BA-Too hard to kill...

[InvaderDad]

  O.k., I know I'm this is probably going to be an unpopular viewpoint. But after a particularly frustrating evening of fighting them, I find that BA suck most of the fun out of playing for me.

  To me, it this comes down to a combination of how much damage one or two BA can do (for it's size/weight) in conjunction with how hard they can be to kill in a game.
 
  Maybe it's the network lag (even though I usually have a ping of between 50-150 ms), or maybe I'm just not that great at it, but they often seem ridiculously hard to kill. (Even when from the game visuals, it appears you have delivered a hit). Well, at least when they're not standing still...

  I tried an Uller prime combo of LBX-5/SRM6. Looks like I hit, but (at least no obvious) damage. O.k., not strong enough. Moved up to something with an ERPPC,  LBX-10, or AC-20 same deal. I would have thought that the area effect would be greater on something presumably so lightly armored (given its size).

  Some people might not care much about the physical realism aspect, but looking at the damage side, they seem overpowered to me. Given the power/size (or power/weight ration) I should be able to strap 5 or 6 of their weapons to a mech. (adding negligible weight) and be able to crush a comparable size and weight mech.

  Either that or, with the same Power/weight ration of a BA, a Mech. should be able to vaporize a small building in one shot... or maybe let me carve my initials in a nearby moon...

  Heck, you'd think that if Mech's can have LAMS, they could also lock onto BA automatically to defend your mech...

 (Maybe BA is made out of the same neutron-star material that MWLL chain-link fences are made out of. You know, the four foot high ones that can stop an 80 ton mech. without getting pulled out of the ground :-)

  There, I said it. I know it's not going to be well received, but to me BA seem closer to a light weight mech in strength/armor with disproportionate mobility.

  The end result is that (it seems me) what should only be annoyances too often turn into something that ruins your whole day.

 

[xInVicTuSx]

LBX and large ACs are the worst weapons to try to kill BA with.

PPCs and SRMs only work if the BA have no cover but are rather stuck on the open ground in front of you.

Lasers require high accuracy and small ones take several hits, best to use something like a LPL or heavy laser.

The best way to kill BA in any situation is to either use RACS or AC2\5 any of these will brutally destroy a BA if they even graze them.

Its an important balancing point I think, that generally the best anti Armor/mech weapons are not the best anti BA weapons.

If you're not taking anti BA weapons, you should probably avoid them.

Also, go BA exclusively a few rounds in a row and you will see its super easy to get shit on instantly.

[Xesle]

Sounds like you're using all the wrong weapons.  RACs and (U)AC2/5 shred BA. Lasers are pretty good against BA at range, especially if the BA are flying, as their trajectory is easy to follow if they're falling.

[=KoS= Tripod]

SRMs, lasers and PPCs are my personal BA killing favorites simply because they don't suck against everything else

[Cik]

LPLs and small ACs work wonders. SRMs can kill them, but only if they aren't above you and have cover. wait till they hit the ground, then flatten the area with your missiles. the best way to kill a BA is to stay away from it and shoot it at it's zenith with heavy laser(s). if they are on top of you, the only thing you can rely on is your team to splash them. certain maps make it much worse. extremity for instance, is BA the game: the experience: the movie: the reckoning: the game. seen matches with literally nothing but BA. i also think the MHL is a bit op, considering it does more damage than some mech mounted weapons.

[doorknob]

The micro heavy laser does 1349 damage.

The clan heavy large laser does 1397 damage.

Make whatever argument you want. 

[xInVicTuSx]

600m range on 30ton< armored asset.

175m range on man in a robot suit.

Full alphas it takes to destroy an Osiris, about 2.

Full alphas it takes to destroy BA, about .2 or so.

[=KoS= Tripod]

Well the man in a robot suit is small and thereby nearly immune to many weapons and can take cover anywhere while something like the Osiris can be hit and killed by everything easily

[SquareSphere }12thVR{]

the best beginning tip there is in Anti BA tactics is to BACK UP!  BA's will generally try to jump toward you to either try and land on your head or hide at your feet.

tip 2 would be to aim either at the apex of their jumps (they tend to hang in the air before dropping like a rock) or aim where they're going to land.

[(TLL)Siilk]

Make whatever argument you want. 

 Here's the root of "BA uberdamage" for you: MWLL player always plays as a point. For mechs/tanks/aeros point is a single asset. But for BA(checks TRO stats) a point is a small fireteam of 5 BAs. Hence 1 MWLL BA is roughly equal 5 BAs in terms of firepower. It is done because max player number in MWLL is severely limited by cryengine(and even more so because of all the MWLL additions, vanilla crysis/wars doesn't have) so making single BA as weak as they are described in TRO would render them useless as there would be not enough players to provide decent amount of BAs without crippling the team. 

The micro heavy laser does 1349 damage.

  Make it 270 for each BA in a "point" and suddenly it wouldn't seem that much, eh?

