[Vehicle] The Prowler's Vulcan is underperforming and really needs its COF tweaked

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by EliteEskimo, Jan 17, 2015.

  1. EliteEskimo

    Intro
    After trying out the Vulcan at various ranges both for myself and getting the opinion of those who regularly gun for my tank or tank in general I don't think the Vulcan on the Prowler is in a good/ok spot yet. The current COF still doesn't make for a very competitive weapon around the 150-200 meter range which is a normal distance for tank fighting to occur at. The Vulcan is already at a considerable disadvantage if the enemy is moving while partially hulled down or has cover due to peak shots due to the wind up time and lack of precision firing. I know Higby had tried to change the damage fall off values, which was a good part of the problem, however due to the COF it's difficult to make the bullets actually land on a MBT particularly if it's moving now that you cannot burst fire. I believe tightening the COF will be a good step at trying to resolve this issue.

    Pictures Using the Oracle of Death site comparing the current ES MBT Secondaries

    Vehicle KPH
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    Vehicle KPU
    [IMG]



    KPH



    [IMG]


    KPU

    [IMG]

    KPU for Q1 players



    [IMG]

    KPU for Q4 Players
    [IMG]


    Please keep in mind this suggestion to tweak the COF is only in regards to the Prowler's Vulcan, this change is not needed for the Harasser since it is able to close the distance on vehicles considerably faster all while avoiding damage with its speed/small profile, and then escaping with Turbo.
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  2. EliteEskimo


    You know I kinda figured that the fact that the Vulcan wouldn't have a problem being effective at point blank range when all its bullets would land would be obvious.Make a video of the performances at 150, 200, and 300 meters, and also one where the vehicle is partially hulled down at those ranges.
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  3. EliteEskimo

  4. Pelojian

    we just received some balance changes for vulcan. will you ever be happy that they gave us time or is it perhaps because they are giving some time to enforcer and saron that you want another pass?

    the devs have given vulcan some work, now it's time for enforcer/saron then tank survivability changes and then they can move onto other things that are already on their list.
  5. EliteEskimo


    It was more of a case of I wanted to sit back and wait a little while to try it out myself first, wait long enough to see how/if the stats would align with how I felt, and then go from there. Enough time has gone by for stats to be collected, as you can see the Prowler's Vulcan is clearly underperforming in literally every meaningful category in which data can be collected. The tank HP buffs or changes to the Enforcer or Saron will not magically solve the bad COF issues the Vulcan has and I'm not going to sit idly and let it be forgotten.
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  6. Dfog


    Wow, it only killed the vanguard 1-2 seconds before the enforcer and saron at POINT BLANK range. The vulcan damage starts dropping off at 10 METERS, that is the same distance carbine damage starts dropping off. Imagine fighting at 200m where the damage of the vulcan drops by 25% AND not all the bullets are hitting because of the COF. Now, imagine that the enemy is partially behind cover in a combat situation and you may be lucky to get a third of the vulcan's "before 10m" damage while all of the other top guns have no damage drop off and don't have an uncontrollable cone of fire.

    Tighten COF and increase drop-off distance to 100 meters. 10 meters is close range for infantry, 100m is close range for tanks.
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  7. ronjahn

    While the Vulcan is clearly below its counterparts in those graphs, I don't personally think it's all that jaw dropping or dramatic of a difference. For its weakness on paper, it absolutely shreds everything in CQC. While I guess a slight COF buff wouldn't end the world, I'd prefer we see how the new versions perform before assuming that the Vulcan is going to continue to be underwhelming in comparison.

    Also I' pretty much sick of the constant nerf/buff cycle of these ESAV weapons. I want them to leave them as is and work on releasing new weapons. Our obsessions with making these weapons perform perfectly balanced and our constant demanding for changes has allowed the devs to lazily never release a new MBT secondary since release. My call on these at this point is leave as is and release new weapons that address the current weapons weaknesses. TR and VS get a long range continuous damage weapon like an Enforcer, while the NC get a short range burst damage weapon like the Saron/Vulcan.

    For example, when the Saron/Enforcer get changed again, this will be I believe the 4 iteration of these weapons. They are completely changing the mechanics and these are going to feel like different weapons. I ask, "why not just create new weapons?"
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  8. WTSherman

    Keep in mind those are the PTS changes. The Saron and Enforcer are receiving buffs that, apparently, will bring them much closer to the Vulcan's performance.

    In their current state, the Enforcer would finish at the same time the Halberd did in that video, while the Saron would finish slightly before the Enforcer.

    And the fact is, as long as the Vulcan is a high rate of fire machinegun, any cone of fire changes have to keep its effectiveness against infantry and aircraft in mind.
  9. TheMish


    I wouldn't trust that site so much, but anyway...

    Yeah I think it definitely needs to change. It needs to be significantly different than the Harasser.
  10. Auzor

    i wonder if the MBT-Vulcan should really be a "minigun".. make it an autocannon and problem solved: more accurate, but lower RoF.
    Enforcer: 60 rpm
    Saron: 284 rpm* (at short range only realistically)
    current vulcan: 800 rpm. That could easily be slashed in half, whilst also slashing the Cone of Fire in half.

