314 replies to this topic

[Ironbound]

And this is my formal apology to everyone. If you see me in game, I'm sorry, but I'm probably piloting a skillcat, and it's because when I finish the game with 1000+ damage and 3-5 kills, I want you to hate the mech as much as I do.

Edit: This exploded, which is a good thing. I'll explain my reasoning for hating it.

I've played the skillcat now for probably 100 games in this fashion, saying at the end of each game "Pls go post rage about this on the forums."

Let me direct your rage:

I think the problem is twofold: SRMs are too good at pointblank range, and the Catapult can go too fast.

SRMs are designed to be balanced with all the other weapons in the game as spread weapons, since we borrowed numbers directly from battletech. The problem here is that for the first 50 meters of travel, they go in perfectly grouped little pinpoint bursts, and then after that they spread so hard they do nothing.

This means that a fast mech mounting srms is a nightmare, and is why so many people think SRMs are OP.

When the Catapult, a 60 tonner, can go the same speed as a Hunchback, a 50 tonner, and mount 6 SRMs and jumpjets, we have a problem. My skillcat goes 85 and has room for 3 jumpjets, max armor, 6 srm 6s, and 700 ammo.

Making a mech this fast and maneuverable while also being able to mount tons of weapons whose only drawback is "You have ta be sooper dooper close" makes it OP.

I don't know if the devs intended the Catapult to be a brawler, but being able to mount such huge weapons and turn 270 degrees faster than most heavies and all assaults makes it an incredible one. Its cockpit seems to me to scream "NOT A BRAWLER DON'T DO IT," but maybe that was the dev's attempts at balancing it.

In any case, to fix the Skillcat, we need to either/do both:

1. Make it so srms come out of the launcher at a small spread, and spread less over distance. This "perfect aim to 50 then useless" nonsense is what makes them feel OP.

2. Nerf the Catapult's engine mounting capabilities. I'm sorry everyone who loves them (Me included, my main is a 2 UAC5 4 Mlas K2) but this guy goes too fast and is too maneuverable.

Edit2: Per request, my experience with the mech:

Generally I do much better than I should. When I'm piloting any other good build I get good damage numbers and kills regularly, but nothing like this. I routinely (probably 4/5 games) get 1000+ damage and at least 3 kills, and I've gotten 6 or 7 kills at least ten times since I started.

When I run into literally anything 1v1 within 200 meters I know I can win easily. An atlas with 3 srm 6s, an AC20, and 4mlas is child's play. I literally walk around him, wait for him to show his back to turn to face me, alpha his back. It's yellow internals. Then I hit him again and he's dead. A good Atlas will get me to red armor, a bad one wont even touch me before he's dead. These are brawler Atlases btw, long range ones die very fast.

Any mech lower than an assault has to just stay away. Getting close to me means death. Trebuchets and Centurions can be killed by one well placed alpha to the center torso, hunchbacks lose plenty of weapons after 1, so everyone on the other team has to devote their full attention at all times to avoiding me. Did I mention I go 85 kph and have jumpjets? Yeah. Any big teamfight I just run around and mop up kills.

Sometimes damage doesn't register correctly, but honestly it's not nearly enough to matter. I don't pull the trigger till I'm close enough to gib, and at that range losing a little damage isn't that important.

Now people will say "Stay at range and shoot him!"

The maps are not open fields. None of them so far. Even Alpine Peaks is a playground for my cat. You think it has no cover? Actually play in a splatcat sometime. It has plenty of cover. And even when it doesn't, I just stay with my team. Eventually the mediums and dps heavies come knocking, and I walk up to them and kill them. It might be a meta problem from people used to city maps, but I have had no problems dominating on Alpine Peaks yet.

The only time I feel useless is when I'm against a premade using snipers. One or two snipers is the usual and can be avoided, but two ppc stalkers and four poptarts make my life hard, especially on Alpine Peaks. this is the only time I don't feel OP, but even then it just requires some sneaking. Overall I'd say its a mech that effects each game it's in far too much.

Edited by Ironbound, 27 February 2013 - 01:20 PM.

[Doc Holliday]

Good for you.

But word to the wise, it's not the Cat you're abusing. It's SRMs. Cats are fine; SRMs do too much damage. This is true whether you're using one SRM6 or six of them.

[Broceratops]

yeah! bring down the system from the inside!

[JadePanther]

Skill cat? u mean theres some kind of catapult build that requires skill... 0.o

[Agent of Change]

Justify to the Power!

[ChrisOrange]

We've done this before...it works.

Our version was 2x streak cats chain and focus firing enemies down in that 350 XL engine or whatever the max was at the time. Soon the forum posts started. We did the streak cat thing before it was a thing. We also did this with Gausscats when that was the big topic.

keep up the good work..this also works best when you are running this with a friend.

Edited by ChrisOrange, 27 February 2013 - 09:48 AM.

[Vassago Rain]

Go away, reddit.

[lsp]

Skillcat, lol. No one cares what you pilot.

