Light Assault class its banned from competitive gameplay

I don't think you're making the point you think you're making.

My point is yes, LA is useless to traditional "stack on top of cap point with MAXes and support" meta.
So what? This meta makes a lot of things obsolete: ALL vehicles*, ground and air, infiltrators, LAs, non-AI MAXes, heavies with anything but the dumbfire launchers, spawn system.

* - except for transport, used in the initial assault - gal or sundy.

And even in this scenario LA can be useful if you're trying to breach the room with the cap point, defended by enemy MAXes + support.

Even the otherwise lackluster Flash Grenade can be useful there, provided the attackers have coordination.The usual problems of Flash Grendes: long detonation timer, enemy can escape while blinded, small and unreliable AOE - don't apply here, because the room is stuffed with enemies who have nowhere to run, and are about to be immediately engaged by attackers.

In other sorts of "coordinated gameplay", by which, I assume, you mean "messing around the base doing stuff" LA is not any less useful than other classes.

That's very true. Light Assaults are imho a class that requires a little brain to squad leaders in order to be used effectively. 1 or 2 LA in a squad mean nothing but in certain situations a full team of LA can change the tide of a battle in a blink of an eye. Fast soldiers attacking from unepxected positions and covering everything with smoke grenades can be extremely useful.

But I assume it's much easier to roll as many Max, HA and MBT as possible to win a battle.

To me, a few LAs are very valuable. Firstly, most people don't expect anyone to play LA, so very few people look to the rooftops. From there, you can pick off medics, c4 MAXes, etc. They can also deal with enemy tanks decently, as well as the fact that 2 can kill a sundy in 5 secondsish. Also, carbines can deal plenty of damage. They may not be able to frontline as well as HA and MAX, but they can abuse mobility amazingly if played right. Also, I want to see you try to take Vanu Archives without any LAs.

Using the jump pads at the traverse to drop on point and force defenders back while having respawners come across the bridge as normal is a good way to get a hasty defense. Wish there were more bases like it...

I really have to toe the line between what the squad leader calls out and what I know I need to do to remain effective. This primarily means ignoring "EVERYONE IN THE POINT ROOM/BUILDING NEXT TO IT" then setting up to make sure that enemy LAs/crafty fellows aren't hitting secondary entrances (even a turret and heavy covering the stairs is not going to hold back smart people for long) and deterring force buildups outside the door. I've been playing it enough now that I don't really have much problems with getting to do things my way, and the 666 isn't hypertense about squad comps anyway.

I do want to try flashbangs, but I've never been horribly impressed in the few (maybe 2?) times I've been hit with them, and the general LA consensus of them being iffy at best makes me scared to invest the certs into it when I still have things I know I want.

But smoking with the UBSL or serving as a distraction with hit and run from the sidelines does help. If two or three people run off to chase you after downing one of them, I feel like I did my job. Like Iridar said, the only real problem is that LA deaths mean way more than it does to other classes. A straight-up utility revive wouldn't fix that (since you'd just get gunned down again when people are used to it), but maybe a special LA only hotdrop would help.

I'd also say LAs are pretty essential to any tower fight.

The only time I feel absolutely neutered as an LA is when we don't have air superiority and when the battle is over open terrain. The latter may be because I'm not very well certed or experienced with Drifters, but I usually just swap to HA since it was my original "main".

But yeah. If revives were different, LA would be a god amongst men due to positioning and mobility. The effectiveness while they're alive can be astounding when played right. But it needs a reinsertion tool to account for the disparity in death's impact between LA played right and every other class played right, and a way to at least deter air from focusing on them (not deter the air, as much as I'd like that).

I may have rambled off topic, IDK. I love LA, and it can work in a squad, but it does require more work than covering a doorway on point or repping/healing.

Edit: And ammo concerns are a pain that other classes deal with less (and that contributes to me alternating between NW and Ammo belt), but I feel like this is more of a problem with Engis somehow having infinite ammo stored up their *** than the LA vs other grunts though.

