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Posted by: clarissemcclellan 15 Apr 2018, 18:01

China's ECM and ECA's chaff allow deflection of missile/rocketbarrages and russia's ARENA systems has a high firerate to shut down most of a barrage, although it can harm your infantry and has to reload. PDLs on the other hand, apart from the PDL drone and the guardian angels super PDL don't seem to offer near as much protection against missiles and rockets. Is there any advantage to the PDL that I'm missing?

Posted by: (USA)Bruce 15 Apr 2018, 18:52

Short version:
It looks cool, thats about it

PDL is generally a joke in ROTR, dont get me started on it...On paper its that ECM's can spread the damage to your other tanks when it deflects and that Arenas explosions damage allied or hostile infantry but the games flow never goes in a way where either are relevant in gameplay.

At most PDL for USA is good for;

TMD PDL is good for: God knows??? Too inconsistent and too slow
ATV humvee pdl is nice when engaging stinger sites, It'll pdl 1/3 of the missles there.But if you have ATV Humves why don't you use the mortars?
Avenger PDL is good versus some jets, but its fragile so unless its moving it'll be overwhelmed by anything pretty quickly.Avengers survival tool is its speed more then its PDL when engaging aircraft or the sorts.
Paladins actually crush scorpions because they are not meant to engage heavy tanks like the paladin.The PDL just makes their scorpion rocket invalid.But this wont protect you from the majority of flying burst based rockets or multitude style of jet fighters.


In ZH or Generals the PDL was effective against Infantry as it zapped them (Which it now cant and it gets countered by hijackers with ease.Also SHW/ROTR Hijackers dont die when the tank dies so its like a mind controlling terror drone)

So far we have the:
Missle defender =If your using paladins vs another USA then your at tier 2.Upload the replay because USA games are brutal and toxic, they never last to tier 2
Tunnel defenders are units you'll never see at tier two, even with battlebusses due to how common place air is so this wont work either
Panzerfausts can get zapped but at tier two you'll face grenediers more then panzerfausts
RPG Conscripts have an upgrade thats made to bypass your PDL, plus shocktroopers are a good choise.

TL DR:
Paladins "decent" for its stats and needs alot of upgrades to be valid, the PDL is a cosmetic
The avengers speed iand turret turn rate is what sells it, the PDL is there but you wont really feel if your facing a decent player
ATV humvee is already a great unit, this is just something "cute" on it and it doesn't really need to be great
TMD is something you get for the distraction flares, not the PDL,

The other sources of PDL aka the repair drone and cyclops are like the ATV humvee, Its there to be cute but gets overwhelmed all the time
Dont rely on the PDL, the only actual place they might matter is if the USA "deathball of doom" tactic.Where this just helps you keep that death ball alive abit more.

All in all you have nothing to PDL or you have too much

Posted by: {Lads}RikerZZZ 16 Apr 2018, 0:07

As Bruce said, no, youre not missing anything. PDL feels like it is the weakest of the deflection systems partly because the units it does stay on dont have the sheer force of tankiness that the Russian ones have.

it is sadly nothing like the old reliable one from ZH which is somewhat of a massive shame in the late game when (unless you spam a shitload of paladins) youre struggling to get a ball to survive against your enemies huge blob of shit. The PDL could be used as a way to balance this out and make those battles a big more even, but alas this is not the case.
PDL is a bit of a joke these days sadly.

Posted by: Serialkillerwhale 16 Apr 2018, 1:01

IIRC each PDL unit has a 3s cooldown.

Which is pretty absurd considering that each shot only takes down one rocket and just how spammy most missile weapons tend to be.

Posted by: Scud 16 Apr 2018, 5:00

This... some units like rocket buggies should fire a smaller number of rockets (while preserving the total damage of course) to make the PDL more usefull specially when USA fight against GLA. Also, it's just me or buratinos rockets can take 2 zaps froms PDLs?.

Posted by: {Lads}RikerZZZ 16 Apr 2018, 5:12

it si true that some missiles take 2 zoaps from PDL's. Mig missiles were like that for the longest time (and they may still be like that in the pub build) and it was absolute cancer to play against because even with the PDL upgrade (which is a lot of money in the late game) your shit still gets instantly sniped by mogs.

So yes, it would not surprise me of there were more missile types that took 2-3 pdl zaps. Personally I would prefer that all missiles took a single zap unless they were specifically anti-tank missiles like Disruptor shots and Javelins.

Posted by: Serialkillerwhale 16 Apr 2018, 5:42

I mean, outside of anti-tank teams like the Disruptor and Javelin, and maybe the Scorpion and ATGM, every missile weapon fires in big ol bursts. I'm starting to think PDLs need a rate of fire buff to compensate.

Posted by: {Lads}RikerZZZ 16 Apr 2018, 5:47

If you do want to talk about specifics, I think they need both rof increases and a pdl damage buff so they can pew pew missiles faster and easier. It would make playing USA a lot less of a chore at times, I can tell you that much.

Posted by: Maelstrom 16 Apr 2018, 8:37

In my opinion, I would love:
- Avengers having a weaker PDL (current paladin level) by default, and the upgrade would buff it at a higher level than current one. Better rate of fire.
- Repair drone would stay as currently is.
- Paladin would benefit from it by having a PDL that can one shot any PDL-able missile. Rate of fire nerfed both by default and upgraded.
So you could have "specialized" PDLs which you could mix together
Don't know how it would go in terms of balance though.

