New MBT utilities

Being a handsome champion of liberty and all that is awesome NC, I see no use for any utility on my Vanguard other than shield. It does something so wonderful. Fire suppression and smoke just can't compete.

If I were a despot's minion or some devote to a clown-shoes religion that was all giddy for Alf, I might try more than one MBT utility. Might. Anchor and mag... whatever it's called... can be very effective when used properly.

So, what I'm getting at is we could use more variety in our MBT utilities. We need to shake it up a little. Let's have some diversity.

Don't get me wrong. I love my shield. It fits my play style, and is a good option for any encounter.

But, what else might work?

What if the Van's sluggishness was aided? It could get a supercharger that increased acceleration temporarily. Gave it more umph when ramming vehicles. Made hill climbs less impossible. Pressing F could make all acceleration more forceful and quicker for 7 sec or so.

Prowlers could get a utility that can stop themselves instantly, regardless of current speed, and redirect in a new direction with a sharp boost to acceleration (so they may resume former speed sooner). Basically, they can make sharp turns very fast. They slingshot.. or skip. Sure you get the idea.

Mag-riders just want to fly. You know those purple freaks wish their hover tech could be boosted. So, why not? Give the hover... jets... engines a short burst of power. This could make the hovers push the mag-rider straight up into the air. How high? I don't know. Whatever it takes to make the utility useful (sure it would be fun). It needs to be handy when dodging rockets and shells... and allow you to do goombas on enemies (preferably terrains... or other VS).

If any of this sounds OMGthatwouldbesoOP or useless then consider the cooldowns. Something might be ready to use in short intervals while another might take awhile. All depends on balance.

Those are my suggestions. You?

Love idea of new MBT abilities and your point is correct that there is nothing else worth having over the shield on the Vanguard

As for the VS ability instead of floating as I'm sure that would be too easily abused too fire over walls and into bases I would suggest a different ability to dodge rockets etc.

Maybe instead the Mag could get an ability that allows them to for 5 seconds phase out the current dimension, the Mag will become semi transparent with a cool effect and during this time all rockets and shells will pass straight through causing 0 damage. During this time the Mag will be unable to fire however Nano repair etc will still work.

I'd love to call the ability the Phaseshift but SOE already used that name

Hey, I like that. Van shield without the ability to ram and repair.

So, could the magrider pass through other vehicles in this state? Would it blow up if the utility depleted whilst halfway through an object? Would both vehicles blow up? Could this feature be exploited?

Armor tends to be a concern for magrider pilots, ya? What if there was a utility that could somehow absorb damage and tranform it into an energy source that replenished the tank's health?

Or, what if damage to the magrider could be converted into a small boost to weapon performance?

OR we could stop the idea of OP abilities that you're thinking about, nerf the Vanguard Shield and buff the Vanguard. The other abilities will become more appealing.

Magrider is sluggish? Can't believe you.

I dont see the point of the TR ability, all MBTs have rival chassis to make faster turns.

The new magrider ability you suggest looks decent enough to be a ability.

How many rockets can it survive? There must be some limit.

There's no real difference between that and just having extra resistance to damage.

Now if it absorbed enemy damage and converted it into additional bonus damage for the magrider, that would be interesting. A chance to turn the tables when reaching critical health in a 1v1, or with engineer support and a steady flow of incoming damage, some phenomenal damage output. Just throwing numbers out there, but perhaps 1% bonus damage for every 2% health lost in the last 10 seconds? If you were in a 1v1 duel and down to 10% hp, your weapons would be doing 145% of normal damage: and it would synergize well with the bursty nature of the Saron HRB. Coupled with the Mag's superior mobility, perhaps it could trade damage while moving in for a killing blow to the rear with high bonus damage...

I would suggest it could pass through tanks and infantry.... would be a cool way to get past a road block and avoid friendly kills

I would say it shouldn't be able to pass through things like AMP station shields as that would be too strong

If the ability depletes whilst half way through another vehicle instead of destroying both maybe instead a small boost will be applied to push you clear of the other vehicle in the direction you are facing for about 2m? It could cause some annoying troll suicides otherwise

This would be cool, kind of like a weird fusion of shield and ZOE? Just without being OP when released.... hopefully

Maybe an ability that when you activate can absorb damage for 5 seconds reducing incoming damage by 10%. That absorbed energy is stored and can be activated for a small damage increase for 10 seconds or so once the meter is filled?

I would suggest also both parts of the ability damage absorption and damage increase can't be activated at the same time

Maybe this is too complicated?

Or maybe just an ability that increases damage the lower the Mags health?

This is the boring easy way to go about it.

Why not add new interesting ways to play instead of removing current abilities?

Mags already have a faction specific Magburner that the rest of you clowns cant have, sorry you went with freedom, the freedom to move around like a snail.

You already have an I win button you dont get anything else.

If anyone should get anything its the VS MBT. We want cloaking for the Mag as a Defensive addon

It would not survive them, it would just ignore them (eg. they just pass straight through it). It cannot fire whilst this is happening so it is not an Iwin button. Just a positioning/escape tool.

I'm trying to imagine what it would look like if an entire outfit pulled Ghostriders, enabled the ability, moved into one spot quickly so you have 50 magriders clipping through each other, then the ability deactivates and all of the magriders are launched in every direction.

I would easily switch from a Vanguard Shield if I had a utility that turned my AP cannon into a rail gun (15% more dmg, 25% more velocity)

I do believe a few things in this game do share names to an extent. Hailstorm, Saron, Stalker come to mind.

I hadn't considered it too thoroughly, but I was thinking that the absorbed damage would be converted into health gradually. It would be like an auto-repair that required enemy damage to fuel. Could stack with auto-repair, too. I suppose.

Regardless, I too prefer the idea of converting damage into a firepower bonus. Makes more sense.

We'll just get a rail gun turret, most likely.

Isn't this pretty much the Vanguard shield? I think a cloak for the mag would do nicely.

YES PLEASE! GIVE A BIT OF VERTICAL THRUST... just a bit:

Watcha Talkin' bout? It is perfectly balanced!

Honestly, I think all vehicles should get another slot to put whatever extra defense/utility/frame they want on their vehicle. Obviously only one toggle ability, but yadida.

Instead of new abilities they should just add different models of the tanks..

PS1 Magrider was heavily armoured and slow but hovered and the drivers gun was rapid fire and the gunner controlled the tanks main gun in the turret (PS2 reversed that).

I can't remember how the Prowler and Vanguard was like in PS1 but I remember the Prowler being pretty much the same as in PS2.

Why not add a lighter armoured vanguard with a high alpha damage gun and the trade off being lightly armoured and fast.

Prowler gets a single cannoned variant with stronger armour with the trade off being slow and only one cannon but give the gunner a smaller caliber gun which can still hurt.

And Magrider gets heavily armoured and slow with a reduced strafe speed and the main gun gets put into the turret on top and the weaker gun gets placed in the chassis that way the Magrider has better survivability against lock on rockets.

Yeah I agree. The Vanguard should only have one ability and the Magrider should totally have two. In fact we should give the Magrider two and nerf the shield as well. That would be super fair and balanced.