M18 cloaking

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[LeoPhone]

question for mods:

can u actually change the cloak system to something like not being able to cloak if enemy can see your tank?

[smurfORnot]

could do the same for troops...

[ImmanioEiR]

exactly, so when you want them to fire you press teh halt button and they'll fire both.

i've seen snipers, m18's, schrecks, paks all cloak while in range of units firing.

it seems like you're upset that the m18 can cloak easily because the hmg isn't firing come on that's just retarded.

tym.. i am bitching because EVEN if i see the m18 i cannot turn the turret of MY tank fast enough to prevent cloaking.. and that is retarded

And this is different from other units cloaking how? Hell, as people have stated, stormies, snipers etc can cloak even while an MG is shooting at them. It's obvious you don't want m18s to be able to drive up, cloak and get the ambush bonus. You still haven't said anything about WHY you don't want it to, beyond "it's retarded", and that's rather lacking in both eloquence and rhetoric. Do you consider it unbalanced? If so, I disagree with you, and I think this thread shows that I'm hardly the only one. Is it unrealistic? Yes. Does that bother me? Not in the least.

[LeoPhone]

it is unbalanced actually, because tank cloak is completely different from inf cloak.
1st: tanks that have cloak are hetzer, stug and m18.
hetzer and stug dont have a turret, so they can't really use cloak while in combat because he's probably turned the wrong way.
m18 however has turret, which makes it perfect to cloak during combat.

now to compare m18 with inf cloak:

inf does not get amush bonus, m18 does.

if you cloak your inf, you're probably trying not to be seen so u can retreat easy. however, enemy can still mortar you or run his inf into your slow moving cloaked units.
this is completely different with m18: you don't use it to escape or anything, you just use it for the amush bonus+ you will fire 1st and the enemý tank wont fire(if you're very lucky the enemy tank will even shoot another target while the m18 just cloaked)
and you cannot run your tank into his cloaked tank coz he fires instantly anyways.
inf also fires lots of bullets while tanks only shoot once in a while. this makes the cloak bonus much better for tanks.

m18 cloaking in combat is completly retarded and unbalanced. it should be fixed by not allowing the m18 to cloak while in combat.
if that is too hard to code/not possible, disable m18's main gun for like 10 seconds after it has just cloaked.

[ImmanioEiR]

And what do you know, m18s are also a fragile platform with a low penetration gun, that relies on their ambush shot to be useful. It's their whole shtick. Even as it is, a lot of people prefer the m10. I think we can agree that making any of the changes you proposed would make it utterly useless, so unless you changed it completely you might as well remove it entirely. Now, "retarded" and "unbalanced"... Well, I wish people would stop using the word retarded in a discussion like this. It means nothing, it's nothing but a slur that can't be grounded in arguments. As for "unbalanced", that's a claim that can be substantiated, but I don't really think it has been. Yes, it can get off a powerful shot at the start of an engagement, but it pays for this by being horrible against tanks without ambush and useless against infantry. In a heads-up fight it will lose to pretty much any axis tank/TD short of the Ostwind and possibly the IST. For pretty much any other purpose than the ambush shot, you'd rather have an m10. Hell, a panther with a modicum of luck can destroy an m18 almost without taking damage, even if the hellcat gets the ambush shot.

[lionel23]

The thing is the Hellcat only gets a damage and penetration bonus for that one shot, no accuracy bonus like pak38s.  And that shot can still BOUNCE even if it hits, which is utter bad luck and happens too frequently for my tastes that I went back to mass M10s or Shermans with upguns.  And the M18, already priced slightly higher than an M10, is pretty much a crap Tank Destroyer that relies on the one ambush shot, otherwise its horrible combat gun sucks too much to effectively counter anything that isn't a light vehicle or Ostwind (M10 being the premium tank destroyer with its much better main gun).

On the counterpoints, you can easily use hezters and stugs to do the exact same thing, as they don't fire immediately (due to turret tracking) so as your stug is aiming, you hit cloak and get the ambush bonus off that, same with hezters (though having any Mgs on them negates the power of ambush, hence why I rarely take hellcats with them).

Infantry does get ambush bonuses, but only certain squads.  Falls had them and probably will again with the reintroduction of their docs, I'm pretty positive that sapper Piat Ambush gives them accuracy bonus to their first attack, Storms only use it for stealth as well as Airborne, snipers its only for hiding, and paks get ambush bonus while the 6lber does not (unless through a T4 doctrine buff).

On the 'cloak is only for retreating' is utter nonsense.  You can use it offensively when attacking an MG and it suppresses and pins the squad.  Once they can't shoot, they go back into cloak and can crawl forward to throw that bundle nade.

In Regards to the M18 combat cloak, it can't even move and many a game I have lost my vetted M18s when they do the ambush shot and you have to 'unlock' them by toggling the ability and it has much slower accleration than the M10, which means most of the time it can be easily caught and ganked, besides having fragile health/armor compared to the Sherman.

In regards to the cloak is more beneficial to tanks than infantry due to volume of shots, what if your one shot bounces, that's a pretty big disadvantage when comparing an entire squad if they all had powerful weapons and every one had a bonus when ambushing.

