Death of a Fixer...

A once vital and formidable member of any team, the Fixer has been reduced down to nothing more than a sitting duck. Now instead of seeing a fixer and thinking yes, most people should see a fixer and think oh No! Why? Well I'm glad you asked...
A fixer used to be able to heal and keep himself and his team alive. You could strategicly throw repair boxes for speedsters to come pick up or find later, and stay with the team and use a repair pulse to keep yourself and the team alive, obviously if the team stayed with you. No longer! Now your Fixer must choose. Do i throw a repair box to my team to keep them alive or do i throw it to keep myself alive. Before I used to throw a repair box just to keep my team alive and use the repair pulse to keep myself up. Now i find that I'm using the repair box to keep myself alive while hoping that they are in range for the pulse. So either i'm keeping myself up or i'm keeping everyone else up as i die.
So what about duck tape? ok i'm still trading out healing my team over healing myself. kinda pointless. Let me keep myself alive, I can't fight back with my one little gun, and Now i can't heal my team, let alone keeping myself up against just one ship with 4 guns, let alone 2 or three.

The fixer has just become the worst ship and anyone playing one knows this.

 

Fixer isn't bad. If you're a sitting duck, start moving. All the patch did was make fixer more balanced. I didn't like it either when I read the patch notes, but honestly after playing with it for a while, it's fine. You actually have to pay attention to positioning now, and avoid damage if you want to survive (which only makes sense as every other ship needs to do that too). Learn to do this and you're nearly as good as before.

 

Fixers ain't dead m8

 

I assume we arent talking about endgame here?
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From a mk6 perspective what the patch did was to nerf a class that was ok, but most certainly not op.

The reasoning for why mk6 Fixers have 5k'ish hp in a world of 4k mines, 3.5k torpedoes and 2.5k Blast cannons is that it can selfheal, atleast boost the hp if you are going to drastically reduce the selfhealing-- Im not suprised that 2 of the top fixers have quit and that a third has rerolled (Thats 3 of the 4 Fixers that made the world top 50).

Nerfing middle of the pack classes is usually not well recieved, lets not pretend fixers (or enforcers for that matter) was first in line for a beating with the nerfbat.

//Having said that I do understand why it made sense to bring down lower mk fixers abit - Doing it in a way that hits endgame fixers also is beyond what I can comprehend though.

 

Zach,
I don't know what kinda game you were playing but 2 guys didn't even show up to the game....
Show me a real game where all 5 people are playing and you are on top of the leader board. And do it consistantly. Then maybe you would change my mind. But from someone who was well played as a healer and now all i'm doing is running to survive and not healing my team well, it sucks. No reason to play healer at this point. if i'm running for position the whole time then i'm not helping. anyone else. I have to be in the fight if i'm going to heal, and you can't heal if you are running scared.

 

Is that good enough for you?
But i do see your point. Fixer are fragile as they are and 2 shots from a torpedo and they're gone. Maybe add defence speed, or hp to the fixer to compensate for such a brutal nerf

 

I've put in some thought for this issue.

I believe what Rovio has done is something in the right direction. Here's my reasoning/analysis on the Fixer before the last update...

• The Fixer is by far the biggest X factor on any match / battle.
• The Fixer is also the easier of all the classes to gain Infamy, for obvious reasons stated above.
• In Battles, If one side has a Fixer and one does not, the Fixer team wins majority of the time. I'm willing to bet it's greater than 65% of the time (except at high 3500+ infamy ranges, if you're curious, ask!).
  
• If it's 1 on 1 with a Fixer near the end of a battle, it's more than likely that it's a draw or that the Fixer wins.

I believe Rovio has looked at this info and needed to rebalance it. Whether they did the right thing to re-adjust the healing pulse, I'm not sure. But they needed to do something about it because almost every fixer had Healing Pulse, so obviously it's a best item for Fixers. I know there's quite a few people that are completely distraught and angry about the balance. If you're in that group, then maybe you need to look at upgrading your pulse or other support items to increase survivability. Here's where I'll disagree with some of your arguments with MK3-MK4 being weak, I think most Fixers at this stage had slightly higher infamy compared to the MK3-MK4 of other classes. I know of some MK4s at high infamy that are doing just fine. Healing pulses at high level are still very viable and combined with MK5 and MK6 Fixers it gets really strong, those in MK3-MK4 just need to grind it out and get higher just like the rest of the classes.

so Post-update...
Fixers will require more skill to play in my opinion, it's a combination of Teamplay along with evasive skills to look at where you need to be to support the team. If you think Fixers are fragile, try a Speeder or Enforcer at MK3-MK4. If you can play like a speeder or enforcer as a Fixer, you will do a lot better. Fixers are basically for smart and clever players that know where they need to be in a battle, and know how to best protect themselves from harms way. If you're constantly getting killed in the first 30-60 secs, then you need to change tactics or change ships.

Being a great Fixer player requires high playing IQ! Adapt and change the way you play.

 

I agree with you that Fixers overperformed at lower maks (atleast till 4, perhaps mk5 included) - But we also agree that its a different story for endgame? Fixer was resonable before the patch, but for fun I edited the quote above to describe 4K+ infamy.

But yes Fixers alter games and strategy, I would rather see devs reinvent the fixerrole rather than just making it worse. Talking about endgame here. I can maintain my infamy post patch, but having other strategi options than the passive super defensive approach it requires would be cool!

 

Well... speaking as an endgamer... end game fixers were often unkillable beasts. 1v1, even 2v1, a fixer could often survive, even win. Therefore, we had to go all in and hit them as hard as we could as quickly as we could, which led to strange, wild card, unbalanced matches.

That being said, maybe a slight HP bump would have helped to reduce the pain of the nerfing. It'll be a little bit while the endgame fixers respec with duct tapes or the fixy gun and adjust play styles. Until then... it hurts for the poor end game fixers. Except Waveblower... who seems to be doing just fine thanks to his cautious style! lol.

 

Yes, my post above is talking about the Fixer that's mid-game. MK5's were less of an issue despite being able to get to 3800-3900 with developed items and skill, which are typically higher than other classes. I don't have an issue with that at all. For High-level 4k+ it's a complete different issue. For end-game, I think players like Waveblower or Brizo are close to it. I don't think it's as bad as it is, and I think if Rovio were to do something, it's to buff Duck Tape instead. Duck tape is probably the essential piece of the puzzle that most low Fixers do not understand, as it's not a popular item, and most think it's counter to what a Fixer is (which is ridiculous). However, I think Duck tape used at High Level makes a huge difference as I've seen a few up here use it and they are nearly indestructible.

 

The change to healing pulse is an ugly fix. Top fixers are still using double pulse, which is the problem. They should have just nerfed the pulse entirely, rather than make special rules for the fixer using it. All of this outrage could have been completely avoided if the new healing item didn't suck so bad. While the issue with fixers was definitely a concern that needed to be fixed, this was a very sloppy re-balance of the fixer class.