How to balance sporks

(Ballto) #1

I will be calling sparks sporks in this thread because she has fantastic cqc and range, as well as killing and healing potential. Best of both worlds, like a spork.

Before the sporks players and supporters comment, this is not a nerf sporks thread. I think ive thought of a way to balance her perfectly, without touching her at all.

That out of the way, sporks currently has some of the best weapons in the game for any range. Yes, she does technically have two secondaries,but her primary is a sniper rifle that also revives team mates.the best card in most players opinion is the companion agent, which has the emp-9, m9 (i think, one of the semi autos) and a cricket bat with a slew of support passives, and theres also the fact that the emp9 functions more like an SMG than machine pistol, and is even classes as such on the wiki http://dirtybomb.wikia.com/wiki/Empire-9

This gives a medic with instant healing health packs (which are a 50% heal for herself unless it self heals less than 40)
a better sniper rifle than the bolt actions, one of the better SMGs in the game, and the strongest melee weapon that isnt class specific to phantom, as well as another secondary.

Now, lets say you want to be a sniper and could choose between vassili with a felix or sparks, lets for arguments sake say you had borderline aimbot 100% accuracy aim. Would you choose the revive gun, which can not only charge another bolt faster than the rechamber of a bolt action but also revive downed friendlies safely, self heals, and a strong SMG for close range instead of a revolver or mp400 AND infinite ammo for the sniper, or a slow rechamber ammo limited class with minimal support ability and usefulness to the team?

Most would choose the medic.

So, the change i would make is that you buff the rechamber time for the bolt actions and up the headshot multiplier (NOT the damage, the multiplier for headshots) to 200 damage for the Felix, which can one shot every class, and the multiplier to 166 damage to the MOA, which can oneshot anything except a rhino unless a high HP class has tryhard or something

Give Vassili access to the empire 9 as a secondary on some cards, and buff his health to 110. This would make him not one shot by phantoms, yes, but it will make him more resilient at people at medium to close range, and put him closer to redeye in the middle of the road HP of sniping.

You could also buff the sensors tick rate, but that might be a bit much

This would still let sporks be insanely good, but balance her in comparison to the other snipers. Its silly that a medic is also the best sniper and also gets whats basically an SMG with higher recoil

The reason i left out redeye is because i think hes in an alright spot as is, the semi autos in DB are really good, and smoke provides team support and his thermals can help not only target acquisition but see cloaked phantoms.

(XavienX) #2

Uhhhh…the only thing I agree on is buffing the Felix cuz it’s way underpowered compared to MOA.

(GottaBeGreg) #3

Yeh same as Xavien. I see sporks power, but I dont think the way to balance it is to make Vasilli overpowered. Felix does need to be better though, the only way I could see it being better is if it got an additional 2 points of damage on headshots making it one shot Thunder to the head and not small mercs to the body.

(Ballto) #4

Sporks is not herself overpowered, shes just overpowered compared to the other sniper options available since shes almost always a better choice, even if oure better with the felix you can still do well with the revivr and be a more useful support.

Maybe the suggested buffs for Vassili are a bit much but thank you for acknowledging that the felix is kind of lacking

(Black) #5

Sporks is not herself overpowered, shes just overpowered compared to the other sniper options available since shes almost always a better choice, even if oure better with the felix you can still do well with the revivr and be a more useful support.

Maybe the suggested buffs for Vassili are a bit much but thank you for acknowledging that the felix is kind of lacking [/quote]

No Sporks is OP.
Doing damage like that over long distances without needing to aim and without recoil is extremely ridiculous.
The revivr should not be able to one shot enemies from far away

Its damage should decrease over distance.

(Jesus) #6

She is perfectly balanced stop your shit. Yes she has lot of power. But you can kill her in a body burst with almost every weapon with her hp

(Ballto) #7

did you even read the op?

(Drac0rion) #8

I don’t think making the real sniper stronger is a solution, Sparks will still remain a sniper/medic. SD could use many ways to prevent Revivr being a long range sniper, I’d prefer just if the Revivr headshot multiplier would be reduced to 1.5, but for some reason I assume they want to keep Revivr as her sniping tool, that’s why they’ve only tinkered with the Revivr charging and battery.

(CCP115) #9

Nerf the REVIVR damage.

Problem solved.

Don’t like that solution? Increase charge time dramatically, and revert the actual get up time to 0.7 from 1 second.

Problem solved yet again.

(Naonna) #10

It’s only revivr headshots which annoy me. the raw damage output seems fine, since she has no primary weapon excluding her ability. The range and pinpoint accuracy is fine, given the max fire rate of the revivr. Damage falloff would ruin her use as a sniper. A slight reduction in headshot damage would mean she can still harass long range. (although considering a fletcher sticky can 1shot a 100 hp merc, why shouldn’t her revivr on headshot like any other sniper?)

(vdll) #11

It seems to me that most people complaining about Sparks didn’t play her at all.

If Sparks takes a head across the map, she deserves it as much as any other merc. Having no reliable zoom and forced to pre-charge shots, shit’s hard to pull off.

