Hello Brothers,

I am referring to PVE on difficulty level Absolute: It's fun to play with all classes, some are easier than others (e.g. Bulwark, Vanguard), Tactical, Sniper and Heavy are more or less equal but Assault is pain only. I do not know why, either it has lower health, armour is lost quicker (would be reasonable as he needs to fly = lighter armor) but it's much heavier to regain contested health and I die randomly. I am experiencing the same with team mates if they play Assault. Assault is fun to play but when you die so often and easily it starts to become a bit frustrating.

I would recommend for example a similar perk like the sniper has: before you die the jetpack shoots you up in the air to be protected and you could attack again even without the ability to be ready. Or simply extend the ability to 3 instead of 2 max. jumps. Increase health or let contested health drop slower, regain more contested health, whatever...

Please share your thoughts.

All the best.

The emperor protects!

I recommend seriously considering a jump pack dodge build. Rather than attempting to parry or block everything, just jump dodge and cause damage to enemies you collide with. I've been having a blast jumping around everywhere absolutely clowning on terminus spawns and the more annoying enemies like those stupid disc boys that often fail to telegraph their attacks. 
Assault is mostly fine other than the hammer needs to be able to dodge-cancel swings like every other melee weapon can or get the power fist treatment and simply have hyper armor while swinging.

Assault is a fun class, but I agree, that it needs more love sooner than later. I think, that there is still an issue with that "perfect dodge - jump pack combo". I've pulled out a perfect dodge with that maybe just a couple of times in my 500 hours in the game and the Assault should have a plus 50% dodge timing (starting perk). I think, this is not working at all. The dodge is clumsy in the game on every class not just assault, unfortunately.

My suggestions would be maybe:

- jump pack dash should cost less (not 1 whole pack charge),

- You cannot be shot at, if you are in air (mainly warrior snipers issue),

- fixing the dodge - dash timing window. Dodge window should be looked at generally.

- fixing the hammer animation cancelation (this should be also for every dodge. You should be able to cancel any animation just by pressing dodge or parry),

- a passive starting perk for 5% health regen for finisher would also help (like vanguard perk),

- add a perk such as the sniper has - By activating jump pack (in case of the sniper the cloak) it removes negative status effects and restores all contested health,

- the whole "signature" perk tree should be reworked. Only maybe the 50% damage buff is useful there,

- maybe give a perk for finisher AOE (like the Tactical has and the Vanguard with the grapnel launcher [this is btw very powerful perk])

There is a lot of other options for sure. Hope the Assault class will get it's shine someday.

There is a lot of options to make the life easier for the Assault class. We will see, what the "prestige" perk system brings on the table for this class.

​

Freddy7623 wrote:

Assault is a fun class, but I agree, that it needs more love sooner than later. I think, that there is still an issue with that "perfect dodge - jump pack combo". I've pulled out a perfect dodge with that maybe just a couple of times in my 500 hours in the game and the Assault should have a plus 50% dodge timing (starting perk). I think, this is not working at all. The dodge is clumsy in the game on every class not just assault, unfortunately.

My suggestions would be maybe:

- jump pack dash should cost less (not 1 whole pack charge),

- You cannot be shot at, if you are in air (mainly warrior snipers issue),

- fixing the dodge - dash timing window. Dodge window should be looked at generally.

- fixing the hammer animation cancelation (this should be also for every dodge. You should be able to cancel any animation just by pressing dodge or parry),

- a passive starting perk for 5% health regen for finisher would also help (like vanguard perk),

- add a perk such as the sniper has - By activating jump pack (in case of the sniper the cloak) it removes negative status effects and restores all contested health,

- the whole "signature" perk tree should be reworked. Only maybe the 50% damage buff is useful there,

- maybe give a perk for finisher AOE (like the Tactical has and the Vanguard with the grapnel launcher [this is btw very powerful perk])

There is a lot of other options for sure. Hope the Assault class will get it's shine someday.

Brother Freddy, I agree with every point you made but I don't think giving assault 5% hp regen and on top of that contested health restoration on jump pack usage is good idea. It would make him too strong, especially if you combine this with that idea that he can't be shot at when he is in the air. 

I would say maybe if in the air don't make it invulnerable to ranged attack but give it effect that we get when we pick up the armor - it replenishes all segments and adds 1 so we have 4.

I think you have good ideas but it would be wise to take maybe 3 or 4 out of them and that would already make HUGE difference. 

No.  At max you go about 2-3 meters high. It's 🤮

Brother Naus, those are just suggestions, even maybe 1 from them would help. Of course, all ideas at once would be overkill :)

Another thing about jump pack dodge...

It's stupid that I'm expected to not use ground pound so I can have jump pack dodges available. 

I've been trying to work on the jump pack dodge ordeal (yes, all perks selected to juice the jpd) and I'm not enjoying it because it basically grounds me. Where is the fun in that? To me? None.  Ground pound is assault's signature move... but don't use it so you can jpd... when you can already regular dodge... which is 99% as good. 

I've just convinced myself that I'm no longer gonna work on the jpd ordeal.🤷‍♂️

​

Shining_Darkness wrote:

I recommend seriously considering a jump pack dodge build. Rather than attempting to parry or block everything, just jump dodge and cause damage to enemies you collide with. I've been having a blast jumping around everywhere absolutely clowning on terminus spawns and the more annoying enemies like those stupid disc boys that often fail to telegraph their attacks. 
Assault is mostly fine other than the hammer needs to be able to dodge-cancel swings like every other melee weapon can or get the power fist treatment and simply have hyper armor while swinging.

