[Vehicle] State of MBT's?

You must not play on Connery. BakaRaymoo switched to VS and he has been running drifter squads pretty much every evening. I'm talking waves of fairies coming out of valks.
Nobody is getting "tactically outplayed" by these gents. They are abusing a cheesy game mechanic.

The ones ive said were wrong were the ones that gave examples that were lways the same

Shooting something in the distance and someone sneaks up on them and C 4s

Someone even posted a video of exactly that happening with a mag rider and said 4 seconds was too short for the time it took the LA to put the C 4 on and pull the trigger and then went on to say a 95% chance of stopping an LA attack with C 4 wasnt good enough.

Its really people being unreasonable and not paying attention then blaming the game for their mistakes

Vehicles need better multi purpose options ill admit but that wont change you being sneaked up on because you were focused on distant targets a little too long

Sounds like you guys need more AI/AA

One or Two Ranger sundies would be enough to stop this wouldnt it?

If theyre organized and you know how then its best to organize and counter

Well, I'm gonna check that next time I lock in. Shows how useful I find my tank right now I guess...

So you posted a video of one MBT being destroyed by vastly larger numbers, and some moron driving around in a Skyguard who thinks it's an anti-infantry weapon.

Uhhh where are the hordes of Drifters wiping all the vehicles from the map? Hell they didn't even kill the Sunderer!

Make Flak detonate on Light Assaults who are currently using their ability.

There you go. Ranger now has more of a purpose, Skyguard has something to do after "deterring", flying Light Assaults now have a "direct vehicle counter", and the onus is still on the vehicle crew to be aware while giving them a low-skill option.

If you crunch the numbers, by the by, Flak burst TTK on a bare-bones Light Assault is in the order of 2+ seconds. Which is longer than infantry light arms, and anti-infantry options.

Prowler + Maxed Stealth + Maxed Racer + Maxed Lockdown + Vulcan = Best flanking tank in the game(close or long range).
Prowler + Anything + Maxed Lockdown + Gatekeeper = Best Long Range tank in the game
Prower + HE = Best Infantry farming tank in the game.

This is from a TR main who plays all three factions. That being said, being effective in anything but long range in tank v tank can have a bit of a higher skill ceiling, because often you just lose when messing up an ambush, and instalose if you get ambushed. Prowler doesn't have an oh **** button like magburner and overshield.

It has the fastest speed, highest DPS, best specialized secondaries, lockdown which is amazing and it's only real drawbacks are it's lack of oh **** buttons, lack of strafing, and hitbox (kindof). All you need is to be a bit more choosy in picking your fights.

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It sounds like you can't aim (Seriously? You can't hit things with lockdown - the highest velocity shells in the game?) and can't position well. You also close on wanting to go Vanu, which has a great tank admittedly, but one that needs much better aiming ability and often higher situational awareness.

In short, this is a L2P issue.

To be fair to the Vanguard and the Magrider, their oh **** buttons kind of exist because of the Prowlers capability to create oh **** moments with Lockdown.

If anyone gets the short end of the stick it is the Magrider; because they need to oh **** the most (if a Vanguard pops its shield or they run into a locked down Prowler).

Also, the numbers, because I am INCREDIBLY busy at my job that pays me real money;

Bad --> --> --> --> Good

Bursts to Kill;
Skyguard; 2.13 Second TTK (4.25 Second TTK L5 Flak Armor)
2 Arm Burster MAX; 2.5 Second TTK (5 Second TTK L5 Flak Armor)
Ranger; 4 Second TTK (8 Second TTK L5 Flak Armor)
1 Arm Burster MAX; 5 Second TTK (10 Second TTK L5 Flak Armor)

Pulsar C;
100% Hitrate (Body) - 0.83 Second TTK (1.04 Second TTK L5 Nanoweave)
30% Hitrate (Body) - 2.77 Second TTK (3.46 Second TTK L5 Nanoweave)

Beamer VS3;
100% Hitrate (Body) - 1.33 Second TTK (1.66 Second TTK L5 Nanoweave)
30% Hitrate (Body) - 4.44 Second TTK (5.55 Second TTK L5 Nanoweave)

M12 Kobalt;
100% Hitrate (Body) - 0.76 Second TTK (0.98 Second TTK L5 Nanoweave)
30% Hitrate (Body) - 2.55 Second TTK (3.27 Second TTK L5 Nanoweave)

As you can see, it would be about as good as a player with a Pulsar/Beamer who can only manage a 30% hitrate against the body. The existence of Flak and the fact they can drop altitude and come at them from the ground allows for counter-play.

