My thoughts on the assault balance changes.

Ok, I've been saying for quite some time that I feel that assault is balanced OTHER than the damage for his bomb attaching to the moneyball which I feel is over powered. Just wanted to point out this is my history of opinion on the class.

Now on to the balance changes for the assault:

This all depended on how MUCH of a nerf they instigated on the charges assault. After a bit of testing I think they actually hit the nail on the head perfectly. The balance change was precisely what was needed for the class. It hampers his mobility enough to be noticeable but not enough to severely affect the classes abilities and versatility. It also makes the classes endorsement choices even MORE varied (which is pretty cool considering that the Assault is already the class with the most number of EFFECTIVE endorsement builds. I predict we will see more people running Skill 3 (which is already my normal build.) However it wont be such a difference as to outshine RoF/Accuracy/Clipsize assaults which will end up playing completely differently than their skill based brothers.)
End Result: Positive

However I'd like to point out that the reason for the nerf

Is precisely why I still feel that Assassin's lunge needs to be looked at for a tweak in recharge rate (2 seconds is too short, 5seconds would be too long, I'd love to see it nerfed to 3 or 3.5seconds but that is a discussion for another thread.)

The first part of this change makes it sound like they buffed the Assault's bomb skill, when in fact it was a rather odd way to nerf him. The Assault bombs have a 1second arm timer that prevents them from being detonated right away. Removing the ability to recharge his bomb while it is deployed effectively added 1second to his recharge timer at MINIMUM. This is why they increased the base recovery speed to attempt to compensate for it. After some testing I found that the recharge time was nearly the same, but slightly longer even while using Gold Skill endorsement.

The reason this endorsement was a bad thing wasn't that the thing takes longer to recharge, its how it takes longer. Removing the ability to recharge his bomb while its deployed is a major nerf to his versatility and defensive capabilities. Being unable to use set up traps using the bombs and then using it them as an offensive tool if the other player avoids it. Also it nerfs his ability to use bomb jumps offensively. Ultimately I'd rather a direct nerf to his recharge speed rather than how it was done.
End Result: Neutral/Bad (needs significantly more testing to tell if this will greatly affect his versatility or if it is only a minor nerf that I'm blowing out of proportion. Still I'm unhappy with this part.

Still, keep up the good work Uber!

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Edit
Some interesting numbers:

Old charge cooldown numbers (without endorsements)
Level 1 = 15seconds
Level 2 = 8.5seconds
Level 3 = 6.66seconds

Current Charge cooldown numbers
Level 1 = 20seconds
Level 2 = 15seconds
Level 3 = 10seconds.

Old Bomb Charge time
Level 1 = 20seconds
Level 2 = 15seconds
Level 3 = 10seconds

Current Bomb Charge Times:
Level 1 = 15seconds (+1 second for bomb arm time)
Level 2 = 12seconds (+1 second for bomb arm time)
Level 3 = 10seconds (+1 second for bomb arm time)

Lastly I'd like to point this out:

Tank Charge Times:

Level 1 = 15seconds
Level 2 = 10seconds
Level 3 = 7.5seconds

That is right. The Tank now regens his charge FASTER than the Assault. And not just a little bit. 25% faster. Seems odd for the Tank, a class who is supposed to be slow, to be able to use his charge more often than the Assault who is supposed to be fast. I could see it being equal times, but not such a huge difference in times.

Agreed.

I find it odd that they chose to leave the Assault's moneyball damage with the bomb alone given how many players agree its probably over powered. (Even people who main Assault like myself.)

My input

I disagree, but this is a discussion for another thread.

This is how I thought it should be done from the getgo, I thought it VERY odd that you could detonate two bombs in such a rapid succession.

Quick question:Would it have been possible to headcrab the moneyball, wait till it goes down then inst-pop it while still having one in reserve with the previous setup?

When you attach a bomb to the moneyball while its still shielded the bomb stays where it was (floating in mid air) when the ball drops and is no longer attached. Also unless you attach it to the side or bottom of the moneyball the bomb explosion radius is too small to touch the moneyball when it drops. Ultimately it wouldn't be effective.

I really feel the assault got too nerfed with this. There's literally no room for mistake with the longest cooldowns in the game beside Support building a turret I guess. The assault can basically use his abilities once in an engagement and then he's screwed.

As much as I respect Scathis as a balancer, I simply don't agree with this change at all. The assault is honestly a joke. This was not the way to balance him. The only insane thing he did was moneyball damage.

Assault was not dominating every single match. This change puts him on the verge on unplayability.

I completely agree. People have told me that "you're still as good as ever" but yet, I'm really not. It was almost a month since I last played with the guy who said that, and I have improved a ton since then. It was unnoticeable, though, because assault had been nerfed so hard.

Double bombing capitalized on strategy and the enemies stupidity, which is commonly called skill. They effectively removed the ability to use the bomb skillfully, and have now made it a weapon that is only good at the top of jump pads or to throw and airdet on someone. Additionally, they nerfed the cooldown (because the 1 second MINIMUM before it could be detonated is now time that it spends not recharging.)

