Heavy assault needs a serious rebalancing

EMPs are great when you have a good idea that the enemy is around the corner, it's not like "oh a heavy jumped me, EMP instantly, now I've removed bid defensive advantage". Also, it's a consumable, not a freely usable item or ability.

If you knew how to actually play infiltrator competently, you would know it is the best IVI class in the game. Real-time minimap esp with dildar, EMP that shreds Heavy overshields now, 1-2 shot bolt actions with a straight pull in case you dont hit the face.

Also, Lex would destroy you as an infiltrator too

im well aware infiltrator is a very good class in fights and 1v1 scenarios

i have said i do not have a personal issue with fighting heavies aside from a bit of bottombotheredness when i **** up, even then generally i dont get majorly pissed, just have that one **** you moment then go back to whatever i was doing. Im far from skilled but im average enough to do decently until i come across someone with 5k hours in the game and are just amazing at whatever they do

My main issue with it is how much of a crutch heavy assault really is to the majority of the playerbase. If two people of equal skill level using equal weapons (for arguments sake someone with an ns-15m and a ns-11c fought in a 1v1), each had the exact same skill level the heavy would win every time, or at the least 90% of the time, the heavy would win, even if ambushed.

Yes Infil can beat anyone if Ambushed and also depends on player skills. But in daily basis of planetside, if caught head on against HA, you will lose. ANY class will lose head to head to a HEAVY most of the time (except if caught reloading/lack awareness/lag/etc..). Even from behind, they will just press F and still win. If the class are suppose to be BALANCED, then why one class is superior than rest?. You see in CS, there is no HA, you buy armor and helm, so it's balanced. Also, there is NO 1 vs 1 in Planetside it's a zerg or get zerg these days. There are only a few exceptions when if it's in 1-12 base fights or asked for a duel. Then again, he is talking about in General, not about individual players.

Simplest solution:

HA shield can only be activated if the default shield is at 100%.

Hmm interesting. Basically - it could work just like ZOE does.

Can only be activated when fully charged. Cannot be turned off until spent.

What you just described are utilizing the class abilities and tools preemptively tools to gain a combative edge. That's what a lot of folks would like to see for the Heavy Assault. If a HA is rounding a corner shields up, then he's prepped himself for a frontal assault... Much different than being caught off guard and given a chance to repel it simply because your class ability automatically buffs your effective HP.

Before "well Medic AoE healing is reactive...", that healing only restores lost health and does so at a slow enough rate that it has a neglible impact on TTK with the exception of an enemy with horrible aim or trying to hit you at range with a weapon not really designed for accurate ranged damage.

Do people really have problems with ambushing a HA from behind and them managing to get their shield up, turn around, and kill them before they can bring them down? TTK-wise it shouldn't be possible (unless the attacker is using a very low DPS weapon).

I've literally never had that happen to me - I've lost to HAs (facing me) at range, certainly, due to their shields, but never when I got the drop from behind.

If you can't kill a HA 1v1 if you caught them with their pants down, I'm thinking your gaming skills are the problem, not the class...

And heavies who have to pop shield once their in a bind rather than before getting into that predicament have more skill? You realize that the average reaction time is like 250ms. Yeah, some lag for the server to recognize that, but way quicker than the TTK of a CQC weapon.

Yeah folks having ambush issues is one thing, but when the heavy runs in first, and realize they should've shielded, they should not necessarily be able to hit shield and attempt to run or power through; they should activate and sweep... making the choice between superior defense or superior duration a matter of application to what you're doing.


This is my concern more than the ambushing... an ability that gives you near instant gratification to compensate for your bad play is the definition of a crutch.

Umm why is this a suggestion???

I mean great for me as i dont like it when a heavy eats a tank round and keeps moving but... even when I play infantry its really not that bad. Hell i kill them with solw firing weapons like the pulsar c and t5 amc

I was debating HA abilities with Wisdomcube and Odiogn on twitter this week. Some of us think that ASC is too powerful for an HA (I know not all of them use it) because when you couple with resist shield, there is very little downtime between engagements in which you can be back to 100% efficacy. Despite how powerful NW+Adren is, there is actually a lot of downtime before you have everything charged again, even if you are a good shooter.

My personal thought was similar to what someone mentioned here - give HA a baseline 0.9 movement modifier (basically a 10% movement speed nerf). The justification is that they are tankier and the tradeoff is slightly less speed, but not so much that it is no fun.

Movement is everything in this game, and slowing HA's down a tad will have a real impact on them without creating some frustrating and awkward shield nerf.

Otherwise leave things as is. The HA has been nerfed a fair bit since release. The nanoweave nerf was substantial, especially considering it used to stack with resist and no longer does. LMG's had their hipfire nerfed, and rockets have lost most of their splash. AV grenades are next to useless except for sticking it on a max. Conc grenades really really suck now, and it's laughable compared to EMP's.

