damage to the enemy without endangering yourself... doesnt lessen the need for close range fighting like that provided by tanks and other ground troops... lets face it.. i know you love having a LRM boat there to soften up the enemy before your in range to get the kill.. makes it easier to get crits too if the armor has been stripped off by LRMs... and if a LRM boat gets a kill then thats one less enemy to harass and out manuver you and the rest of the close range brawlers... and as for LRM boats sharing armor.. they are capable of doing so.. specially if they hae secondary weapons like my Stalker does.. main weapon is 4 LRM 15's w/artimas....secondary is 4 er med lasers... and a single AMS to counter some of the enemys missiles... where i am in the fight depends on terrain and where everyone is at various points in the fight... if i need to charge i charge.. full bore.. if i need to hang back i hang back.. and i share armor when i can.. if i dont get sniped by fast moving lights looking for an easy kill.. after all the Stalker isnt the fastest mech out there...
I have to say that AMS is a good passive missile damage reduction but should not be viewed as a way to make yourself immune to them. If you have a team that has several mechs with 1 ams and 1 ton each the lrm panic is reduced. I find that AMS is more helpful for slower mechs that are slower between cover points.
Sharing armor is important, sure, especially if you're in an assault mech. But if you're running LRMs only on an assault mech, you're doing it wrong. Rather than saying that "LRM players prioritize high damage at the expense of sharing armor" you should be saying "BAD LRM players ..." because that's exactly what you're displaying with your LRM boat Mickey Mouse Mad Cat shenanigans in the background. If you're LRMing in an assault mech, it should always be paired with backup weapons capable of dealing with enemies within 200 meters. You're better off with LRM30, lasers, and ballistics than full LRM80 and nothing else. And now I've listened to the end and here you are talking about how AMS is not a good counter ... Nearly every single mech in the game has an AMS hardpoint. If everybody invests the ton and a half for a single AMS, that's 12 counters that allow you to push the idiot running nothing but LRMs. And it mitigates all incoming missiles, not just the LRMs. ATMs, SRMs, MRMs. So instead of talking about how you don't carry AMS because it's not a perfect hard counter, you could have used your platform to convince everyone to think about saving a ton and a half to make the counter more effective. When I use LRMs, I don't give a shit about one enemy with three AMS. I do give a shit about twelve enemies all with one AMS. Try firing at a murderball with that level of coverage and then tell me how ineffective AMS is.
You're both wrong here, in my opinion. You can run all LRMs and still run up front with your team and share armor. I'm not particularly phased by a 90 meter start to the damage drop off when running LRMs, it's not as bad as the 130M of ATMs, granted their damage is on a whole different level. Effective play is very easy in LRM boats, assaults included. Proper positioning and coordination with your team lets you play to the strengths of an LRM 80, while still showing yourself and providing armor, and when the game progresses to the close range brawl, you can still lead the charge with the rest of your team. All assuming you're in a clan assault, LRM boating on IS assaults is retarded. My LRM boat (Which I don't use because I prefer brawlers, and ATMs) was a MC-II 4 with LRM 80 and 3 medium lasers + tag. It's very good at putting damage out at long range, since I have eyeballs and can hold my own locks when the enemy starts moving, even moreso if we have a spotter/NARCer, and when the enemy closes in, I have the medium lasers to put out 30 damage which isn't bad.
That reminds me, do ATMs still deal a fraction of damage within the minimum range like Clan LRMs do, or do they behave more like IS LRMs aside from the damage step-down at mid and long range?
No, they've never done that. Below 130m (realistically a bit higher) they do no damage. At 130 - 280, they do 3, 281 - 480~ 2, above that, 1. The range brackets aren't accurate but it's close. In my MC-II 4, I can run ATM 48, which has the potential to do 144 damage, mostly in the CT and side torsos, every 5-6 seconds.
@@Reviire you misunderstood, just like others, about my comment on LRM users staying in the back. It's one playstyle that allows the player to avoid damage and maximize his chance of surviving till the end. The play style you're talking about is another altogether, and frankly more useful. You can read my replies to other people where I've said the same thing.
You seem to think that if I said to take AMS everyone will do so. That's not reality. If I take an AMS when I really didn't need to, and nobody else does, then I'm just hurting myself overall. If I'm playing in solo or in small groups, I'm not going to count on mass AMS protection, so there's no guarantee that my investment will be effective. What about if I get an LRM unfriendly map? Again, that's wasted tonnage. It's better that I tell people to position well, because that's effective no matter what your team does or what map you're on.
Since long ago, I started picking mechs with AMS slots for my builds when I was able to. I wish more mechs could carry AMS, and I would love for them to get a small buff now that LRMs are buffed/so popular. Ive often felt like not being rewarded enough for being one of the few who carries AMS so often.
Long as damage ties into match score LRM's are always gonna be a go to weapon to inflate values. I wish they would do something to minimum ranges thus get those assaults assaulting a bit more. Done right assault with tag and artemis is a monster on front line. Play my Awesome with 4 LRM15A's and the well know Supa Cheese (what I call my Super Nova A with 4 LRM 20's) like this.
Yes. There are several reason why you can justify having LRMs on an assault mech. Regardless of the reasons, they're still best in the front lines, pushing the enemy than hiding at the back asking to be picked off by a Piranha or two. That said, I tend to mix LRMs and lasers on my mechs. This way I only have one ammo type to worry about, and can still do damage at close range.
A great way to deal with minimum ranges would be for PGI to implement hot loading like in the advanced tabletop rules. It removes your LRM minimum range, but makes each fire cycle a risk with a chance of the missiles detonating in the launcher.
I played a game the other day where almost everyone in the team had AMS and no matter how many LRMs were fired at us, they would all get shot down. It was hilarious.
Excellent summary as always BHSC. I wish more people understood those huge LRM dmg numbers really dont mean as much as they think they do. Veteran MWO players will tell you divide your LRM dmg by 2, that's your effective dmg.
Comments by @Chris_C_Lowrey (the balance boss) on twitter in response to this vid : "Pretty much aligns with what we have seeing around the forums now that we have had some time with them in their current state. And we share some of the points brought up. While I can't explain everything in great detail in the upcoming podcast given that work is still on-going and we don't want to necessarily set in stone things that are still not 100% done yet internally. But incoming changes are defiantly aligned with a similar mindset to their current state as expressed here and in a number of other places." Personally I am in agreement with your points, namely: (1) Teams become too passive after July 17 Patch. My biggest peeve! (2) LRM heat is too little (3) AMS is too weak. BUT I'm AGAINST buffing it because it leads to escalation & leaves the LRM-issue lingering (4) Main issue is not the LRMs but the "LRM issue" arose as it is the straw that broke the camel's back and is (very much) exacerbated by other issues (5) side note : Screen blinding & shake by LRMs and RACs is WAY too much considering how constant it can be versus other weapon types (eg. lasers, uACs). This bugs me a lot too! Tired and at work so just writing stuff in point-form and copy-pasta. Oh, excellent vid btw. One of your best analysis pieces thus far (which are all pretty good too!). ;) o7 - BrioS
My gripe with lurms is you have 2 or 3 100 ton mechs hiding in the back screaming keep locks keep lock and the rest of us getting splatted. And now I am forced into the role of kitfox 3xAMS crapload of ammo and little to no kills or reward for taking out 1700+ missiles. You know my play Style I dont like hiding behind a rock I love to push for an opening but the lurms keep eating even with ECM and running to cover I am very sad :).
I feel like ams used to be more effective, so I can't rely on it like I did before. You summed it up well. It's not the end of the world, we just have to be more conceous about it.
I play lrm boat, tbh, LRM is not as good as people think they are. And this is why I get so fustrated when my team don't push into the other team's LRM boats and rather do long range pokes while the LRM rain down on them, killing them slowly with LRM chipping.
AMS do come with a cost so they're not free. Slots and weight that can be used for DHS or bigger engine. LAMS contributes heat. If you have trouble positioning it can help, but overall it doesn't do that much and just better to learn good positioning.
Yeah, a single ton here or there isn't the biggest loss in the world and it softens the blow on yourself and your team. I have been seeing more people taking a single ams and their coverage against missiles does become a pretty neat bonus for sticking together.
1 AMS can takout only 3-5 rockets ... so that means 3-5 dmg ... it wont do much to a lurmboat volley so its better u take a bigger engine for the tonnage
RePlayBoy101 AMS in its current state is dead weight. Its like ECM without the skill nodes : Utterly irrelevant. Those are counter-measures... they need to work in order to be worth dedicating tonnage to. The fact is: even the skill tree makes them only-half decent (that basically means bad btw). Here's my question: why take a beagle probe to counter ECM? All you got to do now is get them in your *Weapon of choice* effective range... then they magically show up on sensor... Why take AMS? They don't kill missiles effectively unless the entire *Team* boats them. All counter measures in the game have been nerfed to the ground because kids these days only look at damage... hell... the game only rewards you decent amount of c-bills for that too! When your team loses you can't blame the non-existant support class now, can you? We are playing *League of Legend* , but without the ability to blame support for our own short-comings... I need a drink...
i still take an AMS on my LRM Stalker though.. cost to weight on taking a higher engine, even a light eng.. is just not worth it for me.. AMS is cheaper and lighter in this case.. and slots arnt the issue for me its pure weight.. most of which is dedicated to adding armor too.. that single AMS allows me to cross open areas with less worry from enemy missiles.. and a bigger engine doesnt add enough speed either to make a difference.. maybe it would in a med or heavy mech.. but not for assault mechs...
As far as the championship, I kinda wish they'd left ammo counts alone. The fact that they're running all pre 3039 stock IS 'mechs means that the amount of armor on the field isn't as much as everyone's used to, so the extra ammunition isn't as necessary as they think. I feel like it was more of a reaction to everyone's gut instinct of "but I NEED 20 tons of ammunition to be effective! How am I going to fight with only 1 ton to draw from?!"
Don't encourage AMS? I propose an exercise. team 1: invests 15 tons on AMS+ammo team 2: invests 1 assault lrm boat (say 90 tons) + teammates' lurms/atms/ssrms (say other 50 tons on pure equipment). Disclaimer: with that amount of AMS team 1 is able to counter most (not all, but almost all) indirect fire damage + AMS doesn't require heat, time and positioning. Then which team is losing more raw tonnage? I'm not even considering the heat, time and positioning team 2 invest to using the above-mentioned weaponry. Only raw tonnage. For me, it's pretty straightforward. AMS is a must at solo queue. Good video as always mate!
Thanks. How well these single AMSs counter say an LRM80 depends on how close they are to each other. Like on that Polar match where the enemy's split up like crazy it wouldn't have helped. But as I wrote earlier in a different comment, expecting all 12 teammates to take AMS is not realistic because many players will feel they can avoid LRMs on their own and not take it.
hey bud was nice seeing you in FP last night.... Honestly I feel like Lrms are supposed to be a complementary weapon used with others, but when boated it gets a tad obnoxious...
Yeah FP event :) Anyways, I believe LRMs should be boated in most cases. This is because the resources you put into LRMs make other weapon systems you're carrying work less well. These resources aren't just the obvious ones like needing to take TAG and BAP, but also less obvious ones like skill nodes you need to invest in target decay that you can't use for other skill trees. When you play a laser+LRM hybrid playstyle, your lasers are "less effective" because with lasers alone, you could have started taking defensive measures like torso twisting as soon as the laser burn is finished. But with LRMs now you have to wait til they hit before turning. Your LRMs are also worse off because you've invested tonnage in lasers where they could have been used for ammo and perhaps bigger launchers. You can sort of see that in any scenario, by combining two weapon systems that don't really synergize with each other makes both of them worse off.
I think the main problem newer players have with LRMs is the fact that the game doesn't explain anything to them. How cover works, Radar Deprivation, ECM, AMS etc. The only way I learned was by watching videos from guys like yourself and Baradul. Otherwise I would have no idea how many of the basic concepts of this game work. Factor that in and someone new gets in a bad position... they end up re-enacting the ending of 300. And that is not a fun gameplay experience.
That's very true. Well you know PGI designed the in-game Academy and it probably challenges new players at PGI's level, if you know what I mean. They could have done a lot more gameplay fundamentals in there but of course we can't expect that to happen ;)
Just a page on the site which explains what things like Active Probe, ECM, TAG do, would already help. Together with which skill nodes have an impact (such as what's needed for ECM as was stated in the video). Now you have to check video's, and check how old they are, and hope it gives the correct information for the current game (not much use if a video from before the skilltree for example says what ECM does). Edit: just checked. First google link when looking for MWO ECM, links to the MWO gamepedia page, which was last updated 2016. The effects listed are still the old values. Some people might think they have what they need according to that, and think the skilltree gives a bonus, instead of the skilltree putting you at those values now. There's just a complete lack of official information out there, regarding the game and mechanics.
Not only does the game not explain things, there's no good resource to figure it out. You have to piece it together by play testing, looking at patch notes, looking at old forum posts, looking at outdated wiki's, looking at outdated dev posts...
Hi, BlackhawkSC. Thank you for being a voice of reason in this heated and sometimes even hysterical debate. An interesting fact is that the velocity buff of the lrms came with the Solaris patch in the spring. At that point in time nobody cared about it. But with that insignificant heat buff that came in June or July, all of a sudden hell broke loose. Some of the streamers i have watched lately have either become heavy AMS advocates or heavy lrm users. Some of the very skilled players have switched their play towards lrms with the intention "to make the community cry" so that PGI reverts the changes. Imho this behaviour is what does more damage to the community and the game than the changes that PGI made. You can see all the experienced players bitching and all the less experienced players cry about the so called new "LRM-Meta" which doesn't nearly have the impact on the game as everyone is pretending. And you have explained this in your video very plausible and your tips on how to avoid dying to lrms are just on point. As usual :) Thank you!
Thank you for your comment. Pretty much the same thing I noticed. There's a lot of hypocrisy coming out of the "skilled players" when they're complaining about LRMs but not actually dying to them. Just from my own experience I still see teams with too many LRM boats lose more often than not.
I would say that the effectiveness of any weapon system depends a lot on how you use it. The difference between a good and bad player can be night and day, be it a laser vomit hellbringer or a lrm mech. It is indeed most associated with bad players and how potent they are with it does go some way to help define the skill floor of the game. If lrms become too effective or prevalent it will strongly effect how your teams of 12 randos will play the game. For the most part though things like a lot of ecm and ams can be a very hard counter to a strong lrm meta and the buffs that pgi have been giving the weapon system are more along the line of quality of life improvements rather than game changers, the weaknesses of the weapon remain very much intact. I think you didn't touch much on lrms being used in large groups. Of particular note is probably full lrm teams. Getting narced and focused down by most of the enemy team at long range can be quite potent and frustrating. It's an easy way to turn an average group into one that can easily stomp most other groups. I would say that the strengths of lrm can be amplified best when used in coordinated groups, with lrms being a big force amplifier for your worst pilots (your worst pilots just need to stick with the blob and shoot at the same target as everyone else). Though again, if the gimmick becomes too prevalent teams can ofc easily play into the weapons weaknesses with mass ecm, ams and aggression. One funny thing I should note during lrm meta in group que is how hard it can be to make people take proper counters. It is frustrating to die to lrms, it's doubly frustrating trying to peel people away from their favourite mechs so that they stop dying to mass lrm spam (a fair number of groups it can be like corralling sheep when choosing mechs sometimes).
Really good points. I'll just add that LRMs has a relatively high skill floor but also a low skill ceiling. And then also any weapon system can be good if a team coodinates on using it, like a Piranha swarm or 4-5 dakka/laser mechs going at the same speed and focusing on the same enemy.
