Private
Mildly Menacing Medic
I have been playing VSH for a while now on multiple different servers and have slowly been liking to play the actual boss less and less. I am most of the time found on VSH NY, but have hopped around on EU and US from time to time as well, so hopefully this has some merit. I think that Sniper needs a rework in how he is played because it's come to point that if there is a decent sniper on the opposite team I don't want to become the boss. I HAVE A LIST.
1. Insane Knockback - it's ridiculous that sniper does 150 dmg on a body-shot that should normally do 50 dmg. It takes quick timing and precision to be able to pull off a quick head-shot like like, so why lower the skill ceiling by just clicking on the boss. On top of that if you use you very needed tool of the "Super Jump" or "Wall Climb", you get completely snuffed out by just one shot and need to start from square one, just because a sniper looked up and shot at you.
2. Knockback (conti.) - why does the knockback completely stop you midair and I've had it that where I have skyboxed because a sniper was shooting me consistently. Sniper makes himself a very valuable keep pick where if you pick off all the sniper, you have a chance of winning. Where you won't get knocked on the other side of the map trying to kill a medic or a heavy that you've just hit twice.
3. S H E I L D S - why is this even a thing? Sniper himself is already very difficult to kill and with the semi-recent addition of the shield I know need to work twice as hard to kill the sniper. Unless you put your boots in his face, you need to catch the sniper two times and get lucky twice. Even if you hit an unaware sniper, he might have enough reaction time or knockback from hale himself to run away. Ban shield
4. Team Support - The boss now needs to get all this information when chasing a sniper and try not to die to the whole team as well. While a sniper could be wall climbing away, most hales just sit there waiting for their super jump to come back, only to be snuffed out again. If a well placed pipes, rocket, crossbow, etc. is shot at it hale, it makes it that much more difficult. Sometimes the knockback from the team is enough to send hale away to the other side of the map, making him redo the whole process all over again.
5. Wall Climb - i'm not going to deny that this is a very useful tool for sniper, but I believe that it's a little overpowered. With good enough strafing you can fly around the whole map in just a few seconds and try to catch the sniper. Even if the sniper is just hitting a wall trying to reach the skybox and hale wants to kill that sniper, all he can do is watch while the rest of the team punishes hale for even considering that option. It's a huge time waster and discourages hale's from even chasing a sniper because it takes away so little of the sniper resources. While hale needs to wait either 5-10 seconds for another super jump or 45 for another teleport (but thats a different problem in itself)
Possible Re-balances/Fixes:
-Revert Sniper Rifle to VSH 1.0 - just because your rifle isn't shiny doesn't give you the excuse to do 150 dmg on with the click of a button. It should be 50 dmg, the way sniper was intended. It just lowers the skill ceiling and makes sniper a very easy point and click class, sitting back while the rest of the team needs to try so hard. All sniper needs to do is hit 3 fully charged shots and most of the time is top scoring at that point. Hopefully doing less damage would also decrease the knockback that hale receives while in the air. It be punished for using one of most reliable tools, is just frustrating and unable to play.
- Just Ban Shields pls - No one complained in pre-VSH 1.0 that sniper didn't have a shield. Everyone put on the cozy camper and that was the go to sniper secondary and I still think it should be. Makes no sense for a boss to chase around a sniper for 3 minutes just to do it. again, because he put on the razorback. There could be other uses for it, like a projectile (cleaver = sapper)
- Wall Climb Nerf - I think Wall Climb is a much needed nerf, even though its not as severe as the other points this still should be fixed. Where the wall climb should take away more health and give you less distance from using it. It even makes it more difficult that when a skilled medic shoots the sniper when he pulls his gun out midair, and he has all his health back to keep on climbing. It's possible for a sniper to just wall climb and theoretically never get killed (without rage of course), if the sniper is aware enough and good enough at strafing.
- Class limits - Why was this removed? Like I remember having 4 scouts and 4 engis as the limit, so why can't that be the case for sniper. It also shouldn't be the map makers job to fix a map, just because the sniper player found a busted spot and it makes it so that it is unreachable for hale. This is hopeful, but maybe bring class limits back
If you have the time one of my friends put up a video on youtube show-casing how I play the boss and he is sniper, for how easy it to just annihilate the boss with little to no effort.
youtube.com/watch?v=qmHkSbVSRmc&feature=youtu.be
Lastly, I just want to be able to play the boss without utter defeat every single time. I've been playing this gamemode for about 8 years at this point and I would always look forward to playing the boss. Nowadays if you join a server, half the server has !noboss on, everyone has their reasons, but since the boss had been so severely nerfed, it makes it a losing battle. Hopefully you take my points into consideration and maybe add some improvements as well. I welcome all feedback and by no means I'm saying that mine is perfect.
