TR's MBT Prowler Ability is used 1000% less than VS's & NC's. How has nobody mentioned this?

TR's MBT Prowler Ability is used 1000% less than VS's & NC's.

I have been playing a TR alt, BR 58 as of late. As my VS main is ASP 2 lvl 100 & unlocked nearly everything besides most aurax stuff. So it's been okay to actually need to gain certs again for the alt.

Still I realized wth is this ability? lol. For TR's MBT. I haven't fully upgraded this. Yet I don't have to to know some things are true, by seeing how often other players use these MBT abilities. I tried used Rampart Prowler Ability around Watersons Vehi Term & as soon as I used it, 3 HA who didn't notice me, they were on the hill, started shooting me with rokkets immediately while I was at the vehi terms side wall as a MBT. So not only did it not help dps wise enough, as I wasn't angled to shoot them from below the hill, it also warrented every HA in the area of where I was, to start shooting at me. So it was detrimental. As if I was giving myself the bounty hunter logo. " Here I am, shoot me ty "

The shield absorption of only 10% or 15% or more when I upgrade it didn't help, I had to repair my face off from all these rokkets flying at me.

So I wrote, " Wth is this ability? " A kill me sign with not enough defense & minor offense, that makes you immobile & the immobilization isn't good for tank duels? Wth?

TBH I haven't seen any allies use this MBT's ability for 2 months, maybe 6 months, the last time I remember people using it regularly is when TR use to zerg Waterson's hills with tanks many months ago & perch over the hills & rain down tank shells. Tho for many months now, since Outfit Wars, or maybe since one year now. Seems like many of the TR pro tank drivers now play NC. As TR is mostly infantry these days with average level drivers.

Also that Watersons hillside immobilization bombardment only works if TR has a zerg defending the hills of armour & not just a ton of medics flooding the Watersons walls.

& Even then I'd easily be able to put 2 c4 on a flash with my vs main & kill those camper hill tr tanks if I want. When they use to.

The other time this ability seemed okay was when we had Island verse Island tank verse tank wars, for Oshur. Not even sure if Oshur has zerg vs zerg armour vs armour tank fights anymore, seems people ninja drop more often than tank fight for Oshur these days.

Yet like the chat says for the photo. " Niche " " Too Niche ".

Here's the example:

VS Magburner: See many allies using always. Used every 10 seconds non stop almost. Always useful. For travel speed, to juke tank shells, to run away & repair. Fan favorite.

Vanguard Shield: See many vanguards using always. Used every 30 seconds? Or everytime you get shot is useful. Defend dmg, isn't mitigated dmg, yet takes the whole dmg, so you don't have to repair after using.

Prowler Ability: Never see allies using. See one guy using this per 30 minutes. I would only see a time to use this one time per 10 minutes. Maybe not equip. Negatively highlights you for every HA to start shooting at you, doesn't absorb their rokket dmg entirely, so you have to start repairing after they see you. They see you immediately. C4 fairies see you like a moth to the flame. More likely to get c4'ed. Doesn't let you move, so tank duel dodging which is movement is vital for tank duels, so the only ability out of 2/3 tanks that is bad for tank duels. Tosses you some dps & some dmg mitigation yet restricts movement so the trade off brings you back to zero benefit for most scenerios. Besides hilltops. & magrider rules hilltop duels. So hilltops where tank duels aren't happening? This ability just screams " repair repair repair ". Even for hill sniping, without movement, you're gonna get hit more often.

At this rate, this ability is so niche & used 10,000% less than Vanguards shield or Magriders drift movement, that the only way for it to be effective is to either allow movement or for it to be buffed so OP, that it gives reason for why you would want to attract 4 enemy HA to start shooting at you. Plus every other tank, aircraft, & c4 fairy that see you. & even then it still won't help tank duels for instances that require you to sway left & right behind a boulder or wall or road. Or for running away to repair. Vanguard & Magrider's ability helps them run away to repair. While prowlers ability is the opposite, makes you need to repair more & run away zero.

This reminds me of VS's & TR's " Max Ability " where they get a dps ability & its useless. When the NC MAX has a defense ability (handheld shield) and is the only ability you see used a lot. As max's die too easily to HA rokkets or LA c4. Or gunfire without engis. Or else you need self repair ability for MAX. That's why every MAX requires a defense ability, as dps abilities for MAX just don't work. As you already lost half your MAX green hp before you get to use a dps ability. So less you have a engi slave, I don't most of the time, dps abilities for MAX is subpar to NC's handheld shield. NC MAX shield helps them stay alive to find a medic or engi, what's dps gonna do against HA rokkets? (How is this ability gonna help you escape Liberators? magriders & vanguards help for that)

NOBODY MENTIONED THIS BECAUSE YOU ARE COMPARING APPLES AND ORANGES.
How anyone even convinced you this was true beats me. Its literally not in the ability slot. Its in the defense slot.

There used to be 1 ability for each faction:

Prowler had Anchor which decreased reload speed and increased muzzle velocity
Magrider had afterburner
Vanguard had the shield.

Then the Prowler had its Anchor split up into Barrage ability and the permanent ability anchor which now only increased velocity.
The Magrider also got its main ability upgraded to permanent anility, and got the ability for recharging their afterburner in the ability slot while they got diagonal afterburning capabilities in the defense slot.

Later on the Vanguard got the Numbnutz defense slot option while the Prowler got Rampart added.

So a fair comparison would be:
Rampart vs Numbnutz vs diagonal afterburner.
Barrage vs vanguard shield vs recharge.
Anchor vs 1000 health extra* vs afterburner

*I guess 1000 extra health is the permanenr ability of the Vanguard.

