How about giving the LA a defibrillator? Unlike the medic, it cannot be used indefinitely but only a few times, maybe 3 times with upgrades? Would be useful for reviving other LA units who get killed in those hard-to-reach places, which medics cannot access. Occupies a suit slot.
The idea to merge medic and light assault class was already suggested before. It seemed nonsenical at the time, and the author was ridiculed. In afterthought, I consider it to be a pretty good idea, but it's too late to make such radical changes. Without actually merging the classes, giving the LA reviving tool would be a half measure that just creates disbalance.
I'd actually have no problems with this. Make it a consumable that costs nanites, put it in the grenade or utility slot, make it cost something like 250 / 500 / 750 certs for ranks 1-3, and I'd be totally fine with this. It's not spammable, and it has a cost, so it's not really going to step on medic's toes, and in addition, it improves teamplay which I'm all for!
Wouldn't work, Light Assault is meant to be a light infantry and or a shock trooper class. They are meant to be sneaking up ahead of the main forces to scout and attacking the enemy from unexpected places.
Correction: that's how our playstyle evolved due to limitations of our kit. We can't do anything else, so we do that. If our kit was expanded, new ways to play the class would open. "are meant to be" - I doubt anyone at SOE knew what LA was supposed to be. It's obvious that PS2 class system was created without thinking about balance.
How would that create any imbalances? It won't be available indefinitely, compared to the medic's tool. You have 1-3 uses, and then it's depleted. Just like C4, and it occupies the same slot.
I'm all for buffing LA, but we don't want 10 LA camping somewhere reviving each other. Trust me, we don't want that.
It would either be a utility slot or a tool (LA doesn't have one). I've thought along the same lines in the past. LA clearly desperately needs a way to stay in combat as they are usually in impossible to reach locations for Medics. Obviously, they would have to be more restricted than Medics so as not to compete. Consumable utilities have some precedence (med kits), have limited carry capacity and cost nanites. On the other hand, they're clearly powerful and you are likely to see a lot of non-LAs carrying these to recover their Medics. In theory, I have no problem with a single hail marry - but if you've got an entire squad carrying 3 each that's just spam and allows squads to be more careless. The alternative, the LA specific tool, would avoid this problem. You could simply make a defib with a very limiting cool down timer, E.G. one use per 10 seconds. Also, I've been wondering about going a step further and offering the LA an additional spawn option (a second tool option?). It would either be personal use only or LA-use only because you do not want to help other classes on to rooftops*. I'm thinking a placeable spawn pad, like a spawn beacon, but you spawn directly on it instead of drop from the air. *[People have suggested grav lifts and things in the past but the inherent problem is that once one LA helps a squad to the roof, all LAs once again have no squad purpose and - worse - the jetpack no longer offers unique movement advantages.]
