[Suggestion] Some minor MBT balance ideas, and some ideas for new tank abilities.

So, i'll start by being clear about something. I do love using tanks in planetside 2. Admittedly, a part of this can be traced back to experience playing other games, but regardless of the reason, I definitely like tank combat. Obviously, I also feel rather strongly about any changes towards tanks, as well as tank balance. As it stands, while I do feel tanks are overall well balanced against each other, their weapon choices, and balance against everything else, is not quite where I feel it should be. It’s close, but just not quite there.

So how about those weapon balancing idea’s? With the TR and NC in particular, and to somewhat of a lesser extent the VS, each faction has usually only one commonly seen tank secondary outside of the halberd or the basilisk. Unfortunately, this really does feel like it limits tank play. So what I would like to see is some of the faction specific options becoming more relevant.

TR weapon changes:
Make the gatekeeper worth using basically. My opinion would be to either cut back a bit on the reload, or boost the damage output, while also reducing how easily spotted each rocket is.

VS weapon changes:
Ok, so the VS are the faction that is actually the least affected by this, since the saron is actually rather capable, and the aphelion is certainly not a bad weapon. That being said, I do feel that the aphelion does need a slight buff to its spin up speed. Nothing to huge, just a quality of life tweak mostly.

NC weapon changes:
For the NC, the obvious weapon to buff is the enforcer. While its not in as bad of a position as the gatekeeper, I can say from experience fighting tanks mounting it, that it does need a buff here. This will help alleviate some of the mjolnir spam that I do occasionally see. As for buff specifics, my vote is a damage buff, with depending on how much of a damage buff is made, potentially also a slight nerf to the enforcers projectile velocity.

General changes:
Raise the base velocity of all tank cannons by 50m/s, but also increase projectile weight to compensate. This allows for more reliable weapon performance, and making it easier to learn to use a tanks guns, but since the weight increase would cause the projectile trajectory to remain roughly the same, it keeps tank effective ranges roughly the same. This may also require a minor buff to the magriders horizontal speed to allow it to keep dodging properly, but I do think this would be overall for the best.

Now, onto some new tank abilities. This is sorta an extension of a post I saw a while back, but I will mostly be focusing in on some personal suggestions. No clue if they will be balanced, but here they are:

VS: Tank cloak: This would work much like the flashes wraith cloak, but with a few unique changes. While cloaked, the tank can still fire its weapons, but muzzle flash is still present. Taking damage will instantly knock out the cloak. We’ll tentatively put a duration cap of 9 seconds onto this ability. This new ability also helps fit with the magriders excellent ambush abilities, but allows it to be done in a different way compared to now. While I do recognize this as being at risk of totally eclipsing magburner, I do also think that magburner may in general need a bit of a buff ( or at least have the magrider traverse rate be buffed instead).

NC: While I don’t have a title for this, it's basically a new vanguard shield that provides less resistance, but lasts longer, and is usable more often. I’ll spare the math, but suffice it to say, up close, nothing can out kill a AV Vanguard with its current shield. Conversely, the current shield is also way less useful at longer distances, where burst combat is the norm rather than all inning. This new shield is basically meant to help the Vanguard in those situations. While this would seriously reduce the Vanguards power at all inning as compared to the normal shield ( all inning is something the Vanguard is really good at), it does alleviate some of the burst fight problems of the Vanguard. I realize this is rather unimaginative, but it’s also something I feel would solve a key issue in a balanced and fair way.

TR: Engine overdrive: Now look, anchored mode is probably one of my favorite things in this game. Despite its obvious flaws in combat, learning to use it properly can turn a Prowler from just another tank, into a damage god. However, with the TR’s habit of building the fastest things on auraxis, why not also have a tank ability that capitalizes on that? Basically this ability would let a Prowler experience a crazy speed boost for 15 seconds that basically makes the Prowler move like a harasser. Effective? No idea. Fun? Oh definitely! This would also be accompanied by calling off the idea of swapping anchored mode to the PTS’s barrage ability ( I really don’t like barrage, at least in part because of my heavy experience with anchored mode).

Sorry about the length of this opening, but I figured I should just put the whole thing together into one post.

The prowler ability is basically the magrider ability with 25% more effect and +900% duration. You need to work on it to balance it more. X)
But I think TR is about firepower and dakka, not speed. If you want a fast tank, buff the lightning mobility.

Magrider 9 sec cloak is OP, the stop when hit flaw just mean if you don't use a basilisk you can't see it (and if you bring a basilisk in a tank combat you lose).
Specialize that cloak : if you want it to prepare an ambush then increase the duration but make it stop when hit or shot. I would prefer a mirage ability : Maggy become invisible for 2-3 sec (firing don't remove the invisibility) and create an illusion that move in the opposite direction of the maggy (the illusion will shot when you shot, obviously dealing 0 damage. (think leblanc from LoL).

Vanguard shield isn't a bit redondant ? Why not add an ability than reduce vanguard main weakness : longer repair time?
Basically it's a fire supression that repair up to 100% health but will stop if it receive damages (6000 hp over 20 sec = twice the repair rate of a rank 4 repair tool).

Weapons.
I don't use enforcer enough so I won't comment.
Gatekeeper sure need a buff. Increased DPS could be nice, but I will also get ride of its acceleration mechanic so new player can use it. (huge drop at close range, then next to no drop at long range).
I don't think aphelion need a buff, but if you really insist : the two con of the weapon are its vulnerability to airplane and its poor effectiveness past medium range. Either buff gun elevation to +60 (same as vulcan) or remove the damage drop of the wave .

