Hmmm. Maybe a new Isida augment, or, if it's not Isida - Shocking Lightning, Firebird XT, Cyborg paint

After having tried out the "new" Magnum, I must say that I don't like it. It's basically a more annoying - but less instantaneously lethal - Gauss now rather than the artillery launcher I've come to know. I'd suggest that you increase the base damage to 1700, but make the splash radius much smaller (2 meters for full damage tops, and make the fall-off sharp so that a lack of accuracy will be punished). That way, Magnum will be capable of one-shotting light and medium hulls with a direct hit, but even with Booster it will fall short of killing a heavy hull. That way, Magnum will live up to it's name and bio (1340 dmg is not exactly powerful on it's own, and it certainly is not the most destructive explosive shell you could find - it just has a stupidly large range) but it won't tread on the heels of the king of splash damage, which is Gauss; moreover, the abuse of booster will be discouraged too, since it won't offer any clear benefits besides catching up to an opponent with a better GS. Or, if you wanna restore Magnum back to its original purpose, make the base damage 2000 so that it CAN one-shot an unprotected heavy hull - but then it would have to have almost no splash damage. Make it a turret that demands skill and rewards you for it again, rather than a nuisance that chips away at the HP of random tanks. With the new physics, the projectiles are slower, so that increases the difficulty too in terms of accurate shooting. Also, to prevent abuse - add a system where the shell needs to "build up" damage in flight. Basically, the longer it is in the air, the harder it will hit, until it reaches the maximum value. That way, close-range blasting to smithereens won't be possible.

Finally, something for Magnum. All of this looks interesting, but I'll withhold from drawing any conclusions until the changes are actually live and we see how they affect gameplay. Toxic Mix on Firebird is gonna be disgusting no matter what the drawbacks are (unless you remove burning, but I don't see that happening), and makes AP Tesla appear even more pathetic now btw.

@frederik123456 Yes. After all, they do not travel anywhere, they just circulate the tank and continuously fulfill their purpose - and when they explode, it is almost certain to cause some self-damage. Therefore, it should be mostly under the user's control when they detonate.

Now, this might be a little difficult to implement, but I doubt it would be impossible to do so. Proposed description: Owing to the advancements of the Ricochet's minus-field technology, the creators of the Tesla turret managed to produce a curious phenomenon - the ball lightning circulating around the tank on a magnetic track generated by the turret itself. This augment allows you to be the first to know of any enemy approaching you, since your lightning will be able to reach the enemy no matter from which angle are they approaching you, and greet them with a shockingly unpleasant surprise. Unfortunately, it was not possible to nullify the risk of significant self-damage when overloading the turret's prototype polarizer. Be very mindful of how many ball lightnings you send into the fray. Advantages: + Ball lightning circulates the tank, allowing you to reach an enemy even directly behind you. + With enough skill and proper timing, you can ram into enemies at an correct angle to put them right on the way of your ball lightning. + Ball lightning applies the <<Micro-Stun>> status effect to the enemies it hits. Notes: * Ball lightning distance travel limitation replaced with a maximum quota of 4 ball lightnings existing at the same time. * Ramming into enemy tanks to detonate the balls means the possibility of self-damage, as well. Disadvantages: - It is no longer possible to expand your range in a specific direction by creating a lightning chain. - Ball lightnings will explode when they meet an obstacle in their path, making this augment unsuitable for fighting in close quarters. - If the user attempts to create another ball lightning when 4 are already in operation, all of them will explode, damaging the user accordingly (since the tanks' shapes are not ideal, the current position of a ball lightning will define the amount of self-damage sustained) and apply the <<Stun>> status effect to themselves for 3 seconds. This means that correcting mistimings when releasing the ball lightnings is not advisable and can be very punishing. Thoughts, anyone?

@LambSauce Well, if you use it with the Minus-Field Stabilization, since it increases range by 200% now it kinda restores the old settings except the fire rate is reduced.

Now imagine two Isidas with this and defender or booster "kissing" one another to steal a flag... invincible, pretty much. Paladin on steroids with 100% uptime.

This event makes me realize how much I miss the old Hopper. Honestly, it is stronger than it was before with the new OD, but I preferred the old physics at the cost of having a weak OD. It's just so fun to drive around with it. Now you bump into one little thing and it either flips or comes to a stop. So clunky. Besides, you can't tell me that even the old Hopper was more OP than Paladin xD. @frederik123456 Not just the OD, the physics as well.

