For the love of Higby, nerf HAside 2

Oh boy, this is gonna hurt, isn't it?

I feel like this has gone for far too long, since I've noticed that top players play about 85% of Heavy Assault, 10% of Infiltrator and 5% of any other class they want to have fun with. A lot of fights basically came down to "Who has more HAs or ones that are marginally better at exploiting the game's netcode wins", especially on Emerald.
My problem is that the class itself is too good, and the few downsides it has anyways can be completely nullified through excessive use of ADAD+medkit+crouch spam and pocket-primary sidearms, and it's strengths can be amplified by ADAD, what feels like movement spoofing and the fact that it's overly versatile and powerful at the same time.


The post is overly long, and I'd recommend to read in detail, but I'll try to summarize my points in a TL : DR version right after the title.

PART ONE : THE CLASS IS TOO GOOD

It's not hard to see why this class is superior to others based on strong, universally useful abilities :

• Best primary weapons in the game. More on that later, but TL : DR version of it is that it's moderate RoF allows for consistent, good recoil suitable for headshotting while having many more bullets and DPM compared to any other primary weapon type. The downside of long reloads can be completely avoided through excessive dodging and pulling pocket primaries.
• Universally useful shield. Blocking damage is one of the most common things in the game, and having an ability that does so extremely well is a huge advantage in any one-on-one situation. You can almost double your health with a NMG/AS + Nanoweave, which goes insane lengths to win firefights. You can do this while being ambushed to reset your health to 1000 or more and it can really make you untouchable unless you put yourself in a horrible spot or you
• Rocket launchers are absurd in their current state, ironically, against infantry. It's a one-shot pump-action with massive AoE damage that's great at taking down MAXs and finishing off a vehicle. It's not good against a full-health vehicle because of how long it takes, but that's offset by it's insane AI potential. Why ever equip a Lasher when rockets have better AoE (that can rip half your health) and burst damage? You can hit-and-run with it no problem.
• No downsides whatsoever and not weak in any situation. Unlike cloak or jump-jets that might be worthless or even detrimental sometimes, extra on-demand health is always useful. The LMGs have excellent effective range and can be headshot machines depending on which one is it.

LMGs are the best guns in the game, here's why

To completely cover why I think that LMGs are the best primaries, I'll first have to cover the accuracy differences and how much better Magazine size is compared to Reload speed.

So everyone is saying that LMGs have worse accuracy than Carbines and ARs, which is true. But nobody says to what degree is it. It's measly 0.05 or 0.1 while moving and ADSing (the most important CoF stat), literally a difference of either 1 or 2 shots at most, or less than one shot while moving. While standing it's the same as Carbines and Assault rifles. CoF stats are barely different and about the same and can be compensated by bursting. In CQC and mid-range it makes no difference whatsoever.

Now here's the tricky part : recoil. The recoil of LMGs is considerably higher, but there are a few things that make it on-par with ARs :
1. The fire rate is low enough that recoil is consistently low.
2. Forward grips and compensators are mandatory attachments that are the only viable choice, and their benefits are greater due to higher recoil statistics


The incredible advantage is magazine size, and I've claimed that Reload speed is a placebo stat that only helps with a select few weapons and in very rare scenarios where your secondary can't do the job and you can't use any other method to kill.
The thing is, while large mag/long reload weapons do have the potential downside of being exposed if badly timed, that doesn't happen all that often and any remotely experienced player with basic situational awareness can avoid it. Even if it does happen, you can ADAD dodge it or pull a sidearm, and that would be okay if not for the absurdly powerful pocket primaries :


Commissioner - Blatantly OP and has better TTK than most primaries if Nanoweave is considered.
Repeater - Pocket SMG. Very powerful and needs a recoil increase to reduce effective range and reel it in.
Inquisitor - Literal pocket SMG. 30 rounds in mag with very solid DPS and decent accuracy. Might as well give Stalkers primaries... The buff was 100% overkill and it has none of the downsides sidearms have. I'd massively nerf the CoF bloom or recoil.
Desperado/Spiker - Kind of in the same boat as spammable sidearms, but you do have to be more accurate and hip-fire consistency is worse than on Repeater. Maybe a slight tone-down, but I wouldn't touch these much.


