Heavy Assault Rant

What kind of combat class would it be if it didn't have an upper hand on beating the **** out of support classes? If a medic could tank just as well and deal damage better (which is true for the most part) then why should I play heavy? For the most part the rocket launcher isn't a major factor in infantry combat, even with good aoe and moderate damage it's not viable to swap to many weapons as a heavy, even a support dps role just wouldn't cut it because the heavy is the frontliner.

I do advocate more class balance so that we see more engies and lights, however that's more about you only need one engie to supply the whole group and brings nothing else to the table, light assault is generally ignored because flanking is limited on how many dudes you can kill yourself and how long you can sustain a flank, it's actually pretty powerful.

But bringing all the classes down to the same combat level is just a bad move. That would be like if everyone could revive or provide ammo, I would certainly swap my launcher for an ammo pack if I could.

The game shouldn't revolve around one class because it makes the game feel stale after some time(probably what helped lead to these complaints). Also im confused by your "Also, if you stack a regen implant, your need for any implant that isn't an implant increases even further." statement. Your comparison to MAX's auto repair to medkits is a bit stretched, unless auto repair can fully heal a MAX instantly/very quickly up to 4 times, its not comparable. You're saying that Infiltrators are integral to a HA's success because they can hack vehicle terminals...just...what? HA's should not be pulling Sundies from a terminal if you're assaulting a base, Engineers need to handle that or the Infiltrator itself should pull one and deploy it somewhere. As for recon i can agree on, but don't say it like HA's are the sole beneficiaries of recon devices, and don't oversell their value. The only time recon is practical is during smaller skirmishes or the less populated regions of a facility during a large fight. You are also reversing the apparent roles of the Infiltrator and Light Assault by saying THEY are the distractions, despite both of these classes being built for ambushing/flanking.

I don't disagree entirely with your ideal squad setup, however in my opinion HA's and LA's should be almost even in most assaults, and maybe with the Rocklet Rifle (hopefully) coming soon that will sway things a bit. I also never said every class should be picked evenly, fighter classes should of course be picked more over supports, just so much in favor of the Heavy Assault class.

Whats an anti vehicle weapon going to do to infantry gameplay?
Another thing, why should heavy and lights be in equal number when assaulting a base? The heavy is used in almost all base pushes, the light assault is limited in this regard because flankers can only do so much. Let's say a tower, a heavy has a hard time moving up the stairway but a light assault attacks all portions of the tower because of the jetpack, but if both were in equal number then the enemy simply has to watch railings more than stairs because thats an easy choke to hold. Having one to 4 lights go up and flank a choke hold can give heavies a chance to move in and wreck face.

Again, it's a class based on combat, how exactly is that a bad thing?

Never said a class based on combat is a bad thing, but more about a class based on being too good in every situation. Also, again, I never said Heavies and Light Assaults should be even in numbers, but rather be near-even. (somewhere between 70/30 to 55/45).

So many people getting defensive without fully understanding what I'm trying to say.

6% more is EVERYONE? There's only 5 non MAX classes. So an even spread would be ~20%. let's for arguments sake say MAX take up another 10% (unlikely it's that high) so it's more like 18% for an even spread.

So HA's make up 8% more than the other classes. Wow. That's game breaking for sure!

My KDR is pretty much identical between the 4 with engineer being much higher as I drive and gun with that suit on. According to fisu the kdr is about the same per class as well. HA aren't that special, get over it.

Even max lv nanoweave + aux shield?

max lv = max level. Sorry, should have probably written that in full to avoid confusion.

Resist shield heavy does.

Nanoweave does not apply to headshots.

I recognize and appreciate that we are not on the same page yet. But at least we have a dialogue started. We can build from here until we are both looking at the same big picture.

I'll now start with a small piece of that big picture, and we can work out from there over subsequent posts onto other pieces of the big picture. The "small piece" for this post will be the concept that nerfing *other* units can in turn buff the HA. Kill Cam, Motion Spotters, and Darklight all were nerfs to the Infiltrator. Nerfing the Infiltrator directly buffed the HA.

Do you need for me to break down in greater detail how this buffed the HA, or does the brief explanation of this issue already click for you?

