Sniper Joe
I haven't played him like, at ALL, but he's overall lackluster and unrewarding to play. His main functions just fine if your ability to lead isn't piss poor, and his alt is unreliable due to to being an explosion. I've noticed that the alt explodes on the 5th bounce on any surface, maybe this could be turned into something a bit more interesting? Or maybe a hold and fire sort of thing that makes the nade go a longer distance? Maybe make him a true sniper like dm3?
Elecman
I'll go through playing as him and against him:
As: Awkward. His main is unreliable and slow, difficult to ohko with. His massive speed in comparison to his mainfire's speed somehow makes you unable to hit 9/10 mainfire shots, which is frustrating. Your alt leaves you basically unable to do any damage for a moderate period of time, and since your alt damage is usually => a mainfire shot, you don't feel as rewarded for hitting a good alt on someone.
Against: Frustrating or piss easy. Depends on how much they spam alt/run away. Mainfire can do little to massive damage, but is easy to dodge if your a and d keys aren't broken. The hitbox doesn't /seem/ reliable, but I could be wrong. The age old "alt run away alt run away" strategy makes for very unfun tlms matches, but is overall useless in tdm.
Something I just thought of while typing this up was some sort of lightning "shield" that activated upon alt. Whether it be a ring of electricity around you similar to Kennen from League of Legends or the thunder surge command from Kingdom hearts Birth by Sleep. Possibly have you main shoot faster/be more powerful/have some change while in this ring?
Iceman
His cooldowns really are brutal. I understand that the general strategy "alt to slow then ezpz main shots" but it just really doesn't work when the cooldown on the alt makes it realllly counterproductive. The alt does low damage as is, but is your most hitting source of damage. Your main does relatively consistent damage, but is amazingly difficult to his consistently with. One thing you may want to contemplate is switching the cooldown over to the mainfire, if you want to keep the cooldown at all.
Another thing you could possibly think of adding is making the mainfire slow, and then having the alt do extra damage to/slightly home in on slowed targets. There's a lot of possibilities for iceman, and ways you could screw around with him.
Fireman
His attacks don't mesh very well. Spammy, large buster shot that leaves a negligible damage flame on the ground, and a huegdommage firewall. He's also...not interesting in the slightest, and not very good at that. In tdm, you can throw down the alt through the hall and hope for a kill, or use it for very slight zoning in small maps. In tlms you can become a dps/havoc/bum rush machine, but you're gonna die quick if you don't know how to dodge.
His main is, yes, off of the ground so the hitbox isn't exactly stellar iirc, but from what I remember, it wasn't the /best/ in the first place. I remember crying for fireman nerfs a looong time ago, but now I see that he's just not in a good position.
Oilman
New oilman really irks me. He has insane mobility, and extremely good dps. He, in my opinion is relatively broken. (no, not OP, broken. OP implies an enormous amount of power for very little at risk. Broken is something that is off, or is poorly designed.) Throws down a bit of oil and ram into people with your extreme amounts of control and TONS OF DAMAGE (TM). Old oilman revolved a bit more around shotgunning people to low hp territory and using your somewhat difficult, but manageable oil slider control to finish them off. New oil, however is simply dps dps dps dps. Very frustrating to play against. Now, you can't blame the devteam for new oilman. The patch that made oilman compatible with v3 made him use the new oilslider, which also needs tweaking.
Airman
Oh. Airman.
All reward, no risk. Above average speed, neutral armor. Effective at all ranges, to boot.
His close range dps is largely unmatched, and his speed combined with his armor makes him very difficult to kill. At a slightly larger range, his alt can do moderate to huge damage, and in a very random pattern. At long range, Airman is still comparatively one of the best.
Also the "nerf" he was given (-5(?) damage per main shot for no ammo consumption) most certainly did not fix anything. It just made it so an airman has to hit with 1 more main shot max to get a kill, which is not difficult with his infinite ammo.