ADAD gymnastics and medkit spam really nullify the downsides of LMGs and combined with the overshield, you can completely reset engagements in your favor and can completely nullify tactics unless they end up bursting the HA in question. This is impossible to balance except for removing the means of doing this. You can only kill these sort of HAs if the situation is unaviodably in your favor or you're that much better than him.


It should also be noted that at long range combat with non-BASRs, the weapon that can consistently put more damage at range while allowing the user to receive less damage wins. The LMG's increased magazine size really matters here. Imagine if you had to pause every 30 rounds or so for 2 seconds, you'll notice the massive DPS reduction, and it's entirely realistic that you might waste that many rounds in long-range combat, due to increased BTK and inherent problems like leading, compensating for drop etc. The best non-BASR weapons at long range are full-auto, accurate enough and can spew bullets with little effort.

It's a question of "Would you have 50-60-75-100 rounds when it matters and 0 where it doesn't, or 20-25-30 rounds all the time except 2 seconds after dumping?" Reload speed is a placebo and mismanagement of reloads will in reality only get you killed if you don't respond with ADAD and medkits, so if you play it well, never.


Ultimately, their recoil is slightly larger at worst, and their CoF is marginally larger at worst. The only notable downside is poor hip-fire, but you can always ADS at any range, and at point blank hip-fire is actually accurate. I'd personally increase weapon-switching time depending on how long the weapon's reload is, so pulling something like a sidearm takes 2 or 3 seconds, and I'd go as far as to make it impossible to sprint while reloading.

The Shield

It's an incredibly strong ability that does one of the most important things in the game : keeping you alive. I wouldn't have an issue with it if other abilities were also universal, but they're not :

Jetpack is sometimes worthless and demands some sort of vertical height to make good use of it.

Cloak is very useful, but sometimes useless and even detrimental if you get seen while in cloak.

Ammo and turrets are meh. Sometimes very powerful, sometimes sniper bait. Sometimes you never use the extra ammo.

Nano-regen is situationally useful for extending your life-span by 1 or 2 bullets on demand and bubble shield is mediocre.

The only MAX ability I've seen get extensively used is Aegis shield, and it's very good, but you do not fire in return. Others are too situational or mediocre.

It's universal, and helps you in a situation that's only about skill : 1v1. Contrary to popular belief, 1v1s do happen a lot, more than any other engagement. It can also help you win 2v1s, which is somewhat uncommon but if it does happen, with a correct setup you have almost 1.7x health of any other class.

Get ambushed? Over-shield to the rescue. Need to escape but low health? Over-shield. Need to win a 1v1? Over-shield. Too powerful and too universal, people were saying the ramp-up time should get added, I'd say that it should get implemented to reduce the power of HAs to deny ambushes. Of course there's the BS ADAD and shooting back with perfect accuracy after doing 5 or so jumps and non-stop twitching, but at least you won't fight your ambusher again at full health.

Rockets

OHK on direct hit against infantry is absurd, and rockets can eat half your health with AoE only, and absolutely nothing short of high rank of Flak armor will stop it, not even over-shields. Yeah, skill should be rewarded, but it shouldn't allow you to completely stomp your opponent. I've auraxiumed one and about to aurax the other rocket launcher, and the majority of kills I get is against infantry, not drivers in vehicles.

Ironically, against a full-health vehicle it's kind of bad unless in a group or there's something more to deal damage to it. You do have to kill it fast or it will **** and repair back to full health. I'd say it's more got to do with vehicles being able to bail away and rockets not being powerful enough to burst them, but in general it's more of a deterrent and finisher rather than a vehicle killer. Many vehicles can just face-tank your rockets and you're achieving nothing.

And no, I don't buy the argument of "MUH REALISM" or "it's ridiculous", because the game is full of stupid stuff already :

Survive multiple bullets from a AA cannon, which IRL would rip you in 1 or 2 shots.

