Arty doesn't fill the role in his description (version r45627)

(honorableNemesis) #1

In his description, Arty’s artillery calldown is described as a means to effect area denial in outdoor spaces. Currently, the artillery strike’s duration is incredibly short over a very small area, meaning that it doesn’t really act to discourage anything once it starts happening – it either does damage or possibly kills, but it doesn’t hamper enemy movement or provide any dissuasion to move through its effects.

Could we possibly see the artillery strike have a longer area of effect? I mean, stretch the damage out for the duration, sure, make it so that entering into it isn’t instantly lethal, but it should still serve a purpose other than being something equivalent to a single explosion of Skyhammer’s airstrike.

(avidCow) #2

I completely agree. They’ve taken the idea from the RTCW artillery aoe denial and condensed it into a short and deadly localised bombardment.

(Reddeadcap) #3

I’ve mentioned the idea of maybe making it a strike of 3 shells with each call down, all hiting the same area one after the other, it’ll do tons of damage to the EV, and offer area denial in a single area, and give the arty player some benefits if the initial strike doesn’t hit anyone and everyone that runs into the next to can only blame themselves.

(honorableNemesis) #4

I needn’t do tons of damage to the EV, since you can have multiple instances of Arty on the same team. Having it so that you’d have a constant, orchestrated stream of artillery shells coming down would be silly, to say the least. Something that would let Arty discourage people from pathing through the AoE and even potentially spread far enough that it could reach the other side of cover he could aim the laser against would be good.

(vdll) #5

I don’t like the idea of “stretching out” the damage.
Arty’s precision strike serves well eliminating enemy encampents unaccessible with other explosives plus it inflicts rather moderate EV damage. Killing someone with shells is hard enough, with lower DPS it would be neigh impossible. Plus, we have a perfect area denial tool in hands of Nader already.

If Artillery doesn’t match its description, perhaps we should fix the description and not the ability itself.

(watsyurdeal) #6

I’d rather have one awesome airstrike than a bunch of weaker ones

(Thai-San) #7

A way more noticeable problem of Arty is that his ability is a little diva.
“mmh, no. That surface is not flat enough”
“Can’t you see the glass above that spot? Shoot that first and THEN you can call me again”
“No-no-no. Not right ON the EV, a little in front of it please…”
“No here, no. Why? I just don’t feel like it, okay?!”
“Oh honey, you got shot? Then try again please.”

(GregHouseMD) #8

@ThaiSan

It’s definitely a problem. It also ties into the problem of Arty’s ability being largely useless on large stretches of several maps: Large useless on Underground, very limited on Bridge and Terminal. Skyhammer has the same limitation, but at least he gets a consolation grenade with at least some utility.

(vdll) #9

[quote=“ThaiSan;19465”]A way more noticeable problem of Arty is that his ability is a little diva.
“mmh, no. That surface is not flat enough”
“Can’t you see the glass above that spot? Shoot that first and THEN you can call me again”
“No-no-no. Not right ON the EV, a little in front of it please…”
“No here, no. Why? I just don’t feel like it, okay?!”
“Oh honey, you got shot? Then try again please.”[/quote]

I love you.

(Gi.Am) #10

haha nice one Thaisan

I like the artillery right now.
The cooldown, targeting time improvement helped alot.

Sure a large area bombardment would be cool on trainyard but not sure how that would work on smaller maps (especial with ff-on).

besides if you don’t just dump it all unto one spot you can cover a larger area (or two different sides).

I just wished it would look and feel a bit more like artillery, like distant thumping of the cannons and maybe not have bombs falling on the spot.

Arty on underground isn’t that bad either sure there are only 3 spots for it but those are all on the objectives (I’m not saying that it shouldn’t be better tho :wink: ).

(avidCow) #11

Without any zoom you end up trying to position the airstrike on a thin sliver of screen real estate.

(LifeupOmega) #12

[quote=“ThaiSan;19465”]A way more noticeable problem of Arty is that his ability is a little diva.
“mmh, no. That surface is not flat enough”
“Can’t you see the glass above that spot? Shoot that first and THEN you can call me again”
“No-no-no. Not right ON the EV, a little in front of it please…”
“No here, no. Why? I just don’t feel like it, okay?!”
“Oh honey, you got shot? Then try again please.”[/quote]

God, this so hard. I’m trying to learn to play Arty as Skyhammer is frankly boring to me, but dear god his artillery is finnicky. Sometimes you’ll be aiming flat and it won’t work, sometimes you’re 1cm under the bridge or overhang and it won’t work, hell sometimes it DOES work but instead of calling down where you aimed it hits where you aimed a second or two after sending it out.

(Reddeadcap) #13

This is really finicky when aiming at curved surfaces, when aimed at the building wall or windows at the last objective in chapel you pretty much get red marks all over unless you aim at the very center of the glass panels, and even then that’s like one specific pixel.

(Szakalot) #14

would be good if the unavailable areas somehow lit up for Arty, would prevent the endless moving the crosshair around for that one good spot.

(vdll) #15

Awesome idea. When you equip laser marker, no air support zones could be seen with slightly washed out colors or simply recognized by some sort of sound or visual alert wheb you aim at one.

(Gi.Am) #16

Great Idea indeed would simplify it quite alot.
As for the EV never aim at it directly.
The EV is a moving Target and a moving laserpointer will reset the timer (same goes for enemies walking trough the beam and aimpunch). always in front or to the side (make sure the bombing zone intersects with the EV tho).

And remember bullets deal damage to the EV so fire at it while you wait for the cooldown of the next strike. this ensures that the EV gets disabled at the second Strike.

(vdll) #17

@Szakalot perhaps you should post your idea in a separate thread to make it stand out. I’m afraid it may get lost here.