Weekly Class Debrief - Assault

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1. The syringe should provide the effect of a small first aid kit (start regeneration) + maybe give 20 HP instantly.

2. Equipping a second weapon instead of a gadget shouldn't reduce ammo.

3. Move the syringe to regular gadgets and make the respawn point a special gadget.

4. Smoke grenades for everyone.

5. Why haven't they removed the sweet spot from sniper rifles yet?

6. Reduce the cost of the large magazine on the automatic pistol and on the machine guns, and swap the cost of standard pellets and slugs on the shotgun, 10 slugs and 40 regular pellets.

P.S. We're still waiting for ADS FOV, disabling weapon blur, and increasing the minimap size on the screen even further.

Bugs (the x6 thermal sight looks different on different guns; on the 5.7 pistol, the front sight overlaps the sights)

Benitto51​ is on to something 

“关于游戏内单位升级系统：我们先不谈单位死亡时等级下降的问题。目前，为了防止等级下降，我必须避免用空格键快速自杀。不过，这可能会对我的队友产生负面影响。另一方面，如果我按空格键瞬间自杀，整个升级系统就变得毫无意义。你能考虑改善这个问题吗？”

What do you all think about ladders, underutilized or overutilized?

Have you found success with them in sneaky spots like this one in REDSEC? If you have a cool spot to use them, this could be a great place to share with your fellow Assault players.

I believe the spawn beacon and ladder are both strong perks that give the class a lot of interesting play, but in general the class suffers from extremely poor teamplay potential and a useless class gadget (the stim).

TRAINING PATHS
I would personally most like to see training paths get major rebalances (because most of them are borderline useless). For Assault, the current perks are as follows:

1. Breacher:
   
   1. Extra Grenades: this one is fine, and is the main reason why most people run this training path.
   2. Agile Shooter: this one is also fine, though I personally don't really notice much change when it's active.
   3. Unrelenting Reload: This would have much better synergy and use if the specialized non HE launchers were actually fun to use. I think this perk is fine on its own, however the gadgets it effects need reworks of some kind.
2. Frontliner:
   1. Adrenaline Rush: the stim is basically useless and most good players will spawn and pull out their knife for max movement speed anyway, making this bonus largely useless, because the stim effects are too weak to actually be useful. Either the stim effect needs a rework or this perk does. Maybe if it made the spawn beacon act as an ammo crate?* Or perhaps even give anyone spawning on it maxed ammo on spawn? Or another idea, a perk that allows you to spawn off other squads' beacons?
   2. Soft Landing: with rolling and parachutes, this perk is pretty useless since there is still an audible thud when you land and try to use this perk. This needs to be entirely replaced by something else to make this training path appealing. My personal suggestion would be giving Assault effectively the Combat Medic's Urgent Aid perk, allowing you to revive squadmates faster (but still to only 50% HP). This would make the class way more interesting in a squad composition. As another idea, a perk that makes you count as 2 players on a capture zone would also give this tree a lot of "frontline" utility.
   3. Quick Recovery: this is a pretty strong perk and the only reason to run Frontliner. I think it's fine as is.

Rally Squad is the ultimate class ability, but similar to Adrenaline Rush, the stim effect is more or less pointless so this sees very little to any actual use especially since many people hate the stim effect so this is often seen as greifing to pop it in game. Unless the stim is getting actual buffs to make it worth using, I seriously think Assault desperately needs a different ultimate ability. As it stands now, all class abilities pale in comparison to Recon's and it's really not very close.

*Ammo for Assault: I know this sounds dangerous, but frankly I think BF is too strict on its class abilities. Look at all the major improvements to class behavior over the recent titles. C4 is beloved as a demolitions and AT tool that is not stuck behind playing only Engineer. Squad revives are pretty much universally agreed to be an amazing feature, it's really not seen as "removing identity" from Support at all. In my opinion, classes should be the BEST at something, not the ONLY ONE who gets to do it. The game has a serious "if it's a vic map everyone runs Engineer and nobody has ammo so everyone just spawns dies and gets 5 rockets back for free" problem (same for Support in infantry maps). There needs to be reasons to play all classes in all modes beyond minor buffs to how guns handle.

THE STIM
This is the main sticking point for Assault. It doesn't do enough to have gameplay impact. If you replaced the stim with either the ladder or the spawn beacon the class would instantly become significantly more useful. Of the two, I would lean towards the beacon, as Assault currently has next to no teamplay without it. If the balance team wishes to buff the stim, I would say a small health bump on use would be nice, but I really don't know what would be the best path forward beyond saying that the current implementation is very bad.

GRENADES
I'm sure the metrics show that the unique Assault grenades are very unpopular, because they provide very little benefit that a frag couldn't already provide. A frag grenade can kill, and will flush out good players, which is effectively better than a stun grenade because it makes them move out of position to be an easy kill and will just straight up kill less skilled players.

