[Suggestion] Heavy Assault is OP and needs a *big* change

that's the point.
this game is not an RPG, its a class based FPS, HA hold lanes and is perfectly balanced against other heavies. if you play any other class and run into a heavy held lane you get reckd. you are supposed to flank as a LA, infiltrate or make your way with heavies or Maxes under medic/engi support.
point is, balancing HAs versus other classes is idiotic ans shows you don't understand this game. you should probably play something like Battlefield with is balanced the way you want.

the balnce is given by the reliance of one class with another, no engies, no pew pew and the defense or push comes to a stall. no medics and the push barely makes it out of cover. no LAs/infils/maxes and defensive positions simply cant be breached.

bases are not capped just by Heavies holding lanes, they are capped by super hero fairies who take out strategic Sunderers, or medics who care to play as medics instead of shooting at stuff when there's dead around. or engineers who know how to roam properly on vehicles and flank positions.

and above all, they are capped/defended by a combination of all this classes. the fact that there's a majority of HAs on any engagement only speaks positively for the balance of the game. otherwise you would end up with a horde of medics rezzing each other.

all classes can either evade or kill maxes, maxes are not supposed to "not get killed". granted, maxes have a TON of balance issues, but that's a completely different issue.

and besides, MAXEs have an absolutely laughable resilience. they need a lot more of it. what they have lots of and should not have as much of is offensive power.

every max can almost instakill infantry, EVERY MAX. the AI capabilities of all maxes are just stupid.

that's also the point of the class, please understand that classes are inherently unbalanced one against the other. that's the point, you need to stop thinking about "rpg" classes like in Wow.

idem, except Burster maxes are the kings of AA. nothing can dish out as much raw damage, specially TR ones.




im afraid you misunderstood this game for some artificial class game like battlefield.

and this is a bad thing?

as server populations drop, PS2 becomes a badly balanced small arena shooter. the idea that HAs and maxes are ok in 96 v 96 battles simply doesn't hold up anymore. badly balanced 12 v 12 matches are more common

OP is right, HAs should be nerfed big time. let them carry heavy weapons and take away the instant win over shield.

that should do it.

anyway at 12 v 12, there's a lot of FPS that are much better than PS2 with it's lack of balance mechanisms and HA/Maxes

This. HA is intended to be the main front line infantry unit, with LA being the mobile version and MAX being the heavily armored version.

Being mainly an HA player since beta, right now HA is not anywhere near as OP as it used to be, you just cant hope to 1v1 one head on usually(unless you get the jump on them) or unless you are HA yourself.

HAs arent OP. Just learn how to kill them. If you are engaging a HA face to face you are doing it wrong. They are front-line infantry.

Heavies can no longer overload generators.
Heavies can no longer cap points.

They are the killing class so they shouldn't be able to do objectives.

They should remove medi / rest kits from Heavies ( Hell remove it from all classes ) ..

Then the one class becomes more reliant on the two .. Make it so Heavies need that extra synergy with Medics and Engi's to fulfill their full potential ....

Why not just make the HA slower even if the shield isn't turned on? And I mean SLOWER... speed is now reduced by 50% when equipping the LMG/RL. Simple.

They already do, removing kits wouldn't change that. medkits don't make you magically invincible while you kill everyone, they might win you a 1v1 but they are by no means this god mode that people seem to make them out to be.

Medkits don't revive friendlies, medkits don't fix max units, medkits don't give ammo, and they don't provide constant sustained healing to a group.

These threads always seem to boil down to "i can't win all the time 1v1 it isn't balanced!"

Hell, nerf the HA and suddenly people will complain how OP medics are for having assault rifles and self healing

Nerfing the HA is really simple.


1) Remove 0.75 ADS off any LMG that has it.

2) Remove SMG access

3) Remove the ability to dumbfire the ES G2A & G2G lock ons.

New models, not new weapons

Don't start that again. You were just starting to get some reasonable like from your posts.

You know 1 isn't going to fix anything overall and to do so actually creates more problems with the rebalancing done to do it.

You've admitted #2 has no balance reason. Doing it is merely to do so with no merits

And #3 there are two weapons that do that already swarm and annihilator. The lock ons you can dumb fire are balanced via lower damage for that flexibility and it would only punish newer players thus harming the game and greatly increasing vehicle power.

