Approved Nerfing spies on VSH

[The Vindicator]

(I don't know if there is a thread on this already and if there is, I apologize in advance)
(Also, if I am not doing this right, please let me know)

I have recently noticed that spies on VSH are getting too much damage from back stabs. I understand that on a full server that spies get 2.5K damage on a single hale round and 1.5K damage on a double hale round. Even with rage, these rounds tend to be short lived and these short rounds heavily favor spies. This leads to spies climbing to the top of the leader board with ease, and killing inexperienced hales super quickly and as a result, new hales are not going to get any better. Compared to every other class, it can accumulate damage very quickly with very little effort and time. I can go on and on about how spies need to be nerfed, but here is what I propose:

We need to cap the spy limit at 3 spies Max and only award up to 1K damage per backstab (provided the server is full)

I understand this may not be a popular idea and I know i'm going to get some feedback/criticism on this, however these rounds need to last a little longer so that everyone can enjoy them. I also understand that this is not likely gonna happen but I figured that something needed to be said.

 

[Blizzard❄️]

I don't think it should get a nerf.
Because majority of players find it hard to backstab the boss due to the fact that the Boss usually has +% speed.
Also i feel like the diamond back should allow you to rocket jump mechanic kind of.

 

[Dragontamer]

With Puggs reasoning I also change my mind, +1.
Also @meb 25% rage reduction is way to high. If 2 spies backstab Hale at once which is pretty common, that's 50% rage removal. Jarate only removes 8% of rage, but takes forever to recharge. The spycicle should only take away 5%, unless a class limit is set for spy again, which should be 8% (16% rage removal on two stabs, 24% on three, that's really good). Other than that, I agree with the changes.

 

[mub]

With Puggs reasoning I also change my mind, +1.
Also @meb 25% rage reduction is way to high. If 2 spies backstab Hale at once which is pretty common, that's 50% rage removal. Jarate only removes 8% of rage, but takes forever to recharge. The spycicle should only take away 5%, unless a class limit is set for spy again, which should be 8% (16% rage removal on two stabs, 24% on three, that's really good). Other than that, I agree with the changes.

I've seen a few other servers do this, the problem with reducing it down to only 5-8% is that that's only 200-320 damage worth of rage or a single airblast, which in practice isn't worth it. Jarate does take awhile to charge, but tossing it from a distance is a lot safer than going in with a backstab that doesn't grant speed, health, or any buffs to help your survivability. A notable comparison is the Fan'O'War, which removes 5% rage on hit. I think a single scout melee is a lot easier to land than a single backstab, so a backstab rage removal should remove a decent amount more.

25% might be too steep as well though, I agree. Maybe 10-20%? The idea for the Spy-cicle is that you equip it as a counter-pick to competent Hales who aren't going to get stabbed super easily, or use their rage a lot more; your scenario assumes that multiple Spies would pick it up, and I think only a few of the players would like this support variant. It's a lot riskier and easier to die since there's no health boost or speed keeping you alive in a melee range after the fact, and it's not appealing in terms of damage. We could also dial back the damage from 1500 to 1000 if this is still too potent as a support weapon.

 

[Bottiger]

This is funny, I nerfed backstab more before when I saw them get top dps all the time when I upgraded to vsh2 but all the spies and regulars complained about it, so I compromised.

I am surprised it took this long for others to realize the same thing.

 

[Bottiger]

You can see the conversations about it on Discord from half a year ago.

 

[The Vindicator]

So given the suggestions and discussion in this thread, do you plan on making any changes to spy in VSH? @Bottiger

 

[g .]

A post was made about this recently, stating the spies in VSH were too powerful. Since that post was made, it's become a very confusing read with different ideas and opinions strewn throughout the comments so I've decided to repost a cleaner version with a couple ideas of my own.

The original thread voted to nerf spies in VSH. I initially voted -1 because I believed that spies weren't in fact a problem to the better Hale players. This of course isn't fair to less experienced Hale players. Besides that fact, however, I was proved wrong by playing a little bit of VSH myself and focusing on how spies performed. They performed... too well. Every single round the top damage dealer was a spy with no less than 6,000-8,000 damage. That was only on the more balanced rounds. There were rounds where a single spy would exceed 10,000 damage. Keep in mind that there's almost always anywhere from 3-5 people playing Spy in one round. I can confidently say that I've changed my mind and believe something needs to be done about spies.

I think the most obvious and the easiest solution to this would be what people have been suggesting already: Lowering the damage of a backstab would be a good first step. In a full server, a single backstab does ~2,500 damage. This is simply a low risk, high reward situation. It's too easy for a spy to position them self behind Hale while he's distracted and instantly (and safely if they're using the kunai) take a significant chunk of Hale's HP. Suggesting balance changes without a quick and non-drastic way of testing is difficult. I think a good place to start would be reducing max backstab damage down to 1,500 while keeping the same falloff curve that reduces damage done based on Hale's remaining HP.

Another solution would be to reduce the spy's survivability. It's very difficult to kill a spy with the meta loadout: L'Etranger, Dead Ringer, Kunai. Hopefully I don't have to explain why this loadout is so strong. My first suggestion to making the spy a little more killable is: Take the Kukri approach: Make it so a spy cannot be healed by medics when they have the Kunai equipped. This makes it a much more situational, yet still strong, weapon choice. It' a good option for when no one is playing Medic or you don't like relying on them. This also prevents a medic from Ubering a spy with the Kunai and just M1'ing at Hale until he gets a backstab.

I believe that if the damage is not to be nerfed, the Kunai should be nerfed AS WELL as the dead ringer: Reduce the damage resistance of the Dead Ringer, at least enough for a spy to take 70 damage with it active. This simultaneously makes other knives preferable to those who love the Dead Ringer and makes the spy a more skill-based class that fits into his whole niche a lot better: taking advantage of the right moments. As opposed to taking a swing at Hale and activating the Dead Ringer if you miss.

The goal with this thread isn't to make spy unfun or to discourage players from playing him. It's simply to make it a little more bearable for Hale amid all the chaos. Heavies are stronger than ever, the server is almost always full, and most of the maps make it difficult for Hale. Hopefully these suggestions are considered because I and many others believe Spy is too powerful. Thank you @Bottiger

Someone I met in VSH the other day said, "I miss when Hales feared the soldiers on military_area, not the spies." It's true.

 

[Xerʘ]

Someone I met in VSH the other day said, "I miss when Hales feared the soldiers on military area, not the spies." It's true.

This is so stupidly true. I don't look up anymore. I'm always looking behind me which is ridiculous. Like pugg stated in the other post, the fact the spies just run behind a hale like a scout with no fear means there's an issue.

I +1 this whole thread and any thread having to do with the change of spies to make them more bearable and not a damage farming class.

 

[The Vindicator]

+1

It has literally gotten to the point where I'm constantly spinning around for spies the few moments I'm on the ground as hale. I created that exact thread to address the issue about a week ago, unfortunately, it seems to have died. There were a lot of great suggestions and ideas, and I was hoping something would be done about spy. I know it takes time for something like that to happen (and I probably need to be patient), however, we should have had some sort of "approval" or "let me get back to you" kind of decision on the last thread. For a post that got so much attention, nothing actually got accomplished. Hopefully another thread on the same issue will do the trick. Maybe in the future where servers aren't full 24/7, we could possibly consider bringing the spy back to its current strength. But for now, the Spy needs either a reduction in survivability, or reduction in backstab damage.

 

[Dragontamer]

+1

 

[Bottiger]

I wonder where all the spy mains went. Last time I nerfed spy backstab they complained about it. I guess since they are gone now I will go ahead and nerf backstab like I did before.