How to balance Aura and Fragger for good

(chickenNwaffles) #1

As we all know, Aura’s health station is still broken as fuck and makes no sense at all. Why not give Aura Pheonix’s health aura instead of her broken health station? Why the fuck does the merc named “Aura” not have a healing aura in the first place? Just remove/rework Pheonix and give Aura his healing ability and problem solved.

Fragger’s nades are one of the lamest things in the game. The class with the most health and really good mg shouldn’t have a grenade that he can just cook to explode in somebody’s face without warning. As of right now, the only time I ever to die to a Fragger’s nade is when it just explodes in my face. All you have to do is make it so he can’t cook his nades. There, problem solved. Now Fragger will take some braincells to use, instead of him being a master nade chef.

(irishrOy) #2

[quote=“chickenNwaffles;1356”]
All you have to do is make it so he can’t cook his nades. There, problem solved. Now Fragger will take some braincells to use, instead of him being a master nade chef.[/quote]

But I think pre-cooking the nades is, what takes some brains to make the nades work well in a cool way.
Like you think about the distance of 35-50m, so you think maybe pre-cook it for 1.5s? etc. etc.

IMO, his nades shouldn’t be used as a primary kill-mechanic, but more for finishing off, weakening or simply being used as a distraction.

Do not forget, his Nades do not recharge very fast, but on the other hand they are quite powerful. However, when nerfing them too hard, it makes them quite bad.
So when you throw a Nade, it should be effective and it should make a difference.

The nade-damage could be lowered, so it doesn’t kill a Merc at full health, but maybe tweak it, so takes off 40-70% of a Merc’s health?

To be honest, I often play with Fragger, Arty and Aura(bc. of the shotgun).
And the ability to pre-cook the nades makes him very special, from my point of view. And I would be totally fine with having nades to weaken/finish off enemies, as long as they are useful.

(einstyle) #3

without the ability to precook his nades, Fragger would lose everything he has going for him and would probably fall into the abyss of never played mercs
as for now, I agree that he is pretty strong, but compared to other mercs that aren’t out yet (for example Nader) he doesn’t seem like he is to much of a problem, considering he can only carry 2 nades right now
of course if he should prove to be the best merc overall anyways, there should be ways to fix him without taking the ability to precook nades away from him

(Reddeadcap) #4

After playing Fragger for a while I have to say grenades are just fine, most people who die from grenades either haven’t noticed them coming or I’ve cooked the grenade long enough for it to explode just when its about to land near them.

Aura’s healing aura comes from her healing station, which honestly has the issues in my opinion, Fraggernades, Arty strikes, Skyhammer drops dont really seem to be the only way to destroying it, I know that Rhino and Nader might make short work of it but in all honesty its just silly to have to empty entire magazines into this shin high device while getting shotgunned to the face or have someone survive every single thing they take, even an MG nest’s fire while doing the mexican hat dance around her healing station.

I’ve played with someone who was rather new and all I told them was just to drop the station when they see someoneone and boom, they’re instantly finishing off one to three people alone, a couple of threads have sprung up and all pretty much say the same thing; Make the station a slightly powerful pulse and decrease its health, with my followed suggestion of making it loud and its healing aura visual effect on the ground red for the enemy team.

(chickenNwaffles) #5

[quote=“Redcap;6189”]After playing Fragger for a while I have to say grenades are just fine, most people who die from grenades either haven’t noticed them coming or I’ve cooked the grenade long enough for it to explode just when its about to land near them.

Aura’s healing aura comes from her healing station, which honestly has the issues in my opinion, Fraggernades, Arty strikes, Skyhammer drops dont really seem to be the only way to destroying it, I know that Rhino and Nader might make short work of it but in all honesty its just silly to have to empty entire magazines into this shin high device while getting shotgunned to the face or have someone survive every single thing they take, even an MG nest’s fire while doing the mexican hat dance around her healing station.

