Thank God Thunders Concussion Grenades Full Blinded Teammates at Release

(Adolf_Trumpler) #1

Thank you, Devs, for not fixing the bug where Thunder Concs full blinded teammates.

Thunder is one of the most teamwork intensive mercs in the game. A lot, I mean A LOT of people think he’s underpowered. I see a lot of stuff like “Why use concussions when you could just kill them with a frag” and “Thunder is useless next to nader and fragger”. He’s not. Flashbangs, along with invisibility are some of the hardest things to balance in the game. I’m going to make a comparison to CS:GO (I understand that CS and DB are completely different games balance-wise, but this will make sense). High Explosive Grenades in CS are rarely used. Getting a Flashbang instead is far more optimal. Why? Because a Hand Grenade kills, at most once person. One slow to react, or unlucky person. That is precisely why Fragger is allowed to cook his grenades. Because, unless the enemy team is filled with morons they will use those ample three seconds to move away from a grenade. Fragger has to be allowed to cook grenades, otherwise they’re almost useless!

Thunder, on the other hand, should never be allowed to cook concs. He’s a sample scenario, depicting why Thunder would have been insanely powerful at high levels. Imagine you’re Jackal on Bridge, and you’re trying to push through the barrier. The enemy team is going to commit five players to guard the generator, so lets assume they’ve got three set up on upper level. Along comes Thunder. He cooks a concussion grenade, throws a pop flash and then the rest of his team rushes into the room and kills the three fully blinded and slowed enemys. Even better, you time your push at 0:00 on the spawn timer, so the rest of the enemy team has to retake generator with two people. Fragger would have been useless in this situation, but Thunder just won an objective, easily.

Thunder wasn’t released with this bug fixed, which is good. However, once you hit upper level gold on the rank chart, you will start losing to people who have played CS GO and know how good a well place Flashbang is, along with a little team coordination. I feel that Thunder is balanced with Grenade Cooking and full team flashes, but he might need a little buff to his health or speed.

TL;DR y’all need to git gud.

(Mr-Penguin) #2

The thing is, concs are still notoriously unreliable, its easy to see the conc coming so that you can turn away and negate about 90% of the actual “concussion” effect even if it lands right next to you. As a plus, often the conc will fail to do its job at actually slowing people down, and they can still jump around and shoot the Thunder they know is lumbering around the corner trying to shoot them. I can’t think of a single situation where I thought that a conc would be way better than a frag. Killing/injuring is better than an easily avoidable, unreliable nonlethal flash and “concussion”.

[quote=“Adolf_Trumpler;21335”]
Thunder wasn’t released with this bug fixed, which is good. However, once you hit upper level gold on the rank chart, you will start losing to people who have played CS GO and know how good a well place Flashbang is, along with a little team coordination.

TL;DR y’all need to git gud.[/quote]
Never expect teamwork in a pub game.

(Adolf_Trumpler) #3

[quote=“derpypenguinz19;122806”]The thing is, concs are still notoriously unreliable, its easy to see the conc coming so that you can turn away and negate about 90% of the actual “concussion” effect even if it lands right next to you. As a plus, often the conc will fail to do its job at actually slowing people down, and they can still jump around and shoot the Thunder they know is lumbering around the corner trying to shoot them. I can’t think of a single situation where I thought that a conc would be way better than a frag. Killing/injuring is better than an easily avoidable, unreliable nonlethal flash and “concussion”.

That’s why you would cook a conc and throw it around corners. When you say “Never expect teamwork in a pub game”, you’re basically saying that this Merc is balanced because people don’t ever use him correctly. That’s not a very strong argument.

(Mr-Penguin) #4

[quote=“Adolf_Trumpler;122807”][quote=“derpypenguinz19;122806”]The thing is, concs are still notoriously unreliable, its easy to see the conc coming so that you can turn away and negate about 90% of the actual “concussion” effect even if it lands right next to you. As a plus, often the conc will fail to do its job at actually slowing people down, and they can still jump around and shoot the Thunder they know is lumbering around the corner trying to shoot them. I can’t think of a single situation where I thought that a conc would be way better than a frag. Killing/injuring is better than an easily avoidable, unreliable nonlethal flash and “concussion”.

