I feel kinda dirty.

Map: Steel Peel
Team: Random Pub
Enemy: Also random Pub

I pick Tank, rolling with Deadstretches Crit Jetgun build as far as I can emulate it (Gold crit, silver RoF Bronze armor)

Game starts off normally, I'm getting some easy kills off of unarmored enemies who, instead of fleeing, hang around and try to circle strafe me, or assassins that melt like a candle in the sahara. I start pushing into their base within the first two minutes when I see it:

A level 1 Lazerblazer.

Naturally, my "abuse" mode set in, and I immediately park in front of it, build up 95% of a juice bar, and then undeploy prematurely and attempt to juice their base and die.

I come back to their spawn. The LB is now level 2. I park, make sure its full this time, then wreak havoc on their base, netting an Around the Horn in the process. I go out the side entrance, hop up the lift, and park above their now hacked, Level 3 LB. Without any allied bots, its only target was me. I juice again, charge through their base like a maniac, killing 5 of them over the course of the juice.

I circle around again. But my LB wasn't there, and in its place a stick with a bunch of fire surrounding it. No! My Juice addiction is going to take over soon! I drop down to try and get our bots in the base. See a gunner dead ahead, so I swing to the left and attempt to go around the spawn ring to hit him in the side. And what do I see?

Another Level 3 LB. Park, Juice. Rampage. Park, Juice, Rampage. I buy their two base-lifts so I can continue harassing them. My juice runs out and I'm standing in front of their spawn room door, I grapple their tank back into their spawn room, charge off the side and attempt to get another juice. Their assault grew a brain, headcrab, pop. At this point, the moneyball drops, so I rush to get back into the action, purchasing juice along the way. I float over to their spawn ring and Juice, slaughtering all unfortunate enough to be close to me. I drop down and fire up the moneyball with the remainder of my juice, run over to my free juicebox, and juice up again.

I believe its 5 minutes into the game, and I've picked up about 28 kills and my overdose tag. My allies see what I'm doing, and leave the LB alone, and I chain juice their moneyball until we win, picking up two more kills in the process.

All of this got me to thinking: When I first picked this game up, I tried out every class. I thought the tank was HORRIBLE because of his short range primary weapon and slow speed. What I see now is clearly Uber's favorite class. The tank is an absolute BEAST. And to think of the wish-list threads of people who wanted the tank brought more in line with the other classes. And, as much as I hate to admit it, Shammas was ahead of the curve and absolutely right when he said the tank doesn't need buffs.

He's perfect. An absolute gem, a diamond in the rough that was my noobiness of the real power of the Tank.

poor cheesecake... do i need to make you ragequit more.....?

From Nov 6, 2010:

Hudson.. for some reason you annoyed me at first many months ago (can't even remember why really.. probably had something to do with Juice..lol..) and I'm sure I'm annoying as well, but I wanted to take the time out to say that I dig your honesty. You've been there pointing out issues with your favorite character and defending or promoting characters that you would naturally dislike as a tank. Over-all I find you to be a pretty unbiased dood... Hats off.

Of course.. now that I've said this, you'll probably flip it on us and piss everyone off

You can deploy and get juice from turrets easily with the tank.... sounds like a new fun tactic to try out. Also that tank build is much different from mine, which has been the same since launch. Rof x3 Reload Speed x2 and I think Armor x1. Not sure... gonna try that out.

I'm going to point out a flaw with what hudson quoted himself as saying.

1. Its not how many hits, or deploying in front of gunners would insta-juice you. Same with Assaults.

2. Firebases also give (almost) no juice.

3. Rockits will kill you long before you get juice.

4. Bouncers will kill you long before you get juice.

5. Gremlins will kill you before you get juice, but you can undeploy and deathblossom, redeploy and get your health back. So they're still good. Or just melee them for bonus juice. Yes, you can melee from deploy.

6. Lazers are the best juice source, from their bots or turrets. They give huge juice, hit you rapidly and for little damage. Two LB's hacked are the fastest natural juice in the game.

I'm thinking that Dead-stretch's build is neat but I don't know if its just me being unable to see a difference, but I don't in turret/bot killing ability. I'll have to experiment more.

Non Pro Damage gives you higher juice gain rate than pro damage.

Firebase is considered pro damage.

It is based of the number of hits you take for bots and turrets. I think it MIGHT be for pros as well, but you gain juice at such a slow rate from any source of pro damage you will die long before you can measure it.

Thanks for the kind words mute. Sorry I ever annoyed you.

Have you guys tried meleeing Jackbots as a Tank? You get full Juice after about 10 hits, and the recovery time between melee swing seems to decrease.

Well I was considering narrowing it down between "Pro/non-pro sources" and you just beat me to it.

Sensitive: I fully expect to see the juice gain from deploy/taunting vs lazer blazers to be nerfed.

I don't think we will see the rail gun clip size buff come to the console. The pc tank had only around 5 shots when the beta launched for fear that mouse control would make rail tanks very OP on the PC without having to waste an endorsement on clip size. They buffed the default clip size shortly after.

The HUGE change that is looming is the damage AND cooldown tweak they gave to charge on PC. Hearing about that scares me after what was done to the support's air strike.

Charge is the tanks primary tool for closing the distance. Level 3 needs to be devastating.

I think the PC version is a great playground for those kinds of changes.

Just ask Feedle , he is the best tank player I know of.

You know me, always ahead of the curve.