I'm calling it. Upcoming Vanguard Shield Nerf.

Only the VG isn't underperforming?

i have seen shields last through 2 FPC mags pounding on it.

now, i'm SURE there ar situation where the shield has been brought down, but let me ask you this:
WHY DID YOU NOT USE THOSE EXTRA 4-6 SECONDS TO RETREAT TO A BETTER POSITION?

seriously?
the shield will eat 2 C4, it will eat deci rounds, it will eat a fully specced AV prowler or mag. THE SHIELD WILL SAVE YOU WHEN YOU SCREW UP ROYALLY.

compare that to every other case in the game where if you screw up royally YOU ARE DEAD.

Read the second sentence: the Vanguard accelerates more slowly (barring a certain bug), turns more slowly, and can't climb hills as well as the other two tanks. Hill climbing can especially be a problem for a tank, but I guess someone who's used to Spidermag wouldn't appreciate how much trouble that can cause.

Classic VS, ignore aaaaaall the things your faction gets because you want to have NC's damage and TR's rate of fire at the same time, and then make blatantly false claims about the other factions such as saying the Gauss SAW *doesn't* kick like a mule.

The Railjack also has the same drop as the Longshot (and every other BASR of the same type), but VS players continue to insist that it doesn't.

As for short reloads being a compensation: yes, that's the point. Just like our high damage could be considered a compensation for our low rate of fire.

Claiming that strafe, magburn, and the Scythe's agility are not noticeable, not to mention the Magrider's ability to cling to the sides of cliffs. And then complaining that it shows up on their infantry when NC infantry don't get any kind of extra armor at all. Repeating the typical VS demand yet again: "Give all factions the same DPS and armor, but let VS keep their advantages".

Ooooh, 12% EHP. Guess what? Fire Suppression gives you the same amount. It's about enough to absorb one HEAT shell, just like I said. Meanwhile the Prowler, without even using anchor, has more than a 60% DPS advantage to chew through that 12% extra HP with. On the Magrider's side you've only got to dodge one shell with your strafe to negate that advantage. Which as long as you're not humping the Vanguard's face, should be fairly feasible if slightly luck-based.

Without our extra armor we would not be remotely competitive with the advantages the other two factions enjoy, and you know it.

The real reason it's a joke though is that the Vanguard is literally the only unit in the entire game where we actually get it. Our ESF doesn't have extra armor, our MAX doesn't, our infantry certainly don't. TR and VS even get to enjoy some of their faction traits on their Harassers (high DPS, no bullet drop), but the NC don't because we apparently liberated the Enforcer from the TR. Our "extra armor" faction trait is one unit away from not existing at all.

Oh poor VS, you have to score right between the Prowler and the Vanguard now instead of out-scoring both tanks combined. I feel so sorry for you. :/

Your mobility still makes a difference, and if you can't see it you're either blind or lying through your teeth. Or does "meaningful" to you mean "absolutely curbstomps everything else"?

Turn on shield, vanguard health bar does not move when taking hits. Yeah, godmode.

Grasping at straws I see. Does it under perform for you though? I mean you can't tell me how they got their data, can you...

For a few seconds then it picks up speed. It must suck being compensated with the fastest projectile velocity while moving, most damaging tank round, strongest front armor, and best ES secondary which has a 10 clip and each shot does 500dmg each with no recoil.

Not the turret. The magrider turns the slowest.

Where are these special hills that are so advantageous?

Real useful when in the middle of fighting a tank...

Nope. The VS need the fastest reload speed and more maneuverability.

Stick to facts.

25kph strafing speed is only good at 300m or more. Since the magrider has the highest arch and the slowest projectile velocity of all the MBTs, the magrider has to get in close. Couldn't figure that out?

Yeah, that 5% armor. Real game changer...

Maybe if the NC would stop charging into the middle of a fight thinking their shield will be on forever, they'd live a lot longer.

Soooo much whining.

In what way? It doesn't help in head on fights. Yeah, magriders can climb gradual inclines when no one is around. Real useful...

People just can't drive.

If only we were playing the "in bed" game...

My guess is a general Tank nerf ... But we don't know what is coming and we also can be very sure that in the end we all will scream at SOE about it ... what ever they do, unless it actually revolves around actual usage of PTS feedback.

It's not just a slight ES MBT Ability balance pass, Higby hinted on a overall balance change, including Secondary weapons and more in the Valkyrie reveal Video. And if it is scheduled for April, we probably will get less than a week for testing, if any at all.



Worst case scenario, we get no time on PTS, it get's shoved live and will be a total wrecking ball for all three MBTs. Like, Saron nerf, Shield nerf, Anchor nerf, buff to some Infantry based AV weapons to replace the "hole" that the AV Mana will leave back. More base design to make Tanks and Vehicles other than the ones spawning Infantry less useful and total ignoring of anything the actual "Tanking" community says.

You guys are fighting each other ... instead of actually pushing for stuff that would benefit us all. Granted the Shield is to strong, but the Vehicles shouldn't be balanced around abilities anyway. AP/AV setups in 2/2 MBT one-on-one is fairly balanced with some minor tweaking needed, if we would disregard any abilities.

