Proxy and Aura unbalance


(Ecano) #1

All these has been discussed in other threads but let me said one more time:

I don’t know what ECHO is telling but my Aura and Proxy point is that are ridiculously unbalanced.

For Proxy, mines needs manual activation and speed must be reduced more, with low cadence weapons is hard even hit them.

For Aura, healing station must stop healing while receiving damage.

For both, shotguns needs a hard spread penalty jumping.


(tangoliber) #2

I would like for Proxy’s speed to be bumped back up 5% higher. It doesn’t just make her more fun to play…it makes her more fun to kill as well. (Tracking fast targets is fun).

I don’t want any of the balances that you mentioned, as they would reduce fun and uniqueness between mercs for me.

Right now, Fragger, Aura, and Proxy are seen as the “OP” mercs. It seems to me that the balance between them works well though. Fragger hard counters Aura…and Proxy soft counters Fragger by doing the objective.

I would try to bump up the other Mercs via their abilities instead (in ways that don’t reduce Time-To-Kill). First of all, I’m not sure if Sawbonez is underpowered, or just harder to use? It seems that in theory, laying down health packs and then fighting around them would provide a similar effect to the healing station. But perhaps his reviving/healing ability could be bumped up.
I think Skyhammer is pretty good, and the artillery is almost a necessity on defense.


(Violator) #3

I have mixed views on Aura’s Invulnerability Station. On the downside it is very annoying that you can’t even land continual headshots to kill a player being healed by the thing. It should stop healing when the player is in combat, or even when the player is taking damage. I see it as a fall back and recover device, currently its a push forward with impunity device. Which is why I have the mixed views :slight_smile: It does add some interesting tactical battles as a result of its OP nature, it can be healing station chess :). It focuses the team together and yet is vulnerable(ish) itself. There are some nice counters to it (Proxy’s mines for instance).

Proxy seems about right now with the slight speed reduction, any slower would take the fun out of zipping around :).

Fragger seems the most OP merc at the moment, I would probably drop his HP slightly.


(Rémy Cabresin) #4

Mines are fine, don’t have to be touched. You can shoot them to destroy them and they are already really easy to spot, especially with that bomb squad augment(as an ETplayer where mines are not spot-able at all unless you are a specified class).

Making Auras station not heal while combat makes her even more useless as a merc compared to Sawbonez. All it needs is for it to be a little less easy to camp with it, just reduce the health of the station to like 50HP rather than its current 90HP. People wil still ahve to go fot the healing station first but it makes it much less easy for an Aura to just sit on the station forever.

Shotgun thing totally agree, the whole ‘wall jump around for ever’ without any accuracy drop off is just idiotic. Some people have completely based their playstyle on just being a shotgun wielding kangaroo in any combat situation. Would also do the same to snipers, maybe not as much but right now the whole jump sniping thing is just too easy(sniping as a whole is something a kindergartner can do atm tbh).


(kyuto9) #5

Maybe you got the solution there. How about the station only heals while players equip with melee weapon only? I mean since the station is always dropped in covered or hidden places, it’s more like a backup spot to heal after gunfights, so unless you put the heal station in middle of main objectiv at everyone sight, there is not 100% need to use primary weapon when you intend to use its benefit. Switching to primary or secondary weapons instantly block you from healing byt the aura’s station.
Thing is so far you can only access to melee weapon with the specific keybind. Also the fast paced gameplay may come against that idea.
Another idea may be that the Station perimeter instantly makes players equip melee. Once you leave station zone, your weapons will show up as instantly. Downside with that one is that depending on where the station is deployed it might have players stuck to death, not being able to fight back This idea is not really practical.

My last idea is that the station don’t heal you unless your current magazine is full, which implies you don’t shoot back at opponent. Though, the rate of heal should not be too high so players don’t go “dancefloor” mode on station zone just to troll opponent while infinitly healing. But at least in this case, you don’t take damage from someone near heal station neither. Downside is that the player on station zone has actually less chance of making it alive than the exposed opponent. Sh1t be hard to fix =/

Uhhh my ideas are crap…


(kyuto9) #6

[QUOTE=adeto;524706]
Making Auras station not heal while combat makes her even more useless as a merc compared to Sawbonez. [/QUOTE]

Hmm didn’t think bout that. It’s true her main purpose is to provide permanent health support to several players at once under fire or undercover. The only fix then is to slower the heal rate of the station. Mass heal but at time cost…


(BioSnark) #7

First, I think shotguns are quite bad compared to smgs since the former got nerfed. Feel a bit silly each time I get killed by a shotgun. Second, please don’t slow down anyone. Think if anything, everyone should be faster or TTK should be higher. Third, turrets are sooo unpleasant to fight. Not looking forward to playing with these in free rotation.

@vio, Agree aura heals shouldn’t occur in combat. It’s like fighting an RPG mechanic each time I fight someone in the fairy circle. Doesn’t feel fun.

In general, I think a lot of problems with deployables is that many characters can’t counter them. If every character had 1 grenade, even if it was an EMP grenade in the low rank public servers without friendly fire enabled, people would feel less helpless when confronted with these non-player killing machines that just aren’t much fun to fight.


