Stop using Hydrospanner, it's a bad ability.

[Verain]

Short version:

 

What it is: 7 ticks of 35 hull heal, total of 245 healing, over six seconds. Like all copilot abilities, it has a one minute cooldown.

 

Why it's bad: Unlike other copilot abilities, it can almost never effect the game state. It's a wasted ability of a slot. It also often requires a compromise on crewmember passives.

 

What you should be picking instead: Wingman, Concentrated Fire or Running Interference, but also pretty much anything, including Bypass, Lockdown, Servo Jammer, Suppression, or even In Your Sights.

 

Why you disagree with this: You have an irrational weight on the idea of a heal- Hydrospanner is a hero in the narrative you spin, but in the actual game, it never helps you.

 

 

 

Full version:

 

Hydrospanner is unusually popular, given that it is objectively terrible. The first order effects are pretty easy to grasp: you primarily lose a copilot power, and that's not a cheap thing, and secondarily you might lose a good crewmember ability, depending.

 

But the second order effects are more interesting. They encourage irrational play, and push you towards play behavior that doesn't help your team. Hydrospanner ships don't walk out the gate with a "loaded gun" as a wingman and concentrated fire pilots do, and as such are guaranteed to make less of an impact immediately- a fresh respawn with an offensive cooldown is using it, after all, and a fresh respawn with hydrospanner could very well never. The Hydrospanner ship is much more likely to hang back or play defensive based on the state of his cooldown, whether or not that is advantageous for the game state.

 

 

Lets talk first order effects, though.

Why is hydrospanner so bad?

 

First, when you begin "thirtyfiving", you are healing 245 hull damage over six seconds, which won't help you while you are under fire, and in fact takes a very long time to replenish a hull. If you are taking mild shield bleedthrough, or only taking damage during charged plating, this could be ok*, but most of your damage will come in bursts or over a short enough period that 245 of it won't matter. If this sounds counterintuitive, think back to all the times YOU have seen:

1- An enemy who you have a bead on explode, even though you could have shot more.

2- Several 400+ damage lasers hitting an enemy, and the killing blow is like 50- meaning 350+ of the damage was unused.

3- You wind up a slug railgun to finish the target, release, and see a giant red 1300 pop up. That crit could have been for 2400, if he had had more health- there was 1100 overkill damage not mentioned anywhere.

And as you play, ask yourself- how many "just barely" kills, versus how many "definitely" kills? How many times has an enemy been set upon by multiple allies and gets shredded, with the killing blow basically handed out random, and then a moment later you see a concussion missile destroy the corpse?

 

The extra health from hydrospanner- even several hydrospanners- will often not end up mattering at all.

 

 

 

STILL not convinced?

 

 

Second, look at the real heals in the game- repair drone and repair probes. A repair probe use heals the user and anyone nearby on button press for 570 damage. A repair drone heals in six seconds what hydrospanner does- but it does it forever and ever, and even if enemies target and kill it, it normally lasts way more than six seconds.

 

And even these real heals, which are 2x to 10x more healing that hydrospanner, don't make someone invincible, unkillable, or even imbalanced. They are appropriately powered at around one order of magnitude more healing that hydrospanner.

 

 

 

So hydrospanner just doesn't matter, but it costs a very powerful slot- your copilot ability. It should be obvious that the offensive cooldowns are better offensively, and that's normally what you should be using, but lets talk about defensive copilot abilities instead, because that's a direct compare.

 

Nullify is terrible, don't use that. If you could time it versus the few things it really helps with, it can outperform any other copilot ability, but... it can't really be timed. If this guy lasted 20 seconds, he might have some use. But most pilots don't have some strange love for nullify as they seem to for hydrospanner.

On most ships, Running Interference will almost always prevent more damage than hydrospanner will heal. Once you have some evasion, adding more is super great. Even if the only shot that comes at you during the duration is a single max railslug, noncrit, you'll have dodged 240 damage on average. It is meaningful to use at max health, and it can even help allies out sometimes.