HEAT guns and actual AI potential is a totally different topic, Vanguards in terms of pure score you can earn are underperforming compared to Magriders, Prowlers and even Lightnings. Because the Vanguard "sucks" at farming Infantry, which shouldn't be a role in the game anyway. But until SOE realizes that, I would like to see all 3 be balanced around two things, AV and AI.

AA is a side thing unless we suddenly would actually get reliable MBT AA weapons(Walker and Ranger are none, not to mention there are no AA Mainguns)

They should work with and without their ES abilities, this is not the case, if SOE has a way to track usage of things in certain slots and they actually use that information to balance out things, like they did with the Sundy AMS ...

We probably will not get the Magburner nerfed, but probably the PPA and Saron, since they were talking about Secondaries aswell Prowler and it's crazy output in AI and the fact it's better to get two Prowlers instead of actually gunning one is another hot topic ... those who sit in the glass house shouldn't throw stones ...

The Shield isn't the only thing that's possible to be targeted by this and we should actually wait for any more "detailed" information before we shoot tons of threads or possible crap that could happen, my daily preach of doom is over ... enjoy.

You were saying?

Let's play a game! It's called "How will the April update mess balance up". Here are my totally biased doom and gloom predictions:

Magburner will get a glorious buff that will actually be a hard nerf for everyone that's a decent mag pilot. As secondaries have been mentioned, they could either nerf the PPA or mess with further with the saron. Neither of these options are particularly pleasant to imagine.

The TR will get graced by a vulcan buff that's going to make the gun OP at close range again, but one that won't change the fact that the vulcan is worthless at mid-range and thus worthless. No idea what else they could do to the prowler, but an anchor buff would be the worst-case scenario.

The NC shield will get nerfed! Except, they're going to turn it into a resist shield that can be de/activated at will and has more potential up-time than the current shield. In addition, the HEAT and HE will get totally undeserved buffs to splash and/or reload while the canister remains the laughing stock of all of auraxis.

It's as much of a bug as the reverse shenanigans is for aircraft.
Use it, or don't. That's up to you. But don't complain about not wanting to use what is more a feature than a bug.
That aside, the VG isn't terrible at hill climbing, as long as you're going about it the right way. Choosing the right path is a nice start. However I do know how the Mag handles better on uneven terrain. But it's nowhere near as useful for -fighting- as the other perks handed out to the other two MBTs.

Hm.
I'll go back on the no-drop on the railjack. That aside, the VS don't get the benefit of neither the NC nor the TR.
TR in general have higher RoF than us, and the NC have the only 200 damage automatic weapons.
As for the Gaus saw, yes, per shot it kicks like a mule. However compared to high RoF guns, that kick more often, lower RoF weapons are easier to control in spite of larger spikes per shot. Not to mention the "wonderful" both sides recoil on TR guns, compared to the mostly 'up' for NC weapons.

The difference between short reloads to make up for smaller mags and long reloads to make up for bigger mags (with relative damage per mag as the important metric), is that the former starts bad, but to make it less terrible it's given a slight boost, while the latter starts good, and is given a negative to keep it from running rampant.

First things first: Reaver has the high-burst guns and the strongest vert-thrust, and stronger AB to make up for the lower cruise speed etc. If anything, the ESFs, all three, are the most balanced ES stuff in the game. The scythe advantage, for what it is, won't shift large air battles.

Strafe and magburn has an impact. Ofc it does. But it's nowhere near the shell velocity and tank durability (+ shield) that the VG gets.
You're also simplifying the debate with your claim about what we, the VS, want. You've obviously ignored most of it.

Oh, and the spider tank? If that makes a difference in a fight by making the VS win/kill the VG, the VG is bad.

Only you don't have to use FS to get that. You can, but why would you, the shield is flat out better. Which also benefits from this advantage.
Are you really going to pretend 12% extra HP is meaningless? Really?
By the way, without anchor, using a halberd and P2AP/Enforcer and TitanAP, the TTK between the VG and Prowler is relatively close. Close enough for getting the surprise first shot can decide the outcome.

You speak of dodging as if it's a reliable thing. It is, IF the distance between the tanks is several hundred meters. Less than that, and the ability diminishes to the point where the ability for the VG (in this case) to 'miss' matters more than the Mag's ability to evade.
Meaning it's not up to us to evade, it's up to the NC/TR to be bad.

That's a really **** requirement for a "perk" to work.

That's because, at least with the Reaver, they figured the higher armour wasn't worth the worse handling it would have to get to make up for it. But ok, the last one to have a base durability advantage is the Vanguard. In that sense, the base Mag is also the "last" (that and the Orion, I suppose). This is using only base tools, no certs applied, so no ZOE, no Magburn.
If you haven't done so yet, I'd suggest you visit VR with a VS character and try out a mag without any chassis upgrades on. It's really bad, and can't really claim to be mobile.

Scoring charts are meaningless on their own. Do you disagree? By the stats of 1+ year ago, when the Mag did outscore the other tanks combined, do you know what was missing from the comparison?
Equipment use (do they use AV guns?), average certs spent, and how often a tank is 1/2 or 2/2?

