Spark to Comp Level (What would you change?)

(Cesmode) #21

[quote=“spookify;75356”][quote=“Cesmode;75352”]I dunno. I honestly dont see competitive matches as being much different. I tried one last night, and we simply rolled the other team. They had no idea what they were doing, they looked like they were brand new to the game.
[/quote]

They might have been haha!!

This post is for mostly a well balanced fight. Both teams have equal skill. (For Both Ranked MM and Third Party Cups)[/quote]

But thats half of my point…people complain about public matches being nightmare and hellish because of noobs. Yet, you can just as easily waltz into a competitive match and its the same thing. In fact, that one comp match I played last night was the easiest out of all of the matches I played last night(including the public ones).

Honestly, I see no difference between public vs competitive at the moment. You have the same chance of ending up with a bunch of new players and your experience is the same.

So tying this into the OP some how, honestly, does it really matter if the match is public or competitive for sparks to be viable? They both provide you with the same gameplay. IMO, sparks is more than viable in public, therefor just as viable in competitive. This MIGHT change for private games when clans/guilds/squads/whatever want to play eachother in tournies or whatever…

Otherwise, sparks is fine, more than fine.

(Ghosthree3) #22

Can’t really buff her much while maintaining her existing mechanics. On the other hand I feel that you could double her health if you took away the REVIVER’s ability to deal damage and she’d be average. Balanced on a very tight string that one.

(Yes) #23

I think buffing her HP to 90 would make only a marginal improvement.

(Ghosthree3) #24

90HP wouldn’t be too bad but I don’t think it’d make a significant difference. Like people have said, she’s quite capable of escaping situations and healing herself as she goes. The only times she dies are from instakills or surprise people out of no where. 90HP won’t really help those situations.

(spookify) #25

@Cesmode Congratz at rolling your Ranked MM vs Noobs but again I am talking 5v5 possible 1 merc limits.

OK, I will make it easy. Imagine if there were 1 merc limits and bans!
Team A Bans Fragger
Team B Bans SawBones

Go onward with your pick as each team picks a medic. Phoenix I assume will be the next strongest will go first and now Team B is left to pick between Aura or Sparks. Both 80hp mercs that will have to play both Offensive and Defense. On Defense the Aura might kick but but on Attacking not so much. Same thing for Sparks; will she be strong enough to support her whole team on both attacking and defending?

Saw is OP all around.
MOST HP
Good Guns
Pack that can Start Regen and almost insta heal
Speed = Who Cares.

Phoenix might even be fairly weak to Saw because he can only heal in small bursts. I dont think his bursts starts heal regen which it should…

Just Imagine playing against a crossfire and a defense with constant rotation. Imagine also trying to throw down cover fire while helping your team push. Imagine Gibbing. All these things need to be taken into effect.

(Ghosthree3) #26

[quote=“spookify;75380”]Imagine if there were 1 merc limits and bans!
Team A Bans Fragger
Team B Bans SawBones[/quote]
What a terrible game.

(watsyurdeal) #27

Honestly 90 hp is the only thing she deserves, if only because she’s not as tanky as Aura is, even though her health packs are great for a quick fix.

As for what’s too strong on her, the fact she can revive and fully heal any merc, AND deal damage with the same ability, it’s a bit much…maybe it’s just me but I feel like that aspect about her is a bit ridiculous.

I feel like she shouldn’t be able to fully revive and heal a Rhino for example so easily. But maybe that’s just me, prob biased.

(Kaos88) #28

Her revive gun is simply ridiculous and can be considered OP. She for sure doesn’t need a buff. Especially not just to cater to Comp play.

(Fleshpound) #29

[quote=“spookify;75380”]@Cesmode Congratz at rolling your Ranked MM vs Noobs but again I am talking 5v5 possible 1 merc limits.

Team A Bans Fragger
Team B Bans SawBones

[/quote]

So we change a game into MOBA Bomb or what??

If we want to ban mercs but in MOBA style then we need more than 20 of them to actually make something like that for beta test.

(Gi.Am) #30

well as I said, give Sawbonez a better strength/weakness definition and your problem is more or less solved.

I don’t think that a draft mode will work like this to be honest, atleast not with the current roster if they add 2 more Mercs per class maybe. But its not as bad as you make it out. lets look at a possible lineup

Team A. Phoenix, Vassili, Skyhammer, Arty/Kira, Proxy
Team B. Bushwhacker, Nader, Aura, Fletcher/Kira/Arty, Sparks/Redeye

Ofcourse there are alot of other possibilities but the main point is if a team wants to secure Sawbonez with their first pick, they will loose the best Engineer pick (or watherver is next important). also since both teams can’t use Fragger they propably try to secure as much medium versatile damagedealers (hence dual firesupport on A.).

(spookify) #31

I totally agree that MOBA Style Dirty Bomb needs at least 2 more of each merc. But the sky is the limit in DB.

@Gi.Am One Medic per Team I dont think will Fly. Maps and Mercs will progress and unless there are some Fragger style multi kill mercs coming then 2 medics will be the norm.

I agree that 90HP is a good start (Speed to 4.5?)
Make the Pack Faster to Come out and Larger to See and Scoop up.
Fix Reviver Gun Bugs
I would also reduce the Cooldown on Packs Slightly.

