[Vehicle] Have we just stopped talking about the Vanguard shield?

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Jat371, Nov 9, 2016.

  1. Liewec123

    Vanguard usually lingers behind in the MBT performance, Prowler usually dominates and magrider usually "hovers" in the middle.
    if you can't figgure out how to counter the shield then it is you problem, not the games.
    (FYI it is simply by LoSing.)
  2. Cyiko

    The only thing i hate about the shield is that it can suddenly fart it out even when by all logic it should've lost. Such as getting its rear pounded by a harasser to the point that it bursts into flames, only to fart out a giant shield
  3. TrolKabu

    Nanites beans are strong.
  4. Jake the Dog

    I love "invincible" vanguards, especially when my prowler wrecks their s*** nine times out of ten.
    • Up x 3
  5. Ziggurat8

    You guys are looking at this from a mbt vs mbt perspective. Here is what I think the original poster is upset about...

    He flies in on his newly upgraded rank 1 drifter jets as a LA. He's just certed his second brick of C4 and he is directly above his target, a vanguard. He drops 2 bricks sticking both to the top of the vanguard, he goes to flip the switch when something strange happens. The Vanguard is glowing blue. He fires his C4 but the tank is fine. A second later he gets mowed down by the driver that popped out of his "invincible" vanguard. Then came here to post how nothing should be invincible (to his C4; he doesn't add).

    Vanguard shield is fine. Either burn it down or wait it out (6 seconds, he gets 1! More salvo woo hoo!) Just assume that every vanguard is going to use it at some point during every engagement and adapt.

    Nothing to see here, move along.
  6. JohnGalt36

    Worst performing MBT is OP.

    Tanks for the laughs.
    • Up x 3
  7. Humoreske

    Indeed Vanguard is not bad MBT. However, in most cases Vang has no air support(by weakest ESF).
    It's strong only in a few scenes. no advantage.
  8. Pat22


    No matter how you choose to calculate it, the end result will always be that a properly certed vanguard can take a whole lot more punishment than other MBTs to kill.

    However, I always like to point out that if you're going for maximum toughness, the vanguard does have an additional advantage over other MBTs in the possibility of 75% side armor, which surpasses its maximum possible 73% frontal armor and the 68% other MBTs could have( I think, it's been a while since I've touched MBT stats ) which is how you get that "almost twice as tough as other MBTs" I had stated.

    It probably adds another +1/+1 shots to kill from the side? I don't know, not gonna do the math, I really just wanted to point out to the other guy that the Vanguard shield added a LOT more durability than he thought.
  9. Pat22

    Same source, I'm just reading more data than you.
    The Vanguard does in fact only have 4000 HP, and its shield only adds 2000 more. However, if you factor in the Vanguard's resistances, say for example if you had side armor resulting in a nice 75% damage reduction, then while the vanguard only has 6000 HP, you need to lay down 24 000 damage onto it to deplete that 6000 HP, thus the term "effective HP".
    • Up x 1
  10. Mojo_man

    I think we're messing up out math somewhere. I found some information on tank health and armor values, and did the following comparisons:


    Mag Riders have the same 4000 HP and if we assume a Side Armor Upgrade that boosts their side armor to 68%, that means that Mag Riders have an effective HP of 6,720. Also for reference, the source I'm pulling data from for this states that with Front Armor Upgraded, you still hit the same threshold of 68% Damage reduction.

    For Prowlers, we assume the same Side Armor Upgrade boosting damage reduction to 68% (the same value it would get from front Armor upgraded). So that results in the same thing of 6,720 effective HP.

    For the Vanguard without the shield and including Side armor, gets a damage reduction of 75%, which is 2% higher than if you had front armor. So the same 4000 HP base turns into 7,000 effective HP.

    Now, if we include the shield as though it would be active for the entire duration of the fight, and assume that the shield DOES absorb damage based on direction(I keep finding some sources that say it doesn't, which is annoying), and still with the side armor upgrade, that 6000 base with 75% dr now becomes 10,500 effective HP.

    All the number crunching aside, I do agree with your point that the %based reduction in combination with the Vanguards inherent durability give it a lot more mileage out of the shield than it would normally get, but it's still less than 2x total effective HP.

    Here's the source I've been using:
    https://www.reddit.com/r/planetsidearmor/wiki/armorpedia#wiki_directional_armor_explained

    Now I may have made some math errors or something, but I'm pretty sure that while the Vanguard IS tough as hell, it's not bad to that extreme.
  11. Alexkruchev


    The vanguard shield only covers you for one reload. If it's an AP reload, you can win versus a 1/2 prowler not in lockdown with AP.

    The Vanguard only wins with perfect accuracy even in this case, as it will fail to defeat enemy armor before being flamed itself due to it's low rate of fire if it misses at all.

    THe Vanguard is much less likely to be missed, due to it's huge profile. IT also is slower and thus easier to hit and is in capable of retreat.

    The Vangaurd is significantly more likely to miss for a few reasons:
    1) Smaller target profiles on enemy MBTs.
    2) Vanguard takes 25-50% longer to range shots, when multiple ranging shots are needed, than other faction tanks.
    3) Vanguard does not have turret stabilization as the Magrider does, making accurate shots on the move impossible.
    4) Vanguard has a 50% chance of engaging a highly mobile enemy tank, which can at range reliably dodge most of it's shots, all the while returning fire with stabilized impunity. This places pressure on the operator and has a negative impact on focus and morale.
    5) Vanguard has a hugely greater drop in it's shells than a lockdowned prowler, and is thus less accurate in stationary fights. It also has a hugely lower muzzle velocity, which hampers it's ability to hit moving targets.