With a right setup, survive a HE shell to your face.

Die to two random swings from a knife while having state-of-the-art armor, or friggin' ONE swing if it happens to be even more ridiculous than the other knives.

Revolvers that do more damage than some sniper rifles.
NANITES.

I mean, come on. This game is riddled with BS, and adding another one to the pile for the sake of balance wouldn't be bad. I'm suspecting people just don't have good arguments to why should Rocket Launchers have OHKs and huge AoE damage against infantry aside from farming for the directive. I'd reduce total direct damage to 650 (400 direct), and AoE to 250 at most, but vehicle damage could be modified to be same or increased via resistances. It's AV, not anti-everything.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Probably the greatest advantage of Heavy Assaults is time. They can kill people incredibly fast in the most simplest way possible, while let's say, LAs and Infiltrators need good planning and more time to pull it off. Sure HAs can die doing it, but so can LAs and Infils, but unlike those, Heavies guarantee to do at least some damage or be a good bullet sponge while LAs and infils can do nothing and just waste time, so even in the worst case scenario HAs are still somewhat useful.

Currently, the only way to beat an equally skilled HA is to be significantly better than him or be one yourself.

I personally think that Heavy Assaults need to become a situational class like any other and specialize in some situations, like crowd control and anti-zerg instead of being a 1v1 machine that's universally overpowered. If it was less run-and-gun and more stationary while requiring some situational awareness, I'd be happy.

PART TWO : ADAD, MEDKITS AND BASICALLY WARPING

Holy ****, this is seriously an issue that needs to be addressed, because it's the equivalent of Reverse Maneuver in infantry combat : if a person who knows this fights the other that doesn't wins every time unless the enemy has godlike aim. I'll cover it in detail a bit :

• Did you get outskilled? Did you get ambushed? Don't worry, because you can dance your way out of it, pop a medkit to get back to 50% of effective health and shoot back with perfect accuracy or escape.
• Do a game-breaking dance of non-stop ADAD and crouch spam to halve the bullets that hit you and still maintain perfect accuracy. Totally not ********.
• Somehow move faster with a 0.5 ADS weapon than people with a 0.75 ADS weapon- wait a sec, this is basically cheating! How's this even allowed?
• Bug the game so hard, move faster than anyone else, twitch the hardest and somehow take more bullets. Like, this isn't even funny, this is abusing game mechanics.

It completely invalidates aim and gives you a massive advantage over anyone else if used properly, and 99% of the time people that do this are HA players, so you're fighting a dude with the best primary weapon, 1.7x your health, better AV abilities than you that basically has no downsides and takes more bullets and moves faster than anyone else. How's this even remotely fair for non-HAs in a 1v1 situation?


I'd propose these solutions :

• Add momentum to player's movement, not a whole lot, but enough to prevent the most egregious ADAD spam. This should make situational awareness and tactics more relevant.
• Massive accuracy penalties while ADADing and crouch-spamming. If spammed enough and too much twitching is done, the CoF should cover your entire screen and take up to 5 seconds to reset back to normal, so this is used for defense only.
• Instead of desyncing your hitbox from your character and making it warp if this is abused, make them stand perfectly still if they do abuse it. People should get punished for basically cheating.
• Medkits can only be used 5 seconds after taking damage. Mid-combat healing should be the role of Combat Medics and this is simply too cheesy and is more often than not used to nullify unexpected damage from someone who exploited their situational awareness.

Honestly, this is absurd and some sort of solution to it is mandatory. High-level players are especially using these to stack odds into their advantage and dominate enemies that in reality, would stand a chance if not for mechanic abuse.

(BONUS) INFILTRATORS

Remember how I said in the intro that top players play 85% of Heavy Assault and 10% of Infiltrator? Well, I'm going to address that as well.