Finally, the underloved suppression can also help you out. While 25% miss chance to a single opponent isn't generally as useful, any opponent capable of dealing 1000 hit points to you, total, is better off with a suppression than if you had taken the damage and healed it, because you'll have prevented more. Plus, it is a valuable tool for peeling for your allies, and mostly undoes a whole scout burst cycle. All this, from one of the WORST copilot abilities- and even it is unarguably vastly better than hydrospanner.

 

But all defensive cooldowns are generally poor- most of the time, it will take several games to prevent a death, and the death it does prevent will often not matter from the perspective of the actual game.

 

 

 

The last first order effect is, you lose access to some secondaries. This isn't as strong of an argument, because some of these substitutions are fine on some ships. Specifically:

 

On Republic, your choices are:

> B-3G9, an offensive crewman with the mandatory pinpointing and the terrible rapid reload. B-3G9 is the better of the two.

 

> T7-01, an engineering crewbot with the strong efficient fire and the terrible power to blasters.

 

This means you must EITHER give up the amazing efficient maneuvers (do not give this up) or either of the decent offensive powers you really wanted, improved kill zone or spare ammo.

 

If you are running a ship with a lock on weapon that isn't cluster missiles, you normally have a lot of reason to pick improved kill zone. If you are running pods or clusters, you have some reason to select spare ammo. No one wants rapid reload. Meanwhile, only really deviant type 1 scouts can afford T7-01- efficient maneuvers is so huge that giving it up is normally a death sentence.

 

 

On Empire, hydrospanner can be less expensive at times.

 

> Blizz is an engineering crewjawa with efficient maneuvers and power to engines. While definitely worse than 2V-R8 for some ships, he's the best pick for others. This means many ships correctly built will already have Blizz, so you pay no cost except the copiliot ability. But note that losing efficient fire for other ships can be a real downer.

 

> MZ-12 is an offensive crewdroid who brings the situational spare ammo and the terrible rapid reload. This means you lack pinpointing if you pick him, generally a terrible idea. While Blizz costs you some blaster shots over 2V-R8, MZ-12 costs you quite a lot of effective shots, starting when you begin firing and ending only when you swap him out, so he's mostly there as a starter guy and shouldn't be taken once real crewmembers are unlocked.

 

 

Finally, the second order effects. These are more subtle. Ships with hydrospanner, when injured, are much more likely to limp off and hope that they will eventually spanner up to full, instead of being effective and helping the team. Hydrospanner pilots are also more likely to believe that they last a long time in combat, and complain heavily about the few types of attacks that can take them by surprise and burst them down, as these abilities effectively defeat their poor strategy. The supposed ability to "heal to full" creates a psychological draw towards the move, and this then encourages further bad play.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exceptions- When SHOULD you pick hydrospanner?

 

* 1- Charged Plating Bomber- A charged plating bomber who plans to LOS all game and hold a node can take hydrospanner. It's not necessarily optimal, but he will often face THOUSANDS of premitigated hull damage, and even reduced with charged plating and perfect play, it can add up. Also, dying can actually matter as this build, as normally you are a lynchpin who is holding a node such that your allies can pull off the node to actually scrape it clean of would be attackers. On top of that, a hyperbeacon often relies on your presence, exploding if you explode. And unlike every other ship, running interference is often not going to give you the full 15% boost- you will frequently be running 0 or 5% evasion baseline, and your enemies will often have a greater than unity chance to hit you, which means that during RI you won't even necessarily get up to 8% miss chance in all cases. Nullify seems like a good inclusion on this build, and in fact it's actually a valid choice, but it doesn't help against stuff that ignores DR, and most of your damage will come from that, not mistime charged plating (if you are taking tons of avoidable damage in the window that plating is down, you are either swarmed or playing the build wrong, and nullify won't normally help much either way). Suppression, while not a terrible choice, often can't be cast on threats (greater than 5k you can't use it, and you can't leave the node to dive at a gunship always).

 

Offensive cooldowns don't help too much, though they are still acceptable- you generally don't get nearly as much out of wingman on a Razorwire as you would on a Mangler.

 

Meanwhile, the crewman abilities you give up barely matter here- you don't have lockon missiles or finite ammo, and you don't normally care about efficient fire, so B-3G9 or Blizz are both fine crewmembers.

