So you just post the video but give no textual description or background info? How random. Comments after having watched it: Most of what you're saying makes sense, but honestly, 90+% of what you did in the video would be equally possible with an Engineer. You were just going back and forth between cover and firing your carbine. Yes, the jump jets allow you to take even lower cover and get back up easily, but your teammates were hanging out in cover and doing just fine without jump jets. Generally, drifter jets serve you far better outdoors. You could've moved from the spawn tower to the hillside much quicker. In the fight on the hilltop, drifters would've allowed you to rapidly gain position at their flank with a sweep in lower elevation, out of sight. This would've left you without teammates, but that's the whole point of flanking as an LA. If you're not flanking you might as well play a different class. You can still use drifters to gain height by sliding up the steep hillside, it'll just take a few second longer than with jump jets. But the horizontal mobility advantage makes drifter jets far better for outdoors. I'm guessing you haven't used drifter jets much if at all, I highly recommend using them outdoors and leaving the jump jets for the situations where you need to move a lot vertically.
He gave a pretty good description: "How I play Light Assault Outdoors (Commentary)" What more do you need?
Don't even get me started on drifter jets. They're almost useless, and you're an extremely easy target to hit while using them. Look at the minimap. I was pushing out past all my allies. They had to stay further back and were generally more passive. I didn't see anyone else running around like I was. I wouldn't be able to push like that and survive as engineer. I was definitely being focus fired, there were a few people who really wanted me dead so I had to get away quickly. If you push out as any other class like that, you can only either crouch and hope your head is covered (usually get headshot anyway) or turn your back and run away. As light assault I got the third option of using the cliff as cover. Infiltrator would've also been good but people can see better than you'd think.
You can mimic their function fairly well with jump jets, especially if you use a jump pad. Drifters are really good for some things, but they're just too specialized for me to ever use them over jump jets. And the skill ceiling with jump jets is really high. You can do some completely insane stuff with them.
How I play Light Assault: Sit in a tree and shoot people in the head. With my fps I'm not going head-to-head with anyone, so I'll stick to the shadows thankyou very much. You'd be surprised how long it take people to look up. They ignore the pile of bodies and proceed to walk up to the terminal. I use drifter jets sometimes. Usually just for C4 Fairy. Drifter jets are perfect for drifting. Floating for 30 seconds, recharging in 1. You can't go up a straight wall with drifters, so they are crap on most of Esamir.
Nice video editing, it is enjoyable to watch. You should make more! That said, I honestly do not see why a LA was better than any other class in the situation you show. Hide and peak can be done by any class.
Unfortunately, no. Now that you say it though I wish it was intentional. ---------------------------------..... - That's right. I'm drifting like a pro. - Wow! Look at him go!
Yeah, I guess I could've had a better example. But I just wanted to show how jump jets can be used in open terrain.
Recently posted on another thread, adapted here as a list: Of these, 1, 3, and 4 are not situational and can be done almost all the time, 2, 5 and 7 are situational, 6 is also situational but extremely important especially for base defense. In addition to all that, drifter jets can be used quite well to reach high positions, sometimes better than with JJ's because of the improved fuel capacity and speed. I find jump jets to be the specialist jets, and drifter jets to have far more versatile uses. (Talking about both maxed here; the final cert for drifters is critical as it doubles the fuel capacity.) The only thing you can do with JJ's is to gain height for a short duration. That's it. You can't do 1 because you run out of fuel so fast, can't do 2, can't do 3 except for very small gaps, can only do 4 and 5 with tall obstacles in a small area, can do 6 to an extent but nowhere near as well, and most certainly can't do 7. And for all these utilities, drifter jets only sacrifice the ability to gain height quickly, which is a very small price to pay. I'd like to know what this 'completely insane stuff' is? Serious question. I only find them useful for gaining height which is a pretty simple, low skill thing.
That's completely and utterly incorrect. Standard jumpjets can fling you vast distances on near any boostpad. Drifters will probably get you further, but you're still looking at 400+ meters from your typical amp station, and 500+ on the powerful ones like bio labs. Edit: Quick test on Saurva yielded 800 meters from boost pad to landing site.
Completely and utterly incorrect? Drifters will probably get you further? You do realize that Drifter Jets stay up for 30 seconds straight and regenerate faster, while Jump Jets last only 6 seconds or so (not sure exactly, but the difference is huge). Yes, Jump Jets will increase altitude but it doesn't do much to compensate for the lack of fuel. So even without testing it, you'll know you'll get much further away with Drifter Jets. First off, just so we're clear, anyone who isn't a Light Assault can use a jump pad to jump the distance it's designed for. So the distance that jets will take you is calculated starting from the landing spot of the jump pad. A typical amp station pad on flat ground will take you about 250-300 meters away using Jump Jets 5. With Drifter Jets 5, it's about 400-450 meters. In many cases, that's the difference between getting to the next base from the Amp Station, and not getting there. The higher speed ones will take you 500-750 meters away as mentioned earlier. Can you be more specific? What exact jumppad, what exact landing location?
You seem to be admitting that they most certainly can boost you 250-300 meters, at a minimum. Often further. So yes, saying they certainly can't is utterly incorrect. You might say they could get farther, and that would of course be correct, but farther may not exactly be useful. My 800 meter example is to Saurva Overflow. With drifters, I'm sure you could glide straight into the out of bounds zone and kill yourself. Both situations are complete overkill for the base, and thus the upgrade isn't particularly relevant. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.
You're saying "250-300 meters, often further" as though it was in contradiction with my claim that standard jump jets won't take you 500-750 meters away. Are you sure about that, or would you like to use a lifeline?
I understand that there are people who swear by drifters, but they cater to a whole different range of LA. I use a more Blitz LA. I jump into a base, go up/down buildings, climb places where you can't normally come and take position in hills/cliffs/mountains. Your argument is going to be 'But Drifter give you more speed to go around'. And that's completely correct. But covering ground faster is just one way to Blitz around. It ruins your COF and you are better off caught off-guard while sprinting then drifting (the last time I used it at least, some time ago). My Blitz is based on high-speed changing of the level I'm on. This yields better positions over someone following you or when you flank someone. As Drifter you are too vulnerable as you take too long to climb cliffs and buildings. My playstyle is based on being airborne as short as possible. The only two things I would use Drifters for myself that I can't do as well with JJ's is covering lots of ground fast and playing C4 fairy to far targets. You also mentioned crossing gaps, I like crossing gaps, I especially like crossing gaps and ending on the same height or higher at the end, which I can't with drifters.
Amen to that. Airborne speed and accuracy are just too bad. Winning the LA duel often comes to baiting your opponent into using Jet Pack, and then killing him.
Usually when I face light assaults as a heavy assault, they jump jet away at the sight of me. I guess it's just my intimidating composite armor doing its job ?
