I've been noticing more and more that I (playing support) tend to be poorer than other players, including those I'm clearly better than. In the attached screenshot, my teammate (a gunner) goes 7-23-14-62 (kills-assists-deaths-botkills) while I go 23-21-13-112 and make slightly less money than him. Logically, I should have quite a bit more than him. I believe part of this is due to the lack of killing bonuses as a support. If a sniper gets a headshot, they get extra cash. If an assassin gets a grapple kill, extra cash. Assaults get ring outs all the time due to bomb and charge 3. However, almost every support kill is just a plain old kill bonus.
I believe kills made by turrets you hacked and players you're healing should get you $10 each, as an incentive to support the team.
Looks to me like that Gunner was extremely dedicated to killing turrets. He didn't do so well, but he fulfilled his class' main purpose. Most of my money from Supports comes from streaks. Since you, along with the Sniper, are your team's anchors, you shouldn't be putting yourself in situations where you could easily die. The Support does get the short end of the stick when it comes to earnings I agree, but the fact that Gapshots and the hack skill are so game-changing makes up for it in my eyes.
The thing is, you need extra money before you can start spamming gapshots...which sort of goes back to the original point. Hack is definitely great, when you can execute it. There aren't a lot of times in this game where it's safe for a player to stand still for 3-5 seconds with their view pointed at the ground, especially outside of the base. I think it'd be awesome if all players got bonuses for kills made by bots they spawned. Would make them much more useful.
But if you're staying alive, you should have tons of money from streaks. Since you are an anchor class, hacking isn't much of an issue either. Just do it where your safe, then readjust slowly with your team, until your firebase is in the best location. Of course, if your team is awful the Support can't do much. I'd say only the Assault can lone-wolf it and get anywhere, though.
Taunt. Taunt after every kill. $50 Taunt after an assist. $10 (?) Taunt for the hell of it. $5 You can easily double your income in a game if you have a high number of kills.
Keeping turrets up, firebase up, staying alive, hurt guning bots, hacking anything, spawning bots, juicing other pros, and taunt after every kill. Support can gain money just as much as any other pro. Especially on spunky with gapshot spamming and great firebase placement.
streak money also helps, using hurt gun on nearby bots with max fire rate is like doubling your regen and can assist with survival, effectively increasing the amount of damage enemies have to do before they can kill you you may start with OK health but with upgrades, endorsements, and judicious use of the hurt gun you can increase your damage threshold far beyond a tank's amount of health Using the firebase as a way to deter pursuers is also a fantastic method of running away, since most pros under attack from a level 3 firebase, even with only level 2 hacking, will quickly fall. Tanks may take a little more persuasion but they're slow enough on average to take heavy damage from one. All in the name of survival for the streak bonus. It's good cash. http://i.imgur.com/hffWg.jpg Exhibit A - note that I taunted maybe after 7 of those kills total. I could've had practically $1,000 more if I had taunted after every single kill, but sometimes murdering and healing teammates takes priority
Actually, this is great advice. I never knew that taunting could gain so much money! I am going to taunt more now. Also, do you go by Admiral Corducken?
I have never noticed this, is this true? I've noticed I get money from bot kills made by turrets I own, but I don't remember ever getting any money from turrets I hacked or players I've healed(besides normal heal money/juice).
I have noticed that a Support can earn immense amounts of money if your team sucks. If the enemy bots keep knocking on your door you will have 3.3 RockIts in no time and your money gain rate will go through the roof. Best case scenario: All your team does is to play TDM and your opponents kill your bots before they can do any damage... :?
BAL_HEALER_HEAL_MONEY=0.075 This is how much money you gain per shot with the hurt/heal gun. The gun has a ROF of 0.25 so lets look at the math: 0.075 x 4 = 0.3 -- This is how much you gain per second So it takes you a smidge over 3seconds to get 1$ Here are some interesting factoids I've gleaned from testing: Rate of Fire endorsement makes you earn this faster (obviously) If the target is at max health it does NOT COUNT. This means continuing to heal the same target will grant you NO MONEY WHATSOEVER once they are full you are earning nothing at all. Healing grants 0.05 juice per shot when the target is overhealed already. (for comparison the assassin's sword gets 1.5 per hit. This means if you are overhealing the same target it would take you 7.5seconds to gain the same amount of juice that an assassin gets in ONE swing of the sword.)
Ach, I knew it was bad but not that bad. The juice thing I can understand -- you can deploy your firebase somewhere safe and just heal it constantly. If the rate of juice was anything significant then it would be problematic. The money though would be a lot better. I earn more money from standing still taunting than healing. If its something I'm meant to do, I sure wish it was more rewarding. Juice is not a good reward because (especially for the inexperienced player) its not a tangible prize until the bar is full and living that long is not always guaranteed. There's obviously a lot of ways to play support, and being a good healer should be one of them.
Actually, that's a very good point and I never thought about it that way. The game rewards taunting for no good reason more than it rewards healing.
