Rebalancing Vantage's ultimate sniper
Short conclusion:
- Vantage’s sniper needs to deal fixed 90 dmg (context bellow why this specific number is significant)
- Vantage’s sniper damage amplification needs to be increased to 25%
Feedback on previous statements:
So after suggesting that vantage’s sniper felt really weak, like a worse sentinel, people have been pretty aggressive in defending the sniper because they “felt” like the sniper was fine and that it had plenty of benefits (even though they openly admitted they didn’t know the damage amp values or duration), although a lot of people also argued that the sniper falls off very rapidly in the late game.
Considerations when balancing ultimate sniper:
Thus I’ve been re-examining my theory, my original point was that the sniper fell off extremely rapidly while not feeling impactful, effectively making it a worse sentinel, as there is a very low chance you get more than 2 shots on a target, and 2 shots are even very rare. Headshots are only made if fools stand still and for some reason don’t strafe, which I don’t consider something common, not just that, but helmets greatly reduce headshot damage. So headshots will not be seriously considered in my analysis.
Ultimate sniper compared to other ultimates:
The main focus will be on the design philosophy, the sniper needs to feel powerful, but mainly only be able to down a single target, without being able to destroy an entire team, contrary to other common ultimates that are totally capable of completely team whiping a team or saving an entire team from disaster while being very easy to use and don’t require an entire line of sight setup, unlike vantage’s sniper.
Ultimate sniper design philosophy:
The damage doubling from 50 to 100 is clearly an indication that the devs do NOT want vantage players to down more than one target with the sniper, even though most of the times you never have the luxury of focussing one target, as they can simply duck in cover or break line of sight for 10s and completely waste your ult charge. So I’m not totally hooked on this design philosophy.
Tactical and passive balance:
Vantage doesn’t really come with a useful passive, but her tactical makes up for it, its like pathfinder, but without the ability to use your mobility as aggressively. However, unlike pathfinder, her ultimate is FAR inferior to pathfinders ultimate, in other words, she’s almost a textbook copy of pathfinder, just with a really bad ultimate compared to pathfinder.
Solution:
The rest of vantage’s kit seems totally fine, even perfect. The only problem is her ultimate, I believe her sniper should be able to down in 2 body shots, however you could make a good point that red armour players get a pass because they worked hard for their red armour and thus should be able to resist the amount of burst damage.
Calculations:
This means that vantage’s sniper needs to down someone at 200 hp on 2 body shots, we naturally assume the damage amp is applied to her second sniper hit.
For standardisation and noteworthy effect, the damage amp should probably be increased to 25%. Thus arriving at 88.89 damage, this effectively makes the first hit 89 damage and the second hit 111, summing up to 200 damage precisely, naturally we should round this off for the sake of keeping things clean, thus being a base damage of 90.
Conclusion:
The result is a weapon that is superior to all other ground snipers (as an ultimate should be) while still remaining relevant in the late game by having the ability to 2 shot down someone (if they get 2 chain shots while the damage amp is still on them, otherwise it only deals a total of 180 dmg) and not being restricted by only being able to focus a single target. Red armour players are beyond the breakpoint as they should be, for they worked hard to get to the max tier armour. For balance the sniper ammo charges can be decreased to 4 shots, but the main importance is that using vantage’s sniper doesn’t feel like a ground sniper downgrade, it should feel powerful and useful at all stages of the game.