Hmm.. let me give my thoughts on its skill floor and ceiling. Sitting at the back might be a stereotypical move for a lrm player but it leaves them vulnerable and they rely on others to hold locks for them to get their damage in. They 'can' do well but it's not really due to their skills*. An lrm mech is on average a lot more reliable when the pilot sticks with the team. That way they provide fire support and have backup from anyone trying to get to close (shorter travel time also much better). To me at least the skill floor seems fairly low, just stick with the team and you already are a lot more useful and skilled than the potatoes sitting miles behind roleplaying as an artillery piece. I am curious as to why you think they have a high skill floor (assuming it wasn't just a typo). As for their skill ceiling I would say that there's a surprising amount of depth to using lrm, as with any weapon, good positioning can really help their effectiveness. Knowing things like when to push, where to push and how to push have a lot of nuance to them when using any load-out. Lrm is quite flexible, its high firing arc, long range and psychological effect on target are all unique tools that can be highly effective when used right. The weapon has some glaring weaknesses but it also has unique strengths, compared to just pointing and shooting with direct weapons it actually takes some ingenuity and skill to mitigate the weaknesses and magnify its strengths. On the whole I would say they have a mid level skill ceiling. There can be some finesse to dumb firing lrms but for the most part mastery of them comes in positioning rather than mechanics. Personally I run my lrm boats as swiss army knives. I spot my own targets with the narc, using indirect lrms to help pin down the foe. if they try to close the distance I also have mpls and streaks waiting for them, if they get within lrm range I also have flamers to shut down their offence as the mpls and streaks continue to do their job. The weird loadout confuses opponents, they don't know how to deal with it, I can brawl, I can lrm, I can mid range and whilst my playstyle is obviously a fringe case ;), handling 5 different weapon types and doing consistently well with this Frankenstein''s monster does require some measure of skill (it's a mid skill ceiling mech, not everyone can pick it up but there's only so much you can do with it) :p *On retrospect my meaning of "skill floor" is different between comments. Originally I was referring to the rock bottom of the player pool and how they, as a whole, tend to play and define the game. Wheras here I am more referring to the individual player's skill and systems mastery. I hope me these two different uses of the term doesn't lead to too much confusion.
From what I understand, you can also counter LRMboats by jamming them with ECM. If they don't have BAP or an ECM of their own with which to counter, they can't pull locks. I think.
Don't forget the ecm flags on escort that provide a huge version of this bubble, denying missile locks to any lock-on-missile-boat foolish enough to move close enough. The jammer on incursion also acts like a huge bubble coming from the base. The best use you can get out of this mechanic from your mechs' ecm is dog-piling a streak mech with ecm mechs, he won't be able to shoot back as his probe will only cancel one of the ecm bubbles.
AMS isn't useless. Aside from being useful for large, slow mechs that have a lot of trouble positioning themselves, where multiple mechs will provide near perfect LRM cover, they also cover all other kinds of missiles. If you have a team with at least 1 AMS on every mech, possibly more if you have certain mechs (Kitfox, Nova), you can potentially stop a very high amount of damage. To my knowledge, an unquirked AMS will take down around 2-3 MRM missiles, far more on mechs that are bonused (Kitfox) and quirked (4 points, easy to get) for it. If you have 12 on a team, your team can take down a significant portion of MRM volleys, as well as pretty much neutering SRM and ATMs, which are very strong weapons. Even just for ATMs, your AMS is going to be doing a lot of work. 12 missiles doing 36 damage, easy to shoot down. That's hugely useful for your team, you don't want to eat ATM 48 into the face, even annihilators can't eat that damage very well. IS mechs do have some trouble fitting it, but all clan mechs have absolutely no issues fitting AMS. 1 ton and 1 slot for LAMS, 1 slot and 0.5 tons for AMS, plus ammo. Aside from a few specific builds, there's absolutely no reason to not run a LAMS on a clan mech above 65 tons or so. You can disable it if you can't afford the eat, but while active it's practically providing extra armor to your team. Every missile you shoot down is 1-3 damage your team isn't taking, if you've destroyed 1000 missiles, you've pretty much given your team 1000 points of extra armor. Lets not forget that each AMS provides more effective damage reduction than the last. For an LRM 40 clan volley, one AMS will take down 10~ missiles, a 25% reduction in damage. A second, 20, 50% reduction in damage, and 33% of the 30 missiles. 30 missiles for a third, for a total of 75%, a 50% reduction of the 20 missile volley, a huge increase over the last. The fourth will render you totally immune. As for LRMs themselves, I believe they're good. But only in very specific scenarios. Polar Highlands, it's nearly literally impossible to not hit LRMs because of a complete lack of cover. Everywhere else, a coordinated team with spotters (NARC especially). They have the benefit of long range, and being able to put out a very high amount of damage at that range.Proper positioning from you and your team is required, since if you give the enemy a chance to push up to you through lots of cover, you're removing all the advantages of your weapon system. Using them effectively requires proper positioning from your whole team, you use your own positioning to make sure the enemy is out of position, and if the enemy ever tries to push, they are putting themselves into a situation where they not only need to push through LRM fire, they also need to go through the rest of your team. But simply saying "Push them" is wrong, because that's assuming you're a decent player, but the LRM player is braindead. Competent players are able to position themselves properly and coordinate properly with their team, if you play to their strengths they are very strong weapons. They do very large amounts of damage, and if you play into their strengths, they're going to do a lot of work, the same as ATMs. With the latter, they do absolutely disgusting amounts of damage, with the possibility to outright kill, or at least severely damage a lot of mechs in a single volley. But they require proper positioning and are more than just point and click. An LRM boat that's an easy target is a bad player. I can easily take LRMs and do effectively with them. But I don't because I think ATMs are better in nearly every single way, aside from being worse at breaking through AMS. So something to end on, the only issues I have with LRMs, is quickplay. You're not able to pick your mech after the map is decided, which is really bad. You can get mechs that are designed for close range brawling on Polar Highlands, or you can get LRMs on Solaris City, when realistically, you would never those to those maps. Faction play it's fine, because you can pick the weapon system to play into the map. But when you go up against 6 LRM boats on polar highlands, you've probably lost already, unless your team is heavy on AMS and ECM, and is aggressive enough to use the fact their LRMs aren't going to be firing (or hitting when fired) for a good long while.
Personally I quit playing LRMs after the skill tree reset because everything I had built up on my Stalker 5M for CW was thrown out the window and rendered useless. AMS needs to get a major buff imo, or LAMS needs to get a heat reduction to make it viable... LAMS is effectively useless because of the heat gen that can overheat a ballistic assault with a single freaking module...
Nope, it cant, it would be way to good. Consider clan LRMS/ATMs - it is way harder to overpower AMS with those, since you have stream of missiles, not a tight group like in case of IS.
The trick with LAMS is you need to be smarter than the module. Press the ~ key to disable your AMS systems. This is useful when you need to take a moment to cool off, or if you want to flank around the enemy position without your AMS giving your own movement away. Or build your loadout around the extra heat you'll incur with the LAMS. I went full tryhard mode with my Urbanmech K-9 and upgraded my engine to STD100. That means I'm fast enough to keep up with Charlie Lance usually, but I also have six external heat sinks. So I invested heavily into operations for full heat scale and cool run, and I loaded a LAMS and a Beagle so that I can help the assaults deal with missiles and stealth buggery. That left me with enough tonnage for a full set of jump jets, an AC2 for long-range harassment, and five ER small lasers for close-range component destruction. Stay under cover and out of your assault's feet, fire on their targets, and take off enemy components whenever they present themselves. On half of the maps, my LAMS can go indefinitely as long as I don't go crazy with jumping around and alpha striking. Usually I can find elevated positions close to my assault mechs so I can hit their targets without being in their line of fire. You could probably come up with an effective supporting loadout that incorporates the LAMS for any mech, but only the K-9 has the siren and light bar that really brings the "protect and serve" up a can of whup-ass theme home.
I usually just leave the LAMS off unless I have a bunch of LRMs incoming. At that point I'm not shooting, because I'm trying to find cover anyway... So I don't overheat. If I leave LAMS on the whole time while shooting then I overheat. ~ is your friend.
AMS is very effective against medium and heavy LRM 20 and 30 mechs. If the enemy team has an LRM assault you don't need to do anything about it because more often than not they wont share any armor and then you're effectively playing 12v11
Yes, so I never recommend people doing less than LRM40 partially for that reason if they really want to play LRMs and avoid medium and small-heavy LRM carriers.
Really? I feel like the best LRM mechs are 2x10 and 2x15 like the HBK 4J or the Archer. I find they do about 60-70% the damage of an assault LRM over the match for in some cases half the weight and they don't take an assault off the front line. Plus the ability to reposition is huge and they let you play much more aggressive finding your own locks because you are mobile enough to get back to safety when you start drawing too much unwanted attention.
The recommended number of lrms is somewhat different for the different tech bases, clan fires theirs in a stream, spreading out the volley making it weaker to ams whilst IS fires theirs in big clumps that all land at once.
Basically LRM boats take advantage of the limited time that enemy mechs are out of position. During that time they have to DPS down the target as quickly as possible. 2xLRM10s is just not enough DPS even with cooldown quirks. For IS, my preferred boat is the AWS-8R with 3xALRM15 or 4x non-Art LRM15
I think we just have different philosophies on this one. With a medium or even a heavy mech you don't have to wait for the opponent to get out of position you can find your own angles and targets with your mobility. If you think about IS LRMs the more missiles in the air, the more spread the damage unless you chain fire in which case you lose more missiles to AMS. In either case there is a diminishing return as you add missiles so that 60 - 80 missiles isn't doing 3-4 times the damage of 20, more like 1.5 -2 times more when you consider how much of that damage is useful. And most importantly an assault mech is bringing some 40 tons of armor, if you're in the back with LRMs you're probably not sharing that armor and it's 40 tons wasted. Now if you're up front firing at ~300m then the armor issue isn't that big a deal but most LRM assaults don't do that. Which is understandable because it's super risky as you don't have the mobility to change positions if the range gets below 190m.
As usual your comments, pretty much hit the nail on the head. Being able to make a chain firing L.R.M 80 virtually heat neutral though is poor game design though, as frankly has been pretty much all the choices of Mr Lowery, since he was brought in to 'improve' the game. A.M.S though I only partly agree with, if in the case it's just one mech carrying it, I agree, 1.5 tons on 75% of the mechs it would be an effective counter ( this never happens in Q.P :) )
I think the heatgen buff wasn't needed per se, but neither did it make much of a difference. Remember they also increased spread, and even if someone's in the camp of "all damage is good damage" the increased spread also means more missiles missing the target completely.
And all this could be fix by having a viable laser AMS on every mech, sadly they overheat a lot and just bring enemy sustain dps to the ground, making LRMs even viable if the entire enemy has AMS of this kind, the standard AMS is good but ammo did not get buff at the same level of LRMs, they nerf AMS some time ago and still don't aprove on matching ammo count to the lrm buff.
It's true. New Pilots use LRMs more than other experienced pilots. LRMs are simple and it's easy damage. I use them on some builds. Nothing wrong with LRMs. It does sting when you get wrecked by Hundreds of them at the start of a match. That's usually when the bsd feelings start to flow.
one thing that I have notced is that when people are LRMing on my side and i see them getting shot down, I (and I tell my teammates) to send all of their salvos in a alpha strike because to chain fire them is to have them all shot down. i have managed to land a LRM 80 salvo on oponets even though there are 5-7 ams sistems going. I do also run ECM on my fafnir, and I have notced it doent tend to work as well as i though it would, so this video has incuaged me to increased
I run the 8 LRM5 Archer and usually will fire one LRM5 to test the waters and see what the AMS is like. It's an excellent support mech. The trick is to support your teammates. If someone is in a 1v1 I can immediately turn it into a 2v1.
You get missile locks faster on larger mechs, so the reduced lock on time isn't so useful on the fafnir (because it's a percentage increase). Though yeah if you haven't already, take both ecm nodes on all your ecm mechs as that reduces the range you can even be locked onto, which is on average a much stronger lrm counter to lrms for an 100 tonner.
tbh my only problem with lrms is that you're absolutely fucked if you take a single step out of cover and someone decides to get a lock on, even if you go back in, you're still going to get spammed for the next 15 seconds or so.
The effectiveness of LRM's stands or falls with the rest of the team. If someone scouts for targets, LRM's be be a great addition to the team. Especially if other players call priority targets. If the other players don't scout, LRM's are close to useless.
I disagree with people who say LRM builds on assaults are a waste because you don't share armor. This is a mistake. Firstly, not every assault mech is a brawler specialist with armor quirks and great hitboxes like an Atlas or a Marauder. Secondly, staying in the 300-400m range with LRMs is mandatory if you want to hit things at all, so more often than not, you're taking fire, especially if the enemy notices youre a fire support mech. Thrirdly, you have to fit in some direct fire weapons for that mid range fight so you can get your own locks and the only ones who can fit enough to hurt enemies while locking and managing heat, while carrying 80LRMs are assaults
I almost agree ams is half usless. It is good if you are in a known target mech like kodiak or anni. Otherwise it can be a slight waste of tonnage, but i have been running them more lately, anything helps agains lrms and works on streaks to that is so hand for stormcrows lol
I run LRMs for a much different reason... Hardware shortcomings. I WANT to hop in an Atlas and be a brawler, something to be feared. I can't, however, because my comp cannot handle it. The movement and particles smoke my cpu, and I become a big target. (avg fps is 10-15, 20 on a good day, WHILE catapulting in the back.) I dedicate myself to a Catapult because I can rain hell from a distance and even destroy stuff if I get lucky. LRMs are fun to me because I get to help in some way, rather than being a big target. I do pack a couple MLs as backup, too.
I know that's one reason why some people run LRMs, and that's why I'm also glad LRMs are viable in solo now. Try turning particles, shadows and environment to low. Otherwise there's not much else to do besides getting better hardware.
BlackhawkSC Perhaps I should have added that everything's minimized, and set to a really resolution. Cool that you responded so fast, though! Loving your other videos, too!
lol i always fill up the sensor tree. why? because not only do i get radar dep, i have seismic and can locate weak spots and hold location data longer and faster than those that don't. And if you have ECM, it actually makes ECM ok. The firepower tree and the armour tree is marginal at best for most mechs, especially for burst damage, less cooldown? who needs it really, hell most attempts to nerf clan weapons by increasing cooldown have done next to nothing to change the effectiveness of those mechs
match score is a horrible metric for how well you do over all in this game... particularly in any objective based game mode. LRMs are just one example of how it can be inflated but more often you will see players who arguable caused the win get almost nothing. weather it be the light committed to ensuring your team maintains caps in conquest to the assault that lead the initial push that kicked off your teams snowball. Honestly all match score does is discourage team play and promote taking actions and builds that are more likely to get a higher score than to contribute to a win.
Best way to describe this update: You now have the privilege to spam fire LRM's for days or until your face turns blue. But give er take I have that feeling that PGI may add an artillery weapon that can be placed on a Mech and the person can sit on one side of the map and pin targets left and right just like in world of tanks, just saying. :-P
You don't have to put all the AMS on one mech. Just 2-3 different mechs with a single AMS each, moving together, will significantly reduce the damage from LRM's, and AMS only costs 1.5 tons which is insignificant on heavy and assault mechs. Obviously it's not as effective against 80 LRM Assault mechs, but that is almost literally the worst case scenario. IMO, considering how situational LRM's are, and how an LRM assault mech can't effectively armor share, it's really a waste to have Assault mechs who are only carrying LRM's.
LRMs are still the slowest projectile, as ATMs can get the same velocity nodes. As they start with higher base velocity, ATMs will always end up faster given the same skill focus.
What I mean is comparing LRMs with skill nodes with unskilled ATMs. I know not a perfect comparison but some people will say they're already pretty close, so might as well put that comparison out there.
The only real disagreement I have is with the effectiveness of AMS. A triple ams mech can take a lot of bite away from a lrmer which I think is the main point.
