Panther balance

Like GoogleFrog mentioned in last patch thread, Panther is kind of a broken unit right now. I very much agree with that, however I do feel like a different approach would be good here, something that doesn't make the panther into a specialised anti-heavy. There are two main reasons for that. First, tanks don't really need an anti-heavy that much. If your opponents have the economy to make heavies, you should have the money to make reapers or goliaths. And secondly, a specialised anti-heavy panther destroys any viability that tanks otherwise could have as a starting fac in 1v1. It would be awesome to have more viable starting facs. I think that with some small tweaks, tanks could be a viable starting fac without being broken.

The biggest problem at the moment is that tanks need to have a unit that can contest map control vs scorchers. Old panther could do it by controlling engagements with superior mobility and a stun. The new one can't really. The combination of RoF nerf and speed nerf changed the matchup so that scorchers are now a pretty decent unit vs panthers. Not to mention that darts are a super hard counter to them, especially in the current patch. Mixing in kodachis would normally be nice vs darts, but currently it just makes your raider force even more vulnerable to scorchers.

So, my suggestion:
Make panthers have similar stats to what they had last patch with cost being put (back) up to 320. Kodachi's new weapon is pretty kickass and perhaps this way tank openings could be viable without being broken. Meanwhile, a slightly higher price makes ravagers have a better chance against them, which is critical to allow the vehicle player to punish panther spam as well as provide an incentive for the tank player to make reapers and heavier units.

I think previous patch panther had about the right speed. The current one is definitely too slow. This is for both the tanks vs cloakies and tanks vs vehicles matchup. They probably need to be faster than scorchers and they need to be speedy enough to be a decent counter to rockospam(banisher is not really a counter, although with good micro it can make cost). In addition, snipers are a massive pain to deal with and faster panthers are really the only hope for tanks here. Kodachi is just too slow and allows stray snipers to easily retreat to safety. Fast panthers are also a lot more fun to use than slow, lousy panthers.

Anyway, this is just my take on the panther. Agree/disagree? Other ideas?

Edit:
To avoid confustion: I suggest a revert on the two latest panther changes. These include the one that reduced their cost by 20 and the last one which gave them huge EMP damage, reduced speed and RoF, etc. From there on smaller tweaks could be experimented with.

In your vision, what does the Panther counter, and what counters the Panther? What does the Panther do besides killing Scorchers?

I might have failed to pay sufficient attention, but you could also make it clearer.

How many glaives or darts should be able to kill your version of Panther?

How many would be needed to catch one?

Should it be faster than the heavy raiders it's supposed to tackle (while koda handles swarms i guess?), or as fast, or even slower, but capable of killing them surely enough?

It's emp damage it too high imo :/
Maybe lower its emp damage and increase its real damage by a small amount?

I think the panther is perfectly fine at the moment. The high EMP damage makes it usefull and when using panthers i dont aim for maximum speed but for a decent balance between speed and manouve, ie Kiting. Which works perfectly against most units.

And...its not supposed to conter scorchers, banisher does that. And LLT.

HV doesnt need what you suggested - if you want quick deadly raiders go LV or cloak. And get LLTs if you wanna stay safe.

I think the stun dmg is to much. I was able to stun a lv 1 recon comander with 2 shots of 1 panther. And 3 panthers where able to kill lv2 com without takeing any serious dmg.

Panther was originally intended to do zipper-like run-past-the-defense assault-raids... in a lab with two assaults and two artillery units, this has always been kinda pointless.

With only 3 low-ish-cost units (one of which is a con) the Tank lab early-game doesn't have room for a second assaulty-raider.

The unit should be completely thrown-out and its model re-purposed for a new function. A skirm or a riot or a Slasher-like deployable or something.

As for early-game area-control and the Scorcher problem, I really think that the Welder needs to be involved in this plan. Welders get pwned 1v1 by Scorchers - I'd so much rather see Welders be true riots that would win this fight, even if that means further-hampering their already terrible BP/cost ratio and dinging their impressive health.

Of course, I'm not a good-enough player to know if this would work. Could you do a solid opener using Kodas and a unit that's basically a Warrior riding on a Mason?

But that's offtopic, I guess. I just think the Welder should be the answer to "omg how do I deal with raiders when starting Heavy Tanks?" and not the Panther.

Many of you are forgetting a big part of the problem. Dealing with skirmishers. Currently, tanks don't have a counter to rockospam. Neither do they have a counter to snipers. A fast panther(pre-redesign panther) would be able to deal with those units, the current one can't in any shape of form.

Both kodachis and banishers can make cost vs rockos with lots and lots of manual micro, but they are not counters. And they can also easily die without making cost. And by the time snipers get out, it just gets worse, as kodachi speed and weight units will never really get to snipers cost-efficiently(just put some glaives with your snipers or simply retreat snipers to safety).

Scorchers don't really lose much speed when turning. Panthers do. That's one of the reasons why they need to be faster than scorchers in order to have similar effectiveness at dealing with rockos.

In short, if tanks don't have a fast unit like the old panther, the factory is unviable in 1v1. With the awesome unit and factory variety that ZK has, it is kind of a shame when most games on relatively flat maps are just vehicles vs vehicles.

I demand lots and lots of Veh-vs-Tank 1v1 games between you, Saktoth, and Godde.

For science.

I've seen panther spam (the current version) pwn the everything LV fac offers...