Honest opinion on the VS Mag Rider?

As someone who runs around with a dedicated gunner in an AP/Enforcer Vanguard with full shot locker, vehicle stealth, racer, and reload speed... every time a Magrider does this to me, they die. My turret is capable of following them and by the time they are turning they are already looking at my side armor, and during this movement they expose themselves to at least two rear-armor hits from my tanks Enforcer.

If a 2/2 AP/Saron Magrider tries to point blank brawl with a 2/2 AP/Enforcer Vanguard and both are equally skilled, the Magrider is going to lose, hard, every single time.

The Magrider is great at very long range shot-trading, but it never, ever wants to be point blank with enemy MBTs unless it gets the stone-cold drop on them. Furthermore, if you can't hit a Mag that's doing the front-on strafe thing at under 100m you either hit a terrain piece which threw your aim or you are operating at 400+ ms ping. If you aim center mass with AP they mathematically can't evade the shot.

When people complain about the Magrider and it's hill climbing ability, they aren't really complaining about it in a tank vs tank mindset; that hill climbing usually just puts them somewhere they don't have cover from their opposing vehicles and HA's with lock-on launchers. No, they are remembering the time of the PPApocalypse when Hossin and much of Amerish was rendered completely unplayable by PPA Magriders who would boost to places ignoring the walls around spawn points designed to prevent vehicle farming and spray rapidly moving, zero drop, almost zero bloom rounds from what was essentially an anti-infantry grenade launcher right into spawn shields. Often times, the more toxic players would be shouting in /yell about how it was not overpowered at all and how the other side just needed to get good.

That is what people mostly think about when they complain about the Magrider, imo.

The magrider is at its best when used as an anti-infantry platform. But lacking any good anti-infantry weapons you are better off using a battle bus.

Against armor the magrider just sucks donkey-balls. Don't get me wrong, it is fun to use, but if you come up against an experienced opponent its game over.

This is pretty much reflected in the pattern usage stats. If you look at the relative play time in hours of the MBTs for all BRs VS / NC / TR:

All BR : 596.1 / 649.0 / 790.6
Q4 BR : 283.1 / 262.7 / 326.3
100 BR :149.9 / 128.3 / 162.9

Basically for TR and NC, ~20% of MBT play time is by BR 100s, while for VS it is ~25%. This reflects the fact that unless you have put a lot of certs and practice into the Magrider, you're not going to do that well. I get incredibly skeptical about whether someone knows what they are talking about when they say the Magrider is really easy to use.

"Speed isn't the only way to be mobile."

Starfish can move omnidirectionally with ease. They move so well they don't even need to turn in any specific direction. Yet, you wouldn't call a starfish very mobile would you? Of course not, because they're very slow.

Speed is mobility. What defines a tank's mobility is its speed. What defines a force's mobility is its speed. What you've done is taken extreme liberty with the word, "mobility," liberty you shouldn't have taken, liberty that I am now taking away from you.

To be fair, speed is not just "maximum forward speed over flat ground". Things the Magrider has like; speed in climbing a slope, speed in reverse, acceleration to top speed, and peak speed on demand are all different types of speed.

yes, "maximum forward speed over flat ground" is the most important single type of speed, but that doesn't mean all the other types don't matter at all.

Yes i have many thousands of kills in a magrider. Mags lose to vanguards every time 1v1 if the vanguard is good and so do prowlers. Cant beat that uber shield although vanguard drivers will spend all day telling you how its not very good.

I also know how the ppa was i started using it when no one else did and have many thousands of kills with it. Now its complete trash. Oh well it was op as hell.

I wasnt claiming the magrider was the best tank for tank vs tank, just that for me it is the most fun and versatile tank. Thats what makes it the best. Driving a vanguard is about as fun as driving down the highway irl.

Magrider is a pretty good tank but on the other hand it runs on Vanu blood.

Harasser does what a mag does, but faster with a Halberd/Saron
Lightning has more DPS than a 1/2 Mag, in fact 2 AV Lightnings have more health and DPS then a single 2/2 AV Mag.

Mag is weak compared to the other tanks as it has neither the armor or DPS and is reliant on the stealth flanking method, it cannot dodge shots at less then 150m (if it misses at that range it would of missed if the mag hadn't dodged).

When was the last time that you saw a Bounty Mark on a Magrider? I have yet to see one. If it's on trick pony act fails, the Mag is free certs for the enemy that will spin around and swat it like an annoying gnat. Is there a way to see how many Bounty Marks have been purchased and see what the player was doing to get the mark? It would be interesting to see the total number of bounties associated with vehicles.