And none of those three would change anything because people would still gripe about having a shield or medkits or having a rocket launcher at all.

You know all of this and have tried to push it in multiple threads and have gone over why all 3 are bad ideas with multiple people over the multiple threads. Pushing the same bad ideas makes me question your and my sanity.

Don't "nerf" the heavy assault, "buff" the other classes. Look at the HA multiple tool slot options the infiltrator's two engineer and medic's one and the light assault's zero. Give those classes some more value to compensate because "nerfing" heavys dilutes the investment. I invite you to watch this video although I know that few actually will.



Also stop complaining about HA and git gud.

To be fair though the medkit and engy get their own special tools that do more than any HA wishes it could =p and that's not even an extra slot they have to buy!

From the recent reddit Q&A: https://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/3m4232/ps2_dev_qa_for_2015_content/cvbsdx3

Unless i'm misinterpreting this, they are actually new LMGs, one new ES LMG per faction.

Everybody stop arguing about whether or not the class is overpowered or if killing all infantry with ease is just it's "role"

I'm not saying that that isn't its role, I'm saying that it's a ****** role and needs to be changed. That's why I suggested several role changes for heavy assault so please, in the interest of staying topical, make your comments not in regard to whether or not the HA is OP but on if this change would improve the game and how we can improve this change.

Although for the record, in my opinion, taking out infantry and clearing rooms should not be the duty of one class, it's simply too large of a part of gameplay. It should be a coordinated effort between the entirety of your teammates, not just the ones playing heavy.

Edit: I see a lot of people suggesting ways of needing the heavy assault. That's good, but really I don't want to just have it be a kill-all-infantry class that's a bit less effective. I want the class to be completely changed. We would basically be removing the heavy assault as it is and adding a new class that fits the roles outlined in the original post.

1) will.

The HA class is supposed to the "slow & strong".

LMG's are not "light" & are designed for longer engagements then Carbines or AR's.

2) It Does. Take a look at Cyclone HA's.

3) You buy lock on RL's to LOCK ON, not to dumbfire. Also the ES lock ons can be buffed to be worth using over the NS lock ons.


I keep saying these 3 because they are the best way to "nerf" the HA effectively by nerfing its flexibility & movement.

1 only creates more problems as evidenced by data storm singer had posted in another thread that showed the toted about LMG changes caused some weird numbers and possibly balance issues that would be a greater issue.

2 then why did you admit yourself it would have no balance change? And how does trading any medium/longer range capability with your gun for close range "fix" anything? The player is making a concious trade in benefits. How does SMG differ from the CQC LMGs that also have better effectiveness at medium ranges than smgs and are overall better for all uses? An HA using an SMG is nerfing himself anyway.

3 is already balanced by the fact that the lock ons with dumb fire ability do less damage than pure dumb fire. Like what 1/4 or so less? That is balance. You gain flexibility at the cost of damage or something else and that is what is done. How would you buff it that it wouldn't make vehicles weaker? Faster reloads for faster damage to vehicles? Faster lock time? More damage? How's that benefit the game health in general instead of the other of flexibility traded for damage?

Your balance assements are incorrect as has been shown and discussed at length in other threads and you've even admitted to them not being balance concerns in some of them.

In PS1, if you were doing infantry combat it was either agile or rexo suit, and most of the time people carried a heavy weapon like the MCG/Lasher/Jackhammer with a decimator and a repair and healing tool.

If you wanted to bring the pain it was THE way to play infantry ground combat, you weren't going to be reviving anyone or doing any engineering stuff, you wouldn't be able to use many vehicles.

In PS2 what you have is access to everything, thats all. I want to say its balanced in its purpose since Heavy Assault is suppose to be the backbone of infantry combat, a medic and engineer is suppose to support, but not be what constitutes the frontline.

I do think that its relatively unfair though to be put against a Heavy Assault when playing any other class because you'll be at a real disadvantage unless you are GOOD at aiming.

The problem mainly comes from that fact that the class itself has an ability that simply doubles its health, every other class has some sort of support ability, but HA simply get an extra shield they can toggle whenever they want. Beyond that they are pretty much no stronger than any other class, they simply have different equipment.

IF you wanted heavy assaults to be more equal it really comes down to the fact that their ability's are probably too good for them.
The only replacement that you could give them is the ability to self heal like with a medkit as an exclusive skill for them.