shield makes you slower and a much easier target, while LA flits around with jets and adreniline pump. a fast moving target is a much bigger problem than a slower, slightly higher HP target. i still get 1 shot through a full adr shield...headshots as well from snipers. shield really doesnt do much for me except a second shield when my first goes down so i can try and supress a little longer. yes, sometimes the extra hp's help, but...it's all HA gets. take the shield, and HA is almost pointless when LA has rocket rifles.
Pretty sure the key is in the name - Light Machine Gun i.e. a close support weapon. I read somewhere that HA was intended to be a combat support class providing covering fire, suppresion, consolidation, chewing up counterattacks etc. with LA leading the assault (fast, agile, flash 'nades, CQC weapons etc.) but things didn't turn out that way.
The problem with this idea is the 60% or so of the Planetside pop that are HA have had the Panic button for to long to simply take it away. You will rarely come up against any HA now new or old that is confident enough in their skills not to tap it before you even fire a bullet. Range is only a factor out in the open, Base caps/defenses come down to close quarters. unless you using weapons with 900+ RPM then rate of fire really has nothing to do with it unless you make sure you hit every shot on the head which is what most Average to better players aim for. typical LMG fires at 11 bullets a second (700 rpm) 900 rpm is only 15, 1 bullet for max nano that leaves 5 spare bullets to take down the shield then both weapons are on par for ROF, only SMG's and the fast carbine fire that fast which put them at a dmg disadvantage so your looking at a ROF extremely close to 1000 rpm to counter the HA shield. I myself play LA primary and Infil secondary, if i let my self slip and get bad i find dealing with HA difficult unless im using Armistice or jaguar, That's only because once i get in to the flow of aiming again i can get maybe 5 of the 20 bullets on the head, if the opposing HA is just as good as me, my jetpack wont help me nor would a cloak mid battle from 15 ft. That and Panic abilities tend to be instant, so with server echo on his/her screen i haven't even left the ground before im dead. On the other side of things when i switch to HA, its so much easier in 1 on 1 fights I feel a lil godlike and that's me as an average player. There in lay the problem. we want the New Players to feel like you have a variety of tools and ways to play the game but when New Players come up against even new HA's never mind veterans and just get killed every time they tend to want to try HA. Nobody wants to be OP in a game nor do they want to rack up kills really easy because it just means you haven't earned any of them. Same reason i dont Infil smg, to me its to cheap and ganky. Honestly you cant do anything to HA's Panic button without losing a lot of players. it was just the same when they took shotguns away from Infils, loads of Infils complained because it effected the play style they had grown used to. I will admit i would feel the same if I lost C-4 from my LA, I only use it vehicles and large groups of troops but i feel kinda safer knowing i have it. MAYBE a short time delay before activation so it has to be use in prep of battle rather a panic button like it is now.
The problem isn't the shield. The problem is the roles that infantry play. If all infantry were useful in different roles, and those roles were equally useful to the gameplay, then the Heavy would barely have an advantage. His shield would just be his perk to be good at his role, just like stealth or a jumpjet make you good at your role. However the Heavy is too universally useful. Most roles you want to fulfill in the game can be fulfilled by the Heavy, and the Heavy will be either the best or second best at almost every role while all other classes are immediately more of a niche class. The solution isn't to remove the Heavy shield, but to make other class roles more useful. For example you can upgrade the map and mini-map. Right now your map is very limited in showing you what's going on outside of your radar vision. So anything an Infiltrator or another class does outside of your radar vision is completely useless. An Infiltrator spotting a Vehicle-Zerg being build doesn't help his team if all his teammates are in the next base and can't even get the information of the spotted vehicles. So if you upgrade the map to show the general whereabouts, updated once every 30 seconds or minute, of enemy infantry and tanks then suddenly the spotter-role is far more useful and important. This also helps players who are about to spawn into an area, as they can see the general layout of friendly and enemy troops and gauge where they are needed or what they would need to do to be useful. Some things can instantly improve multiple roles. Give the Medic an Elysium tube utility for 200 resources, but the Elysium tube would obey the AMS deployed Sunderer laws of spawn restrictions. Suddenly the Medic can push the attacks forwards more easily, but at the same time the roles for Infiltrators and LA's are improved as they have an easier time sneaking up to the Elysium tube and using small-arms fire to destroy it, and all by adding one new thing to one class. Those are the kinds of solution you should be looking at. Improving roles and adding roles to specific classes so that every class is useful and needed in the overall scheme of the game.
