[Vehicle] Does the Harasser's resistance to AP shells need adjusting?

First I just want to say I'm definitely by no means an expert harasser or tanker but having dabbled in both trying to find my preferred vehicle I've noticed that Harassers have a seemingly high resistance to AP shells resulting in a high ttk when using them to take a harasser on. Assuming you can land the shots with 100% accuracy you need 3 ap rounds from a lightning or mbt (don't know for certain with prowler) to take out a harasser. This means a ttk of about 10 seconds (vehicle/upgrades determing the exact with ap vanguard falling at the extreme of 12 seconds) again, assuming you land all 3 hits (and there have been times my turret, with rival 3, could not keep up with a moving harasser.) .Meanwhile, a lightning goes down in 2-4 (back and sides being 2/3 respectively).

Add to this the nanotechnology cost comparison and it just seems off. A liightning costs over double that of a harasser and yet will die just as easily to ap shells on over 75% of their vehicle with only a 1 shot bonus to their front armor.

I believe, given the nanite cost, difficulty to hit and reload speed, making a harassed go down in 2 ap hits would make more sense. (And perhaps a naniye cost reduction of the lightning to the 250-300 range).

Thoughts? Would love to hear from some more experienced drivers, on both sides.

It's a light buggy, so it should die in one shot. However, I feel like that would be a bit unbalanced. I would settle for 2 shots from any AP/HEAT cannon, though. They usually die after 2 shots from my Titan AP, for what it's worth.

Funny thing is: HEAT round ARE AP rounds....

I recall a suggestion that HE do better damage to Harassers than AP, which followed an argument that Harassers be treated as so light than it is little affected by piercing shells (tears right through it without actually doing much in the way of sustained internal damage) or something as such. Regardless of the validity of the justification, I thought it was a good intent to give HE utility in the field as something other than Infantry warefare, yet make it retain its inconvenience against heavier armor.

The Harasser crew goes through the work of getting two people together, communicating with one another, and then dying to my lonewolf Lightning in 6 seconds if I hit all my shots. The Harasser is a very poor example of "teamwork = OP".

the thing is, on a 1v1 its 3 shoots and that's pretty silly for a cardboard buggy, sure... but balancing the game around 1v1 is pretty dumb.

the harasser is a vehicle that takes damage from small arms, if engaged on the open field, between engi mana, heavies with lockons, small arms fire, maxes, random AP, other harassers and regular AP hits, landing a hit on a harasser with an AP round will either make the vehicle disengage immediately or kill it. so lowering their HP will make them nonviable. and if you get flanked and hit on the back, then they are playing the harasser properly.

if the driver is any good he can judge the skill of the tank hes facing simply by that first hit. if you get hit on the move , while the tank is taking a turn, or immediately after getting spotted (first shoot hit) then you better run and you better run fast. chances are hes good and will land another hit if stationary and has a pretty good change at tracking you on the move, leading you, and blasting you at 400m+ if you don't break LOS.


point is, if you have a problem with Harassers just remember that if just 30% of the players on a 48+ battle were to start shooting at incoming harassers with their primaries they would melt under small arms fire before closing in. harassers are allowed to play only because infantry is brain dead and they don't realize just how powerful numbers are on this game.

i mean, just having two AP heavies targeting the same vehicles will shut down harassers completely.

the only thing that NEEDS to change about harassers is to make it so when a gunner switches to the driver seat they get a 5 second delay before the vehicle can start. solo harassers are cancer.

Vs MBT harassers really pretty easy to kill or at least make them run.

AP Magrider + Saron can kill it with no reloads.
An Titan AP + Halberd put it on fire.
2 AP Prowler shots and 1 halberd is a no reload kill as well.

The only issue is the lightning, but that's needed a cost reduction for a long time to make them less valuable to the driver.

True but that's an awful lot of fire power to kill a buggy don't you think ? Just landing shots can be a challenge if they're driven well.

I think that they should be more vulnerable to AP - possibly balanced by less vulnerable to small arms fire. It does seem strange that a buggy takes damage from a bullet yet holds up so well against armor piercing shells.

No, that's just 1 2/2 MBT. That's not a lot of firepower.

