65 replies to this topic

[Prototelis]

PhoenixFire55, on 02 February 2019 - 10:08 AM, said:

How many MKII's were there in the top 10 in the last Solaris season? ... Thats right. None.

/thread.

How is this relevant? Oh. It isn't.

[Lances107]

Clan uacs into the ground
clan heat control on xl engines into the ground
clan lasers into the ground
Combine this and the Mark II is not this god mode mech. If you think it is you dont have a clue how to shoot. If your looking for a mech that matches up to it on the IS side, mind you this requires a assault pilot which most arnt even though they think they are, is the ANH and Fafnir. You guys need to get a life.

[Jman5]

It's a strong clan assault mech, but I don't know if it's really all that out of line with other strong clan assault mechs. I'm not really sure there are any good ways to nerf it as nothing really stands out.

You know the really nice thing about playing against common mechs is that you get a lot of practice fighting them. It's easy to memorize their hardpoints and the quirks of their hitboxes. I'm much more comfortable fighting a Madcat MKII than say a Banshee.

[Racerxintegra2k]

Jman5, on 02 February 2019 - 12:18 PM, said:

It's a strong clan assault mech, but I don't know if it's really all that out of line with other strong clan assault mechs. I'm not really sure there are any good ways to nerf it as nothing really stands out.

You know the really nice thing about playing against common mechs is that you get a lot of practice fighting them. It's easy to memorize their hardpoints and the quirks of their hitboxes. I'm much more comfortable fighting a Madcat MKII than say a Banshee.

A Banshee !! with your aim and those weak GIANT torso's ! I find a banshee to be a nice tater mech.

[PhilTKaswahl]

Racerxintegra2k, on 02 February 2019 - 12:28 PM, said:

A Banshee !! with your aim and those weak GIANT torso's ! I find a banshee to be a nice tater mech.

I've found twisting + rapid torso pitching can actually splash what damage the arms don't catch pretty well and keep a Banshee alive longer than it probably should.

[TheArisen]

PhilTKaswahl, on 02 February 2019 - 12:53 PM, said:

I've found twisting + rapid torso pitching can actually splash what damage the arms don't catch pretty well and keep a Banshee alive longer than it probably should.

Well the Banshee certainly isn't what it used to be, I miss the old Wubshee. It's torso twist just isn't very fast anymore so it's a lot harder to take everything on the arms with good players.

[Jman5]

Racerxintegra2k, on 02 February 2019 - 12:28 PM, said:

A Banshee !! with your aim and those weak GIANT torso's ! I find a banshee to be a nice tater mech.

The thing that I'm trying to get at is that when I see a madcat MK2 I know it's usually going to be 1 of 2 builds and I know exactly how to attack both of them. When I see a Banshee I have no idea what I'm going to get. Lasers? PPCs? ballistics? I don't know what its quirks are, or where exactly all the hardpoints are located. Is it an unusually agile mech? I don't know. What kind of engine is it running? How hot does it run?

Lets take a madcat MKII.

If it's a B variant that it's almost certainly going to run dual UAC/5+10 combo. They're all located in their arms. Otherwise it's centertorso hitbox is pretty generous including the plate between its legs. The best way to attack it is to target arms if you see any weak ones, or just grind down its CT. If it twists a bunch focus on the plate. Since it's uacs what you want to do is watch its guns next to the paperdoll until at least 2 jam up and then commit to a full on attack. If it overheats its cockpit is bottom middle of the middle glass panel.

I know its got no relevant quirks and its agility is nothing to write home about.

Now I could sit down and figure out the Banshee just like I have with the Madcat. However the fact that I hardly ever see them, mean it's not worth it taking up the headspace. Instead I just put it in the generic IS assault category.

Edited by Jman5, 02 February 2019 - 01:49 PM.

[panzer1b]

Its one of the best assaults out there, but there are plenty of things that can compete against it on both clam and IS.

