[Suggestion] TR Lockdown should either be a passive ability or be shielded.

Meanwhile NC and VS Maxes can farm for days strafing walls to farm tanks downbelow, while we have to use arced pounders or weakass fractures to do the same, pounders being hard to properly aim while strafing, meanwhile VS get no bullet drop rockets or insta-hit AV and ravens move to where your mouse is.

He wasn't talking about Prowlers. Seriously, go elsewhere.

I call BS. NC Can hold it better without lockdown because shotguns, strafing, shields, etc. VS are the ones who you could argue cannot, but their bonus firepower comes with extra mobility which is actually, you know, useful.

YES.

Meanwhile ZOE is still unviable....

I believe the post was originally about Anchored Mode for the Prowler, which he referred to as Lockdown mode either by mistake or just in general, but he then opened it up to the Max ability Lockdown. In the reply threads CursoryRaptor and Wreckcenter were replying to each other, they were definitely talking about Prowlers the whole thread. I actually thought the whole thread was about the MAX ability Lockdown myself, didn't know he was referring to Anchored Mode mostly. Anchored Mode for Prowlers actually isn't such a bad deal, great for AA, long range attacking, and suppression. Not bad for 1v1 tank battles in an open field where maneuverability isn't as important as damage output. Just situational. Great DPS buff with additional weaknesses. I would actually support some kind of armor buff when deployed, maybe when deployed it extends additional front armor increasing Damage Resistance for that section of armor. Definitely not an all around Damage Resistance buff or an energy shield though.

on topic:
-anchor is fine in terms of benefits, it just needs to be less painful to activate
-lockdown is fine IMO, maxes are easy targets anyways and it's ridiculously powerful for defending/AA (complements charge, which is good for pushing)

Locked down dual onslaughts are truly something to be feared <3
Moar dakka!
Anyways, the current lockdown tries to strike a balance between sheer killing power and versatility. Yea, you cant go head to head with a scat max in cqc, but the TR max excels are suppressive fire - more of a supportive platform.
Anyone who discounts pounder maxes with lockdown as sundy buster can bite the dust as I reduce their sundies to smoking piles of wrecks. Seriously, the ability to lay down that much fire in that short of a time is uncontested. You can almost lay down as much fire as 2-3 NC/VS maxes. AND you can do it even without LOS on the target, making use of the pounder arc.
Im happy being the faction that specialises in complete area denial (ie prowler lockdown )

Pls DBG, dont ruin infantry balance

Stop going off topic. The post you quoted me replying to talked about an entirely different system than the post that he was replying to. Read before attempting to correct people.

Now that we're talking about LOCKDOWN and not ANCHORED MODE which is an entirely different topic, MAXes are not good for defence. Grenade spam kills their engies and they take twice as long to res. They're far better at punching through heavily defended points and such, much less effective at defence.

The only ones that this doesn't apply to are NC who get instagib shotguns to demolish everyone with, but even they are vulnerable to grenade spam with their engies/medics dying.

So don't come complaining about TR using their MAXes for the wrong strategy... the strategy with MAX units is to be a room clearer, to bust open chokes and move the fight forward. In the intended situations, Lockdown is completely useless.

It isn't balanced honestly. It needs a buff if we're being pidgeonholed into doing what a MAX shouldn't be (camping).

The other maxes can use their abilities to perform the appropriate jobs a MAX is supposed to do. The Shield can absorb tons of damage, and ZOE can move faster and do more damage. Sure they have serious drawbacks (not being able to shoot, and being wet paper bags respectively), but at least they have SOME uses.

Really?

I'm pretty sure when he says "TR heavy armor" he's talking about the Prowler.

We're sorry. We'll try to do better next time.

Yay more people who spend their time in threads correcting others rather than actually adding intelligent, useful discussion. This is why the devs don't go here.

Err, you told him to.

Why don't you use your HA and hold still for a couple seconds? An even smaller target and I can still hit you reliably.
That might barely work against people who need 4 shots to gauge the distance and drop, but not against guys who spent a couple hours to get a feeling for their tank. You're lucky if you can make one MBT run, never mind several.

And don't talk about fractures like they were somthing special. Lockdown makes them barely useable past 60m, Ravens and Vortek can be used perfectly without a special ability thats likely to kill yourself.

Just so you know, prowlers are the best performing tanks right now. Not that you care; mind you.

Not enough firepower and snipers. MAXes don't give a poo about snipers.

So what? Even if you will hit me with AP shell I will survive as MAX, fall back and repair. Then come back while you're distracted by other targets and wreck your schidt.

You have got to be kidding me, since I killed tanks with Fractures from 200+ range.

