Weapon Rework Ideas

[Detective Useless]

Let's face it. There are a lot of weapons in this game that are either underpowered by design, extremely situational, or are just straight up poorly designed. This discussion thread is meant to encourage people to generate ideas on how certain weapons could better be implemented.

To start, I'll give some of my own ideas, one for each class:

Summary of My ideas:
(just mouse over the empty space below, the spoiler format doesn't work well with list format.)

• The Shortstop's shove replaced with either a FaN-like blast or a gun yeet
  
• I couldn't think of anything for Soldier
  
• The Powerjack's move speef becomes passive and has a max health reduction
  
• The Loch-n-load either gets extra sapper- and sticky-destroying power, or gets bouncier
  
• The Natascha is unworkable
  
• The Southern Hospitality's buildings get bleed power as well
  
• The Solemn Vow completely changes into a self-uber tool
  
• The Bazaar Bargain has a reload penalty independent of its boost, giving you a reason to use stock
  
• The Enforcer should now do one thing well instead of everything poorly.

Shortstop:
This weapon always felt odd to me. It feels incredibly out of place in scout's arsenal, and the shove mechanic doesn't fit with the playstyle this weapon encourages. I don't thing giving it the healing boost it used to provide would be helpful, since it would almost necessitate the use of certain weapons over others. Instead, I have 2 ideas for what to replace the shove with:
1. An attack that fires all remaining ammo in your clip at once into a high spread blast. Such a move would mean using the shortstop doesn't automatically mean you lose most of your burst damage, just that you couldn't do burst damage as often as you could with stock,
2. Just throw the gun. I dunno. It would be funny.

Soldier: N/A
Ok, I lied. I said I was going to give one idea for each class, but I don't see any soldier weapons with a design worth changing. I see weapons like the bison that need a buff, but not any with a problematic design. Some might see problems with the black box, but I don't know of any way that weapon could be changed in a way that maintains the spirit of the weapon while also fixing its problems

Powerjack:
I considered the Third Degree and Homewrecker, but the Powerjack is one of those weapons that boils my blood whenever I see it. A buff to movement speed for free is something that shouldn't exist. The Powerjack and the Atomizer are the only two weapons in the game that provide movement buffs without demanding something of or taking something away from the player. The BFB requires you to do damage and not double jump, the Winger sacrifices midrange chip damage, the escape plan requires you to be at low health and punishes you for being shot at, the Eyelander requires you to commit to using a sword to get kills instead of a grenade or sticky launcher, the GRU eats your health, the Overdose requires you to have lots of uber (and not use the crossbow), and the Dead Ringer needs you to be shot and sacrifices manual cloak. For the Powerjack, all you have to do is press 3 on your keyboard.
So how do we fix this? There has to be a reason to either not equip the powerjack or not always hold it out whenever nobody is shooting you. The best idea I can think of is to make the move speed bonus passive, but replace the vulnerability with a max health penalty. That way, it turns from press 3 to move faster to a weapon that encourages a different playstyle of pyro.

Loch-n-load:
Ah, yes, the poster child of crutch weapons, with the two most applicable stats being you can hit your shots easier, but people who can hit their shots have less shots to hit. We love to hate it. Since the idea of the weapon was something that provided utility (in the form of extra building damage) at the expense of consistency, we could replace the projectile speed buff with sapper removal (because utility) and having the grenades explode on contact with a surface, with the explosion less damaging than normal and having the ability to destroy enemy stickybombs. Alternatively, the pills could bounce off of the first wall, floor, or ceiling they hit, retaining its velocity but dealing 25% less damage post-bounce.

Natascha:
This weapon is not fun to play against. At least the Sandman requires you to hit a projectile with physics found only on one other weapon and not just fired your primary. However, I am actually at a complete loss for how to fix this. Knockback instead of slow might be cool, but it might also be just as annoying.

Southern Hospitality:
Really good at one specific thing, and countered by one specific thing. What I am thinking is to attach its bleed to the buildings so that they bleed spies who sap it and enemies who melee, remove the fire vulnerability, but make the buildings look spikier and have less health. That way, the upside is more general than "spies you can hit with your wrench" and the downside is more general than "that one pyro that got past your sentry".

Solemn Vow:
On my list of the 20 things wrong with Medic, right between "syringe physics" and "might be an actual nazi" is the solemn vow. Who thought the see enemies health thing was a good idea. In casual, uncoordinated matches, its so weak that at first it had no downside, but in competitive, and specifically 4v4 and 6v6, the ability to see enemy's health and, more importantly, the enemy medic's uber without having to spend a team slot on a spy is so powerful that this weapon is banned in most rulesets. Its current incarnation cannot work, and barely fits the theme of the weapon.
Extending from the "Do no harm" thing, a weapon that deals so little damage that it's useless for direct combat, but allows you to use miniature stock ubercharges on only yourself when you press m2 any time you have any amount of charge, with a drain rate proportional to your medigun's charge rate, would not only be a unique utility, but could actually rival the ubersaw.