 

So in this case, hydrospanner can be pretty decent.

 

 

 

2- You don't care about helping your team.

This can be exactly as bad as it sounds, but it could also be that the game is a total stomp that you can't lose, but has enemies in it whose whole goal is to kill you. In this case, running a ship with hydrospanner really could frustrate their efforts. Even then, you are likely better off running a different, very survivable or agile ship- but if the outcome of the game isn't something you need to influence, a worthless choice like hydrospanner can help you frustrate a foe. Note that, in general, I don't recommend this- obviously- but at least understand that it is what you are doing by picking this move.

Edited September 28, 2014 by Verain

[Asbetos]

Wow someone really pissed you off?

 

At the high end of play it is bad, but I find it useful on fresh ships, when your shields suck and you take hull damage easily. RI doesn't help with missile locks which are your main problem in those times, so even a little heal can be helpful.

[Verain]

No, I just keep seeing little green 35s in the smoke clouds of my defeated enemies, even from pilots that should know better.

[Ryuku-sama]

No, I just keep seeing little green 35s in the smoke clouds of my defeated enemies, even from pilots that should know better.

 

I would say it is also useful on build that can keep their shield up at all time, so anything using EtS. Hydrospanner then become just a way to counter the shield pen...

[Magira]

Short version:

 

A repair probe use heals the user and anyone nearby on button press for 570 damage...

 

Instant Healing? That would be news to me. I can not see anything similar in the tooltip. So far I have it as completely useless viewed.

Edited September 28, 2014 by Magira

[Verain]

No, the 570 is the total over the duration. They just need to be close when you press the button- the heal-over-time stays on them for full duration and heals for the full amount.

[Ryuku-sama]

Instant Healing? That would be news to me. I can not see anything similar in the tooltip. So far I have it as completely useless viewed.

 

HoT

/5char

[Verain]

I would say it is also useful on build that can keep their shield up at all time, so anything using EtS. Hydrospanner then become just a way to counter the shield pen...

 

Engine to Shields adds defenses, but it certainly doesn't make you unkillable. Two pushes of engine to shield will normally heal less shields than a single press of barrel roll or whatever avoids.

 

So no, I disagree with that statement, totally.

[Magira]

No, the 570 is the total over the duration. They just need to be close when you press the button- the heal-over-time stays on them for full duration and heals for the full amount.

 

Ok, thank you. So 71 healing every 3 seconds. I know why I use Remote slicing.

[FridgeLM]

The only reason it's bad on republic side is because the crewmembers it's attached to have poor passives. If you're any good at evasive flying and losing enemies - at all - it will forestall and prevent plenty of deaths. As mentioned above, if you have a ship with shield power converter it's ideal. As a player who primarily solo queues and doesn't rely on my team to have a repair drone or command strike fighter, hydro spanner is perfectly fine. I typically average 0-2 deaths per game while maintaining top tier offensive stats, which in TDM is pretty important.

 

Engine to Shields adds defenses, but it certainly doesn't make you unkillable. Two pushes of engine to shield will normally heal less shields than a single press of barrel roll or whatever avoids.

 

So no, I disagree with that statement, totally.

 

Barrel roll sends you careening off into space whereas shield power converter allows you to fly unpredictably and maintain your shields even under the off chance you're struck by fire. I don't miss the missile break on any ship I have it slotted on (which is all of them I can slot it on).

Edited September 28, 2014 by FridgeLM

[Verain]

Ok, thank you. So 71 healing every 3 seconds. I know why I use Remote slicing.

 

No, it's 95 every four seconds for 24 seconds. Remote Slicing is good, but Repair Probes is probably the strongest. Remember, it doesn't just help you out, and refill ammo, but it can heal allies as well.

[Magira]

No, it's 95 every four seconds for 24 seconds. Remote Slicing is good, but Repair Probes is probably the strongest. Remember, it doesn't just help you out, and refill ammo, but it can heal allies as well.

 

Yes, you're right. Are the first 95 instant or at least until after 4 seconds?