... Don't have that much DPS. They are good, yes, but not that good.

For some reason now I feel like I need to make a video about lockdown AV MAX.

You are so clueless I'm scared to be honest.

ZoE gives you ONE bullet less to kill with in 10m. That is going from 6 bullets to 5 bullets to kill on your dual wielding max giving you ZERO decrease in time to kill within 10m and INCREASE beyond 10m while being lit up like a Christmas Tree taking 25% extra damage from EVERYTHING. But since that is so OP how about we trade TR? You get our current ZoE ability and we take Lockdown from you poor suffering MAXes (and we'll show you how it can really be used)...

If you get an MBT in a flanking position (using mobility), then you often can stop worrying about maneuverability and you suddenly want all the DPS you can get to make use of your flanking ability. The Anchor mode does just that. It's not really an in-combat ability (although there are tactics that allow it to be used in-combat, I rarely see them though), also the Prowler base chassis has more then enough advantage in it's speed, turn-ratio's, reload+double-shot and DPS.

I would personally create an additional special ability for each faction, one for moving and one for standing still for instance, or one for attack and one for defense. Maybe even a few "NS" abilities.
NS abilities could range from being able to carry infantry on the hull to allow vehicles to temporarily increase their traction and motor power for higher acceleration and hill-climbing etc.
TR could get the ability to reverse-gear. When activated, they can go backwards as fast as forwards for the duration of the ability after which it goes on cooldown. Perfect for retreating while keeping your front-armor to your enemy
Maybe allow it to temporarily boost it's turn-ratio so it can better use it's speed to flank when getting behind enemy tanks, rather than it being a way to expose it's own back while trying to get behind someone else.
Sticky-shells? Rather than shells that instantly explode, you can stick multiple shells on someone or something and detonate them with "F" later on, or they explode after the ability expires/you press the activation button again. This is helpful as your enemy doesn't realize how much damage there is on his hull, and he might go for repairs too late. So you have an incredible advantage in taking out pop-up tanks that keep surviving through repairs. Also would be the most idiotically powerful tool for flanking: shoot a ton of shells on top of enemy tanks and hope they don't see them, if you've tagged several with enough shells for OHK's, let it explode. Which is why it might be better to make it an activate able ability on a cooldown rather than a passive.

NC could get a number of things. The ability to push any tank, from Flashes to MBT's, Sunderers and even Galaxies, with little to no loss of speed, this could even be a passive ability to pump up the base-chassis. An "arc-weld" ability, by charging the outer-hull of the Vanguard any tank (and maybe even infantry) that comes close gets damaged by an electric bolt for the duration, dealing damage as long as the enemy is close. Could optionally set off explosives such as C4 and mines at a tiny range to mitigate (not avoid) damage
Being able to deploy and project a bubble-shield to protect friendly tanks and infantry (or enemy tanks and infantry if they drive/walk through it), destruction of the shield locks the Vanguard in place so there is a definite trade-off for getting your shield destroyed or re-deploying before it is crushed.
"second shot" ability where you can avoid the reload and fire another shell instantly after which it goes into cooldown and any reload you had is reset to start over again.
Rail-shot, allowing you to fire through one or even two things. So you could hit a tank dealing damage and then the tank behind it for extra damage, or even shoot an engineer through a tank.

VS could activate an ability and have several shots worth of no-drop ammo (say it is a 15-second duration ability). They could also activate an EMP-like ability on their shells, any tank caught in the blast can't deploy/redeploy while under the effect, and all abilities are set on overheat/energy drained. So Vanguard shields are drained, as well as Heavy shields, Jetpacks, Fire Supression, Magburn if you do friendly fire... Ofcourse the shell-ability itself also has a cooldown. The advantage is ofcourse being able to take away the advantage of multiple tanks, advantages they might be counting on.
Improved hover ability? Allow the Magrider to hover higher off the ground, up to it's own height or something. Can be a passive even in exchange for Magburner or something.
Magrider Anchor, no idea actually. Maybe someone else got something? Maybe it couldn't be an Anchor mode per-ce, it could also slow down the Magrider to a crawl, but also allow it to climb incredibly steep surfaces up to 70 degree's or something?

Would anyone prefer a TR max ability that increases 'dakka' a little bit, but without the lockdown?
10-15% increased rate of fire for x seconds.

OR

When activated: You don't need to reload while ability active, and can keep the dakka flowing directly from your big ammo pool. Maybe lasts long enough to use up 3 magazines worth of ammo for the AI guns, with a long cooldown on the ability.
Potential downside: You can't stop firing. activating the ability means you'll use 3 mags worth of ammo per arm.