Bazaar Bargain:
I have a love-hate relationship by far. After the Classic, it is probably my most used sniper rifle, and I would talk about the Shananshaashashn (whatever) or the DDS or how buggy and weird the Cleaner's Carbine feels if I didn't restrict myself to one per class, but at the same time, I recognize its problematic design. It's the sort of weapon that doesn't really provide much, but at the same time there isn't really a reason any competent player shouldn't use this over stock. The downside can be completely negated just by doing things a normal sniper would do. The bargain doesn't encourage you to do things you normally wouldn't do with stock like the Air Strike or the Eyelander. If your average K/D is greater than 2, this is almost always a direct upgrade.
To see how to give this weapon a better design, if it were to remain a head-taking weapon, the upside has to be independent from the downside (because headshoting is really all you can encourage with a sniper rifle), and both of its stats have to be relevant to the sniper job. My suggestion would be to make either the upside or the downside (but not both) relate to reload speed, because there are situations where you would much rather have faster reload than faster charge.

Enforcer:
This weapon has too many niche upsides. 20% damage bonus while disguised is minimal. The resistance pierce is useless on a spy revolver. The hidden stat that after firing, it takes 0,97 seconds to regain perfect accuracy instead of the 1.25 seconds of other revolvers is almost unnoticeable. To make it a good weapon, it has to have a clear upside to counteract its clear downside, like how the Ambassador does better burst damage but is less consistent, or the L'etranger gives more cloak but less damage. Take away its small upsides and give it one big boost. Based off our current set of buffs, it could either be 100% damage while disguised or resistance pierce and always perfect accuracy.

[frackingfan6969]

where's soldier's pew pew pistol
the pistol needs a buff

[rad_knight]

iv'e said it before and i'll say it till the day i die again, the danger shield is ♥♥♥♥ in every way.

[jonasaboo]

Buff the Caber

[Staffy]

Originally posted by Detective Useless:

Let's face it. There are a lot of weapons in this game that are either underpowered by design, extremely situational, or are just straight up poorly designed. This discussion thread is meant to encourage people to generate ideas on how certain weapons could better be implemented.

To start, I'll give some of my own ideas, one for each class:

Summary of My ideas:
(1)Shortstop:
This weapon always felt odd to me. It feels incredibly out of place in scout's arsenal, and the shove mechanic doesn't fit with the playstyle this weapon encourages. I don't thing giving it the healing boost it used to provide would be helpful, since it would almost necessitate the use of certain weapons over others. Instead, I have 2 ideas for what to replace the shove with:
1. An attack that fires all remaining ammo in your clip at once into a high spread blast. Such a move would mean using the shortstop doesn't automatically mean you lose most of your burst damage, just that you couldn't do burst damage as often as you could with stock,
2. Just throw the gun. I dunno. It would be funny.

(-)Soldier: N/A
Ok, I lied. I said I was going to give one idea for each class, but I don't see any soldier weapons with a design worth changing. I see weapons like the bison that need a buff, but not any with a problematic design. Some might see problems with the black box, but I don't know of any way that weapon could be changed in a way that maintains the spirit of the weapon while also fixing its problems

(2)Powerjack:
I considered the Third Degree and Homewrecker, but the Powerjack is one of those weapons that boils my blood whenever I see it. A buff to movement speed for free is something that shouldn't exist. The Powerjack and the Atomizer are the only two weapons in the game that provide movement buffs without demanding something of or taking something away from the player. The BFB requires you to do damage and not double jump, the Winger sacrifices midrange chip damage, the escape plan requires you to be at low health and punishes you for being shot at, the Eyelander requires you to commit to using a sword to get kills instead of a grenade or sticky launcher, the GRU eats your health, the Overdose requires you to have lots of uber (and not use the crossbow), and the Dead Ringer needs you to be shot and sacrifices manual cloak. For the Powerjack, all you have to do is press 3 on your keyboard.
So how do we fix this? There has to be a reason to either not equip the powerjack or not always hold it out whenever nobody is shooting you. The best idea I can think of is to make the move speed bonus passive, but replace the vulnerability with a max health penalty. That way, it turns from press 3 to move faster to a weapon that encourages a different playstyle of pyro.

