Eox's Balance pass.

[Eox]

Hey there.

I just wanted to do a MASSIVE thread regarding balance that pretty much resume my own view about the current game balance. I want to keep it simple, so I won’t keep the introduction any longer.

Proxy :

• Mines now have a limited amount of hp. 70 hp to be more precise. (Thanks to @Kaur for the idea). This effectively prevents mines from being detonated too early and makes the mine + shot combo less efficient.
• Arming time reduced to 1.5 seconds (not sure how long the arming time currently is, but I think it’s higher than 1.5 sec).
• Mine bleeping sound ~15% louder.

Why ? Because Proxy is a constant source of frustration in any pub matches, especially since she’s absurdly stacked. While she’s only good at pubbing, she manage to retain some very frustrating “one hit kill” moments and oftenly drive newbies nuts. The most complained thing about Proxy is by far the mine + shot combo that can pretty much wipe a team effortlessly. Some Proxy are able to pull it off very quickly, and when this happen if the Proxy really wants you dead, you won’t be able to escape it no matter what. She’s the absolute newbie killer that will then turn themselves to play Proxy in return, leading to a massive vicious circle. However, she’s absolutely terrible in competition where communication is key and shotguns aren’t worth the use, and removing the mine + shot combo would very likely kill the character.

Those changes aim to remove the mine + shot combo while trying to keep Proxy’s offensive capabilities in a decent shape. Mines can be tossed from a longer range, allowing Proxy to take less risks when using mines offensively, especially when it comes about area denial. The bleeping sound is also increased so newbies can pay more attention to them.

Fletcher :
Just refer to this thread : http://forums.dirtybomb.com/discussion/33766/eoxs-fletcher-feedback/p1

Stoker :
I’m just going to copy/paste a post I made in another thread :

I’m definitely not liking the fact that most Stokers actually use the molly like a conc. It was made much more bearable with the initial explosion nerf tho, but it still doesn’t prevent it from being frustrating to deal against from time to time and I don’t think it was the main use intended at first. On the other hand, the area denial potential of the molly is probably not as powerful as expected. I can see more and more people willingly tanking the burning AoE like if it was nothing.

I would like to suggest the following :

• Diminish the base flame explosion radius a lot.
• After the explosion, make the flame radius expand to its maximum radius over 1-0.7s.
• To compensate for those changes, increase the maximum AoE radius by 10% and increase flame damage per tick from 20 to 30.

The goal about those changes is to make Stoker’s flames something that you DO NOT want to take the risk to cross, increasing its area denial efficiency. It’s also increasing the molly’s efficiency at taking out unsuspecting targets if you flank. However, it wouldn’t be able to cheese 1v1 encounters at all : you would have to score a direct hit with it or throwing it really close to your enemy, which wouldn’t be as easy.

If more buffs are needed, I think we can increase the max AoE by an additional 10%.

No cooldown buff ! It would make Stoker stacking in pubs extremely painful to deal against in pubs.

Sparks

• Self heal now heals over 0.5 seconds instead of being instant and can be cancelled by recieving damage. The amount of healing given remains the same. This only applies to self heal. Healing allies remains instant.

Why ? Ever tried to kill a decent Sparks ? Ever chased as Sparks all around the map with your submachine gun ? Then you know the struggle. At soon as you start firing, the usual Sparks player will just go nuts and start to run around while tossing medpacks at her feets. The medpacks aren’t that strong on other players, but only two of them are enough to bring her back to full life. They heal instantly, so they can’t be canceled like Sawbonez’s medpacks does. And she has 4 of them reloading at a very fast rate ! Couple this with the highest speed in the game and you’re ready for a huge game of cat and mice that Sparks will very likely win if you don’t surprise her with an instant kill attack.

That change just brings back Sparks in a more fair state when it comes about survivability. She would still retain a high self-sustain, but it would require her to planify more her escapes when getting flanked.

Thunder

• Increased loudness of conc grenade bleeping by 40%.
• Increased cooldown from 15 to 17s.
• [*] [Fuse time increased to 3.0s and added cooking mechanic] OR [fuse time increased from 0.9 to 1.2 seconds].

