A frustrating Sparks playstyle

(amazinglarry) #1

Lately when playing DB, I’ve noticed a fairly frustrating trend in Sparks teammates, where they seem intent on just hanging back and waiting for you to die, so they can revive you. This is a problem for a number of reasons, but here’s a typical scenario for me:

  1. Die in a firefight.
  2. Get revived immediately by a Sparks who has been following at a distance, playing purely support.
  3. Die again to the same enemy / other enemy teammate.
  4. Since Sparks knows they revived me in a less than ideal situation, they realize I’m likely to die again, so they charge the gun just enough to get a revive and raise me again with minimal health.
  5. I die again, and now realizing I’m fodder I panic to find the ‘k’ Key to kill / tap out.
  6. Get revived immediately, again.
  7. Spam the ‘k’ key

The main reason this is frustrating to me, other than the obvious spam / train revives, is that the player playing Sparks is not laying down any sort of covering fire to discourage the enemy team from camping a Revive Dummy (me), or throwing any healthpacks that may give me an extra second, or running any sort of distraction at all. They just sit back at a relatively safe distance and spam their revive.

It may not be so bad, if they actually fully charged the freaking thing – but I wouldn’t know, since I’m constantly at the mercy of people who just want to get a revive off as quickly as possible.

I’m not sure what it is exactly about the Sparks merc that encourages this sort of behavior, or what one could to do mitigate it, but it seems very flawed.

(montheponies) #2

Not really came across that problem, but nothing surer than folk farming for xp will find a way to do it :smiley:

Personally I detest the whole Sparcs remote revive - incredibly frustrating for a merc to have no risk in the revive situation. Makes me wonder why anyone would play poor old sawbonez.

(jazevec) #3

I don’t play Sparks like this. My primary weapon is the machine pistol and I stay behind teammates, but shoot. I kill more people than I revive. Sparks is actually decent at killing primarily because of her speed.

Keep in mind experienced Sparks players use many medpacks for themselves, because they work like W:ET ones. In a way Sparks is the closest to W:ET rambomed. An alive Sparks can revive, a dead one can’t.

Another way of looking at this - maybe the “pure support” Sparks players are truly crap at shooting ? Maybe that’s the best they can contribute and they would perform WORSE if forced into combat ?

My observations are that Sparks is actually not that great at… reviving. Yes, you can revive from range, but a straightforward medic would often walk up to the fallen and clear or scare enemies around. Sometimes Revive Gun is better, sometimes it’s worse.

While small medpacks don’t heal much, I’m pretty sure they still lower ability cooldowns due to direct hit. Aura can’t do that. In close combat situations Sparks is better for supporting Rhino than Aura (instant heal, no grenade bait).

(Szakalot) #4

[QUOTE=jazevec;533495]
While small medpacks don’t heal much, I’m pretty sure they still lower ability cooldowns due to direct hit. Aura can’t do that. In close combat situations Sparks is better for supporting Rhino than Aura (instant heal, no grenade bait).[/QUOTE]

no medpacks ever did this?

ammo packs decrease cooldowns on direct hit

medpacks on direct hit give extra 20hp (yes, even sawbonez)

(Phantomchan) #5

I am one of those people who play Sparks in a purely supportive role where she is mainly around to heal and revive people, but I don’t spam with my REVIVR with low charges like the Sparks you encountered. I actually fully charge it and might either use the charge to try to resurrect someone or to kill someone with it. It’s quite sad if someone actually used you for padding their own stats instead of actually trying to help you. :frowning:

(Szakalot) #6

with getup augment you can easily spam revive and bring people up to 80-100%

(Phantomchan) #7

I agree with this, but my point was that I don’t rev people to the point where they just have 20% HP on resurrecting just so I can revive him/her over and over again. I actually have a bronze layout with that augment, but I don’t use it as I have a sexy gold loadout with a nice gun.

(kenpokiller) #8

Don’t worry it’s maintenance now and my favourite merc Sparks will be nerfed into oblivion.

RIP Railgun.Rambomed.

(Phantomchan) #9

[QUOTE=kenpokiller;535026]Don’t worry it’s maintenance now and my favourite merc Sparks will be nerfed into oblivion.

RIP Railgun.Rambomed.[/QUOTE]
Well uh, she was technically broken with destroying the objectives by shooting on them with her REVIVR.

(kenpokiller) #10

Muh i’m just going for headies
np :XD

(jazevec) #11

Nope, you can’t easily spam revive. Sparks used to be god tier in pubs, especially on maps like Chapel. She still is if you can get headshots reliably, but otherwise not great. The change to gibbing corpses ruined her. Now the “frustrating Sparks playstyle” is almost necessary if you want to revive someone. You need to pre-charge anticipating falling allies because otherwise they’ll be gibbed before you zap them.

(mccrorie) #12

The new frustrating style is the people playing rail arena. Don’t expect many revives or a lot health from these people.