(3)Loch-n-load:
Ah, yes, the poster child of crutch weapons, with the two most applicable stats being you can hit your shots easier, but people who can hit their shots have less shots to hit. We love to hate it. Since the idea of the weapon was something that provided utility (in the form of extra building damage) at the expense of consistency, we could replace the projectile speed buff with sapper removal (because utility) and having the grenades explode on contact with a surface, with the explosion less damaging than normal and having the ability to destroy enemy stickybombs. Alternatively, the pills could bounce off of the first wall, floor, or ceiling they hit, retaining its velocity but dealing 25% less damage post-bounce.

(4)Natascha:
This weapon is not fun to play against. At least the Sandman requires you to hit a projectile with physics found only on one other weapon and not just fired your primary. However, I am actually at a complete loss for how to fix this. Knockback instead of slow might be cool, but it might also be just as annoying.

(5)Southern Hospitality:
Really good at one specific thing, and countered by one specific thing. What I am thinking is to attach its bleed to the buildings so that they bleed spies who sap it and enemies who melee, remove the fire vulnerability, but make the buildings look spikier and have less health. That way, the upside is more general than "spies you can hit with your wrench" and the downside is more general than "that one pyro that got past your sentry".

(6)Solemn Vow:
On my list of the 20 things wrong with Medic, right between "syringe physics" and "might be an actual nazi" is the solemn vow. Who thought the see enemies health thing was a good idea. In casual, uncoordinated matches, its so weak that at first it had no downside, but in competitive, and specifically 4v4 and 6v6, the ability to see enemy's health and, more importantly, the enemy medic's uber without having to spend a team slot on a spy is so powerful that this weapon is banned in most rulesets. Its current incarnation cannot work, and barely fits the theme of the weapon.
Extending from the "Do no harm" thing, a weapon that deals so little damage that it's useless for direct combat, but allows you to use miniature stock ubercharges on only yourself when you press m2 any time you have any amount of charge, with a drain rate proportional to your medigun's charge rate, would not only be a unique utility, but could actually rival the ubersaw.

(7)Bazaar Bargain:
I have a love-hate relationship by far. After the Classic, it is probably my most used sniper rifle, and I would talk about the Shananshaashashn (whatever) or the DDS or how buggy and weird the Cleaner's Carbine feels if I didn't restrict myself to one per class, but at the same time, I recognize its problematic design. It's the sort of weapon that doesn't really provide much, but at the same time there isn't really a reason any competent player shouldn't use this over stock. The downside can be completely negated just by doing things a normal sniper would do. The bargain doesn't encourage you to do things you normally wouldn't do with stock like the Air Strike or the Eyelander. If your average K/D is greater than 2, this is almost always a direct upgrade.
To see how to give this weapon a better design, if it were to remain a head-taking weapon, the upside has to be independent from the downside (because headshoting is really all you can encourage with a sniper rifle), and both of its stats have to be relevant to the sniper job. My suggestion would be to make either the upside or the downside (but not both) relate to reload speed, because there are situations where you would much rather have faster reload than faster charge.

(8)Enforcer:
This weapon has too many niche upsides. 20% damage bonus while disguised is minimal. The resistance pierce is useless on a spy revolver. The hidden stat that after firing, it takes 0,97 seconds to regain perfect accuracy instead of the 1.25 seconds of other revolvers is almost unnoticeable. To make it a good weapon, it has to have a clear upside to counteract its clear downside, like how the Ambassador does better burst damage but is less consistent, or the L'etranger gives more cloak but less damage. Take away its small upsides and give it one big boost. Based off our current set of buffs, it could either be 100% damage while disguised or resistance pierce and always perfect accuracy.

1) I see no reason why this is not a new gun concept 'cause I see no problem with Shortstop either.
2) Have you seen movement of pro pyros that use it? Try watching Wispy The Whistling pyro, but if you're too lazy I'll tell you. They switch from secondary on mellee and wise wersa all the time so weapon's significant downside won't affect them. It just his speed buff is too strong and most of other pyro's melees aren't worth using at most situations. Simply lower speed buff and remove "health on kill" and it will be fine.
3) The only thing Loch-N-Load requires is return of his first appearence. The only reason why it was reworked is random damage falloff and it got removed, so yeah.
4) Knockback will just kill already weak dmg. Sinse Natasha's model visually have more ammo I'd suggest this stats:
1 ammo=5 bullets (stock:1 ammo=3 bullets)
15% faster firing speed
This will make Natasha quick burst dmg minigun
also remove slower spinning speed 'cause we removed slowing effect on targets
5) Your rework will make this weapon abandoned. Instead why not just go crazy with gimmicks?
While supporting your team (heals, ammo given and teleports) you raise "Meter of Hospitality". When activated, sentry's dmg, dispencer healing rate and teles' recharge are improved, but you'll have to spend 250 metal on each lvl of building. Buildings that were upgrade atleast for 1 lvl without Southern Hospitality can't receive it's buff.
6)Actually cool idea. But what about Ubersaw? It defenetely needs greater disadwantages then it has.
7) There's no problem with it. If you're using it outside of comp, you'll eventually get attacked with 2+ snipers which will lead you to lose all your headshots. If in comp then... well, people here are not into "walking in a straight lines" usually. It looks OP 'cause of cheaters basically.
8) "The ressistance pierce is useless". My dear you haven't fought any enemy with ressistance as spy, have you? But yes, damage could get some buff imo.
(-) You forgot about Disciplinary Action being perfect melee right after ubersaw. Not only it's usefull as a tool, but also great as finishing weapon 'cause it has longest melee range in the game (for some reason). Also it's really buggy, so you can hit spy that was going to stab you.

