Hey people, I just wanted to throw this out there.
I know there is a wide variety of opinions on sparks in the DB community, but I just wanted to put in a suggestion. Please keep in mind this is just a suggestion. I’m really not trying to nerf sparks, in fact it is more of a buff for most players. I think that she needs to be balanced a bit, not because she is overpowered (for most people) but because her skills lie very heavily in a singular area.
After playing a match in competitive today and having a Sparks on the other team top scoring by quite a bit, I decided to write this. AND, before you go screaming that this is just another pls nrf rev gun thread, it isn’t. I don’t want to nerf sparks per se, just change her up a bit.
Right off the bat, I’m going to say that (IN MY OPINION) the revivr gun’s damage model needs to be changed. I think that instead of just pure damage the revivr gun should have a stun (when headshot)/ knockback effect (when chestshot). Please view the scrubs trailer for example of this. It would still do some damage to enemies and even increased damage with a headshot, but by no means it would be the headshot machine it is right now for skilled players. And, also I think that as sparks is right now, she almost encourages players to be more selfish and not do what they are supposed to do as a medic, that being revive and heal. I find that much of the time sparks players are so concentrated on getting the MLG headshots they dont revive and ultimately contribute very little to the team. Although there are many sparks players who do revive and contribute, the flip side of the coin is that many dont. I will talk about med packs later.
I know that most players are not able to go around top scoring on every server, in fact, it is not particularly common for a sparks to absolutely crush in a pub but nonetheless, it is possible. I do not play sparks very much, but on the last free rotation I gave her a shot. At first I was bad. After a while though, my skills with the revivr seemed to grow and soon I was able to get a few dome shots per match or more. My thoughts on this are that sparks is a support player, or, at least that is what she is supposed to be. It is like you take a pretty good merc for the average player and reward that player, for mainlining sparks until they become a really good sparks, by giving them a super OP weapon for a medic to have.
YEP. there we go, I said it. The taboo word that nobody likes to use in fear of getting shot down by those with opposing opinions. Ill say it again for everyone to become accustomed to.
Over-Powered.
Ok, semi-real jokes aside. What are my proposed changes?
Sparks Herself:
-A 5 to 10 health point increase, but, maintain her current speed. Differentiate her from aura a bit.
Weapons:
-Keep machine pistols as the main weapon
-Make the heavy pistols her secondary weapon as opposed to the weak pistols
-perhaps there could be “Sparks’ Empire-9” or “Sparks’ MP-400”. These would have some variety of stat boost such as a bigger magazine or a higher damage bullet. Nothing huge but something to make her weapons special.
Abilities:
-Revivr:
-Body shot Damage decreased to 15 (or 20) on medium charge (medium charge is max damage) from 65.
-Head shot damage is now 30 or 40 based on body shot damage.
-Landing a chest shot now applies a knock back effect for players who are not standing still (this means that people planting the bomb would not be able to be swatted about by sparks’ just spam firing at them)
-Landing a head shot would now apply some kind of stun effect involving distorted vision with bolts of electricity obstructing vision and maybe a slight movement speed debuff or something. nothing is set in stone.
-Slights nerf, but, it might be a good idea to decrease the amount of time before the gun overheats. just a thought.
-Small Med Pack
-Could be converted to the “Med Pack”
-Increase the instant heal to 40hp (up from 30hp)
-After the initial healing has taken place a regeneration begins which is 1.5 to 2 times the speed of regular regeneration.
-This would significantly increase her healing potential, bringing her in line with other medics. Now she doesn’t have to spams all her packs at one tankier character just to heal them to completion.
Conclusion:
-Sparks is an interesting, very unique, merc. I think that by changing her revive gun to be more “crowd control” and rewarding skilled players with various effects rather than insta kills. This is more in line with other medics. Not the same or some sort of duplicate of the other medics just more in line with what they are supposed to be.
-The med pack she uses would be greatly buffed allowing her to play the medic role much more effectively
-She would gain the heavy pistols as secondary weapons allowing her to be a bit more effective in combat (although already very effective, this is just a bit of a boost to compensate for the changing of the revivr)
-As a merc she could possibly have a health boost of 5 to 10 health points
I know many people would say that I am just trying to nerf the revive gun because “blah blah blah, you suck at the game and cant handle an 80 health merc ect ect ect”. In my opinion, what I have suggested here is a buff, not a nerf. I am not trying to make sparks a sucky character, just more of a medic for everyone to enjoy. With these stat changes she would be more rewarding for everyone to play rather than just highly skilled players and her revivr gun would still be effective against enemies just not incredibly annoying to play against like it can be now.
If you are one of the people that happen to think that the revivr should be able to headshot like mad and have one sparks dominate entire teams, then thats ok. it your opinion, and I have mine. I’m not here to argue I just want some input on the changes I have proposed.
As you can see, I have put quite a bit of thought into this and would like to hear what you think. @RazielWarmonic How bout you? I would love to hear what someone from Nexon or SD thinks of this.
Thanks for reading and have a Merry Christmas