Vanguard Shield Changes + Implications

Basically, you are making up for the increased awareness and firepower of 2/2 AV MBTs with superior communication and coordination. If you have that same exact communication and coordination in 2 2/2 MBTs, they can burn down a single vehicle quickly, then focus fire on the next. It's also a lot easier to get 2 drivers to coordinate driving styles and firing angles than it would be for 4 drivers to do so. That with the increased ability of the gunners to pay more attention to situational awareness I think would trump the 4 lightnings.

Mags specifically have better agility than lightnings. They don't have the raw speed, but they make up for that in raw concentrated firepower. They can better utilize (and need to use) the terrain around them for protection and ambush techniques.

Vannies, especially with the Enforcer can deliver exceedingly high amounts of alpha damage. Two AP rounds along with 2-4 shots of enforcer rounds from the gunners will take down any vehicle in an instant. Again, using basic focus fire techniques, two vannies will be able to burn through a vehicle without even popping a shield.

Prowlers, would have the same effect... but would probably stay a bit more at range. They do have a good alpha strike though with 4 AP shots and 2 Halberd shots as a barrage.

Since we are basically talking hunter packs here... more than likely you will be fighting smaller numbers... or from angles that the prey aren't expecting you from. The ability to burn down targets quicker will keep the advantage in your favor and allow you to move for repositioning faster or limit the amount of firepower brought to bare upon you, which can decrease needed repair time and get the pack moving quicker.

Personally, I didn't like what they decided to do to the shield. I didn't think it was overly powerful in normal engagements (head to head, long range, tank line v tank line). The only gripe I had was the being flanked and rear shots, IE, the "get out of jail free card" they had. It gave too good of a bonus in covering up the weakspot all MBTs have, and made that weakspot not a weakness. That particular point could have been tweaked with directional bonuses or armor values given by the shield instead of a whole tank coverage ability... without affecting overall frontal effectiveness against infantry.

If they go about this, they need to give the Vannie increased ability to protect itself from infantry. With the slow reload of the main cannon, it's unforgiving to use to protect yourself from infantry specifically. In this case, the higher damage slower reload is a major disadvantage in that you are overkilling a single infantryman... wasting your advantage. This is where the shield made up for that inherent issue.

Well i know what i'll be doing, and thats playing TR AP Prowler lol, NC armoured combat got shafted with a rusty nail then asked to pay for it.

Well Outfit training in both VR and out in the field, along with Teamspeak/Vent would cover those bases rather well.

The idea of the proposed hunting pack tactics is to deliberately use and abuse the tunnel vision players get during large engagements. If, say the enemy is all focused on a base to the south, and they have all their guns and troops pointed towards that, how ready will they be when their deployed Sunderer behind a hill takes for AV Lightning shots? There will be panic, there will be confusion. Likely the driver will mobilize the Sunderer (if he's in the driver's seat) and try to move. In the space of time it takes to react, mobilize and move, the Lightnings will have loaded another round and have sent it down range. As the AV shells don't do splash, there's less chance that the ground troops will notice the Lightnings until the Sunderer blows up, at which time the Lightnings are already falling back out of sight.

Lightnings also have several benefits over MBTs that ought not be overlooks for pack tactics. The size of a Lightning allows it a measure of visual stealth that MBTs can't quite match, in addition to being able to squeeze into areas that, again, MBTs can't match. They can be pulled from any tank terminal and are not reliant on Tech Plants, connected or otherwise, and cost less resources. In addition, each unit only requires one user, whereas you need a competent gunner to get the most out of a MBT. Getting, say, four individuals behind enemy lines to pull armor is difficult enough, but at least with Lightnings if one person dies, you still have three tanks instead of two and a half.

The C4 thing is the only one I really don't like.

I've already had to deal with the whole burning thing after C4 on the shield in the distant past and it's not really fun. The rest of the changes is to reduce the amount of ragequits we get from being totally unfair.

Nope it's been nerfed SOE style. Now NOBODY can complain about it being OP now, because guys, it's been

I'll be honest and say that sometimes if the person attacking me is not someone I know is good and the enemy flanks like that and doesn't have a gunner, I'll just be lazy and activate the shield, blow them up and not even bother to rotate the hull before going back to what I was doing.

I DO NOT WANT THIS and I will not explain why, but it is extremely important to me and an aspect of my playstyle that the tank still be able to revers at 25 kph.


Those other poor fools can use Rival.

I personally am ready for the "challenge" but I'm not as concerned.

My Biggest threat will probably still always be SOE.