I personally do like the changes to overdrives, however I believe that some of the status augments got hit too hard, which makes them inconsistently underpowered when compared to their "peers". For example, you cannot tell me that AP Freeze and AP Tesla are on the same level. Freeze has constant AP application, it's only penalty is in damage - however it's functioning is otherwise unimpaired. Whereas not only is Tesla fundamentally crippled (cannot create chains anymore) but the damage penalty is so huge (75%) that ball lightning becomes a negligible piece of it's arsenal, and for what? 2s of AP? Not worth it at all. Not to mention that Freeze can fight groups without problems, whereas Tesla needs to crit to not hit more than 2 tanks at once like a wet noodle. Now, AP has an entire problem of it's own when it comes to it's balancing versus EMP. EMP shuts down the repair kit, whereas the latter makes AP useless and thus even if AP could last long enough to be taken advantage of, the enemy can simply get rid of it and, in a sense, AP immunity is obsolete here too, and it's application is limited to fighting Paladin in close quarters. This makes the AP applied by turrets with low DPS such as Magnum or Railgun utterly useless. Imo, AP should not be removed by the repair kit like Burning or Freezing because these two can be applied continuously with ease by their respective turrets. Moreover, I think that while it's okay that EMP lasts less than a turret's reload, AP cannot function in the same way. EMP does its job (to an extent) even if it lasts a millisecond, while if an enemy afflicted with AP is not hit again while the debuff is active, it has basically done nothing. As for Gauss, I personally do not see an issue. The damage buff is sufficient to compensate for the decreased technical metrics. To add a note to what I said in the beginning, I do not like that Dictator lost it's unique supportive feature, but oh well. As for Vulcan - it is very powerful, however I do not see why should Rubberized Rounds retain the projectile speed penalty after the recent changes. This augment's utility is niche enough not to make it nigh-useless on slightly larger distances. As things are, most stock augments are objectively superior. Lastly - I REALLY think Magnum needs a buff. Just compare it's stats to other long range turrets. Even if you land all your hits accurately, you will be overtaken by a Gauss or Shaft, unconditionally, not to mention that these two are simply more versatile.

Hmm. I like the changes to the hovering hulls and the OD delays, especially. Hopper no longer feels useless, now it actually serves some purpose in combat. Nice. EMP basically got a buff; not sure it needed it, given that AP immunity is more common, but alas. I suppose the OD change indirectly buffing Stun is a way to force more players to equip the stun immunity and dilute the pool. We'll see.

@B.A.B.I Wym, look at Smaug, he TOTALLY is a Chinese dragon - and Bilbo Baggins is an imperial advisor of the Han dynasty. ? Have an auspicious year of the tiger, and may the gods bless Han!

@wolverine848 You missed my point. What I'm saying is that Paladin got nerfed in the wrong way. Critical damage protection would keep Hornet and Striker in check; however, AP should be removed. That is what makes Paladin problematic, and it doesn't make sense that a support hull can apply it. Moreover, crit protection is/was unique to Paladin, it'd be better to give it that rather than AP which originally belonged to Hornet. As for Magnum... to tell the truth, I default to assuming we speak of it in the vertical barrel rotation mode. Magnum should have never been allowed to function like any other turret, and the AP augment makes it worse. So I suppose if Magnum were to get buffed, the AP version of it should have a damage penalty to bring it back to where it is now. That said, I do not run into AP Magnum that often, in the Legend ranks at least. It's mostly Striker, Shaft and Freeze. Magnum in all it's iterations is much less common than it used to be. PS; I seem to have forgotten about Thunder, which also needs a buff desperately, but tbh idk if anything can save it since Gauss replaced it. Devs literally called it the solution to Thunder's low efficacy against snipers. It's almost the same turret but better.

