Can someone explain to me why the spy got nerfed (years ago, not recently)
I came back to the game about a week ago after a 3-4 year absence. I don't play spy but it seems like its a really underwhelming class right now. The enforcer doesn't do more damage except for the first shot, and the fire rate is lower. You can get killed through the dead ringer from most crits.
A good spy is still a good spy but it seems like the damage output and survivability in general are both down. Spies are annoying but that's the nature of the class. Why were these changes made and what has been the community reaction?
Posted Nov 6, 2015, 8:42 PM UTC
2693
The dead ringer and enforcer were both nerfed in the Gun Mettle update if i remember correctly. The spy did get a buff though: all debuffs last shorter while cloaked, and now the Cloak and Dagger can refill cloak with ammo boxes while you're uncloaked.
Community Reaction: Many people wanted to see the DR nerfed/reworked because it taught bad habits to newbies because of its insane damage resistance (I think it was around 90% or something absurd, but don't quote me on that.) and the fact that it was way too spammable. It allowed spies to feign and get away in situations where they should've been killed, and was frustrating to go up against because you never knew if they were actually dead. I don't really know about the enforcer though. I know that most spies use the Ambassador right now or the L'etranger for the increased cloak time.
Keep in mind that this is just what I saw a lot of people talking about when they complained about the DR pre-nerf. Other people might have much better input than me.
People complain now that the DR was severely nerfed which it is. That's the thing with people, if you keep complaining about it it'll just make it underpowered which it now is...somewhat.
The speed and fire resistance is a good start, but it should've stayed at around 80.
don't even get me started on how shitty the caber is now
But really though can you honestly tell me it was fair for a demo to fly in from no where and instakill any class with one hit either on the ground or in mid air?
I mean, kinda yeah IMO. If you want to take no damage at all prior to attack, you'd have to use a sticky jumper/parachute, and then your only weapon (a melee one at that) is severely reduced in damage output after the first hit, and you take damage yourself no matter what when you use it the first time.
If you don't have one of the above or either, you would take additional damage and potentially kill yourself during the attack, which would be a waste in any server other than an insta-spawn one.
A vigilant player can easily avoid said demo, I mean the heavy might not be able to but he wouldn't die in one hit, here are your options for every other class. Pyro: Airblast, Scout: Run fast/bonk, Soldier: Kill them or rocket jump away, Demo: Counter caber :P, Medic: Hide (this is the only class that can't defend itself well against the caber), Engineer: BUILD A SENTRY, Sniper: Headshot him mid air (it may be hard but very satisfying), Spy: If your a good spy then he would target you/Dead Ringer
He could only do it once, and he was almost certainly dead afterwards. In addition, you can still sniper him, or throw jarate and 1 shot him, or use stock and get a random melee crit.
Also, it was not any class. It was only the 125 classes, meaning only the engie, scout, sniper, and spy (assuming he doesn't have the DR equipped). Also, if any of those have a medic, a caber demo can't kill them either.
Essentially, you're complaining about someone being able to get 1 kill, assuming they're lucky enough to find a 125 class that's alone, and then almost certainly die afterwards. Getting one kill (maybe) is not overpowered at all. You never even see the times it doesn't work. Think about all the times they die before you even see them.
If you complained about any other weapon being able to get A SINGLE KILL, people would think you were high. OP weapons are weapons that can get many kills with no skill or where people can get many kills while others can't do anything about it. With the caber, you maybe get 1 kill, and there's plenty that people can do about. It's a melee hit! You either have to be really oblivious to be hit by the caber, or the guy holding the caber has to be really good to hit you with a melee without dying first.
Also, if you want to talk about weapons that can 1 shot people out of nowhere with no way to counter it, your beef is with the sniper rifle, the weapon that the caber was made to counter. Unless you want to ban the sniper rifle, there is no business nerfing the caber.
Still significantly more fair than random crits.
That isn't true. It couldn't kill soldiers or heavies. Plus, tf2 has multiple insta kill mechanics which are counterbalanced in various ways. Spy has to position themselves behind someone and remain undetected. Sniper has to have great aim and the weapon has to charge to kill high health classes.
Demo has to kill himself and also be good at airstrafing. It seems like a more than fair downside to me.
What about the market gardener? That does the same exact thing, but it does even more damage (although it does take a bit more skill). Both of those are weapons that are just silly and meant to have fun. Most of the time if a demo does go in and one shot someone, they too will soon die either from self damage and fall damage, or from the fact that they are probably in enemy territory.
I know how you feel. ;n; rip the CABER
F
Doesnt it do less damage than the bottle now? Like wtf valve. The caber was one of the only silly weapons that never annoyed me.