(kyuto9) #8

[QUOTE=BioSnark;524733]First, I think shotguns are quite bad compared to smgs since the former got nerfed. Feel a bit silly each time I get killed by a shotgun. Second, please don’t slow down anyone. Think if anything, everyone should be faster or TTK should be higher. Third, turrets are sooo unpleasant to fight. Not looking forward to playing with these in free rotation.

@vio, Agree aura heals shouldn’t occur in combat. It’s like fighting an RPG mechanic each time I fight someone in the fairy circle. Doesn’t feel fun.

In general, I think a lot of problems with deployables is that many characters can’t counter them. If every character had 1 grenade, even if it was an EMP grenade in the low rank public servers without friendly fire enabled, people would feel less helpless when confronted with these non-player killing machines that just aren’t much fun to fight.[/QUOTE]

EMP nade? Like magnetic stuff that stuns devices in blow perimeter for a limited period of time? That would be nice. Don’t they have such character on shelves by any chance?


(sunshinefats) #9

There are some nice points brought up here…here are my thoughts…
Healing Station…how about it only heals teammates and not aura herself. Then compound that by making medpacks heal immediately (but heal a little less) instead of having to wait, because then they could offer a good counter balance to the healing station’s ability. And if the station didn’t actually heal aura herself(unless it was from another player) then there would be less people playing her as an offensive loadout.

As for Proxy, I just think she needs to be slower…she moves faster than my crosshair can track her sometimes in certain situations…plus, as an example, if you’re at opposite ends of a hall and you duck back around the corner to reload, she can run down the hall and kill you before you can even reload your gun, which seems a bit excessive to me. Maybe another alternative would be faster reloads to help prevent that sort of thing(which I see happen a lot). Her speed compounded with a weapon that can 1-2 hit kill you makes her a little OP to me.


(kyuto9) #10

Everyone wants to slower proxy due to her overall OP combo, mostly cuz of her shotgun. But i honestly like the fact she is a runner, cuz it makes her imo the only unique character in DB so far. But like many people i think she is OP adn she drives me mad, but not because she is fast.

If i had to choose, i’d keep her current speed, i’d even give her the exclusivity of parkour gameplay and sliding ability if you ask me, but if she can get to everyone’s ass so fast, it means she can get close enough to beat the sh1t out of us with CQC. Also she has secondary weapon for middle range defense, and her mines as well. She already arm/disarms/repair/carries objectives so fast she has more opportunities than any other character to gain some fat XP without having to kill anyone on her path (she can flee or avoid them anyway). Does she actually need that shotgun to be so OP?

The easiest fix for now is to lower her shotgun power or increase its spread. And not the shy way. But i think there will always be people to blame her speed. So last resort would be to either lower her hp… either replacing her shotgun by a main melee weapon. That sounds rude but i’m curious.

PS : i never play her, i’m giving my opinion as a usual victim of proxy mainly. Still, find her interesting to face.


(BioSnark) #11

Like snipers, shotguns are unfun to fight because they have the potential to deal a lot of damage in a shot. I also think they’re bad in comparison to most(?) other guns.


(Chux) #12

[QUOTE=Ecano;524667]All these has been discussed in other threads but let me said one more time:

I don’t know what ECHO is telling but my Aura and Proxy point is that are ridiculously unbalanced.

For Proxy, mines needs manual activation and speed must be reduced more, with low cadence weapons is hard even hit them.

For Aura, healing station must stop healing while receiving damage.

For both, shotguns needs a hard spread penalty jumping.[/QUOTE]
Agree with everything. The station should heal much slower for a start and not deploy so fast. It can be a safe place to retreat and get some heals, but not such an active combat aid. Also the ideas that it should heal less when damaged is also interesting.


(tangoliber) #13

In my opinion:

Proxy : Bump speed back up to pre-patch. Keep shotgun as is.
Possibly lower mine range/damage.

Aura: Lower health station health. Or maybe give her health decay so that she really needs to stay in the magic circle. Bring in more counters to Aura, such as Nader, or EMP grenade characters.

You could possibly have the health station jam the guns of people in the circle when it is destroyed, forcing a reload…however, this would also work on the other team as well. While this would typically hurt the team deploying the health station, it could also be used creatively as an asset as well. For example a Proxy could place a mine, and an Aura could place a health station beside it. When an enemy player trips the mine, they also get stunned by the health station at the same time. Combining two enemy abilities for a bigger effect. :slight_smile:

Fragger: Maybe lower fire rate, grenade radius. Lower objective completion speed so that he is practically useless in that regard.

Skyhammer: Keep as is.

Sawbonez: Increase speed a bit. Give him a shorter paddle charge time, so that he can pick up people faster, with more health than Aura does.
Maybe give him a unique SMG that doesn’t require reloading at all. Maybe give him a faster objective completion rate.

Arty: Give him a quicker ammo pack cool down.


Make all burst file rifles better from the hip. (More accuracy and power, but slower fire rate to compensate.)