I mentioned triple AMS does something, but the problem it still won't completely stop an LRM60-80. A smarter LRM boat would also switch targets to maximize his effectiveness, and if you intend to protect the new target you'll have to run all the way there. It's much faster for an LRM boat to switch targets than for you to get to a new location. If there's only 1 target I'm still getting at least half my missiles through 3xAMS.
I don’t feel lrms were meant to be the only weapon you have equipped on a Mech. I do have an Lrm 5 x6 catapult because it fun. I have a supernova with 3 lrm 10s with 2 UAC 10s and 3 MPL. Lrms are meant, IMO to chase lights or do dps on the fatties. Clan lrms are weaker I think now with the spread increase then The IS. I’m happy the lrms are back, I can use my x3 ams kitfox again more. They are part of the game and used as support in top tier solo play. They are good on some maps and horrible on others. Just luck of the draw and working as a team.
LRMS are simply a crutch weapon. They don't require more then someone on your team having LOS or NARCing the target. It allows begginer players to continue to not learn how to position or build properly for quick or faction play. In the hands of skilled players especially working as a group with a dedicated light mech narcing you are going to slaughter PUGs. Having AMS and utilizing it on multiple mechs cripples the other team if they are only landing 2 dmg out of a 20 dmg salvo. Problem is players always hear the solution of don't be in the open and take cover. Yes that works but it screws the momentum of a push because they have effectively pushed a mech out of the push. LRMERS once you push into their min range become useless 9 time out of 10 because they only pack bare minimum in terms of backup weapons if any. Worst you usually have to worry about is an assault packing a couple medium lasers.
One thing I personally disagree with is that LRM players dont share armor. Me, and the other members of my unit who use LRMs, generally play second line, or front line with our pushes. Granted, we play Clan so our LRMs still do damage. So, just in my experience we still share armor.
You're talking about a different kind of playstyle where you attempt to get LOS by yourself. The hiding-in-the-back playstyle is more selfish and unfortunately usually leads to better individual results for that guy, which is why most players do it. The reason being, especially in solo, if you attempt to get your own locks you're staring at an enemy for all that lock + travel time, which is plenty of time for that enemy to put 100 points of damage into your CT if he's looking right back at you. You can certainly play it by sharing armor and being up front, but most LRM boats don't do that because it ends up worse for them individually.
LRM velocity was 140 long ago then buffed to 175 and people screamed bloody murder. So a hot patch lowered them to 160 and now to 190. Some mechs can get into the 210 range or higher with quirks. Cool down were 3.25 3.75 4.25 and 4.75 with clan adding .25. Now i have to go through to verify but clan lrm 20 is 4.6 so less. Then lower heat. Still if the orher team had one AMS per mech people would stop playinv LRM BOATS or play in group que with a spoter and 3 to 5 LRM boats killing someone in less than 10 seconds. Think about 4 sunspiders running 6 LRM 15s each. 360 LRMs. I have seen two ananiolators talen out witj two AMS kitfoxes providing cover. Although i narced all 4 poped a uav and was taging them and was close enough for BAP to counter one ECM. Still people do not run radar derp and people that have run lrm boats for years know radar derp mechs are not worth shooting at unless you have them out in the open or get another target. The only worse mech to fire at is some one that knows how to use cover and limits exposure time. Even on polar highlands they can prevent LRMs by preventing target locks.
I played a match with half the team being KCom on Caustic. We were IS and enemies were clan. Enemy team was super LRM heavy, KCom guys called for a push which everyone on our team followed. We clobbered that LRM wave and camped their dropzone and continued destroying their LRM mechs at 150m as they dropped from their dropships. The point is that while organized LRM groups can be dangerous, even in that case there are counters as long as your own team is organized.
Ha, Kcon enough said. They have a special place in thier cold hearts for LRM boats anyways. Even ones on the same team. Caustic is always hard for the other team when you get overwatch on one of the drop points.
I mean Caustic is actually a good LRM map, that's why I brought it up. KCom plays aggressively (smartly to be more precise), which is another key to defeating LRMs.
Kcon members are all very good players. Enough so that they use cover to conceal movement. That alone defeats LRMs, but with the aggressiveness that they use forces the other team to react to them. Even in solo play i can see this in Kcon players, limiting exposure until the time is right
Suppose a Piranha took out 5 enemies from the back efficiently with only 500 damage. In the end your contribution to the match is roughly equivalent to what I did the 1600 dmg match but if someone looked at damage or match score only they'd think the PIR did a lot less.
The end goal of most matches is to kill 12 enemy mechs and win. If you solo killed 5 of the 12, doesn't matter how you do it, by lasers, MGs, or LRMs, it's effectively all the same. This is just a really broad generalization, of course the light running around making people miss or the LRM boat shaking cockpits all have their contributions.
say what you want,but I still think mwo has the worse iteration of lrm's for a competive game ever. go back and look at how lrms were done in mw4 and mw3, they required constant line of sight , and did not arch over tall structures so you had to be in the thick of things while using them in those games. they were far more "skill-required" weapons in those mech games than they are in mwo. I honestly think piranha screwed the pooch on designing them for mwo , especially given the game's heavy competitive slant. even with these new changes , I still feel cheap as hell when I use them , and they sure as hell piss me of when I see teams full of lrm boats. they still suck out 80% of the "skilled" playing that could be going on in this game.Especially when lrm boated teams vote for lrm boat maps time and time again. I hope MechWarrior 5 gets them right , but well , that game will probably not include MP.
My maddog can hold off an entire enemy team with lrm fire and even push them back. I play super aggressive. If you're dumb enough to use ams I'll just burn your ammo out right away and then kill you. If you try and send a piranha after me I'll kill it in 3 shots with my lasers at close range, lmfao. I'm a walking death machine in this mech. Nothing can stop me except a 4 on 1 course range fight. I'm awesome at hitting mechs with lrm at close range. I can even shoot them around corners to hit you at close range.
6:25 "PSR has no relation to actual skill" Bullshit, tell that to the many people I know who have been stuck in T3, 4, or 5 since the system came out years ago. It doesn't take skill into account ENOUGH, but to say it's totally unrelated is nonsense.
There's one guy who showed that you can go up in PSR long term without even firing any weapons and just simply taking triple AMS. So if those T3-5 guys simply did that and played a lot of games they'd probably end up in T1.
But the point was that "PSR is 100% unrelated to skill" is incorrect, and that doesn't change that. The average T5 players is worse than the average T1 player in terms of piloting skills.
So here's the important question. Is meta hellbringer > narc hellbringer? (obviously the awnser is yes but narc-bringer does make use of some nice narc quirks. :p )
byter narc is bad. ECM kills it... and in solo queue.... chances are your team doesn't have lurms... Mechs that should equip it are scout mechs. Pro-tip: When you know where the enemy spawns... you don't need scouts.
Narc and ecm are somewhat mutual counters, ecm hides narcs under its bubble but narc can also disable ecm for some time (if it is used on the ecm mech(s)). Narc is an informational tool, information not only helps your lrm players (who are often mostly useless otherwise) but it also helps regular mechs with trading and gaining map control. Mechs like the Narc-bringer will typically take lrm40 along with the high mounted narc (and possibly tag), so it's able to spot targets for itself in solo que. You are correct though, scouts aren't really needed in this game (other than for full lrm teams) but narc makes some sense for any mech who wishes to assert map control. Personally I have found that on some mechs like the ecm stalker, narc was a good tonnage soak (due to the low engine cap and size of IS dhs limiting my speed and heat dissipation). A heat neutral informational weapon was a nice compliment to my mid ranged alpha strikes adding more to the mech than focusing on getting a little more raw damage (that I couldn't sustain) ever did.
I disagree with your quote "rarly causes lrm bots to share armour" EXCUSE ME SIR, *Ahem* i run a lurm boat 90 machine gun thanatos, with 3000 rounds and i was always ALWAYS the 2nd or 3rd mech behind the assaults psuhing the line and i even in quite as few occations, walk in front of our assaults to USE my armour, as this was my battletech veteran teachers LRM grudge, And how? How did i stay so close to the front and still get 1200dmg games and 3 kills? Targeting computer mk4 and beagle probe are a glorious combo xD ... Hm i should resurrect my lurm boat thanny... It was fun playing, especially when i got given sht over ebeing a lurm boat and i did better than my accusors xD Im always pushing the lind and since im a thanatose the enemy shoots me first for some reason...
You missed the context. "LRM players are often the last to die ... maximize their chance of doing high damage and get a high match score. Match score doesn't take into account that this damage maximizing playstyle causes a player to rarely share armor....". This is referring to a specific playstyle where an LRM player avoids damage in order to farm match score or damage. There's another playstyle which is what you do, get LOS while being close to the push. This is IMO the more effective playstyle of the two but a lot of players choose the first method because it's easier to do moderately well in (and sometimes very well on certain maps). However if played correctly, the LOS/armor sharing playstyle is better. So we're actually in agreement.
@@BlackhawkSC ok, thank you for clarifying your context sir. Also, i chose the thanatos because she had 6 missile hardpoints and 80 tonnes to play with, she also has ECM for team support AMS as well as the armour of (when balanced to 8 rear armour and all front with skills) an assault mech, whislt retaining the speed and mobility of a fat medium mech. This allowed me to make a lurm 90, ECM, AMS, mid range fire support, suppression build using the targeting computer mk4 and beagle probe, my thanatos can lock onto unECM mechs in about half a second, and ECM coverd mechs in about 1.2 seconds. I also later modified her by removing a lurm 10 and replacing it with a mrm 10 for just in case someone wants to get into my personal space bubble.
@@BlackhawkSC also since my thanatose uses 4 lurm 20 and 2 lurm 10 i can keep up a constant barrage, and it strips armour and lone wolf pilots like a sand blaster xD
@@BlackhawkSC also thank you, i was aware of radar deprivation, but i had no clue there was ECM nodes in the skill tree, i suppose i need to go back and read all the fine print huh? Hade a nice day mate! Happy Hunting, Mechwarrior!
Your not ripping them open youre still barely tickling them just like always. I thought 4 / lrm 20 would be impressive. Solaris sucks and new skill system sucks. Just waiting on the next good mech game.
lrms arent any better, theres more noobs online as this games community is hemorrhaging players with battle sense, and none of these pubs know how to communicate or work together as a team. I blame mech warrior living legends.
Whole "Im PRO, so I outgrew LRMS" is just circle jerk. We get random maps, in reality, LRMs mechs woouldnt be deployed in urban env. So whole "positioning" is just result of randomness. On open maps you are screwed if there are two heavy carriers on other teams with spotter. Same with hot maps+laser vomit.
My laser HBR is actually quite fond of Terra Therma. Anyways because we get random maps, the meta revolves around what kind of maps and what kind of teams you get on average, and on average, midrange high burst DPS is the current meta, not LRMs.
True to some extent. You have to take into account random players as well, since it weights in on this. It is way easier to play brawler/laser vomit mech than LRM/ATMs. Which usually require either TAG/NARC or very good positioning/team play( and sadly people dont realize that. If you have LRM boat, help him, he will give you a hand with steel rain, call targets, keep locks). While in brawler support you just keep the line and your own weight( to make it simpler). Also, in MWO you preselect mech and hope for map/team. In WarThunder for instance you assign crews to available vehicles( iirc, did not play it for quite some time) and choose one that suits you on given map. Long range? Swell, pick flak88 or jagdpanzer. Airfield map? AAA on the go. Now, from a bit of personal experience. Every now and then we get some LRM event or just players revitalize this concept. If you are on open map you are screwed. Steel rain just keeps pouring. Yeah, in some cases you cant counter with rush but this does not happen often, not unless you have ECM/AMS mechs( ECM is not so scarce, but AMS was to some point). I remember one game in my jester( 2xLAMS + max AMS skills), on that flat open, cold map. My total laser DMG was below 100pts if not below 50. Why? Cause my whole heat capacity went into cooling LAMS( sometimes had to turn them off ). Damage I did to incoming LRMS was in range of 'k'. If I did not pack it and protect assaults we would not win.
Well to be fair, IS AMS sucks ass. Clan mechs have no excuse, aside from a few specific builds like 4 UAC10/LB10X Kodiaks, or mechs like the Ebon Jaguar that need to sacrifice quite a few energy hardpoints to fit it.
I think you may be missing the point on the overall negative effect of an LRM heavy meta. When LRMs are "good enough" but not "actually good" you're gonna see a lot of them in matches even when they're on maps they do poorly on. Sure, LRMs aren't a great weapon system, but when you can low effort your way to 1k+ damage every round you can bet your ass lots of people are going to do that. The issue is that now we've incentivized a selfish playstyle that simply doesn't contribute towards victory a significant portion of the time. No one likes getting rained on playing Polar Highlands against an LRM boat heavy team, but even worse than that is getting Solaris City and realizing half your team can contribute little to nothing because they're all lurming. The net effect is that matches just feel... random. Which team has more LRM players on maps that either favor or punish them swings the balance in a way that feels out of your control. Sloppy players get to brag about their high damage even though that damage may or may not have actually helped their team win. At the end of the day it just... feels like shit.
Honestly I don't see what's wrong with that. If they're OK with inconsistent matches, then that's how they enjoy the game. If a skilled player can move beyond that and get more consistency, then he will enjoy the game that way.
One of my favorite mechs for when I want to slow down a little and turn the game into a management SIM is the 8 LRM5 Archer. Having the eight launchers gives me a bit of flexibility on how I want to attack and chaining them is a very good way to send a lot of mechs running for cover. With all the Novas out there these days I usually start with a single LRM5 "poke" to see how much cover they have and if it's to much I can move onto other groups. It's also a great force multiplier for aggressive machines. The key is communication. If you can communicate well then LRM boats can become monsters.
I've tried to point out those facts on the HPG outreach reddit page... *Oh my god.* People out there were so childish about it. They down voted the shit out of every single post I made and even looked at my stats to call me a noob and things as such. Even the moderators wouldn't do anything about their harassment. The problem is exactly as you describe. The "pro" players calling it an overpowered "noobtube" kind of weapon just show how poorly skilled those players are against it... since it's not a good weapon system. I play quite casually in the solo queue for *fun* and quite easily avoid LRM all day long. I use radar deprivation since before the skill tree lmao. What kills me most of the time however... is being on a team that is oblivious to enemy LRMs and charge in the open... No, I'm not good enough to carry that much folks. LRM has plenty of limitations. It shouldn't be boated. All my LRM catapults (My favorite mech chassis) as some form of direct fire weapon in order to contribute against enemy pushes.
I bought a Missile Boat on the last Sale because my plan was to put MRM40s on that Tempest. Never really played LRM before. I tried the classic double LRM20/BAP/TAG loadout for a few matches, just to see if there are some easy XP points to get. I have to say, it was definitely not worth it... as you said in your explanation: what team will you get - and this depends more on the red team than on the own. ECM shielding, decent movement and lights chasing LRM Boats is already common knowledge - so target numbers are decreasing. I think you can definetely get good matches with LRM but how many matches you are less effective? Last note: I was not patient enough to improve my LRM gameplay and changed the loadout. So maybe not a very detailed experience 😆
OniGanon Just a copy and paste build. I know there are different topics in the forums about yes/no carrying both. I think BAP is partly deactivated for counter ecm but you still have the sensor range and info buffs. Did not do a deep dive into that. On the MRM Loadout I just equip ecm.
I love LRM boating when I start feeling particularly lazy and can't be bothered planning. I can say I have never been one of those players against lrms
Please do a skill nodes series. I started mwo 2 months ago still confused on what nodes do what. Maybe a series of episodes on the following... Best nodes for laser vomit builds Best nodes for dakka builds Best nodes for srm/mrm/atm/lrm Best nodes for stealth Best nodes for brawlers Best nodes for support
I did one for energy builds earlier (since lasers are popular). But it's a bit outdated now since they redid some of the skill node values. There's also some variations between the same builds on different weight classes. I had this idea in mind though for some time so I'll see whether I can generalize these skill trees enough to be made into templates that I can show.
