How to fix Thunder for good

(hoyes) #1

Currently thunder is a tank. And thats is alright, cause he is an assualt. BUT… his concussion grenades…hmmm. They completely disable opponents by stopping movement and blinding vision. “Okay…so what, the enemies are not dead and the effects are justified” you may say, but i say yes, they are justified, but not for a grenade for a 1sec fuse and a 15 sec cooldown. You just cannot avoid them, within the 4 days after the patch to fix him, i got 10 godlikes with him. 10. He is extremely easy to play as i should not be gettong godlikes as
often as i do when i play him. He is too spammy and his grenades have no counter. Here are.my suggested changes:

-Increase cooldown to 18secs(from 15)
This is a quick and sinple change to reduce the spamminess of the concs
-Increase fuse timer to 1.2secs(from 1.0)
I jave decided i do not like the idea of thunder having to cook the nade, seeming as that would require to much preparation in the way of killing enemies. You would have to cook nade- throw nade- wait for effect- go in kill enemies. Let us compare this to fragger. Cook nade- throw nade- enemies dead.Simple for fragger not for thunder.The increase fuse would just give people more of a chance to escape the effect, whilst allowing thunder to be able to throw it further. Win win.

So what do you think?

(frostyvampire) #2

The cooldown and fuse time is fine as it is. We just need a nerf to the concussion overall.
Even if you increase the fuse time to 1.2 seconds, the extra 0.2 secs are still not enough to escape the concussion and I don’t see a reason to nerf the blindness effect as it’s already easy to avoid (unless popflash but then even with 3 seconds fuse time it will be possible to popflash and you won’t escape it).
The cooldown is ok because without the flashbang Thunder is really fat and slow and it’s pretty easy to kill him and even if you don’t kill him he will be left with under 40hp

Reduce concussion effect if you look away from the grenade so it barely affects you (but it should still a tiny bit, but not the full effect like it is now) and bring back EMP so he doesn’t become underpowered.
Also it would be nice if some mercs get their ability instantly ready to use when they respawn (Thunder’s conc, Fragger’s nade, Rhino’s minigun fully cooldown and stuff like that)

(Eox) #3

How about just setting the fuse time at the same level than Fragger’s frag grenades and enable cooking ? This basically gives to the conc grenades the same way to counter them than frag grenades (Thunder stops shooting ? Get out of here !).

(hoyes) #4

@Eox but as i stated, if the concussion grenades had cooking it would require too much thought and consideration just to simply make your enemies vulnerable when if you compare the same prep to fragger they would be dead. If thunder had cooking it would just make him a fragger that takes longer to kill people,;cooking does not suit Thunder(thats why they removed it in the beginning, cuz thunder was just suppossed to have a short fuse, but in return leave it at a slightly lower amount of power against enemies, leavong them vulnerable indstead of dead). People do not understand that the counter to the conc is the conc itself.SELF BLINDING. It leaves thunder as useless as his enemies and puts you at a disadvantage. If Thunder had cooking, self blinding would have to go, as then the thunder would just throw the grenade without cooking, as the longer you would hold the grenade the more you are in danger of concussing youraelf.The cooldown increase is a no- brainer but a fuse increase is there to just make it a tad easier to avoid the flash, allowing you to aim a bit.more easily when you are affected by the concussion. Heck they could even reduce the waviness of the concussion effect so that if you aren’t flashed, you still have a fighting chance, as you are still able to aim effectively.

(Szakalot) #5

except its MUCH easier to blind opponents with conc. than blow them up with frag nades

  • you can airburst conc nades above enemies and COMPLETELY blind them
  • Conc nade has a much larger radius for reducing movement than frag nades

Cooking doesn’t make flashing opponents any more difficult, nor does it make self-flashing more likely. It just raises the skill ceiling - cause a well-cooked nade will be even more potent than the present (0.9-1sec fuse), while also raising the skill-floor, and removing the ridiculous OP status of thunder.

(hoyes) #6

@Szakalot I understand it would raise the skill floor/ceiling but really by how much. Im sure pretty much every one on this forum is aware of how the projectile physics work in this game, so it would just make slow thunder EVEN SLOWER by making take one more 3 second step in killing his enemies. I have not seen a concussion grenade in any game have cooking, as the devs are aware as that would make fast paced games too slow. It would make thunder not very enjoyable to play as it would require too much planning to just concuss your enemies, not even kill them. I would prefer them create other counters to him like maybe turtle? Maybe turtle would become the almighty defense master. Who knows?

(hoyes) #7

And also the fact that you stated the concs are much easier to use than the frags is true because ypu get better results out of the frag Easier,quicker results that you can confirm a kill on your enemies when you throw it unlike the conc when your enemies are in an entrenched postion you sometimes can’t act on it because it is too risky.

(konakona) #8

Ofc. Few days after patch no one knows how to counter new reworked merc. That’s ok.
Let’s answer some questions.

