How does everyone feel about the Vanguard Shield now?

Following the Vanguard Shield nerf, is anyone still complaining? It's really a lot weaker than it was, especially at higher cert levels. This happened in the same patch that Lockdown and Magburner got much better at lower cert levels. The Enforcer also got nerfed.

Does anyone still think the Vanguard is OP?

I'm curious as well.

The shield needed to be reworked, not outright nerfed. If it provided damage mitigation (akin to a Resist Shield, the numbers would require tweaking - obviously) instead of damage absorption I think all parties would be satisfied. The Vanguard would be "killable" with the shield on and yet the shield would do it's job of providing a noticeable buff to the tank's effective HP (stackable with armour).

Pretty much the above, I would've liked to see it being given a resist shield type change or even a ramp up time.

I think the Vanguard shield also got a little better for the lower tier.

I think the shield time is now equalised at 6 seconds for everyone.

No idea. If I see a Vanguard I still run. Unless I have full AP loadout, second gun manned, other friendly tanks around to act as meat shields, and the Vanguard is smoking already.

Anybody who thought it was going to be tweaked instead of outright nerfed (in combination with other, unannounced nerfs as well) is a fool.

A Resist Shield Vanguard would either be way more OP than the low scoring, most-killed variety of Vanguard that had the shield previously or essentially the same as the even worse-scoring, most-killed variety of Vanguard that we had when the shield didn't work at all. There wouldn't really be middle ground, it'd be either "+3 shots to kill with incredibly high uptime" or "+1 shots to kill for 6 seconds every 60". You REALLY do not want a resist shield Vanguard

Personally, my playstyle is relatively unaffected because I was always a cautious poke and pound type tanker. For anybody who plays more aggressively though the change is pretty crippling, 33% less mitigation and 25% less uptime for the ability meant to balance out the horrible mobility of the, against I stress, most killed tank in the game means that things must be balanced even more carefully.

Overall though, I'd say that it's not like, entirely non-viable or something. If there were any other tank in the entire game that filled the role of, well, TANK, then it would be entirely worthless now but that's not the case.

Mostly I'm annoyed that I had to drop another 1400 certs into my Enforcer just to upgrade it to a mostly worse choice than the Halberd overall. Now it's a bit worse against armor but hey at least it's way worse as everything else as well! Too bad I didn't play NC to use boring NS crap

Let's say I've adapted.

The tank's staying power is really limited now, since the shield rarely lasts the 6 seconds it's supposed to (and pre-nerf it often lasted all 8). Breaking through an enemy line is now not something the Vanguard will do every day (and twice on Sunday).

The tank's ability to maneuver got nerfed as well - this is a side effect of the nanite auto-repair start delay increase and the shield lifetime decrease.
Back in the good old days, when one shut down, the other started working, so I rarely had to stop the tank to give it a quick blast with the glue gun.
Now there's 6 seconds of waiting, instead of instant repairs after the shield fizzles out. It's not too much, but I am considering swapping NAR to something else if I need to stop anyways.

The tank's killing power also suffered - there's less time in combat due to the need to fall back earlier, and more downtime due to nanites being lazy.

Combine that with the recent Lib update and all tanks got the short end of the stick, as per usual.

Nanite auto repair started working while your shield was up? Wow now I know why they were both nerfed.

I'm having a lot less issues dealing with Vanguards now. Not quite sure if its because of the shorter shield or the hesitance of players to use the shield because they now know its a serious "oh f^&*" button and not a "hey theres a guy its time for 10 minutes of god mode" button. Vanguards still remain scary as hell though, that firepower is ******** when you have a competent main and turret gunner and the tank still has plenty of armor.

I'm interested in what NC tankers think of it post change.

Shields stopped working after 8 seconds.
NAR triggered after 8 seconds (yes, I upgraded it to full just for this).

Just as the blue glow disappeared, the first HP increase arrived.
This sometimes meant I got to a safe place smoking rather than burning, losing speed and not getting there at all. It was the defense against mid to high altitude Liberators.

Dunno, never liked them even with the shield. Too slow and cumbersome. Always been and always will be a Lightning driver.

