Defending SGs against mirvs
 

Are there any ways to defend my sentry gun while a mirv explodes near it? I keep hammering the fucker but I get fucked up from the mirv. Is there any way at all? Or is it like 1 mirv and my sg is guaranteed gone. :mad:

It all comes down to placement. If the grenade is far enough away, you can sometimes crouch and maneuver around the gun so that each or most of the smaller successive explosions are absorbed by the front (relative to your position) of gun and not your face allowing you time to tank the gun with your wrench. However, if the grenade lands right at the base of your gun, there's no point trying to save it. The MIRV is terribly overpowered, but the development team so far doesn't give a shit.

Your post has a point, fine. But will you please stop with this stupid attitude towards the development team you have acquired.

We give a shit. We give a huge shit.

EDIT: The initial explosion, and each bomb that comes out, is as powerful as a frag (they used to be stronger pre-2.4), so there's no hope if it lands right on top. If some of the bombs are far from your sg, you might be able to repair right in the middle of the explosions and keep it alive. Most likely, you and the gun are going to die if you try it.

The Mirv needs to go to 6 bomblets, rather than just 4. It's a fucking Mirv, it's SUPPOSED to fuck shit up! What do you want, the fucking thing to burst into some balloons with the word "BANG" on them?

Yes, the MIRV is supposed to be powerful. I'm well aware. Instead, it's too powerful. I am going to offer the same suggestion I gave a long time ago. Fragmentation grenades need to be made into Anti-Personnel grenades. They should do 100% damage to players and 25% damage to buildings. MIRVS can then be made into Anti-Structure grenades. They do 100% damage to buildings but 25% damage to humans. Get rid of the bomblets. Keep the initial explosion.

I too always thought grenades should do reduced damage to buildables.

This is a really interesting idea. Though I think the bomblets should be kept and the damage of the initial explosion + bomblets should be tweaked.

That is the gayest idea I've heard yet. It's a frag grenade, it explodes shit human OR robotic.

Yeah bro, because realism is really what's fueling this game.

So.... what exactly IS your problem with a grenade that fucks shit up?

MIRVS are given to defensive classes like Demo and HWguy. Usually offensive classes are the ones that need to do the structure destroying.

Everything's good in theory.

Once upon a time sentries would push somebody flying at it straight back because it was a meanass sentry gun and took some planning to take out. Not only would this kill invaders, but it also made it difficult to get close to them, granting an extra layer of protection. Then push got reduced heavily, so everybody short of a bunny hopping hwguy could run right up to it. This led to mirvs taking out sg's being a commonplace occurence, rather than requiring careful manuevering to pull off, causing a balance shift.

Nerfing the mirv isn't a good solution, because it would just be a reaction to nerfing something else that used to work. And I agree, they SHOULD cause a lot of damage.

This is a general question that does depend a lot on map layout, but due to changes in FF, the new answer to this question is you can't really stop this by yourself if a demoman has a hard-on for your sentry. As I understand it, the expected approach now to keeping your sentry alive is to get your teammates to babysit it in addition to yourself. In TFC it was possible to keep your sentry up by yourself under most situations. In FF, it's expected that it takes you and a couple teammates to do the same thing as a way of promoting teamwork.

Temporary SG Shield? Would only last long enough to protect against a nade or two. Have charge-up.

A problem Ive been realizing is the wrench repair mechanic has about a half second delay, not sure if its designed that way or what, but I know its annoying. It would be nice to get this fixed. I know its not a latency issue.

I'm guessing that is purely messaging and latency.

Maybe/probably the HUD update is slower once it's received the message back from the server. That might be possible but there won't be any intended latency to to actually repairing it.

I don't think the hud is the fastest thing, I'm doing some new stuff now and there is lag between hitting it and it updating on the hud - I'll try to take a closer look anyway but not sure we can do much/anything about it.

Better yet, learn to use your sg as a shield and it'll rarely ever go down :p The model is big enough that you can wrench it while it absorbs a blast without a whole lot of thought.

As far as the mirv conversation goes, it's already been lowered, and if your sg gets mirved then you need to be able to judge if it's savable or better to just dismantle and run like hell. As the mirv is now with mirvlets being equal to a frag grenade each, well, I've seen plenty of people run right through them and survive, I think its fine where its at. The biggest issue with mirvs or any other grenades is the whole explosion slowing thing that was added in 2.4, if you get caught by the initial blast, you're pretty much boned. Focus your opinions on what the cause is rather than just randomly blasting things.

You still take damage and knockback from the blast if you're close enough to the sg to repair it. The only "shielding" aspect the sg performs is to provide a point of impact farther in front of you than your face. It doesn't actually provide any protection like it did in TFC.

