Prowler's Vulcan is underperforming

The problem is if you make the thing too accurate with a small enough CoF, to where you can just spray like a noob, is that it becomes too good at AI.

Right now the Enforcer and Saron are in the best place they will get for AI because they're not OP but they can still kill a guy in a pinch. However, they are only really going to kill an INF at short range.

If you cut the Vulcan's CoF too much, you'd have to change the resist values for AI a LOT to ensure it doesn't outperform at AI compared to the other AV options. It also becomes a problem because it'll end up being better at AA than the other two.

So you'd also have to lower the maximum elevation of the Vulcan. In other words, if you want it to be a lot more accurate for long sprays, you'd have to COMPLETELY rebalance the weapon.

On the other hand, if you want it to get close to the other AV's, you could simply decrease the bloom to 0.5/shot and it would fix the job for the intended range. Currently @ 281m, using ~6 round bursts (and maximum mag cert), you can kill a Vanguard in around 55 seconds (Saron does it in 33 seconds from the same position). If you decreased the bloom by half, you could fire in 12 round bursts (reducing your time in between CoF resets by over half), which would take that down to around 35 seconds which is VERY close to the Saron and Enforcer. Then you just have to balance the Prowler's main barrel and that can simply be done by increasing the reload time to 4 seconds. That way it has a 10-15% damage output higher than the other two tanks, at minimum, which is balanced out by the Vulcan.

In a straight up 2/2 Prowler v 2/2 Magrider fight, it would be a toss up for the average players (which is how it should be).

Vulcan >>>>> Cannister

about the same as the enforcer... its just not super OP anymore and you're used to easy mode.


TR tears need to flow for a year before I care. You had your day in the OP sun... for a year.

Which should be about 1200 RPM going by the old rotary.

Then you change the resist values against infantry and make it bad against infantry. It's not that hard, just make the bullets do like 50-100 damage against infantry per bullet so it takes basically 1/3-1/2 of the Magazine per infantry kill. The Vulcan was already changed against air craft and it's pretty bad, it's not like they couldn't make the resist values even bigger against aircraft.

The only way I see bloom being acceptable is if they gave the Vulcan a bigger Magazine, like the MCG for instance has a 100-200 round carrying capacity. Give that amount to the Vulcan and make it hit Max Bloom after like 75-100 rounds. Also you don't nerf the tank just to make the secondary a realistic option.

I think the vulcan it's pretty decebt right now. Maybe a little bit of extra range could help

Wow, 5 kmph on rough terrain means nothing for the default Prowler + you also get slowed down a lot, while the Magrider hovers with a lot less effort on rough terrain.

And FYI, VS traits are increased dodge ability, d'oh, hover strafe ADAD spasm (see former ZOE) and accuracy. While it's true that the game is very homogenized, I still think it is "normal" for a minigun to fire accurately at a reasonable distance, more than 10m anyway and have a CoF smaller than a shotgun that it currently has. Furthermore, it is mounted on freaking tank, you would think that would make "stable", but no ... a shotgun it is, one pellet at a time.

• They already changed the resist values once for the weapon, why couldn't they do it again and make inf resistant to the it ?
• Regarding Enforcer and Saron if you mean "short range" as in 50-100 m, yes, they are really effective.
• "lower the maximum elevation" and increasing the accuracy means complete rebalance ... nope. There is no need to lower the elevation as the gun is already ineffective against aicraft and a slight accuracy buff will not majorly affect the air game
• Stop it with the bursts comments, you do not fire a minigun in short bursts! If that is how they imagined how a minigun fires then I'm better of with the Halberd.

You still do not see that my main issue is, the range of the gun and secondary, the CoF and CoF bloom, not the damage, not the elevation, not the resist types or other things you blabbed about.

The problem here is that one is apparently a minigun and the other a shotgun. Don't you see a issue here ... ?!

P.S: OP for a year ... the Vulcan ?! Nope!

That is what I am asking for, max range damage increased to 50m + a little more accuracy than a shotgun, let's say a "CQB LMG at range" accuracy.

Well FYI the Magrider drops a lof of spead just by turning so unless you plan on just driving forward the Magrider will be slower than any other tank and Im not even going to bother to explain why but your ADAD spam is incorrect, a Magrider wont dodge anything like that.

Funny how you say increased dodge ability and accuracy is VS faction traits when Magrider cant really dodge, ZOE "dodge ability" got nerfed and the Magrider has the worst accuracy of all MBTs. Its easier to fire while on the move but if you use 3rd person view you can do the same in any tank.

So you think a minigun should behave like that? sure!
How would you expect something like this to behave then?

"The Saron Heavy Rail Beam replaces the gunner weapon with a very accurate armor piercing laser. The Saron HRB fires fast and accurate armor damaging beams."

Same velocity as something a minigun fires?
284 direct damage per shot?
367 splash damage? <- useless against tanks
recoil?
COF?

I think we all have some idea how the weapons should work, they dont work that way though.

You keep saying the issue of the gun is that it can't be used at as long of a range as the other two but then you say you just wanna spray it like Rambo. If you notice when you watch Rambo, he sprays into entire groups of people. If you wanna just shoot ONE target, you don't spray like a maniac, you use short bursts. Even minigun operators on Blackhawks use bursts.

