TTK time for MBT AV secondaries. You'll be surprised what we found!

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by OdinsPride, Jan 28, 2014.

  1. OdinsPride

    So The Dread Legion went to do some field testing after the new balance pass, and stumbled upon some things....



    We'd love to hear the community's thoughts on this.

    Do you think this change was necessary? Is Vulcan still OP, Balanced, or Over Nerfed?

    Should this be something that SOE looks at, or leave things as they are? Why or why not...

    Thanks for watching everybody, and we look forward to hearing your opinions.
    • Up x 8
  2. RHINO_Mk.II

    Vulcan is one of the few weapons that has a +dmg multiplier to heavy armor (MBTs and Lightnings) that is not evident versus a sunderer. It is also the most viable ESMBT secondary for point-defense against infantry. I agree that it could use a slight increase in damage against vehicles at close range, but let's not go overboard and make it 1-clip liberators at 200m like the good old days, eh?
    • Up x 4
  3. OdinsPride

    Not necessarily advocating for "the good ol days" (although that vulcan you described sounded great).
    With the COF nerf as well as the buff to infantry vs AV weapons I would never want to put my tank's life against trying to take out infantry with a vulcan now lol.
    • Up x 4
  4. EliteEskimo

    Clearly Over nerfed. It gives up all medium and long range utility to be an decent point blank AV weapon where you don't want your Prowler to be in the first place. I also don't remember 1 clipping liberators from 200 meters away unless they were absolutely still at allowed you to burst fire long enough through all 60 bullets or so to kill them. That or face rushing a Prowler with their tank buster. It used to be a short range AA utility weapon, but you know that got nerfed too.
    • Up x 10
  5. come1l

    The last time I saw an infantry(other than infiltrator) death caused by Vulcan is probably 1 week ago.
  6. LonelyTerran

    The vulcan is garbage
    Max dmg at 10m really?
    Halberd master race!
    • Up x 2
  7. CrashB111


    Its not so much a raw damage increase that the Vulcan needs, as it needs its Cone of Fire fixed to what it was before and to get the max damage range pushed back out to 200 meters.

    10 meters is absolutely horrible for a vehicle since that means it starts having damage falloff before it even gets 5 meters away from the front end of the Prowler.
    • Up x 4
  8. Cowabunga

    I never role with the vulcan anymore there is no use for it and if you find yourself that close to your target, you are in the wrong place with your prowler. Long range support is what that tank has been demoted to.
    • Up x 3
  9. TomaHawk


    The Halberd needs a bump in ROF to compete. But I dumped the Vulcan for the Halberd after SoE pissed on my upgraded Vulcan.
  10. OdinsPride

    Yeah mine was completely certed out and now it just seems like a waste of 7k certs.
    • Up x 1
  11. ColonelChingles

    The Vulcan is pretty much like the NC MAX. Great at extreme short range, but not so great at anything beyond that. So now you TR tankers know how NC MAXes feel like! :p

    It worked wonders on a Harasser which could drive right up to your rear and unload before anyone could react, but on Prowlers it's a whole different story. I was roof gunning for a Prowler with a Vulcan. At first I tried to engage targets... and about the only thing I was getting hit markers on was a Sunderer out at medium range. Burst firing didn't seem to do a whole lot either. Eventually I gave up on shooting targets at all and just called out enemy infantry for the main gunner to engage. And when I got bored of that I hopped out of the tank only to be instantly sniped by an NC Infiltrator.

    At least he put me out of my misery. :D And that's my Vulcan story.

    One benefit of the Vulcan is that it feels really fun to fire, with a great sound and recoil model. The Enforcer is kinda dull since it has no recoil and just spits out darts at boring regular intervals. The Saron is pretty fun, except I tend to magdump with it meaning that only my first shot hits distant targets (but magdumping is so fun...).

    Stat wise... at least as of Dec 2013...

    The Saron has the highest overall KPH (23 versus 21.4 for the Enforcer), while the Vanguard has a slightly higher Vehicle KPH (12.2 versus 12.1 for the Saron). In both these cases the Vulcan is last, which would suggest a buff is needed for the Vulcan.

    On the other hand...

    The Prowler tank itself is outperforming all other tanks (despite the complaints about the Vanguard). It has the highest overall KPH for all its different cannon types, as well as most of the highest Vehicle KPH (it only loses out to the Vanguard HE cannon, but who uses HE for anti-vehicle work?).

    Now the Prowler AP cannon and lockdown were slightly nerfed, but as far as the updated statistics I've seen go there is no major change. Data from last week shows that Prowlers are more dangerous to Magriders than Vanguards are.

