Aura is broken, needs nerf

(LuLNope) #1

Aura’s healing station needs to be easier to destroy and have a lower regenerate rate. Right now it’s takes a lot of effort to destroy it and if there are enemies using it, you’re basically sacrificing yourself to let your teammates have a chance against these guys. Unless you shoot only headshots or are 80 + % accurate people within the area of healing will outregenerate you, they don’t even have to be 10% accurate because with healing station behind them they’ll be immortal against any sort of non-area based attack.

Also shotguns - nerf them. At this rate they’ll be a viable alternative to sniper rifles…

(crooKk) #2

The rate of heal is a little crazy.

Does doing damage to a person being healed by a station interrupt the healing process? For how long?

(LuLNope) #3

Yes, it does. But only for a little while. If you’re very accurate it’s possible to kill people using healing station, but as soon as they start dodging your bullets you’re screwed. You need to sniper rifle headshot them, shotgun headshot them or put half a clip of headshots from any other weapon to get them down, and if the owner of the station is nearby they’ll get insta revived anyway…

(sleeepy) #4

I thought it was OP too but now I’m not so sure. The radius is not that large so if too many group near it all the explosive spam we have currently (which actually does need to be nerfed) will take them out. Also it’s really easy to kill the healing station, something I’ve never seen anyone else try to do. Otherwise I kind of like how it works. It’s almost like zone control except instead of spamming explosives it makes your team nearly unkillable.

However Aura + Rhino is bullshit (you know who you are)

(Kudochop) #5

I have had quite a few people upset in servers about my Aura play. Some things I notice are people will not attempt to kill the station even if it is in plain sight. They attempt to play the strafe battle with me even if I am inside of the station aura. Higher HP mercs benefit too much from the station, Aura has 80HP and dies to anything in almost one hit unless she actively moves the station and fights in the radius. Maybe aura should keep the regen speed from the station and lower other mercs regen speed? I’m not sure if Aura herself is OP while in the station I guess it depends on what you fight her with and how you approach it.

I have used cooked frag nades with Fragger and easily killed aura/station when I see one down, or nader spam around a corner to take out the station before I push. I’m not trying to be biased here I’ve just spent a lot of time playing the last 2 weeks with every merc and the only thing that really stood out as being “OP” with aura is higher HP mercs being godmode with her help. I kind of enjoyed playing her because she is fragile but has incredible speed and if you’re good with a shotgun she can do really well. But at the same time you die instantly to any type of explosive, sniper shot, most fraggers/stokers will drill your brain before you can get the 2nd shotgun blast off unless you are corner peeking with station down.

I feel like there is a lack of medic play in general in the game and nerfing medics/making them less effective will hurt that even more. You don’t really get anything extra for playing a medic except being less effective at face to face combat, aura being an exception. Playing against most good players you will see them rock fragger/stoker/vas mostly because they are very rewarding to play when you have good aim. Those players also enjoy having a skilled medic around that keeps them up and pushing forward, if medics are not fun to play and don’t really stand a chance vs the fragging classes nobody decent will play them. Not saying any of the medics are bad atm, but I think there is some care needed when adjusting their healing utility even if it comes off as OP.

(LuLNope) #6

Nobody will try to attack healing station when 1 v 1 you because it take half a mag to destroy it now. Even the guy manages to destroy it he’ll get shotgunned by you anyway. The only chance at defeating Aura 1 v 1 w/o nades/airstrikes is basically lots of luck and headshots. Mostly headshots.

The fact that Aura is the only merc that in a 1 v 1 has to be dealt with using an area based attack is OP in itself (I’m not talking about snipers here, they’re a bit special and sniping a shotgun merc can’t be considered a proper 1 v 1) . No other merc requires that.

About nerfing the medics, Sawbonez finally feels balanced (was op before) but Phoenix still needs a little work. Phoenix is still too weak, and both are really weak compared to current Aura.

The problem with most players using stoker/fragger now is how these classes got buffed after the patch. They’re simply the most efficient at dispatching enemies now. Before the patch you could see many more people using Sawbonez since he was op at the time. Vasilli is a special case, don’t know what to do with him even if I wanted to change anything about him.

(ritual) #7

I’ve pretty much only been playing Aura and I can’t really decide whether or not it’s OP…

Sometimes the heal station seems perfect, other times it seems too strong.

Defensively, I can stand and A D A D strafe and usually survive long enough to take out 2-3 people if I’m using the heal station… which is probably a little much

But offensively it seems useful, I’ll run in and blast a few people, duck around the corner and heal, pick up the station and repeat.

