What tanks need a buff or nerf?

[lordgei]

Hey guys I thought of making a thread for where you can post your own opinion on what tanks need a buff or nerf. I know a lot of players have a lot to say on this subject so please let the community know what you think.

[rob]

I'm quite interested in the results of this discussion. Please note that I prefer to pair buffs with nerfs. That is, if I'm going to buff a tank, I also need to nerf a tank. If I just buff things, then we end up with a gradually escalating base power level that throws the whole game out of whack.

[hypevosa]

A slight HP nerf (down to 350 like the trailblazer) would be in order for the wildfire, that would make it our veritable glass cannon, and justify the stealth moreso than it is right now.

[tarbomb]

Note: I have all the tank classes augmented to level 6-10, so this analysis isn't biased in favor of tanks that I play more often.

Valkyrie is in desperate need of a buff. Nobody uses it right now, and for good reason: forward firepower is mediocre at best, the scattergun is utterly useless when compared to the new AoE triggers, and the abilities don't help it.

Hurricane, while a fun tank to use, is completely outclassed by the wildfire, which can target an equal number of tanks on buff (8 lightning targets for hurricane, compared to 6 lightning + 2 turrets) and a superior number of targets without buff, and has a cloak and a forward turret to boot. Yes, the wildfire may need to be nerfed, but hurricane is still a crappy tank.

Hercules needs to be able to drop bombs faster, and the bombs need to do more damage. Despite its resilience it really has no practical use due to the fact that its single turret cannot effectively target anything, and the bombs do far too little damage to affect fights.

I'm have mixed feelings on the viking. It's a decent tank, but outclassed by the newly buffed tanks; whether that is an issue of the newly buffed 1K VP tanks being OP or viking being UP is up to debate.

It stands without question, though, that fury and wildfire are the most powerful tanks in the game. Fury has a ridiculously powerful multilayered shield system with an instant and omnidirectional shield recharge, making it unquestionably the most survivable tank in the game along with the hercules. Add easy-to-target guns, a boost, and a crowd-controlling shotgun make it the best all-round defensive tank in the game.

Wildfire, like fury, is unkillable when used safely; its cloak (despite the long recharge) allows it to make runs on convoys and deltas with complete impunity, and the scattergun and boosts means it really good damage when doing those runs.

Note that I'm not including some of the lesser used tanks like phantom, spectre, and predator in this list. I feel that these tanks are often underrated (spectre in particular) due to being UP in the past and being outclassed by wildfire/fury now.

[lordgei]

Hurricane is in dire need of a buff. The lightning is great for large crowds but it just doesn't do enough damage. I find myself constantly getting swarmed by enemies while doing drills and such because the lightning attack can't effectively kill enemies fast enough . So, raising it's attack would help balance it so it can compare to tanks like the wildfire.

[Ood]

Buff:
Valk main spray damage
Hercules Increase number of bombs?
Spectre slight range increase
Hurricane let its plasma turret always hit the max number of targets. If only 1 thing is in range let it hit that 1 thing 5 (or however many) times.

Nerf:
Wildfire number of targets on plamsa reduced? Replace laser weapon overdrive?
Corsair - Shear is OP, make it not work on shielded enemies (and give the convoy a shield), or something. 2 shears and a wildfire can bring down an Antimatter tank in a few seconds.

Questionable
Fury: First, I love the Fury, it's by far my favorite tank. I'll preface this by also saying that my fury is auged to 11s, I'm not exactly unbias. However, I think that the Fury is nearly balanced (erring on overpowered), it has good shields everyone will agree, and weapons facing where the best shields are as well. However, it lacks one major thing in comparison to every other tank: It can't fire forward. Currently the game tactics involve a good deal of 'hit and run'. It's more difficult to sweep in broadside, and sweep out, than it is to just say 'Geronimo!' and charge in face first. The fury requires thought to use, the wildfire doesn't. Also, while fury overdrive is effective, to me it isn't overpowered, you aren't for certain going to kill all structures when you overdrive. Lastly, it does have a 'wooden spoon' trigger... the proximity mine. Half the time it doesn't go off properly, and when it does it doesn't really do much.

