Summary Make HA shields weaker against a single opponent Make HA shields provide better protection against multiple simultaneous fire sources ----- I don't personally mind the HA shields, they are not that useful in my opinion, but many people view them as flat out overpowered and demand nerfs. I have a better idea. How about we tune HA shields so that they only provide a slight defensive bonus in 1v1 engagements, but scale against multiple fire sources? Overshield and Adrenaline Shield HP bonus reduced to 250 (from 450). The HP bonus is now applied independently for every single damage source. For example, if one attacker drained your overshield already, and then a second attacker starts shooting you, the second attacker will also have to drain your overshield (250 HP) before being able to deal actual damage to you. This scales quickly against many targets and can give the Heavy Assault more time to focus on a single target. Resist Shield Damage reduction reduced to 25% (from 35%). Every single hit increases damage reduction by 50% for 0.06 seconds, multiplicatively (on base), stacks up to 3 times (37.5% -> 50% -> 67.5% damage reduction total). The 0.06 duration is shorter than the duration between the shots from a 845 RPM weapon (e.g. GD-7F, ~0.071 duration between shots), and will only provide the extra damage reduction when the total RPM of all incoming fire is at least 1000 RPM, which no single weapon is capable of (IIRC). This can make the Heavy Assault brutally resilient against high-RPM overwhelming fire. ----- So what would this give? Straight up 45% and 30% reduced effectiveness in 1-on-1 engagements, significantly reducing the "I win button" effect. A unique ability for the Heavy Assault to focus on a single target in large battles, with significantly less interference from the rest of the opposition. What do you think?
I think the problem isnt the shield, its its omniversal usefulness. HA's usually are either the best or second best at every common objective you might want to accomplish, this is why they are so popular. The fact that KD has become a primary goal for lots of people, despite its farmability, makes things worse. The solution: create more important goals and display them, both statistical and gameplay, to make all classes attractive for common gameplay goals.
I think the issue would just multiply itself with two groups of heavy fighting each other in a point room. Plus, the Adrenaline shield really helps with 1v2+es already.
Interesting. But how about base the strength of the overshield on how many different opponents the HA has engaged/damaged as opposed to how many people are shooting the HA. If you run into a room full of guys, pop overshield then spray around the room you're able to take much more damage. Think of tanking/taunting like in an RPG. The problem I see with your suggestion is it would essentially allow a HA the ability to single out a target and wipe the floor with them before a room full of guys could bring the HA down. You think the crying about iwin shield is bad now...
With overshield and adrenaline, how is the HA supposed to keep track of his shield status? It would be too unintuitive to have multiple versions of effective health depending on the enemy. On resist, at least it seems more easy-to-use, but instead of making it dependent on #hits/sec, make it scale with amount of damage taken, so that it is still useful against slow ROF weapons and semi-autos. Example: if it detects damage on the order of 2000 DPS (even only for a fraction of a second) then succeeding damage is mitigated more for X seconds, with X perhaps even make being 2-3 seconds but effects are cleared if consuming a medkit/resto. Edit: also it ain't necessary to tune the existing shields, but rather add it as a new shield type, named "Breacher Shields" or something..
