Let's talk spy......

Hey Mave, that looks like victory lemonade to me, mind if I have a sip?

Oh boy...I'm gonna have fun with this one....::puts down Lemonade::

Arcanoloth wrote:

Nice one Mave, be a demeaning *CENSORED* and think I will back down?

Ummmmm no. I laugh because you cry about blue shotting on a NON-HOSTILE Server. That alone is worth a few chuckles.


For the record, I do ZoP, I do Bottleneck Field, I do Inefficiency Field, but the moment most MKT's see me they pop an Anti so my debuffs will be wiped in an instant and then all that hard work does nothing.

I doubt one anti wipes out ALL those effects. You have Slow, Bottleneck, And like 3 specific root abilities. Use them.
Doesn't wipe them ALL, but they only need to wipe the rooting effect or the powerless effect. They can run away or recommence spamming, either way those Anti's make my life very hard. I can't exactly pop pills to reduce your spamming.

About thrown acc in IL, thats a good idea, make them suck in IL and then give them better rollout abilities.
Make them suck in IL? No. Rather, lower their accuracy in IL but makes rolls outs higher. If you have LITTLE to NO thrown defense, you should get hit in IL by knives for not preparing.
You must have missed my posts about having a thrown defense of 140 and using block tactics, FYI I have a thrown resist of 180+ aswell, I DO prepare for the MKT Zerg. Of course I didn't mean make them *poop* horrible in IL but perhaps an accuracy debuff in IL is in order.

About Blue Shots, I still maintain Spy's have the best Blue Shots. Punt has NO, (Thats right, none at all) use timer, so the INSTANT you click it, you punt someone. Want me to blue shot a Logic Cannon, sure, stand still for several seconds whilst I charge it, no no, don't move out of range, aww you avoided it by moving out of range, thats unfair. I want instant logic cannons for 1000+ dmg just like punt. Snipers, the noobs who stand still in Mara C deserve to be sniped, but again, all you have to do is move out of range while they are buffing up and it ruins the entire sniper shot. What about MA's, oh gods thats so powerful their blue shot, melee free fire needs to be nerfed. Wow, other classes really have amazingly overpowered blue shots, not nearly as good as some hyena of an MKT standing around in the middle of raging PvP not flagged up in a disguise waiting for a shield to break.

So the fact that we need an opponent NOT to be in IL and NOT to have a shield makes no difference. If you're counting "Zerg" scenarios, let's count this one? I end up ILed with person A. Person A has a friend (Person B) who is a hacker. When I get ILed, person B starts to cast Logic Cannon 2.0, Bam I get hit. Or how about Double Sniper Shots? Two people time Sniper Shots, they can go off very close to each other, Bam I died, or am hurt really bad. You're telling me I instantly punt, and my friend can instantly punt 1 second later, despite the fact that I'm still ILed? There is a lot more potential with Out of IL Specials like Logic Cannon, Sniper Shot, Full Auto Redux Etc, than punt. ::chuckles:: Also, for the love of Neo, Please don't bring up Blue Shotting again. Blue Shotting has NOTHING to do with Spy Nerfs. I'll said it once and I'll say it again. You angry about Blue Shots? GO.....TO......VECTOR......
Again you fail to understand my point, there is no warning before a punt comes your way, with Logic Cannon's you see them cast, with sniper shots you may not see them all the time but they still take time to do them. And I did mention that MKT's WAIT for the shield to be busted. There is a 5 second re-use timer on IL attempts, so the MA busts your shield and the MKT has a nice friendly 5 second buffer to punt you while your still trying to keep the MA from ILing you. You are aware staggering throw can be used out of IL and does somewhere around 800 dmg to most people? If not you should be glad, I just made you that much better at MKT.
I already posted in the thread about defense abilities aswell, I really am looking for a solution but sometimes peoples replies really *CENSORED* me off.

