Harrassers are balanced.

I disagree with the assertion that they're not fragile enough. Honestly, it has to do with balancing the guns on the Harasser. The Vulcan, Enforcer and Saron variants are absurdly damaging to armor. Tone that down a little and you'll see far less absurdity. The Enforcer especially can wipe out a sundy in no time flat and the vulcan/saron only slightly behind it.

having to use multiple people is not a disadvantage, it is an advantage. You can have one player driving and concentrating on driving, you then have a second person shooting and only repairing if needed (easy to switch seats).

I have no clue where people came up with the idea that just because it takes more people to operate it should be super powerful.

I agree 100%. The way I see it is that a vehicle should be balanced around the resources it costs unlike the original planetside which was balanced based on the amount of people it took to operate effectively.

Disagree. Think of it this way: What is the incentive to stick 3 people into one Harasser when you could instead pull 3 MBTs? Every time you put an extra person into a vehicle, there's an opportunity cost. Those extra two people could each be doing something else. Power needs to scale up based on how many people are concentrated into a single vehicle. On top of that, if you want to incentivize teamwork, it needs to be slightly more powerful than if those three people had decided to lone wolf it.

If you stick 3 people into one Harasser and it's less powerful than if you had each gone your separate ways, then that's one more thing that takes PS2 closer to just a big deathmatch arena.

Granted, I wish MBTs were more powerful than Harassers and required 3 man crews. But that didn't happen, and I doubt they're going to change it. What we have now is a situation where Harassers are what MBTs should have been--a scaling reward for teamwork using vehicles.

There is one person in a MBT that now has to concentrate on driving, firing the weapon, and keeping an eye out. You can use a second person, but at least one person will always be driving and firing the primary weapon at the same time.

That is 3 things an MBT operator has to concentrate on.

The Harasser has 1 job per person. Driver drives, shooter shoots.

When not under fire, the shooter can flip over and repair while on the move then go back to keeping an eye out after 5 seconds.

Oh darn, I have to find one person out of the 1000 on my side to get into my Harasser and shoot the gun for easy experience!! GOOD LORD, what I am going to do!

Trust me, it is not hard to find a shooter for a decked out Harasser. Toss on a good weapon and limifiber trim and people jump at the chance to get in.

Oh, and you really don't want 3 people in the Harasser. The backseat is a death trap for everyone and should only be manned by the gunner who is also an engineer. The gunner repairs after each retreat while the vehicle is still on the move. What other vehicle can we repair with engineers while on the move, then have them switch back to the safety of being a gunner?

Harasser is no where close to being balanced with other ground vehicles in the game.

They aren't balanced, though. Especially from the perspective of an infantryman, it's hard to believe they qualify as "transports" with the power they have. In groups, they pose a serious danger to tanks, too. Hell, in a fight on Waterson's Indar, three Harasses were able to stop a platoon of VS that included a few Lightnings and Magriders, simply because they were just bowling over the groups of men who were trying to hunt them down and tearing through the vehicles. As I said in the other post about the Harassers, they're far too sturdy for both the offensive power they have and the speed they move at, especially if we're supposed to actually believe they are just "transports". In reality, they outclass the Lightning and, in the hands of a skilled crew, can tear through both heavies and Sunderers; nevermind all of the infantry they can kill just by moving. That's why I think they should be open-topped, to make their use more careful, to either be an actual transport or to force people to be more careful with their use and, perhaps, to actually start using Lightnings. With the latter, and ironically, it seems like most people now just use those as ways to get around.

Leading your targets only works if the target follows a predictable path, which you can be sure only a newbie harasser driver will do. The harasser even has the scrapper mod and the afterburner that improves its already ridiculous maneuverability for crying out loud. Right now even a harasser with two guys will crush an MBT in any scenario except situations which prevent movement, like valleys etc. Frankly, I have no idea why you'd roll Vanguard+Enforcer when you can have two enforcers. And really... telling people to "learn to lead" when you're up against a harasser with a Saron at long range is just silly. Even in the unlikely event that the MBT gunner manages to hurt it a bit, the harasser guys are typically free to just leave to repair at any time. It's really difficult to die in those things unless you're badly outnumbered or are up against another harasser(Which may make running away difficult).

Part of the reason for this is that all MBTs are sitting ducks for anti-vehicle weapons while an enforcer gunning at full speed is almost immune against lock on with the missiles hitting ground or the vehicle breaking lock-on attempts due to passing trees and rocks. There's just no contest. One of the most common sights in Planetside these days is tank columns going up against AV infantry at some choke point where you get traffic jams while the MBTs are pounded to bits. The harassers, being so mobile can generally avoid such choke points at very little cost in time. Although I like the harassers because they're fun to drive, the fact that they're almost immune to lock on makes them stupidly powerful. What's even more strange is that you'd think that lock on weapons would be designed to primarily counter Speedy Gonzales and perhaps not the slow MBTs.

