The ongoing Warmaster battle: Back VS Arm

[Knightmage]

Arm gives the best opportunity for hitting more of the time, otherwise you are spending more of the DPS race running for position to get a shot at the back.

[Kibblehouse]

The following are comments from someone who is consistantly under 1mil on the scoreboard, so hit next, or read on as you wish.

Personally, I have high enough ego I will be adding sucker-punch if I dont have it already. From my level of play I cant say one method is a clear winner over the other. Back requires less thought(there's only one back), Arm has the benifit of being readily available during "hang time" Without a doubt when the group decides on one way or the other it works much better (duh). Some of the cleanest, most effective runs I have been involved with were the first 2 where they went for the back. HOWEVER, it felt to me that the success was due to the fact it was a select group of people who knew what they were doing, and how to get it done. And NOT choice of target which made the difference. The fact someone said "hit target x" and they did meant much more than the choice of back over arm.

Actually, I do remember one PUG when Both the back and arm armor broke at about the same time. But we had a bunch of good shooters on that run.

[Tallon]

There are +'s and -'S to both.
Shooting the back does give a bigger target but when he hangs, everybody has to bunch up to get crits and usually end up at respawn. If you have problems aiming and running, this is probably the best for you.
Shooting the arm requires you to constantly move to get a shot, but when he hangs its easy crits from a wider angle.
I get more overall damage from the "arm" method and seem to get more and faster wm kills than the back method possibly because I can stay upright longer and send more shots when he hangs.
Go with the flow, the majority rules.. etc.. If everbody is shooting the back - shoot the back. If they are shooting the arm - shoot the arm.
The biggest problem still is getting people to wait for a full room and get them to not use coldfire weapons.

[MahChew]

Ok then..

If its a group with random players using coldfire and whatnot...sure shoot the arm =)

But for players who have a strategy and actually use perks and stims correctly, shooting in the back is a no brainer. This is why its possible to kill the monkey with 3 and a half minures remaining...

[mikomi okanaji]

blah blah blah...read my post. thats how its done

[mikomi okanaji]

we have killed the monkey with 3 and half remaining... didnt shoot the back.. you wanna know how we did it.. read my post... might have been less. bunch of us have dubl crit wolfs. and nasty heavys. u ever pop the crystal second time up on the wall... we have. with randoms

[Kibblehouse]

I may have to give the Heavy AR another try. I know people swear by it, but last time I tried it I didn't enjoy it, and was getting much better results with my full auto AR's. However that was a while ago and I have recently forced myself to level 2 orange semi auto weapons so maybe this time it will go a bit better. Guess I am shopping at Top-Notch tonight.

[SirServed]

It's always going to be a numbers thing. If it ain't there, it won't matter where everyone targets. 15% extra damage done over a course of up to 7 minutes CAN make a difference when the numbers ain't there. No 1 spot is a guarantee without a good squad.

I've been in arm kills where we had 3.5 minutes left when he died. The squad we had was overkill.
I've been in arm fails where the top 4 had about 10m damage between them. We can only carry so much.

I've been in back kills where we had 24 second armor breaks and 4 minutes left when he died. The squad we had was overkill.
I've been in back fails where I personally did 4.6m damage of the 10m done by the top 4. We can only carry so much.

Edit: Also, I use a SMG/Pistol combo.

[Infinity Eagle]

I guess that this sums up how I feel about it.

[Deunan]

However it is better to just go with what the majority of people are shooting. Though I beleive shooting the back is better I don't think trying to switch is not worth the problem that is causing people to shoot different parts. The arm works fine enough that we don't need to switch. Getting people to try to switch is going to cause problems and more warmaster fails.

I don't know if you've been doing any Major Arkfalls lately but we're already beyond that stage. Players have already have switched. Entire groups have switched. More often than not the PUGs I'm in are shooting the back. I've been in PUGs that target the back where the overwhelming majority of the group lines up at the back, breaks the armor in decent time and kills him with plenty of time to spare.