So basically, with max skills you can activate the second hardeners after first, and maintain hardeners nearly non stop. So a maxed tanker can essentially negate any amount of downtime needed. While still a bit of downtime, this isn't until after at least a minute and a half.

In the gunnlogis case, downtime should be a huge issue as a trade off for such high resistances. What I think is needed though, is lower the resistance slightly, reduce duration to account for skills. And add in a speed bump, to compensate for the lower resistances. Place more emphasis on actually using hit and run tactics, while placing less emphasis on the absolute need for hardeners. It seems forgotten, that damage mitigation means so much more than simply taking damage.

Maddies on the other hand, are more focused on receiving damage, but rather than having high resistances, they have lower resist that last longer, but a constant rep to their armor. The reps helps to mitigate the loss of a higher overall resistance. Man are these things tough too. In all honesty, I don't have too experience to go too far into details on armor tanks.

What I can say though, is with 2 hardeners up and active, these things are beastly. Still, I would still rather go up against a maddie than a gunnlogi. At least these things are killable with hardeners active. I feel that armor hardeners are in a pretty solid place coupled with armor repairers.

They do the job they were designed to do, Stand and Deliver. But I think to complete that idea, speed is going to need to take a hit. You can't be a strong heavy hitter without trading something off for it.

If damage mitigation is focused on taking damage, reduce speed to compensate. I always imagined the maddie being the slow lumbering giant, and gunnlogi the small and nimble fox. While the Giant can easily crush the Fox, he's got to actually hit the thing first. And the Fox has to work down his opponent, little pieces at a time.



Namely rail turrets. When you think about killing another tank, Rails are always the first thought. It is the BEST weapon for the job. Using just one damage mod and a proto rail, you can drop anything in just a few shots. Often times before they can drop hardeners on. But some would argue, "well that's what they are intended for".

I say for the sake of balance, that train of thought is wrong.


I mentioned earlier that in order to gain an advantage, you must lose an advantage somewhere for the sake of balance. You can't have it all. A railgun currently has it all.

Highest Alpha damage in the game

Longest range

So of all the turrets, not only can it pump out more Alpha dps, it can do so from 600M away.

You could say that because of the slower turning turret it doesn't do well in CQC, because it can't track as quickly. While this is true, it only holds true if the other tank maintains a tight position on the rail turret, but at this point it is fighting it's own tracking as well. Outside of this extremely close range though, a rail turret struggles far less with tracking.

I use rails in all engagements, whether it be in your face or at a distance, the reason I always use them is because they work at range and up close. Much unlike blasters and missiles that require you to always maintain a close distance. With a rail, I can easily outdistance my opponents or simply stay out of effective range and pummel my enemy to death.

Rails need a trade off, and tracking isn't it.
If you want High Alpha, you have less effective range.
Or you can have lower Alpha damage, and more effective range.

All and all, a rail tank should not be the one turret that murders all other types. That is not balance. Each turret should be nearly effective as the next turret, the differences being in how they are used in comparison to the others.

Let's take for example a rail, with High Alpha but say a range of 300 meters max. It forces a rail tank to engage the other turret types very close to their max effective ranges. No more bombarding from a high area half way across the map. It would push them into an area, in which they can easily be engaged, but they still have a high alpha to counter the loss of range.

Not to mention the fact that a long range, and a high elevation, severely limits the places a tank can take cover from rails. Forcing them closer, forces them to interact more with the terrain around them, IE blocked shots and limiting avenues of attack.

Railguns SHOULD NOT BE THE END ALL to tanks, they should be balanced accordingly with Blaster and Missiles.

Im going to go ahead and state this now, missiles should have variations, same as the other turret types, that define the role they will fulfill.

First, let me restate my mantra, You can't gain in an area without losing in another, if your goal is balance.

So for example the railgun, I think a lot of people have forgotten that at one time we had different turret types. I know I have. But back then, they did not have clear defined roles. You knew compressed meant heavy damage, so that is what you wanted. Or scattered was the blasters. The other types really did nothing but serve as filler.

Lets take an example of what I'm saying here.

Let's take a few railguns.

One does 2000 dmg a shot, but the range is limited to 250m

The other has a range of 600M but the damage is reduced to 1000

Another does 2500 dmg a shot, but the heat cost is high, and spool up time long. Small ammo clip

Another has a lower heat cost, shot spool, and a large clip, but damage is severely reduced 650 a shot

See how that works, if you gain in one area, you must lose in another. This not only holds true for turrets but for modules as well. It's no wonder it's hard to balance, they are trying to do it with CPU/PG. Time for some out of the box thinking.

Let's take the damage mod for example, the only thing it provides is a bonus. 30% straight up for a set duration with a set cooldown. Well the way it is now, balance is attempted with cooldowns and uptimes, as well as CPU/PG. I think it can be easier than that.

If you want 30% extra dmg, you lose 15% resistance.

Or if you want 30% resistance, you lose 15% to dps.

Ok, now let's talk blasters for a moment, the bane of all infantry.


Are awesome at killing infantry. They are essentially, an AR, just on a much larger scale. And the "suit" they are attached to seems nearly invincible. To small arms fire it is at least.

I've seen a lot of grief against tanks, blasters maybe one of the biggest issues. See everyone would be fine with tank durability if tanks weren't controlling the battles. I know tankers argue that it SHOULD require more than one infantry to take their big bad scary tank out, but I don't see this as true. But I also don't see the converse of that statement as true.

I think, infantry and tanks need to interact with one another far less, at least directly. Or I could say, large turrets are vehicle focused while small turrets are infantry focused. Get where I'm going with this?

So you want it to take more than one person to drop your tank, cool I got a solution for that. To drop infantry, a tanker must have the support of a gunner, whose role is to kill infantry. So if a tank wants to drop some infantry, it's going to require more than one person.

Blasters are maybe the only turret that something needs to be done to, to move in this direction. They are very infantry focused, when they should be tank focused. I've seen a lot of good idea's out there, increasing dispersion and reducing rate of fire are a few I've seen that are great ideas. I really hope, CCP chooses to go this route, rather than attempting to balance a tank with infantry. Either the tank will be too squishy, or too OP. We have already seen both kinds, Op in the current build, and squishy in past builds.

This isn't to say that there can't be a variation of the large blaster that is more effective for killing infantry. But in this type, damage would be severely hampered, rendering you dead against another tank. I mean the possibilities here are ENDLESS!