If that fails look at her secondary and possible increase ROF and reduce recoil/Spread timing. Make fall off damage start super soon.

(Ghosthree3) #32

Her whole design is based around this though. What makes her revives so strong is not only that she can do them at range to full health but that she can prep the tool all the time because she can choose to deal damage with it instead if no one needs it. If it didn’t deal damage she’d be forced to either never deal damage or pull out her smg more often meaning she may not be able to revive people in time.

(watsyurdeal) #33

I get that’s what she is designed around, but the question is it too much?

I mean, considering how hard it is to gib people as it is with having to either knife everyone you kill or kill the Medic before he gets his team mate up, having a Medic who can revive people to full health at any distance, and do it quite quickly in succession really makes things difficult. Especially in a pub setting where the pressure never seems to let up.

(Ghosthree3) #34

Yeah when you’re either low on ammo or have a low powered weapon and can’t get headshots due to body position the chance of revival is like 99% unfortunately. Only change I’d make in that regard is perhaps make it take .1 or .2 seconds longer for people being revived by Sparks to stand up? That time might make the difference in allowing people to gib properly.

(watsyurdeal) #35

Maybe, but I have another proposal.

Nader’s nades should gib on direct hits, and Fragger’s nades should be changed a bit to be more reliable at gibbing, but have a higher skill curve. And possily, changes gibbing mechanics of other classes, like Skyhammer and Vasilli for example.

Why? Simple, they are assault classes, their job is to wreck the enemy forces. Support’s job is to take care of the EV and use their strikes for strong area denial in open maps. Engineer abilties like the Mines, Stickies, and Turrets, all buy time, defensively or offensively, they help in delaying bomb plants and defuses. And Recon, well, it depends.

Vasilli is definitely a Sniper, Phantom is more of a close range opposite to that, and Red Eye is somewhere the middle, a mid range class more or less. But all of them should have one major thing in common, a tacital ability pertaining intel, information, relaying enemy positions.

Honestly I think Splash has a LOT more groundwork to cover than people realize. The balance when you get down to it is whack, and even the shooting as good as it feels, has way too much randomness to it. Sway, random recoil patterns on SMGs, just so much inconsistency that needs to be tweaked if they want this game to be truly competitive.

(Ghosthree3) #36

It might sound like a good idea to force the roles to do their own job well and other jobs poorly but in reality that doesn’t make for a fun fps. I know there would be exceptions but I for one would sure as hell never play an engineer or medic if I couldn’t kill people too.

(watsyurdeal) #37

Not saying you couldn’t kill people, just not gib them like you could with Fragger or Nader.

Because as it stands it really doesn’t make sense for Proxy to gib people but not Fletcher, or Vasilli to gib at all when he can instantly kill the majority of the mercs.

(Amerika) #38

[quote=“ChinaRep;75181”]She’s used a lot in scrims and matches, though. Like she’s pretty good as is. Not sure where everyone’s getting this idea that she’s terrible from.

Only things I’d change are make her health packs easier to pick up and fix the bugged revivr hitboxes.

@spookify Everyone who played with phoenix during the closed beta/alpha says he’s really bad against people that aren’t complete noobs. Also, just looking at his stats and abilities on paper he seems terrible. He’s probably going to be much worse as a pocket medic and combat compared to sawbonez and aura and he’s for sure going to be a much worse team medic than sparks. [/quote]

Mostly it’s that if everyone could run double Sawbonez they most likely would on most maps/areas. The single merc rule is why she is getting as much playtime as she is. It’s either her or Aura.

I didn’t get to play Phoenix yet in closed but I don’t think anybody is discussing his self revive as being useful against good players. However, his healing and how much it does (and if it’s a heal of time like a sawbonez pack that can be interrupted with damage or burst like Sparks) will end up defining him. It’s also hard to argue against his combat potential due to the weapons he has access to and also has 20 more HP than Aura and Sparks.

(Gi.Am) #39

@spookify well right now sure but 2 Medics is simply current Meta and a ban/pick might shift that around pretty hard.
For starters with Sawbonez banned, you only have 3 left so 1 team has to go single medic anyways. Considering that you would be playing roughly 50% of the times with only 1 Medic. Teams would propably adapt to that and come up with a composition they feel comfortable running with only 1 Medic (and that can beat a dual medic setup).

Another thing, what is the main use of the (pocket) medic?
Keeping Fragger alive and trying to revivetrain a engineer through an objective. Considering that in your example Fragger was out of the picture aswell, could mean medics might not be as important as they usually are. Especialy if your only medic choices, don’t bring that much combat power with them.

As far as sparks buffs imo in general she only needs QoL changes, easier hitting those medpacks. And ofcourse better hitboxes (but that goes for everyone).

Wouldn’t touch the secondaries they are pretty strong and are not exclusive to her which means tweaks to them shift the balance of several more mercs.

(pumpkinmeerkat) #40

Giving the Revivr the ability to heal from range could be interesting. I think the rest of her stats are balanced enough. To be viable in comp play she would really need more more damage output (smg primary) or more HP. Either of those options would make her too powerful for pub play IMO.

I’m most annoyed that she has a single loadout card that is clearly best. Maybe some different augment combos could give her options in comp play? I think that the quick charge charging rate should be the default charge rate and that augment option should be replaced with either something to make her tougher OR give her more killing potential. An ROF increase augment perhaps??