Supports post DLC:

I get that their offensive capabilities have been toned down with the reduction of juice gain rates and air strike spam. I'm okay with this entirely (though I really did not consider air strike spam to be a problem).

However, I think now its finally time to consider some sort of assist system for healing team mates who get turret/pro kills, and hacked allied turret bot/pro kills.

I think hack should also be reworked offensively now that turret building has seen a serious comeback thanks to cheaper rocket turrets and limited availability of juice. It is currently almost impossible to get a hack off and the reward is an enemy turret which does not give you money for any pros it kills.

Basically: If the support's offensive role has been nerfed to the standard uber wants for the class, I think its supportive role should be buffed at least somewhat to compensate.

Other than that, I think all of the balance changes to the pros were outstanding, and 90% of the update has felt like an improvement to me (based on my first day of play).

Agreed. They took away a very fun playstyle for the supports, which apparently was necessary to balance classes and prevent abuse. That's fine, but give them something in return now. Juice gain is excrutiatingly slow now, it reminds me a lot of a tank's juice gain, but without the cool way to get a quick juice under the right circumstances. Money gain is also slower as a result, which makes it harder to build turrets. Hacking an enemy turret is nearly impossible, especially since players are getting better and better at base defense and crowd control.

I don't mind balancing, but reward the supports in some other way.

Also, is there a bug with stat tracking at the end of game? I played support for hours last night and mostly built and hacked turrets. I saw lots of pros dies to my turrets. The end of game screen under "Turret kills" always said 1 or 0.

Or does "Turret Kills" mean something else?

It means how many turrets you killed.

Oh duh.

Is there a stat that counts how many pros you killed indirectly (Firebases, turrets, etc.)?

I spend a lot of resources on building longshots and they destroy tons of turrets. I guess I don't get any credit for that beyond money?

I think the juice gain rate is appropriate for for building juice in complete safety by healing bots and turrets at your spawn. People are starting to run Gold Juice and Silver fire rate to compensate and still juice frequently.

I've found that airstrike regeneration is EXCRUCIATINGLY slow. Given how aware some players are, its remarkable difficult to get kills with it since they'll just maintain their attack from somewhere else. Its only area denial for about 4 seconds, and you get a small chance at that once a minute?

I think its far too slow. Even with Gold Skill regen. It makes Churro farming almost ESSENTIAL to having an airstrike ready for situations that require it.

Yeah, when I was playing support I kept hitting my airstrike to no avail and thinking "It's still not ready yet?!?!?!"

I agree...it's made playing a more offensive support difficult. The airstrike recharge is far too slow. Seems rather punitive instead of balancing.

Did anyone actually think the airstrike was overpowered? I'm not at all sure where that nerf came from...

I never thought it was op, i thought the support was fine

Support is the only class that can heal turrets. And of course hack turrets. Making him a logical choice to defend the base. Problem happens when team mates don't build turrets. Being less offensive makes him get less cash then before. Maybe he should get an increase in the pittance he earns by healing?

I pretty much save the airstrikes for enemy turrets exclusively now. Even with skill regen, it takes excruciatingly long. Prohibitively so. Can't use them destroying enemy bots anymore, and think twice about using it on a pro. Because if you did, and got up to the enemy base and they have turrets up, what are you supposed to use? Harsh language?
The enemy will have respawned long before you get an airstrike up. Much less 2 that are needed to bring down a lvl 1 rocket.

The air strike wasn't even a spam, amagawd. Look at the assault's bomb. It regens SO quickly even without a skill regen endorsement, and it just makes a wee little buzz and you have to stare at the ground to find it.

The air strike shows aliens starting the apocalypse with that death ray of light AND has a high pitched noise that makes you want to die just to get it over with.

So, /rant.

Now. The juice nerf alone made it far more difficult to be offensive, which I'm ENTIRELY okay with. I like everything else that was said.

Uber is generally good with compensating for change, I'm surprised they didn't do this on their own. All of these opinions have been voiced already .. long before the dlc was released.

My theory is that all this small changes we are asking to off set the supports income was very difficult to Gage, and uber wanted to avoid making too many changes to the in game economy at once. Look at how big a change lowering the cost of rocket turrets and paying for every single jump pad has brought to the game.

Add a lack of assist cash in with dramatically reduced offensive capabilities, and the support just went from a very diverse class to a much more isolated niche roll.

