"𝓒𝓐𝓣𝓣🅱 𝕟𝔼ℝ𝕗𝕖𝔻 ｔＯｏ ＨａＲｄ"

[di_duncan 24]

apolojy for bed england

wear were yuo when CAT crippl agenst HeeT?

i was yuzing OPfeelia MT-LB in GlOps wen sylenstocker post dvelopr dieary 

‘CATTB is kil’

‘no’

[TekNicTerror 5]

Very much so nerfed too much; if they were removing/lessening the HEAT resistance, then the HP should have been raised, not lowered as well.

[di_duncan 24]

This was satire, but if you genuinely believe that the CAT was nerfed too hard, let me give you some context:

• Hydropneumatic suspension allowing the tank to peek ridges and hull down while also increasing the armor angles
• Fastdraw cannon which can remove half the hitpoints from an opponent within seconds
• Second highest APFSDS penetration in game (Tied with other 850mm pen guns/rounds)
• Buffed armor protection against AP
• Excellent mobility from the Hybrid engine

These characteristics mean the CATTB is still an extremely competitive MBT at top tier. Yet it still has 3900 hitpoints, which is more than most of the other Tier 10 MBTs (only exceptions being the Chally ADTU and Merk 4M). Even after the two nerfs, I would argue that it remains the best all-round brawler in the game.

All of these advantages should come with some form of drawback. In this case, the decision to make it vulnerable to HEAT was a great decision (IMO) as it encourages the use of different rounds while also indirectly buffing ATGMs, which have long been overlooked/neglected; especially considering the many different levels of protection at high tiers. It also reflects the older age and testbed role of the CATTB.

TL;DR: The CATTB is more than competitive in its current form. It's vulnerability to HEAT give the vehicle a unique dynamic in combat, as it becomes very vulnerable against ATGM vehicles (generally not MBTs) while still being quite resistant against APFSDS rounds (usually fired by MBTs).

[Komitadjie 13]

They made it more or less a PVP-only vehicle is the problem.  AP is the prime threat in PVP.  HEAT is the prime threat in PVE.  

 

If you play PVP primarily, you're probably still going to have good luck with it.  If you play PVE, you're better off with an ATDU, generally.  The particular choice there, I think, was a poor one in that it crippled it pretty badly in one mode, while leaving the strengths that made it rather overpowered in another.  

[Haswell 294]

I only got the CATTB one day before it got nerfed, never got the chance to experience how OP it was.

It's still fairly viable in PvE though I think. From the games I've had so far, a slight bit of angling makes all the difference between getting rekt by T-15s and not taking any damage at all. Zero In is a pretty use ability for it though.

 

Moved to metagame because satire became srs bns.

[TeyKey1 119]

I got the CATTB after the second nerf. Lots of people were complaining that this thing is not usable at all after two nerfs.

In PVP this tank is still dominating. With an average damage of nearly 8k on this thing it's clear that it is still horribly OP in PVP (It's roughly 1.5-2 Times better than every other T10 tank I own).

While playing Specops in the CATTB it is obvious that it is way more vulnerable than in PVP (Due to the HEAT spam), however if you adapt to the playstyle and actually angle your hull when being shot with ATGM and use hulldown positions and vehicle wrecks you have a good time in the CATTB and bounce much shots easily.

Again the nerf was done on the wrong end of things. Nefing the armor against HEAT has a big effect on PVE, but does not much in PVP. In my opinion the double shot can simply not be balanced decently for all gamemodes. Therefore I think it would be best to just remove it.

I'm pretty sure that this thing will get another nerf/adjustment as it currently breaks hightier PVP. My suggestion would be to restore its armor against HEAT and give it a potent but not OP ready rack instead of the double shot + maybe reduce its mobility slightly.

[di_duncan 24]

7 hours ago, Komitadjie said:

HEAT is the prime threat in PVE.

7 hours ago, Komitadjie said:

If you play PVE, you're better off with an ATDU, generally.

This is a good point. However, playing the CAT smart and baiting teammates is always a viable option. Plus, while the armor protection is now subpar against HEAT, the gun has retained its excellent burst damage (when using the ready rack). Consequently, while the ADTU is a better overall pick for PvE, the CATTB still outdamages it significantly.  In a sense, it's become a PvE glass cannon, but then again, most LTs and AFVs have been glass cannons in PvE since the beginning of time.

5 hours ago, Haswell said:

a slight bit of angling makes all the difference between getting rekt by T-15s and not taking any damage at all.

