Just so people understand the severity of the nerf, after 1.6 proto swarms will deal the same damage as current standard swarms, with a 55% range reduction. Hardened HAVs have around the same TTK as they do now, so the comparison should be accurate, even after vehicle changes.

Find a Falchion and take out your standard swarms. This is how using top tier swarms will feel in the future, but with lower range. You're welcome.

Well, I dont see why you would be trying to solo a falshion (SHIELD TANK) with swarms (EXPLOSIVE DAMAGE)

Tanks get less health in the future. Also, as I have said before, if I can kill tanks with a Plasma Cannon, your easy mode swarms will do just fine.

mmm... The damage is per missile fired, which increases the higher up in tier you go.

If you can sit next to a HAV hitting it with a Plasma Cannon for 15 seconds straight, I applaud you, kind sir. See, every time I see someone attack a HAV with a Swarm Launcher, it backs away and recalls. You must have fantastic aim and some crazy mods, or be blowing up Somas and Sicas, considering the Plasma Cannon deals less damage per shot with a longer delay and no lock on, plus bullet drop and a slow projectile.

So far I've killed 2 Gunnlogis, 1 Maddy, 1 Sica, and countless infantry. HAVs don't go down easy.

Good for you? I am honestly impressed if those were at full health and properly fitted. It takes what, 5 shots to down a Madrugar without hardeners? Plenty of time to flee and recall. 8000 eHP Madrugar + 40% resistance to armor is almost 11000 HP damage you need to deal with your PC. With a PRO PC, Prof 5 and 2 Complex Mods you'll need 8 direct hits over 16~ seconds, plus any damage that was healed. Yeah.

well the part that you are forgetting is that alot of vehicles are being taken out as a part of this re balancing. No more logistics and assault dropships just standard. You know how easy it is to take those down with proto tier AV...

The new swarms are quite nice, they are going to make swarmers think alot more and rely on actual player skill.
Judge Rhadamanthus put a video up explaining these changes with nice visuals so you can understand

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3au9H-NcgSw&feature=c4-overview&list=UUy11xToip47aIW0M9TSOKrQ

True. I should've made this thread specifically about HAVs.

As for the video, I did the math for Madrugar's when the new vehicle stats were announced. They are slightly frailer after hardeners with one set of plates, one hardener and one repair unit. I don't think they die fast enough to warrant a 33% damage reduction to Swarm Launchers, especially non-proto swarm launchers which already cannot usually kill any properly fitted HAV unless the pilot is incompetent. What will a Madrugar take? 10 standard swarms with hardeners up or 6 proto swarms with glass cannon mods? Proto swarms needed to be nerfed a bit, so maybe this will work out somewhat for them. But this just makes standard and advanced swarms even harder to use. Few players spec into AV, because AV can only kill vehicles and they need the SP for their normal gear. Pilots mostly have nothing to spend SP on but their diamond encrusted recallable bricks.

HAVs with one or two guys inside are situationally either completely slaying whole teams or getting slain by proto AV. I don't think that making proto AV just "OK" and making everything below even worse crap will be solving any problems.

You can't really talk about just tanks in dust. When you talk vehicles you have to talk all vehicles because any balancing that you suggest is going to affect the other vehicles as well. Especially when there is talk of increasing swarm launcher damage. So if you want to only talk tanks then only talk about a tanks tank and not about swarm launcher damage as you will get dropship pilots and LAV drivers who will feel wronged. Thank you

Few players spec into AV, because AV can only kill vehicles and they need the SP for their normal gear. Pilots mostly have nothing to spend SP on but their diamond encrusted recallable bricks.

True. I should've made this thread specifically about HAVs.

I don't think they die fast enough to warrant a 33% damage reduction to Swarm Launchers, especially non-proto swarm launchers which already cannot usually kill any properly fitted HAV unless the pilot is incompetent. What will a Madrugar take? 10 standard swarms with hardeners up or 6 proto swarms with glass cannon mods? Proto swarms needed to be nerfed a bit, so maybe this will work out somewhat for them. But this just makes standard and advanced swarms even harder to use. Few players spec into AV, because AV can only kill vehicles and they need the SP for their normal gear. Pilots mostly have nothing to spend SP on but their diamond encrusted recallable bricks.

HAVs with one or two guys inside are situationally either completely slaying whole teams or getting slain by proto AV. I don't think that making proto AV just "OK" and making everything below even worse crap will be solving any problems.

sigh.....yeah i had to spend an insane amount of SP just to make my vehicle usable, millions more than the advanced swarm/ forge that killed me in 2-3 hit.
Let me tell you this, as a dropship pilot i had to invest into ground game to afford the isk cost to get into the ship that i spent all my sp into just to survive 1 or maybe 2 games.
so after spending 5 games on the ground with a basic fit, i got one dropship. which was then shot down by a guy who makes 4-5 av suits a game.

At least with AV you spec into suits and damage mods and nano's and other things that can also be applied to your ground game. The vehicle tree is completely separate, and with as good as current AV is i'm lucky if i break even on a good day.
tanks are much the same, i use to tank in chrom but gave it up when i realized that i couldn't make isk in tanks unless i invested into them as heavily as i did dropships. so i gave it up and went ground to earn some isk.

there is more to pilots than tankers buddy, please keep us in mind before saying swarms should have more damage

Ooh I can't wait to get back into my murder taxi again! *gets blown up by forge gun* NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

I meant Vayu's, I always get them confused. Either way, it doesn't really matter. It can be a Madrugar, which actually makes more sense since Falchions/Vayus are gone in 1.6.

CCP says it plans to look into "balancing" the Forge Gun as well. We'll see what happens with that.

Current STD Launcher: 330 * 4 = 1320
Nerfed PRO Launcher: 220 * 6 = 1320

So stop trying to solo tanks and you'll be okay. Did you know that if you get your whole squad to equip mlt swarms, you can kill any tank possible in two volleys at the most?

True. I should've made this thread specifically about HAVs.

As for the video, I did the math for Madrugar's when the new vehicle stats were announced. They are slightly frailer after hardeners with one set of plates, one hardener and one repair unit. I don't think they die fast enough to warrant a 33% damage reduction to Swarm Launchers, especially non-proto swarm launchers which already cannot usually kill any properly fitted HAV unless the pilot is incompetent. What will a Madrugar take? 10 standard swarms with hardeners up or 6 proto swarms with glass cannon mods? Proto swarms needed to be nerfed a bit, so maybe this will work out somewhat for them. But this just makes standard and advanced swarms even harder to use. Few players spec into AV, because AV can only kill vehicles and they need the SP for their normal gear. Pilots mostly have nothing to spend SP on but their diamond encrusted recallable bricks.

HAVs with one or two guys inside are situationally either completely slaying whole teams or getting slain by proto AV. I don't think that making proto AV just "OK" and making everything below even worse crap will be solving any problems.