Class Discussion: Imp/Mech
Time for Imps. I’m mixed on these guys as they can be fun to play, but so many players are obnoxious to play against even when they don’t use their mechs. With their mechs, too many Imps can ruin matches in GW2 (singular or duo mechs aren’t that big of a deal), combine that with GW2’s gravity grenade and I see why the class got hit hard in BfN, even if I feel they overcompensated. AI are a nightmare for Imps as your small size and mobility are negated by their built-in aimbot ability, which completely changes the dynamic when playing private matches or in BfN when several bots are in the match. They originally had 50 health in GW2 but that was quickly patched to 75. I personally don’t think any character should have less than 75 without significant mitigating circumstances.
The basic Imp weapon is a pair of rapid-fire blasters. They aren’t the most accurate weapons in the world and on full auto can be pretty hard to keep on target but that makes sense based on what they are and what they’re supposed to be. The variants change these up a lot, and is a big reason why so many of us like variants in the first place, (the mechs are another reason but I’ll get to them later). Out of them all, I like Party the most, largely for the music, but they’re all fun. BfN’s Imp’s main weapon works and can still double jump, and can upgrade that double jump as well, but like many camera and movement abilities in BfN, it can be janky and awkward at times.
The mechs are so important to the class and its identity that one of my least favorite things in BfN was them taking the various mechs away and leaving us with just the basic one. BfN just did not handle mechs well at all; the explosion is so oddly animated that I thought it was bugged at first, the Imp should not eject when the mech is destroyed; it was much better as a risk that you’ll be vanquished when the mech is destroyed as opposed to ejecting when you manually detonate the mech, the ‘suicide mech’ is a thing as its actually best to run into a group of plants and explode rather than use the mech normally, and giving it sprint and adding armor back to the mech only partially negated some of the other issues. I do like the overheat meter for the mech’s main weapon, something I wish we had for certain mech variants in GW2 (some like Pylon use normal ammo so don’t need it), and you can get the mech back faster and use it longer with certain upgrades, but I find the extended duration mech is better in PvE as you can keep it alive longer. The Pylon Mech is one of my favorites as it’s basically a road cone on a unicycle with a huge engine and I love how ridiculous it is. Different mechs are a must for a new game, the, admittedly, great skins for the BfN mech are not enough to make up for the loss in weapon variety. Also, each mech in GW2 had a unique gesture (although the regular, Party and Z7 mechs had the same one), yet only the AI mechs can do that in BfN, I rather like those, especially the Pylon mech’s ‘V’ sign.
The Z7 Imp is problematic to a point as it’s part of the deluxe version of GW2, which most people I know have, but many complain about it being P2W or at least close to that as the Imp’s weapon fires as fast as you can push the trigger and you can really ramp up the DPS when you do that. I have it like many do, but as I use my LMB to use it, and not a controller with a turbo button or some kind of macro, I have to click rapidly so it works fine without going too far.
Gravity Grenade is too good in GW2. We’ve known this for quite awhile now, but it’s not all that great in BfN as it often fails to work on plants at all, or you can just get out of it with abilities, making it range from useless to slightly useful. There’s an upgrade to make it larger since it’s so small in BfN (too big in GW2), but it ends up being inferior in pretty much everyway to Nightcap’s casting shadows after they added that ‘suction’ effect to it. This one definitely needs a middle ground for a new game.
Imp-Kata is an ability that I rarely use in either game. It often bugs out in GW2, at least in certain spots like near the flag of power in the Backyard Battleground, causing no damage to anything, I don’t recall if it does this anywhere else. In BfN it plays a little different, as I believe it ‘winds up’ its damage over time till it ends, rather than a fixed, steady amount of damage spread evenly over its duration. I’ve read that zooming in while spinning in this ability in BfN makes it do more damage, but I’ve never tried that. This is in many ways, a kind of turret mode again, you can move some during the ability but not all that much and while you gain armor, Imps are designed to be fast and mobile so this move is often followed by being vanquished in PvP, so I don’t use it a lot. If brought forward, it really only needs to be checked for balance.
Model-wise, the biggest issue with BfN Imp for me is the lack of variants mean lack of outfits and mechs. This is a thing for all characters, but I feel it hits Imps the hardest as they have their costumes and their mechs and losing that made the character a lot less fun for me, and obviously many others. When we knew a new PvZ shooter was coming, one thing I was excited for was band new mechs and what kind of cool new machines to ride as an Imp were coming, and we got less not more. This is definitely one of the reasons I find myself enjoying BfN less than GW2.
So for the new game, bring those variants back, do any needed balancing, make the mech less of a suicide bomb than it is in BfN, give us alternate abilities for gravity grenade and Imp-kata, make the mech useful and powerful without being oppressive, and overall, make it fun to play as and against.
