What Healing Station rework [i]really[/i] does (or supposed to do anyway)

(vdll) #1

I can’t stop wondering why devs chose to ignore all the sensible ideas people contributed towards changing/nerfing Aura’s heal (i.e. burst instead of steady heal / slower healing rate for station’s owner / healing as a buff canceled by taking damage). Instead we have Aura with healing as unbalanced as before, just more awkward to use.

I’ve read the change log, but it doesn’t make sense to me: why would you match fast moving merc with a primary ability not designed for “on the move quick healing”?

Since patch Aura has to choose: either camp near HS and waste her mobility or leave station behind. Leaving it too far behind makes it useless, leaving it unattended closer to objective makes it an easy target.

What do you want this merc to do then? What is her position in the current meta?

(R5on11c) #2

maybe that’s the point… you are out on the battlefield very quickly to heal your team but you can’t be everywhere. That was one of the factors that made Aura OP in the past.

(vdll) #3

Disagree. What made her op was extreme tankiness due to constant healing despite of taking damage. This feature is still there.

(Zenity) #4

You leave the station behind for your teammates while you swarm out and revive people (or harass the enemy), then return to it quickly. She still benefits from her speed.

(R5on11c) #5

You might be missing out that Aura is not supposed to be healing on-the-go . Aura is designed to be at the frontline the fastest and secure the position aswell as dashing out for revival. What she is NOT supposed to do is taking her healing station everywhere she pleases because THAT is one of the major aspects that made her overpowered in the past.

(vdll) #6

Problem is, reviving without follow-up heal leaves teammates very squishy. Get up augment can help, but there is basically one decent loadout with get up (Relief Close Assault), others are meh.
Perhaps I’m playing her wrong, but it still looks like Aura was nerfed in the least expected and counter-intuitive way.

(Zenity) #7

[quote=“convincingMollusk;16341”]Problem is, reviving without follow-up heal leaves teammates very squishy. Get up augment can help, but there is basically one decent loadout with get up (Relief Close Assault), others are meh.
Perhaps I’m playing her wrong, but it still looks like Aura was nerfed in the least expected and counter-intuitive way.[/quote]

It wasn’t unexpected to me. You could already tell where the devs were going with this when they reduced the health of the healing station. It is supposed to be a powerful artifact and play revolves around it when it’s placed. Taking it out quickly and efficiently becomes an interesting focus point of the game.

Nerfing the healing station’s ability to keep you alive while under fire would only have made it more similar in purpose to med packs. If you want a more roaming / aggressive medic who patches people up anywhere right after reviving them, then Sawbonez is your guy.

(Reddeadcap) #8

To be fair, the fact the it doesn’t instantly start healing is a good idea to fight against Aura’s that just drop it and fight enemies, now all we need is a symbol to mark the healing station rather than Aura herself for players to go get health.

(Viquel) #9

huge +1
The ground effect is somewhat generous, but still sometimes faulty and unnecessarily hard to find.

Not sure if it should be a replacement on aura’s symbol, better would be an additional, distinct, symbol - similar to Sawbonez’ dropped medpacks

(vdll) #10

[quote=“Zenity;16343”][quote=“convincingMollusk;16341”]Problem is, reviving without follow-up heal leaves teammates very squishy. Get up augment can help, but there is basically one decent loadout with get up (Relief Close Assault), others are meh.
Perhaps I’m playing her wrong, but it still looks like Aura was nerfed in the least expected and counter-intuitive way.[/quote]

It wasn’t unexpected to me. You could already tell where the devs were going with this when they reduced the health of the healing station. It is supposed to be a powerful artifact and play revolves around it when it’s placed. Taking it out quickly and efficiently becomes an interesting focus point of the game.

Nerfing the healing station’s ability to keep you alive while under fire would only have made it more similar in purpose to med packs. If you want a more roaming / aggressive medic who patches people up anywhere right after reviving them, then Sawbonez is your guy.[/quote]

I kinda main Sawbones anyway, but pre-patch Aura was a fun alternative for healing class.

(DadoPeja) #11

“Aura was a fun alternative” Yep cuz her station was OP !!