@OP: BA is in no way overpowered. You need steady aim to kill them but they are extremely weak; almost any weapon can one-shot BAs. While your aiming skills are not top-notch yet, use small ACs, X-Pulse lasers and RACs to kill them. But, even though BA are weak, they are not always a free kill and could be a real threat to mechs, especially lone assaults. Taking out lone, sluggish mechs is the main target of BA regiments so fighting them off in such situations would be hard even for experienced players. The best way to counter this is to always travel in groups of 2-3 mechs at least(and I cannot stress enough how important this is, and not only for fighting off BAs). As for most popular anti-BA tactics, check old forum thread, especially pro tips thread. I also recommend you to do as Invictus suggested and play a couple of rounds as BA. Not only it would be a fun new experience for you, but you also would feel BA's weaknesses first-hand which would let you cam up with better anti-BA strategies.

[Profane Arbiter]

BA aren't hard to kill unless they get themselves wedged somewhere they can't be reached. Of course, this plays into my gripes regarding them. Lets take TC. The BA is preventing you from taking the base by simply being there, inacessible. I'm not arguing against this tactic...but lets keep it real. Is that truly fun for either the BA, or the mechanized units? It's really not fun for anyone unless standing around strikes someone as a good time.

Thus, my thread here:

http://forum.mechlivinglegends.net/index.php/topic,13559.0.html

Which in a nutshell repurposes BA so they can be useful in ways other than as a mind numbing annoyance to other units.

[Artemis Dragmire]

BA are fine.

Kill them with:

Fire
LBX (anything with more than 1 fit, chain fire them and be careful with your aim)
Lasers (Again, learn to aim)
UAC2/UAC5 (Squish)
Machineguns (Dance fappers!)
SRMS (Explody area denial)
MRMS (Bigger explody area denial)

If the enemy team is fielding half of their units in BA and you go wandering off alone in a LRM boat, you deserve to die.

As with any other asset, adapt to the situation and it's fine.

I think the OP was on my team earlier tonight where half of the enemy team was in BA, the other half in ASF... I ended the game with 14 kills and 3, maybe 4 deaths. It's not hard to kill BA and ASF, and in fact, a lot of the weapons that counter one counter the other pretty well too, yet we still had people trying to use Gauss rifles against BA, or LRMs, Arrows, etc.

EDIT - RAC5s work well too. One of the best anti-ba assets is the Bushwacker-A "Warthog". One shot from a RAC5 will kill or severely injure a BA. This particular asset isn't bad at AA either though it isn't the best.

[DFDelta]

The micro heavy laser does 1349 damage.

The clan heavy large laser does 1397 damage.

Make whatever argument you want. 

I'd like to drop in here and add that while the burst damage of the mHL is very high its average dps is rather bad, and the same goes for the mPPC.
Also the range of the mHL is extremely low (175m), and BA, even with using the JJ in the correct way, are slow. Most mechs smaller then assault size can simply walk out of range before the BA can get off a second shot.

Make whatever argument you want. 

 Here's the root of "BA uberdamage" for you: MWLL player always plays as a point. For mechs/tanks/aeros point is a single asset. But for BA(checks TRO stats) a point is a small fireteam of 5 BAs. Hence 1 MWLL BA is roughly equal 5 BAs in terms of firepower. It is done because max player number in MWLL is severely limited by cryengine(and even more so because of all the MWLL additions, vanilla crysis/wars doesn't have) so making single BA as weak as they are described in TRO would render them useless as there would be not enough players to provide decent amount of BAs without crippling the team. 

Exactly, and people can be happy that BA are only armored like a single IS Longinus BA, and not like a full point of clan Elemental BA 


On weapons:
The weapon I am afraid of most is the RAC2. It does kill you in less then half a second, and thanks to the insane rate of fire it is far harder to dodge then the RAC5, even tough that one takes only 2 hits to squish a BA.
MRM30 and 40 are a death sentence to BA, a single missile kills and they are practically impossible to dodge (tough "wasting a shot of those for BA might seem like overkill)
A single MG is no problem for a BA, it takes about 25 hits to kill a fully healed BA. Even 2 MGs give a BA enough time to retreat before actually killing it.
Flamers do obliterate BA almost instantly, but it can prove tricky to actually hit them.
(U)AC2s are only a problem because they always come in huge groups, a single one would be about as bad as a MG.
(U)AC5s on the other hand would be utter rape even when single. (in fact on the siege engine, parti and huit, I have a fitre group that only uses a single AC5, especially against BA. You have to conserve your ammo, you never know when you'll need it )

[xInVicTuSx]

The biggest death machine for BA that could dance with everything else used to be the Thanatos Prime, lasers for when they're in the air, mrm for when they land, you have speed, armor, JJs, and 360, was easy to go on rampages.

Too bad the MRM bug and damage slow down have nerfed the Thanny Prime to shit vs mechs.

I've waited out some mechs in TC before as BA in a base, it actually took only a minute to get someone to come distract him, from there it was easy to gang up on him. BA holding the last bit is crucial, otherwise the turrets would flip and hinder any help in taking back the base.

[Spooky]

For me SRMs and Lasers are the most effective BA killing weapons. Though for lasers you'll need some decent FPS. BAs can be very annoying yes, but that's what they are supposed be. If everything fails, you'll have to rely on your team mates to get the BA off you. Or rely on base defenses .