Why The Magrider is Unfair

On the forums, I often see people complaining that the Magrider is under-powered. You are wrong, shut up, because in the hands of a capable team it's the best land vehicle in the game.

If you don't want to read my lengthy post, the summary is at the bottom. Go there now before complaining my post is too long:

When SOE nerfed all the guns on the liberator, it stated that it wanted to "Define the role of each gun more clearly". If only they took that same attitude towards vehicles. The magrider sticks out like a sore thumb in the vehicle line up.

Harassers are supposed to be quick, highly mobile vehicles. They may be quicker than magriders, but they certainly aren't as mobile or agile. Letting a two person tank be the most mobile land unit in the game is ludicrous. PLUS the fact that they're 5 times harder to kill than a harasser. The harasser for every faction should serve the same role, the quickest unit with the best ability to climb inclines. Letting the VS skirt this automatically gives them an advantage with vehicles at all times.

Lightnings are supposed to be more mobile than heavy tanks as well. If they aren't as mobile as a heavy tank, then what's the purpose? Most of the time a lightning can escape a Prowler or a Vanguard, because it's faster and turns better. But there's no hope for a lighting against a magrider. Especially when the mag rider can circle so easily around and start hitting it from behind, and can chase it down without a problem. The VS have harassers and magriders, making them automatically the best team against lightnings. +1 to the VS.

Other heavy tanks. It makes me laugh every time my NC char says "Enemy Heavy Tank". If the Mag is heavy, then why the hell does it fly! A flying heavy tank with speed boosts? Get real. Here's where the VS cry the most about magriders. So your mag has problems going toe to toe with NC or TR heavy tanks. The thing is is that NC and TR HTs move so damn slowly, and get stuck on EVERYTHING. The cannon bounces all over the place. The Mag has one smooth ride, with more cannon stability. Plus is doesn't get hung up on every rock that litters Auraxis. This also lets them get away so much faster. If a mag takes too much damage, it turns around and runs away to repair and come back, but if a Van or Prow takes too much damage, then trying to get away from combat to repair is so much harder. This also lets the same Mag gunner teams get longer kill streaks, as they just kill kill kill, run away repair, and then come back. Prow and Van teams are much more likely to lose their tanks if things go south. Plus skilled mag drivers have no problem taking out HTs, they strafe back and forth behind cover blasting away while the NC and TR HTs sit there and have little choice but to take it. The Mag may lose on open flat ground, but it has the advantage if cover is available. When it comes to abilities, the shield and the deploy are a joke. The shield ability lasts for a few seconds, and the deploy ability is only good in certain circumstances. Increased mobility is a CONSTANT bonus for you. If fair was fair you'd be hitting the deploy button and being able to strafe sideways and hover for a few seconds, then come back down and act like the other heavy tanks. That'd be more more in line with the shield and deploy.

Another area where magriders surpass all the other vehicles is in trying to do damage to them with the 3 major forms of vehicle destruction. Tank Mines, C4, and Rocket Launchers.

Tank Mines: The Mag has a weird hit box, and I've seen them fly DIRECTLY over tank mines without detonating them. In the land of fair and balanced that should NEVER happen. The Prow and Van aren't even close to as forgiving. Not to mention how hard it is to throw tank mines under a mag without getting run over, even if it's not moving all that much because good drivers will still be making little circles with it and just touching the bottom of the mag will kill you. Letting the Mag be more impervious to tank mines is a HUGE advantage.

C4: C4ing a Prow, Van, or lighting is a cake walk. Let's be honest. They get stuck, a driver gets nervous and backs up in to something, and if their back is turned they just sit there and take it. Their reverse speed is slow and their turning radius isn't all that great. Landing two C4 on them is easy. Trying to C4 a mag is a nightmare in comparison. It's ovular in shape, makes circles in place, and can move backwards and forwards instantly. It's a pain trying to land C4 on it as a LA, because when you fly over it the chances of missing one of the two C4 goes up so exponentially when it's not sitting still like the other tanks HAVE to. Not to mention the BIGGEST thing about mags and C4, is that touching the bottom of the mag kills you. It's so gut wrenching running up to a mag and trying to C4 it because you just know that at any second you may get ran over by accident. It has built in protection against C4 being placed on it by foot. Prows and Vans don't kill you when you touch them, and they're so freaking easy to run up next to on foot and C4. Being less prone to be C4ed is a HUGE advantage. (PS, if you're on the VS and complaining now that you still get C4ed, then you are doing it wrong.)

