Questions and Feedback: Heat/ Blitz abilities Vs other class abilities | Forums

[RandomTask00]

Im not sure if this is where i need to post this but this seemed to be the best place.

I normally play a specialist so i fully understand nearly all of the situations that Shield and Black out are used, but tonight I changed it up and tried Assault. I got to level 4 used Blitz and I found I was only using it to make up ground or as a hard counter to the shield other wise it widely useless or to be more accurate weak. When playing any other class when I hear someone coming I can nearly always kill them before they hit me, or if im lucky a team member will help out. Forcing the Assault to no longer use it to disrupt a team but only for traversing the map. The only other benefit it can glean is when the shield is on you back it give you some protection(nice touch Ubi) I have been saved numinous times by it and i find that to be its only saving grace.

After using Blitz for a while i switched over to Heat and i was completely lost on its use and usefulness outside of, Im out of ammo and i used it as a desperation tactic. From what i can tell the assault class got the short end of the stick in Pre-Pro. Recon, gets Cloak, Nice i can go invisible and Oracle, Alright 2 to the left 1 to the right got it. Specialist: Aegis, Sweet a shield that deflects bullets and BlackOut, AOE Stun here we go. and Assault, Cool Blitz that's a cool name, Ohh i run faster and can bash things and Heat, ok my view changed thats cool, ahh there is the enemy ok im hitting him for 1 damage and its over.

Now i realize this is my opinion and it no way is any of this 100% true its just how i see it, the Assaults abilities just seem tacked on to counter really cool ones and no true time was taken after they were developed and implemented to reevaluate them or maybe it has and im just not aware. I do add one caveat not having played with Heat a whole lot i cant really make any worth while comments to improve it but with blitz i think if the shield emitted a mini aegis to fully cover the Assults body from the front it would add that little bit of flare if not just make the shield a bit wider and taller to protect the arms and legs.

If any of this seems out of place for anyone please let me know and any pointers to make Heat more usable would help me articulate possible a fix or maybe it was simple operator error.

[SiLeNCel2]

When i first started the game, i was thinking exactly the same about heat and blitz. But after playing with them for a while, i was able to figure out how they are supposed to be used and - surprise - suddenly i started to love them and playing only assault from now on.

Especially heat is awesome if you use it to counter specialist's aegis. Just wait until you hear them charge the aegis, take cover and deploy it. The nice thing with specialists is, they tend to run out in the open with 1-3 comrades under their bubble, e.g. the C-bridge on moscow, where there is no turning back for them. They won't be able to shoot while supressed by heat and are defenseless against your teammates... this is one of the most satisfying moments in the game for me, especially seeing the enemies' reactions when they realize they're on the plate!

About the damage.... well, the goal is to surpress the enemy, not to kill them. But if you really want to fry them, zoom in (mousewheel) to increase the damage. The problem is you might lose other opponents out of sight and they can shoot you again, so use it wisely! This technique together with the damage upgrade of the mk2-version will get you lots of easy kills and even more lolz!

[FaLleNx_]

I'm trying to get my tier achievements, but I just can't get any kills with heat. It seems as soon as I deploy it I get shot no matter what. Assaults are pretty defenseless when using heat =/

[LiquidX74]

About the damage.... well, the goal is to surpress the enemy, not to kill them. But if you really want to fry them, zoom in (mousewheel) to increase the damage. The problem is you might lose other opponents out of sight and they can shoot you again, so use it wisely! This technique together with the damage upgrade of the mk2-version will get you lots of easy kills and even more lolz!

Except 1/2 of assaults achievements are based around killing people with heat, not suppressing them.

Either way, you've proved his point, assault specials are mainly about countering other classes cool abilities - they're not inherently useful on their own.
Further, heat really is useless. It makes the assault a huge target for anyone not in the immediate vicinity. It has a very short range for suppression, I think ~70 yards - meaning anyone who is 71+ yards away can easily pop from cover and plug you. Anyone closer than 71 yards can easily run up and punch you in the face while you're helplessly walking about as fast as a 1 legged turtle.

Yes, in a perfect situation it can be useful and can counter everyone who runs for an aegis - but that seems extremely situational compared to cloak, oracle, aegis or even blackout which can disable many enemies at once.