So, Possible solutions:

1. Nerf them in IL, give them an accuracy downgrade, this would require the rollout abilities be improved. Wait a sec, hackers get an accuracy downgrade but no rollout abilities <----Sarcasm.
   I've seen some Hackers completely OWN in IL against an MA. It's all about Accuracy Vs. Defense. Not to mention DoTs do a lot of damage from Hackers because they Stack. Sarcasm noted, but pretty useless there.                                                                                                                                                 Again, as soon as most people see myself or my hacker faction mates they pop an anti, anti's can wipe the DOT effects. And that acuracy bonus in the ballista tree only lasts for 20 seconds so you had better hope they don't punch catch you or render you powerless otherwise you will be screwed.
   
2. Nerf their sneak attacks, require them to actually BE IN SNEAK, rather than a stupid agent or hel club guard disguise everyone knows about.
   I am SNEAKING around in a Disguise, or at least the Game Engine says I'm sneaking around. Problem solved.                                                                                                                                                  Maybe the game engine needs to change so disguises don't work vs PC's, just some food for thought.
   
3. Nerf their knives, make them cost more IS so they can't spam ALL THE TIME and actually have to consider what to do.
   Nerf the Knives? We just had a patch a while back that dropped our IS costs because why? Oh that's right, we have NO FREE FIRE! So we COMPLETELY depend on our special abilities to do ANY damage at all.                                                                                                                                                      Hacker's have a *poop* free fire, do you see them getting IS costs reduced, do you see them with uber accuracy? Everyone else gets hyper-deflect on at all times and hackers accuracy is rather poor compared to MKT's, so hackers have a hard time hitting people AND they have a worse free fire than MKT's. I posted about this to Tytanya but you obviously missed it. MA's free fire is rather poor, hackers free fire is completely useless, the only people with a good free fire attack is Gunmen. Do hackers and MA's have uber accuracy and low IS costs for all their attacks? You want low IS and superb accuracy to make up for your bad free fire, lets make it even and give MA's and hackers a top notch accuracy and lower IS costs for them. Must I make this any more clear to you???
   
4. Increase other trees thrown defense, give them a defense score that can actually dodge knives.
   A little addition is fine with me. But to dodge knives? No. You need to load up Hyper Sense and Thrown Resistance. You main defense should come from Attributes + Hyper (Insert Ability Here), which is influenced by Attributes..                                                                                                                   Again you missed the part where I said Aikido GM with reason of 20 or hacker with reason of 30 is still not enough to fight MKT's high accuracy. Don't go around assuming I'm a noob wearing only armoured RocaWear clothing and having a Thrown resist of 0 taking 2k from punts and thinking their overpowered. I have a thrown resist of 180, I have a thrown defense of 140, but its still not enough even when I debuff their accuracy they hit me very often.
   

I'm not saying do all of those, I'm not saying turn them into data miners. I think implementing one of those will be enough to quell most complainers, myself included.
Not really, because then it'll be US complaining, or X people complaining about a new UBAR powerful tree. It never ends really.
Most people admit adding some extra thrown defense will help all trees vs MKT's and balance the system a lot, so maybe they can find a fix for it. Its up to us to come to an agreement about what would be fair.

Now I'm not saying, BOO Don't Nerf Spies, Keep up teh |337 H@x0rz of MxO! No, I'm looking for a good solution as well, but so far, I've heard very few.

SPY ITSELF is not the problem. It's the ability to recast Neuro Dart while it's still having it's effect run on you. But anyway, I'm done. Back to my lemonade. ::picks lemonade back up and takes a sip::

actually you can cast sneak logic cannon 2.0's can you not? so that can hide you also.

I've not bothered to read anything previous to this last page so if i miss something, bare with me because it seems to be the same *poop* different page.

Disguise is called a disguise because you are hiding from someone, you are hiding yourself to attack them.. by suprise. So don't remove disguise because it makes perfect sense for it to be there. MKT/Assassin is all about sneak attacks and the element of suprise. I rarely load thrown defence clothes at all, if anything just the defence move and i can still block punts/out roll in combat, and as a gunman MKT is supposed to be my weakness.

