Sniper SmokeScreen, Enforcer Turtling, and more!

You lost me. Elaborate?

 

It seems you posted that while I was in the middle of editing my post again. Check it out.

Also specify which part you want me to elaborate on, if it still requires elaboration.

 

Elaborate on the sitting still -> Sniper part.

Also, other classes don't handle Jar of Ants as well as you give them credit for. Acrid, Eng and Miner are probably by far the only classes that eat Jar of Ants for breakfast. Merc can handle it, albeit far slower due to shittier AoE damage and would likely need to evac if unfortunate enough to eat a hit or two during cooldown. Bandit? Ha, what can bandit do? Grenade, Smokescreen, Blast for as much as possible before leaping off to safety and wait out the cooldown? That's gonna take awhile. HAN-D? FORCED REASSEMBLY is completely unfeasible, Overclock HURT is alright but doesn't last very long, and it isn't as safe as one would like it to be, heal drones only get you so far against a couple of elites and ranged mobs. Commando? Suppressive Fire isn't safe against big crowd, FMJ only gets you so far (though you'd likely knock a couple of guys off the ledge), you'll need to rinse and repeat for awhile. Huntress? Leap around like mad, toss your skills, blink about and pray you don't eat a missile or something. And Sniper? bring the folks to one end, roll and Steady Aim (probably only enough time for 20-35% charge), shoot, leap to safety, rinse and repeat. I don't see the others faring particularly better than Sniper.

 

Remove spotter cooldown = Race against monster spawnrate
This is the perfect change, the sniper can avoid Jar of Ants situations by picking off enemies one by one before they have time to accumulate!
Snipers will still suck against Jar of Ants situations, but come on, they are snipers!

 

The guy doesn't see how a Sniper can die in a Jar of Ants unless he's sitting still.

If you want to clear a crowd as the Sniper, you kinda want to use Steady Aim.

The only part I agree with in here is that Miner, Acrid and Engi stand at the top of the game. There's no arguing that. They eat crowds for breakfast, regardless of how tightly packed they are (and in fact, the more tightly packed the crowd is, the BETTER these three deal with them!).

However, I disagree about the other characters you bring up that supposedly have it just as hard. ESPECIALLY Han-D. If you can't clear a Jar of Ants by just spamming Forced Reassembly, an occasional Overclock for additional attack-speed, and Drone shots when your health is low, I dunno what to tell ya...

Commando handles a Jar of Ants better than a Sniper by virtue of being a class that can fight on the go. You absolutely have to be mobile in a Jar of Ants. Commando isn't as inherently strong as other classes and probably won't clear it as FAST, but it's easier to stay safe while you whittle it down because he can keep moving all the time. And he can definitely clear one faster (and safer) than the Sniper. And don't forget, FMJ STUNS everything it hits, and Suppressive Fire does a little stun PLUS knockback. They're VERY safe skills against crowds.

To be fair, the Jar of Ants is a huge risk if you have to jump inside to fight it as ANY character, but Sniper has it worst of all JUST because his crowd-control ability REQUIRES him to stand still. So he either doesn't get a good shot off and barely hurts anything, or he tries to charge up more and the crowd closes in and eats him alive. No other character has to make that choice.

It'd be nice if selected targets were auto-hit by shots, as if the Sniper was aiming at them from wherever he was. But I can imagine that being weird to code...

 

That would be realistic but too game breaking.
Removing the spotter cooldown is balance enough.

 

Against my better judgement I'll make one last point about why I think spawn control is in part intended (I made the point earlier, but it got ignored in a pile of other replies).

The biggest thing is that I do not believe that sniper is the only character that has to use spawn control. First, let me define spawn control as this: moving to or away from specific parts of a stage because staying there would be disadvantageous due to spawns in that location. If you have an issue with this definition, then we'll work from there.

If I assume that the sniper is the only character that cannot survive a jar of ants, then it is fair to say that he needs to use spawn control to prevent it. I'll work with that assumption regardless of if I agree with it.

Now, using my(perhaps broad) definition of spawn control, I would say that not staying in one place during the teleporter countdown falls under spawn control. In addition, if for some reason while fighting, too many monsters spawn and the player needs to run away, I would call that spawn control.

Both of these examples of spawn control are ones that seem very logical and are things that a player will do instinctively because not doing so would make it hard to survive (especially for the second case). The real reason that all players do this spawn control is because not doing it means immediate death and as such players learn to run around the map while playing. If somebody doesn't preform this spawn control, then they'll think, I was an idiot for standing there.