Rockets: The increased mobility also makes it harder to land rockets on them, or to get a lock on. The little circles they can make in place constantly mean a rocket goes just a hair to the right or left, and when they speed boost they can be just as hard to hit as a harasser. Maybe the NC and TR should have the lancer, because it'd be a lot easier to hit something that moves so quickly with a straight shooting laser beam than to try and lob slow moving rockets at it. The Shield ability mitigates rockets, so while a slow bulky Van tries to get away and keeps getting rocketed, it'll still blow up. The deploy ability makes a Prow a sitting duck for rockets. The Mag dodges rockets like a champ, and if it gets hits by a few, dashes away to repair. Being less inclined to get hit by rockets and be the most capable to get away from them is a HUGE advantage.

It's hard to stop a competent mag team from spewing constant death on the battlefield. They circle for hours farming and farming and farming. It's unbalanced when a two person tank is less susceptible to all the major forms of tank destruction. On continents where the VS own a tech plant, and your team doesn't, getting rid of a swarm of mag riders becomes near impossible. The other two factions offer up heavy tanks for sacrifice to the VS when the VS don't own a tech plant, because of how much easier they are to destroy. Being in a base circled by mag riders is the most unfun thing in the game. The AI cannon slaughters you no matter where you go, and you can't get close to them. Nerfing the AI cannon by making it reload more often isn't going to help anything. That doesn't solve the core problem. They are the best ground unit for farming out of any faction. This is NOT ok. Not even close to being OK.

The last thing about Mag riders, is the most game breaking element to them. Their ability to climb near vertical surfaces and gain advantage points on spawn rooms, deployed sunderers, and other vehicles. Every map that's not a flat surface instantly becomes a giant F U to TR and NC. A lot of bases have spawn rooms that are surrounded by outcrops, boulders, and steep vertical hills. Those are supposed to be there to give infantry the chance to escape the spawn room and do something, RIGHT? Wrong, apparently they're there for the magrider to perch upon and spew death on you. Letting the hardest ground unit to kill get to places of extreme advantage is stupid. The fact that there's two people up there both capable of killing you makes it twice as bad. If the VS had their lightning able to do that, and there was just 1 person, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. But that's 2 people in a tank that takes a lot to bring it down. What are you thinking by letting this happen SOE? You strive for balance, but you let two person tanks mount mountains and rain death on spawn points like you just don't care about the NC and TR at all. It needs to stop. The VS can drive heavy tanks from TI Alloys over that land bridge to the top of the crown. That is NOT the intended purpose of that land bridge, and it gives the VS an absurd advantage when taking the crown if they own TI. That is NOT ok.
I was on Amerish, and took a lot of time winding my way up a mountain to the top so I could place an engie AV turret. What's fun is being way up there, being hard to kill, and exchanging fire with tanks that are on the ground. It's fun fighting off a LA that tries to come get you, but it's not fun at all when a Mag boosts up the mountain like it's a flat surface and blasts you without you being able to do a thing about it. I was on top of a steep mountain. Having a two person heavy tank get up there with ease makes me want to quit your stupid game. A harasser couldn't do it, a lighting couldn't do it, the Prow and Van hahaha. You let the Mag have reign over every nook and cranny of Auraxis. It needs to stop.

Summary: With the Magrider, SOE has created a vehicle that breaks the roll of how each type of vehicle is supposed to behave and what that vehicle is supposed to accomplish. By breaking the rolls of vehicles, it lets the VS have an unfair advantage on the ground that makes the game frustrating and unfun when on the receiving end of it. In a game that strives for balance, there's one vehicle that still stands out and needs to be addressed. Heavy tanks are heavy tanks, not flying speed boosters. It should be given armor on par with the Van and Prow, given a boost in weapon damage, but grounded and given the driving mechanics as if it were on treads. Fair is Fair, suck it up VS. Or don't nerf things, people hate nerfs, but they LOVE new content. Maybe the better route would be giving the VS a heavy tank on treads that behaves like the Van and Prow, while letting them keep the Magrider as well. But giving the NC and TR an extra vehicle too, that moves like the mag and has all the mobility advantages. Right now the Mag is in a vehicle class of its own, maybe that class should be expanded and given to the other factions. Then everybody is happy and the game will find balance. In either case, something needs to be done, because the Magrider as it is is not ok.

