Why do people consider the tank underpowered?

Non-grapple close range attacks are generally better than grapple close range attacks. Grapple requires you to immobilize yourself and your target. Plus you WILL get charged after the grapple if your grapple has no knock back. The tank can do more burst from charge 3 than many classes grapples, AND he knocks you down, leaving you an easy target for jet + death blossom, which will kill any class but armored gunners.

Assault is already the toughest match up for the tank, but if he's charging into close range against you, you have a better chance of winning than if he stays at mid range. Without lag, Charge 3 is supposed to take priority over assault's charge. There is a dev post about this somewhere.

Sniper getting into grapple range against a tank is the worst thing he can do. I can't tell you how many times i've killed snipers running for a grapple after setting off an ice trap. Blind + Jet + Blossom as they try to grapple. You'll kill them before the grapple, or right after they knock you back from the flame damage. Ice trap + headshot is ALWAYS the way to take out a tank when playing as a sniper.

Supports in range to use a shotgun will die if the tank upgrades his passive. Again, charge 3 is an absolute monster, and he has between 300-400 hp to tank 3 or so close range shotgun blasts.

Gunners are a threat up close, but a well played tank has more counters for an up close gunner than a up close gunner does for a tank. Slam can be dodged easily with the jet pack jump OR a jumping charge 3, charge 3 is much more difficult to dodge for the gunner, as he has to move his bulky frame side ways rather than simply getting off the ground for 1 second.

While every class has 1 decent CQC move, most of them rely on grapples, where as the tank never has to be stationary (other than for .5 seconds to deathblossom), and has 4 abilities that do massive damage (3 of which are AoE).

The mortar has a very awkward firing mechanism compared to the rail gun (firing from about knee hight requiring you to stand at awakward angles when firing from above a target) and has travel time opposed to instant hit. There are some circumstances in which I would prefer the mortar, but 80% of the time, i'd take the rail gun.

Just as the entire playing style of the Tank is awkward? The Gunner has the lowest learning curve of any class except perhaps the Assault. If the worst thing you need to learn is how to position the Gunner properly to fire a mortar then I'm not worried at all.

The Tank does need some tweaking; either that or every other class needs to be nerfed (well, maybe not the Assassin once the glitches are all sorted out).

The gunner is the only one in that statement that comes close to being "better" in close range, and is dead if he misses the easily dodgable slam. Charge 3 can near 1 shot the other classes unless they pack armor, and even then it takes maybe a second of jet gunning after to get the remaining health + death blossom if you have to. Oh, and they will be on the ground while you are doing this. The assault is much better than the tank at medium, not close range.

Supports being better at close range is absolutely incorrect. They have zero CC, way less health, and are an easy target for the tank's charge, even in all of their bunny hopping glory. Fire negates any health leach they are trying to accumulate, and the support has to walk towards the tank to do anything with a shotgun. The tank has enough HP to blind a firebase AND kill the support. All he has to worry about is the air strike stick (and most supports hang out near cover anyway, so its not too hard to get a roof over your head.)

If the support is not near the firebase, I don't even have to tell you how easy that prey is.

The rail gun does moderate damage, the jet gun does good - great damage, as does death blossom, and his skills are freaking nukes at level 3 on ridiculously low cooldowns. While all of this is happening, his foes take ADDITIONAL damage over time from jet gun fire. I don't know how people think the tank does not have great damage, considering every 5-6 seconds he can AoE nuke three times between charge, grenade and blossom while still dealing constant DPS from the jet gun attack and its flame effect.

As far as not being tanky in the slightest, I don't really know what more you want from him. I broke down his HP compared to the other classes. He has anywhere from 2 to 4 times the hp of the light classes, 1.5 to 2.5 times the medium classes, and .5 to 2 times the gunner, and his passive gives him regen, and he can invest 150 in deploy for emergency regen. He can survive most of the grapples in the game.

My point being that if the gunner is at a range in which he is using the mortar and a tank is at a range in which he is using the rail gun, the rail gun is MUCH easier to hit with against the gunner since I can get an undodgeable shot off in a fraction of a second as opposed to the mortar which is generally shot at terrain and has a projectile tempo I can step between. The gunner has to generally move further out of cover to get a shot off than the tank due to the difference in projectile types, and origin points of the projectiles.

Also, the rail gun does not suffer from differences in terrain elevation (I still aim right at my target and hit him instantly, whereas the mortar is less effective the higher your target is (as now you have to pretty much hit your target itself and not rely on terrain based AoE damage.)

What tweaks does the tank need? I'm all for buffing my favorite class in the game, but I can't think if anything he NEEDS at the moment other than maybe reworking deploy.

I played your tank hudson

Your accurate with that product grenade! Got me many times ;(

It's underplayed, but not underpowered. It takes more skill than the easy classes, so most people are discouraged after playing it a couple times. You actually have to be intelligent and outsmart people as a tank also.

I've played with you two or three times. Remember that name.

I think this explains a good portion of what is going on. I think the tank has a higher learning curve than most classes, and rarely do people see good tanks. The gunner probably generally has a lower learning curve and a lower max skill ceiling than the tank (not degrading gunners, since I main a gunner as well, but other than learning the mortar shot the gunner does not really have much to master in comparison).

