Blue Love: How do we 'fix' The Support?

I've seen many threads concerning the 'selfish' support, and witnessed the phenomena myself. They won't heal you even if you're on fire next to them.

Before the Airstrike nerf, it wasn't as needed. The Support had plentiful offensive ability with the Airstrike alone. He didn't need to heal allies as often because he could assist in the suppression of the enemy, deal with bots reliably, etc. Now, with his role shifted into base defense and team 'support,' I think its time to emphasize and reward that aspect that is so ignored for the Support. Healing.

One, I think a visual notification of some sort for the recipient of healing needs to be included. I think a faint aura from the healgun should be present so the person knows he's getting healed. This effect would be unnecessary for bots/turrets as they do not need confirmation of being healed since their actions are scripted. People need a prod to say "Hold up, lemme heal you before you run back in there."

Second, I believe that the support should get much more juice and money for healing wounded pros. I'm thinking pre DLC juice gain rates for healing hurt pros. Now I see this coming: What if the people hurt themselves so the Support can juice more? Well think about this: They will need to coordinate to accomplish this, and it takes two people out of the fight. Besides, the juice gain rate should ONLY apply to non-overhealing. Meaning only wounds that take them below 100%. As for the cash, I think $10 per money tick for healing hurt pros. The healing-cash ticks very slowly, and I don't see how this could be abused. This could count for "Assists" since you don't need to be killing pros to be losing your health, so this is a flat rate for helping out your buddies.

Third: A visual indicator for a level 3 firebase for allies to know "Hey, you can get healed here too" and a moderate increase to the range it will heal allies from.

Fourth: Slightly raising the healing rate for turrets/bots and normalizing the heal rate between turret levels. It seems like a level 2 LB takes much longer to overheal than the level 3. Just an example. I don't build LB's anymore >.>

Fifth: Make LB's about halfway between the old power and the new power. Playing with them now, you need almost 3 Hacked Level 3 lazerblazers to threaten an ASSASSIN. Pardon me if I have this thinking wrong, but I believe the LB's to be rapid fire damage to take out many lighter armored, fast moving targets and the Rock-it to deal better damage against slower, armored targets. To balance this, since they're dirt cheap right now, I propose level 1 costs $50, Level 2 $75, and level 3 $125. This puts the price at $250, not expensive by any means but not as easy to throw two level 3's up and level 1 hack them at the beginning of the match and have your defenses set until you get some money.

Thoughts?

I agree with most everything. I don't see anything that would really cause unbalance as most of these things are not damage/healing properties. I like the ideas about the indicators for being healed or needing healing. Also your point about the turrets is good. It is obviously a problem since so many have complained about it.

One thing that I'm not sure what you meant by was when you were talking about assists. If I understood you correctly then you were saying that when you are healing somebody and they get a kill you should get an assist. Which I agree with, since you are helping that person get the kill by keeping them alive.

These little things will really help out the class, since its been nerfed so much.

Sounds gud, you dont know how many times someone has run off as my healgun locks on to them ready to heal.

I SUPPORT cash for healing. If the support's juice gain is restored to pre-DLC decrease the juiced Healguns effectiveness against turrents.

It already changes shape. A lvl3 fb looks more like a car engine

I think a lvl2 LB gives the most juice gain (out of the lazer blazer series) when healing it since it takes forever. Don't really mind about this.

Don't think this has much to do with the support, but I do agree the new LB's aren't threats.

The thing that deters me from healing is that if I'm not running GOLD ROF, anything worth healing takes forever. When a Support enters a crossfire he automatic starts with the ability to heal, it is his first most basic ability. The fact that if he doesn't run a particular endosment he can't even do that effectively.

Did you know one wave of bots can out damage no ROF healing. I say increase the default rate of healing, and perhaps make it uneffective by ROF, like it was once upon a time when the support was classed as broken. Supports will not be forced to run GOLD ROF, maybe you'll see less supports running around shotguning everything to death.

There's not much incentive to play defensively if your team mates are wrecking the enemy base and or bots. You don't get paid enough to make healing other pros a top priority nor do you get paid for overhealed pros that get kills. Support should be helping out his team, but he has to draw the line when it puts him at risk. No reward for risk, no incentive to risk your neck. Have to look out for number one at the end of the day. Without as many airstrikes he is forced to depend on protection he sometimes doesn't get from his team mates on the front lines.

Point is healing is one of his main jobs, but he gets paid nothing to do so. He doesn't get paid for hacking either. With no money to make there is less of an incentive for him to expose himself. Support needs to start getting paid for his work.

Give the firebase more power.

I remember pre dlc that thing was a monster, now it feels like it's just poking me. Maybe it's just me.

The point about assists (sorry if it was confusing) was to get a flat rate of $10 per healing money 'click." If you heal something long enough, you get a 'click' of cash. Its $1 for everything currently. I think a financial incentive to get supports healing pros that are hurt is a good way to go that won't alter the balance of the game that much.

The firebase isn't much to look at, and I doubt people will notice that small detail about it looking like an engine. They're going to see a FB, either hacked or unhacked. Most either don't know or don't think "Oh hay, a level 3 FB, I can has healz." They either think "Ok, a FB" or nothing at all. A white circle with a red cross in the middle hovering above it (transparent like all the other indicators in game) would be fine. If you overlook THAT, its your own fault.