Its biggest issue is as mentioned, the fact that the dakka model (which is arguably the best in QP at least) has all arm guns which means 2 things, easy to disarm without even dealing all that much damage to it (200ish damage for both arms if you dont miss at all), and also convergence issues when firing at range (not a big deal u close or against large targets, but its very very hard to reliably get 100% of your fire on a fast heavy or med.

As for the deathstrike (or the now not that great post HLL nerf -1) its really a tossup between that and the cyclops with dual HGR. Personally, given how QP tends to play out, ill take the cyclops with its vastly superior PPFLD and higher sustained firepower over the one trick pony that has become the MCII-vomit. Dont get me wrong, gauss vomit was and still is a very good playstyle, but its become somewhat overshadowed by HGRs and even dakka post laser nerf since it works when you get multile mechs using it all hit 1 mech, not in random games where pushing and agression tends to be more valuable overall.

So yeah, its still one of the best assaults in game, but its only really good at gauss vomit or dakka, and nothing else. scorch wins as a fast brawler (not that that playstyle is very meta anymore), mad2c has best las vomit, blood arss has a very capable dakka build with ecm and better high mounts aslong as ur not being leghumped by lights, and there are better mechs to boat missiles on in general (like sunspider or other heavys that wont eat a assault slot). that and id say the heavy gauss mechs on IS side give it more then a run for its money, provided they can get into 300m or so b4 engaging...

[K O Z A K]

it has the same problem most other clan mechs: durability. It's also super easy to disarm, the mounts are very wide. It's certainly one of the better assaults, but far from being superior to all others

[R Valentine]

Eh, it's one of the last greast clan assault mechs. Take that away and there won't be much left. We've already nerfed the Kodiak into the ground, and then the community insisted that the Blood Asp be nerfed before it was even out for a week by making the STs bigger. Engine desync killed most of the clan assault mechs by destroying the mobility they enjoyed over IS mechs. If the Mad Cat Mk. II gets nerfed, then surely the Annihilator is in for a 3rd round of nerfs(or is it 4th)? After that, we're all back to piloting heavies.

[Kubernetes]

IMO the -B variant is the best mech in the game (for SQ) right now. It has JJ, excellent firepower with good usable range, and it mounts its weapons in its arms with lower arm actuators. Sure it's squishy compared to some IS mechs, but it has the best combination of firepower, protection, and mobility of any mech, IMO.

[El Bandito]

PhilTKaswahl, on 02 February 2019 - 12:53 PM, said:

I've found twisting + rapid torso pitching can actually splash what damage the arms don't catch pretty well and keep a Banshee alive longer than it probably should.

Nah, with the engine desync, that giant CT is a damage magnet.

[Lykaon]

PhoenixFire55, on 02 February 2019 - 10:08 AM, said:

How many MKII's were there in the top 10 in the last Solaris season? ... Thats right. None.

/thread.

How does this apply to a mech's performance in 12 v 12 team play? It doesn't that's how.

[Luminis]

Kubernetes, on 02 February 2019 - 05:32 PM, said:

IMO the -B variant is the best mech in the game (for SQ) right now. It has JJ, excellent firepower with good usable range, and it mounts its weapons in its arms with lower arm actuators. Sure it's squishy compared to some IS mechs, but it has the best combination of firepower, protection, and mobility of any mech, IMO.

I'd agree that it's the best Assault to drop in solo queue with, but personally, I've been seeing better results with the QKD-IV4. For me, that's the Mech to take if I 100% want good performance out of my next game. It's more limited in the range bracket, but it has, for some reason, never turned out to be a significant drawback.

Lykaon, on 02 February 2019 - 07:22 PM, said:

How does this apply to a mech's performance in 12 v 12 team play? It doesn't that's how.

Well, it at least clearly highlights that the MCII can't hang in a DPS race. It underlines the squishiness of the Mech and, to a lesser extend, the inferiority of Clan ballistics. Its strenghts - the speed and versatility of range as well as the ability to deliver bursts of damage - don't matter in S7, so it's not an accurate picture.

However, if the premise of the threat is "the MCII is the best Assault by far" than the point has merit, even if only to highlight that the MCII is not an all-around perfect Mech.

