Rebalancing Sparks' offensive power

(retief) #1

Increase min revivr damage to 40ish, but charging the revivr doesn’t add damage (it only increases revive hp). Also, make her damage dropoff start somewhere in the 30-36m range. Finally, make her battery drain rapidly while at full charge, so she can’t sit on a full charge shot. Essentially, this would give her a pseudo-pdp/grandeur instead of a pseudo-moa. She would be slightly less abusable at high levels, since she can no longer one shot most mercs. However, she would be somewhat stronger at lower levels, since she wouldn’t be reliant on landing that one fully charged headshot. This would also be relatively easy to implement, since it is mostly a numbers change.

This would also nerf her reviving significantly. If she can’t sit on a full charge shot, she needs to spend a second or more charging before reviving someone, and then the revived guy takes another second to stand up. Depending on how long it takes to hit full charge, her revives could start to approach phoenix self-revive levels of delay. At that point, getting her balance right ought to be a matter of tuning some numbers.

This might end up as an overnerf in some ways. However, if she does end up too weak, buffing her back into relevance is a lot easier than trying to balance an inherently overpowered kit.

TL;DR: 40ish min damage, damage doesn’t increase with charge, damage dropoff starts around 30-36m, battery drains rapidly at full charge.

(Sorotia) #2

Could work…but then you’ll upset all the people who play Sparks to be a sniper who can heal herself, even more.

Personally I’d like to see her healing improved…I’d prefer a 5th pack…or maybe at least a little more healing.

If you’re just playing healing sniper then this change wont mean much, but if you play a actual healer it would help.

(Jesus) #3

[quote=“Sorotia;149942”]Could work…but then you’ll upset all the people who play Sparks to be a sniper who can heal herself, even more.

Personally I’d like to see her healing improved…I’d prefer a 5th pack…or maybe at least a little more healing.

If you’re just playing healing sniper then this change wont mean much, but if you play a actual healer it would help.[/quote]

I actually never felt like she needed more health pack, except when i used three to give a dying fragger 3/4 of his health but this doesnt count i mean when using them for myself i never felt like needing more of them

I personally think the long range damage on revivr was fine since she is supposed to be a long range merc and it was not that easy to do but if people really think she was OP they should nerf the close range, which is where she shouldnt be good at ,being a long range merc.
So my proposition is:

  • Reverse the Fall of Damage Health on Revive so that it increases with the distance, resulting in close range low damage and no revive and long range high damage and life which is actually more difficult to do and is now rewarded.
  • Maybe reduce a bit the self healing capability to make it fair for other snipers (or remove it and make the reviver heal teammate)
  • give her the Defib like medic instead of the helping up on the F keys (or maybe she already have it never tried actually) So That if she wants to full revive fallen teammate at close range she either have to take a step back which isnt always possible or she have to risk it and go with the Defib making her having to risk herself out of her comfort zone.

This bring a still original gameplay more skill demanding and rewarding without making her OP cause she will have little chance to get out winner of a closer range firefight, and she now sometimes need to get out of her comfort zone which will represent an opportunity for ennemy to kill her. (Opportunity that can be created quite easily, you see the spawn timer is at ten second you kill a merc close to where she is but on sight for you she gets out you put her down timer respawn she take 25 second in the face.)

(solace_) #4

IN MY OPINION, this fundamentally goes against what a medic is supposed to be. Instead of focusing on buffing her offensive capabilities, focus on buffing how much and the ways that she can heal. And then maybe consider her primary weapons.

(retief) #5

Every merc in the game has a powerful primary weapon. Even Sparks’ revivr is powerful if you have the skill to land full charge headshots. I’m simply trying to make that power more accessible. I’m mostly trying to replace an extremely powerful weapon that few people can use effectively with a less powerful weapon that is usable by more people.

In the end, I want sparks’ revivr to be effective at longer ranges (at least assault rifle ranges). I originally started playing her because she was the “long range” medic, and that range is mostly gone now. If I thought that it would happen, I’d push for a damage dropoff buff and leave it at that. However, I’d bet that she is still overly strong at the highest levels of play, so I doubt that she will receive direct buffs.

(Jesus) #6

Are you kidding its an MMOFPS which contain FPS, every character just have to have offensive capabilities to defend himself. Phoenix got the KEK and the Hochfir which are both very powerful weapon Sawbones get access to the same set of weapon as Nader which is competing with Fragger for the best assault crown, and Aura ? she gets a shotgun with an insane rate of fire that can one shot you + the blishlok which damage are insane on headshot. Medics have offensive capabilities and Sparks shoud have her own too as a long range merc; while right now the reviver has an SMG range.