5 hours ago, TeyKey1 said:

however if you adapt to the playstyle and actually angle your hull when being shot with ATGM and use hulldown positions and vehicle wrecks you have a good time in the CATTB and bounce much shots easily.

^ IMO player aptitude is more consequential for overall performance than vehicle stats.

5 hours ago, TeyKey1 said:

In PVP this tank is still dominating. With an average damage of nearly 8k on this thing it's clear that it is still horribly OP in PVP (It's roughly 1.5-2 Times better than every other T10 tank I own).

 ^ As someone who prefers PvP to PvE, this is my POV as well.

5 hours ago, TeyKey1 said:

In my opinion the double shot can simply not be balanced decently for all gamemodes. Therefore I think it would be best to just remove it.

I'm pretty sure that this thing will get another nerf/adjustment as it currently breaks hightier PVP. My suggestion would be to restore its armor against HEAT and give it a potent but not OP ready rack instead of the double shot + maybe reduce its mobility slightly.

While the doubletap is definitely punishing, I don't think it should be removed. The insane bloom following the first shell requires players to wait for aim time to accurately pen MBTs (frontally), thus effectively negating the insane burst fire rate. I also believe another rebalance (not necessarily a nerf) is necessary, but instead of buffing the armor against HEAT (again), I would suggest decreasing the penetration values of its AP shells and increasing aim time even more. These nerfs could be compensated with slightly better accuracy and better APS reload time. 

In effect, this would require players to aim the weapon more carefully, rewarding those who are patient while punishing those who doubletap haphazardly. Retaining the weapon's high potential burst damage would be helpful against arrogant suicide rushes.

Additionally, while I don't think the armor profile should get a buff against HEAT, reducing the reload times between APS discharges could mitigate more potential damage from ATGMs (which are the primary HEAT threat against the CAT in the first place) but still allowing players (IIRC bots don't fire two simultaneous missiles) using dual missiles (T-15, Kornet, etc) to penetrate and do some damage.

[di_duncan 24]

On 3/13/2020 at 9:31 AM, di_duncan said:

decreasing the penetration values of its AP shells

Hmm... After today's patch, I'm starting to think that this forum is a great idea ;)

To be completely honest though, I think nerfing pen to 800mm is slightly overkill, now the 140mm APFSDS on the XM1A3 has better pen than the CATTB. Can't we just meet in the middle at 825mm?

[Haswell 294]

Inb4 we start influencing game balance through the forum.

I'll be completely honest, I haven't fired a single AP round out of the CATTB yet because of how viable HEAT is in PvE, so the nerf didn't really affect me. God forbid they nerf HEAT next.

Would anyone mind if I move this thread to the MBT section? Since everything here so far has been about the CATTB it might as well be its own vehicle thread.

[BumbaX 8]

On 3/13/2020 at 2:31 PM, di_duncan said:

 it's become a PvE glass cannon, but then again, most LTs and AFVs have been glass cannons in PvE since the beginning of time.

............................

 increasing aim time even more.

About being a glass cannon i see a big difference between tanks that have camo and tanks that lack of it. At least if those tanks are not used only as long distance snipers leaching on other people's spots, as i sadly see some MBT players doing. With my AFVs and LTs i sometimes get the most of the spots and spotting damage even being a glass cannon, while with a MBT glass cannon i can only be a leach not useful to the party at all or live until my huge HP pool lets me survive. Luckily it does not seem to me that the present CATTB is so hopeless against AI missile tanks, surely it can not face a T15 and a couple of Bradley without any precaution, it is not the ADTU, but i find it better against them of some other T10 MBTs.

About increasing the aim time even more please no. It would maybe fix a little the burst damage problem, but at the cost of creating other problems in all the modes, it is a gun that already does not shine as accuracy and aim time. Instead introducing some delay between the shots in an other way is certainly possible, all the other tanks with multiple shot have it.

[di_duncan 24]

4 hours ago, BumbaX said:

About being a glass cannon i see a big difference between tanks that have camo and tanks that lack of it. At least if those tanks are not used only as long distance snipers leaching on other people's spots, as i sadly see some MBT players doing.

4 hours ago, BumbaX said:

Luckily it does not seem to me that the present CATTB is so hopeless against AI missile tanks, surely it can not face a T15 and a couple of Bradley without any precaution, it is not the ADTU, but i find it better against them of some other T10 MBTs.

