Honest opinion on the VS Mag Rider?

You only need them to miss once. Anything else makes it easy money.

As an infantry player i don't fear them more than other tanks in terms of lethality. But i hate it when/if i'm playing HA and dumbfire my RL against magriders past a certain range: they become hard to predict and as such i will more often try and miss, or sometimes not even take some shots, because that becomes a waste of fire+reload time compared to any other tank.

That's painting it in too simple colours.

The tank game is pretty simple, what were you expecting? WOT? I think that was another thread...

Having played a bit too much WoT in the past, neither game is actually that much more complicated, or simpler than the other - just different. WoT have the camo system and the modules/armour mechanics, PS2 has scope (not just 7v7/8v8/15v15 or what have you), finer movement and aiming requirements (and a more important physics component to combat).

Anyway, my point was that a single missed shot alone doesn't determine anything. Impacts the outcome but there's a lot more happening that determines how the fight goes. In the simplest terms, it basically makes a situation that doesn't favour the magrider a bit more even overall.

Even if a Vanguard or Prowler misses once, they still beat a Magrider in a straight TTK race.

While the ratio of Q4 tank deaths for the AP main guns over 30 days are:

Prowler AP destroys 3977 Magriders, while Magrider AP destroys 3497 Prowlers.

Vanguard AP destroys 3588 Magriders, while Magrider AP destroys 2155 Vanguards.

The death statistics include all types of MBT, Usage levels for Q4 of AP main guns are:

VS 71.8%NC 79.3%TR 68.7%

(The TR use HEAT MBTs a little that the other factions. The NC tend to use AP)

Now, part of this is because the Magrider's secondary ends up performing a little better (due to the suckiness of the main gun) but still, while overall balance is not too bad, the Magrider is at a definite disadvantage in a straight fight, especially against Vanguards, where the first shot counts for less.

Planetside 2s tanks are simple. Doesn't matter where you hit. For instance, you shoot a tank barrel from the front it has front armor values. Hit a tanks barrel from the rear, rear armor values. Theres no complicated info to understand like where to hit on a tank, no sloped armor, no special ammo, no treads getting blown out, my crew doesn't get injured (unless Im outside my tank ofc) and no camo (I mean real camo).

In comparison I find tanking in planetside to be way easier to understand completely.
Granted its got external (non-tank) nuances you have to deal with.

This is all to often not the case however. Have you ever watched videos that calisai has made? I would go out on a limb and put him in top ten tankers. Have you ever magrided before. If you haven't I suggest you learn to do it, before you claim that they underperform because they are amazing.

That's the damage model being simple - not the entire tank play "meta".
Thankfully there's more to either game than just how damage is dealt/received (and avoided).

Both me and Mongy knows how to use the Magrider. Calisai is a great tanker but he's far from the only one.

I have over 14 days play time with the Magrider (though admittedly nearly a third of that is as an AI Mag).

I'm simply pointing out that the Magrider overall seems to underperform against other MBTs in general despite being used by on average higher BR players than the other MBTs, and having an AV secondary gunner more than any other MBT (also of a higher BR), it tends to underperform against equally certed/experienced 2/2 AP/AV other MBTs in most situations.

I do fairly well, but then again I only tend to use the Magrider when I have a Competent gunner ready to get in as soon as I spawn it, while the majority of Prowlers and Vanguards you come up against are; stock, 1/2 (or pub gunner), and with the situational awareness of a narcoleptic deaf bat. Coming up against an equally certed and skilled driver/gunner team is a matter of hiding until you can fight an unfair fight.

*DING DING*

SHAME!

My point is that, I can teach a 4th grader (and I have taught the squeakers) the tank game pretty quickly. Theres not alot of super hard concepts to get at. WOT though is another matter.

I said top ten didn't I?

To rehash out my points and bring this to a bit more of an understanding (hopefully).
You CAN dodge tank shells at 50m, I literally just did that five minutes ago. I watched calisai do it an hour or 2 ago.

You state that the vanguard/prowler in a 1v1 fight trade will win. Thats not a false statement.
Im saying that with proper timing you CAN dodge shots. I didn't say it was a guarenteed kill. I said easy money. For me at least anything past 50m is generally easy money.

Can one shot make a difference? All the difference, because the difference between 8500 and 10575 taken is a big difference.

Does the prowler have an OP secondary gun? yes.

Does the magrider generally suck at close range (if you don't take the aphellion)? yes.

If you tank, more likely than not you've come down to that last shot.

Does that tanker suck if he misses more than one? Probably.

In conclusion, is taking 4 tank rounds better than taking 5?6? yes. Can you do that with a prowler/vanguard? No not effectively without exposing larger hitbox's.

The AI part is kinda shameful lol.

I don't want to count my time in MBTs... I did once... I decided not to do that again...

The mag shines the most when it has a gunner. yes.

The van and the prowler can survive without one due to their abilities, but if you use the mags as well ie spidertank into a m'f***** mountain they're going to have a hard time uprooting you and you can sit there blowing up their ****. Did that one yesterday on a mountain in esamir. Blew up their sundies and half their armor.

I didn't count it, I quickly checked it on Fisu's site http://ps2.fisu.pw/player/?name=mongychops&show=vehicles

Here we are though, you are immediately adding conditions to the Magrider's performance IF you can get a decent gunner, IF there is terrain you can climb overlooking a flanking position which enemy MBT's cannot climb, and IF they do not start shooting back at you / use aircraft to take you out, THEN you can do well.

