Heavies STILL nonsensically overpowered?!?!

You're either playing very, very wrong, or you're basing this opinion off your battles against the +65% HA pop that's oversaturating the game everywhere you go.
If it's the second, the reason it feels like it's not a cakewalk is because:

Here's how to fix the shield to keep HA relevant, yet not abusable like it is now using the shield as a 1v1 "I-win" button:



Make all small arms (SMG, Carbine, AR, LMG, scout/battle/sniper rifle, pistol, shotgun, knife, etc) 100% ignore the HA shield.
The HA shield doesn't take damage, the bullets just pass through like it's not on to begin with.
But keep the HA shield absorbing all vehicle weapon damage, explosive damage, and max suit weapon damage.



This allows HA to be the AV class it's meant to, and the max suit counter it's intended to be, but without letting it be the go to class for K/D padding and abuse like it is now.

The LMG's have between 165% and 333% more ammo than your standard 30 round gun, so they don't have to reload between kills even close to as much as regular infantry, and they have the damage model of AR's.
This is plenty enough to make them the front lines pointman class.

Couple that with a rocket launcher, and you've got a lot of versatility and stopping power against anything out there.

They don't need a recharging shield that blocks nearly as much as an omnipresent infiltrator meat shield to make them more sustainable, they already have all the power they need to be the tanky class of the no-resource-requirement cost infantry classes.

What? Which 143 weapon drops to 125 by 15m?

They drop to that by 60-95m!!!!




Don't get me wrong, on my Engi I'd expect to fire a fair few bullets at a HA (or any class) at 100+m with say a CQB Carbine to kill them, but equally if I was using a longer range Carbine or the factional Battle Rifle instead they'd be dead quite easily.

And I wouldn't expect to stand there trading shots in the open with a HA and win either, as that is plain silly expectation.

This thread is just a long crap.

HA op? Lol.
Flank them. Better with Medics with a good assault rifle. Crash them with Max Units. Ambush them with the AI MANA or from the distance with a battle rifle. Or just charge them with emp grenades an smgs.

Briefly: learn to play.

All that will happen though if HA are nerfed is that HA will be less played (all player estimates actually put them at about 20-25% time played, pretty much the same as LAs), putting Medics, Engis and LA more played than them (and possibly Inf, depending on how badly they are nerfed).

But I suspect that if HA are knocked off their "this class HAS to be nerfed" perch all that will happen is they will be seemlessly replaced by the next one.

Looking at the nerf HA threads, basically HAs "need":

1) to have no shield/just have the resist shield.
2) only be able to have main weapon or Rocket Launcher
3) only be able to have sheild or one weapon (LMG or Rocket Launcher)
4) to have LMGs nerfed (to what level is unspecified and puzzling when you compare LMGs to ARs).
5) to have Rocket Launchers nerfed (to what level is unspecified, but I suspect to less than a 1 shot kill with/against anything).
6) to have a general movement penalty of -25%

Really I can't see people saying all this suddenly being fine (if the HA is nerfed into the ground), when they then realise that a Medic with regen shield is still going to out toe-to-toe their LA in all circumstances.

Well MBT AP weapon monthly KPH is about 11-12.
And I doubt HA C4 is really adding much to that (like Medic and Engi C4), most C4 AV kills will be LA (and I'm amazed tank mines are so high, ~67).

But HA are definately pretty deadly to vehicles though (ask anyone that faced the Striker 1.0), but again what exactly are people wanting nerfed with HA?

AV? AI? Shields? All of that?

HA's actually make up about 60% of the population of each battle over the course of each struggle.

That really ruins most fights for regular infantry, who don't have the luxury of getting an extra 166.6-% added to their shields (500 reg shielding, HA overshield gives 800 extra shielding).
Stacking that much extra survivability, on top of them flooding the battle makes it far more difficult to fight as a non-HA/max.
It's a detriment to the gameplay.

That said, the HA needs to be carefully brought into balance with the other classes, not nerfed to crap.


Now, what I suggest is this:

Simply make the HA shield only absorb vehicle damage, splash damage, and max suit weapon damage.
All small arms (Pistols, Carbines, AR's, SMG's, LMG's, Scout Rifles, Battle Rifles, Sniper Rifles, Knives) everything that goes in Primary/Secondary/Knife slot except on max suits passes through the shield without any effect whatsoever.

Now, HA's are every bit the AA/AV and anti-max suit class that they are now, and will remain exactly the same in fighting them so there's no getting re-acquainted with how to play the class.
The only change is now you need to remember that farming infantry with an i-win shield is no longer an option.

The HA will still have exclusive access to LMG's, which are essentially AR's with 333.3-% extended mags built in, so they'll still excel at being the go-to front line warrior class.
And they'll be able to defend against heavy armor as well as they ever have been able to when it rolls in.

