[Kira, Arty] Indoor usage?

(gg2ez) #1

Skyhammer’s Airstrike Marker is a grenade, Stoker’s Molotov is a Molotov, and Kira’s and Arty’s abilities are completely useless indoors.

Can we actually get a way to make the designators useful indoors already?

(Drac0rion) #2

Personally I find it a little hard to come up with something good for them as an indoors ability. You can’t have a third ability and what conditions do their abilities need to meet to be used indoors or outdoors?

Personally I think it would be cool if one of them would get like a sticky gel that would slow down enemies by like 50% or even more indoors, but now, how would you deploy that with your current ability?
I don’t think a mere targeting tool can manage that or they would need some very interesting upgrades to their targeting tools, carrying material/ammunition to deploy some type of area denial substance. This way I guess it would use the ability depending on if your targeting location is located indoors or outdoors.

(gg2ez) #3

[quote=“Dracorion;130068”]Personally I find it a little hard to come up with something good for them as an indoors ability. You can’t have a third ability and what conditions do their abilities need to meet to be used indoors or outdoors?

Personally I think it would be cool if one of them would get like a sticky gel that would slow down enemies by like 50% or even more indoors, but now, how would you deploy that with your current ability?
I don’t think a mere targeting tool can manage that or they would need some very interesting upgrades to their targeting tools, carrying material/ammunition to deploy some type of area denial substance. This way I guess it would use the ability depending on if your targeting location is located indoors or outdoors.[/quote]

Make their targeting lasers into, well, lasers. Everywhere they point gets all melty and stuff similar to the Orbital Strike’s path of destruction. It should only do damage in areas where it says “area invalid” IR something like that.

(KattiValk) #4

Kira can make roadblocks with ammo stations.

Maybe let them spot enemies with the laser? Doing constant damage would be terrible for balance because then you could just camp generators like the Bridge’s roadblock and melt them away with no effort involved.

(Drac0rion) #5

I thought the main role of fire support abilities was area denial, I just thought the high damage was meant to scare the enemies away to avoid it.

Their abilities already do a lot of damage outdoors so I figured more utility kind of traps could be a thing for them indoors.

Indoors laser beams sound kind of scary and OP.

(gg2ez) #6

[quote=“Dracorion;130075”]I thought the main role of fire support abilities was area denial, I just thought the high damage was meant to scare the enemies away to avoid it.

Their abilities already do a lot of damage outdoors so I figured more utility kind of traps could be a thing for them indoors.

Indoors laser beams sound kind of scary and OP.[/quote]

Make lasers do damage at 1800RPM, 1DMG/round = 30DPS. Pretty weak, still useful for when you don’t have time to reload.

(SaulWolfden) #7

Arty could fire a grenade (from his marking thing) as a marker that goes off to signal the artillery strike, not sure what Kira could get.

(p4v) #8

A horizontal laser beam like RAIL GUN, 1KO every 40 secs if you have good aim :smiley:

(blisteringOwlNest) #9

just give arty a bunker buster that can go through roofs with a reduced aoe. Much more useful. I’m not too sure about lira though.

(JJMAJR) #10

[quote=“gg2ez;22039”]Skyhammer’s Airstrike Marker is a grenade, Stoker’s Molotov is a Molotov, and Kira’s and Arty’s abilities are completely useless indoors.

Can we actually get a way to make the designators useful indoors already?[/quote]

Why not just nerf the other fire support classes? Stoker only giving ammo outside, for example, and Arty/Kira being able to give small ability recharges that don’t stack.

Kira might not even need the ability recharge once Stoker loses his ability to give ammo inside. I did say myself that Stoker shouldn’t give ammo indoors, but people say “that would make him useless”. Then again, she is quite inferior to Arty with fighting.

Kira and Arty meanwhile has better weapons than Skyhammer.

(darlingClaymore) #11

Skyhammers marker is just laughable, stoker is made for indoor, and arty n kira are for outside.

