HA SHIELD IS OP !!!

Lately I've been the bad guy, and have taken to farming infantry with a Hornet ESF. It's fun as hell as long as you have air support.

Just sick of getting shot by 20 different HAs, a few Maxxes and no other classes ;\ Waaay more fun in the air!

I propose a complete redesign of the ability to anything other than "IWIN" button.

I have a specific idea I posted many times already: make HA ability to create an energy wall, similar to AI MANA turret shield.

• The wall moves with HA. Movement speed penalty is applied (remove 75% ADS on LMGs. Buff to compensate).
• Wall completely absorbs all damage, including explosives.
• Wall leaves head and shoulders, possibly upper chest open, but covers from the sides. Back is completely exposed.
• HA can crouch to become completely hidden by the wall, but then he can't shoot through it.
• The shield doesn't have unit collission, so it doesn't block movement of other players.
• Ability can have or not have activation time.

The basic idea is to leave HA vulnerable to flanking attacks, and remove his ability to both fight back and be completely protected. In close range infantry combat, the ability can be countered by aiming at the upper body / head.

In exchange, HA gets the option to crouch and be completely protected from frontal / side damage, and he can play peak-a-boo in ranged combat, regenerating his personal shields safely behind the wall. It will also increase HA's role in anti-vehicle combat, as the shield protects from vehicle fire as well.

This way, HA's ability still remains a force to be reckoned with. Rocket launcher and huge capacity LMGs still provide an advantage over other classes. In close quarters, it will be particularly strong against spray weapons, such as shotguns and SMGs. as there's only a small part of the hitbox that's exposed.

Hell, this ability has potential to be more powerful than the current HA shield. But at least it will have adequate counterplay, and statement "flank instead of head-on assault" will actually hold true.

Also, this way HA can be effectively used as breaching class, so devs will have no excuse for not nerfing ******* AI MAX into the ******* ground.

Variety: ability energy can be drained for:

• moving while ability is active
• absorbing damage
• simply while active

These different options can be separate ability variants.

Or the ability itself can be different. For example, there can be a variant that doesn't allow firing at all, but creates a fully covered dome shield for a few seconds, effectively making HA invulnerable.

This is the kind of stuff I can get behind. I think its fine but alternatives like this are also fine I think.

I play with a lot of people on an organised level so to me, an alternative that doesn't negate how a heavy is played on that level is fine.

Taking away the heavies ability to be the point man, the die hard fodder and the vehicle killer is a big no for me. It has to be dependable and not a gimmick as it is the backbone of offensive tactics. I think your idea would make facing and playing as the heavy more interesting.

God this pisses me off so bad. Ill be close to killing a BR 100, Theyll break out the medkits and just start popping the damn things like candy and be invincible to body shots until they run out. They need to have a 5 second delay on their use.

It's a Troll Video. I thought it was lame. And it's a topic that is already spamming the Forums and you didn't add anything new it in the few minutes I saw before I felt I wasted enough time and turned it off. I didn't watch all of it, and I clicked Dislike on it.

I don't find your statements objective. All I hear is "I don't have this problem" while you play video mostly of you beating lesser skilled HA players. This doesn't even make logical sense as an argument for something not being OP.

Now if you stated "I don't care that HA is more powerful in standard combat", or "I don't care that HA is situationally more useful", etc. fine. That's your call. Plus, all Faction's have HA, so it being used as the dominant Infantry isn't going to imbalance the Factions, it just makes the game's diversity smaller. Which is only an issue to some people.

It always amuses me when the detractors of the Heavy Assault will complain in one breath that the HA is OP versus the 'average scrub skill-less player' and in the next breath that HA is a class for 'the average scrub skill-less player' - thus implying that the HA is a skill-less class only good at slaughtering other terri-bad players clearly not wise enough to run HA.

Make up your minds. You can't argue that the HA is a class for low-ends all the while saying they will dominate low-ends 'without fail', this becomes extra silly when people like to pull numbers out of thin air and argue that HA represents 80% of all infantry or whatever - that would leave any number of the population you mention to NOT play HA to argue among themselves who are the really terrible players who get farmed by HA, and who are the remaining MLG-PRO kinds of players who are neither terrible, nor using HA class.

Other than this, please keep keeping on with your standard complains about HA in HAISOP tread #33452.

Replace "terri-bad" with "equal or lesser" and you pretty much hit the nail on the head.

You are a horrible chess player...

in a 1v1, the queen is impossible to catch, all I have to do is stay far enough away and wait for you to make a mistake... might take a couple days before you're tired enough, but you'll make one.

Really, because of the knight's unique (aka cumbersome) movement pattern, the queen can take complete offense and regardless of distance, the knight can never hit something in a straight or perfectly diagonal line.

The knight's strength is it's ability to circumvent defenses. you work with rooks/bishops/queen who restrict enemy movement by drawing lines across the board to make up for it's limited range and number of spaces it can kill in (only 8 max at any given time)

good job trying to look like the smarter one by picking the piece not many people would, it's cause not many chess players are so dumb.

okay good, i was about to say **** and uninstall please xD

I'm uncertain there's any downsides to my Engi. (can't cloak? can't heal? Isn't a MAX? dunno.)