Why ? Thunder is probably the first pick when it comes about bans in competition. The reason is simple : he’s incredibly annoying, and probably too powerful in his current state. Not only the fuse time of the concussion grenade seems way too low for most players to have the time to react to, but the hit-detection of the blinding effect is also way too sensible. Sometime I get Blinded by concs that aren’t even tossed at me and that I never seen showing on my screen. It’s incredibly frustrating, especially if multiple Thunders are stacked. Thunder is notorious in competition for being broken, especially when paired with the Stark AR.

When Thunder was introduced, people were able to cook his conc grenades, but this finally got rid of one week after his release for obscure reasons. Too bad, because cooking would have removed most of Thunder’s balance issues, and the staff does not seem to appreciate the idea of adding Thunder’s conc cooking back. I suggested it anyway, but I also suggested an easier alternative (flat out increasing the fuse time). Those changes will give to players more ways to predict a conc grenade and more time to try to avoid the blinding effect or the concussion AoE.

There’s more mercs who are in need of balance changes, but I didn’t made up my mind about them. This is all I have to say so far.

[GatoCommodore]

trying to fix something that isnt broken/ the thread

if a proxy playing it right (which is CQB) why are you annoyed?

if a sparks playing it right (sneaky, behind teammates, keeps reviving, run on first sight of trouble) why are you annoyed?

but of course, many people are not annoyed with vasilli 110HP or 110HP fletcher
but of course, many people are not annoyed with vasilli being OP sniper over the other 2
but of course, many people are not annoyed with vasilli having a machine pistol for no reason
but of course, many people are not annoyed with criminally overpowered Fletcher loadout

“Sparks are medics! they arent supposed to survive close range!/ Sparks are medics, they arent supposed to be able to snipe! Pls nerf Mp-9! its a secondary! The Revivr is OP enuf!”

i mean, fletcher use his balls as his primary but you dont see anyone want to remove his primary and replace it with secondary only and pistol?

im beating dead horse here and im getting pessimistic over the recent vaccum of fine tuning

[BlackboltLW]

[quote=“sweetColumn;c-221546”]trying to fix something that isnt broken/ the thread

[/quote]

Thunder is, though

[Eox]

Okay so we’re actually discussing about those changes on DB’s discord group, and @Kaur raised something extremely interesting about Proxy : mines can be cleared with a single shot. This actually reduce Proxy’s area denial capability. Giving to mines enough HP to require to people a bit more effort to clear them could bump her utility by a very good margin. Also, this fixes the issue about the mine + shot combo.

This is why I’m going to replace the “no forced detonation when the mine is unarmed” by Kaur’s suggestion instead. It gives to Proxy an interesting twist to her playstyle. This plus the additional mine throw range could give to Proxy a decent ability at keeping enemies at bay.

I’m fixing that amount of hp to 70, so it can be cleaned by Nader’s explosives in a single hit and by snipers using bolt action sniper rifles as well, giving to mines well defined counters.

[jooshoyes]

[quote=“Eox;d-35806”]Hey there.

I just wanted to do a MASSIVE thread regarding balance that pretty much resume my own view about the current game balance. I want to keep it simple, so I won’t keep the introduction any longer.

Proxy :

• Mines can’t be detonated by shooting at them anymore if they aren’t armed.
• Mines now have a limited amount of hp. 70 hp to be more precise. (Thanks to @Kaur for the idea).
• Arming time reduced to 1.5 seconds (not sure how long the arming time currently is, but I think it’s higher than 1.5 sec).
• Mine bleeping sound ~15% louder.

Why ? Because Proxy is a constant source of frustration in any pub matches, especially since she’s absurdly stacked. While she’s only good at pubbing, she manage to retain some very frustrating “one hit kill” moments and oftenly drive newbies nuts. The most complained thing about Proxy is by far the mine + shot combo that can pretty much wipe a team effortlessly. Some Proxy are able to pull it off very quickly, and when this happen if the Proxy really wants you dead, you won’t be able to escape it no matter what. She’s the absolute newbie killer that will then turn themselves to play Proxy in return, leading to a massive vicious circle. However, she’s absolutely terrible in competition where communication is key and shotguns aren’t worth the use, and removing the mine + shot combo would very likely kill the character.