I'd say that most infiltrators are fine, but I'm going to focus on snipers because they're similar to heavies in one respect and with a certain load-out : their weaknesses are countered by two things :

1. Overpowered sniper rifles (specifically, SAS-R/TSAR-42/Ghost) that can snipe at about every range except CQC.
2. Pocket primary sidearms that nullify it's weakness (specifically, Commissioner and CQC burst pistols)

I'd only add back scope sway to these weapons so they have actual limitations and you can't just chain shots, and reduce the effectiveness of best-preforming sidearms. Currently, a sniper equipped with OP gear can be absurd, as they're deadly in every range, especially since they can ambush you very easily. They should be extra vulnerable in CQC and sidearms should be a last resort to finish off someone, not an extra primary.

Thanks, i was looking for a book to read.

'Top players' will play all facets of the game to a high level, not be dedicated to 1 infantry class, which is 16% of the infantry game and 5% of the entire game.
I think the first thing we need to do is stop putting these types on a pedestal.

I cant really disagree with anything youve written (well i cant remember disagreeing, it was a while ago i started reading it ) but tbh i dont have a problem with any of it, except for lag exploiting i hate that.

But on that subject i think a lot of the time people dont realise its happening, all they know is last time they did the dance it helped them, so they do it again.
Its not just infantry either, a harasser thats quickly changing direction repeatedly can sometimes appear to move sideways, same with ESFs they move strangely also, but less noticable due to the randomness of their normal movements.
I am however more than certain some players have learned exactly how to exploit it, or perhaps even do some wizardry with their connection to encourage it.
This is my main problem when it comes to infantry fighting, i enjoy it immensly....until the lagwizards show up, then its frustration as opponents move outside of their usual speeds and my muscle memory doesnt like it (my new mouse isnt helping, damn you logitech!).

All classes can kill, HA does it better, and im fine with that tbh.

The annoying thing about HAs is when you PA shotgun their face, after they get the drop on you, whilst theyre shielded, get a OHK, and still receive a 'cheese' tell, ignoreing the fact that they had almost double my health and my aim had to be perfect.

Since I think your post uses an overly biased and unnuanced language, akin to amateur lobbyists trying to convince people of a particular perspective, let me come with some factual corrections and my opinions.

PART 1 - Checking the facts
You claim that:

But the top 5 players in kills have the respective stats on the classes they play

1. Mentis2k6 - 22% Heavy Assault and 28% Infiltrator
2. Nucleartouch - 37% Heavy Assault and 9% Infiltrator
3. LazyTR - 16% Heavy Assault and 9% Infiltrator
4. Anulos - 18% Heavy Assault and 16% Infiltrator
5. HondaDude - 38% Heavy Assault and 11% Infiltrator (character is out-of-date with more than 60 days old statistics)

So NO, this claim is clearly wrong.
Next claim:

This is arguably more difficult to disprove. In my oppinion a lot of fights come down to factors such as the base layout, lattice connections, vehicle support, skill level, outfits, force multipliers, speed, etc. However a lot of fights are also determined by numbers - as in who has the most population overall. Assuming equally balanced class makeups on both sides, this would naturally entail that the one with the most HAs win, but not for this reason as that is just a consequence of their overpop.
So perhaps, this claim is right.

Clearly wrong here as the overshield causes a movement penalty reducing the effectiveness of ADAD to null.

LMGs have the worst hipfire accuracy of any automatic guns in the game, and mediocre DPS at best.

Nanoweave is available to all classes, and the NMG/AS adds 500 health I believe. So this only gives 50% more health, not 100%, as you claim. Furthermore this extra health starts to drain the moment you activate it, at a rate of 14-20 Health per second. Therefore you can at best take about 3 extra bullets compared to the other classes. Also note that due to lag + clientside mechanics, the shield may not even have an effect in ambush situations.

Yeah they have a OHK potential but are hard to aim, have non-negligible travel time, and one-shot reloads as their downsides.

In my opinion HAs can be used to hold obvious kill-zones (doors, hallways), LAs can be used to circumvent them (I'd rather go into a building from the roof with a pump-action shottie, than up the stairs with a RL), Infiltrators can be used to hold non-obvious kill-zones (waiting while cloaked with a scout rifle for people to run out in the open range). So the classes are situational in their use, its not like the overshield compensates that much when you are struck first.

