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Xeon's Tanking Skill List Inspired by Mint’s tier list, the subsequent rankings and disputes following it, I’ve decided to make a (near) comprehensive list of the aspects of tanking of I consider to be of value. Does this indicate if you’re a good tanker or not? I dunno. But it’s here and its broken down into individual aspects so players can discuss the elements involved in tanking instead of arguing about just some combinations of letters. Each rank description is intended to be inclusive, so that a rank 2 would include the capabilities of rank 1. Ranks are not discrete and so a rank of 2.5 would indicate capabilities of rank 2 with some but not all of rank 3. Xeon’s Estimated Ranking (XER) is my personal judgement on the importance of a skill. Multiply each XER with their rankings to get a total estimated ranking. If there’s some aspect that you think I’ve neglected or missed, please let me know! TL;DR: READ THE BOLD STUFF. Tanking Focus: - % of time spent tanking Vehicle Handling - The ability to manoeuvre a vehicle effectively. [XER:TBA] Vehicle Knowledge – The ability to leverage combat aspects of a vehicle effectively. [XER:TBA] Vehicle Choice – The decision-making process behind selecting a vehicle. [XER:TBA] Use of Infantry – The ability to use infantry during tanking. [XER:TBA] Dodging Skills – The ability to avoid fire without cover. [XER:TBA] Exploitation of cover – The ability to avoid fire by reducing hitboxes. [XER:TBA] Field knowledge – Understanding of game-flow and field control. [XER:TBA] Aim – The ability to click where enemies are and not where enemies aren’t. [XER:TBA] Decision making – The ability to make well-reasoned decisions for the short-term. [XER:TBA] Awareness – The ability to keep track of the status of allies and enemies. [XER:TBA] Xeon's Estimated Rankings TBA. I'll add this in after a few days. Don't want to split up discussion too much. A weighted list to indicate which skills I consider to be most valuable. Should be possible to add everything up for a rough overall ranking. Player Grading: TBD. Not sure how to go about getting footage for a fair and traceable evaluation. Possibly demo files? Might miss a lot still. Not if I want to spend the time doing this at the moment - give me a shout if it'll seem interesting or helpful. Other specific skills and details that I can’t figure where to place: Microphone discipline and concise communications. Constant Q-spotting to track enemy positions on map. Using rocks or terrain to increase vertical cannon angles to combat flying vehicles. Using maximum projectile range to mid-air splash enemy targets. Aiming at specific parts of a vehicle or building to maximum splash damage on other enemies. Aiming at infantry head-level for “accidental” headshots. Using mini-map or overview map to fire at enemies that are not directly visible. Ensuring the health of your vehicle is always higher than damage of a single volley from nearby enemies to prevent getting instagibbed. Use of third person to gain visuals of enemies behind cover. Switching to passenger seat to stop engine noise when sneaking. Playstyles: Point defence, Anti-tank duellist, Supporting Anti-Air/Infantry. Current list concerns: EVERYTHING IN THE ABOVE LIST AARGH Some of the rank 4/5 Vehicle Handling examples are probably more niche than actually advanced, like Humvee/buggy specific techniques. Still, they certainly aren’t common or simple enough to belong in rank 2. Vehicle Knowledge probably doesn’t value the depth of knowledge well enough. There’s a ton of detail that’s been omitted in this category that is definitely worth merit. Flipside of that is that some vehicles really are quite straightforward (I’m looking at you, Meds). Decision making is a super vague, super subjective and kind of a bad category compared to the others. Still, it does serve as a useful category for catching the silly mistakes and bad habits experienced tankers may have. There's almost certainly going to be some players that exhibit parts of the later ranks but fail to cover everything of the much earlier rankings. Dunno how to proceed with judging this. Some probably a lot of the skill descriptions here won't make much sense to other players. If it gets enough interest or confusion, I'll probably do another separate writeup - much like the one currently in my signature. Let me know!

