Monday Night Combat Title Update, DLC, and PAX Discussion

Well i do think that the assassin is in a better place after the patch, if grappling is more consistent and reliable it will make up for alot of frustration. While you can't just kill anyone anywhere anymore you can at least be (more) sure that a grapple will actually work and not just fail for no reason. Hopefully lunging will be less dodgy aswell.

Still i can't wait to try the new DeathBlossom, tank is definetly my second favourite class and the damage is already pretty impressive.
They will be even better in Blitz aswell though, but well the class balance there isn't very important, he is already the king there anyway.

Just a quick question: Have any of you assassins thought about destroying the turrets or firebase before attempting a grapple, or, not relying on cloaking and assassinations for all of your kills? I seem to have no problem doing it.
Even when a support notices I'm damaging his firebase with shurikens and he starts to frantically heal it, then remembers he has a shotgun and decides to pursue, as an assassin I can still get away before he can reach me while he AND his firebase become a lot more vulnerable.

I feel that people are starting to misconstrue the denial of cloaking while grappling with a support being "invincible." In fact, he is going in the complete opposite way: hacking takes longer, and doesn't last forever anymore (at least that's how I interpreted it), along with the hurt gun doing less damage to compensate for the rate of fire endorsements. It's not like he's getting any health bonuses or anything like that.

Bring the patch on, then lets decide if its any good.

I for one cannot wait, patches are always introduced to balance the game and fix things that are not supposed to be there, or not supposed to happen.

Ekanaut,

Is there any chance we can get the red/yellow gunner's skills changed? His grapple makes zero sense as it lacks a charge component (or a passive damage reduction against grapples) and he is effectively the slowest character in the game. If you didn't want to give him a speed move grapple then you could give him a suck in nearby enemies grapple. The gunner level 3 deploy sounds good in theory but does nothing against a smart sniper. They just body shoot you to death (the health boost is not enough) and your damage is crappy while deployed for the rest of the game. The sniper level 3 passive completely negates the level 3 gunner deploy skill. The level 2 gunner upgrade is completely negated by his level 3 upgrade. Why the hell would you do that? It would seem smarter to have the level 2 skill give you a helmet and more armor while deployed (with no damage decrease) and the level 3 upgrade increase your damage.
I'd happily settle with level 2 decreases your damage while deployed, but this is negated when you get the level 3 deploy (which would bring your damage to where level 2 deploy is now).

The only viable gunner skill purchases are slam (but situationally optional), passive, and level 2 deploy. Is it not a serious problem when the universal gunner strategy is, "I skip the crap skills and save for juice and turrets."

We are not changing skills for the update.

Not all skills have the same value in both Crossfire and Blitz.
I, personally, use deploy all the time as Gunner in Crossfire because of the chance to critical hit and the slowing of the targets it hits. However, I don't spend a lot of time deployed in Crossfire. I tend to deploy, make a kill and undeploy. In Blitz I tend to stay deployed much longer. The reduction of critical hit at level 3 is a bug. It may have made in into the update, I'll have to check.
The grapple is very useful in blitz because it is a 1-shot kill on Black Jacks. It's more of a style thing in Crossfire. I'll sometimes take grapple over slam just to get ring outs and kill blackjacks.

Maybe for the DLC rebalance? Any possibility of getting a copy of classes with one skill switched out for a new branch?

Due to the whole kicked for latency deploying as a gunner in Blitz is not a good idea (but I know that's a bug and it's getting fixed). Wait... the reduction of critical hits at level 3 might be a bug? Awesome. From the telecast I was under the impression the damage decrease was intended, as the guys sitting there on the couch said so. Don't get me wrong, I deploy, make a kill then undeploy all the time in crossfire. It's good for what it does.... but the level 3 current version just isn't worthwhile.

I will agree that the grapple is only useful for grabbing blackjacks, but I'll call you names for buying that over slam due to the aoe stun and gremlins! I'd consider buying the grapple if we could grapple the jackbot. Are you seriously trying to tell me a skinny 120 lb dude can grab him but the beefy guy in power armor can't? Ok whatever.

I appreciate you looking into the nature and I'll take any news as good news. Having the helmet and increased damage would make me reconsider ever buying it. It would be a situationally viable purchase like the slam. When assassins are abundant I upgrade slam (or if there is one really good assassin). It would be nice to have the option to do the same with the gunner for snipers. "Oh crap I hit an ice trap"... Deploy!

Anything is possible! Some of the future DLC content is still in the planning stages.

The Gunner at level 3 deploy takes less damage. That might have been where you were confused. He deals less damage, which is a bug. But he also takes less damage, which is by design. The head shield isn't the only bonus he gets at level 3.

Again, grapple tends to be more useful in Blitz. You can also grapple Bouncers and Gap Shots with it. And since it's a devoted skill, it means in Blitz when the rounds get harder, they will still likely one-shot those types of bots, if you've upgraded it. But the left-trigger grapples won't always one-shot bots and rarely will when you get to late rounds.

Any more word on the PAX swag going on sale through the site? I want some statuettes.

Most games i play, i'm the only assault on my team and everyone else on the opposing team is either a gunner, support, or tank. All over powered.

I believe lunge+grapple is equal parts finesse and luck.

Played a game with a total of 6 Assaults just an hour ago, and there's never a lack of Assaults in any of the games I've played (usually about 2 or 3 as well). I could understand problems with Gunners, but that's just because he was built to be an offensive powerhouse.

Maybe it's the custom class you're running with, but nevertheless, the Assault is far from underpowered. In fact, it's one of the most annoying classes in the game (at least, to me) due to the Charge-Grapple. He's also pretty well rounded, having both an assault rifle that does a decent amount of damage from distances, which Supports and Tanks could never do effectively, and a grenade launcher for picking off turrets and bots.

As host, there's not a whole lot of luck involved

With more lag, the luck factor skyrockets

That's amazing news! I have always wondered why the level 2 upgrade increased your damage and the level 3 upgrade decreased it. But I assume that it won't be getting changed in the update as it's already been sent for approval?

I suppose I can learn to love the level 3 deploy later, but as long as its 'bonus' is decreased damage I will avoid it like the plague. And by plague I mean the gunner's grapple.

Concerning the Assassin's controversial cloaking nerf: Would it be feasible to, rather than remove the ability to cloak while grappling, have the cloak skill bar drain? I know that right now, if you cloak while grappling, even if your cloak isn't at level 3 it still doesn't degenerate. I think that's the bug that should be fixed here. If you made it degenerate faster when grappling rather than removing it all together, then I think it would much more fair, and I think that the majority of the player base will agree. With this method, the Assassin would have to ration their cloak ability more carefully when going in for a grapple near an enemy turret, but it wouldn't be impossible.

Ive got a question about the dlc. I know were getting 1 new map but will there be more than 1 new map in the first dlc.

There will likely be some new ProTags in there, i haven't read of anything else so far but could've missed it offcourse

So, you are going to get me one?

I really wish this would hurry up, I rage-quit today after being killed by an Assualt in literally 3 seconds, while my shots were not registering at all - there was no noticable lag whatsoever but I'm going to put it down to that. Seriously irritating!

when is this update suppossed to come out?

the support needs to be nerfed

the sniper also needs a huge nerf to his grapple.

not another "nerf" request, yawn. And even worse, no real reasons or points to put forward :roll:

Why dont we all wait for the update to come into play and then see if the changes even it out.