It's about time we remove Sparks' Med Packs

(watsyurdeal) #1

Why? A few reasons

  1. Let’s face it, they SUCK for healing other people, they heal about 40 health tops, so you need 3 of these things to heal most mercs completely, meanwhile Sawbonez can heal three people with three medpacks with ease. Yet ironically, because of her low health, these packs are great for healing Sparks herself. Which brings me to my second point.

  2. Sparks IS a long range merc, there is no disputing that, she is built to be a Medic and a Sniper in one, so why is she able to heal herself? Why does she have any tanking capability at all? The argument that other Medics can heal themselves is not sufficient, because her role requires her to be at long distances, away from the fight.

Aura’s healing station means she needs shotguns and close range weapons to keep her station up, but also being able to get out of said station’s range, deal damage, retreat, repeat. Sawbonez is a combat Medic, as is Phoneix, Phoneix is better as a self sustaining Medic, best for when your team only has one and you and your buddies stick together a lot. Sawbonez however is a better healer, and slightly more HP. Their roles are all DRASTICALLY different from Sparks.

Sparks is meant to be out of sight out of mind, yet still contribute by Reviving her allies from a safe place. She NEEDS to be vulnerable in close range as a counter weight to one of the biggest drawbacks to the defib and revives being completely eviscerated. There is no reason for Sparks’ to self heal. Especially when you consider reason number 3.

  1. In Ranked Play, with Friendly Fire on, Sparks’ players WILL kill their allies to Revive them at full health. So with that in mind, why not cut out the middle man here? Let the Revivr actually heal allies, we can easily balance that and the damage dealing it has, forcing a lot of Revivr use, and therefore more common periods of time where the Revivr overheats. As well as forcing good Sparks’ players to do more than just dealing damage, the hierarchy will be Revives, Heal, Kills, in terms of what the priority is and what your team needs you to do.

To me, it makes all the sense in the world to remove the health packs from Sparks, and allow her Revivr to heal instead. It increases the amount of multitasking the Revivr has, therefore increasing the skill requirements, and versatility, and of course, the risks, which is more overheating possibly, and more vulnerability up close.

Sparks can have a lot of the recent and rather pointless nerfs reversed, so she has a clear role, and clear counter or way to deal with her.

(solace_) #2

This is an interesting idea, but they would have to balance it VERY carefully because I can see it getting out of hand very fast.

(BananaSlug) #3

i would like to se changing the way it heals, from immediately to very fast, i think that would be enough nerf for her

(Grave_Knight) #4

I hate this idea but that’s because I think TF2’s medic made the most boring version of healing ever. I don’t want to play as Sparks following people around and shooting them constantly…

(watsyurdeal) #5

She already does that, like literally, whether it’s her allies or enemies she’s already doing that. We’re just removing her ability to tank since it’s absolute bullshit to deal with her already on the Revivr alone, you confront her and she can just run off and patch up, wasting your time and ammo.

(Grave_Knight) #6

[quote=“Watsyurdeal;165808”]She already does that, like literally, whether it’s her allies or enemies she’s already doing that. We’re just removing her ability to tank since it’s absolute bullshit to deal with her already on the Revivr alone, you confront her and she can just run off and patch up, wasting your time and ammo. [/quote]She also won’t be able to remove Aimee’s deliberating effect from herself making her super squishy.

(watsyurdeal) #7

And???

If she’s in an area where it WOULD affect her then she’s likely to close to the main conflict area, and even without that effect she’d still be taken out by Aimee and her weapons.

Sparks would basically function as a secondary medic, Sawbonez and Phoneix are always going to be a standard. 2 Medics or more has always been the standard.

Plus, Sparks can KILL Aimee with good aim anyhow.

(triteCherry) #8

It would have to be a HoT with a small burst heal at full charge.

(RyePanda) #9

I disagree, sparks is already facing a disadvantage in combat. With 80 health and machine pistols, she’s as frail as a leaf. She’s supposed to be a sniper, you say? But she got her damage and revive health given nerfed when at long range. And even if sparks is at long range, a few bullets from an assault rifle is enough to severely damage her, so unless you think sparks should never see an enemy, she’s going to need to be able to heal herself or else you’ll have a medic waiting 30 seconds for her health to slowly heal.

