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

One of the problems with your dream is that resist values are irrelevant to infantry damage. Infantry have no resist values to anything unless they wear Flak Armor or Nanoweave, so using resist values to balance vehicle weapon damage against infantry doesn't work.

Obviously, it works fine for aircraft, because they're vehicles.

The prowler is full of contradictions

• Fastest tank, ability anchors it to the ground
• weapons require close proximity to be effective, get's wrecked in close poximity
• good vs infantry, the stat pad is used against it

It's been said before, the prowler isn't a tank it's self propelled artillery, the Planetside version of the Paladin

Could've sworn there were damage indicators based on where the bullets hit whether it was on the extremities, chest, or head. I thought the ESF nose guns were nerfed against infantry using those type of resist type values. Also considering most infantry wear either flak or nanoweave couldn't some resist values be put on those?

Everyone always overlooks the accuracy of the second prowler shot. At close range, sure, its an almost guaranteed 2 shell hit but you can't rapid fire the prowler cannon at medium to long range because you will miss that second shot every time. The recoil is just too horrible for a supposed mobile artillery platform with two barrels. Don't forget that the defensive close range prowess of the prowler is garbage.

Vulcan is like a shotgun, unless you're right on top of the target it's gonna do crap damage. And the only time you find yourself right on top of a target is if you make a mistake and are about to die.

Let's nerf the ....

Vulcan (dumb design to begin with)
Striker (dumb design to begin with)
Fractures (again, dumb design)

All at the same time!

I'm not going to say the prowler is weak but I will say it lacks the versatility the other tanks produce. Any tank can turn into long range infantry artillery but lock down really suggests this for our TR brothers. This would hardly be an issue if they were balanced around a driver//gunner//secondary gunner to begin with instead of this everyone yolo and pull armor meta we currently have with tanks.

Their balance is weak and nuclear nerf devices are too strong. This kind of development only promotes fourth factioning and faction imbalance which equates to fun for some less for more.

Looking at stats.dasanfall.com averages

• Prowler AP: 15 VKPH
• Vanguard AP: 12.4 VKPH
• Magrider AP: 13.2 VKPH

Now, I hope I don't have to mention that using averages over the whole 14 months of the game has its problems. But I think the next bunch of stats should still highlight why comparing AP cannons (or secondary weapons) alone is a horrible idea:

• Prowler AP + Halberd = 15 + 11 = 26 VKPH
• Vanguard AP + Halberd = 12.4 + 12.1 = 25.5 VKPH
• Magrider AP + Halberd = 13.2 + 14.6 = 27.8 VKPH

If anyone is wondering about the infantry killing equivalents for the same weapon setup

• Prowler AP + Halberd: 22.9 + 23 = 45.9 KPH
• Magrider AP + Halberd: 18.6 + 29.9 = 48.5 KPH
• Titan AP + Halberd: 16.8 + 26.6 = 43.4 KPH

Nice simple post- agree with the devs giving another balance pass to the Vulcan, it was under performing on the Prowler before the nerf and at the very least the Prowler Vulcan needed a different treatment than the Harasser Vulcan.

So, what happens with these TTKs when you miss a shot, or 2, or 3? What's the TTK at 100m? Maximum TTK under ideal, controlled conditions is good information to have, but it shouldn't be the only information used to discuss balance.

Testing against a sunderer is a mistake.

ITT AP rounds have take as many shots to kill a sundy as as HE rounds because sunderers have chaos armor.

Test against everything else = OK

Test against sunderers = Not really testing anything

Good Post, Obviously the Vulcan seems to be extremely niche and not the best design for AV. However, if the Vulcan needs a buff to bring it in line with the other AV ES secondaries, then the Main gun of the Prowler in comparison with the Magrider and Vanguard should also be looked at as well, since the Prowler over all is still out performing the other two MBT, and I think in regards to balance between the three MBT you need to focus on the whole package.

First of all, those stats only showing deaths are not giving a very complete picture. It is only a base number, what if a certain type of tank was pulled way more than the others? It is like the people using the total amount of kills as a balancing argument, without looking at the amount of users as a comparison. It only shows a very 1-sided and unreliable picture.

Another fact that is often overlooked is the ratio of gunners in a given tank. The Prowler is a much better farming tank when 1/2 compared to the other two MBTs, and even if you get a gunner your DPS doesn't increase fantastically (I don't use Anchor often these days for the record). If you get a gunner there is still a much higher chance of the main cannons scoring the kill, due to the main guns doing so high DPS. It would be interesting to compare the mains guns of the tanks to the secondaries, and I would assume the Prowler is still behind (at least on the Halberd, which can be compared, I'm not going into the ES-options). This means the main cannons score a higher percentage of the kills than the gunner, and a higher ratio than with the other two tanks. At least that is my theory, and it matches my extensive (more than 650 hours) experience in a Prowler. I will of course attempt to give my gunner the opportunity to land the killing blow, to maximize our experience gain, but I see many randoms not caring whatsoever about this, which further supports my theory.

