Let's talk about balancing
Balance in a game with this many characters isn’t particularly easy. When you take into account both personal bias and experiences in game your perception of balance and therefore your ideas for said...
Forum Discussion
Tank Commander is his own special kind of fun, and does require that you get up close and personal, and quite possibly sacrifice yourself in the process. He was OP in GW1 and has suffered the fate of redundancy after being nerfed. His reticle/shot mechanics/splash make him forgiving of sloppy play, but once I got better at Scuba I switched over. Really, he's pretty darned good, but Scuba is pretty much a straight upgrade. Tank Commander is more of an in your face "hey, look what I can do!" guy.
I understand he was OP at some point, but you just justified my argument essentially. He is outshined by a brand new variant, and holds no real place in reality. It's also not as forgiving as one would think. Yes, it can do damage but even as close range, the damage fluctuates between 40 and 60. And the splash is only around 10 if you somehow cluster everyone. Then imagine not hittting your target dead on (which does all your damage), such as a Rose or Peashooter, that is practically an instance loss. As the name implies he fires an explosive round, and when you miss one round even point blank you lost a majority of damage potential. His damage isn't even remotely forgiving at range, and should have something over Scuba Soldier which he doesn't. Atleast Scuba gives you a UAV like effect.
I could just point to the existence of Iron Citron, if yet another comparison is needed.
@Punisaur wrote:
I understand he was OP at some point, but you just justified my argument essentially.
I thought I was agreeing with you and expanding a bit on my thoughts about tank commander. 🙂 I still like playing him but usually will choose scuba in order to get better numbers. I've seen some of my high skilled friends vanquish everything in sight with tank commander. The difference in ranged damage you mention is really problematic for tank commander.
- Scuba soldier is just a better variant than tank commander. He has better splash, 1 extra ammo, and wall hack sonar. I love using tank commander, but scuba is basically a straight upgrade as there are situations where I'm thinking: if I was tank commander I would have lost that 1v1 situation.
- The splash area (not SD) on sonar is much smaller than the cannonball's shot with Scuba's ammunition having faster shot speed to prevent shots being missed too often and further encourage planning for the next shot due to the UAV. On the other hand, tank needs you to actively poke often and cause shot displacement for enemies while closing in. I fear if tank were to receive a buff to either his shot speed or his DAM, there would be abuse using his splash or he would hammer enemies with high damage too quickly before they re-cooperate.