• Stun Grenade: I think this grenade should disable hip fire bonuses from lasers and also reduce hip fire accuracy by an extra tick on top of that. Currently, if you are on a map where the stun grenade could even vaguely be considered useful, odds are you will be pushing someone that can easily just hipfire you anyway. Additionally, you should get an extra one of these and they should resupply faster than a regular frag grenade.
• Flash Grenade: I'm hesitant to ask for this grenade to be useful, but it needs its radius increased by at least 3m and should deafen anyone inside the blast radius. That would actually allow for interesting gameplay off of it so people cannot time your push based off your sprint audio. This should also get an extra grenade and resupply faster than frags.
• Smoke Grenade: Assault should also have smokes.

GADGETS
Assault currently has good gadgets and extremely useless gadgets with very little in between.

• Assault Ladder: This gadget is in a good spot and I don't think it needs to be changed. My one suggestion would be, at certain inclines, you can hold ADS and walk up the ladder when it's in ladder mode (not ramp). If this could be made more consistent that would increase how much you can use it as an interesting peeking tool.
• Spawn Beacon: In a good place currently. Perhaps the beacon could use one or two more charges per placement? Otherwise I think it's fine.
• Launchers!
  • Breaching Launcher: This gadget suffers from flash grenades being useless and also the extremely inconsistent nature of what is actually a "destructible" surface. It is also very bad as a starting gadget as it requires game knowledge to even know where you can use it. It also is the only launcher that does not attach to the underbarrel mount attachment. Frankly, I don't see any way to realistically save this gadget beyond buffing how powerful the flash effect is.
  • M320 HE: This gadget is very much an "I win" button on maps like Hagenthal and would very much benefit from some form of a rework to make it less powerful in CQC. Either a minimum arming distance or perhaps increased blast radius and damage to self only?
  • M320 Thermobaric: Similar to the breaching launcher, this weapon suffers from the stun effect being very bad. I would say if the stun effect was buffed significantly and the weapon was given slightly more damage on detonation, that would be enough to make it viable.
• Incendiary-Shotgun: In dire need of a rework. Dragon's Breath shotgun ammo is borderline useless in real life, so I wouldn't be against seeing this entirely changed to be a different type of ammo. I am loathe to suggest we bring back the BF3 M26 MASS, but maybe Flechette with a maximum damage necessitating a 2HK at best dropping off with range?
• Weapon Sling: This gadget is fine, though I would suggest taking one magazine from the sidearm and giving it to the primary. New players are often extremely confused why they get so little ammo using it and I do think the ammo penalty to your primary is a little too harsh personally.

The ladder is super useful, and can catch people out especially in breakthrough, getting you into position quickly and without the other team initially knowing so it lets you get a drop on them, and sometimes counter a push. but in all honesty, I don't see it used that much. and it's only really useful on a handful of breakthrough maps now we are blocked off from getting to the rooftops on buildings in breakthrough. 99.9% of the time I'm sunning spawn beacon and grenade launcher because they are by far the most useful on assault. 

For me personally the stim needs to go, or a major rework, it's so useless I forget it's even there. 

Slotting a shotgun or a carbine as a gadget reduces your ammo so much, I'm running around looking for ammo bags or requesting ammo more than I'm fighting.

The breaching gadget is not used at all from my experience. I don't see anyone use it past having to.

The fire shotgun gadget is good, it's an area of denial weapon, but if I shoot someone point-blank in the face with it, they should die, not just kill me then walk it off. 

The ladder is good depending on the map; it can be used well for short cuts etc but has lost the vast majority of its use in game modes like breakthrough, because we are no longer allowed on roof tops or balconies in Sobek. 

ASSAULT signature gadget should change to deploy beacon. Signature trait mission focused (faster objective progression, quicker out of combat cooldown which allows faster allies respawn). First to engage enemies and take objectives faster adds to its versatility to advance but also the best at creating spawn points to allow his team traverse faster, safely, and flank enemies

Gadgets keep weapon sling, flash breach, and ladder. move Interceptor system (anti grenade and anti missile) here. Should consider adding chest plates to survive sweet spot. launchers like (HE, incendiary, smoke) and incendiary shotgun should consider removing it from gadgets and adding it to weapon mods but can't be used unless you have the mounted launcher on your weapon

FRONTLINER will gain the ability HE grenade launcher as your special for this class. Initial skill will change to extra grenades, +2 to throwables. Next skill will change to “agile shooter” this will reduced ADS penalty to movement speed while shooting and moving). Final skill will remain as “quick recovery” this will boost health regen rate). This path will focus on prolonged confrontation and being ready to engage with minimum down time.

