Was the damage falloff nerf to Sparks' revivr justified?

[Ritobasu]

[quote=“Ballto;145190”]you couldve just

i dont know

buffed vasili

that way no one gets nerfed and eveyones more or less happy but annoyed by snipers[/quote]
This, this this this this

[Tanker_Ray]

You Sparks users should be happy that your god damn penalty-less self healing wasn’t even touched.

383 loadout itself has absolutely no cons still.

Even besides the sniping, she was the most stable merc in DB who never run in to dangerous combat, always sniping enemies and team mates from behind.

I don’t think she is like super OP as the pre-nerf Phantom, but she was definitely powerful pick with the least risk.

Aura has exactly same stats with Sparks, and look how easy Aura dies because of her primary weapon’s range limit and how healing station works.

You guys should be happy that there is no such nerf like ‘Reviving team mate’s HP is reduced by range’

So mad Thunder doesn’t even have this amount of care.

[LifeupOmega]

[quote=“astoundingShellfish;143597”]And here Am I, thinking of why do the Engineer have more killing pwoer than the assualts, and why fraggers nade was literaly made uselss (besides a pointblank blast)
[/quote]

Go open a thread for that then. This is about Sparks and how she was blatantly broken in a competitive setting.

Honestly, there’s barely any difference. She’s still a game changing merc just by virtue of existing.

[SzGamer2271]

Getting one-shot killed by a nearby Sparks is annoying as is, but when it comes from a Sparks that is on the other side of the map? No. I do not think we do not need a self-healing sniper medic that can both heal and kill over such long distances with relative ease.

[sgtCrookyGrin]

The cons about Sparks

1. Lowest Health
2. Worst weapon set ups
3. Horrible Loadout Balance
4. Worst healer

The pros about Sparks

1. 383 loadout is Godlike (got it in gold from lead case XD)
2. Fast + small hitbox = god like powers when fighting from range
3. REVIVR can rev teammates, can kill a sniper who has a primary weapon intended for that role, 100% accurate across all ranges, and at the relative safety in the back of the map
4. Her meds have crazy healing potential for small mercs (such as herself)
5. And finally, she is hottest waifu.

The last reason is enough for why she needed a nerf

[JJMAJR]

Damage dropoff still isn’t that significant of a nerf. I’d like to see the REVIVR have its hipfire accuracy reduced. No weapon is 100% accurate in hipfire besides that weapon.

[Lumi]

Over and over we see bad balancing choices being made due to the biased ECHO results. And this is another perfect example. Sparks is hard to play. You really need to be a good player otherwise you’ll get crushed. Now this creates an imbalance in skill level of players who play Sparks. Newbies stay away and great players use Sparks because she is THE merc with the highest reward for highest skill input. Now this leaves ECHO data full of awesome players playing Sparks who are terribly efficient with her. Especially with Revivr kills.

Now this makes SD believe that Sparks is too easy to play and to get kills with, when in fact it requires a complete mastery of the merc. And it sucks to see her getting bashed on over and over. I’m afraid that one day she’ll be at the same level as Red-Eye with his high skill ceiling and little reward.

Sparks is already tough to play right, by reducing her effectiveness, more players will stop using her until only the very elite stick with her and still manage those kills. This will keep the bias up and we will see further unnecessary nerfs until nobody will be using her at all.

So I say, revert the change and start working on ECHO in order to get data vs player level or even just ELO level. Once you know which players are performing how with a certain class, then we’ll see more effective balance changes happening. Otherwise we just get these ridiculous changes.

[shreked]

i learned her in two games, her med packs are instant heal so i cant see the damn prob…

[WaffleMonster]

[quote=“Lumi;146822”]Over and over we see bad balancing choices being made due to the biased ECHO results. And this is another perfect example. Sparks is hard to play. You really need to be a good player otherwise you’ll get crushed. Now this creates an imbalance in skill level of players who play Sparks. Newbies stay away and great players use Sparks because she is THE merc with the highest reward for highest skill input. Now this leaves ECHO data full of awesome players playing Sparks who are terribly efficient with her. Especially with Revivr kills.