[Spartykins]

classic can fire while airborne/jumping

I will shill this idea until every nerd who plays this game hears about it

[Detective Useless]

Originally posted by Staffy:

Originally posted by Detective Useless:

Let's face it. There are a lot of weapons in this game that are either underpowered by design, extremely situational, or are just straight up poorly designed. This discussion thread is meant to encourage people to generate ideas on how certain weapons could better be implemented.

To start, I'll give some of my own ideas, one for each class:

Summary of My ideas:
(1)Shortstop:
This weapon always felt odd to me. It feels incredibly out of place in scout's arsenal, and the shove mechanic doesn't fit with the playstyle this weapon encourages. I don't thing giving it the healing boost it used to provide would be helpful, since it would almost necessitate the use of certain weapons over others. Instead, I have 2 ideas for what to replace the shove with:
1. An attack that fires all remaining ammo in your clip at once into a high spread blast. Such a move would mean using the shortstop doesn't automatically mean you lose most of your burst damage, just that you couldn't do burst damage as often as you could with stock,
2. Just throw the gun. I dunno. It would be funny.

(-)Soldier: N/A
Ok, I lied. I said I was going to give one idea for each class, but I don't see any soldier weapons with a design worth changing. I see weapons like the bison that need a buff, but not any with a problematic design. Some might see problems with the black box, but I don't know of any way that weapon could be changed in a way that maintains the spirit of the weapon while also fixing its problems

(2)Powerjack:
I considered the Third Degree and Homewrecker, but the Powerjack is one of those weapons that boils my blood whenever I see it. A buff to movement speed for free is something that shouldn't exist. The Powerjack and the Atomizer are the only two weapons in the game that provide movement buffs without demanding something of or taking something away from the player. The BFB requires you to do damage and not double jump, the Winger sacrifices midrange chip damage, the escape plan requires you to be at low health and punishes you for being shot at, the Eyelander requires you to commit to using a sword to get kills instead of a grenade or sticky launcher, the GRU eats your health, the Overdose requires you to have lots of uber (and not use the crossbow), and the Dead Ringer needs you to be shot and sacrifices manual cloak. For the Powerjack, all you have to do is press 3 on your keyboard.
So how do we fix this? There has to be a reason to either not equip the powerjack or not always hold it out whenever nobody is shooting you. The best idea I can think of is to make the move speed bonus passive, but replace the vulnerability with a max health penalty. That way, it turns from press 3 to move faster to a weapon that encourages a different playstyle of pyro.

(3)Loch-n-load:
Ah, yes, the poster child of crutch weapons, with the two most applicable stats being you can hit your shots easier, but people who can hit their shots have less shots to hit. We love to hate it. Since the idea of the weapon was something that provided utility (in the form of extra building damage) at the expense of consistency, we could replace the projectile speed buff with sapper removal (because utility) and having the grenades explode on contact with a surface, with the explosion less damaging than normal and having the ability to destroy enemy stickybombs. Alternatively, the pills could bounce off of the first wall, floor, or ceiling they hit, retaining its velocity but dealing 25% less damage post-bounce.

(4)Natascha:
This weapon is not fun to play against. At least the Sandman requires you to hit a projectile with physics found only on one other weapon and not just fired your primary. However, I am actually at a complete loss for how to fix this. Knockback instead of slow might be cool, but it might also be just as annoying.

(5)Southern Hospitality:
Really good at one specific thing, and countered by one specific thing. What I am thinking is to attach its bleed to the buildings so that they bleed spies who sap it and enemies who melee, remove the fire vulnerability, but make the buildings look spikier and have less health. That way, the upside is more general than "spies you can hit with your wrench" and the downside is more general than "that one pyro that got past your sentry".

