The Nerf that will break Nuke Ops

[Medi]

Double energy sword has become the meta for nuke ops to the point that one nuke op armed with that and an adrenal implant is insanely difficult to defeat, even with a massive group.

 

Simple suggestion: Reduce the deflect/block chance to the weapon. It's still very deadly at close range but the current ability to deflect multiple range attacks makes it difficult for even a group of people to do anything.

Edited January 19, 2019 by Medi

[Medi]

An update, at this time there is a team who ALL have e-swords or double e-swords and they've taken little to no damage despite the entire crew firing at them.

[davidchan]

Adrenals is the problem here, not the E-swords. Stun is king of combat and while deflect/block makes it harder to stun them, it's the actual kip up from adrenals that allows them to get up quickly and re-arm that is making them seemingly invincible. If stims came with a side effect (a twitch that made them turn the d-blade off or drop the weapon) then you'd almost assuredly see this particular strategy less effective without nerfing other game modes (traitor) who might use the weapon.

Adrenals should be flight or fight, not both.

[Shadeykins]

25 minutes ago, davidchan said:

Adrenals is the problem here, not the E-swords. Stun is king of combat and while deflect/block makes it harder to stun them, it's the actual kip up from adrenals that allows them to get up quickly and re-arm that is making them seemingly invincible. If stims came with a side effect (a twitch that made them turn the d-blade off or drop the weapon) then you'd almost assuredly see this particular strategy less effective without nerfing other game modes (traitor) who might use the weapon.

Adrenals should be flight or fight, not both.

Stims making you drop an item wouldn't balance this out to be fair, it would just make tasers/batons have an even bigger edge in combat.

The real issue is instastun in general.

[EvadableMoxie]

I think both adrenals and d-sword is the problem, honestly.  In my perfect world, melee would be the king in tight spaces or from ambush, but ranged would be stronger in open areas.  Instead, you just pop adrenals and mindlessly charge everyone with a d-sword because you'll close the gap before they can react anyway and even if they do you're immune to all energy weapons and 75% of projectiles on top of having massive armor.  Even if they get a shot off, it probably won't connect. Even if it does, they're just going to be absolutely murdered a split second later.

D-sword is the SS13 equivalent of W + M1.  There is literally zero strategy, just run up and click spacemen until they go sideways. 

[davidchan]

 

4 hours ago, Shadeykins said:

Stims making you drop an item wouldn't balance this out to be fair, it would just make tasers/batons have an even bigger edge in combat.

The real issue is instastun in general.

My point being that adrenals need to be retooled so they are not reliable for prolonged fights. It either needs to be a short burst of anti-stun that allows you to quickly finish a fight you otherwise would have won were it not for the stun, or to give the agent/op a chance to break combat and run away to regroup. Not the current minimal effort get out of jail free card with out any discernible downside since it's one use anyways and you can't OD.

2 hours ago, EvadableMoxie said:

I think both adrenals and d-sword is the problem, honestly.  In my perfect world, melee would be the king in tight spaces or from ambush, but ranged would be stronger in open areas.  Instead, you just pop adrenals and mindlessly charge everyone with a d-sword because you'll close the gap before they can react anyway and even if they do you're immune to all energy weapons and 75% of projectiles on top of having massive armor.  Even if they get a shot off, it probably won't connect. Even if it does, they're just going to be absolutely murdered a split second later.

 D-sword is the SS13 equivalent of W + M1.  There is literally zero strategy, just run up and click spacemen until they go sideways. 

Thats a bad analogy since W + M1 only works if you ambush your opponent or otherwise going against someone who can't properly fight back. It's not overpowered, it just requires an objective lack of skill to be overwhelmed by it.

[Medi]

6 minutes ago, davidchan said:

 

My point being that adrenals need to be retooled so they are not reliable for prolonged fights. It either needs to be a short burst of anti-stun that allows you to quickly finish a fight you otherwise would have won were it not for the stun, or to give the agent/op a chance to break combat and run away to regroup. Not the current minimal effort get out of jail free card with out any discernible downside since it's one use anyways and you can't OD.

Thats a bad analogy since W + M1 only works if you ambush your opponent or otherwise going against someone who can't properly fight back. It's not overpowered, it just requires an objective lack of skill to be overwhelmed by it.

I agree that adrenals should come with a "burst" and then a "cool-down" phase rather than being a prolonged dump like it is that makes you impossible to beat. 

I still also believe that being able to deflect 100% of incoming lasers and having a 75% chance to deflect an individual projectile (meaning that it doesn't matter What gun it is. You just have to roll above 25% for that given shot to not even matter)is really the issue here. I literally watched an entire team of Nukies, who didn't seem to have adrenals, rely on predominately on E-swords to take out an entire station. I have seen entire magazines dumped into a single nuke for only 1 round to have hit because the rest all got deflected and that single round got soaked by the armor so didn't matter anyway.

I won't say that E-swords shouldn't dominate up close, it's a sword made of pure energy (somehow) and it is entitled to reckface when you get that close. I just question that if anyone picks it up, should the automatically be able to block lasers and bullets with no effort?

