Another idea that I just had, if you don’t like that idea of shielding the teammates: Give him a good base movement speed, and make so, that he gets slowed even more by his shield, but the more shield he loses, the more he gets back of his original movementspeed. Heres the Twist: When your shield is completely depleted, you deal heavy damage in an area around you. Maybe you could have the ability to activate that aoe beforehand manually, but the more shield you had left, the less damage it will do. The movement speed will help you getting to those enemies, but you won’t have tankiness and speed at the same time. Could be hard to balance, but this way the enemies got an insentive to focus you, as soon as you get closer to them. If they shoot your shield down before you get close enough, you won’t be able to hit them with your massive aoe damage and stand there with your pants down. Also I think that this would be just hilarious in general, you could literally hear the enemies screaming like little girls in your mind, when they know you are just around the corner, with almost no shield left. And you’re like http://the-indie-pendent.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/theshining-1.jpg
Merc Idea: Vanguard
This was actually something I had considered earlier but felt it may not be the most beneficial ability nor make the most sense. Such a feature would pretty much make Nader suicide runs obsolete as in this case you wont have to die to activate it, and you’ll still have health kicking to keep fighting. Gaining speed as the shield depletes makes really no logical sense as it’s not physically losing mass at all, it’s made of energy… of course the counter argument to that could be that it shouldn’t slow him down at all, but it doesn’t, he slows himself down to sure his footing and prepare for a forward assault.
This merc should have zero AoE abilities because then it just becomes something that can be easily replaced, he’s meant to focus targets and deal incredible damage to them with his unique LMG modeled after an M60(Still no name for that yet), which with it’s massive magazine would allow him to clear an entire room potentially. The way I have this suggestion set up is perfectly fine to be honest, some tweaks here and there but really nothing major needs to change for balance as this merc will have the firepower needed to take on multiple enemies complimented with a shield to help endure all retaliation. He doesn’t need to be fast, he need to be strong, the frontline doesn’t have to move in a mad dash in war, sometimes every inch you fight for makes a difference, that is what Vanguard is about… he doesn’t break the line, he pushes the whole thing back!
I didn’t know that nader-suicide-runs were a thing, to be honest. I suppose it would work out balance-wise, I just thought it would be a bit generic to be “the guy with a big gun who has lots of health”. For the shield on teammates I just meant that it would passively affect everyone in a radius around you, and it would have incredible teamvalue, since you could protect engineers, while they plant/defuse C4. Of course the balacing would be difficult, but he would have a truly unique role in the game. Also for having more utility you could take away a bit from his offensive potential, by making his weapon a bit weaker than you intended to. This way he would be less of an one man army and had to rely more on his teammembers.
He does rely on his team, because all the health and firepower in the world doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have people backing you up, I noticed that on my first day playing as Rhino, the second you are spotted you are priority one and then you die instantly because you don’t have your team there. And I do like the idea of him passively shielding team mates around him with the shield active, though as you said it’ll be hard to balance… perhaps over the duration anyone within 20 metres gets a 33.3% reduction to small arms fire in their front? This way they don’t gain benefit against explosives(Which would become far too OP) and it only works if they face then enemy(Which they should be doing so if Vanguard is present).
And yeah protecting engineers is one possibility of this merc in it’s base form, it’s something I’ll do anyway just because it’s the most beneficial thing something like Fragger or Rhino can do… I will happily die over and over if it means I protect my team so they can complete the objective.
Also yes, Nader suicide runs, as well as Fragger suicide runs, are a thing, and they can be extremely effective for clearing out the enemy position. And while this merc may seem generic, he’s also very important, because you got people like Fragger and Rhino who seem like they are the same guy, but those two rely on different things… Fragger relies on his grenades which have a pretty long cooldown, and Rhino relies on his minigun which slows him down in combat. Neither of these are a persistent and dependable way to keep an advance going as the minigun overheats(Though the spread will make it far too useless before that ever happens) and the grenades are like a once in a while thing to help break the line. Vanguard, with his large LMG and powerful shield, is a constant force in any advance and can easily push back the enemy when he uses his team.