Heavies have concussive grenades. Light assaults have flashbangs and smoke. Infiltrator have EMPs. Medics have revive and heal grenades. Engineers have an improved frag. Maybe we can get something that emphasizes the engineer's defensive role like a damage over time AOE grenade. Call it a gas or incendiary grenade to make it lore friendly. Don't get me wrong, I luvs my stickies. I'm actually working on auraxing them right now and they're a blast (no pun intended) to play around with, but it's sad that when the squad prepares to breach and all the other classes throw in their tactical grenades and all you have is a glorified frag.
What's more tactical than a grenade that can be stuck to its first target? Put down your Hardlight Barrier.
You first asked for something defensive and then asked for something with AoE damage as an example. I countered with something that is purely defensive. Also we had those in lore already. Plasma grenades.
Poor choice of words. Should've put "grenade" instead of "something". The trio of turrets, the barrier and mines are what make the engineer a defense oriented class in the first place, was thinking of giving the class a defensive grenade to compliment the role, a la throw unto advancing forces to slow them down. The plasma grenade is a pretty neat idea. Shame these haven't made it to PS2.
Erm.............I'm having trouble thinking of a grenade as a defensive weapon. Tbh I think a sticky 'nade you can plant reliably (insofar as you can throw accurately) is a pretty good engineer weapon - a placeable explosive if you will and one that is more powerful than a standard frag.
i don't think engineers really need another grenade type, when you can throw stickies on people (and get multikills if they don't realize you stickied them) or accurately stick a grenade to a surface to force someone out of cover so you can kill them (or the grenade bags them) gotta admit i love using stickies on maxes it's so amusing because they run to their pocket engineer resulting in the engineer dying with the max dying soon after from rockets or gunfire.
I would like a contact 'nade, i.e. one that explodes immediately on contact with anything. Though I think that should be an option for all classes and grenade types (or even just some kind of toggle on existing grenades). But a 'snare grenade' could be amusing, one that simply slows movement by, say, 70%, but does not affect turning or anything else. Or just be able to give up my standard grenade, for the ability to put mines in the grenade slot instead of their regular slot, and then be able to throw them like grenades...
While I don't mind the idea, consider that a DOT grenade is incredibly effective when paired... with any gun let alone the Concussion grenade. As it accelerates the death rapidly, as either it's potent enough that it deals enough damage to half the bullets needed or it's barely there, being the most likely stats of it. How about a more defensive grenade? Throw it in, and it raises allies resistance to small arms fire by a small %, and doesn't include head-shots or explosives to allies within the field. Call it a Defensive-Refortification Field Grenade. As the other specialist grenades do not have damage beyond the AV grenade & EMP Grenade.
UBGL. Between the Battle Rifles and the Carbines, every vanilla Infantry class has access to them. And then you remember they take four seconds to arm.
I would settle for a little better variety regarding grenades in general. Right now its frags for everyone then you either get a few decent choices (ex. LA's 2 types of flash plus smoke) or one decent and any extra being meh at best (pretty much everyone else). Since I can't recall the last time I saw an LA using them and most heavies seem to carry concussion or frags, maybe smoke and AV grenades should be general-use. That way medics and infiltrators have an AV-option (mostly for dealing with MAXes) that isn't "fist of C4 up their nostril and pray you can set it off in time" range. To replace the AV grenade heavies could get a version of the concussion grenade useful against vehicles - enough to reliably stop something trying to run away/ charge for a few seconds. As for an engineer-specific grenade. How about the bastard child of a sticky grenade and a proximity mine? Throw to a surface (or player or vehicle) and it sticks there then detonates whenever someone gets too close.
How about a grenade that forces reload on everyone caught in the blast, even with full clip - could be as useful as the other breaching grenades. Or an ammo drain effect, like lose 1-2 clips / rockets etc. because if I can give ammo I should be able to take it away too. This, shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to get the mechanics down since it pretty much exists in-game already with heal grenades.
Concussion makes it harder to move, Flash causes a blinding effect, EMP wipes shield. None of these prevent or remove the ability to fire a gun. Draining all the ammo, makes it more destructive than any of those grenades, even a Frag Grenade. As you strip them of the ability to even shoot; Defensive positions? Drained of ammunition, or forced into reload. Ammo is flash fabricated by ammo packs, or the Implant into existence, into a dynamic position using a fixed supply of material. The work to leech into weapons to then tear apart ammunition is comically more difficult than simply tearing apparent anything living nearby. As well, the NC would feel that reload the worst, given they have the longest reload times. AOE repair: Hurl one, repair numerous Maxes, Tanks, Sunderers, etc from a safe distance. These are all heavily armored, compared to a light fleshy infantryman outside of a Max. Which is sorta why that heal grenade is rarely seen.
Ever get concussed from behind? Good luck fighting the guy running up behind you when you can't turn around, ability to still shoot won't save you. If you receive the full effect of flash (full white screen) same thing, you can still shoot but you aren't going to win the engagement without help or a lot of luck. I suppose I should have elaborated a little to avoid confusion, if you were on your primary and got hit by this rather than reloading for 2 seconds or so you could always swap to a sidearm (or launcher) to defend yourself. Just because your primary got hit by reload grenade doesn't mean the secondary suffers. Or maybe, make this only affect primaries so as to avoid abuse, such that an engineer can't chuck multiple grenades into a room to force reload on all your guns (primary, secondary, launcher).
Yeah, but the odds of everyone in the room not having an angle on the entry point is incredibly slim. Add in the combined effects, and it gets worse. NC Gauss Saw has a 5 second reload. As well, the time to switch to a sidearm, let alone to face a primary is long enough that you're basically dead unless an A+ shot with a Commie. Also means Stalkers are literally left with a Knife, the moment the grenade hits. Quite literally being able to starve enemies of ammunition by area-of-effect grenades at a distance, around \ over walls, means even if they could swap to a secondary, they have to pray the range matches that, and that they aren't literally rendered unable to use the primary due to lack of ammo near constantly. Would make Engineers the make-or-break for any attack or defense - As otherwise the entire room has only sidearms if that, vs an enemy with primaries, and in all likely-hood, the only reason people have any primary ammo regardless.
Doesn't every class but the infiltrator have access to smoke grenades, which are cheaper and can be resupplied to boot? In topic, I'm ok with more tactical grenades regardless of reasoning. However, the reasoning seems a bit weird. As others say, the engi has sticky grenades, which has great tactical applications, as well as a host of tactical devices lile turrets, walls, ammo and repair guns.
It what?! I love my engie even more now. I haven't bought them yet either. I foresee many missed opportunities ahead because I forgot I switched them out.
