[Suggestion] New Class Abilities

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by BrbImAFK, Mar 29, 2017.

  1. BrbImAFK

    I was reading a thread recently, about including mortars in the game. The OP wanted them to be a RL replacement on the HA, but that didn't work for me, 'cause the HA's role isn't to be hiding behind a hill somewhere laying down fire. I figured it was more an Engy item, potentially as an alternative to the other turrets. But that made me think about just how many options engies really have..... and I thought... why can't other classes be like this? I know that DBG will probably never implement any of these, but it was fun coming up with them, so screw it! :D

    TL;DR - Lots of awesome ideas for classes. If you're only reading this section, you're missing out!

    INFILTRATOR
    Currently, infiltrators have three unique things - cloaking, hacking and (sort of) recon - that we can potentially tweak.

    What if:
    • As an alternative to recon darts and motion-spotters, infils could have a "Comms Booster". This would extend the range at which spotted targets would be shown to allies from 50-odd metres (I'm not sure quite where this is at, at the moment) up to say 300 metres (fully certed). This would give medium-long range infils an "overwatch" role.
    • As a secondary alternative to recon darts and motion-spotters, infils could select an "X-Ray Scope" - a better name would need to be found. It's essentially a set of binoculars that turns buildings into mostly-transparent wire-frames allowing them to see moving infantry etc. inside. The infil could then warn their team about ambushes etc. Note that the infil would essentially be uncloaked and unarmed while doing this, so at significant risk of being deaded.
    • I'm slightly concerned about OPness on this idea, as well as the potential cross-over with LA, but maybe somebody can come up with some good balance ideas. Anyway what if we gave infils an ability that takes up the cloak slot, but doesn't actually cloak. Instead, when activated, it gives them radically increased mobility. They'll run a bit faster (say 20%), they'll jump a bit higher (say 20%), they'll be able to climb slopes and walls that are impassible to other classes (basically, think an acrobat with grappling guns etc.) This will allow an infil to infiltrate by using unusual routes and going to unusual places. They'll have to rely on their camo to blend in though, 'cause they've got no cloak.
    • As an alternative to the mobility Infil idea above, we did something really outlandish. Again, by giving up the cloak, the infiltrator gains the ability to "phase" for a short while. While phased, you can neither take nor deal damage, BUT..... you can run through walls... I think that the coding required for this one is probably going to make it a non-starter, but I think it would be awesome and allow for some very interesting gameplay.
    • I'd like to see Infils be able to do more things with Hacking as well. There seems to be a lot of opposition to vehicle hacking (and I can understand why some of it exists), but there's bunches of other things we could do.
      • Once you've reached Hacking 3, it would unlock a second cert-line. This cert line would increase the range at which you could hack stuff, so you no longer need to be huddled up against it. It wouldn't give you stupid range (like hacking a turret across the base), I'm just thinking something like 15-20 metres at max-rank.
      • Reach Hacking 5, and it unlocks a third cert-line - Viruses and a new Tool-Slot item, the Virus Gun (basically the same as the recon dart gun, but with a better name needed). Each rank of the ability would unlock new fire-modes for the virus gun (basically, new viruses) and allow the gun to carry more ammo - just like the current dart gun approach. Possible viruses include:
        • Radar Jamming - Blinds both enemy and friendly radar in an area.
        • Inversion - Makes affected medics nanite-regen do health damage and affected shield bubbles drain shields. Does not affect direct medic-gun use though, just the AoE abilities.
        • Sabotage - Impair the movement speed, agility and turret turning speed of any vehicle tagged by one of these darts. Kinda like a vehicle-version of the concussion grenade. Could lead to some nice infantry/vehicle coordination, as well as being a way to potentially counter huge-vehicle-zergs.
        • Sabotage 2 (couldn't think of a better name :p ) - Any spitfire in range loses IFF and fires randomly at ALL targets in range. All engy turrets explode, dealing AoE damage to all around but not killing the user (unless he's damaged and the AoE finishes him off)
    • As a suit slot, I'd like to see some sort of "Cloak Capacitor" that speeds up the recharge of your cloak, much like the Medic has a recharge ability for their regen device.
    • I'd like to see all Infil non-automatic, non-sidearm weapons gain a new ammo selection (applicable to Infils only, where other classes have access to the weapon) that halves the damage of the weapon, and applies a short-term semi-EMP affect to the target i.e. adds a delay to regen on shields, removes a portion of energy from abilities and fuzzes up the HUD without completely removing it. I don't think it would be too OP, and might provide a good squad-use for an infil.

