[Suggestion] Buff Canister and Marauder, revamp Vulcan

It would take out a Liberator that tried to tank bust you from the front or one was hovering within 150 meters and hovering long enough to take all 60 rounds. The Projectile velocity of the Vulcan is pathetic and was only great against AA at low elevations and at short ranges.

It would take out 2 ESF's if they were hovering or rocketpodding at a low elevation with 150 meters and didn't react while getting shot at. Given the short Max effective distance of the Vulcan being only 150 meters it was not crazy overpowered. But I personally didn't care that much when they changed the resistances up against aircraft. What I'm more talking about was that even AFTER the resistance nerf against aircraft later on it got a totally different set of nerfs that totally took away from both the damage and the range from the weapon so now the range and the damage is horrendous unless you're right up in the face of the MBT or whatever you're attacking.

Let me make myself clear, ALL nerfs giving to the Prowler's Vulcan in the recent batch of super nerfs it got were COMPLETELY unjustified. The only data that we had availble at the time showed that the Harasser version was outperforming, and the Prowler's version at the time was underperforming and at the time of several massive nerfs could've used a small buff.

Personally I'd kill for the ability to one-clip Liberators that swooped down to tankbust me, considering that I die to this quite frequently and have zero defense against it now that the Vanguard shield holds up to like...1/4 a tank buster clip now.

Well don't hold your breath because the Enforcer - an AV-specific secondary that is purpose-built to vulture kills pulled only on AV loadouts - was recently nerfed by ~30% because it was performing a little better than the Halberd. At ONE thing. Meanwhile the C85 is and has always been dramatically underperforming and, bless their hearts, they ARE tweaking it, it's never going to get the dramatic changes it will need to become less dramatically bad.

If anything the Vulcan is going to see further nerfs, hate to be the bearer of bad news here

I'm not and haven't held my breath to any extent since the balance patch that was supposed to make TR abilities and weapons which were totally lacking flopped hard. It's painfully obvious the developers don't drive the dam tanks in this game. The Vanguard shield was bugged for several months making it highly unreliable, the Magrider's mobility was heavily nerfed and left in a horrible state for months until the Vanu collectively cried their hearts out and Higby ACTUALLY tried out a magrider and buffed it back. I could've sworn they were going to make Anchormode/Lockdown for the Prowler/Max less situational with significantly shorter undeploy times but that didn't happen either.


Tankers including myself were making detailed well put together threads about how the AV secondary nerf was a bad idea all around. The developers ignored it anyways. Untill the MBT revamp comes along I'm probably not going to make any tank related threads anymore, because the developers just don't care about them enough to balance them properly. Hey remember when all the MBT secondaries were pretty darn balanced and didn't need nerfs? Well in case you didn't, here's a video of back when they were the closest to being balanced that they ever were. Ask yourself if the following Vulcan on the Prowler need the nerfs it did. (Hopefully the answer is a no if you've actually used the Vulcan any worthwhile amount of time)

Vulcan in its prime at 150 meters Vs other secondaries

Vulcan in its prime at 30 meters VS other secondaries

The Canister needs removing and replacing with an AI Railgun

I don't know anything about stats or balance, but I remember how the vulcan was in the beta(back when it was like 10,000 auraxium to buy) and let me tell you...it is WAY better than it used to be. Granted, it still feels a bit weak compared to like...the a30 walker. If it worked like an actual gatling cannon, that would be amazing - fire fast and accurate, perhaps with really low damage per shot(for balance). Right now it fires quickly and does kinda low damage, but it's not accurate at all at even medium range. Kind of poopies.

Any reason why there are so many Proton PPA users?

If they get the Canister and (a revamped vulcan) to the level of PPA, then this weapon should not be considered useless.

Easy, it's a high capacity, 0 drop, decent splash AI secondary and perhaps most importantly it allows the tank to fight at medium ranges where it is far less likely to get blown up by enemy infantry and the vehicles that may be around the tank. I don't know why it's so hard for people and SOE to understand the concept that a short range weapon on a slow moving vehicle like a tank is normally a very bad idea unless the weapon is so massively powerful and effective at that range it makes up for the massive penalty of not having medium-long range utility.

Even then having to get very close to your enemy to kill them is bad, because you're basically screwed if an outside force comes in to interrupt and then you're left having to escape a large distance since you had to go very close to the enemy where their friends might be lurking around. The Tank Buster on the Liberator works because although massive the Liberator is pretty fast and with composite armor is tanky enough to close the distance, soak up damage with composite, and then Afterburn away.

Because it's really, really good at what it does

Also worth noting: "when the Enforcer was in its prime"

Contrary to what non-TR pilots will tell you, there was a period in the Vulcan's balance history where it didn't one clip aircraft but also wasn't the garbage scrap of metal it is now. Between that nerf to air resistances, and total **** canning of the Harasser nerf, the Vulcan was a very well balanced, functional, even under performing compared to the Saron and Enforcer, AV option for the Prowler. There was even talks that SOE might buff its range a tad to truly get it in the golden spot.

And you know what SOE did? They completely trashed it to the state it is in now, instead of just nerfing the Harasser version and leaving the Prowler alone. So now no TR tank will ever touch the Vulcan because the Halberd is better in literally every situation, the Vulcan cannot even out DPS a Saron at point blank anymore.

And therefore, if canister and (revamped vulcan) are brought up to a similar level, they will not be useless weapons any more.

Yes the Canister and Marauder should be buffed to a similar level, but the only revamp the Vulcan needs is what it takes to make it an accurate competitive medium range weapon and a big kick in the teeth the closer you get down from medium range. If SOE starts giving a crap about tanks maybe they'll put the time into unnerfing the Vulcan back into its form when they almost had it right and then give it some more range. I don't want an AI Banshee, maybe as a whole new Vulcan variant I'd be okay with, but the Prowler needs an AV Vulcan which acts like this.

Yeah, if they give the Vulcan zero drop, very tight cone of fire and a massive mag increase with a nice splash damage radius. Basically take the Banshee then buff all its stats, then it would be on par with the PPA. As for the Canister, that would need a miracle work over in the buff department. But the OP was suggesting that the Vulcan be turned into a Banshee with no armour damage. That would make it sub-par compared to the PPA and next to useless as a viable alternative to a semi-multipurpose AV weapon.