TL;DR
Sniper op, reduce knockback, ban shield, smaller wall climb+less hp from it
1. Insane Knockback - it's ridiculous that sniper does 150 dmg on a body-shot that should normally do 50 dmg. It takes quick timing and precision to be able to pull off a quick head-shot like like, so why lower the skill ceiling by just clicking on the boss. On top of that if you use you very needed tool of the "Super Jump" or "Wall Climb", you get completely snuffed out by just one shot and need to start from square one, just because a sniper looked up and shot at you.
2. Knockback (conti.) - why does the knockback completely stop you midair and I've had it that where I have skyboxed because a sniper was shooting me consistently. Sniper makes himself a very valuable keep pick where if you pick off all the sniper, you have a chance of winning. Where you won't get knocked on the other side of the map trying to kill a medic or a heavy that you've just hit twice.
3. S H E I L D S - why is this even a thing? Sniper himself is already very difficult to kill and with the semi-recent addition of the shield I know need to work twice as hard to kill the sniper. Unless you put your boots in his face, you need to catch the sniper two times and get lucky twice. Even if you hit an unaware sniper, he might have enough reaction time or knockback from hale himself to run away. Ban shield
4. Team Support - The boss now needs to get all this information when chasing a sniper and try not to die to the whole team as well. While a sniper could be wall climbing away, most hales just sit there waiting for their super jump to come back, only to be snuffed out again. If a well placed pipes, rocket, crossbow, etc. is shot at it hale, it makes it that much more difficult. Sometimes the knockback from the team is enough to send hale away to the other side of the map, making him redo the whole process all over again.
5. Wall Climb - i'm not going to deny that this is a very useful tool for sniper, but I believe that it's a little overpowered. With good enough strafing you can fly around the whole map in just a few seconds and try to catch the sniper. Even if the sniper is just hitting a wall trying to reach the skybox and hale wants to kill that sniper, all he can do is watch while the rest of the team punishes hale for even considering that option. It's a huge time waster and discourages hale's from even chasing a sniper because it takes away so little of the sniper resources. While hale needs to wait either 5-10 seconds for another super jump or 45 for another teleport (but thats a different problem in itself)
Possible Re-balances/Fixes:
-Revert Sniper Rifle to VSH 1.0 - just because your rifle isn't shiny doesn't give you the excuse to do 150 dmg on with the click of a button. It should be 50 dmg, the way sniper was intended. It just lowers the skill ceiling and makes sniper a very easy point and click class, sitting back while the rest of the team needs to try so hard. All sniper needs to do is hit 3 fully charged shots and most of the time is top scoring at that point. Hopefully doing less damage would also decrease the knockback that hale receives while in the air. It be punished for using one of most reliable tools, is just frustrating and unable to play.
- Just Ban Shields pls - No one complained in pre-VSH 1.0 that sniper didn't have a shield. Everyone put on the cozy camper and that was the go to sniper secondary and I still think it should be. Makes no sense for a boss to chase around a sniper for 3 minutes just to do it. again, because he put on the razorback. There could be other uses for it, like a projectile (cleaver = sapper)
- Wall Climb Nerf - I think Wall Climb is a much needed nerf, even though its not as severe as the other points this still should be fixed. Where the wall climb should take away more health and give you less distance from using it. It even makes it more difficult that when a skilled medic shoots the sniper when he pulls his gun out midair, and he has all his health back to keep on climbing. It's possible for a sniper to just wall climb and theoretically never get killed (without rage of course), if the sniper is aware enough and good enough at strafing.
- Class limits - Why was this removed? Like I remember having 4 scouts and 4 engis as the limit, so why can't that be the case for sniper. It also shouldn't be the map makers job to fix a map, just because the sniper player found a busted spot and it makes it so that it is unreachable for hale. This is hopeful, but maybe bring class limits back
If you have the time one of my friends put up a video on youtube show-casing how I play the boss and he is sniper, for how easy it to just annihilate the boss with little to no effort.
youtube.com/watch?v=qmHkSbVSRmc&feature=youtu.be
Lastly, I just want to be able to play the boss without utter defeat every single time. I've been playing this gamemode for about 8 years at this point and I would always look forward to playing the boss. Nowadays if you join a server, half the server has !noboss on, everyone has their reasons, but since the boss had been so severely nerfed, it makes it a losing battle. Hopefully you take my points into consideration and maybe add some improvements as well. I welcome all feedback and by no means I'm saying that mine is perfect.
TL;DR
Sniper op, reduce knockback, ban shield, smaller wall climb+less hp from it