SQUAD LEADER will gain the ability “HE grenade launcher”. Initial skill will be “drill sergeant” this will boost reload speed and movement speed. Next skill will be “defense focus” (improves gadget performance and range). Final skill will be “lead by example” boost score points (how fast you gain your special) to squad members who are capturing objectives set by squad leader or are near him.

ADDITIONAL

capture points as we play on the field the bases that we capture should provide random resources like ammo, heal, gadget refill or even extra vehicles. This would add to the strategic aspect of the game as we would have to prioritize which bases to protect or take

Ammo options i would like assault to have the ability to swap the type of ammo it can use for his main weapon.

Stim personally I feel this should go to support and allow to transfer benefits to those who are healed by him or his supply bag

Flashbang needs to go off quicker!

Right now, the flash bang is useless compared to the frag grenade. As an Assault, which is a fast-paced playstyle, I expect the flashbang to go off way quicker. Right now, the enemy can go drink a coffee before the flash goes off. Please, this needs to be changed, as it's not useful at all as it is right now, compared to alternatives.

The Assault Ladder should have more health, it can get destroyed way too quickly. Also, the placement should be updates as it is often a struggle to place it in a fast-paced situation. Depending on the situation it can get you killed or just even be useless, as it requires too much time to set up when you need to get to an elevated point or building fast. It is often the case, that I want to set up a helpful ladder for my team but struggle with placement. After finally placing the ladder, my team already went the "long route". It's also the reason why I don't want to use the ladder that often, it's often a waste of time trying to place it (by the way, the placement struggle is also annoying with other equipment, like spawn beacon or the AT mines and claymore).

The Thermobaric Launcher is quiet useless right now. The stun effect is not that strong to have a significant impact and the fire effect has very low damage making it a useless gadget compared to the HE Grenade launcher, the same as with the flashbang as mentioned before.

Assault is rather lacking when compared to the others classes and the particular role they do, to the point that Support actually does a better job at for filling the Assault role than Assault itself.  

Reasons for this being.

1: Open weapons, ARs are meant to be the most powerful and versatile of the fully automatic weapons, being available to everyone only neuters Assault.  This does extend to all other classes and their respective ( what should be ) locked weapons. 

2: Available gadgets, Assaults gadget lineup is rather hopeless with the only exceptions being the deployment beacon and the ladder. There's little reason to pick Assault for any other reason than to utalize those two gadgets. 

3: The power of Support, In terms of raw infantry killing power nothing comes close the the capabilities of Support. You can play as an aggressive Assault player, with an AR and a handy heal or ammunition / grenade resupply whenever you need it. Coupled with your ability to revive and resupply/heal all other players and equip smokes no wonder its the most played class.  

So, what to do...?

Firstly Support needs a nerf, splitting up the ability to both heal and resuply would be the minimum required as it's too powerful. Having the fire support training path focus on resupplying only and the combat medic training path focus on healing and revives only. Or even better still a dedicated fifth medic class... 

Buff the adrenaline injection to provide a small 20hp heal and self revive to 20hp. The revive would be a slow non-cancelable animation in which the player can be killed while performing.  Making it very powerful, but highly situational action to perform. 

With having only a single charge players would have to decide between healing or saving the injection for a self revive. 

Now, with Assault being intended to rack up infantry kills more than any other class, this requires ammunition. So to shift the reliance on players using supports ability for purely their own use I suggest we add in an Assault only " scavenger trait " which will function the same as what we had in BF2042.  Where a dropped kit also drops 1/2 a mags worth of ammunition and fills the gadget recharge bar by 25%. 

This will give the class some self sustainability and with the additional buffs to the adrenaline injection this gives the power of pre-nerf Support to Assault, but instead of being wrapped up in one passive easy on demand gadget, it's rewarded through aggressive play.   

To limit the scavenger trait somewhat, each dropped kit can only be scavenged from once, first come first serve. This prevents a cluster of Assault players gathering too many resources too quickly.  

For anyone thinking " this means everyone will now play Assault "  the more Assault players there are the more they have to share/fight over the kits to scavenge, it's effectively self nerfing/balancing. 

The current class trait ( Faster objective capture and defusal speeds ) becomes the new class ultimate and its effects are applied to squad mates too. 

The addition of another gadget such as a " Zipline " will help Assault with manoeuvrability and ties in nicely with the ladder and it's climb any obstacle mindset.  

Another ammunition type for the m320 being the LVG would be a nice addition too as well as smoke grenades. Updating the m320 therm, breacher and the incendiary shotgun to be more effective would be nice too, oh and closed weapons. 

I have a post regarding the training path changes to Support as well as all others. 

Suggested updates to training paths. | EA Forums - 13392860 

Thanks for reading.