Called Shot & Multi Target early game

[Infamous Geezer]

You have access to these so early in the game but the both appear to be $hit.

Called Shot - Based on the % its only ever viable to shoot the torso. When does this attack get good?

Multi Target - I select A, B and C and fire and it only scratches enemies. Its so pitiful i doubt it would even be good against vehicles.

[HurtfulPlayer97]

Called Shot is only good until your pilots get good then it is OP.

[Scathe]

called shot gets a bonus at 6 and a bonus at I think 9, in the stat with sensor lock and master tactician, whatever that stat was called. called shot also gets a bonus with the marauder battlemech's advanced module. with a marauder with that stat at 9, you have like a 35% chance of a headshot from the front. with the right loadout, that translates to like a 70% chance to destroy the head from the front, its nuts. other mechs, assault mechs like bullshark and atlas 2 and annihilator, can get like 80% chance to destroy the center torso from the front with called shot lategame.

multi-target is mostly only good when you are playing base defense missions or attack and defend missions. there, you can have an LRM boat "tag" 3 mechs with one turn, and this will cause those 3 mechs to shoot at turrets, allied mechs, or your mechs instead of shooting at the objective buildings you have to defend. in other mission types, it is almost never good to multishoot.

[wesnef]

Called Shot is always useful.

Even when you have a terrible % chance to hit the exact part you're aiming at, it still:
1) gives you a bonus to your overall chance to hit in the first place. (i.e, your Medium Laser goes from 65% to hit to 85%. Something like that, don't remember if it's a 10, 15 or 20% boost)
2) knocks the enemy mech one phase slower in Initiative. So if you have three Medium mechs, and you Precision Shot the enemy Medium, it'll now be going in the Heavy phase. And all three of your Mediums can shoot it before it gets to shoot back.

[Dakota]

Called shot is nice early game since it boosts the chance to hit too and focuses about half of the shots towards the CT if you're aiming for that, so really nice boost to useful damage.

Multi-target I don't find useful outside of really niche situations of firing it at multiple targets to reduce the evasion of each by 1 tick with some LRM spam while also having breaching shot so it ignores cover and all. However that's less optimal than focus firing on a single target to take its firepower off the field entirely then moving onto the next one so it all falls apart there.

[revenantsknight]

Others have covered Called Shot pretty well, although I will say that the accuracy bonus may not be noticeable if your pilots have awful Gunnery, since there's a hard cap for hit % based on Gunnery skill.

For Multi-Target, it's only ever situationally useful. In addition to the aforementioned cases (Defend Base missions, multiple badly damaged enemies, Breaching Shot) late-game LRM boats can split fire and max out stability damage on 2-3 enemies. You'd still need to tip over those unstable targets with additional attacks, so a stability damage strategy isn't the most efficient approach in terms of just winning. If you're trying to maximize salvage, though, it'll help considerably.

[wesnef]

I've also used Multi along with Breaching Shot, on a mid-to-late game Archer with two +2 damage LRM20's. Being able to soften up a couple targets in hard cover, with ~120 dmg cover-breaching shots (plus the Archer's reduced missile scatter), while the rest of the lance is focus-firing down their main target, can be handy.

Still a bit situational. But I usually have a Multi/Breach pilot in my lance, alongside the two Master Tacticians and the Ace Pilot. (everyone with Bulwark)

[New Moon On Monday]

Originally posted by Infamous Geezer:

Called Shot - Based on the % its only ever viable to shoot the torso. When does this attack get good?

Called shots do not affect the chance that your weapon will hit. Called shots only reassign the probabilities that a successful shot will hit a particular part of the mech. There is no downside to a Called Shot, except spending Resolve if you are using Precision Strike. Even early in the game, you can go after already exposed parts of a mech, taking out legs or hitting ammo stores (which explode).

[ColorsFade]

Originally posted by wesnef:

Called Shot is always useful.

2) knocks the enemy mech one phase slower in Initiative. So if you have three Medium mechs, and you Precision Shot the enemy Medium, it'll now be going in the Heavy phase. And all three of your Mediums can shoot it before it gets to shoot back.

This part gets underestimated by so many people, but it's so useful.

Until you get a Marauder and can start head-hunting everything, Called Shot's best use is to move other mechs around in the initiative phase.

Same goes with Vigilance. Being able to act one initiative spot earlier in the next round is sometimes a critically important move.