Honestly, the last two updates are nothing short of pure cringe. The economy of the game is now in shambles, to a point where it's not worth addressing (yet again) anymore. Paladin got nerfed, and so of course now Hornet is dominating everything - especially in tandem with the now unstoppable, broken OP Striker. Seriously, I can hit an over 6k rocket crit, one after another with almost no delay, yet the best Magnum can do, an artillery launcher that requires actual skill to use - is 3k. What's the logic behind this? Did you want to promote the BP with AP missiles (lmao) that badly? I personally love Striker and it's one of my Mk8 turrets, however I stopped using it because of how absurdly overpowered it is; and now, instead of nerfing it, you removed the sole way for us to defend ourselves against it. You nerfed Tesla to the ground (though this can be alleviated with the perfectly balanced Hornet, of course) and made it's premium augments literally USELESS. Not even just bad. USELESS. The standard ones, or the BP Exothermic Lightning are now superior because all of the triple speed augments are now utter trash - You said you wanted us to use these at large distances. Well guess what - now the very best a Tesla can hit (without booster but with double damage) against an unarmored enemy is 400. That is nothing. And sure, I can still use the AP augment at point blank and maul others at short range like that, but THAT IS NOT FUN. It literally turns the turret into an uncreative short-ranged auto kill button. I'm back to Exothermic Lightning/Dilatory Protocol and I'm getting far superior results. It's pretty hilarious that the "premium augments" are outclassed by the garage ones lol (Exo was the BP one, but really, it's just the same as Minus-Field except it also burns the enemy if you are alive at the moment the ball makes contact with an enemy tank - which doesn't happen very often, unless we're playing Siege and the enemies are blind). As for the latest Freeze and especially Twins' augments... do you realize how stupidly broken they are with Hornet? Twins can literally keep it's enemies stunned for 7 seconds. Freeze will disable everyone's supplies on demand. God damn. Don't get me wrong, I love Hornet, but it's absolutely OP now. Just give Paladin it's critical protection back, and if low Crusader usage is the issue - why not buff Crusader, rather than ruin the balance of everything else? Also - Ricochet needs a buff. Not the shadow nerfs you keep throwing it's way here and there. Stop it. Here are my suggestions on how to fix this mess without going to the other extreme end - Revert Paladin back to where it was, but remove AP from it's overdrive. It's supposed to be a support hull, not an assault one like Hornet. Revert Tesla's latest nerf, it wasn't necessary - and rather than making the triple speed augments garbage, make the turret focused on being long-ranged, just like you said you wanted it to be with them. Simply disable the chain lightning for like 2-3s after firing a ball. Voila, done. Though, of course, for this to work - the ball needs to be at it's original damage. Striker's critical damage needs to be halved. It just hits too hard for how quickly it can fire; let's be honest, with Hunter or Stunning Missiles it has pretty much unlimited range as well, so it will be fine. Magnum and Ricochet both need a buff - Magnum in damage (because being unable to one-shot a normally armored light hull with a direct hit from artillery is just silly), Ricochet in range - because how are we supposed to utilise the feature it's named after if the plasma dissipates before it reaches the target? As for Crusader - you could simply increase it's charging rate. Oh, also - notice how there are almost no Hoppers in battles? Yeah, it's trash now. Must you people always either make things overpowered or weak to the point of being nigh-unusable? I won't even talk about drones because now we need to conserve supplies so much that using any of them other than Brutus is a suicide lmao. I know nothing will come out of this, but I just wanted to vent a little I suppose.

You say that you wanted to prevent Tesla debuff augments from being OP at close range. However, what you did to remedy it actually ENCOURAGES doing this because a ball lightning dealing only 25% of it's original damage is ineffective at long distances. If you really meant to make them more long-range focused, why didn't you make the damage the same as Electroturret BUT disallowed Tesla from activating the chain lightning after firing a ball for a time? Wouldn't that encourage us to actually choose between the melee or ranged modes rather than mixing them to maul enemies at point blank?

Hornet - in most cases - can make a bunch of other ODs useless (Titan's is the best example) with it's AP, Supercharge which allows the abuse of some augments, especially the debuff ones as well as a huge strategic advantage, the radar. Imo it's fine if one hull out there is partially immune to it (the radar still functions, afterall). You could argue that "Paladin does the same and for longer" however Supercharge can be devastating on it's own (Blunderbuss and pre-nerf Round Destabilization are great examples) yet here it is coupled with AP, allowing an almost immediate thrashing of any enemy that isn't immune to AP or the debuff you might be relying on - or of course it's counter, Paladin's crit protection. The healing is not 200HP/tick unless you use a power boosting drone; it's around 100HP without that, and Booster/Crisis (not to mention Camper) are not the best choices all the time, yanno. Jammer and AP together are powerful indeed, however they can be utilized exclusively in melee range, unlike Hornet's Supercharge. As for Hunter, it is only natural that Paladin is a direct counter to it - Paladin is all about playing with buffs and debuffs after all, and Hunter is known to discard Wasp's bomb, Ares' projectile and Titan's dome like they're nothing, and you can't use an immunity augment to counteract like it is the case with Paladin. A Viking alone can trash a group supported by Paladin as well; Viking is in turn countered by Titan. It all makes sense, imo.

