HAVs are still viable, but they've been forced into an artillery support role, not really as "Tanks."

*shrugs*

So many things wrong with your post. First of all, I have tanked ever since I started and I endured a couple SP resets, which would place me about a year ago.

Second, I run Gunnlogis only, as I see no point in thinning out my SP over both armor and shield.

Third, you're using FGs against armor. FGs are bonused against shield. I hope your AV brain can comprehend this. I have gone down in four proto assault forge gun shots. That means 6 seconds total to shoot an entire FG clip at a huge and slow moving target.

Fourth, properly fitted Maddys take so many FG shots because not only are they not bonused against armor, but armor reps can negate half of your damage, at least. It's a different story for them with proto swarms and AV grenades though.

Fifth, I'm not asking for a crutch. I know how to fit my tanks. Shields need to be buffed.

Sixth, well now I'm just ******* irritated by the ignorance of your kind. Every ******* AVer wants to solo a tank. Then Dust is the wrong ******* game for you. Stop bitching and crying "tanks are OP". You, however, are the worst piece of **** I have ever seen. If I ever see you in game, I will make sure I ******* run you over with my Charybdis over and over. Because I will not tolerate people like you.

GTFO, this is not the game for you.

HAV drivers need to learn to make tactics to counter the tactics AV players, such as myself, use. Complaining that they need more Armor and Shields will do nothing but make their suffering last longer on the battlefield, as any reasonable amount of health increase will be useless without effective tactics. So who better to teach them how to survive AV than a dedicated AV player. I decided to put this in General discussion rather than rookie training grounds, because I feel that many of the experienced people who hang around general discussions would benefit from reading this. I also feel that many people calling for a nerf to AV are not properly using tactics to counter our tactics. Let's begin.

Some general tips:

• Forge gunners should always be your primary target
• Secondary targets are Swarm players
• If a player runs at you it means they either have AV grenades or Remote explosives. Be weary of these suicide bombers
• Destroy turrets even if they are not in enemy control. Don't take the risk
• Destroy Supply depots to keep enemy infantry from switching to and replenishing their AV
• When calling in an HAV do it as far away from the action as possible and if possible behind a building or behind a hill
• Take out dropships before they can get on top of buildings. If they can do that, they can put a forge gunner up there. It will be almost impossible to dislodge them, as many tank turrets can not aim up there.
• Be on the look out for Remote explosive markers on the ground and the annoying sound that vehicle mines make. Too many HAV's die to this.
• Use of cover is FUNDAMENTAL!

Experienced ground personnel know to use the terrain as cover. Many HAV drivers need to learn this lesson.
I say this because I see many HAV's get shot at by Swarms and just take it. They get destroyed because they fail to learn the basic fundamentals of urban fighting, one of the first things to grasp is, how to use your surroundings as improvised defensive positions. Cover. The basic concept is that you use your surrounding environment to keep safe from attacks.

Now the tactics:
A basic maneuver is to move parallel to a building' corner, peek around and make observations. One should not keep in the same position for too long and if spotted one should move as quickly as possible to avoid from having the enemy flank you from the sides or behind. It is also important to note that the more people that are killed by you, the more become aware of your position. Though, this is a maneuver used mostly for long range attacks.

For CQC offensive maneuvers, I recommend the use of the 'drive by'. It is a slightly higher tier tactic, as it requires turret handlers that can effectively track and engage targets from a moving platform. As such, it is a tactic that can really only be mastered by a dedicated tank crew. Though, I digress, it is very effective when executed flawlessly. It is best used to harass and deny the enemy use of gates, entrances and narrow passages such as bridges.. By making strafing runs parallel to the entrance, you can quickly unload a large amount of suppressing fire into the entrance, while not allowing forge gunners or Swarm players enough time to charge or track your HAV. HAV's that make use of this maneuver should be fast, though slow HAV's can make use of this tactic, they should have high shields/armor. High fire rate turrets also compliment your build by giving the ability to tag more targets. After making a strafing run, you should make a U turn and double back at a longer range, as by then any forge gunners will have charged their guns and any players with AV grenades will be hiding behind any cover near the entrance, waiting for you to come past again.

