Tesla Pulsar will reign in Siege. Hyperspeed Shells are disgusting everywhere. Vacuum Shells won't be far behind, and Swarm removes Scorpion's only weakness lol. Helios is the least of our worries on this list.

Sounds good to me - getting a lot of value out of a single protection module. It's better to face five Helios users than one Hyperspeed Thunder. After all, Helios increases range and frontloads existing range... meanwhile Hyperspeed Shells quadriple the damage Thunder already had and make the range unlimited.

You might be getting a bit too confident too soon. Calling people "scum" for choosing to keep this game alive is not cool, and besides they will have better equipment available to them - Hyperspeed Shells can one-tap you out of Helios' range, and its rounds need some time to fly - long enough to switch to defense mode and nullify the burst. Good luck outspeeding Hyperspeed with that 200% boost attached to already fast shells. Besides, this is assuming the fund even reaches Crisis - which is dependent on those very buyers - because without it, Helios alone against a Lion & Armadillo modules is very likely to disappoint you.

Pffffffft XDD

I'll give credit when it's due - it is actually nice of you to reassure us and give us something as compensation. A pleasant surprise. Thanks.

@TheCongoSpider Thunder's garage augments are honestly bad and Salamander Shells should rank among them. I think what it should be compared with are the other augments Thunder is getting; Wyvern Shells, Hyperspeed Shells, Vacuum Shells, the foreshadowed healing shells, the obvious EMP and AP shells... all of it is much better than Salamander Shells. Yes, Vaporizer has halved crit damage, but it can apply burning much more efficiently and crits themselves constitute less of its total damage than it is in Thunder's case (assuming a crit occurs at all). Tesla's Exothermic Lightning is actually one of its better augments - it has no downsides whatsoever, it just takes the template of a garage augment and adds a free AoE 10s burn to the ball. Railgun still has its unlimited range, and it's only a matter of time before stock and thus Incendiary Rounds as well are competitive again. Destabilized Plasma itself is relevant now (especially for SGE/RGB scenarios), and Rico status augments are a direct upgrade to it. Don't you think Salamander Shells severely lag behind the other augments Thunder is getting? All burning offers is some damage, and considering that it is not affected by boosted damage yet is halved by boosted armor, you are going to realistically get, at best, 300 bonus damage from Salamander Shells over stock - and that's assuming the enemy does not heal it off nor are they immune or resistant to Burning. If they are, you might even end up with a damage LOSS. It's better to use Adrenaline in almost all situations, since that is consistent, boosts regular hits as well and is not affected by enemy immunities. This augment can in no way, shape or form compare to the other legendary augments for Thunder - because ultimately, that's what they're going to be. It's just bad, the other augments in its bracket are directly superior and there is literally no reason to use Salamander Shells over them in any scenario, save for supplies being disabled I suppose - but that just does not happen in MM.

Are you certain it applies it for only 5s? Wiki says it should reduce the temperature by 1, meaning a 10s freeze. Hope it didn't get nerfed already. In any case... yeah, the Wyvern Shells are simply better because Freezing is very strong now, meanwhile Burning is without a doubt the weakest debuff.

I'm not expecting it to be at the level of brand new absurd (Vacuum, Hyperspeed and Swarm) either. But it should be decent, at least - Exothermic Tesla has no issues, it raises temperature to the max of all the enemies hit. Smoky's is a garage augment and it has no downsides. Firebird is mostly unaffected, it still ramps up the burning real quick. Ricochet raises temperature quickly and effectively in a 7m AoE. Granted, it has much shorter range than Thunder, but more often than not it can ignite all enemies it can reach without great difficulty - it has an additional mechanic to balance it out vs Twins' fire rate and unlimited fuel supply; two ricocheted shots and they're on fire for ten seconds. Railgun has no penalty either, it just raises the temperature of up to two tanks you pierce by 50%. Imo ALL of these augments are better than Salamander Shells. While the 12m AoE is logical and suits Thunder, it is mostly impractical - I took it for a spin in all modes, and it performs "the best" in SGE - but even there, it's really mediocre. What good is setting, say, four tanks on fire, if the power of that debuff is pretty low, the damage of the shot itself is reduced and the crits don't happen all that often for Thunder anyway? My point is, Thunder should increase the temperature by at least 60% imo.

To be fair, no matter how hard they nerf Tesla Pulsar, it's going to be obnoxious (in SGE especially) either way with Dictator because of how Tesla's range can expand.

Ah, so misses raise the chance for Thunder. Gotcha, thanks. Still, this augment is really weak as a legendary (cause I can't imagine it staying exotic for long like this) - I think it should increase the temperature by more than just 40%. Ah well.

Got the Salamander Shells thrown at me. You trade off 25% of crit damage for four ticks of burning (at best) and those crits don't happen often either. It's kinda wack, but that's to be expected since Hyperspeed Shells are here to make the ching-ching.

Yep. The opposite of RFM, as you put it.

Hmm. Its maximum reload would be more-or-less 6 seconds, it could charge-up a shot much quicker and a hit to the side of the hull could knock an enemy off their way - so while it can be a great choice for camping, it would be more than capable of assuming a more active role.

It's basically a 2.7s cooldown reduction, and there is also the speed-up on the sniping shot charge-up. Giving it any more would make it a bit too much, methinks. The pre-nerf Shaft was really busted. We could increase its penetration to 150%, but then it would have to be a legendary augment for sure.

Meta shifts constantly, and sniping Shafts are just fine even against modules most of the time. Besides, even if it can't actually one-shot anyone, it should still pose a significant threat if it can pierce a few tanks in siege, ctf defense base or assault. Plus, with increased impact force, it would pose a threat to light hulls making an escape with the flag/ball - it could possibly flip them or knock them off course and smash into a wall. Not everything has to kill the enemy in <2 seconds to be strong, after all.

The augments are now called as such, rather than alterations - that they don't necessarily need to come with any disadvantages. This feature of Shaft was quite situational and difficult to employ due to the scope mode's limited vision - albeit it was fun to use, so it would be cool to see it come back. Still, to make it somewhat different and not just "restore-a-feature-with-a-premium-augment", I'd propose something like this; Advantages: + penetration = 100% + impact force increased by 50% + energy regeneration rate increased by 30% + sniping shot charging rate increased by 25% Disadvantages: - arcade mode damage reduced by 70% - critical hit removed As for a name... I suppose <<Excalibur Emitters>> would work quite well. Thoughts?

They won't. They did say it's just an early access phase that will last throughout summer.

I'd imagine the width of the hull won't be affected (hopefully?) and... when a Shaft can snipe you, they get a red outline on your tank, so they'll be fine too. So unless the width of the hull doesn't match the new model, I think it will be okay.

They did say they won't change its hitboxes, so it should be fine.

:pikachushockedface:

Yeah, that and Silence seem the most reasonable - the latter due to the huge amount of nostalgia surrounding it, including Moon Silence.

You must be playing on mobile/using mouse controls. Those force you to play that way. With the keyboard controls however you have independent control of both the turret and the hull, which allows you to do this.

Oh wow, the Vacuum Shell is gonna be insane. Also... @TheCongoSpider Tesla Pulsar on crits ?

Here's my pew pew bumper car!