[Suggestion] Give Vanguard Shield a Downside

One of the things I get annoyed about is most vanguard drivers I see on the forums here saying shield only grants one extra tank shell in mitigation. In practice that's never been the case unless we're talking about rear armor hits. So rather than rely on anecdotal evidence, I decided to crunch the numbers myself. Anyone care to check my values for error: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lnnAJzrI9CrmJ1B9DzJnVTSiqVT26Sys7AZwlq4VvDk/edit?usp=sharing

These are for AP weapons only, so greatest benefit to the Magrider. Sorry Prowler drivers, I don't have a TR char so I didn't calc numbers for prowler guns. Also, this is assuming all 6 shots of a Saron volley hit the target.

Basically, frontal or side shots will absorb greater than 1 full volley from main cannon and Saron or Halber gunner. In the case of the Saron top gun, it'll absorb 1 full volley + all but 166 damage from the next main cannon shot for frontal armor hits, or 370 damage for side armor. That's also assuming that all shots on target from the gunner are accurate. If the gunner only lands roughly 50% of their hits (for whatever reason, bad shot, target partially obscurred, etc), the shield will absorb almost 2 full volleys from both main and secondary gunner. The halberd is worse, although only requires one shot to do its maximum damage.

Rear armor shots with FPC + Saron: even with a shield popped, if I unload a second volley into a target's behind, they're still dead (roughly 6500 damage between 2 volleys). Good vanguard drivers rarely will allow me a second full volley into the rear though, they'll at least get their side armor into position before the second one goes out, which will mitigate the second volley completely and part of the third as noted above. That's why if you're flanking a vanguard position, if there is more than one vanguard even if you successfully ambush and hit the rear armor, you're going to need at least 6 more seconds of firing time (reload times between second and third volleys) to kill the target, and with 2+ vanguards with gunners pounding on you, you may not have that long.

That, in a nutshell, is why I hate the shield. If I meet a single vanguard that's coming down the road the opposite direction and we're within 100m of each other, I'm in big trouble. Chances are we're both running stealth (since we got that close without seeing each other on the map), so I know the driver isn't a dummy. Unless I have cover close to hand that I can magburn behind, I will lose. Even then, it's likely that the vanguard will still come round and kill me anyway, as the distance won't be great enough for me to rep the damage I took and they shielded through.

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We'll begin with a spin traveling in the world of my creation what we'll see will defy explanation.

That sounds like a design problem of the Vanguard Shield itself, rather than a numbers problem. Right now it is a very general ability, if it should have a downside while it is active I would highly suggest the mechanic be redone to support that. The vibe I am getting is that since it can be used in nearly every situation there is no point in not using it on a Vanguard, thus making it OP. So how do you make it more situational? What do we want the Vanguard Shield to do? Should it be scrapped and replaced entirely?

Man, this reminds me of an old thread I made a long time ago when people were complaining about the VG Shield being OP (This was before the nerf to 2,000 HP from 3,000 HP).

Absolutely agree, everything you said is correct, but i see no problem with it.
If you want to know why, just look at your sig picture...
I wont say movement directly correlates to extra health in a fight, but the devs gave the van more health and the mag more movement.
While your ability will not be as useful in a fight, ours isnt useful at all unless there is a fight.

The stats are meaningless, the only reason the vanguard is behind in stats is that:
Magriders need to be 2/2 to be effective, so they have more 2/2.
Prowlers are solo AI farming machines.
A 1/2 vanguard sucks at AI, and will lose to 2/2 magrider, so its stats get skewed like crazy..

A 2/2 AP/AV Vanguard is the best AV tank in the game at 1v1 tank battles.
You only lose a 1v1 in a vanguard if you let a prowler get behind you, lockdown, and shoot your rear while your shield is on cooldown.

How many 1v1 tank battles have you had recently that weiged in against the whole objective of taking bases?

Yeah, except you can totally win face to face against a vanguard with the prowler (both AP, no reload speed), it takes 14.5 seconds to blow up a vanguard (+6 seconds with the shield, and depending on when the shield is activated you can eat through it with the prowler.) and it takes 20 seconds for the vanguard to blow up a prowler, yeah, so the shield is the only thing that prevents the vanguard from losing every single match against prowlers, timing is the key, whoever lands the first shot (if no successive shots miss) wins.