I (and quite a few others) have also been attempting to get SOE to rework Anchor Mode, to make it not only benefit the driver (with a tweak to the bonuses granted to compensate of course) but also the gunner, to make it more interesting, and give more incentive to find gunners. I believe Anchor Mode is a flawed concept, that is hard to balance around properly in a game such as this.

Deaths per hour: The Prowler is begging to be used at long range with Anchor Mode (and while this is boring as frick, it is usually pretty safe if you are within friendly territory (USUALLY)). Something would be terribly wrong if the Prowler was NOT in the lead here, based on play-styles alone. If we want to talk data, the data I've seen showed the Magrider scoring more infantry kills (KPU/KPH) than the Prowler with both HEAT and AP. I refuse to base much on the deaths data (at least when it comes to weapon performance) as the data needs much more work before it is ready to be interpreted in such a way.

By that logic the Shield also needs a rework ASAP, as I have yet to see a Vanguard without their ES ability, yet I regularly see Prowlers and Magriders without it (without it I mean with other options installed, not stock tanks).

I definitely agree that people are very likely to only focus on one single aspect of the issue, which tends to give a 1-sided picture of the balance issues.

I still see the use of the Vulcan suffering much more than the potential gain on the main cannons can compensate for. My argument is, that a Prowler with a Vulcan is weaker than a Prowler with a Halberd, in almost all circumstances (and, thus weaker than the other tanks, it doesn't have to be brought up completely in line with the others, just to a comparable state).

The Prowler is also a better farming tank, by design. This is the way SOE designed the tank, and for this to change, they need to rework Anchor Mode completely. It is sort of the same situation with the VG Shield, it lends such a strong hand and forces the vehicle into a certain role and play-style, hindering other aspects of the tank. The Prowler is quite good at farming oblivious BR10's just pulling a tank for the first time, but experienced tankers won't be taken out by the Prowler sitting 500m away on a cliff (they will relay the position to their aircraft and have them take down the Prowler), just like experienced tankers won't assault a deployed Prowler from the front without cover (unless you are a VG with Shield ready of course, they can charge anyone).

You cannot base your balance argument on what we don't know is based mostly on 1/2 or 2/2, as, in my opinion, balance should be considered with 2/2 in mind, just like Harassers are not balanced with 1/3 in mind.

Which is why the damage per bullet could be set to 1 (and then give vehicles negative resistances to make up for it). That should work quite nicely (note, the 1 damage per bullet is an arbitrary number I pulled out of my rear).

Seems pretty balanced to me (over the course of the game!), what are the stats for the ES weapons? (If you have them ready, you don't have to do extra work, I was just curious).

I miss the old saron cannon. It's not as strong as a whole clip of the new one, but the sniping was great

Do we really need to go over why it's a good idea for a tank which relies on reaching and deploying at good Anchor locations needs speed? Speed synergizes well with sniper tactics.

I find the Prowler wins pretty reliably at close range. Recently as a 1-man Prowler I engaged at close range against a 2-man Magrider. Because I had the ~500ms advantage of being able to anchor, I tied the fight (we all died) which happened at 15-40m range with them unloading on me as fast as they could. With a Vulcan gunner it would've been an easy win with no death. It's only a Vanguard Shield that reliably beats me (and I've long suggested the Vanguard get better base stats so it can be less reliant on its "I Win" button.)

All of which is slightly offtopic regarding whether the Vulcan is or isn't balanced (it's also offtopic but relevant to point out that's another reason the Prowler's speed is great: getting the Vulcan to its ideal range.) But at least between the above and my own high-end stats showing Prowler dramatically outperforming (purely in VKPH), it should show some players that at least at the higher end of skill it's not only a capable tank but possibly too good (almost double SPM).

I don't know about ESF guns, but they did change the bullet based secondaries to be able to land headshots at 2.0x and legshots at 0.9x damage.

If those are the multipliers you're talking about, I suppose they could take headshots away from the Vulcan if we're talking about ways to reduce AI effectiveness in exchange for overall profile increases.

Now increase the range to 100-150 meters and repeat. Share your results..

I dont even bother going into the field with a Vulcan any more, unless its an outfit mate I can be sure my gunner will be trying to shoot anything moving and bail when its empty having gained zero kills after having lit us up to world+dog all across the map.

We may start doing a series of these to showcase various scenarios (ie different ranges, fully certed, etc) so stay tuned for updates!

You misunderstand. What they did with ESF noseguns (and a lot of weapons in recent patch history) is reduce the base damage that the weapon does on a per bullet basis. Then on the enemy vehicles they've added damage multipliers that are in effect when that vehicle is hit by said weapon that returns it to its original damage. So if base damage previously was 500, then attenuated base damage could be 200 and the vehicle multipler would be 2.5x.

The vulcan joined the cannister in the ******edly weak tank secondary department. It's a joke now. The prowler mounted vulcan never was the problem, it did not need a nerf.