Will the Rear Armor bonus of Blockade Armor ever be addressed?

I sat down and did the numbers as I had a bit of free time after dinner.

Using a Mag AP + Halberd (low on the DPS scale compared to a Prowler / Halberd) with no extra armor it looks something like this

AP Shot 535.5 damage to rear armor of max blockade. 3.38 sec reload cycle (w/ max reload)

Halberd 450 damage to rear armor of max blockade. 2.76 sec reload cycle (w/max reload)

Initial burst - 985.5 damage

1435.5 dmg - 2.76 seconds into encounter : HAL

1971 dmg - 3.38 seconds into encounter : AP

2421 - 5.52 seconds into encounter : HAL

2956 - 6.76 seconds into encounter : AP

3406 - 8.28 seconds into encounter : HAL

3941.5 10.14 seconds into encounter : AP

4391 11.04 seconds into encounter : HAL

4926.5 13.52 seconds into encounter : AP (Another Halberd can fire in 0.28 seconds) At this point the sunderer is dead having 4750 HP.

Basilisk - 351 RPM or 5.85 Rounds per second

32.375 damage per shot against front armor

36.67 damage per shot against side armor
(Assuming 2 gunners so double the damage)

Against front armor - (32.375 x 2) x 5.85 = 378.7875 Damage per second

Against side armor - (36.67 x2) x 5.85 = 429.039 damage per second

Tanks have 4000 HP so 10.56 sec TTK against front 9.323 TTK against side

MBT damage against side armor = +232.05 damage on the AP round and +195 on the halberd

So to turn the fight around by 10.14 they need 2 out of 4 AP rounds and 2 out of 4 Halberd rounds to hit side armor.
(We are assuming 100% accuracy on both sides here, but we can also assume the tank might take some damage to the side as well, so they will have between 9.3 and 10.6 seconds to kill the sundy.) So at the 8.28 second mark they would need 2 of 3 AP's to be against side armor and 2 of 4 Halberds.

If the tank is using reinforced front armor, the TTK is extended to 12.21

If using reinforced side armor, TTK is 11.49

As far as what to consider, 2 operators vs. 3. AP / AP tank vs. Armored Sunderer with "All round" type weapon (As Sunderers lack a dedicated AV weapon). I personally don't have a strong opinion one way or the other, just putting some stuff out there (that I hope is right!)

*notes*
It is worth keeping in mind, the sunderer TTK is assumes max damage (up to 10 M away). I couldn't track down the data for what the Fury does against heavy armor. Also that Prowler + Vulcan and Vanguard + Enforcer would have better results, but I just went for the lowest AP DPS.

your comment didnt show up before i replied...

You should be using Furies not the basilisks.

Tank drivers will always see the Furybus coming since they run Blockade and not stealth, meaning the Sunderer will be on their minimap well beyond effective Fury range.

With that warning, any properly AV-fitted MBT has a more than fair chance to kill the Sunderer even if the Sunderer is showing the strongest armor facing.

It basically boils down to this: Has the MBT allowed the Sunderer to drive up and achieve 100% hit rate with both Furies before opening fire? Sorry you got outplayed.

Has the MBT a good working relationship with his gunner and is using the minimap attentively? You'll likely outplay the Sunderer if you can land the first strike.

At the end of the day, an MBT using the AP main gun and the empire-specific AV secondary has easily enough damage output to smash a Blockade Sunderer from the back.

Vanguards shield and outlast - high alpha from the main gun, sustained output from Enforcer. Magrider pilots have the toolset to force misses from the Sunderer's guns or just keep the range open. Prowlers have the highest damage output of all three, especially up close.

Is a competently crewed Battlebus of some concern for an MBT? Sure....But an AV-equipped MBT has all the tools on hand to win anyway, given equally skilled and coordinated crews.

Your not getting the point.

The rear armor bonus of blockade armor is out of wack compared to the other parts of it.

Although I do agree that the rear armor is a bit too much I don't quite agree that a sundy can scare a MBT.

It might deal damage or kill you if you don't have a gunner... but in my perspective that is fair.

lmao, you take the cake. I'm not upset about anything other than your unwillingness to engage on any facet of the topic besides 'The rear can take more damage' and 'The Sunderer is fast', both of which are obvious and general knowledge. Your thread has no actual discussion, it's one guy beating a tired drum and a few psychophants patting him on the back.

Grats, you nailed it. I spent several posts trying to engage the topic, to be repeatedly told 'The rear armor is too strong.' Yes, and? Did anyone consider why it is 'so strong', or did we just see some numbers and get angry. That ScrinRusher felt the need to belittle my post just because I played devil's advocate, and kill him with my blockade Sunderer, comes across as petty.

