TLDR: Buff the HBS make the MOA vasilis only sniper option to be equipped as a class ability and give him a machine pistol/normal pistol like sporks.
I have played many FPS games, in all of them (with the option of course) i have played a significant amount of at least one kind of sniper, as well as against many snipers as non snipers. Im of course not some sort of MLGesus or PHD in quickscoping but im at least not in the dark.
The biggest problem with Vasili is he is worthless to his team for the most part. Unless you are such a MLGesus yourself and 90% of your shots are headshots and youre stomping your team, you could be more useful as anything else, including phantom because even though his cloak is not fantastic youre more kill oriented and can do objectives more easily. Even if you are MLGesus, you would be more useful as sporks, which i will touch on later.
One of the primary reasons he is unhelpful is the fact he is lacking a good support ability. The HBS is, to be completely honest, weak. Its not bad, but weak. What i would suggest to change this, is to make it more like Planetside 2s motion spotter and recon darts.
For information on recon darts in specific, go to 3:50, for motion spotter (here on out referred to as Dildar) go to 8:10. I will of course be explaining more but this is video on how they function.
Now, im not suggesting giving vasili two spotters at once. What i am suggesting is the HBS is replaced with the Dildar.
How this would work is it is set up with the same size as a Sparks health pack with Q, and a hitbox with has much HP as a health station. It stays up until it gets shot or its moved, and thunders conc nades destroy it. Not disable, destroy it. boom. Done. on cooldown. It can be reclaimed like most other deployables, but will not begin cooldown until it is reclaimed or destroyed. It will detect within a range of 25m, going up by say 20% with augments. He could use it to help cover his own ass better than the HBS, or to help guard an objective. To make it unique and more balanced, it will only detect people running or walking, but not crouch walking (like battlefields TUGS) This will obviously pseudobuff thunder also, which is good.
How i would implement the Recon dart is to give him a dart gun, as shown in the video, as his Q ability through use of a perk on some loadout cards which just says “Replaces your motion spotter with a recon dart gun”. It gives him three recon darts that are just HBS, launched until it hits something solid and again possibly destroyed with thunders concs. they ping much slower, but detection lasts longer. They cooldown one at a time on a 12 second timer each and last 9 seconds each, like fletchers bombs or prox mines or whatever you can have all of them out at once, just one, just two, etc but if you fire another through some clever timing it destroys the first one fired to be replaced.
If not this replacing of the Q ability (a pain in the ass to add anyway id assume) just the Dildar for a buffed HBS.
Next, i would remove the FELIX from him entirely (Aimee, if im not wrong, will probably be getting the FELIX or a PDP) and make the MOA his E key ability, just like the revivr. Statistically its a moa and he needs to reload it or whatever else and refill ammo, but this frees up his primary weapon slot so he gets a machine pistol primary (maybe the emp 9) as well as a standard pistol sidearm. This would not only make him more resilient against people in close range, but also add more opportunity in pushing to objectives, like sparks minus the medicing.
Now lets say you dont want to remove the felix, which id understand, or not want to make the moa an E key. You could (in theory) give him a fourth weapon slot for the same effect. If im not wrong, phantom used to have something like this in early stages with a shitload of melee weapons.
Give vasili 110 HP, and aimee 100 when she comes out.
Finally, i would revert Sporks recent nerf. This way she would (possibly) be balanced against vasili.
Again, this is just my suggestion on something that could maybe work, all numbers suggested are examples, and maybe just one or two things would actually not be retarded to add. Im not sure entirely