Juice to break grapple

After playing Support for a while it has come to my attention that he is a very vulnerable/sought after target. With his slow speed and relatively small HP, he is very vulnerable to ninjas as well as most grapples, and of course snipers, and gunners that slow him down.

I was toying with the idea that if the support has juice while being grappled, he can activate the juice and break the grapple. This might be seen unfair, but you just made him activate his juice at a time that was probably inconvenient for him. Meaning he won't be able to unleash it's full power it against your base, turrets and moneyball, just whatever he has left if he is even close enough to make it.

Or to make it more balanced, instead of activating the juice in the normal manner, he just breaks the grapple and is overhealed, nothing else added.

Or to be even fairer still, just breaks the grapple in exchange for using his juice.

But would it work best if he had a full juice bar, or anything past 50%, draining the remainder?

While I meant this to be for the vulnerable support, I suppose it could be applied to all the other classes as well.

Any thoughts, and feedback would be appreciated.

you are asking to buff an overpowered pro

Great constructive criticism :roll:

To give a class an opportunity to counter what might be the single most relied on move for some classes (Assassin's) is counterproductive.

Thats like giving the tank a button to instantly avoid all damage, thus cancelling out the Support's air-strike skill.

Most people say support has too much health, I've never even heard of support players complaining that he has too little.

Also, I find it ironic that grapples are normally used to counter juiced players, but you want to be able to use juice to counter grapples.

And how are you having so much trouble with people grappling you? Stick to your firebase and lay them out with the shot gun.

I see where you're coming from. But this is not something you could do often of course. Just when you have a full juice bar, in exchange for breaking the grapple. To keep it balanced of course you would not be under the effects of the juice, merely free of the grapple. Seems fair since anyone can grapple you when you are juiced up. It's very frustrating getting that juice bar full, only to have it taken away by someone ringing you out with a grapple or getting back stabbed.

I'm usually following gunners and tanks and assaults into the field, healing them and keeping them overhealed. Since they are always on the move, my firebase is not going to be able to protect me constantly as they advance because of the cooldown by picking it up. And of course this usually leads to everyone gunning for me first since my target is already overhealed. This is always especially the case with assassins, sometimes I will spot one coming, but not the clever ones.

But still, you would be nearly nullifying one full class. To a Pro who relies on grapple for 90% of their kills to have it nullified, even sporadically, is so far-fetched it would cause backlash from EVERYONE.

What if when you use an airstrike, the person you are targetting has full juice and triggers it. Suddenly, the airstrike is stuck to you.

Keep in mind that I play support as my main class -- but this idea is just so game-breaking that it wont even be considered.

Seems like a bad idea. Most people already say the Support is OP why add something that really pushes him into the OP/game breaking area? Not to mention that grapples are fairly easy to avoid.

With his medium speed and medium health you mean. The Support is solidly in the middle of the field on those two stats.

Yes, it does seem unfair. That is because it is unfair. This would make one of the most powerful Pro classes even more powerful with the unique ability to break a grapple.

I'm sorry to say it man, but this is not a balance or gameplay issue. It sounds like you have been personally frustrated by this specific occurence a few times and are seeking a resolution for it. But your resolution would make an already powerful Pro class even more powerful, and if it were applied to every class it would effectively nerf the few classes for which grapples are important gameplay elements (Assault, and most importantly Assassin).

Reading your other post where you say you play style is to follow the frontliners to the opponent's base is the real issue here. The Support is very VERY powerful in some aspects (Firebase, Airstrike, Gapshot, etc), and this is offset by the fact that he is NOT a frontline fighter. Trying to "resolve" a non-issue in order to turn him into a frontline fighter does not balance the game, it further unbalances it.

I pretty much feel the same way in what was said by Phantom. I started to play support heavily, and he can be a powerful pro if you know how to use him, and know what situations are best for his abilities. While overhealing a tank/gunner is a noble and great duty for support, the counter to that has to be his vulnerability to grapples from assassins or other players... its part of the rock/papers/scissors feel of the game. Same with hacking... for the reward of upgrading my turret, I risk getting a shank in the dome. It evens out to me.

If I'm on heal duty, I'm always spinning around looking for assassins because your beam can still stay attached even when looking away. 60-70% of the time I'll see one of them charging at me, which then prompts me to jump around like a rabbit on hot coals, switch to shotty, and hope that my aiming is good enough to take out the assassin. I also usually reserve my firebase and take it with me while I'm healing... I'll drop it off ahead of the path to cover, and pick it up again if I have to. Leaving a firebase completely alone is asking for it to just get destroyed anyways imho since the armor on it is so weak (and if you're playing against people who know how to counter it).

And anyways, there IS a counter to the grapple, and that is the pro can take damage during the grapple anim. If there are 2 decent players with each other, and one gets grappled by an assassin, 99.9% of the time that assassin will die from the partner shooting her. If you're by yourself, well you're kinda rolling dice unless you've upgraded your health/armor. Again, that is even to me, because this is a team sport and you should be around teammates most of the time, especially as support.

Right, I know when I am bested. Start looking out for #1 then. Got it loud and clear.

How about a different ability to help him get out of the push? I know whenever I play Gunner and an Assault pushes me with his charge, I use the "Slam" ability which plops me back onto safe ground. Maybe every class should have an ability to stop Ring-outs, but you would have to suffice an ability you already have to use it? As for grapples in the first place, bring armor and assassins' can't 1 shot you.

They can from behind, even with gold armor sponsor. For the support anyway.

In a sense, in some situations you kinda have to right? I mean you can't heal/support if you're dead. Also have an L3 Firebase really helps when you're pushing up since it heals both you and your teammates.