It's not worth it. Would some MLs stop the EBJ and WHM from turning me into scrap? Nope. Your best bet is to run away and save the tonnage for ammo or heatsinks. Occasionally your butt gets saved by backup lasers, but it doesn't happen often enough to make it worthwhile.
Thanks for the video I think you make some good points. My opinion is that AMS and LAMS need a buff to more rounds and more missiles being taken down. Your video covers the topic well for those people who just play quick play or scouting or maybe even Solaris (I don't know if anyone is playing missiles in Solaris because I don't play it. I just added it in for inclusion of all game styles.) What you left out was Faction Warfare. In FW a coordinated team is unplayable when the team decides to put together a 12 man with NARC mechs running around. As always FW takes a back seat to PGI's plans of creating their own battle arena to compete with the PUBG's of the world. No, I don't want to play long range missile warfare on Polar, Caustic, Alpine, etc just because I know the other team is going to bring missiles. ECM is not what it used to be either. With just one tag it doesn't matter that you have the entire sensory skill tree you still get discovered and your ECM becomes useless to you and your allies. Bit of a rant sorry just had to get it out. Again thanks for the video and I am going to put a link on our team website.
Are LRMs good? Short answer; hell yes. Long answer; they allow assaults mechs (which are so slow it would be quicker to get out and push) apply damage on their way to the fight, before switching to laser vomit to finish off all those nicely softened up targets. They can work wonders on heavy mechs, where you can fire over your big slow assault brethren whilst they're pushing, stripping armour for them so they can get some nice easy kills. As with all team based games; staying together, communicating and working as a team is what wins matches. Everything else is just flavouring.
I have to agree that AMS works best in groups. Additionally even a single AMS reduces the amount of incoming damage by a percentage further decreasing the effectiveness of LRM's as a mech killer. The real uses for LRM's appear to be in suppression and scrubbing armor for the burst damage members of your team.
The main issue I find with fighting LRMs is the "massed LRM" situation that seems to happen where potentially over half the enemy team has them and is co-ordinating extremely well, in situations like that your team needs to be aggressive, but people fear being the target of the mass missile attack and thus, you have a whole team whom would rather hide till its too late and only realise when 4 mechs down that hiding isnt working as an enemy mech is spotting them all(I have been leaving my assault and heavy mechs for things like my flea or viper simply due to being able to attack LRMs easier). I think the improvement has brought more people into using them and the issue is becoming more "massed LRM" over "LRM in general". I have seen games where all assault mechs moving forwards to a decent position die literally to only being hit by LRM fire before the team can really even push forwards on polar highlands. On the flip side, if your team is full of them, it can also go badly against that aggression team.
A good LRM player is a player that communicates with their team and visa versa. Comms are key to any game. A LRM player assist players that focus on one mech at a time. LRM players will support teammates from getting flanked. A good LRM player is not there for the glory but there to play as an over watch mech. Help your LRM players and they will be your best friend.
Lurm boats over 60ts are obnoxious as they don’t share armour which hurts the battle line due to not sharing armour as you mentioned. Lurm assaults (especially those chassis that arnt actively good at it) frustrate friendly teams as much as the enemy. Lurming encourages selfish cowardly play which is obnoxious in a team play game
I get lrm locks on mechs with ecm, just as easy as those that don't, which means it doesn't work as it should, unless you add the ecm nodes, then it takes a bit longer. The hardest to lock on are those that do take radar deprivation of 60% to 100%.
Radar dep doesn't affect the initial lock on time, it just affects target decay after it has gone out of LOS. ECM on the other hand affects lock on time. As I said if they don't take both ECM nodes it's essentially like not taking ECM at all.
Even without skills ecm does increase the lockon time, the skill nodes only improve the percentage reduction to the sensor range of those trying to lock onto them (and the stealth cooldown). (Though no matter how skilled an ecm mech is, things like tag, narc and probe cut through it disabling it)
I have matches with players that still hate lrm users and hate them so much that they will shoot the lrm users even on their team. I see you forget to mention that.
The problem with the LRM buffs in the last months is the cumulative effect in team play. On several maps it almost impossible to counter. Your video does not mention this but here is an example: www.twitch.tv/videos/285760214?collection=BfiMLkQyQhWCGA
Now i get it, why "SC" at the end... p.s. love this moment th-cam.com/video/JvhiAiT1l2E/w-d-xo.html when you totally ignoring enemy piranha(which did all kills for reds in that match) killing hunchie and switching to worthless "half" cougar already being focused by multiple mechs. This is great illustration of casual windowlicker lurmtard at his finest: dont share armour, dont aim components, dont prioritize threats - no skill required, just find fattest/slowest/exposed, put that circle to the red square and push the button - yay! do top damage/matchscore. FFS this game degrading soooo damn fast..
Yes because LRMs hardly does anything to Piranhas. The PIR presents two challenges, first obviously is its size. The second is how fast they move messes up missile tracking. If a mech stays still, say X% of missiles hit them, but due to movement some amount less than X hits if they move. So a wise LRMer should prioritize slower mechs for multiple reasons. Getting rid of the Cougar and HBK also forces everyone to focus on the last mech. From every perspective, those target selection decisions are correct. But if you think I posted this video to show how "awesome" LRMs are you're completely missing the point.
Neither the size nor speed of the piranha is a serious problem for anyone who is capable of aim. But speaking of lurmtards or their bros "skillboats", sure, they can not track these targets, because 90% of MWO community are incredible low skilled, and this is why playing noskill builds/playstyles or just potating around with random shitbuilds. I dont really care of purpose whole video, but i thank you for showing this footage as many other youtubers and streamers(competetive or just solofarmers), showing this beautful new world of MWO.
I rarely play LRMs simply because I don't like the map dependency. Solaris City increased that dependency factor by an order of magnitude. But even before that, taking an LRM boat and watching the battle on Crimson take place in the tunnel or under the parking deck was frustrating (never mind the occasional basement derp fight on HPG). That said, I'll disagree with you on AMS. Even taking a 1 ton investment (half ton of ammo) can easily net out 50-100 missiles destroyed in a battle. That's 50-100 pts of dmg that didn't hit you or your teammates (yes, some would have missed....). 3 mechs carrying an AMS could mean denying the enemy a kill which could be enough to swing the battle. And then there's the fact that ATM's get eaten alive by AMS....
The issue is that if you take AMS, you'll always have to put at least 1.5t of investment (or 1t for LAMS which I don't like) into it no matter what map you get, even the LRM unfriendly ones. That tonnage or slot count could have went to something else like a bigger engine or another heatsink, which is helpful on any map. Then you look at what a single AMS does and it's pretty insignificant. A single AMS doesn't bother me at all if I'm doing LRM60-80. If I see multiple AMS protecting a mech I'm switching to some other target, which means that AMS really only works if everyone/most enemies takes it. But to expect most of your team to take AMS is unrealistic. This is why you by yourself taking the initiative in the solo queue and bringing a single AMS is kind of a waste. An ECM on the other hand is never a waste. It protects you on any map and helps to break lock against LRMs.
Sure, but far more mechs have AMS slots than do ECM (especially if you're playing IS simply because there is no IS equivalent to the HBR in the heavy class). And given the prevalence of LRMs lately in SoloQ, I'm seeing a lot more people carrying AMS, so I think it does make a difference. I can sacrifice a heatsink, a couple kph, etc. for AMS in most of my solo builds anyways. They have to be more broad based than a group or faction war build anyways so they don't tend to be riding the bleeding edge of heat or slots.
I know but what I'm saying is if you're really worried about LRMs, ECM is actually the better defense. If you take a single AMS, I'm guessing LRMs don't really bother you that much. Maybe psychologically it gives you more comfort knowing you have an AMS but you know that without massed AMS it's pretty worthless and you can't guarantee that in solo. So the times you get LRM unfriendly maps you've pretty much wasted tonnage. On LRM friendly maps, your AMS must still be combined with your team's AMS AND you or your teammates must be targeted by LRMs for them to come into any effect. You can see the overall times when single AMS has some significant effect is actually quite low.
I guess we'll just have to disagree on this one. I'll just leave you with this - I rarely see fewer than 50 missiles shot down even with a single AMS regardless of map. So its never truly wasted. But you can certainly argue that its efficiency isn't high enough for your preferences on many maps. Cheers.
I understand that line of thinking but that's up to 50 pts of damage spread across multiple components of multiple mechs. And as you said some of these missiles wouldn't have reached anyone in the first place. That's the equivalent of an ant bite in human terms :) I know I won't change your mind but I'm just putting it out there.
# of missiles destroyed by AMS does not equate to the same amount of damage prevented to your team. Your AMS shoots down missiles that have lost their locks, would have hit terrain, would have hit some useless component, or would have missed the target due to spread. I feel many people overestimate AMS effectiveness based on number of missiles destroyed
ECM delays a lock, which combined with cover hugging and high alpha/high burst damage playstyle, can prevent a lock from occurring. If you're sitting out in the open you'll eventually get locked on if you're being TAG'd. If you're not seeing a benefit from ECM, look at where you're positioned and what you're doing after taking a shot. Do not react to "incoming missile" but be proactive in getting back to cover before they get that lock.
What do suppressing comply? It is not knocking down or slowing down or in any means stopping the target. Military focus on stopping-power as suppressing and machine-guns as psychological weapons who make lots of sound and makes the opponent aware in what danger they're opposed. In mechwarrior it is to tell the other side that there's a mech there. But it doesn't help much when one side is not defending. LRM was common on faster mechs who used them as secondary last resorts. Like Mike Tyson said; those martial arts have too many tools to pick that I have already made the decision to take them down.
Most LRM players don't know how to use them. They're a support weapon to be used best at mid range just behind a push. The point is to spam the shit out of the other team's heavy hitters so they're more concerned about running from the barrage. Always equip lots of ER Medium lasers to take out components in places where your missiles stripped the armor off. I normally go with a Maddog Prime because it has a velocity and rate of fire bonus. Out of 900 damage in a match, at least 400 is from my lasers. My damage isn't what matters, it's the extra damage the brawlers got to do because my close support missile spam reduced the damage they took. I like to fire at around 400 meters or less as part of the rear of a push. Anything over that is a waste of missiles normally. I use a Tempest with LRM 15s and 5 medium lasers to great effect with the same tactic.
^THIS^
My standard heavy loadout out is 2 x LRM15's with Artemis and 4 medium lasers (ERML for clan mechs). Fill the rest of the space with heatsinks and you can fire everything almost indefinitely. Likewise, staying with your team also helps reduce the risk of being taken out by a Piranha or two.
As with all team games. Staying together, working as a team and communicating are way more powerful than any build or playstyle.
I disagree on the AMS: Sacrificing 1.5 tons for any single AMS setup helps greatly if you stick together, often massing 4+ AMS onto incoming fire. Even without 100% interception rate the damage is still greatly reduced and most of the time, 3 seconds delay from ECM will not prevent you getting hit by a salvo, even if you immediately seek cover (because I'm pretty sure the missile warning only goes off when the missile is already in the air). Additionally, AMS will also engage any other type of missile.
The fact that most Mechs do have an AMS hardpoint suggests to me that this is exactly the way to go and ECM is just the cherry on top. Maybe I haven't played enough but it always seemed that my team's chance to win increased proportionally with the amount of grouped AMS domes, the only exception being when there's no missiles at all on the enemy team (which tbh, rarely happens).
Yes if your team happens to mass AMS then it could be effective. You just don't see that a lot in solo queue. One thing you learn in solo is not to rely on what your teammates are carrying or doing, and so learning to position well is a better investment than taking whatever equipment.
ECM is meant to delay the initial lock. You're not supposed to stand out in the open even with ECM. You still should be hugging cover, maintaining minimal exposure. This is something a lot of people misunderstand about it. With cover nearby and ECM, you should be able to do your alpha or whatever and get back before missiles reach you, as long as you're getting back to cover immediately after you fire.
lol.. lately ive seen 2 or 3 triple ams mechs in same fight on same team.. usually nova's... and yes they do seem to always be near each other.. and its not just one fight.. its match after match after match... one would think they are trying to stop LRM boats from becoming a thing again... ill still use my quad 15 with artimas though...
Mike Whitaker its a trend I noticed too... but its dying out.
Those mechs are hate builds. If the enemy composition doesn't include LRMs... those triple AMS builds are like oversized paper weight.
I agree that AMS needs a buff. I say that as an LRM user. Those mechs with just one AMS slot are sad.
Ams shouldn't weight more than a ton and should only take 1 slot. Basically... include some damn ammo with the module. Dammit, these ammo shouldn't explode or take a slot... they are intended to take down missiles! Not tanks or freakin' mechs! It a counter-measure ... not a fully fledged weapon system.
make the energy variant take 2 slot (but same weight) cuz unlimited shots (make them more heat efficient tho).
Leave their stats for damage as is.
Then it be worth taking.
first i should point out that either AMS was able to be used like a machine gun against mechs and vehicles..albeit only on table top and lore... as you said they are speciallized for countering missiles... that being said.. even tabletop had the AMS and ammo seperate on the mech sheets.. and laser AMS doesnt need to take 2 slots either as its counter to not needing ammo is the heat gain.. naturally due to PGI's messed up heat system this makes laser AMS virtually worthless.. though i still see people using it.. at which point i make an effort to target them to force an overheat from their mech.. even if i'm using LRMS....
i will agree that one AMS is slightly underpowered... but when a mech has 2 or more it almost becomes overpowered.. the 3 and 4 AMS mechs definitly so.. but that is also why a mech should have 2 weapon types...my Stalker for example has 4 LRM 15's with artimas, 4 er med lasers, and an AMS.... also if your worried about AMS ammo exploding then you need to place it in a component that wont matter if its hit.. i usually place my AMS ammo in the head because odds are i'm dead already if they dmg that location enough to crit ammo...
Right, is this where you said you addressed the point about AMS? You really didn't, though. You copped out about how not enough people run AMS in solo queue for it to be a viable counter to LRMs. But my point was that you should have spent even thirty seconds in the video explaining that if all twelve mechs in a company each run one AMS, that is a much more effective counter than just one or two, instead of just writing it off as not viable.
People seem to hate it when I use Baradul as an example, so I'm going to go right ahead and do just that. Whether you think he's a good player or not, the fact is that people watch his videos and that affects their choices in MWO. On any given day, I can count on seeing one mech running whatever loadout he showcased that day. So whether he's giving good info or bad, it's getting out there. In the same way, you are affecting the choices that players make after watching your videos. So if AMS would be good if everyone ran one and covered each other, then say exactly that instead of talking about why you don't run one.
I disagree with AMS being useless. If every player would take it and the team stay together, that would be very strong counter to LRMs. Because most players think the same as you or for whatever reason they do not take AMS you are only doing a favour to LRM players.
Everyone taking ECM would be even more effective I'd argue, but you can't make people do this.
sadly we arnt playing tabletop though.. where we could easily configure a mech to add ECM and MASC.. that makes a scary combo on some assault mechs who can still maintain a lot of firepower and armor as well.. specially when you also have a melee weapon and triple strength myomers... thats one reason PGI has yet to add mechs like the Axeman and Hatchetman... then again adding MASC to an Atlas would be scary enough too.... then again.. tabletop was more a strategy game as apposed to an FPS style play... but was still fun to see results when you rolled double box cars "headshot..crit...".... easy salvage when that happened...