That’s why you would cook a conc and throw it around corners. When you say “Never expect teamwork in a pub game”, you’re basically saying that this Merc is balanced because people don’t ever use him correctly. That’s not a very strong argument.[/quote]

While people can use him effectively, his signature ability doesn’t really “concuss” people and the flash can be completely avoided by looking away. Add that to his large hitbox and mediocre/meh weapons, that creates a merc I wouldn’t play over Fragger.

He is effective with teamwork, but why would you flash a group of enemies and move in than airbursting a cooked frag grenade in their face and just get rid of them when the spawn timer resets?

(Adolf_Trumpler) #5

[quote=“derpypenguinz19;122809”][quote=“Adolf_Trumpler;122807”][quote=“derpypenguinz19;122806”]The thing is, concs are still notoriously unreliable, its easy to see the conc coming so that you can turn away and negate about 90% of the actual “concussion” effect even if it lands right next to you. As a plus, often the conc will fail to do its job at actually slowing people down, and they can still jump around and shoot the Thunder they know is lumbering around the corner trying to shoot them. I can’t think of a single situation where I thought that a conc would be way better than a frag. Killing/injuring is better than an easily avoidable, unreliable nonlethal flash and “concussion”.

That’s why you would cook a conc and throw it around corners. When you say “Never expect teamwork in a pub game”, you’re basically saying that this Merc is balanced because people don’t ever use him correctly. That’s not a very strong argument.[/quote]

While people can use him effectively, his signature ability doesn’t really “concuss” people and the flash can be completely avoided by looking away. Add that to his large hitbox and mediocre/meh weapons, that creates a merc I wouldn’t play over Fragger.

He is effective with teamwork, but why would you flash a group of enemies and move in than airbursting a cooked frag grenade in their face and just get rid of them when the spawn timer resets?[/quote]

I’m feeling like you haven’t actually read my post in its entirety. I’ll requote a little bit[quote=“Adolf_Trumpler;21335”]

Thunder is one of the most teamwork intensive mercs in the game. A lot, I mean A LOT of people think he’s underpowered. I see a lot of stuff like “Why use concussions when you could just kill them with a frag” and “Thunder is useless next to nader and fragger”. He’s not. Flashbangs, along with invisibility are some of the hardest things to balance in the game.

TL;DR y’all need to git gud.[/quote]

Here’s a sample scenario, depicting why Thunder would have been insanely powerful at high levels. Imagine you’re Jackal on Bridge, and you’re trying to push through the barrier. The enemy team is going to commit five players to guard the generator, so lets assume they’ve got three set up on upper level. Along comes Thunder. He cooks a concussion grenade, throws a pop flash and then the rest of his team rushes into the room and kills the three fully blinded and slowed enemys. Even better, you time your push at 0:00 on the spawn timer, so the rest of the enemy team has to retake generator with two people. Fragger would have been useless in this situation, but Thunder just won an objective, easily.

(Mr-Penguin) #6

[quote=“Adolf_Trumpler;122812”][quote=“derpypenguinz19;122809”][quote=“Adolf_Trumpler;122807”][quote=“derpypenguinz19;122806”]The thing is, concs are still notoriously unreliable, its easy to see the conc coming so that you can turn away and negate about 90% of the actual “concussion” effect even if it lands right next to you. As a plus, often the conc will fail to do its job at actually slowing people down, and they can still jump around and shoot the Thunder they know is lumbering around the corner trying to shoot them. I can’t think of a single situation where I thought that a conc would be way better than a frag. Killing/injuring is better than an easily avoidable, unreliable nonlethal flash and “concussion”.

That’s why you would cook a conc and throw it around corners. When you say “Never expect teamwork in a pub game”, you’re basically saying that this Merc is balanced because people don’t ever use him correctly. That’s not a very strong argument.[/quote]

While people can use him effectively, his signature ability doesn’t really “concuss” people and the flash can be completely avoided by looking away. Add that to his large hitbox and mediocre/meh weapons, that creates a merc I wouldn’t play over Fragger.

He is effective with teamwork, but why would you flash a group of enemies and move in than airbursting a cooked frag grenade in their face and just get rid of them when the spawn timer resets?[/quote]

I’m feeling like you haven’t actually read my post in its entirety. I’ll requote a little bit[quote=“Adolf_Trumpler;21335”]

Thunder is one of the most teamwork intensive mercs in the game. A lot, I mean A LOT of people think he’s underpowered. I see a lot of stuff like “Why use concussions when you could just kill them with a frag” and “Thunder is useless next to nader and fragger”. He’s not. Flashbangs, along with invisibility are some of the hardest things to balance in the game.