Those changes aim to remove the mine + shot combo while trying to keep Proxy’s offensive capabilities in a decent shape. Mines can be tossed from a longer range, allowing Proxy to take less risks when using mines offensively, especially when it comes about area denial. The bleeping sound is also increased so newbies can pay more attention to them.

Fletcher :
Just refer to this thread : http://forums.dirtybomb.com/discussion/33766/eoxs-fletcher-feedback/p1

Stoker :
I’m just going to copy/paste a post I made in another thread :

I’m definitely not liking the fact that most Stokers actually use the molly like a conc. It was made much more bearable with the initial explosion nerf tho, but it still doesn’t prevent it from being frustrating to deal against from time to time and I don’t think it was the main use intended at first. On the other hand, the area denial potential of the molly is probably not as powerful as expected. I can see more and more people willingly tanking the burning AoE like if it was nothing.

I would like to suggest the following :

• Diminish the base flame explosion radius a lot.
• After the explosion, make the flame radius expand to its maximum radius over 1-0.7s.
• To compensate for those changes, increase the maximum AoE radius by 10% and increase flame damage per tick from 20 to 30.

The goal about those changes is to make Stoker’s flames something that you DO NOT want to take the risk to cross, increasing its area denial efficiency. It’s also increasing the molly’s efficiency at taking out unsuspecting targets if you flank. However, it wouldn’t be able to cheese 1v1 encounters at all : you would have to score a direct hit with it or throwing it really close to your enemy, which wouldn’t be as easy.

If more buffs are needed, I think we can increase the max AoE by an additional 10%.

No cooldown buff ! It would make Stoker stacking in pubs extremely painful to deal against in pubs.

Sparks

• Self heal now heals over 0.5 seconds instead of being instant and can be cancelled by recieving damage. The amount of healing given remains the same. This only applies to self heal. Healing allies remains instant.

Why ? Ever tried to kill a decent Sparks ? Ever chased as Sparks all around the map with your submachine gun ? Then you know the struggle. At soon as you start firing, the usual Sparks player will just go nuts and start to run around while tossing medpacks at her feets. The medpacks aren’t that strong on other players, but only two of them are enough to bring her back to full life. They heal instantly, so they can’t be canceled like Sawbonez’s medpacks does. And she has 4 of them reloading at a very fast rate ! Couple this with the highest speed in the game and you’re ready for a huge game of cat and mice that Sparks will very likely win if you don’t surprise her with an instant kill attack.

That change just brings back Sparks in a more fair state when it comes about survivability. She would still retain a high self-sustain, but it would require her to planify more her escapes when getting flanked.

Thunder

• Fuse time increased to 3.0s.
• Increased loudness of conc grenade bleeping by 40%.
• Increased cooldown from 15 to 17s.
• Added cooking mechanic OR fuse time increased from 0.9 to 1.1 seconds.

Why ? Thunder is probably the first pick when it comes about bans in competition. The reason is simple : he’s incredibly annoying, and probably too powerful in his current state. Not only the fuse time of the concussion grenade seems way too low for most players to have the time to react to, but the hit-detection of the blinding effect is also way too sensible. Sometime I get Blinded by concs that aren’t even tossed at me and that I never seen showing on my screen. It’s incredibly frustrating, especially if multiple Thunders are stacked. Thunder is notorious in competition for being broken, especially when paired with the Stark AR.

When Thunder was introduced, people were able to cook his conc grenades, but this finally got rid of one week after his release for obscure reasons. Too bad, because cooking would have get rid of most of Thunder’s balance issues, and the staff does not seem to appreciate the idea of adding Thunder’s conc cooking back. I suggested it anyway, but I also suggested an easier alternative (flat out increasing the fuse time). Those changes will give to players more ways to predict a conc grenade and more time to try to avoid the blinding effect or the concussion AoE.

There’s more mercs who are in need of balance changes, but I didn’t made up my mind about them. This is all I have to say so far.[/quote]

Very good ideas. About the Thunder changes, the conc’s fuse is currently 1 second exactly and I believe it was a typo or something like that in the first mention of his changes (OR they decided 0.9 was too short so they increased it by 0.1 seconds, which yeah, definitely changed something). Personally I want the changes you suggested but increase the fuse to instead 1.2-1.4 seconds. This would give people a bit more time to react than 1.1 (because cooking is out of the question if the beeps are raised in volume).

