The Infantry Problem 2

[TerrorBite]

Well if you take off their armour, they can be replaced by any other hero class, and outperformed. Then when they just get 1 hit by a regular soldier i guess it feels pointless. They are important, but not in the right ways i feel, shielding is not particularly fun or exciting, nor does it make you feel as epic as any other class.

The good part of being inf is actually getting hit a bunch of times and surviving things no crossbowman or halb would. I guess there is no clear single issue with them, more that if they had more hp it wouldn't make them OP, but might make them feel more fun.

[DR.]

My only problem with Infantry is that Valsgarde is locked to Juggernaut, the rest i don't have problems with :X  (just add defender helm back for juggs and free vals to it's former glory, or at least add them for RG, cause imperial + vals = best setup EVER, and it's not even available which makes 0 sense)

mm got an idea maybe trade models? Knight helm for Vals? So Vals turns into Kight stats and Vals etc. 

Why pick Kight helm. 
It does not really go with any 1 armour amazingly other than Def and maybe the crafted rg armour? 

Why put Vals at tr4. 
Looks to good with half plate and h-trans. 


Wait maybe I just miss Click...

[Sir Baron]

The only bots that can one hit me on hard are the great big axes
And I can take a few hits from anything before wave 11 of rag
All it takes to make Infantry OP right now is to have a spam healer

[Kaasovic]

What about the people who do not have access to the best craftables or legendary armours. They are usually forgotten about and left to their destiny.
I have seen infantry based character forced to use ranged weaponry just so they are useful. A single infantry character wouldn't last long in the open.
A cool concept is being made as we speak, not going to spoil it.

[Sir Baron]

My point is a lot of complaints are leveled at RG being 1-2 hit by top tier bots
As far as I can see there is no way to change that which would not level top tier gear way over powered

[Kaasovic]

What is the problem with little adjustments that might make top tier infantry better? It's about time Infantry gets some love.
Maybe one day infantry classes will be the majority of an average server

[Jalau]

What is the problem with little adjustments that might make top tier infantry better? It's about time Infantry gets some love.
Maybe one day infantry classes will be the majority of an average server

I agree on that point. They have been before because shielders and slashers were needed and I want that to be back again.

[Sir Baron]

They are needed
I have yet to see a run with no shielder kill Thor much less Odin
I believe that at one point there was no shielding Thor and it left Infantry useless from wave 16 to 20
Should lower tier Infantry have the same armor? Cause they do right now

[Jalau]

They are needed
I have yet to see a run with no shielder kill Thor much less Odin
I believe that at one point there was no shielding Thor and it left Infantry useless  from wave 16 to 20
Should lower tier Infantry have the same armor? Cause they do right now

Yea you'll need like one or two shielders. And slashers can be Pikemen. Rest of the team can or should be ranged then which is not the point.

[Leandero]

TLDR version:

Armour and shielding is the only thing that really stands out on inf. 
Adding armour value/passive regeneration is the most obvious solution to making inf more viable but balancing that is a challenge.


The I'm not afraid of reading version:

Survivability/viability compared to other classes:

My biggest issue with the inf class is 1 or 2 shots. Even as rg with best in slot gear i got 1 or 2 shotted on HARD! multiple times. Was borrowing a Royal helmet and had the imperial - red armour on (80 body armour + studded = 94 body armour) Got oneshotted by a hit to the head and oneshotted by a hit to the chest. (Might have been unlucky with speed bonus on the side of the nords, it still feels wrong to me). I also want to point out that I have all 4 inf heroes so I have seen the different strenghts and weaknesses of the inf class. *edit* Just got oneshotted by a freaking archer on my legio.. .things like this just make me want to quit playing inf, trying to play almost seems to punish you, especially on rag.

Sentry and Pikemen can slash and to be frank are more versatile. Legio is a bit of a jack of all trades master of (almost) none. Pikeman heroes throw better, 1h skill is nice but you need to hit enemies so often it's almost not worth it. Unless you carry a shield as inf you are simply toast when facing multiple enemies. Unless you have light armour on you you're not quick enough to kite and your armour only gets you so far when you get hit without heals. 

Not saying that inf is useless in the current state but actually getting in the battle and fighting isn't enjoyable on inf vs the higher tier enemies.

I understand that you have to have some challenge and inf should not be invincible but as it is now I think inf simply lacks survivability. If there isn't a spam healer I'm very likely to get killed before I can swing once on my zwei or legio or rg and even the juggernaut. I don't have full sets of best in slot gear but I've played with them. It was disappointing, the nords still kill you quite quickly. If you play careful you can get some hits in but in general fighting higher tier enemies as inf is almost not worth it. Even has legio i have to hit some enemies 5x+ (With Ragnars Wrath...) and in that time there are 10+ nords around me that try to hit me.

As inf you are very dependant on the team, you need a spam healer when you are shielding in some harder waves. You need others to hit while you shield. If you are zwei you kinda need a shielder near you or you might get hit by the nord behind the one you are hitting. With 4 coordinated inf (2 shielders 2 slashers for example) you can charge into most waves and succeed (wave 14 hard is a different story but even there an inf charge can succeed). Teamplay like this rarely happens in public games though. 

Lower tier inf and idea to help them:

Lower tier inf are a whole different story. They lack the armour and the stats to fight the nords. Often they have to resort to healing or picking up ranged weapons to be able to help the team in a meaningful way. They can't shield, they can slash but their damage output is very low and unless somebody brings legendary slashing weapons they are likely to bounce on the nords. What could help is a small bump in weapon skills and power strike for lower level inf. This could lead to inf having higher stats and ending up with 9 powerstrike as hero but I'm not sure the devs would go there. It would help inf getting hits in on the nords and doing a bit more damage.

Possible solutions for endgame inf:

What might help is regenerating health based on current armour value for the inf class. I don't even know if it is possible to code in the NI engine but that would help inf a lot. See it as % of armour value * xhp regen per y seconds. Or maybe apply a medkit heal to inf every x seconds with a script.  Other options I've thought of is increasing the armour value of all inf armour or giving all inf a damage % reduction like the juggernaut has and give the juggernaut a bit more to still stand out. Any combination of those ideas would make the inf more enjoyable to play. It might feellas too much but I think more self sustainable inf would be a great thing for public and house runs. I think having full teams of inf is also not enjoyable though. I have read suggestions about limiting spots on a server to certain classes specs but I feel that would do more harm than good.

- Leandero