Now this makes SD believe that Sparks is too easy to play and to get kills with, when in fact it requires a complete mastery of the merc. And it sucks to see her getting bashed on over and over. I’m afraid that one day she’ll be at the same level as Red-Eye with his high skill ceiling and little reward.

Sparks is already tough to play right, by reducing her effectiveness, more players will stop using her until only the very elite stick with her and still manage those kills. This will keep the bias up and we will see further unnecessary nerfs until nobody will be using her at all.

So I say, revert the change and start working on ECHO in order to get data vs player level or even just ELO level. Once you know which players are performing how with a certain class, then we’ll see more effective balance changes happening. Otherwise we just get these ridiculous changes.[/quote]

All the top players have been complaining about sparks for months now. The nerf was not done off data. When played as a reviver, sparks is far easier to play than the other medics due to her low risk high reward nature. People focus too much on her sniping ability and not on what is actually broken which is her revive.

pdp redeye is currently op and has a far lower skill requirement than vassili, no idea what you are on about him.

[JJMAJR]

I think that Sparks should have an ability cooldown nerf too. She shouldn’t be able to be an invisible necromancer that causes everyone in her sight to be blessed with immortality.

[Apofenas]

Im my opinion she needed a nerf. But not this nerf. All in all Sparks just got removal of skill rewarding. Did it remove REVIVR head shot kills from close, mid range? - no. Only ones from long range and those really need a lot of practice and experience to make. If you have that good aim with REVIVR, may just take sniper and head shot people left and right with more selfish abilities and better hp.

It should have been different right the opposite - make REVIVR only long range option. Make REVIVR do 66% damage basicly and starting from 18m increace that damage to 100% at 36m.
But use this

[quote=“ThunderPro;145299”]
You guys should be happy that there is no such nerf like ‘Reviving team mate’s HP is reduced by range’[/quote]
So with bigger sniping potential, she suffers her reviving potential. I always thought Sparks needs to somehow choose between reviving and killing.

With this way the REVIVR can still head shot 90 hp mercs and lower in close range, but not as valible close-mid range weapon like sniper rifle (but for a different reason), however more viable revive tool.

[Jesus2]

[quote=“Apofenas;147538”]If you have that good aim with REVIVR, may just take sniper and head shot people left and right with more selfish abilities and better hp.

[/quote]

This ^^ Read it again and again.

Before the nerf Sparks was this merc we all have that always stays in your squad whatever happens. Since then I replaced her with vassili and just pop ennemies head all the game, even though i cant do it by jumping with jenius accuracy nerf and jumping.
So i went from useful medic getting 40+ revive per game and a few kills to selfish sniper picking off any players i see during all the game. Am i useful ? No. Or maybe in a sense i relieve pressure on my teammate by reducing the ennemy flow but am i as useful as i was with Sparks? not anywhere near.

Now people will say just play another style but why people cant get into their thick skull that not everyone find it funny to just take fragger or fletcher and boringly starts stomping everyone, and on top of that not everyone has the same playstyle and not everyone is good at doing that.
Yes in hand of some players Sparks was very strong but so is every merc (besides exception that clearly need rework). Its the playstyle of the character to play long range like that, and longrange headshot are totally not easy to do.

You all complain about how the revivr isnt supposed to be a sniper nor her main weapon.
Flash News: it is, do i need to remind you Sparks primary is a secondary (which by the way is gonna be nerfed too) ? you want to nerf the revivr damage fine give her a real primary then make it right.

“But she is a medic she isn’t supposed to have offensive capability” ,oh please this argument is so wrong, just by looking at the other medics we can see it, no one can tell phoenix or sawbones even Aura don’t have offensive capability , you want medics not be able to attack at all? Fine do that and remove the help up mechanic i don’t see why anyone should be reviving others if medics cant attack, super now you have reviving/healing only medic that no one will play in pub like in any other boring game.
No one plays the medic class just to revive and heal we all know that.

I can understand people thought she was a bit too good in everything because of some good players that made her very strong but then they should have nerfed her on where she wasn’t supposed to be that good, close range.

