Mouthbreathers shouldn't be influential to balance calls.

Pilots telling AV Infantry to "get gud". Another indicator of imbalance.

"Mouthbreathing AVers are doing it wrong."
Yet another indicator of a balance problem.

This thread reminds me of 1.7.

They do need some adjusting. Without their hardeners they're far too weak. With them they're practically invincible (-60.86% incoming damage)

They go from ~5k ehp & ~150ish reps to ~11.5k ehp (presuming the plate, dual hardener & single rep) with roughly ~400 effective reps once both hardeners get activated. Their reps outpace incoming DPS unless you can find some *massive* burst or have way, way too many people shooting at target. Their effective reps get even wilder if they drop the plate for a second rep.

Or something like that, I'm tired and not mathing well.

The problem is largely that this is all done in effective hitpoints, which means that the damage reduction is *insane*. If tanks were to have higher raw hitpoints, and lower hardened values alongside lower proportional reps... people wouldn't be as upset, as tanks would take damage that actually sticks for a bit.

The large other portion of the problem is that vehicles have isk costs that treat them like they're temporary powerups (and yes, isk IS used as a balancing feature in this game, like it or not) so when someone calls out a 1m isk tank they feel like it should 'buy' them a lot of power, because risk vs reward. Another issue is that vehicles take up an absolutely massive amount of SP to be any real good which really messes with their design, as it treats them more as a role than a temporary powerup anyone could purchase... so there's a second hurdle there. Thirdly vehicles lack a very well defined role other than 'roam around and kill whatever you encounter' which further adds to frustrations - If they had a clearly defined role, people would be less likely to pull them out in situations where they're not needed.

If isk costs remain so absurdly high, SP costs should go down, and survivability should probably be retained.
If sp costs remain so absurdly high, isk costs should go down and survivability should be lowered (no one likes dying, but I care less about dying in something that costs 20k than something that costs 2mil).

Vehicles need clear and frequently useful roles, without people getting upset when they perform well in the roles they have (currently people get really upset that some tanks are good at slaying... because well, that's the only identifiable role they have, and then vehicles get nerfed into uselessness... which causes a set of buffs later down the line that breaks everything because they still don't have a role).

I'm saying his team was a bunch of pubstars who have no concept of teamwork or strategy, and that is why they lost.

A small window of vulnerability. Is that "waves of opportunity" working as intended? I've always thought it was intended to mean a short span of high resistance followed by a long span of vulnerability (as opposed to the inverse).

So, since these pubstars aren't NF, FA, or OH your tank get to trump their focused fire. And rightfully so. Because balance.

How 'bout a compromise? If HAVs need be largely impervious to Infantry to thrive, give Infantry the same consideration. Retool Large Blasters as AV; set their AI capabilities equal to that of Infantry AV ... that is, lots and lots of warning shots followed by a brief window of "maybe", provided more than Large Blaster is simultaneously firing at the same Infantry unit.

They didn't focus fire on anything. No debate about that.

Any time 3 AV focus their fire on a tank, it dies. That is not up for debate, and people who say otherwise have never tanked in a PC. Most of the time 2 will do, but 3 will always do it.

That isn't some long drawn out fight either, its 9 Lai dais and good night. Done in literally less than 3 seconds, no amount of hardeners will stop it.

Every large socket has more than a half dozen spots where infantry can huck grenades from cover. Combined with places tanks MUST travel through to impact the battle in the large sockets, and tank control is trivial for a team in PC.

You don't know anything about PC tanking.

If you can't kill an unhardened maddy in the thirty seconds that his hardeners are offline, then you shouldn't be playing competitive games.

Considering that the time for a scout suit to deliver 3 lai dais and a PLC shot is less than 5 seconds, there is plenty of time to get your kill on.

Of course if you were smart, when the tank showed up, you would just go and put proxies down on his retreat route, and let him have nothing to shoot at.

But if you were smart we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Options:
1. Make repairers active with a cool down time
2. Limit armour hardeners to 1 per tank.
3. Reduce hardener efficiency to 25% again

Also, I think armour hardener needs to have a higher CPU/PG cost, they're awfully low for the benefit they provide and differ hugely from their shield counterparts.

You ever think of the price and sp you have to invest to get a tank like that? A SH!T TON. Just get 3 dudes with swarms and a PLC or two and tanker dies

In your scenario, 3 units manage to sneak into grenade range, and then manage to keep your HAV in grenade range while tossing one grenade after another after another. That's not an impossible scenario, but it certainly isn't a probable one. Don't tanks move around sometimes, especially when taking damage?