If you wanna hit long range targets with fully automatic weapons, you use SHORT BURSTS to maintain accuracy. That way when stuff gets closer, you increase the length of the burst until it's within a short enough range that you can just mag dump.


The point of making as FEW changes as possible is because the devs are pretty much failures when it comes to balance changes. They change ENTIRE SLEWS of things to change something instead of one small adjustment here or there. Asking them to change just a couple things is the way to get it changed instead of 10 changes and then leave it for 2 to 6 months.

Small adjustments are how you balance things, not giant cranks. It's why everyone has pretty much said the new ESF weapons were very well designed because they set them up so that they're not MASSIVELY different from we already have (since it took forever to balance what we already have anyway).[/quote]

I know the Mag does not turn as it had in the past, but you still can turn it at a flip of a mouse. For a vehicle with tracks it takes a lot longer to do that. Furthermore, it still has dodge, even the basic one you're describing is better than the one on any other vehicle, as in non existent.
Worst accuracy ? No, worst drop off, yes.
And the Saron behaves like a rail beam, that fires fast and accurate. The Vulcan does not, it behaves like shotgun, firing one pellet at a time. You still don't see the issue here ?

[/quote]


Ofc I want the gun to be pinpoint accurate, but I know that would be unresonable. But I do want to be able to fire the gun in more that short bursts. You mentioned the Blackhawks use burst. I can bet you that they burst more than a few rounds

If ~6 seconds can be considered at a flip of a mouse then the ~8 seconds it takes for the Prowler(stock) is at a press of a button. Part of my point was that if you make any real turn with a Magrider you slow down, if you try to turn all around you pretty much just make a full stop. I dont know about you but a target that moves 20-25kph in one direction and takes ~2 seconds to go 20-25kph in the other direction is not harder to hit than a target that moves 50-70kph and can stop in ~2 seconds, the same target that can move forward 19kph and then in reverse 27kph at the same time or perhaps even slightly faster, than how the Magrider can strafe from left to right.

Magic happens when you turn your tank so your forward/reverse moves you right/left from your targets point of view, its almost like... a strafe and its really close to what the Magrider can do in terms of speed/performance wich is all you want from a strafe and with 3rd person view you can fire when doing this, just like a Magrider.

The odd thing is that only the Magrider has to pay heavily for being able to do this while every single ground vehicle in the game can emulate it.

Worst accuracy, yes.
It has the worst drop and it has the worst velocity, the two parts that make up aiming at a target. You have to aim for the drop wich the Magrider has the worst of all MBTs and you have to aim for the movement of the target with the Magrider has the worst velocity for so you need to lead the target more wich is by itself perhaps not too bad but it gives the target more time to evade the shot by either moving or stopping to move.. on purpose or by chance.

Saron is supposed to be a AV laser weapon, why does it do more splash damage wich is completely useless against vehicles instead of damage to armor?
You can fire fast with the Saron but it wont be accurate and the shots arent fast, not for a laser.

Its a laser weapon that has the same velocity as a minigun and it has more recoil than a minigun?
A laser shouldnt have a COF, recoil or the same velocity as a minigun. I know why it has these things but since we are talking about how we think a weapon should work then the Saron should be nearly hitscan without any COF or recoil at all, it shouldnt have splash damage aside from any heat it generates at the impact, compared to the focus point would be minimal... and since its a huge future laser it should pierce armor like butter.

Then you can have your more realistic minigun

The Magrider has the highest average accuracy of the three MBT main cannons every single time it has been included in stats I've seen. Usually the Magrider is around 43-45% as the highest, with the Prowler being the lowest at around 35-38% and the VG in the middle. So it seems the accuracy of the Magrider IS higher than for the other tanks. Comparing 3rd person shooting in a MBT where the secondary blocks most of your view to the smooth ride of the Magrider is blasphemy in my opinion. Having used both, there is a significant difference in the two, and using 3rd person shooting is not something the average joe can pull off, as even the experienced tankers are not too reliable with it at ranges except point blank. I'd like to see you hitting a target 200m away using 3rd person, and doing it reliably at that. Especially if you aren't driving over flat terrain.

The Magrider is perfectly capable of dodging, just not at all ranges anymore. It is about being unpredictable and using cover/elevation to your advantage. If the other tanks want to dodge, they have to expose their more vulnerable side armor (unless using reinforced side armor, and thus missing out on the, in my opinion, more effective options like Stealth. It is also harder for them to fire at their maximum RPM as, depending on terrain, they have to get to a complete stop. If you want to use your maximum DPS, you won't be moving at maximum forward speed either, resulting in you being significantly easier to hit.

Why are you belittling his idea on the Miniguns, especially by using the "potential stats" for the "new" SHRB weapon, like it won't ever be possible? If the damage values are tweaked along with the various resistances it shouldn't be a problem. You are afraid it shoots down aircraft? The AA guns have waaay superior elevation already (no need to further that gap), and via resistances the AA options can still be able to have a faster TTK. The same can be achieved against infantry, let each bullet do 1 damage (arbitrary number!!!) and tweak resistances against vehicles appropriately.

