Aimee Needs Rework

(JJMAJR) #1

[spoiler]I think at the moment Aimee’s ability, in regards to the value you get out of it among good players, is pretty much a more annoying version of Bushwhacker’s turret, (only purpose is to buy time) with a 40 second cooldown time.

She is highly defense-oriented, especially in contrast to Vassili’s wall hacks and Redeye’s HP.

I think that needs to be changed so that Aimee would be able to both be useful on offense, and not be so punishing towards people in a pub server.[/spoiler]

The changes I would recommend:

-Aimee’s spotting shouldn’t be any different compared to Redeye’s in regards to what it does to the victim. Otherwise it’s extremely obvious and makes Aimee’s ability have a lot less value compared to Vasilli’s spotting ability.

-In exchange, Aimee could have a passive that would enable her to debilitate on headshots, which would allow her to be stronger in combat, and act like a glass cannon sniper character.

-Aimee would also need help in regards to an offensive ability, due to her speed and health favoring a more defense-based experience. (Reasons at the bottom.) She is also therefore the most deserving candidate of an EMP ability considering that any iteration of Phantom’s EMP ability just encourages really bad play. Aimee doesn’t have this problem. (If Phantom needs to be buffed so that he would have a chance in offense, I think he should be the deliverable-friendly character.)

-Finally Aimee needs a better sense of what sidearms to use. The Deagle and Caulden doesn’t nicely complement the fact that she only has 90 HP. I would recommend her to use the selbstadt and MP9, and choose between the M9 or the MP-400 as the character’s third choice. Personally I would use the M9 because it would reward precision aiming, and have less DPS than any of the above weapons.

This would result in Aimee’s abilities/weapons looking like this:

Q - EMP Flare
[spoiler]Fires an EMP shot that when it explodes, it disables all deployables it comes into contact with.[/spoiler]

E - Third Eye Camera
[spoiler]Aimee throws a camera that sticks to any surface. Anything that goes within range of that camera gets spotted for the same amount of duration as Redeye’s IR Goggles. However it cannot spot enemies if they are cloaked.[/spoiler]

Passive - Debilitating Precision
[spoiler]Aimee causes enemies she shot in the face to exhibit symptoms of weakness, searing pain, and taking 25% extra damage from further shots over the course of 4 seconds. Further headshots during this time only reset the timer of this status effect.[/spoiler]

Sidearms - Selbstadt/Empire-9/M9

What made me want to post this thread right now:
[spoiler][quote=“Watsyurdeal;202212”]As long as she has 90 health they simply won’t do that, the health amounts really need to be nailed down a little more to be more standardized. There’s too many intricacies when it comes to the game’s balance that just throws things off.

But her snitch cam honestly needs to not have that weird flighty thing, it really needs to just be thrown and stick to walls like a traditional sticky cam.[/quote]
@Watsyurdeal I have an idea where Aimee could be like a glass cannon sniper, where she could use a stronger sidearm presence to complement her sniper rifle instead of higher HP.

Of course, she would have to lose the Deagle and the Caulden for that to work out. There isn’t a recon with the MP9, and the M9 or the MP-400 could round things out to the MP9/Selbstadt duo.

(This comment is off-topic in regards to the rest of that thread’s content, so I’m posting it here.)[/spoiler]

(SweetGenocide) #2

Everything you said is pretty well imo, but not sure about the debilitating headshot idea, if she lands an headshot with the PDP or Grandeur the enemy will basicly be almost dead (depends on what merc the enemy is using), and with the FEL-IX the target will basicly die on a headshot, but the ideas are pretty gud.

(watsyurdeal) #3

I think you missed my point, it’s not her ability, it’s her health, that makes her not viable in competitive.

The only reason Sparks is picked is because she’s so tanky, she can patch herself up really quickly and run off to keep fighting from afar. Aside from her I can’t think of any Merc that’s used in comp with 90 hp or less, Phoneix is right on that cusp.

(JJMAJR) #4

The first shot shouldn’t have the debilitation bonus damage. So if you shoot the face of a non-debilitated enemy they would be dealt 80 with the Grandeur, 90 with PDP, and etc.

Therefore they won’t really synergize with the sniper rifles and at the very most the ability would make two-shotting Rhino with the Grandeur/PDP possible. The bonus effect also makes Phoenix unrevivable in two headshots with the PDP, even if he was at full.

Pistols, on the other hand, would become near 140+ DPS weapons, (in practice though the performance would be slightly worse on the account of the first shot not getting the damage bonus) which would be insane. The only thing that balances this fact off is that Aimee has low HP.