It sounds like to me in part, some of the frustration is that logic cannons are visible, load sneak.

actually you can cast sneak logic cannon 2.0's can you not? so that can hide you also.

I've not bothered to read anything previous to this last page so if i miss something, bare with me because it seems to be the same *CENSORED* different page.

Disguise is called a disguise because you are hiding from someone, you are hiding yourself to attack them.. by suprise. So don't remove disguise because it makes perfect sense for it to be there. MKT/Assassin is all about sneak attacks and the element of suprise. I rarely load thrown defence clothes at all, if anything just the defence move and i can still block punts/out roll in combat, and as a gunman MKT is supposed to be my weakness.

It sounds like to me in part, some of the frustration is that logic cannons are visible, load sneak.

Why load sneak and Logic Cannon when I could just take up MKT like 80% of the other players have and use Punt, which BTW is a whole pile better than a sneak logic cannon.

Again, disguises make it far too easy for MKT's to punt people, break shield, root them with a throw, 10 steps back, put a disguise on IN CLEAR VIEW of the opponent run back and punt them from in front of them. I wish I could do that with logic cannon, but instead it has a several second cast timer that gives them plenty of time to take precautions to prevent you from succeeding or to lesson the impact of it. As a matter of fact, in the time it takes me to cast it you could run to a HL and load up the resistance buff in the awakened tree (Clear Mind?) and activate it before I'm finished.

Instead of "nerfing" the spy tree (IMO IS costs compared to dmg is ok, reuse timers are fine - each ranged class can perma-root you), the devs should work on general issues like:
Certainly not with one ability we can't, and certainly not for 30 seconds.

The difference, my dear boy, is all the difference.

Arcanoloth wrote:

Why load sneak and Logic Cannon when I could just take up MKT like 80% of the other players have and use Punt, which BTW is a whole pile better than a sneak logic cannon.

Again, disguises make it far too easy for MKT's to punt people, break shield, root them with a throw, 10 steps back, put a disguise on IN CLEAR VIEW of the opponent run back and punt them from in front of them. I wish I could do that with logic cannon, but instead it has a several second cast timer that gives them plenty of time to take precautions to prevent you from succeeding or to lesson the impact of it. As a matter of fact, in the time it takes me to cast it you could run to a HL and load up the resistance buff in the awakened tree (Clear Mind?) and activate it before I'm finished.

You do know what sneak does don't you?  Sure LC has a cast timer but if the caster is sneaking you won't know it's coming until they hit you with it. And once they are hit with the LC you appear, that means theres a very angry person baying for your blood, but wait, people always have a high viral defense (due to perma hyper deflect) so it has a far lower success rate than punt, and the extra memory used to put sneak on means you don't have as many hax to use, meaning you are very much less effective than a pure hacker, meaning you had better pray to god that LC hits otherwise you are completely boned  And they can hit you at range from any direction So does staggering throw, again this game has very "loose" opinions on what is defined as "behind", plus staggering throw can be used in a disguise, again making it a *poop* load easer to do than a sneak logic cannon.  And it works despite evade shields So does staggering throw, which takes far less time to use and result in roughly the same amount of dmg, again, staggering thrown can be used in a disguise so is far easier than a sneak logic cannon. 
To punt someone it's as you said.  First you have to break the shield and hope they don't put it back The 30 second reuse timer on evade shields generally makes this a certainty.  Then if you don't root them you have to chase them 2 rooting knives, 2 knives that slow them down, with very short reuse timers and a high accuracy (and they will most likely have a low defense) this is generally assured.  Then you disguise right in front of them so they know it's coming Your rooted on the spot and can't run, so what can you do to stop it apart from activate hyper sense and pray?.  Then you have to get behind them (more or less) and close enough to enter combat They are rooted on the spot and this game has very "loose" opinions on what "behind" is defined as, as long as your shield is still up all you have to do is run straight at them and keep clicking on the punt button until the game judges you as "Behind" then you punt them, even if your shield isn't up they are still rooted on the spot and you can just hit them with another rooting throw, seeming they are stackable and all, and keep trying. 