The CATTB in its present form cannot reliably withstand ATGMs in PVE, but the progression XM1A3 faces the same dilemma. It's UFP is paper against ATGMs as well, yet it can perform just as well if not better than other tier 10 MBTs. Again, weakspots and armor vulnerability can be mitigated if players play smart/cautious.

There will always be MBT snipers in the game. It's a fact of nature. Even if the tank's stats are not suitable for such a role, uninformed MBT players will still camp and snipe. While it is certainly annoying, claiming they are leaching damage from others is not particularly relevant, as many TDs, AFVs and/or LTs are even worse in this regard (ever try to outdamage a Griffin in a MBT?).

 

4 hours ago, BumbaX said:

About increasing the aim time even more please no. It would maybe fix a little the burst damage problem, but at the cost of creating other problems in all the modes, it is a gun that already does not shine as accuracy and aim time.

Which is why I proposed to compensate the nerfed aimtime with:

On 3/13/2020 at 9:31 AM, di_duncan said:

slightly better accuracy and better APS reload time.

On 3/13/2020 at 9:31 AM, di_duncan said:

In effect, this would require players to aim the weapon more carefully, rewarding those who are patient while punishing those who doubletap haphazardly.

Plus the CATTB's penetration has already been nerfed to 800mm with the most recent update (as previously mentioned).

 

4 hours ago, BumbaX said:

Instead introducing some delay between the shots in an other way is certainly possible, all the other tanks with multiple shot have it.

This wouldn't help in most scenarios:

On 3/13/2020 at 9:31 AM, di_duncan said:

While the doubletap is definitely punishing, I don't think it should be removed. The insane bloom following the first shell requires players to wait for aim time to accurately pen MBTs (frontally), thus effectively negating the insane burst fire rate.

Plus the gun is a two-round "fastdraw" ready rack. It shares the near-instant intra-clip reload of the "fastdraw" 120mm on the XM1A3.

[BumbaX 8]

Yes, is really hard to outdamage a griffin in an MBT but i had many times better overall score and got the blue star in my mbt, it happens usually when the griffin driver acts as a leach and stays in the back instead of doing his spotting work. TDs and arty are the only classes designed to stay in the back,  even if sometimes, when no one in the party moves his arse it is possible to go to spot even with a TD, while i would not suggest it with an arty.

In most maps when i drive the griffin i often get almost as much spotting damage then damage done by myself.

The MBT od AFV snipers will never disappear, i know it, and a player is free to play as he likes, according to his personal style. At least if is not like the Merkava player i found today on Cerebrus, he come with me (T9 Striker) and an AFV on the hill at the right of the map to snipe, then not happy he managed also to push me down from the hill. At the end of the game i had done like 30K dmg and quite a bit of spots and spotting damage and he? about 600 dmg in all the game, never moved from that hill for the whole game, while i relocated at least 3 times as the battle was evolving. I would say that i won, with casuals, more Riding Party games without MBT then the same map with a couple of MBT snipers, as the MBTs have less sustained damage of the other classes but mainly because if a player decides to snipe and takes the tanks with the best armor to be even more sure to survive he is probably a really bad player. 

Anyway back to the CATTB i drove it today in PVE, i met some bradley and T15 and i survived, it probably remains OP in Random Battle, but i think that to really fix that problem would make it not playable in PvE unless the tank is completely changed, something like happened to the Leo T10 that before balance 2.0 was a completely different tank from the one that is today. As I wrote in my first post in this thread to introduce super powerful tanks brings problems that later is not easy to solve and i wish that this trend will stop in the future.

[TekNicTerror 5]

They need to stop nerfing tanks JUST becuz they become popular or meta in PVP modes.

If the problem is in PVP, deal with it in PVP... not every mode.

And they already have a solution... limit the numbers like they do with spg's.  Say like there can only be 2-3 of the same tank on each team, and the limit should be for any tank, not just CATTB's, 490's, MGM's, and whatever tank becomes the favor of the month at the time.

[TeyKey1 119]

59 minutes ago, TekNicTerror said:

They need to stop nerfing tanks JUST becuz they become popular or meta in PVP modes.

The CATTB is not getting nerfed just because it is popular or meta. Simply because it is ridiculously OP. That fact of course leads to the effect that the tank is popular and meta in PVP modes.

1 hour ago, TekNicTerror said:

If the problem is in PVP, deal with it in PVP... not every mode.

This is a discussion that is going on for ages now. Separate balancing for PVE/PVP modes requires much effort for the devs and I highly doubt that anything like that will ever happen at all.