Black Lanner can do ECM+MASC
i would still prefere a 100 ton with ECM+MASC... but then were still missing many good mechs like the Grand Titan and the Sirraco....
if two mechs hace laser ams
Dat Urbie jumping through a Wolfhound @13:00 ... AWESOME :D
I LRM in Mediums, Treb, Stormcrow, Artic Wolf and have a blast. The mobility and suppression is fun.
Thing that is funny is that running an AMS heavy mech like a PIR-A or NVA-S with quad or triple AMS respectively can also pad your match score and I think is a good way of helping lesser players protecting them from LRMs but if someone says "I have quad AMS" that is your queue to get aggressive and know that you have portable cover so stuck it up and act like a warrior instead of a wimp.
About AMS, it isn't terribly effective but you shouldn't expect 2 tons of investment to stop 40 tons of investment. Where it is great though is when 4+ people on your team invest a ton or two, you can just ignore most missile fire.
I understand, but the thing is why even bother with it at all if it does so little? I think the more effective course of action is just to position better. Especially with 1 AMS, you'd die with or without it if you're way out of position.
Lmfao that's not gonna save you from me. I'll burn out your ams ammo and then you're fucked.
LRMs "feel" bad to be killed by. Someone you have no line of sight to is dishing a ton of damage into your face.
However they don't realize they are simply out of position. I could be in a poptart mech and deal the same damage, LRMs are just super noticeable due to the INCOMING pop up and the long duration of incoming fire.
I personally very rarely die from LRMs. I had no problems with these buffs.
LRMs will always have huge damage numbers because of the spreadfire nature of the weapon. When I launch 90 LRMs at a target the damage is spread out to almost the entire enemy mech. You basically have to super saturate an enemy with basic lrm packages to overwhelm their CT or get a ST. This is why a lrmboat runs 1k damage easily. You don't really ever destroy anything... LRMs are a weapon system designed to soften up a target as distances close, just like in mechwarrior. It's just the match based system which encourages single weapon boating. Stock load outs maintain this level of Canon, as they carry weapons for a variety of ranges. However in a purely PVP scenario min max takes effect and we boat.
When you take a "evenly spreads damage over enemy mech" weapon, and take six of them, you will spread a lot of damage to most enemy mechs (indirect fire) and get huge damage numbers and lots of assists.
the thing to remember is that LRM's and other missile systems are there for a reason... look at how the US Air Force tends to fight.. primarily with missiles... even the US Navy has gone this route.. the idea is to deal damage to the enemy without endangering yourself... doesnt lessen the need for close range fighting like that provided by tanks and other ground troops... lets face it.. i know you love having a LRM boat there to soften up the enemy before your in range to get the kill.. makes it easier to get crits too if the armor has been stripped off by LRMs... and if a LRM boat gets a kill then thats one less enemy to harass and out manuver you and the rest of the close range brawlers...
and as for LRM boats sharing armor.. they are capable of doing so.. specially if they hae secondary weapons like my Stalker does.. main weapon is 4 LRM 15's w/artimas....secondary is 4 er med lasers... and a single AMS to counter some of the enemys missiles... where i am in the fight depends on terrain and where everyone is at various points in the fight... if i need to charge i charge.. full bore.. if i need to hang back i hang back.. and i share armor when i can.. if i dont get sniped by fast moving lights looking for an easy kill.. after all the Stalker isnt the fastest mech out there...
I have to say that AMS is a good passive missile damage reduction but should not be viewed as a way to make yourself immune to them. If you have a team that has several mechs with 1 ams and 1 ton each the lrm panic is reduced. I find that AMS is more helpful for slower mechs that are slower between cover points.
My dual LBX10 CRB-FL and dual RAC2 + 4 LMG BJ-A got waaay better with recent buffs to ammo, lbx10 cooldown, and RAC2 improvements!
Sharing armor is important, sure, especially if you're in an assault mech. But if you're running LRMs only on an assault mech, you're doing it wrong. Rather than saying that "LRM players prioritize high damage at the expense of sharing armor" you should be saying "BAD LRM players ..." because that's exactly what you're displaying with your LRM boat Mickey Mouse Mad Cat shenanigans in the background. If you're LRMing in an assault mech, it should always be paired with backup weapons capable of dealing with enemies within 200 meters. You're better off with LRM30, lasers, and ballistics than full LRM80 and nothing else.
And now I've listened to the end and here you are talking about how AMS is not a good counter ... Nearly every single mech in the game has an AMS hardpoint. If everybody invests the ton and a half for a single AMS, that's 12 counters that allow you to push the idiot running nothing but LRMs. And it mitigates all incoming missiles, not just the LRMs. ATMs, SRMs, MRMs. So instead of talking about how you don't carry AMS because it's not a perfect hard counter, you could have used your platform to convince everyone to think about saving a ton and a half to make the counter more effective. When I use LRMs, I don't give a shit about one enemy with three AMS. I do give a shit about twelve enemies all with one AMS. Try firing at a murderball with that level of coverage and then tell me how ineffective AMS is.
You're both wrong here, in my opinion. You can run all LRMs and still run up front with your team and share armor. I'm not particularly phased by a 90 meter start to the damage drop off when running LRMs, it's not as bad as the 130M of ATMs, granted their damage is on a whole different level.
Effective play is very easy in LRM boats, assaults included. Proper positioning and coordination with your team lets you play to the strengths of an LRM 80, while still showing yourself and providing armor, and when the game progresses to the close range brawl, you can still lead the charge with the rest of your team.
All assuming you're in a clan assault, LRM boating on IS assaults is retarded.
My LRM boat (Which I don't use because I prefer brawlers, and ATMs) was a MC-II 4 with LRM 80 and 3 medium lasers + tag. It's very good at putting damage out at long range, since I have eyeballs and can hold my own locks when the enemy starts moving, even moreso if we have a spotter/NARCer, and when the enemy closes in, I have the medium lasers to put out 30 damage which isn't bad.
That reminds me, do ATMs still deal a fraction of damage within the minimum range like Clan LRMs do, or do they behave more like IS LRMs aside from the damage step-down at mid and long range?
No, they've never done that. Below 130m (realistically a bit higher) they do no damage. At 130 - 280, they do 3, 281 - 480~ 2, above that, 1. The range brackets aren't accurate but it's close.
In my MC-II 4, I can run ATM 48, which has the potential to do 144 damage, mostly in the CT and side torsos, every 5-6 seconds.
@@Reviire you misunderstood, just like others, about my comment on LRM users staying in the back. It's one playstyle that allows the player to avoid damage and maximize his chance of surviving till the end. The play style you're talking about is another altogether, and frankly more useful. You can read my replies to other people where I've said the same thing.
You seem to think that if I said to take AMS everyone will do so. That's not reality. If I take an AMS when I really didn't need to, and nobody else does, then I'm just hurting myself overall. If I'm playing in solo or in small groups, I'm not going to count on mass AMS protection, so there's no guarantee that my investment will be effective. What about if I get an LRM unfriendly map? Again, that's wasted tonnage. It's better that I tell people to position well, because that's effective no matter what your team does or what map you're on.
Since long ago, I started picking mechs with AMS slots for my builds when I was able to. I wish more mechs could carry AMS, and I would love for them to get a small buff now that LRMs are buffed/so popular. Ive often felt like not being rewarded enough for being one of the few who carries AMS so often.
Long as damage ties into match score LRM's are always gonna be a go to weapon to inflate values. I wish they would do something to minimum ranges thus get those assaults assaulting a bit more. Done right assault with tag and artemis is a monster on front line. Play my Awesome with 4 LRM15A's and the well know Supa Cheese (what I call my Super Nova A with 4 LRM 20's) like this.
Yes.
There are several reason why you can justify having LRMs on an assault mech. Regardless of the reasons, they're still best in the front lines, pushing the enemy than hiding at the back asking to be picked off by a Piranha or two.
That said, I tend to mix LRMs and lasers on my mechs. This way I only have one ammo type to worry about, and can still do damage at close range.
A great way to deal with minimum ranges would be for PGI to implement hot loading like in the advanced tabletop rules. It removes your LRM minimum range, but makes each fire cycle a risk with a chance of the missiles detonating in the launcher.
I played a game the other day where almost everyone in the team had AMS and no matter how many LRMs were fired at us, they would all get shot down. It was hilarious.
Excellent summary as always BHSC. I wish more people understood those huge LRM dmg numbers really dont mean as much as they think they do. Veteran MWO players will tell you divide your LRM dmg by 2, that's your effective dmg.
Comments by @Chris_C_Lowrey (the balance boss) on twitter in response to this vid :
"Pretty much aligns with what we have seeing around the forums now that we have had some time with them in their current state. And we share some of the points brought up. While I can't explain everything in great detail in the upcoming podcast given that work is still on-going and we don't want to necessarily set in stone things that are still not 100% done yet internally. But incoming changes are defiantly aligned with a similar mindset to their current state as expressed here and in a number of other places."
Personally I am in agreement with your points, namely:
(1) Teams become too passive after July 17 Patch. My biggest peeve!
(2) LRM heat is too little
(3) AMS is too weak. BUT I'm AGAINST buffing it because it leads to escalation & leaves the LRM-issue lingering
(4) Main issue is not the LRMs but the "LRM issue" arose as it is the straw that broke the camel's back and is (very much) exacerbated by other issues
(5) side note : Screen blinding & shake by LRMs and RACs is WAY too much considering how constant it can be versus other weapon types (eg. lasers, uACs). This bugs me a lot too!
Tired and at work so just writing stuff in point-form and copy-pasta.
Oh, excellent vid btw. One of your best analysis pieces thus far (which are all pretty good too!). ;) o7
- BrioS
Thanks Brios, and thanks for tweeting it directly to Chris
My gripe with lurms is you have 2 or 3 100 ton mechs hiding in the back screaming keep locks keep lock and the rest of us getting splatted. And now I am forced into the role of kitfox 3xAMS crapload of ammo and little to no kills or reward for taking out 1700+ missiles. You know my play Style I dont like hiding behind a rock I love to push for an opening but the lurms keep eating even with ECM and running to cover I am very sad :).
Very good analysis and tips.
I feel like ams used to be more effective, so I can't rely on it like I did before. You summed it up well. It's not the end of the world, we just have to be more conceous about it.
I play lrm boat, tbh, LRM is not as good as people think they are. And this is why I get so fustrated when my team don't push into the other team's LRM boats and rather do long range pokes while the LRM rain down on them, killing them slowly with LRM chipping.
A good way to balance LRMs IMO is keep them as is today, but also increase the risk of internal ammo explosions versus other missile systems.
I just roll with AMS, even if just one. Doesn't block everything, but it softens the blow on myself and team alike, right?
AMS do come with a cost so they're not free. Slots and weight that can be used for DHS or bigger engine. LAMS contributes heat. If you have trouble positioning it can help, but overall it doesn't do that much and just better to learn good positioning.
Yeah, a single ton here or there isn't the biggest loss in the world and it softens the blow on yourself and your team. I have been seeing more people taking a single ams and their coverage against missiles does become a pretty neat bonus for sticking together.
1 AMS can takout only 3-5 rockets ... so that means 3-5 dmg ... it wont do much to a lurmboat volley so its better u take a bigger engine for the tonnage
RePlayBoy101 AMS in its current state is dead weight. Its like ECM without the skill nodes : Utterly irrelevant.
Those are counter-measures... they need to work in order to be worth dedicating tonnage to. The fact is: even the skill tree makes them only-half decent (that basically means bad btw).
Here's my question: why take a beagle probe to counter ECM? All you got to do now is get them in your *Weapon of choice* effective range... then they magically show up on sensor...
Why take AMS? They don't kill missiles effectively unless the entire *Team* boats them.
All counter measures in the game have been nerfed to the ground because kids these days only look at damage... hell... the game only rewards you decent amount of c-bills for that too!
When your team loses you can't blame the non-existant support class now, can you?
We are playing *League of Legend* , but without the ability to blame support for our own short-comings... I need a drink...
i still take an AMS on my LRM Stalker though.. cost to weight on taking a higher engine, even a light eng.. is just not worth it for me.. AMS is cheaper and lighter in this case.. and slots arnt the issue for me its pure weight.. most of which is dedicated to adding armor too.. that single AMS allows me to cross open areas with less worry from enemy missiles.. and a bigger engine doesnt add enough speed either to make a difference.. maybe it would in a med or heavy mech.. but not for assault mechs...
As far as the championship, I kinda wish they'd left ammo counts alone. The fact that they're running all pre 3039 stock IS 'mechs means that the amount of armor on the field isn't as much as everyone's used to, so the extra ammunition isn't as necessary as they think. I feel like it was more of a reaction to everyone's gut instinct of "but I NEED 20 tons of ammunition to be effective! How am I going to fight with only 1 ton to draw from?!"
very good video, well structured
Don't encourage AMS? I propose an exercise.
team 1: invests 15 tons on AMS+ammo
team 2: invests 1 assault lrm boat (say 90 tons) + teammates' lurms/atms/ssrms (say other 50 tons on pure equipment).
Disclaimer: with that amount of AMS team 1 is able to counter most (not all, but almost all) indirect fire damage + AMS doesn't require heat, time and positioning.
Then which team is losing more raw tonnage? I'm not even considering the heat, time and positioning team 2 invest to using the above-mentioned weaponry. Only raw tonnage.
For me, it's pretty straightforward. AMS is a must at solo queue.
Good video as always mate!
Thanks. How well these single AMSs counter say an LRM80 depends on how close they are to each other. Like on that Polar match where the enemy's split up like crazy it wouldn't have helped. But as I wrote earlier in a different comment, expecting all 12 teammates to take AMS is not realistic because many players will feel they can avoid LRMs on their own and not take it.
hey bud was nice seeing you in FP last night.... Honestly I feel like Lrms are supposed to be a complementary weapon used with others, but when boated it gets a tad obnoxious...
Yeah FP event :)
Anyways, I believe LRMs should be boated in most cases. This is because the resources you put into LRMs make other weapon systems you're carrying work less well. These resources aren't just the obvious ones like needing to take TAG and BAP, but also less obvious ones like skill nodes you need to invest in target decay that you can't use for other skill trees. When you play a laser+LRM hybrid playstyle, your lasers are "less effective" because with lasers alone, you could have started taking defensive measures like torso twisting as soon as the laser burn is finished. But with LRMs now you have to wait til they hit before turning. Your LRMs are also worse off because you've invested tonnage in lasers where they could have been used for ammo and perhaps bigger launchers. You can sort of see that in any scenario, by combining two weapon systems that don't really synergize with each other makes both of them worse off.
I think the main problem newer players have with LRMs is the fact that the game doesn't explain anything to them. How cover works, Radar Deprivation, ECM, AMS etc.
The only way I learned was by watching videos from guys like yourself and Baradul. Otherwise I would have no idea how many of the basic concepts of this game work.
Factor that in and someone new gets in a bad position... they end up re-enacting the ending of 300. And that is not a fun gameplay experience.
That's very true. Well you know PGI designed the in-game Academy and it probably challenges new players at PGI's level, if you know what I mean. They could have done a lot more gameplay fundamentals in there but of course we can't expect that to happen ;)
A proper advanced tutorial would probably help... But that is unlikely to happen at the current player base trends I think.
Just a page on the site which explains what things like Active Probe, ECM, TAG do, would already help. Together with which skill nodes have an impact (such as what's needed for ECM as was stated in the video).
Now you have to check video's, and check how old they are, and hope it gives the correct information for the current game (not much use if a video from before the skilltree for example says what ECM does).
Edit: just checked. First google link when looking for MWO ECM, links to the MWO gamepedia page, which was last updated 2016. The effects listed are still the old values. Some people might think they have what they need according to that, and think the skilltree gives a bonus, instead of the skilltree putting you at those values now.
There's just a complete lack of official information out there, regarding the game and mechanics.
A very good point. Looking for information about the game is an annoying situation at the moment. So much of it is out of date.