(hoyes) #5

If someone else had the emp (hint hint Thunder) then there would be more synergy between mercs. The effects of the snitch are very powerful, with the right teamwork. You can easily nullify the effects of Unshakeable, and just get some explosives in the area of the debilitated enemies. The problem with her currently is that she is too easily countered. Her ability is very good when it works, but most of the time it just doesn’t. I suppose the cooldown reduction will help it a bit, but what I really want is for the fel-ix to be changed so it works better with the snitch, and for Thunder to get the emp as it is much more useful on him than phantom, and allow better teamwork between mercs, basically leaving them even more vulnerable than what the concussion effect already provides.

A slow to movement speed, wavy vision + 25% more damage = defenders worst nightmare.

(JJMAJR) #6

Thunder doesn’t need to be that powerful. And the main reason why I think Aimee should have the changes I listed above is that she is way too powerful against players that could not counter her, but she is so easily countered that it doesn’t even matter most of the time.

If Aimee’s camera doesn’t debilitate enemies it would be a lot easier for enemies to mistake Aimee’s camera for Redeye’s IR Goggles.

If Aimee debilitated on headshots, her debuff ability wouldn’t have a godforsaken 40 second cooldown, and therefore she could support her team more effectively than if it was on the SNITCH regardless of the extra risk tacked on to it.

Finally if Aimee had the ability to EMP deployables, she would have her mostly defensive abilities supplemented by something that is best used in an offensive scenario, and wouldn’t go full retard from it like Phantom players.

(Herr_Hanz) #7

i dont care about your other points, but the debuff on headshots is a bad if not useless idea. why would you want to debilitate a guy with a headshot, when you already killed him with the headshot? the sniper rifle itself is already a debuff. making aimee debilitate people with headshots is just a waste of a powerfull ability (if used correctly). then you go on saying that pistols will be massive DPS machines. how does that help the team? a pistol only aimee is not helpfull at all.

(JJMAJR) #8

A Thunder could be helpful to the team by killing lots of people. He clearly demonstrated that when his ability was “slow down enemies to a crawl and flash everyone looking at the grenade” which obviously made him more than capable at reducing enemies to a fine mist.

Only that for Thunder and Fragger, they combined that killing potential with higher health. Aimee would be a glass cannon, and a health/speed ratio and primary weapons more suitable for defense. Her killing potential would only be a feature to go alongside a spotting ability and and offensive ability.

Also Aimee’s effect on the field would be nearly indefinite compared to having a 0.5 second effect that requires a 40 second cooldown to reactivate. That would likely be a greater benefit to the team than what she was before.

Besides, Aimee would be a lot more fun if her ability wasn’t so absurd with the effect on new players being enormous compared to how bad it is with players that know how to watch out for things like this.

(BananaSlug) #9

most players would rather take 2 assaults than any recon.

they could get rid of that trail that makes it soo easy to spot and fall off soo its easy to place it in good spots

(bizarreRectangle) #10

(Sorry about the long post)

Debilitation on headshots is an interesting idea, but I would rather have it on a merc with low health and maybe with phoenix’s speed. He/she could be equipped with an smg. That would be a better glass cannon character IMO. Like @Herr_Hanz said, it’s pointless to have it on a sniper rifle.

I also don’t know why aimee’s secondaries are so important for you. Maybe because it goes hand in hand with your debilitation idea but again, what @Herr_Hanz said. I think the secondary weapon is not important, the primary weapon and the ability is.

I don’t have aimee, I only started playing her a little bit when the free rotation came up. From the little play time I have with aimee however, I alreadt have some problems with her.

  1. The cooldown is quite long for an ability like this. Perhaps the cooldown can be reduced or the ability itself can be buffed so the long cooldown is needed to balance it out.

  2. It is hard to make it go where you want it to. At first, you throw it and it just goes through the air like any object affected by gravity would. Then, it starts to release a sort of jet thing and starts flying with no drop off. But because it doesn’t start flying immediately, it’s pretty hard to throw it where you want it to. On top of that it is very easy to see when it is flying.

  3. Her low hp. She doesn’t have much to offset that, just her slower-than proxy speed and her semi-useless ability.

  4. I also think the effect of the snitch should be buffed. I’m not sure how, but right now enemies just need to take cover and wait off the short debilitation.

I do know that I just want her snitch to be thrown like a regular heartbeat sensor, it can be sneakier and easier to predict its flight, both of which I think are very important.

(Dysfnal) #11

Don’t you dare remove the Caulden from her arsenal, don’t even think about it. That gun is great.

Anyway, debilitating on headshots is not a good idea, most high level players will use the Felix due to its high damage, and any time they do headshot, their target will be dead (Thunder is always banned, and nobody uses rhino). There’s little point in a debilitation ability if they’re always downed when it takes effect.

Adding the Empire-9 to her arsenal would also ruin things. It has the highest ROF, and therefore would get more headshots, each one debilitating your enemy. It would dominate, even outclassing smgs at short range.