The balance black hole of the Noble Widow (HTD)
To preface, I know some people will see the title and comment saying "The HTD is trash". While yes, it is underperforming in the current meta, the mere existence of the HTD has caused a mass downward spiral of tank/inf AT balance issues since its introduction in U43.
The HTD initially introduced in the update directly after winter army (U42) as the first sole tank destroyer in the game bolstering an HV75 68 that shoots for 1050 AP damage. Now, back then in a resource scarce environment, the idea behind the HTD was to counter the falcon that came with winter army. And it did its job too well. A single HTD required 3 shots to kill a falchion. And back then tanks were sparce, so every kill meant something.
Shortly after, the Devs released the HTDs "Counterpart" on the tech tree, the Bardiche. This was the first tank designed after the HTD released so it had taken into account the HTDs powerful weapon, so the bard started with (and still has) 4000 HP.
In this current time, a single crate of HTDs has a 12.5% chance (33% pen x 1.5 pen modifier x 3) to instantly kill both the falchion and spatha in 1 burst, and a 25% chance to disable it (1 bounce)
Fast forward to U55 where we arrive at our current problem of HP creep on the collie side. Falc, Spatha, and Talos all receive massive HP increases to avoid being able to be one shot by a crate of HTDs and still be drivable after 2 pens.
Now the problem of the HTD.
The tank is a slow hunk of metal that cannot get very far very fast. The problem is, you cannot reliably buff its mobility because of the threat 1050 AP damage brings to the table. And you cannot reliably nerf the HP of collie tanks because of its raw damage potential.
Now, how do you get around both of these issues? Reduce the HV!
Reducing the HV allows both issues of inflated HP of collie tanks and horrible handling/mobility of the HTD
THIS IS AN EXAMPLE
Reducing the HTD HV to 25 gives the HTD a damage output of 750. This can allow the HTD to receive either Speed increases or fuel consumption decreases
In return, the HP increases of U55 can be reverted to allow the HTD to disable in 3 and kill in 4.
Some of you may be saying. "but isnt that exactly what the number to kill/disable is now" Yes! It is. But while the HTD stays the same TTK this is an indirect buff to every other AT damage source on the warden side. The "brawler" (lmao devs) Sivlerhand isnt cucked by bloated HP, the Outlaw isnt poking at nothing just to heal back up.
Another side effect of this is it will bring the power of BTs back up. With less HP and less overall damage on MPF tanks, the larger HP pool of BTs a more generalized use again.
Obviously, a more fine tooth comb can be taken to the tank rosters because of this.
I KNOW I DID NOT COVER EVERY COLLIE/WARDEN TANK. I DO NOT CARE TO TYPE EVERY SINGLE BUFF/NERF REDUCING THE HTD HV WILL CAUSE. THIS IS JUST A POST EXPLAINING MY THOUGHTS ON THE ISSUES THE HTD HAS CAUSED.