No this time its not a troll, this is my response to "Judge Rhadamanthus" and his call for nerfs on the rail tank which I believe he has unfairly focused on, when the real issues are the Red Line and Map Design , here I suggest another alternative that would solve the red line and map design issues he is facing .... and we can leave that nerf hammer alone, I really HATE NERFS and I believe nerfing breaks the mechanics of the game further .

My Rebuttal

DUST 514 : Tanks are NOT OP

The real issue is the blaster turret, remove that and tanks would be balanced.

Hmmmm quite a few interesting comments, I think I'll stick my oar in as well.

Overall I agree with Bamm's comments made in his video, which I believe is more of an outline for a fix to some of the current problems we face in Dust rather than a set in stone approach such as the proposed Rail tank nerf or infantry deployment being moved way back.

I will not suggest that there is not an issue with the balance between Infantry and vehicles but stat wise things are pretty good right now. The current Tankbush and Tankspam pales in comparison to the Missile tank crisis back in Closed Beta but we can't look to the same methods used to fix that incident to fix this one or we will see Tanks set back to 1.6 levels and we will get nowhere.

As much as I dislike Tanks without them I would lead a somewhat lacklustre time in Dust and they do provide a much needed service on the battlefield. Got a Protobear team tearing up your Militia gear team call in a Soma it might not last long but it'll give you some breathing room or maybe Duna corp is on the rampage with 4 Madrugars, get those Sica's inbound. Everyone can use them and they provide New or Skill impaired players a viable option to engage with players who are way ahead of them.

Now most people just say get your AV gear out but I do not see it that way, at least not anymore. Yes we have militia Forge guns and Swarms however without a lot of SP invested they will always require a team of mercs equipped to down even a half decent Tank. And this is where you will find the true AV specialists cutting their teeth, since they will have to use harsh tactics and quick decision making to achieve a result thus giving them the rewarding experience of their first Solo Tank kill.

However some folks are not cut out for AV, the lack of mobility, the vulnerability, low KDR, minimal ISK, low WP. And for these players I see a real use for the Railgun tank, it is a vehicle destroyer and occasional uber heavy sniper for bursting rooftop Forgers!!! Also in the hands of a skilled user it is pretty much the only hard 1 for 1 counter to a Proto Baster Maddy so before we go all Nerfhammer on it's ass let's look at some of the possible outcomes of a Railgun tank nerf.

Even some so called light nerf options like reducing it's elevation could really hurt it's ability to engage ground targets while driving over rough terrain or down a slope. My opinion is if you reduce it's turret angles it will drive them further into the redline so they can pick and choose their shots or cause a proliferation of another fit.

This is the sort of knock on effect nerfing has in my experience, just look at the tower forging phase we recently went through. Why did all the heavies suddenly take the Forge gun up too the roof? Well actually most of the old hands had been at it for a while but it was the FOTM players who caused the raging by cottoning on to what we were doing since the HMG had been nerfed into the stone age after Codex hit. So we saw tower forging because the HMG was nerfed and Heavies had to look for a way to stay competitive.

Still don't believe me, Suicide Lav's have always been about but only recently became highly popular due to the Swarm nerf and the nice addition of sticky RE's. So players with and without high skills in swarms looked for a quick and easy way to stem the proliferation of Tanks.

If Tanks are forced into the fight they can be destroyed by any weapon capable of a high enough damage output. Right now I have beef with all vehicles abusing the redline by running back and waiting for their modules to recharge be it LAV, DS or HAV I see all pilots do it. If a Redline Rail tank where to set up at the back of a map where a system similar to the one Bamm suggests it could be countered by loading a DS with Forgunners and flying like a maniac then dumping the mercs right at it's doorstep.

Yes you may die maybe even quite a few times but it could be done, I have to accept that I will most likely die multiple times while engaging a HAV or ADS that's just the way it is. Even if it where to run inside the shield and hide while recharging it's modules it would still need to come out again and this window would give the rest of your team time to win objectives or call in some long range firepower of your own.

I still move for Meta level locked matches being made available for Newberries or those looking for a change away from the Protobear swarms. We have the Metalevel system so why not use it? Then at least we won't have people stuck using Militia Swarms against Gunnlogis and rage quitting.

Both Judge and Bamm make good points in their respective Railgun tank vids, I have spoken to both of them about their various views however I tend to err away from nerfs having been at the sharp end of far to many to be happy seeing it happen to other players. I would like to look at altering the environment of play by encouraging AV amongst players and making HAV's come out into the open while keeping their unique features i.e Rails=Hard counter to vehicles, Blaster=Beach head gun emplacement. Certainly if you got a cool 500 WP for destroying an HAV people would sit up and take notice of that delicious freshly ground flavourGǪGǪ.

Heavy Attack Vehicle....
By that name to be fair you expect it to be OP...
If tanks were not the hardest hitting weapon in Dust, they would be useless

I have posted a thread, discussing a limit to total HAV's per team
HAV V AV
I think that may be a decent solution , but thats my opinion

Bamm makes some good points here, and it is necessary
As before CCP can listen to player feedback, they need to see a perspective from all roles ....