Before that vanguards used to have a 1 shot advantage because the max rank shield lasted for 8 seconds.

Also there is no way to win a long range engagement against a prowler with that stupid lockdown ability, see? tanks have roles too.

Tanks don't take bases, that is infantry domain.
Tanks only have 1 purpose in a base fight, killing the enemy sunderer, if you use a tank for anything else you are just a farmer.

I have a splitting headache this morning, it seems I was drunk and in this thread until 1 in the morning.. ouch.

Silly Stalkish. People don't play Planetside to take bases. They play Planetside to pad their K/D.
And If something like a Van can take out their armored K/D farming machines because they're to busy farming, then it's obvously OP.
Which is why we also need to nerf HA all the time. Rockets with an ability to survive indirect HE/Heat rounds and have good AI ability is much to OP against tanks. I mean c'mon. HAs are walking tanks!

That's not true, someone had collated those stats a month or so ago, the proportion of 1/2 & 2/2 Vans and Mags was similar, in the very early days of PS2 Mags ran somewhat more 1/2 (probably because of PS1 issues), but not anymore, and not for a long time now.

The Vans just underperform or perform on-par taking into account 1/2 & 2/2 issues.

Exactly the point i was making. Winning a 1v1 tank brawl does nothing to help your team.

Not sure why you've mentioned this tbh, other than maybe judging other peoples gameplay, elitest much?
Nothing wrong with people farming if that makes them happy, personaly i find it boring but i wont try to belittle others for doing it, thats just immature drivel.

Yes. Higby does. You know, that thing magriders have, called strafe? In mid ranges lockdown is necessary to him them enough.

Oh don't get me wrong, I love the ability to spider-tank my way into unorthodox positions. It's one of the things that enables a magrider to get the initial surprise attack. It's not 100% guaranteed to work, and sometimes terrain will never allow you to get into a proper flanking position (looking at you Hossin mountains! ), but it is fun.

I guess the problem I have is your last sentence really. You are also 100% correct, and ultimately a tank's job IS to fight. So while our ability may or may not be useful in one, yours always is.

Lol, ye.
Gone are the days of old, thats for sure m8.
I miss them tbh, fond memories of PG and our ops.

Game design and the players it attracted are to blame imo.

I hope you are joking... There is something very wrong with people that farm infantry with vehicles...
A few guys happiness is not an acceptable tradeoff for all the unhappiness their farming causes.
The good of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

The stats are skewed... as a stock vanguard is a POS compared to a stock prowler.
If you are new and you pull a stock vanguard you will not kill nearly as many people as you will in a stock prowler.
If I pull a stock magrider solo, I am free cert pinata to either of the other MBTs..

I play all 3 factions... I am not a tanker main.. so I have no bias..

Agreed, its a descision the devs made, without enough thought if you ask me. Give one tank an combat only ability while giving the other a kind of all round ability thats not as strong in 1 area. Problem is as you say, tanks are for fighting, but i can see where the devs can deduct balance, however ill-conceived it may be.
I would consider tho that being able to lock down areas within bases that the other tanks cant get at is a bonus derrived from the burner tho, but farming troops is boring as hell anyways hehe.

I agree, the non-shielded Van is pants compared to any Prowler or Magrider (it is the shield that drags it back on-par), but as I said when they collated 1/2 and 2/2 Vans and Mags the ratios were pretty much the same.

This was/is further backed up by the Vans stats dropping significantly when the shield was bugged.

@LibertyRevolution
you are a spoon

The Vehicle (Ground and Air) farming issue is as much an issue of base/terrain design, vehicle availability/accessibility, and Infantry vs vehicle balance, as it is about personal gameplay choices. The Devs & SOE created a game that incentivizes instant gratification over a game that incentivizes working toward strategic objectives.
You can blame farmers all you want, but they're playing the game based on what gives them the greatest payoff. Until that changes no amount of rebalancing vehicles alone or talking down to those farmers will solve the over-arching issue that people will do whatever they can to farm if farming is the best way to achieve their personal goals, be that farming certs or padding K/D.

what im surprised about is how they put the heavy assault shield on the tank and the heavy assault, but not their max nor reaver.