For sparks, I agree entirely, she is impossible to kill if she knows how to press spacebar and shift, despite her low hp. You could also add in a slight hitbox increase though, just to make them even better on pubs with teammates.

For Proxy, I would also add that they cannot be detonated, only destroyed, when an emp hits them. This would increase how powerful phantom is against proxy, so a minor buff to him.

Of course Phantom will need another rework to actually become viable in pugs/ higher lvl play, so something of an emp nade which should have the same stats as the emp part of his armor currently, and has a short-ish cooldown of maybe 12-15 seconds. Then revert the cooldown of his armor.

And the rest are very good changes, so good post OP.

[Sterling]

Proxy needs to get looked at, because mines aren’t supposed to be grenades. If Proxy is meant to drop a mine and shoot it instantly to wipe out half of the enemy team, then make her a fucking assault merc already. Otherwise, we need her mines to do what they’re meant to do: block or delay the enemy when well-placed or take out unaware targets while they chase the mine monkey across the map because muh drug sample. Frankly, I’d go even further and rework shotguns to make sure they need headshots, like other weapons.

Thunder is another one that’s annoying as shit. I never really used him properly because of his weapons, but a good Thunder annoys me more than a good Vassili or a good Fragger, and that’s saying something. Frankly, flashbangs aren’t meant to be cooked, but they also aren’t meant to slow people either. We could have a strong flashbang effect with blinding and deafening (so that blind people don’t just listen to you firing and fire back at you precisely) and remove the slow.

I also struggle to understand who thought it’d be a good idea to give a “hey, I’m here” ability to a stealth merc. Yeah, talking about Phantom here. When I see my deployables getting disabled, I instantly fine-tune my eyeballs for the slightest misplaced light and shoot it, just to hear an “omg i wuz invasibl”.

While we’re at it, let’s remove unshakeable from Kira. I striked a direct hit on her with my grenade launcher, I fucking earned it.

[Nibbles02]

[quote=“Eox;d-35806”]

Proxy :

• Mines now have a limited amount of hp. 70 hp to be more precise. (Thanks to @Kaur for the idea). This effectively prevents mines from being detonated too early and makes the mine + shot combo less efficient.
• Arming time reduced to 1.5 seconds (not sure how long the arming time currently is, but I think it’s higher than 1.5 sec).
• Mine bleeping sound ~15% louder.

Stoker

I would like to suggest the following :

• Diminish the base flame explosion radius a lot.
• After the explosion, make the flame radius expand to its maximum radius over 1-0.7s.
• To compensate for those changes, increase the maximum AoE radius by 10% and increase flame damage per tick from 20 to 30.

Sparks

• Self heal now heals over 0.5 seconds instead of being instant and can be cancelled by recieving damage. The amount of healing given remains the same. This only applies to self heal. Healing allies remains instant.

Thunder

[list]
[] Increased loudness of conc grenade bleeping by 40%.
[] Increased cooldown from 15 to 17s.
[] [] [Fuse time increased to 3.0s and added cooking mechanic] OR [fuse time increased from 0.9 to 1.1 seconds].
[/list][/quote]

I’m assuming this is all for now, and I’ll address them in reverse-order.

Thunder: The volume of his conc is typically inconsequential because the fuse time is too short to avoid it or look away unless you see him play the animation anyways, but I can see the reason for such a change. The cooldown I agree with, and actually find that the cooldown should be 20 seconds, in order to match Fragger’s 17 second cooldown plus the 4 second fuse time on his grenade(cooking included), since the main complaint is the cooldown being too short.

As for the actual concussion ability, the duration needs to be lower if the 99% movement speed reduction is going to be kept with his weapon selection, and I would suggest reduction to 3-5 seconds. Also, the spread increase once concussed should be removed, because it screws over players who play with guns that rely on controlled fire, such as the K121 and Dreiss, since it removes their ability to move, see, and fight back in any real capacity.

Sparks: This I agree with, but I would increase the time to 0.7 seconds to give players with non-automatic weapons(such as the Dreiss or revolvers) more time to react to the medpack being thrown.

