100 replies to this topic

[Captain Stiffy]

I dont know why I feel the need to post this here TLDR w/e

for my atlas DDC I choose a long, short and medium range weapon

for cata I choose long and short, cause its a missile boat its more limited but best in some ways

you want to be able to engage in as many theaters of combat as possible, that is the key

[Lyrik]

The A1 can't be so overpowered . The noobs from No guts, no galaxy didn't managed to get a kill in it :-P Despite being behind an Hunch o.O

Despite this , I think that the A1 should be removed. We already have 3 rather diverse variants. And the A1 is a boater. It will always be an one trick pony. And these are always OP when everything comes together.

And shooting the ears? Bonnce chance with that. With (40armor/20structure)x2 you need a lot of firepower and a good aim to disarm the Splatcat while it can shoot at your torse.

[Abivard]

Cheese; A politically correct (PC) term for a battlemech that does not embrace weaponry diversion, its weapon-centric out view of life is incompatible with the known peaceful nature of Superior Civilized pilots who will only stoop to combat in aesthetically pleasing mechs,
Mind the paint job now valet!

[That Dawg]

SirLANsalot, on 10 March 2013 - 02:35 AM, said:

So lets take a look at the "cheese" mechs that certain people like to whine about.

Valid points all, and good suggestions.

Its called "balance", there are no OP mechs in the game (there are some crap bags however)
Uber alpha means- heat, speed, maneuverability, ammo are nerfed.
Uber speed, maneuverability means speed and armor are nerfed- good game, fix the ELO

[Jay Kerensky]

Damn me - someone get us some tissues in here QUICKLY!

You know what a splatcat is good for? Dealing with swarms of 3L Ravens. Packs of those little buggers can trash a whole team quickly. A splatcat can stop that. Likewise, other mechs can stop a cat - my hunchie tore an SRM cat a new one today. Double LRM 10'd as he came at me and then cut him up with the quad med lasers.

There is balance out there, but no game is ever going to be 100% balanced because draws hardly ever happen. One side wins.

Suck it up princesses and move on. This constant crying is getting old fast.

[Royalewithcheese]

Jay Kerensky, on 11 March 2013 - 04:02 AM, said:

You know what a splatcat is good for? Dealing with swarms of 3L Ravens. Packs of those little buggers can trash a whole team quickly. A splatcat can stop that. Likewise, other mechs can stop a cat - my hunchie tore an SRM cat a new one today. Double LRM 10'd as he came at me and then cut him up with the quad med lasers.

I suspect that the problems ppl have with spatcats might just be because it's the scissors to their favorite mech's paper It's like Atlas pilots who complain about the 6PPC Stalker.

[Thuzel]

Royalewithcheese, on 10 March 2013 - 08:38 PM, said:

Srsly, giant hitbox, 40 armor, close range. Either your robot can do it, should be sticking near other robots that can do it, or can outrun a splatcat.

Even at half damage the splatcat still does better than most other mechs on the field. So, you're talking about throwing out 60ish focused damage to bring that thing down to our level, and during that time it's probably already thrown out at least 3 or 4 salvos for 300ish damage. Just shoot to kill, it's much more effective in the end.

Btw, at 86kph with JJ, there are really only three scenarios when you can really run:

1. When it's not interested.
2. When there are so many targets for it that you can hope one of your teammates runs slower than you.
3. When you're in a fast scout.

[Royalewithcheese]

Thuzel, on 11 March 2013 - 06:23 AM, said:

Even at half damage the splatcat still does better than most other mechs on the field. So, you're talking about throwing out 60ish focused damage to bring that thing down to our level, and during that time it's probably already thrown out at least 3 or 4 salvos for 300ish damage. Just shoot to kill, it's much more effective in the end.

Btw, at 86kph with JJ, there are really only three scenarios when you can really run:

1. When it's not interested.
2. When there are so many targets for it that you can hope one of your teammates runs slower than you.
3. When you're in a fast scout.

