Is the Assault Class ever going to be balanced? Just curious.....

Battlefield 1 General Discussion
1

I don’t know who feels the same way, but I find it a little odd how in a game with all these classes and distinct roles seemingly all the strongest weapons and gadgets reside in one class. You would think the power would be spread out evenly right? Assault is overpowered. Give me a chance to see if I can convince you -

  • First off Assault class weapons dominate close and even medium range fights, hilariously. To reinforce this first point I’ll inform you that out of the 50+ guns in the other classes only 3 guns have a chance of holding their own, just 3. The BAR, Burton LMR, and Federov. If you aren’t using one of those, you will get DPS’d down almost every fight and you better hope you’re not in close quarters too often all game. This isn’t helped by the fact that almost every map (we’re talking about Conquest the main game mode here) has the majority of flags and thereby player/vehicle traffic resonate around buildings and other close quarter areas. I can’t even think of more than a few maps that an Assault player would have a hard time on, Empires Edge, Giants Shadow, Rupture, and like Monte Grappa maybe? On top of all of it all the Assault weapons are easy as hell to use; Shotgun spreads are so wide you’d have to be literally facing 180 to miss, SMG recoil if it even exists on some guns takes minimal effort to control, Hellreigal lol, the average reloading time among all guns is shorter than the other classes, thereby making you safer. Not that many players are dumb enough to push as assault anyways. If it’s a straight fight between just two players, it’s almost to the point where the only thing that can kill an Assault player is… another Assault player. I know the game isn’t always in a vacuum but c’mon. Why do all the other classes get such bad guns compared to Assault?

  • Assaults are the ONLY class that can fight or truly finish off ground vehicles. HE grenades from both the Medic and Support classes do laughable damage (like 8-13 per grenade lol) compared to AT-Grenades, AT-Rockets, AT-Mines, and Dynamite. Speaking of which, let’s go into some simple reasoning why Assault gadgets are definitely overpowered and make the other classes look awful. Also forgot to mention K bullets, LUL.

  1. On top of having a regular grenade of your choice. You can have not one but TWO extra grenades that have the 3 times the power and nearly 3 times the blast radius of a frag grenade. Sure you can’t throw them quite as far but whatever. They do ridiculous damage to vehicles, only 4 will destroy almost anything in the game. Which is 2 players worth of AT grenades on a map of a possible 32 players… yep.

  2. AT-Rockets are better than grenade launchers in every possible way. Projectiles shoot straight instead of being lobbed. So they are more accurate, and also explode on impact instead of a timer. So no chance of dodging damage from the enemy. AT-Rockets F*CKING 1 shot Cavalry and Elite classes. SOMEBODY want to explain to me how that is balanced in any way? Oh yea on top of all that you get 4 of the damn things, so 1 more than Support or Medic Grenades…

3. AT-Mines I don’t really have anything to say about. They are good against bad tank players but honestly a waste of a slot with the other 3 gadgets being way better.

4. Dynamite is absurd. You get 3 explosives that are 3 times stronger than a frag and can be detonated whenever you want.

Because of said OP equipment Assault players get access to abilities and parts of the map that aren’t possible for other classes;
- You can blast your way into locked fortified bunkers.
- You can completely demo buildings with enemy campers in them without risking anything.
- You can set traps on the map with Mines and Dynamite (better and less visible than trip wires).

I know this is supposed to be their role and all, some class has to be able to be aggro and be able to damage vehicles. It’s just insane to me. You can have an Assault load-out with 6-8 explosives… 1 Frag or light-tank grenade, 2 AT-Grenades, 4 Rockets, and or 3 Dynamite and stupidly strong and easy guns like the Automatico. Sorry for my whiny language it’s just hard not to get carried away thinking about this stuff.

It just feelsreally** boring and nearly every top fragger on every server is an Assault player or Tank/Plane user. It’s such a strong and easy class that it encourages selfish players to hunt for kills instead of playing objectives and takes away from a few more. Every server just feels like half Assault monkeys and half Snipers who just hide. Feels like there is barely any teamwork.

2

Ever since 2142, DICE has been working on consolidating classes and making them self-sufficient / multi-role. If you ask me, this has been one of the lethal blows to the series. We need to return to 6-7 individual roles such as: Sniper, Assault, Medic, Engineer, Support, Anti-Tank, and Special Forces. Multiple roles that aren’t jack of all trades encourages teamwork. A single class should not be able to respond to almost every situation on their own.