If you're taking any damage from a nade you're not using your sg as a shield properly. It does block all damage if you position yourself properly. If anything its far easier to use the sg to block nades in ff than it is in tfc, nades in tfc that actually land real close to the sg in tfc do damage through the gun and it doesn't block anything, the radius in tfc is larger and more powerful than what we have in ff for regular frags.

I've noticed that as well. Nades on the ground are pretty easy to block with the SG (I remember doing ring-a-round-the-SG blocking nade damage for ages on plasma). It's rockets and flying nades that pose a problem.

My memory is blurry on nades. It's possible when it's on the ground that causes the damage to behave differently. You're right about TFC grenades, although I remember that situation being rather rare.

What kills my sg's are ROCKETS most of the time. Unless values have been changed recently, one detonating on impact with the sg will carry through to you if you're within range to repair it. You can do sort of a back and forth dance to try and repair it in between blasts, but it's tricky to pull off as it requires very accurate timing and is impossible if you have any lag. In TFC you could stand next to it and simply repair it.

Looking at this question from a different approach, as an engie, I always play forward a bit as opposed to sitting next to my SG jerking it off. Yeah you may get killed a few more times, but FF aint about K/D ratio, preventing your sg from getting mirved is prolly more important then dieing? Demoman is limited by speed, simply get to him before he gets to your sg.

If you sit between your sg and the demoman, you can weaken, if not kill the demoman before he gets close enough to your sg to drop a mirv. Obviously, this is a different situation when you have three medics also trying to kill ur sg at the same time, but for 1 vs 1's (engie/SG vs demoman, a proactive engie should always win).

When it comes to demoman, emp and space are ur friend ;)

Speaking on both sides of the coin, I agree, thought it's a little deceptive. If it's a 1v1 of an engy v. a demoman, the engy will usually kill him and stay alive; but the demoman will also destroy the sg in the process. When I play O demoman and I'm out to destroy sg's, it's almost impossible to stop me from doing so unless there's at least 3 players defending the sg or else a very good sniper. I almost always take the sg out, though I usually die in the process. Alternately, when I play as engy and a demoman has a hard-on for my sg, your best bet is to dismantle your sg and move to a new location where he won't be expecting it. Once he discovers the new location, repeat. Relocating your sg after every time he shows up is a pain in the ass and isn't very fun, but it's about the only reliable way to keep your sg in play (short of having your team help you defend your sg, but how often does that happen).

Demomen can come in pretty rapidly and ones that are out for your sentry usually have their mirv primed ahead of time, so you usually won't have a chance to use an EMP before he's already delivered it. What I've seen happen most of the time is he'll come in, the engineer and the sg start firing on him, but it's usually not enough to push him back and prevent him delivering his mirv, although he'll probably die shortly afterwards.

Sg salvaging and placement
 

To me the most important thing for the engineer is placement. AS FF stands now an engy also needs help w/stopping the defense BEFORE they get to the gun. Put your SG in a place where you can get around it easy but the Offense cant. When a nade comes near your gun run around and use your sg to block the blast while wrenching it. If it's a mirv I suggest dismantling your gun and moving it the bind I use is this-
bind (your key) "detdismantlesentry; wait; sentrygun"
pressing that will build a gun if you don't have one, blow it up if you do, and dismantle it if you're close enough.

on a side note- These fucking engineers want invincible guns. YOUR GUN SHOULD GET DESTROYED. You still have a shotgun and railgun to back it up + an emp and 2 frags. That's a good amount of firepower. Just to be fair before any bitching/griping go play Offense as scout/med and make sure that YOU can "run right up to" a sentry gun and kill it. It's not THAT easy and it's frequent to encounter 3 fucking sg's on D.
Okay I'm done.

Interesting bind. I'll have to try it out.

Anytime I see a MIRV coming toward my SG I'll destroy it immediately, kill the demo/HW, and rebuild as fast as I can. That bind should help me should I be close to my SG to dismantle because there's nothing like having just upgraded your SG, 70 or fewer cells remaining with no bags available to rebuild right away.

I also like TF2's idea with the scrap metal you can pick up after a SG has been destroyed.

On the map express, for example, I'll have an SG built on one side and I'll see a demoman pipe himself over just to destroy my SG with a mirv, I'll destroy it, build up to lvl 3 within 5-10 seconds and repeat the process.

Some people just want their SG to do all the work for them but that's only going to get your SG killed, and probably pretty quickly. If I see someone trying to fuck up my SG, I'll prime a nade, keep wrenching it if I have time to get to it and throw the nade in between wrenching, and switch to my shotty to finish em off. There's tons of strategies you can use to keep your SG up and it is possible to keep it up even if a mirv is placed right next to it. It just takes practice. The mirvlets explode at a specific time, and knowing when each one explodes allows me to time my wrenches so my SG stays alive after they all explode.

Yes, your sentry should get destroyed, but its so fast that sometimes wrenching is futile. Theyre not suggesting a super sentry but something that can hold its own against offense. A good counter to an sg buff would be to move the build time from 3 BACK to 5 seconds, because, as chilledsanity has suggested, the sentry gun has become disposable.
Although a buffed sg would be a bitch when theres multiples. 2 sgs in a flag room as a scout or medic is just suicide.
Perhaps as more sentries are built, the lower the health/armor/buildtime could go for each consecutive sentry gun. IDK just a thought on how to counter balance it

lol mills speaks volumes.

I agree, I think buffing the sentrygun would make scout/medic play more painful than it needs to be. I'm not going to pretend I'm a good medic, but I find taking down a sentrygun a challenge, even though I've had plenty of practice. The learning curve for these classes is already crazy suicidal enough as it is.

As a medic approaching a sentrygun guarded by an engi you're fighting a class with only slightly less health/armour than you, a shotgun as good as yours, railgun, EMP and frag grenades, plus a sentry gun that deals fair damage and never misses. Sure you can try to conc past but that can be tricky, it uses one of your precious concs, and you may well still take damage. And if the engi's buddies aren't firing on you the whole time they'll be in the next room ready to fuck you up after he's had his way with you.

I can see how a stronger sentry might encourage teamwork amongst O but another thing to remember is that the sentrygun requires no skill or teamwork to plonk down. You drop it, grab a bag, wrench it, grab a bag, and you have a level 3 gun. I don't think it's really fair that something so easy for a single player to put up should require so much skill or coordination to get past. I also think the disposability aspect works well with the fast-paced nature of FF.

D should not be able to rely on sentry guns, nor should they be obliged to. I can see chilledsanity's point that a sentrygun with more push might help AvD balance, but it would fuck up the balance of CTF, which I think is pretty good as it is.

Imho, the fundamental problem with AvD is that a single scout can slip through with the flag, touch the point, and win the game. Timed capture points would go a fair way towards alleviating the enormous advantage O has, without affecting other game modes.

SG's are a bit weak at the moment. They need a buff. Not a major one, but a buff nonetheless.

Jay's right.

Also, making frags and mirvs less effective on buildings and people (resp.) is just a nerf to offense. Two reasons:

1) Defense only needs frags for people (they get 100% efficiency). Offense needs frags for buildings too (they get less than 100% overall efficiency). Offense gets a similar but less clear-cut advantage on the mirv side. Regardless, frags generally total more damage per round than mirvs, so offense gets hurt more than defense

2) Straitjacket on offense choice. If the nades have radically different uses, offense picks classes within that framework. Right now the nades do not so dramatically limit class choice

I have no leetzor credentials, just my $0.02

Medics and Scouts shouldn't be the only offensive classes though. If an SG is giving Offense a problem a Pyro, Spy, or Demo should be used to take it out.

If I had to yell at my team/switch classes when I encountered a well-placed SG as medic it would make the game a lot less fun for me. The 128DPS sentry guns are one of the things I hate most about TF2.

Shouldn't offense already have the other classes on their team instead of it being something you switch into just to take out the SG?

Idealy yes. Currently the SG counter class (the spy) isn't effecive enough nor much fun to play as that role and the role he best plays isn't interative. To me the SPY just isn't fun to play nor play against.

Hence, there's a lot of shit that needs to be done in this game.

I dunno about that.... sneaking in (albeit slowly), pretty much invisible(you have to make sure no one is looking in your direction to be effective), getting past defenders, knifing someone or fucking with the SG, is actually pretty FUN in my book.

I don't like the spy, and I think only having one O class able to reasonably deal with sentries would be bloody horrible.

I agree, which is why you'd have spy & medic for the sg....

Medic= all round sg/movement/dm class
Scout = movement
spy = sg
pyro = dm

That is the plan but changes have only just begun and the pyro... well he needs work too - a lot.

Sounds like a decent plan, though it feels like the medic will dominate. I'm interested in ideas for the pyro though, as atm he doesn't really have a very clearly defined role.

The spy should also be a support/distraction class.
Sab sg, Being able to disguise, traq slowdown/blurred vision, grenades that disable the health display/removes colors from screen, etc
Maybe focus on making those abilities more effective so that it is used more.

The thing about distractions is that they are either ineffective and pointless, or they cause the other team to rage. Any class that mostly annoys people is going to be used for griefing.