I’ve played with someone who was rather new and all I told them was just to drop the station when they see someoneone and boom, they’re instantly finishing off one to three people alone, a couple of threads have sprung up and all pretty much say the same thing; Make the station a slightly powerful pulse and decrease its health, with my followed suggestion of making it loud and its healing aura visual effect on the ground red for the enemy team.[/quote]

Or just make it so Aura has an actual healing aura like Pheonix did, but make it so it has energy that you use up whenever you activate it. I like that much better than the whole portable healing station thing.

I still think that Fragger’s nades are lame, in the sense that you can instakill anybody without them ever having the chance to actually react to it, besides of course predicting the nade, or more simply seeing you cook it.

(eggplantSafe) #6

I think Fragger’s grenades are just fine, considering they are his only ability. They are GRENADES after all. Not candies or firecrackers. QQ some more.

(irishrOy) #7

[quote=“Redcap;6189”]most people who die from grenades either haven’t noticed them coming
or I’ve cooked the grenade long enough for it to explode just when its about to land near them.
[/quote]
Which requires skill or lots and lots of luck to hit the timing just right.
And in my opinion, that’s the thing with Fragger.
Sure, you can throw 1 nade down the hallway without thinking, but then you wasted it and have to wait another minute and 15s just for 1 nade.
It’s better to think, aim, use your brains and “calculate the distance” and then pre-cook it accordingly to the distance to make it work right.

(chickenNwaffles) #8

[quote=“irishroy;6326”][quote=“Redcap;6189”]most people who die from grenades either haven’t noticed them coming
or I’ve cooked the grenade long enough for it to explode just when its about to land near them.
[/quote]
Which requires skill or lots and lots of luck to hit the timing just right.
And in my opinion, that’s the thing with Fragger.
Sure, you can throw 1 nade down the hallway without thinking, but then you wasted it and have to wait another minute and 15s just for 1 nade.
It’s better to think, aim, use your brains and “calculate the distance” and then pre-cook it accordingly to the distance to make it work right.
[/quote]

Stop trying to make it sound like it is rocket science to cook a nade. You are over emphasizing everything that people do when cooking a grenade, which in my opinion, is really really easy to get the hang of. People aren’t fucking calculating the distance, time it takes for the grenade to get there, and counting the seconds down; you just get a feel for it, and then you start throwing grenades in people’s faces. It’s that easy to be honest, not much skill involved lmao.

(Szakalot) #9

[quote=“irishroy;6326”]
Stop trying to make it sound like it is rocket science to cook a nade. You are over emphasizing everything that people do when cooking a grenade, which in my opinion, is really really easy to get the hang of. People aren’t fucking calculating the distance, time it takes for the grenade to get there, and counting the seconds down; you just get a feel for it, and then you start throwing grenades in people’s faces. It’s that easy to be honest, not much skill involved lmao.[/quote]

The ‘feel’ you are talking about is a calculation.

Nades are certainly easy to use, if im throwing it directly at an enemy, im surprised if i dont get a kill. I can see the need for them, but I definitely don’t want a meta of one-hit kills.

If a light merc is one shot with a shotty, or sniped, blown up, burned to death, its fine; its a tradeoff of their incredibly advantageous speed.

But if we get a lot of one-hit kills from multiple weapons on heavier body types, game will feel incredibly spammy

(eggplantSafe) #10

It’s a grenade, not a firecracker. A grenade that has what, about 30 seconds cooldown. I wouldn’t say if we had more grenades to use or if we actually replenished them with ammo packs, but Fragger’s grenades are just fine, even if they ‘instakill’ people. It’s pretty hard to hit someone with that grenade regardless.

(irishrOy) #11

Well I also don’t understand the Arty-is-bad-train either.
Why do you have problems laser-tagging areas with Arty?
sure, sometimes you can’t mark things, because the laser is bugged (but I’m sure this will get fixed a bit), I simply take a step to the side and aim at an item as close to the actual area as possible.
And boom, I scored 1-2 insta-kills.

That’s no rocketscience either.
Nor is it rocketscience to throw an airstrike-marker with Skyhammer.

