The True Problem with Shotguns (and Aura)

(bubblesKeyboard) #1
  • I don’t feel shotguns are overpowered because I suck at them but I may have found the issue as to why they are a problem and why the nerf hasn’t worked-

The problem with shotguns is that light mercs are able to dodge very effectively whereas others aren’t. Therefore if you give them a shotgun they wont have any problem landing the 2-3 shots they need too before you get to land the shots you need too to kill them. I don’t know why but the movement in this game looks very choppy. My movement from my perspective is very smooth but when tracking an enemy it feels edgy for some reason - and I come from Quake.

SMGs are pretty powerful IMO. SawBonez’s SMG isn’t as powerful as the one you unlock with loadout cards - the Blishok (or whatever fancy name they gave it) (the one with the green dot sight). The problem with this is the damage drop off with them is very significant.

This leads to another problem with shotguns, which I believe has to do with spread. Shotguns have obvious damage drop off. However I believe it is spread that is the problem. If you have a shotgun that deals 8 dmg per pellet for 8 pellets up close, that is 64 dmg. 2 shot Skyhammer and 3 shot Fragger. Now if you drop that down to 5 damage from medium to long range, that is 40 dmg. 3 shot Sky and 4 shot Fragger.

What does this mean? It means that effectively the damage drop off for shotguns means you just need to land one more blast to kill someone. Not a very effective nerf. The problem is the spread of the pellets. This game is built to have low spread to increase the skill gap in terms of gun skill in the game. This is fine for guns that shoot one bullet at a time.

If you have an SMG that drops off in damage at range, that can usually mean 4-6 more shots for them to kill at long range. This is acceptable and expected.

However with shotguns at medium range, if you still manage to hit the majority if not all your pellets, it renders the nerf to the damage/range useless because you will still feel the damage of all the pellets together unless you nerf it to something absurd like 2 damage medium-long range. And you do feel this because the spread of the shotguns is so tight.

So effectively we have Sawbonez, a combat medic who isn’t as effective as Aura at combat. His character is perfectly balanced with strong healing abilities towards his teammates and nerfed healing abilities towards himself and an SMG with drop-off that is reasonable. Then we have Aura who heals herself just as effectively as others while standing directly on her healing station and a shotgun that seems to have very good range/damage from ranges that we would not expect shotguns to have.

I usually find I die to shotguns while engaging them from a distance that I feel would render their weapon next to useless, only to find out I was wrong.

This is ESPECIALLY frequent when I run into gunfights with Aura.

Say I am Sawbonez and I engage from medium range and begin to be successful only for her to turn the nearest corner and plunk down a healing station and come back at me with full health.

Mind you at this range it would take a lot of ammo to drop her because of damage drop off.

This would be fine as well, but then she starts to strafe in and out of the corner, picking off my HP with her shotgun at quite a significant rate for a shotgun while every time she strafes back out she’s at full HP again - negating the damage I did to her before she strafed into cover.

My only options are to rush her to try and destroy her healing station or gtfo.

If I rush her I run into a more effective shotgun blast and an Aura with infinite healing.

However it usually doesn’t come to this because at medium-ish range 4-5 shotgun blasts will drop me and I can’t heal myself as fast as she heals herself.

So my only viable option is to retreat - thus her winning a gunfight vs a medic who is supposed to be better than her at combat.

Mind you this doesn’t happen all the time because Aura’s aren’t always skilled.

This also happens when I am Skyhammer as well although I can get away before I’m dropped due to my tanky nature. With Sky I also have the option of dropping my airstrike on her but do I really want to waste an entire air strike on one Aura? Not to mention that the air strike takes time to call in, and in the mean time the Aura can run away.

Fragger can take out Aura easily with gib nades but this is more than expected as Fragger is the slayerest slayer merc in the business atm.

(RuleofBooKz) #2

your analysis of sawbones VS aura is correct from someone who is a sawbones player. usually its get in try to kill their healing station then get the HS u need to take them down. Most times you can get the station but get taken out - but without their station aura has lost the corner and hopefully allowing teammates to push.

If there are two aura with 2 stations forget it. Wait for spam to catch up.

What I find frustrating is being with teammates who just unload into enemies standing in a AOE heal effect - and so not doing anything but wasting ammo - and completely ignoring the health station (where its placed so u can hit it with line of sight - a good aura places the station so its not always the case). Just shoot the darn health station THEN shoot bad guys!

(insaneCylinder) #3

If aura puts her healing station behind a corner, you need to do the same with your medibags. You will have the advantage over aura if you keep distance and she won’t be able to follow you too far or your team mates will help you take her out.

She doesn’t “win” if you are still alive, tactical retreats are a good strategy especially for sawbonez and your rush strategy is particularly useless when you go mid-range vs cqc. Of course aura is going to “win” if you do that.

All in all, you should remember that you are a support class, a 1v1 between you and aura shouldn’t occur in the first place (ofc it sometimes will, but it should be avoided) you should throw bags at Proxy while she rushes or Vassili while he snipes.

(yellowCabbage) #4

I agree, the main problem is it’s hard as hell to hit the female model.