(vdll) #12

Actually, I dislike using op stuff in games, as it takes fun away (imo). I liked old Aura because of her ability to quickly heal whole bunch of people and then proceed to another group. I don’t find it enjoyable to duel people while being healed by station (wich is the main reason she is considered op).

(Reddeadcap) #13

huge +1
The ground effect is somewhat generous, but still sometimes faulty and unnecessarily hard to find.

Not sure if it should be a replacement on aura’s symbol, better would be an additional, distinct, symbol - similar to Sawbonez’ dropped medpacks
[/quote]What if they keep the cross/bullets inside a circle for a medic and fire support themselves maybe marked in blue and yellow similar to engineer deployables, cross inside a hexagon for health/ammo packs on the floor and finally a cross/bullets incide a segmented circle with spikes for a healing station/ammo station to match how they appear for the medic/fire support that can deploy/drop them.

(Szakalot) #14

the recent change severely limited her mobility + hp station.

Its fine now as she either bunkers in and opens up to counter attack, or roams around without the HP station.

(Zenity) #15

It actually even says though in her description. She leaves her healing station for teammates, leaving her free to roam and revive as needed. The healing station wasn’t intended to be that mobile in itself, so it’s working as intended now.

(Lumi) #16

I don’t understand all the hate around Aura. In a team based objective centered game like this medics are required and I have never felt frustrated because the enemi was taking position at a corner with a health station right there.

Why? Because that is how it’s supposed to be! These healing stations are quick fix stop pits for the team close to the main firefight front. I mean, if they want to advance, they need to leave the security of the healing station, unless they only want to do kills but that is shooting oneself in the foot considering the grand scheme of the game, a.k.a. the objective…

And what, people complain that aura can pick up and carry the station further? Of course she can, but meanwhile she’s the merc with lowest total HP and while on the move there is nothing to heal her nor her teammates.

And guess what! On top of them moving, now the previous point they were holding is free to move around, I agree if advanced correctly, the other team will not let you retake the previous spot. But this is why I love the maps!

There is always a solution to move around the enemy and surprise him. And I manage to do it consistently, because both teams seem to focus on the obvious route or just want to head down the way where they got killed to get some revenge. Maybe it is some CoD heritage.

But mark my words: griefing in this game won’t take you far. If Aura has set up shop in a place where she can repeatedly get you, then you’re not doing it right. Either your going at it from the wrong way or with the wrong merc, but you definitely need to change your tactics.

In the end, I like Aura as is, she’s weak but has a tremendous healing potential, while being effective at close range, and not so much at long range. Also, remember that the health station is extremely vulnerable to explosives. That is always a good technique to get rid of them.

(hotpinkReel) #17

What gives me trouble right now is something that satisfyingCove touched on. I experienced it in a few pub games. When the attackers had 3 or so Aura’s that weren’t brain dead, along with some tougher classes, then they just turned into an unstoppable juggernaut. You could never wipe all of them; say you flank and pop a healing station from a distance, but then they just set down another and suppress you until some of them can split off and finish you. That’s how basically every situation ends. They rez people, heal them, then chase you off or kill you. In either case, you can no longer retaliate.

There are three ways to deal with it. One, you do the same stuff with more Aura’s. Two, you get a bunch of Nader’s to try and crush the advance (or defense) through volume of fire. Three, and probably the most effective, you round up a bunch of Fragger’s and tell them to go to town. Hypothetically you could use artillery like Arty or Skyhammer, but that only works if they don’t spread out, which they probably would.

Point being that it forces very extreme solutions for very minimal effort. I don’t want to play a game where we have to fight fire with fire, where we need three Aura’s to be able to stand a chance against the other team. It reminds me way too much of Planetside, where people have to follow a very stringent and specific meta in order to stay competitive, because of poor balance decisions. If you absolutely want to win, then you’ve peg holed yourself, and from there you can kiss variety (and fun) goodbye.

Perhaps I’m being jumpy. I admit this is something of a knee jerk response. But it is something to think about. The input we provide, if it’s considered, could really shape the future meta. We ought to be very wary of this fact, regardless of whether I’m right or wrong about Aura.