Let me preface this by saying it's perfectly fine to never get out of your vehicle as a rule of thumb, especially if you're a newer player who is still getting to grips with tanking in Ren X. However until you're able to argue the exact reasons for and against your actions you'll never be truly efficient. This post looks at some of those arguments and is intended for the more experienced players who are looking to further optimise their tanking. (Its basically a risk assessment, but with tanks.) Lets consider the basic reason why players advise not to get out of their vehicle. Vehicle might get stolen if empty -> Don't exit vehicle While this certainly solves the problem, it assumes the worst for all scenarios. Instead consider: How often is there a enemy nearby capable of stealing your vehicle? How much are you actually losing if it does get stolen? How much are you gaining if decide to get out anyway? If you can answer those three questions with "Often"/"A lot"/"Not much" then its clearly a terrible idea to get out. On the other hand, if you can in some way change those to "Unlikely"/"Not much"/"A Lot" then it wouldn't be entirely crazy to take the gamble to get out. Lets consider how to effect these questions. Risk reduction : "How often is there a enemy nearby capable of stealing your vehicle?" On Nod: Usually not very high. The only way GDI is able to steal your vehicle is to either kill you or walk up in plain sight. Still, its possible to reduce the chances further. Stay close to your vehicle to quickly re-enter to prevent death from most automatic weapons. Assumes you have enough health to react. Keep moving & use your tank as cover to reduce chance of death from one-shot. Constantly look around your tank to prevent chance of enemy sneaking up on you. Pretty obvious stuff, but it gets more interesting on GDI's side. On GDI: All risks and reductions on Nod's side also applies to GDI. In addition, we also have to consider SBHs. So, how close are SBHs to your tank usually? Well, we don't know. BUT! We do know that they aren't immediately around your tank since they'll be visible. This small distance gives us some crucial leeway in controlling the SBH risk. Only exit your vehicle for a VERY short amount of time (<3 seconds or so) so SBHs won't have enough time to react and run up to your vehicle. Shoot the ground next to you randomly so SBHs keep their distance. All risk reductions of Nod applies to GDI as well. Remember that you don't need to do everything all at once. Keep your exits short but often to maximise your efficiency. While isn't as necessary on Nod to have short exits, its not a bad idea to get in the habit of doing it anyway. Damage control : "How much are you losing if it does get stolen?" However much your tank is worth plus the damage the stolen tank causes. There isn't much too say about the price, but the damage the stolen tank can vary significantly depending on the scenario. All of this is secondary to the risk reduction section. If you cannot reduce the risk of it being stolen then consider these points to decide if it is worth exiting. Try to exit vehicles when next to superior allied firepower so they can react if it gets stolen. Don't be afraid of leaving fragile and low cost vehicles. Avoid leaving high-tier vehicles. Be less afraid of the consequences the lower health you have on your tank. A tank that is about to die poses almost no danger to your team. Maximising gain : "How much are you gaining if decide to get out anyway?" There is a ton of different scenarios and infantry combinations possible for this, many of which I can't do (since I have trash aim) but there are a few to highlight. Repairing your tank: Many players will think of this as just restoring health points initially, but I think its important to instead think of this as "increasing the amount of volleys you can take". For instance, a recruit Sydney will deal 100 damage to a Arty per shot. In a 1v1 scenario, increasing your health pool from from 101 HP to 199 gives you ZERO GAIN. Increasing your health pool from 99 to 101 on the other hand will literally double your effective health. Its a massive difference in gain and if done correctly, can give you the edge to keep your tank alive in fights. (ASIDE: At minimum I suggest you should be capable of taking two volleys in a fight. e.g: A Arty should never expose themselves to a Mammoth tank when they have less than half health) Disarming MCT C4/Beacon: It should be pretty obvious but saving a building is considerably more valuable than losing a tank. This does NOT mean you should exit your vehicle each time though. Check your map first, if you can't see anyone else coming to assist you only then exit. Throwing EMP: This provides a relatively small tactical advantage. It is very fast however, so there's little risk in doing so. Specific examples: For sake of completion, here a few more examples of how all of this