Not only does the game not explain things, there's no good resource to figure it out. You have to piece it together by play testing, looking at patch notes, looking at old forum posts, looking at outdated wiki's, looking at outdated dev posts...
Hi, BlackhawkSC. Thank you for being a voice of reason in this heated and sometimes even hysterical debate.
An interesting fact is that the velocity buff of the lrms came with the Solaris patch in the spring. At that point in time nobody cared about it. But with that insignificant heat buff that came in June or July, all of a sudden hell broke loose.
Some of the streamers i have watched lately have either become heavy AMS advocates or heavy lrm users. Some of the very skilled players have switched their play towards lrms with the intention "to make the community cry" so that PGI reverts the changes. Imho this behaviour is what does more damage to the community and the game than the changes that PGI made.
You can see all the experienced players bitching and all the less experienced players cry about the so called new "LRM-Meta" which doesn't nearly have the impact on the game as everyone is pretending.
And you have explained this in your video very plausible and your tips on how to avoid dying to lrms are just on point. As usual :)
Thank you!
Thank you for your comment. Pretty much the same thing I noticed. There's a lot of hypocrisy coming out of the "skilled players" when they're complaining about LRMs but not actually dying to them. Just from my own experience I still see teams with too many LRM boats lose more often than not.
It's fun to use my 4 ams piranha and watch the lrms boats get frustrated.
I would say that the effectiveness of any weapon system depends a lot on how you use it. The difference between a good and bad player can be night and day, be it a laser vomit hellbringer or a lrm mech. It is indeed most associated with bad players and how potent they are with it does go some way to help define the skill floor of the game. If lrms become too effective or prevalent it will strongly effect how your teams of 12 randos will play the game. For the most part though things like a lot of ecm and ams can be a very hard counter to a strong lrm meta and the buffs that pgi have been giving the weapon system are more along the line of quality of life improvements rather than game changers, the weaknesses of the weapon remain very much intact.
I think you didn't touch much on lrms being used in large groups. Of particular note is probably full lrm teams. Getting narced and focused down by most of the enemy team at long range can be quite potent and frustrating. It's an easy way to turn an average group into one that can easily stomp most other groups. I would say that the strengths of lrm can be amplified best when used in coordinated groups, with lrms being a big force amplifier for your worst pilots (your worst pilots just need to stick with the blob and shoot at the same target as everyone else). Though again, if the gimmick becomes too prevalent teams can ofc easily play into the weapons weaknesses with mass ecm, ams and aggression. One funny thing I should note during lrm meta in group que is how hard it can be to make people take proper counters. It is frustrating to die to lrms, it's doubly frustrating trying to peel people away from their favourite mechs so that they stop dying to mass lrm spam (a fair number of groups it can be like corralling sheep when choosing mechs sometimes).
Really good points. I'll just add that LRMs has a relatively high skill floor but also a low skill ceiling. And then also any weapon system can be good if a team coodinates on using it, like a Piranha swarm or 4-5 dakka/laser mechs going at the same speed and focusing on the same enemy.
Hmm.. let me give my thoughts on its skill floor and ceiling.
Sitting at the back might be a stereotypical move for a lrm player but it leaves them vulnerable and they rely on others to hold locks for them to get their damage in. They 'can' do well but it's not really due to their skills*.
An lrm mech is on average a lot more reliable when the pilot sticks with the team. That way they provide fire support and have backup from anyone trying to get to close (shorter travel time also much better).
To me at least the skill floor seems fairly low, just stick with the team and you already are a lot more useful and skilled than the potatoes sitting miles behind roleplaying as an artillery piece.
I am curious as to why you think they have a high skill floor (assuming it wasn't just a typo).
As for their skill ceiling I would say that there's a surprising amount of depth to using lrm, as with any weapon, good positioning can really help their effectiveness. Knowing things like when to push, where to push and how to push have a lot of nuance to them when using any load-out.
Lrm is quite flexible, its high firing arc, long range and psychological effect on target are all unique tools that can be highly effective when used right. The weapon has some glaring weaknesses but it also has unique strengths, compared to just pointing and shooting with direct weapons it actually takes some ingenuity and skill to mitigate the weaknesses and magnify its strengths.
On the whole I would say they have a mid level skill ceiling. There can be some finesse to dumb firing lrms but for the most part mastery of them comes in positioning rather than mechanics.
Personally I run my lrm boats as swiss army knives. I spot my own targets with the narc, using indirect lrms to help pin down the foe. if they try to close the distance I also have mpls and streaks waiting for them, if they get within lrm range I also have flamers to shut down their offence as the mpls and streaks continue to do their job. The weird loadout confuses opponents, they don't know how to deal with it, I can brawl, I can lrm, I can mid range and whilst my playstyle is obviously a fringe case ;), handling 5 different weapon types and doing consistently well with this Frankenstein''s monster does require some measure of skill (it's a mid skill ceiling mech, not everyone can pick it up but there's only so much you can do with it) :p
*On retrospect my meaning of "skill floor" is different between comments. Originally I was referring to the rock bottom of the player pool and how they, as a whole, tend to play and define the game. Wheras here I am more referring to the individual player's skill and systems mastery. I hope me these two different uses of the term doesn't lead to too much confusion.
From what I understand, you can also counter LRMboats by jamming them with ECM. If they don't have BAP or an ECM of their own with which to counter, they can't pull locks. I think.
That's correct, but most wise-enough LRM boaters carry BAP/CAP.
Don't forget the ecm flags on escort that provide a huge version of this bubble, denying missile locks to any lock-on-missile-boat foolish enough to move close enough. The jammer on incursion also acts like a huge bubble coming from the base.
The best use you can get out of this mechanic from your mechs' ecm is dog-piling a streak mech with ecm mechs, he won't be able to shoot back as his probe will only cancel one of the ecm bubbles.
Important side-note: CAP doesn't prevent that like the BAP does.
Sure it does. Bring a MLX which has a hardlocked CAP near an enemy ECM and his ECM gets countered.
AMS isn't useless. Aside from being useful for large, slow mechs that have a lot of trouble positioning themselves, where multiple mechs will provide near perfect LRM cover, they also cover all other kinds of missiles. If you have a team with at least 1 AMS on every mech, possibly more if you have certain mechs (Kitfox, Nova), you can potentially stop a very high amount of damage.
To my knowledge, an unquirked AMS will take down around 2-3 MRM missiles, far more on mechs that are bonused (Kitfox) and quirked (4 points, easy to get) for it. If you have 12 on a team, your team can take down a significant portion of MRM volleys, as well as pretty much neutering SRM and ATMs, which are very strong weapons. Even just for ATMs, your AMS is going to be doing a lot of work. 12 missiles doing 36 damage, easy to shoot down. That's hugely useful for your team, you don't want to eat ATM 48 into the face, even annihilators can't eat that damage very well.
IS mechs do have some trouble fitting it, but all clan mechs have absolutely no issues fitting AMS. 1 ton and 1 slot for LAMS, 1 slot and 0.5 tons for AMS, plus ammo. Aside from a few specific builds, there's absolutely no reason to not run a LAMS on a clan mech above 65 tons or so. You can disable it if you can't afford the eat, but while active it's practically providing extra armor to your team. Every missile you shoot down is 1-3 damage your team isn't taking, if you've destroyed 1000 missiles, you've pretty much given your team 1000 points of extra armor. Lets not forget that each AMS provides more effective damage reduction than the last. For an LRM 40 clan volley, one AMS will take down 10~ missiles, a 25% reduction in damage. A second, 20, 50% reduction in damage, and 33% of the 30 missiles. 30 missiles for a third, for a total of 75%, a 50% reduction of the 20 missile volley, a huge increase over the last. The fourth will render you totally immune.
As for LRMs themselves, I believe they're good. But only in very specific scenarios. Polar Highlands, it's nearly literally impossible to not hit LRMs because of a complete lack of cover. Everywhere else, a coordinated team with spotters (NARC especially). They have the benefit of long range, and being able to put out a very high amount of damage at that range.Proper positioning from you and your team is required, since if you give the enemy a chance to push up to you through lots of cover, you're removing all the advantages of your weapon system. Using them effectively requires proper positioning from your whole team, you use your own positioning to make sure the enemy is out of position, and if the enemy ever tries to push, they are putting themselves into a situation where they not only need to push through LRM fire, they also need to go through the rest of your team.
But simply saying "Push them" is wrong, because that's assuming you're a decent player, but the LRM player is braindead. Competent players are able to position themselves properly and coordinate properly with their team, if you play to their strengths they are very strong weapons. They do very large amounts of damage, and if you play into their strengths, they're going to do a lot of work, the same as ATMs. With the latter, they do absolutely disgusting amounts of damage, with the possibility to outright kill, or at least severely damage a lot of mechs in a single volley. But they require proper positioning and are more than just point and click.
An LRM boat that's an easy target is a bad player. I can easily take LRMs and do effectively with them. But I don't because I think ATMs are better in nearly every single way, aside from being worse at breaking through AMS.
So something to end on, the only issues I have with LRMs, is quickplay. You're not able to pick your mech after the map is decided, which is really bad. You can get mechs that are designed for close range brawling on Polar Highlands, or you can get LRMs on Solaris City, when realistically, you would never those to those maps. Faction play it's fine, because you can pick the weapon system to play into the map. But when you go up against 6 LRM boats on polar highlands, you've probably lost already, unless your team is heavy on AMS and ECM, and is aggressive enough to use the fact their LRMs aren't going to be firing (or hitting when fired) for a good long while.
I love that this video came out right after i bought my missile boat and have been destroying with it. LOL
Personally I quit playing LRMs after the skill tree reset because everything I had built up on my Stalker 5M for CW was thrown out the window and rendered useless.
AMS needs to get a major buff imo, or LAMS needs to get a heat reduction to make it viable... LAMS is effectively useless because of the heat gen that can overheat a ballistic assault with a single freaking module...
Nope, it cant, it would be way to good. Consider clan LRMS/ATMs - it is way harder to overpower AMS with those, since you have stream of missiles, not a tight group like in case of IS.
The trick with LAMS is you need to be smarter than the module. Press the ~ key to disable your AMS systems. This is useful when you need to take a moment to cool off, or if you want to flank around the enemy position without your AMS giving your own movement away. Or build your loadout around the extra heat you'll incur with the LAMS.
I went full tryhard mode with my Urbanmech K-9 and upgraded my engine to STD100. That means I'm fast enough to keep up with Charlie Lance usually, but I also have six external heat sinks. So I invested heavily into operations for full heat scale and cool run, and I loaded a LAMS and a Beagle so that I can help the assaults deal with missiles and stealth buggery. That left me with enough tonnage for a full set of jump jets, an AC2 for long-range harassment, and five ER small lasers for close-range component destruction. Stay under cover and out of your assault's feet, fire on their targets, and take off enemy components whenever they present themselves. On half of the maps, my LAMS can go indefinitely as long as I don't go crazy with jumping around and alpha striking. Usually I can find elevated positions close to my assault mechs so I can hit their targets without being in their line of fire.
You could probably come up with an effective supporting loadout that incorporates the LAMS for any mech, but only the K-9 has the siren and light bar that really brings the "protect and serve" up a can of whup-ass theme home.
Smarter would make sense if it only disabled your LAMS and not ALL AMS modules...
To be said I typically run an LAMS on my ballistic heavies.. assaults run too hot to use it effectively and maintain fire.
I usually just leave the LAMS off unless I have a bunch of LRMs incoming. At that point I'm not shooting, because I'm trying to find cover anyway... So I don't overheat. If I leave LAMS on the whole time while shooting then I overheat. ~ is your friend.
AMS is very effective against medium and heavy LRM 20 and 30 mechs. If the enemy team has an LRM assault you don't need to do anything about it because more often than not they wont share any armor and then you're effectively playing 12v11
Yes, so I never recommend people doing less than LRM40 partially for that reason if they really want to play LRMs and avoid medium and small-heavy LRM carriers.
Really? I feel like the best LRM mechs are 2x10 and 2x15 like the HBK 4J or the Archer. I find they do about 60-70% the damage of an assault LRM over the match for in some cases half the weight and they don't take an assault off the front line. Plus the ability to reposition is huge and they let you play much more aggressive finding your own locks because you are mobile enough to get back to safety when you start drawing too much unwanted attention.
The recommended number of lrms is somewhat different for the different tech bases, clan fires theirs in a stream, spreading out the volley making it weaker to ams whilst IS fires theirs in big clumps that all land at once.
Basically LRM boats take advantage of the limited time that enemy mechs are out of position. During that time they have to DPS down the target as quickly as possible. 2xLRM10s is just not enough DPS even with cooldown quirks. For IS, my preferred boat is the AWS-8R with 3xALRM15 or 4x non-Art LRM15
I think we just have different philosophies on this one. With a medium or even a heavy mech you don't have to wait for the opponent to get out of position you can find your own angles and targets with your mobility. If you think about IS LRMs the more missiles in the air, the more spread the damage unless you chain fire in which case you lose more missiles to AMS. In either case there is a diminishing return as you add missiles so that 60 - 80 missiles isn't doing 3-4 times the damage of 20, more like 1.5 -2 times more when you consider how much of that damage is useful.
And most importantly an assault mech is bringing some 40 tons of armor, if you're in the back with LRMs you're probably not sharing that armor and it's 40 tons wasted.
Now if you're up front firing at ~300m then the armor issue isn't that big a deal but most LRM assaults don't do that. Which is understandable because it's super risky as you don't have the mobility to change positions if the range gets below 190m.
As usual your comments, pretty much hit the nail on the head. Being able to make a chain firing L.R.M 80 virtually heat neutral though is poor game design though, as frankly has been pretty much all the choices of Mr Lowery, since he was brought in to 'improve' the game. A.M.S though I only partly agree with, if in the case it's just one mech carrying it, I agree, 1.5 tons on 75% of the mechs it would be an effective counter ( this never happens in Q.P :) )
I think the heatgen buff wasn't needed per se, but neither did it make much of a difference. Remember they also increased spread, and even if someone's in the camp of "all damage is good damage" the increased spread also means more missiles missing the target completely.
And all this could be fix by having a viable laser AMS on every mech, sadly they overheat a lot and just bring enemy sustain dps to the ground, making LRMs even viable if the entire enemy has AMS of this kind, the standard AMS is good but ammo did not get buff at the same level of LRMs, they nerf AMS some time ago and still don't aprove on matching ammo count to the lrm buff.
It's true. New Pilots use LRMs more than other experienced pilots. LRMs are simple and it's easy damage. I use them on some builds. Nothing wrong with LRMs. It does sting when you get wrecked by Hundreds of them at the start of a match. That's usually when the bsd feelings start to flow.
one thing that I have notced is that when people are LRMing on my side and i see them getting shot down, I (and I tell my teammates) to send all of their salvos in a alpha strike because to chain fire them is to have them all shot down. i have managed to land a LRM 80 salvo on oponets even though there are 5-7 ams sistems going. I do also run ECM on my fafnir, and I have notced it doent tend to work as well as i though it would, so this video has incuaged me to increased
also, I will tend to stay with my team more, rather then in the back, I prefer to be in the middle to back of my team, and not behind them
I run the 8 LRM5 Archer and usually will fire one LRM5 to test the waters and see what the AMS is like. It's an excellent support mech. The trick is to support your teammates. If someone is in a 1v1 I can immediately turn it into a 2v1.
You get missile locks faster on larger mechs, so the reduced lock on time isn't so useful on the fafnir (because it's a percentage increase). Though yeah if you haven't already, take both ecm nodes on all your ecm mechs as that reduces the range you can even be locked onto, which is on average a much stronger lrm counter to lrms for an 100 tonner.
tbh my only problem with lrms is that you're absolutely fucked if you take a single step out of cover and someone decides to get a lock on, even if you go back in, you're still going to get spammed for the next 15 seconds or so.