PART 2 - What I will do about it
Because of the issues written above, that I think this thread is garbage lessening the good standard of the forum, and that it goes against the guidelines of outright "nerf calls", Ive decided to report it to the moderators.

Sorry, but I have to disagree.

First off, HA are just what they are - HA. Take away their overshield and they're just a regular enemy with a Rocket L. I main stalker infiltrator (The class that has the lowest health overall without certing into Nanoweave Armor and Nano Cloak) and have auraxiumed the Blackhand, Underboss, Amp, Inquis, and Emissary. Due to this, I've had numerous encounters with HA and have learned how to effectively deal with them. Did you also know that our cloak is pretty much just as loud as a tank shell exploding?

First of all, most sidearms are where they should be (VS sidearms do need something done, though). Inquisitor still has a pretty bad hipfire cone and really doesn't do you much justice unless you're ADS. It is one of the sidearms that does the most damage in a magazine, but it takes time to deliver that damage. Most of the 2 shot burst sidearms are meant to be easier to control.

The repeater is a *great* sidearm for CQC. The President (the auraxium version with 3 less bullets per magazine and a special suppressor that doesn't cut down the high end damage as well as also not affecting the bullet velocity) is similar in function. However, repeaters punish you if you try to kill an enemy that is borderline midrange. The president punishes you even more because having 3 bullets less sometimes allows an enemy to kill you while you're reloading with ~100 health. If you miss a few bullets, that can mean life or death for you. Also, RIP if you try to engage more than 1 person with this sidearm.

I'm honestly suprised you didn't rattle on about nerfing the Blackhand. 1 headshot and 1 body shot gives you a kill on all infantry (unless it's a heavy assault with Overshield). Of course, it's horrendous at hipfiring and punishes you with having only 4 bullets.
The commissioner is a good all around sidearm. Should it be nerfed? It's up to the DEVs. The emissary is a great sidearm too, even though it doesn't pack the same punch immediately as other sidearms do. But if you use the very modest ADS recoil or very small cone with laser sights to land headshots, you can down multiple targets with one magazine. Wait, that's right! The repeater can't do that. That must mean the EMISSARY IS OP TOO!

All sidearms have their unique advantages and disadvantages. If you use them right, they're great!

If you're 1v1ing a HA and they are aware of your presence, then of course you're going to get punished because they can activate their overshield. If you're trying to play the game like that, then sorry bud, but you're not playing your class right. Use stealth to your advantage if you're playing Infil. A few bullets from any sidearm plus a knife will usually be too fast for a HA to respond with activating their OS, turning around, and gunning you down.

Moral of the story - all guns have a purpose and are good at certain things. Just because some are better at some things than other guns doesn't make them BLATANTLY OP.

I agree on the topic of Heavies, though I do have a different set of ideas on how to rectify the issues.

However, I disagree with your stance on Infiltrators. For the sake of clarity, let's just say the "overpowered" sniper rifles are the only ones that actually can kill in one hot from any normal range: Longshot/Rams .50/Parallax.

I won't deny they can be absurdly powerful in the right hands. Truly I have never been more dangerous in PS2 than when I am with my favourite rifle. However, the skill demand to actually be effective is very high, unless one just scalps the idiots whom stand around with their thumbs placed firmly up their *****. (Often accompanied by their own heads as well. ) In my own mind at least, this justifies the immense power of a single bullet. --Besides, if bolt-actions were really OP, there'd be a lot more snipers around. Typically, I kill more snipers with whatever automatic weapon I have than snipers ever kill me. Most of 'em are completely incompetent. Good help is so hard to come by.

As for pistols, I really don't see how one could come to this conclusion.

The Commissioner is of course very powerful and perhaps a little too much, but I would never go so far as to use it in place of my primary weapon outside of extreme scenarios. Six bullets for two theoretical three-shot-kills isn't exactly worth choosing over just about any automatic weapon for anything other than hunting for stray infiltrators.

