Vanguards: Bulldozers.

Vanguards have high damage and high HP.
Because of this they're being used not just to break sieges, but to snipe Commanders in Vanguard drops.

Currently having high HP and high damage is leading to Vanguard-only strategies, when they are supposed to be turtle-breakers capable of soaking up damage for units following behind (like a Vanguard in a medieval army would).

I suggest that they be made into bulldozers/battering rams - they could knock over walls and (perhaps) towers, soaking up damage for the attacking, high-damage (yet more fragile forces behind).

Taking away their flamethrower would give the Inferno a more unique role, and would make Vanguards fit the Siege-breaking Tanker niche.

What do you guys think?

Sounds like a new bit of programming to be done to get that to work.

But, better than leaving that flamethrower on it.

Moved to Balance Discussion forum

Thank you

If they're not a true threat I don't see why my turrets would attack them over the actual combat units. Knocking over towers seems... well silly for a unit that size. It would need a total overhaul, not to mention new animations for toppling towers and walls for this to even be an option.

Sorry, but that seems unlikely at this stage.

To save on animations, why not just have the Inferno have a sort of grinder or other melee weapon of sort that damages wrecks and walls when driving into the unit. Uber could set pathing to allow the Inferno to path into units as if they weren't there, and the grinder on front would destroy them.

Basically, make the flamethrower extremely short range.

Essentially these. I like this idea.

You could achieve a similar result by disallowing the vanguard to fire when it moves.
( but it should have a little animation to show players why it's not firing when moving )

Well that isn't entirely true, a tugboat can pull a full size cruise ship. A vanguard with a ton of horsepower even with a very slow speed could collide with a tower and cause destruction (general exploding upon colliding) without it looking too silly. If it ran into walls best for them not to leave wrecks (do they anyway), for towers maybe it could but it might be better for it not to leave wrecks on anything, that much just needs testing. Maybe it should hit the tower, cause explosion destruction of the tower, then as it advances it redoes the damage to the wreckage and destroys it a few feet further.

I do like this idea though, don't get me wrong it would take more programming than other fixes.

Or a battering ram, that'd look less silly.
I mean, seeing construction equipment on the battlefield would just look... well, silly.

I wasn't actually suggesting they look like that.. Battering ram, bulldozer, whatever. Just so long as we agree on the role they're supposed to have.

How about just make them a literal melee unit with a giant spinning spiky thing of death? Super high damage to things that it can catch (read: buildings)
Sounds reasonable and interesting!

Definitely agree something needs to change with the inferno vanguard situation. It seems the current name of the game is build flame tanks and AA.

The flame tanks as a T1 unit are far to effective at taking out commanders. Their damage is ridiculous. I haven't had a problem personally as I haven't played to much vs player since back in beta. But in watching some games seeing someone lose their commander to 3 T1 units just seems wrong and out of place.

If you get caught with your pants down, then you will always be in trouble.

the realm mod pack does vanguards as apcs that don't actually carry. They have ton health, a high rate low damage minigun, works wonders anti bot, doesn't "snipe" things like commanders though. It really needed to stop sniping imho.

What kinds of sniping?

Because some times I feel that there is a false attribution for just a game winning attack as a snipe.

it can be used for high health damage soak, and for instantaneous kills on high health targets.

it can just kill many weak enemies and contribute modestly to dps in the mod. Parking one on a commander don't kill it.

True, but I don't believe a single inferno can do that either.

I consider Vanguard-Drops a form of snipe. If you land an entire army of Vanguards and other units and force your way into a base that's a different story - but currently (as transports are not cheap and units die in them so easily), this leads to micro-intensive tactics as people try to drop a handful of Vanguards on the enemy Commander's doorstep.

It'd be better if transports went back to being T1, being cheap and easily spammable, but took unit weight into account so that rushing in with a bunch of Vanguards isn't an option. Also if units dropped from destroyed transports had some chance of survival people might be more inclined to use them to transport their armies. Currently Air Transports are too dangerous and expensive an alternative next to Teleporters.