(bubblesKeyboard) #5

[quote=“insaneCylinder;9631”]If aura puts her healing station behind a corner, you need to do the same with your medibags. You will have the advantage over aura if you keep distance and she won’t be able to follow you too far or your team mates will help you take her out.

She doesn’t “win” if you are still alive, tactical retreats are a good strategy especially for sawbonez and your rush strategy is particularly useless when you go mid-range vs cqc. Of course aura is going to “win” if you do that.

All in all, you should remember that you are a support class, a 1v1 between you and aura shouldn’t occur in the first place (ofc it sometimes will, but it should be avoided) you should throw bags at Proxy while she rushes or Vassili while he snipes. [/quote]

It doesn’t matter if I do the same with my med bags, she heals herself faster than I heal myself - and regardless, if I’m being healed with med pack and I get hit, the heal stops.

Taking out an enemy is done for the purpose of gaining map control. If I retreat, she controls the part of the map I was fighting for. So I lose. Shotguns aren’t made for mid range.

Sawbonez is a combat medic. I should be able to take on an Aura 1v1 and win.

(RuleofBooKz) #6

All in all, you should remember that you are a support class, a 1v1 between you and aura shouldn’t occur in the first place (ofc it sometimes will, but it should be avoided) you should throw bags at Proxy while she rushes or Vassili while he snipes.

Aside from the fact sawbones is an “Assault medic” so you are not really understanding his role… In comp play with a co-ordinated team you are pretty spot on. Wait for the heavy hitters to bust up that choke point and then go in and support.

But please. Be just a “support class” in a pub? in a random pub u have to take action no matter your class because sitting back and relying on your teammates to do anything useful is a good way for nothing to happen except a loss.

Throwing packs as a Vassili - like sit back and just be a snipers medbag? thats funny. You’re funny.

(insaneCylinder) #7

[quote=“bubblesKeyboard;9641”]

Sawbonez is a combat medic. I should be able to take on an Aura 1v1 and win.[/quote]

No you shouldn’t. Not if you rush in to her range. You always need to stay in mid range.

@RuleofBooKz being condescending and elitist against other players isn’t going to win you the game. You do this all over the forum, but you yourself have absolutely terrible ideas about how this game is supposed to be played.
If you believe that every other player in your team is worthless then you need to re-evaluate. I can’t argue with someone who believes he can do no wrong.

(RuleofBooKz) #8

At mid range shotguns are still a huge problem. Most maps are short to midrange. Esp if its arua camped wit ha shotgun being a corner crab with AOE going. So “staying at mid range” wont help any more than turning tail and running.

Your mistake is to see anything i say as “against other players”. Not sure why you want to make it personal maybe u have a boring home life. Or maybe you’re one of those that think everyone should get a participation award and we are all equal so no one is better than anyone else? Its a competitive skill based game. People are better than others. Deal with it.

Im talking mechanics. Like enabling FF or how a character could be played. IF people have enuf skill to value a better mechanic that’s cool. If people are new or noob there are mechanics that cater to them too - whole servers. Under level 6 and perhaps in future FF disabled.

But if noobs or new players want to pretend that they are skilled simply because there are no mechanics that require skill over spam in game or worse: actively push against calls to enact those mechanics stating only elitists would want them - well that’s a different matter.

So save me the psychology tests mate. i dont think u have a clue either but im not here reading ur tarot or giving u a Rorschach test. i dont care about your opinion unless it has to do with how the game is played. Keep the personal stuff to yourself.

(Shackahn) #9

I read your post with interest, I have different views of the roles Aura and Saw play. I wont go into the shotgun mechanics at the moment as I truly believe that a change to them must be in the works.

I havent had any issues with choppy movement or edgy movement. Even the fastest Merc appear nice and smooth on screen for me.

I consider Aura a defensive medic, her healing station is great for holding a position. Defending objectives in particular is an area Aura really shines. Again without going into the shotgun issue, when she is not stood on her healing station she is significantly easier to kill. Her low health makes her weak and I do find the drop off at medium range on the shotgun is enough right now. I also think that retreating or trying to move the fight away from the healing station is a completely viable tactic, it shouldnt be viewed negatively.

Sawbonez on the other hand is great for supporting an attacking team, his high healing mobility allows teams to constantly be moving forward. I find his standard and loadout SMG to be great at all except the longest ranges. I also think he look generally cooler than Aura, not that it adds much to the mechanics.

If I had to pick between the two at the moment, I would probably pick Aura purely due to the strength of her shottie, but I personally prefer playing as Saw.

(coruscate) #10

Since I need to play aura because of the 30k credits I got some “good tactics” out for combat. U dont even need to put the healingstation around a corner, just set it in the alley you are fighting in, so it wont be damaged and heal u while in combat. Tada, even more power! Further if u notice an enemy is facing your healing station, just pick it up and set it again TADAA new 100 life for it! Baby im invincible!

(Szakalot) #11

the simplest solution is to just drop self-heal rate of Aura’s, just like Sawbonez medpacks are slow to heal him (is fine if the rate is little faster). All the same potential, but now it requires teamwork; and Aura is actually pinned to a location (can’t rely on a teammate to go where she wants to).