In your video :
"People like to *****, Don't they ? Oh yes they do. Because it's always easier to point out fingers than to find solutions to their problem."
"My favorite example of people ******** is the "Omg, the HA shield is so OP" ******** "

Then you post here :

...

I alo noticed that you play 37% of your gameplay time as a HA.
And that your best results, higher number of victories per weapons come from HAs weapons for most of them.

Are you sure that you're the in the best place, and have the best arguments to be so contemptuous of other players, who just talk about what seems to be a relative problem for them ?

No downsides? It slows you down and it makes you glow like freaking Xmas tree. Every time I see a HA glowing and he's not shooting at me I know it's going to be an easy target.
People claim the shield is OP but how much survivability does it add?

Medics regen aura + maxed shield + a good Assault Rifle are powerful as well, without slowing down.

HA are ok as they are. Come on in the last hour I've killed dozens of them using a 250 certs Battle Rifle (the primary weapon with the lowest KPU / KPH in the game).
And please notice I've played like 7% of my time as HA, so I'm not really trying to defend my favourite class.
https://www.planetside2.com/players/#!/5428010618036152801/stats

I actually think a lot of people fixate on the shield (because it is big, visable and glowy) and don't realise at all what effect medkits just had on the fight they just lost.

If you have the spitfire or AI turret, your ranged AV is non existent.
If you have the AV turret, you spend a lot of time exposed using it.
You're just s squishy as other classes (not a downside but in comparison to HA it is).
You have no AA outside of trick shots with the AV turret or ESF/Valk small arms damage.

These points in comparison to HA

Always has rocket launcher
Exposure time is limited with them
Has an overshield
Has trick shots with dumb fires or can use Lock-ons if he wants to which can still be dumb-fired at ground.

Ok,cool.
We all killed "dozen of Has", but we also all died a lot in silly ways because of you need to take moe time, more amnos against HAs than with other classes. And because they can increase their HP pool easily and kill you just for that one obvious reason.
How many times did i get killed while noticing a HA had only 1 or 2% HP at the end of our 1v1 ?
And it depends of what are you goals in the game. The more you'll get experienced at this game, the more you'll sometimes find a bit hard to be killed not because of your opponents' skill, but because your opponents' HA class and equipment.

Ok,cool.
We all killed "dozen of Has", but we also all died a lot in silly ways because of you need to take more time, more amnos against HAs than with other classes. And because they can increase their HP pool easily and kill you just for that one obvious reason.

How many times did i get killed while noticing a HA had only 1 or 2% HP at the end of our 1v1 ?

And it depends of what are your goals in the game.
The more you'll get experienced at this game, the more you'll sometimes find a bit hard to be killed not because of your opponents' skill, but because your opponents' HA class and equipment.

I dunno, if I have a CQB weapon as a HA I don't really have dependable longer range AI, where as with an Engi I can take a CQB weapon and then use the AI or indeed AV turret for longer range AI.

Also with an Engi I cannot Jetpack up things (which would be ridculously useful with an Engi) or cloak (which again would be very useful).

But the lack of specific abilities isn't a "downside", it is just a difference.

Engi certainly has no real AA, but then HA has no AV mines (or AI Mines for that matter), no ability to repair and no ability to resupply themselves or anyone else.


So Engi and HA are certain different (in use and capability)........ but the HA having "no down sides", but the Engi "having many down sides" comparatively? That is complete nonsense.

The point is that every other class has clear downsides when they pick things, the HA does not. What does a engy loose if he doesn't pick the Av turret? He loses all his long range AV damage. What does HA loose if he picks the AA launcher? some minor velocity. What does a Medic loose if he picks medikits over c4 (for whatever reason he does)? All AV damage. what does the HA loose? Only the ability to gib.

If a HA picks a CQB weapon they lose long range AI, if they pick a long range AI weapon they lose effective CQB capability.

If a HA picks a dumbfire it lose all effective AA (except for again AFK pilots), or a Pheonix.

If I HA picks C4 over medkits they lose healing.

It is a completely circular nonsense argument.



Certainly HAs are flexible (as are Engis and Medics in different ways), but that is largely part of their role (and one of the often stated goals for LAs and Infs is to increase their flexibility).



I mean what exactly are you suggesting here to "balance" HAs in your terms? HA lose what exactly? Losing the Shield wouldn't "balance" them by the defination you're using here.

So we'd be talking about what? HA lose one weapon slot so only being able to take Shotgun/SMG/LMG/BR or RL(of whatever type) AND losing their shield?

Yeah you'd certainly succeed in 1) reducing HA numbers from their current 20-25% played and 2) nerfing them significantly......... unfortunately you'd also succeed in 3) no one ever playing them!

In fact the only thing I ever feel I'm lacking on any of my Engis is AA, and I've said for years that I think Engis should have an AA turret, but equally I don't remotely think that HAs are "overpowered" because my Engi doesn't have AA (and I shoot down quite a lot of ESFs with my Carbine and the occasional Lib/Gal with my AV turret anyway! ).

Anymore than I think my Inf is underpowered because it doens't have access to Shotguns, C4 or Spitfire turrets (all of which I'd love, none of which an Inf should ever get).