Im not here to moan about saber saber nerfing the OP perks, bulwark and vanguard having their healing reduced is totally fine and even fair. 

The Glaring problem however is buffing the numbers on completely useless perks is just pointless, and not adressing the poor balance of the game.

Assault got some melee buffs, which is great, but the class is still just a way worse melee class then vanguard and bulwark cause it lacks the desperatly needed sustain. Seriously, you cant expect assault to be able to compete with vanguard and bulwark with no sustain, it doesnt matter how much dmg you give it.  ASSAULT NEEDS A SUSTAIN PERK.

overall the nerfs were really just bad, pushing bulwark to use shield bash is shit in the higher difficulties, vanguard is just worse. assault is still useless. Heavy got poinless changes. (Heavy really needs a perk to speed up ads speed).

Overall the balancing philosophy seems to be about covering a class'es weakness by buffing the perks doing so. they even said as much in the section about the heavy perk adjustments. 

This, IMO is a bad way to go about it, and theyre not even doing that well (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ASSAULT NEEDS SUSTAIN). For a class to be viable at lethal and the new absolute diff they need to excel at their job. Not be good at multiple things. Assault as an example, isnt really viable in lethal, not because it doesnt do enough melee dmg, but because it cant do melee dmg consistently and semi-safely.

the balancing phiolosophy should revolve around giving the class tools to do their job well, not giving the class tools to cover their weakness, that should be the responsibility of the player.

I wouldn't be against assault getting some sort of sustain ability, but I like where it is at. It's a glass cannon type of class.  With assault you don't live by your defense you live by your offense.  With blocking hammer it achieves some of the highest damage and kills in the game only rivaled by a heavy.  Dangerous class to use as in high risk high reward.  As far as its use it can easily do more damage and get more kills than vanguard and bulwark combined.  Against chaos it is one of the best eliminators of their extremis enemies.  With block hammer you can ground pound and 1 ground slam to put terminators into execute stance for easy kills. You can almost reduce the number of majoris spawning in by 50% by jumping on their portals when summoned in and sending all of them into execute states.

Of course all those results are from lethal matches, on quickplay, with randoms. Have not taken one through absolute yet, and maybe on that level you will be right.  I will soon find out.

The sustain issue only really starts to become a hosting issue with widely spread majoris and enrage making it so that they can't be staggered by melee. That leaves them machine gunning you in the face while you ponderously swing at them and get obliterated with no real way to effectively counter it. That is a problem and should not exist. What's even more astounding is that they still haven't fixed the power fist numbers. They got overlooked in the buffs to balance and block weapons and there still the same even after this patch.

Balancing is simple. BUFF the areas that are WEAK. You do not nerf what is working well and see how it goes.

​

SarahVTEC wrote:

Balancing is simple. BUFF the areas that are WEAK. You do not nerf what is working well and see how it goes.

If a class is overall working on 51% efficiency but a few elements are working at 53-55%, you do NOT bring the rest UP to 53-55, you bring those down to 51.

That is basic balance rules 101.

As for assault, yes he needs a total overhaul centered around the jump pack. The pack is alpha and omega and should be usable at all times with just a small activation cool down.

​

SarahVTEC wrote:

Balancing is simple. BUFF the areas that are WEAK. You do not nerf what is working well and see how it goes.

I would be interested to know how they would  buff the other banner perks to compete with full health regen on any execution (including the ranged nids which take a few pistol shots) and no downside. It’s still one of the best perks in the game even with the nerf.

​

PANTHERX0 wrote:

Im not here to moan about saber saber nerfing the OP perks, bulwark and vanguard having their healing reduced is totally fine and even fair. 

The Glaring problem however is buffing the numbers on completely useless perks is just pointless, and not adressing the poor balance of the game.

Assault got some melee buffs, which is great, but the class is still just a way worse melee class then vanguard and bulwark cause it lacks the desperatly needed sustain. Seriously, you cant expect assault to be able to compete with vanguard and bulwark with no sustain, it doesnt matter how much dmg you give it.  ASSAULT NEEDS A SUSTAIN PERK.

overall the nerfs were really just bad, pushing bulwark to use shield bash is shit in the higher difficulties, vanguard is just worse. assault is still useless. Heavy got poinless changes. (Heavy really needs a perk to speed up ads speed).