Agreed. Other tanks have an option to run other things than Stealth and Magburner. Magriders don't. They definitely get the shorter end. That being said, the disparity isn't as wide as forumside would have most believe. Strafing does a lot of work at mid range, and there is no way to quanitify the movement advantage Magriders have.


Two things about Flak and LAs:
-How would the friendly fire from flak work? Would you in essence be hurting yourself a bit too as you sometimes do with lowflying air (especially skywhales?)
-How would vision for the LA work? The explosions are as big as they are. I like the idea, but I feel it would be effective because they couldn't see anything.

Ultimately though, it would be nice but I don't think the issue lies with aware tankers being C4'd because they couldn't hit the LAs.

It has the highest non lockdown dps doesnt it

-I don't imagine the interaction between flak and the shooter would change. Flaks burst radius is only a few meters - and I think most tankers would be happy to knock off 15-30hp to down a Light Assault that was at window-licking distance (because that probably means they are ready to click-click boom).
-In my experience flaks effect isn't that noticeable as infantry. I play on Ultra though, and on Ultra Flak's bright yellow burst is actually very small compared to the big very see-through smokey cloud thing.

Unaware tankers will continue to be killed regardless - these are the same tankers who get tank mined. However, the LA C4 attack currently doesn't have a direct means of counterplay for the tanker and that makes it unfun combined with the fact dedicated AA units are told they are only there to deter enemy air, and then have nothing to do once it is deterred. A MAX may be able to switch boots at will, but not a Skyguard.

This kills two birds with one stone. It provides direct counterplay, while also adding battlefield utility to Anti-Air once the air has been deterred. Almost as important, I feel, is it gives a low skill means for newer or less twitch players to contribute in the armor game.

Prowler is the worst 2/2MBT and always was to encounter other MBT´s at any distance. (The dominating ground vehicles.)

First hit mainly decides the outcome of a battle and the battles itself are too short to take advantage of the better DPS to make a difference. Deployed or not. The exposed side - and rear armor gives a much better DPS boost to the atacker than you will have with your maingun. Vanguards have a shield for that and the Magrider mechanics will always show you only its front armor.
Shield > Anchor: Front to front(any distance) and deployed you will still lose a direct bullet exchange against a Vanguard because the HP has more value than the better DPS. Considering the used effort, pros&cons of both abilitys thats really laughable. Forces you to retread a deploy position as soon as one starts shooting you, if its not already too close to do that. A deploy positon can be as easily corrupted by vehicles that drive behind cover back and forth for save repairs, perfect to do for Magriders.
You have to aim&adjust twice for each single magazine and master two different bullet behaviours (Anchor&Normal) and constantly switch between them to adapt to the situation while the skillcap is the same for all three different faction mainguns.
The better maximum speed is completly useless, not only in combination with the Prowlers immobile Anchor-Mode, its just too slow to make a difference or to be useful in general. Nonetheless the Magrider has actually the better possible maximum speed with a recharging Afterburner and fewer terrain resistance.
A Prowler in Anchor mode is the most easiest target in the game to hit, zero protection versus C4 and Liberators(TanksBuster+Dalton). No other vehicle needs more situational awareness to survive in fear of its counterparts because you cant win in a direct combat. Leaves enemys untouched because they offer nothing else than this in save spots. Even map designs force you sometimes exactly in those situations and there is nothing you can do about it.
A single AP round cant insta kill ESF´s and make them fly away.