Stoker: I don’t honestly see a problem with this, since he already doesn’t have the incendiary available for a majority of his time running around and has to use it conservatively. It’s also a weak ability if you think about it, since it does damage slowly over time during exposure and is affected by gravity instead of all at once like a mine or frag grenade. In fact, I find that his cooldown should be halved so that it’s available every 20 seconds.

Fletcher: I’ve voiced my concerns about his grenades before, so I’ll make it short: his grenades are broken because he has them every time he enters a firefight. Increasing the cooldown from 8 seconds per sticky to 18 seconds per sticky is what I suggest. This makes him regenerate 1 sticky per spawnwave, so that he doesn’t always have his stickies available when entering a firefight with the ability to 1-shot light mercs and 2-shot every other merc in the game.

With 16, he would regenerate 1 1/2 stickies per spawnwave and have one available each time he entered a firefight, which only partially solves the issue, since he still then has 2 stickies in a spawnwave available each 3 spawnwaves. Otherwise, alternatively, there would need to be a reduction to the time stickies remain on a merc to somewhere around 5-7 seconds so that he can’t just run away and detonate after the fight.

Proxy: The entire issue with Proxy(bunnyhopping, shotguns, throw + shoot tactics, etc.) lies in how shotguns are designed at the core. As I’ve suggested in the past, shotguns should have high recoil, low rate of fire, and be more accurate at range, possibly with a movement penalty while jumping to cancel longjumping while firing. Like the Dreiss, shotguns should be a slow-firing and accurate form of primary that require skill to aim and fire, with spread that gradually decreases after the hard cap on fire speed is reached, and not the spammy nonsense that they are now.

Since SD has personally designed this(https://i.gyazo.com/90054659c2f68a5669e2e48074211109.png) card in gen 2, they clearly intended for the throw + shoot tactic to be a core part of Proxy’s play style. Adjusting the spread and recoil of shotguns simply makes it harder and require aim as well as consideration in attempting to shoot the mines.

Additionally, having timed it, it takes 1:07 seconds to switch from the K-121 to the Simeon, and 1:41 seconds to fire the Remburg [b]twice[/b]. This, at the very least, should highlight what’s wrong with shotguns.

[jooshoyes]

@Nibbles There is NO spread increase when concussed, only a movement penalty. It looks like there is a spread increase from the distortion that arises from the concussion effect.
Personally I think the effects are fine, and perhaps the only thing I would consider to tone down would be the duration of the flash over range i.e I would cap the range of the flash drastically and make the duration scale down faster.
You have to remember that the effects of the conc are not ‘permanent’ , so they do not always mean you will die if it lands right next to you, unlike a frag grenade which is definite death unless you are playing thunder with unshakeable or rhino. A conc also cannot be used reliably on offense as aura enables for a more difficult time in acting upon the conc, which makes Thunder more defensive than fragger, who is more a jack of all trades merc.

[Nibbles02]

[quote=“Jokder;c-221698”]@Nibbles There is NO spread increase when concussed, only a movement penalty. It looks like there is a spread increase from the distortion that arises from the concussion effect.
Personally I think the effects are fine, and perhaps the only thing I would consider to tone down would be the duration of the flash over range i.e I would cap the range of the flash drastically and make the duration scale down faster.
You have to remember that the effects of the conc are not ‘permanent’ , so they do not always mean you will die if it lands right next to you, unlike a frag grenade which is definite death unless you are playing thunder with unshakeable or rhino. A conc also cannot be used reliably on offense as aura enables for a more difficult time in acting upon the conc, which makes Thunder more defensive than fragger, who is more a jack of all trades merc.[/quote]

The issue with Aura stations is the reason I still would rather Thunder’s conc EMP deployables like it initially did, although it’s not as important because his weapon selection is strong enough for him to out-DPS the health gained from a health station anyways, especially so on a still target. Regardless, the conc is significantly different enough to a frag grenade to not warrant comparison.

The concussion used to be a cookable grenade, but that was removed because the developers clearly intended for it to be more unavoidable. As such, the mechanics of the concussion are inherently different, since you don’t need to gauge cook time in order to throw a certain distance, you don’t get slowed before throwing it for its minimum fuse time, you can’t kill yourself with it by holding it too long, and you can avoid its effects by looking away or ducking back behind a corner. Also, the actual blinding effects are not as determined by an AoE like the slowing effects are, and are determined by line of sight for the most part. For these reasons, I feel it is unfair to compare the concussion to the frag grenade, since it works in a completely different way.