It's just that now they'd have to spend 450 nanites per respawn if they want to suppress infantry with a massive health advantage.
So they'd be limited on their playing farming easymode classes.

Create an arc of 180(or 90?) degrees for the HA shield, facing forwards. That's it. Then it becomes the class you use to soak damage in the direction you're facing, yet enable infils/LAs to outmanoeuvre the HA. Medic, Engy, and MAX already have other things which makes them valuable.

Hmm...... maybe they are at 60%. but when anyone has actually looked at it statistically it usually comes to 20-25% (as mentioned I wonder if this is to do with classes like Medic and LA being less obvious subjectively). MAXes are actually also seemingly vastly overestimated compared to the numbers that seem to be played (possibly for the same reasons - you see a MAX and you know when you die to one).
Although DBG/SOE would be the one to actually know, I guess.


This is the thing though, say they remove HAs shields completely, will that stop HA nerf calls?


Well there's two options for this:
1) HA are still powerful (in which case it won't) there will still be calls for HA to be nerfed in LMGs, in RLs (and maybe even still shield if they went with your suggestion).
2) HA aren't powerful (in which case it will), but then all that will happen is likely 60% of people (if we accpet that 60% play HA) will play LA and the cycle continues.


Certainly HAs with LMG don't seem to be overperforming statistically currently compared to say Medics with comparable (to LMG) type ARs (and anecdotally the last 3 things have have killed me on my main toon have been ARs )...... that is to say if HAs were in fact unkillable with shields (or just overperforming with shields), they they'd likely be scoring much higher than Medics with the equiverlent type (by which I mean CQB, generalist, long range etc.) ARs.

When they has issues with NW and Resist Shield SOE saw it and nerfed it (well nerfed flak and resist then NW and resist IIRC), and I would have thought they'd have already done the same again if there was a clear issue.

The problem with that is it would end up like the Aegis Shield with so many issues and bugs where it doesn't work, and it becomes much more affected by latency issues.

In PS2 the Van Shield and HA Shield just work (because they are 100% sheilds) and the general infantry shield too I suppose, the Aegis Shield just has so many issues (usability, bug and latency) it is often just not fit for purpose.

The PS1 NC MAX shield was basically like the PS2 HA shield (although it dropped when you fired - actually a possible idea for HAs) and really had zero usability/bug problems and much reduced latancy issues (like the PS2 Van and HA shields).



It would certainly be a significant nerf to HAs though, but not just because they lost % arc coverage...... and I honestly don't know how LA and Inf are losing to HA they are behind and get the drop on now (I've never has a HA turn around and kill me before I killed him/her).

But has that ever been done properly ? I mean I keep hearing about stats and " proof " that X class is really the most played , but nothing is ever linked to back those claims..

No breakdowns, no charts , nothing ...

There are a few " class " polls about but they are such a small metric and the three I have seen have all had a different most played, that the results can not really be trusted as accurate of the bigger picture .

I'm playing the game since its release. Much ineresting facts, but thanks.

I am the one just wondering why you seem to be so inadvertent to accepting that you're wrong.

Ok ok ok...so, you "THINK" that you killed a couple of HAs. And while in a MAX you "wrecked everything". Wow much skill, congrats ^^. I'm a bit surprised by the precision of your arguments, old players are supposed to know what and when they kill. And I still don't understand why you're talking about NC or MAx here...we're talking about HAs only. But thanks again.

You're the only one talking about "DEMIGOD ABILITIES AND INVULNERABILITY" ( wow, much caps in order to make your idea really clear, just wow. ).
Did i complain about anything? No.
Did i ask for a nerf ? No.
Do i have troubles to kill random HAs in most of times? No.
Do i feel HAs shield is an unfair way to kill other Infantry class during fights like corridors, while I AM playing HA class? Yes, because of my HPs pool and Medikits access and my easy tanking.

I'm talking about locking HA class during small/medium fights. In order to make skirmiches of more of interest for all players whith about same HPs pool classes. HA class would be unlocked only for large fights/zergs.
Or giving HA an expensive ressources cost. In order to stop finding them at each corner.

Guess you're the last one on earth who would give me any useful advice ^^. But i agree : you definitly entertained me with your really clever "Uninstall PS2", "Medics OP", "HA is perfect, look : it can be killed while standing in the middle of a large fights with no cover" and "HA is ok because while in a NC MAX, i "think" i wrecked everything".

Couple of people have looked at data from outfits/PSstats and such, it is definately vastly unreliable, but I guess only SOE/DBGs has access to reliable data.

Still 60% of all time played being spent on HA seems way, way, way too much, what people have "found" 19-25% HA seems much more realistic (LA 18-23% Inf 11-15%, MAX ~5-8%).