Posted by: (USA)Bruce 16 Apr 2018, 9:21

Actually migs took two zaps of sorts because its missles still had ZH values, this got fixed.Also allegedly fixed the avengers issues vs china's air force.


Currently aside from ballistic missiles like tomahawks or grumbles or TU22 missiles (god knows why they are target able still) only javelin and disruptors take two hits

Posted by: clarissemcclellan 16 Apr 2018, 10:15

personally I'd love to see the return of the avengers riduculus zap ability from ZH, thouth it's propably op. also @maelstrom all PDL rof is already really low considering the amount of missiles they are facing. the rof of the cyclops' 2nd fire mode however should be increased drastically i think, considering that thing is stationary and costs tons of money and energy

Posted by: (USA)Bruce 16 Apr 2018, 10:32

I already have a meme for this

Because this sort of stuff drove me insane when I asked about it....But yeah this is the sort of answer you expect/can expect

Edit: Cure you clarissemcclellan for making me reveal a meme from my soon to be posted meme volley!

Posted by: ZunZero97 16 Apr 2018, 11:07

yes i think the PDL systems are weaker than before. Because the avenger, cost 1100 and it only have anti-air, and is good taking down aircraft, but in the case against GLA, is useless in T0, with that price i could have better options to deal against GLA-Rocket based units, maybe it could come with PDL as default and remove the laser-firepower bonus, which makes the Recon Drone more reliable to spam them. And changing modes, mm sounds interesting.

Cyclops could take down easy the TOPOL's missiles, but is not, skyshields are better taking out those missiles.

PD:Im testing PVE matches. and terms IIRC and TMD ATV i dont know what is it

Posted by: {Lads}RikerZZZ 17 Apr 2018, 23:31

I actually agree with you zun.
The way pdl is implemented has always bugged me because it is decently inconsistent. Why do paladins not have to get the upgrade but everything else does? What is the point of avengers when your enemy has no air tech, but the farie fire still comes from $200 recon drones. Why of all units do repair dr get the buff but other support units like Ambos and mules don't?
Personally I would rather that pdl was standard over all the units it covered, but was maybe even slower and weaker than it is now (not by much though) and then when you got the upgrade it did a significant buff to the units it covered, and the pdl hit zh levels of good. Then you could justify paying 2k for the upgrade. Even if that was too strong (which I doubt it would be because comparing it to ecms... Well, yeah, they're free in terms of upgrades and generally better in every way) you could increase the price of the upgrade to 2.5k or maybe even 3k.
The only issue I could see with that would be USA mirrors (which shouldn't be an issue because tanks are t0 again) and maybe vs gla players, but that said I think anything bthay encourages gla players to build something that isn't buggies is a win)

Posted by: Knjaz. 27 Apr 2018, 7:06

1* My experience and actual tests show direct opposite. Arena is the easiest to overwhelm and absolutely worst when it comes to dealing with missile bursts, due to massive amount of overkill that happens due to Arena's projectile slow speed. The ROF on the PDL is also higher. Strangely people dont notice it often, like even Hanfield didn't notice it until recently. (and that's with a buffed fanpatch arena). Only thing that plays into Arena's case is coverage.

2* Yes, you're using PDL drones (I guess Paladins too) as the main source of PDL, and not a dedicated PDL unit like Avengers instead, when dealing with missile bursts. My only explanation here, really.

3* Oh right, we're in 1.4 atm. And in official 1.4 Avenger PDLs dont work.

Posted by: clarissemcclellan 27 Apr 2018, 9:30

Actually i've been using avengers all the time...(well until i found out they don't work in the current version), but still they felt underwhelming. a single avenger can reliably protect you against 2 missiles at a time i. e. one upgraded russian rpg, 2 missile/tunnel defenders or half a salvo of most missile based aircraft. whereas a single ecm tank or chaff equipped vehicle protects against whole barrages, except if you are in the middle of a huge blob.
Granted, I have only little experience with arena systems, but I think the take done more than one missile at a time. Correct me if I'm wrong

Posted by: Composite armour 27 Apr 2018, 9:41

The main downside with ECM is that it doesn't actually stop the missile or work against unguided ones. So while you do prevent the missiles from hitting their target, you don't stop them from hitting something else. And it won't stop something like a Grad at all. I used to send 4 raptors to target the ECM tank in a blob when I played, just to spread the missiles around since I couldn't snipe. You'd be surprised at how much damage and kills they still get. I've seen people do the same with rocket buggies.

Only way to make sure it doesn't work against you is to have the ECM tank isolated. Which leads to many other problems.

Posted by: ZunZero97 28 Apr 2018, 3:29

PDL is worse on this new patch

Posted by: (USA)Bruce 28 Apr 2018, 5:27

What makes you say that?

Posted by: {Lads}RikerZZZ 28 Apr 2018, 6:47

The fact its bugged would be a good place to start

Posted by: clarissemcclellan 28 Apr 2018, 14:24

isn't that already known and fixed in the upcoming version (which i can't wait for )? also, that's a bug and does not make PDLs inherently worse than before

Posted by: (USA)Bruce 28 Apr 2018, 15:49

Yes to both