65 replies to this topic

[Y E O N N E]

Bishop Steiner, on 23 January 2016 - 10:19 AM, said:

don't think they've said. But would be hard to make it more useless on a Medium or Light than it is now, ya know?

I don't honestly see why they had to nerf it so hard. Would letting a squishy, under-gunned 'Mech sprint at 130 kph for really short intervals every once in awhile be all that OP? I don't think so, not at all. I can only imagine they did it for when they finally bring IS 'Mechs with MASC in to stop people from putting really big engines in and then MASC on top of it...though any 'Mech doing that won't have much firepower to speak of so it's still whatever.

[TheCharlatan]

Mcgral18, on 23 January 2016 - 10:31 AM, said:

The SadCat is a sad robot, but not because of the chassis itself, but the state of game balance.

Without 6 E hardpoints, it can't take advantage of the best Clam tech. If it could mount 6 cSPLs, MASC, ECM, 6 of the best HoverJets™ in the game, with more heatsinks (and 10 TrueDubs) than the Cheetah could take.
It could also do the ERML thing.

But in the current game? It has 3 E hardpoints, at most. Missiles are mediocre, and need you to both lead considerably and be at close range.
MGs? It can mount 6...but they're Terribad, in no uncertain terms. Easily fixed, but PGI has left them useless for 1.5 years now.


What can be done about the SadCat? Well, PGI isn't about to fix their weapon balance, nor is it going to get hardpoint inflation.
Quirks can help it.
Give it 20% less Laser duration, and those Larges can poke fairly well. Might make the cLPL too powerful...but then there's the heat limitation, which is a fair downside.

I think the duration is more important than heat on this mech, because you don't want to be in the open, and it allows you to make good use of HoverJets™ (poptarting with lasers, my BJ Arrow does it well with the 0.54s LPLs, which have the same 20% quirk with boatloads of other quirks), and not need to stare as much in other situations.

Heat doesn't stop the staring issues, which are big on small robots.


MASC changes won't really significantly change the way the mech will play, nor the weapons it plays with.

If we consider quirks, one or more of the following could help the Sad Cat, if brought to 10-25% (ideally 15%):

• Energy Duration: would help for LPL/ER-LL. Boring, but effective.
  
• Missile Cooldown: make it shoot missile fast. Really fast.
  
• Energy heat: could help using ER-PPC, which are really hot on it.
  
• Ballistic cooldown: could really open up the use of various AC or Gauss. Without cooldown, most builds lack the DPS to be competitive.

[Tordin]

Shadow Cat P, trash?? No way! Got quite a few kills and kill contributions even with 7 mg, just gotta be smart and not expose yourself to much in the beginning. Love this little mech, mg harasser and core killer like a boss.

[jjm1]

adamts01, on 23 January 2016 - 08:53 AM, said:

They should be fast flankers, light hunters, and support mechs.

Well yeah, that's all I wanted from it. Problem is its not very good at those things.

Its terrific at flanking and situational awareness the mech gets a 9 out of 10 for this. In most scenarios you will want to follow up your awesome flanking maneuver by pouncing like a wrecking ball. The most you can do is scratch someones back and run away. Maybe try it again if your feeling really lucky.

I expect all mechs to be equally capable of dealing out as much damage in a match as any other because a players score is calculated predominantly on damage. If you pick a medium, you shouldn't be instantly penalised and relegated into nothing more than a minor team supplement. Why would anyone want to play a medium if they were all equally totally incapable of leading a match like this one is?

[jjm1]

DaZur, on 23 January 2016 - 10:40 AM, said:

As others have mentioned gauss is 15 damage.

Here's the issue you have with the shadow and using it for a ranged sniper... It's just not fast enough and doesn't have benefit of EMC. Ranged sniper is a situational role that one lives and dies by mobility. Masc and JJ help but it's just not quick enough.

If you really have you heart set on using this as a ranged sniper you'll need to learn to "scoot n shoot" and utilize topology for positioning and escape.

hmm its fast, has ECM, high hardpoints and is highly maneuverable. The problem is the single gauss build has hopeless DPS.