But seriously, I swear that thing just does stock melee damage with the added benefit of hurting you
Oh my god, this ruined caber demo for me. I used to go to Hightower and 2fort with the sticky jumper, parachute, and caber (which I renamed to "Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device", and described as: "on kill: enemy is teleported to spawn"). I used to hunt down snipers for fun.
I'm not mad about having wasted a name tag and description tag...I'm mad that I can no longer have any fun with that loadout. :(
Was it at least strange?
I used to do this exact thing. Now I roll sticky jumper with the parachute and persian persuader, since it let's you drop in on unsuspecting enemies and retain health.
I've found that this method is especially effective if you wear the gibus, pyrovision goggles, and mercenary badge as well.
Rip my strange killstreak caber. Not only is the weapon a huge downgrade from stock now, not only can it not kill the 125 classes with a partial shield charge, but it's also worth nothing compared to when I bought it. I can't even resell it for decent value. At this point, I'm hoping they restore it one day to its original stats.
Well, the good thing about that is that now it is sane to own a killstreak caber because you will be less likely to die from using it. But that's about it.
I think a better idea would be to give him 90% resistance for the first hit, and then immediately drop to its current resistance pattern, possibly less. That way, you can feign on pretty much any death (yes, including backstabs and full-charge headshots), but you're not a super-tank like pre-nerf.
It's currently kind of ridiculous that you can guarantee it's not a feign from any crit projectile or a half-charged headshot.
Honestly leaving the initial hit at 90 and absolutely no damage resistance after that would be better than it is now IMO.
But, weapon usually have a few more ammo after 1 hit right? So 90% to a immediate drop to 50 after 1 smg shot is horrible. It should stay 90, get the buff from its current, but you have to run to keep the 90% resistance.
Oh, I thought the resistance decayed with time - as in, it'd be 90% for the trigger hit, then drop to 65% immediately and 20% over 3 seconds (speed boost time). And of course it stays at 20% until you run out of cloak time.
And yes, that would make it more difficult to feign on automatic weapons. You'd have to learn to be sneaky rather than tanky - pre-nerf, I could often ditch Pyros by triggering from afterburn as I jumped off a ledge or suddenly reversed movement so they strafe their aim past me. Just do something similar for a Minigun/SMG/Pistol.
Will people ever understand that spy watches are (and should be) all about being invisible?
Being able to be invisible to the enemy is a huge advantage for the spy and, while this can be easily counterable, the damage resistance adds a good chance for survivability which helps the spy fullfil his role as a SUPPORT class.
Being able to tank damage is and should be an exclusive characteristic of the ubercharge provided by the medigun which lasts only 8 seconds and can be used again almost 40 seconds later. Unlike the Dead ringer which used to block 90% of damage and used to refill in shorter time than the ubercharge.
80% of damage resistance? Seriously? That's more than the uber provided by the vaccinator.
You do know about alternate playstyles yes? We can't just restrict a class to only 1 specific style.
Also, ubercharges are usually deployed on people who can put out tons of damage. Spies surprisingly cannot unless they can land their stabs and shots unlike heavies and soldier splash damage.
What about the Batallion's Backup? You gunna complain about that too?
Alternate playstyles? You mean having a weapon that guarantees 90% of damage resistance and still allows you to be as deadly as always? Maybe you'd like a minigun for the heavy that doesn't slow him down while firing and has the same atributes of the stock minugun.
Listen, I think that spy is a stealth class, and frankly the dead ringer allowed him to take a hit and keep going like nothing happened. Which in effect means you can stand in a spot stab a few people shoot a few people tank 100 damage worth of rockets for 1 health, and then start all over again in the blink of an eye. That, isn't fair nor fun to play against. And about the Batallion's Backup? Soldier using the backpacks, is a team class. He supplies buffs for his team that rely on him getting them and them surviving long enough to use them. Using that he sacrifices his own personal defense for the good of the team. Spy has always been held by the community as a class of high SKILL. Taking a crit rocket worth 360 damage to the face and then dealing 1300 damage afterwords, is absolutely unfair. And no skill goes into that. Skill goes into arming the ringer, and then making the right moves to fool the enemy into thinking you are dead. The way the game was created all classes have their upsides and downsides. Demo is a high damage dealer, but when it comes to hitscan classes or classes out of his melee range he is almost usless, Heavy is a beast with high health and slow speed, but can deal large amounts of damage to only a single target at a time, and frankly spy is a glass cannon with the power to instantly kill any class with one melee attack, and if he can be shot by all 9 classes and live, that removes all of his downsides.
For some reason I like using the dead ringer more now.
I think the big issue with the new DR is that it's super hard to predict whether youll feign or actually die. It works on something like only if the damage you receive isn't more than half your current health or something, which is a nightmare to try and calculate on the fly, and makes believable deaths nigh impossible, because it'll only feign on damage that couldn't have killed you