I've been a foot soldier throughout my entire ps2 career, and I've been wanted to learn how to tank. What should I invest my certs on? Acquisition timers? I play on NC and I know that the regular tank cannon is the way to go, enforcer is a must, shield is a must, rival combat chassis is a must, and that vehicle stealth is handy, but I don't know the very basics of handling a tank. What should my sensitivity be? What should I max first? Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Enforcer is not a must on the vanguard. You can do well with a halberd. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Also, HEAT shells are decent for the vanguard, but serious crews use an AP cannon. You can get away with HEAT shells for awhile, but don't try to take on tanks that have tank killing loadouts. As for what I'd max, anything that keeps you in the field longer or helps you get experience to get more certs is what I'd max. In my case, I got enough acquisition timer (as vehicle life expectancy can be variable), and worked on the armor and chassis of the vehicle before anything else. Tanking is all about positioning, and is something you just have to learn through experience. But keep an eye on where things are relative to you, ally and enemy, and keep an escape route in mind if things are looking dicey.
If you have any questions let me know. - Timer: Cert out your acquisition timer as soon as possible. Getting it to ranks 5-8 is good enough; after that it becomes expensive. - Repair Gun: Don't overlook this. Repairing your tank is important in and out of combat. I recommend getting a few ranks if you haven't already. ----------------------- - Primary: Staying with HEAT is fine. Many people switch over to AP eventually but HEAT is versatile and easier to learn with. - Secondary: If certs are an issue and you don't have a specific gunner in mind, I recommend you hold off a bit before getting an expensive secondary. If that isn't an issue, then both the Halberd and Enforcer are good choices. They're very similar in performance overall, but the Halberd has an edge against infantry and the Enforcer against vehicles. Pick whichever. - Note: When certing out any of your weapons I recommend getting at least 1.5x zoom immediately and putting a few ranks into your ammo capacity. Reload speed can definitely make a difference, but it is fairly expensive and you won't immediately notice much of a difference. ----------------------- - Utility: The Vanguard Shield is extremely important. You can get away with only rank 1-2. I recommend at least 2 since it's cheap. - Defense: Nanite Auto Repair works with every loadout and is especially helpful if you don't have a dedicated gunner. I wouldn't recommend specializing into things like Stealth, Proximity Radar, or the armors until you figure out how you like to play. - Performance: Both Rival and Racer really help the Vanguard. Many people swear by both. It is mostly a matter of preference and playstyle. ---------------------- - Sensitivity: Your sensitivity is mostly what works for you. Although, the sensitivity for your primary weapon is the same value for your secondary weapon. You'll need to pick a sensitivity that works for both. The secondary weapons are much more sensitive so you might have to make a compromise. - Invert Reverse Steering: Reverse turning feels much more fluid and intuitive with this selected. I recommend you enable this.
By no means the cream of the crop speaking, but here's how I see it. Settings Sensitivity is entirely up to you, but generally speaking higher sensitivity means you can react to being flanked better while lower means you can be more accurate. Be sure to uncheck Invert Reverse Steering in the Vehicle settings, it makes your tank turn its hull significantly better. Or check it, I don't remember. Just change it from its default setting. First Upgrades Utility: Shield 1 ASAP Forget the slightly better armor, this is what gives your Vanguard its durability. Prioritize this over literally everything else. When you start saving for the 200-cert upgrades, level 2 is also your top priority. Performance: Racer The stock acceleration is horrible and you want to improve it as much as possible (this can be bypassed by gear shifting but as you said you are new, I don't expect you to be doing this consistently yet). Level 1 and 2 are your priorities after shield at their respective cert costs. Armor: Nanite Autorepair This is the best general purpose option, as it allows you to heal up without exposing yourself and also on the move without having to give up your shield or sticking to a repair sundy or other engies (you should be playing as an engie). I prefer stopping at level 3 because the repair percent at that level is decent, but you can certainly go with level 1 or 2 and do just fine if you're willing to spend more time out of combat not taking fire or repairing it yourself. Cooldown Timer Get this to