[Suggestion] Shouldn't EMP Grenades Disable HA Overshields?

You're neglecting the fact that in this situation you have to lead with the EMP grenade hit and so are unable to front-load any damage.

Decloaking, the grenade throw animation, the EMP traveling through the air, and then firing a weapon all take time — providing plenty of time for HAs to press F. Actually, merely the time between an EMP exploding and the finishing shot from an Infiltrator is ample for a HA to press F.

I want to make it clear now that I created this thread calling for a discussion on whether EMP grenades should disable all abilities and IMO they should. Subsequently the topic has veered onto concussion grenades and HAs more generally and views have been expressed which I do not share.

I'm surprised nobody has brought up the fact EMP grenades:

1. Have no hit marker
2. Don't give XP for killing deployables
3. Don't give assists for helping kill players

Not to mention the only other class specific nade the infil has access to is the decoy which still costs 45 infantry res. Even CS:GO knows decoys should be cheap and their version of the decoy is overpowered in comparison.

On the topic of Heavy Assaults getting away with having too much power try considering this scenario. You're in a room when suddenly a concussion grenade explodes at your feet, you have a high powered 1 hit KO bolt action sniper in your hands and suddenly a Heavy Assault comes rushing in. You only have one chance to take him down until the effect wears off so you take aim and right when he crosses the center of your screen you land a perfect headshot. Unfortunately he doesn't go down because he had his "I win" shield on and he runs around your back and poorly hip-fires you with his LMG showing no skill at all. You watch helplessly as your health bar quickly depletes. He then proceeds to regenerate his health to maximum and drop C4 on your vehicles and detonate them with powerful rocket launchers despite the fact that skill-wise he should be dead.

Now with the addition of the clear vision implant HA's can actually throw concussion grenades at their own feet and kill whole groups of enemies at will if they want...

So look. Some people just can't be convinced that certain classes are OP since all players have access to the OP classes. When you hear them proclaim "L2P!" it basically means "Jump on the bandwagon and play HA" which isn't fun for any of the players that don't enjoy constant run and gun gameplay.

I'm sorry but the HA is the jack of all trades class so it doesn't disserve to be the jack of all trades and king of infantry combat if you use your common sense.

I have been bested sir.

You've accused me of logic faults and told me to figure it out when asked for an explanation. I'm clearly wrong and you're clearly right. Your argument is simply overwhelming. I've never seen such flawless reasoning.

I submit.

i wont mind EMP grenades disabling ALL class specials for X seconds, but how would you go about this?

i mean, for the heavy, light and infiltrator its pretty straight forward. hell even for the max units its quite obvious.
but... pray tell. what about the medic and engineer?
medic's alternative special in this case.

engineers don't even have anything that can be considered a special.
EMP grenades erase ammo packs? big whoop. 3 seconds later they plopped down a new one.
disables turret? can still be used as cover (and usually is)
destroys the turret? yeah not gonna happen that would be to OP.

if anything i would like to see EMP grenades do what they used to do in PS1.
disable vehicle weapons for a few seconds.

im fine with all other grenades, but the EMP is underpowered, and you dont even get assist xp . HA shields are very much easy mode but thats how its been and im ok with it, its fun sometimes and i still regularly kill them with my infil.
The way the EMP should be:
if you get caught in the blast and dont have the emp implant on all your electronics (excluding weapons i know some do run on batteries) die, and must recharge. That means if im flying as a LA, i fall. If im a HA and my shield is up it drops. Cloaks die, ammo packs and all deployables vanish, turrets too.

i mean, it Is an EMP... right?

Originally in PS1 the also EMP turned off the vehicles...and I liked it that way...

It has a 10 meter outside radius (20 meter diameter). I don't remember when it didn't have the biggest AOE of anything in the game.

Jammers only disabled vehicle weapons for a few seconds and made an annoying sound

I personally think this idea is awesome... But I would limit these grenades to only Infiltrators and LAs, so it reinforces their role in the battlefield as the ones to get the jumps on people. And I think that this grenade would have to affect all abilities (including both of the medic's abilities, and even motion spotters from infiltrators), but only temporarily.

And a side note on the HA: I never saw the overshield as OP at all... I've never come across a time playing as an HA that popping the shield up last minute saved my life. It probably has to do with my crappy FPS skills (low reflexes, crappy aiming, etc...), but that shows that the shield still doesn't make up for skill in the battlefield. But that's just my two cents on the issue...

Returning to the suggestion in question, having the EMP grenades disabling the HA's shield won't hurt the ability of the HA to be the front-line heavy hitter that the HA is supposed to be. It just introduces a counter to the HA's ability and require more teamwork from people. If this idea goes through, soloing with the HA would be discouraged, which I think is a pretty good, since this game supposed to be oriented around team-based gameplay.

PSSSt they used to disable vehicles and turrets too....in PS1..... *GASP!!!!!!!*

^ Hell yeah. Exactly

Why should the heavy shield be nerfed? Didnt Chazt teach you?

