I didn't like protostomping.

Also, there's a difference between a 69k iron wall that takes 0 SP and is impossible to go ISK negative in and a suit that gives you some extra HP and damage with a large SP and ISK investment. It's protostomping on a much more deadly, gamebreaking scale. I run mostly STD and ADV gear and, guess what, I actually kill protos! Wow, amazing, I actually had a 2.0+ K/D 90% of matches in standard gear before 1.7! Tankstomping is protostomping times a thousand. You can kill a proto in seconds with a militia assault rifle and multiple protos with a grenade. A full squad of prototypes is problematic, but they are far more killable than a full squad of tanks.

I guess you could've taken, "I didn't like protostomping" as, "I didn't enjoy doing it but did it anyway." No, I meant that I didn't do it and it felt unfair that there was no defense for newbs. I have tanked on and off for months, seriously in 1.6. The shoe can't be on the other foot when the roles are reversed.

Also, using poor gear to defeat high gear takes some skill and tactics. It's about HOW it gets the job done. Meanwhile, you can drop in endless militia tanks and get a much higher K/D than any protobear I've EVER known and still easily break even. Lower tier tanks can die to good AV, while higher tier tanks simply shred everything apart and only die to other tanks. Essentially, it's like having:

STD Gear < ADV Gear < PRO Gear < Even better PRO gear anyone can use < Even better better PRO gear that dedicated tankers can use.

I have a 6.5 weekly K/D. Taking out ground deaths it's probably closer to a 10.0. In matches where my team has tank superiority, I usually go something like 20/0 or 20/1. I run solo or in small squads a fair bit and do better, obviously, with good help. That's not the problem. I'm not complaining because my poor little K/D is suffering and I'm getting stomped. I'm complaining because tank "balance" is broken as all hell, making matches even more predictable than before and pointless without better tank support than the opponent. Either they have good tank support and I'm on my own against the hoarde, or the shoe is on the other foot and I'm part of the hoarde. I don't want a hoarde on either side. Save that **** for FW, maybe, but keep it out of pubs along with 2 q-synched full proto squads against 16 guys fresh from the academy.

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My Gunnlogi can pop 2 Somas in a 2 v 1 with hardeners up, sponging all of the damage. Missiles to unwary HAVs work and amped Railguns work until the enemy brings out better Railguns. I can run at 3 protos and drop one of them. I cannot do that with a tank because the TTKs are escalated.

Matchmaking is, indeed, the source of the most frustration. However, it's not like matchmaking could tell who's actively tanking or not, even looking at SP distributions. The problem with tanks is that tanks > infantry, so you usually need to dominate tanks to win many maps.

They do more than help. If the enemy does not bring HAVs to stop me, I can clone whole Ambush squads, set up uplinks on every point in Skirmish and completely prevent the enemy from capturing the point in Domination, provided I can cover it depending on the map. They could always change games in good hands, especially in pubs. Confined spaces aren't even infantry turd with a shield hardener or two up.

No, I do not expect Rail Rifles to kill tanks. I expect 3 guys with Swarm Launchers to kill a tank. I also expect some sort of strategy beyond "LET THEM HAVE TANKS!" and dropping 5 of them.

As for the resistance... that was my point? My Gunnlogi can easily take out 2 miltia tanks at once within my range. Aside from glass cannon Missiles and preemptive Railguns, it's hard to take out enemy tanks with militia tanks. This makes sense, but not when a decent STD HAV can be built for less than twice the price of a proto suit and spammed everywhere by anyone that's not dirt poor. It really doesn't cost that much to run with corp mates and drop good HAVs everywhere, while the blueberries only have militia HAVs to fight them with (provided they can deploy them).

Also, Blasters are anti infantry. That's why a good Madrugar can make itself immune to all militia tank fire, pop them in 5-6 seconds and generally tank through everything, including a full amped missile volley to the face provided he knows where you are/strikes first, which is kind of easy when there's 5 tanks cruising around. Gunnlogi's usually try to fit an amp which lowers their potential to tank since they use highs for shield tanking, but cycled shield hardeners might as well be immune to Blaster fire, 2 can tank any missile volley, Railguns don't work when there's 2 Railgun tanks already positioned above you, ready to pounce as soon as a sightline becomes available.

Militia tanks only kill if you strike first and/or the enemy is an idiot. They are no match for the kind of tank spam I saw today.

EDIT: As for the enemy making a move, I think 2 militia HAVs and 6 guys on AV is "making a move." It's just that their gear is not a high enough level to ever make a dent, regardless of the effort they put it. Like protostomping, but worse, since they'll be lucky to pop more than 1 or 2 enemy HAVs.

As for "lolambush," I run all modes. I've been doing Ambush to grind ISK faster since my SP cap has been hit. Skirmish and Domination were just as bad. I saw at least 3 squads tonight running 4-5 high level HAVs in all 3 modes.

Aw, that's cute. Too bad a good Gunnlogi can cycle hardeners and be "shiny" for 60 seconds straight, leave for 15 seconds, and then do it again. Split it into 7 second cooldowns and you can cycle indefinitely. I don't even have that great a tank and I think I've lost a hanful of HAVs to Swarms since 1.7, usually because I was being bombarded by other HAVs, which would've killed me anyway. Infantry can be taken out in many different ways and are much easier to disable. Also, why shouldn't I win, you ask? Because I'm fighting 2 at once. Also, it's not that I shouldn't pop militia tanks, it's that if they're going to be so useless (aside from double amped Railgun Sicas, or Missiles if you only need to disable one armor tank) they need something else. You know, such as AV that kills things without 4 guys trying to take down one tank.

I've fought full squads of proto players that couldn't take me down using AV. Also, the problem is not 8 people taking down one tank. I can pull out a tank and blap one myself. It's 5 people trying to take down 5 tanks while the remaining 11 infantry wrestle for the terminals with the other 11 infantry. There's only 1 guy in each HAV usually. If you sacrifice any more than 1 guy to take one out, you're screwed, because your infantry are outnumbered. If you have 10 guys blapping 5 tanks, the infantry are outnumbered 11 to 6.

It does not take smarts to activate two hardeners, burn one down, turn, burn the other guy down. A good tank squad that manages to get control at the beginning of the match rarely loses control. In fact, I have yet to see one lose more than 2-3 HAVs.

11 vs 11 is fair, yes. My point is to make the infantry odds even you end up with impossible odds on the tank front, or vice versa. My point was that you don't end up with the 11 vs 11, you end up with the 6 vs 11 because each guy cannot reliably restrain one HAV each. Usually two can't. I can have three on my ass and be perfectly fine. Also, while the AV guys can only target HAVs, the HAV can target both them and the infantry.

A good HAV squad can have a counter for everything and can deploy endless more HAVs if they want to. Infantry are not a problem, you can blap railguns at the beginning of of the match, cycled hardeners defeat 99% of AV, especially if you have more than one HAV, other HAVs, including railgun HAVs deploy slowly enough for you to swarm them and pop them as they come down.

The guy protostomping in a suit might have a 4.0 K/D. The guy protostomping in a tank can get a 20.0 K/D, average. I've seen tankers with weekly average K/Ds of 30.0 when they used to have 10.0s. There's satisfaction in popping protos, because it's not an impossible task and it costs them something. When there's 5 guys in proto turret and mod fitted tanks with assorted amped railguns, blasters and missiles, you'll be lucky to pop one of them. Even if you kill a whole bunch of them as AV, how many clones did you have to lose to kill one guy? Basically, if there was no quota, which would win? 16 tanks or 16 suits? Even when I get popped, I usually took out at least 10-15 infantry before that point. Even if they control the points, they get cloned.