I do think the close-range AV options need to have their damage dialed down a little. The Vulcan is absurd.

*flame suit on*

Harassers are too tough for the cost

Small arms fire can be thrown out the window since theyre only effective at hitting or damaging when harrassers are close enough that tanks could actually viably hit them

At chip tier distance damage assuming you land a hit and viable cannon evasion distances the harasser does tooly well at surviving for the cost and even with a higher cost it would be hard to justify having both

It should be lowered

Not in game terminology it isn't

It's hybrid splash and armor pierce.

I would giggle like a schoolgirl if they reduced cost on lightnings...

I almost always survive 7 minutes as it is

Oh christ. Next we are nerfing the harasser entirely.

Will you ****ers ever run out of things to whine about?

Really? What server do you play on?

My suggestion to you is that you use the harasser in a variety of scenarios as AI, AA and AV and put some time into it. Every fight is different, every engagement personal and intimate in its own right. Every server has its own specialty in these matters.

I'm biased as I'm a career harasserbator, but because I'm also a career armorbator, I can tell you that they're in a good place in the AV world. Harassers die to small arms fire like it's nothing, and I think comp armor should be buffed. And it's good to remember that a harasser driver has no gun, so a 2/2 harasser is still 1 gun versus a 2/2 tank which is 2 weapon platforms. It is a light buggy and it will go down as it should, if the crew gets outplayed.

The big issue in this game regarding balance, is that we look to nerf the equipment, and not force the player to play better. Should C4 take out a tank? Yes. Should Light Assault players be able to take out a tank quickly and effectively? Sure. Should we nerf the LA or nerf C4 because a tanker chose to drive where LAs frequent? God no.

I haven't come to run with you guys on Emerald TR yet, but there's an enormous gap between a good or vet gunner and a new or bad gunner.

If you're not in an armor outfit, it can be really rough putting a solid crew together, but you know this.

That said, I will take the challenge of any lightning in a 1v1 on any continent if my gunner is solid, and even if he's not it's still a toss up.

A bad harasser crew (or an unlucky one) is basically free certs for anyone who knows how to shoot a weapon.

A couplefew good harassers working in tandem is a ******* nightmare.

But considering what harassers have to face regularly, nerfing their AP damage mitigation is absurd. If you do that, expect to see everyone run mineguard/fury/marauder and switch to just making life miserable for infantry.

I think this would be a good solution of sorts... but how much better can it be? IIRC a harasser dies in the same # of shots for all 3 types of main canons presently (3)

I could see where HE/HEAT would do more damage per round but still take the same # of STK... It'd be a minor buff... depending on how much dmg the harasser takes from other sources it could well make the difference between them dying or getting away by the seat of their pants with a back seat repair.

Honestly though, I really don't think Harassers are OP at all... I mean, a solo lightning will *probably* get rekt by an AV harasser... but they kinds should.

Screw nanite cost, we're talking about commitment of a MUCH more important resource... Number of players.

When me and my frined roll 2 lightnings (or I run one solo) living 7 minutes is pretty typical. Lightning cost is ergo fine.

Running harassers, due to the extremely high risk nature of the platform (and the lack of time it takes to get to high risk scenarios) 3-4 minutes is much more common.

We might accomplish the same per life, making the harasser more effective for our time usage, but either way we can pull endlessly unless we get grotesquely careless and just drive straight at AV emplacements.

With 2x lightnings, we actually put out a lot more hurt while we're in combat than on the harasser... the biggest difference really is that the harasser has virtually no travel time

Except for dueling, I run mineguard exclusively. On Connery, they use mines like they should and where they should, so it's a necessity. Especially on my Vanguard!

You should come visit us either on TR or VS. Tell Hader you need a break from Hornets and you just want to do some flips and explode to random nonsense that plagues the harasserbation community.

Well if you want to argue that. Then because it is a light buggy, the AP shells are overpenetrating the target and causing less damage as the full energy of the shell is not imparted on the intended target.

But either way, two shells puts it right on the edge of death. So if it receives even the slightest bit of damage before, during or after two shots. It is dead any ways. OP is comparing full health 1 v 1 scenario, which very rarely happens. So for all intense purposes, it is normally two shots to kill.