I understand that Nader’s launcher is more of a “area denial” sort of weapon, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like it does it’s job that well at even that, and even then area denial can only go so far in a game where you have to kill people to win. After playing her constantly in a ton of pugs I feel like she can be very weak at times, so here are a few changes that aren’t too drastic that would put the oomph back in nader.
Right now she only gets 4 grenades right off the bat, (only 2 more than what fragger gets), and her nades seem puny when compared to a single fragger nade. A whole barrage of 4 nades fails in comparison to the instagibbing, cookable Fragger nades. I would like to see her grenade capacity upped by atleast one, or the regeneration time upped a bit. Also, maybe a second look at her splash damage radius/damage might be needed, as direct hits only do 80 dmg, and are very difficult to hit against people who are constantly moving/strafing, because of their wonky physics in this game.
Speaking of direct hits, I find it weird that when you kill someone with a direct hit with Nader’s launcher, you don’t instagib them, but you can instagib several people with a Fragger nade. Certainly it takes more effort to hit someone directly with a grenade launcher shot, and it takes more than 1 nade to kill classes besides aura and proxy, so you won’t find yourself constantly direct hitting people and racking up easy kills. It really would make direct hitting people both more potent and rewarding if it instagibbed like Fragger’s nades.
Martydom, the ability that is the bane of people who look before they leap. Although it takes roughly no skill to use marty, it is an ability that made Nader’s body basically off limits from a close range right? Well, not anymore, as splash damage once again listened to the pub players and added the ability to make the fallen grenade on her body ‘vanish’ if you gib her body fast enough. It’s really frustrating to see someone just cancel your martyrdom by knifing you, and when playing against smart players, you will almost never get a kill with martyrdom to begin with. This change they did is too drastic and doesn’t punish players enough for not thinking about which body they are trying to knife. In the last instance of the beta that Nader was in, I found myself making conscious decisions before after I killed a nader to NOT go to her body or else it was certain death, now if I’m fast enough, I can simply go to her body and knife her without any punishment. You should be punished for knifing a nader like an idiot. It’s martyrdom for a reason boys.
Nader is a very fun defensive class that has the ability to suppress teams and hault pushes, while on offense has the ability to disrupt bonez-fragger pockets. However, the low damage output of her nade launcher makes most of her poke useless and the lack of instabigging on direct hit kills makes her even less potent. If SD truly wants the competitive scene to be full of varity and choices, they should focus on buffing other classes to make them on par to fragger (of course not his killing potential).
I would also consider buffing Nader’s health to 110 hp or so, to make her on par with dueling other mercs. As it is, she feels incredibly weak in dueling.
#ReBuffVassili2015 