14 replies to this topic

[MattnHuge]

I am struggling to make one that works for me. I prefer support/second line play. So far, the NCT just seems to melt in combat. I have the standard pack and hero available to me. Thanks in advance. I look forward to seeing what people are running.

[The Amazing Atomic Spaniel]

It's hard work, isn't it?

It was a terror in MW4, but here it's a bit underwhelming.

I have all the Novacats and am struggling to get them to perform anything like as well as the HBR. The Novacat can do 2 HLL and 5 ERML against the HBR's 2 HLL and 6 ERML, but the HBR is significantly faster, has multiple torso mounts for lasers and has ECM. In contrast, the Novacat is just a bit too slow and wide and the additional armour and heatsinks don't do enough to compensate. It also works OK with 4 HLL (and you can do this with the hero), but again the HBR is just better at lasers.

I've actually had reasonable results with the missile one with 2 HLL and 4 ALRM15 - but this isn't what you want to be doing with the famously energy heavy Novacat. With all of them, I've had my team decide to rotate away from my spawn point (this is in QP) and found it's too slow to catch up before getting mobbed by the red team at which point it's too clumsy and hot to brawl effectively. Bummer.

The ballistic ones in the reinforcement pack let you run UAC5s and 10s, but at that point you might as well just use a Night Gyr.

Anyone else had any luck?

[Keltan]

For the Nova Cat Prime, I used a 5 ERMLL build. Very hot, had to chain fire the lasers.

For NCT-B, used the stock loadout basically. The missiles did well enough to get my 1000 damage fairly quickly. Both arms were on chain fire, and no heat problems resulted.

Still have yet to play the NCT-A, with only 4 ERMLL and jump jets.

I like the nova cat better than the Night Star. My NCTs are not mastered, so hopefully more skill points will bring them at least even to a hell bringer. But yeah, if that isn't true, why bring a Nova Cat over a Hell bringer? Jump jets?

[Shadey99]

Not finding anything really good to say is why I've yet to do a Nova Cat 'Is it good' thread. My best luck was with the triple ballistic arm with the energy side torsos for some backup ERMLs. I scored nearly 1k damage in the stock NCT-B, but I couldn't be happy with a LRM boat.

It's biggest issue is how almost all the guns are in the arms. And those arms are big and easy to shoot off. I've been de-armed so very many times while doing the challenge and after when testing out combinations it's not even funny. If it had better torso weapon options, ECM, or better speed it would fare better.

[The Amazing Atomic Spaniel]

My best build so far has been 2 LPL in the torsos and 5 MPL in the arms. Stuff it full of heatsinks and use a TC (TC3, IIRC?) to soak up any unused tonnage. The 53-point alpha is not particularly impressive, but it can alpha twice before it has to cool off and the cycle time on the pulse lasers is much better than the post-patch ERMLs. The only problem is that it's a bit of an obvious build.

[Sug]

So far my best nova cat build has been leaving them stripped in my mechbay. They're really meh mechs. They're mehchs.

[The Basilisk]

The Novacats, much like all Clan Mechs, aren't realy designed for prolongued face to face standup fights and absolutely can not withstand concentrated or focused fire.

So the basic techniques are always centered around constant mobile combat to evade or dissipate incomming damage.
At the same time it is one of the slower clan heavys and a broadshouldered humanoid.

So in short:
-- It can not tank
-- it lacks the standup power for single actions

It uncontested positive features are:

-- more than 50% of its weight as free podspace even if fully armored.
-- lots of free crit slots
-- decent number of hardpoints for either Energy or Ballistic setups

Longstory short....it is an offensive mech with lot of firepower to quickly overcome single enemy mechs or for focusing fire on an larger enemy as member of a group.

[Shade4x]

http://mwo.smurfy-ne...ab43d4398ffcb77

2 LRM 15's (6 tons ammo)
4 SRM 6's (3 1/2 tons ammo)
2 Heavy Large Lasers and a ton of heat sinks.

Get all heat gen nodes (during skill up use ER LL instead), as it runs hot.

At long range your LRMing, at medium range your LRMing and HLL. At short range your SRM/HLL. It's got a punch at all ranges. The nice thing about the build is that you can wear down their armor and preserve yours, in the opening stages of the fights. Treat the HLL as 6 clan er medium's as its about the same thing. The SRM's and HLL at shorter ranges chew through mech's at a crazy pace.

So the NOVA CAT is like the new Thanatos. It's an arm based mech. You typically want to make it into a side peeking mech, or some type of vomit mech. I would strongly suggest trying the 2 Large Pulse laser, 5 med pulse laser build as well. Also you can go 2 er PPC's and 6 SRM 6's on the B variant as well. Though the B variant had the most 1k damage 3+ kill games. Even pulled a 7 kill, 1700 damage with it nefore

[MossPigglet]

I have a build, for quick plays and community, NCT-C 2 uac5s and 1 uac10 as well as 2 heavy medium lasers. the rest is ammo and heat sinks to your liking, I typically drop the legs by 14 points of Armour each and the arms by 3 points to get an extra tonne.

[Reno Blade]

Now that the NC is available for CBills, i wonder about possible builds.
Using the arm actuator at least on the LA let's you aim more freely.

This UAC20 + 2x LP looks similar to my old Victor build
https://mwo.smurfy-n...d5e78d2f179ea98

or maybe PPC + 2x SRM6A + 2x LP
https://mwo.smurfy-n...153ad501a11dfcd

or going with 2x PPC and 2x SRM6A
https://mwo.smurfy-n...cd502a69172a9dc

or the PPC + 2x UAC10 which is a bit too similar to the Night Gyr
https://mwo.smurfy-n...b06f040e6f175e4

not sure what to build that's not done already x times

[Roughneck45]

Wubnova is my favorite.

[Spare Parts Bin]

I think with the right Omnipods the Cobra Cat could be a great new addition to my FP dropdeck.

[Black Ivan]

C Modell with 3 UAC5s and Heavy Medium Lasers looks promissing

[Tier5 Kerensky]

Anyone tried 4 Large pulse? That's what I*m currenly running but I'm starting to feel I want less exposure so I could go instead 4 PPCs. Using Nova Cat -A with full 8/8 pods.

[Spare Parts Bin]

Teer Kerensky, on 11 April 2018 - 04:14 AM, said:

Anyone tried 4 Large pulse? That's what I*m currenly running but I'm starting to feel I want less exposure so I could go instead 4 PPCs. Using Nova Cat -A with full 8/8 pods.

At the moment I do not have a Nova Cat. I think UAC-5s and ERLLs would be nice. ERPPC should require dual Cool Shot,TC1-TC3 and are kind of a poke weapon. They are also very hot but on the right map like Frozen City you would be a nightmare to the other teams advance.