Dying to REVIVR can be frustrting, so what? Don’t duel capable snipers at long range, period. Don’t put yourself at disadvantage, acknowledge REVIVR as a sniper rifle and give it some respect.

(RyePanda) #12

[quote=“convincingMollusk;131456”]It seems to me that most people complaining about Sparks didn’t play her at all.

If Sparks takes a head across the map, she deserves it as much as any other merc. Having no reliable zoom and forced to pre-charge shots, shit’s hard to pull off.

Dying to REVIVR can be frustrting, so what? Don’t duel capable snipers at long range, period. Don’t put yourself at disadvantage, acknowledge REVIVR as a sniper rifle and give it some respect.[/quote]

Yes, but a sniper, plus a very good machine pistol, plus the ability to heal almost half her health instantly, plus the ability to revive any teammate within line of sight, well, it seems like too much power, doesn’t it?

(vdll) #13

Despite her 80 hp she can’t even heal herself to full with 2 medpacks. Her team-healing potential is laughable, she’s just reviving marksman with self-sustain. Ranged reviving is annoying at first, but after you get used to insta-gibbing enemies Sparks loses her only way to contribute to a team fight, aside from sniping.
Please distinguish between ‘powerful’ and ‘overpowered’, otherwise devs will slaughter her in the upcoming update, just to be sure.

I’m yet to see Sparks wrecking faces with stellar marksmanship and really wonder why people hate her so much. If you accuse Sparks of being OP, at least throw in some scoarboard screenshots proving Sparks domination.

(RyePanda) #14

Whoops, double post.

(MvMArcher) #15

[left][spoiler][quote=“convincingMollusk;131985”]I’m yet to see Sparks wrecking faces with stellar marksmanship and really wonder why people hate her so much. If you accuse Sparks of being OP, at least throw in some scoarboard screenshots proving Sparks domination.[/quote]

Not really domination, but still decent scores.

All images in that album are from some of my games were I played nothing but Sparks throughtout the matches.
Some of the images are somewhat old as well.[/spoiler]

Now with that out of the way, let me just say that I don’t think Sparks is that OP, she is very strong and there are many ways to do something about it.

I think we should reduce the reivr bodyshot damage, as well as sligthly reduce the headshot damge.

Reduce the damage to 35 (down from 65), increase the headshot multiplier to 3, instead of 2.
This will allow her to still funcition as a sniper, but it will remove some of the upfront damage from missing the head. This change will also reduce the headshot damage from 130 to 105.

With 130 damage she can 1 hit kill 15 out of a current 18 mercs. With 105 she can 1 hit kill 6 mercs.
And leave everyone else a a very low HP count.[/left]

(Drac0rion) #16

This will still be a pretty impactful nerf. If body shot damage gets reduced and she will have to be a sniper and aim head only for any real damage, it’s just gonna raise the skill ceiling which I find unnecessary as right now she’s already only a real threat on those good Sparks players who can consistently perform headshots.

I don’t understand why you would want a sniper medic, just pick one role for her please. The current issue is that she is comparable to a sniper. You would just overnerf her while still keeping the issue of a medic/sniper.

(vdll) #17

@MvMArcher : gotta admit, thats very good, if not dominant, performance.
As for headshot damage, I also wondered if hitting that 120hp sweet spot is not too much. Even reducing it by 10 could make a big difference (5 mercs excluded from one-shot list), reducing it below 110 dmg though would exclude 3 more mercs and limit Sparks’ OHOK capabilities to only 6 mercs with highest movement speed.

(MvMArcher) #18

[left]@Dracorion The reason I wanna keep her as a sniper-medic is to make her stand out from the other medics, and since her healing isn’t that great, she needs to be able to do something else for the team.

@convincingMollusk Well with 105 damage, it will leave 110HP mercs with 5HP which is within range of a single body shot from her SMGs.
120HP mercs will be left with 15HP, which is within range of a single shot from her pistols, or two shots from her SMG.
Also please remember that being a sniper isn’t her primary role.

Of course this is assuming that those mercs are at full health when you engage them.[/left]

(blisteringOwlNest) #19

I think it’s great tha Sparks has such a flexible role, while still being balanced (as much as people disagree)

In anywhere other then long range, too competent players, one as sparks and another as almost any other merc, the other merc would win the firefight. If they don’t, that’s their fault as they had an advantage of higher health and better damage output (probably)

However, I do think Vasilli is lacking in the close quarters department. Sparks gets two primaries competent at closer ranges, while Vassili only gets one. Therefore, a fight between Vasilli and sparks at close range can be difficult for Vassili if he has a revolver.

Tl;DR I think knowing how to counter play sparks (literally the same as any sniper) will get her killed, but some mercs won’t be as good as taking her down, mainly Vassili.

and I think there should be more cross role mercs. Screw the “class” system.

(vdll) #20

As a Vassili, I just quick-shot enemy’s torso and finish them with secondary. Most of times it works (unless its a fckng Rhino).