The only thing remotely good about Sparks is her Revivr. Aside of that she suck in every aspect.
If fact, she could get 6 med packs instad of 4, since calling her medic at this point is rather silly. Mostly you heal yourself with them, due to her subtle nature she cant really take much punishment nor cause much damage due to her weak weapons.
Tone down her Revivr and she will be a total bust, since its like 80% of her strength.
Yeah, she can revive from a distance, but main point of medic is to actually prevent teammates from dying in the first place and she suck on that part.
Plus, Revivr must be charged to be effective and i lose over half of downed teammates to gibs due to that. Same with “sniping”.
On top of that effectivenes of Revivr plummet in enclosed spaces, combined with weak weaponry and low health, she is purely ranged merc, a weak one at that.
Sparks the sniper
yup - this is the change being considered.[/quote]
I thought this was a bug, not intentional. Good though, it’s stupid that you can’t shoot a ragdoll as it falls but it can be revived. Hell even if it couldn’t be revived it’d be dumb.
[quote=“stealthyBass;34883”]
Just look hard in her direction and she falls over. A well played Sparks is hard to kill sure but any of the Mercs are like that if you can play them well.[/quote]
Exactly, her low health is her downside! Take advantage of it.
“take advantage of it” - when she is on the other side of the map but still able to rez the guy you just shot down, very insightful
[quote=“Szakalot;34930”][quote=“immenseWalnut;34923”]
Also, as best as I can tell, shots that hit a target as they are falling into the downed state don’t seem to count until the animation is over and they are on the ground.[/quote]
yup - this is the change being considered.
[/quote]
I could live with that, as long as the fall down animation speed was increased. I would rather have the spinning body effect removed though, that one not only looks odd, but it allows players to shield their heads after they have been downed.
She is great at reviving. I don’t find her OP, because more often then not teammates aren’t worth reviving half the time in pubs. I only bother to play a Medic when my teammates are halfway competent. If you have a decent team you are better off playing SB anyways.
I do hope that the people who complain over Sparks own her themselves and have actually tested how she plays.
You do realize that the gun needs to charge before delivering true damage? And that you cannot hold it charged without it draining very rapidly, leaving it in-operable for several seconds?
This is another case of some players being annoyed by a class and ability and mislabeling it as “overpowered”. Anybody who has put serious time into this game would not consider Sparks overpowered in regards to completing the objectives and in team play in general. She is useful, especially for ranged reviving and maybe even doing a bit of sniping but she’s SUPPOSED to be useful. On the flip side she has an extremely weak primary weapon and her heal packs can’t keep a team up and can’t even keep a rhino up. And she has no HP and unlike Aura can’t sit in a heal station.
So just because you don’t think she should be able to snipe with the med gun, despite the extremely obvious limitations, doesn’t mean it’s overpowered. I freaking hate martyrdom despite rarely ever getting hit by it. But it still annoys me that it’s even in the game. However, I will never call it overpowered because it’s not (as of this writing). It’s only randomly annoying when somebody blows up behind me that I didn’t see (which is rare) or a teammates blindly walks over them. Rhino is also annoying but I’d never call him OP in his current state.
So, before you call something OP you should probably ask yourself if you’re annoyed by it or if it’s ACTUALLY overpowered. Just because you died 4 times to a headshot from a Sparks who is pretty good with the Revivr on offense doesn’t mean they carried their team. She is the hardest medic to carry a team with…I’ve tried. And I have a rather long and distinguished competitive Q3 career and always favored the rail gun. You can carry your team with Sawbonez in revives, healing and killing but I don’t see people calling him “OP”.
Just leave her alone, there’s nothing wrong with the Revivr, especially considering how much a Sniper Rifle simply outclasses it.
That and the Revivr is the tradeoff for having machine pistols, a weapon that is a secondary for virtually every other character.
Plus, to top it off, she is incredibly squishy, if you rush her like she is a Sniper, she’ll die like one…arguably faster than Vasilli…which begs the question why people bitch about her, and not the fact that he’s arguably an effective close range class.