The tank is also more viable on some maps than others (LazerRazor is the best tank map by far, with Ammo Mule a distant second.)

I love the tank. The only underpowered ability they have is the 'deploy tank' ability. No offense to Uber, but I really don't know what they were going for with that... it's not very useful in any Crossfire situation I've ever been in, and even in Blitz it's not that great (death blossom spam is much better).

In my biased opinion, if they wanted to balance the deploy ability, they'd need to make it substantially (double or more) decrease the damage taken to make up for the lack of survivability, and possibly consider giving them a head-guard like the gunners have. Even then, it would only have situational uses.

I love the tank though, and I do amazing things with one. Hell, I snipe better with a railgun than I do with a sniper rifle. They are very well balanced, and can take a lot of damage. I can't fathom why people would call tanks underpowered, unless they never play one or just flat out play it wrong (such as if they thought they would be invincible against a gunner or something).

I have spent some more time playing as a Tank and I agree that they do have a very defined role but more often than not the map determines how effective they will actually be in that role. At this point I would say that they are not underpowered as much as I previously thought but they are very map specific at best. The only issue I have is that just as a Sniper is map specific, they still have more versatility.

Regarding Deploy I actually think that both level 3s (Gunner and Tank) are pointless. I do use Deploy 2 on the Tank to regenerate health quickly but other than that I don't see a purpose other than possibly preventing a grapple/throw.

Too true. Can't say I enjoyed getting hit every single time, but I must give kudos for that.

In fact, I think we were all in the same game, weren't we? I think I remember you being there too, BoltAktion.

I love the tank and do well with him. Although tweaking is not needed, I wouldn't complain.
There is one pet peeve I do have though. The assault's charge always cancels out the tank's. A corvette and a FREAKING ABRAMS leave opposite sides of a football field at the same speed, which one will demolish the other? Apparently the corvette sends the armored vehicle flying through the field goal. Making this small tweak can greatly help the tank in a close quarters fight with an assault.

Well, as almost exclusively a Tank and Assault player, I can tell you that my Assault charge (I upgrade Assault charge to level 3 almost immediately, as it helps me deal with those darn "early juice" players) has only about a 40 percent success rate or so against Tanks. I would assume those exchanges that I win, that I have more points in the charge ability than they do, or it could also be weird lag or timing issues. Both charges seem to have odd issues with lag.....I have seen my opponents both teleport away from me and into my grasp with both classes while charging.

My main complaint about the Tank is that (in my experience anyway) a fully-upgraded Gunner will kill a fully-upgraded Tank in about 1-2 seconds at close range as you come around corners (with the double minigun of course). It seems a little ludicrous and overpowered for a Tank to shred the class with the most health in such a little bit of time. You literally have no options....you are dead so quickly it might as well be instantaneous. I would also like to see the railgun improved vs. turrets.....the Gunners mortar can take down turrets in just a few shots and it takes MANY railgun shots to down even the weakest turrets.

Only thing i think should be tweaked is friendly fire from his own grenades when following with a charge at level 3 grenades.

Other then that, nawh.

tanks are overpowering at close range
thats the only thing got going for them

they are slow and have high armor and the lazer blast is up there with snipers
also healing recovery is quick

Still dont think they are overpowering but they are THE ASSSASSIN KILLER

I think the tank is doing well aside from deploy tank sucking (the regen is okay, but it really just makes you a target, and the passive bonus is boring). Letting you deathblossom while deployed would make it kind of nice, and give you the special benefit of hitting people behind you.

Tanks are also extremely weak to grapples, I can't tell you how many times I manage to rush a sniper, avoid the traps, and him get a lucky grapple which really screws me up. I saw a suggestion earlier that had the passive bonus rank 2 reduce knockbacks by 50%, and rank 3 make the tank immune to grapples from the front (like the mascot).

I have mixed feelings on product grenade rank 3. It's powerful, yes, but it also gets in your way if you just want to blind a target then move in.

Otherwise I'm pretty happy with tanks, and I am enjoying playing my current one. I have no real complaints, and I'd continue playing one even if no changes are added. But I'd still be weak against grapples... come on, Uber, throw us a bone here.

The tank is not really weak to grapples, just to the knockbacks. Any grapple that just immobilizes him for a few seconds won't kill him, but the imobilization + damage + knock back is pretty brutal to a class that relies on CQC.

On the otherhand, its probably the riskiest thing in the game to try and grapple a tank. The exception being a sniper with level 3 traps that are skill draining to prevent deploy/blind.

Grapple immunity would be a very interesting game mechanic, but the tank already has pretty good anti grapple thanks to his high health and jet pack (which also helps dodge sniper traps). If they wanna make him even more of a beast though, I'm all for it. Still would take a considerable amount of skill to play correctly.

The tank is actually the one class that is pretty much in perfect balance i think. The Blossom is abit strong but that's getting fixed.

The one thing that irks me is charging at a sniper and he manages to grapple midcharge and launch you off the map.

I can't stand playing tank without gold speed