Officially entering this idea in the contest, major assault slot buff. I want ISK.

I recommend Aero and Kagehoshi's suggestion, which has also to do with Commandos.

And maybe Cat Merc's regeneration idea.

Also, you may want to add a link to the video.

Premise

"There is too much overlap between the Assault and Commando." This is something I hear very often, and it definitely has its share of truth. Over the course of my Dust career I've dabbled in every role, but by far my most used suits are the Assault and Commando. While I can tell apart the very subtle differences between the suits and what would be a better choice in a certain situation, it has gotten to the point where after the Uprising 1.8 respec I skilled into every class except the Assault because it was too similar to the Commando to warrant another couple million of my SP. What's even more worrisome is CCP notices this as well as evident by the Commando not even existing in the current build of Project Legion. However, for the purposes of this thread let's keep the discussion to what can be done to differentiate the Assault and Commando through hotfixes in Dust 514. If successful, maybe we can see the Commandos return in Legion


My Proposal

Let me stress that this is just my opinion on what would make the two roles distinct. Please take it for nothing more. Use it as a starting ground to bring your own proposals to the table, or don't and bring up new proposals completely unrelated to how I do it! The point is, let's all come up with ideas and provide constructive feedback to each other.

So let me begin. Currently there isn't much differentiating the two. Both specializations bring hard hitting firepower to the table, while the Assaults get a little more mobility and a smaller hitbox whereas Commandos get two light weapons and more EHP. These are some great starting points, but not nearly enough to truly differentiate the two. I would believe the problem really starts to come into play when you examine the bonuses. The Assaults generally get bonuses that extend the fight, such as Amarr being able to fire laser weaponry longer, Minmatar being able to fire more projectile rounds before reloading, and Caldari being able to reload rails faster to continue shooting again sooner. The Commandos on the other time all have bonuses that shorten the fight, with flat DPS bonuses to down the enemy quicker. When you consider that the Assault is the one with less EHP that means it is less survivable in full out firefights which means it doesn't make sense that it would want to extend the fight. Really, the bonuses are backwards. Assaults should be trying to end a fight as soon as possible, whereas a Commando should be extending it (the Dust in-game client calls Commandos "the ultimate suppression fighters"). So let's start with this:

Assault Class: 2% increased damage to light weapons and sidearms per level
Amarr Assault: 5% decreased heat build up to laser weaponry per level
Caldari Assault: 5% increased magazine size to hybrid - rail weaponry per level
Gallente Assault: 5% increased magazine size to hybrid - blaster weaponry per level
Minmatar Assault: 5% increased magazine size to projectile weaponry per level
*adjusted based on Kagehoshi's feedback

Alright so now time for the Commando. This is a little trickier because it's not as simple as simply taking all the old assault, because for one they weren't that great to begin with, secondly the Caldari Assault's bonus overlaps with the Commando class bonus, and thirdly the Gallente Assault's bonus doesn't really fit with the theme of "the ultimate suppression fighter." So what would work? Well if we are going to go for making them suppression fighters then ammo capacity seems like a logical place to look at. And if it is going to be ammo capacity, then it will have to be something significant to make it feel worth it. So how about this:

Commando Class: 20% increased ammo capacity of light weapons and sidearms per level
Amarr Commando: 5% increased reload speed of laser weaponry per level
Caldari Commando: 5% increased reload speed of hybrid - rail weaponry per level
Gallente Commando: 5% increased reload speed of hybrid - blaster weaponry per level
Minmatar Commando: 5% increased reload speed of projectile and explosive weaponry per level
*adjusted based on Kagehoshi's feedback

Do note that for both the Assault and Commando, all bonuses apply to both light weapons and sidearms. This is because one should not be penalized for wanting to use a sidearm in the light weapon slot, as it is a cascading system. And this actually paves the way for the Assault to have two light weapon slots as discussed for Project Legion and still be distinctive enough from the Commando.


Conclusion

The Assault and Commando now fill two very distinctive roles. The Assault class as the speed and mobility to charge in bases or flank the enemy and then deal with them quickly, whereas the Commando is less mobile but still able to keep up with the squad and has the EHP to provide constant suppression fire with up two twice the normal ammo capacity and a fast reload speed to boot! The Commando may not be doing much killing as it won't have the strongest weapons (the Assault will) but it will be able to constantly fire for a long duration, even if it knows it is not hitting anyone, and become that "ultimate suppression fighter."

This is AMAZING, but perhaps a little 2 ambitious. <3 BUT STILL AMAZEBALLS

But what do I know... I'm 12.

Thanks.
Another advantage i see from this is that it counteracts the Logi argument that they have to spend more isk and Sp on their fittings.
Might be ambitious, but there's no reason not to pass it on to CCP from time to time

I looked at Kagehoshi's thread and something that's been bothering me lately has been the reality that modules account for the VAST majority of all tank on all suits aside from sentinels/commando's.