The effectiveness of LRM's stands or falls with the rest of the team. If someone scouts for targets, LRM's be be a great addition to the team. Especially if other players call priority targets. If the other players don't scout, LRM's are close to useless.
I disagree with people who say LRM builds on assaults are a waste because you don't share armor. This is a mistake. Firstly, not every assault mech is a brawler specialist with armor quirks and great hitboxes like an Atlas or a Marauder. Secondly, staying in the 300-400m range with LRMs is mandatory if you want to hit things at all, so more often than not, you're taking fire, especially if the enemy notices youre a fire support mech. Thrirdly, you have to fit in some direct fire weapons for that mid range fight so you can get your own locks and the only ones who can fit enough to hurt enemies while locking and managing heat, while carrying 80LRMs are assaults
This is great analysis; thank you.
I almost agree ams is half usless. It is good if you are in a known target mech like kodiak or anni. Otherwise it can be a slight waste of tonnage, but i have been running them more lately, anything helps agains lrms and works on streaks to that is so hand for stormcrows lol
To make it more like older games LRMs need a higher arc.
I run LRMs for a much different reason... Hardware shortcomings. I WANT to hop in an Atlas and be a brawler, something to be feared. I can't, however, because my comp cannot handle it. The movement and particles smoke my cpu, and I become a big target. (avg fps is 10-15, 20 on a good day, WHILE catapulting in the back.) I dedicate myself to a Catapult because I can rain hell from a distance and even destroy stuff if I get lucky. LRMs are fun to me because I get to help in some way, rather than being a big target. I do pack a couple MLs as backup, too.
I know that's one reason why some people run LRMs, and that's why I'm also glad LRMs are viable in solo now. Try turning particles, shadows and environment to low. Otherwise there's not much else to do besides getting better hardware.
BlackhawkSC Perhaps I should have added that everything's minimized, and set to a really resolution. Cool that you responded so fast, though! Loving your other videos, too!
lol i always fill up the sensor tree. why? because not only do i get radar dep, i have seismic and can locate weak spots and hold location data longer and faster than those that don't. And if you have ECM, it actually makes ECM ok. The firepower tree and the armour tree is marginal at best for most mechs, especially for burst damage, less cooldown? who needs it really, hell most attempts to nerf clan weapons by increasing cooldown have done next to nothing to change the effectiveness of those mechs
match score is a horrible metric for how well you do over all in this game...
particularly in any objective based game mode. LRMs are just one example of how it can be inflated but more often you will see players who arguable caused the win get almost nothing. weather it be the light committed to ensuring your team maintains caps in conquest to the assault that lead the initial push that kicked off your teams snowball.
Honestly all match score does is discourage team play and promote taking actions and builds that are more likely to get a higher score than to contribute to a win.
Best way to describe this update: You now have the privilege to spam fire LRM's for days or until your face turns blue. But give er take I have that feeling that PGI may add an artillery weapon that can be placed on a Mech and the person can sit on one side of the map and pin targets left and right just like in world of tanks, just saying. :-P
You don't have to put all the AMS on one mech. Just 2-3 different mechs with a single AMS each, moving together, will significantly reduce the damage from LRM's, and AMS only costs 1.5 tons which is insignificant on heavy and assault mechs. Obviously it's not as effective against 80 LRM Assault mechs, but that is almost literally the worst case scenario.
IMO, considering how situational LRM's are, and how an LRM assault mech can't effectively armor share, it's really a waste to have Assault mechs who are only carrying LRM's.
LRMs are still the slowest projectile, as ATMs can get the same velocity nodes. As they start with higher base velocity, ATMs will always end up faster given the same skill focus.
What I mean is comparing LRMs with skill nodes with unskilled ATMs. I know not a perfect comparison but some people will say they're already pretty close, so might as well put that comparison out there.
The only real disagreement I have is with the effectiveness of AMS. A triple ams mech can take a lot of bite away from a lrmer which I think is the main point.
I mentioned triple AMS does something, but the problem it still won't completely stop an LRM60-80. A smarter LRM boat would also switch targets to maximize his effectiveness, and if you intend to protect the new target you'll have to run all the way there. It's much faster for an LRM boat to switch targets than for you to get to a new location. If there's only 1 target I'm still getting at least half my missiles through 3xAMS.
I don’t feel lrms were meant to be the only weapon you have equipped on a Mech. I do have an Lrm 5 x6 catapult because it fun. I have a supernova with 3 lrm 10s with 2 UAC 10s and 3 MPL. Lrms are meant, IMO to chase lights or do dps on the fatties. Clan lrms are weaker I think now with the spread increase then The IS. I’m happy the lrms are back, I can use my x3 ams kitfox again more. They are part of the game and used as support in top tier solo play. They are good on some maps and horrible on others. Just luck of the draw and working as a team.
no aimbot for you, mr. lrm. nuff said.
LRMS are simply a crutch weapon. They don't require more then someone on your team having LOS or NARCing the target. It allows begginer players to continue to not learn how to position or build properly for quick or faction play. In the hands of skilled players especially working as a group with a dedicated light mech narcing you are going to slaughter PUGs.
Having AMS and utilizing it on multiple mechs cripples the other team if they are only landing 2 dmg out of a 20 dmg salvo. Problem is players always hear the solution of don't be in the open and take cover. Yes that works but it screws the momentum of a push because they have effectively pushed a mech out of the push.
LRMERS once you push into their min range become useless 9 time out of 10 because they only pack bare minimum in terms of backup weapons if any. Worst you usually have to worry about is an assault packing a couple medium lasers.
One thing I personally disagree with is that LRM players dont share armor. Me, and the other members of my unit who use LRMs, generally play second line, or front line with our pushes. Granted, we play Clan so our LRMs still do damage. So, just in my experience we still share armor.
You're talking about a different kind of playstyle where you attempt to get LOS by yourself. The hiding-in-the-back playstyle is more selfish and unfortunately usually leads to better individual results for that guy, which is why most players do it. The reason being, especially in solo, if you attempt to get your own locks you're staring at an enemy for all that lock + travel time, which is plenty of time for that enemy to put 100 points of damage into your CT if he's looking right back at you. You can certainly play it by sharing armor and being up front, but most LRM boats don't do that because it ends up worse for them individually.
Also LRM players need to be more aggressive! Use cover and move around! ADVANCE!
LRM velocity was 140 long ago then buffed to 175 and people screamed bloody murder. So a hot patch lowered them to 160 and now to 190. Some mechs can get into the 210 range or higher with quirks. Cool down were 3.25 3.75 4.25 and 4.75 with clan adding .25. Now i have to go through to verify but clan lrm 20 is 4.6 so less. Then lower heat. Still if the orher team had one AMS per mech people would stop playinv LRM BOATS or play in group que with a spoter and 3 to 5 LRM boats killing someone in less than 10 seconds. Think about 4 sunspiders running 6 LRM 15s each. 360 LRMs. I have seen two ananiolators talen out witj two AMS kitfoxes providing cover. Although i narced all 4 poped a uav and was taging them and was close enough for BAP to counter one ECM. Still people do not run radar derp and people that have run lrm boats for years know radar derp mechs are not worth shooting at unless you have them out in the open or get another target. The only worse mech to fire at is some one that knows how to use cover and limits exposure time. Even on polar highlands they can prevent LRMs by preventing target locks.
I played a match with half the team being KCom on Caustic. We were IS and enemies were clan. Enemy team was super LRM heavy, KCom guys called for a push which everyone on our team followed. We clobbered that LRM wave and camped their dropzone and continued destroying their LRM mechs at 150m as they dropped from their dropships. The point is that while organized LRM groups can be dangerous, even in that case there are counters as long as your own team is organized.
Ha, Kcon enough said. They have a special place in thier cold hearts for LRM boats anyways. Even ones on the same team. Caustic is always hard for the other team when you get overwatch on one of the drop points.
I mean Caustic is actually a good LRM map, that's why I brought it up. KCom plays aggressively (smartly to be more precise), which is another key to defeating LRMs.
Kcon members are all very good players. Enough so that they use cover to conceal movement. That alone defeats LRMs, but with the aggressiveness that they use forces the other team to react to them. Even in solo play i can see this in Kcon players, limiting exposure until the time is right
They're fine.. they're good at providing suppressive fire.. oh wait you got 1600 and then 1000 damage!!
Right, I think I gave a good explanation of why damage numbers are inflated with LRMs and actual useful damage is much much less.
Suppose a Piranha took out 5 enemies from the back efficiently with only 500 damage. In the end your contribution to the match is roughly equivalent to what I did the 1600 dmg match but if someone looked at damage or match score only they'd think the PIR did a lot less.
yes and no.. the piranha also had less armor to chew threw shooting backs.. so pure dmg will be lower...
blogobre One of his points was that damage from lrms is less significant than if it were from more direct fire weapons.
The end goal of most matches is to kill 12 enemy mechs and win. If you solo killed 5 of the 12, doesn't matter how you do it, by lasers, MGs, or LRMs, it's effectively all the same. This is just a really broad generalization, of course the light running around making people miss or the LRM boat shaking cockpits all have their contributions.
i haven't played MWO but, can't you just put your radar on passive and sneak behind the LRM boats and then destroy them ?
No, but ECM has a similar effect, which is why ECM lights are good at doing what you said.
say what you want,but I still think mwo has the worse iteration of lrm's for a competive game ever. go back and look at how lrms were done in mw4 and mw3, they required constant line of sight , and did not arch over tall structures so you had to be in the thick of things while using them in those games. they were far more "skill-required" weapons in those mech games than they are in mwo. I honestly think piranha screwed the pooch on designing them for mwo , especially given the game's heavy competitive slant. even with these new changes , I still feel cheap as hell when I use them , and they sure as hell piss me of when I see teams full of lrm boats. they still suck out 80% of the "skilled" playing that could be going on in this game.Especially when lrm boated teams vote for lrm boat maps time and time again. I hope MechWarrior 5 gets them right , but well , that game will probably not include MP.
My maddog can hold off an entire enemy team with lrm fire and even push them back. I play super aggressive. If you're dumb enough to use ams I'll just burn your ammo out right away and then kill you. If you try and send a piranha after me I'll kill it in 3 shots with my lasers at close range, lmfao. I'm a walking death machine in this mech. Nothing can stop me except a 4 on 1 course range fight. I'm awesome at hitting mechs with lrm at close range. I can even shoot them around corners to hit you at close range.
Only because you're Hitokiri Battousai
racs for layf!
What's the Ecm skill tree?
Sensor tree to be exact. There are two enhanced ECM nodes on that tree.
I really dont like LRM assault builds. It annoys me. Its sub-optimal for the team.
I miss the point and shoot meh warrior 1. 😂
Member when MWO was fun to play?
I never got to play it back then
Still is! =)
6:25 "PSR has no relation to actual skill"
Bullshit, tell that to the many people I know who have been stuck in T3, 4, or 5 since the system came out years ago. It doesn't take skill into account ENOUGH, but to say it's totally unrelated is nonsense.
There's one guy who showed that you can go up in PSR long term without even firing any weapons and just simply taking triple AMS. So if those T3-5 guys simply did that and played a lot of games they'd probably end up in T1.
But the point was that "PSR is 100% unrelated to skill" is incorrect, and that doesn't change that. The average T5 players is worse than the average T1 player in terms of piloting skills.
So...meta hellbringer>lrmageddon
I can't even remember when I got lrm'd in my laser HBR. In fact when I take my laser vom HBR I try to pick Polar.
So here's the important question.
Is meta hellbringer > narc hellbringer?
(obviously the awnser is yes but narc-bringer does make use of some nice narc quirks. :p )
byter narc is bad. ECM kills it... and in solo queue.... chances are your team doesn't have lurms...
Mechs that should equip it are scout mechs.
Pro-tip: When you know where the enemy spawns... you don't need scouts.
Narc and ecm are somewhat mutual counters, ecm hides narcs under its bubble but narc can also disable ecm for some time (if it is used on the ecm mech(s)).
Narc is an informational tool, information not only helps your lrm players (who are often mostly useless otherwise) but it also helps regular mechs with trading and gaining map control.
Mechs like the Narc-bringer will typically take lrm40 along with the high mounted narc (and possibly tag), so it's able to spot targets for itself in solo que.
You are correct though, scouts aren't really needed in this game (other than for full lrm teams) but narc makes some sense for any mech who wishes to assert map control.
Personally I have found that on some mechs like the ecm stalker, narc was a good tonnage soak (due to the low engine cap and size of IS dhs limiting my speed and heat dissipation). A heat neutral informational weapon was a nice compliment to my mid ranged alpha strikes adding more to the mech than focusing on getting a little more raw damage (that I couldn't sustain) ever did.
LRMs basically got better because everything else got worse.
I disagree with your quote "rarly causes lrm bots to share armour"
EXCUSE ME SIR, *Ahem* i run a lurm boat 90 machine gun thanatos, with 3000 rounds and i was always ALWAYS the 2nd or 3rd mech behind the assaults psuhing the line and i even in quite as few occations, walk in front of our assaults to USE my armour, as this was my battletech veteran teachers LRM grudge,
And how? How did i stay so close to the front and still get 1200dmg games and 3 kills?
Targeting computer mk4 and beagle probe are a glorious combo xD
...
Hm i should resurrect my lurm boat thanny...
It was fun playing, especially when i got given sht over ebeing a lurm boat and i did better than my accusors xD
Im always pushing the lind and since im a thanatose the enemy shoots me first for some reason...
You missed the context. "LRM players are often the last to die ... maximize their chance of doing high damage and get a high match score. Match score doesn't take into account that this damage maximizing playstyle causes a player to rarely share armor....". This is referring to a specific playstyle where an LRM player avoids damage in order to farm match score or damage. There's another playstyle which is what you do, get LOS while being close to the push. This is IMO the more effective playstyle of the two but a lot of players choose the first method because it's easier to do moderately well in (and sometimes very well on certain maps). However if played correctly, the LOS/armor sharing playstyle is better. So we're actually in agreement.
@@BlackhawkSC ok, thank you for clarifying your context sir.
Also, i chose the thanatos because she had 6 missile hardpoints and 80 tonnes to play with, she also has ECM for team support AMS as well as the armour of (when balanced to 8 rear armour and all front with skills) an assault mech, whislt retaining the speed and mobility of a fat medium mech.
This allowed me to make a lurm 90, ECM, AMS, mid range fire support, suppression build using the targeting computer mk4 and beagle probe, my thanatos can lock onto unECM mechs in about half a second, and ECM coverd mechs in about 1.2 seconds.
I also later modified her by removing a lurm 10 and replacing it with a mrm 10 for just in case someone wants to get into my personal space bubble.
@@BlackhawkSC also since my thanatose uses 4 lurm 20 and 2 lurm 10 i can keep up a constant barrage, and it strips armour and lone wolf pilots like a sand blaster xD
@@BlackhawkSC also thank you, i was aware of radar deprivation, but i had no clue there was ECM nodes in the skill tree, i suppose i need to go back and read all the fine print huh?
Hade a nice day mate!
Happy Hunting, Mechwarrior!
Thanks :) Yeah the ECM mechanics with the new skill tree is not terribly easy to understand.
I have no respect for the cowards who use them
They're awful weapons, I can save us all some time.
Your not ripping them open youre still barely tickling them just like always. I thought 4 / lrm 20 would be impressive. Solaris sucks and new skill system sucks. Just waiting on the next good mech game.
Missiles in MWO is basically sandblasting. It's neither "ripping open" nor "tickling". It kills but not very quickly.
lrms arent any better, theres more noobs online as this games community is hemorrhaging players with battle sense, and none of these pubs know how to communicate or work together as a team. I blame mech warrior living legends.