works together. EDIT: Video examples! Linky. Repairing a vehicle next to the Guard towers on lakeside: Chance of it being stolen (ignoring spies) is zero. Damage and gain don't matter in this case. Exit. Repairing a Mammoth tank in GDI base on Walls: There is a relatively low amount of risk of the tank being stolen, especially if you actively follow risk reduction. On the other hand, there's a fair potential for damage and you're gaining pretty much nothing. Maybe a few seconds of your time. Do not exit. Disarming timed C4 on a Humvee: There's a high chance of the Humvee being stolen since you'll be unable to perform short exits as effectively to disarm the C4 in time. You're not really losing much from getting out though. Its only a Humvee and it'll die anyway if you don't get out. On the flipside, even if you do disarm the C4, you're only saving a Humvee. Either choice though is acceptable. Personally would attempt it. Repairing a solo Veteran 350 HP MRLS with recruit timed C4 on it: Relatively low chance of the vehicle being stolen if you short exit and fire missiles around. Potential damage is fairly significant since you don't have allies to react nearby. You are potentially saving the vehicle if you repair beyond 400 HP though. Use short exits. Repairing a 100 HP Medium tank while being shot at by a Light tank with a second Medium tank ally nearby: There's a high risk of the Medium tank being stolen, as you won't be able to deter SBHs at all. However, since your tank is on low HP, the potential damage it can cause is very low - probably firing 1 or 2 shells at your ally before it dies. The potential gain is very high, as you might be able to save your tank by out repairing the Light tank. Furthermore, if the enemy Light is greedy, you may be able to bait them long enough for your ally to kill them. Exit. (The above scenario is one of the most impactful cases where you seriously consider exiting. Worst case it remains a 1v1. Best case its becomes a 2v0. This scenario can also be extended to other combinations of tanks.) Repairing a 500 HP Light tank while dueling a 700 HP Medium tank on Outposts: You can't use the Light tank as cover that well so there is a fair chance of getting sniped. There's a pretty large potential of damage if the tank gets stolen as well. You're not gaining much, only 1-2 extra hits. Do not exit. However consider exiting in cover or on lower health, especially if you can force the situation into a reverse of the scenario above. Leaving a Flame tank by GDI's entrance on Field, with enemy Havoc on sniper perch above and Barracks dead. High risk. high potential damage to allies. Potentially high reward if they fall for the bait. Either choice. I wouldn't risk it personally.

So its been a few weeks since this feature has been implemented so I thought I'd start up a thread to discuss it. For those unaware, the MRLS is capable of locking their turret in a fixed front-facing position by pressing Space. Locking the turret in-place allows players to curve the missiles of the MRLS to some extent. The most exploitative application of this is to curve the missiles around cover, allowing MRLs to kill off vehicles and repairs from safety. A demonstration of this can be seen in Danvik's recent PUG video on Field (27-10). The MRLS "missile loop" can be done on most maps with a suitably short wall. High walls such as the ones on Under are too high for the loop to do practical damage. The use of the MRLS missile loops on Field is pretty controversial among (at least) PUG players, as Nod tanks have little means to retaliate. However, this is probably the most unfair use of the missile loop - at least from my testing. Other notable uses of the missile loop are on maps like: Islands, Tomb, Canyon and XMountain - all of which are considerably more open than Field's small vehicle choke point and less of a issue. My opinion: MRLS looping should be removed on Nod's side of Field (Probably by just increasing the wall height). On the whole, I'm personally quite a fan of the new addition. From a competitive standpoint, MRLS missile loops provides a soft-counter to the extremely potent Flame Tank lockdown Nod gets on some maps. MRLS themselves are still quite brittle and are terrible against any aggressive push by Nod tanks, so GDI can't rely the MRLS to push for field control. This allows for some more interesting tank fights over field control and gives GDI a bit more diversity to their typical Medium Tank heavy rollouts. I would imagine this also gives some pretty interesting map design options. Canyon is pretty decent example of one - though unintentionally. On that map GDI is able to missile loop around the front of their base to combat the typical Flame Tank lockdown but can't use it to fire into Nod's base. Balance aside, the MRLS is a fairly clunky vehicle to use and just having a bit more control of the MRLS turret just kinda feels nice. Thoughts?