At M2 Viking was always best Medium Hull. But now at M3? Not so much. Since they swapped Viking/Hunter - Viking is no longer best. The little boost in speed does not make up for loss of stability.

Giving buyers another advantage. No crystals when sale announced? No problem. Go to shop and buy more.

was worried they nerfed it even more - but - maybe OP is referring to the February changes...

OP had only mentioned turret with DD. And Thunder bests the smoky at that because it does it without warning in one shot. My comparison was just to prove ALL turrets are OP on DD. It's like that argument about old Isida - "It's so OP on DD." Well every turret was OP on DD, not just Isida.

Oh - three hits. That sounds about right. Same amount of time a Firebird-Alt kills you. Or Hammer. Or Isida. Thunder (on avg) as well. At least in the time of taking three hits from a smoky you can retaliate somehow.

Well, considering Thunder can do that in one shot...

Sounds odd... what hull are you using? No way a smoky should be doing even half dmg (425 avg dmg) to a light hull (hornet 1285 or 1483 for Wasp)... all M2... Opponent must have had DD or lot's of MUs.

What did they do now?

Isida - circle it as it has a narrow cone of damage If you're that close to the "new" Isida you will likely die, unless you have protection or better hull Shaft - get behind it or use peek a boo tactics Trading shots (peek-a-boo) with shaft is not great idea. You negate your better fire-rate and shaft does more dmg per shot - even Arcade. Twins - face it head on to avoid the brunt of the impact force Works if you are beyond it's max-damage range. Trading fire up close means Twins wins (unless it has Splash)

Light hulls do have a better chance at avoidance.

You glossed over the "before you move to cover" part. I was referring to spawning. Many times even when you start to move immediately, you can't get out of site of shaft. = dead. No recourse. Firebird - stock may be UP - but that does not change my opinion of Alt. It kills way too fast. Both can be true. Stock=UP and Alt=OP. Of course lots of people think smoky is balanced. The ones fighting smoky of course. There's a bias there too. I've watched smoky as i ranked up. it's been slowly whittled down. Even smoky impact is lower - now lower than Thunder. If you're freeze is losing to smoky at point-blank ya may wanna maneuver a bit more. You're not supposed to go head-on. ;)

You referring to the fact a light breeze knocks my aim off? :angry:

Not perfectly balanced. The energy pool of 5 seconds (for attacking) is too low. Does less damage (per energy reserve) overall than it did before. And in team games you can't really do both. Heal someone for ~ half your energy - good luck attacking opponent for 2.5 seconds.

Makes completing missions simpler as well. Easy to cap a flag (or 3) when no one opposes...

1) An undrugged Shaft can one-shot an undrugged medium hull. If you spawn in Rio or Serpuhov and die before you move to cover, that's OP. A shaft can kill a tank (FROM ACROSS ENTIRE MAP) then it can control massive areas. Some maps only have a few avenues of approach. 2) For 100k, EVERY Firebird owner would do this. Alterations are supposed to have a trade-off. When there's no hesitation to buy, the Alt is OP. 3) Why? They've squeezed the turret into being effective in such a small area. Loses to Rail and Thunder at long range. Medium range it loses to Ricco, Hammer and even twins now. On small maps Smoky loses to any turret effective on small maps. On big maps Smoky has to close the distance (thus losing health). They have nickel-and-dimed it to death with all the "minor" nerfs.

All hulls of same type at M3+ had same health after the "Re-balance". Have specs changed again?

If you play peek-a-boo vs Thunder you will most likely lose. The time 'hiding" allows them to re-load. So you are trading shot-for-shot and Thunder does significantly more damage. And after recent updates Smoky no longer gets two-for-one shots. The re-load times have narrowed. For Smoky to beat Thunder you need to close the distance (so they self-damage) or hope you can throw off their aim with impact from the quicker shot.

Does not need a full tank to kill. Burn for half the energy, then run away to re-charge (fairly quickly) while the afterburn finishes off the enemy.

You are limited - at least in a 15-min battle. Every 5 minutes. And thanks for the tip on what to do when I've planted lots of mines while my team is ahead in CTF. ;)

Isn't that an Alteration which you can un-equip?

What you are speaking of is an imbalance of teams, enabling camping within the base. Different (and frustrating) situation. In contrast a shaft does not need to visit opponents base to spawn-kill them. Can do so safely from behind a bush in their own base. M3 Thunder.... it's going to be doing a lot less damage. Even with DD at close range it would take 2 shots to kill a medium.

Will make completing daily mission chain a ... challenge...

Viking gets rocked too much by the impact force - it can't keep aim with any weapon that requires some form of accuracy. Maybe Hunter is more stable - I don't know - have not used it since M0. I want my older, stable Viking back. The "switch" was just dumb.

Yeah.. getting to 50% is really expensive. But once you're in Legend ranks you can afford it. Or.. cough buyers cough. Affect all turrets? Maybe Freeze - don't play it so it not sure if it runs out. Freeze has secondary effect which can mean you can't fight back. Firebird with alt seems to kill everything. I use 36% protection at moment and still die. Twins... Never. Runs. Out. Annoying Ricco - with 14 shots does ~ 4130 avg dmg per clip. But Ricco clip replenishes fast? not sure... Hammer... with 5 shot alt will be 4515 damage. 35% reduces to 2934. 40% reduces to 2709. 45% reduces to 2483. So at ~ 43% medium survives and Heavy hull at 35% survives. Without DD it seems hammer will need to hide a bit. Like Isida.

"Just use health"? Simple as that? - Health kits are temporary. You can re-charge shaft again before another RK can be used. - Many tankers like no-supply battles so using an RK not an option - Dying one second after spawning is ridiculous. I doubt many (any?) tankers were laughing when 1 shot took away 80% of their health. The next tickle destroys them.