Let us discuss Juice.

Juice is easily one of the most important aspects of the game. Assassin's wouldn't be nearly the threat they are if they couldn't juice up and rape your base at a moments notice.

Controlling the juice purchase is pretty important to winning the game.

So, how balanced is juice?

Is it too good?

Is it too hard to obtain outside of purchases?

Is it not good enough?

Is it generated far to fast?

I personally feel that what juice generation is at a pretty good pace, however I feel that juice's bonuses might be too strong.

Juice does A LOT for players:

Juice gives players 1000health, 100% critical hits, 25% faster ROF, 50% faster reload speed, all damage reduced by 2/3rds, your attacks do 300% more damage, and you are fully healed upon enabling juice.

Now the downsides to juice are fairly small:

You can still be dazed via jackbot/ejector
You can still be frozen via ice trap
You can be rung out
Your juice duration drains even while being grappled.

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Overall I think that weakening Juice as a whole would help normalize the game balance somewhat. I think juicing SHOULD be a massively important ability that can turn the tide of a battle. However I don't think that juice should potentially make you more powerful than the entire enemy team combined. You effectively have 3000health, and nearly a 400% boost to your damage output.

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Obviously this is my opinion, and other than the numbers nothing is set in stone. So how do you feel about juice?

nerf it at all and all games will end in OT

You make a fair point, but I think that the reason for all the OT is that bots are a bit too weak in terms of HP (and also occasionally get stuck on maps like Steel Peel.)

Still, you are correct and that is something I hadn't thought of.

If anything the purchase price could do with being increased.

But I think all the downsides you listed are just as effective for people CC'ing juicers. I'm pretty sure everyone knows the class specific anti-juice tactics so I won't bore everyone with it.

i like servers without juice buy

makes you earn a juice rush.. but the problem is without it, only sins really get to base rush at will.

I have recently discovered that earning Juice is too easy for Tank. Assassin can take a seat, because Tank is the hard counter to Assassin and can take down bases with ease.

any class that murders bots can earn juice fast

snipers make more money than juice though because juice is based on HITS done and kills it seems, not over all damage.. making juice gain go like this

Tank > Assassin > Sniper

however in actual practice its

Assassin > tank/sniper (tank sniper are even) since tanks have to be close to gain juice exposing them and forcing them to be exposed while ganing, vs snipers range allowing safe juice gain at a slower rate..

assassins are king because of a from stealth lunge followed by 2 swings a lunge away into cloak meaning they are hardly ever exposed while gaining, by the time you can target them amongts the bots, they are done and gone..

I once ran into an incredibly good tank with gold juice silver reload...

His death blossoms were beautiful and terrible all at once.

yeah but tank is probably the class that benefits least from gold juice and silver reload, as he needs the armor to surive back grapples and doesnt need the juice to fill his bar.

i mean he gets what he gains from gold juice in like 2 bot mobs.. considering juice drops..


Ive filled my entire bar in like 2 minutes as a sin just perma cloak camping bot spawners against distracted teams..

I wouldnt mind

Juice cost (to buy) being raised to like 800..

and seeing a slight nerf to juice gain for Assains and tanks (make it based on kills, not hits done, or something along those lines, so as not to completely nerf them from being the best juice gainers, just slow em down a bit)

right now 1 single assassin who dedicates to bot killing and base rushing is more than enough to completely destroy all defenses, unless the entire team is defending.. he can do it in 2 or 3 rushes, and that is NOT a long time for him.. if he totaly ignores other players and PVP..

its a boring life, but its super effective at forcing wins.. when I want to WIN thats usually what I do, but man its boring.

The Tank is the biggest target and the slowest-moving Pro with the slowest Juice gain*. The Death Blossom doesn't give you much Juice compared to taking down each Bot individually, but the longer you spend doing that the more likely it is that an Assault will start throwing his toys out of the pram. His toys being highly explosive, you don't really want this happening. Assassin gets Juice much faster than the Tank for taking out Bots.

*Ever try Mortaring Bot waves as a Gunner? It's like farming Juice off a Lazer.

Hmm interesting, so most of you are happy with how powerful juice is, but feel its too easy to obtain?

I kinda wish juice wasn't as powerful but was obtained at the same rate, or faster.

Juice is almost like an Uber and Quad Damage rolled into one. Sure you can disrupt them, but if an assassin gets juice and cloaks into your base you basically have lost at least a minimum of 2 turrets which is a fair bit of cash(and time.)

Perhaps if juice was easier to obtain but less powerful the game would see more attempts to push into an enemy base and possibly less games ending in OT.

What do you guys think? Increase the cost of juice? or decrease its effectiveness?

