I can see your point about loyalist ground assault but in a larger sense if either side is setting their team and loadouts up primarily to deal with one class of enemy players then that particular class has too much power/influence on the match. No team equips themselves with taking out devastators or tacticals as the primary concern. Teamwork should be about winning the objectives not focussing on downing a specific class of enemy players. Overall, considering they are just one of five classes I would say that MoN and Shieldbro have a disproportionate effect on matches already and I don't want to see anything but that makes that even worse.
True, melee is too -big- in the game, simply because of the core design of the game requires THAT THE END RESULT of a good melee player demands that he is to kill an entire squad of people -just- to survive being around them thanks to the implementation of lifesteal-on-hit which causes more issues and cries of imbalance than having a big healthpool does.
SS definitely does right now. But on the whole I don't agree with your sentiment. I think in enclosed room point hold/capture scenarios it holds true, but on battles between the points and on more open points (like the high one on refinery and the big landing pad looking one on the top of the mini fort) melee get slaughtered by air assaults and ranged. Isn't this the way it should be? Peoples mentality on this subject still has some changing to do. If you're a primarily ranged squad and you're holed up in a small room, you need to bail if you're being attacked by a melee force (which you inevitably will) if you can't play the ranged game with them and don't have your own melee to pin them. 5 ranged getting slaughtered by 2 or 3 melee in this instance should always be a thing if theyre going to be stubborn and stick around.
If some cap points were in the open. Say a bridge, melee being a bit overpowered wouldn't be the case. If cap points alternated sometimes during different games to outside - inside, different locations, even better. The MoN is absolutely not underpowered. I play one most of my gameplay and feel stronger than most other classes. The shieldbro is slightly overpowered but not in melee, in his ability to neuter ranged attackers so easily, at least that's what I found when playing him - I pity predator tanks facing SB Fist, because all they can really do is run off for distance, while I prowl around cover tanking their shots and then beating them to a pulp.
Yesterday I was playing EC and I wasted 3 magazines of storm bolter rounds on a shield marine. I managed to kill him... With his help - he just turned back on me. So, in a current state shield marine can easily survive storm of bolter rounds, but he's vulnerable to plasma. MoN in current state is vulnerable to bolters and to plasma. Sadly, that kills a gameplay of simple tactical marine for me - I should wear a plama rifle to be shure, that I can down any enemy.
I'm not saying ranged players shouldn't struggle against melee in a melee battle. They should. But saying that ranged players should basically abandon all the key points on a map (which are all inside closed rooms) shows that in the most important areas of the maps melee is far more dominant in the game than ranged. I would also add that 2 melee guys taking out 5 ranged in a closed space sounds ok at first but if you flip that around, I would be very surprised if there were 2 tacticals working together who could take out 5 MoN or shield bros at range before they were able to find a covered approach or get into melee range. Also an air assault is a melee unit, they're not a ranged class. My main point is that (on both sides) the melee classes, air assaults, MoN, Shield bro, chainsword apo, sorcerer, dominate the game. The only thing on the ranged side that comes close in prevalence is the plasma cannon spam. I'm pretty sure that if Shield bro could cap then you'd see even more of them on the loyalist side. I don't think there's a problem with people's mentality that they want a ranged guy to be able to contest the most vital areas of the map as well as the melee guys.
So CSM have 75 percent of the map now after the Mark Of Nurgle nerf. I wonder what the excuse on the loyalist side will be now.
lol they can cap ? ^^ (i can't cap with my shieldbro). One player can take a point. And get to keep it. It's an advantage to win a match.