LA's mobility is also it's downfall in team operations, if medics/engineers cannot reach you then your extra mobility will be of fleeting use.

Non of the grenades really play to the classes strengths either, because of the detonation delay.

You need cover, you throw a smoke and if it's not a dud (which happens awfuly way too often) you sit there and wait for 3-4 seconds before it even starts farting. This is enough time to die 6 times at least and then the danger or the situation that called for smoke is probably resolved.

Same with the flashbang, you throw it and you just wait 3-4 seconds till it detonates. Gives enemies plenty of time to **** without even being aware that an hostile LA was about to blind them.

They're all nice on paper but I frequently end up flashing myself. The class loses lots of momentum when using these grenades.

On the other hand, HA gets the magic stun grenade which detonates on impact.

Worse yet, it's been ~10 months and apparently this is not an issue to SOE. Like at all, no news or thoughts on the grenades.

I think LAs are being underestimated because they require an average skillcap to perform well with. If you don't know how to sneak up on that tank you will never C4 him, if you don't know how to flank and use rooftops to your advtanage then you're just free certs. Most other classes can perform to some degree even in the hands of fools, but LA (and to a major extent also infiltrators) require some skill before you can perform.

I would believe this is the major problem, because you cannot deny that a skilled LA can wreak ungodly horrors upon your enemy.

Fixed, <3 (Completely agree with you).

So here's a crazy idea. How about a deployable for the medic that works similar to the motion spotter, meaning it can be destroyed and can show up on radar. Once the medic puts it down other people can interact with it to 'bind' themselves to it, after that it serves as a spawn point for those people. So typically an outfit would barge into a building, throw down one of these deployables, the LAs would bind themselves to it and then go out and do their thing. When they die they can choose to respawn back at the deployable. Essentially it's like a spawn beacon that can be placed indoors and comes with a different set of restrictions.

There's lots of ways to limit this to keep from becoming OP or replacing medics/revive grenades entirely. You could make it require a matching utility slot item on the player binding to it, for LA that might replace C4 for example. You could even limit that utility item to specific classes only. Respawning there might take infantry resources, or come with a longer respawn time, or have only a certain range. And since you have to bind yourself to it beforehand it can't be used to suddenly swamp an area with multiple squads who appear out of nowhere.

I think this would nicely solve the problem of LAs (and infils) being avoided in organized outfits because they typically can't be revived, since they operate away from the group. And it does that without giving the LA any special advantages over other classes.

Only problem is it'll probably include a lot of programming work, but hey, that's what the LA revamp is for right?

Three words: personal spawn beacons. Occupies tool slot. Works only for LA himself, and only once per life. If LA dies and uses his PSB to spawn, PSB is destroyed, and LA needs to deploy another PSB if he wants to use one again.

That could be interesting, though the beacon would probably have to show up on the minimap like the Infiltrator motion sensor - it could be tied to a certain detection range or something (~5-10m) or make a very distinctive noise at a decent range, otherwise I think it'd be excedingly frustrating to deal with as a defender.

This could be tied into the implant system somehow, maybe making an combined "hear footsteps/LA beacon noise better" implant for just such a situation. At least without a reasonable detection mechanic fo the beacon, I think it'd be an even harder game of hide and seek than rooting out a good Stalker Infiltrator as the LA potentially could keep respawning until you visually find the beacon.

I mean, Vanu help you if there is more than one of them you have to root out and they can rotate squad lead to place spawn beacons for their squad, but that could also be the entire point - that you can't just leave a base completely undefended, while you assault the next one down the line because there might be guys left to do some shenanigans around the base.

Alternatively, it could also be on a timed cooldown so that you can only place one LA "insertion beacon" once every couple of minutes, meaning you'd have to also survive a bit/be sneaky about the placement if you want to keep on being able to hotdrop in the same general location.