at least level 4. Mech resources come in very slowly, and if you play conservatively then you'll have enough resources to pull another tank by the time the timer is finished. Weapons and Upgrades Get up to at least level 4 ammo on everything before you start getting other upgrades for them (besides level 1 zoom, you should get this for everything just to have something to work with). Reload speed and magazine size upgrades are low priority for now, get them at your discretion. You will need to max these eventually though. *Never take zoom on Hossin. Low visibility and lack of large open spaces make this optic worthless. Primary: Titan HEAT It's a solid all-arounder that will still put the fear of Higby in all who get hit by it even if it's not the AP barrel. Pace your shots and go for direct hits if you want to shoot infantry with it (it has splash, but rely on it). Go zoom if you want to be able to hit vehicles at distance better or thermal if you want to hit infantry better.* Primary: Titan AP Dedicated AV option and damn good at it. It's totally worth the SC/certs it takes to get it, though the price is steep. Best case scenario is to get it on sale or when you have the dough to throw around. Zoom is the best optic.* Secondary: ML-85 Enforcer Similar to the AP barrel in cost and performance against vehicles. Very fast and high-damage rounds are very easy to hit with as well. Go with zoom.* Secondary: Halberd Similar in performance to the HEAT barrel but cost is a little steep. Compared to the Enforcer, it is a sidegrade: better alpha damage and better against infantry but lower sustained versus vehicles and less ammo. Run with zoom or thermal.* Secondary: Kobalt The best pure anti-infantry option since the Canister is garbage, do not run this unless you are pretty certain you will be facing mostly infantry. On the plus side, it's pretty good at what it does, has lots of ammo, and a high rate of fire. Slap on the thermals and teach the peasants how to properly farm. Secondary: Basilisk By no means a bad secondary, but you will want to replace this with something else eventually. I recommend getting night vision or thermal, as it's not nearly accurate enough for zoom while NV is pretty cheap and marginally more useful (it also has that wow factor for random gunners).
Get the chassis first. Andas per my first post, I suggest Racer, not Rival. Unless the resident NC tankers here disagree, in which case I'll defer to their advice.
Alarox.. isn't the acquisition timer going to be removed from the game, with the new resource update? don't spend any certs on it now.. wait for that update.. and if SOE changes their minds, then you can still get the timer later.
The acquisition timer is essential as I'm sure you'd agree. Why shouldn't he cert it out? You get all your certs back from it once the resource revamp goes through anyway. There's no downside.
I was under the impression that the cool down timer will be removed entirely.. no more timer at all. i could be wrong though.
Learning the popular spots for infantry AV & finding ways around them will help you survive a lot. Whilst it does depends on what warpgate you're at, some area's have particular spots that they love to set up mana turrets & lock ons & what have you. A somewhat popular spot for example is the hill east of the indar EX and Quartz Ridge camp area. It overlooks the whole bay area and can kill many of your factions vehicles. Whilst there won't always be an AV nest there, it's not something you should ignore completely.
●Gear shift, what that is is the vanguard at 16kph for stock or rival will "shift" it's gear which can take awhile but if you double tap your forward key when it's at 16kph (stock or rival) will circumvent the time it takes to change gear and you can hit max speed 1 sec earlier which is a long time if your trying to chase or run away from someone. ●Never run HE on a vanguard because the HE takes to long to reload to be effective at AI and vanguard can't get to crafty places where you can farm infantry. ●Know how to recognize a lock down AP-AP prowler because that thing will rip you apart even if you have the shield and the only way to win is to have maxed out reload speed and hop he has a low level of lock down. ●Know when to run, biggest mistake I see vanguard drivers do us them not knowing when to disengage because they think their some super invisible juggernaut with the shields. ●Never over extend, you will die period no matter how good you are. ●Know your terrain, plan which piece of cover your going to hide behind, where's the closest resupply and repair points. ●Watch for flanking tanks,you favourite thing to do with a full lock down prowler is flank and before you can react, I'll have you down to 1/4 of your health. ●Watch the minimap, often it'll tell you of some C4 fairy or tank buster library. ●Other then that it's all skill and load out choice which everyone here has covered.
