[Suggestion] Upgrade the LA and why

I originally posted the below list to show people why the Heavy has so many good weapons and abilities. It's because other classes have a ton of great abilities as well.

Heavy's abilities are:
-LMG, good for longer ranges due to lower damage drop than carbines and good ammo capacity, good for defending.
-Battle Rifle
-Overshield
-rocketlauncher

Engineer:
-Repair gun for vehicles, MAX's, turrets. The only thing that can safely disarm AV mines without them exploding.
-deployable turret AV or AI. AV is great, AI can actually solo a MAX if placed correctly.
-ammo resupply
-Battle Rifle
-AV mines
-most AI mines and most C4 available of all classes

Medic:
-Heal/revive gun with unlimited capacity
-can revive an entire squad with one revive grenade
-AOE heal/deployable AOE shield regen
-has assault rifles

infiltrator:
-access to different scout/sniper rifles
-stealth module
-recon darts/motion sensor
-AI mines
-hacking turrets

Light Assault:
-Jetpack/drifterpack
As you can see, the Light Assault has the fewest abilities by far. The Jetpack/Drifter pack is incredibly poweful and handy, no one can deny that. It allows the LA it's C4 fairy abilities, it allows him his incredible flanking abilities and movement... But is it really so powerful that Jetpack/drifterpack can compete against all the Medics abilities? Or all the Engineer abilities?

The LA is ripe for an update. It needs extra stuff to become a more viable teamplayer, as well as increasing it's general abilities of confusing and flanking the enemy.

Think of things like:
-Smoke ability. Press F to start burning jetpack fuel, it will create smoke around you. Higher levels give off larger
-Different goggles. You can equip one type of goggles. Press (F?) to activate. You will have access to Night Vision or IR vision without going into ADS, allowing LA to keep it's mobility after throwing smoke grenades
-Impulse pack. Replacement of Jet/drifter pack. Allows you to run/walk at high speeds and jump higher.
-Grenade launcher. Replaces C4 in the utility slot. Deals light damage against tanks (much lower DPS than Heavies). Advantage over C4 is that it costs no infantry resources to use or equip. 4 direct hit kill on infantry without flak/nanoweave and slow rate of fire, all Carbines/LMG's have better TTK. Has secondary fire that allows grenades to be lobbed into a chamber where they will detonate with a very small AOE, deals low damage and is meant to create chaos rather than kill.
-false signatures. The LA activates it with F. He starts burning jetpack fuel to create energy for this ability. The ability will create false signatures on the enemies radar that follow the LA around. The higher cert range the more false signatures appear in a random circle around the LA.

Light Assault definitely needs something - it's the most neglected class IMO...

The only problem is no one, not the devs or the community, or even LA players, can agree on /what/ the something is they need.

Personally I think a good place to start would be to allow them motion trackers - can't imagine Infiltrators will mind sharing that equipment and hey, more sensors are never bad.

Crossbow sidearm, everyone can have motion trackers now. Besides intel is the Infiltrators main job.

Light Assault would be better as a distraction class imo, stuff like the infiltrator sound grenade.

I meant more the deployable motion tracker.

And I thought the infiltrators main job was standing on a hillside shooting ineffectually at the enemy's heads? ;P

I liked the thought of having akimbo sidearms that were hipfire only. It actually would have created a bit of depth and possibly some OP-ness, but would have been interesting to create a false second primary slot for the class and have diversity.

Another thing I'd like to possibly see as an addition to jetpacks is a strong initial burst that you could use for strafing hops or power jumps forward. Could be more of an infantry dogfighting jetpack.

Yeah, I've had the idea for a rocketpack for some time. You get a few bursts to propel you across the battlefied. Press F to launch yourself in the direction you are looking. If you launch yourself too fast you can damage yourself by hitting the environment. You have a relatively slow recharge so if you launch yourself too high you will probably die from crashing down.
It would be too good a hit&run weapon to just implement it like that though. It would need to reveal you on the radar and leave a trail of fire/smoke to reveal where you came from or where you went afterwards. Additionally you need a relatively long COF increase as it would be too good to power yourself passed a corner and abuse the latency system if you immidiately have a normal COF.

What I want is hover jetpack with controllable altitude, but doesn't go as high as other jetpacks.

No buffs to LA should be allowed till C4 is changed ...

Balance for an infantry combat jetpack is definitely something that would need to be fine tuned after a brainstorming phase. But it has the possibility of being a great addition I've always thought was missing(Just like ES ATV's like a snowmobile, cycle and hover flash).