Tank canon.
I don't agree with your idea. AP may need more velocity to make it worth it over HESH but the other canon don't need that velocity. And the increased gravity to compensate won't be great : I dislike firing Anchor.

Fair enough. Like I said with the tank proposals, I have no idea if they would be balanced. They were mostly just sort of " this might be interesting/ fix certian issues" type of thing. Admittedly, the TR one is kinda based on the fact that I do occasionally employ the prowler like it were an overweight harasser ( its become a running joke with friends honestly).

I actually have a thought for the vanguard repair issue, but it would be permanent thing, rather then an ability. Basically, reduce its HP down to the same as the other MBTs, but then give it a 20% buff to all directional resistances. Might need to adjust those side and rear resistance values, but for sure from the front and top, it would yield an identical effective HP.

And yeah, I realize the cloak would be kinda over the top OP. Part of the reason I gave it the whole muzzle flash still applies was to ensure it could not attack completely undetected, but yeah, I may not have thought that one through.

As for weapons, like I said, aphelion does not need much at all. I actually think your 60 degree idea actually might be a better idea to be honest. Like I said, the idea is to try and reduce the over abundance of halberd, saron, vulcan, and mjolnir for tanks.

Part of my reasoning for tank velocity can be traced back to me being used to using AP, so when I try using other cannons, it feels impossible. Plus, I find infantry can be a massive challenge to hit with tank splash some days. Plus, the idea with the shell weight change was to have the cannons keep an identical trajectory despite the velocity buff.

Heres mine:
Make all empire specific tank abilities included with the tank itself like liberator afterburners.

Give vanguard a passively regenerating shield for 1k of it's total HP, vehicle damage taken stops the shield regeneration. This is to cut down on repair times.

Give all tanks a mini-kobalt that does 167-125 damage out to 40 meters from 20 meters with an RPM of 500 along with the same pitching as the main turret. This is to deter infantry, the RPM of 500 out to 40 meters will almost never matter in long range fights but it will be generally better than stepping out of the mother****ing tank and shooting the guy yourself.

Give skyguard lightnings a SAM that works within 450 meters, basically the equivalent to a tomcat. Increase base damage of the main projectile by 50 in order to make it not garbage against anything that isn't a wet tissue. (I'm joking, I like the skyguard but frankly it sucks against even manned sunderers using walkers).

Make HESH shorter range airburst projectile that's activatable by the driver but does not detonate at longer ranges due to being out of radio range (to alleviate 300 meter aoe spam).

Give MBT Heat the ability to flak detonate near aircraft for a significantly less amount of damage. Increase pitching angles. OR
Give MBT a shredder cannon.

And for the love of god make it so that tanks don't have the weight of a cardboard pizza box. I'm tired of pulling a tank, hitting a pebble a little too hard and then flipping like tonyhawk's skateboard after taking crack.

My issue with a mini koblat is that I feel it risks handing tanks a lot of anti infantry power, without anything for the other side to use in turn. Unless tank cannon reloads were to also be heavily lengthened, I don't see this as being important.

A part of me looks at the HESH thing and just laughs, mostly cause I know how real HESH shells work. Same can be said with air burst HEAT.

In all seriousness though, I don't see it as necessary to give tanks that kind of built in anti-air power. I feel it would make them just too strong overall, and would just invite either mass buffs across the board to compensate, or result in the tanks getting nerf hammered back down in an instant. Like I said, I feel tanks are roughly where they should be balance wise as is. I mainly want to see their variety of loadout options be expanded, and some slight changes to close their general balance gap ( which is small, but noticeable right now).

Air burst would be interesting, but unless the blast radius is huge ( C4 blast radius at minimum), you get a real time range display, and shell speed is reduced from the current 200m/s, I don't see those shells as being properly usable.

And as for passive faction tank abilities, I am not opposed to it, but I would rather have a greater variety of ability options personally. As for the vanguard passive shield, I could see that working, but only if its base HP was also reduced ( it already is a monster at all in fights with only 1k extra health and forward Vanguard shield. I don't want to think about it having 2k extra HP and Vanguard shield for an all in). This is kinda why I proposed by resistance buff/ HP reduction idea in an earlier response.

I mainly use the walker on my vanguard because of its great versatility (and **** air), but enforcer is my top choice otherwise. Due to my playstyle, the enforcer already feels great to me, so buffing that just makes me go....lol. Would completely outclass the halberd though, in every way I believe. But I guess a lot of weapons DBG is ok with not being used at all.

And actually, what really needs a buff with the enforcer, is the damn sound it makes. I actually think im shooting balloons sometimes.

Get the Halo gauss warthog sound. that thing sounded great.

Have a giant rotating OHK knife in the front of the tank that spins around really fast and chews up anything that stands in its way. Infantry, Tanks, whatever.. and an optional long pole that can reach planes and get them too. Forget shooting ammo.

More seriously, I think what we really need are less gun/ammo types which would make it easier to balance what remains. The more gun types and ammo types we have, the more difficult it will be to balance and a lot of them will end up just being medicore anyways. That or a lot will feel too similar to really invest in. Uniqueness is what make them attractive but there are only so many elements you can adjust given the sheer amount of weapons until you get to weapons that overlap and are generally the same.