(6)Solemn Vow:
On my list of the 20 things wrong with Medic, right between "syringe physics" and "might be an actual nazi" is the solemn vow. Who thought the see enemies health thing was a good idea. In casual, uncoordinated matches, its so weak that at first it had no downside, but in competitive, and specifically 4v4 and 6v6, the ability to see enemy's health and, more importantly, the enemy medic's uber without having to spend a team slot on a spy is so powerful that this weapon is banned in most rulesets. Its current incarnation cannot work, and barely fits the theme of the weapon.
Extending from the "Do no harm" thing, a weapon that deals so little damage that it's useless for direct combat, but allows you to use miniature stock ubercharges on only yourself when you press m2 any time you have any amount of charge, with a drain rate proportional to your medigun's charge rate, would not only be a unique utility, but could actually rival the ubersaw.

(7)Bazaar Bargain:
I have a love-hate relationship by far. After the Classic, it is probably my most used sniper rifle, and I would talk about the Shananshaashashn (whatever) or the DDS or how buggy and weird the Cleaner's Carbine feels if I didn't restrict myself to one per class, but at the same time, I recognize its problematic design. It's the sort of weapon that doesn't really provide much, but at the same time there isn't really a reason any competent player shouldn't use this over stock. The downside can be completely negated just by doing things a normal sniper would do. The bargain doesn't encourage you to do things you normally wouldn't do with stock like the Air Strike or the Eyelander. If your average K/D is greater than 2, this is almost always a direct upgrade.
To see how to give this weapon a better design, if it were to remain a head-taking weapon, the upside has to be independent from the downside (because headshoting is really all you can encourage with a sniper rifle), and both of its stats have to be relevant to the sniper job. My suggestion would be to make either the upside or the downside (but not both) relate to reload speed, because there are situations where you would much rather have faster reload than faster charge.

(8)Enforcer:
This weapon has too many niche upsides. 20% damage bonus while disguised is minimal. The resistance pierce is useless on a spy revolver. The hidden stat that after firing, it takes 0,97 seconds to regain perfect accuracy instead of the 1.25 seconds of other revolvers is almost unnoticeable. To make it a good weapon, it has to have a clear upside to counteract its clear downside, like how the Ambassador does better burst damage but is less consistent, or the L'etranger gives more cloak but less damage. Take away its small upsides and give it one big boost. Based off our current set of buffs, it could either be 100% damage while disguised or resistance pierce and always perfect accuracy.

1) I see no reason why this is not a new gun concept 'cause I see no problem with Shortstop either.
2) Have you seen movement of pro pyros that use it? Try watching Wispy The Whistling pyro, but if you're too lazy I'll tell you. They switch from secondary on mellee and wise wersa all the time so weapon's significant downside won't affect them. It just his speed buff is too strong and most of other pyro's melees aren't worth using at most situations. Simply lower speed buff and remove "health on kill" and it will be fine.
3) The only thing Loch-N-Load requires is return of his first appearence. The only reason why it was reworked is random damage falloff and it got removed, so yeah.
4) Knockback will just kill already weak dmg. Sinse Natasha's model visually have more ammo I'd suggest this stats:
1 ammo=5 bullets (stock:1 ammo=3 bullets)
15% faster firing speed
This will make Natasha quick burst dmg minigun
also remove slower spinning speed 'cause we removed slowing effect on targets
5) Your rework will make this weapon abandoned. Instead why not just go crazy with gimmicks?
While supporting your team (heals, ammo given and teleports) you raise "Meter of Hospitality". When activated, sentry's dmg, dispencer healing rate and teles' recharge are improved, but you'll have to spend 250 metal on each lvl of building. Buildings that were upgrade atleast for 1 lvl without Southern Hospitality can't receive it's buff.
6)Actually cool idea. But what about Ubersaw? It defenetely needs greater disadwantages then it has.
7) There's no problem with it. If you're using it outside of comp, you'll eventually get attacked with 2+ snipers which will lead you to lose all your headshots. If in comp then... well, people here are not into "walking in a straight lines" usually. It looks OP 'cause of cheaters basically.
8) "The ressistance pierce is useless". My dear you haven't fought any enemy with ressistance as spy, have you? But yes, damage could get some buff imo.
(-) You forgot about Disciplinary Action being perfect melee right after ubersaw. Not only it's usefull as a tool, but also great as finishing weapon 'cause it has longest melee range in the game (for some reason). Also it's really buggy, so you can hit spy that was going to stab you.

