3 Big Issues With The Prowler

Yep I feel it would be the alter ego compliment of the Vanguard shield in a 1v1 duel. Honestly it would be a toss up who would win, which is a more balanced approach to the situation as opposed to nerfing things (like the Vanny shield). It makes TR armor more mobile, which is always a good thing.

Movement is the key to surviving in this game. Static targets makes for easy kills, in a tank or on foot. This suggestion would compliment that philosophy better as well.

eh that really isn't true of AP anchor prowlers. They will look for sunderers/armor and libs at long ranges, or try to snipe infantry (outside a spawn room).

Overdrive would be bloody pointless. Without turret stabilization firing on the move is almost utterly worthless. Even with stabilization, Overdrive would encourage an aggressive playstyle that would be utterly at odds with the prowlers awful survivability, as would become readily apparent the first time the driver rounded a corner and ran smack into a Vanguard with its shield ready.

Unless they also give the prowler harasser levels of speed and maneuverability I suppose. But I think it'll be a cold day in hell before they do that.

On the whole, I'll keep lockdown thank you very much. It gives me the means to engage other ground vehicles on my terms. Where I can use my superior dps and not get instantly sconed..

What I want for the prowler is 4x and 6x magnification levels and an ESAV secondary that is worth a damn. Oh, and more places where tank battles can actually occur without loads of infantry interference.

Not to smear your playstyle with a particular brush stroke, but I think that's probably the main obstacle to seeing a change for the prowler special ability. People like lockdown, love farming towers with it, etc...

Not being a loyal TR player, I would prefer the ability to move and have higher ROF so I could chase prey that tries to escape, rather than sit in one place for a looooooooooong time. So boring.

One thing about Saron mate, it is a great tool to get rid of enemy AV mana turrets. So is the PPA, since both has no drop.

Enforcer or Halberd is worse in this job, not just because of the drop they have, but sometimes the tank might be on an inclined ground, which may take an additional shot or two to adjust for, at which point, any engineer with half-a-brain would deploy another turret to avoid the incoming adjusted fire.

Farming towers is among the most boring things in the game imo. I'm always hunting armor with my tanks. I have so few kills with my HE turret that it doesn't even show up on my DA page because it's statistically irrelevant.

Now that my credentials have been established, I still say that Overdrive would be a downgrade from Lockdown, without a radical overhaul of bloody near the entire tank and a new/revamped AV top gun. Chasing retreating vehicles is not a good niche for an MBT to fill in this game. They're way too fragile to withstand even moderate length clone range engagements with infantry and even a Racer 3 Prowler is still way too slow to charge in to deliver a coup de grâce and still escape in one piece. You need stats like a pre-nerf Harasser to pull that sort of thing off unless the other dude is alone, in which case no ability really matters.

We're playing a different game. We do it all the time in TENC with Vanguards, and I believe Prowlers are faster than Vanguards. So you should be able to do it too.

Also the double tap acceleration trick helps to get in and out of situations:

I completely agree.

Thanks for the detailed post, EliteEskimo. It is very concise and informative.

I have been playing on the TR for quite awhile now, I think I'm level 62 or so, and myself + friends always pull prowlers when we can. Now, I would like to say that we're pretty bad, but we pull the tanks because it's fun. In all honesty, we probably have atrocious K ratios, but that's just how we roll.

I did indeed have the deploy, rank 3 I believe, for a bit, but I rarely pulled it - even before the nerf. The primary reason for this is that it was very situational. In a game as dynamic as this, situational abilities seem to pale in comparison to other options. As already pointed out, I'm sure, the lock-down ability is far more a bane than a boon. In FPS video games being stationary is one of the worst things you could possibly do. Now, in a tank you are offered some protection, but I always thought of the deploy mode as a huge "COME PLANT C4 ON MY FACE BLEEZE BAY DUCK!" or, the more common "LIBERATOR AIM FOR MY HEAD, K?"

Now, fighting the other MBTs in planet-side I've noticed a few things. The shield is just a flat out win. I do not see a downside to this ability at all, other than the longer cooldown. The afterburner is pretty legit, also, as mobility is always preferred to static positions. The purple tank, in my opinion, is probably the most adept since it has the ability to swiftly retreat or attack and flank; regardless of the situation (for the most part).

