I definitely think it is too long - these augments are still very rare however, so I have yet to face one personally in battle. But I certainly don't look forward to being EMP'd for 10 seconds or stunned for 5 - I don't see what I can do to counter that. I definitely think it is too much and it should be reduced - buff the critical chance or other factors a little perhaps to compensate, if necessary. I would feel bad using EMP/Stun Rail if I got them with such a ridiculous effects - though I have recently used EMP Gauss a lot (as I knew it would be nerfed soon, as it was - I thought I might as well before the nerf), so perhaps my conscience regarding using imba things has already been corrupted too far lol.

Gauss players are people too! Even they deserve basic human rights, to some extent.

It's pretty funny to now be able to heal Juggernauts reasonably well lol. Although, still a bit of a waste of time if you are looking for good score - but I have enjoyed doing that for at least one or two games since the patch.

Unpopular opinion: I like Hopper, especially in capture modes - and in the current state of the game it is necessary. Wow you say, whattt??? Let me explain - there is a bigger problem than Hopper with the capture modes CTF/RGB/ASL right now - the fact that we can now have 10v10/12v12/14v14 in these modes in MM battles (where you are expected to complete daily or special missions which includes to capture balls/flags etc). Trying to capture in a 12v12 CTF/RGB is so hard that these games very often end up in a draw or 1-0 - they are basically TDM - as at any given time the enemy team has at least one Viking overdrive ready and 2-3 saboteur drone players mining the ramps. Thing are especially hard in maps like Wolfenstein/Chernobyl/Highways where you have only 2 or 3 easily mineable access points leading up to the flag, and you have to climb a ramp or cross a wide-open area to get to it. As for ASL - for obvious reasons ASL is heavily stacked in favour of the Defending team in any match that is 10v10 or above. Hopper however, is so good at capturing that you can capture even in these situations, and with its overdrive you can find new routes to the flag - bypassing heavily mined areas. Hopper is the best hope for a F2P player to capture in these insanely high player-count capture mode battles that we now have in MM. I do think Hopper should be nerfed - but ONLY when CTF/RGB/ASL are limited to maximum of 16 players, as we had before that update. Also as for Hopper gameplay itself, although it certainly is OP and could do with a further nerf - I think it is an incredibly fun hull to use. It has brilliant manoeuvrability combined with its fast speed, and with the fact you can also jump off high ledges since it is so hard to flip - you can perform manoeuvres with it that are impossible with other hulls. Combined with the jumping overdrive, you certainly feel like you are gliding on air if you pull off an effective sequence of moves. Hopper is OP, but there are lots of little quirks such as the fact that you jump higher when just at the edge of a ramp, so the difference between a skilled Hopper user and a noob one is quite significant - there is a reasonable skill ceiling in using the hull. So I honestly do quite like playing Hopper and think it was a good addition to the game (although it needs some balancing), but I also think it is pretty much essential in CTF/ASL/RGB right now for large team sizes - otherwise those modes would be a gigantic pain currently, unless they finally limit player numbers again in those matches.

I will say one or two positives about this patch (because I have been very negative). I like the new critical heal for Isida. It's pretty cool when you get a proc and this instantly sends someone to full health, the random extra healing helps make Nanobots gameplay a lot less monotonous. You can output some pretty crazy healing with this if you get lucky, but Isida needed this boost considering how much more damage people take now - it is much harder to keep a target up and you will die much faster when targeted yourself. You have to pay more attention as if you get a critical heal, you then have to jump to healing someone else immediately (unless they are under fire) and with the huge amount of damage people take now with higher healing, Isida gameplay is much more fast paced. Also, yes the nerf to EMP Gauss is good too (although it was not included in the patch notes, and in fact EMP Gauss is still OP - though it no longer ruins Siege mode destroying entire teams single-handedly). The nerf to standard Gauss however should have been included in the patch notes, and it needs to have at least the splash radius of Thunder to be competitive again compared to Magnum/Rail/Shaft. I hate Tanki's tendancy to do extreme over-nerfs from OP to useless (which leads to hard-to-deny accusations that they are doing it to force people to get new equipment rather than for balance purposes), and that has happened yet again. Doing it undocumented is an even bigger insult to players - on this occasion for those who used Gauss as their main turret. But overall sadly, the few good things in this patch are totally overshadowed by the fact they have just brought in effectively a new damage type (critical damage), while only providing heavy buyers protection against it. That is just a plain devious way to sell more Ultras, and the results have imbalanced the game hugely for the rest of us. I hope at least, we will all get access to critical damage protection after a while - but if so early access status for buyers should have been made clear, as it with Crusader - which seems to imply they don't intend to do this.

