A Path Beyond Did you know?

[des1206]

Mammoth tank vs. vehicle armor is 66% more effective than a heavy tank, very effective in stripping armor!

BUT

Mammoth tank vs. vehicle health (stripped of armor) does the SAME damage as a heavy tank, not more!

Not sure if this was intended by the devs. If you are a mammoth supported by a couple of friendlies, be sure to target vehicles that have armor first! You do 66% more damage! Otherwise you are just a heavy tank in damage output. 

[Pushwall]

Completely intended but that's not the whole story. Try doing this against the armour of vehicles other than the mammoth/OT or whatever mammoth-class vehicle you tested against to get that damage figure. It's not as widespread as you think 

Also, light tanks have the same problems dealing with armour that heavies do. Most other AT weapons don't care. And there may be some weapons that do better against heavier vehicles...

[des1206]

You are right, many other AT weapons ignore armor penalty (do same dmg. to armor and health).

However the problem is that the Mammoth tank doesn't do more "pure damage" than a heavy/med. The only reason it does more damage now than a heavy/med is because his shells ignore armor penalty, since if the target is w/o armor, the Mammoth has only the damage output of a heavy/Medium Tank. I tested this Mammoth vs. OT/Heavy/Med/APC/Light Tanks compared to Heavy vs OT/Heavy/Med/APC/Light Tanks. Is this really setup right? 

[Pushwall]

Does it really need to do more "pure damage" than a heavy? It has heavier armour, more health, regenerates, has missiles that give it a better shot at fighting off longbows and infantry, and it does more damage to buildings. There's no situation where it does less damage than a heavy, it just ties against light vehicles, and heavy/mammoth vehicles whose armour is broken. Bear in mind that this is not the RTS where you could deploy 2 heavy tanks for slightly more than the cost of 1 mammoth, so of course the power discrepancy between differently priced units is going to be narrower.

[des1206]

Instead of 66% more damage vs. armor and same vs. health (when compared to a heavy), can you spread it evenly so it's 33% more damage vs. armor and 33% more vs. health? This will provide the same DPS vs. heavy vehicles, and a boost vs. light vehicles. Or was the 0% bonus vs light vehicles an intentional buff so Mammoth is not OP against them?

If it's too much work and changes too many other things, I'm fine with the way things are currently. Would make play more strategically interesting as I stated above (prioritize vehicles with armor in combat). It's just that with those big guns it just feels the rounds should do more "pure damage". 

Edited May 7, 2017 by des1206

[Pushwall]

It's not even +66% against anything other than ore trucks. Or stolen mammoths/MADs. It's only +33% against other MBTs, the APC and ML, and no bonus against light vehicles - which, yes, is intended. The mammoth honestly does not need any help taking out light vehicles, even phases.

Raising the "pure damage" of mammoths any higher than it already is will just make them even more OP. Just like heavies, they kill rangers and arties in 5 shots, and are just a few damage points away from being able to do it in 4 - which is also one less reload, so a very sudden jump in unassisted kill time.

Also, it's not that the mammoth has a bonus against armour - it's that the heavy has a penalty.

[Chaos_Knight]

8 hours ago, Pushwall said:

Does it really need to do more "pure damage" than a heavy? It has heavier armour, more health, regenerates, has missiles that give it a better shot at fighting off longbows and infantry, and it does more damage to buildings.

It is also almost 2 times more expensive, has a massive size making it easy to hit, moves slower than most infantry sprint and as of recent patch suffers massively from AT mines (bye 600 armor).

So far my experience with fighting mammies is... unexpectedly easy. And while solo cap won't be able to deconstruct it like he does HTs (which is silly on its own but it's for another topic), that 1700 monster seems to only be good for show nowadays. Not so long ago I've seen like 6 mammy rush on Stormy Valley which only succeeded at taking out a pbox while turret was already dead. They weren't even intercepted all that early.

Mammy used to have flat ~22% more damage back in the day, but in current version it feels like those HUEG cannons are pretty pathetic in combat for their size. Also I don't see anything wrong with lighter allied vehicles getting hit with an indirect nerf.

[Pushwall]

1 hour ago, Chaos_Knight said:

Mammy used to have flat ~22% more damage back in the day, 

I'm guessing this is compared to the heavy - and heavy had ~22% more than the medium too. Thing is, this was back when mechanics could wall them for days, They desperately needed that much of a power edge back then.

[Chaos_Knight]

2 hours ago, Pushwall said:

I'm guessing this is compared to the heavy - and heavy had ~22% more than the medium too.

Wrong.

Heavy did ~105 DMG in 2 shots. Medium did 90 in 2 shots. I remember it very well because it funny enough matched each tank's in-game cannon caliber. However, when fired at each other, HT and Med either did a mutual destruction or HT barely survived with a tiny bit of HP due to having extra 25/25 armor/health (which as I see was also removed).

Why else do you think HT vs Med was one of the clan entry tests back in the day?

Mammy on the other hand did 120 in 2 shots. Not that much more but still enough to give it some edge. Unlike HT, though, it's much larger and objectively can't dodge a single thing. So combined with the new mine mechanics I honestly don't see current mammy as much of a desired upgrade compared to HT. And when people in game start asking stuff "is it me or mammoth tank is kinda squishy?" you start to wonder if said unit is even performing its intended tank functions anymore.

Now let's get to a 2nd part. Light vehicles and tank shells. Well, that's simple enough. If you can't get out of the way of something which moves slower than infantry... tough luck. Arty has range. Ranger shouldn't even engage but if it does, it still has speed and small profile, Phase has stealth and speed, and why the hell is APC as durable as med/HT?

[des1206]

APC is as durable as med/HT because it was really underused prior, since in APB you have consider an opportunity cost everytime you choose a unit (i.e you can't just buy 2 cheap units in place of an expensive one). Giving it 400/400 health/armor made it much more usable as a stand-alone unit, although personally i think 350/350 maybe better.

By the opportunity cost logic, stronger/expensiver units can not be that strong because again, in a 10 vs 10 APB match you won't have 10 mammoth tanks vs. 18 medium tanks. If mammoth tanks are that much stronger Soviets will be even more OP in larger games.

Edited May 7, 2017 by des1206