When are NC and TR getting AI secondary buff for their tanks?

I am Vanu player and the PPA is just ridiculously good, 150 kills last night in about 45 minutes easily.

I would like to see NC and TR buffed asap so that PPA doesn't get nerfed. The canister and maruader suck compared to PPA.

I think the Magrider would need a slight buff though to main cannon though for anti vehicle work so that it can match prowler and Vanguard.


Agree?

people always fail to see the whole picture! "oohh PPA is good, Canister/Marauder is bad. Vanu OP!" - no!

the reason that PPA/Saron are so good is because the Magrider main cannon itself is the lowest performing out of all. it is compensation for a weak main gun, nothing more

i dont say that the Canister/Marauder are okay as they are. but SOE must not go overboard with buffs because the Magrider already looks like the weakest tank right now with the planned changes to reverse speed and the recent addition of gun stabilization for all MBTs and Lightnings

Be careful with that.

This is the exact situation the reaver was in last august (?). It was a bad aircraft with a flat out better gun than the other two to compensate. But in spite of performing the worst statistically, it was nerfed anyway because some people were whining in exactly the same way they whine about the PPA currently.

My opinion for the record;

1. Good AI secondaries - PPA
2. Barely functional AI secondaries - kobalt, bulldog (also halberd lol).
3. Not functional AI secondaries - C85, Marauder, Fury, Basilisk.

We should buff everything but the PPA in the secondary slot, to nearly the PPA's level. Because I have long said on these forums (mostly in shield nerf threads) that strong secondaries are a VS edge and I agree with the OP that they should keep said edge.

Buffing the AI secondaries a fair amount will not impact the Magrider's performance at all because those secondaries aren't being used against tanks. News Flash all factions have to deal with Infantryside 2 state the game is in right now and all tanks need effective AI secondaries to deal with the OP infantry in this game. Do you also have stats showing exactly how underperforming the main cannon of the Magrider is? (I'm assuming it is but I'd like to see how much)

FINALLY, A VANU TANKER I CAN ACTUALLY LIKE!

I agree! The Maurader is just gawd awful, i bought one for my prowler but when someone guns for me, they just get out because it's horrible compared to the PPA. I actually had a guy tell me after getting out "Sorry dude, i don't gun Marauders, they're a complete waste of certs, as much as i'd love to help you." Normally i'd say in return: "No weapon is truly bad, it has to have an upside" but i'm slowly coming to terms that Planetside 2 is an exception to this golden rule, Striker for example.

If it had longer range or a higher splash range i could agree to use one more often [if i could survive long enough in a Prowler to use one lol] but as it stands right now, it's not good enough to be considered "in line with the other factions".

NC should get a cannon similair to the flak cannon from Unreal Tournament, it could do straight up flak cannon or alternate fire mode where it shoots like a flak ball that explodes, deals light damage but has a large magazine.

TR should have a Vulcan type weapon that deals light damage but insane high rate of fire that could mow down infantry if the gunner has good aim.

NC and TR will get buffs to their AI secondary when the Mag gets some AV buffs.

Magriders get the PPA, due to a weaker main cannon. I get that.

There's no excuse for the Harasser. Balance the Harasser PPA/Marauder/Canister on equal grounds.

From the perspective of a VS main, 500+ hour TR / NC alts... After certing each of the three quite well, My (very basic) impression of the three MBTS are thus:


Magrider: Main cannon sucks, and requires the entire tank to turn. The very first time I fired it, my impression was that the VS had somehow captured a faerie, locked it in the turret, and is feeding it taco bell with a side of plasma. Projectiles are unbearably slow, and drop more then an NC with a cancelled bonus check.

Saron: A shadow of it's former self, the enforcer is better at AI these days, as is the vulcan (with close-range threats, at least)

PPA: Primary redeeming feature of the tank - only drawback is projectile speed and very obvious source of fire. Even so, the kobalt is comparable due to projectile velocity, total number of rounds, upgradability, firing angle, etc.

Overall, acceptable synergy between ES weapons and primary, even if the primary blows. This tank is 'meh' at going head to head, best at medium to short range, with enough fire support.