If a fury nerf is in the books, I suggest making the inner shield regenerate slower. My current method of fury fighting is such that I rotate from one side to the other once the inner shield is penetrated (and the opposite, outside shield is full or near full). Generally after rotation, by the time the outer shield is down, the inner shield is back up allowing it to take damage, while the opposite side's outer shield is recharging. I take a small amount of actual damage, then trigger, or flip again. This tactic lets me sit in drills for quite a long time, and is effective basically anything (Deltas require fast action, and the new super-tanks disallow this since all sides are attacked).
The inner shield is the key, because while its weakest, it allows the other shields the time they need to recharge.

[hypevosa]

Ood - 3 or 4 shears plus the wildfire and shotguns from the corsairs brought it down.

I would suggest the shear effect may need a cap as well - 1.5k hull sheared per use maybe? And then let it recharge very slightly faster. It will be pointless to have high hp enemies in the future if everyone using a corsair can just instantly reduce enemies down to almost nothing.

Wildfire nerfs: It's really, really fun to play as it is. I would rather see it be our super damage tank and have it be a liability once the shields are down, requiring skilled and tactical play, rather than any kind of offensive nerf.

[gingerbear]

I posted my opinion on tanks some threads before, repeating what I think is relevant
(mostly buffs and not much nerfs, sorry!)

- Valkyre definitely needs an increase in damage, either increase the base or add DoT. Increasing turret turn speed or auto aiming at the highest density of enemies could also help. The abilities are moreless ok, although blinking is only good to get out of the crowd when things get nasty. Given that it should perform well against crowds, blinking seems to be a "hey I sorely fail at dealing damage, get outta here" button, rather than something to look for...

- Vikings main turret gets easily distracted by just about everything (even if it is right next to a tower). If the AI would be changed to always focus on the "biggest" target available (or at least within a given range percent, e.g. 50% of max range), it would be awesome. It would also be balanced as it would be under the fire of the non-reducing number of minions, so handle with care!

- Hercules' mine laying abilities could use some buffs, since otherwise the offensive power of the tank is pretty much non-existent. An increase either in the damage dealt for the mines or a faster recharge time (or both), would do it good.

- Right now I play Wildfire at drills due to its superior performance both in crowds and 1v1. Hurricane and Phantom should be good too for crowd control, but they fall far behind. An increase in their performance or a nerf in wildfire's could help in this. I like that wildfire has a slow shield recharge time, it makes me get out of trouble and circle some if I'm out of cloaking. The only nerf I could imagine is to the trigger #2, to decrease the tanks crowd efficiency.

- If Hurricane supposed to be a crowd offense tank, could use either a buff in base damage, or a better effect for the #1 trigger.

- If Phantom supposed to be a crowd defense tank, then I'd suggest the following: Step 1) Increase shields or shield based trigger (#3, #4) performance. Step 2) Give it an "aggro" ability that makes everything around it target on the tank.

- I didn't find Corsairs 1/3 shear that OP, but it may become that if you plan on adding high HP enemies. Adding a maximum damage limit would set it right. Otherwise it's not a strong tank and seems to be OK.

- Predator is called a main assault tank, but it isn't. A buff in either damage of the main guns or to the triggers #2 and #3 would set it right.

[quicklite]

Alright, well, here are my suggestions:

Predator's triggers need a buff. When I read their descriptions in trigger plans, I thought 'sweet, triggers that are super effective against stuff! However, I feel in reality, the wildfire's shotgun does more damage than the predator's anti-building shotgun. The predator's triggers aren't 'super effective' against fortresses and tanks respectively. They just, well, don't suck against tanks and buildings respectively. I suggest giving this a strong buff, and the guns a weak nerf if you must. I'm okay with the predator being a trigger tank, as the only trigger tank per se that we have is the Hercules (which I'll come to later).