TL;DR y’all need to git gud.[/quote]

Here’s a sample scenario, depicting why Thunder would have been insanely powerful at high levels. Imagine you’re Jackal on Bridge, and you’re trying to push through the barrier. The enemy team is going to commit five players to guard the generator, so lets assume they’ve got three set up on upper level. Along comes Thunder. He cooks a concussion grenade, throws a pop flash and then the rest of his team rushes into the room and kills the three fully blinded and slowed enemys. Even better, you time your push at 0:00 on the spawn timer, so the rest of the enemy team has to retake generator with two people. Fragger would have been useless in this situation, but Thunder just won an objective, easily.

[/quote]

Assuming this scenario is in a comp game, then you could easily flank through the left building going through the balcony and then kill the idiots that set up up there with a well placed frag or stickies or grenade launcher or simply heavy firepower.

Alternatively, you could just bombard the generator with explosives and destroy it without having to deal with the defenders.

And Thunder can’t cook concs anymore. They’re on a 1.6 second fuse. Before the nerf, he was at least useful in specific situations. Without the cooking, it’s very easy to turn away from the conc and negate almost all of the effect.

(Adolf_Trumpler) #7

[quote=“derpypenguinz19;122814”]
And Thunder can’t cook concs anymore. They’re on a 1.6 second fuse. Before the nerf, he was at least useful in specific situations. Without the cooking, it’s very easy to turn away from the conc and negate almost all of the effect.[/quote]
Here is where I feel like your reading comprehension is a little lacking. Not trying to insult you, just please reread fully and restate in your own words so we can agree that we comprehend it?

(Adolf_Trumpler) #8

[quote=“Adolf_Trumpler;21335”]
so lets assume they’ve got three set up on upper level. [/quote]
Let me elaborate. Three on the upper level, two in the building across the street to prevent flanks and shooting.

(Mr-Penguin) #9

[quote=“Adolf_Trumpler;122816”][quote=“derpypenguinz19;122814”]
And Thunder can’t cook concs anymore. They’re on a 1.6 second fuse. Before the nerf, he was at least useful in specific situations. Without the cooking, it’s very easy to turn away from the conc and negate almost all of the effect.[/quote]
Here is where I feel like your reading comprehension is a little lacking. Not trying to insult you, just please reread fully and restate in your own words so we can agree that we comprehend it?[/quote]

Bulleted list it is then.

  • Thunder can no longer cook concs
  • 1.6 second fuse
  • With cooking, they were useful, without cooking, they’re useless

And don’t forget:
"Assuming this scenario is in a comp game, then you could easily flank through the left building going through the balcony and then kill the idiots that set up up there with a well placed frag or stickies or grenade launcher or simply heavy firepower.

Alternatively, you could just bombard the generator with explosives and destroy it without having to deal with the defenders."

And if that scenario was in a pub game, then I’d be surprised to see anybody play Thunder.

(Adolf_Trumpler) #10

Read for comprehension&meaning now.

(Mr-Penguin) #11

Thread TL;DR
“Fragger sucks because he can cook his nades and kill people while Thunder can non-lethally flash people, therefore Thunder is perfectly balanced”

That’s your thread. Comparing DB to CS:GO is a pretty bad idea. You’d be surprised how many kills you can get with a single Fragger nade. At both high level play and pubs, Fragger is superior to Thunder due to the fact that Fragger’s grenades can kill and Thunder’s can’t, making Fragger both better as a lone wolf in pubs and as the pointman of a coordinated push in comp.

Don’t get me wrong, a non-lethal stun is a great idea. Thunder would be good if he had the speed/weapons to follow up a successful concussion grenade. But he can’t, so a grenade that kills and injures people is obviously superior to one that is non-lethal and requires a follow-up attack to finish the job.

(Adolf_Trumpler) #12

If you really want to try that hard to be bad, I guess I’ll just have to live with it.

Thunder relys on teamwork, hence being useless outside of high level comp. Fragger nades can kill one, maybe two low health mercs, whereas thunder nades can wipe a team and easily take an objectivT

(Mr-Penguin) #13

And I’ll just link this here…

They’ve basically been saying everything I’ve been saying. The flash is easily avoidable and can’t be cooked, and Fragger’s nades are superior due to the fact they do damage and are cookable.