Still haven’t figured out how to really play Aura as a support medic though xD

I guess I’d like to maybe see it balanced to promote more aggressive play.
Maybe it could give back health in big chunks, but on a timer? I don’t know what numbers would be balanced but something like X amount of HP per tick with 1 tick per second… Not really thought through but it seems like it would make it easier to get last hits in, since instead of constantly healing they’re healing in short bursts. Might not make any difference, Idk.

(PixelTwitch) #8

The one way of balancing I would suggest is quite simple…
Once you take damage on the Healing station you can not receive more health for 1 second. I think you will be surprised on how that switches the balance drastically while still allowing it to be good.

(LuLNope) #9

^Yep, but instead of a random single second let’s just measure how long it takes Sawbonez to drop, run into his own medpack and then change back to gun and apply the same delay to Aura’s hs.

(RedSerpent) #10

Killing the health station with explosives usually does the trick, or if it’s just sitting out in the open, you shoot it and put aura on a long cooldown timer.

With coordinated play, aura is probably the best medic for defense. Multi medic comps are more troubling to deal with though than just 1 aura.

(Tekky) #11

[quote=“sleeepy;1097”]I thought it was OP too but now I’m not so sure. The radius is not that large so if too many group near it all the explosive spam we have currently (which actually does need to be nerfed) will take them out. Also it’s really easy to kill the healing station, something I’ve never seen anyone else try to do. Otherwise I kind of like how it works. It’s almost like zone control except instead of spamming explosives it makes your team nearly unkillable.

However Aura + Rhino is bullshit (you know who you are)[/quote]

No, I don’t know who I am.

Kudochop has it right, which isn’t a surprise to anyone that watches his twitch occasionally.

For the last time (I’m sure it won’t be the last), it’s hilariously easy to kill, it takes all of one nader/stoker/fragger and the ability to figure out where the healing station is. You see it in pub games all the time, and I’ve done it with a friend only to be stopped by a well-placed napalm (since that’s all it takes to break the heal tank or force people out of the healing radius). Even if the healing station doesn’t go down, it takes a tiny bit of coordination to napalm the setup and gun down the aura. This is exactly the reason I’ve started running nader in my loadout. It doesn’t matter if the ability is low skill cap, it matters of the ability counters something that is difficult to tackle otherwise.

Frankly the amount of rage is hilarious, but it doesn’t really matter because everyone assumes that grabbing your primary and strafing is the only way to play. It’s not COD, it’s a class-based game that has real counters for everything, and trying to grind your face onto something with the expectation of killing it and failing over and over is entirely on the player. I mean come on, there is a class entirely dedicated to preventing this, and nobody ran it during the scrim we played, and very few people run it in pubs simply because they view it as overpowered. Honestly I don’t really see any one class as blatantly overpowered, with the possible exception of stoker’s napalms killing EVs way too quickly (and thus eliminating the need for explosive support classes like arty and skyhammer). I’m not saying it’s perfect, in fact I think the other medics could probably use a fairly significant buff.

Basically, if you nerf aura you’re not going to have any real way to establish a foothold against the opposing team, and as a direct result of that fragging classes become more desirable. If you can’t slowly push up or hold back a wave of enemies with a variety of classes accomplishing specific goals, you’re going to end up with everyone trying to play a class that can kill in an attempt to rush down spawn timers, with one person always planting or repairing (and doing nothing else). That makes the game boring, and that makes a class-based game utterly pointless.

(Tekky) #12

[quote=“LuLNope;365”]…immortal against any sort of non-area based attack.
[/quote]

I rest my case, you solved your own problem.

(LuLNope) #13

[quote=“LG.Tekky;3076”][quote=“LuLNope;365”]…immortal against any sort of non-area based attack.
[/quote]

I rest my case, you solved your own problem.[/quote]

No, I didn’t solve anything unfortunately. Aura is the only merc that requires usage of explosives in 1 v 1 situation. She’s the most efficient out of all medics at both healing and killing. Introducing a longer delay to her healing station wouldn’t make her underpowered.

(Badmojo) #14

I was playing Fragger last night with another heavy on the Underground map. We were on defense and basically shut down the right side of the map with the help of a healing station. I actually started feeling guilty about using it.

The healing is extremely unbalanced compared to the other medics and should be adjusted.