Overall the balancing philosophy seems to be about covering a class'es weakness by buffing the perks doing so. they even said as much in the section about the heavy perk adjustments. 

This, IMO is a bad way to go about it, and theyre not even doing that well (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ASSAULT NEEDS SUSTAIN). For a class to be viable at lethal and the new absolute diff they need to excel at their job. Not be good at multiple things. Assault as an example, isnt really viable in lethal, not because it doesnt do enough melee dmg, but because it cant do melee dmg consistently and semi-safely.

the balancing phiolosophy should revolve around giving the class tools to do their job well, not giving the class tools to cover their weakness, that should be the responsibility of the player.

They always nerf good ones and the people like the most but do nothing with useless stuff just like Helldivers did before. What could do go wrong?

​

Raffafa wrote:

​

SarahVTEC wrote:

Balancing is simple. BUFF the areas that are WEAK. You do not nerf what is working well and see how it goes.

If a class is overall working on 51% efficiency but a few elements are working at 53-55%, you do NOT bring the rest UP to 53-55, you bring those down to 51.

That is basic balance rules 101.

As for assault, yes he needs a total overhaul centered around the jump pack. The pack is alpha and omega and should be usable at all times with just a small activation cool down.

If only Assault is working same as PVP/Campaign he would be dope

​

Blobie wrote:

I wouldn't be against assault getting some sort of sustain ability, but I like where it is at. It's a glass cannon type of class.  With assault you don't live by your defense you live by your offense.  With blocking hammer it achieves some of the highest damage and kills in the game only rivaled by a heavy.  Dangerous class to use as in high risk high reward.  As far as its use it can easily do more damage and get more kills than vanguard and bulwark combined.  Against chaos it is one of the best eliminators of their extremis enemies.  With block hammer you can ground pound and 1 ground slam to put terminators into execute stance for easy kills. You can almost reduce the number of majoris spawning in by 50% by jumping on their portals when summoned in and sending all of them into execute states.

Of course all those results are from lethal matches, on quickplay, with randoms. Have not taken one through absolute yet, and maybe on that level you will be right.  I will soon find out.

So now I have a few absolute level difficulty games under my belt.  With all the buffs assault got they have turned that class into a wrecking ball of destruction.  Between the new class perk buffs and weapon perks you are getting extra extra jump damage, extra aftershock damage, extra ground slam damage, and +40% damage to extremis enemies.  You go around just crumpling them up.  Crushing majoris and bullying extremis. I like it.  If you can keep yourself out of trouble that is. Since I am using block hammer pommel strike is huge for getting armor back quickly and easily.  It really is that glass cannon type thing.  Keeps you on your toes!  I haven't had this much fun playing the class in a while.

​

Blobie wrote:

​

Blobie wrote:

I wouldn't be against assault getting some sort of sustain ability, but I like where it is at. It's a glass cannon type of class.  With assault you don't live by your defense you live by your offense.  With blocking hammer it achieves some of the highest damage and kills in the game only rivaled by a heavy.  Dangerous class to use as in high risk high reward.  As far as its use it can easily do more damage and get more kills than vanguard and bulwark combined.  Against chaos it is one of the best eliminators of their extremis enemies.  With block hammer you can ground pound and 1 ground slam to put terminators into execute stance for easy kills. You can almost reduce the number of majoris spawning in by 50% by jumping on their portals when summoned in and sending all of them into execute states.

Of course all those results are from lethal matches, on quickplay, with randoms. Have not taken one through absolute yet, and maybe on that level you will be right.  I will soon find out.

So now I have a few absolute level difficulty games under my belt.  With all the buffs assault got they have turned that class into a wrecking ball of destruction.  Between the new class perk buffs and weapon perks you are getting extra extra jump damage, extra aftershock damage, extra ground slam damage, and +40% damage to extremis enemies.  You go around just crumpling them up.  Crushing majoris and bullying extremis. I like it.  If you can keep yourself out of trouble that is. Since I am using block hammer pommel strike is huge for getting armor back quickly and easily.  It really is that glass cannon type thing.  Keeps you on your toes!  I haven't had this much fun playing the class in a while.