The scenario you've provided demonstrates plainly that you have it too easy. What's more concerning is that you seem to think it's OK. Focused Fire from 2 sources should be enough to make you sweat. Requiring focused fire from three is imbalanced. And the AV shouldn't have to be prototype to threaten you.

So now I'm dumb? Please do keep telling us that we're doing it wrong. Meanwhile, this issue -- like all balance issues -- will come down to Kill/Spawn Efficiency.

And tanks are OP?

The AV guys you're going to bat foe always fail to be truthful about the ingagement. A tanker can feel the difference between pro and cbr7?! Minmandos have 3 high slots, and are still complaining about tanks? I honestly feel sorry for dropship pilots smh?!

BS. If Pilots can consistently ignore/escape focused fire, then Pilots have it too easy. I believe that this is the case at present.

Edit: Not opposed to reducing the cost of HAVs.

Don't let lazy AV lie to you! I don't expect to whip out my 'quafe' plc, and kill multiple tanks?! It's a deterrent, nothing more. This games TTK is far too fast anyway. Why does everyone want insta-gank on everything?

That comes down to kill/spawn data; I suspect the affirmative is likely, but I can only speculate.

If I were an HAV pilot, I'd be thinking in terms of contingencies just in case. Clutching that crutch and calling AVers "dumb" won't get you far if/when Rattati comes knocking.

If a tank is slaying 20 suits in your PC, your AV players shouldn't be in that PC, and your tankers should all quit.

AKA, get good.

It's funny how many people think AV is OP despite the fact 3-4 guys can be trying to kill a tank and just die in droves. It's no joke that most proto tanks can kill 30+ people and never die, even withstand a major laser strike. The biggest joke is swarms for all that people seem to think their still OP after the latest nerf in their lock on range I have to wonder do these people ever try the other side of the coin?

They keep say jump in a tank and see how bad it is, but when was the last time they chased down a tank that can cut you down in half a second with AV weapons that require you to hit it 3-5 times minimum? Even a militia tank with full proto swarms, proficiency 5 and at least 4% dmg on the war barge takes 3 missiles most of the time. A hardened shield variant is even worse due to the dmg penalty vs explosives. You won't even see their shield bar move when you hit them. Keep in mind with swarms it has zero use against any infantry running around with a huge visual effect every time you fire that screams "Kill me".

Over all I don't mind tanks being hard to kill, forcing half the team to chase them down is a valid role in wasting the enemies time. I do think however tanks anti infantry capability should be toned down drastically. Imo the large turret should be nearly useless against infantry while the small turrets should be extremely effective within 100-150min range max. That not only solves the problem of being to easy to kill and a waste of ISK but their ability to be one man killing machines. I can accept a tank slaughtering it's way threw the map if 3 players are required to operate it. But 1 man tanks going 40-0 is insane.

As it is now not only can tanks work fine without gunners, it's usually a waste of time to have them. The small turrets are largely ineffective and having 3 players ride in one tank is a large waste of man power on a 16 man team. But one major thing to consider when you think about vehicles... if they get nerfed to bad no one will ever get the vehicle kill assist mission done ever again ;)

Does your Large Blaster Turret not insta-gank infantry?
Would you prefer that be nerfed first, or would you prefer Hardeners or Reps?

It's funny how many people think AV is OP despite the fact 3-4 guys can be trying to kill a tank and just die in droves. It's no joke that most proto tanks can kill 30+ people and never die, even withstand a major laser strike.

Respeccing out of tanks the minute they do

I think everyone knows dual hardners is too easy to achieve. What they should do is either give it a stacking penalty or make the PG/CPU much larger so that there is sacrifice for the dual hardners.

The issue is that as a Maddie, you can't fight another Maddie unless you have the dual hardner layout. That defines imbalanced. To balance this, I personally like where stacking them has way less benefit. Then you aren't seeing tanks focused on a single hardened time frame or perma hardened.
I also miss Logi LAVs but that is a different problem.

The issue is that as a Maddie, you can't fight another Maddie unless you have the dual hardner layout.

1. Dual hardeners are already a pain to fit, and automatically require dual reps

3. Shield tanks, like shield dropsuits, have long range weaponry (rail and missile turrets). They can fight from range.

Mouthbreathers shouldn't be influential to balance calls.