balance tanks

I wonder what would happen if tactics were the topic of discussion rather than cries of mercy.

As I mentioned, the Prowlers sometimes overtakes the Vanguard in MBT kills. Also if you take into account other kills, the Vanguard is often not in the top spot either.

Also you point out that the Magrider is pulled 33% less. If there were 33% less Vanguards, they would come out to a Prowler kill % of 5,78... Which shows that per Vanguard the amount of MBT kills is barely higher than the amount of Prowler kills the Magriders get per Magrider.

What's also missing in this picture is the amount of top-gun kills. Especially the Magrider is a big "loser" in this regard, since the Saron has a high chance of getting the kill compared to the FPC gun.

You can also see, if you care to look farther than just the AP guns and add top-guns, that the Magrider isn't bad. Compare it to the Lightning all you want, the Magrider is far superior, besides ofcourse that the Lightning is a highly undervalued weapon.

Also the Prowler is a damn good brawling weapon. While the Prowler naturally is pretty damn good at ranged combat, in CQC it's got more than enough firepower, speed and maneuverability to stand it's own. Especially against the slow, ponderous Vanguard. Without faction ability, the Vanguard loses from the other two MBT's, assuming both teams are similar skill.
With the Magrider it becomes progressively easier to flank the more enemies there are. The battlefield concentrates itself, it gives you a focal point where players are fighting over. That focal point is where the flanks happen... And as a Magrider you can easily outflank the flankers, not to mention that you have the ability to sneak up the back of the larger tank columns and pick of tanks from there. I can do it right now in an HE Lightning (and even an HE Vanguard), it should be (and is) even easier in a 2/2 Magrider.

So if anything, the VS don't have a main battle tank, but a chariot of the damn gods. It stands it's own in full-frontal MBT attacks and is the king of flanking to boot. In larger-scale battles it's even easier to get more guns pointing in the same direction because you aren't as bound to cover as the other two tanks if you want to survive. So I'll stick to my original point: The Vanguard sucks balls compared to the other two, the Magrider for powerhousing your way through enemy MBT's, the Prowler for the lowest required skill to both farm and browbeat the other MBT's.

But you mentioned balance, not pilot skill, effective use of terrain is all about pilot skill, nothing to do with the tanks.

Didnt forget, intentionally didnt include.
My effective range for a vanguard is 'anything that renders'. If i get the first shot im going to win that fight, if not i fall back and ensure i do get in first on the next battle.

The amount of cover readily available across the average battlefield is a very important part of balance. If it wasn't, any argument about the Magrider being able to climb steeper terrain or use more types of cover is instantly mute. You could also argue that the LA's capability of climbing difficult terrain other classes have trouble with is instantly mute because the terrain is somehow only connected to pilot skill and not balance...

Besides ofcourse that VeryCoolMiller overexaggerates the importance of movement for the Prowler vs it's Anchor mode. The regular modus operandi for Prowlers is to pop up, fire a few shots, pop back into cover (the same for Vanguards but with less downsides due to it's shorter frame and higher maneuverability). Alternatively, they will stand still a lot when trying to find the leading point on enemies. The movement mostly comes into play when crossing the battlefield or CQC Brawling (and when trying to get back into cover in the aforementioned pop-up attacks).
So Prowlers have more than enough places and scenario's where they can safely Anchor as part of their "normal" combat routine without downsides, especially now that undeploying from Anchor mode is instant and you can start moving immediately upon pressing the button.

In a purely theoretical battle, yes the prowler can outdps any of the MBTs, however getting to that point takes an obscene amount of certs, and even a maxed out prowler driver has to be very good to successfully take out a vangaurd in a 1 on 1 battle. Mostly because if you miss 1 shot with the prowler your dps for that burst is cut in half, or if you get that oversampling glitch where the prowler shoots 3-4 shots from 1 reload (the extras don't do damage just take up time). additionally, for the prowler to go head to head with a vangaurd the prowler has to have locked down before the engagement began, and 95% of vangaurd drivers are not going to attack a prowler while its locked down. one MBT is not currently not technically more overpowered than another when you look at the tanks alone. but consider this

Vangaurd is the slowest, most defendable tank, yet it can be repaired at the same rate as all the other tanks. A fully manned vangaurd (2 engineers) with enforcer and AP rounds, can solo fight off 2 or 3 prowlers if they do this one thing. when they pop the shield the engineers jump out and repair the tank. during the 6 seconds of the shield this can effectively increase the lifespan of the tank from 13 seconds against a locked down prowler to nearly 20 seconds. additionally, if the NC control hossin and have a rep bus by an ammo sundy, the vangaurds can be near invincible, essentially having 2 engineers that never stop repairing it. The major downside to the vanguard is that it can not chase down anything in the game. or run away.

