Thoughts on harm lube?

[Frolicsome Flufficorn]

If you are a secoff and you see a row of lube tiles what do you do?

It being countered effectively by carbon also makes it part of the ecosystem of threat and response, which imo is pretty important for security and antags to have; security has tools they probably don't have on-hand to deal with a given issue (cloakers/thermals are another example), so the antag has a temporary advantage they need to make the most of before they get countered.

See, this would be a valid argument. if it wasnt far easier to place it then it was to see it or in this case nullify it with carbon. See theres this funny effect when you click your PDA with a lube beaker in hand where it auto drops it on the tile below you removing the skill of placing it on the floor while running. This makes it significantly easier to apply it to the floor literally right before sec is about to reach you. This therefore has no counter as it doesnt rely on any level of skill as you arent clicking a tile. Your just clicking your Pda for the most convenient drop.

Lube, contrary to what many might think, doesnt have counter play. Let me explain, If the counter to lube is to lay down over it or to place carbon on top etc. Then the antag has already won. By the time sec has to lay down to get over the lube the antagonist using it has escaped or worse is waiting on the other side of the lube. Your two options are quite literally run around (which isnt always a option), lay down which removes all your defensive and offensive capabilities for about a second to two seconds or you nullfy its effects with a sponge or carbon which is far harder to clean up then it is to place down.

Also, its actually crazy that people see lube as balanced. In terms of its crafting recipe I actually challenge you to think of a more easy to make chem. Lube might be in the group of easiest to make chems. If this is the case, why is it so strong? why do antags get a item FOR FREE, that is better than 95% of all other gear. A item thats counterplay according to this is to have sec drop everything they are doing because if they dont they slide along the floor until they hit a wall, take a 5 second stun and drop whatever they are holding for the cheap cheap cost of silicon, Oxygen and water as well as Helium.

Even if lets say for example, you have perfect vision and can see Lube every time (which is near impossible because it blends in with the tile so well, especially in dark areas), Your chasing a antagonist along a corridor and you need to shoot them with your taser. they have bottle necked you through 2 doors with lube. YOu as a sec off have decided that You need to put away your taser. Either slide or lay down to get over the lube. Then you have to get your taser back out and by that time the chase is over since it took about 2 seconds to pull this off and the next door is also lubed.

Have we really gotten to the point where we are putting 6-7 TC items on the same level as a chem which can be gotten for free within the first 30 seconds of the game?

Yeah, I honestly think that more than many other things, right now Lube (more specifically harm lube but also lube) needs a nerf, My personal suggestion is to make the recipe for Lube far harder. Make it so I cant make it with purely just Things within a Chem dispenser, (which then by proxy makes harm lube harder). Or alternatively, Just make it so lubes slip isnt a 5 second stun (which theoretically means that someone could sit at the end of where people slip and put handcuffs on them in the time it takes to get out of the lube stun). I dont think we can fix the item dropping upon being hit by lube due to the way Goon is (laying down on the floor = no item in hand)

So let me make this clear, while sure you can counter lube, the current counters just make it so lube is at the very LEAST a perfect way to escape. Just the whole system with it makes it the Hard counter for sec, like sec has no counter play to catching a antag who has alot of lube. The most you can hope for is that they run out, which they wont. Because its easy to make.