Is it strange that I think a player should either be able to throw out 60 damage in short order, stick near some combination of teammates that can, or should be able to outrun a fast heavy? Not, like, specifically to deal with splatcats, but just because being alone, slow, and undergunned is generally a Very Bad Idea?* I mean, this isn't just a splatcat thing - "fast high-damage heavy" is an inevitable consequence of tonnage/engine capacity/hardpoints, and will shortly include the 2xAC20/XL Jagermech.

*And really, even ppl who can throw out 60 damage in 1-2 alphas shouldn't be alone if they can avoid it.

EDIT: But yeah, coring it in the giant CT is also a 100% viable response. Depends on where it's been damaged and what kind of shot you have on it.

Edited by Royalewithcheese, 11 March 2013 - 06:40 AM.

[Bubba Wilkins]

Vassago Rain, on 10 March 2013 - 03:32 AM, said:

Each ton of SRM ammo is 250 damage. I take 8 tons on my catapult, and have been since they made jumpjets useful..

So that's...2000 damage, best case scenario. Assuming you have the usual terrible hit detection, you'll do maybe 1500 total with these, if all hit. A more likely scenario is 1000+ damage, 3 dead mechs, or that you die before you can even use up a ton of rockets.

A1s are extremely dangerous - more so in proper hands. Beams? Why? I hug, you die (when my missiles don't vanish into the void).

My atlas doesn't carry this much potential damage around.

How do you stay away from something moving almost 90 kmph, that can jump over terrain, jump in and out of combat? The white whale dictates when and where combat is to be decided.



There's a reason this color scheme makes people sweat.

Call me Ishmael....

[Skyscream Sapphire]

Not sure how I feel about the A1. Yes, a 90-pt damage alpha on a Heavy is a bit much. Especially on a chassis that can run 90+ and sport jump jets.

However, it does have some serious weaknesses that have been mentioned. It suffers from he same huge head hit box all Catapults do, exacerbated by the fact that it tends to run straight towards you. It has absolutely nothing for you beyond 270m and really isn't going to be hitting with the full 90 beyond about 130m. That is CLOSE. If you are slow, you're pretty screwed, otherwise it's relatively easy to stay out of the true alpha range.

Yes, splatcats do become the priority target when they are spotted. However, this isn't necessarily because they are the most dangerous mech on the field. It's usually because they are currently the least dangerous mech...soon to become the most dangerous. So neuter it before it gets there! Shooting cockpit or CT is going to be the most efficient, but the downfall of the ears being so high up is that you can hit either one from almost any angle. The splatapult driver cannot effectively use torso twist to hide a wounded ear like he can the CT, so this becomes the best option in a lot of cases.

Sure, you can try to break off solo, cut through a cave or canyon, and try to come up behind...but a solo pilot is an easy kill for a coordinated team no matter what the mech. So I guess I see these being more of a problem in PUG play.

In short, the splat cat is dangerous if you let it get to you. However, most cheese pilots are bad pilots and in most of the matches I play in these Cats die with less kills than other mech types, as good team work focuses them down before they can get into range.

The key to remember is that, once earless, these cats are utterly worthless and should be treated as such. Do NOT give them an honorable and swift death. Instead, take your time. Shoot off one leg. Then shoot the armor off the other leg. Then get that leg red. Now spend the rest of the match playing mech jousting, trying to leg the cheese mech using only collisions. If everything goes correctly, the cheese cat pilot will make straight for the out of bounds suicide line in his shame.

[NKAc Street]

Cheese is mostly in the eye of the dead guy. I slightly question the need to change to LRMs, but for the most part, some patience and awareness still keeps you out of their path.

But raven hit boxes are broken and need fixed. The "learn to aim" is bs since many of us have witnessed a Raven taking 5+ a/c 20 rounds dead on and it survived. Yep occasionally, you get that luck shot and they go down quickly. Someone may be uber twitch skilled at aiming but the majority of people aren't and in this game should not need to be. We can still hit it and it needs fixed no matter how tough of a mech it may be intended to be, it's not that tough, it's broken.


