Which mercs do you consider "balanced"?

(streetwiseSailboat) #1

I put balanced in quotation marks because everyone could have a few tweaks for better or for worse. I’d just like to list which mercs I think don’t have any major issues regarding balance.

  • Arty: I think he’s in a good spot now since the burst rifles are good and the Dreiss is beginning to catch up. His ability could stand a minor area increase but I think it’s fine currently.
  • Bushwhacker: His turrets are strong and annoying but counterable.
  • Kira: Like Arty above, her health and speed are good for diversity among the fire supports but I feel that the laser could be a bit faster.
  • Nader: While her nades are easily spammable, I think that the cooldown is long enough so another salvo doesn’t just unleash itself and short enough to keep her loaded.
  • Proxy: A lot of people say she’s the worst of the three engineers, but I’d say she’s pretty strong by herself. Just not as strong as the other engineers.
  • Red Eye: He used to garbage tier, but I think he’s in a good spot now. Edging a bit on the powerful side because of how the PDP synergizes with the smoke but that’s a weapon balance problem, not a merc ability problem.
  • Sawbonez: I don’t really have anything to discuss about him. He feels fine.
  • Skyhammer: Pretty good as is. Versatile and the air strike cooldown is long enough not to be a constant pain.

What do you guys think?

(SaulWolfden) #2

Arty (other than the bit where he has no indoor ability like Skyhammer), Stoker, Red Eye, Rhino (except on Aura stations), Sawbonez, and Skyhammer

(Eox) #3

More or less all of them besides Phantom and Thunder that might need some help, though there’s oftenly some small things that I wouldn’t mind to see changed.

(Ballto) #4

i think that every merc except for fletcher being a bit overpowered, thunder being a bit underpowered, and kiras sky anus being a bit overpowered on EXECUTION MODE ONLY everyones more or less fine

some individual weapons could use some TLC, namely revolvers and fraggers default LMG

(Dieu-Sama) #5

Nader: While her nades are easily spammable, I think that the cooldown is long enough so another salvo doesn’t just unleash itself and short enough to keep her loaded.

(Amerika) #6

It depends on what kind of balance you’re talking about. For pubbing I think pretty much everyone is incredibly viable and people can find success with. It’s when you move things down to a 5v5 in well played matches with even skill on both sides where you start to see the weaknesses of some mercs and the strengths of others.

(LifeupOmega) #7

Skyhammer, Sawbonez, Bushwhacker are the top three I can think of who are pretty much perfect now.

I’d say Nader and Stoker are pretty spot on too for the most part.

(darlingClaymore) #8

After playing fletcher, I seem to do better with him than my 50+ hour mercs and I have 10- hours with fletcher. All I do is spam stickies and I somehow get kills. I feel as if he needs to have more stickies with lower damage./

(RyePanda) #9

This is where you really see the balance. Proxy seems great in pubs, but in comp it is rare to see her where her ability and health make her a lackluster merc. Honestly, health seems to be the distinguishing factor. Sawbonez is a great choice because that 110 makes it so he can survive a sticky and 1 or 2 more shots. Fragger, has more health than nader, and a cookable nade, which makes him a lock on almost any team. (Yes, there’s rhino, but he completely lacks long range viability), On the side of fire supports, Kira is almost never used unless she is stopping defusal with her laser. Due to having 30 less health, she just does not hold up in a gunfight, which will be a majority of combat. Basically, health is a giant factor in higher level play, meaning that lower health mercs, though thy can be great in pubs, just aren’t picked as much.

(watsyurdeal) #10

Imo, balanced means the merc can be used in any enviornment and still have a niche that makes them useful.

So with that in mind, Thunder and Phantom are underpowered, and Sparks is a little bit overpowered.

Tbh all 3 of those are easy to fix, get rid of the Flashbang effect from Thunder’s nades and have his concussions blur and distort the vision of the enemies within it’s radius. Phantom’s walking visibility should be lower. And Sparks should lose her health packs, but the Revivr now heals allies as well. So she can’t patch herself up anymore, and there’s stronger importance on her Revivr, forcing her to Medic more and keep a closer eye on her charge meter.

(Black) #11

Thunder needs some love…

Problem: Thunder is a weaker Fragger with a weaker ability. Fragger does everything better than thunder as his grenades actually kill and destroy deployables and objectives while thunder only blinds and disables them for a short time.

Solution: Make his flash more different. Maybe give it the ability to briefly stop the ev, briefly stop/start a generator to work, or maybe even have it disable all the abilties of all mercs who are caught in it.

(PleasantWheat) #12

Yeah his concs need more utility than just blinding and slowing people. If they instantly destroyed any deployables caught in the blast instead of a 5 sec disable he would be so much more useful.

(doxjq) #13

Everyones going to have a different answer, because it all depends how well your play style suits certain mercs. While I can’t be bothered going into great depth about all mercs I personally find Proxy to be my most balanced merc.

Fast objective, enough said. She’s the fastest engineer, so she can get to objectives quicker than Fletcher or Bushwhacker. Her mines can be used both offensively and defensively and the Hochfir is possibly one of the most accurate (or is it actually the most accurate?) full auto funs in the game. While it is weak compared to the M4 etc I still find it faster to kill people as it seems to have less spread and easier to hit consistent headshots. Plus you can hiff her mines at bigger targets like Rhino/Thunder/Fragger and shoot them which is a nice bonus.