Their horrible debris, instagibbing terrain that just blows you up because you drove over it, double loading screens when getting in my vehicle or swapping seats, Invisible people or planes shooting me, horrible repair hitboxes, getting shot through shields, broken cosmetics, having the shield instadrop or not work at all and go on permanent cooldown (still happens, just 1 out of every 2,000 tanks I pull get it) whiplashing tanks that kill me when my partner gets in or teleports me hundreds of meters into the sky and drops me to my death or deviously putting me under the map when I get out of the tank, as well as bizarre physics engine stuff that causes my tank to slide hundreds of meters away from me when I get out, or cause the tank to lift up and do a backflip by going over a hillcrest because the Vanguard is made of kite materials or perform barrel rolls on minor jumps or bumps in the road or by being flipped whenever t-boned by another vehicle, or roadkills that barely hurt people or when my HUD text turns into all squares so I can't see my ammo count or speed as well as many other wonderful and fantastic aspects of tanking in this game. IloveandhateyouallSOE.

Lightings have a smaller profile, this is true. And this is especially beneficial to the VS, as the mags can float over the lightings.
However, the lightings also have the worst terrain traverse, for whatever reason.
Vans and Prowlers (and of course Mags) can traverse harsh terrain easier (relative term) than the lighting, because the lighting has a weird tendency of getting stuck in the small dips in the landscape.

Even so, I'd still value the MBTs over the lightings because, as Calisai mentions, fewer drivers that need to coordinate. And the gunners can spend the time they're not using on driving themselves to look out for threats.

It's what I do. Sticking with the armor column is very boring unless there is an enemy force of equal or greater size.

Less so if you run Skyguard like I do. Big armor column means that's where the ESFs and Libs come to =D

It means, it is no longer the IWIN button it used to be. Sorry but your examples are all about from the rear attacks, if you are getting flanked from the rear, you must be doing something wrong; like not looking at the map, playing suicidal or exposing yourself heavily.

I'd prefer 4-6k shield HP, but armor not affecting the shield at all; making it taking equal shots to bring it down. Along with halved cooldown or something.

I suggested multiple times before this patch they just readjust the resistance values on the shield so it was consistent all the way around the tank, a balance point where it'd be weaker in the front, sides, top, but stronger in the rear, allowing tanks to bring down the shield before the 8 second timer, and making its retreat abilities stronger. Would also make flanks against them stronger despite the stronger rear shielding because the shield would no longer be unbreakable by just turning your sides, and you still wouldn't want to just leave your rear side open so you'd still have to maneuver your rear away from them for when they did bring down the shield.

Instead they took a sledge hammer to the ability and now a prowler will have a similar TTK without even using its utility ability slot, lol.

Your shield still op. After dmg reduction of armor your 2000 hp shield become more than 4000 on front / side.

The only thing changed and that you can't run anymore in the middle of a battlefield exposing your rear. (thanks god).

Wha ... i ... what are you not telling us, Klypto?

This would be a massive buff unless the shield went down in at most two salvoes from any side (= old rear values).

I was thinking ~40-45% reistance all the way around the tank, which would have been about 25% resistance drop to the front sides, and top, and a 15% increase to the rear, so no it would not have been a massive buff, lol. The old shield also would go down in a single AP+halberd from a prowler, and an AP+ halberd then the next from either would break it and do damage to the tank.

Basically it would have made the tank weaker in a direct frontal engagement, and slightly stronger against a rear flank, but you'd still be much better off because after you first volley into his rear where he then hit his shield you can now bring the shield down and finish him no matter the angle, its really just a buff to retreating.

35% is the rear resistance value, and the shield would go down in two salvoes (1.5, to be exact). This would indeed not be a massive buff, but anything that would go beyond that would be because you then pass threshold at which there simply is no point in shooting the vanguard anymore ... from any side.

It wouldn't have been a buff because it would have been a nerf, but a sensible one, so i don't know why you posted this. I'd just like to point out that these changes don't really do anything against a magrider, they will still lose a 1v1 engagement, its just now a prowler will smash a VG without even using his utilities. This is a terrible change to the VG shield as all it did was swing the balance of power strongly in the prowlers favor.

The problem people had with it was that it could do exactly that. Now it's a useful tool which has situational usage in almost any situation, except you could be rekt if an enemy comes from behind and pops you in the back.

I've got no problem with this nerf, it was coming and all the NC players knew it. I don't think its useless now but I don't think it's OP now. It's not an almost invincible shield and with its limited use through ability duration and cooldown period, I think the balance has been struck. I'm cool widdit.

You are assuming that he is locked down though? Because if he isn't, the vanguard still is poised to win. Also, i replied because it wasn't clear from your post that you wanted to nerf the shield durability to rear levels on all sides (because that's what you proposed is).

Edit: A prowler needs 7.5 secs to kill a van, and a van needs 8 secs to kill a prowler. just for clarification.

I know the trick

I also have a growing suspicion ...

Anyway, after shooting some Arrows on the range and coming down a bit ... patch still sucks, we can't do anything about it, since SOE is SOE and that won't change anytime soon.

So ... I will be playing something with some friends a lot ... starting tomorrow ...

I've seen it in a Klypto video, as I recall it's one of the reasons he uses for not running Rival Chassis. Quite the neat trick if you can pull it off, Maggie doesn't really have "inertia" to speak of.

It also doesn't have drifter tracks ...