Balance Discussion: Combat Drugs

[Jaimas]

Peeps, a discussion on Combat Drugs needs to happen - they are underpowered due to three major issues with them:

ISSUE THE FIRST: If you are hit and/or stagger at all during the activation animation, the drugs fail to activate and are still consumed

ISSUE THE SECOND: The activation of Combat Drugs, unlike the throwing of a grenade, immobilizes you during the activation.

ISSUE THE THIRD: The effect lasts too short. It should last a few more seconds.

My proposed fixes are as follows:

1. Make sure the activation of it goes off when it's triggered

2. Activation should not immobilize you

3. Increase duration by 2-3 seconds

That is all.

[coldplay]

As a side note, the Combat Stims make you immune to hit reactions while they are active.

[Dimension]

I agree with Jaimas. The success rate of combat stims is freaky-low. If you'd put a gun to my head and demand from me that I pull numbers out of me bum, I'd say that anywhere between 30-60% of the time, the drug is consumed, yet does not give any effect.

I think I have never been able to activate it in the air for instance. The fact that it is still consumed makes me think that this is actually a bug.

In fact, that is a feeling that haunts me about stims, that I can't actually judge their viability because they are currently broken.

[konfeta]

As a side note, the Combat Stims make you immune to hit reactions while they are active.

That... does that apply to stuns caused by stomps/ground pounds?

As for buffs/nerfs/whatever, I think it would be wiser if every class got their own version of stims first. Stims that are balanced for an Assault are going to be obscenely overpowered for a Devastator, i.e. "if you poor sods thought FNP/IH is OP, wait 'till you get a load of this!"

P.S. Would it be easy, code wise, to make it so that stims extend their duration per successful melee kill?; and/or to give them the ability to heal you whenever on activation, kills, or just a general regeneration buff ala ULTRASMURF MODE from SP? Also, IIRC, ULTRASMURF MODE sped up your character's animation, that could be another avenue for class specific stim buffs. Lastly, can stim damage reduction #'s be made variable through out the duration?

My problem with stims as an Assault, they don't really help a successful ambush, they don't save you from a Tac/Devastator who doesn't have finger leprosy, and their activation doesn't really alter any match up dynamics anywhere near as well as a well placed grenade will.

[Gorb]

I would agree with the first two buffs, but not necessarily the third. Perhaps an increase of a second or so, but not two-three seconds. That's more than enough time to kill people in it's own right.

[Jaimas]

We'll agree this way then: 1.5 seconds. Deal?

[Caeltos]

Increasing the duration by 1.5 really won't solve anything. The problem is you can barely the notice the difference from not having it, and by having it. Using Stims does not immobalize you, at least it has never done to me. I've tried to make it work, but it's just god awful in it's effiency.

Your right about the duration being short, but that can be justified by the fact you might wanna pop it right before heading into the main fray. It's overall effiency is overshadowed by the fact, it just doesn't seem to amplify your effiency at all. It would be more effective if it actually increased damage output quite significantly, and reduced incoming melee damage more greatly, and by that- I mean in the figures of 40-50%.

Hefty, sure. But the thing is you're commiting into making sure you get into the fray, and you've got no grenades to soften targets up. It's a substitute and you'd want something of an equal effect, only difference in how-to-approach the enemy. Instead of lobbing a grenade and forcing the movement and gaining the momentum of better terrain/etc; This allows the opponents to possibly gain a better momentum and advantage of terrain. >> Thus the overall tendency of maybe "overbuffing" won't have any serious repercussions.

>> This allows Tacticals to actually commit to melee confrontation, and indirectly increase the melee perk enhancement in consequence, allowing Tacticals to play around with more diverse class-roles. As it stands now, it's somewhat sub-par in effiency to what else is at their disposal, and the overall melee perk effiency, in my honest opinion is not worth picking up.

This again, gives Devastators a more fair and square fight to duke out with Assault Marines, and enforces the Assault to rethink the commitment to the fight, forcing him to "juke" for the period. (The Assault will most likely recuperate during this period, and gain the upper hand against the Assault) >> Altho, enforcing the movement on the Devastator leaves up terrain and movement for the Assault Class player's team, and indirectly reduces the overall damage done on the battlefield towards his teammate with this change. It simply can give him a more "fair chance", even for being a ranged-firepowerhouse.