BBL, I'm not done being the bad guy. This thread is at a nice simmer.

We're on the planetside2 forums, check your logic at the door. The rear armor value is twice as much as the rest of the sides, the QQ will continue until something else distracts the seething masses.

Battle sundies can and do outright kill 2/2 av MBTs, once the sundy gets in close enough dual furies do insane damage to armor for some reason, then the driver can just get out and repair if they didn't totally get the jump on them, and when they do get the jump on you, GOOD BYE, by the time they finish emptying both furies into your rear you're dead, even VGs with the shield have no chance.

MBTs only hope is to get the sundy from the side or front from a long ways away, course they'll withdraw comeback later at 80 kph out of no where and vaporize you. The rear armor bonus should be removed and the balance between these vehicles will be greatly improved.

Don't let the Sundy get close?

Oh no, another nerf call put down with common sense and situational awareness. I knew there was a reason I stopped posting here.

To actually contribute, and put down the naysayers, I run ProxRep on my BattleBus, minus the Walker AA setup. The tears collected here will fuel me for weeks.

its 3 man crew > 2 man MBT
it's not even close to solo Tank Buster

as a tank driver, i dont see a problem with that:

• Sunderers driving backwards have limited mobility. the driver also wont know where he is driving to making him susceptible to hitting tankmines
• Sunderers lack the firepower (especially at longer range) of MBTs
• Sunderers need three people to be effective, MBTs are already pretty combat-effective with one and are the most powerful ground vehicle with two people
• Sunderers move like a schoolbus full of fat kids. at least the Magrider has turbo/agility, the Prowler is faster and the Vanguard has a shield

Dstock is really trying hard to de-rail this topic.


Looks like he doesn't want people talking about something he abuses.

Did you see the things I linked?


The issue with rear armor is that its not inline with the other sides of blockade armor.

Thats hard to do considering how Sunderers are faster then all MBT's in both forward & reverse speeds. They can also keep pace with lightnings.

Considering the tooltip has always pointed out the discrepancy, it seems pretty intentional.

Just be happy the Sunderer's weaker spots are so large compared to its strong spot.

And since Blockade Sunderers by definition don't have vehicle stealth, you have about 75m warning via minimap to shoot first anyway, allowing for reaction time from the max minimap appearance range.

As a small note, hit directionality on vehicles ignores _where_ on the vehicle you hit. It only looks at the angle formed by tracing a line from the attack's point of origin to the centerpoint of the target vehicle.

Just put some thought into it and you may be more right than I thought to begin with.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

- Prowler has no choice but to pick the fight since it cannot run away or risk deploying due to flanking. But it should be able to deal significant damage if it has the vulcan on and AV. Question is, will it be enough? (Would like to see that tested). At range I don't think the sundy stands a chance once the prowler deploys and starts the nuke.

- Vanguard with a fully upgraded shield should be able to defend itself. But with the new mechanic, once the burst is drained does the Vanguard put out enough damage to actually take the sundy down? (Would also like to see that tested). I fear that it actually may not.

- If the Magrider is able to boost to a distance and dodge a few shots it may be able to take the sundy down. Question is, does the burner provide enough power to distance itself properly from the sundy? (Would also also like to see that tested). If not, it is probably the easiest of MBT's to take down, especially due to it's large hitbox.

I can see how this may raise some questions.

But I believe I recall mentioning something similar in one of his vids. Some things in Planetside may be considered OP depending on how they are used and are therefore balanced according to the amount of people using them it that specific manner.

FX, say they used a Galaxy, pilot + 2 gunners instead of a sundy. Those are super rare but even more deadly and devastating than a 3 manned sundy. Because most ground vehicles cannot even hit them. And what is the counter? You actually need to pull at least 2 skyguards to kill it before it escapes and returns on full HP. And it can escape a lot faster and more efficiently than a sundy, right? It can also defend itself against air.

So does that make it OP? Or does it need that suitability, survivability and weaponry in order to bring 11 people over a large fight base? The galaxy is used very often as a dropship to counter enemy advancement or strategies. It isn't used often as a gunship. And it needs those guns to be able to fend off aircraft and create support for the ground troops as well.

Just like the sundy is used as a ground transport and can enter through shields, extremely usedful on AMP stations and even tech plants and biolabs. Although the sundy is typically used as a AMS, support vehicle, squad vehicle it can also be used as a combat vehicle.

The question is, how do we balance that out while allowing the sundy to function optimally for it's other more commonly used intended roles? Can we? The developers have been pondering about this for quite some time, still a work in progress. No results yet, so we just have to accept it.

