Ttly, on 27 June 2025 - 08:20 AM, said:
I've actually played the laser Panther you know, and I'd have to say the thing is in sore need of more heat and cooldown quirks since even with good positioning, you can't even dish out enough damage to make it worthwhile. And that's with lasers, let alone the even worse DPH weapons that are PPCs.
Giving it more armor quirks is just lazy and encroaches the roles of similiar hardpoint count (and placement even) mediums like the Assassin or Griffin.
The design of the mech is to be a jumpy but slow brawlier light. The lore/canon pages for the mech all repeatedly hammer in that its supposed to be exceptionally sturdy for its tonnage while making up for a low ground speed with powerful JJs, kinda like a slightly fatter Urbanmech.
The Assassin isn't the best comparison imo, its got way more of a focus on chasing down lights or harassing larger mechs at range as opposed to sticking around as a street slugger like the Panther - its base speed being significantly higher and its quirk emphasis on range across all variants reflect this. (as well as its height and extra room for jets making it a fair bit better at shooting around cover than the Panther)
The Griffin's hardpoints are generally much higher than the Panther's (actual shoulder weps, even if often wasted on missiles, as well as higher-sitting arms) and has significantly more tonnage to play with, although 55t is a pretty bad spot for the engine curve.
Continuing with the 9R Panther, it gets some pretty decent -15% energy heat / -15% energy CD / -10% duration quirks and it still blows! In part because its so damn vulnerable despite its intended role, and because has to sacrifice a lot of its intended survivability to even get to the point of being a crappier easier-to-shoot Wolfhound with speed increases. The geometry sucks, the low-mounted hardpoints suck, and the decent offensive quirks barely help. Hell, upping the offensive quirk numbers just ends up giving you a slower, crappier COM-D03 or 1B lol.
If I were to add/change anything across the Panthers, I would:
-Generify a few of the quirks (Mainly Velocity and heat - something Cauldron has had success with on other mechs over the past year)
-Add either a crit reduction (to make it a better protracted fighter - harder to shoot out weapons/ammo/engine from structure) or heat
dissipation quirk (Less risk of overheat during, again, protracted fights). Both are unique-ish quirks for the light class too, as a bonus.
-Potentially add a JJ thrust or burn time quirk to make it a little better at getting its stupid low hands over cover + reflect some of its lore, but I don't think this is as important honestly.
I'd much prefer the Panther to continue to be designed around brawling and protracted combat compared to other lights as its again written in lore to be designed for - its something more unique for IS lights. I don't want it to be further pigeonholed into a generic hit and run light mech and continue to be a ******** version of multiple other 30-35t IS lights.
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