The raven is really only the last real cheese mech left of the current line up. It needs fixed

[Gallowglas]

I used to believe that the splatcat was balanced. I argued about it because when I went up against them they didn't seem like a big deal. The sure seemed balanced when you maybe saw 1-2 per match max. However, now they're popular because everyone knows what they can do. Dealing with 3-4 of them essentially means that any potential weaknesses are overcome by numbers. There's simply no way to keep them out of your back ranks when there are 3-4 of them trying to sneak up on you. The compounding problem is that they can kill anything with an XL in one volley and anything else in two. Killing something that quickly without the need for precision is the key problem.

I don't think the answer is to nerf SRM damage either. Otherwise you'll make it a useless weapon. You either have to find a way to penalize stacking so many of them, or else do something to adjust their weight or heat.

[Atheus]

I've had an A1 since CB, but rarely pull it out of the shed. I took it out for a few games this morning just to refresh my memory - here's the result:

In heavy I'm probably at least in the top 10% ELO. There are no newbies in the matches, lots of paint jobs, and everyone generally knows what they're doing, however, not everyone knows how to deal with the A1. I often get my ears shot off, but usually not before I've done a devastating amount of damage to the opposing team. Here's how it went:

Mech.........Matches..Wins..Losses..Ratio..Kills..Deaths..Ratio..Damage.....XP.........Time
CPLT-C1........19.......13.........6.......2.17.....21......9........2.33....8,516....12,226...01:35:03
CPLT-A1.........6.........4..........2.......2.00.....11......2........5.50....4,155......4,771...00:35:16

I included my C1 (which I run with 2xLRM15, TAG and 2xERLL) just for comparison.

That's an average of 415.5 damage per match, but that may be misleading. Basically it's either 800-1100 dmg, or 100-400. The question was whether I got access to he assault mechs who could not avoid my damage. When forced to fight mediums or lights who stay on the move and don't get close, that dreaded 90 point alpha becomes more like a pathetic 20 point, unfocused and barely useful fart of damage.

I'll preface this by saying I don't add Artemis to my SRM cat. It's not worth the 6 tons and dropping 2 heat sinks, imho, so basically the effective range on that weapon is 90m, although that comes with a caveat - if the opponent is moving sideways, the effective range is more like 50m! If the opponent is moving sideways, I'll have to lead in order to hit, and that means the convergence will be set to some faraway point, and most likely only 50% of the SRMs will be in the right place to hit. So basically, if you're fighting an SRM cat, circle them at 100m or more, and you're facing the danger of maybe 2 SRM6's - or 30 point alphas - but broadly spread out across arms and torso armor. At that point they may not even bother firing, since they will be busy trying to close the distance where their shots (ammo) will be more than barely noticable.

If you are in any mech with speed lower than 60km/h, your goose may be cooked, but if you can take an ear off (which you should have the firepower to do pretty quickly if you're in a mech that slow) you'll probably be all right. That said, even if you're only moving 50 km/h, if you're moving sideways and you're > 120m away, you are still forcing that SRM cat to lead you, making the convergence open up and the damage will be significantly spread out, causing lots of misses.

Edited by Atheus, 11 March 2013 - 08:48 AM.

[Jam the Bam]

Am I the only one that like fighting A1's because they are so predictable?

Look a catapult, lets see what it does.

Its running straight at us over open ground.

Lets try to guess what the build is.

Or we could just shoot the stupid ****** who thinks that his build is the be-all and end-all of MWO.

Also I love when people start taking it personally when its a build everyone can use. Everyone. So its not a personal attack on you just because you use one. Its unbalanced, we all get that, it can also be fought effectively, we all get that too. So lets stop arguing over how awesome they are/are not.

[Noobzorz]

Royalewithcheese, on 10 March 2013 - 08:51 PM, said:

Sure, if all the A1's missiles hit the CT, which doesn't happen outside of forum theorycrafting In actual matches, my experience in a DDC against A1s is that they are a threat if you let them get behind you ofc, but that in a head-to-head battle they're less dangerous than a Stalker or another Atlas. Would probably put a head-to-head fight with an A1 on par with a KC20 or 3xUAC5 Marmoset in that it hits really hard but is kinda fragile.

Zero theorycrafting. Practical experience. I've done it and seen it happen to me.

Unless you have a prodigious light letting you know everything there is to know about the other team, splatcats are incredibly dangerous. Ironically, the best method for dealing with them is so volley SRMs back at them.

