I'm calling it. Upcoming Vanguard Shield Nerf.

And I wonder why everyone heard "MBT balance pass" and thought "shield nerf" immediately.

Because of the myriad of nerf threads in the past months. And we know SOE listens to the nerf crowd almost exclusively.

They said they were balancing MBT empire-specific abilities so that they are more competitive with one another, and I posted about the HA shield because I'd assume they were considering a similar mechanic for the shield. I'd be the first to defend the vanguard, but its not about what I want. I just read that and figured this is it.

Not really a matter of defending or attacking the shield. My theory was that they are giving the shield a delay, but its just my guess. All I know is, they are doing something.

And how many professional militaries stuck a close range AV gatling gun on their mobile artillery units?

If anything I'd like the vanguard to have its armor ratings brought in line with all the other MBTs. It's silly that 1 MBT gets higher armor ratings and the other 2 get the same. If each was going to have armor to match with its ability the magrider would have the least and not the same as the prowler. Could you imagine the OPness of one of the ESFs having a higher armor resistances then the other 2 ESFs? It's the same deal.

There are a variant of gatling guns on Aircraft Carriers, which are "mobile force multipliers for use in a strategic capacity".
Not strictly speaking artillery, but devastating point-defence for vessels possessing great firepower and can exact a huge influence on a fight.

Anyway, if you want to limit yourself to artillery, and such ground-locked vehicles, they had machine guns and other such things of -point- defence. They still do, although generally they rely on not being found in the first place these days.

Either way, using comparisons to RL militaries isn't really relevant. This is a game, not a simulator.

I am really amused how much crap you people write about the said shield.
It is quite easy thing to do. All other faction abilities are situational, only the shield works on 100% in all situations, that is what makes it OP. If you argue with this point then you are not fan of the simple logic.
If you argue about the Vanguard general performance without the shield then just buff the tank.
My solution to the shield to make it situational:
Buff the shield to 12 seconds max instead of 8, increase its cooldown a bit as well. On the other hand allow shield to reflect 100% only Tank rounds while the other stuff like Air attacks and Heavy Rocket launcher attack to be reflected only on 20%- Let C4 to ignore the shield.

Funny, I noticed that too.

For me, the first thing I thought was "YES! A chance for the old saron to make a return! I'd better sacrifice something to Vanu!"

I sense that's what we're going to be getting. I'm not worried about the vanny shield, personally. But I sense so many things are going to be changed at once that they'll end up doubling down in some areas and overdoing it. Who this ends up hurting more, nobody knows. But when it comes to sweeping changes, I fear the precision of a carpet bombing coming on.

I agree, and even in a game it makes no sense. Makes even less sense in fact since the person manning that gun is playing the game to have fun. Trying to use a short range weapon from a stationary artillery piece 200m away from any targets is pretty much the opposite of that.

The Vanguard is literally the only unit left in the game that retains NC's "high armor" faction trait, and it's only enough to make a difference of one shot. And VS thinks they have it bad with "no bullet drop"...

But hey, while we're at it why not make all three guns' DPS identical, because it's silly that the Prowler gets double the DPS of the other two tanks. And then we better put treads on the Magrider, since it's silly that it's the only tank that can move sideways, shoot while moving, and reliably climb hills. Enjoy your NS MBTs!

Almost every post contains some form of whining, and its not really necessary. I can't even read most posts on this thread. Please, before posting, think. Do I have a point, or am I just shedding self-pity?

That's a bit optimistic.
The new saron is better anyway, but its bitter sweet. Since all the other AV weapons were buffed the old saron isn't as competitive as it once was, and is probably bested by the halberd. I would like to see the old saron's style to return, but I'm starting to accept our fate and love the saron.
Anyway, as I quoted in the beginning. Its not MBT balance pass, but MBT ability balance pass, which narrows this down to magboost, deploy, shield. Though flag said they are actually planning a lot more, that's all I saw in the official forums. It'd be cool if someone would post a link to this other thing.

Wow. You have no clue what the shield does. It is NOT impossible to break the shield. Happens to me all the time. I rarely get a full eight seconds. The shield also suffers the same damage mitigation of armor facing. If you shoot a shielded vanguard in the rear, you will do more damage to the shield. Vanguards, with shields, get destroyed all the time. They also do not over perform in the statistics. All this crying about Vanguard shields are players getting owned in 1 v 1 situations, not due to any real data about the shield being overpowered. I'm so tired of anecdotal evidence ruling these conversations. The Iwin shield, as many of you call it, is why most NC tankers have more time in Lightnings than in Vanguards.

Godmode shield? Exaggerate much? Yes, I have the same Vanguard I pulled in Beta, it's never died. Shielded Vanguards get destroyed all the time, but apparently NOT by you. L2P

You have the Max shield.
And before you start complaining about how useless that is (a topic best discussed on a different sub-forum), it's there, giving you a potential advantage over the other Maxes. Heck, it even works rather well together with your current Max weapons, more so than if you had guns like the TR and VS do.

