I think the current stat of Vehicle vs AV balance can best be illustrated by noting the number of players who donGÇÖt have a single point into Vehicles skills and no experience in tanking, who are achieving great success with Militia tanks. This strongly suggests that things are out of balance, with AV being too weak.

I am Fox Gaden. You may know me as the author of Fox Guide: Swarm Launcher, Unleashing the Swarm. Dedicated tankers may remember me as the Swarm Launcher specialist that posted in many of their threads in prior to 1.7 to say that yes indeed, the Swarm Launcher was OP. Well, it is not OP now!

I think the current stat of Vehicle vs AV balance can best be illustrated by noting the number of players who donGÇÖt have a single point into Vehicles skills and no experience in tanking, who are achieving great success with Militia tanks. This strongly suggests that things are out of balance, with AV being too weak.

I spent the weekend testing the Proto Swarm Launcher to confirm these suspicion. Now, before I go into my findings I want to make one thing clear. I was not wasting ammo on shiny tanks. When a tank activated its cool-downs I would wait them out, and attack when their cool-downs were on cool-down. So you can just assume for the rest of this post that unless I say otherwise, I am not talking bout tanks with their active modules on.

While I did get some tank kills, and a lot of kill assists, this was largely due to the large number of infantry running AV and the large number of friendly tanks. I went into a match with two other Swarm Launchers in my squad and we spent the entire match chasing tanks and did not get a single tank kill. However, when 5 enemy tanks congregated around a single objective in another match all the infantry they killed spawned back in with AV fits. 5 or 6 infantry AV were able to take down 5 tanks fairly quickly by focus firing, but many of the AV infantry died multiple times during the engagement, and this took a third of our team away from doing infantry work.

I was not counting on the Swarm Launcher alone. I was also getting in close whenever I could to flux the shields off and/or strap remote explosives to the tank, so that when my Swarms hit, there would be a bit more punch. While these methods seemed workable, they did not do enough to overcome the weakness of the Swarm Launcher.

I think HAVGÇÖs are in a good spot right now. I think the balance should be achieved by buffing the Swarm Launcher. I donGÇÖt want the Swarm Launcher to be OP again as it was before 1.7, but it needs to be powerful enough to cull the herd of tanks and pick off the inept and the unskilled.

Swarm missile damage should be buffed from 220 to 250 per missile (down from 330 in 1.6).
Swarm Luncher lock range should be buffed from 175m to 200m (down from 400m in 1.6).

I think that this would still leave the Swarm Launcher underpowered, but it is better to take a small step and then reevaluate, than to take too big a step and end up back were we were in 1.6.

I donGÇÖt have the skill with the Forge Gun or the experience with AV grenades to be able to evaluate them.

Agreed, the swarm launcher is almost useless now. A damage buff, coupled with some range back would be nice. And I almost want to say increase the missiles speed. So more of the missiles hit these speedy tanks.

Still, a gunnlogi with hardeners up, will heal through swarm damage. Those shields will eat missiles all day long!

Gee i wonder why

But is the problem with swarms? pre 1.7 they solo'd everything with ease from 400m away, not anymore they don't but they are still effective if you do play smart

OP is an AV player at least

Unlike 99% of AV players he isnt an idiot and knows when to attack a tank and when not too

According to OP the problem is both the militia tanks and the AV nerf

The militia tanks are actually good to use now, if anyone wants to train up vehicles militia is now a good place to start and is useful and effective too with the ability to take out proper tanks provided you get the drop

This is very similiar to the BPO infantry suits which can also drop a protobear if you get the drop on them

But is the problem with swarms? pre 1.7 they solo'd everything with ease from 400m away, not anymore they dont but they are still effective if you do play smart

Speed is also a factor, tanks move quickly now even without the bug so maybe CCP may add in webs to slow the tank down and ambush the ******

Maybe EWAR maybe added

... did you read the entire OP?

Fox was playing smart. He got in squads dedicated to AV, he ran fits specifically designed for AV, and he used common sense (don't attack tanks when they are blowing their cooldowns). He STILL had problems with them.

If the devs don't make some changes to swarm launchers soon we will be playing TANK 514 in the near future.

Never thought the day I'll agree with some points taki made. Only cause I don't think taki is fully in the only way to kill tank is another tank category as some other tankers are.

*I'm shocked*

Good as expected Fox but there need to be other things addressed here . The fact that a mod could bring health back to one hundred percent in a matter of a second without any evolution of a climb rate . Hardeners can help a tank to withstand any damage without any drawbacks this produces a moment of invulnerability . Previous mods didn't produce such outcomes and were more along the lines of being balanced .

Even with hardeners on the previous mods still incurred damage . There were actual and gradual climb rates with activating boosters and the armor repairer now is a mod that constantly repairs damage and it need not to be activated anymore but the rates of the mods production should be more along those lines with a steady climb rate .

Swarm launchers need more of a range increase than you suggested but under the previous standards , a swarm launchers advantage is it's range and right now that's a non issue . Even the debate about swarm launchers not being a viable threat against Tanks and how the community has become anti - A.V. makes for an uncontrollable situation .

In addition to your proposed fixes, I believe that swarm launcher missiles need to move a bit faster.

This would be a nice buff too. Maybe keep swarm launcher damage as is, increase the lock range to 200m, and increase missile movement speed by 20%.

A huge part of the balance issue right now is militia tanks. Under no circumstances should a virtually free militia tank with no SP invested function even remotely close to a standard tank with a healthy amount of SP invested. They should be paper thin test run machines that give you a feel for tanking, but will be roasted by prototype AV.

Right now, free militia tanks shrug off plenty of prototype AV. I'm fine with standard, SP invested tanks doing that. Free tanks for all? Not nearly as much.