    LIGHT ASSAULT
    Light assault's big thing is mobility. Let's see what we can do with that.

    First off, how about as a replacement for the jump-pack, LA's got a SHORT range boost-pack. It would have a number of charges (say, 10 - which regenerate at about 20 seconds per charge) and each use would consume one charge and shunt the LA super-quickly 2-3 metres in the direction of his current travel. This would let the LA quickly duck into cover if he was surprised in the open, or would allow him to close the gap when armed with a shotgun. I see it operating something like the Warp Spider attack in the DoW2 trailer. There would probably need to be a 1-2s reuse delay or the poor servers would crap themselves.

    Another thing I'd like to see is some upgrades for the rocklet rifle. Overall, I find it to be a pretty underwhelming tool, when compared with HA's rocket launchers for example. One idea I had was for another ammo type - grenades, essentially making the rocklet rifle into something similar to PS1's Thumper or, for the more PS2 minded, a mini-Pounder. I could see some uses for standing on a rooftop shooting 'nades in through the windows....

    I'd also like to suggest an LA-specific ammo type too. Each bullet would be slightly decreased in size to make room for a small amount of highly explosive powder (or something). Effectively, the bullets would do less damage (say, 30%) but every round fired would let off a directional flash (could use the current flashlight mechanics, only MUCH brighter), creating a strobing / Flash 'nade effect to disorient your target. I'm aware of the potential epilepsy issues here, but I'm fairly sure PS2 already carries a flash-warning, so meh.

    Finally, since wall-climbing is a thing and it's not going away, why not just make it available for all? Seeing an HA or MAX on a roof-top isn't exactly rare these days, so hell... let's go all the way. Allow LA's to trade their rocklet-rifle in for a set of Router-pads. Drop Pad A here and Pad B there, and anybody that steps onto one pad appears on the other. Rooftop fun for the whole family! :D Can also have some interesting teamwork potential with this one!



    COMBAT MEDICS
    As a medic main, I think that medics are actually in a pretty good place now, and there's not a lot I'd change about them. Still, it would be unfair to my favourite class if I didn't come up with at least a few ideas! :p

    On the medic tool, I've had a few pet-peeves for a while. When you're trying to heal somebody and some other dude runs past, it locks him instead of your target. Then you have to realise, unlock, reselect and start healing again, hoping some other random doesn't run past (all the while probably having to keep track of a target who isn't standing still either!). Then there are the rez issues... two guys die in the same place and you can only rez the one who died "on top". Until he's accepted the rez and moved away, there's no way to get at the dude on the bottom. How about, by maxing out your med tool, you unlock two addition cert trees:
    • The first one would generate a SMALL healing aura around you whenever you use your healing gun. It would heal you and anyone within, maybe 1 metre for a small amount of damage. Spending additional certs to slightly increase the range and healing. That way, when the inevitable mistargeting arising, at least you actual target is still going to get some healing, maybe just enough to keep him alive until you do get to him.
    • The second one would convert your targetted rez into an AoE rez able to rez two targets within a short-range of you. By spending certs into this tree you can increase the AoE range and the number of targets. However, every target that you add also increases the rez timer for balance.
    As for the medic abilities, I thought it would be nice to complete the medic triumverate (healing, shielding and preventing damage). Basically I'd like to suggest an exact duplicate of the shield bubble except that, instead of repairing shields, it provides damage resistance to those inside of it. For balance purposes, it would NOT stack with NWA or resist shield. As you cert into it, it would increase the diameter and the damage resistance level.

    I've got one other idea, but I think it could be pretty OP if not balanced right. In keeping with the medic role of preventing damage, what if you could change up your heal/rez gun for a heal/shield gun... It would make keeping allies alive more important, because you can't just rez everything in sight, and in secondary mode, the gun would project a rectangular shield in front of the medic that is 1 soldier high and about 4 soldiers wide. The shield could be fired through by friendlies but not enemies (like spawn shields) but operates on a heat basis - it accumulates heat over time, and can only run for 30 seconds without needing a 30 second cool-down, however, all damage done to the shield is absorbed as heat. That way enemies can literally just overwhelm your shield with volume of fire and leave you all standing in the open with no protection. Or just straight up flank you. That would work too.



