Your post hit on so many issues that I couldn't help but +1.
If CCP brings in an aerial attack vehicle like the Hornet from Halo, then I might be swayed into buying boosters again.

If AV wasn't garbage tanks would be more balanced. Simple fact, 1 hardener active can stop AV barrages from 2 proto AVers.
But 2 hardeners can stop any and everything thrown at you. Only way to get through 2 hardeners is 5 or more proto AVers, or 3 or more railguns.
Limit tanks to 1 hardener able to be equipped at a time and my sica wouldn't be so god mode.

Also, you're a scrub if you're not running at least 2 hardeners on any tank not meant to be a mountain max damage rail tank.

But yes, proto AV is useless now due to immobillity and nerfed damage. Even using an LAV is w/ AV is rather pointless w/ the buffed speed and regen tanks now have. Its pretty much only tanks can kill tanks. And just like everyone w/ an IQ above 90 thought, it's super unbalanced.

Time and time again i see people say they can't kill tanks. That with how 'OP' the hardeners are it takes multiple AV to get through those defenses. I think that thought process is the problem.

When the active modules are running, the tank is at its peak power. You can not attack tanks like you would in patches past. It is critical to lull the tank into a false sense of security. Hold your fire and stay out of site while it makes its assault. When it meets no resistance it will stick around while its modules go on cooldown. That is the moment to strike.

I had a FW match yesterday where we had an enemy tank sitting on B just blasting it and anything that moved to hell and back. I think i watched half a dozen swarm launchers get up on the second level and get blasted to bits trying to take it down. Only the lucky ones even got off one volley. They were not thinking, not realizing the game has changed. They were attacking a tank exactly how you would have last week.

I had RE's equipped so i snuck around the back of the tank, stuck three to its backside and then with a chuckle... waited. It took about 20 seconds for the hardener to wear off, but the second it did that tank vaporized. Had I been impatient and blown the RE as soon as i could, that tank would have lived.

If you run proximity explosives, don't lay them out to serve as a deterrent to tanks assaulting a position. When they assault they have their cooldowns up, and scanning the area for threats. They are at their peak power. Instead, either through timing or watching the flow of the battlefield place your mines where the tanks will be when their cooldowns are up and they are running for the hills to escape. They are usually less attentive to their surroundings. It is immensely satisfying driving a tank into a pile of mines as they desperately try to escape.

These tactics have been working great for me. I actually find hunting tanks far more enjoyable this patch. Its become extremely tactical. No longer can you just pull out a swarm and point, shoot, dead.

tldr - Stop attacking tanks when their hardeners are up. Be patient and wait until they are vulnerable. Also, flank them. AV that does not flank is cannon fodder.

I haven't actually seen many tanks running multiple hardeners. That said, I completely agree that chaining hardeners completely breaks CCP's intended mechanics. The 'waves' of opportunity concept breaks down completely if a new wave can be started the second the old one wears off.

This is the kind of feedback we need to be getting CCP so they can balance and extend the vehicle base they have in place.

They really have two paths they could follow. The first is to just make fitting multiple hardeners have some severe penalties, to either cooldown or active duration. While functional it would be a missed opportunity, not to mention dull.

The second path is to give infantry the tools they need to counter the tanks, while introducing some interesting counter play. I would love to see them add in stasis webifier land mines, or an Amarr AV weapon that acts like an EMP knocking out active modules.

I just hope CCP keep the tactical level of gameplay that the new tanks have introduced. While frustrating at times its much more interesting.

message from Godin

1: As it should be. That's like saying an all assault team vs. a Scout, Logi, sentinel, and assault team, and then the assault team losing horribly. Never bring the same/very similar team into a match vs. a balanced out team and expect to win. Obvoiously the combined arms team will win, why shouldn't they?

2: Explain temporal grenades, and those last two EWAR ideas are OP, and makes no sense. Tracking disruptors, and a EMP that messes with our UI would work just fine. Webs are completely accepted.

3: That was the point. period of which the vehicles become gods, followed b periods of becoming even weaker than 1.6. There's several ways of exploiting this period, especially with swarms due to their high ROF (for a AV weapon). You just need to be at the right place at the right time. Has done wonders for me