(RedSerpent) #15

[quote=“LuLNope;3080”][quote=“LG.Tekky;3076”][quote=“LuLNope;365”]…immortal against any sort of non-area based attack.
[/quote]

I rest my case, you solved your own problem.[/quote]

No, I didn’t solve anything unfortunately. Aura is the only merc that requires usage of explosives in 1 v 1 situation. She’s the most efficient out of all medics at both healing and killing. Introducing a longer delay to her healing station wouldn’t make her underpowered.[/quote]

You can just headshot her, she’s not “immortal”, just close to it if your aim is bad. ._.

(LuLNope) #16

On the contrary, my aim is very good, try a different line of defense for Aura. If you don’t think Aura is OP that probably means that even with OP mercs you can’t really contribute to your team’s objective. In that case i suggest playing a bit more before discussing balance issues on the forums, hehe.

(Tekky) #17

[quote=“LuLNope;3080”][quote=“LG.Tekky;3076”][quote=“LuLNope;365”]…immortal against any sort of non-area based attack.
[/quote]

I rest my case, you solved your own problem.[/quote]

No, I didn’t solve anything unfortunately. Aura is the only merc that requires usage of explosives in 1 v 1 situation. She’s the most efficient out of all medics at both healing and killing. Introducing a longer delay to her healing station wouldn’t make her underpowered.[/quote]

You’re saying that you don’t want to have to use explosives to remove a class that is entirely dependent on creating a base and holding it. I’m sorry but that’s just how these games work. There are classes designed specifically to prevent that from happening, and if you tried playing those more instead of just attempting to rush down the Aura, you would realize how easy it is to remove. Plus, she’s 80 HP. You don’t even have to be accurate with grenades to force her out of position, even if you don’t outright kill her.

I mean FFS fragger is capable of killing it in one grenade. Fragger is also the go-to frontline class, how can you possibly have a problem killing those?

Furthermore, you’re complaining about losing against a medic in a 1v1 situation. You’ll also lose just about any 1v1 with a capable sawbones (though they are sorely lacking at this point in the beta). Phoenix, you’ll probably win unless they go down around a corner. I’m not saying sawbones and phoenix are great at the moment, I already think that they need a buff to encourage more people to play medic (and play it correctly), but I also think that the amount of rage surrounding aura is most likely a result of people approaching the game incorrectly. You should never think of something as better or worse in a 1v1, because that’s not what this game is about. It’s about finding synergy between multiple classes and exploiting them when you come up against a given situation. Run into Aura + Rhino/Fragger/Thunder? Grab a nader and a stoker and fill the room with explosives and fire (if it’s out in the open, it’s already easy to kill). Plus, once we get phantom/aimee/kira back, it’s going to be even easier to remove footholds than it already is, assuming they get added back in with any semblance of their previous abilities.

(Robert J. Sullivan) #18

[quote=“LG.Tekky;3116”][quote=“LuLNope;3080”][quote=“LG.Tekky;3076”][quote=“LuLNope;365”]…immortal against any sort of non-area based attack.
[/quote]

I rest my case, you solved your own problem.[/quote]

No, I didn’t solve anything unfortunately. Aura is the only merc that requires usage of explosives in 1 v 1 situation. She’s the most efficient out of all medics at both healing and killing. Introducing a longer delay to her healing station wouldn’t make her underpowered.[/quote]

You’re saying that you don’t want to have to use explosives to remove a class that is entirely dependent on creating a base and holding it. I’m sorry but that’s just how these games work. There are classes designed specifically to prevent that from happening, and if you tried playing those more instead of just attempting to rush down the Aura, you would realize how easy it is to remove. Plus, she’s 80 HP. You don’t even have to be accurate with grenades to force her out of position, even if you don’t outright kill her.

I mean FFS fragger is capable of killing it in one grenade. Fragger is also the go-to frontline class, how can you possibly have a problem killing those?

Furthermore, you’re complaining about losing against a medic in a 1v1 situation. You’ll also lose just about any 1v1 with a capable sawbones (though they are sorely lacking at this point in the beta). Phoenix, you’ll probably win unless they go down around a corner. I’m not saying sawbones and phoenix are great at the moment, I already think that they need a buff to encourage more people to play medic (and play it correctly), but I also think that the amount of rage surrounding aura is most likely a result of people approaching the game incorrectly. You should never think of something as better or worse in a 1v1, because that’s not what this game is about. It’s about finding synergy between multiple classes and exploiting them when you come up against a given situation. Run into Aura + Rhino/Fragger/Thunder? Grab a nader and a stoker and fill the room with explosives and fire (if it’s out in the open, it’s already easy to kill). Plus, once we get phantom/aimee/kira back, it’s going to be even easier to remove footholds than it already is, assuming they get added back in with any semblance of their previous abilities.[/quote]