For your comparison though the Rampart is much more used than the Numbnutz, as the Rampart at least has a Niche use. If the Numbnutz has had more than 10 times that it was actually more efficient than using other options then I would be surprised, so niche is the Numbnutz reactor. Its in fact more often a downgrade as you cannot repair the lost health manually in a pinch and it will not repair itself when under fire.


As for your anecdotes, you arent very good at the game are you? A theme with your anecdotes is that you use the weapon or ability completely wrong and then say “oh noes how is it so bad”. You use Rampart when you arent under fire and expect to have some amount of stealth while firing? Its useful for when you are assured your enemy will be able to hit you back or you want to help protect allies from damage, it has uses for example in protecting infantry that can use your shield as well. Yes it remains a niche usage, but at least its useful.

I see. Well good explanation, even with the salt.

So

1) Diangonal Afterburner
2) Rampart Projector
3) Nimitz Reactor

1) 1,000 hp
2) Afterburner
3) Anchor

& Barrage, Vanguard Shield, & Recharge may be equal?

For tank duels.

I suppose theirs some situation uses for Rampart. Just use to vs main where diagnonal is used everywhere & afterburner is used everywhere, unlike anchor or rampart.

Rampart shield is GREAT when used in the correct scenarios,
it sounds like you are just using it out in the open,
obviously this is a terrible idea since it simply makes you a bigger target.

rampart is GREAT in situations when allies need cover, especially if it is a repair sundy which you are covering.
bases like Indar Comm Array usually have the sunderer parked in the open ontop of the plateau
well with rampart shield you can give that sundy cover, and if it is a repair sundy then your shield can eat a butt load of rockets.
the shield also conveniently covers width of sunderer garages,
so next time a vehicle comes to gank your teams sundy,
they are instead met with a fiery death, and your sunderer is safe and sound.

another fun use is when your faction is attacking a walled base,
you can use the shield through the walls to offer infantry inside a bubble of bullet immunity.


IMHO vanguard should have been the one to receive this incredibly powerful tool.
("Vanguard" literally means the front line, and vanguards in PS2 are all about defence and shields,
PLUS vanguard is the only MBT without a built-in ability, all magriders can press the turbo key to boost,
all Prowlers can press the deploy key to gain enhanced velocity to their shots,
so it would have made so much sense to allow vanguards to press the deploy key to deploy and gain a rampart shield.
instead TR got a shield ability for some reason, and NC got an insanely expensive self-nerf.

The main problem with prowlers abilities rampart and barrage is there is not much defense, survivability in comparison to shield and recharge. Van and mag can use their abilities with defense and attack.
Prowler has good range, now perihelion gives mag insane range on the mountains. Speed? well mag afterburner chasing and killing harrasers. Nothing unique about the tank now.

yeah by design vanguard seems to have been built for defence, prowler for damage and mag for mobility.
but vanguard only really has the shield, and then its just a big slow brick,
prowler doesn't have any defence options besides popping fire suppression, but can increase dps with Barrage.
meanwhile mags agility and recharge can be used greatly for both offense AND defence.

Vanguard shield is also used close range to out dps, not just defense.
Not that slow you can double tap trick to get speed insta.

But that is the problem: the defensive ability is only useful when you fail.

The Magrider can increase its defensive ability by becoming more adept at dodging. The Prowler can get more out of its damage and ranged capabilities with skill. The extra health and shield of the Vanguard barely have any additional benefit from skillfully using them compared to the rest, as its use is mostly when you fail.

Its why the Vanguard is performing the worst of the 3. It has the least ability to take advantage of skills you can learn. The best thing you can try to achieve is a dumb slugfest where both parties cannot utilize skill much. Its pretty much the only scenario where the Vanguard can be considered superior. Unfortunately that scenario is vanishingly rare as the other two can almost always do something.

People totally use the gen 1 abilites on the tanks (Barrage+anchor, Van forward shield, Recharge+magburner).
The gen 2 additions are alot more siutational or just bad (Deploy shield, Dumb**** reactor, Multi exahust) because they are either only useful in certain situations (deploy shield), compete with a high valued slot (Multi exhaust/Dumb**** reactor or Stealth) or are just bad (dumb**** reactor).

If you prefer, you can have the NSO Chimera ability.
... OH WAIT

BTW, prowler still excellent, extreme DPS and fast projectiles.
And (by far) the best tank for farm certs.

i'm actually quite glad the proposed chimera ability didn't make it to live, it was pretty broken.
invulnerability window AND making your enemy unrepairable on a 20 second cooldown.
this on a platform with a mix of both higher damage and higher health.

i still maintain that chimera (and dervish) ability should be AI controlled turrets.
NSO are the faction that favours lone wolf gameplay, and the faction is all about robots/drones
so AI being their faction trait makes sense from both a gameplay standpoint and a lore standpoint.
we even saw the devs kind of agree this when NSO engineers received a repair drone, which is sadly now gone.
(because nothing good is allowed to stay in planetside 2.)

first for chimera i would replace the 4 rumble seats (which noone wants to use) with 4 weaker HCG turrets
which would have a turning angle of 180 degrees so they can only cover their side of the tank.
4 extra people can still hop in the tank, but now instead of using a rumble seat they can operate a mini-turret.

THEN i would add a utility slot option for both Dervish and Chimera called "A.I Module"
which removes bonus seats and causes these turrets to be A.I controlled, with AI similar to spitfire.
this would turn chimera into a standard 2/2 MBT, but with 4 A.I controlled turrets.
and Dervish into a standard 1/1 ESF but with an A.I controlled topgun.