some feedback here, mercs and clunky UI. Balance suggestions for merc in [b]bold text
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- Mercs:
- Sawbonez
Decent gun, but doesn’t compare to what is best out there. He can be deadly, opening with triple HS, but scales badly over prolonged engagements. Very versatile healing ability. Similarly to QW, character’s movement adds momentum to thrown packs, allowing heal reaching farther than any other medic (at the moment). Probably the most balanced medic out there.
- Phoenix
Healing pulse can be clutch when teammates clump up, otherwise Phoenix has the weakest heal of them all. Also very bad at keeping himself at top health. Self-revive makes this the most combat-oriented medic, provided you have a loadout card with a non-default gun! The default gun was never good since I’ve played (August2014), but now that all the other weapons have been buffed, and this one wasn’t, it is probably the worst weapon in the game, including all secondaries and melees. Overall well balanced, I think self-revive is in a perfect spot right now, it would be nice to see his default gun have some use though.
- Aura
Fastest runspeed in the game already makes this character the merc-of-choice if you want to revive: as speed is more important for medics than for any other class. Add to that a powerful shotgun, largely outclassing Sawbonez&Phoenix weapons, and there is very little reason to consider other options. If you weren’t convinced, have a healing station which can be swiftly relocated, then dropped in a fraction of a second and turn any 1v1 into a laughfest. Not the easiest medic to play, but with the highest potential, in particular due to speed and damage. That’s right; the healing station is the least OP element of Aura.
Speed+damage = does not compute. Healing station can be easily balanced by twiddling with HP (I’d like to see it little more fragile against AOE weapons, to really highlight that weakness), heal rate, healing/not damaged characters, etc. The present speed and dps of this medic are off the charts compared to Sawbonez&Phoenix who are largely support characters. Aura can Rambo it out with the best of them.
- Thunder
I saw many people complain about Thunder since this build and I’m not entirely sure why. Very nice gun, could perhaps do slightly more damage (or have a better HS multiplier), however 80 bullets and lots of HP allow for holding on during the longest firefights, winning many engagements by attrition only. Unlike Fragger, his nade was not buffed in any noticeable way, and has great potential; but often ends up being harder to use than just shooting the enemies down.
Buff Thunder’s ability: e.g. make him partially resistant to his own flashbangs (e.g. faster recovery, shorter fuse), which will permit a little bit more freedom to use it, and also find use for it. I’d like to think of myself as an experienced nader, and my grenade launcher or fragger’s nades usually go where I want. I find it much harder to use flashbangs effectively, without blinding myself.
- Fragger
One of the best weapons in the game, loads of HP and amazing grenades probably make Fragger the most k/d skewed character. Nothing wrong with that, as the mercs name suggests. Nades are the true OP element of fragger, ability to cook them and high fly speed makes it almost impossible to survive an encounter with an experienced fragger.
My debuff of choice is nades fly-speed. It doesn’t limit fragger’s potential, but makes him less consistent in scoring multikills, requires higher skill level to use effectively, and most importantly allows the victim to dodge – at least partially – the impending doom. Toning down nades’ gibbing ability could also go a long way to reduce frustration people have when fighting good fraggers.
- Rhino
Highest HP in the game, and a very potent mini-gun make Rhino very nicely balanced. He will mow down any enemy in close quarters, but requires medic support to hold out. Flanked by FOP or a long-distance merc, he will go down quickly. I expect a fate similar to flamethrower-soldier in ET. Blast to play in a PUB, people will still find uses for him in comp. However, he’ll generally be avoided, due to his low speed and weakness to ranged opponents.
- Stoker
Excellent gun, ammo station is a nice ability, and his Molotov finally found some use in the game. I think he got a little overtuned however, as properly thrown Molotov can kill most players in close quarters.
Flames have to go one of the two ways: high damage over short time, or area-denial low damage in longer time. At the moment it deals a lot of damage (direct hit kills any light merc, will almost-kill mediumHP mercs), and 30hp from touching the flames can be very punishing. The time it takes for the flames to burnout is also on the looooong side, and unlike other area-denial abilities, its very hard to avoid. I’ve often seen myself or others literally standing at the edge of the smoke waiting for it to go out. Not fun! I’d personally keep the damage potential, esp. to counter light mercs, but make the flame go out by a second or two faster.
Skyhammer
His M4 got a nice buff, and is probably the best middle-sized weapon in the game: easy to use and amazing in the hands of ET-tracking veteran. Skyhammer got slowed down a little which fits his tankier-fops profile. Ability is fine where it is, I miss the flare-smoke from ET/QW fopses to help opponents spot where its coming from, and it would be nice to have more time to align yourself with the best angle you want the airstrike to come in at.
If Echo stats don’t show his weapon to be too OP: he’s fine.
Arty
Nice gun & quicker arty-spotting put Arty in a very nice support-fops position. I’d like the arty to go down from the sky just a little faster. At the moment Arty is inferior to other ammo-givers and apart from specific arty setups, he won’t find much use in comp.