Prowler is the fastest, physically smallest, highest dps tank in the game, yet its special ability is to sit still. a single locked down prowler is an excellent artillery piece but a terrible tank. it can farm infantry and light armor for days, but as soon as it encounters another MBT it is as good as dead. the only hope is to escape. which is why being the fastest tank it is kind of okay as it is. The problem comes when you look at the top guns. the other 2 factions have excellent weapons that compliment its abilities. for instance the halberg on the vanguard compliments its high burst damage and the ability to jump out and repair when the shield is active, or just in general between reloads. However the Prowler, being a long range, high dps tank has no truely effective long range weapons, yes the halberg is great but at long range it is tough to land shots and recieves no benefit from lockdown.

Magrider is probably the most versatile of the three. unlike the other two tanks, in order to dodge shells the magrider does not need to expose its weaker sides. additionally the magrider can quickly chase down smoking or burning tanks. and the magrider top guns (the aphelion and the saron) are arguably the two most effective top guns in the game. yes the vulcan is a wonderful weapon that can shred armor like nobody's business but you have to be very close for it to be effective which is where the prowler meets its end. however the saron has great cqc burst potential and excellent range, making the magrider effective in all scenarios.

What i suggest is switching the vangaurd and prowler's main abilities. increasing the vangaurd's massive damage, and increasing the sneaky fast prowler's survivability. this would make the vangaurd a long range titan, the magrider an all range thing. and the prowler a close quarters surpriser.

alternatively the prowler could use more effective top guns for its particular role. like the pre-nerf gatekeeper (which was OVERUSED not OVERPOWERED)

I wouldn't argue cert costs as balancing factors, but if you wish to do so a stock Prowler still beats Stock Vanguard. If a Vanguard misses one of its shots it deals zero damage for that burst. Bugs suck massively, but can't really be used to argue balance either, as they are not intended and are most often not guaranteed. Most Vanguards won't attack a lock-down Prowler because they know they will lose.

The Vanguard has a 5% higher armour resistance (if I recall correctly). The only way they'd beat off two or three Prowlers simultaneously is if those Prowlers were unmanned or the most incompetent two/three players on the entre battlefield. Two max rank repair tools cannot out-repair a Prowler. If the two NC aren't in the Vanguard there would be no reason for the Prowler(s) to not repair for seven seconds either. If one side gets reinforcements, why not the other as well?

A locked-down Prowler can just out-DPS anything that comes to attack it. Without either side using abilities the Prowler wins anyway. I'd say VS won the top gun competition, but the TR aren't far behind. The NC's top guns are so poor you suggested the NS Halberd complements the Vanguard better than the actual NC weapons do. (A, which is correct, and B, which also benefits the Prowler for the exact same reason as you stated for the Vanguard.) The top three long-range top guns are the Halberd, Saron, and Gatekeeper. And the GK is the only one with sustained DPS. That is, if you don't want to count the base guns as "long range" weapons.

Yeah, the Magrider's pretty good in most ways, but the armour is just made of paper. Some players swear by 'em, but personally I don't think so.

As someone who has had a max rank shield sunndy get destroyed in 12 seconds flat from so far away that I couldn't retaliate with any weapon I had, yeah, I say it was OP. In fact, it was overused because it was OP.

The obscene amount of "zero"?
Prowlers start out with a much higher DPS. Even a completely vanilla Prowler has a better DPS than, for instance, the armor bonuses the vanguard gets. Not to mention that the vanilla Prowler remains the fastest MBT out of the three, and is very maneuverable, especially compared to the Vanguard.

