Alena Ventrallis wrote:
Infantry Counters - AV
So now we get to what should and should not kill a tank. Currently, swarms have horrid damage propagation through the tiers, with proto swarms being the only viable counter to a militia tank. I think proto swarms are actually right where they need to be. An armor tank must flee them even with hardeners up, and a shield tank can resist them and keep on repping. So let's then bring standard and advanced swarms up to proto's level. Current swarm stats are:
Swarm Launcher: 220 dpm (damage per missile), 4 missiles
CBR7 Swarm Launcher: 220dpm, 5 missiles
Wikyromi Swarm Launcher: 220dpm, 6 missiles.
Let's bring them to:
Swarm Launcher: 200 dpm (damage per missile), 6 missiles
CBR7 Swarm Launcher: 220dpm, 6 missiles
Wikyromi Swarm Launcher: 235dpm, 6 missiles.
This makes them useful at all levels, while still conferring advantage to using proto.
Forge guns will be taking a huge hit in 1.8, losing 15% damage to shield at prof 5 and losing half their power from damage mods. To be honest, I find this alright for the most part. An unhardened tank will still die in 4 shots to a forge gun. However, this also means that hardened tanks, especially shield, will be able to sit there and laugh as they try to kill them. Therefore, if CCP really does want them to be mainly anti-armor damage, we should emphasize that. Give forge guns a 5% increase in armor damage, up from the current 3%. This will allow them to deal more damage to armor tanks, while being less effective vs. shields. There is now a tradeoff. a prof 5 forge gunner will lose effectiveness against shield tanks, but subsequently gain effectiveness against armor tanks. This can also be applied to the swarm launcher and plasma cannon (a 5% increase in damage to their respective damage profile) as well as whatever Amarr AV is released down the line.
I have to disagree with that part where you state that shield based vehicles should be able to resist and repair through a vehicle.
To begin, this throws balance completely out of the window, because it requires a dedicated AVer to spend an outrageous amount of SP to remain viable against both vehicle types.
It costs 5,907,480 SP to max out the skills for the Swarm Launcher. Take the SP and double it because youGÇÖd need an Anti-Shield AV weapon to remain viable as an AVer. Now weGÇÖre looking at a whopping 11,814,960 SP. And thatGÇÖs just for the weapons alone. Throw in some accessories such as Weapon Upgrades and now weGÇÖre looking at 12,436,800 SP. This is far too much SP for a role that is only useful when someone brings out a vehicle; which wonGÇÖt be a guarantee once they are no longer broken.
Some could argue, well vehicle users have to spend that much SP, so why canGÇÖt you? Well for one, a vehicle user can use their vehicle at any point and time, and still have use for it. While there are some maps that limit how useful a vehicle is, they can still manage to be of
some service with it. AV on the other hand, relies on the enemy team fielding a vehicle, which as I stated earlier Is not a guarantee, and it wonGÇÖt even be close to one once HAVs are balanced. Half of your SP for a role that has only 1 use, and its use will sometimes not be used at all? That doesnGÇÖt sound right.
Furthermore, there is still only
one Anti-Shield AV weapon in the entire game, and that is the Plasma Cannon. If you make it to where Anti-Armor AV weapons are useless against shielded HAVs, then everyone will flock to the Gunnlogi, as the only effective way to destroy them (using conventional AV) would be either the Plasma Cannon (which isnGÇÖt effective at all), or another HAV. I donGÇÖt believe I need to explain why making HAVs the best or only counter to HAVs is a bad idea (at least in its current state) and how it is bad game design.
Awaiting your next post.