LOOKING GOOD!: Im Hudson's Guide to the Ability Spam Tank

The rail gun is hitscan (instant)

It has some hit detection problems, a lot like the shotty sometimes.

It does seem to suffer hit detection issues. I think Arctic and Shammas both run bronze accuracy and claim this reduces the hit detection issues, but I've yet to figure out a reliable way to test it, and I'm really reluctant to give up any of the endorsements I run on the tank for allegedly better hit detection at the moment.

If anyone has a reliable way to test this, I'm all ears.

I dunno, I tried out bronze accuracy, and it did seem to help somewhat on distant targets, but I can't say for complete certain. I even tried out silver accuracy but that provided no additional benefit, especially since I had to give up silver armor. With bronze it was definitely more reliable at closer ranges against gunners (which I don't have trouble aiming at, but the railgun seems to have issues actually damaging )

I just would like to see/hear a testing method that you could control all the variables in, just to confirm that there is not just a placebo effect occurring.

I'm liking this build:

Skill recovery / armor / rof

I call it: "Mo' stickerz, mo' stickerz, mo' stickerz!"

Hudson, didn't you try out a build last night w/o rof? Thoughts?

I'm "borrowing" your format for my own Tank guide. The Tank is very versatile and the way I use it is unlike any guide already posted.

Without Gold RoF:
-Gunners Eat you
-Assaults Eat you more than usual
-Counter sniping/harassing snipers is pretty much impossible if they have any skill at all
-Turrets/firebases die too slow to kill them while they are blinded and take almost no damage
-You might actually lose some close range fights to classes that have no business killing you.
-Diminished money-ball harassing/melting speed.

Was not a fan. RoF is probably mandatory until the patch. Most of my rail kills are rail + product grenade. Without RoF, they can get behind cover or just out dmg me.

I have started abusing the HELL out of deploy though for moneyball sieging tho. If I have 1000+ gold and their shield goes down, i'll kamikaze their base, deploy under their spawn, juice, and laugh as I melt their money ball with CC immunity and infinite rail gun ammo.

Feel free.

wildcard!

I switched my build back to RoF / Armor / Skill Recovery. The only map the other build is good on is LazeRazer if you're like me and don't railgun too much.

I'm still struggling with the tank. I feel like I'm not being aggressive enough because when I do get aggressive, I get myself in trouble. I'm also struggling getting caught just outside of jet gun/charge range. Especially when there's no cover to escape quickly to, like on Grenade III and Ammo Mule, I simply can't figure out what to do / where to be.

Grenade 3 is just the worst, it feels like the whole thing is midrange. If you go below to clear bots anyone up top closing on you is jut outside jetgun range, and anyone you meet around the corner is similarly in a bad position. It can be helpful to defend one area and railgun to the other side, harassing pros and bots from a distance that only the sniper can return fire from.

I actually find ammomule to be a really good place for the tank; bots can be taken out from far far away, turrets are nice and in the open for grenade + jetgun, and if a pesky support lays down his firebase on the inside dome it isn't too much trouble to take it out. Taking out the moneyball from range is pie as well. Only problem is that it's mainly a railgun fight unless you stick to the middle.

RE: Ammo Mule and Grenade III

These are the hardest maps for me to do well with as a tank. Silver Speed and picking up speed drops as soon as possible are absolute musts for me.

On grenade III, you need top control as soon as possible, preferably with allies. As soon as your allies get top control, you can freely switch between the bottom of the lanes. tank jump to middle, and take the lift up to top. The further the enemies push on Grenade III, the more difficult it becomes to play the tank.

Silver/Gold speed also lets you jet pack/charge from bridge to bridge, allowing you to avoid assault bombs and ice traps. Use product 3 to hit enemies who hide behind the glass, and use the glass to corner cheat most other enemies (IE: Gunner) with the rail gun.


