Welcome, to the mind of a thunder main, one who, for many months, was the absolute bane of your existence, doing stupid things that somehow worked, and abusing certain angles in maps that enabled me to have a free win every 15 seconds.
Aah, good times … ( I probs triggered everyone).
After many months of using this great Russian banger, I started getting tired and bored: it felt too easy, too simple, too unrewarding to play thunder. I remember playing a ranked match and these guys started asking me on the other team to switch off, not playing seriously, just spamming crouch when I approached them. They just gave up. And I hated it. It made me realise how stupid Thunder is, and began to literally refuse to play him until he was properly nerfed.
Then the most recent nerfs came, nerfing his health, and general durations of effects. The stark nerf was of no notice to me, I always use the mk46. I started playing him again, hoping I would finally feel rewarded for playing him, he must be fair right?
Well yes… And No. Thunder may not be broken anymore, but that does not change the fact that he is unfun to fight against, while taking seemingly little skill to play. This thread is knowledge from 120hours of thunder playtime, with 100 of them being with the mk46, and I will provide solutions that fix clear issues with Thunders design which make high level players question his place in the game.
Problem 1- The unavoidability of the grenade
Currently, the fuse on the concussion grenade is 1 second. As a form of comparison, this is the same delay that javelin had at release, and people complained about her then. The problem with this fuse, is that it can be used way too reactively, using it anytime in a fight without meaningful drawbacks, especially if backed up by your team. This does not promote skilful play, as well as makes the nade feel inconsistent as you do not have good control of the nade.
Fix 1-Give nade cooking
Similar to fragger, this provides good counterplay mid fight, as well as promotes skillful play. Problem with this is that it makes thunder too much like fragger, giving much less reason to play thunder over him. Other changes such as the emp, increased duration, or removal of self blinding would be needed to not make thunders nade obsolete.
Fix 2-Increase the fuse timer
This is another conceivable option, but would require a couple things if increased dramatically. Does not fix many long-standing issues such as actually requiring timing to play, but does nerf the mid firefight option.
Problem 2- Randomly getting flashed
Another issue with Thunder is how annoying and unfun it is to get randomly flashed seemingly out of nowhere, with little to no counterplay.
Fix-If you are not in the actual radius of the nade, you only get a white filter over your screen
This is a very good change to stop spawnflashing and making the flash effect feel less random and unfun. This I believe to be a change that is a given, and should be implemented.
Problem 3-Thunders tankiness
This is not that large of a problem, but it is an issue nonetheless. Thunder basically gets free wins in 1v1 situations, without even having to try to aim. However, he also has the issue of being really slow and makes him feel very clunky too (I bet even after this patch).
Fix- Reduce hp to 150 increase speed to 385 (was 380 after next patch)
This should make him be able to get into the action much faster, while making him less overbearing when fighting in a head to head fight.
I know this was a long post, but I felt it was necessary as I do not like where thunder is at currely in the game, and feel mixtures of these changes would greatly improve his gameplay. Let me know what you think of my ideas!