58 replies to this topic

[Hijinks_The_Turtle]

That depends.. I still see Raider pilots top the board in the matches I play.

[breadeffect]

Hijinks_The_Turtle, on February 09 2014 - 03:25 PM, said:

That depends.. I still see Raider pilots top the board in the matches I play.

That doesn't correlate into the mech being still viable, just means the person did proficient that match.  I still score top of the leaderboards every time I play Raider, but that doesn't mean its balanced yet.  Just means out of the people on my team, I scored the most overall points that match.  There are many woes that come from playing a Raider, much of them come from simple things that it should counter.  Its not efficient on the ground as well as it was, the ground Raider v Air Mech play trashes the Raider every moment it gets.  Basically its taken a super niche role as a defensive Assassin that is dedicated to playing mid range unless he can guarantee a sure kill and live.  Playing against the top players in the thing felt clunky.  I couldn't contend with a Zerker (which is blatantly one of THE strongest mechs right now).

I still need more testing with my Raider, but as it stands right now I'm not noticing anything super significant that it can accomplish that other mechs cannot.  You'd be better off using an Infil, Scout, or Zerker to better suit its needs in a fight.

[LoC_TR]

breadeffect, on February 09 2014 - 05:33 PM, said:

Hijinks_The_Turtle, on February 09 2014 - 03:25 PM, said:

That depends.. I still see Raider pilots top the board in the matches I play.

That doesn't correlate into the mech being still viable, just means the person did proficient that match.  I still score top of the leaderboards every time I play Raider, but that doesn't mean its balanced yet.  Just means out of the people on my team, I scored the most overall points that match.  There are many woes that come from playing a Raider, much of them come from simple things that it should counter.  Its not efficient on the ground as well as it was, the ground Raider v Air Mech play trashes the Raider every moment it gets.  Basically its taken a super niche role as a defensive Assassin that is dedicated to playing mid range unless he can guarantee a sure kill and live.  Playing against the top players in the thing felt clunky.  I couldn't contend with a Zerker (which is blatantly one of THE strongest mechs right now).

I still need more testing with my Raider, but as it stands right now I'm not noticing anything super significant that it can accomplish that other mechs cannot.  You'd be better off using an Infil, Scout, or Zerker to better suit its needs in a fight.

This is EXACTLY how i feel.

Edited by LoC_TR, February 11 2014 - 07:12 AM.

[Hijinks_The_Turtle]

Hmm... Point taken fellas, I forgot to take in the air dynamic mechs like Beserker.  The limited amount of situations it can partake in and win for sure reminds me how difficult it is to be very good at Predator (as it and Raider are similar in how both have niche roles).

[shosca]

With the EOC + MIRV/KLA, it has the highest burst but its dps takes a nose dive, so you need to charge, burst, fallback and wait for the cool down.

With the T32 + MIRV/KLA, it has high burst but equals flak+tow and dps is a hair less than flak + tow, same charge, burst, fallback and wait for the cool down.

With the reflak + MIRV/FLA, it can't beat the flak+ tow in burst and dps.

Armor wise you're only 1 miniflak+tow shot away from the scout while being way slower than it.

The rate of fire of the corsair puts the mech mid range because of the corsair cool down, as bread said, defensive assassin.

Considering all the above it feels like flak scout is better at raider's job than the raider, putting out burst and running away.

On a side note, flak scout is still putting out an insane amount of bust, losing only to charged eoc + gl and charged t32 + mirv. I don't know why the devs still allow the scout have the flak.

[Call_Me_Ishmael]

I'm still scoring with the Raider, Re-flak and MIRV, but I have to be more 'On' than usual to do really well.  

I think we lost a trace in the MIRV, and I've been having a harder time with some mechs than I used to.  I certainly can't take on two full-health mechs anymore, and some C's are surviving where they would not have in the past.

In higher-level matches, I have to hunt strays/stragglers, or find a way to engage them and drive them from their teammates while killing quickly.  Its a lot more work, if you will, now.  I don't miss a lot of my shots, but it seems like I have to hit more, so I need more time per enemy (and I overheat sooo damned fast with more than one enemy).

In Siege I can sometimes still fall into my old rhythm... TDM not so much.

I guess I miss my Kill-streak™ Raider.

[comic_sans]

Hey, you know what'd be great_

Hitscan MIRV.

Let me dream at least.

[shosca]

It's like the raider had lost it's steam...



I hate puns..

[LoC_TR]

I'm so fuzzy bunny sad about this Raider situation. I literally couldn't pick up any other mech pre-steam and now it's just sitting there rusting. I hope they do something soon. I really miss my baby.

[Greenvalv]

comic_sans, on February 14 2014 - 08:36 AM, said:

Hey, you know what'd be great_

Hitscan MIRV.

Let me dream at least.

it's bad enough already that I pee my pants when I see you blitzing me...

[Kopra]

Whatever the patch has been, I've preferred using underdog mechs. This update brought Raider down heavily from its former high skill - high reward, and is now merely high skill - mediocre reward type of a mech. So now I've been experimenting with Raider, and following are my conclusions with an EOC Raider. I'm using EOC because close range with either of the flak weapons is suicidal with such an overnerfed secondary (3.75s reload for 7 extra damage vs. 2.25s and ability to detonate midair, faster projectile, no curve).