Granted, I would not have made that point myself because of how specific S7 is, but dismissing is it out of hand is a little short sighted as well.

Edited by Luminis, 02 February 2019 - 10:25 PM.

[Phoenix 72]

BTW, I take back some of what I said before. To complete the current event, I had to play 5 matches in my MadCat. And while I lost 3 and only won 2, it actually performed much better than I remembered. I think my lowest damage in those matches was in the high 600s and ended up being 990 or so in one of the losses - that was my highest damage in the 5 matches.

You just need to play it more like a heavy mech instead of an assault.

The mech will probably still not pop up in my regular rotation a lot, but I think I will finish skilling it after all. And I expect it will be my go to mech when I need to play assault mechs.

[PhoenixFire55]

Prototelis, on 02 February 2019 - 10:41 AM, said:

How is this relevant? Oh. It isn't.

Lykaon, on 02 February 2019 - 07:22 PM, said:

How does this apply to a mech's performance in 12 v 12 team play? It doesn't that's how.

Except that its the only thing that is relevant. Mechs should be balanced around their real strength, not around their ups and downs in the 'waa waa I'm scared I'm only gonna peek like a timid ****' kind of gameplay what is dominant in PUGs.

[Luminis]

PhoenixFire55, on 03 February 2019 - 08:26 AM, said:

Except that its the only thing that is relevant. Mechs should be balanced around their real strength, not around their ups and downs in the 'waa waa I'm scared I'm only gonna peek like a timid ****' kind of gameplay what is dominant in PUGs.

Eh. If you want to eliminate the PUG factor, you petty much have to look at comp, maybe FP and perhaps Group Queue. S7 is too different from regular play to draw conclusions solely based on that.

Aside from the fact that there is not natural pecking order due to arbitrary divisions, it also heavily deemphasises speed and extreme range capabilities.

Such things very much feed into a Mech's "real strength". And besides, most players spend most of their time in the "waa waa I'm scared" game mode than in S7, quite obviously. A Mech's performance will, thus, always largely be judge by its performance in these modes.

It bears repeating that I do believe that taking S7 into account to a certain degree has its merits, but the insinuation that it should be the primary yard stick is downright asinine.

[Captain Polux]

It delivers a hard punch but the arms are easy to strip.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Battlemaster56, on 02 February 2019 - 04:34 AM, said:

Eh the MCmkII is strong but not overbearing, it benefits alot for what it brings, but there still competitors that keep it in place.

This is how I kind of feel. Also and I know this is brought up time and time again but something has to be strongest even it is is only 1% strong. If and I will say I don't necessarily believe this but if the Madcat Mk II is the strongest and you nerf it to the point its not any more, then that means something else is the strongest. That being the case, do we nerf that too? How the next one that becomes the strongest, nerf again?

I think what people have to consider is if the mech is overpowering and unbeatable or just strong? Strong is ok. Overpowering and unbeatable is not however if it was that OP, then 50% or more of the entire team make up would be Madcat Mk IIs, kind of like the scenerio was when we had KDK-3s roving the battlefield with Quad UAC/10s and agility stats that would make a medium weep with joy. I am not seeing that, in fact I see just about as many Annihilators, Fafnirs, Marauder IICs, Blood Asps, Cyclops as I do Madcat Mk IIs. Since we are seeing a good mix of those other assault as well as the Madcat Mk II, I strongly doubt there is any concern with the Madcat Mk II being OP.

[Kubernetes]

Luminis, on 02 February 2019 - 10:24 PM, said:

I'd agree that it's the best Assault to drop in solo queue with, but personally, I've been seeing better results with the QKD-IV4. For me, that's the Mech to take if I 100% want good performance out of my next game. It's more limited in the range bracket, but it has, for some reason, never turned out to be a significant drawback.

The IV4 is certainly up there for me too (along with the Hellbringer, DS, and Victor...Top Dog might be up here too). Thing about the MCII-B is that it's the only mech I've used that can singlehandedly stop a push dead in its tracks. It's the KDK-3 except with JJ and lower arm actuators. It's just sooooo good.