Yes, because the abilities of "Anchor if you are at range and simply out-DPS the Vanguard+shield" or "hop behind cover and repair when the Vanguard pops his shield" are so damn hard...
And no respectable Vanguard uses his shield to bull-rush players. Bullrushing with MBT's, especially with the slow and sluggish Vanguard, is a death sentence. Only in truly reclusive 1v1 battles will this work, and then only if you are very CQC combat scenario's or your opponent has enough time to run into you. Unfortunately this also sets you up for getting nailed in the back, as any respectable Magrider/Prowler will use their better maneuverability/speed to circle around cover and shoot you in the sides and back.
Also, the Vanguard has a much slower reload, and it's top-guns are also reliant on long reloads to keep up their DPS (especially the Enforcer). So the Vanguard is much better off doing pop-up attacks to reduce the amount of damage it takes. It makes sense: Why stick out in the open where the Prowler has it's full reload potential to murder the hell out of you, if you can make them wait until your own reload is done?

And if you miss with the Vanguard/Magrider your DPS drops completely. Your point?
The dual-shot of the Prowler has always been one of it's biggest strenghts. It allows the Prowler to gauge the proper bullet drop better, have lower punishments for misses and be more careless with it's shots as it's DPS is high enough to still come out on top.

The oversampling glitch happens when you are nearby an ammo tower. If the ammo tick happens at the wrong moment one clip deals no damage, but this only happens with weapons that have multiple bullets/shells per clip. Yes this can happen to weapons like the Saron, Viper etc as well, but because they have fewer reloads the chance of it happening is lower. So here's what you do: Avoid standing near ammo towers while anchored, as that's the easiest way to get it.

Actually someone tested it and you don't have to be deployed before the battle begins. Additionally you can use things like "cover" and "don't try to tank everything" to outplay a Vanguard. Especially when he pops his shield: Hop behind cover, repair up, win the damn fight. If you've got something like a Vulcan up top you can truly crush the Vanguard, but the Gatekeeper, despite it's better long-range capabilities, can also keep up in the DPS battle compared to the Enforcer, especially when the Enforcer is forced to reload, at which point the Enforcer DPS drops dramatically.

Yes people don't attack a deployed Prowler because it's so damn powerful. You don't stand a chance against it. So... What's the problem? The Prowler instantly controls the entire region it can see while anchored is basically what you said. Why is that 'weak'? You present it as a weakness for the Prowler.

Ok you just lost all your credibility. A fully manned Vanguard with two max-rank repair tool engineers cannot out-repair a Prowler. Besides, what's the point? Even if you could out-repair them, your repair-tools would overheat long before the Prowler runs out of ammo. So it would just keep pounding your vehicle, you now have overheated repair-tools, you have to re-acquire the Prowler who's had plenty of time to get into a different/better position (like threatening the repair-crew, getting a better distance or getting a shot in the back) and you are probably without your shield.
And we are talking 1 Prowler. 2 Prowlers would be crap-your-pants-we-are-doomed scenario even if it were 2 1/2 Prowlers with HE shells. 3 Prowlers is suicide.

Just your idea that the Vanguard is somehow better because of it's higher armor value is weird. The Vanguard armor value's give less advantage than the Prowler DPS does, meaning in a vanilla fight the Prowler has a higher chance to win, especially if both teams are being repaired by Engineers.

Here's a video, watch the first few seconds:


In the video we see a Vanguard that's a bit more than halfway damaged, Vanguards have 4000 health total so it's missing 2000 health. Both engineers jump out and are repairing around 3 seconds into the video. It takes till 12 seconds of teh video to repair it to full. Meaning that it took 9 seconds to repair the Vanguard's 2000 missing health.
Here's some math:
It takes more than 9 seconds to repair up 2000 health of the Vanguard with two engineers.
The Vanguard shield gives 2000 health for 6 seconds.
So they would have time to repair up 1333 health. but, in the meantime they are missing at least one and-a-half shot that they aren't firing because they are out of the tank.
What's more, if you jump out instantly after a shot, the reload doesn't finish and restarts when you enter. So you have to wait around 1 to 2 seconds before you jump out.
So not only are you repairing less than the health of your shield gives even if you assume you are instantly out of your tank and repairing, you are also missing out on DPS, and missing out on seconds that you could be repairing unless you time the shield perfectly (1 to 2 seconds after your reload began, hoping you time it so that your gunner isn't reloading as well), at which point you are only losing out on 1,5 shots against your opponent (no reload speed upgrade).