Those metrics were suspiciously absent. And given how Higby reacted later on, when he got confronted by the reality of what they had done, and mostly restored the mag, it's painfully obvious that all they looked at was how well things scored. And nothing else.

Just like how the scoring values -alone- aren't worth anything, even today.

Of course dodging isn't reliable, if you could reliably dodge every single shot you would be hilariously OP because you would always take zero damage as opposed to our 5% less damage.

But you don't have to dodge every shot to be on par, you only have to dodge one. One mis-click, one lucky change in direction, one bump in terrain that affects them but not you, and the Magrider gains the edge. Two, and it's pretty much won. So you only need to average what, a 25% success rate? Considering how the Mag is scoring, it seems to be working just fine in practice doesn't it?

As for how useful it is in combat: look at that video and tell me with a straight face a Vangard would be able to climb that hill, reverse back down it, stop, and then climb it again the way that Magrider did. Not to mention jumping down the cliffs at the beginning of the video. That "useless" climbing ability allowed that lone Magrider to engage three Prowlers, a Harasser, and several pre-nerf Strikers while being able to safely repair on a slope that all of those TR knew they couldn't possibly drive on.

Mmmmhm, sure. They're meaningless because the thing you want nerfed is scoring lower than your own equipment. I bet if the situation were reversed you would suddenly find much more meaning in them.

Oh it has meaning, but it's easily made up for by the advantages the other tanks have. In other words, our extra armor is balanced. Though without the shield it's a little on the low side. To suggest that it should be taken away is absolutely ridiculous, especially considering its status as the last refuge of our faction's identity.

Let me put it this way: how would you feel if the Lancer was literally the only gun in the entire game that had no bullet drop? Sure it's useful, but doesn't only having your faction trait on one gun out of the entire game leave you feeling a bit short-changed?

And then some joker comes along and says the Lancer should be given bullet drop.

I wouldn't have a problem with it if not for how reliably the TR and NC advantages are.
I also have a bit of an issue in that the effectiveness of this perk is inversely proportional to how good our enemy is, something that isn't the case for the TR and NC.

You missed the key word there, alone.
Without the proper metrics, like the ones listed, score alone is utterly meaningless.
With them it gets a useful meaning. But you need this framework of different statistics to put the score into perspective.

In all honesty, with the high velocity, the no-drop on the lancer isn't very relevant. So if that stayed the same, the drop would have to be drastic to truly matter.

Anyway, your true faction trait is hard hitting. And that you get in spades.

What does this video prove? The Magrider can climb a hill slightly faster and kill some Infantry on a hillside in Indar? In fact, even a direct hit didn't kill some of those heavies with one shot. Here is one for you since we're linking vids:

I'm all for better balance, but I really hate that the main design philosophy is "if something is good and alternative is bad, we should make both choices equally bad" - balancing by nerfs rather than boosts. Making everything weaker and weaker until everything is equally boring and useless

The TR Anchor is fun, and the Vanu magburner is cool...but the shield just seems boring. Maybe it's the long cooldown.

The reason for this, originally, was that stock tanks shouldn't be -too- ****** if they meet one that's certed.
Of course we have seen that there's a world of a difference, but oh well...

In that case they should just make it so the power gap between level 1 cert and 'max' level isn't big. Cause the first level cert is easy to get. That way we could have strong variety without giving old player too much of an advantage

Did you even look at that video? Did you even see the hill it was on? No Vanguard could ever dream of scaling the slope that it was on, it would slide to the bottom every single time. A Vanguard or Prowler that tried to pursue that Magrider would have found itself sliding helplessly to the bottom of the hill, likely spinning uncontrollably while the Magrider shoots it with impunity. That's if they don't flip over and die outright. The Magrider meanwhile was able to easily navigate that slope without even using its burner.

That's not even considering the hill-jumping sequence at the beginning of the video that no other tank could perform in a million years. Any tank besides the Magrider would have died in the first 30 seconds of video.

That Magrider engaged three Prowlers, a pre-nerf Harasser, and multiple pre-nerf Strikers because its ability to scale inclines that nobody else can touch gave it a complete safe haven to hide and repair between attacks.

This also means that the Magrider can go places the other tanks can't, and can attack from directions that would normally be completely secure against other tanks due to otherwise-impassible cliffs. You don't consider that an advantage?

Now it's fine that you can do this, but demanding that the NC don't receive any advantages of their own to counter this is both dishonest and unsportsmanlike, especially while ignoring the Prowler's incredible DPS being its own advantage.

Also mathematically a direct hit from any Mag main gun will kill any infantry in one shot, flak armor or no, because a direct hit deals both direct and splash damage to Infantry. All Mag main guns do more than 2,000 direct+splash combined, thus a direct hit is a kill. If you "hit" an infantry with any Magrider gun and he survives, there's only three possibilities: you missed and actually splashed him (flak armor), he's hacking, or he had both flak armor and NMG up for 3200 EHP (which even a Vanguard can't one-shot).