If you can't get a decent gunner, then there usually isn't much point taking an MBT with a weaker main gun than a Lightning. If the enemy vehicles are in terrain which lacks decent safe vantage points then you'll have to fight them head to head. If the enemy have a Harasser squad running around you're going to get a Vulcan-H underneath you / GK-H sniping hull down from render when you're distracted away from your own lines, If the continent's air situation is not in your factions favour going behind enemy lines to get on a mountainside is going to get you air ganked.

The Magrider has uses, it's just there are so many situations where it just isn't worth using.

You could give them a basic run-down on how to use their tanks, but not all the connected aspects of it. Like the interaction with terrain, how to move around on the different continents, judging distance, lead, drop, trigger control etc etc etc. Getting a good grip on those takes a lot of time, and arguably a predisposition to actually be good at it (by comparison not every BR100 magically becomes good at the FPS side of planetside - they may have a basic understanding of how the game works but there's a lot of nuances they won't know).

Anyway...
The main difference between Calisai and, for example myself, Mongychops and Rayden78 is that Calisai makes videoes and plays on Emerald.
Incidentally, this is an issue I've had with people in the past. For example, there was a discussion over on reddit about the new secondaries for tanks/harassers, and some people generally just parroted ECUS comments as if it was some sort of "divine gospel of eternal truth" about how good or bad weapons were. Not because of what the ECUS players said, just because they had the tag. Likewise, comments and posts from others, such as myself and Mongychops was shot down or even ignored, not because we were wrong but because we weren't ECUS players. I bring this up because you invoking Calisai's shenanigans, almost implying they're representative of all magriders (he's not, nor am I and mongy for that matter).

Speaking of the case with the ECUS fanbois I ran into, my concerns was actually shared by some of the ECUS guys I spoke to at a later date. The point though, is that the high end players are worth keeping in mind, but not at the expense of the entire player base and how they perform. Can Calisai make magriders do crazy things? Yes. Can I? Yes. Can most VS players? No, because they don't know how (they can drive the tanks across normal terrain and shoot at things though - which is probably what the 4th graders you introduced to PS2 tanking would end up doing).

Oh you can, but again mostly because the prowler/vanguard user is bad at aiming.
And that is the issue - it's not really happening because of anything on the Mag side of the engagement, but because of a lack of proper activity on the other side.

Aka something that's only really do-able when there's a noticable gap of skill between the two parties, and then balance (or lack thereof) is thrown out the proverbial window.

The point is to bring people up to that skill level. For a long while (before the GK) the magrider was slightly overperforming the other tanks when counting in secondaries. I think we're getting kinda at the same thing. However this issue generally stems from the fact that the magrider is not a conventional tank. If we buffed the mags dps output where would it sit against the prowler/vanguard? Especially with people that know what they're doing. This balance is very finicky, and only recently upset by the recent secondary AV options. If you made it simpler, and buffed the mag against vanguards lets say adding 500dmg, what would that do against prowlers which really don't have a defensive ability (deploy is not a shield its a sword).

I generally disagree with your statement that all the guys that miss are terribad. People miss, I just help them miss more often.

However as it stands there needs to be some changes to secondaries. As it stands I think: A. Canister and Mjol need to switch jobs. B. Saron needs less bloom and remove drop on saron OR nerf GK. C. Because TR will whine and its a terribad weapon buff the fractures.

Right, but a big part of the reason that Magrider secondaries outperform the Prowler and Vanguard is because Magriders both had a manned AV secondary more often, and both the driver and the gunner tend to be higher BR. I have just put it together for the other thread.

http://i.imgur.com/han3l7O.png Proportion of AV secondaries.

http://i.imgur.com/g7JA5wS.png BR of drivers / gunners

My main issue with the GK has always been the velocity on it effectively nullifies the Magriders mobility faction trait, which is like making it ignore the extra armour and shield on the Vanguard.

Your earlier comment was still akin to saying you can teach 4th graders to outperform university graduates, without them first going the distance and through university themselves (so they're still 4th graders).



People who miss a shot on a magrider 50 meters due to it strafing sideways are almost by definition bads, or very inexperienced. Sure if it's during a chase through uneven terrain then yeah a miss becomes more likely for any vehicle but given the original claim that by strafing you can make people miss at 50 meters or so is only true given the above. If it wasn't... (I know I'm repeating myself) then they'd know how to deal with it and hit.

Which the ease of use makes it OP which we agree on.

I didn't say they outperformed everyone. I give them the tools on how to be successful just like any teacher would to get them to the point where they will outperform. What that kid does is his own doing. If he wants to see if he can shove a crayon up his nose i can't stop him.

And planetside is all grassy plains right... lol. Just like I said before, people miss. No matter the skill level, you are bound to miss and kick yourself saying why the F*** did I just miss. My point is to make them do it more often. Is a higher skilled player less likely? yes. Is a low skilled player more likely? yes.

The PPA is trash, you need direct hits to score a kill, you are much better off with Kobalt for direct hits. For splash damage the Saron is better against infantry even though its an AV weapon.... the developer that nerfed the PPA clearly wanted Vanu to stop using it.