Assault and Lunge could take some rework

Assault

Charge grapple - I think the grapple should be an optional feature that could be activated by holding the charge button or by pressing fire/alt-fire for example. This because the charge grapple is very situational, but still useful. I know I could just leave the charge skill to L2, but it has 2 drawbacks: longer cooldown and much less damage/knockback.

Passive 3/Fly - I dont know if this would be OP, but maybe the P3 or Fly3 should increase the accuracy while flying around to default when not flying.

Assault rifle alt-fire - This ability does not seem very useful when the assault has to slowdown to just increase accuracy a little bit. And the accuracy only reduces spread while the damage dropoff stays the same, so it is only useful against snipers or other small targets standing still close. Alt-fire should also reduce the dropoff so it could have soem moer use.

Also is the charge cooldown increase really necessary? Tank charge is now better in everything: crushes charging assaults and less cooldown. But if it really corrects balance then im fine with it.

Assassin

Lunge - This should have some kind of a real cooldown, like 3-5 secs. Right now I see assassins just lunge spamming around with (2 sec?) cooldown and failing a lunge can be too quicky tried again. Also maybe the swing in the end of the lunge could be removed when the attack misses among the increased cooldown.

I have to admit that I like playing assault and these are the things Id like to see changed even in some way. And I know assault is not the priority #1 class to be changed.

Sin is fine.

Edit: Due to popular demand: The assassin is a close-combat class with low health and you want to take her best movement tool away? Please sir, play some sin against good people.
You are a horrible person.

Heck, even with Lunge, the Assassin is little more than a nuisance in skilled play. Very powerful force against players who don't know how to counter her, and rightfully so, but needs some kinda buff to be more useful against skilled players.

Sin is fine no matter who you're up against.

You kill bots, you rarely go for players when playing against good people if you're not juiced.

Including getting shot in the head because he can't bunny hop worth anything.

The main problem is that "good" players protect their bots, and the majority of the time, those protectors play Tank. My issue with the Tank isn't his health, so much as his exceptionally lethal close range abilities. When you have two Tanks that push bots, then there are few options the Assassin can take to push bots short of the Ejector and Annihilator, neither of which you want to rely on.

Cloak + Lunge + Grapple. Does that take any skill? At all? It's a free freaking kill, and if the grapple doesn't kill them, just slash at them once or twice.

Try playing against good people who work together and you will see its not as easy as you think.

But you can't physically react to that without luck, and once you're in the grapple, it's very unlikely that the assassin will be killed with that damage reduction during grapples.

still not a free kill if you die immediately after

Got a point there, but remember most of the game is full of pubbers, and ergo you usually won't die after. Yes skilled people will beat you but those are few and far in between.

Many good players will jump whenever they hear the lunge sound. If the latency is going the right way, the sin is screwed.

Um.. no. Humans don't react that quickly and latency is always gonna eff things like that up.

I've been trying to combat this line of thought for a while.

It takes knowing the skill level of your opponent as well as timing and a small bit of luck with latency.

I absolutely cannot see taking away the end slash as it would make ambushing opponents hard as hell as well as reducing the ability to kill bots quickly. These are two of the assassins four basic strengths. I actually do understand some (some) tweaks on the lunge as far as cooldown but I don't see the point in removing the slash at the end.

Also people jump when they hear the cloak sound or just bunnyhop to dodge shots.

Alright, I played Assassin when I was new to the game, and I easily timed the lunge-grapple, and since I don't play with 300 ping, latency doesn't stop my grapples, and their skill level doesn't really matter, since they can't expect the lunge-grapple unless its happened a few times in the same match, where they are being extremely paranoid, which actually helps them be less prepared for combat classes. Just make it so you CAN'T lunge grapple, easy as that, wouldn't hurt bot killing, and ambushing players should be hard, so people who need lunge to do that can deal with it.

Its definitely possible and reliable for some.
I'll admit its not something everyone can do, but regardless of that, in case you do grapple someone it is almost always a guaranteed end of life.

Also the assassin's cloak doesn't keep you safe at all, and its far better to sneak without cloak activated.

But there is the problem, this is a class that specializes in surprise.

I know there is common ground here.

latency issues is what makes it possible for every other class to grapple a sin out of a lunge that is why i have all but given up on trying for kills when i play sin
and the second anyone hear the hum they should be ready for a lunge grapple
grappling a tank that is escorting bots is just asking for death by charge db

with all the bitching about assassin lunge right from the day the game was released if anything about it was to be changed i would like to see

lunge swapped with dash
lunge lvl1 -lunge no damage at all just movement
lunge lvl2 -lunge with bot damage as it stands now
lunge lvl3 -current lunge with slash maybe with a slight damage increase to offset the cost

reload would be the equivalent of dash lvl2 all cooldowns would remain the same

it would also make it so that assassins would need to upgrade more than 1 skill to be effective

They do.

And great players bunny hop far too frequently to make a lunge>grapple at any great distance, particularly out of cloak hum range, worth it.

5-6seconds on lunge is far too long. I think lunge does need an increase in cooldown but that is WAY over doing it. 3 MAYBE 3.5seconds would be perfect. Any more and you are treading into the same territory as the over nerf on the assault's cooldown for charge 1 and 2.

the alt fire on the AR is fine. It DOES actually significantly boost the AR's damage drop off, not just the accuracy. The catch is that you lose an absolutely insane amount of speed. And boosting the AR's damage drop off significantly isn't very hard to do since it has such short range already.

The damage drop off goes from ~1500 to ~2000 when you zoom. (the range on the Support's Hurt/Heal gun for comparison is ~1500)

Also if you run accuracy endorsements the accuracy boost gained from zooming is less noticeable since it is a percentage change rather than a flat accuracy gain. Of course the advantage is that the accuracy LOSS when using jets is also a percentage rather than a flat amount so you lose less accuracy while flying.

I like the idea of holding down the charge button with charge 3 giving you the auto grapple, while only tapping it does a regular charge. I think that is the best idea for the ability I've ever seen.