For me it's never been a question of OP really, I just think the way the shield functions is, like a lot of NC-specific traits, too...well it rewards bad gameplay. I know the dev team is too lazy to do it at this point, but I would have much rather seen the shield keep its 8 second timer and instead make it so the shield doesn't absorb any damage done to the rear armor. That way players still get rewarded for superior positioning.

The VG is still good for the things it's always been good for and I still like using it, but overextending blitzkrieg style is no longer really a viable tactic. The shield nerf hit pretty hard, yeah I agree with the person who said you rarely see it stay up for 6 seconds anymore. Guess it's pretty obvious now just how close the shield HP used to come to depleting before the charge ended previously.

I think the shield nerf was merited, but I really thought it would have come with a buff somewhere else in the tank. Maybe an increase in burst damage, the most likely place for this would be a fire rate buff for the Enforcer. The Prowler and Mag have higher burst damage (Pr main gun and Mag Saron) but Vanguard was able to win the long battle before due to the shield, so that much brought balance through applied roles. Now that the shield HP is eaten up by enemy tank DPS fairly quickly, I think it's merited that the VG get some sort of small buff. I think the VG primary is alright where it is in direct DPS, but its blast radius could be increased 1-2m or so, and like I said the Enforcer having less shots and a longer reload now could handle a small rate of fire buff.

as said already, a damage mitigation would have worked better instead of keeping the damage invulnerability. i would have suggested to bump up the shield duration to 12-15secs (at max rank) but make it mitigate 50% of incoming damage. that way, even a burning vanguard would not be able to win/retreat easily when being hit in the rear or focusfired by enemies

Like the AV MANA turret, I don't think they can really fix it via tuning. It'll either be frustrating to fight against, or so weak as to be useless.

I haven't noticed much difference with the shield to be honest. The health reduction mostly just means that it can't be used as effectively to protect yourself against an enemy ambushes you from behind, but since you should be working pretty hard to actively avoid those situations anyway this isn't much of a concern. In a straight up fight with an enemy tank it seems like it would be just as frustrating to face a shield vanguard as it was before; I'm still going to absorb 1-2 reload cycles with the shield, and assuming my opponent and I are about equal in terms of aiming that's going to let my AP vanguard kill them pretty easily.

Pretty much this..... though I can't afford an AP lightning so I just upgraded my stock Vanguard with Racer & a scope and only use it as a "Sniping Tank". Everytime the Front line fluctuates a little, I shift backwards a 100m just to make sure no REAL tanks get close enough to do any real DPS to me. ...Mainly b/c the shield is only something I can count on to "absorb" a single shot to the Rear. So far the only thing I've died from is C4 fairies which means Prox Radar will probably be my next upgrade (Either that, or just pilot it as INF like I do everything else, and drop Motion Sensors periodically).


Statistically speaking, I'm willing to bet all other Vanguard players will see a very big drop in perfomance and NC in general might see a rippling effect simply b/c it means we no longer have a solid Front-line vehicle for the rest of our troops to "form up" around in zergy field encounters. Our MAXes lack any real bite in bite in AV Duty and are even worse for open field AI duty too. The Phoenix is even more of a joke unless we have little "culdersacks" to hide in and safely fire them from. And our Reavers are only good for Hit & Run so they kinda suck at supporting a Liberator "front". .....Can't wait to see the MBT Datamining people pull up after this month is over with.

Actually I *do* want a Vanguard Resist Shield, because I believe it can be made powerful, useful yet not necessarily OP. Another thing I want (though I won't elaborate, since this isn't the right thread) is for the Prowler to be rid of Anchor - to be replaced with a DPS boosting ability that synergizes with it's supposed speed (and name). Finally - the Magburner should give a mobility boost in all directions, including strafing.

The Vanguard with AP is still one hack of a tank. Tank zerg between the NC and TR yesterday resulted in the vanguard coming up trumps but I put that down to the VG using more AP load outs while the prowler uses more Heat. No one likes getting nerfed, even the prowler had some, but overall I think the VG is still a beast and has the upper hand in tank battles but certainly not OP.

Striker share the same fate......