So I'm a squad leader loading up a Sunderer, I'm assigning people to all the classes I need. MAXs for durability and firepower, engineers to maintain MAXs and supply ammo, HA to crary in rockets and concussion grenades, medics to revive, and an infiltrator to put darts up everywhere. When would I ever call for a Light Assault soldier for a coordinated squad like this? What would a Light Assault soldier bring to a group like this, and how is it better than having another MAX, Medic, HA, or Engineer? What is the point of LA in a coordinated group of non-LA?
Beacon Placement outside of that, they are useful if you are soloing or is you are defending your base.
being an LA allows a squad leader to hide a spawn beacon in some out of the way places and if you just need people to kill infantry, they're pretty good at it
Squad beacons on top of high areas and to remove squad beacons on top of high areas... that's really the only reason my squad usually has at least one LA. If we need anti-vehicle, I have mines and I'm saving up for the AV turret, and everyone else is working on C4. In fact, my one medic friend TKs me a lot since he puts C4 on vehicles I'm trying to mine and ends up getting the kill. If we need to get onto a building we either use turbo Flashes or parkour our way up. LA doesn't have much use for us, sadly Edit: I have to learn to type faster. Two replies while I was writing mine...
areial C4 has many uses, and LA are one of the best things to have with you inside a biolab due to raining death from ontop of buildings (and returning quickly if killed). At amp stations (and the hand full of non-amp stations with walls like amp stations), you can park a sundy next to the wall and leap over to the generator on the other side. LA are very good at what they do isnt realy squad stuff, its "lonewolf" or wolfpack stuff. One or two LA who you simply tell to go nuts once your out of the sundy will be helpfull. Or a full LA squad to all take advantage of the mobility bonus.
So it looks like the roles of LA are: #1 Deploy Spawn beacons #2 Kill Infantry / Attack and defend bases #3 Anti-Vehicular / Aerial C4 What would LA need to be more useful in a squad? Something that adds mobility, like a temporary PS1 Cavern style zipline generator? I proposed the Nanite Toxin Dispenser, to finish off dead enemies so a Medic can't save them, but I'm still not sure if that is squad-oriented enough.
LAs are masters of flanking in most situations. They are the only class that can effectively guard you from rooftop flanks. When working with a ground based team that can pin/distract the enemies they can quickly get into position to lay them to waste. Say you were attacking a building with 10 guys in it. Would you rather have all 10 go in one side or 7-8 start the attack via the front and 2-3 attack shortly after from the rear? Main group forces the enemies to commit, LA group takes them by surprise and does the real killing. LAs might not have the most firepower in the game, but they are often in the best firing positions.
Sounds like you haven't had much experience playing a light assault. I would grab 3-4 LA for my squad, and use them for rapid assaults and flanking maneuvers while the rest of your squad lays down suppression fire.
LA's are pretty useful for locking down the fourth (airpads) level of towers, and generally getting to places the enemy isn't expecting them to be. Add to that they can carry the pump-actions, and they can inflict some serious damage. Going back to the towers, while the rest of my squad (or platoon, if the enemy force is particularly huge) pushes in the bottom of the tower, myself and a couple LAs will jump up to the second and third floors and start raising hell while the enemy is focused on the people pushing up the stairs. Once the second and third (cap point + bottom spawn doors) floors are secured, we'll fly up to the airpads to lock down those spawn doors as well. All it takes really is one LA with a pump-action (or any shotty, really) skipping around that top level to get rid of any bursters or infils that might be up there. LA is pretty much also the direct counter-class to Infils. If an Infil is posted up in some hard to reach place, the LA will probably have the easiest (and stealthiest) time getting up there. They're also good for hunting down drop-podders who land on the tops of biolabs and decide to hide.
Noone's mentioned the obvious yet. What do people say is the best place to Scout from? High ground. (all three effects for emphasis) Sure, the infiltrator is half-decnt at scouting, But they can't get ontop of rocks / tree very easily. Also, as stated above, Jump jets unlock 50% + of BioLabs. The rooftops can be used to quickly navigate/flank the enemy. Also, There is a small opening in one of the 3-types of bases that only Jump jets can get through. Not to mention level 5 Drifters can get you to some awesome flanking points, quickly. A squad of 12 LA's are deadly enough. Manueverability is key when attacking/disorienting enemies.
The Light Assault has no direct squad support abilities. However, that does not mean that they aren't a valuable addition to a squad. The ability to flank and disorient, not to mention throw smoke (highly situational), will help in most fights.
LA are awesome pathfinders, forward scouts and general chaos-creators - any assault will go much more smoothly if an LA or two sneaks in ahead and gets the enemy running around like headless chickens. Example: Medium intensity Bio-Lab fight (maybe 2 whole squads each side), just kicking off. I drop on the dome ahead of my squad, got into position above one of the aircraft pads and started opportunistically picking off the defenders from cover with my gauss S and an UBGL. The TR started running around trying to find where the fire was coming from, I dropped a smoke grenade on the bounce pad landing for cover and my (4 man) squad moved in... Total TR wipe with no losses for my squadmates and we're all over the capture points before anyone else wakes up. It was Sweet
Am organized thrust of LA's up a cliff or over a wall etc. can completely crush a defense that was say holding a bridge, choke point, or building, usually when im leading a squad i will call upon LAs situationally and in some sort of group. Also whenever im in charge its nice to be able to fly to a safe place to take stock of a battle zone.
Single light assaults dont do much but dammed if groups of them dont cause a whole lot of trouble. Had a squad or two of light assaults only rush into an amp station cap room in the span of 5 seconds after the shields went down. They mowed down about 3/4ths of the defending force, destroyed the sundy and overloaded the gennie in less then 15 seconds. Single light assaults are good for sweeping the roofs of the biolabs and clearing sections of techplants (and of course sitting uptop of a tower base nailing those on the pads).
An organized team of Drifter LAs can stop a bio lab assault from getting too big. As long as the enemy team hasn't completely locked down the airpads yet, they are going to feel a lot of pain. 1 LA is 1 dead tank, or 1 near dead/dead sunderer. 2 LA is 1 guaranteed dead sunderer and 2 tanks. Having 12 means you can shut down nearly any vehicle based assault on a bio lab. And this is just one situation. You use infiltrators to "assassinate" things like terminals or generators or actual people. You use LAs to "assassinate" vehicles.
How? Are there aimbots on Connery hunting for LA or something? Every time I try this I get shot out of the sky, sometimes even by tank shells.
When wouldn't you want an LA with you?? We can fly.. While your crew is still trying to get in the main gate we are already on the point and knocking out gens.. If anything leave the HA off your card, they are the useless class, just scrubs that need 100 round mags and shields. A well certed ENG is far better for anti-armor than HA.. P.S. I don't drop ammo to HA, they will just use it to steal my AV turret armor kills. You can scream for ammo all you want, your not getting any, I'm sicks of HA screamig I need ammo.. You realize your this guy when your doing that:
