The Harrasser: Needs a nerf, or perfect dedicated driver? - Page 3

Belhade · 2013-06-30, 12:15 AM

Originally Posted by AThreatToYou

I started shooting at Harassers with my primary guns, and the things started running away if not exploding.

Please follow this advice.

QFT. If you don't set the thing on fire, you're gonna hose its occupants.

Varsam · 2013-06-30, 01:57 AM

Originally Posted by NewSith

Blame infantry that pulls its missile launchers to kill a vehicle designed to avoid projectiles. 3 HAs with LMGs are actually as deadly to a Harasser as the harasser itself to them.

Uh, no. It takes about 268 rounds at point blank range from a 143dmg weapon (which would be unlikely, since you'd never be that close to a harasser) to destroy a harasser with max composite armor. At max dropoff assuming 125 dmg (which is a much more likely engagement range), it would take about 307 rounds. In both instances, that's more ammo than most characters are even capable of carrying. That's also assuming 100% accuracy. Average accuracy is anywhere from 21-25%. Given that, it would take at least 1228 rounds (@ 25% accuracy) fired to destroy a single armored harasser at minimum dmg for most guns. That means 3 guys would have to fire about 410 shots each (again, more ammo than those 3 heavies are even capable of carrying without the right certs). Assuming they're using the Carv - the fastest firing LMG in the game with a 100-round mag (the Orion and MSW-R both tie for RPM but have only 50-round mags, requiring twice as many reloads), that would take about 40 seconds of continuous, uninterrupted fire (That's also assuming they maintain 25% accuracy while firing, which is basically impossible if you don't stop periodically to let your COF recover). This is, of course, all assuming a hypothetical scenario that heavily favors the 3 infantrymen, that there is absolutely nothing else going on and the harasser hasn't managed to kill any of them.

Good luck.

Originally Posted by Belhade

QFT. If you don't set the thing on fire, you're gonna hose its occupants.

It's funny that you QFT and then immediately after say something that is literally impossible.

NewSith · 2013-06-30, 04:05 AM

Originally Posted by Varsam

Uh, no.

Uh, yes. Small arms fire>Missiles when dealing with a Harasser or with any of the ESFs. You may not destroy it, but you scare it off and that's more than enough.

Though it's obvously easier to whine for a nerf, until the vehicle becomes useless even against a single HE lightning.

MrMak · 2013-06-30, 07:56 AM

How hard is it to frigin understand that the fastest vehicle in the game shouldnt be able to take 4 HEAT shells from a slow heavy tank and just drive away while repairing.

You are traveling at up to 90kph or more. If a Vanguard can hit you 3 times with its slow reloading gun before you get away, you sure as hell should be dead.

Again, that is an issue with composite armor not the vehicle itself. Without it its speed and firepower are perfectly justified.

A fast dune buggy should not be able to take damage comparable to a light tank, period.

As for it costing s much as a lightning. Consider this: this is a vehicle that requires 2 people to operate properly (That people are able to be effective solo by swaping seats is again the fault of composite armor) so you have 2 guys taking turns pulling the vehicle, which in turn cuts the cost of pulling multiple buggies in half for the individual player.

blashyrk · 2013-06-30, 11:38 AM

Originally Posted by MrMak

How hard is it to frigin understand that the fastest vehicle in the game shouldnt be able to take 4 HEAT shells from a slow heavy tank and just drive away while repairing.

You are traveling at up to 90kph or more. If a Vanguard can hit you 3 times with its slow reloading gun before you get away, you sure as hell should be dead.

Again, that is an issue with composite armor not the vehicle itself. Without it its speed and firepower are perfectly justified.

A fast dune buggy should not be able to take damage comparable to a light tank, period.

As for it costing s much as a lightning. Consider this: this is a vehicle that requires 2 people to operate properly (That people are able to be effective solo by swaping seats is again the fault of composite armor) so you have 2 guys taking turns pulling the vehicle, which in turn cuts the cost of pulling multiple buggies in half for the individual player.

I agree with every single one of your statements here.

GeoGnome · 2013-06-30, 11:52 AM

I only drive Harassers anymore. I see MBTs as inferior, not because they are less powerful, but because an MBT is a stupid design, forcing you to drive and gun at the same time.

Harassers have 1 thing about them I would say should be changed, make them loose the ability to repair on the move, or take away regen armor... one or the other.

