The original post is trying to fix the symptoms rather than the issue.
One FB isn't an issue.
It has a ton of limitations.
- Worthless in covered areas
- Extremely difficult to hit anything other than an enemy shooter or defender with it
- Unless it's perfectly aimed, any ship moving at full speed can dodge the majority of the damage
- Moving yellow or green ships have the speed and agility to avoid even perfectly aimed FBs.
- Even at a dead stop, nitro users have ability to completely avoid any single FB - and the vast majority of the damage if they're waiting on a global cooldown.
With all these limitations, why are their so many FBs in the bay right now?
Weapons are much stronger now (especially fire combos) while Shooters are far more fragile now (
after losing 40 defense) .. and received less than 500 HPs as compensation.
If you try to play a brawler-type shooter right now, you'll be tagged with more effective longer range weapons (e.g., sniper hits crit for more due to a loss of defense) then get instantly sunk by more powerful enforcers and speeders (that are extremely difficult to hit with a fire combo).
Since shooters have become more one-dimensional, the best strategy now is to use longer range weapons (e.g., FBs) against the ultra-deadly enforcers and mines against speeders.
With multiple FBs and long-range shooters in matches, the damage can quickly add up. Even quicker and more agile ships will start taking damage when open areas are blanketed with multiple FBs.
All this can make it seem like the FB is overpowered - even if they're worthless on maps with good overhead coverage.
What would happen if you single out the FB for a nerf?
It will
not make shooters more willing to engage at closer ranges.
Rather, shooters will switch to more snipers, missiles and ballpark mortars. And ballpark mortars, contrary to popular belief, do more damage than FBs per shot (with their splash radius) .. the splash radius is also much harder to avoid.
Side note: There are a lot of fixers in NML right now.. and FB is the one true counter to the pulse. If there are more FBs than pulses, it makes it difficult to play fixer .. but if there are more pulses than FBs (because of a nerf), pulse fixers would become too powerful.
What balance changes should be made?
The best solution would probably be several small changes with future tweaking as we see the effect of those changes.
For instance:
- Weapons (and TSs) could be nerfed 10% or reverted to their former levels,
- Significant increases HPs to make up for lost defense, and/or
- Fire/frost damage could be calculated like other damage multipliers (rather than multiplying the extra 73% separately)
Otherwise, you'll have to keep nerfing every long range weapon into the ground .. FB is only the most popular right now because shooters already had them built to combo with cannons, but ballparks would be equally annoying if you're being spammed with several at a time.
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