 

But more importantly:

 

As long as I have no way to see how far my team members are away, it is of very limited use. Different it looks with the repair drones, which are stationary and you can say in chat where they are. Since the team member can then get there and fill even shield or ammunition.

Edited September 28, 2014 by Magira

[Davionix]

Its also useful when you are in type 3 gunship and being chased by good burst & cluster scouts. You can not evade / break all of their shots & missiles while trying to wear them down with feedback and occasional shots from your burst cannon.

 

Hydrospanner can help you win the war of attrition since all other cooldowns are not that much useful against that build.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

Yes, you're right. Are the first 95 instant or at least until after 4 seconds?

 

But more importantly:

 

As long as I have no way to see how far my team members are away, it is of very limited use. Different it looks with the repair drones, which are stationary and you can say in chat where they are. Since the team member can then get there and fill even shield or ammunition.

 

That comes largely down to guestimating range based on the size of the green circle around the ship. Plus in dom range is usually taken care of by sats, just fly close to one your allies are clustered around. When flying my Clarion if I have the opportunity to hold a position I'll say in chat that I'm stationed at sat X, call for repairs/ammo.

 

If you can stay alive the ammo resupply has amazing power. It allows you to fire thermites/protorps as often as they're in the tubes. Worst case you get your target to blow a defensive CD so another ally can nail them, best case you have the ability to use thermites/protorps to defend against armored targets like bombers indefinitely. Leveling up my Clarion I was certainly in matches where thermites helped hold back waves of bombers only to have them finally take a sat once my missiles ran dry.

Edited September 28, 2014 by Gavin_Kelvar

[Davionix]

If you can stay alive the ammo resupply has amazing power. finally take a sat once my missiles ran dry.

 

Anyone using rocket pods or cluster missiles with double volley will also "love you long time"

[Asbetos]

Its also useful when you are in type 3 gunship and being chased by good burst & cluster scouts. You can not evade / break all of their shots & missiles while trying to wear them down with feedback and occasional shots from your burst cannon.

 

Hydrospanner can help you win the war of attrition since all other cooldowns are not that much useful against that build.

 

That's exactly when it's the least useful. Those ~250 hull every 1min won't save you against his 1.4K BLC crits+900 double volley Clusters.

 

Another question is why on earth are you using Feedback shield? Most scouts will just rofl at it and let his shields eat the damage (which probably will be full because he's chasing you, not the other way around). You'd be MUCH better off with DF+RI with BLCs+Interdiction missile for the war of attrition.

[Ramalina]

Hydrospanner may be somewhat useful for pilots that learn defensive flying faster than they learn offensive flying.

 

If you have terrible aim, offensive cooldowns that primarily boost direct fire weapons are not very good.

 

In TDM though, every avoided death is potentially significant.

 

For the total noob it does have one additional redeeming feature. The skill cap for using it is very low. Is my ship status icon bright green? If it is, do not use Hydrospanner, if it is any other color use Hydrospanner. In addition to having pilot aim affect the offensive cooldowns, there's the matter of timing which affects offensive cooldowns and defensive cooldowns. Hydrospanner is probably the easiest to time copilot ability in GSF, and for the UTTER noob, that does have some value, at least for a few games. Wasting part of a really weak cooldown is slightly superior to wasting all of a really powerful cooldown.

 

That said, I don't think I've had hydrospanner equipped on any of my ships since the T3 strikes came out.

 

 

Perhaps the pilots who you think should know better are just very style conscious and don't like the look of a ship that's flying around trailing a giant plume of smoke?

Edited September 28, 2014 by Ramalina

[Drakkolich]

Well this thread gets the patented Drakolich stamp of approval, thanks Verain I think a lot of pilots really needed to hear this. Quite a few replies in here about how its still good but I'm whole heartedly agreeing with Verain that the only times it's good is when he stated. Charged Plating and trying not to help your team, you are for sure better off with something else in any other case.

[Altheran]

Another question is why on earth are you using Feedback shield?

 

Put yourself in a good spot, where no one can get behind you without you knowing it, or joust people back in cases it happens, and enjoy your free, unavoidable, crittable Concussion missile that adds to all of your own damage sources.

 

You can't imagine the number of player you can attack, and you can afford to ignore their counter attack...