I agree with pretty much everything you said there and in your previous posts. Aura has a lot of counters in the current roster and there will be even more when they add previously removed mercs, a single nade can take her out and her station not to mention that people tend to group up around it so you’ll most likely get other kills in the process.
The only tweak that I would do is regarding the fact that I’ve seen some Auras go attacking abd pop up their station right up when they find encounter an enemy. Even then, it’s really questionable if this really needs adressing considering that if an Aura can break through your defenses on her own the problem might lie within your team rather than it being poor balance on the game’s part. Also agree on other meds needing a slight bump.

Honestly right now every time I’ve seen an Aura dominating and/or carrying her team it’s been mostly because :

  1. Our team didn’t have any Fragger/Nader/Fletcher/Arty/Stoker
  2. Our team had one or several of those mercs but people playing them were more interested in spamming corner to get lucky kills than taking out priority targets in the enemy team.

On top of the previously mentioned mercs, it’s also one of the snipers’ job to take out medics and mercs who have an objective completion boost such as Bushwhacker and Proxy.

(LuLNope) #19

You seem to get what I’m talking about but you’re taking a different approach. Aura is much better at healing and fighting than any other medic. Compared to her Phoenix and Sawbonez have very limited both healing ability and firepower (shotguns 1shotting against lots of tracking with smgs). So you’re right that buffing other medics would balance Aura relatively to others of her class. The only issue I have with that approach is that suddenly medics will, once again, become a viable alternative to assault mercs (if the buff will apply to their weapons/healing abilities). We had a stronger Sawbonez 2 patches ago and it was easy to go with him against fragger and other heavy mercs. That’s why I would expect Aura to get nerfed rather than other medics to get buffed.

Also, leave remarks about my skills to yourself. I don’t think we ever played against each other and besides that it’s silly to bring this kind of topic in merc discussion thread. I’ll just say that you’re wrong and leave it at that to avoid rustling anyone’s jimmies

(Tekky) #20

[quote=“LuLNope;3152”]You seem to get what I’m talking about but you’re taking a different approach. Aura is much better at healing and fighting than any other medic. Compared to her Phoenix and Sawbonez have very limited both healing ability and firepower (shotguns 1shotting against lots of tracking with smgs). So you’re right that buffing other medics would balance Aura relatively to others of her class. The only issue I have with that approach is that suddenly medics will, once again, become a viable alternative to assault mercs (if the buff will apply to their weapons/healing abilities). We had a stronger Sawbonez 2 patches ago and it was easy to go with him against fragger and other heavy mercs. That’s why I would expect Aura to get nerfed rather than other medics to get buffed.

Also, leave remarks about my skills to yourself. I don’t think we ever played against each other and besides that it’s silly to bring this kind of topic in merc discussion thread. I’ll just say that you’re wrong and leave it at that to avoid rustling anyone’s jimmies[/quote]

I don’t believe I ever directly insulted your abilities, aside from questioning why taking out Aura was difficult with mercs like fragger and stoker. I apologize for that being perceived as hostile.

Regardless, I think we’re on the same page.

Yes, aura is VERY difficult to fight one on one, but in my view, that makes a lot of sense considering she’s still very much reliant on staying in one area. As for the other medics, I’d really like to see their healing abilities emphasized in some way rather than their combat ability, and that aura should be the general standard for balance in the set (with the notable exception that neither should be able to hold a single location for nearly as long). I don’t think you’re a bad player, nor do I think I’m particularly great, but I also think that any nerf to aura would make fragging classes just a bit to strong. Explosive abilities are quite powerful at the moment and giving that any more weight as a simple “kill whatever is in front of you” tool doesn’t sit right with me.

Then again, not a lot of people are playing medic at the moment. I’m not quite sure how to get around that aside from making them more interesting rather than statistically better. For example, sawbones seems REALLY iffy right now as it’s difficult to get somebody to actually walk over the medkit (and it’s difficult to judge where he will throw them). I’d like to see something like a power healing/health-buffing melee attack, and perhaps passive pulsed heals on phoenix to make healing easier whilst emphasizing his role as a flaking unit and combat medic (or something like a radius around him has no cooldown until they start regenerating). The ability to provide combat buffs might be the answer, so long as nothing goes overboard or is impossible to counter with another class/collection of classes.