Heatman
In a very bad spot at the moment. Below average speed (iirc) and an unreliable mainfire (especially in the newest version)
Heatman was never good, unfortunately. His mainfire is extremely difficult to aim, and is unrewarding when you hit with it. Nearly impossible to hit with all three shots at a reasonable range, and the fact that his mainfire shots were changed to firing in a single direction to very slightly randomized left or right didn't make it any better. He has no kill potential in TDM unless you're REALLY bad at dodging/trapped as another class with no kill potential, and he doesn't do his job as a chaos/zoning class in tlms. His damage is so negligible, and the ground flame hitboxes are so small that you simply don't notice them half the time. (Well you can SEE them but it feels like you never get hit by them)
His alt is bad overall too. Forcing yourself to get hit in an arena shooter revolving around slow projectiles is actually difficult, since you need to take into account your opponent's ability to aim. This isn't quake 3 arena where you can always have a rocket launcher and KNOW you can get hit. If you get hit, you use ammo. If you don't get hit, and sit there, you lose ammo. If you don't get hit and you decide to stop alting, you lose ammo.
The funny part is that even if you DO pull off an altfire, hitting with it is absolutely horrendous. The hitbox is so damn small, and you have such a small timeframe to use it that it's not worth using it like, ever.
Geminiman
SHEER. FRUSTRATION. Blatantly broken, fundamentally un-fun. Gemini minus the clone is extremely lackluster and overall bad.
However, with the clone, you have trench warfare. The clone's mainfire shots go absurdly fast, and the clone itself has massive sight range, making for a very difficult time trying to kill the damn thing.
I mean seriously, having something that aims FOR you is the exact opposite of what you want in a semi-competitive arena shooter. Skill and effort are (and should be) the two largest factors in this sort of game, but Geminiman is devoid of any skill or effort. You place it down in a heavily traveled or open area, and you have immediate zoning and consistent damage, and if your clone gets hit, you know of someone's location.
He's just poorly designed overall.
Brightman
My one true issue with Bright are his lightbulbs. You're literally blind 90% of the time while fighting Brightman, and he's just wailing on you, and there's nothing you can do about it. Being blind in ANY game is seriously not fun, and it sure isn't a different case with Brightman. By the time your blind is up, his alt is literally .3 seconds away from being up. His consistent damage, freeze and blind make for a very frustrating experience.
Toadman
Toadman requires the least effort out of any class. No, positioning is not effort. In the grand scheme of things, yes it is, but in a room when you have AOE, it is not.
You have inconsistent, but still good damaging AOE, Extreme mobility, and damn good armor. This makes him the one of the most frustrating classes to play against, and broken at his core. There really is no argument FOR Toadman. "Shoot at him while's he's standing still!" Alright sure, and take that unavoidable damage. Oh well, at least you got damage on him! Oh...wait, he's running away munching hp. In tlms, he's not any better. Unavoidable damage in tlms is just...stupid, I'm sorry. No matter what your armor/speed, unavoidable damage in tlms is bad.
Dustman
Euuuuuuuugh. You've got very high damaging, but slow as all hell projectiles. And a lackluster enemy reposition. Nearly impossible to use in tlms, and bad in smallscale tdm. Hell, even in largescale tdm, you're better off using someone else. My suggestion a long while ago about having his ammo refilled by using his alt on enemies WAS in fact taken into account, but not in the way intended. My original intention was for Dustman to slowly (or quickly, maybe) gain ammo as he used his alt on people, but all it did was make them drop junk every once in a while, which is difficult to suck up due to how the alt/junk correlation/whatever works. He has the potential to be a very good necromancer class but ehh he's not good right now.
Waveman
I believe Waveman's a solid class. No, he's not the most interesting, but with intricacy must come simplicity.