I know it can be hard to accept that something with a specific rare setup is overpowered but what choice do we have. Still, I'm more glad when I see a sundy used this way rather than a galaxy. Because the sundy is after all much easier to deal with.

Another example is, what if all VS Heavies were to start using Lancers? All enemy vehicles would get sniped from afar, MAX units would get sniped and the lancer can function well in CQC as well against MAX units. Heck, even some aircraft would be in big trouble.

But.... luckily the majority does not use these game mechanics in this way. If they were to do it we would see a nerf to weaponry and buff to utility.

But as I said, for now, we have to accept it and work together to counter it just like we would if we saw a combat galaxy or a lancer squad.

Every thing in Planetside 2 has a counter. For a Lancer heavy, it is a sniper. For a galaxy it is a skyguard. For a combat sundy? It is infantry. And the infantry should be on that thing just as fast as they would be on any other large threat. The problem is, that the infantry at the moment, does not see a combat sundy as a threat, much less are able to identify it. Most charging sundy's are typically suicide sundy's. And you won't know before it starts wrecking at which point a MBT or other vehicles may already have been lost.

So once a combat sundy has been identified it should be dealt with ASAP. So switch to engineer, heavy or MAX and start nuking it like crazy. For air, it's pretty easy to identify them as they are the sundies that typically don't shoot at air because they can't due to their setup.

Right, to end this. We are already seeing more sunderer utilities coming out as well as tweaks to the current setup. I am sure that eventually this will get sorted. For the record, a combat sundy requires a lot of good communication, expensive cert setup and skill to execute perfectly. So you gotta give props to those that pull it off well, because most combat sundies tend to die rather quickly.

All they need to do is bring the rear armor bonus of Blockade Armor inline with the other parts of it.

If you can spot it on the mini-map before hand you can turn, boost away & rotate back around provided they are not coming downhill.
This will normally give you enough range to dispose of a battle sundie coming at you assuming you have a gunner of course. If they are coming downhill at you then giving them backshots to boost away is typically fatal, since you won't be able to shoot while retreating.

I'm not sure if those numbers are right. My knowledge might be seriously outdated, but it looked like a lot of them were off to me. Here's your damage sheet for an anti-armor Mag slinging blows at the rear armor of a max blockade Sundy.

_403 @ _0.00 seconds
_450 @ _0.00 seconds
_853 total
_450 @ _3.25 seconds
1303 total
_403 @ _3.75 seconds
1706 total
_450 @ _6.50 seconds
2156 total
_403 @ _7.50 seconds
2559 total
_450 @ _9.75 seconds
3009 total
_403 @ 11.25 seconds
3412 total
_450 @ 13.00 seconds
3862 total
_403 @ 15.00 seconds
4265 total
dead

If you're wondering, 13 second TTK for the same Mag if you're assuming max reload on both weapons.

Meanwhile, a dual-fury Sundie with max magazine size (I'll assume any dedicated battle bus user has that, since they're so farmy) boasts a pretty crazy 8.616 second TTK against Prowler or Magrider front armor. The lesson? Don't brawl with a Battle Bus up-close. Not that you _would_ with a Magrider. Magriders don't really want to brawl up-close with ANY armored vehicle.

Against a Vanguard, double fury TTK's would be understandably worse, though still very dangerous.
9.669 TTK against Vanguard front
16.179 TTK against Vanguard front with shield
11.073 TTK against Vanguard reinforced front
17.934 TTK against Vanguard reinforced front with shield

Vanguards tend to build brawly, as opposed to Magriders and Prowlers, who often roll with Stealth (or they should!), so the latter option out of those four is perhaps the most likely. Vanguards actually wouldn't kill much faster, though. Van AP projects similar DPS to Mag AP when both have max reload. And normally, Vans would benefit in this situation from their ES secondary: the Enforcer, a weapon whose name, when translated from the Elven tongue, means Sundybane. Because of its incredibly high alpha relative to the Sundy's EHP, it's pretty much the perfect weapon against it. However, once you exceed a certain threshold of effective HP (basically, if you force a reload), that alpha gives away to the Enforcer's mediocre sustained DPS. In fact, that overall DPS becomes downright subpar if the kill comes right after the reload. This specific scenario happens against Sundy rear blockade armor. So Van AP+Enforcer TTK is 13.2 seconds with no reload mods or 12.6 seconds with max reload on both weapons.