When assaulting through a city or entrance, always stick behind your infantry. Never go in front. They keep people from being able to run up and throw AV grenades at you, as well as keep forge gunners and swarm players distracted. If you do not see a good 5+ assault team pushing ahead into a city, do not go at it alone. You will be surrounded by people with AV grenades and will die faster then you can get out of the vehicle. Just don't do it.

I will add more tactics to this as I ponder effective counters to the tactics I use against HAV's...

You forget one thing: proto AV can solo any tanker, regardless of the tanker's skill. By the time we figure out what's happening, we're dead. There's nothing we can do about hidden forge gunners and invisible swarms.

Also, you are dedicated AV. You are not a dedicated tanker. Please don't tell us what to do, because we know what to do. It's just this broken balance that causes us to lose.

Edit: your tips are nothing new. We destroy turrets whenever possible because, hey, free WPs. We know to call them in safe areas (also, WTF has that got to do with AV vs HAVs). We kill dropships for the same reason as turrets. I didn't bother reading the tactics because they are probably nothing new, I will not have you tell us what to do, and I'm ******* tired right now to read your essay.

Second edit: ok, I glanced through your tactics. Again, nothing new. And again, there's nothing in regards with dealing with forge gun snipers and invisible swarms. Those are unbeatable and you can only hope you can get out of sight before they pop you.

HAV drivers need to learn to make tactics to counter the tactics AV players, such as myself, use. Complaining that they need more Armor and Shields will do nothing but make their suffering last longer on the battlefield, as any reasonable amount of health increase will be useless without effective tactics. So who better to teach them how to survive AV than a dedicated AV player. I decided to put this in General discussion rather than rookie training grounds, because I feel that many of the experienced people who hang around general discussions would benefit from reading this. I also feel that many people calling for a nerf to AV are not properly using tactics to counter our tactics. Let's begin.

Some general tips:

• Forge gunners should always be your primary target
• Secondary targets are Swarm players
• If a player runs at you it means they either have AV grenades or Remote explosives. Be weary of these suicide bombers
• Destroy turrets even if they are not in enemy control. Don't take the risk
• Destroy Supply depots to keep enemy infantry from switching to and replenishing their AV
• When calling in an HAV do it as far away from the action as possible and if possible behind a building or behind a hill
• Take out dropships before they can get on top of buildings. If they can do that, they can put a forge gunner up there. It will be almost impossible to dislodge them, as many tank turrets can not aim up there.
• Be on the look out for Remote explosive markers on the ground and the annoying sound that vehicle mines make. Too many HAV's die to this.
• Use of cover is FUNDAMENTAL!

Experienced ground personnel know to use the terrain as cover. Many HAV drivers need to learn this lesson.
I say this because I see many HAV's get shot at by Swarms and just take it. They get destroyed because they fail to learn the basic fundamentals of urban fighting, one of the first things to grasp is, how to use your surroundings as improvised defensive positions. Cover. The basic concept is that you use your surrounding environment to keep safe from attacks.

Now the tactics:
A basic maneuver is to move parallel to a building' corner, peek around and make observations. One should not keep in the same position for too long and if spotted one should move as quickly as possible to avoid from having the enemy flank you from the sides or behind. It is also important to note that the more people that are killed by you, the more become aware of your position. Though, this is a maneuver used mostly for long range attacks.

For CQC offensive maneuvers, I recommend the use of the 'drive by'. It is a slightly higher tier tactic, as it requires turret handlers that can effectively track and engage targets from a moving platform. As such, it is a tactic that can really only be mastered by a dedicated tank crew. Though, I digress, it is very effective when executed flawlessly. It is best used to harass and deny the enemy use of gates, entrances and narrow passages such as bridges.. By making strafing runs parallel to the entrance, you can quickly unload a large amount of suppressing fire into the entrance, while not allowing forge gunners or Swarm players enough time to charge or track your HAV. HAV's that make use of this maneuver should be fast, though slow HAV's can make use of this tactic, they should have high shields/armor. High fire rate turrets also compliment your build by giving the ability to tag more targets. After making a strafing run, you should make a U turn and double back at a longer range, as by then any forge gunners will have charged their guns and any players with AV grenades will be hiding behind any cover near the entrance, waiting for you to come past again.

