Show Fletcher Some Loving...

[PixelTwitch]

Fletcher after all this time is still the clunkiest feeling Merc by far. His shotgun is awful both in terms of damage output and handling. His sticky mines + detonator combo is is sluggish and poorly communicated and his overall uniqueness (other than his VO) is bland.

I would suggest increasing his HP by 10 but also keeping his speed the same. This would make him fairly fast and strong as engineers go. This would make him a viable pick on offence with his mines. Currently the other 2 engineers are much more defensive.

His shotgun RoF needs to be slightly reduced but his damage at range should be greatly increased. I think a perfectly placed body shot at medium range should really be doing around 50hp but balance that via RoF. Again, consider increasing damage on centre pellet maybe. His shotgun should be that middle ground between shotgun and rifle/sniper, currently, its just a really bad shotgun.

Add fuse time to sticky bombs. I cannot count the number of times I have tried throwing a sticky bomb to have it explode in my face due to random bullets. I believe there they should not be shootable until they are able to be detonated by Fletcher himself (time wise) OR have attached to a surface.

I would like to see the ability to remove sticky mines by tapping F (as the enemy that is stuck) and I believe that the sticky mines should do 120 damage on a stuck, 100 damage in centre radius when not stuck and a small AoE.

Currently the time taken to throw, detonate and shoot is longer than it would take to die to almost any other weapon in the game so makes it really clunky use.

Personally due to the buff I suggested previously, I would also like to see the sticky bombs have a slightly longer cooldown (10 seconds each) to limit spam. The long activation time and use time currently is making it too tempting to run with them out in your hands at all time. The problem with this is that its causing the game to feel much more spam infested than it has to. Once Fletcher is on free rotation I am pretty sure we see a lot of complaints about this.

Overall, Fletcher was a much better launch than Nader but still a little less viable than Bush and Proxy in his role. To be fair, his biggest problem is not his “Strength” but his reliability due to clunky mechanics that are attached to his mines and his shotgun primarily. His secondary machine pistol at this point feels like a bit of a joke due to how many bullets it requires to kill someone so is only really good at the finishing kills roles.

[poiuasd]

Agree that the shotgun sucks. Maybe if the pellet spread was reduced it would become much more viable while also making it stand out from the other two shotguns that we already had in the game. Fletcher isn’t fast enough to be very effective in close range shotgunning anyways. Right now there is no reason not to use the Blishlok loadouts that he has and I’d like to see this being changed.
Other than that I feel he’s very well balanced, I don’t think his bombs should do any more damage as it’s pretty easy to land good hits with them.

[Protekt1]

[QUOTE=PixelTwitch;528697]
Add fuse time to sticky bombs. I cannot count the number of times I have tried throwing a sticky bomb to have it explode in my face due to random bullets.[/QUOTE]

Awesome. This should never change.

Currently the time taken to throw, detonate and shoot is longer than it would take to die to almost any other weapon in the game so makes it really clunky use.

Good.

[LiNkzr]

I only agree that the shotgun needs a buff / small rework, it feels really weird now. I think rest of fletcher is completely fine, at least for now

[Szakalot]

ehhh… NO?

To be fair I haven’t pugged him 5v5, but played against good players on pubs, and fletcher is insanely strong. His shotty, while weaker than the rest, still two-shots any merc, except fragger.

Best machine pistol, almost as good as some of the SMGs out there, at least in close range.

Stickies are super strong, and more importantly: really easy to use. Very limited to close(d) quarters though, but unlike nader; missing a throw is not nearly as punished, as you can just blow it up and still deal some splash damage. Use fletcher with the ‘lock on’ augment, for faster exploding stickies.

Terrible out in the open, or at anything further than close-mid range though. Can’t imagine picking proxy over fletcher, bush could still find some uses (Fletcher is poor on Chapel for example), otherwise I’d pick fletcher over the other engies any time.

Main issue atm. is the duds-bug, where a properly thrown sticky disappears into thin air.

[adeto]

Fletcher is in a great place tbh(would argue even one of the better balanced mercs up there with Sawbonez), though I have to admit I haven’t played him with his shotguns(I have yet to play a minute of shotgun in this game). Already had a couple blishlok cards for him ready to go so I really don’t have a clue how that weapon feels.

The only real complaint I have about him is what happens when hitting teammates with the stickies, they either lose all their momentem and just fall dead to the floor or seem to vanish into thin air(often not even giving reset or a % of cooldown). Allowing them to stick to teammates probably isn’t a good idea tho, especially on pubs without teamdamage(kamikaze anyone?) but the current situation is awkward and more importantly inconsistent. Best suggestion I guess would be to make hitting a teammate count as canceling and reset a % of cooldown(which Im assuming is what is supposed to happen but it doesn’t half the time).

[PinkFrog]

I’m looking forward to seeing this guy in free rotation. Sofar, the gameplay balance is not really broken due to him.

Also, can’t get enough of the “Fire in YOUR hole”.

[Chux]

I dislike damage buffs, neither shotgun should be able to oneshot people id you ask me. Maybe have it able to take 90% HP at point blank, but to more that that.