Nice, a heavy bolt action sniper rifle in a tightly packed room. Not to mention th fact that if you play inf correctly you shouldnt even be in that room, you should be flanking with a SMG and hitting the guys in the hallway in the rear. Why is it that people who whine about the heavy shield use the most idiotic scenarios?

Care to make a case for the overshield then since you have already demonstrated your amazing hindsight? You can replace infiltrator with light assault and bolt action to auto or semi-auto shotgun and you have the same story with no changes. Your precious crutch shield is already unnecessary to make the class work. There is no good reason you can come up with that proves that they should be immune to EMP grenades if they switch off the overshield for just half a second.

*facepalm*
if you remove the overshield from the heavy assault class...Then what iactually makes it heavy?

Other than the overshield it has same health and shield as other classes(infi excluded). Remember that heavy is the guy who leads assault so he has to be durable to survive...

On the other hand you have the infiltrator who has 100hp less(5% less if you count in shields ) but has cloaking device and(usually) an SMG which is even better than an LMG at short range...

Question: If you remove overshields from heavy then why would players bother playing this class at all? Any infiltrator/LA with an SMG could outclass it with ease.

Hmm although the hitdetection likes to screw me over and some people take about 30 hits to kill, im pretty sure that 100 HP are
10% of a players health pool. Infiltrators excluded of course, where it would be 11,11% since they have 100 shield points less.


Someone told me once that HAs ability shield is about 700 HP when fully charged. I didn't manage to confirm the numbers but if thats right and you want to talk percentages: The HA has 70% more HP than any other class by pressing a button 88.88% if the other class is infiltrator.
Its almost as much as the old vanguard shield (that gave 75% bonus HP - additionally to the better armor). What makes it bearable (unlike the tank) is that 700 HP on a soldier is only a slight difference in TTK since the TTK is already pretty low.
And to answer your question what makes the heavy a heavy? His heavy weaponry. If you want him also sturdy give him more HP and shields per default and make him slower than the rest. Hes lugging 5 times the weight of the others in equipment anyway, so it would only make sense

To the topic: Imho EMPs should sap any kind of ability energy from all its targets. Shouldn't matter if the ability is actively used at the moment or not.

I believe you misunderstood me

Maths:
1000(heavy health) + 1000(heavy shield)=2000(heavy durability)
900(infi health) +1000(infi shield) =1900(infi durability)
2000-1900=100(difference in durability)
100/2000=1/20=5%

So it's less than a single bullet...If you removed HA's overshield the infiltrator would have 5% less health than the guy who is leading the front assault...interresting

How so? If you say "Heavy tank" you don't mean something like this

Or do you? After all it has a heavy gun...So why not?

I'm not saying "no". But in this case it would have to be rebalanced. As it stands the EMP has the largest blast radius and you'd have to trade some of that radius for the nades new ability...

F**k noXD

I think its clear the EMP needs work just on the fact it doesnt display hit markers or give assist XP.

I also think EMP sould diisable heavy shiled for the length of the effect. It should effect many other things that it doesnt aswell, but i think the one exception should be the jetpack. There would be faries falling to their deaths all over the shop.

In short, as a minimum they need to sort out the basic mechanics of XP and hit markers.

You are a bit wrong here.
All infantrie classes have 500 health and 500 shield, but the infiltrator who has only 400 shield, to compensate for his half broken cloak.

And this is a rather stupid argument. First of all yes there is far too much whine on the forum, but some of it has its right.
And a buff to EMPs is not the same as a nerf to the shield. The shield will still work normally, but can be countered now.

So now on to the topic:
I would like to see this happening, because this will give infiltrators a better place in coordinated teamwork. Right now all an infiltrator can do for his team is killing (other classes can do that too) and spamming darts/ setting up motion sensors (with the crossbow darts became available to all classes...).
With EMPs taking away all abilities for a short time, infiltrators could help his team attacking big enemy forces.
Right now frags are a more viable choice over EMPs (and I won't even start with decoys...).

Alan Kalane - "*facepalm*
if you remove the overshield from the heavy assault class...Then what iactually makes it heavy?

Other than the overshield it has same health and shield as other classes(infi excluded). Remember that heavy is the guy who leads assault so he has to be durable to survive...

On the other hand you have the infiltrator who has 100hp less(5% less if you count in shields ) but has cloaking device and(usually) an SMG which is even better than an LMG at short range...

Question: If you remove overshields from heavy then why would players bother playing this class at all? Any infiltrator/LA with an SMG could outclass it with ease."

Well the Heavy Assault also has rocket launchers that can be used to kill aircraft at great distances with homing missiles, vehicles also, and rockets that decimate infantry. They also are the only class with access to anti-vehicle and concussion grenades. Not to mention they have the totally unique light machine guns. "Heavy Assault" also doesn't really mean "Healthy Assault", "Heavy" is more of a description of their heavy weaponry that they carry.

Also the infiltrator has 100 less shields and not health. IE 500 health 400 shields base. Logically the heavy assault would still be very unique without an extra base 700 health. Hope that helps clear things up.