Ammo Mule gives me the most trouble by far, simply because if a good assault catches you more than halfway up the map, you are very very likely to die. The tank has a very easy time clearing bots, but if the enemy team has a good sniper in each lane, you are pretty much limited to the middle, which drastically reduces your effectiveness (with this build). Even decent gunners give me trouble on this map. That's not to say that I don't do well on it, but it is by far the map which makes me switch to assassin the most.

Giving up armor and putting on speed drastically changes your options as the tank on either map.

Just thought I'd add something about bronze accuracy on a Tank:

If you go onto a stage where the sky's color contrasts well enough with the railgun tracer, fire a clip and pay close attention to the variation in spread. Do this for both your build, and one that utilizes a bronze accuracy endorsement. You will notice less variation and closer grouping with the accuracy endorsement in play. Until I actually observed for myself, I didn't realize how wildly the railgun shots veer from the reticle. I use the word "wildly" loosely, however, as the variation is really quite negligible unless you're playing a super-long range game. So yes, it does improve accuracy, but unless Tank can score headshots, it's ultimately not as useful a slot usage as skill recharge might be.

So, in the end, I understand WHY they would use accuracy: it's used for having a much greater chance at hitting slimmer targets at a distance, namely the Assault and the Sniper, the latter of which a Tank has no business getting into a long-range gunfight with. A bronze accuracy build has a slight advantage in a competitive TDM-style game, but I'm loathe to discard my bronze skill recharge in exchange for bronze accuracy, especially considering the viability and versatility of Charge and Product Grenade. To that effect, I figure if you're using bronze accuracy with the tank for railgun battles, you might as well blow another endorsement slot on reload speed or something else that comes across as restrictively situational.

So, how do you like the RoF/Speed/Skill build as opposed to the RoF/Armor/Skill build? I've been using the Speed build for awhile because I used to run gold speed on my Sniper and I got used to the high level of mobility, and pretty much choked on my own throat when I saw how slow the Tank moved, so I just promised myself I'd upgrade passive early on for more health, and made speed my silver. A speedy Tank is mad fearsome, yo.

Exclusively use silver speed now. I have a class with armor that I can switch to, but I have never had the need. There is just no limit to the absolutely ridiculous things you can pull off as a tank with speed. Assassins can back stab me now, but 9/10 times I hear their hum and either charge them, jet them, or even rail gun grapple them off the map. Speed helps with every aspect of the tank's game play, ESPECIALLY using the rail gun.

I really need a capture card to illustrate the damage a speed/ability spam tank can do.

OH, and thank you for posting about accuracy and the railgun.

Have you guys (with the silver speed) tried swapping the skill recharge with the rate of fire? Just wondering if charge refreshes fast enough to not worry about a slower jetgun.

The difference between bronze and silver skill recovery is only 5%.

I mean swapping gold rate of fire with bronze skill recovery since speed is their silver.

In theory, it just makes the most sense to keep skill recovery at bronze because the upgrades to silver and gold don't give as much of a noticeable benefit, and its not worth losing your amazing rail gun speed.

However, this is only in theory. It might change in practice. I'll test it tonight before I dismiss this.

Will try it out and let you know.

I'd test it out myself but I'm stuck at work on a 12 hour shift. I'm not too concerned with the rail gun really. I tend to be a brute force, die in a blaze of glory tank :lol:

If I can get a 2nd charge up noticeably faster it might be worth it. Not to mention maybe some insane grenade tossing times.

Don't even bother, Hudson. You were right the first time. Swapping the positions of a gold rate of fire endorsement with a bronze skill recharge endorsement is a losing proposition for exactly the reason you said. The difference between gold, silver, and bronze skill recharge aren't significant enough to even bother wasting your gold endorsement slot on skill recharge, especially when you have rate of fire competing for that gold slot. It's important to remember that the Tank NEEDS that gold rate of fire to augment his innately average damage dealing ability.

Besides, things recharge faster once you've purchased more upgrades, and killing plenty of bots and pros means that money should hardly be an issue.

Take it from a Sniper player: Once you've tasted gold rate of fire, you can't settle for anything less on a hitscan weapon.