Now i think it is time to view at the HA as "other class"

Every Class does somehow support the gameflow:
Medic-> Heal and revive
Engineer-> Ammo and rep
Infiltrator-> Infos about Position of enemy and Hacking
LA-> Flank Enemy

But how does the HA provide any support in the game?
I say it does nothing at all.

As Heavy you just turn on the "Press F to Win" shield and either kill three people and die by the fourth....or there is no fourth and you survive insert a medikit and do it all over again...

Heavy Assault needs absolutely no skill to play but everyone needs skill to kill the said heavy.

it didn't buff the HA, it was a nerf to infiltrator.
i get why you're saying it, you're saying that because motion spotter no longer tells you what direction the enemy is facing HAs will be harder to track (or something along those lines) but this is a team game, the old motion spotter benefited ally HAs too.
stick a HA in a room with his crosshairs on a door, that HA is now less effective with the new motion spotter than the old one.

do only HAs get killcam when they die?
you must have agigantic vendetta against heavies if you're scraping this far down the bottom of the barrel to call for nerfs.
i can't wait for you to get to explaining how ants being added buffed HA, because i honestly LMAO'd when i read that one.

First of all, I never said "EVERYONE", you just made that up to make your pointless comment less pointless. These are the statistics;
• Heavy Assault: 26%
• Engineer 20.3%
• Infiltrator 18.2%
• Light Assault: 17.5%
• Medic: 13%
• MAX: 5%
You're not the only one who can do math, so bear with me. You can see from here: http://www.therebelscum.net/world-p...nge=1477131600000,1479810000000&totalpop=true
that on 21 November, we've reached 4000 people total. Max, we've reached 5300 this month. At the beginning of 2014, we've had 9300 people who played. Now you've said %8 is nothing and made fun of it, but here is the reality for you. Out of 9300 players, we've had 2400~ Heavy Assaults. We've had 1200~ Medics. 1620~ Light Assaults.
So your non-important %8 translates to 800 people. Vast majority prefers Heavy Assault over other classes. Engineers are that high only because of vehicles. So if you count them out, there are EVEN MORE heavy assaults in an infantry vs infantry combat. Numbers show it, heavy assault is most preferable.

We are not talking the same Game Era now.

I meant to indicate that the game has changed to give HA more power since the early days of the game:
"The meta has changed radically over the years. The HA is much more effective in the current meta than it was in early metas."

Specifically I was talking about the Motion Spotter being added to the game as a nerf to some Infiltrator gameplay. And how pre-Motion Spotter, the Infiltrator was more powerful in some roles/engagements.

Sure, Motion Spotter is a buff to Infiltrator in any almost any engagement where the enemy does not have a Motion Spotter. So I am not talking about those engagements.

The addition of the Killcam had the biggest impact on Infiltrators who could no longer setup with Suppressors or Range and ninja snipe unwary targets. This was a large nerf to Infiltrators.

I don't have to explain how Darklight was a nerf to Infiltrators, right?

I will get to the ANT. But not until I can clearly get the other points across. One at a time.

but you're simply wrong, HA used to be far stronger,
a couple of infiltrator changes doesn't make the massive meta shift that you claim it does.

back in the day HA resist shield reduced all damage by 45%,
Nanoweave reduced all small-arms damage by 20% (even headshots)
and they used to stack, giving HA an effective 1812 hp.
you were getting close to MAX levels of health...

with shield up it was impossible for an infil to oneshot you with a sniper rifle to the head.
(since you seem to love talking about infils!)

AV grenades used to have a big explosion radius like frag grenades but were severely nerfed.

to claim HA are more effective now than back then is simply wrong, hilariously wrong.


unless you can provide some of these "radical meta changes" which somehow make HA better now than back when they had 1800hp, then this will go nowhere, i don't want to hear about motion spotters and killcams, that isn't a "radical change to the meta".

If those are the statistics PromptCritical posted months ago, the Engineers who main vehicles were already excluded from the count. I forget the mechanics of the exclusion but it was something like "time from spawn to driver" and "length of occupancy."

No, no, please, by all means, do the ANT explanation. This is something I gotta hear.

Okay. I will move that issue to the forefront.

* release of Harasser which greatly increased presence of AI and ability to find/kill Sunderers much easier/faster
* release of ANT which increased ability to detect Infantry and Sunderers
* Lattice makes for much less flanking in battles, narrower battlefronts, limits direction of attack, makes attacker route more predictable

All of these function to decrease the breadth of the battlefront. Much less flanking.

