The Harrasser: Needs a nerf, or perfect dedicated driver?

phungus · 2013-06-29, 03:16 AM

I don't like the fact I can see a buggy square up to a MBT and kill it. It just looks wrong. But from a gameplay perspective it kinda makes sense.

I suppose I'm biased, but it's solely due to the model the Harraser uses, but I think an AP round should set a Harraser on fire and Harrassers should fear tank rounds more (they seem fine in terms of weakness to any weapon my ESF or lib has). It does seem apropriate though that it's as tough as it is considering it's a team vehicle that uses 2 players at least to really optimally use.

Very fun vehicle too as is.

Rasui · 2013-06-29, 03:31 AM

Remove their ability to repair on the move and they'll be good.

MrMak · 2013-06-29, 04:26 AM

The composite armor is the problem. It simply should not provide protection against heay munitions. Basilisks AA guns small arms, bulldogs/furies fine. Tank shells HELL NO.

Eggy · 2013-06-29, 04:32 AM

The harraser is perfect. Its requires teamplay and coordination to be effective and is fun to play. And it gets totaly dominated by people who know how to play.

The game needs more "active" skills and abilites. While repairing on the move isnt a harraser abilty, it is an example of fun and interesting gameplay that requires active participation to be effective. Its not a sheild or a Nanite auto repair system.

Its the benchmark that all the other vehciles should be balanced around, not 1 person MBTs.

The only way it can repair and move is if its 3 man and there is an engineer in the back.
Allowing a 3 man vehicle to be 1 shotted by a tank would just make them pointless.

If its infact only a 2 man harraser then it cant fire, move and repair at the same time.
For any decent 2/2 MBT crew thats a kill.

A 2/2 AV MBT has no escuses for dieing to a harraser. The MBT dps's and has more armour.
The mag can use the afterburner to ensure the harraser doesnt get the rear shot, the van can use the shield to tank the rear shot and the prower can deploy and put 2* the number of rounds into the harraser(with a halber or vulcan on top it massively outdps the harraser).

If youve spent any time in the rear seat you will know that repairing at max speed isnt that easy and also isnt that effective when your under fire.

MBTs and lightnings die so fast (to everything) due to the rear armour weakness.
MBT drivers need to do more to protect there rear. Looking at the radar would be a good start , "most" MBT drivers dont seem to do this.
A harraser cannot equip both composite an stealth. So you get to see it early on the radar or 2 shot it when it gets close.

The main problem with harrasers is people. They choose not to shoot them.
3 people in the harraser. 3 people on foot. If they all shot at the harraser with rockets, small arms and maxes then it would force them to retreat.
What actualy happens in 99.9% of the time is people try to run/hide. Then they get splatted.
You can also jump straight over a harraser and drop c4 on the roof.

The players also choose what class to play. I would be willing to bet realy money that 99.9% of harraser dirvers and gunners are engineers and a large chunk will have spent certs upgrading there engineer tools and skills.
Of course these guys are going to outperform that Light assault in the 1 person MBT.
Again were back at the players, they need to pull 2/2 MBTs and they both need to be engineers. You can repair your tank at the exact same speed they repair there harraser and they cant shoot back while they do it (most of the time) you can.

They have been released for weeks now and yet people still deploy sunderers out in the open and have mini zrgs of infantry running about and in clusters. This is a great tactic but theres no exscuse for not dropping a handfull of tank mines. That maruader haraser team shouldnt be able to drive round and round the exact same route making multiple passes.

Ghoest9 · 2013-06-29, 04:36 AM

I think its pretty much fine as is.
I would understand changing the repair while driving theng - but I think it would be fine either way.

PredatorFour · 2013-06-29, 05:31 AM

The vulcan harrassers look insane fun from a VS perspective until they run over a couple of mines. I would agree with taking the ability away to repair on the fly OR make their armour weaker. One or the other.

It's a tough call though cos they are squishy if you hit them and with a good driver/gunner they are going to be amazing. Just seems wierd that my turbo laser can beast them but my saron struggles in comparison.

typhaon · 2013-06-29, 05:34 AM

Harassers (2-man, or not) are not "easy" kills for any "good" 2-man tank crew. Their mobility and durability (again, nevermind with a repair guy in the back) make them hard as **** to kill. Everyone knows this and it's one of the primary reasons they are so popular.

