It's about time the masses of HA got lowered its tedious fighting them. Give us some medics, engineers to fight for once.
Given that it's not April for another four weeks or so, I'm going to say it's not planned for next patch. Everything on the roadmap is up for review--so instead of pre-emptively trying to start drama llama feeding time, wait for the changes to go out on test and try them out over the next month or so.
This is good. You STILL have an advantage most of the time but are less frustration for other people dealing with you.
If they're going to make it so you need to activate the shield in advance, then I see even less reason than before not to run Resist Shield, since you always need to use that ahead of time anways.
This took long enough. It gets a bit frustrating when you have to empty your entire magazine on a single person because they had the reflex to press a single button. This change will be welcomed by LA's and Infils everywhere.... lol
If this goes through, it will only be a matter of time before the Infiltrator is similarly adjusted. You have to think of the big picture.
No I don't personally think so, but I think that only a short-sighted Infiltrator or one that thinks the class's mechanics are a bit too cheesy will welcome this change. Without being able to activate the shield as a reaction to being jumped (like it is now), I'd be willing to bet that complaints against Infiltrators - SMG users in particular - will spike heavily.
They already got to the Nano Armor Cloak which got the same treatment as the Resist Shield for HAs did, ie. no more Nanoweave stacking.
Well, um, how will this affect vehicles? If the heavy is nerfed will less people use them resulting in less AT infantry? I have a feeling vehicle spam will increase a bit.
Um this will be a serious nerf to the class. Not good. They are meant to be the tank's of regular infantry. They are mostly fine as is. In fact I'd have them remove the snare effect you get from activating the shield. If this goes through the only reason to pull HA will be for their rocket launchers. Max's will become more prevalent. When out of infantry resources, LA will become the go to class for playing a purely combat class. That means more c-4. Less people will pull medics as a result since you can't revive people dead on rooftops without rez nades. Battles will end much faster. I could go on. Basically it'll destabilize the whole core of infantry play. If they want to nerf heavy shields, have EMP grenades deplete their energy. Or create a new ammo type that specifically bypasses HA shields. A broad nerf is not required here.
That was an unintended effect being fixed, not exactly a nerf of the class. From what this suggests, they want all abilities to be something that requires positioning & proper timing - after the Shield the Cloak is the next logical choice for this.
I already see tons of medics and I do not think engineers have ever been in short supply (hint: they are often in all those vehicles you see). I thought PU2 already dealt a severe blow to HA being the go to class.
This has to be the worst way of nerfing it, adding a delay completely screws players with relatively high ping, just decrease the HP increase of the NMG/AS and the damage reduction of the resist shield and that's it.
This is a terrible change, as the heavy assault does not need any nerfs. They are SUPPOST to be able to win 1v1s. You beat heavies by getting the jump on them or simply outplaying/outgunning them. By making it easy to kill them, you defeat the entire purpose of the class, which is being the tanky class. Their other role, AV support, is already overshadowed by maxes and AV turrets. All this does is push this game closer into a 3 class game: medic, engi, and max. You will be doing your team a disservice most of the time by pulling the others, as they are incredibly situational. Edit: also, how would this work with NMG/ADS? wouldn't it defeat the purpose of them?