As to Nerfing them overall though... I would say that you should bring the MBTs to match Harassers in usefulness. Give them a dedicated gunner, and give them greater utility beyond shooting things. Let them have a dedicated repair tool. Or greater abilities. Or make them into artillery platforms ontop of being MBTs. Or... Something. Because right now, as they are, I refuse to pull one. Buff the MBT, don't nerf the harasser.

Varsam · 2013-06-30, 12:27 PM

Originally Posted by NewSith

Uh, yes. Small arms fire>Missiles when dealing with a Harasser or with any of the ESFs. You may not destroy it, but you scare it off and that's more than enough.

Though it's obvously easier to whine for a nerf, until the vehicle becomes useless even against a single HE lightning.

How convenient that you completely ignored all the math behind what I said, which basically proves that small arms fire ISN'T effective at all at scaring off a harasser. If you're trying to troll, good job. If you're trying to prove you're right, try again, and this time actually address the points instead of willfully ignoring them.

Belhade · 2013-06-30, 12:34 PM

Originally Posted by Varsam

It's funny that you QFT and then immediately after say something that is literally impossible.

You can't shoot the occupants out of the Harasser? Even the rumble seat?

AThreatToYou · 2013-06-30, 12:40 PM

Originally Posted by Varsam

How convenient that you completely ignored all the math behind what I said, which basically proves that small arms fire ISN'T effective at all at scaring off a harasser. If you're trying to troll, good job. If you're trying to prove you're right, try again, and this time actually address the points instead of willfully ignoring them.

Battlefield scenarios tend to play out differently than the math does. In addition, you could have up to 12 guys shooting at a Harasser at once. I know in many situations, that is what it could come down to. I've also had a sniper shoot all 10 rounds in his semi-auto's clip at my Harasser from a damn good distance, and take away a very serious chunk of its HP. More than enough to grant an assist bonus provided I be destroyed, or perhaps make it more vulnerable to being shot by a tank.

Harassers aren't that hard to hit, although I would agree with 100% accuracy not being viable. On such a target, I would say between 50 and 75% accuracy; and at a range where the Harasser could engage you, I would claim 90% accuracy.

The biggest deal about small-arms fire is it forces the Harasser to retreat and repair lest it be surprised and shot dead by a tank. While it can take some hits, it savors being able to take every single one, and that is why I believe it is balanced. It really is clutch fun to drive because it is the perfect balance of vulnerable and invulnerable. Small arms fire is better than rocket/missile fire because the Harasser has a harder time avoiding it, meaning it will likely retreat.

Varsam · 2013-06-30, 01:31 PM

Originally Posted by AThreatToYou

Battlefield scenarios tend to play out differently than the math does. In addition, you could have up to 12 guys shooting at a Harasser at once. I know in many situations, that is what it could come down to. I've also had a sniper shoot all 10 rounds in his semi-auto's clip at my Harasser from a damn good distance, and take away a very serious chunk of its HP. More than enough to grant an assist bonus provided I be destroyed, or perhaps make it more vulnerable to being shot by a tank.

Harassers aren't that hard to hit, although I would agree with 100% accuracy not being viable. On such a target, I would say between 50 and 75% accuracy; and at a range where the Harasser could engage you, I would claim 90% accuracy.

The biggest deal about small-arms fire is it forces the Harasser to retreat and repair lest it be surprised and shot dead by a tank. While it can take some hits, it savors being able to take every single one, and that is why I believe it is balanced. It really is clutch fun to drive because it is the perfect balance of vulnerable and invulnerable. Small arms fire is better than rocket/missile fire because the Harasser has a harder time avoiding it, meaning it will likely retreat.

All fair points, it is significantly easier to hit a harasser. But even with 12 people all focusing the same harasser (again, assuming there are no threats to that squad other than a single harasser, and assuming none of them get killed), it is simply not enough damage to reliably destroy the harasser before it dumps its magazine and flees. That's ultimately what the harasser is about, getting in, doing some damage, and then leaving before your opponents retaliate. It excels at this, a little TOO well. I keep seeing all these hypotheticals people keep posing where the harasser could conceivably be deterred or destroyed, but they always, always assume unrealistically ideal conditions for the defenders. The most common threads between them are only having to face a single harasser, and always outnumbering the harasser significantly.

