Well, simply put, recently I am trying to actively headshot assault mechs and some heavy rather than trying to kill them out right. The results are... interesting to say the least. It seems that you can take out most mechs with two shots of 2xMLas, maybe 3 shots sometimes, but that maybe my lack of skills. The problem is that inorder to do so you will have to stop dead in the middle of your moves some of the time. Simply put, you are trading your life for a kill or two. It is easier if you do a few test run and KNOW where the exact spot is also. HEADSHOT does not mean the head of a mech, but a specific spot, like that eye of Atlas. Anyone tried doing that? The feel of headshotting 2 Atlas in a row in a jenner is priceless though.
In my eyes kills are not as important as damage done. I routinely have matches where I only get 2 kills however I manage to do 800+ damage in a match thus helping my team in terms of damage multipliers. 800 damage is like vaporizing 2 Catapult C1s from full to completely gone. A win is a win. I used to duel atlas pilots in my Jenner and I was obsessed with getting the kill shot etc. Now I'm more of a team player and realize the importance of spreading damage rather than stealing kills
Its fun to get kills, but I judge my match performance much like Michael. If I can get 8 assist and 800 damage and no kills, much better in my mind than 4 kills, no assists and 400 damage.
The question is, if you can just kill things like a relatively full armor Atlas on your own with a few shots, then your damage would be lower since you spend time pulling this off. But the effect on the battle is probably bigger than, say, you run around doing a few hundred damages that is spread out to legs, hands and torse everywhere. Non-concentrated damage that are too spread out is wasted unless it does make parts much easier to break.
I play mainly for 12 man drop decks and while damage is a good indication of landing shots it is not necessarily the most efficient way of winning. This is particularly evident with 12 mans and can be seen by a number of matches last night against SJR where we were rushed by a mix of centurions and assaults. The quickest way of downing those centurions is legging them very fast. This does not account for very high damage but in terms of winning the battle the faster the enemy mechs are down the less focus fire they have, hence why pinpoint weapons are so important in the current meta. Headshotting a mech is a very quick way of doing it but as already alluded to is very difficult at great range or when on the move or with good pilots torso twisting effectively, hence making legging and centre torso coring the favoured tactic for killing mechs quickly in 12 mans. For 12 mans damage done or killing makes no difference imo it is the win that is important as team all of who contribute in different ways. For pugs it is more difficult. Damage done does show how much a player has contributed but could also indicate not great aiming. You can do a lot of damage to an Atlas by damaging torso's arms and legs and yet not actually kill it. All the while he could be damaging and killing team mates. So killing it quickly is more likely to give a win. However in most pug matches I would say high damage combined with Kills and Assists show how much a player has contributed. So for me it is a combination of both things. I guess in reality XP gained should be the best indicator of player performance but that can't be seen by anyone except the player themselves and I am not sure how balanced the calculations are against kills, assists, damage, captures, TAG/NARC etc.
I think that this is exactly why PGI balances their cbill rewards so heavily towards damage. In general, you do so much more for your team if you're sending pain down-field rather than trying to get the killing blow. The downside comes when you're packing a high-alpha build which doesn't spread damage. Dual Gauss and Dual AC/20 builds excel at coring, but don't make much money. More to the point, they sacrifice a great deal to be good at coring and can't afford to take shots which merely disable an enemy. My Cataphract-3D (4xLLas) and Hunchback 4SP (2xSRM, 2xL/MLas) routinely make more money than their premium counterparts when they get the same number of kills, and it's because they take longer and do more damage before they kill the target.
Just run a match with only 400ish damage in a QuickDraw with some variant of my "Slutty Barbie" config. That having said, I got 3 kills 5 assists. I took out 2 of the jagers basically on my own, with careful hopping and coreing. If I would choose to spam my lasers a bit more I could have done MUCH more damage, but in turn that would allow the jagers to live longer, doing more damage to my team. So basically quick disposal of enemies are quite imprtant. however what is "quick disposal" and where to hit depends on targets and a good guess of enemy build. Obviously headshot and CT core would work on all, but some builds it is easier to just legg that target, while others you can just blow out the side torso cause of XL engine. On the other hand, it might be smart to disarm some mech first randering them less of a threat, like blowing up the arm of a YLW. It is MUCH easier to just scan the whoe target with your Las, and firing whenever you can spamming those beams would DEFINITELY do more total damage, but much less effective when it comes to killing and neutralizing threat.
There are two very different questions: 1/ your title: what's the most important, the kill or the damage? 2/ your message: do you aim at the head? So two answers: 1/ the most important is to do your job. If your job is to distract the enemy, in other words prevent him to deal damage to your teammates and disband the pack a little, allowing your team to push and kill, well, you won't deal much damage, you won't get any kill, but you did your job. It's a team game, there is no such thing as "kill stealing" (except when you tease your friends, it's always funny to "ahahah i got it!" but it really does not matter). Actually as a light mech or a sniper, it's sometime your job to "steal a kill", because you're the only one able to deal damage if the target has retreat behind the enemy's first line. And, actually, my happiness and contentment do not depend on numbers. 2/ I tend to balance my aggressive playstyle by a safe attitude. I'm sure headshotting an atlas with a jenner is priceless, but it's also pretty stupid and uselessly dangerous if for that you "have to stop dead in the middle of your moves" like you said. My first principle is to never assume the enemy is a bad pilot without teammates. Head shot is efficient for snipers. And maybe for laser boats brawlers able to keep a steady aim under fire. After all if you miss the head you get CT, so it's not a problem. But for a light? ... I only go for the head when it's already cored. Otherwise, the legs are my target.
