Tanks were actually harder to kill in chrome. Tanks would cycle 2-3 hardeners and a booster. There was no period of weakness. It took teams of AV working together to kill a tank and those who knew what they were doing, did it regularly. I remember being in a 2.25mil tank chasing down a helpless grunt...into an ambush. All around me F-45s, proximines, swarms, and forges started ripping my 20,000 ehp tank to shreds. I had all my hardness on and got away with 500 armor. I thought I was safe, then a yolo nade hit me and I lost 2.25mil.
AV understood that tankers who know their art follow a set doctrine developed over time. By understanding their prey, they could exploit its weakness.

Post 1.0 and before 1.7, people got used to soloing tanks. It was extremely easy. So much so that all it did was breed the best tankers Dust has ever seen and likely ever will. The weak links have been washed out and all that remains are <20 fierce death machines who, in a duel, are the only people cape able of killing eachother. That aside, tanks seem OP because everyone was used to being able to solo them. Now it isn't possible if the tank is running hardeners and can smash through anything for <1min. Then it's glass. The infantry make the mistake of engaging during the strong periods and thus, seem like the tank is invincible. Even tanks have trouble smashing through nearly 95% resistance that gunlogis get with 2 hardeners. Tankers...the good ones...exploring this by causing their enemy to prematurely activate their hardeners and then lure them into an ambush or per sue them when they're weak. It's very possible for a gunlogi rail to solo a blaster Maddy at <15m this way. Also take into account that tanks charge when they see red because they know that they can win. This is just too easy to exploit.

I'm starting to see people do this now. Yesterday, I was killed by two people. One with a mlt swarm and the other with a wiki swarm. The mlt guy shot me and I activated my hardeners. When my hardeners cut off, the proto swarm killed my in 0.6 seconds with two volleys from 50m because he knew I couldn't run away at that range. It was beautiful, honestly. I did my best and he knew what I would do, so he won. It was tactics on both of our sides. People need to learn how to read the battlefield. Tanks are easier to kill than ever, but one must wait for their hardeners to shut down. It's really that simple. Stop the QQ and adapt just like the true tankers did every patch.

If it takes having 9-12 seconds of unobstructed LOS to Kill you if your hardeners are already down and you don't have reppers, how is that balanced?

Generally good tank fits require me to reload my tier 4 prof 4 double complex modded AFG to kill them with hardeners down, and with hardeners up it is futile to even attack at all. I don't know, maybe easy for us has different meanings.

It's easy for you to kill infantry, AV in under two seconds, or one direct rail hit. You can attack infantry and installations and even jump on other tanks without modules active.

I have to wait for your weak period (If you have one and aren't running 2-3 hardeners) and take upwards of 6 times as long to kill you as it takes you to kill me. And I can't flee at near LAV speeds at low health.

Dunno, I am not crying major nerf or tanks are god mode, but it certainly is not balanced.