  1. On what map will you likely pick slow thunder on attack side, but not a glorious fragger? May be undeground, first half of map. Elsewhere fragger is bettter to attack.
  2. On what map thunder is better than fragger and rhino on defence side? Everywhere.
    Don’t touch thunder, he is completly unique well-balanced defence merc. Better think up how to make rhino a playable alternative, thats a real problem.
(UndeddJester) #9

Seems like a pretty solid idea all around really. Numbers are up for debate, but the core logic looks sound.

(Szakalot) #10

except that we already had thunder with cooking at re-release AND IT WAS FINE. It was very easy to airburst and disable lots of people; only problem back then that the slowing down effect was useless, and flashing was buggy (sometimes OP, sometimes useless)

(Szakalot) #11

Ofc. Few days after patch no one knows how to counter new reworked merc. That’s ok.
Let’s answer some questions.

  1. On what map will you likely pick slow thunder on attack side, but not a glorious fragger? May be undeground, first half of map. Elsewhere fragger is bettter to attack.
  2. On what map thunder is better than fragger and rhino on defence side? Everywhere.
    Don’t touch thunder, he is completly unique well-balanced defence merc. Better think up how to make rhino a playable alternative, thats a real problem.[/quote]

thunder is the most broken merc in the game. which is why in competitive play he is banned, since the latest changes (buff to movement nerf, buff to flash, buff to fuse)

(konakona) #12

[quote=“Szakalot;198390”]thunder is the most broken merc in the game
[/quote]
He is ok. l2p

(Eox) #13

[quote=“konakona;198402”][quote=“Szakalot;198390”]thunder is the most broken merc in the game
[/quote]
He is ok. l2p

[/quote]

Please, don’t be rude.

(hoyes) #14

I didn’t want this to start a war over whether Thunder is balanced or not. I just wanted to state my opinion that Thunder just needs a few quick fixes to make him perfectly balanced. The changes that I suggested are very small yet quite substial enough to see Thunder be a bit easier to fight. Cooking in my eyes would make him too easy to fight due to how long you are vulnerable coupled with his massive hitbox.Yes @Szakalot cooking was there in the beginning, but they removed it for a reason, because then his playstyle would become too much like fraggers. We want merc variety and thunder with cooking would only be viable over fragger due to 170hp, as fraggers grenade would be more powerful, but in turn thunder have more hp. I do not like the concept of choosing a merc just for their hp and nothing else, and Thunder would still be larger and slower than fragger mind you. It is their ability and playstyle that counts.

(Szakalot) #15

they removes cooking cause flashing was bugged and super annoying, you could typically airburst a mile off and blind everyone in the area

(Wedgebox) #16

Why would you want to cook a Thunder grenade? To cause more blinding? Thunder grenades are fine as is. And Thunder cannot cook his concussion grenades. In my opinion, the cooldown is fine.

(hoyes) #17

And also you have to think that the fuse time definitely limits Thunders effective areas. A 1.2 second fuse timer would only be useful at close to medium range, even now with the 1 sec fuse you can only throw it up to about 20m before it detonates. It is sorta like a fletcher balance. ‘Here is a short fuse timer which is hard to avoid at close range but cannot be used at long range, if you want to go long range choose fragger’.I may see why SD made the fuse timer how it is now, so it is better at close range, but cannot be used at long. Huh, I think I may have changed my opinion. Now I only want a cooldown nerf to 20 seconds.

(watsyurdeal) #18

I feel like we would have had less problems if Assault and Fire Support were just one class of mercs instead. :\

(Tanker_Ray) #19

@Watsyurdeal I was actually real-life Thunder + Fire Support for the short time in the army. I used to be K3 machine gun’s Main Gunner, and what Gunners also do is actually Fire Support’s ammo supplying.

Damn it, nerf the damn conc’s CD SD!!

I think it should be 20 secs LEAST though.

Shooting concussed people is so easy that even Hochfir or Tolen is able to kill those guys.

I really really really really fxcking hate how conc is shadowing how good/bad the gun is.

@konakona After the conc’s slow was fixed and EMP was removed, my MK.46’s kills/min increased.

What does this mean. Even you git gud like me who always turn back when enemy Thunda’s conc comes around, you still won’t be able to dodge the slow, especially when this thing has 8m of radius.

8, fxcking, meters. 8.8 with Exploydendron.

Thunder is still extremely weak against multiple enemies(Even 1 vs 2 he is super fragile.), but funny enough,

extremely strong against 1 vs 1, no. ANYONE who’s concussed properly.

He can win anyone who’s concussed right(Flash+Slow, the ultimate DEATH combo.).

It’s just he can’t always shoot those guys by his own hands because he can’t always concuss the whole enemies, or only one effect was done.(Only Flash = guys move around like bunnies, Only Slow = preparing to kill Thunder such as molotov or cooking grenades. That’s why it is extremely dangerous to play offensive with THUNDA.)

That’s why @Szakalot and @Eox is aware of this issue.

(Szakalot) #20

@Jokder you cant use it at super long range but long jump + throw are still very effective: e.g. you can flash anyone around the containers on terminal by throwing flash from under the stairs on the left, that lead to the ammo pack and mg balcony