Stop complaining about HA's. Just stop. Assault rifles will dumpster them. Infiltrators and LA's can dumpster them. Engineers are the only class that don't really have an edge on HA's, and that's fine. And everyone is clopping around in max suits all day anyways.

1 second delay . . .

-Take away movement debuff
-take away shield glow
-increase recharge of shield

Then you sir have a deal

I disagree.. a Mercenary or Cyclone drops a Heavy pretty damn quickly. This is despite the Carv/Orion matching (or nearly) the DPS of those weapons.

But other than that, I agree that people need to stop the complaining about heavies and L2P. They aren't OP. They are slow, they are cumbersome, and rely on everyone to be effective. Just because someone cert farms on them for 20 days played doesn't make it a god class. People playing HA's like that aren't taking bases. Which means they aren't winning alerts.

Are heavies slower than other classes? I don't think they are. Shield, rocket launcher, explosive or medical utility, machine gun, same speed as infiltrator no?

With shield on they take a movement penalty but shield is toggle.

Heavy is good as it is, and easily counter-able if you don't just throw yourself at them with neon lights pointing at your head. A slow, big, often stationary target is not hard to deal with and it's a great introduction class for new players to try out and actually get some kills with instead of just being destroyed and eventually humiliated by the first thing they meet.

Only thing I would ever want for the heavy is a (recently suggested) delay timer on their shields so that they couldn't counter a surprise attack as rapidly. Other than that, chill.

Come at me with a shield and watch what happens. I duck back and watch you try to lumber forward. At this point you have two options. Turn off shields and pursue, flipping back on shields (draining energy to do so, energy that hasn't regened yet). Keep them on and lumber forward.

Both options drain energy.

Come at me without shield and I take you down like every other class.

If I'm Infil, I'll stealth around and flank.
If I'm LA, I'll jump around and flank.
If I'm Medic, I'll rush you with an Assault Rifle and a Regenerating 'shield' in the form of my AOE heal. aka my 'minishield'
If I'm Engie, I'll laugh when you step on a mine (I don't play nice as an engie, flak ain't gonna help that shield stay up.. and you're gonna wish you had NWA).
If I'm a Max, I'll punch you in the face.

Why am I so confident in taking on Heavies with other classes? Because I play a Heavy too from time to time. I'm not a one trick pony. I play everything. I know how everything works. I know how everything dies. Which means I know how to kill everything.

When I get into a direct fire fight with someone One on One. I don't hesitate. I don't need to think, "what class is this." I just do, and they die, or I die. I'm not the best at the game by any means. But I'll be damned if the class I chose compared to the one my opponent chose will be the deciding factor.

Don't get me wrong, if a heavy catches me with my pants down. I'm not going to come out ahead. But I wouldn't regardless if it was a Infil, LA, Medic, or Engie either. Heavy isn't OP. They die like any other class. Quick and Frequently.

The only thing i would change (for all classes) are the medikits. Make it an injection pistol with the reloadanimation of the tracking dart thing of the infiltrators. Noone would be able to spam those things while runing away. 1x yes and then they would have to reload it and not 4x in a row.

I dunno I might well (when playing and Engi or Inf or Medic) lose to a HA, toe to toe, where we are both facing each other like that....... but then I think I should, in that situation.
If a HA isn't a Heavy Assault then I don't really see where the class fits into the game, they can't Jump Jet, they can't repair or resupply, they can't heal, they can't cloak.

I accept that I'm likely to lose to a HA face to face (although even then not certain with some weapons), all things being equal, but I can't see what reason there'd be for having a HA class if that wasn't the case.

However I'm certain I've never lost to a HA facing away from me in that situation, when I had a remotely decent DPS/TTK weapon in hand, the Shield just doesn't give enough HPs/time alive to make a difference (unless an aimbot is being used by the HA or something).






What you're saying seems to be that all HA shields should function like the Resist shield currently does, which is a fair enough point of view, however there are a few issues with that.

One of the major problems would be seperating the NWG sheild and Resist shields with any changes such as delay or charge up, as functionally they'd be pretty much exactly the same just getting there differently (direct HP vs % damage reduction hitpoints), so one would likely just always be better than the other.

Also the Adrenaline shield could be a right PITA to balance with Resist shield type of usage.

I don't think it couldn't be done, or even that it shouldn't be done, but it most definately requires more than just a delay or charge up being added, it likely needs the NWG and Ad shield to be redesigned from the ground up.

truthfully id be fine if they removed overshield altogether and added like a movement boost... but id keep the rpgs, although i suck at using them. have rpgs as a (buy ammo with nanoites)... ?