It allows you to be like : "Whatever. If you attack me, you die... and I won't even have to move an inch. So, if you don't mind it, I'll start to kill your mate there."

[sentawan]

In situations where you know that there are going to be heals from teammates, i agree that other options would be better. I most situations, I agree that most options are better. Of course it would be pointless to use right before you die, but any other ability is pointless when you are being chased.

 

Overall, you are still talking about abilities that can be used only every so often in each game type.

 

Here is where I find them to be usefull...

 

1) Deathmatch: When you can run and heal. Also, when you are getting fired on. It negates some of the bleed through, and there are many times when that little bit of health keeps you alive in a 1v1 situation. Any other ability may help you kill one ship quicker every minute. Whether or not it is a wash over the long run depends on many other factors. Too often I waste my damage abilities as I am chasing people all over the map. I pop them and hope for a quick kill. Then they zoom away and it is wasted. Here though, other abilities tend to be better.

 

2) Domination: Any time you are solo defending a node... I have often healed myself back to full with this ability. Not having to respawn and surviving solo on a node has often meant the difference between keeping and losing a Sat. For the average pilot, it probably wouldn't make a difference. For a skilled pilot that can solo defend and solo take nodes, it can make a huge difference.

 

3) Domination: Taking a node against two bombers with a defense heavy Clarion loadout... That heal with the repair probes allows me to take a Sat from two bombers. I can survive the initial onslought of mines and clear turrets with both the heals over time going and the EtS ability. Then I can defend the node with almost impunity against all but the toughest of premade adversaries.

 

While I agree that the ability sucks for a last ditch effort from average pilots to save oneself against skilled pilots, there are situational loadouts, playstyles, and times where it makes sense.

[Zoom_VI]

No, I just keep seeing little green 35s in the smoke clouds of my defeated enemies,

If you are still seeing green 35s then they obviously are not defeated yet.

[Drakkolich]

Theres a few posts in here advocating the use of Hydrospanner in other situation then Verain mentioned I think the big problem might be the skill gap from the matchmaking deluding players into thinking it is better.

 

When you are an above average player fighting a ton of worse players (and I think we all realize how bad the matchmaking is by now this happens a lot) what happens is we gradually focus on ablities that make us "win more".

Hydrospanner is such an ability, if you're not fighting opponents of equal skill you don't need that cooldown to win the fight and will win while taking minimal damage suddenly a small heal sounds way more awesome then a cooldown to win a fight in the heat of the moment, because you didn't even need it.

 

Now I for one always spec my ships to fight = skilled opponents, I like to be prepared for that epic fight even if that means maybe dying from attrition over a long time vs many lower skilled opponents.

 

It's very similar to that Rapid Fire Lasers thread that came up not too long ago, Rapid Fire Lasers don't do enough damage vs an equal skilled opponent however if you are so out classing your opponents that the only thing that matters is how much energy you're spending Rapid Fire Lasers would actually make you do more damage over a match.

 

 

The other post I noticed was talking about how feedback shield is really good because the player likes to back himself in a corner and wait for someone to come up and get "a free concussion missile". Here we have another instance of using "win more" abilities, this strategy would only work on lesser skilled opponents and is nowhere near as good in an equal skill fight. A good pilot either would just ignore you stay out of LoS and just kill others, or just get on a gunship with distortion and instantly win the gunship duel because he has more evasion.

 

 

Anyways I hope that clears up why we say that Hydrospanner is a terrible component. It's only good if you're fighting opponents of less skill then you. So if you wanna setup you're ship to kill more players of less skill then you and lose to equal skilled ones or even have less chance of beating those really good players then by all means use these abilities.

[Asbetos]

Put yourself in a good spot, where no one can get behind you without you knowing it, or joust people back in cases it happens, and enjoy your free, unavoidable, crittable Concussion missile that adds to all of your own damage sources.

 

You can't imagine the number of player you can attack, and you can afford to ignore their counter attack...

It allows you to be like : "Whatever. If you attack me, you die... and I won't even have to move an inch. So, if you don't mind it, I'll start to kill your mate there."

