Vanguard HE should have a larger radius.

I tentatively suggest this as a way to bring it up to par with Magriders and Prowlers which both have unique advantages when farming infantry. Prowlers have a pretty obvious advantage with their two shots, while Magriders can get into all sorts of sneaky places. Vanguards are kinda just "eh".

I'm for increasing the inner damage so it will OHK through a couple levels of flak. This will also bring the lethal 1000 out a few centimeters. Vanguards are supposed to fire slow and punch real hard.
Vanguard HE default reload speed is 4s. Fully upgraded is 3.5s. Splash damage is 1000 out to 1m.
A fully upgraded Prowler fires two shots in .5s and then reloads for 1.02s. Splash damage is 650 out to 1m.
http://ps2oraclestats.com/?stat=q4kph&weapon1=3731&weapon2=3461&weapon3=4009

A touch of a buff seems appropriate.

You must be joking/trolling if you talk about HE+Anchor. It's kinda "C4 ME DEAR PLEEEASE C4 ME HARD!".
Overall, P2-120 HE sucks. Not because of its stats but because of Prowler:
- you have all the attetntion
- you're pretty slow
- no real hill climbing
Just accept the fact that only MBT what's good with HE is a Magrider (due to positioning freedom and evasiveness).
Lightning is a bit worse but still far better than Prowler and Vanguard (smaller, faster, more agile, gets less attention).

If we're talking about buffs, well, I think that 1m inner radius is too small, 1,5...2m (we had 2m before nerf IIRC) would be better while 5m outer radius is acceptable.

P.S. If someday you'll try other tanks I guess you'll find Vanguard most boring to use (and counter).

Actually Mags have the advantage of a faster reload for more spammability. Prowlers don't actually get much of an advantage from two shots as opposed to one, and yes Vanguards are in the dirt.

From the NC perspective, the really annoying thing about HE is that an AP Prowler is a better anti-infantry platform than HE Vanguard. Two chances at a direct hit OHK is way better than a small OHK splash radius with time to take a coffee break between reloads. And on top of that, AP Prowler still retains maximum AV effectiveness. A buff to Vanguard splash radius would help, but it's also a partial return to the bad old days of HE spam. What if Vanguard HE got super high velocity?

If we're just balancing it around the other MBT's HE rounds, swap the inner and direct damage values. So 1000 direct, 1300 indirect instead of the 1300 direct and 1000 indirect.

Nerfs it against vehicles.. but we're not using HE against vehicles much anyway.

Anything more will need rebalancing across the board for tank cannons (TR/VS as well as HEAT/AP).

And again you guys don't understand that Mag is superior for using HE cause it can reach sweet spot on almost every base while other tanks can't. Slight buff of gun stats will never give you comparable effectiveness cause when you farm, position>damage.

HE Prowler has the highest average KDR, KPH, and tied for highest VKPH among main battle tank HE canons. If you failed in a HE Prowler you are the one doing it wrong.

Viper Lightning master race
Vanguard sucks in general, and needs an all-around buff. Maybe not the i-win shield, but in everything else.

That is about the refire rate of the Van.

dont bother farming with HE MBTs. the Viper is the true farming king! if you can avoid armored vehicles and C4 fairies, it will crash any infantry party and tear them to pieces. get thermal and reload speed upgrade, and you're good to go!

Just checked your stats to be sure what exactly I've failed. 43 KPH? Seriously?

Well, I have 57 KPH on this crap, while L100 HE brings me ~82 KPH.
Due to Mag's climbing I have ~110 KPH with Supernova VPC but I'm not sure if I'll keep it, drop to ~100 is possible.

And yes, if your position is right and there's peasants to farm, Viper is very good.

Your downplaying the power and effectiveness of having a 2 shot per reload and the quickest overall reload because of your own experience of what works well for you. In AI work ROF is equal to or greater then good positioning.

Looking at the ps2 oracle data for HE weapons shows that the Prowler and Magriders perform similarity, with the edge going to the Prowler. The Vanguard HE is at a clear disadvantage compared to the other two. I don't think a wider blast radius would help. Increasing Velocity could help, but buffing reload speed would be the difference maker.

No need for fighting over which MBT's HE rounds suck more. They all suck pretty bad.

All I'm typing here is my own experience. Sure, I know that forumsiders like to post links to Oracle and then complain about it instead of trying something by themselves. Nothing new here

So, from my experience, VPC>>L100 HE>>>P2-120AP>>>>>Titan-150 HE.
Again, not the guns themselve, but cannon+chassis combo.

Anyway, the only buff Vanguard needs is adding some balls to NC tank pilots cuz almost every Vanguard I see perefers mid to long range safeplay while being the same dangerous as Mag or Prowler in CQC. HAVE SHIELD@CANT AFFORD RISK.

P.S. The only stats source I count as worth to mention is Dasanfall weapon's leaderboard top.

Have you seen what happens to a Vanguard caught more than 6 seconds from cover? With the Vanguard's reverse speed, 6 seconds doesn't get you very far either.

It's actually kind of funny, I can get away with playing way more aggressively in my Lightning than in my Vanguard because the Lightning has a smaller profile and is actually nimble enough to get out of some quite bad positions. In a Vanguard, if I get caught out of position I better hope I have a repair sundy glued to my butt because that shield isn't going to last long enough.

So we agree that the Vanguard's boomgun needs some love, which is the point of this thread.

But yeah, either a little extra inner radius damage (which would indirectly extend the killzone) or a slightly larger killzone would be a nice tradeoff to make up for the Vanguard's longer reload. A small buff to the outer radius would also be nice but unlikely to happen.

1300/1m - 1/5m would basically make 1 Vanguard shell equivalent to 2 Prowler shells, except slower, less forgiving of missing, and less capable of dealing with multiple spread-out targets (still an improvement over what we have now). It would be situationally better at peek-a-boo though, since it would basically simulate what would happen if the Prowler could fire both shells simultaneously.

1000/1.5m - 1/6m would cause it to interact with Flak pretty much the same way as a Magrider shell, but would be compensating its low rate of fire with potential to catch more targets per shot.

1300/1m - 1/6m would be pretty awesome but unlikely to happen.

Vanguard should have massive splash even on AP. It's the closest thing we have to a modern tank, and AP rounds have SERIOUS splash.

Prowler should be faster.

Magrider should be able to TK vehicles by strafing through them. But when it hits a wall, it should explode into a massive plasma ball that heals all enemies and destroys all allies within a 1,337 mile radius.
...
What? You think I'm kidding?

magrider should get the same treatment so it'd work like a wraith from halo