When I am driving a prowler around this is usually what happens:

"****, there is a Vanguard. We're by ourselves so let's get suicidal, or lets bail out of here"

"There's a Magrider, ****, we can engage but he'll just float away and repair any hits we put on him. If we chase, we'll be balls deep into enemy territory and get P in our B promptly if we pursue"

What do the tankers from the other factions think about the Prowler, if it is locked down? Do you guys go "DAAMMNNNN BRO! High DPS incoming, let's get out of here!" or is it more along the lines of "There's a big shoebox sitting still, let's shoot it/flank it"

I seem to do better in an HEAT lightening than in the Prowler. Unless there is a bit of friendly armor on the field, and thus more targets than myself, I find that my prowler gets blasted on pretty quickly.

I also think that the two cannons is over emphasized. It is, certainly, a huge benefit to newer players, but I would prefer spike damage and the ability to shoot and scoot a lot more viable than shooting once, adjust for recoil, shooting again and then reloading.

Well first off I don't want to get rid of Anchor Mode, because afterall some people like being an artillery piece. But I would like an OverDrive ability for those of us who like to play on the front lines, like to get right up in the heat of battle pushing up with infantry, and are good at being at where it's very dangerous for a tank to be. Driving on the front lines to take down Sunderers and the infantry/tanks that get in my way is my favorite part of tanking. Anchor Mode rarely helps me do that, and when I do use it I'm normally at a big risk using it there since using Anchormode on the front lines is normally suicide. Having an Overdrive ability could potentially make the Vanguard shield go down if all the shells land on the rear of the in the short period of time you're flanking the Vanguard. This would hypothetically let a Prowler try and even the odds against a shielded Vanguard if they got behind one. At the end of the day though no tank should get in a head to head fight brawl with a Vanguard and expect to win since that is the Vanguard's specialty.

If the Prowler gets overdrive it would mesh with the Prowler's speed and acceleration and would mesh more with the Vulcan, which hopefully will get buffed for being used at medium range, and allow the Prowler to move around much more which it should be doing since it has light armor. Personally I would see much more use in a short duration ROF boost with a cool down than Anchor Mode which requires me to be still, and at the end of the day having 2 options instead of one should be seen as a good thing.

I agree with all your statements. After having fairly extensive play with all 3 tanks I can safely say I hate the prowler, not because I get less kills per minute or whatever but just because it isn't fun. It's lack of synergy hurts it a lot and although you can get a lot of kills lockdown shelling a tower or enemy armor columns it is just soooo boring.

Magrider is all sorts of fun with its strafing and magburning shenanigans and Vanguard can just plow into deployed sunderers surrounded by heavies singing, " I came in like a wrecking baaaalllllll" and still make it out alive whilst the poor prowler gets to see all this happen from 500m away whilst trying to figure out exactly how much he has to lead them depending whether or not he is in lockdown ( I hate having to remember two different sets of projectile velocity let alone using zoom, don't know how you do it).

I understand that TR is the oppressive faction but surely they can have a little fun

I would agree that lack of Synergy is a big part of what makes the Prowler not fun. Going fast in a tank is fun, but what do we get to compliment that fun? Something that literally goes against it , Anchormode, and a ES Secondary that has to be used at 10 meters for maximum damage even through a lightly armored tank like the Prowler shouldn't be going that close to enemy tanks in the first place. I don't know what the developers find so appealing about giving our tank and max an ability that makes us a sitting duck, but all I can say is they aren't fun abilities. Mobility is everything in this game if you want to stay alive, but go figure that the faction that is supposed to be about speed/acceleration gets an ability to lock it down into place. Not to mention we're supposed to be the ROF faction, yet we have an Empire Specific Gatling gun that shoots slower than an NC smg.

Haha you don't like being stuck in one place, NC gets sick of shotgun everything and VS gets sick of charge-up everything. At least TR and NC have traits that are easier to balance, ROF and damage. Mobility and bulletdrop are always things that people pull out like they massively skew the game in our favor when we have bulletdrop on nearly every weapon this would actually be useful for and our mobility gets nerfed at every chance because higher skilled players can use it extremely well .