If you play the sneaky sniper you would have to stay hidden for a ridiculously long time while repeatedly shooting someone while they look around their vicinity for a pesky light. I've done it, it was very amusing.

[Bishop Steiner]

Yeonne Greene, on 23 January 2016 - 10:42 AM, said:

I don't honestly see why they had to nerf it so hard. Would letting a squishy, under-gunned 'Mech sprint at 130 kph for really short intervals every once in awhile be all that OP? I don't think so, not at all. I can only imagine they did it for when they finally bring IS 'Mechs with MASC in to stop people from putting really big engines in and then MASC on top of it...though any 'Mech doing that won't have much firepower to speak of so it's still whatever.

never understood it either, and told Russ from the get go it was near useless for Mediums and Lights. I think he hates it when I'm right, lol.

[RoadblockXL]

I think the best way to play the shadow cat is in a support role to your team's heavies and assaults.

If you're going with a long range build, use either ERLLs or ERPPCs and stick to the back of the group, use your JJs to poke as much as possible (the Shadow Cat is stuck with having enough JJs to make it a jump sniper, so you may as well use them), and try to fire at the same targets that your teammates are. Use your speed and maneuverability to change targets quickly so that whenever one of your assaults or heavies is shooting at something, you are too.

If you want a short range build, use ASRMs and stick to the flanks of your assaults and heavies. From there you can either protect them from enemy flank attacks or you can look for an opening where an enemy is focusing on one of your teammates, then run in quick on their flank, hit them with the SRMs and run out fast.

The shadow cat really doesn't have the armor, speed or firepower to fight other mechs head on, but if you use your teammates I think it can be fairly effective.

[Y E O N N E]

Better to not jump if you can, because the JJs will actually reduce your overall DPS because they'll keep you hot. Reductions to DPS are things the SHC does not need.

[DaZur]

jjm1, on 23 January 2016 - 11:13 AM, said:

hmm its fast, has ECM, high hardpoints and is highly maneuverable. The problem is the single gauss build has hopeless DPS.

If you play the sneaky sniper you would have to stay hidden for a ridiculously long time while repeatedly shooting someone while they look around their vicinity for a pesky light. I've done it, it was very amusing.

Understood ... That said it not quit fast enough to dodge pesky lights when they get a. Bead on ya. Hiding is boring as hell... I much prefer shooting and relocating.

[adamts01]

jjm1, on 23 January 2016 - 10:50 AM, said:

Well yeah, that's all I wanted from it. Problem is its not very good at those things.

Its terrific at flanking and situational awareness the mech gets a 9 out of 10 for this. In most scenarios you will want to follow up your awesome flanking maneuver by pouncing like a wrecking ball. The most you can do is scratch someones back and run away. Maybe try it again if your feeling really lucky.

I expect all mechs to be equally capable of dealing out as much damage in a match as any other because a players score is calculated predominantly on damage. If you pick a medium, you shouldn't be instantly penalised and relegated into nothing more than a minor team supplement. Why would anyone want to play a medium if they were all equally totally incapable of leading a match like this one is?

That's exactly the problem, for me anyway. PGI is moving away from a tactical simulator and towards a plain shooter where everything is different but equal in a brawl. I wish there were more distinct roles but most people want to be a front line damage dealer. I prefer sneaky lights, and don't care about stats, just good games. I'm fine dealing the least damage but striking at the perfect time to kill a weak target or scouting the enemy to provide locks and Intel. It's funny too how so many want LRMs to be direct fire. So many people want a simple shooter, hate the most realistic and tactical map we have (polar), and want their light mech to deal ad much damage as an assault. The blackjack can beat many heavies in a straight up brawl.... At 45 tons... And now everyone wants the Shadowcat to do the same. It's just sad. Hopefully info warfare and a real CW actually happen.