1 hour ago, TekNicTerror said:

And they already have a solution... limit the numbers like they do with spg's.  Say like there can only be 2-3 of the same tank on each team, and the limit should be for any tank, not just CATTB's, 490's, MGM's, and whatever tank becomes the favor of the month at the time.

This would cure the symptoms of the disease but not the disease itsself. Just because there are only two CATTBs per team does not make them less OP in any way. Again this tank should have never been implemented the way it was. This is certainly a disaster for My.games and they definitely lost lots of reputation because of that. Only thing they can do now to fix it is to try balancing it properly for all Modes. However, the latest changes on the CATTB show that they have clearly no clue of how to do this.

[BumbaX 8]

I agree with @TeyKey1 on all 3 points.

Also limiting the number of the most popular tanks in a battle would slow even more the queue time, that is probably the main problem this game has. having only let's say only 3 OP tanks in each party would not make the game more balanced then having 6 in each party, as the problem is that those tanks are OP and each one that has to face them is at a disadvantage, how much of them are on the field does not change it.

Again the problem's solution is to have tanks that maybe can be unique and perform in a different way from the average tanks of their class, but that are balanced with the other ones, balanced in all the 3 modes. And the best way to obtain it is to design them balanced from the start, when they are intentionally made OP to make the very long battle path grinds more attractive then it is very difficult, if not impossible to revert to normality later.

I would add also that if i agree that the tanks should be balanced in all the 3 modes the PvP ones should have a priority. And this not because are more "noble" modes and PvE is for noobs only, as all the players have the right to play in the modes they like the more and i personally know some very good players that don't play Random Battle because they simply don't like it, but are perfectly capable to perform well in it if they have to play it for some grind reasons.

The reason is imo that the PvP modes are competitive modes, players vs players, so balance is essential, while PvE is a cooperative mode, players vs engine, where the devs can balance the tanks setting how the engine works. An example of it is the Ramka, some time ago it seemed in PvE an almost invulnerable tank, in the hands of a player that does not make very big errors, while in PvP it was a completely different story. This happened only for how the AI was scripted, it was scripted to don't aim at its weak spots, but only to spots that receive minor damage if don't completely bounce the shell/missile.

If the tanks are balanced in PvP it is quite easy to balance them also in PvE only changing how the AI is scripted, but this means that if the tank is born OP in PvP to make it before more balanced in it and then correcting the AI scripts for PvE to adapt to the changes made and balance it also there is a lot of work, to simply nerf something for PvP without changing the AI scripts for all the PvE enemies is not a solution as it balances more in a mode at the cost of potentially unbalance in the other.

 

[Norse_Viking 12]

Maybe limit what tanks a platoon could join in. Doing a platoon with 3 cattbs in GLOPS feels dirty :) 

Like 3 vehicles but all from different class. 

Would also get rid of the cancer like 3 x MT-LBs, 3 x Lec-t40, 3 x Marders and other fun but totally devastating combinations.

 

Anyway still after the nerfs the Cattb is still a pretty solid tank in pvp thanks to that 2k damage output and armor.

 

[TeyKey1 119]

4 hours ago, Norse_Viking said:

Maybe limit what tanks a platoon could join in.

This is something I've been proposing for a long time. Just do not allow any platoon to use the same vehicle and lots of problems would vanish. 

The CATTB is still pretty ridiculous in PVP. The previous nerfs clearly showed that the devs have no clue of what is wrong with this vehicle. Let's see what the future brings.

[Quantum_Ranger 14]

Anyone try the CATTB in 0.33?  It's available for purchase this week using the #@$# loot crate system... I think it's expensive but was curious if it was still a worthwhile investment.

Thanks, QR

 

[TeyKey1 119]

8 hours ago, Quantum_Ranger said:

Anyone try the CATTB in 0.33?  It's available for purchase this week using the #@$# loot crate system... I think it's expensive but was curious if it was still a worthwhile investment.

I mean it works. But there's better alternatives for PVE now. Not worth in my opinion, as long as you're not collecting this stuff. I suggest to wait with such purchases anyways because there most probably will be some more changes regarding balance to certain tanks in the next updates, which could change the situation again.

Quite sure you'll get a second chance to buy it anyways around christmas time.

[Beeda2004 2]

CATTB

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_Abrams#Variants_and_upgraded_versions

https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/coldwar/US/M1_Abrams.php

0.33