I'd rather not go off topic to much since I'm trying to keep this thread about why the Prowler isn't very fun. However I well say the VS charge up weapons, Lancer and Vortex, are at least decent AV weapons. The NC's Jackhammer is a very powerful shotgun, the best if I'm not mistaken, and overall the NC have very nice weapons across the board on both weapons and vehicles after PU2.

I agree bullet drop wasn't a huge game breaking factor, well VS shotguns were definitely way better with it, but at least the VS weapons had other really things about their weapons like low horizontal recoil, quick reload speeds, and ROF that often was close to rivaling the TR. Personally I'd rather take a gun with less horizontal recoil and less bullets then a more inaccurate one with lots of bullets. IMO the TR should have the had the fastest fire rate, really weak bullets, and medium to high vertical recoil. I personally feel adding horizontal recoil, the kind even MLG Pro's can't compensate for, was a really crappy way to balance TR weapons. The Lynx and TR LMGs in general are a good example of that.

Anyhow getting back on topic of tanks if you compare the Synergy of the Magrider with the Magburner you have what is basically a tank meant to be used as a Heavy Harasser. One of the biggest things that made harasser's powerful was their nitro boost. The Magrider has something similar which has been used against me time and time again to allow a Magrider to turn to the side, magburn, then escape behind cover or allied territory. So you have a tank meant to stay mobile, and an ability which increases mobility, allows for hit and run manuevers, and allows for escaping bad situations depending on the situation. (I would like it to be increased in duration, or be made omni directional. The Magburner meshes will with the Magrider well right now, but it's not quite where it needs to be yet).

The Vanguard is basically a real MBT, its heavy armor allows it to take heavy damage while it takes its time to make accurate shots with it's high velocity, high alpha damage turret. The Vanguard gets a shield which gives it up to 8 seconds of invulnerability, 16 if people switch seats(report people who do this), and this allows them to win many engagements against others tanks. If not used offensively it can also be used defensively to give the Vanguard 8 seconds to get behind cover, behind allies, or repair the tank while the shield is up. So you have a highly durable tank with an ability that gives you temporary invincibility for 8 seconds in a good scenario. This is probably the ultimate example of an ability which perfectly meshes with the tank, in this instance so much so that it dwarfs the other abilities in terms of utility and being not situational.

The Prowler is supposed to be a fast tank which runs circles around other tanks. Prowler Description . It has very good acceleration, and is technically still the fastest tank. (although not by as much when you take into consideration the double tap acceleration on Vanguard with top speed of 65 compared to the Prowler's 70). It has the weakest MBT armor in the game alongside the Magrider meaning the idea was for it to keep moving to avoid damage in some way. Instead of making it a fast mobile tank driving circles around the enemy, which would've been very fun, they chose to give it an ability which made it sit still and then have to wait awhile to unlock to start moving again. So instead of circling other tanks and avoiding damage, which would be fun, the Prowler is forced to avoid damage by sitting way back at a distance and shell things. I myself say screw that artillery role and try to fight on the front lines like I'm in a heavy tank and try to hunt down important Sunderers. It's a risky playstyle, but the level of fun I get from doing it makes it totally worth it.

I really could go on and on about everything wrong with the Prowler and the abilities and weapons given to it but I think you get the point. The issue some people have when trying to agree with me is that despite having a boring very situational ability that doesn't mesh with it, and despite have a horrible ES AV weapon, and despite lacking turret stabilization and being the least accurate tank the Prowler does well as a tank . However that doesn't mean we can't sit down and acknowledge the major things wrong with it, and how it's majorly lacking in the fun department. At the end of the day I want all tanks to be fun, all of them to not have really situational abilities, and to have fun ways they impact the battles they enter.

I think that the easiest way to get around the issue of people not wanting to see lockdown go is to give all empires a new ES ability.

We would still have VG Shield, Magburner and Lockdown and to spice tank combat up more we would have to anticipate what ability the enemy tank is using. Whatever these new abilities might be I have no idea, but I think we're past the point of changing Lockdown completely since many people like it.