So... If you try this trick, you are always always behind on your opponent. You are better off popping your shield and keep on fighting than getting out to repair. This becomes worse against the Prowler, and even worse if it Anchors the moment you jump out.

Eh, the TTK is completely different.
For instance look at this TTK calculator:
http://www.ps2calc.com/#vehicle1=Va...rowler AP&weapon1Upgrade0=4&weapon1Upgrade1=0

Even without full reload speed, an max-rank Anchored Prowler has a TTK of 16 seconds against a shielded Vanguard from the front. from the front!
What you are also missing is that the Vanguard isn't doing anything during the repair-cycle you describe, meaning that any time you gain by repairing is also gained by the Prowler. Ofcourse, since you repair slower than the Prowler damages you, you just gained less extra TTK than the Prowler. And we are just talking a 1/2 Prowler here, imagine if it had any top-gun, even a Basilisk, and you just handed them the victory.

The repair-speed of a Sunderer isn't even close to that of two Engineers.
Also, if the Prowler has a repair-sundy and ammo bus ready, it's even better than the Vanguard because it can make use of it's awesome DPS for longer. And the longer a battle rages, the better the Prowler gets. Also let's not forget that the more health is in play, IE because the tanks are getting repaired, the less the Vanguard shield matters. Additionally, since the Prowler's DPS nullifies and even exceeds the advantage of the Vanguard armor, the Prowler would have a higher chance to win the engagement.

And it barely uses that ability, and it's still arguably the best MBT if you look at it's statistics.
And good use of the Anchor mode only makes that Prowler even more dangerous...

Eh, someone else in this thread said the following:

And that's true, because a Prowler in Anchor-mode beats just about everything. And with the instant redeploy option allowing you to move the moment you go out of Anchor, there's little downsides to using it whenever you are standing still.
An Anchored Prowler isn't as good as dead. An Anchored Prowler is more than "just an artillery piece". An Anchored Prowler is death incarnate, ready to murder anything that's thrown at it and still have the ability to make a getaway if the battle doesn't go completely in their favor.

"kind of Ok"? "Only hope is to escape"?
I don't know what you are talking about, but the Prowler is powerful in a newbs hands, and has a good skill ceiling to reach for that gives you even more power than it already does. It isn't as high as the awesome god-chariot that the Magrider is, but for the average player the Prowler will be powerful.

"no effective long-range weapons".... You realize that the Gatekeeper is still just as powerful as the Enforcer during it's unload cycle, but is better at long-range?
You also realize that the Prowler isn't "just" a long-range tank? Yes the Prowler excells at long-range, but it's far from weak in CQC brawls.

Ah, so close. Yes the magrider is good at fighting without exposing it's sides/back while still being able to get to cover, but as the slowest MBT it's not very capable of hunting down burning or smoking tanks unless you are flanking them. The Magburn is nice and all, but it's not that much of a game-changer to hunt down burning vehicles. Especially considering that if you can waste your Magburn to get close to someone while they are burning, you can also just move forwards safely, keep your Magburn in reserve in case you run into something nasty and then press your advantage since your opponent won't have had a lot of time to repair in the first place.

Saron is excellent, the Aphelion is kind of meh. Also keep in mind that while the Saron is incredibly useful and powerful, it's still mounted on the lowest DPS main canon with the lowest armor. So that Saron is there to make up for that, and it does so perfectly.

...
You must be stoned or something.
Prowlers with extra survivability would be OP.
The Vanguards "massive damage" is far less improved by Anchor because it's DPS is much lower than the Prowler.
So you would basically be buffing the Prowler and nerfing the Vanguard.

Pre-nerf Gatekeeper was OP. It had the staple combination of accuracy, consistency and good damage. That's why it was overused: It was OP.

Terrain can just as easily be used by the prowler to its advantage.