I feel like this gets a little biased towards certain weapons. The ilya Chainsaw can produce massive damage no matter who or what you shoot. Usually all the damage is spread around though. UAC/5s though are accurate but not the most like an ERPPC. So if someone is a DAMN good shot with ERPPC they will never deal as much damage as a UAC just because they drill holes through people with less shots and a better pin-point accuracy. Damage done is a bit of a misleading stat i would think. Are you NOT gonna kill a guy just so you dont get the kill but do more damage? In my eyes killing an enemy is MUCH more important on average than the damage done for 1 reason and 1 reason only: Team protection. If that asshole is dead then he cant shoot back or hurt anyone. Just being damaged means hes shooting back. You dont want an Atlas hellrazing the battlefield just because you wanna do more damage. I want kills AND damage done. But the longer i play this game the more i notice that i handle each and every mech differently and aim for different targets to maximize potential crippling and death speed of enemies. Hunchbacks? huge RT, and if they arent using an XL go for the CT. Jagers? CT core em every time. Centurions, because of being a bitch to kill, always remove the gun arm first. Every mech has a process of crippling and killing to either A.) kill em or B.) if they kill me, at least they are less of a threat to my team. If my team wins, who cares how much damage was done. Maybe that one guy that i didnt kill ends up killing 2 others? Then my damage was a moot point if we lost. This principle is used in all professional, competitive games. Why would this one be different? Also, sniper is the most revered of all the military troops in any company and you only ever need one. why? Quick death to enemies results in safe approach and survival for your team. NTM, its a hell of a lot harder to hit the same spot at varying distances consistently. Ive gotten several matches with something like 5-6 kills with only 3-400 damage done back in 8v8. I'd take that over 900 damage and 1 kill any day. The 900 damage game means you can still lose because they had to be alive for you to do that much damage.
PGI should reward Headshots with a Bonus.Multiplier on C-Bills/XP, and also high Kill Scores, as compensation for dealing less damage with Sniper.Builds.
I find kills more important. I can easily do 800-900 damage in plenty of builds. However, if I spread that over the entire enemy team and don't finish anyone off, they are still firing back. A Centurion with 20% health can still win a match with three extra kills off those two CT MLas. You have to finish the job to help the team. However, I think there is a balance. I don't find a sniper who takes out 4 mechs with >200 damage to be special. If you don't at least assist in stripping opponent's armor and help your team mates finish the match, your kills may not be enough to save the team. I actually think Component Destruction can be JUST as important as kill-shots for that reason. If you can take away their bite, even if they survive, you have helped your team a lot more than spreading 1000 damage out and getting 12 assists. I'm sure plenty of us always go for that right arm on a Yen-Lo or Dragon and the Cannons of a Jag. EVERYONE takes the ears of a Cat. I think that's just as important as cutting down the CT. If you can take the softer, weapon bearing points off, your team can much more easily win the match. I'm not sure exactly where it is, but, I think there's a middle ground between the three - Kills, Damage and Components.
I agree with a lot of these responses... I should have been more clear in my post but it WAS like 5 in the morning when I wrote that post It all depends on if you are in a 12 man PUB/PUG, where coordination is few and far between, or whether you are in a 12 man focused and organized drop. In a 12 man organized, competitive drop, you want to kill as quickly as possible to prevent the rush (take SJR for instance. They are a brawler team). Headshots and cored torsos get the enemy mech down and FAST which, in turn, reduces their overall combat multiplier and the amount of damage they can do effectively as a team goes down. This all happens through communication and organization. If your team-mate has almost cored the enemy and you get a single gauss round off killing him you might have only done 50 damage but you got the kill. Then you assess and move on to the next target. In PUG/PUB drops a lot of newer/less skilled (and less focused) players are shooting in many different directions. Often times you can't set up a firing line, constantly have to shift your fire to try and fend off an enemy rush, adjust to help kill a target etc. This is where your damage versus kills goes out the window. In fact you will find yourself spreading damage in response to enemy movement and current battlefield situations. It is better to increase the amount of damage you can do versus the number of kills you manage to acquire. As an example; take theMagician. I have seen him in both 12 mans and PUB drops. In a 12 man he is deadly and his aim is exceptionally good (I say this with no small amount of teeth gnashing). In PUB drops his damage goes up but the number of mechs he actually kills (before even dying himself) goes down because he is forced, by working with Almighty Noob Players, to spread his damage and take less time setting up his shots. Whether it be to stop enemy charges, prevent flanking maneuvers, whatever. It is disorganized chaos most times in PUB matches. Chaos Theory at work!
