MechWarrior Online: Clan Collection Wave 3

I'm surprised I held out this long (3 days), but I just bought the Clan Collection Wave 3 Gladiator pack. The four extra variants and mech bays were just too hard to resist (Must have them all!). Plus, the 111 days of banked Premium Time (60 from Gladiator pack and 51 days from Monthly Rewards) is nice to have.

In all honesty, when I first saw the list of mechs included I wasn't too impressed as I already have the iconic Clan mechs (Mad Cat, Vulture, Daishi, Loki, and Thor). But then I took a look at the Mech Specs on the Clan Collection Wave 3 page and was convinced I "needed" these mechs.

I am not a Clan only or Inner Sphere only person, but here's why I "need" these mechs.

Arctic Cheetah (Hankyu) - a true fast moving 30 ton light mech with ECM and Jump Jets.

Shadow Cat - a 45 ton medium mech with decent speed, ECM, and Jump Jets.

Ebon Jaguar (Cauldron-Born) - typical fast moving 65 ton Clan heavy mech with lots of hard point variations to choose from.

Executioner (Gladiator) - a 95 ton assault mech with Jump Jets that is fairly quick for an assault mech. The weapon load may be lacking at first glance, but it's in-game performance will determine how viable it really is and I think there's enough hard point variation to make it useful.

Now, the Shadow Cat and Executioner also have MASC (burst of speed engine modifier), but how it will be implemented is still an unknown. In the past PGI has stated MASC equipped engines have proved problematic because the game's net code has difficulty handling hit detection on mechs traveling at speeds over 170 kph. The Shadow Cat and Executioner more than likely will not approach 170 kph, but it should be interesting how they handle MASC and what the downside(s) to running it will be. If PGI can get it to work well without messing up hit detection, we may be seeing more MASC equipped mechs for both the Clans and Inner Sphere in the near future.

That's it for now and these mechs will not be available until June. So, there's plenty of time to speculate on how useful these mechs will be in all parts of the game and I believe they will be. Check out the Mech Specs section of the Clan Collection Wave 3 page and see for yourself.