[revenantsknight]

Originally posted by New Moon On Monday:

Called shots do not affect the chance that your weapon will hit. Called shots only reassign the probabilities that a successful shot will hit a particular part of the mech.

Called shots absolutely do increase the overall chance of a hit, in addition to changing the hit location probabilities.

[VipreRX]

Multi target is useful when you have mechs specd for different ranges. The mech in close might have a great percentage for your medium or large lasers but crap percentage for your LRMs while one a ways off is great so you split the shots. Also useful if a target needs just a couple hits to be taken out as it allows you to use the rest of your weapons this turn rather than having to wait. Or if multiple mechs have their arms nearly blown off you can multi target for a chance to disable a boatload of weapon systems in one go if the split shots can do enough damage separately.

[danko9696]

Originally posted by VipreRX:

Multi target is useful when you have mechs specd for different ranges. The mech in close might have a great percentage for your medium or large lasers but crap percentage for your LRMs while one a ways off is great so you split the shots. Also useful if a target needs just a couple hits to be taken out as it allows you to use the rest of your weapons this turn rather than having to wait. Or if multiple mechs have their arms nearly blown off you can multi target for a chance to disable a boatload of weapon systems in one go if the split shots can do enough damage separately.

Mechs intended to fight at different ranges is not a good idea to begin with, better to focus on a single range and fight only from that distance.

But even going alone with your idea, unless you're fighting very weak foes while packing very powerful weapons still is not very good. Let's say a foe has only 30 internal+armor left in the CT from a previous failed core attempt with another mech using Precision Shot (so other locations are going to be mostly intact). If you fire one or two weapons at him there is no guarantee you'll be able to finish him out. With only around an unaimed 20% to hit the CT from the front the shots could land in a side torso or a limb.

And if you have multiple foes around with only the CT and one leg then you're doing something very wrong.

Apart from LRM boats playing an attrition playstyle, for aggro in defense missions Multishot is a for-the-show skill, a fun skill, something you use when you know you're going to win for sure. It won't help you to win if you're under pressure, while other skills might.

[beamupstc]

Originally posted by ColorsFade:

Originally posted by wesnef:

Called Shot is always useful.

2) knocks the enemy mech one phase slower in Initiative. So if you have three Medium mechs, and you Precision Shot the enemy Medium, it'll now be going in the Heavy phase. And all three of your Mediums can shoot it before it gets to shoot back.

This part gets underestimated by so many people, but it's so useful.

Until you get a Marauder and can start head-hunting everything, Called Shot's best use is to move other mechs around in the initiative phase.

Same goes with Vigilance. Being able to act one initiative spot earlier in the next round is sometimes a critically important move.

Oh my word yes. Strategic use of Resolve to manipulate initiative is better than Master Tactician any day.

Also, my feeling is that Multi-Target is only ever useful in combination with Breaching Shot, and taking it on any pilot who won't get Breaching is a waste. I'd rather have either of the defensive options. Am I wrong?

[Enorats]

Going to have to second what others have said. Called Shot is the best way to ensure a kill. If you just target an enemy normally, that damage is applied all over the mech. If you use Called Shot, you can target the part of the mech you want to target, and a much larger portion of the damage (maybe even all of it) will go to that part. That'll generally be the CT for a kill, but you might want to hit an LT or RT that's already heavily damaged and knock off some weapons instead.

Multi-Target is generally useful when combined with Breaching Shot. If an enemy is going to reduce 60% of their incoming damage due to cover/entrenched/brace (or whatever they're using) then it's entirely possible that you might decide to do full damage to two or three enemies instead. If you have your entire squad target enemies that have such high defenses normally, then your squad will do 60% reduced damage that turn. If your entire squad each targets a three enemies with a single weapon each, then you may end up doing 100% of your normal damage instead thanks to breaching shot.

[VipreRX]

Originally posted by danko9696:

Mechs intended to fight at different ranges is not a good idea to begin with, better to focus on a single range and fight only from that distance.

And it'd be great if they'd also just blow up when you look at them but that's not how it works out most of the time. You can "try" to control the range you fight at but the enemy doesn't always comply.

I'm not saying it's not a situational use skill but dismissing it like it's totally useless is going too far the other way.

[HurtfulPlayer97]

Originally posted by VipreRX:

I'm not saying it's not a situational use skill but dismissing it like it's totally useless is going too far the other way.

I would disagree that totally dismissing it is not going too far. It is such a situational skill that it does not deserve to be a major skill. It should just be something everyone picks up at a certain level of Gunnery.