a different take on assault changes

this is my first post here so it's not my intent to make it a complaint but rather an observation or two.

i have played this game on pc since beta and many varieties of fps games before that. depending on the occasion i've played every class in this game but i main the assault and what i have discovered is this: whether intentional or not the latest patch punishes creativity and forces cookie cutter builds for success. let me explain.

my career with assault up to this point was skill/armor/rof, although it's the gold skill endorsement that really only matters in this particular case. with the high refresh on skills, the assault became a finesse class which was quite enjoyable to play. at one point when checking my personal stats my rifle and bomb kills were about 50/50. the idea was to set up denial points with bombs, use charge as a means of burst movement and then offensive power. because the default assault rifle has such a rapid drop off in damage and the spread is so large i used it only in extreme close quarters or to finish opponents off.

this is no longer viable (or limited to such a degree as to make it not worth it). recent changes make it so most skills can only be used once per encounter. perhaps this is by design. either way, sporting a gold, or even silver skill endorsement is simply non-beneficial. what that leaves is us with is the assault as a rifle-jock. gold accuracy or rof, etc. throw the occasional bomb here or there, charge if necessary or use it for movement.

some posters here have said 'adapt to changes' and i, as well as others, already have. i don't have a particular solution for proper balancing but it's unfortunate that non-standard builds become crippled and further take away from variety. it makes me question the fundamental design of things.

in any case, feel free to comment, flame or post cute kitten pictures as you see fit.

You should use Armor/Accuracy/Skill recovery on your assault class.
Or is you still like your class try and play accuracy on him it works very well.

acc/rof/armor currently. if the game dictates that the rifle be my primary (anti-pro) damage dealer so be it. i'm just not happy with the idea.

doesnt the default build of the assault include gold ROF?

anything that isnt gold rof is simply painful to use with the assault. I never did rely on skill spamming too much, except for the charge.

I would use to to get in or get out. Mainly to close in on good snipers before they have a chance to react. Charge in, throw a bomb during the charge, explode it and profit.

if anything, the nerf definitely forces you to always use that gold ROF and silver armor because mobility has been drastically reduced along with skill recovery

Gunners will rip threw you if you do not have gold armor.

I actually think the opposite about the recent Assault changes. It has broadened the range of possible effective builds. As it was beforehand majority of Assaults had Armor, RoF and Accuracy in their build some way.

His rifle is still deadly and he still has his Fly skill. Fly seems to be the most under used skill for PC Assault players.

Gunners will rip through you even if you do
If a Gunner has his minigun spunup, he'll almost always punch out 3x the dps of the Assault's rifle

How is the fly skill underused? Or better yet how should it be used?
*takes out notepad*

I never got hit as assault before, used Gold Skill Silver Armour and Bronze Regen.

Sorry to maybe derail the topic, but didn't some one do some testing a month or so ago and find that gold rate of fire wasn't as effective as it should be (compared to Silver RoF) due to the PC's FPS count or something similar?

I don't remember the specifics, but I thought that the conclusion was that the difference between gold and silver rate of fire was so small, it was essentially a waste of a gold endorsement?

Maybe I'm completely wrong here, but I thought I'd ask.

As far as the Assault Rifle goes, yes. It does, however, provide a noticable boost to the Grenade Launcher, which is a reason why some prefer it.

On topic, having played with the changes for a few days now, I have to say they're not too bad. As far as endorsement builds go, I'd have to agree with Poly that it probably opens up more use for Skill Regen builds. Gold Skill, especially, now provides a noticeable boost to regen times, where as pre-nerf, even with no Skill endorsement, it was rare not to have a skill available.

Those of us who were already using non cookie cutter builds (gold rof/armor/skill or Gold skill/armor/RoF, for example, are my two favorites) which incorporated RoF already, are being much more harshly punished than those who didn't. I can't upgrade my gold skill to get my skills recharging like they used to, and if I put something else in gold it would only magnify the effect of the nerf on me.

As a non-cookie cutter guy myself (I often run Skill/RoF/Clip or Armor), I see where you are coming from. This is a nerf to EVERY Assault, regardless of build, and I in no way meant that this was a buff for Gold Skill. In fact, you've basically proven the point I wanted to get across. Pre-patch, Gold Skill was a bit over the top (No offense - I ran it then, too). Now, Gold Skill is a serious option as opposed to other standard endorsements, such as armor.

EDIT: If you were referring to a skill-heavy playstyle, instead of purely an endorsement build, then I don't really have much to say. It's unfortunate, but if Uber decided that a playstyle which incorporated lots of skill "spam" was overpowered, there's not much to argue there. If they felt that another aspect of the Assault was overpowered (The AR, for instance), they would have nerfed that instead.

For the record, my current most common build is Accuracy/RoF/Crit.

I call BULLSHIT about the "Forced to pick Armor Endorsement" claim.

I currently use Gold RoF, Silver Acc, and Bronze Skill.
And I do perfectly fine! Perhaps because I don't often run into a gunners/tanks face while waving a giant white flag with a bullseye painted on it. Hit & Run FTW.

Does anyone have some solid proof that this nerf was over the top?