And on top of that you want to nerf the M18, which already sucks as a Tank Destroyer since it lost its range bonus and has lower penetration than the M10 by adding a TEN second delay on firing after it cloaks?  If we're doing that, let's add a 10 second delay to Storms and Paks firing immediately after cloak too then, when you can 'clearly' see the Pak move up, go invisible and get its more powerful cloak ambush shot that I use all the time to snipe ATGs due to the better accuracy and rate of fire.

In short, M18 is just fine.  If we're going to reclassify it from a crappy, hidden Tank Destroyer, then I propose it being made a 'heavy' tank destroyer... more armor/HP, can equip an MG to fight (like a Sherman light) as the M10 has no option for an MG, and the Hellcat overall looks more like a beefier tank than the M10.

[LeoPhone]

changing it to a heavy tank destroyer would be cool.

[basicallysceptical]

On the counterpoints, you can easily use hezters and stugs to do the exact same thing,

this is only available as a doctrine abillity. bouncing off doesnt happen that often, u still have an insane range (no bitching bout that tho)

and if it bounces off.. just uncloak, drive around the corner and get the same bonus like 20 sec later again..

[lionel23]

The hezter and stug has much better armor than a M18 hellcat anyday...

And what insane range are you talking about? It has normal M10 range, which is slightly more than a P4/Sherman.. and if you want to fire once every 20 seconds and micro the slow M18 away after uncloaking, move it, move it back, recloak, fire, uncloak, move it... go right ahead.

And bouncing off happens very often, its penetration sucks horribly.

[Tymathee]

On the counterpoints, you can easily use hezters and stugs to do the exact same thing,

this is only available as a doctrine abillity. bouncing off doesnt happen that often, u still have an insane range (no bitching bout that tho)

and if it bounces off.. just uncloak, drive around the corner and get the same bonus like 20 sec later again..

easy to say in theory, lets see you do it.

[basicallysceptical]

i am talking about 4 clicks, not really rocket science

[gamesguy2]

M18s are only good in skirmishes.  You can't press an attack with them and if your opponent pushes back you're gonna wish you had an M10.

[sheffer]

m18 works fine against PE inf ht based strategy (hiden AT in your positions = fail inf ht or IST rush). When PE SE doc was released Hellcat save my company from loosing every game vs double PE. But it sucks vs any wh medium armor and hetzers. Dont think that u will fight agains unsupported tanks, usually in games against good wh players my hellcat deals 1 umbush hit, then fall back and repear, then 2-nd ambush hit and  retreat\die. Hellcat has a  penetrating problems even with side p4\stug armor, and MG upgrade is useless, because its not a main line tank, and its possible that Hellcat even dont meet an infantry.
About heavy tank destroyer - may be doc unlock for companies, which has no doc buffs agains armor?

[smurfORnot]

I do like to start with them...they almost always earned theyr weight in gold...

[Tymathee]

i am talking about 4 clicks, not really rocket science

as I said, lets see you do it, theorycrafting and saying "you can just and boom OP" on the forums is so different than doing it in game. Show a video of you doing exactly what you said you can do and it's overpowered and I'll side with you, other wise dont bother me with it.

[deathsheads]

But shouldn't the balance of a unit be based upon what the most advanced of players can do, because if they can do it now with a bit of work and practice almost anyone has the potential to be able to exploit this in the future. 

Yeah its not THAT hard, best way I have found is to angle to the left or right, a bit, when the turret starts to track towards the tank, halt and cloak, now back up.  You can be chased but a single piece of AT behind your Hellcat will force your opponent to avoid you and remember before you accuse me of theory-crafting on the basis of allowance of a secondary unit, you should never have Just one piece of AT on the field at a time, there should ALWAYS be two of them.

[Tymathee]

what im saying is i've never seen anyone do it and i play with and against a lot of advanced players on both sides. The fact is, most advanced players go with m10's, why? because you get the same penetration without the cloaked shot so you get 25 more damage who cares when u can only do it every now n then. The bonus gets you more damage yes but it only boosts up the penetration to the level of the m-10 so tell me, how does that benefit an allied player until its against an unarmored target or in the butt? Fact is, an m-10 serves me better in the long run rather than playing around with the m-18's cloak

[lionel23]

+1 to Tym

With an M10, you can throw the unit away and it do a shit-ton of damage to any axis tank it fights, and even if they run the M10 is probably the only US tank that can effective pursue with its speed and still penetrate frontal armor with massive damage.

Try chasing stuff with a Hellcat and watch it cry.  Many tears.  Great Lakes size we're talking about here!

Hellcat Ambush is decent but has no accuracy modifer, and worst thing is to ambush a panther and watch the shell bounce.. now your hellcat will die very, very quickly and you have pretty much no chance to scratch it as it turns to face you.

M10 is the much better alternative for tank busting, while a Sherman is great for taking shots.  M18 pretty much only good against light vehicles I would say (sneak shot on a HT for example) or hiding aura buffs for infantry with the tank.

[Mysthalin]

Basicallysceptical - are you honestly implying that firing a cloak shot once every 20 seconds with a hellcat is OP? In the same time I could fire off 4 shots on an M10, which will, I guarantee, deal at least twice the damage as the single cloak-shot from the hellcat. On top of the M10 being cheaper and better in general.

[LeoPhone]

only the m18 can get away unharmed every time it uses ambush shot coz of it's basic 46 sight and 45 range.