There's been a fair bit of complaints about soldier survival lately.
I have some observations which I feel are valid and a suggestion which I think fits the role.
Firstly, I think it's fair to say that soldiers, for a long time (up to 18.7) have been in the middle of the pack for PVP strength, and above average for PVM utility.
Soldiers offer a few very desirable team buffs as well as some significant 'other' buffs which boost some fairly important stats like inits, burst and other ranged specials.
Soldiers, in my eyes have always been a "heavy tank", the ranged equivalent of enforcer, with some obvious variations:
Enforcers were always highly mobile with rage (no longer)
Soldiers had superior defence (albeit temporary)
Enforcers were alpha dependent vs soldiers having much stronger intermittent burst
Soldiers were stationary (easily rooted/snared with low NR, vs enforcers with high snare/root resist and tools to get out quickly)
Soldiers are ranged vs enforcers melee
All of these characteristics are to some degree balanced, and as a result I do not want to argue/discuss the various individual merits of soldiers over enforcers or vice versa.
Instead, I want to draw your attention to a very different aspect of playwhich I feel is a significant detriment to the soldiers toolset, with a concession.
The issue I wish to bring up is offensive casting in combat.
Soldiers, to a large extent are dependent on landing one of three offensive nanos in combat.
One Foot in the Grave
Feelings of Mortality
Remedy Inhibitor
These nanos, broadly speaking, hamper the target from receiving CH heals, and in the case of remedy inhibitor, cancel long hots and stop the target from long hots landing.
While the concept was OK for these nanos (and here's the concession) the Dev's have adjusted AMS/TMS so soldiers can cast while in defence (no NSD effect) which means that a soldier can work away at getting one of these nanos to land - broadly speaking, offensive nano casting in combat just doesn't fit the soldier role:
Soldiers are the furthest from a nano casting prof of any prof in game, with the highest nanoskill cost of any prof in game, with the highest nano init cost of any prof in game, with the lowest nanoskill caps in game to boot. The obvious question is what was the impetus to add these nanos to game?
Probably they were added because soldiers simply couldn't kill fixers or healers without them. Right? Right.
So here is what I propose:
Soldiers need a BIT of a boost I feel since 18.7, but it's hard to put your finger on what it is that is causing them to be in such worse shape after this patch. Traders are just as dangerous, engies are horrible, NT's are brutal, docs are impossible to kill, advy is very tough as always, MA is very tough, fixer is very tough, MP is very tough.. so, what are soldiers suppose to be good at killing? Well, the obvious answer is that soldiers have always been in a hard struggle to kill most profs, but I don't think having to land these only partially useful nanos in combat with such brutally stacked odds against us is helping.
One foot in the grave checks 120 % NR
Feelings of mortality checks 140% NR
Remedy inhibitor is a more feasible 95% NR
But with nanoskills trimmed as tight as possible in MM (many solds don't even use gazump fight unless OSB'd), clearly solds aren't in a good position to be casting these with any hope of landing them in a timely manner.
I suggest these nanos are REPLACED with a low level nano that has a compounding effect. Consider the proposed self nano:
Psychological Warfare
MC = 120
TS = 120
NCU = 10
On use: Upload Psychological Warfare on self.
Effect is a 100% proc chance, which loads 10 stackable debuffs called "engaged in combat" on the target being attacked by the soldier (max 10 stacks).
Each proc lasts 10s , which refreshes on each hit, so if a soldier stops hitting the target for 10s the stacks completely disapear
Each proc reduces target heal reactivity by 2% and heal efficiency by 2%
Each time the proc lands, it raises the soldiers heal reactivity by 2%
The rationale is simple: The soldier gains staying power as the battle wears on, but his opponent suffers adrenaline drain since his opponent doesn't seem to be weakening.
From a technical perspective, instead of stopping a target from being able to heal via CH, it lowers the targets ability to heal by a moderate amount, and lowers the ability of the target to receive heals by a moderate amount, BUT significantly reduces the targets ability to SELF HEAL.
This will make soldiers a more formidable threat to MA's, agents, advy, doctor; to a lesser extent vs shade, MP, trader.
But more importantly it will make soldiers a bit more able to stand and tank, to be the heavy, low mobility ranged tanks that they always were supposed to be. It will place a huge value on having monster AR (which is what soldiers have always had) - so it plays on natural strengths and reinforces all the soldier profession paradigms.
It makes soldiers significantly stronger paired with at least one other person who can fire a heal on him, and brings soldier heal reactivity up a notch which is what the original intent was when heal efficiency was added to AMS shields (which didn't work). It doesn't make soldiers any stronger solo but it does make them more capable of making a kill vs healers and vs those in a team with healers without having to land a ridiculous checking nano on them.
Notably, this suggestion is completely different from the way CH blockers worked in the past - CH wouldn't be affected by this, but all heals BETWEEN CH's would be, so, that means you'd have 30s to kill an agent between CH's, and 40s to kill advy between CH's, and MA's would likely be the most affected with all self heals reduced by 40% efficacy across the board with the stacks being maintained.
Edit: Oh, and a final point, if this was implemented, I'd like to see the stacks on self be buffed as a function of the stacks on the target, so, if 5 soldiers attacked a target, immediately the target would be reduced by 10% HReact and 10% Heff, and the last soldier who fired would be buffed by 10% not 2%. the reason for this is that it reinforces the rationale, and soldier mentality: An army isn't made up of 1 individual, an army is made up by soldiers. And those soldiers draw strength from each other. 2 soldiers? stronger than 1 soldier and 1 soldier, 5 soldiers? stronger than 5 individuals, if you get my meaning - same as what you'd expect in actual infantry warfare, where soldiers use formations to create formidable defences, or protect the spearman at the front, for example.
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Originally Posted by Michizure
I kid i kid 