Also, as such, since it is intentionally harder to predict and avoid, the effects should last less time, since altering their strength too much would make it ineffective, and leaving them as they are with such a short cooldown makes them too spam-able and ridiculous to counter. The cooldown, being 15 seconds, starts as soon as the grenade is thrown, meaning that there is a possible 7 seconds of blindness and 14 seconds of cooldown from when the grenade goes off. As a result of this, you could be blinding the other team almost half the time you play if you land them at their feet each time.

[jooshoyes]

[quote=“Nibbles;c-221744”]

The issue with Aura stations is the reason I still would rather Thunder’s conc EMP deployables like it initially did, although it’s not as important because his weapon selection is strong enough for him to out-DPS the health gained from a health station anyways, especially so on a still target. Regardless, the conc is significantly different enough to a frag grenade to not warrant comparison.

The concussion used to be a cookable grenade, but that was removed because the developers clearly intended for it to be more unavoidable. As such, the mechanics of the concussion are inherently different, since you don’t need to gauge cook time in order to throw a certain distance, you don’t get slowed before throwing it for its minimum fuse time, you can’t kill yourself with it by holding it too long, and you can avoid its effects by looking away or ducking back behind a corner. Also, the actual blinding effects are not as determined by an AoE like the slowing effects are, and are determined by line of sight for the most part. For these reasons, I feel it is unfair to compare the concussion to the frag grenade, since it works in a completely different way.

Also, as such, since it is intentionally harder to predict and avoid, the effects should last less time, since altering their strength too much would make it ineffective, and leaving them as they are with such a short cooldown makes them too spam-able and ridiculous to counter. The cooldown, being 15 seconds, starts as soon as the grenade is thrown, meaning that there is a possible 7 seconds of blindness and 14 seconds of cooldown from when the grenade goes off. As a result of this, you could be blinding the other team almost half the time you play if you land them at their feet each time.[/quote]

So what you are proposing is that we make the effects stack up with the cooldown as long as they are as difficult to avoid as they currently are (or at least similar). You see, I agree with the fact that a CD nerf would really be the only thing that affects his spam directly, as well as making it a bit more predictable as to when Thunder does not have a nade. And I am inclined to agree a larger CD nerf than 17 seconds may be needed, but if we make the nade more avoidable by increasing the time of the fuse, or possibly adding a new mechanic to the fuse (Like the volume), I feel that the CD nerf will not have to be as drastic as a 5 second increase, but rather one that reflects the CD in comparison to the fuse on the frag. As the current fuse is 1 second from when you have thrown it, I have thought about adding a new dimension to it to make Thunder more powerful at range and less of a nuisance in close quarter 1v1s.

-Increase CD to 1.4 seconds
-Increase volume by 40%
-Increase cooldown to 18 seconds
-Make it so the fuse only starts once the conc has hit an object

This makes the conc similar to a nader nade that blows up after a given time. Now nader nades are very easy to avoid when they are spammed at a low angle onto the ground, but if they are positioned correctly they are difficult to avoid. What this allows is for Thunder to not be able to use his conc as effectively at close range, where it will have at least a .4 second increase in fuse in a 1v1, which is plenty enough time to kill him, and possibly avoid the brunt full concussion and look away. Then he is struck with an 18 second cooldown.
This will encourage more skillful conc usage and positioning, where you angle yourself in order to throw the conc against a possible wall to hit the enemies and avoid your own flash.

[watsyurdeal]

The more I think about it, the more I think a merc that has elements of Proxy and Fletcher would have been better.

Basically, Sticky Mines, not bombs. These mines you could throw, they have an arm time of one second, and would act like a proximity mine. However, when attached to a player they have their arm time reduced to a quarter of a second, and would behave and throw like the sticky bombs.

This is just purely my opinion, keeping as much of the skill element as possible, as the aspect of setting traps.

[Nibbles02]

[quote=“Jokder;c-221746”][quote=“Nibbles;c-221744”]

The issue with Aura stations is the reason I still would rather Thunder’s conc EMP deployables like it initially did, although it’s not as important because his weapon selection is strong enough for him to out-DPS the health gained from a health station anyways, especially so on a still target. Regardless, the conc is significantly different enough to a frag grenade to not warrant comparison.

