The most important thing to fix in the first patch.

He does need work on, however he is VERY weak against snipers, tanks, and other supports. Snipers- snipe the support then snipe the fire base. Tanks- product grenades then rush and completely destroy the firebase with no problem. Supports- use your airstrike to instantly destroy the fire base.

I agree. Support is way OP; Firebases are as powerful as a fully upgraded turret, and if they're placed in the right spot they're next to impossible to kill.

Plus, I seem to have an incredibly tough time grappling them compared to other classes. It might just be me, but I feel like their hitbox for the grapple might be too small.

To expand upon this, I was just in a game where two Supports were healing a single Jackbot, with no other bots around. This was a near-unbeatable combo, since the Supports had armor endorsements.

Our full team had to focus on this setup for a good 2 minutes, during which our Moneyball got breached and we lost pretty quickly. This wasn't really a matter of strategy, it was just a heal rate that's way too fast to counter.

Supports need to be more fragile, and they shouldn't be able to heal as fast as they do.

1. He's only tough to kill if he's using a gold level armor endorsement, beyond that he's fragile and even the health-sapper won't save him long.
2. The air-strike is powerful, but you get enough of a warning unless you're deployed.
3. The turret annoys me to hell but it's real easy to pop from a distance or if you catch it on the drop.
4. The shot-gun is literally only a viable option at point-blank, even and assault with no accuracy endorsements can fend it off.
5. Hacking things is the only skill I have an issue with, and only because level three hack is so fast you might not have time to kill the bugger.

I played a lot of assault my first day or two with the game, and it's easy to get kills if people don't take advantage of support's short range. I just wish more supports would actually use the heal gun, I hate dieing with a support character next to me who isn't even in range to attack on his own.

The only thing I can see wrong with support is that they have too much health and the air strike is an insta-kill. Their health is only slightly too high, I'd say nerf it 8%. As for the air strike, the insta-kill isn't necessarily the problem, the air strike just comes down too fast for a deployed gunner or tank to react. If the support managed to land an air strike on the character, then that should definitely kill the character, but if it landed next to them I think they should have the option of running.

Outside of that you could toy with the idea of air strikes costing in-game money, so they aren't spammed so frequently.

That's the thing about deploying though, you give up mobility for increases in defense and accuracy. If even deployed pros were able to comfortably avoid the air-strike it would be useless.

Then why don't support run behind a deployed pro and shoot them with a shotgun?

Deploying should be a matter of strategy, but when you're going to die in one hit from any direction to a large AoE attack it kind of negates the point of deploying with your back to a wall, or having someone watch behind you.

I'm all for air strike sticks causing an insta-kill, and it shouldn't be that difficult to stick a stationary target.

pretty simple, deploy where a support can't hit you, or under a bridge. ****, what you want, the deployed to be nearly as godly if placed anywhere? :|

Snipe the support? The support is probably the hardest thing to snipe by a ruddy mile. They are really fast and they have no need not to be bouncing around all the time. Sniping the firebase is effective though - but the support himself is a joke to headshot unless he's hacking - maybe if hacking took double/treble as long or something.

So nobody would hack anymore again, since it takes already 4-5 seconds. If you're a snail aiming, don't whine. Seriously. double the time of hacking, so nobody does that since you'll be super exposed to snipers and assassins, like if you already ain't. Bah

It's nothing to do with snail aiming - it's just really easy to hack something right now and other than that short period of time a support will quite literally be bouncing all game.

All this support whining is hilarious.

1) Firebase can be taken down with a airstirke; overhealed or not.
2) A sniper with a high RoF can take down a firebase before the Support can heal it. (This has happened to me many times)
3) Shotgun range is hilariously close range, so the only time you'll get killed by it is if you're within grapple range. If you're not an assassin, and you're in grapple range of a support (for whatever reason) then you deserve to die.
4) Airstrike is actually pretty hard to kill people with, if they're paying attention. The only time I really get kills with it is when someone is deployed, or when they're sitting ontop of a bridge camping our base.
5) Draining life doesn't help you worth a damn. The damage is very weak, so you barely get healed at all, while draining. If you're fighting someone who knows the support class, they'll either run from you and pick you off from afar, or they'll just finish you off with an explosive/grapple/etc. (we're very squishy)

Seriously, I can't believe people are having such a hard time against supports. I actually die to good assassins all the time, because they sneak up behind me ala dash when I'm running somewhere, and kill me. I have my firebases destroyed before they're deployed by good snipers/assaults. I get absolutely butchered by Gunner/Tanks, so the majority of the time, I'm at my base, where I'm safest, unless I'm deploying my firebase somewhere strategic, so I can help our bots advance/gain money for turret upgrades.