The sniper example differs from the previous two examples, but I would still call all three spawn control. The sniper example differs in that if one does not preform spawn control, it is not immediately lethal. You'll survive the teleporter countdown and then you'll think, my there's a lot of enemies in that pit there it must be impossible. Going from there a player will think, enemies can spawn in pits, this is broken since the sniper can't kill them. Since it isn't immediately obvious that not using spawn control was the issue players may not realize that there was a way to avoid such a situation.

To recap, I think that regular play on all characters involves spawn control, but the sniper is the only character where using spawn control is not immediately obvious.

Perhaps you take issue with the fact that the sniper's example is the only non-obvious example, but rather than argue with that I'd like to ask: are the only intended ways to succeed obvious?

It's likely that you take issue with this argument somewhere down the line, but I'll post it anyway.

 

Yes, but this argument was already settled.
The two obvious ways you stated are invalid because the OP forces the sniper to stay in the Jar of Ants situation, and is unable to prevent or escape from it.

Basically, this thread can't be countered with "Avoid the Jar of Ants situation in the first place" since the point of the thread (from the OP's perspective) is to either give the sniper some unique special (most likely overpowered) ability to deal with mobs or avoid the jar of ants which the other survivors do not possess. (Such as platform racing across the map and camping the longest platforms in the maps.)

In short, this thread embodies the typical "This character isn't overpowered, but I like him, so please make him overpowered" thread.

Now if this was a "This character is overpowered, but I like her/it, so please nerf for reasons stated here" thread, I may be in agreement.

In truth, there are many other situations which other survivors would not fare well in, and it would be (in a way) unfair to look at just one situation which the sniper is (conveniently) helpless.

 

I dunno what kind of Forced Reassembly you have, but mine is rather unsafe to use.

 

It was a nicely worded argument so I don't have an issue with it per-se...

I'll state my issues with spawn control, again, for the record. I'll try to tidy it up, though.

1. Reliability.
People have stated Spawn Control as the answer to my Jar of Ants situation by stating I either ensure it doesn't happen, or I make it vanish if it does. I find that this technique isn't as reliable as the people supporting it would like me to believe, especially at higher difficulties where the start of the teleporter timer often brings with it several handfuls of enemies at once. Secondly, I find that enemies that are scrolled offscreen have a tendency to frequently NOT vanish despite distance. Sometimes they DO, but they often DON'T. So if I end up with a Jar of Ants there's very very little gaurantee that I can get rid of it by scrolling it away.

2. Validity.
Again, I do not agree that Spawn Control is an intended feature. I never will. I consider it a loophole players use to abuse the way monsters spawn. I understand that running away from areas you can't fight properly in is an important strategy and indeed, I use this strategy because it's basic human nature (you'd have to train yourself to be a masochist to somehow wind up NOT doing this). I don't consider that Spawn Control. I consider that "picking your battles". Everyone should absolutely do it. However, when it comes to ensuring monsters don't spawn in specific locations, or trying to wipe them off the map by going far away... it just doesn't help as much as people say it does.

I will admit that, at times, Spawn Control DOES work. But, again. Reliability issues. I feel like if I'm using Spawn Control just to succeed as the Sniper, I'm cheating. It's not a literal cheat, I know, but it feels like cheating to me. And I simply feel like I shouldn't have to scroll a Jar of Ants offscreen and make it vanish (which, again, doesn't work most of the time), or try somehow to avoid one (again, sometimes just plain unavoidable no matter how easy you paint it).

I also disagree that other characters have to do this. I know that there are people who believe other characters have just as much trouble with a Jar of Ants, and that they also have to use Spawn Control to deal with it. But I simply cannot agree with any of these assertions.

It was looking so polite until you straight-up accused me of trying to make the Sniper straight-up Overpowered.

I TOLD you guys I removed SmokeScreen...

 

Bandit has a harder time handling multiple mobs at once and is essentially a worse version of the sniper in any situation apart from the Jar of Ants situation.
T/F


(The bandit is also terrible at the Jar of Ants situation too though, possibly just as disadvantaged as the sniper.)

 

I can't argue this because I straight-up just don't PLAY Bandit. He's just not... as much FUN... y'know?

However, I know people who do and who might argue with you about that.

I can only ASSUME that he handles a Jar of Ants pretty well specifically because he has 2 AOE abilities. The invisibility move (whatever it's called) could be used offensively to stun groups of mobs and give him a little attack time. The dynamite would be plain AOE damage. Blast and Lights-Out would just be filler damage while he waits for those skills to cool down.

At least, that's how I imagine it goin' down.

