Sticky loads

(Drac0rion) #1

Should Fletcher remain assault/engineer or should he still be tuned down to be more on par with the rest of the engineers?

If Fletcher was forced to require more than 1 bomb to kill ANY merc, his ability could be made more defense oriented, actually considering setting up traps instead of air bursting all the time.

The damage nerf could vary between 40-60, depending which mercs should die with 2 or 3 bombs. If the middle ground of 50 would be chosen, 3 bomb setup should kill any merc other than Rhino.

Simply nerfing it would be an overkill. To enable Fletcher more on defense, the amount of bombs he carries could be increased and maybe even the cooldown could be reduced.
Also the AOE when stuck on surface would probably need a buff in compensation, as the bombs might be difficult to set up and enemies might not get close enough to the bombs for sufficient damage.

While all of this would severely impact Fletcher, especially on offense, it shouldn’t be too drastic of a change, as Fletcher already required multiple bombs dealing with mercs over certain hp and he could still safely throw bombs on offense while playing around cover.

What do you guys think, have the nerfs over time brought Fletcher to balance or is he still your go-to engineer?

(TheStrangerous) #2

Was Fletcher originally suppose to play, like Scottish Resistance from TF2?

Setting stickies like ambush traps, instead of throwing them like grenades?

(Eox) #3

If you do this, there would be no point about playing Fletcher at all. Why do you want to set up a three stickybomb trap when you can litterally one shot anyone with a Proximity mine that doesn’t even require to be babysitted ? Not only it’s not fun, but it’s just inefficient.

Defensive Fletcher is a flawed concept from the start when Proxy already exists. If you want to make Fletcher more fair to fight against, you should impair the sticky bomb’s ability at direct combat, not the offensive use. This basically means making stickies ill suited for duel scenarios, but decent for flanks, clutches, or when fighting around corners/obstacles. Fletcher’s offensive side is also part of the identity of the merc, and it would truly be a shame to make him defensive just because it happens that Turtle and Bushwhacker are more suited for defense (and Proxy is a mess). Also, to be honest, the most recent nerf kinda hit him noticeably.

Instead of nerfing Fletcher to the ground, we could just bring a few modifications for defensive merc so they become a bit more potent in an offensive use. Not that much, just enough.

(woodchip) #4

If you look at the engis skills they are all defensiveish, so it’s reasonable to conjecture that sticky traps might have been part of Fletcher’s design at some point.

At this point though that isn’t his identity, and it turns out having him be equally powerful on offense is reasonably healthy. It probably makes him too powerful in terms of ultra competitive play, but it’s not a big deal.

(GatoCommodore) #5

one sticky then one shotgun shot/a burst from the smg should do the trick to kill most 120hp mercs

it was easier to just spam stickies back then, now you actually need to use gun hybrid

(Noir) #6

All the engies are already defensive apart from Fletcher. I hope next engie will be more offensive than Turtle and Bush. Fletcher looks fine now, although he is really annoying in the hands of good players.

(Drac0rion) #7

I recently started playing engineers again and I really don’t find myself picking anyone other than Fletcher. (Usually there’s always about 5 Proxys per team, so why bother with gamemode xp missions on offense.)

First of all, I’d never compare Fletcher to Proxy.
While she’s probably the most popular merc around, I find her the most useless merc in the game.
Not because of player performance, but due to her low hp and her ability that has probably the easiest counterplay of all, just listen and watch your step.
On average, I still die to a proxy mine about twice a game, while trying to advance during a 1vs1 situation and I just end up too focused on the enemy rather than my surroundings.

The only reason I still find sticky bombs worth a nerf is due to the HP diversity. I don’t find it fair for an engineer to just point and click one hit kill any merc with nearly no counterplay if you happen to be out in the open. Currently Fletcher can still OHK 5 mercs when stuck,
while the rest of the mercs have time vs Fletcher throwing>detonating>switching to a gun>shooting.
If the nerf would go through, lets say 50dmg(+15 when stuck), Fletchers TTK vs any merc would depend on their health pool and it wouldn’t enable OHK offensively. It really wouldn’t be too big of a nerf on him overall, it would just force Flether to play smarter.
Instead of just jumping around the map and starting combat by blowing up 75-90hp from each merc before bothering with gunplay, the more tactical players could set up bombs in doorways, spawn routes and objectives.
It would enable Fletcher in many more ways than he is currently used for.

I’m really happy with this feedback though, I’ve suggested ways to make engineers overall more potent on offense before, but that time I just got sh*t on.
I think even some easy adjustments could add a lot to the offensive capabilities of Proxy, Bushwhacker and Turtle, but I think that might deserve another topic to keep my walls of text easy to understand with some simple explanations.

(watsyurdeal) #8

To be honest I’ve always wanted him to have less, more powerful on stick stickies. But that’s just me, I don’t see the point in Fletcher having more than 2 stickies.

At the very least it’d be cool to see him with cards that have exlody and something that increases direct stick damage to 110 total

(SaulWolfden) #9

Nerf his HP to 100 (keeping his movespeed the same since he’s faster than Bush and Turtle) and he’ll finally have a downside.

#10

Guess I’m one of the few that don’t believe Fletcher is overpowered. Best engineer and definitely a top merc, but most Fletch users seem to be mediocre. I like him and wouldn’t be against some small tweaks, though. He’s not that big of a problem to me at all.