I play all the empires and i find the prowler to be outstanding. Its not about perfect balance in every aspect. Its about each mbt being better at different things and using those things to your advantage.

Couple of things.... I hate to be "that guy", but you mean "moot", not "mute". Secondly, while the Mag can climb steeper terrain, I'd argue that it can use less kinds of cover... at least, if it wants to keep fighting. Both Vanguard and Prowler can hull-down and still fight. If Maggie hulls-down, it loses one of it's two guns... at least, for as long as it's in cover. That doesn't even count the fact that Maggie has to turn the whole tank (slowly!) to engage something that takes it by surprise, while the other two just insta-spin their turrets...

On one hand less kinds of cover, as you can't hull-down. On the other more kinds of cover are available and it can share cover with more MBT's, because it's not bound by having to face it's hull in a specific direction beforehand like the other two. For example, cover that makes it easy to get behind you if you are a Prowler or Vanguard is off-limits, but not to a Magrider. Also there's precious few places where you can truly hull-down.

To demigan(alo please make your essays shorter and to the point):

If the vanguard is as weak as you say it is, imagine how stupidly strong that ability have to be to balance out that weakness. My philosophy for the MBT chassis should be core and abilities are perks, not the otherway around as it currently is. Aside from serveral stupidity points that I will point out, I do agree with you that they should buff the vanny chassis if the overshield is nerf, which it should be.

1. Less magriders are pulled because they suck compare to the other MBT, thats my point. Use occam razor here instead of your "if there were 33% less vanguard". I can understand your math somewhat but you're presenting an entirely hypothetical situation to drive your POV.

"What's also missing in this picture is the amount of top-gun kills"
2. The big picture is, I did not go looking by gun kill, I went by % of death(what killed it) on the data board. Titan AP and 120P just happen to be second and first(I wonder why), followed by C-4 THEN the FPC. So don't assume things and put words into my mouth.

"Compare it to the Lightning all you want, the Magrider is far superior"
3. No I'm comparing it to the other 2 MBT for all of my post. I mention lightning twice in my post, saying the VS got a better lightning(aka Light Tank) as the Magrider when I used it. We could have another discussion about the undervalueness of the lightning and I'll point out the harrasser exist. You're diverting the conversation and put words into my mouth again.

"but a chariot of the damn gods"
4. I wrote something really long but I decide to make this short: the Magrider for all intent and purpose is a light tank. Data show it as such, my gameplay experience tells me its the same, use it as a LT and you can get results, but in all context VS do not have a MBT, they got a better Lightning(LT).

If you read anything I posted, you would notice that I already proposed making the MBT chassis it's main feature, and the abilities just additions.

What you are missing is that occams razor only works if there's one possible alternative solution. The better occams razor to pick would be "Magriders require more startup skill" and "99% of the players touching vehicles become dumb". We see this in the C4 discussions: Players who touch a vehicle instantly lose even the most basic of situational awareness. Players who touch vehicles on the whole try to facetank their enemies. This makes people believe that a vehicle like the Lightning is "weak", because they only think of the tactic "tank all the shots while returning fire".
The sentiment "AP or go home" actually is a nice addition to show their stupidity. I'm currently murdering more vehicles with my HE Lightning than many people do with an AP MBT. Now yes, AP is overall superior to HE and HEAT, but people assume you are instantly crushed the moment you go up against an AP tank... Purely because the aforementioned tendency to facetank everything.

So people pull less Magriders. Magriders have lower armor and lower DPS, which doesn't fit with the whole "facetank everything" tactics that permeate almost every move they make, which makes them feel that this chariot of the gods is inferior.

Also, as I've pointed out, despite having less Magriders, they get almost the same amount of vehicle kills per Magrider. How is that possible if the Magrider is inferior? Shouldn't the Magrider, outnumbered as it is, be even weaker? But it isn't! The stats clearly tell us that the Magrider is barely behind, and we've only looked at the primary canon so far!
So again logic tells us: The Magrider isn't inferior, it can't be. Even outnumbered as it is, it still manages to get similar kills per tank. This gives even more substance to what I already said: The Magrider requires more startup skill to be used properly, but when you do you are more powerful than the other two (because you are almost as effective while outnumbered).