    So the problem is if you buffed the Vulcan you'd be putting it on the superior tank, leading to further imbalance. To be balanced, the Prowler chassis and cannons should be nerfed to put them in line with the Magrider and the Vanguard, and then the Vulcan should be buffed to put it in line with the Saron and Enforcer. Then there would be balance!
    • Up x 2
  12. Dnuts175


    The devs seem to be on a steady cycle of placing the vulcan at the top of the ladder, dropping it back down, and then picking it back up again. It was the clear AV choice before the mag size on the Saron and Enforcer were extended. After they were extended the situation was similar to that of the video I posted above and the Saron and Enforcer were doing more damage than the Vulcan at close range. The Vulcan was consequently buffed and was on top again. Then came the recent balance pass and now its clearly on the bottom again.

    So if they do adjust the gun, I hope they get it right this time.
    • Up x 1
  13. CrashB111

    You are aware the Prowler is always going to have a slightly higher lead in Score Per Hour just because of its ability to farm Infantry? For every one of us that actually uses it to engage enemy armor, there is another that slaps HE on it and farms Infantry all day every day.
    • Up x 3
  14. ColonelChingles

    True, except that the Prowler Vehicle KPH also is ahead of the Vanguard and the Magrider (except in the HE department, where the Vanguard Titan HE outperforms the Prowler P2 HE). The Prowler is better at using its primary cannons to destroy enemy vehicles and tanks in addition to infantry (again, excluding HE). This is why the Prowler chassis and/or cannons need to be nerfed.

    I mean by every metric (deaths per hour, Vehicle KPH per user, etc) the Prowler is overperforming. Just as how the Vulcan needs to be buffed because it is underperforming, the Prowler needs to be nerfed because it is overperforming.
  15. R4GING

    the problem is that Vulcan, as a machine gun, should never have been the AV weapon for the TR - the Marauder should have been the AV weapon.

    anyway, they can always make all the ES AI secondary do damage to armor while swapping Vulcan's and Marauder's roles.
  16. Axehilt


    For me the Prowler has a significant SPM advantage while killing almost no infantry.
    • Prowler AP: 28.7 VKPH + 3.5 IKPH = 32.2 KPH (807 SPM)
    • Vanguard AP: 17.2 VKPH + 1.2 IKPH = 18.4 KPH (407 SPM)
    • Magrider AP: 15.3 VKPH + 5.6 IKPH = 20.9 KPH (312 SPM)
    The Prowler also has the most time logged of those three characters by far (14.4h vs. 4.3h and 4.7h) so it's pretty consistently amazing.
    None of which is rationalization for the Vulcan to be crappy, of course, but simply some anecdotal evidence of the Prowler not exactly lacking as a tank right now.
    Certainly it's a little weird that it does worse than the other two ESAV turrets at point blank against a Sundy, whether or not it does better against MBTs and Lightnings. With as accurate as the enforcer is at all ranges, it should be a tiny bit less effective than the others while the Vulcan is about even with the Saron at close range and degrades faster over range (since the Vulcan has the side benefit of being better against infantry.)
  17. lothbrook

    I think just looking at the secondaries is a mistake, need to also factor in the main gun on a prowler, and you probably almost identical TTK on a sundy across the board, but the vulcan should probably not start its damage drop off till at least 100m.
    • Up x 1
  18. Hobo Jack

    i think this is the wrong way to test secondary weapons on MBTs as well considering the prowler fires two shots and reloads two shots the TTK is much closer if not faster if you had tested with both primary and secondary guns firing at the sunderer. Also it is much more forgiving of a weapon because it is a constant spray of damage instead of broken into shots so far less likely to miss moving targets. This is also ignoring the fact that the vulcan is much more viable as an anti infantry weapon.
  19. EliteEskimo


    If they started the damage drop off at 150 meters, and then made it accurate to land most of your bullets on a still MBT target somewhere between 200-300 meters without CONSTANTLY burst firing I'd start using it. If I have to burst fire it like every 5-10 bullets just to get some medium range utility it's not going to be satisfying to pull. For the longest time I wanted a Gatling gun for my Prowler that had at least 1000 RPM (which I know the game can handle) and have at least like 200 bullets like the MCG can, have low DPS per bullet, good resist values so it don't obliterate infantry/air, but at the same time would be a very fun and awesome Dakkah weapon to use. The SUV in the following video needs to be my Prowler:D

    • Up x 3
  20. Dnuts175

    All three AV secondaries are capable of shredding infantry. I'd hardly say the Vulcan is any better at that role than the Saron or Enforcer. The Vulcan is an AV weapon without a clearly defined role. The role of the weapon has always been close range AV but the Saron and Enforcer are both better at that in their current state.

    Currently, the prowler is lost. If it's not the close range AV weapon of choice then what is it? I'd say its a mediocre (by comparison) close range AV weapon and a horrible long range AV weapon.
    • Up x 1