Arty: The Problems.

(tastefulTributary) #1

I want to start saying that i stared playing quite a bit of Arty lately and he is, imho, truly the worst merc in the game, both for guns and abilities.

Let me start with the Airstrike.

The idea behind the Airstrike is amazing and it theory it could work really well but it’s pratically useless in 95% of the current maps.
Other than the fact that the damage is not really that great unless you hit someone dead center, the aoe is super small and the targeting time is still too long for standing still.

Another problem is that there aren’t that many spots where to effectively use it over Skyhammer airstrike, maybe with the exception of the wall on Chapel or the first point of Trainyard.

Another gigantic “bug”(? I hope at least) i found is that if there’s any glass over the airstrike point (like the middle of underground or the last part of Chapel -i think, the one where you have to blow the wall and the two containers-) the airstrike will not go off untill you destroy said glass, and at the same time Skyhammer goes off without a hitch.

Now, the weapons.
Even after the buff that we had today they are still completely subpar to any rifle or smg. While the BR-16 is a pretty balanced gun for accuracy, damage and spread, the other two have no chance on any distance to outdamage any other weapons.

The Dreiss AR and the Stark AR on the other hand are, again imho, completely subar.

  • -The Dreiss AR even having a decent enough damage has probably the worst recoil i’ve ever seen in a triple shot gun. The majority of the time you can’t even hit more than one or two headshot with a single fire beacuse the weapon recoils up up and away.
  • -The Stark AR is probably the worst gun in the game. The damage is pretty high but the spread is absolutely insane: after you shoot 3/4 times the spread looks like an unscoped sniper rifle. And at the same time you have guns like the k-121 (the machine gun of fragger) that has insane damage, pratically no spread unless you shoot half your magazine and a minimal recoil.

Again, everything here is from personal experience. But what i’m trying to say is just that against a player of equal skills using any rifle (let’s not talk about the machine gun) you’ll always die, because the damage you deal will never be the same as an automatic rifle at any distance.

(watsyurdeal) #2

It’s amazing how much a damage buff would do for his primary, the RoF thing is pointless since you should no spamming the gun as fast as possible, it’s a weapon you need to take your time with.

A 20% damage buff would be great, that’d give it 30 damage to the body, and 60 to the head, enough to 2 shot everything with 120 HP or lower.

(Szakalot) #3

Agree on Arty’s Arty. Cooldown reduction just made the ability more spammy. You use it and hope someone runs in aimlessly. None of the trick&treat attitude you can adopt with Skyhammer.

Reduce aiming time.
Bring Arty down faster.
Bring the cooldown back up.
Give it more damage (~10% more )against EV.

(solt.) #4

I dropped a couple cents on Arty in another thread:

[quote=“solt.;12750”]To add to the conversation surrounding Arty…

The nice thing about Arty’s primary is that there are a shit ton of elements to adjust.

Damage Dealt
Arrival Time
Time to Cast
Cooldown
Maximum Charges

These changes can all be made extremely easily, and I’d be happy if some amount of balancing was attempted through them.

Unfortunately what is much more involved to fix/tweak is the ease with which you can designate an area.
Right now essentially any sort of movement of the laser while attempting to call in a strike will cause the timer to reset, simply because the slightest shift in geometry will cause the strike to be reevaluated.

Huge pain in the butt.
If they could fix this it would be a ~huge quality of life improvement for him. But I’m not going to hold my breath.[/quote]

As for his weapons, I’ve got a limited range of experience. I’ve only used the Stark AR. I started trying Arty when I opened a Gold Loadout for him, and that was the weapon it had.

I’m actually pretty happy with it. The issues you mention with recoil are seriously stymied if you just put a little time between bursts. The scope is great, feels sufficiently powerful (when railing them in the head).

(tastefulTributary) #5

[quote=“solt.;13374”]I dropped a couple cents on Arty in another thread:

As for his weapons, I’ve got a limited range of experience. I’ve only used the Stark AR. I started trying Arty when I opened a Gold Loadout for him, and that was the weapon it had.

I’m actually pretty happy with it. The issues you mention with recoil are seriously stymied if you just put a little time between bursts. The scope is great, feels sufficiently powerful (when railing them in the head).[/quote]

The problem is see with the guns is that they are “fine” per se, meaning if you go against another guy with it it’s not that bad.

BUT if you go against any other equally skilled player with an automatic rifle, you get destroyed, because by the time you hit 3 times he has hit you at least 5+.

A nice fix would be what Majestic Clue said to up his damage a bit so that you could two shots people with HS.

Btw another problem with Arty that i found is that the damage of the Artillery is like a dot in 3 hits, so unless you hit deadcenter and people don’t move you’ll super rarely kill anybody. Plus i’m pretty sure the damage hits harder in the center, because on the EV if you just graze it with a part of the artillery and not dead on over it, it will usually deal like 1/10 of the damage

(Terr) #6

Arty’s ability seems outclassed by Skyhammer’s airstrike at least 95% of the time. Due to the area it affects, the longer time to set it up, and its complete and utter uselessness indoors. Plus, airstrike can also be stealthier, depending on how Skyhammer throws it.

So I think the first question should be whether his ability should be buffed/improved, or whether to accept it and instead make him more direct-combat-oriented.

One idea for an artillery re-do: Allow Arty to very quickly mark up to 3 positions by tapping his ability key, and then have him hold the ability key to activate a simultaneous attack.

Unfortunately, I can’t think of a good way to handle the “totally pointless on certain phases of certain maps” aspect without some more-drastic change.

(Szakalot) #7

I like

(Gwarh) #8

I like the idea of marking 2 or 3 targets then activating them all at once.

It would work like Fletchers Sticky Bombs I guess. Toss first, Splode later.

(Gwarh) #9

As it stands right now. I have a HELL of a time getting the Artillery strikes to even go off.

It usually goes Red, Red, Red, Oh good Green, Headshot I’m dead with no Artillery strike. Forcing Line of site to the targeted spot is fine, but the risk/reward is to high. Again Skyhammers Nade toss for an Airstrike is far superior.

(XavienX) #10

I’d rather have the devs rework Arty than releasing new mercs.

(CCP115) #11

I would rather have the devs fix bugs and issues for a solid month, with no new content.