(Reddeadcap) #12

Sky’s marker can do up to 100 damage if someone was ontop of it and a fast cooldown if tossed indoors making it makeshift frag grenade, focus on the word Makeshift, similar to how Defibs can be used as makeshift melee weapons, but it can still be applied and makes Skyhammer just a step between Kira and Arty and Stoker.

That said, Kira and Arty are 100% outdoor mercs and shouldn’t have a way to function indoors.

(CCP115) #13

Ok, I have a few things to say about this.

Firstly, I find no reason not to take Stoker. Even if the map is outside, Stoker is just straight up the best fire support merc right now. Only consider taking Skyhammer to bust EVs a smidge more efficiently.

But Kira doesn’t need an indoor ability. My reasoning is simply how powerful her laser is. A well timed and positioned laser can get team wipes easily. And the fact that you can move the laser to trap and scatter opponents? Huge utility.

But Arty is weak enough as he is right now, so a buff would be appreciated. Any sort of indoor skill I feel would have to be utility to avoid being similar to Skyhammer. Another grenade? No, too similar. A blinding or slowing effect, or even toxic ammo packs that damage enemies when they pick them up, something like that would be interesting. As it stands though, I can’t come up with any ideas that fit with the aesthetic, so I would just settle for spotting to be honest.

Also does direct hitting an ammo pack still do the 15% CD reduction it used to? If so, make it exclusive to Arty maybe, I dunno.

(vdll) #14

How about this for Arty: holding Q charges the artillery strike as usual, but tapping Q produces short range flash (from the marker) debuffing enemy. Debuff could i.e. prevent from repairing or using abilities for a few secs/turning off hud/healthbars perhaps. Could be something else entirely, share your thoughts.

It would still be team-oriented ability useful against groups, not giving much advantage in duel.

(Drac0rion) #15

What if SD just wrecks the ceiling of underground and Kira/Arty abilities stay the same, I mean, that’s really the only map that makes me want to switch out those two mercs for fire support the most as I nearly never make real use of their abilities compared to other maps.

Currently I don’t feel Kira’s or Arty’s abilities underwhelming in other maps, so maybe just greatly break down the ceiling of underground?

I don’t see how it would really affect mercs other than those two and Skyhammer. They got rather powerful abilities and the only counterplay is really to avoid them at all cost and staying indoors is the safest, but underground is simply… under ground, so it’s rather difficult for those abilities to reach anyone really.
Thoughts?

(Frogteam) #16

The thing with underground is that there aren’t many places I’d want to use artillery, other than the places it’s already available. His artillery is devastating on the final plant position.

The only other places would be the generator room on the last objective, but being able to artillery that would probably be too strong.

This is a real Signature.

(Drac0rion) #17

But still I believe that underground is the biggest reason people actually want Kira/Arty to have an indoors ability. If we never had underground I think that people wouldn’t be too worried about those two mercs not having an indoors ability.

(KattiValk) #18

Kira can wipe the entire roof on the first Underground objective and can hold down a plant on both. Personally, I’d think a massive laser coming from space would have the power to melt through a few ceilings, but that’s just me. :stuck_out_tongue:

Arty is indeed sort of eh sometimes, but there’s no denying his power to utterly destroy an EV even faster than Skyhammer. His artillery actually kills in one shot so it provides a sort of area denial. The only buff you could give his arty specifically would likely be blast radius, but it already is a surprisingly strong weapon. Whole be even better if the targeting was improved though.

(vdll) #19

I’d like to see improved artillery kill radius, because most of times when I use it I get splash damage instead of kills.

(Reddeadcap) #20

@Frogteam @Dracorion

Only place I can really think of that should be broken to let Arty,Sky and Kira to be more useful is that area around the generator to remove the radiotion from the cadaver hallway and the area after it from the attacker’s perspective that serves as a middle ground between the objective and the area where the gen is.