Why? Much less undetected alternate fronts in the form of Spawned Sunderers. Much shorter survivability of alternate fronts (positions in a circle around the target, not just along the Lattice line between enemy and ally base) in the form of Spawned Sunderers, due to faster detection and removal. All resulting in much more forces clustered together, opposing fronts being narrow (along the Lattice), and a lot more instances of enemies Midrange to CQC running over each other's positions.

When Lattice was launched, I noticed immediately how it narrowed down battle fronts. Most players are most aware of this effect in the suicide Lattice connections where the attacker has to push up into an elevated and easily defended position held by the Defender. But as an Infiltrator main, I was surprised how high the incidence was of enemies overrunning my natural approaches under Lattice (something that was much less common pre-Lattice), putting me in exactly the type of engagement that was terrible for my then Mixed Range Flanking Loadout. The problem was that with narrower battlefronts, forces are funneled into each other, and there just was no practical and reliable way to setup and maintain a Flank assault: Infantry was too slow to run on foot into Flanking positions (and could easily die to reset the need to run again), Sunderers were much less able to maintain Flank Deployments from which Infantry might otherwise transport to Flanks without neededing to run, and enemies knew which direction attackers were coming from so would be much more capable of setting up and spotting Attacker variations in deplyment.

Not to mention improve player ability (Player Experience) to know (and check) the Sunderer hiding spots, detect and backtrack the Inafntry to the Sunderer, proficiency at taking out Sunderers, etc.

And which Infantry type excel in this narrow Battlefront, head-to-head, often CQC stumbling across each other engagements? HA.

The loss of Long Range, Mixed Range, and wide front Infantry battles really hurt the Infiltrator Mixed and Long Range game. It pushed Infiltrators much more into the SMG game. Sure the Infiltrator SMG or ASR can flank, but it's only within a ~CQC context. It's not the Mid, Long, and Mixed Range flanking that we used to see.

The ANT is not intending to be a Sentry. It's just driving around harvesting. But by driving through deserted ally territory, it becomes additional eyes that can spot those attempts to drive a Sunderer behind enemy lines to set up. I know, the #1 thing I do in the game is setup Sunderers in key positions including behind enemy lines. By no means are ANTs a terror at this, they are just another set of eyes that are inadvertently patrolling. And between them and other eyes, it has gotten progressively harder to sneak a Sunderer in position and setup behind lines. Less Sunderers behind the lines or on flanks, the more battles are in a narrow front, the more engagement types favor Assault Troops.

Back in the day:
1) ~nobody was Certed Up
2) ~nobody used Medkit trick
3) ~nobody did the anti-Sniper shuffle
4) ~nobody did headshots but Snipers
(NOTE: ~nobody means almost nobody or nobody)

There was a brief period where Headshots wouldn't OHK past a certain (fairly small) range due to Nanoweave. Other than that, I never had problems OHK on Heavies when I was Sniper Main (in the early game), shield or not.

HAs now are much more effective in the current Meta than HAs were in the early Meta. It's not because of the HA power level, but because the engagements have shifted to be more Assault Troop focused. And because other Classes have seen their powers become nerfed or redundant or otherwise less practical.

Motion Spotters and Killcams were a radical change to the Infiltrator Meta. Players certed into (and using in their Loadouts) Medkits were a radical change to the Medic Meta. It's not my fault you didn't do Enemy Base Assault or Flank Sniper Infiltrator back in the early days, but because you didn't you aren't aware of the impact of these changes. And apparently you also are not able to conceptualize how these changes impacted the Infiltrator game just through discussion.

And yes, nerfing of non-HA can boost the relative power level of HA.

1. why would you think people weren't certed up?! i was pretty well certed in the first year.
plus even if we assume you're right, that includes HAs too...

2. yes they did, someone was asking about medkits earlier today and i linked them a 2-3 year old vid.

3. again, yes they did, infact ADAD was much more effective back then, they actually nerfed ADAD by slowing the change in direction.

4. why would you think that?!

its pretty clear that you're desperately grasping at straws to try and think of anything that makes HA better now than in previous years, but you're coming up with hilariously bad ideas.