1) I'm not exactly sure what you mean in your statement "i see no reason why this is not a new gun concept"
2) Yeah, powerjack users can change their speed very quickly without commitment. And that's why I hate it. Free movement without commitment almost always outshines all other unlocks. Did you even read my proposed rework?
3) A 20% Damage buff on a 100 damage weapon won't be making much of a difference. Realistically the only thing that would make a noticable difference is that sandman scouts get one shot.
4) As I said, I wasn't sure if knockback would work, but your idea would be basically a direct upgrade to stock, as its current 25% damage penalty is counteracted by more bullets and faster firing. Unless you would like to suggest other downsides...
5) You haven't demonstrated how my rework would make this weapon abandoned. I never specified how much building health is lost. Also, your idea might work as a standalone weapon, but the southern hospitality's current stats don't merit a total deletion.
6) The Ubersaw is overused not just because it has a huge upside with a small downside, but also because everything else is bad. Medic's melee slot in general needs a rework.
7) It's not op, It's poorly designed. If a sniper is good at doing sniper things, then they really have no reason to use stock over this thing. The one scenario where stock would outshine is the heavy right outside your spawn doors keeps killing you and you need to charge up a shot quickly.
8) That's out of context. I said its useless on a revolver, not that its generally useless. Revolvers generally lack the firepower to deal with any sort of class that would utilize damage resistance.
(-) The Disciplinary Action is good, but it doesn't outclass all other options. The Market Gardener and Escape Plan are both viable alternatives to the whip because they excel in many situations the whip cannot.

[Staffy]

1) I've actually said that I don't see any problem with current Shortstop
2) Yes, I've read your proposed rework. Health penalty wont affect pyro's gameplay at all. He'll still stay as ambush/support class.
3) So you want it to deal 125 dmg? That would be rather problematic.
4) How about the longer you fire=less damage you deal. Or overheat kind of stat?
5) Because the greatest treat to engie isn't a spy, it's demo
6) Vita-Saw is perfectly balanced somehow
7) I haven't said it's OP, I said it looks like one in hands of cheaters. Also if it's that good why noone is using it even in comp?
8) Even if you're shooting from your revolver, you should stay behind enemy so he has less time to react. Spy isn't frontline class anyway.
(-)MG is just funny gimmick. EP is outshined by DA when you have medic that knows about your existance. You know, thats how T in TF2 works.

[green]

Nerf threads with massive walls of text.

[(っ● ‿ ●)っ]

the bfb should have its boost degrade slowly over time instead of when taking damage or double jumping

that way you would need to be constantly dealing damage in order to keep the boost, instead of losing it when you get sneezed on

[Emurinus]

I've had quite a few if my own ideas over the years. These are the one that have generally stuck.

Replace the Reserve Shooter's minicrits with a plain 25% damage bonus and tighten its spread.

Gunslinger should grant a 7% speed buff and minis can be constructed from full health again, but minis no longer deal (noticeable) knockback.

Concheror no longer self heals and requires 600 damage to charge. While we're nerfing dumb passives, remove the max health bonus on the Batallion's Backup.

Shortstop should ditch the dumb shove and have a 15% faster reload.

Sandman's alt-fire reduce health from healthpacks by 50% and heal beams by 75%. Duration mechanics remain the same.

Loch-n-load should lose the bonus sentry damage and projectile speed bonus. Instead, a successful direct hit should refill one grenade back from reserves. (Think of a projectile Widowmaker but w/o infinite ammo)

Homewrecker shouldn't remove sappers period. Instead, give Pyro some knockback resistance when deployed and allow it to one-shot buildings (only serves to punish bad Engineers and/or if you want to really screw around with uber builds).

Mad Milk, Crit-a-Cola, and Bonk! should all be charged via damage instead of passively

• Mad Milk also needs a 20% splash reduction and health leeching should be reduced from 60% to 40%.
  
  
  • Jarate also must be charged via damage as well as having a splash radius reduction.
  
  
• Crit-a-Cola immediately gives you a damage vulnerability upon consuming it rather than after firing a shot. Duration gains a slight increase.
  
  
• Bonk!'s duration is slightly increased but "dodging" damage reduces its duration in addition to the exhaustion mechanic.

All miniguns can now be holstered while revved.

All sniper rifles now suffer charge reversion (begins decreasing) if scoped in too long, and flinching no longer fully resets the reticle.

[HoBoMiKe]

Originally posted by jonasaboo:

Buff the Caber

[Tramuntana]

I will be multiposting to separate each class, because I have a LOT to discuss. First Spy:

I have a chunk of ideas for the Enforcer and Diamondback. My intent is to give Spy a better close-range revolver for direct combat to compliment the Ambassador's long range capabilities, and offer a second utility revolver if you don't need your gun much. Traditionally, I've favored the Enforcer a the close range revolver, since the Diamondback already has stats involving buildings, but recently I've changed my mind.

But first let's get the Ambassador (wich honestly I still think is the second best revolver) out of the way fast:

Remove the falloff, extend the cap to 1600 hammer units, and let it minicrit beyond the cap. There you do, done it.