The thing about the "armour" trait is that it's not exactly true. Durable, yes. But such advantages aren't free, so ask yourself this: Would you "pay up" to get this advantage on more things? The price can vary depending on which class, vehicle, unit or whatever, but nothing comes for free.
TR Dakka: Price: Issues with recoil, some longer reloads, lower damage tiers.
NC haaaaaaard (or front-loaded): Lower RoFs, occasional range limits.
VS ... whatever we get: reloading more often/less damage before forced reload. You may think this is a weak example, but we don't exactly have much going for us (besides style) that compares to DAKKA or firepower.

So what would you give up to get the durability advantage on more things?

The obvious tradeoff that is usually made for durability is losing speed/acceleration or having a larger hitbox: you can take more damage, but you're easier to hit. The Vanguard, it just so happens, loses acceleration, turning, and hill climbing ability to gain its armor.

If you're wondering, what VS gets is the following:
Lowest recoil on average
Low CoF bloom
No bullet drop (sometimes)
Short reloads (seriously, the Gauss SAW takes longer to reload than the Titan-150, TR has some harsh reloads on their ARs and LMGs too)
Agility

What it trades off for what amounts to a boatload of ease of use is middling rate of fire (higher than NC, lower than TR) and small magazines.

The Agility trait is arguably more comparable to our alleged durability trait (Spidermag goes where it pleases, Scythe can turn on a dime, has built-in hover chassis, and can even fly backwards, and that's about it). They had it on their MAX for a while, but well... there's a very good reason why MAXes are slower than infantry.

Meanwhile our "Durability" trait gets us... 5% extra front armor on our MBT and an optional MAX shield that a lot of weapons can shoot through anyway. If that gets reduced to just the MAX shield, they might as well remove it from our list of traits because it's even more of a joke than VS' "no bullet drop".

Honestly the demand to remove our armor was even more hilarious coming from TR, whose DPS advantage more than negates it in the first place. If we lost our armor but in return TR lost their DPS, that would actually be a harder nerf to TR than us. It would also be boring as all hell because we'd be playing NSside 2.

VS MBT cannons have heavy drop even through the faction trait clearly states otherwise. I don't see any reason to have the NC trait remain the same.

Quite right, those are drawbacks. Except you don't really have those at this moment. It is not the biggest tank, nor is it the slowest.

- You mean per shot recoil? I think you'll find that the higher recoil on NC guns such as the Saw is as a consequence of the lower RoF, in order to equalize it with the generally higher RoF guns of VS and TR. If not for this, then you'd have a truly unfair advantage.
- For the CoF bloom, I'd ask for you to provide the numbers there, as that's something I have a really hard time to believe. And don't forget that the bloom is only relevant when combined with RoF, and with reset-rates.
- No Bullet Drop: No longer unique (railjack), and denied in just about any situation where it makes a difference. The only exceptions are the Saron, Lancer/Vortex, PPA and Phaseshift. And they all pay on damage or accuracy, or both, to maintain this perk. By and large, however, this "trait" isn't really relevant. They've made it to be this way.
- Short reloads are a compensation for having the least damage per magazine on most of our weapons. And that said, the difference in having the extra damage in the magazine to finish someone off, compared to a forced reload, I'd hardly call that an advantage, but more a band-aid.
- Agility: Now here's something interesting. And sad, when you think about it. It's proven hard to balance, as it's too different for people to adapt easily, and in all cases, with the exception of a few guns with 0.75 MS (which is nice, don't get me wrong), is neutered into being a curiosity, but not much more (ZOE and Mag-Burn as examples).

It is indeed, but because having an advantage here was seen as "unfair", it's been thoroughly stomped on by balance patches. The only place where it's still noticeable are the few LMGs that has 0.75 MS, and that's about it.

Besides not only being on the front, but also side/top (and rear), what does that 5% armour translate to? 5% more HP? Heh, no it's more. Generally speaking, it allows you to survive, if barely, where the other MBTs would just die.
That is the advantage, something you shouldn't scoff at. If it matters so little, why not give it up completely? No? Didn't think so.
And for the record, the 5% extra armour on your front is about 12% extra hp, give or take, and the 10% extra from reinforced side, because of it works in an exponential way is about 30% extra HP. And this advantage "scales" with both the shield and Fire Supp (even if no-one use the latter on a VG).

So to call it more of a joke than the no-drop... I don't think you understand what your own advantage is.

It might be, although that depends on the situation. And do forgive me for being amused by that problem, as those are advantages my faction don't get to enjoy. Instead we're given a fun, if inconsequential advantage of movement. It wasn't always so, do you remember? The cries from a bit over a year ago? Back when the mobility made a difference that could truly compare to the durability and dakka?
I do, and even more so do I remember the aftermath.

PS: I've seen some NC ask for even more armour on the VG. With the effect of such being exponential, so too must the price. Would you be willing to pay for this?

Seeing as how the VG already under performs, probably nothing.