[Noobzorz]

Jammerben87, on 11 March 2013 - 09:14 AM, said:

Am I the only one that like fighting A1's because they are so predictable?

Look a catapult, lets see what it does.

Its running straight at us over open ground.

Lets try to guess what the build is.

Or we could just shoot the stupid ****** who thinks that his build is the be-all and end-all of MWO.

Also I love when people start taking it personally when its a build everyone can use. Everyone. So its not a personal attack on you just because you use one. Its unbalanced, we all get that, it can also be fought effectively, we all get that too. So lets stop arguing over how awesome they are/are not.

Same dance as the guys who talk about ECM/Artemis+LRM/FOTM cheese strat being counterable, just use tag/cover/skill blah blah blah (not lumping you in with those dummies, it's evident you've thought about it more than they have). The equipment your mech has puts a play burden on the other team. Of course, you can surmount that burden by playing better, but in almost all cases of people crying "play better," if that guy is no smarter than you, then just by using the same amount of common sense, he can play in such a way as to place that burden right back on you.

Same with the splat cat. If he sneaks around like a competent player (and while lots of splatcats are bad players who have heard all the buzz and want to seize as much advantage as possible, loads of splatcats are seriously competitive dudes who understand what is going on in MWO), then what the **** do you do? If a pair of splat cats rounds the corner and mashes you with 4 volleys, what do you do?

Well, of course the answer to that is die unless you are an assault, and then the answer is send SRM volleys back.

It doesn't sound like a good system to me, personally.

[Royalewithcheese]

Noobzorz, on 11 March 2013 - 10:30 AM, said:

Zero theorycrafting. Practical experience. I've done it and seen it happen to me.

Splatcats consistently land all 36 of their SRMs on the target's CT with no misses or damage to other components of the target regardless of the target's particular hitbox? I'll believe it when I see it

[Kell Draygo]

Jammerben87, on 11 March 2013 - 09:14 AM, said:

Its running straight at us over open ground.

You must be fighting against some terrible pilots. I remember when I use to play with Splatcats before it became all the rage was to hide either behind a building in ambush or stick with teammates, somewhere in the back. You keep an eye on the map as your team engages them, and once you can dash in while their attention is occupied, you start murdering the other team.

If you charge in alone and through the open, you're doing it wrong.

[Vahnn]

Thuzel, on 10 March 2013 - 08:25 PM, said:

Honestly every time I hear someone say "just shoot the ears", in my head I categorize that person with all the other <redacted unkind descriptor> I've met in my life. It's pointless. It's inane. It's wrong, and it's just completely disconnected from reality.

Please explain to me why shooting the ears of a Splatcat is any of those things you claim.

Those arms, combined, have less than or equal to the armor of its CT. Plus you can hit them from any angle it's facing. Destroy its weapons and quickly turn it into a walking shield, then focus on another target while it walks around doing nothing.

[Corwin Vickers]

I don't have a problem with splatcats until they get right next to me. But isn't that true of anything? I might have a problem with large lasers if I only have short range weapons.

I definitely have a problem with everything when I'm in my non-ecm spider. Does that mean we should start making a list of variants that need to be banned because they are better than "my" mech?

I have 17 mechs atm and the only class that is underrepresented is the mediums. I only have 1 hunchback. I play everything regularily.

Rock/paper/scissors is a part of the game especially when you over specialize your mech. BUT THAT IS YOUR CHOICE.

At the moment a solo splatcat can get close to the enemy and clean up, at least against other non-brawlers. Personally my stalker and atlas brawlers destroy splatcats. The reason they can get close is because no one communicates, everyone is focused on getting the most kills so they can get the most money. If you didn't have everyone running off and doing their own thing, quitting the game as soon as they die, and not reading chat then splatcats wouldn't be any good.

I had a game where I got into the cave in a brawler and the entire enemy team came into that valley behind me. I shot the enemy in the back one by one. Occassionaly one would turn around and face me but I **** you not, not one of them told their team I was there, or at least they weren't listening because I killed almost the entire team using that same trick.


And yes, shoot the ears, it works.