Now, the Enforcer I use it to 2HKO camping Engineers without having to loose 15% damage against buildings. The bonus 8 damage against them helps sometimes, but not much. My current idea is, first thing, to extend the piercing gimmick to affect Sapper Armor as well as invulnerable targets to make itmore consistently useful.

Next, we replace the disguise bonus with a straight +75% damage against buildings (combined it means 70 damage to buildings on every shot, just enough to 2HKO any level 1 building), and just for the hell of it let's allow it to damage enemy Sappers, so you too can be a SPybro. So if you want to shoot the Engineer use Stock, the Ambassador or they Diamondback, if you want to shoot the building use the Enforcer, and if you don't need either use l'Etranger.

Now, the Diamondback. My first idea is, to remove the Crit mechanic entirely, add a 20% slower firing speed, and make it always minicrit while disguised, and make it mark for death for 0.75 seconds every time it deals critical damage, either from the disguised shot, a previous mark for death or any other source of crits. Now, I you hit every consecutive shot, you do around 20% more damage than Stock if you hit every ♥♥♥♥, wich will make it very good at point blank range to defeat large HP targets like Soldiers and Demos, but at mid-range the bullet spread will make it almost impossible to connect the next shot in time to keep the mark for death active, and you willingness be stuck with a revolver that fires slower, deals less damage and can't randomly crit. This was originally intended for the Enforcer, and I still think that it would fit it better, especially with it's slightly faster bullet spread recovery, but since everyone seems content into it making it a utility revolver, I just recycled it for the Diamondback. And if you ask me, I'd rather have the building buster to straight up be a new weapon and the piercing stat be a general part of every revolver, with Sapper Armor being removed entirely.


My second idea for the Diamondback is to cut the critical cap to 12 shots, add "does not need to reload", increase the damage penalty to 25%, change the Crit mechanic so that you get one crit from every kill, regardless of weapon oriented method, and max your crit counter if you successfully tauntkill someone. The two new downsides will be "cannot fire without crits stored" and "cannot disguise while the weapon is active (current disguises will be automatically lost when drawing the weapon)". Now, when you start you literally don't have a revolver (wich will screw you over against aware enemies and Razorback Snipers), but every kill or sap you get you get one guaranteed critical bullet that will deal a fixed 90 damage. And once you have those crits, if you can pick your targets correctly you will be able to keep going for the longer since kills from the Diamondback itself will also regenerate the counter. The disguise penalty is intended to make sure the opponents can see that you have a charged and glowing Diamondback ready to go, and react accordingly. Think of it as the lovechild of the Frontier Justice (the weapon it was supposed to be the equivalent off) and the Widowmaker (wich came from the same game, the Deus Ex Human Revolution).

And sincere most classes have alternate secondary weapons, I propose a tranquilizer pistol that will inflict Jarate, slowdown and bleed for 5 seconds on hit. It would have 1 clip per shot, deal no direct damage on it's own and 15 max ammo.

Next, sappers, or better said Sapper since we only have the RTR to work with. This weapon can be either useless or overpowered depending on who you ask to, similarly to the old Short Circuit. And like the old Short Circuit, it ends up being an annoyance more than anything. I propose making the downgrade animation be mostly cosmetic and last 3 seconds when downgrading levels and 5 when deconstructing the building. If the Sapper is destroyed, the building will fully reconstruct, but it will take twice the time it spent deconstructing an will be unable to be wrench construction boosted, meaning if an Engineer barely saved his level 3 Sentry from destruction, he will have to wait 22 seconds for it to be operational again. This will make it more of a utility sapper, meant to keep big nests down and disabled for your team to push onwards.

Toy make this slot more interesting, we need variety, but we're must to be careful because while Sappers are useful for both you an your team, adding something that I useful when there aren't Engineers might be a nightmare to balance. To mitigate this, every Sapper will have a new stat: if placed on a healthpack or ammo spawn location, it will prevent the enemy team from being able to use it for 25 seconds, and it will respawn twice as fast (and yes, I took this idea from Sombra from Overwatch, bring the pitchforks because I don't give a single F*). The Sapper will be visible and will be able to be destroyed by wrenches, as well as the Loch-n-load the Homewrecker and the Enforcer.

Now, because I really like their concept, the Shredder, Timely Demise and Subjugated Saboteur will be added. The Ap-Sap will be changed into a las Subjugated Saboteur reskin wich will fit it better, and the Snack Attack will become a Shredder reskin for the same reason.