As it is now, Aura’s are rambo medics that plonk stations down wherever they encounter enemies.

(ChowYun) #12

Or maybe they could simply add a timer where u gotta be out of combat for a certain amout of time before the healing station will start working again. Because yes, right now its pretty stupid to face a guy 1v1 that has a healing station permanently healing him, while u’re trying to take him out, u’re supposed to destroy that thing first and then focus on the guy, and in the meantime u could be dead already.

(athleticInspiration) #13

Healing stations just need to do a little less healing per second. As of right now its impossible to kill anyone in a healing station 1v1, EXCEPT for aura if you hit all of your headshots. It should give the defensive team an advantage but not give Fragger invincibility unless you destroy it. That’s my opinion though. I think that anything that gives a significant advantage(even in a team based game is op) and right now healing stations do. It should be a combination of medpacks/healing station that makes it REALLY hard to take a corner(such as the first obj in terminal) not just one feature in the game.

(Amerika) #14

Healing stations healing effect should slow if the person was recently hit by a bullet. It should be a powerful tool but not a plop down and become impossible to kill without killing the station style of tool. Also, for every person standing in the aura field the healing power should be reduced by half. That would make teammates need to leave the field for somebody else who is lower making them vulnerable rather than a bunch of people sitting in one spot peaking and killing fast with the medic sitting with paddles ready.

Of course this won’t be as big of a problem in a match where people are coordinating what they are doing with voice coms. An Arty and Skyhammer can break up those parties pretty well along with Fragger nades. So this is more of a pub issue than anything.

(bubblesKeyboard) #15

-delete-

(Zenity) #16

I guess it comes down to a basic question: Should the healing station, alongside other healing abilities in the game, actually make you stronger during a firefight, or would be it be better if healing would be limited to healing back up after a firefight?

The latter could be easily accomplished e.g. by not healing players back up until a second or two after they took damage.

Both approaches have merit though, and I think it’s not easy to tell yet what is better for the game overall. The current station is obnoxious, but it also creates some interesting dynamics and possible counters. The fact that it can be deployed so quickly and flexibly is also a good match for the fast and aggressive nature of the game. Every character (aside from Arty perhaps) can dominate on its own, and that’s pretty damn cool.

Of course I get irritated if I run into an Aura and don’t have a quick solution to her healing station, but if I’m being honest, I can generally count the number of times that happens during a match on one hand. I think it’s just one of those things which tend to become more significant in your memory, like being taken out by a sniper you didn’t even know was there.

I would wait a bit longer and see how people adapt to it before making any significant changes. A good indicator whether something is truly OP generally is when top players all start to adopt that strategy. So far that isn’t happening as far as I can tell.

(Kaen) #17

I do not understand why people say auras healing is OP, if you have even semi-decent aim there is no issue. There have been plenty of times I can run in with my proxie or fragger and wipe out the enemy team on a HS.

(bubblesKeyboard) #18

The only way to take an Aura out on one is through explosives or headshots. However if she decides to hide in a corner with one, you can’t take her out. If you rush the corner you’ll get blasted in the face. So unless you’re Fragger or have nothing better to do with Sky’s air strike, that’s it.

(bubblesKeyboard) #19

[quote=“insaneCylinder;9662”][quote=“bubblesKeyboard;9641”]

Sawbonez is a combat medic. I should be able to take on an Aura 1v1 and win.[/quote]

No you shouldn’t. Not if you rush in to her range. You always need to stay in mid range.

@RuleofBooKz being condescending and elitist against other players isn’t going to win you the game. You do this all over the forum, but you yourself have absolutely terrible ideas about how this game is supposed to be played.
If you believe that every other player in your team is worthless then you need to re-evaluate. I can’t argue with someone who believes he can do no wrong.
[/quote]

…

Sawbonez is a combat medic. I should be able to take on an Aura 1v1 at mid range and win. But still I can’t because she heals herself faster than I can heal myself and her shotgun will take me out in 4 shots while my SMG suffers greatly from damage drop off.

And @RuleofBooKz is right to an extent. Most snipers aren’t effective in pubs (unless you’re chickenNwaffles) and usually don’t do anything for the team. There are special cases but most of the time this is true.

Sawbonez is built to be a passive aggressive medic. He can take on his fights if he has too. Aura is infinitely better at healing than he is. If he’s just there for support than Aura fills his role much more efficiently.

AND EVEN SO, most if not all Mercs have their support ability less effective to themselves as it is to teammates. This is especially evident with Sawbonez as his self-heal is practically the same speed as normal regen. Aura doesn’t have this, however.

(silverySack) #20

First things first, bubblesKeyboard is one of an extremely vocal minority claiming to speak for a majority of the community, as long as the devs are aware of this, its not an issue.

After extensive play time as Aura, I can say this is all a matter of skill lvl and pub games, in pubs i can choose to support my team or be selfish and go solo flanking. low skilled players drop like flies, high skilled players grind me into dust, healing station means nothing 1v1 if your opponent has better aim and movement.

In comp 5v5 Aura will have to support her team, so 1v1s against her should he highly unlikely anyway.