Too many heavy assaults

Not to mention that AR have less recoil and are more accurate. Try a SAW and then try a Reaper tell me which one is better. SAW is worse in every single way except mag size.

Not at all, there are ways to make the combat fair between all classes but keep the playstyles. So if the HA is the outlier, let's hypothetically give the shield a charge delay. Maybe not the perfect solution but for the sake of example, the shield now has a 1 second chargeup time and greater HP (let's say 1000), and just to be nice let's remove the speed debuff.

I'm assuming also that any engagements are between two players of equal skill.

So let's say an Engineer rounds a corner and meets a surprised HA head on. Now the battle is decided not by the HA's reaction time but instead purely on the skill and loadout choices of the players. The definition of fair combat.

The new shield delay has an added benefit to balance because it gives greater strategic importance to battlefield knowledge. Every other class ability requires planning to use effectively. Engineer turrets need to predict where the enemy will be. Jetpacks require choke point knowledge. Cloaks need to plan for enemy sightlines. The Shield currently can also be used prior to breaching a room, but currently it has the unusual capability to react to situations blindly without foresight. Changing the shield to have a charge time would put it in the same strategic realm as all the other abilities, in that proper usage requires planning.

So with this shield delay we still have a tanky, in-your-face brawler class that still requires the same planning the other classes need to perform well in battle, while also making each and every combat situation an equal playing field, with the winner being decided solely on Loadout choice, skill, and planning.

I gotta love THIS thread is going again xD

*pulls up seat to watch less than nothing actually happen*

Unless one has a better PC. Or net connection.

So let's assume that the HA is played the most because it's easiest to play, a good Jack-of-all-Trades class. That still raises the question about skill and specialization.

Jack-of-all-trades weapons are generally the master of none. Average at range, average up close, average reload, etc. Carbines are an excellent in game example of a balanced Jack-of-all-trades weapon.You can be sufficient in any area, but will never perform great in any, regardless of skill.

Specialized guns on the other hand sacrifice heavily in one for great reward in another. Sniper Rifles are a good example. Very very bad weapons outside of their specialization, but are phenomenal at some long range headpopping. They also have a higher skill ceiling than other weapons. Need to keep track of bullet velocity and drop (because they're different things in this game for some reason), target movement and prediction, not to mention the very small target skull that need to be hit. For this reason specialized guns are rarely used (at least effectively used) by less skilled players. However, since they are sacrificing so much in one area, a player with sufficient skill will always be more effective with a specialized weapon than with a Jack-of-all trades weapon.


So if the HA is the Jack-of-all-trades, Master of none class, why are most of the 'high skill' players (I will say High BR is the measurement for that, but I know full well it's not so accurate at measuring skill) still playing HA? If Jack-of-all-trades requires that you will only perform average in all areas but other 'specialized' classes will perform better in one area, wouldn't we see more high BR players moving on? We don't because the HA is, in it's Jack-of-all-trades state, still performing on par in it's general combat as the specialized light Assault in the tower or the Infiltrator on the hill. If we are assuming the other classes are more specialized, then we also need to examine the fact that, for all the sacrifices the other classes are making (namely 1v1 as you say), they are not getting the rewards to entice high BR players.

ohhhhhhhhh. my bad lol. sarcasm sometimes doesn't come through when your on the internet.

its not. its just the most played. if the most played classes were infy or LA then they would have the most kills. no class is better they just better than others at different things, like at flying or becoming invisible.

as for why they would be played more than other classes its because they have everything. high capacity LMG, a rocket launcher, the best grenades, an over shield, and c4. as an infy i might get more kills but i dont net nearly the certs i can get with a HA since i cant deal with vehicles or maxes.

You just removed the two reactive shields and left a bad proactive shield. The current proactive shield is far superior to what you suggest. You suggestion will just migrate all people to the medic class.

The Engineer is the jack of all trades support class. Which is why it's by far the most popular class in the game. The Heavy is the jack of all trades assault class. Which is why it's by far the most popular of the assault classes in the game.

You mean a 20 second walk back to the battlefield after a 7 second respawn timer? Oh the humanity!

Medics can't "Press F to survive BASR headshot"

On the battlefield, 20 seconds is ALOT.

That's the weakest reason I can think against the heavy shield. Sniper bolt action kills are almost always based on surprise. If somebody activated the shield, it was probably not because he wanted to avoid the sniper, but due to some other threat.

I have no issues winning flanks vs heavies from behind with standard guns and rightfully so but it suck hard with NC/VS ES pistols. Flanking and sprinting around is much more a game of luck/skills and patience while heavies are downright faceroll as long as your back is covered or if you stay on your toes with steady sprint moreso with VS heavies. With a silencer and their 50-200mag lmgs heavies can flank much more reliably than the LA or INF in most locations. I usually average betwen 4-9 k/d with my LA and Infiltrator when i'm not sniping and on the other hand betwen 6 and 20 with my heavy with ease. Made another low level VS the other day got her to level 20 with 8.3kd 31% accuracy 743spm with a little boost(no membership/doublexp) with ****all gears and that was on my phenom II 975 with 30ish fps at medium settings (just assembled my 4790k yesterday and woa).

The day that the HA shields will be changed over to a anti-vehicle related utility will be a good day for Planetside and as I said boosting their hp or base-shield slightly would be a good compromise.

Bull. Almost half of the HA's I'm about to pick off (b/c they're lining up a bazooka shot at something) turn on their shield...
It's the most common sense Habit any field HA could ever have. Some of them do it even when just firing their LMGs

My personal experience is of the exact opposite. Hardly anyone is depletting the shield for no reason and the only people who have it on a bit more than others, are the ones with the Resist shield (the shield that doesn't protect from headshots).

Good, you deserve it. Long range snipers are a true "crutch", not the shield user that puts him/herself right into the fray every time.

Yeah most pistols in this game are kinda weak, you see in other games where pistols can be a primary (COD for example), where dudes will literally use pistols like the five seven to kill SMG/AR/LMG users because pistols kill in like 2-3 quick shots. In this game, besides the commisioner they are all "finishers", meant to pull out in an emergency to put someone down. In that regard, the desperado, rebel, and magshot work very well. VS pistols do suck though.

Yeah, this. And I say that as someone that's Auraxed the Parallax, Phaseshift (with some of the best stats in the world), and is almost done with the Ghost and V10.

Eight pages of "discussion" drawn from a rage post. The modern gaming community is...sad.