Engineer v Scientist

Scientists are mean. They have crazy movement thanks to 3 warps, they can heal themselves with heal thingy, and they can be devastating with the goo blaster, even at longer ranges. I know a lot of people complained about chemist in GW1 and 2 but at least he had to be 3 inches away to really hurt you. We've mentioned before that they should probably get a buff to healing and a nerf to damage and/or their ability to warp.

Engineers can be effective but part of their issue, that insane stun, has been made far less debilitating so they aren't as bad as they were. They also are tied down to the heavy helper if they want to use its full power. You can resummon it fairly often but it's not hard to vanquish (and I will focus on that turret aggressively when I see them in PvP matches). 

The station is sick when loaded up, a single cadet station (unless they know about that auto-aim exploit) isn't that hard to deal with although crater maker can be devastating, the terrain of the map can make a massive difference there. The station should not heal over time on its own, the Imp's mech doesn't and it's a machine in the same vein so the station shouldn't either. The effect of multiple cadets on a station needs adjustment, being a treetop acorn is much less effective than being a station rider. I'm not sure what they should do for the extra cadets on a station, but it's clear something needs to be done; weaker shields, shields only last so long and then shut down regardless of damage, less health per cadet, make the cadets individually vulnerable, etc. There's a lot of options to fix the station, but it has to be fixed, and soon.

As for the cadet on her own, I really can't say one way or the other. The big laser ability is effective and her normal weapon is decent, that ability where you fly up in the air and crash down has targeting issues at times, not sure if its netcode or some other problem, but it can be flakey to control.

I feel as though people who cry out for nerfs don’t always have the best interest of the game at hand or they’d be open-minded about all characters.

I love Engineer but can play all characters proficiently.  

Something tells me many people who complain so heavily about CHARACTERS THAT ARE FINE/NEED NO NERF but don’t mention the obvious OP characters are in fact dominating matches against youngsters or noobs and using the problem characters.

I’ve been more vocal the last week to help negate this but Scientist and Cadet/Station REALLY need a further look or almost all other characters need heavy buffs.  

EDIT: I didn’t name the topic “Engineer v Scientist v Station” because it’s common knowledge Station needs balancing... I only brought up that character because it’s hideously overpowered and likely the only character more broken than Scientist.

No argument here. I don't like calling for nerfs either and if we knew what the baseline performance level was supposed to be, it'd be easier to judge who is under and over performing, but indeed Scientists are basically highly mobile assassins that can heal whereas Sunflowers are healers that can do some shooting. With a few exceptions I feel that the balance isn't that bad overall, but those exceptions are really standing out now.

Yeah said it before Scientist needs...something. For me ideal would be just to nerf his range. No problem with him putting up a good fight at short range but if you are playing a lower health character you can't win at short range and can't seem to escape him, his range is insane.

Engineer is fine as is imo.

I really hope scientist gets a nerf. As hes pretty much been this good since day 1 and yet barely anyone has complained about scientist compared to other characters like super brainz, engineer, nightcap, etc. I think a good nerf would be to make it so warps casting time is increased to more than an miller second and give him fall off so that even with precision he still has to get up close to get big numbers and even at close hes less of a nuisance as you can't just instantly warp back in fourth making him much more unpredictable. 

I played 2 games of this mode, and when we were playing zombies the top vanquisher on our team was indeed a Scientist. It was a fast match and I thought I had done well as All Star to get 11 vanquishes, but our Scientist had a whopping 21.

I agree that Scientist is more deadly than Engineer. I have always thought that Engineer by himself if a nuisance, but not OP. A mob of Engineers can be a real hinderance though. I remember one disastrous match where our team couldn't leave the spawn point due to being locked down by a team of Engineers (pre-patch).

I don't feel like Scientists make my life miserable in the same way that pre-patch Super Brainz could, but there is little doubt that he often tops the podium. However I think the game is fairly balanced currently, in terms of plants vs. zombies, and I think that whether playing plants of zombies the better team will tend to win. For example we may have crushed 3:0 in the Gnome Bomb match I mentioned earlier, but when we played plants we also won 3:0, and it was an all-plants podium.

Also, great observation @spIash_damage about people not complaining about the OP characters they play themselves. I tend to ignore "SO AND SO NEEDS A NERF!!!" threads, since usually they are just people venting their frustration about a character they haven't figured out how to counter yet.

I have noticed a lot of murmuring about Scientist, though. I think that as people figure out how to play the character well, he's getting more deadly.

All that said, in the hands of a good player, any character can dominate a match. I played a bunch of games with an amazingly good player recently. Full lobbies in Boss Team Vanquish, and this player was vanquish master for about 10 matches straight. Rose, Cactus, Deadbeard, All Star, whatever. And this player's team won every single match, too. It made me rethink some of my ideas about certain characters.

Just quit out of a game as all the scientists were just ruining the fun for me. They weren't healing (other than themselves) and were simply attacking on the front line.

Issues with scientist:

- if they manage to get close to you, forget it, they will win

- If you run away or keep your distance, forget it, they have insane range and will also teleport after you

- If you get the jump on them and deal damage first, they will teleport away, heal themselves (forget the teammates right), and then come back out after you.

Of course not all scientist players play that way, and I don't really blame those who do. It is the game itself that is broken. The biggest problem right now and might force me to quit the game as it is just frustrating to play lobbies like this.

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@34975634954957 wrote:

Just quit out of a game as all the scientists were just ruining the fun for me. They weren't healing (other than themselves) and were simply attacking on the front line.

Issues with scientist:

- if they manage to get close to you, forget it, they will win

- If you run away, forget it, they have insane range and will also teleport after you

- If you get the jump on them and deal damage first, they will teleport away, heal themselves (forget the teammates right), and then come back out after you.

Of course not all scientist players play that way, and I don't really blame those who do. It is the game itself that is broken. The biggest problem right now and might force me to quit the game as it is just frustrating to play lobbies like this.

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I think Scientists are MORE BOTHERSOME than a fully loaded Station in that you can avoid the big turtle-crawl-paced 4-man Station but Scientists can literally almost die, warp around 3 corners and wait for you to follow while they heal up with the sticky heal... by the time you catch them, the warps are regenerated (as is health and ammo).  If you’re slightly low on health, you can‘t run from them.

They’re more highly overpowered than any non-glitching solo character in the game and YOU CAN’T escape.

I truly wonder if some devs/Popcap staff main Scientist and Space Cadet.

EDIT: autocorrect revenge