Sounds to me like sneak Cannons are an awful lot less fuss than MKT punts Please read the text in red.  Oh, and these are all your words by the way No, you've put words in my mouth, please refrain from doing it again.  I've stuck close to your description But you "spun" it to favour your opinion.  If you argue now, you're at cross-purposes with yourself O rly?. 

So yeah Mave.. about that lemonade? The Lemonade is still mine.

Instead of "nerfing" the spy tree (IMO IS costs compared to dmg is ok, reuse timers are fine - each ranged class can perma-root you), the devs should work on general issues like:

Certainly not with one ability we can't, and certainly not for 30 seconds.

The difference, my dear boy, is all the difference.

And plz, tell me the ONE ability you can perma-root for 30secs. neuro dart reduces speed for 30 secs, but you can still move. you have to stack it with another slowing ab to get an equipollent to root.
And that other one lasts for 30 seconds as well

What was the point you were trying to make?

guns = 3 root abs (also with reuse < effect)
A single ability, in the SMG tree, has a reuse timer of 10sec and an effect of 12sec. It also has a longer cast timer. It's a far cry from 18sec/30sec.

Do not exaggerate with me. All other roots do not overlap, we have to work to maintain it. Neurodart and Sever Artery, on the other hand, are "set it and forget it", and both overlap 12-15seconds total.

Your original statements were completely fallacious, so you might want to step back. You cannot justify a 30 second effect in the operative tree, and you cannot justify a 12 second overlap (or, a 15 second one, in the case of Sever Artery). Don't even bother to try. In fact, the only tree with problems such as this ability use/effect overlap, is the bloody Spy tree.

Lets go over it, shall we?
Poison Knife - 20sec reuse, 25sec effect
NeuroDart - 18sec reuse, 30sec effect
Backroll Escape - 0sec reuse, 10sec effect
Blinding Throw - 8sec reuse, 10sec effect
Paralyzing Throw - 6sec reuse, 8sec effect
Deadly Throw - 10sec reuse, 15sec effect
Crippling Throw - 10sec reuse, 15sec effect
Sever Artery - 15sec reuse, 30sec effect
Wounding Throw - 10sec reuse, 50sec effect

Lets compare this to ALL abilities elsewhere, shall we? (abilities with chances for effects are ommitted, due to the unlikelyness of an overlap. Abilities which by game design cannot stack (ie: hacker DoT's) are also omitted)
Body Shot - 8sec reuse, 10sec effect
Disarming Shot - 8sec reuse, 10sec effect
Supression Fire - 10sec reuse, 12sec effect
Guard Breaker - 10sec reuse, 15sec effect
Slow - 8sec reuse, 28sec effect
Miasma 2.0 - 28sec reuse, 45sec effect
Crash - 15 sec reuse, 28-42sec effect
Code Flux - 30sec reuse, 60sec effect

Anyone else see the problem here, or do I have to start weilding a sledgehammer to get my point across? NINE abilities in the MKT stack their effects, versus EIGHT in all other trees combined.

Very good breakdown Sneaker.  Those are irrefutable facts that cannot be challenged.  I see it shut alot of people up since you posted that yesterday. 

Poison Knife - 20sec reuse, 25sec effect    Don't use.
NeuroDart - 18sec reuse, 30sec effect    Sometimes.
Backroll Escape - 0sec reuse, 10sec effect   Don't use.
Blinding Throw - 8sec reuse, 10sec effect   Don't use.
Paralyzing Throw - 6sec reuse, 8sec effect   Sparingly.  Sucks up too much IS.
Deadly Throw - 10sec reuse, 15sec effect    Definitely.
Crippling Throw - 10sec reuse, 15sec effect    Definitely.
Sever Artery - 15sec reuse, 30sec effect   Too long of a casting time = Pointless.
Wounding Throw - 10sec reuse, 50sec effect   Too weak to make a difference.

I'm not saying they're all extensively used. Some are, certainly, but that's not the point.