Maybe reverse the damage falloff in a “damage increase over distance” you make the damage starts at the lowest point they are right now after distance, and make them increase according the distance traveled to reach the damage point it originally had.
Unique game-play is kept, learning to shoot becomes rewarding she is now forced to stay away because close range most likely kill her and that’s done.
You all complain about those head-shot from the other end of the map, but we all know these doesn’t happen a lot if you are not stupid enough and even more rarely due to skill and not luck. If you start taking off offensive capability of medic there will be simply very few person playing them.

[sgtCrookyGrin]

1. Her REVIVR is a ability/weapon that wasn’t intended to be a weapon of sniping capabilities, the main and truest concept is that it is the most powerful reviving ability in the game, period. If you have a competent Sparks player who knows how to use the weapon to “revive”, not kill, you can carry your team to victory. I have seen a few Sparks players who have done this and in all my playtime never have I seen something soo fuc.king scary, the ability to keep the team up and apply constant pressure to you is insanely powerful, this is why hew primary is a secondary. She trades any form of killing potential for one of the best medic abilities in the entire game, that’s how the REVIVR should be played. But instead all I see now is some n00bs running around with 383 and spamming lazors everywhere, with at least competent aim you can deal half a chunk of health to most mercs in this game before the nerf.

2. “YOU” need to understand that she is not like any other medic in this game, even Aura is very different and they both have the same health and speed. She will never have the killing potential of other medics because (as stated above) she has the best medic ability in the game, the other medics can’t compete against something with that power of teamplay. That’s why people dislike her ability to take people down at range, having power like that AND having the best medical ability in the game is truly borderline OP, and the fact that sitting in the back was all you needed to do. Low risk and low skill ceiling yet overwhelming high reward. This is why she should keep this nerf, because truthfully this ability is just powerful when you also consider that Vassili and Fragger can’t gib anymore.

3. Medics first and most important job is to support the team, provide heals and revives. Balancing games on the competitive level is the most important thing to consider if you want the game balanced. Look at TF2, no one plays medic on PUB because he just doesn’t fulfil the power a Soldier can when playing alone. But on the competitive level, he is the most important class in the entire game, even on PUBs people praise you like you were Jesus giving them a Bugatti (yes, yes I intended that). If you think medics aren’t used for that, then your logic is impaired, because you can do that with literally any other class and better. Medics are the only class in the game that provide heals and revives, why else you would you play them? The only exception to this rule is Peenix, #solopeenixop. But I digress, what I’m saying is that you can’t possibly think that medics are used because they are good at killing, they can kill but they aren’t even designed around that intention. If they balanced medics on PUBs, then yep, no one would use them because Assaults, Engineers, Fire Supports, and Recons do better at killing than them.

[Apofenas]

Sure Sparks has an awesome reviving potential compare to other medics… but for team mates it’s only she does for one particular reason: 30 hp med packs.

As you stated she is different from other medics, who’s 1st priority is to heal and 2d priority is revive.

What is her primary again? Can someone tell? The REVIVR or machine pistol? So if REVIVR is not her primary, than 80 hp merc with machine pistol is some kind of epic balance. The REVIVR is her primary atm and it’s far from close-mid range weapon which this nerf made it. You need to charge it first and make a head shot and if you missed you’d be very lucky to get 2d shot ready…like with Moa or Fel-ix. REVIVR is not a sniper rifle, but a long range weapon.

Anyone who argues REVIVR nerf with “it’s aim is to revive, not kill people” and “It’s not her primary weapon” must consider giving her real primary weapon and real healing potential.

[Jesus2]

@sgtCrookyGrin
If the revivr point was ever to revive only, they would have never gave it any damage and it would be a revive only gun period so this “she isnt suppose to have any killing potential” you can stick it deep up your a** because its obviously not true, if they would have thought of like a reviving only gun when they made it it wouldnt have damage, so no your logic is flawed she isnt trading any killing potential for a “better medic ability”. And i cant give you any credibility if you think Aura has no killing potential while she can easily ruin a fragger with her blishlok if she is on her health station that can be hidden on the corner and to far for a grenade to destroy it because of Healing Reach.