3

I agree that Assaults are useful and powerful, and obviously critical in dealing with enemy vehicles. But I personally disagree about them being overpowered. I personally believe that medic is the most influential and powerful class in general, being able to keep a squad (or more) going, helping keep momentum. And with its heal it allows you to stay active and winning engagements much more.

I main Medic, but also have many many hours as an Assault too (to deal with problem vehicles if no one else is), so feel I have a reasonable feel for them both. Other than in extreme close quarters where Assault guns like SMG08 excel, I find that lots of medic guns can compete very admirably, including Fedorov, Farqhuar Hill, M1907, and Autoloading .25. And beyond close range, medic guns will absolutely win out over an assault on a very regular basis (pretty much all of them). Given typical engagement distances I’d take medic guns over assault ones for most maps.

I do agree that Assaults are powerful explosively (as are Supports for that matter, especially with their ability to resupply), but that’s the trade off. The medic can heal up and re-engage quicker than either of those two. I don’t bring explosives (other than the standard grenade offering) as medic - heal and syringe all the way. I will still even regularly run as Medic on FDV without too many problems despite the explosive restrictions in playing that class - and do very well doing so.

As for AT mines, I disagree. If you want to deal with a tank, the only reliable way is to get the jump on a tanker by drop a mine and one/two grenades (depending on vehicle), or two mines and a grenade. Pretty much everything else requires you to rely on someone else doing some damage too - which often simply doesn’t happen. Of course, against better tankers it requires a good flank etc.

4

He doesn’t know!

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Imagine thinking there is anything better than this.

5

I thought this was a BFV topic on the wrong board. Anyway your list of guns for beating assaults in CQB is missing a lot of guns for beating assaults in CQB. Spend some more time with the game and you’ll realize all engagements aren’t being fought in the 20m range where assault has the edge. Outside that support and medic roll him.

6

Best all round class for consistently winning gunfights: medic, then assault, then support, then scout
Best class for scoring points: support, medic, assault, scout
Best class if you have a terrible infantry KD and need to pad it - Pilot with a muromets

Assault is far from the most effective class, nut it is great at CQC and vehicle take downs

Balance in BF1 is pretty good, although I would argue that supports get too many point for ammo boxes, assaults do not get enough points for vehicle take downs and scouts need a buff to their spotting flare points.

Prove me wrong.

7

I completely agree.

8

What are you talking about? I’m sorry but you are soooo wrong dude lmao. It’s a pretty common opinion in the community that Medic has the worst guns. You get out done or have a disadvantage at nearly every range;

  • Point Blank/Close quarters you get THROTTLED by Shotguns, SMG’s, Elite Kits, Vehicle weapons, and most LMG’s. Inarguable.
  • Short Range between 10-20 meters isn’t much better.
  • Medium Range you have a modest edge but a lot of Support weapons when prone are laser pointers that WILL out DPS you. Scout weapons especially the carbine ones are on even ground. And Assault still has access to guns like MP-18 Optical, Hellriegal, Ribeyrolls, and M1917 Patrol Carbine.
  • Medium-Long range is the sweet spot. Still, Scout weapons will compete with you here.
  • Long Range Scout has the advantage.

Let’s also mention the design of Medic is contradictory - Almost EVERY weapon they have except the Federov don’t help you up close where everyone is dying and taking damage and you’re needed to revive and heal most. Have you been playing lately? It’s not uncommon to join a full server and to only see 3-6 medics on a team of 32 people, the few that are there don’t even play the class properly either. You would think just by looking at the game before you bought it and seeing all the gadgets that Medic would be the best but it’s AWUL LOL.

Assault players are almost always the top fraggers along with Tank players on every server and as a result are up there in points as well.

Also Spotting Flares are stupid easy to use and very overpowered as well. You get a 75 meter(?) diameter map hack so impossible to get snuck up on. If anything the size of it needs to be nerfed. You just shoot one of them into a cluster of buildings and know EXACTLY where everyone is.

9

Erm…just no.
Let’s break this down. Your argument was about the dominant Assault. Assaults are very dominant at CQC - Agreed, but that that is the ONLY range at which they can dominate. I actually see more support and medics dominating leaderboards due to the points gained with heals and ammo resupply. More on that later. Where do you get to speak for the community about common opinion? Where is the evidence for that common opinion?

Medic have guns that can compete at EVERY range, even in close quarters the Federov (especially the Degterev) AND 1907 trench operate very effectively.

