Originally Posted by
Corrupt_be
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First
Reduce overall TTK, it's laughably high (also a lower TTK indirectly makes Striker less efficient, as facetrades and magdumping will be shorter and fewer, leading to less stacks). Seriously Massive this is your one core reason why every fight is a dance dance revolution magdump fest. It doesn't have to be like CS or BF where 1 or 2 headshots kill, but for the love of God, 10-15 bullets to the head shot drop a guy, not freaking 60, or even more in some cases.
On top of that, cover is to much of a static mechanic in this game, holding angles is often better. Instead significantly worsen weapon handling while moving and somewhat improve it while being stationary (this behavior will fit well with a significant overal damage increase). My biggest gripe is how slow weapons their reticle tightens in response to a stop of movement. Basically, while stationary, weapons should all work more as if they have balanced to keep up with the pacing of a shooter game.
Also: Every player should have a reasonable TTK, regardless of FA or damage investment, FA or damage investment should simply warrant a faster, quicker TTK for those who choose this role. Right now PvP only gives you 1 choice really: Stack as much DPS while retaining maximum survivability.
Then:
Nomad
The mechanic where people get revived is annoying as all hell. From a tactical point of view it's extremely important in a game to be able to rely on the fact that healthbar = 0 means DEAD.
So my suggestion here is that instead we give Nomad a native toughness boost, hell for all I care you still keep it RNG but instead of reviving, it gives the player twice his toughness, which if done right will result in a similar result without the annoying revive mechanic.
Predator
Overhaul this set, it's pure black/white mechanics, rock/paper/scissors. Buffing counters or nerfing Predator will render it useless (which to some degree it already is now if you're facing a group of players who constantly pop med stations), not to mention with a decreased TTK it will become oven more bs.
Alpha
I don't even... Remove the 5K requirement and find another way to procc it that isn't on kill (reduce link powers proportionally if needed).
Striker
Low end potential is to weak, max potential is to strong. Does it need healing? It might not depending on how you balance other sets. Ideally the first 10 to 30% (needs to be finetuned, but I essentially mean a NERF beyond that percentage, currently it stacks to fast to its maximum potential) stacks faster then the rest to match up with other gearsets.
Also, headshots should stack better than body shots (the current situation makes headshots OK with striker, the old behavior didn't unless in CQC, I'm mentioning this with a nerf in mind to body shots).
Automatic or rapid firing shotguns shouldn't build stacks that quick. Slower shotguns are up for debate, I don't use them much (mostly use an AR to stack).
With the current behavior, I think losing less stacks per miss was the right call, but 2% per hit wasn't, at least not beyond 10-30% (again this is up for debate in comparison to other DPS sets) and certainly not for body shots.
Ideally you'd test changes with someone that has a good aim and bad aim. And to be blunt, not a lot of streamers fall into this category, their aim is decent not great. Widdz comes to mind as a test person as he sticks out in this regard over a lot of other streamers. Essentially you want to see if it doesn't "get out of hand" in the right hands, which is important, because as I've mentioned before: Base potential is weak, max potential of this set is OP, so you need both ends of the spectrum to test this.
Banshee
Honestly don't know what to do with this one. Originally one of the best 3 pieces in the game, but a lackluster or situational 4,5 and 6 piece make this as a Classified gearset quite worthless. Pre 1.8 it had one of the best 3P damage bonus's though.
I would also look into finetuning TTK in PvE (on top of PvP which I mentioned at the start), slightly lowering it, to distribute the 3 and 5 piece damage bonus's of Banshee, Pred, Lone Star, Alpha, ... more evenly. Alpha 5 piece has some value, 3 piece is neglectable and Banshee's 5th piece is also neglectable, hell I recon if we took some actual ingame measurements, I wouldn't be surprised Savage Gloves could in some cases outperform the 5p.
FireCrest
Immune to burn: From any flames that are not generated by the Cleaners. Why? It would trivialise PvE Cleaner content otherwise. But other than that I agree. In a sense in PvP I could see original use in this by literally bathing in fire from your own turret while fighting other players (who need to take the fire into account as well during the fight).