I'm not assuming things or putting words in your mouth, I'm pointing out that going purely by the death % without any other stats is stupid at best. Here's some simple mathematics for you:
Roughly 90% of the Magriders is equipped with FPC
Magriders have mostly Sarons or Halberds equipped. The Saron is equipped a little bit less than 2/3rd of the total time compared to the Halberd. Additionally, the FPC also sees some usage without a gunner.
So even at the best of times, the Saron would have to be at the very least 33% more efficient than the FPC to get anywhere near the FPC stats. But here we encounter a problem: Since the Saron is only ever equipped and used while the FPC is also in action, the FPC will overall get more kills due to the added killing capability unless the Saron users all killsteal heavily (which the FPC user could also try to accomplish). Additionally, the FPC is also supported by the Halberd 1/3rd of the time, in which it again has more killing potential but the Saron isn't even capable of scoring a kill because it's not in use.

So discounting top-guns makes your entire idea of comparing the stats fail.

I'm not diverting the conversation and I'm not putting words in your mouth. Besides, Harasssers have an entirely different MO than Lightnings.
And you are truly comparing only half of the MBT's. Not even that. You are only looking at the amount of vehicle kills it gets, without incorporating the amount of top-gun kills that are made across the multiple AV top-guns that are available.

The Magrider, for all intents and purposes, is a chariot of the gods. The data show it as such, your gameplay experience is tainted because you must be touching a vehicle right now. In all context, the VS have a chariot of the gods. And calling it "a better lightning" is like calling a 40mm multi-grenade launcher "a better pistol".

Way to take 1 thing and create an argument about it.
You're a real **** tbh, not interested in conversing with you.

Maggy OP
Vanguard OP
Prowler OP

Just depends which one you are sitting in apparently.

Correct me if I am wrong (dont have time to look it up right now) but the actual stats do show Prowler as the weakest with the Maggy as the most powerful. Sure thats how it was last time we all had this discussion?

IMO there is ONE thing that makes a tank good. The MOST important for any MBT is Agility..... with this in mind the Maggy is the best and the Vanguard is the worst.... IMO.

Maggy is the best tank in PS2!

Prowlers start out with a 1000 damage per shot HEAT cannon with a 2.5 second reload speed and 120rpm fire rate (slightly slower than the ravens about 2 shots per second)
so for arguments sake lets say that the prowler can dish out 2 shells every 3 seconds (which is purely theoretical and doesnt take into account the vangaurds resistances. assuming the prowler and vangaurd are facing eachother and every shot lands on the front armor hitbox the TTK without vangaurd shield is 6 seconds with vangaurd shield that goes up to 12 which is considerably fast

However when you account for damage resistances the shots to kill on the front of a vangaurd with the HEAT rounds is 14 without shield. so the time to kill without a vangaurd shield from the front with a completely default prowler (and no lockdown) is 7X3 or 21 seconds. + 6 seconds with the vangaurd shield so a total of 27 seconds.

Now to make things more "vanilla" im going to show you the TTK with a default HEAT vangaurd. it takes 6 shots to kill a prowler from the front with the HEAT rounds. at 4 seconds per shot thats a grand total of 24 seconds.

and just to throw it out there the magrider needs 7 shots to the front of a vangaurd to kill and reload at 3.75 seconds. or 26.25 seconds without vangaurd shield and 32.25 with vangaurd shield by default. anyway...

for arguments sake lets say that the prowler has rank 1 lockdown. this increases reload speed by 12% so if we multiply the 2.5 seconds by .12 and subract that from 2.5 we'd get its new reload speed of 2.2 seconds + .5 cause 2 shots. 2.7 seconds per burst needing 7 bursts is a wonderful 18.9 seconds TTK without shield and 6 seconds of shield. gives us 24.9 second TTK against a vanguard.

so rank 1 shield vangaurd with nothing special against a rank 1 locked down prowler the prowler looses 100% of the time.

so yes a completely vanilla prowler has better dps than the vangaurd, but the vangaurd shield even rank 1 will utterly destroy a default prowler with lockdown rank 1.

http://forum.symthic.com/off-topic/...s/?s=ede04c3b66953d348be34d9c407f3340d1de143d

thats where i got my shots to kill.