The burst pistols are good, but they just aren't as powerful as primaries. Spiker & Desperado are pretty typical in terms of shots to kill and have a fire rate not unlike other weapons of a similar damage profile. However, they have small magazines, short range, and lack an automatic fire mode. Repeater is very powerful, but only at very short range. The bloom, recoil, and deceptively small magazine really reduce the effectiveness outside of barrel-stuffing range, where most anything would be superior.

For funsies, I'll include the newest addition to the burst-pistol line; The Pilot is very powerful, but once again has very short range due to the strong recoil, small magazine, and damage dropoff. Bad against moving, strafing targets simply due to the nature of the slow bursts.

Personally, I believe pistols & sidearms should be and are dangerous, capable weapons. They are most often kept as reserve weapons because of their small magazines, short range, and low penetration.

I do take issue with a certain breed of infiltrator however. Why you would mention snipers and stalkers but not SMG infiltrators, I can only wonder. Much like their lesser cousins, SMG infils can also ambush enemies easily, but also have a primary weapon to do it with. A primary often compared to shotguns. If there were only one way in which an infiltrator could become overpowered, it would be with a high-capacity, high RoF automatic spam cannon and a cloak capable of monitoring the exact position of targeted prey from an unknown location, attacking at one's own discretion. But yeah, I bet it's those gosh-darn OP pistols that draws the MLG crowd.

Nerf Engineerside2!

There is only 1 class all the top vehicle players use!

HA is a tool. Use the right tool for the job.

If your only job is running around inside bases killing **** theres 2 tools for the job. HA and LA. By passing walls and choke points and flanking is the LA's job. Brute force taking more damage than anyone else is the HA's job. RL is more an anti MAX tool than AV, which by the way the LA is the best class for killing MAXs and the argument could be made the LA is better at AV as well.

If your job is keeping MAXs alive, resupplying ammo, setting up cover and turrets and AI or AV traps the Engineer is the best tool for the job.

If your job is keeping the push alive by picking up fallen soldiers, healing damaged hp or shields Medic is the best tool for the job.

If your job is ambushing enemies, hacking terminals, setting up AI traps and revealing enemy positions infiltrator is the best tool for the job.

The problem isn't HA. It's not infiltrators. Its not even KDR whoreing. The problem is everyone thinks their only job should be to kill as many players as they can before they die. This isn't Quake deathmatch. This is Planetside2. The objective should be to win territory, win alerts and lock continents. I can't wait until the Alert incentives go live. You'll see the really good players doing their jobs really well and winning Planetside2.

**** KDR whoring. Its worthless to the big picture. Ever seen those "awesome" players pushing points, sacrificing themselves by leading a charge or softening up a choke point? Nope. HA/Infil are only the best tool if you think your job is padding your KDR. Which it might be right now since there's really no win condition. Alert win "goodies" should alleviate a lot of the KDR whoring and make people do what it takes to win even if it means dying a lot more.

What Ziggurat said.

The problem is not HA ad class. It's the game promotes personal achievements and KDR before cooperation and faction results. In a game where kills are considered the main measure of personal success it's not a surprise support classes are not so popular.

In the end it all resolves around why you consider those guys the best players.
The stats panel does not keep track of how many revives you made, how much you repaired, healed, scouted etc... It leads for instance to have 4 Infiltrators sniping the spawn room but no one using recon darts: the game does not tell you you are good when you scout, the only stat is KDR so you have to kill.

It's the MLG e-sport mentality.

Traditionally, I've disagreed with the notion of an HA nerf.
Lately, though, the game is being overrun with certain all-HA 'leetfits' *cough*recursion*cough* who redeployside in to stomp all over fights with the cheesiest tactics they can muster (anyone who's not a Heavy Assault is in a MAX suit, and there's often a compliment of a dozen Bulldog Gals that fly in to nuke the spawn room).