    Enforcer fires at mbt: dmg/s: 500*1.5= 750.
    "new vulcan": 400/60*143*0.59= 562.5. At point blank range: 400/60*167*0.59=657.
    750 /0.59*60/400=191dmg/shot.
    MBT-vulcan: 200 dmg/shot, 400 rpm; make it drop off to 125 dmg as per current. You're still firing 6.66 times as fast as the NC..
    Please note that the vulcan has a bigger mag than the enforcer, justifying the lower dmg at range: continuous fire.
    Another way: keep 167 dmg, adjust RoF: 750/0.59*60/167=457 rpm.

    One big issue: it becomes very similar to a basilisk, with better mag size and better performance versus vehicles.

    What you can't get: 800 rpm, with zero CoF.
    As the damage output would obviously be lower, I would keep the big mag size; a TR trait.
  11. Huishe

    Can we have vulcan turned into quad fracture mentioned on higby pls and be done with it?
  12. player16

    Statistics i would not complain about a range increase or a tweak in its cone of fire so it has a little bit more of range, but the problem is that most of the time is still difficult to find a gunner so kills per hour may be still low, yesterday i found a gunner and near the biolab and and we destroyed one lighting from afar that was me without anchoring so the gunner did not flee, then we went to the fry we destroyed i think a sundy and the other lighting and a magrider (or maybe not and it was the one we had to flee from) there was another one that was coming and we have to flee very damaged and repair we went back and he was repairing near the bridge we killed him and another sundy there was also a harasser with vulcan helping and then another magrider finally destroyed us i think is perfectly fine if you want to go to the fray. And against infantry very useful also, what i am scared is about the buff to the other tanks secondaries.
  13. Angry Scientist

    You have to keep in mind that while the vulcan may be weak at range, the prowler's main cannons are very much not. Lockdown DPS is unbeatable in any situation where you can't make the flank. Complaints about immobility aside, it's well worth keeping in mind. If the vulcan was tweaked to perform at range like saron/enforcer, the prowler would hold all advantages. Superior DPS up close where main gun is easy to land, superior DPS at range where lockdown reigns.

    You may not like it, but it's a heavy influence.
  14. Mxiter

    The only problem on a Low-no-cof vulcan would be AI efficiency.

    Of course, it can be done by doing insignifants base damages (50-75 damage per bullets wich means 20-14 BTK) and adjusting vehicles resistances to makes it even as the enforcer/saron at this job.

    It's slight AV close range damage advantage don't worth its poor range efficiency.

    Especially after seen this:

    1-2/16 second better TTK (10-12%) when all bullets hit for losing so much range, what a joke! As comparison, a shotgun lose range efficiency for 200% better TTK.
  15. Flag

    I see your point EliteEskimo.
    But all I'm reminded of is how the P2 guns are performing relative to the Titan and Supernova ones.
  16. Nepau

    In all honesty the only reason I would be againts them looking at the Vulcan again is simply because they can't seem to split chancing the MBT and Harraser versions, and they seem to have to change both versions to fix issues on 1 or the other. I'm just afraid that any changes they would to to improve the Prower version would buff the Harraser Variant which by no means needs another buff currently.
  17. omgBAMF

    I wish they would just give us a true GAU-8 style weapon and call it a day. Lower the damage if need be, but please at least make it fun to use... it IS a 30mm gatling gun after all.

  18. EliteEskimo


    The problem is the Vulcan on the Prowler isn't worth pulling like 80-90% of the time due to its terrible COF, it has less overall utility than the burst firing adjustable cof Vulcan of the past. I'm in full agreement the Harasser Vulcan needs no buffs, that should be blatantly obvious to the developers even if they don't use vehicles much. The Vulcan on the Harasser feels powerful and versatile, while the Prowler's feels meh at best outside of 100 meters.
  19. Thrustin

    I'd rather they split the ES secondaries between the Harasser and the MBT into separate weapons. E.g for the MBT, you have a fracture type ES for TR, and the old version secondaries (one-shot type) for NC and VS. For the harassers, the secondaries stay the same as there are now. From my limited experience as a gunner for a prowler, I don't think the vulcan would ever really fit in, even if you tighten the CoF. You're better off from creating a new weapon from scratch.
  20. EliteEskimo

    The main gun of the Prowler has really nothing to do with this. The vast .majority of TR tankers use the Halberd which is the most skill based and arguably the most effective MBT secondary in the game and it also meshes with Anchormodr and works well at all ranges. It has Alpha Strike, precision accuracy if you can account for drop and works great for popping in and out of cover. The Prowler's Vulcan has non of this going for it. The Magrider and Vanguard would likely die less to and kill more Prowlers trying to use a Vulcan ad opposed to a Locked down AP/Halberd Prowler engaging them 300 meters away.

    From a logical standpoint the Vanu/NC would benefit from us using the Vulcan because the Prowler is best suited for a bombardment role and the Vulcan encourages people to not do that. I can accept that the Prowler's Vulcan will probably never be as useful as the Halberd, but it should at the very least be powerful and useful enough in enough scenarios that I don't feel gimped when choosing it.