The concussion used to be a cookable grenade, but that was removed because the developers clearly intended for it to be more unavoidable. As such, the mechanics of the concussion are inherently different, since you don’t need to gauge cook time in order to throw a certain distance, you don’t get slowed before throwing it for its minimum fuse time, you can’t kill yourself with it by holding it too long, and you can avoid its effects by looking away or ducking back behind a corner. Also, the actual blinding effects are not as determined by an AoE like the slowing effects are, and are determined by line of sight for the most part. For these reasons, I feel it is unfair to compare the concussion to the frag grenade, since it works in a completely different way.

Also, as such, since it is intentionally harder to predict and avoid, the effects should last less time, since altering their strength too much would make it ineffective, and leaving them as they are with such a short cooldown makes them too spam-able and ridiculous to counter. The cooldown, being 15 seconds, starts as soon as the grenade is thrown, meaning that there is a possible 7 seconds of blindness and 14 seconds of cooldown from when the grenade goes off. As a result of this, you could be blinding the other team almost half the time you play if you land them at their feet each time.[/quote]

So what you are proposing is that we make the effects stack up with the cooldown as long as they are as difficult to avoid as they currently are (or at least similar). You see, I agree with the fact that a CD nerf would really be the only thing that affects his spam directly, as well as making it a bit more predictable as to when Thunder does not have a nade. And I am inclined to agree a larger CD nerf than 17 seconds may be needed, but if we make the nade more avoidable by increasing the time of the fuse, or possibly adding a new mechanic to the fuse (Like the volume), I feel that the CD nerf will not have to be as drastic as a 5 second increase, but rather one that reflects the CD in comparison to the fuse on the frag. As the current fuse is 1 second from when you have thrown it, I have thought about adding a new dimension to it to make Thunder more powerful at range and less of a nuisance in close quarter 1v1s.

-Increase CD to 1.4 seconds
-Increase volume by 40%
-Increase cooldown to 18 seconds
-Make it so the fuse only starts once the conc has hit an object

This makes the conc similar to a nader nade that blows up after a given time. Now nader nades are very easy to avoid when they are spammed at a low angle onto the ground, but if they are positioned correctly they are difficult to avoid. What this allows is for Thunder to not be able to use his conc as effectively at close range, where it will have at least a .4 second increase in fuse in a 1v1, which is plenty enough time to kill him, and possibly avoid the brunt full concussion and look away. Then he is struck with an 18 second cooldown.
This will encourage more skillful conc usage and positioning, where you angle yourself in order to throw the conc against a possible wall to hit the enemies and avoid your own flash.

[/quote]

While that would largely fix the issue, it would totally change his entire playstyle, and without some ability to disable deployables, the issue you originally mentioned(that he has to move in quickly to take out stations/turrets etc.) remains because he then has to throw the conc from further away or take extra time to line up a shot against a wall, which would also mean that it becomes significantly more difficult to concuss players further away from a doorway and his concussion then loses its ability to be unpredictable and less-counterable.

[jooshoyes]

[quote=“Nibbles;c-221752”]

While that would largely fix the issue, it would totally change his entire playstyle, and without some ability to disable deployables, the issue you originally mentioned(that he has to move in quickly to take out stations/turrets etc.) remains because he then has to throw the conc from further away or take extra time to line up a shot against a wall, which would also mean that it becomes significantly more difficult to concuss players further away from a doorway and his concussion then loses its ability to be unpredictable and less-counterable.[/quote]

Therefore making it fairer to counter and only keeping its usefulness in the hands of a skilled player / co-ordinated team. I mean, that is one of the main problems isn’t it?
It doesn’t take a lot of skill to throw the nade, yes you can get self-blinded, but the effects still remain for your team to take advantage of. The effects do not line up with the amount of skill needed to throw them, and personally, I think a change in playstyle would push for even more diversity between Fragger and Thunder which imo is a good thing. If you want him to be a bit better at close range then make the fuse a bit shorter, maybe 1.2-1.3 seconds. Still, it would solve a lot of problems with it.