Prowler: Main cannon rocks - huge round velocity, easy to make follow up shots, can remove both infantry and enemy armor with extreme ease. 1/2 prowler can blast an ambush 2/2 mag into fine-paste with quick reaction time, even after taking a shot to rear armor.
Vulcan: acceptable at close range in both AV and AI. The problem is that the tank is designed to be a sniper, not a point-blank bruiser. This makes it boring for gunners, thus, prowlers don't typically have them when at their ideal range.
Marauder: This gun is poop. Poopy poo poop. With a side of poo. Give me a fury instead, it behaves identically, and can actually damage heavy armor, buff the poop out of this thing.

Overall, very heavily weighted towards main-cannnon advantages - not enough synergy in ranges to encourage gunners to remain in ES secondaries, due to lacking targets within the tank's ideal 'sniper' engagement range.


Vanguard: Main cannon rocks, velocity rocks - absolutely enormous alpha strike potential when combined with enforcer. Not great vs infantry, not really better then the mag either, but still somewhat workable.

Enforcer: Easily my favorite, the drop is easy to manage at almost all ranges. Even post nerf, this is my favorite ES AV. Combined with titan AP and a nice ambush firing position, you can blow a max armor sundy before it can finish undeploying and attempt to move more then 15 meters or so.

Canister: I tried this again the other day - it's surprisingly good, compared to how it used to behave. Tighten the spread slightly and increase reserve ammo, and I would actually be happy with it. The Vanguard is a monstrous powerhouse, the only reason (In my opinion) the canister is still viewed as useless, is that it's designed to be a close-range bruiser. With all but two infantry types capable of instantly obliterating any tank, tanks don't get close, not if they want to survive the experience. When it comes to countering close range threats, i'd prefer this over the PPA, with a bit of an ammo upgrade.

Overall, excellent synergy between main cannon and ES AV, canister is designed for ranges that infantry pose massive threats in, making it highly risky to use. As a point defense gun, there's nothing better vs C4 faeries, but again, lack of synergy with the overall platform makes it hard to keep gunners satisfied enough to stick around.


TL : DR
Rambling and random opinions on tankish things.

I think you overestimate both your fellow VS players and your enemies.

The day NC/TR both get a PPA equivalent is the day before all tanks get nerfed. NC/TR are complaining about it every single day. That's with only one faction using it against them, so the day the buff happens, there won't be a "let's go fight the other faction" option anymore. First major outcry.

Then there'll be the shock for VS ground troopers who have never faced that sort of spam. Against two factions full of frustrated players that will spam the new toy like there's no tomorrow. Seriously. You'll never escape it. Ever. If you think it'll go down well and the farmed VS infantry will find it enjoyable and balanced, then i have a bridge to sell you.

The only thing saving the PPA at the moment is that it's VS only. So you only encounter it against a specific faction, and it's part of an asymmetric balance. Buff the other two to the same level and all you'll achieve is a new liberator debacle: cross-faction infantry farming platform. Ask the lib pilots how it went after that.

Yes, only if u neglect the 300 splash damage. PPA is not OP because it does to much direct damage, it's OP because they spam a door/ gate shield and end up doing more damage than a direct hit but on multiple people ...

This. I don't get why People want to bring the TR and NC Equivalents up to the PPA's level. It would mean that every faction could spam this AI Death machines from right outside the base.
The PPA is already a weapon that provokes a playstyle in which you are sitting 100 meters away from the Base in safety and fire at every Infantry man who shows his head for one second. I have seen Vanu forces attack Saerro Listening Post with 10+ Magriders an a few Harassers who did nothing else than spmming our Tower from the mountains. We had no problems defending the capture Points as there were hardly any Vanu infantry there. Just those farmers who were after easy kills. I watched the killboards of some of these guys and they all got at least a 15+ killstreak, some were up to 40+, but they didn't do anything to help their Faction. And seriously, I don't think this is how the game is meant to be played.

My Opinion is that AI weapons on tanks should be range limited like the Canister and Marauder are. I dont think that the Canister it is a bad weapon tbh. At least you got to take some risks to get in positions where it shines. It would be deadly if it were mounted on Magriders which can reatreat more easily than the Vanguard. This would be a playstyle I could live with.It would require some skill. Get in fast, rack up some kills and get out before enemy Infantry can harm you. Not this cheesy PPA spamming from positions where no one can harm you.