(Ritobasu) #7

Too many people here don’t want to accept that Sparks’ original design was meant to be a support oriented class with sniper capabilities

(Jesus) #8

Too many people here don’t want to accept that Sparks’ original design was meant to be a support oriented class with sniper capabilities[/quote]

This, people say revivr isnt meant to be a sniper while it is.
Thats why i keep saying nerf the close range not the long range.

(Apofenas) #9

I thought about this too. I made a couple tests on it and didn’t like the outcome. Currently REVIVR without augments seems to have about 120 shots per minute. Correct me if i’m wrong here. But it’s really hard to actually shoot (instead of dropping charge) with that speed without serious practice. I managed to shoot constantly with about 90 RPM stable.

With your 40 damage per shot the weapon will have about 80 dps in theory. Sadly, but even this is not a match for 110-120 dps machine pistols. To make this weapon similiar to Grandeur/Dreiss we need about 120 DPS.

1st option would be to Increace initial damage, that means it’s 60 damage per shot, which is honestly not an option, because currently does exactly this number on full charge.

2d option is increace ROF to about 180 RPM. There are 2 ways for that: a) increace charge speed b) decreace minimal charge. Both is an unnessesary buff to her reviving ability and inbalance between her current load out cards. But with 40 damage per shot and 180 RPM (same as PDP) this weapon would have 120 dps in ideal situation.

However this also creates some kind of imbalance between burst rifles and REVIVR. You see, they have spread, recoil and need ammo, REVIVR doesn’t.

Concept of snipREVIVR is just easier to balance.

(Jostabeere) #10

[quote=“Apofenas;150054”]I thought about this too. I made a couple tests on it and didn’t like the outcome. Currently REVIVR without augments seems to have about 120 shots per minute. Correct me if i’m wrong here. But it’s really hard to actually shoot (instead of dropping charge) with that speed without serious practice. I managed to shoot constantly with about 90 RPM stable.

With your 40 damage per shot the weapon will have about 80 dps in theory. Sadly, but even this is not a match for 110-120 dps machine pistols. To make this weapon similiar to Grandeur/Dreiss we need about 120 DPS.

[/quote]

Which is bad because she should have more while bolt-action sniper rifles have a bodyshot DPS of even less than 80, so she can outgun Vassilis as she used to, right?
Anything over 30 at all ranges with the current RoF exceeds Vassilis bolt-action DPS.

(Apofenas) #11

[quote=“Jostabeere;150063”]
Which is bad because she should have more while bolt-action sniper rifles have a bodyshot DPS of even less than 80, so she can outgun Vassilis as she used to, right?
Anything over 30 at all ranges with the current RoF exceeds Vassilis bolt-action DPS.[/quote]

As i said i didn’t like the result of my tests and the concept as a conclusion. If REVIVR is to be the primary weapon, than not the way it’s suggested in original thread.

Also got to admit, that with this burstREVIVR could be a good close-mid range weapon, so it would not need range as much, so may just get damage falloff to about 50% at range of sniper rifles which is 60 dps.

(Jesus) #12

[quote=“Apofenas;150054”]I thought about this too. I made a couple tests on it and didn’t like the outcome. Currently REVIVR without augments seems to have about 120 shots per minute. Correct me if i’m wrong here. But it’s really hard to actually shoot (instead of dropping charge) with that speed without serious practice. I managed to shoot constantly with about 90 RPM stable.

With your 40 damage per shot the weapon will have about 80 dps in theory. Sadly, but even this is not a match for 110-120 dps machine pistols. To make this weapon similiar to Grandeur/Dreiss we need about 120 DPS.

1st option would be to Increace initial damage, that means it’s 60 damage per shot, which is honestly not an option, because currently does exactly this number on full charge.

2d option is increace ROF to about 180 RPM. There are 2 ways for that: a) increace charge speed b) decreace minimal charge. Both is an unnessesary buff to her reviving ability and inbalance between her current load out cards. But with 40 damage per shot and 180 RPM (same as PDP) this weapon would have 120 dps in ideal situation.

However this also creates some kind of imbalance between burst rifles and REVIVR. You see, they have spread, recoil and need ammo, REVIVR doesn’t.

Concept of snipREVIVR is just easier to balance.[/quote]

what i said is just an idea i didnt gave any numbers and it would need to be tested.

(retief) #13

Worth noting that min revivr charge time is .4s without quick charge and should be .34s with quick charge. In practice, people won’t be able to sustain that perfectly, but 150ish rpm with quick charge should be close to doable. That said, I haven’t tested it myself. It’s also worth noting that near perfect hipfire accuracy is also a significant advantage. If necessary, you probably bump up damage to 45-54ish, but I doubt that would be necessary.

It might be worth setting the min charge time to .34s or something and then making quick charge not affect min charge time. Otherwise, quick charge would be rather mandatory.