Turrets are the Supports bread and butter. The LB nerf basically made it into free juice for the enemy, particularly tanks and assassins, and good for the rest if they have a fast taunt and good armor. (all but sniper) There needs to be a risk to being around a hacked enemy turret. Maybe play with the numbers exactly, but the current level 3 LB needs a buff.

Great idea. The whole point of a Firebase is to give people a place to retreat to and humper (Aka turtle) down. People don't even use the level 3 healing. I remember once I went 79-4 just hitting and running on ammomule and retreating to the lvl 3 FB.

No. You get juice quickly as it is and if you're a smart player, you won't die a lot. You shouldn't get $10per tick because you're already getting $20+ every 10 seconds if your firebase is in a good spot.

THIS, THIS, THIS!

I try to play Support as unselfishly as possible. I will follow and overheal tanks and gunners right into the enemy base just so they can inflict as much damage as possible. I actively seek out low health pros and heal them. Most of the time the result is winding up in the spawn room while my "buddy" is free to rack up a bigger kill streak. I am always hacking and overhealing EVERYTHING. By the end of these matches, I am NEVER fully leveled up and rarely have enough money to build a Rock-it or buy juice.

Another example of not getting paid for the work done:
4 other class can use the "blue skill" (flak, slam, product bomb, Assault bomb) and if this "blue skill" interacts with an enemy Pro or Bot, there is money to be made, be it assist or kill. What if I throw my level 3 "blue skill" on your $450 rock-it? That about doubles the chances your $450 rock-it will make you more kills/money (and I have to babysit it while you go out and, more than likely, tune-up your K/D).

Don't get me wrong, I love to play Support. I just don't feel like a lot of the efforts I put into my TEAM winning a match have any reciprocation. Sure, the win feels good but being in the bottom 3 in earnings when I am constantly using ALL of my skills throughout a full length match is a little disheartening.

Only a support would :lol:

Look at juicey back






Level 2 Firebases have flat bums






But i'm all for indicating where my firebase is to my allies as long as they protech it __

I definitely agree with this.

I would also agree to a slightly shorter cooldown on the firebase skill. Perhaps if it took a little less time to lay one down, then they wouldn't spend so much time stuck on them?

"If you're a smart player" means nothing. Hacking means you're stationary. I assume smart Supports hack turrets, right? I.e, a target. Sniper, headcrab, This isn't to have Supports juicing all over the place like pre-patch, this is a reward for assisting your allies. And, given how fast pros heal up with a support on them, these changes amount to a bit of extra juice, and about $10 bucks.

Part of the reason Supports could juice so often pre-DLC was that they got that heightened juice rate from EVERYTHING they healed. Here, they'd only get it from hurt allies. Is that so bad?

A smart team wouldn't let their bot lane get farmed by a firebase...

Agreed. Against a halfway competent team, an enemy firebase is only on the field about for between 20 and 40 seconds after it deploys. So, best case scenario, $80-$90? Looks like I can pop up a couple level 1 LBs. :roll:

Smart team/dumb team/smart player/dumb player arguments are not helping. I'm making a skill-neutral suggestion.

Most support-mains in this forum complain of money problems. Most non-support mainers complain of Supports not healing them. This combines both problems by not only rewarding (and thus encouraging) Supports healing their human allies, it does so without wrecking balance. Will a Support be able to get juice faster if they try really hard at healing their allies? YES. Is this intended? YES. Why? Because a healed team is an advancing team. This is what the support is SUPPOSED to be doing.

A firebase farming bots is a horribly inefficient way for the support to earn money, too. It takes the FB awhile to kill a blackjack, and in the meantime its doing nothing but shooting at it making it a sitting duck for any class capable of shredding it. There are other suggestions I have for the FB, but I'll save those for a Wishlist thread.

Putting this here for relevance. The only of your suggestions here that I really agree with are the ones involving visual indicators and maybe the lazer-blazer damage output.

I'm not trying to argue whether skill has anything to do with it or not. I just think that Supports who know what they're doing will come find you if you need them, or at least try to. Don't get me wrong, the money is a GREAT idea, I'm just not sure if it is the whole solution. For the inexperienced, you will get the lovin' you need if you go look for it, but for $10-$15, I'm not sure it's gonna come find you.

I love the idea and I'm certainly not arguing. My point is that for some, a little cash just isn't enough incentive to dash to someone else's aid.

That's why the bonus juice as well. Also, what keeps me from going out of my way to heal is that the recipients will often be faster than me, so they get away and recover on their own. Visual feedback and tangible rewards mean that the odd support will take more notice of low health allies to get them back in the fight faster. The way I see it is this: If they're all selfish, you have to trick them into doing something for the team by feeding that selfish urge they have.

And you're right, it won't fix the problem, but incentives never eliminate the problem. They just encourage the desired behavior, while not punishing those who don't do what we want more of.

Support should get an assist foer each enemy his healee kills while the support is healing them.

If this happens, I would have SO much more money for turrets.