Support needs help playing offense.

Your post was pretty good, and nails on the head on most of the elements to my game when i'm playing support. I usually run Speed Gold though because I love to shot n pop on ppl.. and something has to make up for the changes to the class. I don't find RoF nessicary at all really... though I do sometimes switch to it, esp. if the opposing team is almost all heavies.

In regards to your comment of having to choose what to use the airstrike for in gameplay.. it used to be way more flexible.

You used not to have to choose between covering your tracks with an airstrike to get distance, ward people off (or protecting a turret) vs. using airstrikes as an offensive weapon. You used to be able to do both. And more. At the same time. Now you have to choose between 1 in any given situation.

Say an average game lasts 15 minutes. That means if use a Gold endorsement (which limits you in many other ways) and if you upgrade it first before anything else (most ppl go hack/fb first for good reason), you can get 2 airstrikes off in a minute. That means 30 uses in the game overall. After 3 minutes or so you can upgrade to airstrike 3, meaning you can get 3 off per 1:10. if you haven't screwed up the timing by using it at odd intervals that means in the last 12 minutes you can get off 34 more. 6 airstrikes first 3 minutes, 34 the last.. so 40 total. You'll never get that many off though unless it's your sole purpose from the time the game starts, you never die, and you toss them immediately as the skill is there... so a better number is probably 30, if you don't die, ever. That'll at least give you an additional 10 seconds of what to think to do with it. If you need more time to think or you have a specific use for them (as you and I have mentioned) and you accept that you're probably going to die more than twice in a game, then a more realistic number is probably 25 airstrikes in 15 minutes. And that's probably generous.

25.

In other words, the weapon is extremely limited in it's use.. which means you have to save it if you use it at all...and not for all the facets it used to be good for.

What's pathetic and painfully hypocritical is that I use the Assault alot now, and I use the Bombs in the EXACT SAME WAY that I used to use the Airstrike, BUT it also has the additional use in that you can ring-out people with it, you can use it under bridges,. etc. It's a much more dangerous and powerful weapon. IT'S BETTER. It's not 100% obvious, it's not SLOW to go off, headcrabs are much easier than GZ's, and it regens quick as hell. But for SOME flippin unseen reason.. the weaker cousin version of the weapon, aka the airstrike, had to go and get nerfed. It does not make sense and it still makes me furious. The logic is fail all over the place. I don't remember the Bomb's regen time but you can sure as hell get way more off than 25-35 in 15 minutes. WAY more. Way way more. Those few of you that want to say it's a different weapon, it doesnt usually get 1HK's... you just ignored the 20 other ways the weapon is better. Besides, you might as well get 1HK's. If you're bombing someone and they're not ringed out or dead from the blast, and you're NOT spraying them with bullets as it goes off to guarantee the kill... then you're doing it wrong. Even if you do want to stick with that 1HK point, the fact of the matter is its nowhere nearly as obvious, its still VERY deadly, it IS very similar, and you get WAY more of them, on a class that is already way more powerful in defending itself, running away, or attacking someone. Also besides, the 1HK isnt the most useful thing of the airstrike.. clearing people out, delaying them, or causing a distraction is often more important. All of which you can still do repeatedly, over and over and over with the bomb.

Add that to the fact that much more was nerfed than just the airstrike. It's not all about the airstrike when Support players bitch about it. Another poorly thought out one that came with the DLC for example is no regen during death/respawn for the class with the slowest regeneration times in the whole game and also the class the relies the most on his skills than any other.

It's like the timer change on the airstrike was made without weighing in any other factors of the game regarding it's usage other than the #of airstrikes divided by possible length of the game. Not deaths, not freeze traps, not scramblers, not delayed usage, not its added utilitarian use, nothing except match length.

No one is saying it's completely ruined the class, or that we need it back to the original setting (I dont see why not though), but the current state of affairs is absurd.

Uber obviously hates the class because these (and many many more) are valid points but they've never addressed it once outside of saying "Churros!" when it was first nerfed (which is almost insulting) ...

^^^ :lol: :lol: :lol:

Yeah I want them back too. Maybe a little less passionately; I'm cool with tweaks each time even if they're too far or a bit off balance. Uber seems active enough in addressing stuff like this so I cut slack. I can still wreck fools and still have fun sooooo.....

It may sound like I am, but I'm not crazy passionate about it.. and I still play support alot. I figure someone still needs to be the occassional blow hard about it, even if it makes me out to be a skipping record from time to time. And if I'm going to bring it up, I might as well state clear reasons. If I'm a bit forceful about it, well.. maybe thats because it seems like the masses are being ignored.

To be honest, right now I'm way more concerned with Gunners hitting the MB's beam of light from their spawn more than anything else. Unlike this stuff, that's a game ruiner right there.