It's fun, but it has one major flaw, and one I've actually suggested with a ticket. Dodges can't be used while mid-melee animation, and if Assault could Jump-Pack dodge akin to parry cancelling your melee animations, it'd have a good chance of seriously elevating that build and even the class.

​

G07hmog wrote:

I don't have much experience with the Assault class, but one thing has been bothering me right away: why in PvE, during the outdoor parts of operations, can you only jump about 3 meters high, while in the campaign you could jump way higher? Did I press the wrong button?

It's due to the way the Operations are designed. These are linear levels designed for the other five classes to walk around as normal. If the Operations were to be designed around Assault, it would mean manpower would have to be dedicated to making effectively a second level used exclusively by one class. You'd have to redesign the skyboxes so they looked good even at a million miles in the air, the invisible walls, kill/respawn boxes over ledges if they flew off into a pit etc. There's also performance considerations because Assault would be bypassing all the typical occlusion at that height.

Notice how in the Campaign and PvP, the stages in which Jump Packs can fly are in small arenas or linear, walled off hallways.

There's a very good chance Assault will have their full flight capability in the Horde mode, because those will be smaller arenas akin to the PvP maps.

Наиболее лучший вариант для штурмовика - это повысить скорость его перезарядки ранца. 
Или же хотя бы, чтобы он функционировал почти также, как в пвп.

​

Naus_ wrote:

Assault is by far weakest melee class in the game simply because he has no healing mechanic. 

Bulwark can heal whole HP of any teammate or himself every minute or two.

Vanguard can heal by 5% and then another 20% on extremis kill for him or any other teammate.

Meanwhile all assault got is "regen 1 armor on non lethal gunshot". 

I do understand he has big AOE dmg and nice mobility instead but on lethal he always is the weakest part of the team and always drags it down instead of pushing it up. 

I like Assault class, I like feeling it gives me, I like mashing enemies heads with my hammer but because it's so weak and I play only ABSOLUTE, sometimes LETHAL, I hardly ever pick him unless I know I have really good team, with Bulwark. 

Being Assault above Ruthless is basically always being dependant on whether your team will carry the game or you lose it. When assault is last man standing he ALMOST NEVER survive for 2 mins+ until someone is back to help him. 

Really bad class. I think not only weakest melee one but weakest in general. 

I'd have to agree, it bay far takes the most focus to play above Ruthless. 

I also agree that the jump-pack dodge should just be how the Assault dodges with a second press causing the roll as normal, this would also take away the cumbersome pressing vs holding the ability button. (sometimes you want the dodge but it makes you jump, guess a press registered a hold) This would also make him feel way more mobile (like the Assault Intercessors are supposed to be.

Dedicating one column to survivability would be a good perk change, one option being to regain 1% contested health per enemy hit by ground slam (max 10%) another being gain 1% health on perfect dodge (seems like not much but you can do a lot of dodging and can potentially stall on an enemy to bait out more health so 1% is fair in my book) the last being a bit more unorthodox simply providing temporary ranged immunity on perfect dodge on CD (say, 5 seconds with a 20 second CD)

It would be unhealthy for Assault to be able to select more than one of those thus some restructuring of their tree to make those all in one column. 

I suggest moving Precision Strike to the Signature column in place of Ample Ammunition (a perk that would be OP with innate jump pack dodge so it has to go) Then in the first Gear column get rid of smiting angel (yes it is nice but I would gladly give it up of survivability, 10% isn't that much anyway) and replace it with the 1% contested health restored on ground pound hits. Hammer of Wrath is underwhelming, swap that for the ranged immunity for 5 seconds on 20 second CD on perfect dodge. And the slot we freed up by moving Precision Strike can be the 1% health restore on perfect dodge. This column clearly indicates the class is meant to be perfect dodging with these changes with one perk still available for people who would rather not feel forced to perfect dodge.

Last since jump pack dodge is innate and does not use charges, we alter Commitment to instead of restoring a charge, grant a 50% recharge speed bonus for 10 seconds still on perfect jump pack dodge.

Last, immunity to damage while in the air from using the ability form of the jump pack.

​

Shotgunky wrote:

​

Shining_Darkness wrote:

I recommend seriously considering a jump pack dodge build. Rather than attempting to parry or block everything, just jump dodge and cause damage to enemies you collide with. I've been having a blast jumping around everywhere absolutely clowning on terminus spawns and the more annoying enemies like those stupid disc boys that often fail to telegraph their attacks. 
Assault is mostly fine other than the hammer needs to be able to dodge-cancel swings like every other melee weapon can or get the power fist treatment and simply have hyper armor while swinging.

It's fun, but it has one major flaw, and one I've actually suggested with a ticket. Dodges can't be used while mid-melee animation, and if Assault could Jump-Pack dodge akin to parry cancelling your melee animations, it'd have a good chance of seriously elevating that build and even the class.

It is mostly just the hammer that suffers from that. The chainsword you can dodge at almost any point in the animations the fist you can dodge as long as you are not into the second part of the combo (meaning the ones with longer animations). But yeah, generally Assault currently has to play oddly passive the higher you go in difficulty due to how vulnerable he is while swinging because nothing staggers in this game... that would also fix a lot of what is wrong with assault, letting hammer and fist actually have impact and stagger the f- out of things like they are supposed to. Slow weapons are meant to have larger impact, that is the tradeoff but in this game... I mean they do more damage but the lack of stagger means after hitting you get hit in return.

What do you mean nothing staggers?  I get staggered almost every time I get hit.😋