Infils were given a motion spotter, stalker armour to become permanantly invisible, and then to accommodate that invisibility they were given a sniper pistol Blackhand, an SMG pistol Emissary, a 2 shot silent crossbow and OHK knives.
a nice new suit slot so they don't flash when shot,
not to mention EMP nades which deplete heavy shields and remove overshields, setting heavies up as an easy kill.
pretty huge heavy nerf right?

engies were given an AV turret with infinite ammo and easy guide rockets, with far more damage at a far greater range than heavies, tank mines now trigger from maxes and OHK them, plus engies were given archers,
just incase they didn't have enough max overkill.
so you don't need HAs to deal with maxes anymore, engies can do it far easier and from a far greater range.

LA were given drifter jets, with the aid of jump pads they can now easily destroy any tank within 2 hexes.
just incase the engies and their rocket turrets aren't making HA feel useless enough.
rocklet rifle coming within a month, just to compound the lack of need for HAs for AV.

even the medics have c4 for dealing with deployed sundies etc,
plus they get an assault rifle with similar stats to heavies LMG, on NC you can have a nice 200 dmg weapon.
the difference is that medic can endlessly heal himself, shield and heal his allies, even raise the dead.
medics are far more valuable to the team.

so tell us again how every class has been nerfed so only HA stands above them all like jeebus,
because in reality other than a quirky ES rocket launcher, heavies have received nothing but nerfs,
while every other class has received buffs or toys.

The average player was not highly Certed in the first year.

The average player definitely did not in the early game. PS2 has been out for 4 years now.

First off, I am not talking about ADAD. I am talking about WASD: anti-Sniper shuffle. Where players keep moving around to avoid making an easy target for a Sniper to OHK them. In the early game, the average player just didn't Anti-Sniper Shuffle. It's one of the big reasons why Snipers were so much more effective at OHKing people.

And with regards to ADAD. No, the average player did not use ADAD in the early game. Only some players used it, and they had to explain it to everyone else. I understand that it is old an FPS thing, but it just wasn't that common in early PS2.

Because the average player was not thinking to do it, hadn't been taught/learned to do it yet, and had not conditioned themselves to do it.

It's pretty clear that you either don't remember the early game very well or weren't there. It's also painfully clear that you just knee-jerk-reaction deny and scoff at all the info I put up.

Yeah, the other Classes are so OP right now that everyone plays them over HA...

Look, I get that you can pick out changes to different Classes. But I think you continue to not get how Meta affects which attributes are more impactful than others. Your conceptualization does not account for why HAs are so prominent on the battlefield. I think you are just in denial of or not seeing the current Meta.

And I am not even asking for the HA to be nerfed. At this point I really don't have a preference one way of the other for PS2:
1) Seems like lots of players like HA being "best vanilla assault troop".
2) I don't think making HA weak would be better for the game, because I don't think PS2 Devs have the aptitude to create a balanced game, and so it would just be some other Class that was "most played" in their place.

I agree with your upper half of this statement, however I don't understand why you're talking about "MAX overkill" considering that only other things you can use are C4 and Rocket Launchers, and staying at least 4 feet away from a doorway should help you stay safe from c4, or packing Flak Armor. HA's are also still better suited for close range anti MAX work because their shields allow them to be aggressive towards MAX'es and get a rocket off on them, while an Engie with an Archer MIGHT get a shot off or get insta-gibbed.

I agree with the Drifter Jump Jets being a bit too ridiculous, you can use a jump pad and essentially have a ticket to fly hundreds of meters and rain down c4 and anything while they just pray you miss. I think it's unfair to claim how the Rocklet Rifle will change the game, just wait until its live, I will admit though a LA with Drifters and Rocklet Rifle sounds like a nightmare for everyone.

Medics should have some kind of AV capability, also two C4 doesn't kill a Sundie instantly, sure it catches it on fire but anyone with half a brain will see that and fix it immediately. Not to mention how often Sunderers rock Deploy Shield or Armor. Also the 200 damage weapon is the "signature" trait of the NC arsenal. Like how the TR get insanely high RPM weapons, and the VS get... something i don't know... The 200 damage weapons are high-skill weapons just as the TR's (presumably) are. Also how are the Medic's weapons similar to LMG's? Am i missing some 100 round assault rifle somewhere?

Overall though I do agree that the HA's anti vehicle capabilities has fallen behind, but I don't find that to be a bad thing, their anti infantry capabilities are VASTLY ahead of every other class.