Balance, or not?

Titan-150 HEAT | KPH | Daily Average: 18.60
P2-120 HEAT | KPH | Daily Average: 22.85
Supernova PC | KPH | Daily Average: 18.21

3400 - Supernova PC | Vehicle KPH | Daily Average: 5.24
3700 - Titan-150 HEAT | Vehicle KPH | Daily Average: 5.26
4000 - P2-120 HEAT | Vehicle KPH | Daily Average: 6.06
3400 - Supernova PC | Average BR | Daily Average: 55.23
3700 - Titan-150 HEAT | Average BR | Daily Average: 47.74
4000 - P2-120 HEAT | Average BR | Daily Average: 52.25
So, we can see that Prowler HEAT is leading PC by at least 25% at killing infantry and 16% at killing armor.
Balance, or not? The BR is a little spread out, especially for Titan, but that would only lower PCs score
3461 - Supernova VPC | Average BR | Daily Average: 83.52
3731 - Titan-150 HE | Average BR | Daily Average: 81.52
4009 - P2-120 HE | Average BR | Daily Average: 84.87
So, not enough difference here to really bias the stats.

3461 - Supernova VPC | KPH | Daily Average: 41.17
3731 - Titan-150 HE | KPH | Daily Average: 37.29
4009 - P2-120 HE | KPH | Daily Average: 49.74
Prowler again, leads by 21% in KPH.
But....
*Gasp*
3461 - Supernova VPC | Vehicle KPH | Daily Average: 4.06
3731 - Titan-150 HE | Vehicle KPH | Daily Average: 3.53
4009 - P2-120 HE | Vehicle KPH | Daily Average: 3.83
VPC HAS MORE VKPH!!!!!!
ERMAGERD MAG PRIMARY OP, RIGHT?
However, you calculate the percents, you come out with only a 6% advantage in VKPH.
Balance, or not?


3730 - Titan-150 AP | Average BR | Daily Average: 74.76
4008 - P2-120 AP | Average BR | Daily Average: 79.25
3460 - Supernova FPC | Average BR | Daily Average: 79.30
Again, not enough difference to say that stats are skewed, except for that AP needs a little bit of buff to its KPH and VKPH stats
3730 - Titan-150 AP | Vehicle KPH | Daily Average: 10.74
4008 - P2-120 AP | Vehicle KPH | Daily Average: 14.07
3460 - Supernova FPC | Vehicle KPH | Daily Average: 11.90

3730 - Titan-150 AP | KPH | Daily Average: 19.76
4008 - P2-120 AP | KPH | Daily Average: 25.82
3460 - Supernova FPC | KPH | Daily Average: 19.04
I'm kinda tired of saying this, but again, Prowler has a hefty advantage over, 18% in KPH and hefty 31% in KPH.
Balance, or not?
Now, we come, to the supposed bane of NC and TR everywhere, the PPA
3404 - Proton II PPA | Average BR | Daily Average: 66.72
3707 - C85 Canister | Average BR | Daily Average: 67.20
4007 - P525 Marauder | Average BR | Daily Average: 74.56
So, Marauder needs to be underrated a little, but we're comparing to the next best option, so we'll just go with Canister, which has almost the exact same BR.
3404 - Proton II PPA | KPH | Daily Average: 76.80
3707 - C85 Canister | KPH | Daily Average: 69.46
4007 - P525 Marauder | KPH | Daily Average: 69.85
3404 - Proton II PPA | Vehicle KPH | Daily Average: 1.35
3707 - C85 Canister | Vehicle KPH | Daily Average: 2.13
4007 - P525 Marauder | Vehicle KPH | Daily Average: 1.62
An advantage in KPH, to be sure, but if you calculate the percents, it comes down to an 11% advantage, which is at best, a little over half of the advantage Prowler Cannons enjoy in almost every category. The PPA doesn't even enjoy an advantage in both KPH and VKPH like Prowler Cannons do.


The point? Just look at your own faction's weaponry before you start complaining about others.

This was all done with no cost using Calculator and Oracle of Death

Stat tracker is clearly broken.

Broken stat tracker.

Do you mean the vehicle KPH? That counts Flashes and Harassers.

Sigh...

It's a well-known fact that for weapons with relatively little usage (both in time and in users) that the KPH/VKPH values are going to be off.

For instance take a look at the KPH of sidearms. You'll see that they outperform almost every single infantry small arm.

Is this because sidearms are so much better than infantry small arms? No, of course not. The problem is that people only will switch to those weapons, get a kill, and switch back to their primary weapon. This skews KPH, and can be seen by the relatively low time used for the sidearms.

