Today I was running with some guys from Die Valkyrja, a few of them running tanks and, of course, me running my Gunnlogi. I go to make a sandwhich () and come back to find an Ambush has started and we're losing by around 20 clones. I deploy and see our tanks getting popped, right through hardeners, by 6-8 guys running prototype Swarm Launchers and Forge Guns. I remember a few guys from "NO Nyain" and "Mottainai Japan" at the top of the board. Well, I deploy my cheap little hardener brick. I lose a couple tanks using a number of hardeners. It was interesting to see how the damage stacked up.

Final tank, I use all 3 hardeners. I'm sitting 30m away and there are so many Swarms in the air, the WHOLE SCREEN is practically covered in a flock of them. It's unbelievable that this is even Dust. The lag was incredible and I could barely even see through the explosions. There must've been 4 swarms in the air at once, they all impact, 24 modded rockets hit me, they do maybe 600-700 damage over a few seconds and I think, "that's it?" I just sit there, mowing them down. They're launching swarm after swarm, forge after forge and I'm taking damage, but at a slow rate, and I'm killing them faster than they can keep up the DPS, even though they are sitting on half a dozen Alloteks and Wiyrkomis beside a Supply Depot. Eventually, the last Forge Gun falls and they die spawning in.

Well, we go from being cloned by about 15 to cloning them by about 15 after I pulled out my triple hardener and we pushed through. I honestly did not think we could win. Very high twenties kills, made 500k (paid for my tanks; I use cheap tanks) and even got 3 Balac's. Was not first on the board, a Logistics was, if I was I probably would've made 600k.

Price of tank? 160k ISK.

This happens to varying degrees in all modes once one side achieves tank dominance and the other side cannot deploy without ten thousand rail shots blowing them out of the sky. Infantry pick up AV, infantry discover AV weapons fire marshmallows, infantry get headshot from 120m away by a militia blaster while running across a desert from point A to point B. Even concentrated AV efforts can be easily defeated by one tank stacking hardeners and it's gotten to be ridiculous. It's like one guy double/triple hardens and now you need your whole team to all launch Forge Guns at once to instapop him or everyone dies.

Obviously, this is an extreme example; there are very few scenarios where popping all 3 is needed to negate damage. Usually 1 or 2 negates all the AV being tossed your way and this can be sustainable. When the crap hits the fan, you can go all in and sit there for half a minute killing whoever you want and their whole team can be dedicated to stopping you and fail. Doesn't seem balanced to me. Anyone with a tiny amount of SP in tanks can pull out a 120k Gunnlogi with 3 Basic Hardeners, pop all 3, drive right through the enemy lines and get over a dozen kills before popping, provided they don't flee. No other role can just make themselves invincible and kill whoever they want. You can't take a Heavy, run into the middle of 12 guys in proto gear and kill a dozen of them while standing still and sponging all of their fire, directed at you, just because they don't have another Heavy doing the same thing.