    ENGINEER
    Next to medic, engy is my favourite class, and it's already got more toys than most of the other classes. That said... there's always room for more, right? :p

    I think it would be great it, once you've fully maxed your repair tool, you unlocked a second cert-tree. This one would provide shield-regen to the engineer, but only while actively repairing something. This would make repping engineers slightly more durable, and moving up the cert-tree could provide increased regen.

    I also think it would be great if you could swap out your repair tool for an "Upgrade tool". Again, better name needed. This tool would operate as a standard, L3 repair tool for repairs, and would not have the shield-regen, BUT - when used on a fully repaired target (in the same way as repairing, i.e. 30-40s process) could provide additional benefits to that target (certed into separately):
    • You could upgrade wall turrets to armored versions which require more damage to take down.
    • Alternatively, secondary fire would allow you to upgrade the wall turrets with better heat-sinks allowing them to fire for longer before overheating.
    • You could upgrade an AI MANA turret to have a full-frontal shield (because, let's face it.... every man and his dog can HS you off it these days, long before your weaksauce gun can take them out).
    • You could upgrade an AV MANA turret to have the basic shield of an AI MANA turret.
    • Or you could upgrade an AV MANA turret to have better heat sinks and fire faster.
    • You could upgrade Beepy to Beepy v2, with small increases in RoF, tracking speed ('cause you can circle-strafe Beepy faster than he can chase you!) and health.
    Any upgrades done to a turret would, however, be completely removed if : 1) The base flips to another faction; 2) the turret is destroyed; or 3) the turret is hacker.

    As always, I'm going to renew my calls for a) making the Spitfire a cool-down ability, like the other turrets; and b) giving engineers their long-awaited AA turret (MANA version of the Walker perhaps, or maybe a mini Coyote launcher)?

    And again, as usual, I'm going to reiterate my claim that the Archer is far too situational to be a primary weapon and should, like the turrets that share it's characteristics, be changed to be an alternative to turrets. This way, you pull an AI MANA turret for infantry, an AV one for vehicles, an AA one for air, a Beepy for guarding your sundy, or an Archer to shoot MAX's.

    I'm also looking forward to see where they go with deployables once this deployable cover goes live. There's so much potential here, even if you just go back and steal Planetside 1's ideas!



    HEAVY ASSAULT
    Heavy assault's main thing is durability and pushing points. Not that most HA's I see do that, since they seem to prefer to 1v1 farm for stats, but whatever.

    I'd like to see a new shield for HA's - the Heavy Resist Shield. It's an activated rather than toggled ability and it's designed around breaching actions and pushing points. It provides substantially more damage resistance than the normal resist shield (possibly on the order of 80%), and it lasts for a flat 10 seconds, with a 2 minute cooldown. It'll be really powerful for pushing points, and will basically leave your HA as a normal infantry dude the rest of the time.

    I had another idea for an HA shield - the Spearhead Shield. The Spearhead shield is basically identical to the resist shield, but provides less damage resistance (say, 30%). In exchange, the shield also gives off a small (2-3m) AoE damage resistance field to protect friendly non-HA allies as well. This will allow small, high-teamwork groups to have slightly more chance against larger, uncoordinated groups.
    I'm pretty OK with where HA's are mostly, so I'm only going to suggest one more thing. Like the Infil and LA, I'd like to see an HA specific Ammo. Concussion rounds. These would do 30% less damage, and would apply a reduced concussion effect to the target.


    I consider MAX's to be much closer to vehicles rather than infantry, so I'm going to leave them out.


    It was fun coming up with these ideas. Please don't flame too hard, we all know that DBG is never going to implement any of this so there's no use getting overly excited about it.
    • Up x 7
  2. JonnyBlue

    I like your suggestions for LA they sound very interesting and well conceived I especially like the Router pads but would that not mean those bloody snipers would get into more great places to snipe and make me break more keyboards..:p
  3. Eternaloptimist

    It is fun to kick ideas around and kudos to OP for coming up with some neat ones.

    The particularly interesting ones for me are Infil being able to hack from further away, some more adapability in the rocket rifle (what about filling some of those empy attachment slots?) and the router pads (make LAs pathfinders and not just by being able to drop spawn beacons for squads they are in).

    I also like the idea of a little healing aura when using the medic gun. Common cause of death for my medic is when trying to heal / rezz.

