I hope you like Lightnings ...

Fixed.

Hope is for masochists.

So i discovered the HEAT lightning with thermal sight build this weekend... long story short I've never killed so many br 100 TR elitists before

The HEAT Lightning with the pre-nerf IRNV was better... it had more range than current Thermal does. But sadly I'll miss the good old days of the Viper BR100-wiper.

At least they waited until after nerfing the viper to do this.

One of the things that made heavies balanced was their absolute reliance on medics. Even with the almighty sandwich, a Heavy with a pocket medic is better than a heavy with a scout by him. Even so, the lumbering form of the heavies, coupled with the general inaccuracy and piss poor range of weapons in that game, made it so that an entire team of heavies would never be as good as a balanced team of all 9 classes +3 randoms.

That said, I think the MAX should get a massive health boost, but should also have all AI weapons tweaked to be significantly less powerful even if dual wielded. MAXes will be the tanks of team, soaking up damage whilst the rest of the team dishes out the pain. Will it make MAXes irrelevant? Maybe, the lack of damage will not make them priority number one, but the fact that they exist and are soaking up all the damage makes them a threat to be dealt with. And of course the ability to still dish out pain does not make them a pointless wall that can be ignored.

Hell, it might even justify removing the resource cost as they would just be another class. I think their role against vehicles is more complex and not exactly on this topic.

Don't you just love it when those Viper Lightnings come rolling up after your AP Lightning, only to throw it quickly in reverse after the first AP round hits them. This paper tank has some teeth!

As someone who occasionally pulls a max vehicle stealth AP Magrider, I am loving all these extra Lightnings. One alpha strike to the rear instantly blows up a lightning. Multiply that by three, and there's plenty of certs (and tears) to be had.

Yeah their capability against vehicles/air are pretty decent right now, and the only thing I'd change there would be ensuring those weapons (AA/AV) remain noticeably worse than the AI weapons after the change.

Definitely reducing AI damage seems to be the most logical way to approach balancing MAXes (given the expectations and visuals of a power armor unit.) I don't have 100% confidence it could be done entirely without any HP reduction, since it might mean some pretty awful weapons in order to make that balanced with a typical class. Although I could also see a few key changes to their mobility options (walk/run mode and Charge) causing them to be slow enough that they're balanced in spite of their raw stats being fairly overpowered.

Your comment about HWG's reliance on Medics (but being pretty amazing with them) makes me think of my PS2 Beta suggestions of methods of improving players' weapons (upgraded engy ammo for your gun essentially,) where maybe MAXes end up being pretty reliant on that in order to be effective. Reliance on support classes (HWG+Medic) and vulnerability to soft-counters (Sniper, Demo, Spy) definitely were critical concepts to TF2 successfully balancing their classes (at least in a general pub sense.)

That said, I definitely wouldn't be against reducing their HP (while possibly increasing engineers' max-repair-rate.)

Skyguards are far more available....

People just don't care to try and stop them

Meh, more stuff to c4 is always nice!

Not really, that's when you go off hunting Sunderers and Harassers.

That's a very evil plan I'd like to steal.

Right, there so much ppl who like THAT.

I'm quite confident in attacking a Viper Lightning with my Skyguard; it's 2D dogfighting. Good positioning and knowing the right time to reload will win you the fight.

I actually like the Lightning change.

It was very refreshing seeing decent tank battles between many bases while on Amerish/Indar, and I earned quite a few certs on my Engineer character rolling pubby tanks in my own Lightning. It actually felt like my presence was required to get the Sunderer to the next base. With them being able to be pulled so easily, I also had something to do besides shoot at Infantry when my guys managed to set up the Sunderer - there never seemed to be an end to people trying to take it out by pulling a tank from that base's Vehicle Terminal. Even when a base I was playing on foot at was being swarmed by enemy tanks, it was pretty easy to just hop back a lattice link and pull my own to combat them rather than possibly going back two or three to the next large facility.

I freaking love this change, more food for my Manguard's AP and overall more tank combat, also defenders get a nice boost in small outposts as they can mitigate incoming enemy zerg with Skyguards and long range AP ones, freaking awesome.

Low pop base = blow up own terminal.

If someone wants a vehicle they can change to engi and repair it, then kill it with the vehicle again. This is to deny infiltrators the hack! HAHA.

Position and opportunity is all ya need.

Axehilt: Infantry has its place. Indoors.

Then why are there sniper rifles and long range scopes for the other weapons? It's for engaging infantry at more than Bio-Lab range.

Hossin will fix this hopefully.

Vehicles are what makes planetside great. Spamming vehicles by career farmers is what makes it bad. Urban maps, the Sky Carrier, and Hossin may be the remedy for avoiding the vehicle crowd, who exist only to kill infantry in a one-sided fight and avoid other vehicles if possible. Hopefully those maps will be in game soon