If your suits base EHP comprised a MUCH larger % of your EHP pool andbrick tanking as a whole might only increase youre pool by say...30% as opposed to the 80% is is most of the time for non heavy frames (let's not get into e-war or gank) then I think balancing things like assaults and even modules like rechargers and regulators would be MUCH easier.

Because the choice isn't so drastic to your tank of choice.

Also, chew on this idea...to create imperfect balance what if we made assaults the ones with the close to parity of high/low slots (think 5 high's 3 low's on a caldari) while logi's were more polarized (6 high's 2 lows on caldari).

Just a thought to create more diversity.

Logis currently sacrifice:
-Shield
-Armor
-Sidearm
-Movement/sprint speed

For +1 module slot and + 3 equipment slots.

So giving assaults the same (or more) slots just wouldn't be right.
Logis are hunted by everyone,and have to pay 10k+ isk for a single piece of equipment.

Unless logis get buffed in some way,i'll fight this suggestion tooth and nail.



Simple answer?

Buff assault eHP to above basic mediums but below commando,and buff logis speed (2nd only to scouts) and hack (to be the fastest) that would be a reasonable trade.



inb4 2nd spam (grenade) slot

[q
He didn't say 5% per level.

And I think it's quite a hasty assumption to discount the idea even if it was 5% per level until you theorycraft a fit and demonstrate why it's broken. 2 many good ideas get tossed out before they have been considered because of feedback like this.

90 on a complex would only be an increase of 54 ehp with 3 complex shield extenders.

I hardly see how that is gamebreaking.

I do kind of feel that assaults should also have slightly better ewar being like: Light [ Scout ] > Medium [ Assaut > Logistics ] > Heavy [ Commando > Sentinel ]

As it stands scouts have a monopoly on it:

BASE EWAR STATS [ Profile / Precision / Radius ]
[ 35 / 40 / 20.0 ] Scout
[ 50 / 50 / 10.0 ] Assault
[ 50 / 45 / 15.0 ] Logistics
[ 60 / 55 / 10.0 ] Commando
[ 60 / 55 / 10.0 ] Sentinel

A more appealing curve taking the current scout attributes as a starting point
[ 35 / 40 / 20.0 ] Scout
[ 40 / 45 / 17.5 ] Assault
[ 45 / 50 / 15.0 ] Logistics
[ 50 / 55 / 12.5 ] Commando
[ 55 / 60 / 10.0 ] Sentinel

Given the Scout's inherent ability bonuses and ease of use of a cloak Assaults would never really compete directly on EWAR, but they can dabble in it with modules and catch other classes off guard.

This is wild speculations by the way and can be a nice change, there's been NO number analysis on this, just mentioning that EWAR is another field we can take into account, heck at least let us be the same as the other medium suits! lol

Interesting idea but I don't think it would make the role any more viable than it is currently.

I see a lot of people claim scouts have the same or more hp than assaults. This is simply not true.

For example, a fully shield tanked advanced caldari assault has about 35% more hp than a fully shield tanked advanced caldari scout.

For comparison, the scout only has a 9% higher movement speed.

I frequently see scouts with more hp than my min assault (600 HP at pro usually). Yes assaults CAN out tank a scout, but the point is that the HP scouts can achieve is far to close to the average medium frame. Mix this along with better ewar and regen and speed.. Well that's why no one is using assault.

But don't you see, saying that scouts "can achieve" more hp than the "average medium frame" is not a fair comparison because you are comparing brick tanked proto suits with non-brick standard/advanced suits. Or armor tanked suits with shield tanked suits.

Considering balance is more complex than that. You need to compare equivalent tiers and similar tanking styles.

Amarr suit comparison

This is much better. The Amarr assault is gaining a low slot in hot fix bravo which will change things a lot. I use Amarr assaults myself and definitely agree that it needs the extra slot to be comparable to the other assaults. The bonus is awesome though.

The Amarr scout is considered to be the worst, however not because of it's lack of ability to be an assault suit but because it lacks a bonus that is helpful in the scout role.

Maybe regen (as well as base hp and cpu/pg as I have already suggested) is something else that needs adjusting for assaults and maybe scouts too. Though care would be needed as with the upcoming improvements to regulators and rechargers it would be a shame if nobody felt the need to use them.

So thanks for the proper comparison but I don't think you chose a good example considering the upcoming changes to Amarr assaults.

I still think it's a great exaggeration to say that scout suits (fitted for the assault role) have similar hp to assault suits.

Edit:
I haven't tried recreating your fits but for a quick comparison, say you fit an extra enhanced plate in the extra slot you will get in bravo. The Amarr assault will now have approximately 26% more hp than the scout. That is not really what I would call "similar". I'm not saying assaults don't need a buff. I just think they only need a small one. I accept that it might not be that easy to just fit an extra enhanced plate, since cpu/pg won't be changed in bravo.