    My own personal "wouldn't it be great if...." list includes the following (all been posted before and some overtaken by events now)
    • an AA mana turret option for the engie, something like the Ranger on legs;
    • A lightweight shotgun for the LA with ability to switch ammo between pellets for CQC and slugs for longer range by clicking the B button (same way you can switch between auto and semi auto for some other weapons);
    • ability to ADS the rocket rifle (I keep mag dumping by accident :eek:) but still able to mag dump by holding down LMB (similar to the Striker fire mode).
  4. MellonPopper

    Here is my short list:
    1. ANT's need an ability to drop AT Mines (2-3) when being perused by armor or FAV's
    2. Lib's belly guns need a better view of the front. IMO
    3. Headlights need to be brighter in 3rd person view.
    4. Construction: Walls need to snap together and 3 is just not enough. If we buy the Luma walls, we should be able to put up 6. Shorter tower versions of the AA and Anti Personal just like the AV tower. Tanks just snipe them from range making the useless when being invaded. Vehicle Spawns can not be set to Squad only? Try as you might, anyone can drain precious cordium from the silo and the base goes dark without this feature.
    5. Empty sunders should have a certed AI mode for anti personal only ie.. Not air or vehicle.
    6. Mana turrets are a snipers dream, why is there no shield?
    • Up x 1
  5. LordKrelas

    Can you imagine ants dropping tank mines across the battlefield constantly?

    I think those are lacking short versions so you can't hide them from tanks easily, making it difficult to ward off the interior from infantry;
    Which even as the Game 'tips' say, is to send infantry inside to destroy modules.

    It's a good question of why they can't be, but those things also can be hacked.

    Self-defending sundies, with the AI's incredible reaction time & all-seeing eye, perfect for Shield-Sundies as well.
    IE I love it, just be damn scary attacking it.

    Grand question.
    But likely so they can be removed by a good shot, but why not make it a bit harder?
    As that is presently, a damn large target.

    -----
    And I like basically everything BrbImAFK said.
    As damn.
  6. Luicanus

    I'm loving a lot f these ideas.

    My personal pet idea is a new vehicle type that deploys to activate a mobile Jump Pad or Gravity Lift. Certing into them could increase the height/range of these effects.

    I'm thinking it'd help draw battles into those "never used" portions of the map. Pop a sunderer down and launch infantry at the enemy from an unexpected direction. This would require the defenders to sally forth and attack the attackers launch site.

    It could also be useful in a stalled tank fight by helping to get LAs above the sight-lines of enemy amour so they can drop C4.
    • Up x 1
  7. LegendarySalmonSnake

    Maybe a utility slot item for harassers that replaces the rumble seat with a turret that when fired launches the 3rd passanger into the aimed direction? Hold trigger to charge. Would have some derpy combat applications too :p
    • Up x 1
  8. LegendarySalmonSnake

  9. Luicanus

    I rather like this idea actually. Although I'd balance it by causing the each mine to reduce the available cortium storage. 1 mine -10% through 5 mines -50% limiting the capacity of a mine layer ANT. Also have these mines NOT be able to be placed in addition to Engi Tanks mines. Eg, if you place 5 engi mines then one of these the first engi mine disappears.
  10. LegendarySalmonSnake

    Great ideas that I would love to see ingame after some fleshing out.

    I would implement the router as small pad that you deploy but to set it up the light assault has to stand on it and jump. After getting airborne the light assault will leave behind a trail that is visible to allies. The trail last for lets say 5-10-15 seconds depending on the rank of the tool. The trail ends where the light assault lands. After the trail is set, all friendlies can see it within 30 meters and when standing on the bad they can see the end of the trail on their hud similar to waypoints. Once the ally chooses to use your trail lift thingy, he can activate the pad with E and will travel along the trail as the light assault did. E can be pressed again to exit early.

    A cool melee weapon perhaps for all non max classes could be a jammer pike. It would deal the normal melee damage when wielded with more range but with slow swings and no quick melee. When equipped and swung at a vehicle it would visibly jam itself into the the vehicle where it was hit. This could also apply to maxes. When a vehicle has a pike jammed into them they will receive the same negative effects that a vehicle would suffer if it was burning meaning gradual damage and loss of engine power. This effect wouldn't be as intense when the pike was jammed into the vehicle but would reach identical levels after a period of time, say 30 seconds for air vehicles and half for ground vehicles and maxes. Max's ability cooldowns/energy recovery would be gradually increased and its movement speed would slow down to a crawl. Multiple pikes would speed up the the process of negative effects. The pike can be removed by shooting it off which would cause minor damage to the vehicle/max or with a rep tool in which case there would be no more negative effects. Only one pike can be active at a time but multiple can be carried around and used for melee. Jamming assist XP would be earned if the vehicle/max was destroyed with your pike active along with normal assist XP and air deterrance.