In the same way, the Canister and Marauder cannot be compared to the PPA because the usage times are completely off. For example, on July 6th the total usage time of the Canister was 16.0 hours and the Marauder was used for 15.7 hours. The PPA? 278.85 hours, or about a 1,750% increase over the Canister.

This data suggests that relatively few people are using the Canister and Marauder, and are only using it when they are likely to get a kill. Naturally this inflates their KPH figures in the same way that sidearm KPH are inflated.

Whereas PPA users stick in the PPA for extended periods of time (because the PPA is effective and versatile), so their KPH decreases.

Your analysis of the main cannons mostly seems correct (it's generally accepted that the Prowler kills the most, followed by the Magrider and then the Vanguard), and it's important to keep that in mind because if the Vulcan/Marauder are buffed then the Prowler will be killing even more things as a whole.

But you can't really use that data to draw any conclusions between the PPA, Marauder, or Canister for the reasons stated above.

All of that stuff should get balanced:

• Prowler mainguns have had superior KPH and VKPH for a while. It's the best solo tank by a strong margin.
• Last I checked, secondaries were imbalanced too, with the Saron's VKPH causing AV+AV Magriders to have a higher total VKPH in spite of AV+AV Prowlers having better maingun performance.

Hmm, then you raise an interesting point. How can I prove that PPA is or is not OP? Uniques can prove that a weapon is popular, but does that always correlate with a weapon being good. Especially as a the usage of a weapon can depend very much on outside factors. If Wrel made a video in which he reviewed a weapon as good, you would expect the weapon's uniques to jump even if the actual balance of it hadn't changed.

I don't think it's fair to compare offensive stats alone when that's the only advantage of the Prowler. Vanguard is more durable, Magrider more mobile = both more survivable tanks. They should not equal the Prowler in KPH.

The fact that the resource system is broken also arguably favors the Prowler or at least reduces it's main downside - when you can easily just pull another tank when yours is destroyed the Magrider and Vanguard's superior longevity becomes less of an advantage and the Prowler's fragility is less of an issue. I often just leave my Prowler to be destroyed and redeploy when I know I'm in a bad spot, since there's no CD on tank pulls anymore.

Also cont locking is skewing things, since tankers can't all just hang out on Indar now. This actually favors the Magrider since it's the only tank that's really decent on Amerish and Hossin. OTOH, TR/NC might just be pulling fewer tanks on these continents which would mean less effect on their stats.

Another thing to consider is that Prowlers are so often 1/2 and they have no decent ES secondary so you'd expect primary heavy stats, while Magriders...I'll be honest I 1/2 my Magrider, but lock people out of it just to use my own PPA to farm since I just have HEAT primary still. I think PPA usage probably reduces the Mag's HE KPH though, as the PPA mops up so many kills the primary cannon would've gotten.

[citation needed]

That's because you can switch between weapons as infantry and you only switch to them when you're caught reloading or out of ammo (barring stalker infiltrators). To compare them to vehicle weapons is illogical and full of confirmation bias.

That's not even necessarily true. You're assuming the only people who pull Marauders and Canisters are those that know when to pull them. That's a pretty strong assumption. You're also assuming PPA users live through every battle and are never destroyed. You're going to need more data than that to make that statement accurate.

Yes, the PPA is outperforming the Marauder and Canister but the game has asymmetrical balance. You'll find all kinds of weapons outperforming VS equivalents (Lasher as the primary and most known example) if you looked for them. NC have the Ravens and TR have the Prowler, etc.

The problem with that is that 2 1/2 Prowlers will still have superior firepower to 1 2/2 Magrider.
25 ish KPH is still less than 2 * 21 KPH.
Currently, there is no reason to pull a 2nd gunner due to Prowler's amazing main gun and the fact that you only have to stay alive 3 minutes to be able to pull another Prowler.

Yeah but a 2/2 prowler underperforms compared with a 2/2 magrider. Teamwork OP.

1. Killing things is much better than not killing things. Prowler kills more vehicles and infantry that the other 2 MBTs, so it has less infantry to deal with.
2. Even so, Prowler would be showing worse stats even if they pulled less(citation needed), as the other MBTs do worse on Hossin(citation needed) Apparantly not.
3. That's exactly the problem. Why pull a 2/2 Prowler when you can pull 2 1/2 Prowlers and get 1.75* the firepower?

2 1/2 Prowlers outperform 1 2/2 Magrider. Teamwork OP.

You can totally do that, press f2 it works for me.