But for every Merc you need to get the feel and hang.
With Skyhammer you must know: The airstrike goes in a line parallel to the airstrike-marker, so make use of it.
With Arty, you can bomb certain and special areas with an arc, so you can sometimes bomb into a house.
With Fragger, you can use nades (and pre-cook them).

EDIT: there is no need to become so angry, @ChickNWaffles. I could also say that you should take your opinion square-wise and put it where the sun never shines. But I don’t :wink:

In almost every post I said that I would be totally fine by turning down the fragger-nade-damage down so far, that it “always” takes ~70% of their Healtth (and maybe also insta-gibs light mercs from time to time if they stand in the inner direct blast-radius).

(artfulSedan) #12

okay my Idea for balancing those two:
Decrease the health of auras healign station, build in an ‘armup’ time so that it’s not deployed instantly. fighting against auro in her station area is like fighting 2 persons and one of them is nearly immortal. You need insae dps to coutner the healing and if you try to destroy the station you’ll die. So decrease the stations health so that i can be destroyed in 3 shots and make a ready up time so that it’s not used as a panic immortality boost.

Fragger
Yeah his grenades are really lame and there is another thing i noticed u constantly run out of ammo for the MG. i know you are supposed to play with allies who have ammo packs but atm those are jsut skyhammer and arty ( i think) and those 2 are not picked on underground for example. so why don’t give Fragger an ammo pack maybe a smallerversion or some thing.
I would like to have effect grenades to block passages like incendiary grenades or cluster grenades. If you don’t agree on the ammo pack how about giving him smoke nates as a sekondary gadget, there are quite usefull to block passages and hide allies.

(subtleChain) #13

Completely agree with you OP, Aura and Fragger being too good at high level is so obvious that I can’t really take seriously anyone arguing against. The only thing I’m not really agreeing with is the way to fix it. Instead of removing the cooking, decrease the damage so it doesn’t OHK.

(eggplantSafe) #14

The grenades are fine as they are. I miss 60% of my grenades, and 20% of those don’t kill anyone.

I’d remove the pre-cook thing, though.

Aura’s heal aura is strong, might need a nerf, but a good grenade or two will easily blow it up.

(Alchemy) #15

how do you miss 60% of your nades…

(eggplantSafe) #16

Easy, I throw them and they bounce around, and they dodge them.

(Reddeadcap) #17

Played Fragger, Its hard to say that grenades aren’t fair, I’ve survived a few grenade blasts myself with and without the explosive damage loadout perk, and grenades are the only way to blow people up indoors. They’re fine and only seem to be an instant kill if you stand RIGHT ontop of them, if the grenades gib everyone in the blast radius and not the person right in the center of it, that’d be my only idea of it being changed.

There are many ways to know a Fragger Grenade is coming; is there a Fragger in the enemy team? is he equipped? do you hear him yelling “Frag out” or any of the othre variants, How long ago did he yell it before said explosive is visible, since he yells it when he pulls the pin, do you have “Pineapple Suprise” and enough time? If all of the previous has failed, Said Fragger Cooked the grenade and predicted it hitting an enemy, congratulations, your death has been calculated therefore not a cheap easy kill.

(Shapiro) #18

Hopefully the better players play Fragger when the beta gets brought back online. Last two beta test weekends I didn’t see anyone besides myself really abuse the cooking frag grenade mechanic. SD isn’t going to notice that it is broken unless they see it on their metrics that a number of players are getting 30-40 grenade kills per match. It’s better for this to get fixed now when its only a small group of people playing the game. I don’t think people are going to enjoy facing 3-4 Fraggers on a single team when there are actual rankings for the competitive mode on launch.

(Szakalot) #19

except this calculation is easy for any W:ET or QW veteran, and it definitely feels cheap. If i see my opponent when I’m throwing the grenade, I’m surprised If i don’t get the kill

(eggplantSafe) #20

Not really, Sure, I’ve even made triple and double kills with the grenade, but only when enemies were dumb enough to stand in a place for too long. :stuck_out_tongue: