Balancing Natascha

[Shoomonger]

As the weapon currently stands it really needs a boost of some sort. Feel free to discuss it all right here.

 

[nik]

make alt fire shoot sandviches

 

[Bockagon]

make it actually have knockback instead of just killing forward momentum.

 

[owly-oop]

by removing it

 

[What Is Schwa]

I think a slightly shorter spinup time would balance it nicely.

 

[Darth Cyrax]

I have an idea, its already sort of been mentioned but I think my idea would be more balanced.

(Standard)
-25% Damage
-Slow enemy on hit
(Additional)
- Moves at 35% speed when revved/firing(as opposed to 27% with Sacha. Running speed is 77% for the heavy.)

This would be more balanced that simply "increase running speed", which would make it a bit OP IMO.

 

[Penguin]

Nat is balanced as is.

I can't get kills with Sasha, but I get loads of kills with Natasha.

 

[PL-7764]

I've got it: Secondary fire shoots butterfly knives, and every hit counts as a backstab insta-kill.

Seriously, though ...
I like the decreased spin-up time/faster walking speed while spinning ideas. Perhaps make it have a slightly tighter cone of fire as well, making it more accurate to compensate for its lower overall firepower? That might also make its existing "push-back" attribute a little more usable as well since you could then actually hit people enough to shove them back a useful amount. I know the tighter firing cone was/is in discussion at Valve for Sasha, but maybe it should be tried for Natascha instead.

 

[Tapp]

The whole point of natascha is to get enemies out in the open and prevent them from taking cover. The focus is to draw the fight in to your territory, out in the open (without snipers). The best way I could think to do this would be to make it pull them towards you, or even stop them completely. If you want to get a bit extreme here, you could give it bullet penetration (commonly known as re-writing the engine) or an incentive for them to be within sight of you (maybe poison them, and the antidote is on the heavy's corpse? being a bit extreme here). IMO they should give it crits from behind instead of slowdown. Forces aggro onto the heavy, and prevents retreat.

 

[Terr]

I'm partial to the idea of having it [ame=http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=749832]actually speed up the Heavy when it's damaging people[/ame].

That said, the much-buffed sandvich has made it so I actually play Heavy sometimes...

 

[grazr]

He can combat roll side to side to avoid headshots.

 

[owly-oop]

too bad with the damage reduction it just gives your enemies more time to shoot at you. so really soldiers, demos, scouts, and huntsman sniper have a better chance because they can shoot one more time which can mean life or death


you don't need to slow down people if you can just kill them faster

 

[Caliostro]

Natascha is fine. It's a defensive weapon and devastating at what it does: completely destroy the enemy's momentum and make them sitting, and heavily damaged, ducks for your team mates. Learn to use it.

 

[grazr]

Pfft, most offensive pushes involve an uber. Good luck defending against that with a Natacsha and its oh so useful slowdown. By the time it becomes useful you're dead. If you survive an uber, you'll want to pump as much damage into the recently vulnerable foe while the reload. Natascha is so mediocre there's no real scenario to put it in. The heavy performs well at soaking up enemy fire and dealing moderate damage whilst your team pushes past you to the objective hoping you took most of the flak. Its effects perform negligably, and is outclassed in any area's it might otherwise perform well in on mutual grounds.

The only time i ever get killed by one is when the heavy is health buffed and i didn't have full ammo. Where Sascha would simply have killed me just as quick anyway. If Natascha is in a position to perform how it was intended, with no anti-class to nullify your presence, then your team would have steam rolled the enemy regardless.

 

[FlavorRage]

Change it from -25% damage to -25 hp.

See what happens then.....

You're still a "lighter heavy" but you can still kill people.

 

[Ida]

I think the problem with Natascha is that it leans too far towards annoying your enemies rather than being efficent for you. It needs to give the Heavy some sort of an additional advantage (higher movements speed when spun up is a good idea), even if it means that the annoyance factor has to be cut down.

 

[Shmitz]

I like them both. I'll use Sasha if I know I'm going to be facing other heavies, but most of the time I prefer Natascha because heavy isn't my main class by any stretch. When I go heavy, it's because my team needs the class more than it needs another engy, demo, or whatever I might be better with.

This isn't to say Natascha is a weapon for noobs. Rather, it's a great weapon when you don't want to be front man mowing down all the opposition. Instead, it's a support weapon that makes it easier for your surrounding teammates to kill faster and more efficiently. Complaining that it doesn't have killing power by itself is kind of missing the point.

That said, I do like the idea of decreasing its spinup time or slowdown effect.

 

[grazr]

I like them both. I'll use Sasha if I know I'm going to be facing other heavies, but most of the time I prefer Natascha because heavy isn't my main class by any stretch. When I go heavy, it's because my team needs the class more than it needs another engy, demo, or whatever I might be better with.

This isn't to say Natascha is a weapon for noobs. Rather, it's a great weapon when you don't want to be front man mowing down all the opposition. Instead, it's a support weapon that makes it easier for your surrounding teammates to kill faster and more efficiently. Complaining that it doesn't have killing power by itself is kind of missing the point.

That said, I do like the idea of decreasing its spinup time or slowdown effect.

I think the problem is that performance differences between the two are negligable, Sasha in itself is a support weapon, and more likely to get the kill compared to Natascha, be it direct or assist. I'm not necasserily saying that the heavy needs Natascha to have a higher chance for direct kills. But the damage done by Natascha is possibly too small to be of much worth when as a whole, when taking into effect the rest of your team in a game, Sasha will result in more damage dealt to the enemy, reducing their effectiveness to regroup. The slow down itself is of little inconvinience, and when you're close enough for it to be annoying, Sasha would have killed you anyway. Unfortunately, in most cases, Natascha will end up getting you killed.

For most weapons that kill me, i get a real sense of "well, they were using the right weapon for the job there. Sucks to be me. If only they were using their other weapon i might have survived". They provide a real alternative play style. Where as Natascha feels like "well, i would have been dead in that situation anyway".

Sitting back and applying annoying spam is fair enough, but done just as easily with Sasha. Sitting back and being annoying doesn't quite work when your damage output is drastically reduced. I never see a Natascha wielding heavy as a real threat. They probably wont kill me unless they get crits or a lucky accurate bullet spread, either of which end in the same result with Sasha. If your team was in a position to kill your target when weilding Natascha, they were in a possition to kill them if you were wielding Sasha. But additionally Sasha provides you with more personal protection, whilst Natascha provides the enemy with more time to shoot back at you before (and if) they die.

I see it 1000 times like this:
Sasha does X amount of damage to an enemy, someone flanks and kills them with a rocket as they retreat.
Natascha does X amount of damage to enemy, someone flanks and shoots them with rocket but they survive, and require another accurate shot to kill.

Basically you're providing more chances for the enemy to luckily escape a killing blow, or kill you first. Most people are used to accounting for class speeds and -25% means nothing for the brief amount of time that it is applied.

They've failed to emphasise the weapons intended role.

Something like no crits, -25% damage dealt; for 100% chance to slow enemy on direct hit and surrounding enemies OR lengthen the duration of the effect for +5 seconds OR allow bullets to penetrate through several players. To emphasise the effect of the weapon. Because although the minigun has a wide spread, most bullets do miss, and a single bullet can only hit (and subsequently effect) one person. In this scenario, the heavy would be better for mass crowd control. Rather than picking out individuals.

 

[Pilk]

It doesn't need a buff or a nerf. It needs a complete overhaul.

We have to look at this from "both sides" of the weapon. Slowdown is such an unnecessarily intrusive dynamic, i.e. it's useful for the shooter but it's just annoying for the shootee. The net benefit isn't really worth the rage it creates. It takes away control of the character, just like Stun does and the Sandman used to do without it's double-jump.

To be honest I think it seems like the devs hurriedly decided on stats for a different Minigun that were only different once they scrapped Ludmila.

Ultimately Natascha is a large tranq gun.

 

[A Boojum Snark]

I see it 1000 times like this:
Sasha does X amount of damage to an enemy, someone flanks and kills them with a rocket as they retreat.
Natascha does X amount of damage to enemy, someone flanks and shoots them with rocket but they survive, and require another accurate shot to kill.

I can make the same observances the other way around.
Sasha does X, someone shoots the enemy and they don't take full damage because of wrong aim. Enemy needs to be shot again.
Natascha does X, someone shoots and kills the enemy because it's near impossible to miss someone under the effects of slowdown.