There won't be any timer after the revamp in ~2 weeks yeah, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't cert it out right now. The certs in that line will be refunded so there's no reason to not cert it out.
It's getting canned, but like Alarox said, you get a refund. Being on a 20 minute cooldown right now is just bad, considering a tank can last you 5 minutes or 5 hours (more often the former).
Tank mines = 3 seconds! I know because I've dumped some on vehicle pads and the roads leading out, because I'm an evil person.
sensitivity, whatever your comfortable with I go with titan AP because I can usually get a direct hit on infantry, kobalt is cheap as well as being good at anti-infantry, shield, nanate auto repair, get the chassis last.
Wall of text time? Wall of text time. Like Flag said, cert into Racer Chassis. 2nd rank should be alright, if you're cert conscious or you'd want to balance out cert progression among the primary / secondary guns (ammo capacity, reload speed, optics). Racer will get you out of tougher spots than Rival ever will. Don't discount the Basilisk outright, but there are better options for AV / infantry. Along with Alarox, cert into the engineers' repair tool if you haven't already; even if you don't normally tank 1/2, normally the only person to fix your tank is you. I think that was the first thing I fully certed when I started playing, started support class on launch, played between Engineer, Medic, Max and felt like tanking was my niche. Like zombielores said, since you're using VG, popping gears is a nice trick to learn. Learning it right away won't necessarily make you a better tanker, but it helps for chasing crippled vehicles / out running sneaky infantry trying to plant C4 / tank mines around you. Stick with learning the turret(s) / secondaries, and analyzing the battle flow directly or from the map first. As far as what you should first cert into (or fully cert first) between VG Shield or Chassis, I don't really think it's too important, so long as you're learning from your successful / failed engagements as you cert up stats. If you can't, or don't want to unlock HE / AP turrets and cert those up, keep in mind that using HEAT will help you learn to prioritize targets at the very least (vehicles or infantry first?). Don't forget to check out the VR before you sink certs or SC; the training / experience is limited because of stationary targets, but you can still get a feel for each individual turret's velocity, drop, and damage against infantry, air and ground vehicles. I feel like the odd-tanker out usually only running Mineguard (rank 4, even with using the EOD implant), but it's either that, Front Armor, or Proxy Radar. Between those three I feel are a tanker's bread and butter. Not to get into the oh-so-wonderful stats of what weapon is better for what role, as far as the three primary turrets go, HE, HEAT, & AP they each have a distinct play style (if you've been tanking long enough anyways....) If you're going AP and you think you're going to do well to farm / focus infantry..... good luck. A few ways I can think of that can make you, or anyone hate tanking: Constantly following the zerg....any combination of forces and following them anywhere! Not diversifying your loadout! (I've only started running a full AP VG [Titan + Halberd], otherwise it was Titan & Enforcer, then Titan & Walker Add to an over saturation of MBT's in a given base (odds are the others are rocking pure AV load outs which doesn't help when the Libs show up, or it's an enemy footzerg) Always following the obvious roads / paths in assaulting a base (or staying at the head of a friendly attacking force) Shooting at any aircraft with your primary just because there's nobody else to shoot at for the time being, or using the secondary when they're well out of range (If they're directly attacking you / flying low and slow / or trying to line up a few shots at you and they don't know that you've noticed them, then maybe.... ) Don't rely too much on the VG shield (It's nice, but even before the adjustment, it's not always going to save you) As far as tanking friendly continents go: Hossin > Esamir > Amerish / Indar Last bit of advice, you will lose your tank, and the longer you tank the more scenarios you'll find yourself in how you lose it. In no particular order - flipping, friendly fire (friendly C4), tank mines, engineer AV turrets, aircraft, base AV turrets, wrong place / wrong time / wrong loadout, getting shot by AV / HEAT / HE while on top of friendly tank mines, & until before they patched it (if they did) dying to debris (falling or running into and it slides on top of you . It should be fixed now I think, but I've tried to be more careful)
I'll start a new thread about tankers continent preference now that Hossin's in the mix, so we don't bog down this thread and get it off topic. I don't think there's been a thread about it yet, but I could be wrong.