And dare I say: Provided a slightly longer cooldown... infinite Fire Grenades??
I would however finetune the fire status affect to see if this doesn't get out of hand, but this would make this set a lot more fun.
Sentry
Why wouldn't the 6P work in PvP? I mean seriously? Did someone consider this more broken than Predator? Really? The only thing that needs changing in PvP is the stack duration and the spreading. The spreading shouldn't be there in PvP and the 6 stacks should have reduced time frames the higher you stack. 30 seconds is a LONG time in PvP. I have no qualms with these stacks or the Sentry damage bonus in PvP as they arguably apply to some of the more difficult weapons to handle, only the timeframe.
D3
Why is the shield so weak in PvP? Why does the team get a massive health bonus that makes groups in smaller numbers unable to combat it? It widens the gap with "strenght in numbers". Much rather have a strong shield where people take cover behind, you know, how you would use a damn shield IRL?! The real issue back in pre 1.8 days wasn't the shield itself, it was the damage output this set retained while it should theoretically be aimed at a tank / toughness type of playstyle.
This set is a classic example (with some 4 man groups literally relying on the boost to compete) of how PvP is to focused on "overpowering" rather than being smart, tactical or anything else.
Final Measure
Bonus from defusal should be stronger for the Final Measure player in PvP and weaker for teammates, again the whole "overpower" deal.
Lone Star
Probably the most honest and best design of what I had originally in mind for a Classified. A continuation of what it was originally intended for: A bullet hosing DPS role. The 6P literally does what you'd expect, it boosts the already existing role. The complete downfall however is its RNG nature. Find a non RNG way to procc it that isn't bs and isn't on kill like Alpha.
DeadEye
Needs a damage reduction in PvP (CHD reduction, x0.75 or x0.5 ? Depending on weapon type, also needs to fit with the overal TTK decrease I mentioned earlier for PvP), but remove the silly restrictions. Shouldering should be enough.
The Rest
No idea, I barely see them being used, I barely use them myself but they seem underpowered. Noteworthy though is that I think an Skillpower player should be able to use his offensive skills (turrets, sticky, seekers, ...) much more frequently, but they should never be 1 shot nukes and in some cases I would overhaul their design to incorporate more skillful use. In a sense, ideally, these tools should match the sustained damage throughput of "guns" much more rather then being either 1 shot nukes or completely useless in PvP.
I also think in general this game relies to much on RPG aspects for PvP, hence my dislike for PvP being to focused on "overpowering" rather then smarts, aim, tactics. I also think keeping the RPG/Shooter mechanics more balanced will attract more players.
Also undo HS damage nerf in PvP. I don't think casual players felt powerless because of this. I think they felt powerless because TTK is so high and basic shooter dynamics simply don't work half the time. Again: reduce the "overpowering" mechanics and allowing some breathing room for the "shooter" to seep through in PvP.
The only issue I see with HS damage is the 18% Scope and silencers. Put these more in line with other bonus's, 6-8%, in exchange buff base HS damage on all classes to compensate, because otherwise CHC/CHD investment will become a bad choice and we'll mostly likely see a rise of good aiming players just rocking constant heal pops with Skill haste headshotting. Headshots should matter, but without removing a viable stat investment.
Also reduce high damage spikes on certain talents, etc. Example the House: It feels OP at times and I don't think the overall TTK across the entire mag is the problem. One problem is body hits being to good due to SMG's their inate Crit behavior, the 2nd reason imo is that 20% is a sudden spike in damage vs a more reasonable 10%.
I'm not necessarily saying nerf the gun. I'm more hinting at making headshots also more viable with SMG's, while reducing their body shot potential and perhaps buffing base damage to offset the house talent its reduction to 10% (to equalize the damage over the entire mag a bit more).
Also having CHC or CHD as a main stat for SMG's causes constant balancing issues as it's a much better DPS investment than the other weapon classes their native bonus in PvP. They need a different, yet useful (or equally useless in PvP xD) native bonus IMO, once you do that, I recon we can significantly buff the damage up again to match them much better with AR's... perhaps... a native "Responsive" mechanic?