See bold/underlined - well you said that you preferred guaranteed death rather than being hit by repeated status effects which may lead to a prolonged death - implying that augments which result in this are acceptable. I have to disagree, because as long as you are still alive you can at least find some way to counter (for instance with EMP Smoky, you can behind cover and use double armor + repair to counter, and come out after a reasonably short time) - a 5 second stun from the new Stun Railgun or a 10 second EMP on the other hand, is a different story - at the very least the EMP Rail will waste a huge amount of time. There is either no way to counter that without the right hull augment, or you will have to waste a huge amount of time behind cover which is boring gameplay, and will lead to your team losing objectives. There is no doubt the fact that EM Salvo can continuously reapply the effect is OP - it would probably be better if this was changed to a random chance also, with a bit of splash damage returned (although only single target for the EMP). There is DEFINITELY a huge difference between a 3/5 second stun or a 5/10 second EMP, because with a 5 second stun the Railgun is literally guaranteed to get another shot before you can get into cover, and it is basically guaranteed that you will die if any other teammates are firing at you, while being able to do nothing at all other than sit there. A 5 second EMP allows you to run away & repair + double armor in a reasonable amount of time, and get back into combat - a 10 second EMP will leave you waiting for so long that it may literally be better to just die & respawn, which is bad game design imo.

I think it is an incredible leap of logic to claim that an augment is balanced because it offers us a certain death, lol. I think a 10 second EMP (from a turret shot at least) is simply too long - I don't think EMP should be longer than 6 seconds - only a hull overdrive should be able to go up beyond that duration of EMP. Considering the nature of EMP that it prevents you from using supplies (including repair kits), keeping EMP durations short allows for some counterplay. As for stuns, I think a 3 second stun might be reasonable if it is infrequent - but 5 seconds is just impossible to play against, that is just insane - you can't do literally anything to counter that if you aren't wearing stun immunity, unlike even EMP Gauss in the past where you can run & repair. So I would be the opposite - I think every turret augment should have some possibility of counterplay that prevents you from dying, I think anything which leads to an absolute guranteed death is bad for gameplay (unless it has a very long reload like Shaft heavy capacitors, of if the targeted player themselves is taking the risk of that with a light hull, and offence orientated drone setup for instance).

For everyone asking for a Railgun nerf - think carefully about what you are asking for. Why is Railgun currently OP? Because Critical damage was made to ignore protections modules (other than the new Armadillo module), Railgun has a high crit chance and none of us (except a few select big buyers, so far) have access to any protection against critical damage. So the problem is caused by Critical damage ignoring standard protections, and no-one having access to the new protection against them. What needs to change to fix this is either Critical damage needs to NOT ignore protections (as it should not) OR we all get access to Armadillo through the Garage, at the very least. And perhaps Railgun could get a lower critical chance - but then it needs to have more non-crit damage to compensate at the very least. Railgun was perfectly fine, until all this semi-AP critical damage came along. If Railgun is nerfed BECAUSE of this ridicilous critical damage update, then it will become very underpowered against big-buyers who are using Armadillo in the near future. Not to mention that if just Railgun is nerfed, when other turrets get updated and get a higher critical damage chance (as they undoubtedly will) we will have the same problem over again. Nerfs MUST be targeted at critical damage overall, not just Railgun itself - giving everyone Armadillo counts as a nerf to critical damage. Don't JUST think about the situation now - the full effects of changes like this take some time to be felt, because people need more time to acquire the new items. Take the introduction of the Heat Immunity hull augment for example - just after it was released, WAS Firebird useless? No - in fact Firebird was OP for a while as everyone lost their protection against Firebird's burning damage, and almost no-one had Heat Immunity. But what about a few months later (and indeed now) when tons of people have Heat Immunity? NOW, Firebird is one of the weakest turrets at Legend (if not the weakest), other than Incendiary Mix augment - as Heat Immunity is very common. A similar thing will happen with Armadillo - once more big buyers get maxed out Armadillo, the power of crit-dependant turrets will lessen a lot. If Railgun (and not critical damage) is nerfed in the wrong way, then Railgun players will have big problems dealing with heavy buyers. Nerfs need to be targeted mainly at critical damage itself, not any one turret.

It is good that at least the Railgun augments have a reduced crit chance, however honestly 10 seconds EMP or 5 seconds stun is pretty crazy. I would prefer to go up against a more regular, but shorter EMP - EMP Gauss for instance at least at 5 seconds you can run away, and before long use a double armor and repair kit to survive. A 10 second EMP will mean you'll be sitting around doing nothing waiting for it to wear off for a long time, or if you are out in the open it is guaranteed death. 5 second stun is basically guaranteed death also, that will easily allow for a second shot. But at least they have made some attempt to balance it.