Edited January 20, 2019 by Medi

[das bread]

8 hours ago, EvadableMoxie said:

Instead, you just pop adrenals and mindlessly charge everyone with a d-sword because you'll close the gap before they can react anyway and even if they do you're immune to all energy weapons and 75% of projectiles on top of having massive armor. 

I roll Nuke Ops often and the strategy has been super armor with adrenals and d-sword. You send your rusher straight into their lines and it simply leaves them unphased. Combine this with any strategy and it is incredible.

Does this need a nerf? I don’t think this is the problem. It’s just a staple of a functional strategy. If you plan you maximize your tools, strong nuke leaders do this often because it is powerful when used with teamwork.

I think we see this often work because it isn’t as expensive as some of the other /HEAVY/ Nukie builds. Perhaps the solution is to raise the TC price. Then it will demand excellent planning if the other OPs have even more limited TC.

 

[Medi]

2 hours ago, das bread said:

I roll Nuke Ops often and the strategy has been super armor with adrenals and d-sword. You send your rusher straight into their lines and it simply leaves them unphased. Combine this with any strategy and it is incredible.

Does this need a nerf? I don’t think this is the problem. It’s just a staple of a functional strategy. If you plan you maximize your tools, strong nuke leaders do this often because it is powerful when used with teamwork.

I think we see this often work because it isn’t as expensive as some of the other /HEAVY/ Nukie builds. Perhaps the solution is to raise the TC price. Then it will demand excellent planning if the other OPs have even more limited TC.

 

I understand that a nuke op is supposed to be more powerful than an individual crew member or a small group. When 6 people, however, can't kill a single double esworser and they walk out with minimal damage despite dumping rounds into them- its op.

[DatKoyote]

How to robust most desword  users : Throw a monkey or a corpse at them. This will stun them for a short duration, but that's all you need to drop their desword and click it faster than the nukie.

Energy bolas are also effective at slowing down an operative, I don't believe the desword can parry them although I could be wrong on that one.

[Splgrk]

The problem is more the general all-or-nothing combat, I think? Nukies need Deswords and adrenals, because what else are they going to do? Without block, they are going to get beaten to death by greytide with fire extinguishers. Without adrenals, they get stunned by sec. You need at least one of them, or you're just going to fluke really hard. 

[Medi]

39 minutes ago, Splgrk said:

The problem is more the general all-or-nothing combat, I think? Nukies need Deswords and adrenals, because what else are they going to do? Without block, they are going to get beaten to death by greytide with fire extinguishers. Without adrenals, they get stunned by sec. You need at least one of them, or you're just going to fluke really hard. 

My suggestion isn't to remove it entirely. My suggestion is to nerf the deflection percentage and perhaps shorten the duration of adrenals. That being said, they've got multiple firearms, bombs, grenades, implants, tools to get the job done.

[Denthamos]

Honestly, we could just take TG's double eswords with how they handled it which works very well.  You still have the same reflection chance for energy projectiles, but it no longer has any melee block chance, however it has in exchange a low reflection on physical bullets.

Edited January 22, 2019 by Denthamos

[Medi]

3 hours ago, Denthamos said:

Honestly, we could just take TG's double eswords with how they handled it which works very well.  You still have the same reflection chance for energy projectiles, but it no longer has any melee block chance, however it has in exchange a low reflection on physical bullets.

This could certainly work. I've never really seen the number of players being an issue but I can definitely see why they did that.

Here's my final proposal on the matter based on this:

Double E-Sword

100% chance to reflect in coming lasers/taser fire.

30% chance to block in coming bullets.

0% chance to block Temperature weaponry.

No change to damage output.

[Denthamos]

@Medi Keep in mind that block and reflection are two completely different stats and that ALL shields and some weapons have a chance for blocking bullets/lasers.  Only energy shields and double energy swords have the laser reflection tied to them instead of block.  So by doing what you propose that would mean you are nerfing both its melee block % chance and its bullet block % chance.

[Medi]

31 minutes ago, Denthamos said:

@Medi Keep in mind that block and reflection are two completely different stats and that ALL shields and some weapons have a chance for blocking bullets/lasers.  Only energy shields and double energy swords have the laser reflection tied to them instead of block.  So by doing what you propose that would mean you are nerfing both its melee block % chance and its bullet block % chance.

Reflecting a laser makes sense. Reflecting a bullet does not make sense. Also, it generally only has to hit 3-5 times to down someone so it really doesn't need a high melee block chance.

[xeroxide]

NEW NERF THAT WILL BREAK NUKIES .THEY CANNOT BUY OR START WITH HARD SUITS GENIUS

[MrMagolor]

Suggestion: Make the default hardsuit insulated, and thus make you immune to stunbatons (and maybe tasers)? The elite suit would not make you immune: the idea being that the fire resist replaced the insulation: the same would probably apply to the shielded one.

It really is a shame that most of the nukeops items are useless: if you try something new, it almost feels like gamethrowing for your team.