On the topic of class abilities.

Jetpack is equal to HA overshield, Engi repair tool, Medic heal tool, Infi stealth as things that are core to the class and shouldn't come off. Weapons aren't big guiding factors outside of the utility of launchers. Mines and such are all equalized if C4 and medkits take up the slot. Leaving us with:
HA: Launchers
Engi: Ammo Pack, Deployable Turret
Medic: AoE Heal, Deployable Shield Regen
Infi: Detection Tools, Hacking(Extremely weak in its current form), lower shields(Let's say this balances up hacking)

Limitations could have long since been added and adjusted for the others outside of HA and Infi. Engi having to choose between his deployables, only having ammo OR a turret. Medic AoE heal being changed into similar to the shield regen and having to be chosen between. Thus the classes would only have one ability higher than LA rather than two.

Outside of this leaves limited choices because the support roles have been covered in nearly every aspect. Suggestions have been made for many alternatives that aren't all the most inspiring, but some are interesting and viable.

Rocklet which would give LA a more mobile and squishy AV/Anti-Max role compared to their HA counterparts outside of C4(Which several classes get).

Akimbo sidearms. These would have a lot of destructive potential in the right hands and have the limitation of no ADS as hipfire only.

Restricting C4 to LA only as their utility, freeing up their slot for medkits(For LA and others who lose access to them) or alternatives.

A short range teleportation device, allowing you to open a one or two way waypoint to travel between locations. It would be a strong support tool and set LA into a role as mobility support instead of repair, heal, or information that are already covered. Could also help the issue of LA being unable to be assisted by Medics.

I like the goggles idea that someone threw out. Would be a neat thing to give them a bit of added ability without changing them a great deal. More to the point I want my ******* Icarus Jets back. Akimbo sidearms would be cool but really hard to do without breaking the game. Though I would like to see duel repeaters, just once.

I think you're probably underestimating the power C4 (especially current cheap C4) with a LA a bit there - it is very, very powerful (70 KPH is nothing to be sniffed at - which will mostly be LA IMO)..... and to some degree the power of the Jet Pack.

So I'm not convinced LAs need any direct power upgrades.

LAs do absolutely need some utility and breadth upgrades though, and I've no idea why SOE haven't addressed that, I dunno what happened to the dual pistol/dual SMG idea either.

Completely forgot this one before. Take away Infi's recon tools and give them to LA, making it more of a Light Recon. Instead give Infi the deployable teleportation device above which would reward exp based on people getting kills or objective completions after usage. Then flesh out hacking to include teleporters, jump pads, base gates(Could you imagine locking enemy vehicles inside?), etc.

This would be my overall preferred change to LA and Infi both.

Give LAs the battle rifles, and I'll be more than happy with that. Personally though I main LA, and I don't really see anything that needs adding, the class already has a lot of tricks up its sleeves. You just need to be crafty enough to use them.

too strong. It'ld basically be in shotgun level or stronger.

2 comi = 1 shot
2 SMG = better than any MAX , then accuracy 'ld be so bad that it'ld be shotgun range

and any 2 burst / auto pistol 'ld do better than a single SMG

Basically it'ld be amazing TTK and very short range, that shotguns already do.

And so you can snipe for free from some weird positions? no.

Ever tried sniping with a BR? Aside from the fact that it's semi-auto it would lose even to scout rifles in that department. I'd just want to have something better for medium range than slug shotties.

sorry but those weapon are decent to more than 75+m and outperforming carabines at those ranges. That's what i ment with "sniping" whitout saying it'ld be as good as an infiltrator.

I like this idea, providing false signatures could be a useful thing if it wasn't tied to the current limited grenades.
If they want to be lazy they could just give the LA utility slot access to the grenades that can be certed to carry more & reload at ammo packs.

Remove C4, add thermite charges with more damage but dealt over 10 seconds. Also give them an AP light launcher as a tool.

I'd have to say, there are many times that I rage every day that the LA was a class that never should have been implemented into the game (Getting into a really fun firefight with another guy on an amp-station wall, and a light assault jumping in the from the side and screwing it up). At the same time, it really is super fun to play it lol.

All raging aside... I'd say that the LA should really get some buffs / perks soon, as they really are only useful for C4 dropping and getting into really tricky hiding places. They make a really good aerial distraction right now, but they really are missing some perks.

As soon as I finish out my Heavy Assault directives, i'm going to be working on Carbines with a LA most of the time. It would be cool to get have some nifty perks for LA by then.