Blitz is extremely frustrating to use most of the time. Mainly because people are very rarely alone - so being able to hit someone with it is kind of useless because you will inevitably get shot in the *** if you stop charging to kill someone. So the best use of blitz is often to charge multiple people, knock them all down, and run for cover and shoot them while they get up. This is pretty hard to do as just getting to the enemy can be a challenge sometimes. It's main fault is that by using it, you are virtually guaranteeing that you will be killed soon - because it isolates you from your team. It puts you far ahead of them, out of cover, and usually well into the enemy line. On top of that, it does zero damage so there is really very little incentive to use it most of the time. Ever hit a recon with blitz who just engaged invisibility? good luck finding his prone body to shoot.

Honestly, blitz could use some tweaking - everything about it is counter to what this game is. Most everyone digs in behind cover, establishing arcs of cross fire. using blitz (or heat for that matter) make you a big juicy target that is generally pretty easy to kill/avoid.


I would propose that anyone hit with blitz suffer a similar effect to blackout - but not aoe. That is, if you charge up and smash someone in the face with your shield, they should be knocked down, any ability the had activated should be disabled, and perhaps a screen blur applied to them as they recover from the bash. Further, it should do some damage - maybe 25-50 damage (it does put you out in the open and make you infinitely more vulnerable than if you had stayed behind your cover and sniped after all).

Heat should also be reworked - it is easily the most useless ability in the game right now - it's duration is very short (compared to aegis), it does not deflect any damage/bullets fired from outside of its suppression range, and makes you move extremely slow. All these combine to make you a sitting target for anyone with a scope. On top of that, the damage (seeing as achievements are based around it) is a complete joke. 1 damage? really? sigh. I'm not sure how this could be reworked - but something definitely has to be done about the range. Most of the maps are all about the "long hallway" and navigating that while you move from cover to cover to advance. The problem here is that in order to use heat effectively, you already need to be within spitting distance of your objective - meaning it's useful all of maybe 3 times per round - until someone peeks around a corner and headshots you, or dives from cover to pistol whip you. At least a specialist with aegis can defend himself from the pistol whip if he's paying attention. In fact, in any situation where you might want to use heat, aegis is better.

TLDR:
assault abilities are not very fun, are very situational, and because of this, both should be looked at to be improved in some manner. They are after all, the only class abilities that have drawbacks (you make yourself the prime target using either) - which is not the case outside of every other ability but aegis - but aegis provides near invincibility.

[SiLeNCel2]

Except 1/2 of assaults achievements are based around killing people with heat, not suppressing them.

Either way, you've proved his point, assault specials are mainly about countering other classes cool abilities - they're not inherently useful on their own.
Further, heat really is useless. It makes the assault a huge target for anyone not in the immediate vicinity. It has a very short range for suppression, I think ~70 yards - meaning anyone who is 71+ yards away can easily pop from cover and plug you. Anyone closer than 71 yards can easily run up and punch you in the face while you're helplessly walking about as fast as a 1 legged turtle.

errm.... have you recently looked at the assault achievments, yet PLAYED as an assault??
the higher tier challanges have been changed to "capture X points while using HEAT", only the "assault training" requires you to kill 3 enemies with HEAT, and tbh... this is what i killed in one round yesterday "by accident".
you know that the 1 point damage only counts for the first few "hits" and then rapidly increases, right? not to mention if you zoom in... it seems more like you dont know what you are talking about, man.

also, you can increase the range to 80 yards (i think) with the range upgrade on HEAT mk2. AND you can use heat from safe cover without showing your body. if you walk into battle with HEAT like you would be using an aegis... then that's your problem!

and many people forget that the assault has some of the most powerful weapons in the game... MK16... AR-21... ANY KIND OF SHOTGUN.... most smgs are just a joke against those if used properly! PLUS the assault has the most hitpoints and thickest armor, there has to be some downside too! what do you want to give him for special ability, a cloak? a helicopter strike? an aimbot?!

a LITTLE bit of tweaking, maybe... but assault is not totally useless, just harder to use imho!

