Sparks nerfs (state of the usefulness of sparks)

(ClemClem7) #1

Hi everyone, just want to put that here because I’m silently sad of all sparks nerfs since lasts bigs updates.
I know many of yours think she’s OP or she need nerf (again), but let me explain what I want for her.

Before her first nerf, she was “OP” because she was able to kill from very far. But then she got a nerf (damage drop-off), then another (revive drop-off), then another (quick charge).
Now she’s just useless in comparison to phoenix aura or sawbonez. If someone think she’s OP now, it’s just because of all these nerfs, so every average players stopped playing her, and only very good sparks players have continued to play her. So when you see a sparks, yes she’s super skilled, and then everybody cry because they think she’s OP.
Just count in all your games, how many sparks are in the game, or even in the squads of the players, in comparison to other medics (even not counting aura).
Every merc is a good fighter, even medics or engineers. Sparks is annoying because she can revive at range, but at the same time, she can’t heal as sawbonez and phoenix can. She can’t fight as sawbonez or phoenix can.
Her only good part is the revive, she’s pretty good in this domain, but she’s weak in all others.
Of course good sparks can destroy a team, but not as easily as a good phoenix or sawbonez, or aura, can. Sparks is the weakest and the worse healer of all medics, and has only a good revive range as only good part of her gameplay.

I don’t want SD to buff her at her initial OPness but stop nerfing her.
Rate of charge of the revivr need to be increase, because now, it’s his primary, which has damage drop-off (can’t OS above aura and sparks at long range), travel time, charge time, and surcharge (and so cooldown). Tell me an other primary with such weaknesses.
I’m ok with the reduction of the augment quick charge to make her less “quick charge dependant” but then buff the basic charge rate, as undercover was nerfed. The 383 cards was not OP, but we were forced to equipped it in order to be a non useless sparks. Only with this buff, I think she will be able to compete other medics.
Actually, if you want help a team as a medic, sparks is the worst choice (in most of cases) because phoenix, sawbonez and aura can all do it better.
And the problem of the self healing is maybe annoying when you follow her to kill her, but it’s the same with phoenix and nobody take care. Only sawbonez can’t self heal very well, but he has good health and fighting ability.

Tl;dr: she’s annoying because played by good players, not because she’s OP
She need some rebalance to make her more useful and playable without making her OP again as for now she almost completely unused.

(Weekendwarrior) #2

Ya the nerfs were too much for me. I only have a good game with Sparks of the enemy team is below average or if I’m having my day. I use Phoenix now but he’s a lot less fulfilling than Sparks.

I think the damage drop off and quick charge nerfs are fine. IMO the other nerfs should be reverted. I think her primaries were nerfed as well IIRC.

(SirSwag) #3

I can agree that she was over nerfed. I think that the only reason there isn’t more people vocal about it, is because she’s been nerfed gradually over several updates. I agree that her damage output with the reviver was too high, but her reviving potential was fine to me. I can accept that Sparks will rarely get a kill and isn’t a good healer, but I think that her reviver needs to be slightly better than it currently is. A slight buff to the charge time would make me a very happy sir. I might even be able to live with the reviver giving less health over range. Just my 2 cents.

(KattiValk) #4

We’ve talked about whether or not she’s even a very serious choice now. I’m not sure what you could do to make her better, but she needs a better healing capability of some kind as well as a better way of contributing to a firefight.

(watsyurdeal) #5

I know I’ve said this plenty, but the horse ain’t dead yet so whatever, some ideal Patch Notes for me.

[spoiler]
Sparks

  • Removed Sparks health packs
  • Increased Sparks health from 80 to 90
  • Increased Sparks speed to 450, same as Proxy
  • Sparks Revivr now heals allies, based on a percentage.
  • Heals have fall off, so long range heals can not restore 100% of an ally’s health
  • Sparks Revivr damage has been buffed, headshots can deal up to 110 damage and do not suffer fall off, only bodyshots do.

[/spoiler]

Now Sparks is balanced, she has her damage output back but is no longer tanky.

And the reason for this is simple, she is not often or EVER in a scenario where she should need to heal herself. And even if you do run her she is often the Second Medic, she was never good enough on her own to be a stand alone Medic.

Her health packs were never good at healing anyone else but herself, and that made her immensely frustrating to counter.

At least with these changes, she has a clear role that’s distinct and stands out, she’s not good enough at sniping to replace Vasilli, but she’s a good second Medic to have for the sake of keeping your main medic alive and everyone else he can’t catch.

Plus she can give long range heals, something nobody else can do, and this extra stress on the Revivr means good players have to manage it more carefully.

(Equanimity) #6

Sparks is in a GOOD PLACE right now. The only thing they need to fix is the problem of, after med pack usage, it switching to your primary/secondary last used, and not the revivr if that was your last used ‘weapon’.

I have seen sparks carry harder than all hell even during this patch. 30/5 w/ 20k score in objective good. Her skill cap is ridiculously high but that doesn’t mean she is weak by any means.

(KUST__LunarTM) #7

Basically, Sparks is the Fletcher of the medics.

(vdll) #8

That would be true if Fletcher had 70% slower repair/defuse rate and 50 dmg stickies.

(doxjq) #9

I personally think Sparks is crap now as well. There are still some people who are good with her, but she requires such a high skill ceiling that god tier Sparks players are almost no where to be seen.

She did need a nerf, no question about it, but in my opinion they’ve over done it.