Interestingly enough, even an AP (max reload)-Vulcan (max mag) Prowler would lose head-to-head at point-blank range. And they wouldn't even set the Sundy on fire. At the 8.616 second TTK mark, they'd only have dealt 3437 damage. If the Prowler lived longer, they would leave the Sundy on fire and almost dead at the 9.5 second mark, but then both weapons would be on reload, and they'd only get to finish the job a few seconds later (though the fire would probably blow up the vehicle before then, with only 23 hp left).

Of course, when you factor in fire suppression, that fight suddenly looks a lot more uneven in the Sundy's favor. In fact, even a brawler Vanguard with reinforced front armor and shield would probably lose once you factor in the battle bus's fire suppression (which MBT's usually don't run, since they're most often using smoke or their ES utility).

Also, because of how a Sundy's specific resistances work, tank secondaries hurt _way_ more than the primary turret, which means 1/2 MBT's and Lightnings are easy farm for them, even if they engage at range. Not necessarily a bad thing, as it's a dedicated 3 man crew. You could make an argument that the resource cost of the Sundy should come into a question if it starts projecting that much firepower, but no vehicle is meaningfully limited by nanites right now, at least for competent users (especially if they're subscribers). So the nanite cost point is effectively moot.

And I want to clear some things up about driving a Sundy (or any vehicle) in reverse. It's not hard. You don't have to grapple with weird controls. You don't lose any visibility. Go to the VR and try it. Spawn a sundy. Swap W-S and A-D in your vehicle keybinds. Switch to third-person view and turn your camera around using the mouse. Voila! You have the same control scheme and the same visibility as before.

All of that said, I don't think they're OP against tanks.

To start, I don't get why the OP thinks the Sundy is just as fast in reverse. Am I missing something? Because as far as I know, the Sundy cruises at 80 going forward with Racer and 50 going backwards with Rival. And god ******* help you making fast maneuvers in reverse on any terrain with the Sundy's skatey handling, even with Rival.

And anti-armor tanks can deal with them with pretty easily. 2/2 anti-armor tanks will win hit trades against a Fury bus, since most vehicular engagements of that kind start at medium or long range, well beyond the effective range of a Fury. Even Basi's, which are very potent (that's another thread) within certain ranges (one can assume a 100% hit rate within approximately ~125 meters), will still lose that kind of trade.

If anything is objectionable about the Fury bus, it's their overall performance, not how much they shred tanks specifically. They can brawl with tanks, AND they're crazy against infantry because of their typed resistances. Tanks, even putting aside their weak spot in the rear, are highly susceptible to certain things _designed_ to keep them at a distance from infantry. Blockade sundies have both strong facing modifiers in _every_ direction (non-rear blockade hitzones are about the same as Mag/Prowler side armor _before_ typed resistance), AND they have way stronger typed resistances against certain close-range vehicle counters. It takes 4 bricks of C4 to kill a blockade Sundy. Dumbfire launchers do way less against them than MBT's. So a mass of HA's or a clever LA just doesn't threaten them very much, and they're not afraid of getting flanked and eating rear shots. Meanwhile, Furys are extremely faceroll farmy weapons.

Say anything you want about a Fury bus or blockade armor not being especially OP against tanks. I'd agree there. Just don't act like it's hard, or that it requires some special amount of coordination, or that it's a very high-skill and challenging playstyle. Fury sundies are faceroll farmbuses relying on extremely high innate survivability and a pair of auto grenade launchers with 3,000 AoE damage within a meter per magazine. Calling targets and maintaining trigger discipline does not elevate that to a skill bus.

And for that reason, I think the game's history shows where that playstyle is going to end up, and I think the OP is right. Because y'know what? Half of the vehicle users in the game have been there. In Planetside 2, low-skill requirement vehicle-based AoE infantry farming platforms get nerfed once they reach any amount of in-game visibility. Period. There has never been an exception to that rule. I don't think they're nerfing Furys or Bulldogs, since they probably want normally fragile Sundies to keep their teeth. Meanwhile, deploy shield already fills the old niche of blockade armor, of keeping deployed AMS's alive in the face of instagibs. So I think blockade armor itself will probably get visited in the medium term.

I tank a bunch. Run an AV Vanguard or Magrider pretty much at all times when my tanking buddy is online. I don't think we've ever lost to a battlebus 1v1. Kinda just view them as easy certs.

I do have my own fury battlebus fully certed out but I've admittedly hardly used it. The very close range nature of the thing feels like a -huge- liability in AV combat. Not only do you have to close that distance, but there are very likely to be more enemies near whatever tank you're going for. Pretty sweet for farming infantry if there are no tanks/air around to stop you though.

Can't say I mind their rear armor being stronger. It gives them a little uniqueness.