(Naonna) #10

Loud minority is loud. the revive rifle has less dps than the granduer: with less range. - Hyper accurate or no, the damage fall off means she can’t be used effectively as a sniper anymore: without a weapon for close range, what other options does Sparks have?

(Reddeadcap) #11

@Naonna exactly,it definitely needed some changes done to it, but like any changed applied in Dirty Bomb it’s either too much of one or too many changes that utterly breaks how the weapon once worked, yes it was better than a sniper rifle and needed tweaking but it honestly was too much.

(AnimeDude) #12

nah mate it’s fine

(Szakalot) #13

sparks is still broken af with 1hitkills at anything but long range and pretty much invulnerability as she can wallspam away from enemy fire while self healing. imo its freaking ridiculous that ab enemy medic just runs away from you and your automatic fire, while picking up Self-thrown HP on the way

(Verticules) #14

I don’t think complete removal is needed. I would reduce the # of packs maybe, or nerf the amount she self heals, much like the slow rate Sawbonez self heals.

(blisteringOwlNest) #15

I agree with vertically, id like to see the number of packs reduced to maybe 2, so its not ridiculous. I mean, all the other medics can self heal, so it’d be unfair if sparks couldn’t, especially as she is so squishy.

that in mind, its almost impossible to kill a running sparks unless they’re kind of stupid or you’re a good shot, unless she’s already used some med packs or is cornered. no other medic can heal so quickly, apart from phoenix, and he has a long enough cool down, unlike sparks, whose is instant.

so yes, reduce number of med packs (and reverse the nerf where the revived health has drop off - that’s silly)

(Jesus) #16

[quote=“Watsyurdeal;27891”]
2. Sparks IS a long range merc, there is no disputing that, she is built to be a Medic and a Sniper in one, so why is she able to heal herself? Why does she have any tanking capability at all? The argument that other Medics can heal themselves is not sufficient, because her role requires her to be at long distances, away from the fight.[/quote]

Except they removed that because of crybabies that couldnt shoot such a fragile merc a that didnt want other people to be able to play well a merc they couldnt get a grasp on. Now she barely has an smg range so as long as its like that dont fucking touch the medpack.
You’ll remove the medpack when youll let me headshot from afar this OP bitch of Aura again.

(banteringTurnip) #17

I rarely see sparks in a PUG but when I do they are trying super hard , like it hurts to watch them jumping around like maniacs. All that hard work and they normally accomplish nothing really weak heals a few revives but everyone chases them around so squishyyy

(n-x) #18

[quote=“Watsyurdeal;27891”]Why? A few reasons

  1. Let’s face it, they SUCK for healing other people, they heal about 40 health tops, so you need 3 of these things to heal most mercs completely, meanwhile Sawbonez can heal three people with three medpacks with ease. Yet ironically, because of her low health, these packs are great for healing Sparks herself. Which brings me to my second point.

[/quote]

Thats a fautly argument. You dont need three healpacks for most mercs as you almost never have to heal another merc from the ground up. 1 pack is already enough to get bruised 120 merc from would-be-totally-dead-in-next-encounter to totally-useful-in-non-frontal-fights. But the self heal is sometimes kind of overpowered. Getting a sparks to 10 % health just to see her jumping around like a maniac and healing up to full hp again is really annoying.

(strawberryJacket) #19

I would be suprised if she got any more nerfs without any buffs to compensate. I already find her to be the weakest merc combat wise in the game (i always found her weak combat wise, i never seen a sparks that was an issue on public servers and from watching cups she always was only a necromancer that had a nice shot from time to time).

I wish that SD never made ranged revives to be a thing, its her main problem and because of that she will never be a strong combat merc.

(Sefuh_FR) #20

For me Sparks is currently well balanced , she is the most difficult medic but highly rewarding when well played. Lot of people cry about Sparks healing herself…what about Aura staying close to her healing station and facing assault rifle owners with ease ? ( heal station hidden by a wall ofc ) .
A good player with M4 / Timik kill Sparks before she put his medpack on the ground…and there is a small cooldown between each medpack put on the ground ( maybe 1sec ) , if you’r not able to do more than 40 dmg per second…your aim is bad.