[Vehicle] Prowler may be the worst tank in the game (Slightely in depth, bait title)

You already gave the answer yourself...."and the Vanguard activated the Shield".

The Vanu Main Battle Tank kinda sucks, all it can do is be mobile and climb mountions, which in Tank vs Tank combat isn't that great

This was a fair 1vs1?

Yeah! We can see how horrible that is on for example the Harasser! Its a horribly bad ability to be mobile and climb mountains! Truly! Did anyone have a straight face reading that?!?

Or maybe the Prowler problem could be something as simple as its main guns are too weak.
Think about it. The Prowler itself is a good defensive tank and its top gun allows the tank to charge forward.

But if you want to defend then it's best to have an AA top gun and solo the Prowler by yourself, it's self explanatory why it should be done solo.
The issue here is you'll lose too much DPS...Literally the top gun is like having another main gun.

Isnt this true for all 3 tanks? Even the Mjolnir "lets" you charge forwards and get a lot of damage in, but if all you rely on is the topgun and not your main gun its not going to work.

You just said the Prowler is a good defensive tank and with a topgun it can charge, which is a weird claim already. Now you claim that this defensive tank is best used without a topgun because...? The only "obvious" reason I can think off is that the Prowler primary gun has so much DPS compared to the topgun that people dislike being in the topgun of a Prowler, more so when 16 seconds of Barrage are used. This is especially true when at range, where the Prowler shines and only the Halberd is a reasonably good choice.

First off, you just said you personally choose to pick an AA topgun and sacrifice your own DPS. If that topgun is so valuable, why are you throwing it out the window the moment you go defensive?
Considering you lower your chances of AA support when trying to flank that would also be your best time to bring an AA topgun and go solo, while defensive is best with a topgun as you'll need all DPS to take out your enemy.

And again, this is true for all 3 tanks. The Prowler even loses the least DPS when it doesnt take a topgun compared to the other two, so why would you argue this hurts the Prowler the most?


Also for your attack on a 2/2 Vanguard:
- you were solo
- the Vanguard chassis only surpasses you in its ability to tank
- you tried to win by standing still and winning a slugfest against a 2/2 tank who's only chance to win is a slugfest.
- the situation you describe gives very little time for the Vanguard to turn the +/-120 degrees it needs to get his front armor facing you.
In the old days Prowlers could kill you in 2 salvo's from behind and before you could turn the Vanguard's rear away. So from your description you could hit the rear, but were in the 90 degree side-armor angle and scored side-hits instead. That also gives the Vanguard the time to turn enough and have its front facing by the time your 3rd salvo is fired.

My question to you: should you expect to win if you are solo, not using your tank's advantages and aside from flanking you play to enhance your opponent's strengths?

Lets start off with the tanks shape.
Its Hull is really large and wide but its turret is nearly equal in size to the Lightnings -> The MBT with the smallest turret. The Prowler is pretty big and if you want to hide your hull you need to search for that position.
In combination with its small turret and higher damage it is a very good tank to use for defending.

What do I mean by defending? -> Attempting to halt or completely deny an enemies advance.
So what I do is drive the Prowler to a good location that will allow me to shoot at the enemies flank -> I'm not on the road or next to my lattice base. I hide my Hull, deploy and stay there.

Because I have no allies to assist me I am vulnerable to attacks from aircraft's, so I have an Anti-Air gun.
Why don't I have a second player gunning my AA weapon? One reason is because it's an AA gun but the main reason is there's a slim chance I'll even get one randomly. The enemy has not yet arrived on the lattice base I'm taking the Prowler from, so there won't be any teammates willing to jump in.
'Logistics Implant' would help a lot but I'm not putting any certs and ISO into gambling, I put too many, didn't get it and I won't waste any more currency.
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So basically that's the Prowlers strength, to hide your hull. This is why before I suggested the tank to receive the physics of a harasser, high speed, HP nerf, un-stabilized gun, etc...To very quickly get on someones flank and attack with high damage from a hull down position.

If all you can do is make use of the tank's shape, then you arent even using 1/10th of its total power. I find the notion of hull-down in PS2 quite strange to be honest. I can think of maybe 1 situation of a topgun that was able to fire over cover, but there just isnt any reasonable hull-down cover available anywhere that people might use unless they go way out of their way.