In the hypothetical I constructed it assumed that the harasser stayed visible to the infantry for a prolonged period of time, which is extremely unrealistic - harassers are always moving, so it's inevitable that they become obstructed or simply run away. It takes infantry a very long time to kill a harasser - it only takes a single shell from a harasser to kill an infantryman. There's nothing stopping the harasser from killing one or two people, fleeing (repairing all the while), and coming back and doing it again until there are no infantry left to shoot back. You see it time and again, it's the reason harassers are so favored by higher BR players over even tanks. It is the new Liberator. It's the exact same problem we faced at launch with the lib, and people who (ab)use it (myself included) are responding the same way - they see something that gives lots of reward with relatively low risk as long as you have the skill to take advantage, and they defend that platform because they think it's their skill that's the deciding factor, not the underlying design of the platform itself, despite what EVERYone else is saying, including some of their own.

For my part, it's blatantly obvious that the harasser is superior to the other ground vehicles, and I will keep farming with it until they inevitably nerf it, because at the end of the day that's what's most important in this game - certs.

Originally Posted by Belhade

You can't shoot the occupants out of the Harasser? Even the rumble seat?

You can shoot the guy in the rumble seat, but that's the only guy you can damage.

NewSith · 2013-06-30, 02:24 PM

Originally Posted by Varsam

How convenient that you completely ignored all the math behind what I said, which basically proves that small arms fire ISN'T effective at all at scaring off a harasser. If you're trying to troll, good job. If you're trying to prove you're right, try again, and this time actually address the points instead of willfully ignoring them.

Threat2U basically reflected on what I was going to say. I was ignoring the points you made simply:
A) because of your "Uh, no"
b) because IDD, theory is very different from practice. I respect the calculations you've made, but since PlanetSide 2 is a game of situations (it's an FPS afterall) rather, than a classic RTS (not taking CoH or other tactical RTSes into consideration), you must never exclude the probabilities and actual combat scenarios from the overall picture.

As for the following statement:

For my part, it's blatantly obvious that the harasser is superior to the other ground vehicles, and I will keep farming with it until they inevitably nerf it, because at the end of the day that's what's most important in this game - certs.

... it's just some improper thinking. Scaring a Harasser off and destroying it both do the trick. Sure, the Harasser returns in the first case, but that small time window when it's absent is enough to make the Harasser lose control over the sitution and upon second arrival it may aswell meet its certain death.

EDIT: ...this is exactly why you rarely see good ESF pilots returning to places where they got damaged by even a single AA MAX and ran off from.

bpostal · 2013-06-30, 02:27 PM

The harasser shows how powerful the driver/gunner combo can be.

phungus · 2013-06-30, 02:32 PM

Originally Posted by AThreatToYou

Harassers aren't that hard to hit, although I would agree with 100% accuracy not being viable. On such a target, I would say between 50 and 75% accuracy; and at a range where the Harasser could engage you, I would claim 90% accuracy.

Due to how hit detection is handled, getting over 50% hit rate is impossible. This is why most aimbotting profiles you check up are in the mid 40% range.

phungus · 2013-06-30, 02:46 PM

Originally Posted by NewSith

b) because IDD, theory is very different from practice. I respect the calculations you've made, but since PlanetSide 2 is a game of situations (it's an FPS afterall) rather, than a classic RTS (not taking CoH or other tactical RTSes into consideration), you must never exclude the probabilities and actual combat scenarios from the overall picture.

Yeah, and in actual combat scenarios I have seen time and time again harrassers zip in and zip out killing clumps of infantry while being exposing to no danger themselves since they have the health of a MBT and the speed of a flash.

Also in practice you see harrassers squaring up and going toe to toe with lightnings and MBTs and just outright owning armor. Composite + backseat repairing and the dps of a vulcan simply kills a MBT before it can fight back; Harrassers often don't even need to use their speed to wreck armor.

That's the real gameplay I see daily. If you think that's proper and makes sense mechanically then say so. But don't tell the person that shows you the math to explain what we see in gameplay that they are wrong. Don't tell them to stop "theorizing" when their math coincides exactly with what we actually see in game. You're the one who's theorizing, I've never seen massed infantry do anything to a harrasser but get it to bugger off for 20 or so seconds just to come right back and farm again - the notion that small arms is the counter to harrassers is absurd. You are only saying this because there simply is no counter to Harrassers, especially vulcan Harrassers since they can even outright kill MBTs and Liberators in a toe to toe engagement.

phungus · 2013-06-30, 02:50 PM

Originally Posted by bpostal

The harasser shows how powerful the driver/gunner combo can be.

I disagree. Harrassers show what happens when you give massive health to one of the fastest platforms in the game and topping it off with good offensive options.

If ESFs had the health of MBTs, they would wreck everything regardless of whether or not they had a dedicated driver system, or pilot controlled weapons.