Or if you feel like being really creative, rethink the overall Stimulant Pack, and give it a Hp Regeneration(Similliar to Larramans Blessing) >> This gives less downtime for all, but it's very handy for all classes instead of becoming a specialized case pocket-item. This can give Tacticals also more encouragement to pick up Larramans Blessing + Combat Stims and become more an Guerilla-type fanatics that can perform hit-and-run actions, instead of grenade-toss and bang bang playstyle; Again encourage more playstyle. Besides, for Devastators the overall goal can be to encourage more agressive-playstyle; instead of mindlessly find a localation and side-tight and peel off unaware units.

It depends on how you want to approach the matter.

[Codex]

Well, stimmed hammers one hit kill anything IIRC (except glancing blow vs IH dev? But anyway you really should be getting multiple hammer hits against him), and make you survive melees (even with crossfire) for longer. That is certainly one case I can think off the top of my head that the stims are really very noticeable with their effficiency. I've gotten a few multikills where people think they can gank me. Oh no they can't.

[dirtyprotest]

As a side note, the Combat Stims make you immune to hit reactions while they are active.

I think my poncey serrated tac has been at the wrong end of a stimped hammer pounding , trying a couple of cheeky blade stuns only to be steam rolled.
I rarely see enemy's stimpac listed after I've been pancaked - it'd nice to know what finished me (lag, hubris or a crafty snort of combat coke).

[konfeta]

If you are getting multikills with a hammer swing chain, it's either dramatic lag or dramatic bad - "let's stand together close enough to be killlable with a single frag." It's hard enough to hit one aware enemy with a hammer (need a ground pound or shoulder dash; else a Devastator can literally backpedal and kill you), how exactly are you getting anywhere near enough time to do the same against multiple opponents who scatter in different directions?

Hm, Stims should increase direct hammer hit to 270 damage and, assuming no specialness for glancing blows, 135 damage on those. So it shouldn't 1 hit kill Tacs/Assault packs in a single swing; and it takes 2 swings without it anyway.

An IH Devastator should survive a direct hit with 5 HP remaining.

[Codex]

But if you pepper in some ranged shots+ crossfire it rapes other assaults who try to gank. Using impenetrable+ air cooled thrusters I'm trying to combat drugs, jump, pound, swing, swing, jump, pound, swing, swing, with some pistol shots in the middle.

Of course I'm not saying they're very good people. I'm saying if assaults try to gank you can win in melee. (which is almost impossible otherwise)

Mind you this is based off my old experience... I haven't started SM in a while now.

[konfeta]

Grenades more versatile in almost every situation. Assaults who try to gank your teammates are extremely vulnerable to grenades. Clustered enemies will die faster to grenade + shooting or pound than to pound + stim swing. Grenade can force a dodge roll guaranteeing a pound.

And hammer already has a built in counter to assault ganks. Stun-Stun combo is basically a grenade spike that doesn't hurt you and cannot be interrupted - I can even kill enemies after they kill me with it thanks to lag shenanigans.

[Codex]

Right, didn't know about the stun stun combo. Whenever I use hammer if I use the stun combo it's after a few strikes. The one that ends with a big hammer strike on the ground. Obviously it's very risky and requires good timing. I'll give the stun stun combo a go.

I definitely agree that grenades are more versatile- but with only one in your inventory nowadays from the get go any buffs to combat drugs are going to make combat drugs more effective relative to grenades than before. I reckon now that combat drugs only needs to be buffed a bit to really get them on par with grenades, unlike before.

[konfeta]

Drugs are very, very specialized when compared to grenades, I would hope they are more effective.

The stun-stun combo ends with the same hammer strike; it's actually not that hard to time and it seems that you can switch direction of the second strike some time after initiating it. The trick is if the enemy assault recognizes, while mid air, that you are initiating the combo instead of randomly flailing around, he will just grenade or shoot you.

It also behooves to remember that Death From Above + 1 Sword/Axe swing will kill an assault, so this trick is more of a mutually assured destruction maneuver against DFA Assaults unless timed perfectly (i.e. get lucky with lag).

[dirtyprotest]

...The stun-stun combo ends with the same hammer strike...

With stimp hammer its a far more stylish MAD move than FV. find a nice cluster and get a 2 for 1 deal.
stim rarely shows on killer's list, leaves enemies scratching their heads.