My issue is not that there are coordinated and/or skilled outfits in the game, but it is that the "best" (most effective) team comp in Planetside is literally just "All Heavies". Heavies are the best 1v1 infantry skirmishers. Heavies have huge AV and anti-MAX capability. Heavies can tank the most damage; even a headshot from a BASR with resist shield. Heavies can self-heal with MLG sticks. Heavies have access to some of the best weapons in the game.

I get it, it's the "Heavy Assault" class for a reason.
It's just that it makes no sense to not play heavy in 99% of scenarios.

I've been trying to play other classes in order to decrease my HA-noobishness, but when encountering these HA leetfits, it becomes quite frustrating going up against enemy after enemy who has a literal built-in advantage over you in combat.
Basically, I can't help but notice how I (and my teammates) are crippling ourselves by playing anything other than HA. Honestly, why even have the other classes?

weird i never survive a HS from a basr with active shield ..

You're not going to get a nerf.

What I would recommend: Go play HA exclusively for about a week. After you get your butt handed to you several times over by every class in the game, you'll recognize the weaknesses. You can then return to those other classes and use what you have learned.

Oh man, the suck of holding an LMG in CQB cannot be overstated. You'll find yourself fumbling to get ADS going (cuz you can't hit jack without it) while some LA or Engy is chewing you to bits with hipfire. Go ahead and *reactively* pop that shield and see how much good it does you.

What a HA rocks at: Medium range suppression-like scenarios where you stay in ADS the whole time. Also breaching scenarios were they can wait until the shield is full then pop it before entering a room. They'll do better than other classes here.

Didn't get to read it all because too long, but I'll finish reading the rest later. Although it's obvious this thread is dedicated to Heavy Assault discussion so I'll post my input.

Heavy Assault is simply too powerful. For a game that's revolved around personal achievements and making stats look beautiful, Heavy Assault is the class to go. With the addition of the new implants, HA can be a one man army - anti-tank, anti-infantry, health restoration from implant, and most durable infantry besides MAX, there's no reason to play the other classes.

If comparing the stats, arsenal, and reliability of HA with the other classes isn't enough, many players ave a high play time percentage with HA (some as high as 90%). When playing PlanetSide 2, what class do you engage against the most? Which class do you appear to lose to the most? For me, the answer is HA for both questions. So why be at a disadvantage when you can play HA to balance fights / gain an advantage?

On an extra note, I've seen pro HA players pull off insane plays. When I'm about to win the engagement, they strafe with the known ADAD move and medkit spam. It's amazing how much more can be tanked.

Or they could move the focus of the game towards cooperation and team results. You know things like:
- Remove Deaths counter
- Separate Max kills from infantry kills
- Splitting the XP counter into Scout XP, Heal XP, Transport XP, Point Guard XP etc... For all the different sources of XP in the game.
- Adding a counter for vehicles destroyed, allies revived and so on.

If you show players they can contribute to victory in many ways and they can be "the best" in many different niches then people will start playing differently.
How hard can it be to code this? They are just numbers, and they are all already in the game!

What would you expect?

You have a game concept where the main statistics is about killing/not being killed (not supporting, not defending, not attacking, not healing, not locking a continent)

The HA is the best class to do that with class-specific primaries like LMGs and rocket lanchers.

Put Health Regen and Ammo printer on top, max overshield and nano-weave and you have a long lasting, self-healing /self-resupplyng machine.

Don't fix the consequences of the problem (players going for HA), fix the problem instead (game concept).

I strive towards the ideal of equal kills/deaths against both opposing factions, as well as a KDR of 1.618 aka "the golden ratio". When I need to "fix" my stats with regards to a specific faction due to the numbers drifting, I find playing spawnroom infiltrator with SAS-R to be the most effective, especially when being zerged. Then I just redeploy backwards as the enemy gets nearer to the warpgate, having a 5 minute farmfest at each base. That is completely risk-free and - if done to the most extreme - will give you a KDR of infinity.