​Don't you dare get pleasure from the game!!! Just whine on the forum without playing with the new patch to understand what works and what doesn’t. Similar to the whole situation when they changed the block weapon. I'm not talking about you, but about all the whiners who read the patch note and didn't even bother to play

​

nikof135 wrote:

​

Blobie wrote:

So now I have a few absolute level difficulty games under my belt.  With all the buffs assault got they have turned that class into a wrecking ball of destruction.  Between the new class perk buffs and weapon perks you are getting extra extra jump damage, extra aftershock damage, extra ground slam damage, and +40% damage to extremis enemies.  You go around just crumpling them up.  Crushing majoris and bullying extremis. I like it.  If you can keep yourself out of trouble that is. Since I am using block hammer pommel strike is huge for getting armor back quickly and easily.  It really is that glass cannon type thing.  Keeps you on your toes!  I haven't had this much fun playing the class in a while.

​Don't you dare get pleasure from the game!!! Just whine on the forum without playing with the new patch to understand what works and what doesn’t. Similar to the whole situation when they changed the block weapon. I'm not talking about you, but about all the whiners who read the patch note and didn't even bother to play

That's funny.  It is true though.  I see many posts like you described and they haven't even given anything a shot or just completely ignore any buffs a class got.

​

PANTHERX0 wrote:

Assault got some melee buffs, which is great, but the class is still just a way worse melee class then vanguard and bulwark cause it lacks the desperatly needed sustain. Seriously, you cant expect assault to be able to compete with vanguard and bulwark with no sustain, it doesnt matter how much dmg you give it.  ASSAULT NEEDS A SUSTAIN PERK.

I've been screaming from the rooftop that they need to make Assault work around Contested Health rather than armor.  It makes it unique and have an different way to sustain itself.  

Lean into this design strategy and have perks that compliment it. 

For instance:

1. Overcharge - Have the 25% increased damage AND that contested health does not decrease while in Charged Attacks. 
   
2. Ample Ammunition - Worthless perk.  Change it to Fueled By Destruction: For every enemy hit by the Ground Slam, the Assault gains 1% contested health.
   
3. Retribution - Change to: After you are grabbed or knocked back, your contested health does not decay for +2s and will decay 10% slower for another 5s. 
   
4. Basekit Change - Jump Pack Dodge/Dash reduced to .25 or .5 of an ability charge.

What these type of changes do is force Assault into a more aggressive playstyle where his survival is based on continually putting out damage in order to recover Contested Health.

Then alter the Block Weapons to also be Contested Health weapons rather than Parry v2.0.  The change to Block weapons simply took a step towards making them another Parry weapon and it's silly.  Instead, make Block weapons work on being aggressive weapons:

1. Block weapons no longer regain any armor unless through a perk;
2. Block weapons innately have a slower Contested Health decay;
   
3. Block weapons innately have a small AoE stagger on Minoris enemies on successful heavy attacks;
4. Perfect Block:
   
   1. Perfect Block adds a stack of Adrenaline Surge; 
   2. Can have 3 stacks of Adrenaline Surge;and
      
   3. Perfect Block has a small AoE stagger on Minoris enemies but does not kill them.
5. Adrenaline Surge:
   1. Do not decay until released in an AoE attack at Stack 3;
      1. Until then - each level offers benefits:
         1. Stack 1 - +Damage / +Minoris AoE Stagger
            
         2. Stack 2 - ++Damage / ++All Enemy Stagger
         3. Stack 3 - Release AoE Attack.  
            1. % of Damage done is converted to Contested Health.

Now you've essentially created a new playstyle that requires aggressive play as opposed to defensive parry playstyle.  Plus, it jives heavily with the new idea of the Assault class.

The fallacy of the philosophy is that PVE doesn't need nerfs. Instead of buffing or changing other perks, they nerf what is popular and effective. They are again making the same mistake that Arrowhead made with Helldivers 2.

​

Odin46 wrote:

The fallacy of the philosophy is that PVE doesn't need nerfs. Instead of buffing or changing other perks, they nerf what is popular and effective. They are again making the same mistake that Arrowhead made with Helldivers 2.

Without question.  This was purely a "look at the spreadsheet and make changes based on usage" without understanding the fundamental reasons why people gravitated to the perks. 

Heck, half the reasons they gave to their changes weren't resolved by the proposed change. 

It was a complete miss.

​

Odin46 wrote:

The fallacy of the philosophy is that PVE doesn't need nerfs. Instead of buffing or changing other perks, they nerf what is popular and effective. They are again making the same mistake that Arrowhead made with Helldivers 2.

Correct. They have become experts at nerfing fun.