Now, knifes. First things first, add the silent killer and disguise on backstab effects of the Your Eternal Reward to every other knife. Spy deserves the right to be a silent killer by itself, and keeping those stats on the YER all it does is force Valve not to buff the Disguise Kit to prevent the YER from becoming even worse, just look at the last Disguise Kit buff to 0.5 seconds ONLY when you're already disguised. Having done that, our next priority is to give the YER a new, interesting niche. And since we already have a reliable knife (stock), an aggressive knife (Big Earner), a defensive knife (Kunai, sort of), and a utility knife (Spycicle), we will need something else, and what we will do is essentially give it it's original stats, minus the disguise on kill:
Now the YER offers a silent decloak with every watch except for the Dead Ringer, wich will be notably quieter but not completely silent, because it's loud ring is part of the weapon's counterplay. The downside will be a complete inability to disguise at all,not even on the backstab, this way you can easily pick off lone targets with the YER but you will be more easily countered if you attack a group since they won't even need to spycheck. You will also be less capable of attacking Sentry nests.


And speaking of sentry nests, since the current YER has a niche of bringing good at attacking Engineers, let's keep this niche on the Wanga Prick by keeping it's current stats, but with the addition of "cannot be targeted by sentries" so you don't get immediately screwed over if the melee hitreg doesn't feel like collaborating today.


And since we are decloning, let's also change the Sharp Dresser just for the hell of it.
Now the Sharp Dresser will have 33% faster deploy and holster, will offer +200% air control and will instantly kill any player that you land on (this last stat will also apply to the Manntreads and Thermal Thruster), and will backstab from any angle while explosive jumping. The downside is that that it won't be able to backstab otherwise. The idea is to use it to jump into enemies much like if you were actually playing Assassin's Creed, and it would be especially good in Mannpower due to Grappling Hook counting as explosive jumps, or if you master the art of surfing rockets.

It probably wouldn't be the most viable weapon ever, but it would be an incredibly fun equivalent to the Market Gardener. If you want to make it less situational, I propose a revolver replacement that will essentially be the Mannpower Grappling Hook but with the cooldown and deploy speed of the Thermal Thruster, and a 750 hammer units range cap.


And now the PDAs. The Disguise Kit will now disguise at 0.5 seconds regardless of context, except with the Diamondback (or whatever weapon ends up with the minicrit rework). Pressing R while disguised will fake a reload animation on every weapon with one, it will make a faked Revved up and Scoped in animation for Miniguns and Sniper rifles (complete with speed drop), will make a fake healing animation on Mediguns (the enemy health will appear to go up on their HUD until you stop pressing R, and will immediately return to normal when disconnecting the fake beam) and will make a fake airblast on flamethrowers. When disguising as an enemy Spy, another disguise will have to be chosen; this will be the disguise of your disguise, and if you choose an enemy Spy again, you will appear undisguised. Your speed will drop depending on that second disguise. Now you can potentially fake being an enemy Spy disguising, you can pretend to be watching the chokepoint as Heavy or Sniper more effectively, and you can chase a damaged/burning enemy with the Pyro and Medic disguises while pretending to help them, wich might easily fool them since they will be unable to think straight whilst burning to death. It will also make the Spy disguise less of a giveaway since seeing a "friendly" Spy disguised an enemy Soldier or Heavy and running at full speed won't be a problem anymore.

The stock Invis Watch is perfectly fine, it one of the very few stock weapons that I like, and although it's slot still could use some variety, first things first:


Remove the "can only pick up cloak from ammo boxes while uncloaked" restriction of the Cloak and Dagger. The hidden 33% increased cloak drain and reduced cloak gained on the boxes is downside enough, and really this stat only serves as an annoyance for Spies that only need to press M2 twice to instantly pick them with barely a small blink of invisibility.


The Dead Ringer: again, remove the inability to restore cloak from ammo, but add a -50% cloak from ammo boxes (and still let Spies extend the duration, don't add the uncloaked restriction). Now, add 3 seconds of debuff immunity, and restrict all supercloak benefits to only work against the player that triggered the Dead Ringer. This way if you attack teo people and then try to DR away, one of them will es able to damage you normally and make you blink. This will make it more of a 1v1 duelist watch. Alternatively, just nix the additional damage resistance entirely and add a second version of this watch that doesn't have the speed boost instead.

[Heatmaker]

1. No. The Shortstop is fine the way it currently is. Sure, it'll never compete with stock or the soda popper, but it's current position is better than being a discount FaN/Guillotine

2. I don't have any critism on the Powerjack idea

3. Same as Powerjack idea

4. Just remove the knockback and add something to compensate for it

5. I don't think anyone with a brain would bring a melee weapon to a sentry fight. Also, why nerf spy, the weakest class is the game right now?

6. Medic is a class who's supposed to support his team. Your suggestion for the Solemn Vow sounds like you want to make it a selfish weapon

7. I would keep the BB's debuff when you spawn in with it along with adding the slower reload. Slower reload speed is nothing when you can hit every shot from anywhere

8. Agreed