Stoneman
Jesus christ how horrifying. Bulk as hell, insane speed for that amount of hp, and possible ohkos makes for a very bad time. In tdm, he's a complete juggernaut. In tlms, ok have fun kid, because all you'll be doing is losing unless you're completely sure you can land alts consistently.
Crystalman
He feels...crutchy (As does toadman now that I think of it). By crutch I mean that a bad player can do well with him, and a good player won't do as well as he/she should be doing with him. Literally, it's like having a guy with a broken leg race with Usain Bolt holding a crutch. The crutch will help out the broken leg guy, but will hinder Usain.
A bad player can simply hold down alt, and do better than they should be at this level of play, while a good player is left with randomness, spam and buster shots to try to win.
Windman
Overall Windman doesn't mesh well. You have flight, but you also have your sources of damage tied to said flight. Your mainfire is unreliable, but does solid damage, and your alt fluctuates in damage, but is still reliable to hit with. Your ammo bar recharges quick though, so that's nice.
The issue is that they don't make sense, or flow well. Flight generally means you should have to sacrifice power, but that also means you should have reliable sources of damage. Your main is innately unreliable, and your alt, due to being ground based isn't the most solid of damage sources.
It's kinda like wind is trying to accel in multiple areas, but is failing at it.
Junkman
;_; rip old junkman. Junk's just, weird, and a bit too different from the rest of the game. Junk WANTS to camp and just have ohko junk obelisks but, it really doesn't work out well for him. Nobody is stupid enough to run INTO them, and shooting them at people doesn't really work out well because it's so hard to aim. His alt doesn't do much for him due to short range+short speed, so you're gonna get kited easily. His shield itself takes wayyy too much ammo, and shooting it for the stun isn't worth the ammo.
Half his ammo for a "don't go here, but you can go around" sign. And then it takes like 5(?) seconds for the ammo for a new one, not counting previous ammo.
Enker
Oh my god why. Bulk + high speed + 20 damage good speed shots is already a very bad idea. Compared with the fact that his can mostly nullify one source of damage makes for a behemoth. Oh and the fact that he has the ability to do 50+ damage to a neutral armored class makes for a pretty frustrating and I hate to say it, but overpowered class.
Punk
Too damn good. His screws hit for 20 at a fast speed, and have a hitbox comparable to something twice its size. He has supreme reposition and kill potential due to the invuln on his alt. He can open gaps quickly, and he can close them quickly with the possibility of massive damage. He's effective at all ranges, and all his abilities mesh EXTREMELY well. I didn't even mention the, although relatively unreliable, crowd control he can dish out helps him further in being THIS good.
I agree with almost 100% of this. the only area where I'd disagree is with Punk; the problem isn't with his mainfire, it's with his secondary weapon. Infinite bounce crushers that can instantly wreck an opponent if you can throw a whole truckload of them at an opponent. Hell, half the time you don't even need to use his alt to get kills in a crowd, just run up to them with bounce crushers equipped and hold M1. At least with the straight crushers there's some aiming involved, and it's not as strong as many other Robot Master mainfires (if I'm remembering correctly, it's a 5HKO), and his alt veers off course most of the time if you actually hit someone with it. The bounce crushers are just a nightmare. Punk's my favorite Robot Master, I love playing as the guy, but these things just make him feel unfair. Takes some of the joy out of using him. Plus it just doesn't feel like you're playing as
Punk. It doesn't feel like you're just wrecking people with this brutal killing machine, it feels like you're just dumping a bunch of bouncy balls on people's heads and somehow that kills them.
Also Ring Man really needs to be looked at. As it stands, he's massively overpowered. The damage on his rings was fine with the manual release and return due to how much skill it took to control them, and how slow moving they are. Now all you have to do is switch the the variant that acts like the Copywep version and he's a gamebreaker. You can just hold M1 and spam rings endlessly for ridiculous damage. Lightweight classes like Metal and Quick Man simply cannot stand against him at all. One ring and they're practically dead, if not actually so.
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