Assault was a very well rounded class, and with just a moneyball damage nerf, it would of been fine. Assault was always the most skill dependent class, and now his skills are less available.

Also, to the people saying assault mobility needed to be nerfed, that's really not true. He was mobile, but substantially less so than the sin. That is how it should be, with the sin as most mobile, and assault 2nd.

As a full-time assault I'm not horribly disappointed with the assault changes, yes they were a nerf, but he was very powerful before.

The bomb nerf might have been a BIT much. I can agree with them not recharging while the bomb's down, but I'd like a little more reduction in recharge time to compensate, just to make laying a trap more appealing. As it stands now, I'm good enough with the bomb that I'd rather just throw it at them and be assured they take the damage.

The charge really screwed me up for a few games, just because I was expecting it to be up and it wasn't, but it forces me to play more intelligently. No longer can I charge into combat, jump around a bit, and then charge back out again. I have to chose and I like that. This DOES however highlight the ridiculous mobility lunge gives to the assassin and agree a longer cool-down on lunge should be looked at. Force the assassin to chose between mobility and escape with smoke bomb, the same way you've forced the assault to chose between offense and escape with charge.

For assault, I disagree completely. Bomb nerf was definitely way over done and only needed to nerf damage to moneyball.

For assassin, I only partially disagree. They should be able to lunge in and out of combat, but being able to lunge grapple and IMMEDIATELY lunge back out is too much. they should have to wait a couple seconds before lunging out again.

Level 1 Charge and Level 2 Charge need a lower cooldown. I'd say Level 3 Charge is just about right.

Bomb nerf needs to be reverted entirely. It really hurts his versatility and thus viability.

Is the assaults charge speed slower than before? It feels SLIGHTLY slower for me to charge out of the gate after buying my skills. It could be in my head.

Increase the bombs CD by 1 second or even 1.5seconds. Leave the nerf to the moneyball damage, but return the charging while deployed, it does nothing but lower the skill ceiling of the class to remove that ability.

I can say for sure... I miss my double bombs I'm not too fussed with the mobility change, as stated above it makes for interesting combat. Should I fight? Or should I run? Sometime I make the wrong decision

But the bomb! Nooooooooooooo. That's what made skilled assaults so effective. Now I feel like I've had an arm cut off. More often I'm using my assault rifle in risky situation's because I don't have enough explosives. Is that what they intended? Maybe. It's also severely hampered my bot killing power and I'm killing noticeably less bots.

I'm not the best player in the world, but my effectiveness with bombs allowed me to take on some of the best, or at least keep them at bay. Now not so much.

I've been playing Assault a bit since the patch came out. The change isn't game breaking, but it certainly hurt the Assaults higher level play and ultimately his viability. There is rarely a time I can think of now that it wouldn't be better to take a Tank over an Assault, the tank can perform almost all of the same jobs with greater efficiency and safety now.

I guess its time I learned a new class other than Assault and Gunner :lol: Maybe tank shoudl be next on my list - or support perhaps.

As someone who mains Assault and Support, I'm very pleased with these balance changes.

They could have been worse for sure. I think that they went a little bit too far, but they didn't outright BREAK the class and make him unusable. He just went from "the top tier class that is good at everything but excels only at moneyball damage" to "the mid-low tier class that is passable at everything but excels at nothing"

If the game had a tier list almost everyone would be on the same tier except the assault just went from the top to nearly the bottom. He is still in the same "tier" though.

Now, let us feel the difference between skilled Assault and people who are like:"Id say Im pretty good assault!" (You know, the guys who just trashtalk and think they are epic, but they suck).
I sometimes miss my charge in various situations, but Im ok with this, in some way...(Yeees i miss my versatility a bit Q_Q)

I really dislike the bomb change

If the other team spammed assaults I could see whole areas being locked down like on grenade 3 and see why they did this change. But simply making the bombs destructible would have solved this issue more elegantly. It's kind a a silly that a extremely high explosive can't die EVER.

For the most part I feel the nerf was justified. Assault had crazy survivability due to his small size and how fast charge regenerated. I main Assault and Tank.

Charge Cooldown: Good
Bomb Spam Reduction: Good
Charge Speed Reduction: Meh

Assault feels a heck a lot slower due to the charge speed reduction. Was it really necessary?

I only played one game with Assault today so my opinion might change. If anything this balance change will make skill regen a lot more viable. It also might change his popularity (seems like the second most popular class in MP).

the part that bomb doesn't recharge when it's waiting to detonate makes sense to me since i was baffled by how it still recharges when i first played him; i thought it's to make it more effective so he can use it more often. but the CDR in this patch wasn't enough, it feels even longer than it used to be but maybe that's just me coz i don't often detonate the bomb right away.
the charge i haven't got to seriously try it out yet but an increased CD seems to be the only big issue now?

so... is gold CDR assault viable? lol
or is the armor/RoF/accuracy build still the way to go?