1. We can also say that dying is much better than not dying. Also, infantry have infinite ~10s respawns, just because prowler kill more infantry does not mean they deal with less infantry.

2. Fewer tanks = more potential kills for those tanks if they can survive. Magriders often swarm and surround a base in a way that the others cannot due to their climbing ability(a large part of what makes the PPA spam so obnoxious). Prowler/Vanguard will have much more limited places to camp, but if there are fewer of them that means more targets between them.

3. The problem is not that simple. Arguably, you could say the PPA makes up for 75% of the Magrider's power in many fights as well.

This is wrong.

Weapons which are used in fundamentally different ways cannot be compared with one another. Pistols cannot be compared with LMGs, because you typically only have a pistol equipped for the brief period of time you pull it out to make a kill.

Weapons which are identical in use and role can be compared with one another. Pistols can be compared with one another, because they're all affected by the pull-out-and-shoot factor by the same amount.

This means PPA/Cannister/Marauder can be compared with one another. The usage time is irrelevant, because in this case (unlike pistols) it's just popularity and not how these weapons are used that determines things.

It mostly only suggests players are bad at choosing weapons based on objective effectiveness. Do you think the average player is whipping out the raw aggregate data and analyzing it to know what weapon they want to go with? Of course not.

These weapons are unpopular, but their KPH is relatively balanced (PPAs were 10% higher last I checked.) And that definitely matches my own subjective experience with the AI secondaries.

Is there some context to this thread? Or are you just posting things we already know?

If you do that, you can't move for around a second, which is pretty huge.

1.You contradict yourself. If infantry have infinite <10 second respawns, why is PPA OP? I can suppress spawn just as easy with infantry or air.
2. Your proving my point. If other Tanks do worse on Hossin, than Magrider's stats would only improve.....
3. Well, it makes up for 75% of AI power. Prowlers, on the other hand, just have straight up buffs to their primary, which allows them to be just as mobile as a 2/2 Prowler, and as the ESAV secondary isn't really worth gunning and Halberd is just a worse HEAT, why not just pull 2? You're getting pretty much double the firepower.

Its 10.56%. I calculated in the OP. Sorry if it was a bit too rambly and the fonts were too varied for your to really follow.

Here's what happens with the Canister. I've seen Alarox running with it so I'll use him as an example.

Alarox drives around in a 1/2 Vanguard with the Canister on top. He is almost always in the driver's seat operating the main cannon. However if he notices any infantry trying to C4 him, he waits for them to close in and then switches to the Canister to kill the assaulting infantry. Then he switches back to the main cannon and goes on his merry way.

Or alternatively a 1/2 Vanguard with a Canister engages infantry at close range. A blueberry sees that in this situation the Canister would be effective, so the blueberry jumps in to use the Canister to engage infantry. However after the infantry are dealt with, the blueberry immediately jumps out because the Canister is now useless.

In both those cases the Canister works like how sidearms work... extremely niche weapons that are only used under very specific conditions and abandoned otherwise. The difference in usage times, which I cited above, confirm that fact.

It is what happens when I observe Canisters in actual use as an NC player. I myself will ignore and not gun for MBTs that are running Basilisks and Canisters. Even Kobalts are a bit iffy... they are of marginal utility.

The question is not about pulling a tank with a Canister... it's about whether that Canister is being actively used. A Vanguard running around with an empty Canister will not count as usage hours for KPH purposes. Only when someone is sitting in that slot will the clock start ticking for counting hours of usage.

As for differences in PPA, Marauder, and Canister usage the amount of time each weapon is used speaks for itself. What is happening is that Canisters are only being used when it is incredibly advantageous to use them and abandoned when it is not. PPAs are constantly manned, even when the Magrider is out of combat and traveling from engagement to engagement (that's been my personal experience with PPAs at any rate). This naturally affects KPH.

If these are cases where there is imbalance, then they should of course be fixed. Asymmetrical balance is good in the sense that different factions have different ways of doing things... but at the end of the day such ways should be equally effective as different as they may be.

The Lasher is a weird one because it serves a different purpose than the Jackhammer and MCG... one of suppression instead of killing power. In that case I'd balance it out with giving both the NC and TR a suppression weapon and give the VS a direct-kill weapon. It's sort of why the TRAP outperforms the other ESSRs... whereas the Railjack is meant for slow, accurate shots at long range, the TRAP is more like a battle rifle than anything. Again, it's a problem because each faction was given equipment meant for different roles, making direct comparisons difficult.

This is what happens when you can fire two rounds in rapid succession, rather than wait for a 3 or 4 second reload.