And this “better medic ability” is only better in the sense that she can stay out of sight and revive. She can’t heal her teammate she have to wait for them to die. And if you have tiny bit of brain you will finish your ennemy with few more bullets right after killing them when playing agaisnt a sparks because unless she was already charging she will not be able to react fast enough to revive him before you finish him, and if she manages to touch him with an uncharged shot the guy will comeback with about 35% hp if she has get up so its still nothing to worry about. Its not because you cant adapt yourself to your ennemy that the ennemy is OP. Its like if you were saying Phoenix is Op cause he can revive himself. It takes no time to finish an ennemy on the ground right after shooting him and it will cost you five more bullet to prevent Sparks being effective.

To deal damage you need to aim the people thats why i propose nerfing the close range who is supposed to be the weakness of long range medic and which she is too good. Nerfing long range only nerf the unique playstyle this merc had. Shooting people at long range with this thing isnt easy and the ADS on it is Pure Crap so it should be rewarding, I persist to say close range REVIVR should have been nerfed not long range.

And sure sitting in the back is right now mostly safe but it wouldnt if Phantom would be correct and would be played because then you would have a merc countering those sitback merc like Sparks and Vassili. The lack of counter or the ineffectiveness of those one shouldnt be a motivation to nerf the merc lacking those counter, but a motivation to buff these counter.

“Balancing games on the competitive level is the most important thing” and that is simply the worst strategy ive ever heard about. No balancing competitive isnt the most important thing and especially not in DB, its a company they need profit to live. And the profit they will find it where there is the most players: Pubs. Because there is barely anyone playing Ranked, proof is you take 5-20 minute to find a match.

TF2 is not in anyway comparable its made by Valve its a big company with several sources of income and it has a unique economy ingame for Items and its a game finished since a long time ago. DB is an in developpement game with far less players and the most of them in Pubs and no real incentive to start spending money on the game right now for occasional players. TF2 can allow himself to start balancing the competitive scene cause its a big game with a solid player base already. DB is not even close that. Some might say its even a dying game. How many people left already because of unbalance and such thing? So no this way of saying competitive is not important is totally wrong at this state of advancement of the game.

If you think its too much agaisnt other mercs buff the other, i never understand the grenade cant gib bullshit anyway. Now all what is done on Sparks is ruining a unique playstyle that was a plus for the game. The only thing that may have needed a nerf on her is her close range capability and this only to give her a weakness agaisnt other merc.

So no this nerf was only made to satisfy whiny bad players crying on forum cause they was getting outskilled by a 80hp merc and they couldnt manage to play this merc. Now a playstyle is ruined. And i can already see that Fletcher is the next that will be destroyed, i cant count the Fletcher is op post on this forum. Again a playstyle is going to get shot down for the sake of bad player thinking they can take fletcher in CQC and this game will get more and more boring

[sgtCrookyGrin]

