Assault suits get kills based on whether they have more player skill than their opponent. They are versatile, hit hard, and can fit proper to the situation. I have never been in a matchup in any of my assault suits and thought "Man, I just got hard countered" with the exception of scrambler rifle vs caldari assault in the last build.

Scout suits get kills primarily by taking advantage of another persons sacrifice. In other words, the scout is most lethal when somebody else is getting shot at, or has poor situational awareness. If a heavy has a number of targets on radar from a team mates active scan, you can bet his attention will be on them and not the guy coming from the other direction. Scouts kill and tank based on misdirection, not based on stats.

Heavy suits are what I refer to as, classically, the big dumb cyclops. Heavies can't see anything without help. Heavies can't move from point A to point B without help, lest they be peppered to death from 40-50 meters away with no recourse. Where the heavy does good, though, is when lesser skilled players attempt to rush him down head on. The heavy is successful when a lesser skilled opponent decides to reject the rock-paper-scissors mentality behind DPS engagements. The problem though, and this is the most damning, heavies can't survive in 1v1 engagements against skilled opponents in this same manner. The heavy can do just fine against weaker players, mind you -- in fact I would go so far to say as this has been the key balancing consideration for them. Against bad players, a heavy might as well be a hero in Dynasty Warriors sending them flying everywhere with little effort. But in a battle of hero against hero, the heavy consistently falls short and is often seen as the easiest target to kill in a competitive PC match.


So, what do I personally see from this?

Assaults need to be versatile and strong -- they do this. Constant power creep has gotten them where they need to be. Amarr suits have issues inherent with their weapon design.

Scouts need to be able to kill based on misdirection and get to places before other people -- they do this. No complaints, except for perhaps the weaker suits like amarr.

Heavies.... can't really excel at anything, except with the Forge Gun role. In my experience if you throw a logi with a rep on an armor tanked Assault, he will most likely end up mitigating more incoming damage and being able to transition better than a heavy would. Given the absurd reload time on the HMG, overheat and long seize duration, the Gal Assault likely puts more accurate damage downrange in the span of a minute as well.


These thoughts, as well as constant bitching from my own heavies about how useless they were against Bons spam, lead me to almost entirely strip the heavy from any of the PC fights I FC'd before quitting. This does not count Commandos or Forgers, of course, as they still have a lot of use in Overwatch and Bridge scenarios.


In general I like where most of the suits are, and I don't want to see the HMG buffed to absurd levels. It could use a balance pass on the heat mechanics but I would leave the damage alone. Rather I think the opposite approach could be taken with the heavy and make it more defensive than offensive. As it stands currently, smaller hitbox combined with movespeed and strafe makes a player more survivable than what is quickly becoming a modest addition of HP on the heavy. At this time I would say it is appropriate for the heavy to get more HP, and it is important that it actually be HP and not resistance as too much resistance actually buffs the support reps they get from Logis making it a potentially OP combination.


Just the two cents of a guy who has been FC'ing for FA for the last year. These opinions come purely from the standpoint of what I would currently field in a competitive match when given a choice between a larger pool of players, assuming the map is not extremely situational.