If I do anything short of perfect play, I'm dead. If there's a flying Berserker around, I'd have to hit a perfect 6x EOC for 144 damage, a perfect MIRV for 150 (296 total), and a perfect 3x EOC 1.5s later (72 damage, for a total of 368 damage, just enough to down a Berserker). Miss one puck, you're done, because Corsair recharges slower than any other secondary in the game. With nerfed boost speed, you can't really run away from a 150 dps monster that doesn't need to aim much at all to do damage much better than yours.

So with my Raider, my play is reduced to playing peek-a-boo with overnerfed weapons. I could pick any other class and have much more success for much less effort and frustration. I does feel kind of good to nab a slightly injured tech from afar with a well placed Corsair + 6x EOC, though.

[LoC_TR]

Nice post Kopra. These are my thoughts exactly! The feel when you snipe a tech with a corsair. Soo goood. Lol.

[Misaniovent]

Cross-posting this from another topic, sorry in advance if I rustle any jimmies with that.

Raider was the first mech I bought outside of the free starters. It took a while for me to learn to make it work prior to Wreckage, but now it is not working for me, really, at all. I've tried with the EOC Predator and that is not cutting it any longer. High-cooldown weapons don't seem to me to fit in the meta anymore, and the Raider's Corsair is a prime example of that. If you miss with the Corsair in a close-in fight, you're in deep fuzzy bunny. I think this weapon is theoretically flexible, but in practice the refire rate, slow projectile speed, and quick detonating MIRV pellets neuter that potential.

Having multiple close-range high-alpha weapons is good but the Corsair is not reliable enough in either mode, I think. Unlike flaks, the airburst MIRVs have a hard-limit on their range, and the trajectory of the slung grenade combined with its slow projectile speed makes it a rough weapon to use against fast targets.

The EOC repeater is iffy close-in though as you will take damage in a knife fight and it again suffers from a slow reload time. I think though that this may have the most promise if you can master the KLA's trajectory and learn to efficiently predict where targets are going to land.

Frustrating to make it work. This used to be a balls-to-the-wall mech and now it seems like a balls-nailed-to-the-wall mech. It's hard for me to adapt it so it still works for me -- I used to dominate every match I played with it. I expected it to slaughter post-Wreckage but have been, so far, wrong.

One suggestion I'd make would be a faster switch between modes for the Corsair and perhaps immediate readiness when that switch has been made. Example: fire MIRV, short reconfigure time, fire grenade, longer reload speed for both, letting you take a risk to get more damage off faster but penalizing you if you miss it.

[LoC_TR]

So i was playing raider earlier...

[FenixStryk]

As of this patch, the only time I pull out my Raider is when the match timer is below 20 seconds and I am respawning. Blitz on spawn, panic YOLO-dive the nearest enemy with Bolt+MIRV+Deto, hopefully secure a kill and survive just long enough timer-scam the enemy with my 477 HP and A Class-level mobility. That is where the Raider begins and ends.

The ReFlak is okay, but it's basically an SMC with a different firing speed. The Bolt has absolutely awful sustained damage and range, and only average burst*. The EOC, at least for the Raider, isn't offering enough burst to justify how unwieldy it is for alpha hunting IMO; it's not that kind of weapon anymore. As for the MIRV, it is not dealing the 208+ damage it used to and is likewise much slower than it used to be.

There really isn't anything in this package that is better than what an SMC Assault offers.

Edited by FenixStryk, February 16 2014 - 06:32 AM.

[LoC_TR]

@fenixstryk

It's sooo fuzzy bunny wierd not seeing any raiders on the field, I'm not even sure we can get a full picture of the meta without it. It could play such a crucial role and we can't even use it right. This mech could be beautiful on the battlefield. The B classes feel so lackluster without the raider in the rotation. I hope they buff it soon, I don't want to play any other mech. Ohh fuzzy bunny the feels are coming. I'm gonna cry.

[LoC_TR]

[shosca]

LoC_TR, on February 16 2014 - 06:31 AM, said:

@fenixstryk

It's sooo fuzzy bunny wierd not seeing any raiders on the field, I'm not even sure we can get a full picture of the meta without it. It could play such a crucial role and we can't even use it right. This mech could be beautiful on the battlefield. The B classes feel so lackluster without the raider in the rotation. I hope they buff it soon, I don't want to play any other mech. Ohh fuzzy bunny the feels are coming. I'm gonna cry.

Don't worry dude, the only weapon that is shared with the other mechs is the eoc so i'm sure they will make adjustments without altering the overall balance.

Edited by shosca, February 17 2014 - 05:17 PM.

[LoC_TR]

I haven't mentioned this yet and I also just realized. Wave dashing has eliminated blitz as a viable ability, the raider slows down when it dodges in blitz. An A class can wave dash out of my kill zone fast enough that I can't catch them. If it was a straight distance, sure, but it never is.

If you don't up the damage or reduce the corsair cool down then increase the speed.

Edited by LoC_TR, February 19 2014 - 10:19 PM.

[Civilized_Barcode]

Update today!

... So the incinerator got nerfed, nothing happened to the tech, and the Raider still stays impotent.  

Does Adhesive have a hate-boner for the Raider or something_ If they nerfed it any further you would think it insulted their mothers while leaving the toilet seats up in their houses or something.