[jjm1]

adamts01, on 23 January 2016 - 10:41 PM, said:

The blackjack can beat many heavies in a straight up brawl.... At 45 tons... And now everyone wants the Shadowcat to do the same. It's just sad.

No we don't, we want it to be viable in the tactical role its meant for. It should be soft and bad pilots should die quickly in it, but it must also have meaningful strike capability when fielded with skill.

[MauttyKoray]

I use a UAC5 in the right arm, and 6MGs in the LT/LA, 4 tons ammo for each.

Its great.

[adamts01]

jjm1, on 23 January 2016 - 11:54 PM, said:

No we don't, we want it to be viable in the tactical role its meant for. It should be soft and bad pilots should die quickly in it, but it must also have meaningful strike capability when fielded with skill.

Well.... At least you and I want that. Most people compare it to a Blackjack and Stormcrow and want it to be able to stand toe to toe. We seem to be the minority.

[Lightfoot]

The Shadow Cat is too fragile for a 45 tonner. It really leaves one with only the ability to snipe and the Shadow Cat has always been a very good brawler in the lore and past MechWarrior games. So PGI made another boo-boo. Fear of MASC, I guess, that is unfounded in gameplay.

Alternate loadouts are an ERPPC and a UAC-5, 2xUAC-2 and 2xERMLs, or the old stand-by 2xLPLs.

[RedDevil]

Well when you double the armour of all mechs and don't double the ammo per ton as well, you're going to have sad ballistic mechs....

Edited by RedDevil, 24 January 2016 - 12:33 AM.

[Duke Nedo]

adamts01, on 24 January 2016 - 12:14 AM, said:

Well.... At least you and I want that. Most people compare it to a Blackjack and Stormcrow and want it to be able to stand toe to toe. We seem to be the minority.

IMO the SHC is in a rather good place for a 45-tonner. The BJ-1X is better, but that is not mainly due to quirks imo, it's due to the number of E hardpoints.

Compare it instead to the Arrow, it has the same structure quirks but only 3E hardpoints. Do that and you'll find that the Arrow equipped with 3x ERLL is very comparable to the SHC equipped with 2x cLPL.

In that comparison
SHC has ECM, half-******-masc, 15% speed advantage and survives a ST loss
Arrow has 800m range instead of 600m range and stronger structure quirks, but dies on ST loss.

The SHC has 6 armor and 11 struct on the ECM LT, Arrow has 22 struct, the big difference is the CT and RT.

Just worth to think about. Compared to the Arrow I would be just as happy in a SHC, but the 1X is better. The 1X has worse quirks than the Arrow, the difference lies in the hardpoints.

Conclusion therefore is that if the SHC ever gets new pods with multiple E hardpoints it can become really good. If could for example sustain 5x cMPL = 40 alpha @ 330m with ECM. It's quite OK now too because of ECM. I hated to master many other clan mechs much more than the SHC. It was rather fun to skill actually.

[Y E O N N E]

@Duke Nedo: don't forget the massive difference in engine caps between the Arrow and the BJ-1X.

[MauttyKoray]

RedDevil, on 24 January 2016 - 12:32 AM, said:

Well when you double the armour of all mechs and don't double the ammo per ton as well, you're going to have sad ballistic mechs....

a lot of the ammo is changed... I think the only ammo that wasn't increased is....SRMs? I wanna say? Or was it LRMs...

[4b4dd0n]

I love the ShadowCat, its my favorite mech currently.
SHADOW CAT SHC-PRIME 249 134 115 1.17 214 154 1.39 113,852 346,286 23:41:02

Average dmg of 449 in near 250 matches. I think its one of my highest dmg/match mech. I use 3x 6Streaks and 2x SL build. So i brawl all the time. It works quiet good and even better on maps with many hills/houses for obvious reason. It would be good if we get some structure quirks for the leg like the bj but it will never happen cause its a clan mech :x

[MauttyKoray]

Haven't played them much yet (basic skills lol!) but here is my stats from them.

Edited by MauttyKoray, 24 January 2016 - 12:21 PM.