It is not useless or even underpowered IMO, but I feel support players will be railroaded into base defense almost exclusively now.

Granted, We are only 1 day deep and might just need to l2p the reworked support properly.

Juice and $ gain is extremely slow, aside from maybe the gunner I would now say that the Support has the slowest Juice gain rate by far, and it didnt even have the fastest before the DLC; The offense is nerfed like crazy which makes cash gain rate even slower than before; support is one of the weakest sheilded players, so getting to 'earned juice' isn't easy unless you play like a coward and hide alot. Combine all that with the fact that all of supports upgrades (except FB 3 and Passive 3) are pretty much mandantory to do anything useful, while the same is not true for the other classes AND that if you're going to want to juice you're likely going to have to pay for it... and..... ouch... Where exactly is all this money supposed to come from? Oh, lets not forget to mention that very few other Pros ever, ever, ever, ever, ever buy turrets. That should change now though hopefully, but probably not. It's a good thing those Rockits are cheaper now because a Support can barely afford to buy shoes.

Did distance and damage of the Firebase get nerfed too? Regarding distance... it also seems like laser 3.3's dont shoot nearly as far as they used to. That front one on Spunky for example which should cover the entrance and upperwall...it cant even reach that upper wall when hacked.. its barely even a pest... which = useless and now a free juice piggy bank for the Tank/Sniper/Assassin.

Airstikes have been turned into 'get a lucky kill if no one is paying attention' and 'get a kill with a sticky' only weapons. They are the most audible and visually obvious weapon in the game that come with a pre-warning to anyone in the area. Now you can't use them in a tactile sense by 'leading' or fooling someone into one direction or by boxing them in....just rand or sticky kills are left.

The only issue I have is that the support is not even capable of defending a base on his own now.. If the opposing team is at all competent they'll send in a cloaked assassin to juice and rip up turrets. That leaves the support with absolutely nothing to clear incoming bots out in a timely manner. At least the air strike could take out a group.

In public matches (by myself) I'm still able to outscore urryone else with the support, but it's only because I'm grossly better than the average public player is (WOAH, DEADEYE).

The support no longer even has that 'chess master' role that he used to. Even though rockits ARE beast now, they're still too fragile to make the hack the only strong point of the class.

GIVE US THE AIRSTRIKE BACK RAWR.

:lol:

While funny, it's also true. Supports don't usually make a lot of money. Which is why I suspect the devs made healing pay you. It wasn't really needed when he could afford to be offensive, but now that really needs an increase.

Like Hudson said, Support is on the fast track to being a niche class unless something gets changed.

Lazer Blazers got nerfed with the DLC. Which was usually the offensive turret broke supports could buy and make useful with a hack. :cry:

I would also like to see some type of financial change to the support. More money for healing, getting assists, SOMETHING. Supports just to have the firepower to kill bots OR pros like the other classes do. Besides, with the nerf to my cheap lazerblasers and not being able to juice nearly as often, my income has been severely reduced anyway. I never thought the airstrikes were OP either, but can live with it...

I don't see the problem with the changes. Support has always been meant to be THE defense class, imo. It's been a fun ride while he could do other things, but the ride is over.

The only thing in this thread I can maybe agree with is that support needs a way of getting more money. They need money more than they need juice, so I use my juice to do juice taunts.

Is Juice gain really that slow for the Support? I honestly never play the class, but last night Wingman Master was Juicing in my base no more than 30 seconds into the match. That doesn't seemed too slowed to me.

Without bot melees, a support with gold juice could get it in no less than 45 seconds PRE-patch by healing alone. Bot melees and the like haven't been changed, so I assume that's how he did it.

That being said, no either way. The juice gain rate is perfectly fair now.

___

And thrust, you're not looking at everything. The airstrike WAS a defensive tool. They've also previously nerfed the hacks, which wasn't a huge deal at the time because he could still play offensively to compensate.

They have taken the support, pinned him in the base, made him less able to keep turrets hacked, and removed his way to clear bots in a timely manner. On top of that, he gets zero money for doing his duty. (Yes, I know he helps the team, which I'm all for, but he gets no money to level his skills for doing so.) Also, why do you feel like the change to the support's juice gain rate is fair? (Granted, it absolutely would be if they compensated by buffing his defensive skills)
Now a support must sit in his base, and it's incredibly difficult for him to sit on juice to crowd control enemy juiced players.

You see absolutely no issue with any of that? I think, perhaps, you need a bit more perspective.