(Adolf_Trumpler) #14

Try harder. Learn to read for meaning

(Mr-Penguin) #15

[quote=“Adolf_Trumpler;122823”]If you really want to try that hard to be bad, I guess I’ll just have to live with it.

Thunder relys on teamwork, hence being useless outside of high level comp. Fragger nades can kill one, maybe two low health mercs, whereas thunder nades can wipe a team and easily take an objectivT[/quote]
One frag grenade can deal 180 damage over a considerable area. That “low health” for you? Also, cooked grenades from around a corner often leave enemies with no time tor react, leavinng them dead.

A conc can’t wipe a team unless the follow up is incredibly good. And one or two people versus “an entire team” of eight to five people who can easily avoid an uncooked flash grenade simply due to the fact that they are high level comp players that have played a lot and know how to avoid the flash… that’s no contest, especially with Thunder’s enormous hitbox that effectively gives him less health than Fragger because more bullets can hit him.

I’m seriously wondering why anybody would think Thunder is better in comp than Fragger.

(Adolf_Trumpler) #16

I’m seriously wondering if you’re actually reading what I wrote. You’re getting the wrong point, and not even bothering to consider than in the scenario I presented I wrote that Thunder would be able to

-Cook his grenade
-Not blind his team

(Szakalot) #17

[quote=“Adolf_Trumpler;122828”]I’m seriously wondering if you’re actually reading what I wrote. You’re getting the wrong point, and not even bothering to consider than in the scenario I presented I wrote that Thunder would be able to

-Cook his grenade
-Not blind his team[/quote]

your talking out your ass.

conc is very weak atm. and all the weaker in ‘high level play’. Nobody would ever take thunder over fragger.

It is very clunky to blind opponents, and usually it doesn’t do anything anyways.

(Adolf_Trumpler) #18

Got any reasoning for that?

(Szakalot) #19

sure:

how often do you get to completely blind 3 opponents? Better yet ‘high level comp’ opponents? In the scenario you describe there is no feasible way to throw the nade in that would make every defendant blinded, unless you throw it from the far end of the street; in which case you cannot contribute to the fight, so your basically making a 4v5 to be able to throw a nade in.

In any other scenario there is ample time for those players to look away. Also, should any of them be blinded, they can just fall back a bit, hold the high ground and still wait for people to come up the stairs and get slaughtered.

Alternatively, you can throw a frag nade and EASILY blow at least one of the defenders, making for an instant advantage in the following firefight.

Not that anyone would push the room, as people spam generator with explosives to blow barricade anyways.

([WAR]Larknok1) #20

Reasons why Thunder’s concs are horrible and unusable:

  1. No cooking (OP correctly suggests they should be cookable.)

  2. The flash affects everyone facing the conc equally with friendly fire on (OP correctly says it shouldn’t affect your teammates.)

  3. The flash affects only those facing it, so if you throw it into a crowd of four mercs, all facing you, you flash only two of them, assuming they don’t look a tiny bit to the left or right first. You’ll also likely flash yourself for the full 4 seconds.

  4. The flash can never be used in an open room, but only ever around corners. Good luck flashing two enemies pushing onto you and then killing them in an open space without flashing yourself. The analog with Fragger is executed simply.

  5. The concussion effect itself (hitting with the inner radius, of similar size to the frag’s inner radius) does (wait for it): nothing. That’s right. A direct hit gives them a trippy shake for half a second which does not impair aim whatsoever. It also slows by 5-10% which drops off over time and with distance to the center of the concuss. Good luck noticing the difference. Keep in mind that this is supposed to be the equivalent of 180 damage. News flash: it’s not.

  6. Unlike in CS:GO, you actually need to land a few shots to kill enemies in Dirty Bomb. So you can’t simply “flash and rush in” to sweep up the enemy team. No. You get about 4 seconds with a full flash to move your entire team into CQC range and kill the flashed enemies that are now backing away, while the unflashed enemies are simply unloading onto you. To further add complexity, you’ll also have no clue right away who is flashed and who isn’t. If you watch the flash go-off to verify this info, guess what? You’re flashed for 4 seconds. Also, good luck coordinating a push like this, even on a professional team. Moreover, a flashed enemy can simply blind-fire in the direction their screen is saying they’re getting shot from, and use the hit-markers and enemy health (which appear even while flashed) to continue fighting.

TLDR;

This is a bad post and you should feel bad. Thunder is in a horrible state right now, and he absolutely does not need backwards and mis-informed opinions like these floating around.