1. REVIVR can deal damage because the DEVs had a certain parameter to build Sparks around, the Scrubs trailer even shows her ability and of course it stays in the game because it was the idea at first.
2. Since when did I say Aura has no killing potential? Making stuff up isn’t going to help you.
3. The REVIVR is better because like you stated, it gives you safety and revival powers from all ranges. What’s so hard to understand about that power? And her healing is worse because balance reasons, she is like a necromancer, her team is just an army of zombies that she keeps bringing back from near death.
4. What do you think of me? A lvl 4 n00b? Yes I know how to play this game, and fighting a “competent” Sparks is very hard, I’m pretty sure even you have fought at least one of the few out there. She is not easy to fight against because she has a low skill and risk with high rewards.
5. Since when did you have to land headshots 24/7 all the time with Sparks? Just shooting the REVIVR at someone and landing the shots with competent aim is simple and easy enough at range. The problem isn’t about her getting headshots, the problem is that she had waaayy too much damage potential at that range and could soften targets up from relative safety.
6. Balancing games on the competitive level is the most important thing for “balance”, this game is aiming for actual CS:GO levels of competitiveness. Any game designer understands that PUBs are horrible places to create balance. If you look at ANY competitive game out there, they are based on the people who are skilled and fight on the competitive level, every game does that and even TF2. The reason no one plays ranked is because of a few reasons, and even you should know why. Ranked didn’t have any benefit until recently, and I still won’t play it because the benefit is still underwhelming. All because of this and how horrible MM can be, it just lead to people not wanting to play that anymore.
7. I compared TF2 because it has a medic, what’s wrong with that? It’s a simple example, and I never tried to compare the companies just the medic example, and thus again making stuff up again.
8. People left the game because it doesn’t hold your hand, it’s very skilled based on a different level compared to TF2 and your common COD. This game has had n00bs come and go and it was never because the game was unbalanced but rather because the game is challenging, requires commitment to become skilled, and is unfriendly to new players due to the economic choices of loadouts and mercs.
9. You can’t just say buff other mercs so you can fix one, that is unnecessary work and resources. Her CQC potential is absolute trash honestly I don’t see what your complaining about, 80 Health is easy to melt apart and if she hit you with her REVIVR, that’s just called good aim then.
10. And now you see what happens when you balance games on PUBs, I personally welcome this change at least but the Vassili nerf wasn’t necessary. Sparks can still be played with her unique style still, she just can’t deal absurd damage at range anymore. And I agree Fletcher isn’t powerful, I know how to counter him and I tend to piss them off -_-

Oh and don’t forget that Nexon technically owns the game, I don’t blame the DEVs if the game starts turning to shit later on.

[Lumi]

[quote=“WaffleMonster;147199”][quote=“Lumi;146822”]Over and over we see bad balancing choices being made due to the biased ECHO results. And this is another perfect example. Sparks is hard to play. You really need to be a good player otherwise you’ll get crushed. Now this creates an imbalance in skill level of players who play Sparks. Newbies stay away and great players use Sparks because she is THE merc with the highest reward for highest skill input. Now this leaves ECHO data full of awesome players playing Sparks who are terribly efficient with her. Especially with Revivr kills.

Now this makes SD believe that Sparks is too easy to play and to get kills with, when in fact it requires a complete mastery of the merc. And it sucks to see her getting bashed on over and over. I’m afraid that one day she’ll be at the same level as Red-Eye with his high skill ceiling and little reward.

Sparks is already tough to play right, by reducing her effectiveness, more players will stop using her until only the very elite stick with her and still manage those kills. This will keep the bias up and we will see further unnecessary nerfs until nobody will be using her at all.

So I say, revert the change and start working on ECHO in order to get data vs player level or even just ELO level. Once you know which players are performing how with a certain class, then we’ll see more effective balance changes happening. Otherwise we just get these ridiculous changes.[/quote]

All the top players have been complaining about sparks for months now. The nerf was not done off data. When played as a reviver, sparks is far easier to play than the other medics due to her low risk high reward nature. People focus too much on her sniping ability and not on what is actually broken which is her revive.

pdp redeye is currently op and has a far lower skill requirement than vassili, no idea what you are on about him.[/quote]

If her reviving ability is what makes op, then why nerf the killing ability? That doesn’t make sense. You’re just strengthening my point. And if you’re killing with a redeye pdp but not with Vasilli I just don’t get what you’re doing wrong with Vasilli… A one shot sniper is way more threatening than a pdp which requires multiple hits, even head-shots and no amount of hiding in a smoke can compensate for that.

[SaulWolfden]

I’ll disagree at least with the change of how much health she revives people with now getting nerfed, considering the gun’s purpose is primarily to revive.

[triteCherry]

You guys should be happy that there is no such nerf like ‘Reviving team mate’s HP is reduced by range’

Suddenly a torrent of Sparks users decend upon ThunderPro.

[Chubbster]

Yeah, tbh, I did think she was a little OP as an offensive character despite the high skill ceiling. However, I don’t really the see the point in nerfing her revive. Though if you’re making headshots a lot of the time, how bothered are the Spark mains?