It’s been said in other threads, but if you think her damage is op, try using her. Her revived is the hardest gun to hit with reliably. If a sparks is racking up kills, it’s because the player is really good.
[quote=“Daergar;35080”]I do hope that the people who complain over Sparks own her themselves and have actually tested how she plays.
You do realize that the gun needs to charge before delivering true damage? And that you cannot hold it charged without it draining very rapidly, leaving it in-operable for several seconds?[/quote]
Believe me, I’m not calling her OP just because I hate her. I frequently play her, every single time I get waterboy. It feels like abuse, and I know I’m pissing the enemy team off to the nth degree.
And it’s not her killing ability that makes me call her OP, that’s just icing. Her revive - to full health - efficiency is just too good.
But you can revive people to full health or near it with Get-up and a little charge time while also being way better at killing people and keeping your team healed.
On a random pub I can carry with a spark from behind a whole team. And it for sure feels like she is overpowered. I die less and get many heals and also frags.
But yea, its a pub with a lot of random players without a decent skill. Its like that with every merc I can handle.
On MM getting enemies who are skilled its much more difficult. The charging & draining makes it very difficult to handle and in a 1vs1 you will lose for sure if you don’t hit with your first shot.
Next cups, where a lot of skilled people get together will show if he really is overpowered 
On pubs and also on public MM you can’t see this properly.
You even mentioned a 2vs1 being unfair. You are not supposed to win that. Get a second guy shooting at the target, it’s a 2vs2 and you will win.
The Sparks can be as skilled as she likes, she can only perfectly support into a 30° cone at the same time, otherwise an instant-revive is impossible.
That’s btw. exactly the problem all medics have - people only see the offensive merc, not the one charging pads and biding their time to shine. It’s a 2vs1 situation all along, and you will lose if you ignore the support. You don’t really expect to charge at the stationary MG and stab them right into the face and still win, do you?
I think the difference is that if she gets the right vantage point she can cover people on 2 sides of the map at once, or more quickly be in range to help someone in trouble.
[quote=“RuleofBooKz;34863”]id already suggested making it different keys / buttons for the heal beam vs the dmg beam. stops her just sitting back fully charged waiting to heal or dmg. not a huge difference but this is a very fast paced game and having to commit a full charge as a weapon or a medical assist slighly balances out the class.
Also adding a max range to the heal.
With this new development maybe a damage fall off over distance?[/quote]
Sorry but do u know that you cant hold it fully charged? Have you ever tried playing her yourself? You have a overcharge and it drains really quickly after it gone over the minimum line on the gun. You can maybe hold it in for 2 seconds after u fully charged it before it runs out of juice.
Later reducing damage over distance, seriously? What are u suppost todo with the gun at that point, use it in closecombat, charge it up and use it? You people seem to not know how to handle sparks.
I admit i play sparks alot, i snipe and ress people with her, i can only win a snipe fight against a vasilli if the vasilli is horrible. Your gun shines you have no high zoom and the gun starts to shake at max charge and seeing the battery draining makes it quite stress full. You need to charge it run around the corner try to headshot the sniper. You cant look at the sniper and charge it beacuse you will die. and after u turn around the corner you arent sure if the sniper is still on the same place or not.
And to the person who said that the gun do the same damage as a sniper, you are completly wrong. a sniper do way more damage. have a zoom and u dont ahve a timer to get off your charge shot before the gun overheats.
while i play with my friends i get the feeling that im doing a great part of holding the team up, im not making us more op than any other player who can play thier merc. And if i meet a sparks they die so freaking fast and might get 30% of the resses off. You just need to know how to counter it. If you killed someone far away and you see sparks coming to ress around the corner you shoot her beacuse her sight will get fucked up and she will miss beacuse of how horrible the hitbox for ressing is and the camera shake if u get hit. AFter that you just shoot the merc lying on the ground and she wont have time to ress him. She is so easy to counter if you only know how to play. I only got owned by 1 person playing sparks and that is my friend but he is insane in games and he owns with all mercs in this game. So please stop the whining that she is op, try her out and comeback and say what you think after that.