Vangard is too strong.

It's a pitty that the Vangard is too strong in comparison of other. It is strange that one can drive a Vangard and never get shot due to its strength and only if vastly outnumbered it can be killed.

Hehehe very funny! Try the Vanguard for a while.

Vanguard has been the worst performing MBT for a looooong time,
It has one little thing that it can do, drive at the enemy and activate shiled.
and that one little thing makes it good for new players and effective against bad players.
But that is literally it's one trick, it is easy to counter and once the little trick has been played vanguard has nothing,
there is no wiggle room for skill progression.
Low skill floor, low skill ceiling.

Conversely the ACTUAL best MBT magrider takes time to learn, it has a pretty high skill floor compared to the other MBTs,
But if you put in the time to learn it's strengths then you will be a nigh unkillable demigod.
The skill ceiling of maggy is literally the sky.

The vanguard has 2 things going for it, and only those 2 things.
It's shield
and it high damage cannon

its reload is slow
it speed is slow
its operational flexibility is non-existent
its power is a "one and done" kind, once its played you have no plan B

Vanguard needs some love tbh. I'd like to see new faction flavor MBT main guns, with the vanguard getting a giant railgun and a new, more flexible ability.

Vanguard is perfectly balanced. Hits hard so it can kill friendly sunderers that drive in front of it, and a shield to tank the other vanguard shots to its back.

Not mentioned yet: It has 1.000 points more of HP than the other tanks

Compared to VS would you rather be a sitting-duck with 1000 bonus hp or have the ability to dodge damage entirely?
And against TR how much do you think 20% increased hp is worth when up against 70% increased damage?

I actually think this isnt correct.

Learning to use a Magrider's basics is about as hard as learning to use infantry. You immediately know to strafe, because your chassis moves where you aim you always know where you'll strafe (while TR/NC/Lightnings force you to learn your chassis position relative to your turret position), you dont have to think when pointing the front armor at the enemy in the most common combat maneuvers, the most basic universal attack of popping in and out of cover is far easier to do competently with the Magrider which doesnt need to keep its chassis aligned with the cover in order to move back in, you dont have to pay half as much attention to the ground you are standing on, you dont have to learn that you have to stand still to fire shots accurately and all the positioning required to do that effectively.

Yes the Magrider has to fight off the 1000 health advantage of the Vanguard and higher DPS of the TR respectively, but even at their basic they have a far easier chassis handling and positioning that the other tanks can only do at more advanced levels (not to mention either the easy mode Fire Suppression choice for 750 health advantage or the more skillful later choice to dodge enemy shots completely).
Even the strafe itself is a massively powerful tool due to the Magrider's Chassis design. The sides of the Magrider are very thin compared to the rest of the body, as if aiming for only the Vanguard Turret. So any dead-center shot means you are aiming for a hitbox less than 50% of the Magrider's size and if you lead the movement then the Magrider can more easily dodge by changing directions. This easily offsets the Vanguard's 1000 extra health.

And from those basics you can only improve.

Yep which is why I said 'compared to the other MBTs'
I would totally expect a new vanguard to do better than a new maggy
because thee Vanguard's one and only trick requires very low skill.
But yeah it shouldn't take long for the maggy to learn to dodge shots.

Well thats kind of my point. Unless you are talking about people so fresh to FPS's that they still need to learn to strafe the basic capabilities of the Magrider already let it perform on a higher level than Vanguards.

Yes a Vanguard can just sit there and attempt to use its health and higher muzzle velocity to outdo the Magrider. But at the basic skill levels a circle-strafe isnt too difficult (especially since at most vehicle battle distances its such a big circle) while hitting that is already a tougher challenge. That is ignoring the damage bonus for likely hitting the Vanguard's side armor while the Vanguard is hitting the smaller front armor.

In a pure sitting duck skill match, yes the Vanguard wins. But otherwise? Its not guaranteed in any way that the Magrider wins.

Oh boy, you kicked a hornet's nest! "Everyone else's crutches are IMBA, but my crutch is FAIR BALANCED AND FUN! THERE IS NOTHING WRONG! REEEEEEEE!"

The Vangard is a bigger slower tankier Prowler with a single shot cannon that's good against ESFs...

The Prowler has the highest DPS, even without lockdown it has enough damage to out-dps any of the other MBTs in the game.
And it has the highest speed, keeping pace with Harassers, which means they also outrun and out-dps lightnings.
They're so easy to use, you even have 2 top gun variants that will absolutely shred anything else's DPS, in a tank battle, and you don't even have to learn them, just hold down the mouse button.