So if you keep losing because you forget to use the Prowler's strengths, should you be making claims that it's weak? The Prowler isnt performing the worst of the 3 if you look at the performance statistics, so its pretty hard to say it needs buffs.

it's all down to how you use it.

i've killed two lightnings who were attacking me head on at the same time because they didn't use their brains, all i had to do is hammer one hard enough that he pulled back to repair and then i tore the other one to pieces and then finished off the damaged one.

if the situation was the other way around i would have used a lightning to flank the prowler and hit it's rear armor while it was hitting the other lightning.

also, on esamir i have beat a prowler on my alt character with a lightning with the viper, just by using an unexpected way of getting behind him, i approached him head on then used a slope next to the road to slide across his side and hammer him in the rear.

attacking a 2/2 MBT with a 1/2 MBT is almost always suicide unless he's already engaged with someone else.

Well that's very counter productive and there will never be faction uniqueness then.
I don't understand why you get ultra rewarded for hitting head-shots which is often like trying to aim at a pixel but in tank warfare there is no reward for how you aim, how you position yourself....it's all about numbers. (or extreme cheesy maneuverability)

Couldn't get lamer...

there is reward in how you position yourself and aim in a tank.

you can effectively cover properly in some places hulldown making it hard to get hit while being able to hammer the enemy.
the only difference between headshots and rear armor is tankers can hide their vulnerable side and get punished by being hit from behind.

rear armor changes how you play armor, without rear armor 2 lightnings vs a prowler would just be a dps race slugging match head on or side on, smarter users ether use one lightning to take fire and then the other hammers the prowler from behind or the prowler acts smart and reverses into terrain that prevents rear shots.

it might seem like positioning isn't important with vehicles, but it is. infantry can fit through far more places then vehicles. in terrain with lots of cover and trees it can limit vehicle mobility making them ether easy prey for infantry, or an easy place to set a trap.

one time while running stealth i was in terrain where i could see an enemy on radar with 50m and could only go in two directions, i gave that tanker a surprise i laid down some AV mines on one side and intentionally fired my tank gun to reveal myself on the radar so he's see me and react, then i watched which direction he went and moved myself, he ran straight into the AV mines and died all without ever catching sight of my hull.

Your rethoric wasn't "we need more faction uniqueness and we need to get rewarded more for aim and positioning", your rethoric was "Prowler is crap for <reasons> and needs buffs". I can get behind more faction uniqueness, you've seen my proposals for that. I can't get behind "my Prowler is weak and if I don't use any of it's strengths I should still win a slugmatch!".

.....What?

(Your conclusion was that the strength in tank combat is always about numbers and nothing else?)


Well yeah I was showing confusion, from the tank designs to tank gameplay. I didn't want to unload everything I had in mind and fill up the page with a bunch of topics. Instead I decided too add more of my opinions gradually throughout the conversation if it lasts.
And stop twisting the words, I didn't just say it's crap and needs buffs.
I put in plenty of discussions, point of views, opinions, suggestions...More than enough, but I can continue, even though there is almost nothing more to say about the tank.
We haven't yet discussed the mobility of the MBTs. If the Prowlers general mobility would be the same as the Vanguards and its max speed would be decreased to 50 KPH I believe there would be an unnoticeable impact on how the tank is used.
People here praised the Prowler for its acceleration, neutral steering....I've never noticed this affect anything important. I've never said to myself: This neutral steering saved me in this situation, this acceleration is a uniquely good feature of the Prowler.

What about the off-road capabilities of the tanks, this is what I find more important. Driving the Prowler off-road is like dragging your chassis on the ground, and the unusual width of the tank makes the driver susceptible to unintentionally hitting a bump.
I've had many instances where I missed a shot due to the gun not being able to be stabilized because of the wonky and rough movement the Prowler's tank design causes.

This is why at the start I suggested the breakthrough tank design because it's terrible off-road....Everything to what I suggested had a genuine reason...Not because I just want to have brain dead breakthrough tank cause I don't know how to use the Prowler.

You were the one who said "its all about numbers", not me. I pointed out that you, by your own admission, only use a fraction of the Prowler's potential.

