Neither are better, but for easier perching, I'd suggest using Jump Jets. Flash grenade is wonky, smoke is buggy and has a counter and you need HS/NV to use it properly, none of specialized LA grenades work well with ambush, stay frag. Well, since you're VS, you don't need to bother with bullet drop while having a surpressor, but due note, that velocity will be hit very hard. Surpressors are useful, only when you fight in small battles, in big ones, they don't matter that much, you still will be spotted. For perching weapon Solstice and Pulsar C should work best, they have good/great velocity and great accuracy. If you really want a silenced SMG NS-7 PDW works decently on LA for that. For quick get in and get out Serpent or a shotgun would work better actually. I tried playing LA with Hunter. Losing your secondary wasn't that good, your clips (especially as VS) are small and killing a HA might take you more than you'd wish. Stay with Beamer or Commie. You don't have main weapon with large enough mag to play with recon darts well without good reload.
It is far easier to get ammo with LA than with infiltrator, so I've never been bothered by this point a lot currently, but I'll need to think about it a bit more.
The point here isn't your total ammo pool, but rather your magazine size. It is faster to switch to your secondary than to reload in most if not all situations. This is important if you need a reload before the guy you're shooting at is dead.
Drifters are absolutely amazing if you know how to use them. Definitely the strongest option for hunting tanks. If anything, I have way more Z play than normal light assaults. Underboss is my sidearm of choice. I primarily use it to perform the knife combo, which the underboss has an edge over the commisioner in. I've used lots of shotguns while drifting, which seems to work pretty well as getting close is easy enough. Lately I've been sporting the Zenith with ALS that compensates quite well for "while jetpacking" gunplay. I disagree with the "tool slot" idea. It actually ends up being so much faster doing pistol knife combos that it's not worth the sacrifice. I've tooled around with the concept of smoke, but the utility seems to be wasted I feel as I don't stick around in one place very long.
If you plan on shooting from a roof or mid to longer range engagments then a carbine. I like the SMG though. It's longer range than the shotty and ca nbe accurately burst fired out at range. The main reason I like it is the cone of fire bloom. Equip a laser sight and you can take someone out while falling or jetting. Since you can't ADS in the air. One of my mroe useful tactics actually involves being lower than the enemy. Towers are good for this. Jet pack up to the enemy and unload on them. Then drop back down to the ground. You can kill em without them even knowing you are there most of the time. Also, I tend to hip fire more than ADS so the SMG is my weapon of choice. Drifters have their place but the normal jet pack is the best. Drifters are too situational for me For a back up weapon. Unless I know I am going after a sundy. Then I tend to use the commisioner or underboss. The underboss is faster firing then the commisioner but has slightly less damage. If I am going after a sundy them I use smoke grenades, C4, and explosive tip crossbow. 2 bricks of C4 will get the sundy burning from full health. The crossbow is there to finish it off. Smoke is for hiding or distraction. You don't always have to throw the smoke at the sundy. If you throw it a little bit off most players will be looking at the smoke waiting for someone to pop out of it. Meanwhile, your behind them planting the C4.
I would recommend doing **** pushups, you never know when you're gonna need to **** your way out of a tight situation! But srsly, just work on your twitch aim, this game is heavy on heavies, so ur gonna do phenomenally better if you can snap them headshots.
Seems to me like you want to play like an infiltrator but with a light assault. The only thing light assaults should focus on is destroying vehicles and shooting from above. Every other class does the ground part better. You're not there to ambush with LA, you can't do that half as good as an infiltrator, but you can attack from advantageous angles and go to hard/impossible to reach/shoot places with your jetpack.
Not if you kill that class in the back. And Light Assault has the easiest time getting behind enemy back. Seek not beauty in battle. Seek not virtue in death. Think not that your life is your own. To protect those who need protecting, strike the enemy from the rear. Disagree. There's way more to LA than perching with carbines. And you totally can ambush as LA; it's basically the job description. Stronger weapons and explosives, ability to bypass normal approach routes, almost silent Jet Packs instead of super loud cloak. LA can much easier approach someone in a vulnerable state, and can deal more damage. It's infiltrators who can't ambush half as good as we can, lol.
As far as the smoke grenades go, they can make an effective breaching tool if you're trying to get into a tower door or something like that. But for that purpose, don't take the actual grenades, just kit out a Solstice SF with the smoke launcher and a IR/NV scope. And even that's a little better used on the Engi, where you can have infinite smokescreen with the ammo pack.