    In spite of these massive long range weaknesses when compared to other faction MBTs, the Vanguard is oddly specialized as a long range tank- it's long reloads require cover in order to trade effectively: if a Vanguard attempts to HP tank incoming fire while reloading, it will lose to both other tanks most of the time due to it's relative accuracy difficulty. In order for cover to be effective, you must be out of range of the enemy flanking or rushing your cover.

    Furthermore Vanguard ES secondaries are relatively bad, although they are not as bad as they used to be when compared to the TR Long range ESAV option, and is in a good place compared to it. The Enforcer is a solid weapon now, but it does not synergize at all with the Titan-150 weapon system. It is a sustained damage weapon, paired with a high alpha primary cannon. THe things each weapon needs to be successful are opposite, and therefore cripple the tank as a damage dealer. It should be noted that the Vanguard is left then with only the close-quarters brawler option.

    The Vanguard's biggest win condition is as a bully. It rolls up on an enemy magrider or prowler, and then rushes them, before they can escape. It relies on it's secondary armament in order to damage the enemy down with the advantage it's shield provides- without it's shield, the Vanguard fails to have any viable place on the battlefield when compared with both other faction tanks.

    Nerfing it's shield would take the least well performing tank by statistics and make it even worse. The shield is a situational advantage that only delivers a victory in very specific situations, and only when enemies are not taking advantage of either their superior speed and mobility, or environmental cover- which both enemy tanks are better at doing than the Vangaurd, as they are both smaller and faster.
    • Up x 3
  12. lothbrook

    Why would people ***** about the weakest tank in the game? For all the shield does in a 1v1 fight its damn near useless in a massive engagement, constantly dodging and overwhelming with pure DPS without any downtime is vastly superior and the performance numbers of the tanks have always shown this.
    • Up x 1
  13. Demigan

    Because it's about feeling.

    People feel the Vanguard shield makes the tank invulnerable, people feel that the Vanguard shield instantly negates all the work they do, people feel that a Vanguard shield is an instant-win button. The actual statistics doesn't matter to them.

    Should we just say "well let them feel that way, the statistics make the Vanguard a terrible tank so it needs buffs"?
    No! We should try to find an alternative. preferably one that boosts the Vanguards capabilities so that it is closer in performance to the other two tanks and at the same time makes people enjoy the challenge. No one goes "well the Prowler Anchor mode is an IWIN ability", even though in many situations the added DPS will curbstomp anyone. This is because the Anchor mode can be negated. You can flank the enemy, get behind them, deal extra damage, you have an easier time hitting a stationary target etc etc. Although the flankin advantage is nearly gone since you can instantly get out of Anchor mode now, people still feel that the Anchor mode is good and balanced.

    The same needs to happen to the Vanguard shield. If you activate the Vanguard ability people need to be thinking on how to circumvent it, they need to think that the battle isn't lost and that the Vanguard ability is just something they have to deal with, just like you deal with strafing Magriders and high-DPS Prowlers (or when deployed ultra-high DPS Prowlers).
    • Up x 1
  14. Pat22


    From your numbers, I assume you're using an equation like 4000x1.75= 7000 but that would only be right if you were trying to calculate a health increase.
    The proper equation to calculate a damage reduction is as follows;
    A 75% damage reduction means only 25% damage is coming through, so your equation should be 4000 / 0.25 = 16 000
    If you add the shield and the base health rises to 6000, then it's 6000 / 0.25 = 24 000.

    For the Magrider or Prowler, maximum directional armors can only ever reach 68%, that means 32% of damage is coming through.
    Put that number down in the equation and you get 4000 / 0.32 = 12 500.
  15. Movoza

    But that is a bit misleading. That might be the total health pool if shot from the front, but each weapon has further resistance types. The damage shown on all weapons is damage vs infantry. I can't search for the modifiers right now, but as far as I know AP gets an increase in damage. That is why the calculations of ColonelChingles are much better to use. Amount of bullets needed per side per MBT. This results in time to kill. This is a much more effective method. Together with other stats and looking at strategies, you can piece together a much better picture of the strength of the shield.

    I've said it before in this thread and others with me. The shield isn't overpowered, it is actually giving the Vanguard a fighting chance, but leaves it still as the underdog. Even so, the psychology is important. People don't like fighting an in their eyes temporary invulnerabe tank. That is why I propose to change the ability to something else. Directional shields, temporary high damage high speed shots, EMP blasts.... Something that will increase the utility of the Vanguard, bringing it closer to the other two MBTs. At the same time it shouldn't feel OP to the enemy when fighting.
    • Up x 1
  16. Pelojian

    the only think i can think of that would give shield a downside would be changing it from omni-directional to tri-directional so that the shield does not cover it's rear or bottom side so ambush tactics can be used in a situation where the vanguard is fighting more then one player or the vanguard driver is bad enough to let the enemy get behind them in a 1vs1.
  17. LaughingDead

    Give vanguards a 45% armor on rear and + 5% on all other sides and I'll be happy :p
  18. Diilicious

    i cant actually believe theres still people complaining about this.
  19. orangejedi829

    The Prowler is by far the best MBT, and the Vanguard is easily the worst MBT.

    I'm not sure how this discussion is even being had..
  20. Pelojian

    it's called people will whine untill they get what they want and when they don't get what they want they will still whine from time to time.

    i have no problem with vanguard shield, if they get in close to hammer you then they outplayed you.

    i think the only real issue is there is no downside to using it, magburning and anchoring have the risk the enemy will get a shot in on your weaker or weakest armor.

    shield is very flexable at close, mid, long range, against sudden ESF attack, it protects them from all of that and they have no real angle they are weak from that will take their HP while it is active.