    Damnit another wall of text spawned.
  11. DeadlyOmen

    Give all classes jet pack options.
  12. Demigan

    Comms booster: Spots are, as far as I know, already transmitted in a 300m radius.
    A better upgrade would be allowing to place special spots on enemies. For example an "aircraft spot", which causes aircraft within 1000m to get a waypoint indicator (visible even if it's behind you) to guide them to the target. This gives infiltrators much more scouting power as they can guide a specific unit type to their target over longer ranges.
    It would also make simple infantry-spots more valuable (and tank-spots). Say you are sniping and see some infantry, but you can't get a clean shot due to buildings and cover in the way. But you can spot the target and warn friendlies better as these spots would be visible through walls (although similar to actual waypoints it's not instantly clear what distance the waypoint is from you). Works even better as a Stalker.

    X-ray scope:
    Making all buildings wire-frames is tough, it would be easier to make infantry themselves wire-framed. Would especially help in combination with the comms booster.

    Improved movement: This is all LA territory. While LA and Infiltrators step into each other's roles a lot, giving straight up extra movement and higher jumpspeed would fulfill a fast assault role more.
    Also the reason why infantry don't have higher speeds is because of the hitbox. As seen with jumppads, infantry hitboxes don't line up well when going high speeds. Even worse is ADAD spam that makes the player teleport as the server and player PC can't keep up. I think that's the main reason why infantry barely gets any improved speed upgrades.

    Phasing: Again doesn't seem useable with the current state of the game rendering the world. Would basically make you fall through the crust of the planet to your death, or let you clip into terrain and then shoot out of it without repercussions.

    Hacking device: Rather than unlocks that are bound by a tree, just make it a separate cert line. Some of the virusses are also too niche, only capable against a single person. I would divide it into two viruses: Anti-infantry Viruses and anti-tank virusses, and each virus carries all unlocked viruses against their specific target.

    Suit slot: Sure, why not.

    EMP ammo selection: Too big of a drawback. The Medic had gotten AR's because people didn't like being a glorified necromancer and they needed the killing power. Reducing killing power in favor of support, support that relies on hitting your target anyway meaning you are better off murdering them quickly with normal bullets, isn't the way to go.

    My idea for an Infil tool: A deployable computer console. This console will prevent hacking of all turrets and terminals in a large radius around it. This forces enemy infiltrators to go look for this console first before being able to hack turrets, taking away a big annoyance.
    The console could also have properties for attack: For example it could reduce repair speed of nearby enemy Engineers (or maybe just reduce the recharge rate of enemy abilities altogether), and when placed close enough to an enemy spawnpoint it could increase the time to spawn there.


    Warp pack: 20 seconds is far too much time. I would put it at 6 seconds certable to 4 seconds along with more charges the higher your cert level. You could let players use it almost(!) continuously but have them deal damage against themselves if they hit something during flight. To prevent ADAD spam, just launch the player in the direction they are looking. Although that would somewhat defeat the purpose you designed it for, flitting in and out of cover, it would still be useful. Especially since you could climb objects or approach enemies quickly. The drawback would be similar to old Charge: You can get in, but due to the recharge you aren't likely going to be able to get out using the ability as well.

    Grenade launcher version of the Rocklet: Sounds good.

    Flash ammo: I think it would again be too niche. A different solution would be allowing LA's to equip an underbarrel flash grenade. Easily fired into the room beforehand so you can engage afterwards. But unlike the ammo it doesn't nerf your damage.