I play Assault still, and keep increasing my stars each game and even versus 5+ star players, I can effectively manage a good Kill-Death ratio. I personally think that the bomb nerf was highly justified. Afterall, if we do a heacrab, which is only limited to each individuals skill level, it's an instant kill. To allow this to be running it's cooldown while in action, seems rather overpowered.

I think people need to go with different gamestyles and adapt to changes. Before, I specifically upgraded Passive + Charge to Rank 3 as my first priority. Now, I skill differently depending on the opponents I am against. Sometimes, I totally disregard upgrading my skills and go for constant Juice. In maps such as Steel Peel, you can score so many kills due to clutch fights with Juice and without even having skills leveled.

Since I am fairly new to the game, I played very little before the Assault nerf patch, but I hardly felt any difference. I just have to be more patient and put good timing into my attacks and when my bomb is on cooldown, this time can effectively be spend farming bots to help my team push.

We still are able to one-shot with a Headcrab. We can still Ring Out people using Grabble, if you max your Charge you can use this ALOT to simply score a Ring Out for +75 every time your charge is off CD.


Assault Question: Do the Endorsement "Crit" stack with the Assault Passive "Crit" ?

I have proof. I played with OD earlier, and before today, he had always beaten me, but today it was 24-1 for me and 16-2 for him (roughly these stats) when we both played assault on opposite teams. This means that it nerfed it so hard that he could no longer beat me, even though he had always been ahead in skill prior to the nerf.

I think that is proof that the nerf is over the top.

Also, I am friends with roughly 1/4 of the top 20 players, and i can think of 2 of them that said they would probably quit the game until it was fixed.

I feel like the changes in the patch were justified, but they were not over-the-top nor did they weaken the assault's effectiveness too much.

Pre-patch I would rarely die because the speed and distance I would gain with a lvl 2 charge (the usual level I left it at because charge 3 grapple annoys me) was pretty obscene at times, allowing me to get away from nearly anybody. But with the recent changes it seems to merely force me to spend $400 more than I usually do to get charge to lvl 3, which seems about the same as charge lvl 2 used to be (but this might just be in my head...)

The bomb changes did not really bother me much as I would try and toss bombs at people directly (and I've gotten pretty good at it) rather than throwing it somewhere and hoping someone happens to just walk into the bomb radius. I tend to rely more on the assault's weapons (gold rof/silver armor/bronze acc) than its bomb and charge skills to get kills, although bombs do help in taking out chunks out of enemy pros when tossed effectively.

Before the nerfs my skill order was pass. + charge > bomb > fly > bomb > fly. But with the nerfs I just throw in a lvl 3 charge between or after my maxing of the bomb and fly. Oh noes, $400 more than usual, where will I get my juice fix now!!?! :cry:

I don't know what I would do without fly. Love the damned thing to death, I tend to do manic bunnyhopping mixed with bursts of fly for maximum assassin trolling. Fly lvl 1 wouldn't be able to cut it past the early phase of matches.

I purposefully didn't bring fly in to it because fly wasn't part of the patch changes.

The rifle is one of the lowest dps vs pro weapons in the game,

The nerf may not have effected YOUR playstyle, but those of us who used the bomb strategically, not just playing football with it and tossing it to people, were hit incredibly hard by the nerf, as we can no longer double bomb, we can't use it as a psychological trigger, and we can't use it with movement prediction.

If we're using star ratings and k/d as proof: my star rating and k/d started to drop after the patch. Switching to the gunner they started increasing again. I kill fewer bots than I did as assault before the patch, but now I kill the same number of bits with a better k/d.

The whole "you need to adapt" argument is fine, it happens with every change, but the amount of adapting needed for some people who used to play the assault differently is very large. I used to ignore most pros and simply push bot lanes when I played assault. I wasn't very aggressive with him and generally had a low k/d but got double the bot kills of the next person down (pubs, yes, but still...).
I can't play the assault now. I have a terrible k/d and only average bot kills because I die so much. He no longer supports my game style and to adapt, for me, means completely relearning the class. That's not really "adapting" anymore.

Basically he was very flexible and now they've focused his style. Everyone who used to play on the outer edges of that flexibility is feeling this change as a hard nerf. People who used to play him in that focused style felt a much lesser impact.

Strategically it could help escapes by blocking off paths, knocking back chaser, etc. But I feel that was the most "overpowered" thing about the assault, which is being able to escape from nearly anything that isn't an obscenely good sniper.

Leaving a bomb out, in my opinion, should have some kind of disadvantage to it. Being able to leave a non-destructible, 300 damage firetrap down at a critical location, like a jump pad landing, isn't fair in my opinion, because it takes no actual skill to leave it just lying there and hoping someone just flops into it.

Also, the assault rifle may not be godly in the DPS department like the gunners' minis, but it gives us mobility with good enough dps to drop heavies within 2 clips, 1 clip if they just ate a bomb, at medium range. If the rifle had higher dps, it would not be fair, the minigun can't shoot at maximum revolution and maintain maximum dps WHILE using a 300 damage skill. The assault rifle offers versatility over raw damage.

In my opinion the changes were justified, but I also see why assaults who loved the bomb over the assault's other weapons might be a bit ticked off.