If that base has a couple 3.3 rockit turrets that assassin is gonna fall over before she can even take one out.

IMO, making it less effective would defeat it's purpose and/or make it useless. There does need to be a way for every class to break stalemates; I believe Juice is exactly that.

If Juice can't be used to breach defended areas (or alternatively, the defended areas are defended by people about to Juice) then nobody will be able to advance, and games will push into OT more than they need to.

So yes, I do feel that Juice itself is fine. It can be countered with only moderate difficulty. Grapples and Charges will stall a juiced player for at least two seconds at the cost of 8 seconds respawn time and +$25 to the Juiced Pro. But that is a tiny price to pay to save a $1050 RockIt turret.

It does mean that some people can defend against Juice better than others.


[PS:] Also, yes; Blossom is terrible for Juice. I only ever do that if I've already got Juice, or absolutely need to pave a lane in a hurry.

You're talking as though any nerf would make juice completely useless.

If you say, left everything the exact same but removed the bump up to 1000health (still leave the 2/3rd dmg reduction) it would still be immensely powerful and remove stalemates.

Or if you removed the bonus move / reload / rate of fire but left the 300% increase to damage, 100% critical hits, and bonus health, and damage reduction it would still be immensely powerful and game changing.

I'm not talkin about nerfing the ability into oblivion.

Heck, if we weakened the effects of juice we could probably buff the juice endorsements making them much more likely to be taken (add something like "receive 5/10/15% more juice from attacking bots/pros)

As for grappling the juiced pro, it IS an effective deterent, but doesn't juice last 12 seconds or something close to it? At most you cut off 3 seconds, that is assuming the juiced pro even lets you get close enough to grapple em. God knows its hard to approach a gunner who is juiced without getting riddled with bullets or mortared. And Assaults can simply fly for most of the juice duration.

@stonedpenguin yeah, but only if she hasn't been juicing and taking out your turrets when they are level 2 instead

Still fair point, having 2-3 level 3.3 rocket turrets covering each other CAN help stop a lone assassin from sneak rapeing you.

Weakening Juice in the manner above would relegate it to killing Pros only. The last time I checked, nobody had trouble doing that (save for scrub Assassins lol).

I believe it's 10 seconds for Juice. With every grapple, you lose upwards of 20% of Juice-time. That's easily a L1 Turret not destroyed. One grapple could have saved you $150.

The way I see it is that Juice is only ever useful when you're shooting. It doesn't matter if Juice gives you 10,000 health and +1000% damage if you've been grappled, thrown, or too slow. Not being able to do harm with your Juice makes it useless.

Let me put it economically, say you and an opponent have $550 worth of assets, and they're broken down like so;

Code:

        You     Him
L2 Blue $150    $150
L2 Red  $150    $150
Cash    $100    $100
RockIt  $150    $150
--------------------
Total	$550    $550

Now say that he has Juice, and is about to drop hell into your spawn.

In the first instance, you go purely for shooting him. He ignores you, and guns for your L1 RockIt - and destroys it too. +$30 cash for him. He's now $180 ahead of you. You lose $150 of stuff, he makes $30 for doing it.

Now look at the situation where you grapple him, making him focus on you instead of the turret, and supposedly delaying him from reaching your turret. He kills you for +$25, you lose nothing.

Here's the above in table form.

Code:

Killing a turret.       Grapple + killing you.
        You     Him             You     Him
L2 Blue $150    $150    L2 Blue $150    $150
L2 Red  $150    $150    L2 Red  $150    $150
Cash    $100    $130    Cash    $100    $125
RockIt  $0      $150    RockIt  $150    $150
--------------------    --------------------
Total	$400    $580    Total   $550    $575

There's a massive difference in outcomes.

How do you destroy a L3.3 RockIt turret? With great difficulty, that's how. Heaven help you if half-competent Support is looking after it. Juice is the only thing that stands a chance at bringing those down, and you want to reduce the power Juice gives Pros?

Only thing about Juice that seems a bit unfair is the purchase price. 500 bucks is not a lot when the game has developed and you have already purchased your team some lvl 3 Rock-it turrets.

Other than that it seems balanced enough, a Juiced enemy can be neutralized pretty easily if you just know how. Then again a skilled player won't let you waste his/her Juice by being aware of his/her surroundings and using the Juice at the right time.

Juice is nasty on pub, a slight imbalance will escalate. Juice is alright competitively because no-one is allowed to run unseen to freely farm juice. you have to earn it and check up on your base etc.

Juice is pretty much fine considering coordinated teams.

This.

A deployed Gunner shooting bots with his Minigun earns juice faster then a Tank if he was meleeing bots for juice. :ugeek: