I find certain thing in PS2 baffling: Entering rooms with enemies. Theoretically, HAs are supposed to walk in guns blasting. However it never works that way, as entering enemy occupied room is certain death - with shields on, max nanoweave, you die in a matter of second. Only tool that HA has at his disposal regarding this situation is concussion grenade, however these don't work so well. You might stun someone, but entering a room with 4 enemies aiming at your point of entry is still certain death. I believe that HA should have one more ability - ballistic shield. Works like a personal NC MAX shield, with limitations: HA is restricted to secondary weapons, like infiltrator with stalker cloaking Can shoot through the shield, however - no ADS, and HA's movement is limited, sort of like getting hit by concussion grenade - 50% lower turning and walking speed. Whole point of this idea is to provide a walking cover for your allies, essentially turning such HA into supporting role. I'm dabbling with idea of making the shield also deployable, so you could move freely then, making it useful for defending too. Certing into the ability would prolong shield's durability to enemy fire. That's about all.
One more thing: To prevent said HA from using it as IWIN button, activating/deactivating shield freezes you in place for 1.5 second, unable to shoot or move.
I believe that even 1750hp in total (more with nano I guess) is not enough for walking into direct gunfire from 4 or so guys.. Or was it? Haven't played much as HA before.
Why would you ever knowingly walk into the direct fire of 4 people and expect to live? We have that already. It's called a MAX unit. As it should be. That's why you subdue as many of the occupants of the room as you can before you breach the entry point. If you truly believe a HA should be able to waltz into any room and stare down 4 enemy units all fully engaged on you then I don't feel there's much rationality left to be discussed.
If heavies get that, I want my NC max to use one arm while shielded. The idea is interesting but all honesty looks more like it either spits on the NC max or is so unviable in situations that you want to use it that you might as well run resist with caps.
I would walk into line of fire, because oddly enough, there is a point that you're supposed to capture/defend. I made my points - you should be able to waltz into fire, with shield on, providing some pea shots to scare away enemies, while your allies use you as cover and do the work. You're unable to turn fast thus aim fast, can't ADS, can't use main weapon, can't turn the shield off or you're basically dead, vulnerable to grenades, can you imagine killing someone in such state? No. So what tickles you so much to question the rationality? If you haven't noticed, most of this game, even if it futuristic, is based on real combat. Ballistic shields are basic equipment of any SWAT unit there is. What do they use them for? Walking into possible line of fire. Why? To subdue/eliminate hostiles. But your point with MAXes is right. They still feel kinda squishy to me though, 2 rockets, bit more firepower and MAX is off.
Haha, only if you're super slow to turn and sit still for turning it on/off. Resist won't save you in such case either. That's the whole thing - you take a peek around the corner and in split second your health is at 25%. Not much to do there, let alone fire at someone.
I guess for one that the MAX already does this intended role, in a fashion. I do agree with you though that any non NC MAX trying this under multiple fire without a couple of Engies in tow is pretty much a dead-can-walking. Probably my main thought though is that even if HA did have this shield potential I still cannot fathom why anyone would walk into multiple fire lines converging on your entry point and not attempt to subdue the interior forces first by Flashbang, Concussion, and Smoke grenades anyway... And even though I only play TR currently and logon faction alts only to check passive cert gain I also feel this would infringe on the NC MAX.
It depends on structure's layout. There are some places where you have multiple crossed lines of fire from different locations, then there are also places (like stairs) where you have no crossed lines and more of a direct fire. First one could be solved if multiple shield carriers (I probably forgot to mention they're not solid) walked in as a turtle - if there wouldn't be penalty towards side-walking.. The second situation (stairs) is more of a solo shield thing. Well you can sort of flash/conc/smoke the second part, but people have implants for that, and first thing they do is start emptying their magazines into a place they were looking at (some might run though). Whole problem is that grenades are not enough, you can only MAX crash the place or overpower them with more bodies than they have bullets (or frag the spot, but that depends on layout).
I also realized that NC MAX already has this ability, which is kind of unfair to other factions. Some might say that TR MAX has defensive ability (anchor mode) while NC has offensive (shield, poor Vanu guys have nothing), but oftentimes you need to be offensive, then defensive. That is tad unfair, thinking about it..
Use the other door, throw a frag grenade instead, rush in with friends and your overshield up.................works for me. Especially if a friendly infil has tossed in an EMP 'nade first. I once blind-tossed a frag over a railing and must have set off a bunch of AP mines - killed ten enemies around the cap point that I never even saw as I was running up the stairs at the time.
I C4-ed 12 people, it was in a building with 2 entries only, the one where cap point is upstairs.. Dropped C4 on enemies downstairs, and some friendly soul dropped AT mine there too, at same time Yes, EMP/conc combo is brutal, rarely utilised but deadly. It all depends on situation and building layout, sometimes (like in case of 2 doors only building) enemies are behind the building, allies in front, and building itself creates a chokepoint. That's where it would shine, as you can't use back entrance for obvious reasons. I guess it would be simply solved by giving all faction MAXes same special abilities - shield, anchor. This way all factions could use their MAX as entering bullet stopper, seeing NC's can already do that (they rarely do anyway, most MAXes use shield to cover their own self, not to provide advantage for team).. Yes, I know that would bring a ton of rage posts.
We call that "empire specific specializations" Like how striker is better for aircraft and chipping long range tanks and the phoenix is better at killing entreched vehicles
Asymmetrical balance. I actually like lockdown, which CAN be used offensively in base assaults.(Lockdown pounders can fire over walls) VS needs ZOE to be brought to a usable state and yes, the different faction MAXes are good at different things, but that is the point. If everyone had the same thing it might as well be an NS MAX.