I feel like the physics' changes, while they did resolve the issue that comes to be when Hopper is equipped with Lightweight construction, they also damaged Hopper as a hull in itself. It's entire design is just strange - it was OP in capture modes but didn't offer much outside of them because it's a two-trick pony - speed and manouverability (which is what made it fun to use) were all it had, meaning it's saving grace was that it can dodge attacks quite well. Now it is terrible imo, it flips over when simply driving too easily, and has zero drifting capability. It also became useless for 90% of it's parkour stunts as well. Yet, the issue of gold boxes being whisked away (which is exactly what earned it a bad reputation at first) persists. I think that it needs a new rework, but with it's old physics back in place. Someone suggested that Light-weight construction should be unusable in MM, and I wholeheartedly agree. Maybe it should also jump to a lower altitude, but farther forward. Plus, fixing the hull collision for hoverhulls altogether would balance things out as well. Freezing got balanced out successfully, but Hopper is currently a mess. Hope the devs adress this.

@asem.harbi While I see your point, it is not fair to say that about Hopper. Outside of capture related modes, Hopper is mediocre at best. EMP Gauss is insane at large distances indeed - because that's how it's designed to fight. Stun Railgun is unreliable with it's success being dependent on crits, and since it's stun now lasts 2s just like from Stunning Missiles, it's far from OP. Stunning Missiles are annoying, but the players actually using them rarely score high. If they do, it's usually just because they're good at Striker and the augment is an expendable commodity, a QoL thing. Stun augments can be OP only in specific niches, such as disrupting a Hopper dashing with your flag or ball. Paladin is meant to be a good protector, mainly against debuffs and be strong in close combat. It can't really do much to help you against enemies with long-range turrets. The regeneration is too slow, not to mention you may get one-shotted outright; or mauled by a striker salvo if you're trying to rely on Paladin out in the open. Of course, this hull is very strong in specific situations. That's how it is with almost everything. TheCounter&TheCountered is a common theme in Tanki.

I feel like all the fears around this new hull are not quite justified. It seems too strong because it's new and we've yet to learn to counter it. Meanwhile, I would say that a titan dome with AP immune tanks underneath it is far more problematic. Now, a combo of titan and paladin ODs is practically invincible, however that requires proper timing and teamplay to execute, which this hull appears to encourage - I believe that is a good thing. This way, team battles really will become a competition based on whom can cooperate better. On another note, until now we've had no real counter to a Hornet with a freeze or tesla. It wasn't fair to wasp, titan or dictator for example, all of which can get crippled by hunter. Well, now both hornet and hunter have something they can't steamroll. Personally, I think paladin's appearance is healthy for the game's balance. The only slight nerf it really needs would be how quickly it's OD charges up imo. PS; if you're unhappy about a Paladin with a melee turret grinding you to a paste, then I have a fine suggestion for You - try to keep your distance. Just like you don't wanna get close and personal with a hornet going awooga or a Magnum/Gauss launching a barrage thanks to Viking, you don't want to get too close to a Paladin with it's OD up unless you are immune to AP (or Jammer if your own OD is your plan of counterattack) and are confident that you can out-damage it's healing in time.

Thanks for replying, though... Your answer seems to imply that Gauss XT is in the regular containers, but it's not. ? And that's what I'm asking about specifically - why is Gauss XT, despite being an older item - not obtainable at all, while all the other skins are, in one way or another.

Like, the vast majority of them is available in regular containers. The hoverhull XTs are at least available in UCs (most of the time). But what about Gauss XT? Why is it even more elusive than the new HD XT skins, did the devs just sort of... forget about it? Can't be because of the old Gauss eXTra pack, can it - as all the other components of it are available in UCs. Just not the skin. Strange. Any clue?

You know, even though the Electromagnetic Salvo reduces Gauss' sniped shot damage by 25%, aside from applying EMP it also halves the reload on it - meaning it makes the turret more versatile (and, situationally also increases your DPS) so even if your opponent is immune to EMP, the augment is not rendered useless. You can compare it to the shooting-speed regulator (which can be helpful if you do not have heat immunity) on Vulcan I suppose, except here we have the supply strip thrown in and if you need to shoot continuously at a distance - in siege or on open maps in any mode for instance - then again, it will increase your overall damage output. Just wanted to point this out; not attacking you, merely explaining the augment's potential as you seem biased in Vulcan's favor. I'm personally a AGLM Magnum dude, though I quite enjoy any ranged turret - and that includes Gauss, which is why I had to defend the salvo lol.