EDIT: that is disregarding potential TKs

While I agree this is a segment of the chain of events, I am not sure that is something that can, will, or is recognized by PS2 (and SOE/DBG) Devs as a fix/issue.

In addition, the broader segments are:

HA best solution for current game <-- HA best solution for hardcore players in current game <-- current game caters to gameplay hardcore players like/lobby <-- Dev staff interested in tuning game for hardcore players <-- hardcore players like/lobby gameplay that supports making them outperform vs. others, and achieve game goals in simple, blanket solutions <-- weak Dev awareness and weak Dev control of game balance results in balance warping and gameplay imbalance as game ages (players figure stuff out; more randomly warping stuff is added or unlocked; or PS2 Devs add some stuff that is intentionally tuned by Devs either toward hardcore or grudgingly-stumbling-and-typically-ineffective in the spirit of towards general audience).

The 2 segments in that which are driving the end result are:
1) Dev staff interested in tuning game for hardcore players
2) weak Dev awareness and weak Dev control of game balance results in balance warping and gameplay imbalance as game ages (players figure stuff out; more stuff is added or unlocked or tuned by Devs).

Ultimately, you have to factor in the specific Dev you have. PS2 doesn't have a generic Dev staff or some specific staff from some other company, they have the DBG/SOE Dev staff. You have to only look at their basket of realsitice pros/cons, which you can get by looking at their Dev history patterns. Which means (even despite massive changes in staffing), they continue to have the same Dev in terms of aptitudes, traits, and focus. And to put it blunt, they are (1) good (one of best in industry) at putting neat, new (and unbalanced) ideas into the game quickly, (2) they make massive games that need general audience to succeed, but they keep tuning their games to hardcore (and usually large grouping and clan/outfit) players and progressively make them less playable for general audience, and (3) they love a slow to handle (when they try), blindspot, and very weak sense of balance and how system changes affect the overall system, especially those not related to supporting the hardcore. (they are also uninterested in bugs, new players, etc., but all that stems from [a] being lazy to do some tasks they think are lame, and their fixation on hardcore [usually organized group] play)

You can look at the Dev history of SOE/DBG and see these pattern of stuff over and over.

If bases were designed more properly and automatic motion detection was thrown out of the window, heavy assault's rivaling combat classes could stand a chance at being equally effective. Right now bases are narrow shooting gauntlets that are full of motion spotters, making special tactics a pain in the *** to pull off

You have too much time on your hands.

Dieing to a HA does not mean the HA is over-powered.

The problem as I see it is that theres too much focus on killing the weakest unit (infantry) with as much ease as possible, and too little on achieving objectives and strategy.
Additionally, theres too little objectives that a specific class can perform, which means that the Heavy isnt just the jack-of-all-trades class but one of the best classes in most things you want to achieve.

The solution isnt to make the HA as powerful as the others and make things bland, the solution is changing the focus on what you kill and how while adding new objectives that each class (and vehicle) can perform. If theres weakpoints in attack or defense that a flanker is best suited to take out the LA and infil get more reasons to be pulled for example without having to nerf the HA's capabilities and role.

i am still for giving both infils and medics AV/antiarmor capabilities .. any nonmax class has access to certing into the hunter with explosive bolts which while not good against vehicles is still good against maxes
maxes by default have one AV weapon
HA´s have their rocketlaunchers by default
engineers can cert into AVturrets and Av mines .. and into the antimaterialrifle which is more suited torwards antimaxduty
and LA`s do decent damage with typhoon rocklets they can cert into

all non max/non infilclasses can cert into c4

what i would add to the medic would be a AV primary in the form of a grenadelaunchereskweapon be that either a NS version similar to the halberd, bulldog or fury topguns or like the gatekeeper, mjölnir/needler and saron as es grenadelaunchers

as for the infiltrator i would indeed give him AV grenades either just like those for the HA or a infiltratorspecivicversion like a shorttermhack to lock out drivers from a vehicle and slowdown maxes .. or both grenadeoptions .. in that case at the very least with HA avgrenades a dedicated infilduo or trio could take out sunderers f.e.