At EVERY OTHER effective Range, I would argue that medics have the best guns in the game with awesome variety too. e.g. At medium range with an RSC that is a 2 shot kill at up to 75m. My favourites, the howell sniper and selby that have huge magazines and can take down 3-4 players in a matter of seconds at mid range, and can even dominate snipers at long range using the marksman/sniper varieties)

I will back myself to beat ANY sniper as long as I am not in his sweet spot range. Anyone taking on a prone LMG whilst spotted and suppressed is foolish, so take cover, and back up.

You asked me if I have been playing lately? Yes, I’d say I am one of the most experienced BF1 players across all platforms, and equally, I have service medals with every single primary weapon in the game, so I’ve used them all extensively. My stats are linked below.

I found the sniper guns the hardest to compete with by a MILE despite playing medic mainly with sniper and marksman variants that are far more effective against multiple enemies. I also do substantially worse on leaderboards playing assault vs any other class.

You omit some of the other benefits of Playing as a medic:

1 Self healing is incredibly powerful
2. A squad with 2-3 medics, with assault and a support in a squad you can be almost unbeatable - being able to heal and revive and keep a squad rolling through objectives.

Link to section: I very rarely see tankers at the top of the leaderboards. In fact the ONLY vehicles I ever see at the top is the idiotic Muromets. Your argument about leaderboards is not supported by the actual statiI very rarely see tankers at the top of the leaderboards. In fact the ONLY vehicles I ever see at the top is the idiotic Muromets. Your argument about leaderboards is not supported by the actual statistical evidence:

Let’s compare the games score of players that dedicate their time to specific classes and look at their game scores. Lets take the median score in the top 100 scores in each class (I used median as it dilutes the outliers with a decent sample size and its is not easy to extract and average the data)

  • Medic - 88m score
    Support - 77m score
    Assault - 61m score
    Scout - 63m

Medic scores are nearly 45% higher than assault

  • Support scores are 26% higher than assault
  • Even scout scores are higher than assault!

Link to section: I’ve done my homework here - look at the usage stats -I’ve done my homework here - look at the usage stats -

Assault is the MOST USED class at 27%, Medic 23%, Support 21%, Scout 18%, so if they scored at EQUAL rates, then one might expect the median assault score to be HIGHER than the rest of the classes, but it is actually the lowest! So I guess that throws your dominating leaderboards theory out of the window.

Dominating leaderboards is easiest with the medic and support classes. Period.

10

Yeah, my experience is that medics are usually top with the best KDR’s and scores. I’ve MVP’d with Assault, but generally harder to do (other than on a few maps like FDV). Occasionally it’s a Support because of the absolutely insane ammo points on maps like FDV and Argonne (usually they have mediocre KDRs for some reason, although I’m sure there are supports with good ones - @IM_A_BLIND_KID for example).

I’ve played all classes a reasonable amount (Medic 43 days vs Assault 13 days). It looks like I’m in the top 1% of both so feel experienced to comment about both. My stats are below for reference. There’s not much in it, but my KDR and SPM are all higher as Medic. And I play it more often because it feels more effective - which is reflected in the KPM stats in those guns too.

I’d argue that yes, shotguns and assaults are better in a 1v1 at ultra close range, but then are terrible at anything else (there are of course a few that are okay at medium range). And oppositely Scouts are great for distance, but generally terrible anywhere else (but again, some are okay closer). I’m not counting lucky headshots into the equation. I’m talking real TTK not hypothetical ones.

But Medics have some of the best all around weapons - good at all ranges. The Fedorov, Farquhar Hill, M1907 are all really good at most ranges and I’d happily take them on any map. Take something like the .35 Marksman and you can excel at any range (but not so good against squads). Take the .25 Extended and you can compete against most guns up close.

And the ability to self heal is huge!

11

What are you talking about? You are sooooo wrong dude lmao…

Funny - your extensive experience matches mine, AND the evidence provided…But I guess we are both wrong…LMAO.

12

Assault could have been really good if they didn’t annihilate the M1912 accuracy so completely. For a small period it was a viable weapon for like 40m where you basically shredded every class 1v1 like an assault autoloading .35 pre TTK update. The RSC SMG is sort of like that but terrible at 2v1s and critically kills slower…could have used 550 RPM instead.

Other than that I don’t like assault. SMG 08/18 is gangbusters broken however. Literally ground heavy bomber.

13

Yeah there are one or two unbalanced SMGs and AT damage on infantry should be reduced, but I don’t find them too bad in general.