Not sure id trust that 'link', within that post it says that the info was stolen from other webpages including this little 'gem': https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OMotVI4hAbi-y8oO93KFLvwD0jC-5ez9hjw3fcgBUME/pub?gid=0
The shell velocities listed here are incorrect.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/14ysxv/everything_you_ever_wanted_to_know_about_tanks/
Is a 4 year old post, cannot even begin to tell you whats changed in 4 years......

^quoted from your webpage link
No no no no no.
Tanks have 4000 health, not 8000, no idea where it gets that info.
The resistances for each tank are:
Vanguard:
Front - 68%
Top / sides - 65%
Rear - 30%
Prowler / Magrider:
Front - 63%
Top / sides - 58%
Rear - 30%

So Vanguards take 32% of the damage from any projectile to their frontal armour, and 35% to the top / sides.
The Prowler and Mag are only slightly behind at 37% and 42%.

Whole swaths of that post are inaccurate, Ive not followed the math through so i dont know if their conclusion is completely wrong aswel, but since what its based on is, id headge a bet as to the outcome not being good.

While not being 100% accurate, the wikia is far more up to date than random forum threads from 2012.
http://planetside.wikia.com/wiki/Vehicle_armor_and_damage_resistance

Nah, that's not true at all. The prowler has the highest DPS both un-anchored & anchored, the same armour as the magrider & the fastest speed although this is only 70 instead of 65 when using racer so it's a minor point.

The only thing it's worse at is 1hko-ing ESFs, but it's better against libs & galaxys due to it's raw damage.

okay it takes 11-12 shots to the front of the vangaurd to kill TTk would then be 17.5-18 seconds for the HEAT without shield no lockdown. +6 seconds. (tested in VR training) so only 23.5-24 seconds TTK (numbers were skewed because of fire damage.)

takes 6 shots HEAT vangaurd so that TTK remains unchanged at 24 seconds.

prowler still does not out dps vangaurd. without gunner they're equal.

to throw on top. the vangaurd is immune to damage for 6 seconds anyway. but the prowler's top gun does not recieve the benefit from lockdown anymore. so when you throw into account the halberg, the vangaurd is gonna come out on top 100% still.
we could also mention how the vangaurd turret is physically taller than the prowler allowing it to have very little of the tank exposed on hill combat. or how the vangaurd is narrower but longer and the prowler is wider and shorter length. giving the vangaurd a directional advantage on hitbox in some situations. or we could mention how the vangaurd can 1 shot esfs with the main gun (doesn't seem important but it does make a difference in many situations. we could also talk about how much harder it is to flip a vangaurd than a prowler. we could mention how much better the Canister is against infantry than the maraurder. we could talk about how the mjolnir has a much longer range than the vulcan.

not to mention how vulnerable the prowler is to c4 in comparison to other tanks (vangaurd shield can mitigate c4 and magrider can run away, but prowler has to sit still and unlockdown.) or how the enforcer never needs to stop shooting. or how the saron has a higher burst damage than the halberg. or how the gatekeeper isn't even a viable option anymore... How saron and enforcer can take on aircraft (with a skilled user) but the gatekeeper cant.

There are only two things the prowler is better at and those are infantry farming. and long range spamming.

Hey! Just pointing out that you glossed over something, not trying to antagonize you!

As Stalkish already pointed out, the data you use is pretty off. However even with the math you do show you just gloss over the implications.

For instance, I tell you that a vanilla HEAT Prowler is stronger in pure DPS than the vanilla Vanguard and Magrider. Your math supports that... But instead of saying "oh hey my math supports that" you quickly move on to "but a level 1 shield on a Vanguard is better than a level 1 Anchor mode".
Now besides that your math basically confirmed what I said, even though the outdated numbers you used were in favor of the Vanguard, vehicle combat isn't a scene where two tanks spawn 10 feet from each other and do a slugmatch. Otherwise the Magrider would automatically be inferior to everything. But it isn't, because of it's basic advantages like floatiness, stability when shooting and dodging capabilities.
Factor that in, and the Vanguard is again the loser.