 

Then you shouldn't make the assumption that other survivors can handle the situation better than the sniper if you don't understand their game mechanics.
(Oh, btw, I edited the post previous to my previous post because it did seem a bit too harsh without making the main point obvious.)

But yes, there are other survivors who can't deal with the Jar of Ants situation similarly to sniper.
One is the Bandit.
Two is the Enforcer. (Can only protect the front, and there are MANY situations where he can not block an enemy's' attack, especially in a Jar of Ants situation.)
Three is HAN-D. (Relies on knocking back ALL enemies at once, if its unable to do so, it must sacrifice a healing drone.)

Including the sniper there are FOUR survivors out of EIGHT which can't handle Jar of Ants well.
Should we make threads for those characters too?
(I say eight because Acrid and Engineer can just walk away from the Jar of Ants situation.)

The main reason why I used the bandit is because:
What type of combat is the bandit tailored to?
Single target combat.
Is he good at it?
He is terrible compared to the sniper, but he is rewarded with a cooldown removal if he kills an enemy.
What about the sniper, who is also a single target combat class?
Even if the sniper doesn't kill the enemy, they aren't hindered because their cooldowns are so short!
Instead of being rewarded upon killing enemies, the sniper's spotter is forced into cooldown, but he STILL outperforms the bandit even without the 100% crit chance!

 

Okay SPLIT is making more sense than none right now.
I don't mean to impede on anything, but I feel like this once beneficial thread has gotten a bit off-topic...

 

I can't agree with the Enforcer and Han-D at least. I've played Enforcer and Han-D and at least for ME, they Handle a Jar of Ants SWIMMINGLY. The Enforcer USED to have nasty hitbox errors with his shield he couldn't deal with, but I believe most of those got fixed, and now he can crawl slowly back and forth which eliminates the possibility of not hunkering down at the very edge or right up against the wall, since you can just back up into the optimal position.

So to sum it up...

1. Protect and Serve can now back up to the optimal position for defense.
2. Shield Bash can toss away enemies that are somehow biting through your shield, if any.
3. Shotgun does incredible AOE damage.
4. His explosive-tossy-thingy stuns. Combine that with shield and I don't see the problem, sir.

Han-D... I've said it before. He was BUILT for tanking. I really have no idea why you guys have so much trouble in a Jar of Ants with this guy.

 

Is the Jar of Ants even worth mentioning if you can happily hop about in it whilst spamming your skills? And "absurd DPS" from what? A 230% dynamite? a 140% 13 sec cd stun?

 

I think he was talking about the main attack.

I've erased his contribution from my post, however, because he was displeased with being involved in the debate and I respect his wishes to be kept out of it.

 

Many enemies can still hit you behind your shield.
Unless your jar of ants is comprised 100% of vagrants, enforcer is likely to get hit from behind.
Any enemy whose attack is bigger than your hitbox will hit through the enforcer's shield.

As for the bandit...
Seriously? His AOE range is laughable. The only reason why I didn't include the commando is because his FMJ actually hits in a straight line.
Ok... some may argue that FMJ doesn't arc... but doesn't this defeat the whole purpose of having a Jar of Ants situation as the thread setting in the first place?

And how well does HAN-D tank missiles?
Not very well.
He doesn't move around very much while attacking and is VERY vulnerable to missiles...

 

Admittedly, some pits are specially mentionable as dangerous to the Enforcer, but since the improvement of his shield's coding (at least I think) and the addition of turtling, I agree with DJ that he can handle most Jars of Ants pretty well. Once you get missile enemies it gets more annoying to do so, but still not especially. If it's a ledge-style Jar, he can practically get rid of it, a pit-style, as I said, you can have some problems, but it's far from impossible, or even terribly time consuming to deal with.

Those are all pretty valid points, especially since Shield Bash has a big enough CD for enemies to close again handily CD. The solution I've found is to go PaS into a corner>Shield bash dangerous/dangerous concentrations of enemies away>grenade>shotgun until enemies are too close for comfort and shield bash is off CD (I CAN'T be the only person who knows this, right?). Again, missile enemies can be annoying, but you can usually out-tank them and recover relatively quickly unless the jar is entirely filled with them.

 

So you're complaining because you cant kite as the sniper? If you can't use Steady Aim just use Snipe. The sniper is among the best kiters in the game due to his high base movement speed, great dodge, and the fact that he has so much damage packed into a single use of his basic attack. His Damage per time spent standing still ratio is much higher than other characters, and that makes him a good kiter. Even after all that if you still need help you can just pop an immediate Steady Aim for the knockback.

I'm still waiting to hear what part of this scenario makes it impossible for the Sniper to clear a handful of enemies from a small area.