The hurricane needs a flat out damage buff, no nerf. I understand that it can't be too damaging, given the nature of the tank, but let me just say this: I've killed drills solo with an avenger and a wildfire faster than I killed a drill in a 3-man hurricane train. I know they aren't supposed to focus fire, but they should at least have the ability to vaguely damage anything that isn't a minion. And also I feel like the 1st trigger should either buff damage, or something else.

The phantom is a more useful tank post-buff, but I still have mixed feelings about it. My suggestion is to buff its rotation speed, and then either buff the explosive trigger, or decrease its cooldown substantially, giving people who use the phantom more of an incentive to get in there and asplode everything

As much as I hate to speak out against the corsair, I do think it is a little OP. Its shear attack coupled with its shotgun will bring most things down to half life. I've never seen 3 corsairs in action before, but I can imagine what that would do. Now, I'm not saying to nerf the range or the actual trigger (it's a very unique concept, after all), but I agree with gingerbear's 'max damage' nerf. That will keep its premise whilst preventing it from being cheap.

The valkyrie is a bit sub-par at the moment. It's fun to play with, sure, but its triggers are un-interesting, its shields are good but nothing special, and its shotgun is too slow, clunky, and weak to make up for its shoddy laser guns. My suggestion is just to give the shotgun a nice buff so that you at least get some sort of 'reward' of sorts for getting it to do what you want (which can be hard).

And the hercules: decrease both explosive cooldowns by at least 1/3, if not 1/2. Yes, I know that they have fast cooldowns, and that the hercules has a disturbingly large amount of health, but its offensive power is ridiculous. While its gun may have been more appealing in the release of grid with 5 tanks, no triggers, and no large minions, it now lacks just about any offensive capability whatsoever in comparison to every other tank's guns. I have yet to see its bomb actually kill, well, anything, and its mine, while useful and decently damaging, has a slow cooldown and doesn't make up for the rest of the tank's incapabilities to actually kill the enemy. And what's the point of having buttloads of health when you have a dps lower than that of a silver without the defensive triggers? Of course, if you insist on a counter nerf, then I guess you could take away a bit of health from it.

As for the talks about nerfing the wildfire: I support a shield nerf, but not a damage nerf. I'd love a true glass cannon in grid

I don't support a fury nerf. Its shields are strong, sure, but not invincible, and regenerate painfully slowly. None of its weapons, while all very useful, feel that OP, and imo its the most balanced tank in the game atm.

Finally, the sceptre, while a tank I don't like using, isn't actually that bad a tank game-wise. Uninteresting, but not bad. Keep it as it is.

[Ood]

quicklite
You mean predator's triggers need a buff, surely?

[quicklite]

Yes. Yes I do. Whoops >_>.

I fixed that, and then I added a possible counter-nerf for hercules (decrease tank)

[tarbomb]

Predator does not need a buff. The triggers are decent as is, and predator does very good sustained damage to offset its lack of a boost ability.

[quicklite]

Yeah, I guess ur right, but imo the predator is pretty 'average-tank' like atm (okay so that's my opinion and not others, but still), and I'd still prefer it if the triggers did more even if the actual guns did less. After all, that would be a pretty cool concept? A tank that is meh, but a shotgun that can take a chunk out of any fort and a bomb that can clear minions instantly. I'd prefer that to the tank that it currently is. But ur right. Atm, it's balanced. But what if it was a change, and not a buff? What if the trigger buffs were compensated for? D'ya still think that it should be kept as it is? If so, please digress, I'm interested ^^

[hypevosa]

brb, playing predator

[hypevosa]

After messing with it a while, I see where both quicklite and tarbomb are coming from.

That said the predator may not really need any changes as all it does is suit a different play style.

While with the wildfire you use triggers wait for them to recharge, then run back in, predator offers a paced and constant play, with triggers that are weaker but are refilling much, much faster. Honestly, it's kinda nice to not be waiting as often for things to recharge.

Thinking about it though, narrowing the structure shotgun a bit and increasing its damage a little would be nice.