Kira is one of my favourite mercs to use, because Arty is my favourite and she’s more or less a faster version of him, but her laser leaves a lot to be desired imo. It can be good, but I don’t find it good objectively. I find it better for crowd control and taking out enemies rather than actually taking out the EV. The cool down for it is just too long. Arty seems to be the most balanced for taking out the EV I reckon, granted you’re using his airstrikes properly. Skyhammers cool down is just too long aswell. So in saying that, I actually can’t decide if Kira and Skyhammers cool down times are too long, or Arty’s isn’t long enough.

As far as over powered and under powered mercs go, other than what I said about Arty above, I don’t really know. I don’t really think any of them are over powered or under powered. In my experience (only 300 odd hours total I think) I find every merc is powerful when used correctly. You’ll find certain people are just good with people you’re terrible with and visa versa. The problem we all have is that when we see someone playing a merc really well we just assume they are an average player and that the merc is OP, but in reality there’s a good chance they’re just really well suited to that one merc.

I personally think the biggest problem with merc balance is that there is no limit in pub games as to how many of one merc you can have on a team. When you’re trying to plan an 8v8 and you are going up against like two snipers constantly throwing heartbeat sensors, 3 auras healing the 2 rhinos + a fragger or something, it makes for a very hard time doing anything, especially if your team is fairly average.

Edit: Actually, I will say I think Bushwhackers turret cool down is too long. Compared to Proxys mines and Fletchers nades cool down times, it just doesn’t seem fair for how easy it is to take out.

(Xan) #14

phantom 100%

(Reddeadcap) #15

have more on what mercs I find unbalanced rather than balanced.

Rhino: His minigun is alright, but people complain that it has too much range, I can as someone that uses him often say that the range on it goes poorly if you fire for more than a second and even with tap firing the accuracy is right off.

My only wish is that his movement speed with his minigun’s barrels spinning be the same as with it equiped, but without the ability to sprint or jump with it equiped, making him equally a good damage sponge for both attacking and defending objectives and helpful at leading a charge and making him less reliant on medic like the rest of the assaults.

Thunder: His original LMG, the K-121was more fitting for his purpose than the MK46, but hopefully the MK46 gets as much love now as the K-121 has received.

Also with his concussion grenades, their ability to slow player mouse sensitivity should be brought back, but their ability to blind removed as it’s completely useless.

Phantom: Phantom and the Katana were without a doubt unbalanced on their release, but along with changes that made perfect sense, changes were done that werent asked for or needed.
There were also changes that made sense if one was applied or another, but instead both were applied: Longer cooldown on his cloak, along with a shorter length for instance, making him more visible but the shield effect absorbed less damage (Perfect sense imho) along with lowering his health.

My thought on him would just give Phantom 120-125 health but the speed of a 110 health merc, but without a shield applied to his refractive armor and making it his cloak a tad quieter.

The rest in my mind fill their roles just right and the only other complaint I have is more directed to the FEL-IX rifle.

(Laionidas) #16

I personally would not have Stoker on that list. I played him on free rotation before the Timik buff, and allready found him quite OP back then. Timik buff was NOT needed!

The main issue I have with him is the combination of a very long area denial, and both instant kill and finish upon succesfully landing a fuseless/timerless molotov. Fuseless/timerless ability is fine, instakill is fine, area denial is fine, long term of area denial is fine, and perhaps instant finish is fine too, but the combination is just ridiculous, especially when paired with an offensive merc, with a good primary, health, and an ammo station.

(PleasantWheat) #17

He HAS to be that good to compete with the other fire support mercs. The molotov barely puts a dent in the ev but destroys mercs. Stoker is just skyhammer that has an ability that wrecks people as opposed to the ev.

(WaffleMonster) #18

I personally would not have Stoker on that list. I played him on free rotation before the Timik buff, and allready found him quite OP back then. Timik buff was NOT needed!

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Timik is still inferior to the m4.

(Ritobasu) #19

Fragger is kind of “unbalanced” because of his high hp pool, best primaries in the game, and really good ability. It can be irritating to take him on alone if he’s a good player, but he gets shredded like any other merc pretty quickly if ganged up on

Rhino is unfortunately highly situational, meaning he can be OP as fuck or possibly the most worthless of the Assault classes. I’d really like SD to take a look at this guy again so he becomes more versatile so he gets more play

Nader is the most balanced Assault merc right now, with her versatility on par with Fragger’s. She can’t do as well at range with her smgs, but she can shoot a volley of grenades and be extremely clever with her shot placement in ways Fragger can’t

Thunder is a giant blunder because his ability isn’t worth shit and overall inferior to Fragger. He’s still a merc with very high base hp and access to ARs, but not even that can really save him

(Laionidas) #20

[quote=“WaffleMonster;135197”][quote=“Laionidas;135173”]Timik buff was NOT needed!

[/quote]

Timik is still inferior to the m4.[/quote]

I think that really depends on playstyle. M4 is an acurate instrument, Timik just shreds.