First, i said sometimes. Secondy, you have more reaction time than you think, fighting a prowler? Change direction at 2s intervals. vanguard? 3s. Its a pre-emptive manuever that works sometimes.

I know it can work, but that's mostly due to the absolute incompetence of the opponent. Yes, incompetence.

The Magrider needs to sit at range and strafe and use high ground that it can access but other vehicles can't. Incidentally that's one of the things I absolutely hate when I'm fighting VS. Too many guys abuse its mobility to get to terrain and bypass the walls SOE put up to stop vehicles mindlessly shelling into bases.

I could name only a hand full of bases where only a Magrider could get into a position to fire over walls or other obstacles. And in most of these positions the Magrider will be so exposed to all kinds of AT, that it can't stay there for too long.
On the other hand, there are plenty of bases where all ground vehicles can shoot into from a safe distance. And don't get me started on ESFs, Libs and bomber gals.

If an odd Magrider, clinging to a hill next to a base sniping a few defenders, gets you worked up. All those regular farm-fests must realy trigger your rage mode, I suppose.

Right, and in the golden age of the mag PPA the magriders were never seen hugging 60deg inclines, even 100m above the ground, killing one battle after another. Oh wait, no, in fact it was one of main reasons the PPA was nerfed into the ground. Apparently there was "so much AT" that they were able to get away with AI loadouts.

Yep, you stated out correctly that the PPA was nerf-hammered into the ground so hard, it came back out somewhere in mongolia.
So with the PPA not being an issue anymore, the argument "Tha Magridah can go to places !!!!" loses its weight.

Do you see anyone complaining about HE-Prowlers farming spawns? That was a hot topic before the general HE nerf (which funny enough hit all tanks, even though the prowler had more AI kills than the Vanguard and Magrider combined). Of all 3 mbts, Prowlers are still the no. 1 AI farming choice, but ppl somehow seem to be OK with that.
But, oh boy, the magrider! Doing the same thing, but less effective, realy grinds your gears, eh?

possibly, but not via the "so much AT" angle you suggested, that is flat out untrue and the inherent property of the platform means that every AI weapon released for it has to be doubly checked because spreadsheets don't mean jack and **** when it comes to real world power. If/when there is another AI secondary released, you can bet your left nut that the bored BR100 completionists will be on the unreachable mountaintops again to aurax it.

But did the AI loadout with PPA lost all its utility? So it doesn't allow pixel accurate magdumps from 200m away, but is it totally unviable when spacing out shots targeted at bottlenecks from a near perfect safety? Not so sure, but vanu loving them every op toy of the week dropped it like a hot potato and now are busy BJ-ing. Cheeky magrider still can wreak havoc in a way no other ground vehicle can.

Is it a zero sum game? Saying that magrider is goddamned annoying because of its ability to break battles in a way nobody else can doesn't take away from the goddamned prowlers cheesing their way to the riches.
When the base is in a hole, you can curse the brain damage of the person building it, but everybody is more or less affected to a similar degree. When a seemingly ok base, that is located on a tall platform that neuters brick tanks entirely can be shot into by one faction because that one faction can play mountaneering with their heavy stuff and rain death from the mountaintops, then yeah, magrider is going to feel the extra flames from time to time.

This is normally suicide if you do this to a MBT. You can do it to lightnings but you normally take heavy damage because bottom armour = rear armour. It's normally best to just take front hits instead of going over tanks.

But not all the people that fall for it are incompetent, I know that for a fact. Its not that hard if you do some counting in your head.

I fear the mag myself, one on one its so controlable and versatile it can literally run rings round a prowler. Ive had a quick go in one and was blown away with how easy and capable to drive it was.
And the times ive had one down to its last bar of health only for it to shoot off to safety.....

And that ability to camp spawn or choke points can kill low pop battles. And combined with a few snipers can box up bigger defences.
Yeh, a he prowler would do better on some bases, but the mag can cover spawns in places armour wasnt meant to be.

I hate the thing, but i will admit in large, static battles id rather have a prowler. The NC get the proper tank. VS get the specilist tool and TR get the best farming implement.
imo armour is fairly equal through diversity. Each tank is so different its hard to pick the best considering all situations.

If it's more than just -one- shell, then it's actually an indication that they just might be incompetent. If they weren't, then they'd hit those 50-100 meter shots and thus be qualified to call themselves Competent.