An AP/halberd magrider is second only to a tankbuster in terms of lethality to me.

holy great wall of text batman!

i'll try to read all of this and provide an opinion shortly.

1.) This is not a [PSA].

2.) Insulting people who disagree with you won't make them agree with you.

3.) Every tank has advantages and disadvantages. The Magrider is terrible for a low skilled player but scales extremely well with skill and experience. Skill and experience is extremely important for the other tanks as well, but much of what the Magrider can do isn't apparent to most players. In my opinion (still not a PSA) the tanks are fairly well balanced at both above average and the highest skill levels, but at the average and below average levels the Magrider is at a disadvantage.

That's the problem. Just letting you know.

How can we fix that without causing averse effects on MBT balance and Magrider functionality?

It is a question that the majority of players won't have an answer to, something that I wouldn't trust SOE to mess around with, and something I doubt is even possible.

I think the best solution is for the VS playerbase to learn how to use their tank properly. Honestly, I see more skilled Magrider users than I see skilled Vanguard or Prowler users, so they're already on their way.

the harraser lends itself to high level play nicely. i've yet to find a counter to a determined harraser crew. they aren't as agile or mobile, but they're 3 times faster. hitting a moving harraser at range with our AP cannon is anything but easy. the mag probably has the easiest time dealing with harassers however.

no dissent here. i've always championed the magrider as the best tank for many of the reasons you've mentioned, but it requires a different skill set to use it to its full potential. i cringe every time i see a column of magriders bunching up in a chokepoint when they could be up on the adjacent cliffs using its climbing to their advantage.

tank mines are a constant threat to me, so i'll disagree with that. i die more to tank mines (and ESF's) than to other tanks. typically i encounter more lockons than dumbfires simply because the mag is hard to hit with dumbfires. with the lockons however, i can mitigate the brunt of the damage by facing the rocket and taking it with my front plate, or i can magburn to cover to either break the lock or block the rocket. also running over enemy units is about 10 times harder than the weird instagib team kill physics. to run enemy infantry over in a magrider you have to kind of grab them and drag them around until they're dead. running people over with a treaded vehicles is more straightforward (also more predictable)

completely agree with this. farming with magriders is rampant and detrimental to the health of this game. farming in general is bad, but magriders take it to another level. the first time i got an 85+ kill streak with a PPA on hossin i was pretty shocked. the most mobile tank should not also have access to the most effective AI weapon in the game, especially on hossin and amerish where there is no spawn room the magrider can't get to.

old mcVanu had a farm....


with a pew pew here and a pew pew there.....


everywhere a pew pew......

its not exactly easy to navigate that kind of extreme terrain though. it has learning curve a lot of vanu tankers avoid. also by doing this with a magrider you put yourself in great risk as well for several reasons:

• an advantageously placed magrider is viewed as a high priority threat and as such warrants an extremely prompt response from your target, (if that target is a zerg you've been picking at, your only hope is them not noticing/forgetting your up there or else you're completely screwed.)

• by choosing to navigate extreme terrain you place yourself at great risk of flipping over. i have a 30% chance of killing myself doing this (especially on amerish) by slightly misjudging an angle and then tumbling helplessly to a rather humorous death. most mag pilots don't want to deal with that hassle so they avoid hugely advantageous terrain and stick to friendly vehicles

• a tank on the side of mountain is easy picking for the ruthless A2G ESF's and libs.

while i'll agree the magrider with an AI loadout is bull****, using the magrider as an effective AV platform requires a very specific playstyle that many VS tankers avoid, which is why the stats balance out the way they do. the mag could use some AI tweaking, that's it. other than that its perfect the way it is.