Especially when you consider how well played Medic and Engis are.

I most definately don't see or kill (or even shoot at and don't kill) 60% HAs.




Again just anecdotally I just flicked through the last 10 players on my kill board, almost all of them had the vast majority of their time as Engi or Medic (40-80% if you add both together with them for each toon) with % time played HA coming out as ~18-28%, completely meaningless, of course, but 60% or even 50% of people playing HA seems way too high.

That change to NW took over 13 months after release (source) and there are still things that have issues in balance that have been around since release (for example, the Aegis shield can be negated 100%. You can literally shoot through it dead center -and I'm talking the entire shield, not just that tiny window thing- if you know the proper way to alter your weapon state. I have shared how to do something similar before, but I was actually warned by a mod about sharing exploitation techniques and the post was removed, so sorry I won't/can't prove this one to you.).


As for the likelyhood of continued calls for HA nerfs:
Granted, there would be calls to nerf HA even after the shield was brought into balance for infantry vs infantry fights, but keep in mind there are always nerf calls for something.
(Can you believe some people adamantly insisted that the Cannister was OP when it was released?)
But that's just sillyness.

What is apparent is that HA is far more powerful than the other classes, without any real downside.
Now while they're far from unbeatable, the advantage to playing the HA class far outshines all other classes.
That's fine for force multipliers like vehicles and maxes, as there's a limiting factor on them.
Nanites. You can only pull one max suit or so many of a specific vehicle before you have to wait for more nanites, where as HA is literally infinite to use, and has an unparalleled advantage over all classes.
And the only other class (Infil) that the same can be said for has a balancing implementation where HA does not. Infils have extremely limited weapon versatility, and a 10% survivability nerf.
HA's have an 80% survivability buff, a wide array of range to CQC weapons, widely versatile weapons(many of which have AR-grade damage at range and accuracy), and point-click chest shot OHK weapons, as well as powerful AV weapons. Yet for all this, they have no limit over your average guy like an engie or medic.

I will agree with you there .. But I think in some cases it's a perspective based sometimes on which faction or outfit you fight ..

I mean some outfits have a lot of people with 60-97% HA played time .. So when you run into those outfits, 60%+ HA isn't unknown " for a battle " ..


Personally I think some of the issue also boils down to hit detection and the game having zero ping limitation .. both of which when they are not working properly ( good hit detection / low ping ) make the Overshield better than it is ..

Just two things...."in a fair fight?" someone irl said if you find yourself in a fair fight you haven't done your planning properly. How does using cloak or jet pack to set yourself up in ambush constitute a fair fight? And why would you ignore these advantages if you had them?

Other thing: Which infantry weapons would fail to kill an over shielded HA if the whole magazine hit them? (genuine question....are there any?)

Yeah certainly some people play 100% HA or whatever other class, but I would still think that general HA % played is closer to what it would be as an average if all classes were played the same (20%). Although clearly this is unrealistic as you're never likely to get MAX up to 20% or Engis or in fact Medics down to 20%.

Again completely anecdotally, Daddy (who I would say, without a doubt, was one for using whatever was most powerful) spends the same time on HA as Medic and twice as much on either as MAX.


Certainly hit detection and latency could make a HA appear to shield, turn around and kill you, but of course the reality is it was probably different on their screen.

Yeah certainly HAs are more powerful then Medics when you consider AI & AV (and AA) together, but if you just consider AI then Medics and HA seem about on par statistically (and HAs can't heal others, AOE heal, shield regen others).

HA vs LA I'd imagine HA probably squeek it (certainly in a toe to toe sense, perhaps not so much in a general gameplay sense), but AI and AV-wise LAs have got to pull something back with C4.

In the case of Medic, LA, Engi and Inf if they they were absolutely equally as powerful in all aspect as a HA (bearing in mind you'd have to nerf them in some aspects to do that), then you'd have to question why anyone would ever take a HA over one of them.

Certainly there have been issues with HA, orginal shotgun performance and shield was too much IMO (but shotguns are much nerfed) 2nd type flak and resist shield was too much (but has been nerfed).



Maybe they should just remove HA shield, but my guess would be that quite simply HA would drop to Inf or below levels of % play and there'd then be endless nerf Medic or LA threads on the forums. Fortunately I spend the majority of my time on Engi, so it wouldn't really affect me much, other than maybe increasing my HA kills.

I think wonky hit detection that the game suffers from at times plus spamable insta-heal medkits make HA seem op at times. It's supposed to be the go-to assault class. You are not supposed to take them head-on with every class.

I vote buff LA instead. Remove the extra drop-off on the Pulsar C, Cougar, Razor so it doesn't take a year to kill a heavy at the ranges those guns are designed for.

Auto-scout rifles could also use a buff for similar reasons + terrible ammo capacity.