When assaulting through a city or entrance, always stick behind your infantry. Never go in front. They keep people from being able to run up and throw AV grenades at you, as well as keep forge gunners and swarm players distracted. If you do not see a good 5+ assault team pushing ahead into a city, do not go at it alone. You will be surrounded by people with AV grenades and will die faster then you can get out of the vehicle. Just don't do it.

I will add more tactics to this as I ponder effective counters to the tactics I use against HAV's...

Your tactics are all valid and useful.

Assuming you're in an armour tank, not a shield tank.

And armour tanks are apparently losing 2/3 of their repair capabilities, bringing them in line with the (lack of) survivability shield tankers have.

I'll adapt when the game gives me options other than "play as my enemies" and "stop driving tanks and skill into LLAVs". Until then, I'm a Caldari HAV driver who doesn't have any valid options.

I run a Scout, an AV character, and my tank character. I can perform effectively as a Scout in spite of some recent nerfs to an already-weaker playstyle. I can perform well as AV, even though I'm not able to hold my own during infantry combat. What I can't do is keep my horribly broken underpowered tank from getting slaughtered every time it shows up.

If it didn't sound like CCP are going to be nerfing armour tanks, then I'd just be calling for a buff to my shield tanks to bring them into line with the competition. Right now, with the "broken" repairers, armour tanks are well-balanced against AV. Instead of "fixing" repairers to work as described, they should fix the description to match actual effect, and buff shield tanks appropriately.

On the topic of tactics; pilots should work together more. By this I mean that there are remote reps that I never see being used. If we were to support our heavy armor with heavy reps and transfers then AV wouldn't be such a big problem. An HAV moving slowly with support from LAVs and other HAVs should be able to tank AV and defend themselves but pilots use our vehicles like that are supposed to be indestructible. I would love to see some spider tanking HAVs rolling across the battlefield but no one seems to do it for whatever reason so our HAV look anemic and under powered. We need logistic HAVs to support glass cannon vehicles, I believe that CCP wanted us to use them like that. I have never met a heavy vehicle that didn't need logistics for support. Tactics would go a long way if we would develop a doctrine of support.

Want me to dumb it down for you Fred Flinstone?

Remote armor reps are worse due to their 60s cooldown . Shield transporters are theoretically better than shield boosters, but their limited range is a crippling factor.

You can dumb it down all you want... once you actually drive a tank.

You say that and yet, I see 80% of the tanks I destroy doing very obvious things wrong. The ones I struggle to destroy are usually doing one of the above mentioned tactics and doing it awesomely.

I just see HAV's standing in very bad places doing really stupid stuff, ALL THE TIME!

Observation =/= Experience.

Let me guess, you think you should be promoted to CEO instead of janitor at the place you work because you think you can do the job better than he can. Or maybe you're still in school... yes, that makes more sense.

The audacity of children these days....

I don't need to drive a tank to know what tactics they can use to make it harder to destroy them.

Yeah because two swarms and a forge gun on top of a tower leaves me a lot of room to position myself properly. When av can see the entire map and can practically shoot the entire map it must be the tankers fault for coming out of the redline. And don't tell me shoot the dropship before it gets up there when you can easily fly behind the structure.

O_o

Well, this explains why you support any HAV going into urban at all...

HAV drivers need to learn to make tactics to counter the tactics AV players, such as myself, use. Complaining that they need more Armor and Shields will do nothing but make their suffering last longer on the battlefield, as any reasonable amount of health increase will be useless without effective tactics. So who better to teach them how to survive AV than a dedicated AV player. I decided to put this in General discussion rather than rookie training grounds, because I feel that many of the experienced people who hang around general discussions would benefit from reading this. I also feel that many people calling for a nerf to AV are not properly using tactics to counter our tactics. Let's begin.