Obviously the players do not like the critical damage update, as we can see from the feedback - and in battles the game is wildly imbalanced, with people getting one-shotted and dying too fast to certain turrets/augments. The cause of these problems are the fact that criticals ignore modules, and the reason why they ignore modules is so that the developers could add the Armadillo module to Ultra containers, which gives users the same protection against criticals as we would have had critical hits did not ignore modules. So a solution to this is the following : admit that the Armadillo module, and crits ignoring modules was a mistake, and fix it in the following way: 1) Optimal solution: - Change critical hits to no longer ignore modules - Remove the Armadillo module, and give everyone who obtained it a Spectrum module instead, and compensate any crystals they had spent on it. 2) Alternative solution: - Eventually give the Armadillo module to everyone in the Garage, with current availability in Ultra Containers being "early access", and possibly add a fourth module slot for it. By doing 1), the game will once again be balanced for all players. Anyone who did obtain the Armadillo module, will still get a rare, valuable and useful item - and will also be compensated for any spent crystals which Tanki will easily have record of (the number of players who did this also can not be many at this stage).This is a sensible walk-back from the disaster that we see in game currently. The other alterative (2) is to eventually give the Armadillo module to everyone in the Garage, but this still means players must endure the module-ignoring criticals until they can obtain this - but it would at least make the game balanced once again. I know the chance of the developers actually doing this are minimal, but the consequences of the current situation on game balance are dire - changes need to be made following this update to restore balance and to return player satisfaction with gameplay. If the developers are in any way logical, they will do something like this - and so I present my suggestions.

Unfortunately I don't have long to continue this discussion and to reply to all the responses to my last few messages - but I will just say this VERY important point which I don't think people have focused enough on: There is NO literal reason why critical hits need to ignore modules, OTHER than to give justification for the developers to add this new "Critical hit protection module" to Ultra Containers, and to hand heavy buyers another big advantage. For anyone with a Critical hit protection module, everything is the same as it was before. For the rest of us, we have to endure this imbalance. So all this imbalance and getting oneshot through 50% protections etc., JUST for the sake of the devs' greed and trying to milk more money out of buyers from Ultra containers to give us the same protection as we had before. And, the creation of a further massive imbalance between heavy buyers and F2P/light buyers who will not have access to this module. So if you want to point the finger of blame at anything for getting one shot and crits ignoring protection - make sure you point that finger at the Armadillo module, because that is the sole justification for this. Really this is a disgusting cash grab, imbalancing the game for everyone for the sake of this. With no Armadillo module, and crits not ignoring protections things would be a lot better (although Railgun gameplay would still be more boring than it was pre-patch). At the very least the Armadillo module needs to be an "early access" for buyers, and available in the garage after a while - but there is still NO reason for its introduction, and better if it was never in the game with semi-AP criticals never being in the game either. If it is added to the Garage, then we are once again paying for something just to get back what we already had. This update is such an incredible slap in the face for players, altogether. They could have added some new non-imbalanced augments to Ultras to give buyers more variety and make money without destroying all game balance, but no, they had to do this as well.

The problems get worse when they are trying to make changes motivated by money, rather than by creating/maintaning balanced and fun gameplay (which naturally will attract and retain players - and hence MONEY) with a few optional extras for big-buyers which are not game-breaking. But they have shown that they are willing to stop at nothing in pursuit of more opportunities for cash grabs - upending the ENTIRE damage system just for new lootbox augments, to an inferior system than what we had! (We could have just had status effects activating on a percentage of shots for other turrets, and slightly different parameters for those augments with higher damage shots when the effects are activated - no need to change the whole damage system.) And, even nerfing old Ultra Container augments but bringing huge, game-breaking buffs to the new ones which few people have yet - a low strategy to try to force people to keep buying. As well as a new flat-out advatange for big buyers in the form of the critical damage module, which will radically change game balance when more people get it - giving them a huge advantage against critical dependant turrets such as Railgun, while non-buyers and low-end buyers must be content with getting one-shot even though 50% modules and DA. There is so much wrong with this update, and mindset of the developers that it reveals, that it is hard to know where to start. Some promising updates at the start of the year with buffs to weak turrets (Isida/Hammer/Striker) for instance - but my confidence in the devs has reached new lows. These kind kind of changes do not bode well for the future of Tanki Online.