It has by far the best maingun for AI farming... but there are too much special AI weapon systems out there to care about that. That doesnt make up its bad presence on the field if it has to compete aginst two other MBTs which are a direct upgrade in comparison for every vehicle based situation. Its frustrating to have the shortest straw for the best available ground vehicle which dominates the battlefield.

You have to be some kind of mentally imbalanced person to actually think they are going to make Flak explode on LA's. Even more deranged to think it's a good idea.

Hey why stop there! I guess LA's are so uber powerful we should just make lock-on weapons work on them too! Right??

Do you realize Light Assault is the least played infantry class in the game? It's drastically underpowered and has been needing it's promised revamp for far too long. And you think we need flak weapons to counter it?

Yes. I believe, without lockdown, it's prowler, follow relatively closely by vanguard, which is followed less closely by magrider. The big difference is the forgiving nature of missing with prowler.

this buff/bug has arrived with the TR MAX lockdown buff. But there wasnt any patch note about it... kinda ghost buff...

Actually I think you should learn to play with your prowler cuz your whole post is a trashtalking bias without any sense....

I wasn't aware having a TTK comparable to one of the (believed to be) worse pistols in the game wielded by an average to below-average player (30% hitrate) was so offensive and warranted a hyperbolic response.


I won't argue the Light Assault is the "thinnest" class in the game and is long overdue for its "overhaul". What I am arguing is that there is a reasonable way to add a direct method of counterplay to a section of the game that currently does not have one.

Too many MAXs? Tank Mines. C4. Your pick.
Too many Tanks? Planes. Tank Mines. C4.
Too many Mines? Mineguard.
Too many Proxies? Flak Armor.
Too many Infiltrators? Darklight.

By making Flak detonate on Light Assaults who are using their ability (flying), you are resolving several outstanding issues with the game with a solution that already has a method for counterplay;
Lack of Low Skill Options for Gunners in Vehicles to participate in LA Counterplay.
Lack of Utility in a platform that is largely underutilized due to its lack of utility and engaging gameplay.
Lack of Direct Counter to C4 Light Assaults for Ground Vehicles.

Being a "Low Skill" option, as Flak does not require precise aim, it also continues Flaks tradition in Planetside 2 of being low reward. With a TTK 160% longer minimum compared to other options, it gives the Light Assault plenty of time to react while still being lethal enough to stop or deter an attack. It is likely the user would get far more Kill-Assist Ribbons than Kill Ribbons with the weapon, just like they are far more likely to get Air-Deterrence Ribbons than Kill Ribbons.

It inherently has counterplay as you can further decrease the TTK by taking Flak armor, which already exists in the game.

It keeps onus on the vehicle crew to be alert and aware of their surroundings, thus not changing the fundamental balance of the relationship between Light Assaults and Vehicles.

Additionally, both sides are sacrificing something to participate in the counterplay. The Light Assault is sacrificing Nanoweave armor, Adrenaline Pump, or Advanced Shield Capacitor to be able to tank more damage from Ground Vehicles. The Ground Vehicle is sacrificing more general purpose AI or AV options to be able to easier engage Light Assaults.

This change would not result in a drastic change of the "state of affairs" in game, however, it adds a missing element.

You obviously don't play LA at all. We are extremely vulnerable while in the air. Anything from sniper rifles to LMG's to Spitfire Turrets are a huge threat while we're in the air. I can't even count how many times I've been shot out of the sky by small arms.

Drifters are even worst, as you are in the air hovering slowly like a sitting duck for extended periods of time.

You talk about "counterplay" and how both sides benefit. Sir, this is BS. If you played Light Assault you would understand that your idea is horrible.

I feel like that when i start playing again I'll just end up getting out of my tank and shooting them with my serpent/GD7f/T5AMC...

I play all the classes. I won't say I play them equally, as I am a slave to the unlimited ammunition Engineers get, but I play them all.

The only time I get shot out of the air "all the time" is when I am faffing about in the middle of a big infantry fight. Going to the air is one of my most reliable ways not to be killed by anything else.

And if you are drifting slower than your run speed, you aren't doing it right.

Finally some one who actually understands