All of your suggestions, almost every single one in this thread, were about presenting a "problem" and then finding a solution by buffing the Prowler. Like saying the Prowler's accuracy is lacking because it has two shots instead of one. Imagine if we gave the Vanguard/Magrider 2 shots per magazine, oh how horrible that would be and how the accuracy would suffer... If I had the choice of firing two shots quickly (say 0,5 to 1 second apart) but keep the same DPS through a longer reload, I would take it in a heartbeat.

Also we did discuss the Prowler's mobility, I pointed out several times that the Prowler's combination of medium maneuverability, highest acceleration and highest speed allow it the fastest traversal of the battlefield with the exception of extremely rough terrain. The worst you can say about its off-road ability is that its base touching the ground is broader, making it hit more terrain as it moves. This is both a blessing and a curse: because its broader it hits more bumps, but the average tilt each bump causes is lower than for a less broad base like the Vanguard. That is simple physics, just draw flat terrain with 1 bump of 1cm height. Then draw 1 line of 1cm resting with one edge on that bump and one line of 2cm resting one edge on that bump and measure the angle.

The height of the Prowler's bottom is also just as high as the Vanguard, while the Lightning you've been praising is practically sliding along the ground. There doesnt seem to be a lot of problems driving that around.

So again, you are creating a problem (bad at offroad) and offering a solution, even though in this case the Prowler's mobility is one of its strengths.

If you want to traverse quickly purchase the Harasser, Lightening or even a cloaked Flash, it's cheaper and does the specific job you want. Why would anyone who has speed in mind buy the Prowler? It does more damage? Well you're slower, larger, and gain more attention than any other combat vehicle and is expensive without being unique in anything.

Oh yeah! And if you want to have a hitpoint bombshell with a shield you just pull a Shield Sundy right? No reason to pull a Vamguard for that!

You pull the Prowler for the total package, one of which is the acceleration, speed and mobility it offers despite being an MBT. There's many more reasons that complete that package, such as its 2-shot ability and high DPS.

No, the Sunderer is not a vehicle for attacking and the deploy shield makes it immobile, so how do you plan to break through if you cannot move and are armed with low damage weapons?

Anyways if the devs finally give the players the option to buy exceptional implants instead of gambling, then the Prowler with the logistics Implant could indirectly buff it.
So far as I don't have it I'll still go for the AP, AA combo and move forward because of how fast paced the game is, instead of honking and waiting for some rando to jump in. The devs made this game too swift.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! BAHAHAH!!!! (deep breath.....) ...HAHAHA!! HOHOHAHAHA!!!!
HAHAAH!! (Another deep breath) ...HAHAHAHA!!! (Tom Hanks as 'Walter' in 'The Money Pit' laugh).. HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!

My point exactly. The Harasser is a different beast from the Prowler. Just because the Harasser has speed and maneuverability does not mean you can't pull a Prowler for it's speed and maneuverability when you want to play a tank role because it offers other things as well.

So could the other two vehicles. Again, what's your point?

Too swift? What? And when's the last time you even tried to pick someone up in your Prowler for a 2/2? What weapon did you have? Have you tried a CQC Brawler setup with a Vulcan on top? If you get someone once and make sure you get in close, they tend to enjoy a Vulcan Prowler a lot and get back in. Or just a basic Halberd setup for jack-of-all-trades combat?

Tom Hanks is a political prostitute.

Always in the situation when I need to pull an MBT, deal heavy damage to an enemies zerg that surrounded our base, I can't get a second gunner in this situation cause I have to pull the vehicle from a base unoccupied by teammates. That's why I logistics implant would be needed.
You know the situation when the enemy heavily outnumbers us and they just continue moving forward, pull Vanguards for whatever reason and always get gunners because they're followed up by so many teammates....It is necessary to have a high damage vehicle to clean it up a bit but you never get a gunner.

For me there needs to be a really good reason to pull an MBT, if I can just pull for example an Invisible Flash for 50 Nanites, deal 1500 damage in total with the M40 Fury's 10 round mag (120% dmg).
Or a 150 Nanite fast Harasser that can get into position very quickly together with its size quite unexpectedly. Same height as a Lightening so I can use landscape to cover my vehicle easily and well, receive less attention than an MBT from all enemies and for example deal with the Halberd 720 dmg (120%) every 3 seconds. I can choose specifically what gun I want for the situation.
I would rather put 450 Nanites into a MAX suit.

The Prowler is an unnecessary messy design.