Whole "Im PRO, so I outgrew LRMS" is just circle jerk. We get random maps, in reality, LRMs mechs woouldnt be deployed in urban env. So whole "positioning" is just result of randomness. On open maps you are screwed if there are two heavy carriers on other teams with spotter.
Same with hot maps+laser vomit.
My laser HBR is actually quite fond of Terra Therma. Anyways because we get random maps, the meta revolves around what kind of maps and what kind of teams you get on average, and on average, midrange high burst DPS is the current meta, not LRMs.
True to some extent. You have to take into account random players as well, since it weights in on this. It is way easier to play brawler/laser vomit mech than LRM/ATMs. Which usually require either TAG/NARC or very good positioning/team play( and sadly people dont realize that. If you have LRM boat, help him, he will give you a hand with steel rain, call targets, keep locks). While in brawler support you just keep the line and your own weight( to make it simpler).
Also, in MWO you preselect mech and hope for map/team. In WarThunder for instance you assign crews to available vehicles( iirc, did not play it for quite some time) and choose one that suits you on given map. Long range? Swell, pick flak88 or jagdpanzer. Airfield map? AAA on the go.
Now, from a bit of personal experience. Every now and then we get some LRM event or just players revitalize this concept. If you are on open map you are screwed. Steel rain just keeps pouring. Yeah, in some cases you cant counter with rush but this does not happen often, not unless you have ECM/AMS mechs( ECM is not so scarce, but AMS was to some point). I remember one game in my jester( 2xLAMS + max AMS skills), on that flat open, cold map. My total laser DMG was below 100pts if not below 50. Why? Cause my whole heat capacity went into cooling LAMS( sometimes had to turn them off ). Damage I did to incoming LRMS was in range of 'k'. If I did not pack it and protect assaults we would not win.
people complain about LRMs but every second or more builds has not even a single AMS
Ya people complain about LRM's, but then don't take AMS, because "if it doesn't stop all the LRM's it's not useful".
Well to be fair, IS AMS sucks ass. Clan mechs have no excuse, aside from a few specific builds like 4 UAC10/LB10X Kodiaks, or mechs like the Ebon Jaguar that need to sacrifice quite a few energy hardpoints to fit it.
I think you may be missing the point on the overall negative effect of an LRM heavy meta. When LRMs are "good enough" but not "actually good" you're gonna see a lot of them in matches even when they're on maps they do poorly on. Sure, LRMs aren't a great weapon system, but when you can low effort your way to 1k+ damage every round you can bet your ass lots of people are going to do that. The issue is that now we've incentivized a selfish playstyle that simply doesn't contribute towards victory a significant portion of the time. No one likes getting rained on playing Polar Highlands against an LRM boat heavy team, but even worse than that is getting Solaris City and realizing half your team can contribute little to nothing because they're all lurming.
The net effect is that matches just feel... random. Which team has more LRM players on maps that either favor or punish them swings the balance in a way that feels out of your control. Sloppy players get to brag about their high damage even though that damage may or may not have actually helped their team win. At the end of the day it just... feels like shit.
Honestly I don't see what's wrong with that. If they're OK with inconsistent matches, then that's how they enjoy the game. If a skilled player can move beyond that and get more consistency, then he will enjoy the game that way.
you don't see a lot of this in FP though.. anyone in a team that brings Lurms will get booted from the team. PUGS will be PUGS
One of my favorite mechs for when I want to slow down a little and turn the game into a management SIM is the 8 LRM5 Archer. Having the eight launchers gives me a bit of flexibility on how I want to attack and chaining them is a very good way to send a lot of mechs running for cover. With all the Novas out there these days I usually start with a single LRM5 "poke" to see how much cover they have and if it's to much I can move onto other groups. It's also a great force multiplier for aggressive machines.
The key is communication. If you can communicate well then LRM boats can become monsters.
I've tried to point out those facts on the HPG outreach reddit page...
*Oh my god.* People out there were so childish about it. They down voted the shit out of every single post I made and even looked at my stats to call me a noob and things as such.
Even the moderators wouldn't do anything about their harassment.
The problem is exactly as you describe. The "pro" players calling it an overpowered "noobtube" kind of weapon just show how poorly skilled those players are against it... since it's not a good weapon system.
I play quite casually in the solo queue for *fun* and quite easily avoid LRM all day long. I use radar deprivation since before the skill tree lmao.
What kills me most of the time however... is being on a team that is oblivious to enemy LRMs and charge in the open...
No, I'm not good enough to carry that much folks.
LRM has plenty of limitations. It shouldn't be boated. All my LRM catapults (My favorite mech chassis) as some form of direct fire weapon in order to contribute against enemy pushes.
Outreach lately has been nearly as bad as the forums.
Ironically, I'd argue that at least, on the forum... my detractors got moderated.
So its effectively worst on reddit from my perspective haha.
I bought a Missile Boat on the last Sale because my plan was to put MRM40s on that Tempest.
Never really played LRM before. I tried the classic double LRM20/BAP/TAG loadout for
a few matches, just to see if there are some easy XP points to get. I have to say, it was definitely
not worth it... as you said in your explanation: what team will you get - and this depends more on
the red team than on the own. ECM shielding, decent movement and lights chasing LRM Boats
is already common knowledge - so target numbers are decreasing. I think you can definetely get
good matches with LRM but how many matches you are less effective?
Last note: I was not patient enough to improve my LRM gameplay and changed the loadout.
So maybe not a very detailed experience 😆
Why BAP when Tempest has ECM?
OniGanon Just a copy and paste build. I know there are different topics in the forums about yes/no carrying both. I think BAP is partly deactivated for counter ecm but you still have the sensor range and info buffs. Did not do a deep dive into that. On the MRM Loadout I just equip ecm.
AMS works if you have 12 mechs carrying one, each :)
Doesn't need to be that many. Even 3-6 AMS on the team is enough to frustrate all but the most extreme LRM carriers.
I love LRM boating when I start feeling particularly lazy and can't be bothered planning. I can say I have never been one of those players against lrms
Please do a skill nodes series. I started mwo 2 months ago still confused on what nodes do what.
Maybe a series of episodes on the following...
Best nodes for laser vomit builds
Best nodes for dakka builds
Best nodes for srm/mrm/atm/lrm
Best nodes for stealth
Best nodes for brawlers
Best nodes for support
I did one for energy builds earlier (since lasers are popular). But it's a bit outdated now since they redid some of the skill node values. There's also some variations between the same builds on different weight classes. I had this idea in mind though for some time so I'll see whether I can generalize these skill trees enough to be made into templates that I can show.
BlackhawkSC sounds good ill go check it out thx
no back-up weapons on that build. shame shame shame lol
It's not worth it. Would some MLs stop the EBJ and WHM from turning me into scrap? Nope. Your best bet is to run away and save the tonnage for ammo or heatsinks.
Occasionally your butt gets saved by backup lasers, but it doesn't happen often enough to make it worthwhile.
Thanks for the video I think you make some good points. My opinion is that AMS and LAMS need a buff to more rounds and more missiles being taken down. Your video covers the topic well for those people who just play quick play or scouting or maybe even Solaris (I don't know if anyone is playing missiles in Solaris because I don't play it. I just added it in for inclusion of all game styles.) What you left out was Faction Warfare. In FW a coordinated team is unplayable when the team decides to put together a 12 man with NARC mechs running around. As always FW takes a back seat to PGI's plans of creating their own battle arena to compete with the PUBG's of the world. No, I don't want to play long range missile warfare on Polar, Caustic, Alpine, etc just because I know the other team is going to bring missiles. ECM is not what it used to be either. With just one tag it doesn't matter that you have the entire sensory skill tree you still get discovered and your ECM becomes useless to you and your allies. Bit of a rant sorry just had to get it out. Again thanks for the video and I am going to put a link on our team website.
Are LRMs good?
Short answer; hell yes.
Long answer; they allow assaults mechs (which are so slow it would be quicker to get out and push) apply damage on their way to the fight, before switching to laser vomit to finish off all those nicely softened up targets. They can work wonders on heavy mechs, where you can fire over your big slow assault brethren whilst they're pushing, stripping armour for them so they can get some nice easy kills.
As with all team based games; staying together, communicating and working as a team is what wins matches. Everything else is just flavouring.
I have to agree that AMS works best in groups. Additionally even a single AMS reduces the amount of incoming damage by a percentage further decreasing the effectiveness of LRM's as a mech killer. The real uses for LRM's appear to be in suppression and scrubbing armor for the burst damage members of your team.
The main issue I find with fighting LRMs is the "massed LRM" situation that seems to happen where potentially over half the enemy team has them and is co-ordinating extremely well, in situations like that your team needs to be aggressive, but people fear being the target of the mass missile attack and thus, you have a whole team whom would rather hide till its too late and only realise when 4 mechs down that hiding isnt working as an enemy mech is spotting them all(I have been leaving my assault and heavy mechs for things like my flea or viper simply due to being able to attack LRMs easier).
I think the improvement has brought more people into using them and the issue is becoming more "massed LRM" over "LRM in general". I have seen games where all assault mechs moving forwards to a decent position die literally to only being hit by LRM fire before the team can really even push forwards on polar highlands.
On the flip side, if your team is full of them, it can also go badly against that aggression team.
A good LRM player is a player that communicates with their team and visa versa. Comms are key to any game. A LRM player assist players that focus on one mech at a time. LRM players will support teammates from getting flanked. A good LRM player is not there for the glory but there to play as an over watch mech. Help your LRM players and they will be your best friend.
Lurm boats over 60ts are obnoxious as they don’t share armour which hurts the battle line due to not sharing armour as you mentioned. Lurm assaults (especially those chassis that arnt actively good at it) frustrate friendly teams as much as the enemy. Lurming encourages selfish cowardly play which is obnoxious in a team play game
I get lrm locks on mechs with ecm, just as easy as those that don't, which means it doesn't work as it should, unless you add the ecm nodes, then it takes a bit longer. The hardest to lock on are those that do take radar deprivation of 60% to 100%.
Radar dep doesn't affect the initial lock on time, it just affects target decay after it has gone out of LOS. ECM on the other hand affects lock on time. As I said if they don't take both ECM nodes it's essentially like not taking ECM at all.
Even without skills ecm does increase the lockon time, the skill nodes only improve the percentage reduction to the sensor range of those trying to lock onto them (and the stealth cooldown).
(Though no matter how skilled an ecm mech is, things like tag, narc and probe cut through it disabling it)
I have matches with players that still hate lrm users and hate them so much that they will shoot the lrm users even on their team. I see you forget to mention that.
The problem with the LRM buffs in the last months is the cumulative effect in team play. On several maps it almost impossible to counter. Your video does not mention this but here is an example:
www.twitch.tv/videos/285760214?collection=BfiMLkQyQhWCGA
Team-anything has a multiplier effect. If you've ever seen Piranha swarms they're vicious.
Now i get it, why "SC" at the end...
p.s. love this moment th-cam.com/video/JvhiAiT1l2E/w-d-xo.html when you totally ignoring enemy piranha(which did all kills for reds in that match) killing hunchie and switching to worthless "half" cougar already being focused by multiple mechs. This is great illustration of casual windowlicker lurmtard at his finest: dont share armour, dont aim components, dont prioritize threats - no skill required, just find fattest/slowest/exposed, put that circle to the red square and push the button - yay! do top damage/matchscore. FFS this game degrading soooo damn fast..
Yes because LRMs hardly does anything to Piranhas. The PIR presents two challenges, first obviously is its size. The second is how fast they move messes up missile tracking. If a mech stays still, say X% of missiles hit them, but due to movement some amount less than X hits if they move. So a wise LRMer should prioritize slower mechs for multiple reasons. Getting rid of the Cougar and HBK also forces everyone to focus on the last mech. From every perspective, those target selection decisions are correct. But if you think I posted this video to show how "awesome" LRMs are you're completely missing the point.
Neither the size nor speed of the piranha is a serious problem for anyone who is capable of aim. But speaking of lurmtards or their bros "skillboats", sure, they can not track these targets, because 90% of MWO community are incredible low skilled, and this is why playing noskill builds/playstyles or just potating around with random shitbuilds. I dont really care of purpose whole video, but i thank you for showing this footage as many other youtubers and streamers(competetive or just solofarmers), showing this beautful new world of MWO.
When you zoom to fire LRMS at a target on the other side of the hill.
Habit from playing direct fire weapons 99% of the time.
Well done analysis!
shich Mech has a quad ams set up? i can't find it, only finding triple
PIR-A. But it's not very practical since you have to dedicate much of your tonnage to AMS if you use all 4 AMS hardpoints.
thank you i was going crazy trying to figure it out. i do appreciate your logical and analytical approach to the game. it helps a lot
I rarely play LRMs simply because I don't like the map dependency. Solaris City increased that dependency factor by an order of magnitude. But even before that, taking an LRM boat and watching the battle on Crimson take place in the tunnel or under the parking deck was frustrating (never mind the occasional basement derp fight on HPG). That said, I'll disagree with you on AMS. Even taking a 1 ton investment (half ton of ammo) can easily net out 50-100 missiles destroyed in a battle. That's 50-100 pts of dmg that didn't hit you or your teammates (yes, some would have missed....). 3 mechs carrying an AMS could mean denying the enemy a kill which could be enough to swing the battle. And then there's the fact that ATM's get eaten alive by AMS....
The issue is that if you take AMS, you'll always have to put at least 1.5t of investment (or 1t for LAMS which I don't like) into it no matter what map you get, even the LRM unfriendly ones. That tonnage or slot count could have went to something else like a bigger engine or another heatsink, which is helpful on any map.
Then you look at what a single AMS does and it's pretty insignificant. A single AMS doesn't bother me at all if I'm doing LRM60-80. If I see multiple AMS protecting a mech I'm switching to some other target, which means that AMS really only works if everyone/most enemies takes it. But to expect most of your team to take AMS is unrealistic. This is why you by yourself taking the initiative in the solo queue and bringing a single AMS is kind of a waste. An ECM on the other hand is never a waste. It protects you on any map and helps to break lock against LRMs.
Sure, but far more mechs have AMS slots than do ECM (especially if you're playing IS simply because there is no IS equivalent to the HBR in the heavy class). And given the prevalence of LRMs lately in SoloQ, I'm seeing a lot more people carrying AMS, so I think it does make a difference. I can sacrifice a heatsink, a couple kph, etc. for AMS in most of my solo builds anyways. They have to be more broad based than a group or faction war build anyways so they don't tend to be riding the bleeding edge of heat or slots.
I know but what I'm saying is if you're really worried about LRMs, ECM is actually the better defense. If you take a single AMS, I'm guessing LRMs don't really bother you that much. Maybe psychologically it gives you more comfort knowing you have an AMS but you know that without massed AMS it's pretty worthless and you can't guarantee that in solo. So the times you get LRM unfriendly maps you've pretty much wasted tonnage. On LRM friendly maps, your AMS must still be combined with your team's AMS AND you or your teammates must be targeted by LRMs for them to come into any effect. You can see the overall times when single AMS has some significant effect is actually quite low.
I guess we'll just have to disagree on this one. I'll just leave you with this - I rarely see fewer than 50 missiles shot down even with a single AMS regardless of map. So its never truly wasted. But you can certainly argue that its efficiency isn't high enough for your preferences on many maps. Cheers.
I understand that line of thinking but that's up to 50 pts of damage spread across multiple components of multiple mechs. And as you said some of these missiles wouldn't have reached anyone in the first place. That's the equivalent of an ant bite in human terms :) I know I won't change your mind but I'm just putting it out there.
Skill=0
DriFD3S here... great video... see you on the Battlefield. 🧡
ty!
Hey drifd3s, cBiscuit here
cBiscuit, BlackhawkSC, are either of you going to be at Mech_Con this year??? I'm going to be there.
Not me. Hard to get vacation time :-/
I'll be there