Profile of blvckdream

Jump back to quoted post10 Nov 2017, 12:59 PMMr.Smith

Firing in FoW hurts accuracy by a lot. Having flares always accessible means that you have an advantage over other mortars since:
- You know where to shoot at
- You are more accurate vs them than they are vs you

Having flares also means that you know which spots are currently covered by MGs.

Jump back to quoted post6 Nov 2017, 16:57 PMCrecer13

I also agrees, and already made a bunch of screenshots where my mortar (made at the beginning of the match) made zero or a few kills in the 20 th minute of the match, with this I constantly nursed him.

Jump back to quoted post1 Nov 2017, 12:40 PMMr.Smith

Could you provide me with reasonable arguments as to why you think why the proposed Panther changes will cause the Panther to underperform. Also in what way do you think that the changes reduce the performance of the OST Panther, rather than enhance it?

My argumentation is as follows

Live-version vet2 OST Panther is a great unit. It just takes so long to get there, and it's too big of an investment until then.

In the live version, if you've managed to get your OST Panther to Vet2, it's a great unit. It's more than great; Now you're also one breath away from Vet3, where you get a nifty reload bonus. You are probably going to get it now because the Vet2 bonus significantly increases the survivability of the Panther.

The reason is because Vet2 boosts the following stats:
- +10% Armor; that's a relatively minor bonus
- +20% Hitpoints; that's a major bonus, as it now requires 6 penetrating hits to kill your Panther

The HP bonus is always valid and can never be bypassed; regardless of the penetration of enemy weapons, deflection damage, or even if your Panther is facing the wrong way.

Sidenote:
The DBP doesn't remove the major +20% HP bonus. It only removes the minor +10% armor bonus from Vet2

The only problem with OST Panther Vet2 is that it takes some time to get there. That's because:
- The Panther has low DPS (thus, low potential to accumulate veterancy)
- If T3 is not skipped, the Panther comes very late into the game, and has little time to accumulate veterancy
- Worse yet, there is not much time left to use your Vet2 bonuses before the time ends

Thus, in the live game, your Panther will spend most of the time being a meh unit, and very little time being a good unit until the game ends.

To address this, DBP changes the Panther to make it:
- A good unit from the moment it hits the field (upgraded from meh unit)
- Make it remain a good (but not OP) unit from Vet2 onwards

Now, why is the OST Panther meh at Vet0? The most important reason for the Panther being meh is that it comes out too late, if you cannot afford to skip T3. Everything else has gained more vet at this point, and the Panther has a lot to do to catch up.

Secondly, the OST Panther is meh at Vet0 because it has low DPS. The gun has very high penetration, but it fires too slow. Even if you flank a heavy-armoured target with the Panther, there's no pay-off; you're probably now showing your rear armour too, so now you lost your advantage.

How does DBP achieve that? From Vet0 onwards, the Panther now benefits from:
- Faster reload. This improves Panthers DPS vs all targets, from the difficult-to-hit light vehicles, to the trivial-to-hit heavy vehicles
- More consistent reload. This will allow people to use glide-shot micro to improve their chances of hitting.

The latter is crucial since previously, Panther shots could drift up to one second. Even if your micro is on par, you'd have to, sometimes, spend 1 second stationary, seeing your target run away and your momentum diminished.

With tigher reload times, the OST Panther can finally benefit from glide-shots, just like every other tank in the game

Finally, since both buffs take effect from Vet0:

Your OST Panther is now a much better unit during the miserable timeframe between Vet0 and Vet2, where your Panther used to suck.

Moreover, since your Panther hits much more frequently, and more consistently, the veterancy gain speed will improve.

This means that the OST Panther will spend even less time at lower veterancy levels, where it used to suck

The Vet0 buffs do not go away with veterancy. The new Vet2 Panther will still fire faster than the old Vet2 Panther. The Vet0 reload buffs will also stack with the Vet3 bonus.

Finally, no. We don't know if the reload speed bonus will be enough without testing it extensively first. If the reload speed buff is too small, we'll increase it; if it's too big of a buff, we'll decrease it.

So, stay tight and give us feedback based on your in-game experiences with the new Panther

Now, repeat after me:
- The big #1 reason why Panther sucks in 1v1 is almost exclusively because of teching cost, and teching synergy in OST
- It is completely absurd to expect the Panther to be fixed without fixing teching costs. Otherwise we're just breaking the late-game