• 

I don't think Mags are that bad, though their narrow profile makes them bloody hard to hit at times and I think it's stupid that the explosion of a rocket that impacted the ground under where the mag is hovering does nothing. The fact they can get to places no other tank can is an annoying ability that seems really ******** for everyone else, but then again, ask any TR or VS tanker about the Vanguard shield and I can guarantee you'll get a similar response.

Also, Magriders make a really distinctive noise - you can hear them coming from miles away and you get a chance to prepare for the imminent arrival of the disco apocalypse.

I'd like to see the VS get more unique hover vehicles really, and I don't even play them that much.

Personally I believe the Magrider should no longer actually float and be treated like an actual tank. It can still appear to float but shouldn't actually in the gameplay sense. This would remove the Magriders hill climbing and fix complaints with mines (I wouldn't know about that one though because I don't use mines). From here the stats of the Magrider and it's weapons should be tweaked by looking at long term performance across the board.

A big problem is that a BR 1 can drive a tank with a similar skill to a BR 100 because they work like any other tank in any other game this makes it easy to balance because a change affects everyone the same. With the Magrider the skilled players may play very well and after a nerf still play good because they know to use the mobility to their advantage but a newbie may suffer greatly if they aren't used to the playstyle that comes with the Magrider. Something very similar happens with a buff too.

I disagree.

Tanks in Planetside are a good bit different from any other game I've seen. Games with tanks as a core feature usually have their own take on how to make it work. Additionally, there's a decent learning curve and high skill cap to tanking in Planetside.

The Vanguard is as generic as tanking gets in shooters bar the shield function that isn't hard to learn at all.

Generic in what way? Because it looks, moves, and shoots like a stereotypical tank? That has nothing to do with the actual mechanics or how the game is played.

The only things the magrider received were nerf, so...

I would think moving and shooting are pretty important factors that determine how the game is played.

Magrider OP?

lol.

Magriders are fine. They just have a higher skill cap. (outside of the PPA)

A bad or mediocre Mag crew will die to my AP Lightning most of the time.

A good crew is scary.

When you think about it, it kinda strikes a balance with their easy to use Infantry weapons; harder to use tank but more rewarding once you learn how to use the thing.

I will say that Ive killed far more Magriders with an AP Lightning than Prowlers and Vanguards...maybe even put together. However, a straight up AV Magrider with a half decent crew will decimate me in a Lightning easily.

It is funny that TR and VS still will say that Vanguard is the best tank when clearly it isn't, Anchor prowler can take Vang down pretty freaking fast and AP / Saron Magrider kills Vanguard in the time is needs to reload main gun on right circumstances..
What i have played with Prowler / Magrider / Vang id say MBT:s are fine atm on AV performance!

But yeah overall i would play with Magrider out of all MBT:s BECAUSE;
1. Agile
2. Climbing ability
3. More stable
4. INSANE av burst
5. Clearly takes less skill than other MBT:s
6. By far the most fun MBT
7. PPA(yes even after the incoming nerf)

And BEFORE anybody says anything about the Vanguard better armor or the high damage main gun.. news flash, Vang has 5% more armor and even when the damage is BIGGER on main gun the DPS(damage per second) is only around 100 more than on Magrider since Mag has faster reload... SO in the end those small numbers doesn't mean nothing, the one wins who doesn't miss or gets the jump on other in AV / AV battle!

This whining is pretty pointless what ppl does again, but yeah Magrider should get some mobility adjustment on those ridiculous climbing it can do so it would be BAR with other MBT:s and how crappy they climb on a mountains / hills!

-FLAME ON!!!!!

Only on forumside is the slowest vehicle in the game, that deals the least damage out of all the MBTs the most OP

Also you are missusing the PSA tag. This is not PSA

What a lengthy and laughably contrived post, no amount of waffle is going to change the fact that a 1 second Mag burner every 20 seconds is not as effective as a shield or lockdown, it's also not going to change the fact that in an even fight the Magrider will always lose to a Vanguard or Prowler.

That might be true if only they didn't have a shield which makes them take no damage. Meaning they can output at least 2 extra shots that the Magrider can't do anything about. Even if you were to get the jump on a Vanguard the outcome is pretty dicey especially if they're rolling a AP/Heat with Enforcer/halberd lineup.