 

Concussion? Hardly. Concussions have Shield Piercing, Feedback Shield doesn't. Like I said earlier, you're better off with Distortion Field: it gives you both the passive Evasion which will negate a portion of the incoming scouts damage, as well as a lock break which will completely negate 1 of his missiles. Also like I said earlier, the good scouts will rofl at your Feedback and let his shields eat that 1 arch of non-shield piercing damage and cut through both your shields and hull like a hot knife through butter because you don't have Evasion nor shield boost. Not-so-good scouts won't even notice the Feedback and just blast you.

 

As Drako mentioned, against another gunsheep you will lose because of a lack of Evasion, but that's not all of it. Feedback shield doesn't trigger on secondary weapons (if I remember correctly, it's been a while since I've given even a thought to Feedback) which makes it completely and utterly useless against another gunsheep and you won't even do as much damage as you did to that scout that made him laugh.

[Verain]

Hydrospanner is probably the easiest to time copilot ability in GSF, and for the UTTER noob, that does have some value, at least for a few games.

 

This is true, but I'm not talking to that guy. That guy isn't on the forum. While you are correct that the move has some merit for a truly fresh player, we shouldn't care about them when it comes to advice like this.

 

Put yourself in a good spot, where no one can get behind you without you knowing it, or joust people back in cases it happens, and enjoy your free, unavoidable, crittable Concussion missile that adds to all of your own damage sources.

 

I'll join Drako at pointing at this and saying that this advice is entirely without merit. Your "free concussion missile" will not help versus, say, an enemy approaching with disto (you'll hurt the shields but nothing else will), mines, drones, rocket pods, railguns, cluster missiles, and is of precious little use versus a double front shield. Any plan that involves stopping in space is a poor one.

 

I will say that feedback isn't a garbage shield or anything. It has its uses, but it's definitely not the default choice for any gunship. Giving up distortion is massive though, and generally not right.

 

 

When you can run and heal. Also, when you are getting fired on. It negates some of the bleed through, and there are many times when that little bit of health keeps you alive in a 1v1 situation.

 

This is you selectively remembering things. There are not "many times" that this keeps you alive. But lets pretend you are IN one of those situation- steaming red hull with 220 health, the best possible scenario. What did you give up to make that happen? Wingman, which would have killed your enemy long before that? Running interference, which would have left you with MORE health, on average? If you needed this to survive, you weren't in a tight enough situation, not really.

 

Any time you are solo defending a node... I have often healed myself back to full with this ability.

 

And do you think that it was really optimal? I spent a whole post pointing out the selective memory of anyone defending this. If you were left alone at a node to heal up, you probably should have left the node. If you were holding it versus a bunch of bads who couldn't kill you, you should probably have had a real crew talent there too. The healing is simply too little to matter, and that's fact.

 

 

If you are still seeing green 35s then they obviously are not defeated yet.

 

No, they are quite dead. The numbers float on screen after they are dead. Usually a green 35 is next to a read 400 something or whatever, highlighting how worthless the move was.

 

 

I think the big problem might be the skill gap from the matchmaking deluding players into thinking it is better.

 

A very solid point. But I don't even think it's actually that great even in a large skill delta situation- though certainly it becomes easier to ignore the difference between it and the other moves when you don't even need a 4 key to win the match.

 

Barrel roll sends you careening off into space whereas shield power converter allows you to fly unpredictably and maintain your shields even under the off chance you're struck by fire. I don't miss the missile break on any ship I have it slotted on (which is all of them I can slot it on).

 

Ok, normally "careening off into space" means "effortlessly get to a safe spot to LOS". But, lets pretend you don't want that.

 

Then k-turn. That keeps you almost stationary and you can even execute it on a node without leaving the node. I said "barrel roll or whatevs" so you wouldn't just think "barrel roll and only that", but, again, whatevs.

Edited September 29, 2014 by Verain

[BrianDavion]

Hydrospanner's not a bad ability, you just have to know how to use it. it won't save you from the "BLC/rocket one shot of dooom!" and against a build like that? I tend not to use it. where it's most useful is after making a kill to patch your hull up a bit I use it quite sucessfully on my strike fighter