Yes except thanks to the new Ultra Container only module which reduces critical damage, Railgun will be OP against anyone who doesn't have 50% Armadillo, and suck against anyone who does. So the whole thing is just messed up. If you nerf Railgun now, then in 1-2 months when more mega-buyers with 50% crit protection are wandering about Railgun will suck. Tanki just need to flat-out reverse this update, the whole thing is a huge mess. Give buyers who managed to get Armadillo a Spectrum module instead, and go back to the damage system we had before.

Seriously? Why did they not announce this massive change in the patch notes - why do they do huge changes like this without announcing it in the patch notes? This seems like it was a mistake to me, and now they are just saying that it is "intentional", because there is no way they would make such a radical balance change without mentioning it. But then again, they haven't apparently mentioned the changes to Railgun's status augment durations either - so it seems like perhaps patch notes are pretty irrelevant now? We just have to guess what the changes might be and then find out ourselves, or wait until the information comes through from players who have certain augments or get to play against them - just great transparency. As for this change to Gauss, this is classic Tanki balancing. So Gauss needed a nerf, and they take it from OP to useless - just brilliant. A lesser nerf to average damage radius/percentage and minimum damage radius would have sufficed for standard Gauss, and limit Gauss EMP effect to one target for the EMP Augment, but no they have to go ahead and make Gauss a useless turret. I already have Railgun, was upgrading Gauss but I'll not be putting any more upgrades on it now, total waste of crystals. You have to really have every turret and hull these days for the next balance change, when they decide not just to tone something down but make it useless. 10 seconds EMP? And Hunter's OVERDRIVE, which takes a huge amount of time to recharge only gets 5 seconds? How exactly is this fair? That is totally absurd, hugely imbalanced and another blatant cash grab. They nerf one thing, then make the newest Ultra Container augments OP-broken, then at some point later on they will nerf those as well (such as these Railgun augments) and bring out new augments, which they will make OP. Everything about this update is disgusting, I mainly use Railgun and gameplay has been dumbed-down and made a lot less interesting to use, even though it is now OP. More over-nerfing that was not mentioned in the patch notes, making huge unwarranted changes to the damage system (to a new inferior system to what we had before) just so that they could introduce new buyer augments, stealth/undocumented buffs to the newest buyer augments to encourage people to buy, a new Ultra-only module gives a flat out advantage in all scenarios - not just extra gameplay variety. This update has destroyed yet more faith in the dev team for me, and having played quite a few battles now I have to say gameplay has went downhill considerably - and that's despite the fact I have Mk8 rail with all the "OP" augments right now such as Scout and LCR. Tanki devs doing their best to convince me this game isn't worth spending time on, if I was stupid enough to stick around this long.

Yes, Gauss splash was OP/too easy to use, agreed - but it is now underpowered. It doesn't have as much single target damage as Rail (now) or Shaft (and yes I know Shaft has a laser), so its strong point was the splash. Something between what it was before and what it is now would be best, maybe 50% "average damage" instead of 90% which it was - and average damage radius reduced from 12 to 10m, and minimum damage radius reduced to 15 from 20m. That would be a heavy nerf - the huge damage from Gauss came from its massive 90% average damage at 12m. But what it is now is basically the removal of splash damage, which is going too far. Thunder is superior in smaller maps (or should be), it certainly is superior now and it would still be if Gauss's charged shot was nerfed appropriately as above. Thunder could do with a slight buff, but that doesn't mean Gauss needs to be made useless - and through a nerf that actually comes through a bug.

10m might be OK, but I don't think it is even 10m. Try it for yourself. It is basically a single target turret right now - there is no reason to use Gauss over my main turret (Rail). As I say, I am in favour of nerfs to OP things, but not nerfs that take them from OP to useless - and especially not through an unannounced bug.

I do agree that Thunder could do with a buff, perhaps a faster projectile speed at least or a buff to some of its garage augments. Its advantage over Gauss is better splash in the default firing mode, but at the loss of the amazing range shot Gauss (had) I agree it didn't quite match up. But I would definitely put Thunder as superior to Gauss in its current form. I do think Gauss needed a nerf, but I am not in favour of the kind of nerfs that take things from being OP to being pretty much useless - which is what the tiny splash radius that Gauss now has will do. There isn't any real reason to use it now over Shaft or Rail, because the splash is practically non-existent so it's basically a single target ranged turret that does less damage than Rail. A bit of a splash nerf would be warranted, yes (and especially a reduction for the EMP Gauss radius to perhaps the same as the AP Gauss radius - or even make the EMP single target), but to nerf to the point that it basically isn't a splash turret any more is going too far. And this isn't in the patch notes, so it looks like it is a bug in any case - not a good way to bring about a nerf. Don't forget also that the game is going to change a LOT with this update, and we will soon have to think about facing off against buyers with full 50% armadillo - I have already seen one of them today. In that case, we will want to rely on turrets like Shaft/Gauss/Magnum which have guaranteed damage which does not rely on criticals to have any chance. Your Railgun/Autocannon which seem strong today will not be strong in a few months against such players, when they start to appear regularly in battle.

