At the moment the bot-aura seems to be relatively useless, and the health, combined with a full armour endorsement, makes no difference to Assassination / Headshots compared with the full armour endorsement alone, making it relatively redundant. I think it should be reworked in one (or a combination of) the following ways: *Make L3 passive skill improve the bot aura to the point where a standard group of breach bots (3 slims and 2 blackjacks?) will have a similar combined fire-power and health / armour as a L3 Firebase. The skills cost the same to upgrade, they should have similar lethality. Yes the passive skill is passive, but the bots can't heal unlike a L3 FB, and you can't place them strategically away from eliminator pads, etc. Award kills / assists by those bots to the nearby support. *Make L3 passive skill improve breach bot AI so that they will not stop moving towards the objective (running and gunning) and will avoid obstacles; and will prioritise shooting pros over turrets and bots. *Make L3 skill aura lower the effective range and RoF of UNHACKED enemy turrets - a type of ECM. *Allow the Support to buff non-breach bots, for example buffing bouncers, Jackbots, etc. Allow overhealing of Jackbots. This would make it more useful, and more interesting as a skill-set.
His passives aren't the best in the game, but they certainly aren't the worse. I think his passive 2 is the only real necesary one if you have a bronze armor endorsement. Also, passive 2 makes bots able to survive ejectors and deathblossoms and assassin lunge, and gives him one of the highest health regenerations in the game. Passive 3 is only really useful if you have $400 and you are about to die (clutch passive), it is like buying a health pack. Passive 3 does prevent OHKO facegrapples with dagger. Bronze armor does too, so that saves you money. Bronze armor and passive 3 prevents OHKO facegrapples with the sword.
Does passive 2 help non-slims/blackjacks? I can't see the little antenna on them, so I'm not sure if it does anything.
No, but on Spunky, if your team spawns bouncers on top of the ones that spawn themselves, and all bouncers are given an overheal, then everyone on the enemy team is guranteed to die once from a bouncer. At the very least, they will tie up a bunch of time on bouncers, forget about turrets, and those could "disappear". Same with gremlins. Overhealed gremlins are a real pain, even to tanks.
Surviving an assassin's lunge as a bot is relatively worthless, IMO; they'll prolly nail the support first anyway, removing the aura. Surviving any one-shot effect is trivial for the bots, as there's always another source of damage to finish them off (for example the constantly spawning waves of enemy breach-bots en route through yours). I find it to be almost completely redundant given the utility of a L2 firebase, hack, or airstrike.
support doesnt need a buff, PERIOD, to anything. a good support WILL control a full map, so buffing anything of his is really not needed at all. classes are pretty balanced. i dont believe any nurfs/buffs are needed
Trust me, a good support will jump constantly, whether he thinks he needs to or not. I do, it isn't like my HHgun is going to miss. Nothing is going to kill him, especially with team support around the lanes. A good support get the bots in, because the enemy will turtle with 3 firebases and bunch of tanks, and a gunner-support combo is the only thing that will penetrate the turtle team and get bots to the ball reguardless. Read my guide in my signature if you want to know how a good support plays, but a good support can stack all of his abilities at once and it truely is amazing. He requires mediums to inflict damage through, but given that medium (his team gunners and tank and turrets), he amplifies his team's firepower and glues the map down with firebase and turrets and gives suppressing fire with gapshots and overhealed bots. Think of it this way, a gunner can only shoot one enemy at a time. A support has many ways to assist and create multiple sources of firepower at the same time.
Support's passives may seem weak as they're effects that you can't really see. I've always wondered where this aura was. There should be some sort of aura effect over the affected bots or something. Regardless, his other skills make up for whatever weakness his passives may portray. A good Support in a team can lead to the other team getting boxed in their own base and just generally having their arses hammered. :lol:
There is, they sprout purple antennae when they're in the aura, similar to the one the Support sprouts when he gets the skill upgraded. Like the previous two posts in this thread, what this generally means is "it's fine being relatively useless because his other skills are good" - then why buy it unless you've got spare cash to waste? For the aura to be in use you can't be over-healing turrets or moving a firebase around, or spawning gapshots, or doing anything fun - you have to be following a handful of bots around and neglecting your other duties. The skills cost the same as the others, you can only buy all if you've got spare cash, and yet it's a real lame-duck. The passive skill needs a buff to be functional, and if it comes down to an "either / or" choice of skills, then you're better protecting the bots with a higher level / higher hack of firebase or a levelled up airstrike than a weak-*** aura or a few more hp. or better health regen if you run away from the bots (turning off the aura) in order to heal up...
Relatively beneficial, certainly, but I'd not call it "great". I'd call it incredibly boring and unimaginative. "Oh yet another buff to passive regen, along side the tank getting two different ones, the gunner getting one, endorsements granting one, have I missed anyone out?" Yawnerama. But then I find the whole "I've survived by a milimicron of health, now I'm going to hide around a corner for a second, TADA round two" mechanic to be tedious anyway.
It's even better when your bots become better meat shields. Airstrike from safety with the metal meatshield 2.0! It comes with faster health regen so those bullets that make it through the wall just won't matter.
Do gunners have a passive health regen upgrade? I thought the first passive just increased the mortar count by one. Also the first thing I upgrade on my support is always passive 2. I find it super handy, especially when I forego bronze armor for an additional regen boost.
It might be worth having health regen as an endorsement on a field support. In which case I recommend rate/regen/armor. It is great, you always survive longer that the gunner or bots you leash. Only downside is the longer skill cooldown.
I actually tried armor/regen/skill for a while, but found myself at a loss for healing ability. I use air strikes liberally now that I understand how they work in detail. I found myself with a choice between skill recharge and rate of fire, which is a choice no support should have to make :cry: I eventually gave up the regen build for skill in silver and rate in gold, and screw around with my bronze liberally, despite how few endorsements actually give significant benefit to him.
It seems like it works for a limited time after the support passes by them, the light on the antennae stays on for a bit before going out. Not sure how long though.
