My thoughts on the assault balance changes.

I would have been perfectly okay with a moneyball damage reduction. That was insane. This change stripped the assault of what he is. He literally is a worse version of the tank now. Assault was not this dominating to completely destroy his viability. He really isn't scary anymore.

I'm not convinced at all this is a change I need to adapt to, rather this is actually a bad change for him.

To refine my thoughts on this change I think the bomb change is bad. Why not just make it a grenade now?

Charge change is manageable, but it should DEFINTELY be faster than the tank's. That kills me. The two speeds should not be identical. It doesn't even make sense. This really needs to be changed back.

While I always liked Charge 3, the charge change is okay, but should NOT be as slow as the tank's charge. I also seriously dislike the bomb change, as its basically a grenade now.

Hmm, a sticky grenade. I wonder.

Lol, yes!

The problem with the change is the longer you do not detonate it, the less value you as the assault are getting out of your skills. It really narrows decision making.

What is with the discussion on charge speed? It goes the same speed on the ground as it did before.

Longer cooldown but that has nothing to do with the speed.

Well, I just frapsed a game as an Assault. I'd say he's still reasonable viable under most circumstances. The charge cooldown nerf is a rather painful pill to swallow though. Still works well against Buncers. I'll upload asap.

Really? Only thing I could do to a bouncer was knock it away from me with charge .

Video is at 50% uploaded.

I do feel that nerfing both the charge speed and cooldown was a little much. I'd say bring the charge speed back to where it originally was, then call it a day.

Here is that vid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PIj4K_196g

Bleh. Stop using 80 million sensitivity.

You run bronze accuracy but have such high sensitivity that effectively removes the advantage of your endorsement.

Otherwise, looks normal.

Actually, my fps was hovering at around 20 most of the time. xD

The problem is that the assault takes control of pace incredibly well. If you know the effective ranges of each class, he can abuse it with the appropriate weapon/playstyle. To get into that range where you're effective, but the other guy isn't, a lot of assaults used their charge offensively. This could mean charging next to a Sniper to force him into close range. Or charging into an Assassin to fling her back into the mid range.

The fact that before the nerf, the Assault could do this, AND THEN use it in the same fight to run away if he got jumped by another class who dominates a certain range, was bullcrap.

If you use a charge to get into the face of a Sniper, and a Tank turns around the corner and greets you face to face, you shouldn't be allowed to kill the Sniper and then run away from the Tank so soon. You need to make a choice.

Either use your charge offensively to get into that situation where your in your effective range (which is any range due to the assaults weapons) and the other guy isn't, and have to deal with you not being able to run away for awhile if someone else jumps you

or

Find another way to get into that range, and use the charge defensively to get out of a hairy situation.

Not both. That's absurd. No other class but the Assassin can do that, but the Assassin needs it because her only effective range is the range of her Katana/Lunge (nixing any gimmicky shuriken builds). So no, her "lunge" doesn't need to be nerfed. The armor endorsement for the Sniper needs to be boosted back up, but that's about it. The Assassin is fine. Leave her alone. If you play well against an Assassin, she becomes much less effective.

It's almost impossible to "play well" against an Assault unless you're playing another Assault. He's so good at everything, and so many classes have a bad match up against him when he can use charge so often, that the only recourse was to slightly tone him down or


----
With the charge nerf my opinion is this -v

The two worst matchups are:
Assassins have the hardest time grabbing him (jump spam/jet spam), AND using shuriken. The only recourse is to Katana slash him, and if he has charge on cooldown, and you DONT have gold armor, you're screwed. The charge nerf makes it now possible to actually kill a good assault one on one without luck katana grabs.

Snipers have the hardest time head shotting him (jump spam/small hitbox, nerfed scoped body damage), and the hardest time killing him if hes at close range. Grabbing is hard, flak does damage to yourself, and he can jet over/detonate freeze traps. Also, the rifle out damages your machine gun, and bomb tears through your health.

Average:
Gunners/Tanks are the easiest to stick with grenade (insta kill)
Support requires range for his shotgun to work, which is hard when hes bouncing you back with bomb/charge. IF the Support gets into shotgun range, and charge is on cooldown, the assault is screwed if he has proper aim and doesn't get nabbed by a bomb.

Best Counter:
The best counter to Assault is another, better assault.

So moderately skilled players were mostly unaffected, but people who used the bomb very skillfully were extremely nerfed.
Charge 3 can't kill bouncers (why not? It should...)
rockit turrets still have hitboxes way too small.
And snipers need to have the armor back to the way it was so they don't get 2 shotted from long range around corners by assault grenade launcher?

Am I doinitrite?

that's something that's bothered me too.. they're one of the most durable turrets, AND a pain in the *** to hit. The only thing worse is when your grenades go straight between the legs of a deployed firebase

For those of you that don't know, the bomb recharge time reduction ONLY affects levels 1 and 2. Level 3 has the same recharge timer as it did before (10 seconds) however now that it doesn't recharge after being thrown it is effectively 11seconds minimum, not a big deal unless you start trying to use the ability as more than a weak version of an air strike.

Assault has natural speed, tank does not. Saying that a Tank can use it to get into and out of battle reliably... is a lie, he can't do either reliably. If a tank isn't already almost in range of an enemy who also doesn't have a charge himself, he won't be able to chase the enemy down. If a tank isn't REALLY close to a corner and his base, he won't outrun an assault or chase one down.

Indirect buff on tank? Yes. Unbalanced change? No.

7.5second cooldown WITHOUT skill regen for tank's charge. When the nerf was made to assault, the assault has a 6.66second cooldown for his charge. Tank has nearly twice the health of the assault (500health for assault vs 700+200from passive for Tank.) Unless you can do that additional 400health in damage to the Tank in the 0.9seconds that was the difference in their charge time then yes, he can charge in and out of battle just as often as the Assault.

Also the jetgun's range is about 2/3rds of what the assault rifle range is before hitting its damage drop off, but its also perfectly accurate and has a higher base damage, and clipsize.

Bro, once again you choose to live in your own little street fighter themed world where numbers and testing have not been invented yet.

Actually, frame advantages exist there too. However, I think I am the only person ever to juggle someone into ultra using Gen's mantis ultra 1 from an anti air focus attack.

Back on topic, the tank has a much shorter, slower charge, with a larger hitbox, and smaller base speed. If a sniper, tank, gunner, or support, tries to chase an assault, all of them without charging, then the assault will get away because he is fast enough to put plenty of space between them. With a charge, it becomes guranteed. If anything but a spun gunner tries to chase a tank, they will catch up to him and proceed to walk circles around him while peppering away. ESPECIALLY the assault.

By the way, what thread was someone accusing DeadStretch of liking the nerf because he plays tank? "Only hard counter now is the Sniper". Only hard counter? Gunner? The tank has a HUGE hitbox, little jump height and walk speed, a single charge to get him far enough away (and it just doesn't do that much), before a mini shreds him (which it will even without accuracy). THAT is it's hard counter. Where is the assault's?

Their charge speeds match in the new update and the Tank's Charge regens faster

Before the update, the Tank's charge was actually longer than the Assault's.