[SixstringSamurai]

Vassago Rain, on 27 February 2013 - 09:48 AM, said:

Go away, reddit.

Wait? WHAT?

[Broceratops]

if having to aim 36 unguided missiles at the same time isn't skill i don't know what is!

[Josef Nader]

Doc Holliday, on 27 February 2013 - 09:41 AM, said:

Good for you.

But word to the wise, it's not the Cat you're abusing. It's SRMs. Cats are fine; SRMs do too much damage. This is true whether you're using one SRM6 or six of them.

Then why are SRMs fine on -every other mech in the game-?

No, the problem is inherent with the Catapult chassis. It's got too many good qualities and beans for negative qualities. It's why every cheese build that doesn't rely on a specific gimmick (the PPC/Gauss poptarts and the ECM Cravens) comes out of the Cat.

[Flapdrol]

Ironbound, on 27 February 2013 - 09:40 AM, said:

skillcat

Edited by Flapdrol, 27 February 2013 - 09:56 AM.

[warner2]

Doc Holliday, on 27 February 2013 - 09:41 AM, said:

Good for you.

But word to the wise, it's not the Cat you're abusing. It's SRMs. Cats are fine; SRMs do too much damage. This is true whether you're using one SRM6 or six of them.

Really, do you think 1 SRM6 is too much? The damage from a single SRM spread over more than one panel is too much?

How many SRMSs would you take to make them useful in a brawl. One, two, three, four?

Hint: If one SRM is too much as you've stated, then the answer is one. So do you have configurations that have a single SRM6?

I'm genuinely curious as I've none and I don't think that a single SRM can be considered "OP".

[Ashnod]

Real skillcat's run streaks, for the increased skill requirement.

[jakucha]

Doc Holliday, on 27 February 2013 - 09:41 AM, said:

Good for you.

But word to the wise, it's not the Cat you're abusing. It's SRMs. Cats are fine; SRMs do too much damage. This is true whether you're using one SRM6 or six of them.

I think it's stacking so many SRMs that's the problem. There's no penalty to doing it

[Joseph Mallan]

Ironbound, on 27 February 2013 - 09:40 AM, said:

And this is my formal apology to everyone. If you see me in game, I'm sorry, but I'm probably piloting a skillcat, and it's because when I finish the game with 1000+ damage and 3-5 kills, I want you to hate the mech as much as I do.

Why would i hate an effective weapons platform?

[JadePanther]

Josef Nader, on 27 February 2013 - 09:54 AM, said:

Then why are SRMs fine on -every other mech in the game-?

No, the problem is inherent with the Catapult chassis. It's got too many good qualities and beans for negative qualities. It's why every cheese build that doesn't rely on a specific gimmick (the PPC/Gauss poptarts and the ECM Cravens) comes out of the Cat.

the cat problem is all about hardpoints.. And it always will.. Torso ballistics allow for gauss and ac20's with little worry of losing an arm.. the a1's 6 missile points is a boaters heaven and allows the splatcat and streak cat to be OP..

[warner2]

JadePanther, on 27 February 2013 - 10:00 AM, said:

the cat problem is all about hardpoints.. And it always will.. Torso ballistics allow for gauss and ac20's with little worry of losing an arm.. the a1's 6 missile points is a boaters heaven and allows the splatcat and streak cat to be OP..

jakucha, on 27 February 2013 - 09:59 AM, said:

I think it's stacking so many SRMs that's the problem. There's no penalty to doing it

[Voridan Atreides]

I'm sorry. Skillcat is an oxymoron.

[Doc Holliday]

warner2, on 27 February 2013 - 09:56 AM, said:

Really, do you think 1 SRM6 is too much? The damage from a single SRM spread over more than one panel is too much?

How many SRMSs would you take to make them useful in a brawl. One, two, three, four?

Hint: If one SRM is too much as you've stated, then the answer is one. So do you have configurations that have a single SRM6?

I'm genuinely curious as I've none and I don't think that a single SRM can be considered "OP".

For the resources it takes, even one SRM6 does too much damage. Sure, it's a LOT more noticeable when you run 4-6 of them. Doesn't mean it's not there when you're running just one.

I run one on my extremely effective DRG-1C and on my FLAME. I run two on my HBK-4SP, like just about everyone else. I've run the splattcat. I've run 5 on a Stalker 5M. I can tell I'm killing things too easily with all of them due to the SRMs. It's just way more noticeable when you stack them.

Think of it like this: one SRM6 does 15 damage. When you have two, that's 30 damage. Sure, it spreads out a lot at range, but at close range you can get most (if not all) of them to hit CT. That's a potential 50% more damage than an AC 20, for less than half the resources. But even just one, is still doing more damage than it should. One does potentially 50% more damage than an AC10, for considerably less than half the resources - and without generating enough heat to be an issue.

I'd probably start by cutting back the damage on SRMs by 10-20%. I don't think 12 damage for a single SRM6 would be too low.

Edited by Doc Holliday, 27 February 2013 - 10:07 AM.