Magriders have such a high skill curve most people just quit on them, but if they get any changes, the hoards of Prowler mains will deem it "unfair" and if you see how often they're used, and how high their k/d was in game, and kills per minute in comparison to the other vehicles, you'd be surprised how statistically, Prowlers dominate everything.

NSO has trash ESVs, the Chimera has a huge hitbox, doesn't out-dps prowlers, but has twice the hitbox and no means of rear defence, as well as a huge rear.

And we all know the trainwreck that is the Dervish.

On the NSO's note, if they're supposed to fix the population imbalance, why are they given vehicles and abilities that require the most teamwork?

That was their design intent because teamwork is 100% consistent and totally able to be balanced around /s

Ask a good/top notch MBT main about the powers of MBTs. I did it more than once. Always got the same response: Prowler>Magrider>Vanguard/Chimera

I notice all the people denying that the Vanguard is IMBA all have NC logos. I'm sure it's nothing.

Out of 4 people making pro-Vanguard statements 2 have an NC logo. So even that "argument" is out of the window.

We've repeatedly proven this in the past as well. The Vanguard doesnt compete in infantry murder, it doesnt compete in overall vehicle murder it only competes for either first or second spot in MBT vs MBT combat (and that was before the Prowler and Magrider got their upgrades).
I think it was Campagne who did most of the work, showing how including topguns the Vanguard barely keeps up even in its supposed strength. Ofcourse at the time the rethoric immediately changed to "yeah but thats just because the NC players suck" without proof for it. Which is typical, someone does what has to have been more than an hour of work and some dipsjit says "nu-uh".

Since we have done the work in the past it might be time for the other two factions to actually prove that the Vanguard is oh so OP?
and with that I mean use a variety of performance numbers to show why the Vanguard is the "best". Not pointing at one element and scream "SEE IT HAS SOME ADVANTAGE SO NOW ITS OP!!!!". Like that mindlessly stupid idea of "VANGUARD HAS IWIN BUTTON" which is used to "prove" the Vanguard is OP.

I main TR.

vanguard = 2nd worst tank

chimera is worst.

I'm VS main, NC/TR alt but no, Vanguard is only good at certain 1v1 conditions. Prowler is the best tank atm(it has massive burst dps if you combine it with double AP cannon and Gatekeeper), even a lightly armoured tank like Magrider is better than Vanguard in most conditions.

check the performance stats, vanguard has been worst MBT for YEARS, and it only got worse when magrider was given magburner built in for free, AND recharge, AND omnidirectional burner to dodge more shots...
historically Prowler dominated the MBT heirarchy, but now Magrider has a slight lead in most performance metrics,
with vanguard slithering in far behind.
here is VKPU with AP weaponry, but feel free to check out the HESH and Heat weaponry, because it doesn't get better.
(i know this because i spent far too long linking ALL of them to someone over on reddit earlier this week.)
you can also check out KPU which follows a similar trend.

and before we get the same excuse he tried using "but vanguard gets less kills because maybe the topguns are getting more!"
no, NC don't get more topgun kills than TR/VS, actually its the VS who have a lead in topgun kills,
despite also having the lead in primary weapon kills,
go figure, you give an MBT the tools to dodge all damage and they will get more kills with both primary and secondary weapons.

To the OP, I know that Forward Shield is too strong, but unless it gains something else that enables a better skill curve, then I would say it needs to be that strong to maintain competitive with other MBT's.
as for an idea I would say:
Ability Slot
Forward Shield: +67%->+60%(Front/Top Armor) and +34%->+30%(Side Armor)

- damage reduction changed from 0% to 67%->60%(x3.0->x2.5) and from -15% to 19%->15%(x1.42->x1.35)

Base Tank
replace +1000 Health with a Passive Slot of 1000 Shield that has a 10 second recharge delay(on hit only) with an upgrade path to 6 seconds(same as deploy shield)
Utility Slot
Nimitz Reactor: Overhaul to enhance effectiveness of the now default shield, this is really the dev's choice at this point
Possible Idea: every upgrade tier replaces: 250 base health with 250 shield health and adds 25 shield regen per second; For a maximum effect of 4000 base health, 2000 shield, and 200 shield per second after 10-6 seconds since the last hit

The purpose of these changes would to give a more of a skill ceiling for the Vanguard, especially effective during moments when peaking and withdrawing is a preferable choice. This makes it more effective in long range engagements, while the nerf to it's Forward Shield makes it a bit more viable to rush a wounded Vanguard

To OP again, It is well known that the Forward Shield is too strong, but the Devs are very hesitant to change the balance of something in the fear they make it too powerful or too weak, and the current Vanguard is not so unbalanced that it is worth the risk of changing. However MBT's should be getting new main cannons soon, according to their dev schedule, so their is hope they might give a pass over on tank balance.