The point is that many abilities in the Spy tree (apologies, I keep interchanging "Spy" and "MKT" were clearly overlooked, and remain unbalanced to CR2 standards. The comparison to overlapped abilities in the Spy tree and every other ability in the game is, well, quite startling.

TheLeo: I included all abilities I could find in which an overlap occured. Those with the same reuse and effect timer (ie: 8sec reuse, 8sec effect) were omitted due to the use timer cancelling out any overlap. Abilities with a chance for effect were omitted, due to the unlikelyness of an overlap. And hacker DoT's, which by game design cannot stack (last I checked) were omitted as well. And I omitted self-buffs, since I don't really care if you can keep yourself perma-buffed. Anything else was in: damaging, passive debuff, etc.

Indeed, though, all but one of the abilities I listed in non-Spy trees that actually do damage are very low-level abilities anyways. Supression Fire, Slow, and Crash are the only three that are really comparable to the problems in the Spy tree.

Just as MA can kill 3 people with little IS using state specials, MKT can do so with sneak attacks. Your portrayal of the Spy tree as imbalanced is slanted and fails to consider all aspects of the combat system. Any decent hacker can destroy even a good MKT. MA and MKT are equal attribute-wise, it comes down to the skill of the player and the strength of their builds in such fights. I've fought MAs as MKT what were a cakewalk in IL, and I've had every single one of my specials outrolled as a MKT fighting a MA with high accuracy.

MKT really isn't imbalanced. Yes it has low IS cost but it also has no free fire. The exact same goes for hacker - low IS for dmg abilities, hell look at the Code Infections and their 10 IS cost. But there is a method to this madness, which is often overlooked.

Also, neither of the Hacker stats affect their Ballistic Damage or Accuracy for freefire. They rely solely on their hacks for efficiency.

Shut down a MKT's sneak attack and there's no need to gripe about how overpowered they are. I think most people just go nuts when they realize they get punted for 1700 damage and feel that it's the end of the world against MKT's. Remove that 1700 damage and you're dealing with perfectly normal attacks of between 200-400 damage. Last I checked, DPE does between 350-500 and Deadly Throw only does somewhere around 250-325.

good necro of an old thread. all the things these ppl are talking about are from the fall season of 2006.

way to pay attention, duh.

lock this thread =D

your contribution has been duly noted. welcome to october 2006.

lock this thread..

This is old topic and I still think spy sin't completely balanced (staggering throw anyone) but I have no more hopes for this "fix" so lock please.
Thanks in avance.

yea we can't complain anymore we know it's one of the best classes, just load hacker

yea we can't complain anymore we know it's one of the best classes, just load hacker
Right, and get pwned by everything else.

In every "King of the Hill" tournament I've been to, guess who went the longest rounds multiple times? MKT's. Then, someone would specialize their build entirely to combat an MKT, only to get defeated the very next round by someone else.

That's the problem.

yea we can't complain anymore we know it's one of the best classes, just load hacker
Right, and get pwned by everything else.

In every "King of the Hill" tournament I've been to, guess who went the longest rounds multiple times? MKT's. Then, someone would specialize their build entirely to combat an MKT, only to get defeated the very next round by someone else.

That's the problem.

Your statements there are godly, dude.

It sums up the issue we're having. With a higher population and therefore a more diverse group of people you'd find it much easier to pick your targets instead of trying to snipe one MKT with another two in Sneak. :D

Well now since the last update the time duration for which it takes a spy to execute an ability in IL has decreased, and there is still staggering throw which is high lvl ability which I compare to wrist throw with such a high IS cost and average dmg. I'd like to have an ability with 190 melee dps with 3 second timer to use too so it does 900 dmg outside IL. It would be nice also to decrease the time to use LC2 to 5 seconds and increase it's dps to 100 and maybe a similar one ability to the gun tree so all trees get a fair ZOMG ability. Also since I notice hackers missing a lot that accuracy nerf should be removed having in mind spies throw knifes left and right with one miss out of 15.

MAs get the awesome skill of being able to use TWO powerful moves back to back.

pointless post. ignore it.

 Why rant? why care?>