Some general tips:

• Forge gunners should always be your primary target
• Secondary targets are Swarm players
• If a player runs at you it means they either have AV grenades or Remote explosives. Be weary of these suicide bombers
• Destroy turrets even if they are not in enemy control. Don't take the risk
• Destroy Supply depots to keep enemy infantry from switching to and replenishing their AV
• When calling in an HAV do it as far away from the action as possible and if possible behind a building or behind a hill
• Take out dropships before they can get on top of buildings. If they can do that, they can put a forge gunner up there. It will be almost impossible to dislodge them, as many tank turrets can not aim up there.
• Be on the look out for Remote explosive markers on the ground and the annoying sound that vehicle mines make. Too many HAV's die to this.
• Use of cover is FUNDAMENTAL!

List of things that need to be fixed:

• Invisible swarms
• Forge gun damage at range
• Vehicle and turret price

Experienced ground personnel know to use the terrain as cover. Many HAV drivers need to learn this lesson.
I say this because I see many HAV's get shot at by Swarms and just take it. They get destroyed because they fail to learn the basic fundamentals of urban fighting, one of the first things to grasp is, how to use your surroundings as improvised defensive positions. Cover. The basic concept is that you use your surrounding environment to keep safe from attacks.

Now the tactics:
A basic maneuver is to move parallel to a building' corner, peek around and make observations. One should not keep in the same position for too long and if spotted one should move as quickly as possible to avoid from having the enemy flank you from the sides or behind. It is also important to note that the more people that are killed by you, the more become aware of your position. Though, this is a maneuver used mostly for long range attacks.

For CQC offensive maneuvers, I recommend the use of the 'drive by'. It is a slightly higher tier tactic, as it requires turret handlers that can effectively track and engage targets from a moving platform. As such, it is a tactic that can really only be mastered by a dedicated tank crew. Though, I digress, it is very effective when executed flawlessly. It is best used to harass and deny the enemy use of gates, entrances and narrow passages such as bridges.. By making strafing runs parallel to the entrance, you can quickly unload a large amount of suppressing fire into the entrance, while not allowing forge gunners or Swarm players enough time to charge or track your HAV. HAV's that make use of this maneuver should be fast, though slow HAV's can make use of this tactic, they should have high shields/armor. High fire rate turrets also compliment your build by giving the ability to tag more targets. After making a strafing run, you should make a U turn and double back at a longer range, as by then any forge gunners will have charged their guns and any players with AV grenades will be hiding behind any cover near the entrance, waiting for you to come past again.

When assaulting through a city or entrance, always stick behind your infantry. Never go in front. They keep people from being able to run up and throw AV grenades at you, as well as keep forge gunners and swarm players distracted. If you do not see a good 5+ assault team pushing ahead into a city, do not go at it alone. You will be surrounded by people with AV grenades and will die faster then you can get out of the vehicle. Just don't do it.

I will add more tactics to this as I ponder effective counters to the tactics I use against HAV's...

Notes*: I see the need to nerf things like the damage at range of Forge guns, as well as reduce the price of Tank turrets. As well as several other small buffs, that when added up will be a big bonus. The issue I have is that people think that HAV's need to be almost indestructible and that they feel that you should be able to go into the middle of the map and have it easy. Things need to be improved, but many of the more vocal tankers are being way to unreasonable.

You forget one thing: proto AV can solo any tanker, regardless of the tanker's skill. By the time we figure out what's happening, we're dead. There's nothing we can do about hidden forge gunners and invisible swarms.

Also, you are dedicated AV. You are not a dedicated tanker. Please don't tell us what to do, because we know what to do. It's just this broken balance that causes us to lose.

Edit: your tips are nothing new. We destroy turrets whenever possible because, hey, free WPs. We know to call them in safe areas (also, WTF has that got to do with AV vs HAVs). We kill dropships for the same reason as turrets. I didn't bother reading the tactics because they are probably nothing new, I will not have you tell us what to do, and I'm ******* tired right now to read your essay.

Second edit: ok, I glanced through your tactics. Again, nothing new. And again, there's nothing in regards with dealing with forge gun snipers and invisible swarms. Those are unbeatable and you can only hope you can get out of sight before they pop you.