If you're having trouble against a support, spawn as a gunner, sit under a bridge, and unload into them. If they start draining you while jumping around, lure them into a choke point where they'll basically be stuck right infront of you, without that much room to get around.

If all else fails, spawn as a support yourself, airstrike their firebase, wait for them to come after you, deploy your own firebase, and lure them to it. I can't believe this argument is still going, when the Gunner is about 1000x more OP than the support.

QFT

Because the common player is going to read the word Support and immediately pick something else that sounds like it will get kills often and easy.

I just played a match where the enemy team had 3 supports, my team had 4 fecking assassins but we held on well into overtime just because as a sniper I was able to ice and flak them often, but damn once they lay two firebases down and hack them to .3 those things can sniper you extremely easily, and they are strong in pairs too.

We lost in the end because our 4 assassins were off busy somewhere having a picknic while our ball was being raped, but eh that's to be expected in pub matches.

Supports are completely fine. most of you complain about Drain but it's fairly balanced. Most times like when im up against a SMART Assault I lose..because he doesnt hesitate jumping like a lunatic because his bullets can actually KILL me before he drains me. Im an expert Support and MANY MANY MANY times have I beaten a Support at his own game with an Assault,Gunner and a Sniper. the Supports a complete badass on my part because he takes the most important role ever..Defense..I ALWAYS and ALWAYS will. stay back and defend my base and I fairly get decent amount of kills when people always come to kill me or destroy my turrents. and I dont feel overpowered why? because my own Turrents do better work then me. And thats how I like it. I summon Gap Shots like it's nothing and i enjoy the killfeeds I get from it because people are too lazy complaining about ME or to lazy to simple kill the gapshot.

I have to totally agree with the airstrike and firebase nerfing, when i play as a tank it has the most health in the game and the airstrike kills it in 1 hit. its like the assassin can stab him in the back of the head and it gets half of their health then they just get up and kill me. and the firebase is almost impossible to kill.

No one on this entire forum has presented a case for nerfing support based on anything but their feelings. If you want to convince anyone (except people who are already sympathetic to your point) try using objective evidence.

And you're totally mistaken about airstrikes as an "end-all solution." As soon as you go under a bridge or any sort of cover like that, they won't touch you.

Seems to me you just haven't played the game or thought about it long enough.

Based on what evidence? Your feelings?

Get over the name, buddy. This board isn't about linguistics, it's about MNC. It sounds to me like the problem isn't with the support, it's with you taking the name way too literally.

By your logic, the gunner shouldn't be able to do anything other than "gun" and the assassin shouldn't be able to build turrets, use the annihilator/ejector or spawn bots since that isn't techincally "assassination" and the sniper should have no traps since that isn't "sniping."

Chill out and just try to get better at the game. That's much more likely than the developers reprogramming around your lack of ability.

Before I post, let me make it clear that I don't currently have a stance on the power of support classes. The game's not even been out that long and I've not got a good amount of hours on the class myself (I try not to judge something until I've seen it from both sides :3 ).

That said, I do have to point out one major problem I have with a number of posts in this thread... if you're going to argue for the support being balanced, it doesn't help your case if your answer / counter for something a support does is... another support
In case you're wondering what I mean, there's a heckload of posts here saying "firebases are easy: just use an airstrike." While true, this isn't helping your balance argument ;D

My own experience with firebases is that I need to still try shurikening them. To date I've been killing the support, smoke bombing the turret and slashing it until it wakes up again before cloaking out and repeating until the turret dies or the support chases me off. My friend and I run a well-coordinated assassin duo which usually wreak absolute havoc, often getting high money scores and even a respectable K (think my flatmate got a nice 38 - 1 a day or two ago infact ) We tried to take down a support with a 3.3 firebase that had totally shut down one of the lanes and the results with the smokebomb technique were somewhat harrowing. After gutting the support, using both our smoke bombs and doing some frantic slashing it was still alive with barely a sliver of health when the support got back. I'm guessing he overhealed before we faceplanted him it but jeez, that's one tough turret XD

I'll give retreating out of range and using shurikens a try next time though and see how that works out, but it may simply be a case of me having to leave the turret for other classes or waiting until another class is around before smoking it so they can help me break it down. Teamwork and all that :3

I have had this happen to my team and I can say two Assassins working together running in a pair are extremely deadly. Lately it has become my new fear in game. One plays as bait while the other is the predator.