The idea that the PPA is better because of the Main Cannon being worse is ridiculous. All MBTs have access to the Kobalt. So the Canister and Marauder need to be at the level of the Kobalt. However they are not.

Just give us the Banshee instead of the Marauder

It's funny that the VS will use this argument to prevent the Canister from being buffed, especially since the Magrider main cannon is better at killing infantry than the Vanguard main cannon. So where does this "weakest cannon" theory come from?

It comes from comparing apples to oranges. Or better said from comparing AV to AI. It would make much more logical sense to give the weakest tank for AI the best AI secondary. Ie give the vanguard a PPA equivilant, but instead the Vanu get the best of both worlds. They get the best AV secondary, the Saron and the best AI secondary, the PPA.

Am I asking for either to get nerfed? no, but I wanted to also point out how flawed the "weakest main cannon" argument really is.

Would I like the canister buffed to be more effective? Yes. How about 21 round mag, 3 shot burst(ala jackhammer) and a tiny bit of splash so hitting on the move isn't a joke?

This is a cool idea , vanu have the ppa for their esf and tank/harasser as well the NC have a shotgun for their esf and tank/harasser

We want the banshee for our harassers/tanks that would be awesome , I mean we don't want a weaker version of fury come on

What? No, that's just the PPA.
Saron HRB is not stronger than the Halberd. Or the Enforcer.

Yeah I'm really beginning to wonder why the PPA is a pre-nerf marauder with no drop. XD Also there's nothing wrong with the magrider main cannon. If there was a problem with it then Magrider columns would get shredded, but what I'm seeing is that your magrider can always go for AP on the main cannon because they don't have to worry about infantry thanks to PPA, which means much fewer C4 ambushes. There's a reason everyone is running the PPAs. Nerfs seem inevitable at this point. The only question is how long it'll be delayed by Redditside.

First of all, not everyone runs the PPA.
Second, if you do run the PPA the FPC(AP) isn't really giving you a huge benefit over using the PC(HEAT) or even VPC(HE), as you're not going to need the extra AV damage anyway (you will lose against another tank almost regardless).

So it's more that the Mag can go with a valid dual AI loadout, something the Vanguard "can't" (it can, but it's not as good), and the prowlers generally don't want to do (as they're almost better off using a second prowler than running with an AI gunner - terrible design/balance).

Edit:
As for the current PPA being like the old Marauder... not quite.
The old Marauder had a lot more burst potential, which is why it got such a reputation during the harasser heyday.
The PPA, magrider or harasser, requires a much longer exposure time than the marauder did, so it's not a "fair" comparison.

I can only tell what's happening on Cobalt, I don't know if it is the same on other server.
Yes not everyone mounts the PPA - only about 60% and 70%. The rest is Saron and a couple halberds.
This (estimated!) numbers alone should show something is amiss. This number could be higher than the actual numbers due to the fact that PPA Magriders propably keep a safer distance and live longer than their colleagues.

Moreover the Proton PPA II is only about half of the problem I see with the recent Vanu tankspam.
Hossin is totally dominated by Vanu at the moment. The reason for that is the synergy between the PPA and the magrider - which is just retartedly deadly.
Even if TR and NC had AI secondarys on par with the PPA, the PPA would still outperform them a lot. Because the damned Magriders can climb most of Hossins hills and start spamming the base below with their maincannon and their PPA. It doesn't work on all bases of course, but with enough to be a huge advantage.

The underperfoming main cannon is the reason why the PPA is ok?
Obviously Vanguard and Prowler have vastly underperforming mobility. Lets give them the ability to hook up to a Galaxys belly - the Magriders alien design sadly doesnt fit into the standard NS "Skyhook" System.

In case you were wondering: I'm being sarcastic, I think this argument is ********. Besides the advantage they get for their maingun is the ability to move erratically and make the enemy miss shots, not some overperforming secondary. Thats just an argument for people who don't find any reasonable arguments and desperately try to keep their farming tool in place.
Although I wouldn't complain if my sarcastic proposal happens.... (but the Vanu would)