Best open-field combatant?

So I've played pretty much exclusively LA for most of PS2. I have no complaints about the class, but in open-field battles (North of Quartz Ridge, or pretty much anywhere in Esamir) there's just nothing LA brings to the table. I've certed out pretty much everything I'll need in LA now, and I want to pick up another infantry class to deal with these sort of situations. Infiltrators, HA and Medics all seem pretty viable for this, but if anyone is feeling helpful today rather than just trolling, I'd love to get some input on this before I start wasting certs. Which class would you pick for an open field / ridge-to-ridge kind of fight?

All have their advantages, but if you are looking for straight up combat power then HA is the way to go.

Medics and engineers can hold their own in combat while supporting their team, but the HA shield gives a nice edge in direct combat.

Of course, medics & engineers keep the troops & MAXs alive and make sure their guns are fully loaded so if you are more into team-play you may prefer one of those roles.

If you're in an open field bring a tank.

Engineer in a Magrider, by a large margin.

Engineer. Your effectiveness only lasts until you die or run out of ammo. If you do not die, your effectiveness only lasts until you run out of bullets. To that end, you gotta go with what gives you the bullets, particularly since the effectiveness of your weapon is relatively on par with HA and Medic.

Open field combat turns into one of three choices as far as infrantry goes.

1) Go Heavy Assault for their extra shield and charge your enemy.

2) Go Medic to pick up the fallen. It's not your job to attack, it's to hug people and divvy out bandaids.

3) Go Engineer, combat style! If there are any vehicles around, friendly maxes or just a concentration of infantry the Engineer is the way to go. You have the ability to use all your LA assault weapons and attachments, a very good bonus. Plus you provide needed support by laying down ammunition packs. Just this morning I took in 3k exp repairing and resupplying three AA maxes on a skydock for about an hour. If they didn't get that support, that skydock would have been taken due to overwhelming air.

Just remember, it's the support classes that win the battle. Not the lemmings that charge into rooms thinking they are heroes.

In the open, I find that HA is the better infantry choice. They have the overshield to soak up damage and LMGs to mow people down.

But you're not gonna get much better than that in the open field. The more open spaces are tank territory. Infantry excel better in enclosed spaces.

So, in summary... nobody likes the infiltrator class, HA is great for a direct firefight? Also note I'm not really talking about when there's large tank battles. Not really looking to get in a tank.

Still considering Engineer and Medic also but I haven't settled on playing a support class just yet. I tend to play kind of classical FPS.

I'd go with MEDIC because their Assault Rifles are more accurate or an Engineer with a Battle Rifle. You can lay down a ton of suppressing fire with HA but in an open field there are most likely snipers, etc so you'll take longer to hit anyone and this leaves you vulnerable. I have a CARV-S and AMR-66 so I can do fine but if I had extra certs I'd get the NS-11 for the MEDIC or Battle Rifle for Engineer. Not only would you do fine but you'd be able to help out your team mates as well. I've been in a few infantry open field fights. Straight up WW2 style. Lots of fun.

Just saying, there's not much infantry action that happens out in the open fields. It's tank territory.

And if you like classic FPS, once again HA is your best choice. YOU GET A RAWCAT LAWNCHAIR

Also to the poster above: DIE, BUTCHER!

I'd take a look around the battlefield first, are there a lot of injured or dead people? Grab a Medic. Cries for ammo (batteries?) and half dead MAXs all over the place? Engineer. Are y'all stuck behind a rock and need to push out? HA. Need to hack out an AMS? Infil.
Are there enemy air targets all over? Burster MAX.
If you aren't dead set on any one class (barring LA like you mentioned) then grab whatever's needed and help out.

Well it's about certing into the class. There's a fight on Esamir right now in hilly terrain, where neither side can reach the other's AMS so it's a straight infantry fight in a mostly futile attempt to push through. There's a pretty significant distance to charge in with HA, and tanks can't make it up into the hills. Now I'm only going to cert one class at a time, in this sort of situation of a straight medium-long range firefight, I'm trying to decide which. I was most likely thinking either Infiltrator or HA, because I tend to lone wolf more than squad play so far.

Open field fights are less then 10% of the infantry battles in PS2. As others have stated, better off getting in a ground or air vehicle, so i would just go engineer, get a battle rifle for longer range, and pull tanks, ESF and libs.

if your goal is infantry though HA is your only real choice, as you specified one class. Infiltrators and medics have minimal heavy weapons to deal with both ground and air vehicles, although both are good against infantry at range.

For that sort of in-between bases fighting I use my HA.

It uses an NC6 Gauss SAW with a 6x scope, Advanced Forward Grip, Compensator, and HV ammo.

I'm not sure what the VS's SAW-alike weapon is called, but it should be whichever LMG has access to the Adv. Forward Grip and 6x.

This just isn't true, it's more likely that you personally have only fought in them 10% of your experience. Esamir has tons of open-field fights where tanks get blown away from HA behind unassailable cover, and ESFs get shot down by AA MAXes trying to make passes. I'm not trying to be inflammatory here but if they really didn't happen all that often I wouldn't be asking for an alternative to LA which I really enjoy. These happen on Indar as well with less frequency (Ceres Biotech and Quartz Ridge). Infiltrators tend to kill me a lot in these situations, HA make attacking the hilltops impossible, and Medics/Engineers seem to play a pivotal supportive role (though, as I said, I haven't decided if I want to comitt to those classes yet).

I have been in a few "between base" infantry battles. Tons of fun. Most of them have been on Esamir, but I got in one really interesting one on Amerish just due to the terrain. It actually started at a control point and worked its way down a hill as we pushed them back. It was awesome

Either an HA with their high-accuracy rifle, or a Dual-AV max. Both are good with longer-range engagements, are tough to kill, and can punish any tank zergs that try to push. Only prpblem is you're probably going to spend 1000 certs on a weapon either way.

That's rubbish, it's a combat medic, it's also got the best long range rifles in the game, medics tear all the other classes apart in the open

I'm a little surprised not one person has advocated Infiltrator in this thread. That's kind of telling. I'm only here because VS is outnumbered by 20% on every continent though. C'est la vie.

Infiltrator is extremely good for racking up kills but you need a very different mindset to the other classes... you need to read the flow of the battle very quickly and work out exactly where you'd be best placed to pop heads when the enemy think they're in cover. If you just spawn at the sund and follow the rest of the zerg you'll have very limited milage. But if you can get into a good position, and provided you're at the right range (far enough other classes weapons can't really touch you, but close enough to reliably land headshots) then you can get kills non-stop till you run out of ammo, with the only thing able to counter you being another infil or air. If you want to focus on high K/D i'd suggest going between MAX in indoor fights or where you have a lot of friendly support to heal you, and infil for outdoor fights or situations where you're outnumbered or have little support. But as I said, if you're more into charging the enemy headlong, medic or heavy seem better choices.