A little talk about Canister Shell (MBTank)
Hi everybody. I'm aware there are more important and more interesting topics regarding tanks, but I would like to spend a few words on this topic. Canister Shell is an ammunition with great potential, capable of bringing variety and tactics (and it's also fun, imo)... sadly, continuing on this path, it will remain something that can't be exploited in game.
The main problem isn't the weapon itself, but how it works: due its reaload time, shared with the main cannon, it literally halves your arsenal.
It's a concept as fundamental as simple. By using a machine gun as a secondary weapon, you can fire twice as much in the same time frame. By managing the heating and main cannon reloading, so with some experience/skill, you can guarantee yourself a continuous fire without dead times.
This, considering how many threats each single tank must face, becomes an absolutely essential requirement. Trivial example: just think of two soldiers running towards you with a C4. Using Canister as a secondary, after killing the first soldier, either you manage to escape or you remain defendless (and so you explode).
To aggravate the situation we must consider that yep, Canister itself isn't that bad, but it doesn't have an enormous power at the point to require this great malus to be balanced. In fact, even if the main problem is the one just mentioned, we have two others:
- the spread pattern is truly random: in the same situation (enemy distance, aim position) you can kill as you can't. In fact, when shooting far enemies, remains a safer option to use the main weapon. Sure, you have to be able to calculate the trajectory, but at least it remains a matter of skill... rather than hoping that the pellets acquire a uniform pattern;
- despite the shotgun nature, it requires impressive accuracy. If an enemy suddenly appears, running, from around a corner, with C4 in hand... and you have to take a shot of instinct, of reflexes, of muscle memory... well, Canister will never be able to give you security. It will never make you feel safe. You will always be at the mercy of the RNG. One more time the main cannon, with an ammo capable of bringing some splash damage, it will be better (just shoot at the ground, on soldier's feet!).
This leads to a heavy flattening of the variety. Considering the inferiority of the LMG (compared to the HMG) and considering how niche, situational and nerfed Staff Shell is... 99% of the meta revolves around HMG alone.
Now, the solutions could be many... I propose just two:
- make Canister Shell a true secondary weapon. Just like machine guns. You pop a second smaller cannon under the main one... in order to make their reload time disconnected. This was already happening in first BF3, apparently DICE didn't like it, in this case I think a little nerf would be a better solution than link their reaload times (this way we would also justify the fact being fired from a cannon smaller than the main one);
- in addition to the current pellets, add others with a lot of spread and also a marked drop off. This would not change anything on medium or long range... it would just make the weapon safer in the extreme short range, where a shotgun should reign;
I want to clarify that I don't consider these solutions definitive, perfect, reasoned: I just threw out a few ideas. The part that matters most to me is the first one, where I talked about the problem.
Thanks for reading. Greetings!
