"I think" each Pro could do with one more skill choice...

I was thinking that it would be nice if we could chose from 3 of 4 skills when creating our custom class. We already have 3 (of course) so only one more would be required to add to the options. Imagine being able to swap out the Gunners Grapple for something else...

For example the Support could place a shield in front of any turret. The shield would be similar to the Riot Shield, and this would give massive defense to the turret on whatever side the shield faces. It would, of course, be put down to fit the size of the turret it is defending, so it would not stop the turrets bullets. The shield would be immune to bullets and could only be knocked down by grapples. Each level up would make the shield 10% wider.

This isn't a bad idea but all that would really happen is that the worst ability would always be abandoned.

For instance, if a new ability was added to the tank and was any good at all, every tank would take it over deploy tank and it would not be any different than just replacing it.

I mean, like you say, the gunner's grapple is overkill. Almost no gunner ever uses it. Just about anything would be better, and every gunner knows this. It would be better just to completely replace the ability with something else rather than add an ability that would replace it most of the time anyways.

I mean this could work for some classes, sure. But in the end, the most useful abilities would be taken 99% of the time and the same ability would be abandoned most of the time.

I'm all for a fourth ability though, it could shake things up a bit. Not sure how it could be done, though, since the abilities are based on x-y-b.

Exactly. They'd have to completely redesign the interface for the abilities or it would make no sense, and I can't see them doing that.

They could always do a "hold (button) to (action)."

Not sure I approve, or that it could be written into the game. Just saying.

I think a better suggestion would be to replace gunner grapple with something else. And I'd support that.

I dunno, I think this could easily work. As the Devs have stated many time, some skills are designed with Blitz in mind and are far more useful in that game mode. Tank Deploy and Gunner Grapple both fall into this category. This way you can take those skills for Blitz mode by making a custom version for Blitz and a custom version for Crossfire.

I think this could be fairly easily implemented by having the player choose for the custom class which skill to put on which button when building a custom class. So for a Gunner you could assign Slam to X, Deploy to Y, and <New Skill> to B. Or if you were a renegade, you could go for <New Skill> on X, Slam on Y, and Grapple on B. You get the idea.

I would agree except that I've never used tank deploy in a blitz. It's not even good against Jackbots -- especially on higher round levels -- who run right past you. Deathblossom is almost universally better.

Gunner grapple is another ability I never use in Blitz. I don't even upgrade it until I have nothing else to spend money on. It might be useful against a bouncer, but that's about it, really.

They just aren't good abilities for their respective classes. That said, I've been using tank deploy a *little* bit more on my tank for recovery. But only for the recovery. I think this was meant to be a bonus, not the sole reason to use it... I never upgrade to rank 3.

Like I said, if you could use deathblossom in tank deploy, it would be useful in Blitz, and even possibly crossfire. As it currently is, it's only useful for recovering health faster behind cover. Gunner grapple really doesn't have any use at all. Slam is always better, you knock them away, slow them, and gun them down.