No this time its not a troll, this is my response to "Judge Rhadamanthus" and his call for nerfs on the rail tank which I believe he has unfairly focused on, when the real issues are the Red Line and Map Design , here I suggest another alternative that would solve the red line and map design issues he is facing .... and we can leave that nerf hammer alone, I really HATE NERFS and I believe nerfing breaks the mechanics of the game further .

My Rebuttal

DUST 514 : Tanks are NOT OP

Or... one could simply retune the redline instead of removing it in entirety...
First by extending the area of all prior redline areas back a ways, and then designating it with an orange border to differentiate the regions.

However, if you travel into the enemy orange line the further you go the LESS your maximum armor and shield become, and if you exit the orange, they restore to normal.

If you've ever played Runescape and tried the "Wilderness" before you'd know how these advancing regions work, but instead of going up a wilderness level, the affected party looses max HP relative to the tier they enter... so..
Outside of orange 100% all stats,
Area 1 --90% shield and armor (largest region mainly for deployment)
Area 2 (within handheld range of spawn) -50% shield and armor and -10% weapon damage
Area 3 (inside spawn proximity regions) -80% shield and armor and - 30% weapon damage

Defenses would be indestructible very-short-range manual turret systems that can target things within the orange region only, but loose power if the target is in a lower ranked region.

This way the complainers could run into the orange line to deal with troops/tanks they feel to be problematic. Would probably promote heavily dampened scouts.

Example,
If I had 100 shield and 100 armor, and ran into area 3, I would be left with 20 shield and 20 armor, and would not be able to heal over that until I left into area 2, then I would be able to heal back up to 50/50... and upon leaving all zones would be back to 100/100 maximum possible healing.
Zone auras are unable to kill players.

A simple fix we been promoting since the start is to remove all kills and warpoint gains from redline kills. Problem solved. No more stat padding, no more warpoint gains, no reason to stay in the redline cause you aren't going to get paid for it. Problem solved.

I'll just add to this by saying HMG, heavy machine gun, a name by which you would be forgiven for thinking similarly to your above post on the name HAV, but unfortunately needs massive eHP and a nice friendly logi to be effective in just spitting distance So many naming issues with gear in this game, but fortunately(I hope) CCP don't balance by name.

I'll check the video later Bamm, and I'm expecting/hoping there to have been loads of crayons used. Or really bad Paintbrushing And the only pie chart had better be made out of a good pork pie.

The Epicness of those illustrations would make even the ninja turtles Jelly

Here is another idea...

If you want to limit the HAV spam without having a hard cap on them.... why not link all vehicles to the War Points if a player doesn't acquire War Points he doesn't get the opportunity to call in LAVs, HAVs and Dropships this then forces a ground game at first and because its linked to the squads War Points not everyone can spam them and it forces them to join a squad and get involved with the Team Effort and contributing towards the win, abit like the Orbital Strikes only with vehicles ... again this is only an idea (and before I get flamed) I know its probably not the right one, but as I have said before in this thread a few times now... at least it offers No Nerfs and is an alternative to them . Which is ultimately my main aim here with this thread and video and I will say it again calling for Nerfs and raging about equipment that's supposedly "game breaking" under the premise of " He/She shot me " is not reason or justification enough to Nerf Anything.

Tanks are not a problem if you have some Mercs helping you take them out they should of not nerfed the forge and swarm launchers after the last tank update.Tanks are like bullies hit them a couple of times and they go running.

What I think CCP should do and does not affect the mechanics is increase HP of installations to something like 80000 HP on the redline and when they yellow (unhacked). Each time they are hacked, they loose half HP.
And I mean of everything, turrets, supply depots, CRUs, etc. Then place numerous turrets near home base in such that even if a squad of tanks/vehicles comes into the redline they will be automatically targeted by all turrets. This would also solve problems with ambush: end normal Ambush and leave only OMS Ambush.

It is no use to put so many turrets, the first thing tanks do is destroy them and collect 100WP.

Tanks are op. All hail the Judge. Love that dudes vids. Your just QQ because your 3 month reign is coming to an end. If your not using a tank to take out other vehicles and turrets your a *****, no talent scrub that has help to ruin the player population. Wish CCP had the balls to remove HAV and ADS.

Tanks are op. All hail the Judge. Love that dudes vids. Your just QQ because your 3 month reign is coming to an end. If your not using a tank to take out other vehicles and turrets your a *****, no talent scrub that has help to ruin the player population. Wish CCP had the balls to remove HAV and ADS.

Which one?

The one with the 500m redline Rail tank kill. Or maybe the one that shows the imbalance between proto forge v soma rail. Or maybe your talking about all the neato flight trainers, no I guess I haven't seen the vid?

Just get over it. Tank and ADS are *** ass tactics that only little wiener no talents use to win pub matches. I've seen enough BS in this game that would make most gamers quit a 100 times over bit these pilots really take the cake.