Defeating the Thor

[Aileron]

This topic will go over various anti-thor tactics. While the focus will be defeating the thor, many of these tactics will apply to wallbombing and the weasel's EMP bomb as well. If anyone has any comments they would like to add, please feel free, as I am not the only expert here.

 

First off, there is some equipment you can use to counter the thor. Repels are an ideal obvious choice, though a thor travels fast enough that it is unreliable to count on being able to repel a thor reactively. Armors such as shock matrix and wave disperser protect against bombs. Shock matrix is a basic bomb damage reducer, while wave decreases the bomb damage radius drastically. This makes wave the best for protecting against thors assuming they are not aimed directly at you. Both armors have a tendency of keeping you alive after major thor bombardments, albeit barely. Of course, if you have anti-bomb armor, that means you lack bullet armor, so keep that caveat in mind.

 

A fundamental principle of avoiding indirect fire is to not offer a good target, meaning in plain english 'spread out'. If all team members are on top of each other, and the enemy thors them, he takes out the whole team. If the friendly team is spread out, the thor lobber can't do as much damage. There are two targets thor lobbers have to choose from - the dense crowd of gunners in front, or the dense cloud around the lanc. This assumes of course that there are no exposed flag carriers to shoot at. Thus there are two things you need to do when you notice that someone on the other team has a habit of thoring you:

 

1) Get away from your team's lanc as soon as possible after attaching.

 

2) Do not form a gaggle with the other shooters on your team. Your goal is not to all be in the same spot...you need to have the FIRES you generate all be in the same spot.

 

 

The other principle of indirect fire is it does more damage the longer you stay still. Also, it doesn't really help the enemy when you are right next to him. So, when thored, you have to rush and rush aggressively. This is especially true for the smaller ships, which generally like to use larger ships as cover. This works well against bullets, but terribly against thors. If you are in a warbird when the enemy starts chucking thors, your best tactic is to rush the enemy and get as close to him as possible. The downside is you'll get killed by the enemy's bullets rather than the enemy's thors, but the upside is you might just cause a mass teamkill, and the threat of causing a mass teamkill might persuade the enemy's thor lobber to switch to a harder target away from his teammates.

 

 

Finally, the worst thor lobbers have a tendency of setting a pattern. It takes a certain amount of time to stock up on thors, respawn, attach, aim, fire, and repeat. If you pay attention, you can get a feel for it. Sort of like 'alright, its been a while since the last time they thored us, maybe I should brace for impact.' It is possible to stop shooting and give ground, absorb the thors, recharge while still giving ground trading space for time, and then taking the given ground back as the thor lobber restocks.

[vetta64]

Setting a lanc as thor blocker for the team is not a bad idea. It ties up 1 player but can allow the rest of the team to rush without loosing mass nrg from constant thoring.

 

Also, drawing thor fire in closer to nme position helps. If the thors are hitting you they may as well damage the nme at the same time. If you can make it so the thorrer is hitting right in the funnel spot they will generally do as much damage to your team as to their own team. This is not idea but its better than nothing.

 

Overall I would say that same thing about spreading the team out. This is probably the best way to minimize damages. It's just hard to gat all the morons to do this.

[LeftsideChaos]

On a side note, I remember last reset when teams were organized enough to have 5+ people trip thor at once. I specifically remember my team at b4 having a line carved through it. They lined up outside the based and killed 2 of our lancs, me being one of them.

 

but yeah, I dont see thors being a big issue anymore.