@Marcus Is the huge nerf to Gauss splash radius intentional? As I do not see it listed anywhere in the patch notes. Standard Gauss has had its splash radius cut dramatically, and as far as players here are saying that also applies to all the augments too. Now, I very much support a nerf to EMP Gauss because it is overpowered, and Gauss in general was a bit too powerful - but this is too much of a reduction in the splash radius for standard Gauss at least. Standard Gauss is currently very bad, and I am assuming that this is a bug.

Nice advice, however one thing is wrong - don't choose Hyperspace after the update. Hyperspace not only now has 10% reduced damage, but also no criticals - so its damage sucks compared to other Railgun augments :( (except perhaps in 14v14 Siege). Definitely go for Electromagnetic Accelerator Scout or Large Calibre Rounds, both are great. Large Calibre Rounds can now very easily one-shot, it does insane damage. However Scout is really powerful - both are good. Smoky with Autocannon is also extremely strong now.

EDIT: Deleted my post because it was moved, and it is out of context in this topic.

Bro are you playing matches since the update? I mean I agree this update is absolute chaos, and the biggest problem is the new Armadillo module which will make buyers unstoppable once they get it, but for now Autocannon is buffed not nerfed. I am smashing every game with rapid multi kills and top-1 with Mk7-11 autocannon smoky. Each crit is not mitigated by modules (except Armadillo) so it is buffed for now, not nerfed. But once the buyer module comes out we will see problems for autocannon, and many other turrets/augments.

Let's hope so! We will find out tomorrow - a bit early for an April Fool's joke though? Reallllly hope it is.

Yes, one of the only good things about this would be a buff to Hornet I have to say. Though there would be other, less game-breaking ways to bring about a buff of course.

OK, this would officially be the worst update ever - especially the part about the protection module only being available from Ultra Containers. This update would altogether make the game mega-imbalanced, hugely pay-to-win, and also having constant damage aside from some criticals would be very dull. But I'm going to assume this is a massive troll and the best April Fool's joke yet from the devs... if so, great one lol ? ! Pleaaaaasseee tell me this is a joke.... got to be right?

Ever since Matchmaking has been changed to more commonly allow wider rank distributions (ever since the December 16v16 experiment, and the introduction of much larger match sizes) there has been a particularly big problem in the mid-high ranks for players who are for instance Colonel and above. The problem is that these ranks are often meeting Legends in battle, MUCH more often than before, and before they even have access to Mk7 kits in the Shop themselves. Ever since the 4x increased exp, the average higher ranking (but sub-Legend) tanker is a lot weaker, since they now have a much lower crystal-to-experience ratio. So the average Colonel - Generalissimo player is not only weaker than they would have been in the past, but they are also facing Legends at a much lower rank than before, or at leach much, more more often. Facing much higher ranks is always unfair, but the problem is that Legends are very different to any other rank - since they have potentially infinite experience and time to gather crystals/equipment, the average Legend is vastly more powerful than the average Generalissimo. There are many, many Legends in the game ever since the increased exp, so I would certainly be willing to bet there are more Legends active on any one day than there are players within the ranks Lieutenant General - Generalissimo combined. Therefore, confining Legends to their own separate battles would not be a problem for queue times, I would suppose. However I know for various reasons, the devs wouldn't want to do that. So I propose at least, the following: Set a lower limit, that Matchmaking no longer matches Legends with a rank lower than Lieutenant General (the rank at which Mk7 kits can be bought for crystals), except in very rare instances (such as when player numbers online are very low). This would not apply to any other ranks - just to Legends, since Legends are a uniquely strong rank. Below Lieutenant General, you can commonly be matched with any rank up to Generalissimo, but only very rarely Legends - unlike now. This would make things a lot fairer than it is now, for at the minute players of Colonel and above are commonly getting smashed by Legends (and that is making playing at those ranks a terrible experience), whereas they never met them before until much higher rank. At least with this rule in place they will be very unlikely to meet them before they at least have access to Mk7 kits themselves, and have more of a fighting chance.