Just my 2SC though, I'm still waiting for a nerf to AV turrets so I haven't been tanking lately because frankly, AV turrets make me mad.

Vanguard
Mag-shot (or a similar name that isn't the same as the pistol): Fires a single, AP round at high speed, inflicting devastating damage on enemy armor. A small explosion is also created by the pure kinetic energy of the dart.

Example Stats:

3000 direct damage, 1000 @ 1 m, 1 @ 3 m
700 m/s velocity
40 second starting cooldown, reduces to 30 with X amount of certs

Prowler
Berzerker: Increases speed by a small amount, but provides full turret stabilization and a small decrease to reload speed.

Example stats (at full upgrade)

10 km/h speed boost
Full turret stabilization
15% faster reloads

Magrider


Something??? also formatting is action up. Won't let me return.

I want new abilities just to mix up the range of options that the MBT's have and allow for more specialization but dam don't give Vanguard that ability too That's insane, like crazy insane. 3000 direct with 1000 1m splash that will go out to 3m with 700m/s velocity with a 30 second cooldown at max rank... holy christ. Are you trying to OHK galaxies?

Moving on I think the bezerker ability meshes with the prowler very well but at the same time its like a slightly weaker magburner (which I assume will last longer so they will even out) along with turret stabilization and faster reloads? Kind of treads of magriders toes a bit and then spits in it's face but at the same time it is what a prowler should be so I would have no problem with it as long as the magburner got a substantial fuel increase and toning down of the massive starting consumption of the magburner to put the magburner into a specialized movement role leaving the bezerker as a more average offensive movement one.

I think the magrider should get something offensive this time but it should fit in with the current harassing and flanking playstyle. Something like a 100% cloak that lasts for maybe (maxed rank) 3 seconds that sends out 100% representation of the magrider in it's current state (smoking or on fire etc) magburning in the direction you faced when activating the ability. This could be used to trick the enemy into showing their exposed rear or just to get out of there so it would be less situational and more all-purpose whilst fitting into the magrider's role well. Bonus points if they let them blow up the representation and make it explode into rubble because that would be OP sending rubble bombs into enemy armor would be funny.

Either way give prowler more fun.

First of all let me say right away, I dont think that TR needs an even stronger tank, or statisticly stronger tank if you are into KPU. I just want a different playstyle, something other than a certfarm machine with very conflicting attributes.

The Prowler for me has nothing of a MAIN battle tank, for what is supposed to be the most military (and experienced) faction. I highly doubt that the edge in experience that the TR should have would result in the design of the current Prowler as their main battle tank.

The TR MBT should really have the edge in ease of use (it has, because shooting is way to forgiving), versitility, cost and maintanance.

Instead of lockdown I would rather have a tank that has some of the following features:

versitility: high overall mobility/climbing, better gun stabilization, different types of ammo (limited effect/amount depending on maingun), more practical design (centered turret, reduced chassi width),

cost: reduced resource cost and/or aquistion timer,

maintanance: faster manual repair after not taking damage for lets say 10 seconds, bigger ammo storage or slow self replenishing ammo (triggers at 0, max replenished ammo 10, does not replenish in combat).

Other: Shield like ability that reduces frontal damage for 2-3 seconds, and increases shot velocity, but immobalizes the prowler (for hit and run tactics, or prowler can be disassembled and transported from warpgate by Galaxies, and reassembled at ANY TR vehicle terminal.

I would gladly give up the advantage in RoF and DPS that lockdown gives. Its not a fun mechanic for tanking, its just a certfarming tool.

IMO u should get either anchor mode or a berzerker (high ROF on the go) ability, not both. If you did, then the other 2 empires would need to have an extra special ability as well, to balance things out.

I think in the end the anchor mode fans are gonna win out.

essentially the prowler needs a different loadout option other than sniper long range.

to have a proper brawler we would need either a new cert tree for gun stabilization or a change to lockdown in/out time.

the thing is that OP and myself don't want buffs to theprowler, just a different way to play the game. when I put my own idea forward I remember that people were fairly against any buffs to brawler prowlers since they were afraid it would buff the sniper prowler.

what most people fail to realize is that less sniper prowlers would make everyone happier.