    Router Pads: I absolutely hate all these "Make LA a transport guy!" idea's. With the current Router Pad you describe you basically need only a single LA to teleport a 96+ Zerg. That's not what you want! And you completely remove the need for more LA's! Just imagine a balcony attack of a Techplant. Normally you would use LA's for that (if anyone ever does that, Thanks Roadkill for actually suggesting and organising LA groups!), but with this change you would only need a single LA to teleport everything from Infiltrators to MAX's into the area you want. The other solution would be to limit the amount of players a Router can teleport in a given time period so that more routers are needed, but then you still have LA's that basically place their pad and then become truly a nerfed version of the Engineer for their team. They could die for all their team cares because it wouldn't change a thing (or if you made it disappear once the LA dies then the LA is forced to look from the sidelines, not good!).
    If you want to make use of teleportation for LA's, just introduce the teleport gun from Unreal Tournament. a maximum range of 295 (more than 300m causes a loadscreen, just try it out with Biolab teleporters or by redeploying for example, this is also why the Phoenix missile has this range). This is easily explained lore-wise considering they already deconstruct entire tanks and players all the time and reconstruct them somewhere else. This teleport gun would allow you to flank enemies by first attracting attention, then teleporting away to a position where you can hit them from the side/back as they approach your old position.
    It could work either by: You simply pull out the teleport gun, left fires the disk, right teleports you. If someone destroys the disk before you teleport, you die. Alternatively: You don't have to pull out a gun, tapping F throws a disk/replaces and old disk (in case it's destroyed), holding F teleports you to the disk.

    The healing AOE doesn't need something I would think. The Healing gun shows you instantly who you are targetting or if someone was in front of you upon firing if that guy walks further, and from my own experiences once targetted it doesn't switch targets so someone walking in front of you afterwards isn't a problem. Besides healing goes fast, so retargetting is something you are constantly doing anyway. The revive AOE could just have 1m, if it was larger then you could instead just target the body. I would increase the time needed to revive with each extra player that happens to have died within that 1m radius. That does make it quite a nasty long revive if there's an Engi and 2 MAX's on the same spot, but you will be able to revive them all in time.

    Yes! The combat Medic should have gotten damage reduction/prevention to it's resume and the Engineer should have sucked it. The deployable cover should go to the Medic, preferably in different variants including some extra-powerful utility versions. The damage reduction field is also a good one.

    The Medic spawnroomshield gun would mostly be abused. Just imagine two Medics on either side of a doorway with such a gun. They could just peek around the corner to check for enemies, then create a shield. Even if they can't keep that shield up permanently they will give one massive advantage to all their allies. The shield would need to be so weak that it wouldn't be useable.

    They are already working on the Forwards Station. Personally I would either put the timer on something like 6 to 10 minutes (instead of 2 minutes) or remove it altogether to make the station useful and a good solid game-changer despite it's incredible weakness. It would instantly make the Medic, LA and Infiltrator much much more important in the metagame and screw the HA out of it's "look at me I can do just about anything!" role he should never have gotten.

    Shield regen for the Engi: Nope. Engi already has shorter shield recharge, no need to make them beefier when repairing. Especially since repair crews are already annoying to deal with and giving them regenerating shields while repairing MAX's/vehicles is only going to be annoying. And yes, I tank a lot so I would definitely benefit.

    Upgrade tool. I would rather introduce ways to change a turret type, for example an AA turret into an AV turret and then to an AI turret and then back to an AA turret. So that base turrets are more malleable and can be custom made depending on what's needed (or to deny enemy infiltrators access to certain turrets. Say you "upgrade" the AV turrets of an AMP station to AA turrets so that you can't be backstabbed as easily).
    The upgrade tool as proposed seems a bit lackluster. If you are going to be using an AI/AV/Spitfire turret anyway, there's no reason not to pull one right? Free added protection/firepower for your turret! And if you aren't going to be doing pocket Engi then there's no reason not to upgrade that Spitfire either.

    Spitfire cooldown: As long as it's long enough that you can't just place them around randomly or from a corner over and over again, yes please.

    Archer as turret type: I guess that's OK.

    Deployable cover: They gave it to the damn Engineer? Seriously? Give it to the Medic, the Engineer has had enough toys already.

    Heavy Resist shield: Any ability that has a cooldown of more than the average lifepan of infantry is a bad ability. Also 80% damage resistance? That's the same as a freaking MAX! You are making every HA a 10 second MAX but with longer ranged weapons! Holy crap! And afterwards the player just redeploys or dies and has his cooldown back.

    Spearhead shield: If it's going to be useful it needs more range. 2-3m is practically nothing, and if you clump up that close you are not doing great teamwork, you are exposing yourself for easier killing, especially against larger groups.

    Concussion rounds for the HA: Oh god no. You can at least partially ignore flash or EMP effects, but concussion instantly reduces your movement and turn capabilities. It would give the HA 100% successful flanking capabilities (and CQC combat! You can't keep track of someone while concussioned in CQC!), which is the Infil and LA's territory, and it would be one massive middlefinger to anyone else getting caught as they have much more trouble keeping track and retaliating against a target that already has a shield for extra health and a solid sustainability in it's LMG.