Not going to edit my last post since this will be more serious I guess?

You cant buff the accuracy on the Vulcan anymore without nerfing it. It needs 125 hits(doing minimum damage) on a Magrider side armor or 144 on front to kill it, with extended ammo thats less than 2 mags on the side and just barely more than 2 full mags on the front. If the Vulcan was accurate over range it would be OP as hell, again.

Saron needs 23 side hits and 26 front hits on a Prowler.

So for every Saron shot the Vulcan needs to hit 5-6 times(like 5.5 times) so if the Saron hits with all 6 shots the Vulcan needs to hit with ~33 shots out of a standard 60 rounds mag.

6 tries from 300m away on side armor, and I got a spread of 5-7 mags needed at full auto(6 being the average while lucky runs was 5 and unlucky 7) so ~41.6-29.7% accuracy at that range and with full auto.

If you buff the accuracy on the Vulcan it will do more damage than a 100% accuracy Saron just by going full auto on a target, not balanced.

You can't make it accurate without dropping the damage to the point where it's utterly useless OR you'd have to make the damage curve even WORSE by giving it a low max damage and the min being like 10 or something stupid because it would turn it into a LONG range weapon which is SUPPOSE to be filled by the Halberd.

Also Blackhawk miniguns are fired in 10-15 round bursts. If they reduced the bloom to 0.5, it would give you the ability to fire 13 round burst before the CoF hit it's max and you'd have to let off the trigger.

The problem is that you are a TR, so you seem to believe firing in bursts is how a noob shoots and you should be allowed to just hold the trigger down. With a Bloom of 0.5 instead of 1, you could shoot in a 13 round burst (or however many it took to max out the CoF) up to around 300m with ALMOST THE SAME damage output of the Enforcer and Saron. However, inside of 250m, the Vulcan would OUTPERFORM the Saron and Enforcer because you could end up spraying like a mad man.

It would mean the TR would have to learn to use an automatic weapon properly, however. The biggest excuse I always here from TR why they should get a better main barrel is because "our secondaries suck and all the random pubs that can't shoot". Well the VS have plenty of "random pubs" but they still manage to gun on Magriders just fine. So I don't think it's an issue of equipment but rather either crappy gunners, or the fact you'd rather have your own main barrel rather than share points with someone else and be/have a gunner.

Felt like a challenge.


Please forgive the small mistakes, I dont usually use 3rd person view with the Prowler so im not 100% on what to aim with, I use it as a siege tank normally is why. The 13 shots that are missing in the video(ammo) is me shooting at the NC Galaxy cuz its fun(not 3rd person view) on my way there and then some odd 3-4 or something shots to figure out what to aim with off camera, so its not like I spent a whole lot of time practicing this.

Some shots are also when more or less stationary but you do that with the Magrider too so no biggie, the point is to be moving around and contrary to what TR/NC tankers belive you can actually move while in combat.

If the vulcan was 2000 RPM and bloomed out in 15 rounds (half a second) we would burst fire it for sure!

Right now it blooms out at around 7 shots in about 2 seconds. What I suggested would double that so you'd bloom out in like 4 seconds. 4 seconds is a LONG burst especially considering the CoF reset is only like 1 second at MOST (think it's more like 0.5 seconds).

i miss my vulcan

There are not infantry resist values, only vehicle (and MAX) resist values, the damage listed for a weapon is its anti infitry damage. Which is to say you would make the shots do 50-100 damage base and then give a bonus vs vehicles, bit of a nitpick i know but its how the game works.



As an aside, my last set of numbers were from when the vulcan had a base mag of 30 and max damage of 120, but vehicles had very low resist to it (20%) which resulted in it having signifigantly more dps than the enforcer or sarron, but also lesser effective range. it was strong for an up close and personal style using stealth and flanking. So there was obviously a big damage change even before this nerf to put the base damage to 250 so it could be nerfed down to 167, which would have come with a change to things resistance to resistance vs the vulcan. Esentialy I am curious to what the vulcan resist value on most vehicles is these days, as that is what will determine if the vulcan has the AV dps to justify its lack of comprable range vs saron and enforcer, and in turn weather or not the vulcan is balanced.

Because even with the vulcan being balanced it will still likely underperform simply due to the current meta of tanks playing stand off style (where the vulcan does not, and should not shine), as oposed to the fast and brutal closer ranged styles.

The issue is the only tank that can afford to get up in your grill and do choke slam to other tanks on a consistent basis is the Vanguard. It has heavy armor to take abuse, amazingly powerful AV weapons to bring the pain, and then a shield to use in those "It's Game over man, game over!" situations where any other tank would get incinerated. On a lightly armored tank such as the Prowler engaging other tanks is suicide, particularly against the Vanguard where it doesn't matter if you flank them up close they'll still pop the shield and kill you anyway.

New Oracle of Death post

http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/1whk2i/postpu02_oracle_of_death_stats/

Guess what ? Prowler's Vulcan is still a lot less chosen compared with the Enforcer and the Saron. I wonder why ? Ah yes, because it's really, really bad.