I'm back and forth on what I think about MLG - but I do think one of the nice benefits is that when $$$/whateveritistheycompetefor is on the line, you'll see gamers gravitate towards the most OP weapons/vehicles/tactics and I think we'll see much quicker and better results from balancing efforts by SOE.

Obstruction · 2013-06-29, 05:56 AM

buff mbt because i swear to god if you whiny fucks get harasser nerfed i'll never forgive you.

i can see giving it AP weakness and taking 50% of its HP from an AP round, whatever, it won't matter.

the reasons a good harasser can take out a bad MBT are:

1. mobility trumps armor

2. MBT is usually pulled by scrubs who just spam any vehicle and get cut off from the zerg.

no harasser that wants to live assaults a tank line. maybe they make a run behind a tank line and take out support, get put into red and narrowly escape. healing on the run is not that easy, it only works at 1 angle and decent evasive maneuvers screw it up anyway. "it's impossible! slow down!" is what my gunner complains. if we go red we can't move at speed anyway and that is what gets us dead 90% of the time.

also again please reference the long list of available counters. mines, lock on rockets, C4, lines of tanks in a good position, AV turrets, tower turrets, and unfortunate terrain hazards.

if you think MBT needs to be better then make it fucking better and maybe i'll use one and respect them more.

Rolfski · 2013-06-29, 06:25 AM

It has been discussed before. If you can easily get 100+ killstreaks with this thing without ever dying, then obviously something is wrong.

SadlyJack · 2013-06-29, 07:14 AM

Nerf it into the ground, scorch the fucking earth.

MrMak · 2013-06-29, 07:36 AM

Originally Posted by SadlyJack

Nerf it into the ground, scorch the fucking earth.

Such a well thought out argument that will certainly shed a new light on the issue.........

Obstruction · 2013-06-29, 08:03 AM

If you can easily get 100+ killstreaks

maybe on a scrub server, not on a good server.

trust me, i smurf around on some of these other servers and players are just bad.

try it on connery during an alert and you'll see. you can get a good amount of kills in the right place and time but there's plenty of risk involved and it's never as exaggerated as you claim.

MrMak · 2013-06-29, 08:19 AM

I jsut did some testing on the stock harraser targets in the VR. Without the composit armor its durability is exactly where it should be.

To kill it without armor:

2 AP Vanguard shots (couldt test the lightnign since it didnt let me equipt the AP Python for some reason)

3 HEAT shots from both the Vanguard and lightning (Difference beign the HEAT python doesnt set the harasser on fire with the second hit)

about 12 shots from the Viper

4 Shots from the Vanguard HE and 5 from the lightning HE.

The issue is the composite armor is too effective against heavy weapons. There realy isnt much point using any thing else as it stands now.

It should provide its current full protection from small arms and low calibler and high explosive rounds only.

HEAT rounds should be less hmapered. Say make the second Vanguard HEAT round not set it on fire and force the HEAT lightnign to fire one more shot to kill with the 3rdhit only setting the Harasser on fire.

It SHOULDNT provide any protection against AP rounds though. We are talking about a weapon meant to specialise in destroying tanks for pete's sake. A thin coat of light armor should bel like nothing for it.

PredatorFour · 2013-06-29, 08:29 AM

You could say that as the harrasser costs quite abit of resources it should defo hold its own against tanks. It maybe doesn't need a nerf, it is another potent combat vehicle and should be combatted accordingly and with respect if your in an mbt.

Think of the amount of vehicles the original had then think if the people moaning about nerf's played that game... Tears would be all over the place! Just because it's another vehicle doesn't mean it shouldn't be able to 1 v 1 said vehicle! I think this is crucial to the games success.

AThreatToYou · 2013-06-29, 08:40 AM

Repair on the fly could go. I don't know about that. If it does go, ignore the following:

Currently, Composite Armor protects against everything. I think we could fix the Harasser by changing out the cert packages to force them to choose between small arms+c4 protection or tank shells+AV protection.

But my baseline opinion is ... the Harasser does not need a nerf.

It SHOULDNT provide any protection against AP rounds though. We are talking about a weapon meant to specialise in destroying tanks for pete's sake. A thin coat of light armor should bel like nothing for it.

There are historical records of AP shells going all the way through lighter vehicles but not critically damaging the vehicle at all. HEAT and HE shells should be more deadly to them.