[RandomTask00]

Depending on what MK2 heat does i still feel that at an ability it needs a bit of a rework, but i didn't say that assaults were useless only their abilities the only thing that makes the assaults one of the better classes is their armor and weapons and the ladder is only weaker then the specialist because of ammo capacities. With blitz if they added a bit of damage 25-35 it would go along way along with the other changes i already pointed out, cause rarely will someone you bash be at full hp before your hit. But i would like to point out that any damage added will be a fine line to walk in the case of balancing you don't want to make the assault class the end all class you only want to make their abilities more appealing to a new player cause lets face it its a F2P game their will always be a first time player in nearly every game the target audience isn't us (the vets or forums trolls) its the new blood that may spend money that keeps the game online and viable to for the company to run.

Thanks for the feed back, im going to try some things tonight to see if i can get a stronger idea on how to improve Heat cause this is a beta and their is still time to get it right.

[LiquidX74]

errm.... have you recently looked at the assault achievments, yet PLAYED as an assault??
the higher tier challanges have been changed to "capture X points while using HEAT", only the "assault training" requires you to kill 3 enemies with HEAT, and tbh... this is what i killed in one round yesterday "by accident".

congrats ? Now do that every time heat is available and maybe it would be on par with blackout, oracle, invis or aegis. You're right though, I haven't looked past the first tier of achievements, because I value being useful to my team more than bashing my face against a brick wall trying to get 3 heat kills in a round.

you know that the 1 point damage only counts for the first few "hits" and then rapidly increases, right? not to mention if you zoom in... it seems more like you dont know what you are talking about, man.

Uh huh. point is, someone gets hit by a point of heat, they chuck a grenade, snipe you from out of range, punch you in the face if they're close, or sit back and wait for your team to come out of cover and your heat wears off to fill them full of lead.

Heat is garbage.
It *might* be ok if it didn't impair your movement speed, but I doubt it. Fact is, this is a game of instants. It takes 1 instant to get a head shot and kill you, it takes 5-6 instants of someone stupid enough to not take cover for you to kill them with heat.

You say it sounds like I don't know what I'm talking about, I say it sounds like you played against garbage players. Where's the crossroads.

also, you can increase the range to 80 yards (i think) with the range upgrade on HEAT mk2. AND you can use heat from safe cover without showing your body. if you walk into battle with HEAT like you would be using an aegis... then that's your problem!

Big deal, so now you have to be 81+ yards away to counter heat. That's about 1/3rd of the distance a sniper (or properly equipped assault) can shoot, and all of the maps afford the luxury of having such range. Your point is moot.

and many people forget that the assault has some of the most powerful weapons in the game... MK16... AR-21... ANY KIND OF SHOTGUN.... most smgs are just a joke against those if used properly! PLUS the assault has the most hitpoints and thickest armor, there has to be some downside too! what do you want to give him for special ability, a cloak? a helicopter strike? an aimbot?!

Don't compare weapons, that's just a bad idea.
smgs are not meant to go toe to toe with ARs - though in some cases they can. lmg's can definitely go toe to toe with AR's in all but long range. They each have their strengths in certain situations, but none are perfect in all.

All in all, a weapon doesn't really matter though if you play to your gun's strengths.

As far as assault having the most hp and best damage reduction, well.. they are meant to be driving forces in any push. You seem to be insisting that these are balance points for weak specials, but I don't see how that correlates. Recon and specs get extra speed on their armor - where's the balance point for that?

Your last statement was just asinine.

a LITTLE bit of tweaking, maybe... but assault is not totally useless, just harder to use imho!

I never said assault was useless, just their abilities when weighed with the other class abilities. Other classes can pop their junk at practically any point in a game and have them be effective - Assaults have to wait for the perfect moment.

[LiquidX74]

Just for kicks, I threw on heat today.
I stood behind an enemy for the full duration of heat and it didn't kill him. so.. yea, it's trash.

[FaLleNx_]

I bought heat mk2 and used the +dmg +range slot...and I got my first two kills with it. They were pushing up with aegis then I powered up and because they were moving pretty slow already they couldn't run or even shoot back. It was pretty cool getting my first heat kills.

[RandomTask00]

ok so you are saying save for MK2 and maybe it will show fruit, thats alot of point to waste on it and a inventory slot if it doesn't pan out.