@bgyoshi
The way Javelin is overtuned has less to do with how much she outclasses her peers than it does with how she outclasses them. Her main strength is that her ability is way better at getting consistent kills than the other fire support stuff. Shot for shot, it’s better at getting consistent kills than Fragger’s nade. It’s so good at getting consistent kills that it feels unfair in a way nothing else in the game does.
I’m talking about the ‘fair fight’ sense of fair, rather than the ‘balanced’ sense. Javelin consistently allows you to get virtually free kills, where the enemy has no realistic option of counterplay. Not always–Jav rockets are dodgeable in some situations. But in many other situations there’s nothing you can do to not get killed, like whenever she has a height advantage. There are also some situations where Fragger can get virtually guaranteed kills regardless of counterplay, but those situations are rarer and also require the Fragger to be fairly skilled. The combination of low skill floor + consistentish autokills makes Javelin uniquely ‘unfair’ in the ‘fair fight’ sense. Nothing else in DB feels like it.
That’s different from her being OP relative to her fire support peers. She IS OP relative to her peers, but not by an insane margin. She’s probably about as superior to the other fire supports as Fletcher is to the other Engis, maybe a bit more. She roundly outclasses Stoker and Skyhammer in almost all non-EV situations, and is clearly stronget than Kira except on a handful of map points. Her rocket does barely less DPS / min to the EV than the lazer, actually. Her most played loadouts give her a rocket CD almost 1/2 the lazers.
She is much weaker to EV’s than Arty tho. Because arty is bonkers vs the EV to the point where Arty stacking can virtually break the game on EV maps.
But Arty being kind of rediculous vs EVs is not a good argument for Javelin being kind of ridiculous vs players. It does mean she isn’t quite as outright superior vs her peers as Fletcher is vs Proxy: there’s at least 1 thing she doesn’t do as well. But that’s not very important.
Right now Javelin is the outright best fire support on any map or point without an EV, with the possible exception of the last point of chapel. And she is the best because her ability kills people consistently, often with little counterplay. She IS OP, and the way in which she is OP is especially frustrating.
Think of it another way: how ridiculous at killing people would a merc have to be in order to be better than Arty even on EV maps? Javelin is almost that.
The design of 1 fire support merc being especially weak to EVs but especially good against players is just not a good design. It wasn’t a good design in stoker 1.0, and it’s not a good design now. The ‘depth’ it adds is fake, and it leads to an unnatural situation where mercs swing from gimped to broken based on whether there is an EV to shoot. That’s lame.
It’s not necessary or desirable to totally homogenize anti EV power, but probably Arty should be a bit weaker and Javelin should be a bit stronger at it.