To avoid nerfing the harasser the speed of lock-on missiles should probably be doubled or so while also having their damage against MBTs lowered a lot. After their range nerf I think there's something to be said for lowering the lock-on time a bit as well because right now the weapons don't really work well against anything but the one thing they pretty much have to be useless against to create reasonable rock-paper-scissors mechanics - MBTs.

Harassers can out maneuver lock-ons better than esf's. The composite armor is the only other thing that should get looked at.

They are better in every way shape and form to a Lightning.
Stock, they are more fun to drive, since they are faster and handle waaaay better than a stock Lightning. Put an ESAV weapon on top and Composite armor and they will destroy an anti-tank Lightning by being more survivable.
They should be classified as Light Tank, while the Lightning should be re-classified as a Transport.

ATV's don't actually handle that great TBH. Not that the in-game ones need to imitate that particularly. I'd much rather flashes became easier to drive though, this game's awful physics are a terrible way to make things more challenging.

Agreed. However, I would rather that the Flash be buffed to be faster than the Harasser and easier to control.

A Heavy with Flak Armor on the back for rockets works well, particularly if you're NC and have a Phoenix or TR and have a Striker. Engies with maxed Flak Armor are also remarkably durable back there as well, and make good mine delivery systems. Obviously they're at more risk, but Flak Armor mitigates a lot of it and you can still switch for repairs when need be. MAXes with Flak Guns or Fractures/Ravens, though you do lose some of your utility when it comes to repairing on the move. You have to drop them off somewhere save if you want to repair while moving and then pick them up again.

The point is that the option is there, and it does make you more effective. If you really need to do seat switching repairing, you can drop off your Flak MAX on a hill or something and get some nice AA cover to boot.

Also, if you can't overwatch, aim, and drive at the same time in an MBT that doesn't mean that everybody can't. There are various levels of proficiency at this game, and there are plenty of people at the level where driving and shooting doesn't cost them anything in terms of attention or efficiency.

This is like the ESF versus Lib argument when Libs shoot down ESFs with Daltons, Zephrs, or even with tailgunners. You're a 1-man vehicle; you don't get to hard counter 3 people without outplaying them. Deal with it. They could have done 3 ESFs if they wanted to, and instead they decided they would use teamwork and concentrate their efforts.

The only thing I dont like about the harasser is that they get MBT weaponry. Why should a harasser be able to fit a sauron on its roof? its almost as big as the harasser it self.

Does the Lib allow the engineer to repair while on the move? Is the Lib the fastest air vehicle in game? The only thing the Lib and Harasser have in common is they carry 3 people.

Just because a vehicle has multiple people operating it does not mean it should be

1) the fastest vehicle on the ground

2) have a very high damage output potential

3) have high armor

4) allow for repairs while on the move

5) allow for the dropping of mines from the third seat while on the move

6) allow for use of any infantry weapon from the third seat while on the move

7) can be pulled from any terminal

Because of the above advantages the Harasser over shadows the Lightning in every way except one, the Lightning can be fully operated by 1 person.

Harassers don't need an armor nerf, it is MBT that need an armor buff...
Imagine a MBT with harasser style comp armor, gunner handling the main gun, and a 3rd guy manning the roof gun.
Now that would be a true tank.

I don't know if I want to see a day where MBT's require 2 people along with the person that drive it. Mainly cause, I can hardly find anybody in the NC on my server (Waterson) that can hit anything worth a damn! If I knew people who were good with this and were online often I could cope with MBT's becoming 3 person vehicles.

A harasser is useless if your gunner cant hit the broadside of tank too...

As it should be. The Harasser should overshadow the Lightning because it requires the time of two-to-three people to operate it. A single person vehicle of reasonable cost should never be better than a multiple person vehicle of reasonable cost. And, let's be honest here, MBTs are also single person vehicles. There's a reason the Harasser is the best ground vehicle in the game right now, and that's because it's the only one that truly requires a dedicated crew.

If it were any other way, we'd go back to the days of dozens of people all spawning MBTs with no gunners, because it's always better to spawn more vehicles if there's no reward for teamwork.

I know you guys want to be able to pull an MBT, ignore the gunner seat, and wtfpwn Harassers full of 3 people all by yourselves, but you are not entitled to multikills just for being you.

Not sure if your issue is with weapon balance or cosmetics but the harasser versions do less damage and harassers do no have a main gun either. Harasser weaponry is quite a bit weaker than MBT weaponry when compared.