Balance Adjustments

Across 15 years of new content, the game of Team Fortress 2 has changed considerably. Throughout that change came growing pains and inconsistencies.

Most of the following rebalances are common sense changes. These seek to patch up weapons, game modes, or other concepts in TF2 without changing their core functionality, purpose, or game plan.

Rebalances denoted with ❗️ may fundamentally change how a weapon or concept works, and may therefore be controversial. Expect more radical and experimental changes.

Note that this page assumes the implementation of Mastercoms’ Spring Cleaning Update.

GAMEPLAY CHANGES

Casual

A certain level of randomness is necessary for some parts of the game; Heavy would shred through whole teams if his minigun was perfectly accurate, and spamming revolver rounds is unbecoming of a Spy. None of these points apply to fall damage, shotguns, or *shudders* random crits.

Disabled random critical hits
Disabled random fall damage
Disabled random bullet spread on shotguns and scatterguns
“No random critical hits” attribute is now unlisted

Glow

Player glow is a well-meaning mechanic that does its job in helping new players find where they should go. Unfortunately, this comes at the cost of exposing Spies who have made no mistakes in their gameplay. A more elegant solution can be seen in Payload, Capture the Flag, and Player Destruction, which make the objective glow instead. Similar solutions should be applied to modes with control points.

Disabled player glow on Valve servers
Added glow to active control points

Taunts

Taunts have been a mixed bag for a while now. From drinking from signs to being entirely tauntless with some multiclass weapons, it’s time for some spring cleaning.

The Ullapool Caber now kills victim and user on taunt hit
Most Bottle reskins now perform Kaboom
- Does not include the Scottish Handshake or Frying Pan
Multiclass Fists reskins now perform default taunt
The Bonesaw, all Bonesaw reskins, and Solemn Vow now perform Bow
Added “Taunt can kill” text to several weapons
- Includes the Sandman, Atomizer, Equalizer, Escape Plan, Rainblower, Hot Hand, Eyelander, HHHH, Claidheamh Mòr, Persian Persuader, Nessie’s Nine Iron, Ullapool Caber, Fists, Holiday Punch, Frontier Justice, Gunslinger, Übersaw, Huntsman, and Fortified Compound
- Remains unlisted on all Pyro secondaries, swords, and Spy knives (due to all having a taunt kill)
Added “Taunt can heal” text to the Kritzkrieg

Capture the Flag

Mannpower and Scream Fortress have acted for years as mechanical testing grounds, a sort of incidental beta program. This is true of the game as a whole, but particularly for Capture the Flag, and their most successful and acclaimed breakthroughs should migrate over.

Added 20 minute round timer
Flag return time decreased from 60 to 30 seconds
Dropped flag timer does not reset on pickup
Flags mark the carrier for death 90 seconds after having been stolen
Capturing the flag no longer awards critical hits to the capturing team

Medieval

❗️Balance is always tough to get right in a new mode, especially one as drastically different as Medieval. As it stands now, the Spy and Pyro have very few options. For the Spy, that fault lies with the Razorback. Removing it seems only fair, but the Sniper is demanding an apology, so we’ve given him an empty jar. For the Pyro, that fault lies with their lack of weaponry. Let’s teach them some wizardry; fireballs surely count as medieval, yes?

Added the Gas Passer and Jarate to the whitelist
Removed the Razorback from the whitelist

Class Order

❗️ The class order of Offense, Defense, Support has been in place since the game’s launch in 2007. The game has changed a lot since then; particularly, the Pyro’s ability to airblast completely changes their approach to the game, and the Demoman has become more and more aggressive over time as people have learned how versatile stickybombs can be on the offensive. With that in mind, some reorganization is in order.

Recategorized Demoman as an Offense class
Recategorized Pyro as a Defense class

Speed

❗️ The Medic moves faster than base speed because it supposedly allows him to keep up with his teammates and heal them. But consider a Medic’s favorite heal targets – the frontline classes, who hold their ground and move slower than average. The faster flank classes, meanwhile, have low enough health to be overhealed quickly without needing to be followed. The true purpose of the Medic’s faster move speed, then, is running from danger and returning to battle from spawn. A Medic should be punished for bad positioning as much as any other support class. Conversely, a key part of the Pyro as a class is getting in, wreaking havoc, and getting out, which is difficult when you’re only as fast as everyone else. The Medic’s speed boost belongs on the Pyro.

Increased base Pyro movement speed from 100% to 107%
Decreased base Medic movement speed from 107% to 100%

Self-Damage

The Soldier and Demoman are as versatile as they are currently because of their unparalleled movement abilities, which themselves are made significantly more practical by a hidden effect. The Soldier has a natural -40% self-damage resistance, the Demoman -25%. Even the Scout, who rarely needs the ability, receives -25% total damage from the Boston Basher. It’s no wonder, then, why other classes get limited use out of their unlocked mobility tools, from the Pyro’s reflect jumps and Detonator to the Engineer’s Wrangler boosts.

All classes receive -25% damage from self-inflicted sources
- Change does not affect the Soldier, who remains at -40%

Status Effects

Certain stats don’t tell the whole story; afterburn and bleed have some mixed implications, and often overlap with each other in purpose. As it stands now, they may as well be the same thing. Let’s clean them up and give them each their own consistent impacts.

Afterburn now always reduces healing and resistances
- Affects Flares and the Cow Mangler 5000
Afterburn from non-Flamethrower weapons now always lasts 7.5s
- Affects the Cow Mangler 5000 and the Huo-Long Heater
Bleeding now always lasts 5s
- Affects the Tribalman’s Shiv
Bleeding now always stacks
- Affects all bleed weapons

MULTI-CLASS

All Shotguns

The Shotgun is for some reason weaker on two of the classes that use it the least. Giving Soldier and Pyro the ability to actually use their emergency backup shots as emergency backup shots is only natural.

Decreased first reload interval from 1s to 0.87s on Soldier and Pyro
- Functionality unchanged on Heavy and Engineer (remains 0.87s)

Widowmaker

❗️ Pyro’s and Heavy’s 200 primary ammo naturally fit the Widowmaker’s risk/reward nature; either get free ammo for your best damage dealer, or lose out on all options but melee.

Changed “10% increased damage to your sentry’s target to “+10% damage to enemies targeted by a sentry”
Now equippable by the Pyro and Heavy
- Uses primary ammo

All Laser Weapons

Inspired by PO10TIAL
Much like swords, every laser weapon in the game share several stats in common. Much unlike swords, laser weapons struggle to differentiate themselves from their default counterparts. Joining the least common damage type allows the worse options like the Bison, Manmelter, Third Degree, and Pomson to dodge resistances in key areas. Creating new counters in anti-fire weaponry, which itself struggles to find use, gives opposing teams an opening against the Cow Mangler, Short Circuit, and Machina.

Added “This weapon fires laser rounds”
- Damage is classified as fire damage
  - Added to the Cow Mangler 5000, Righteous Bison, Pomson 6000, Short Circuit secondary fire, and Machina
- Deals only 20% damage to buildings
  - Added to Manmelter and Machina
- Projectiles penetrate players
  - Added to Manmelter and Pomson 6000
- Projectiles vaporize players on kill
  - Added to Machina

All Single Bullet Guns

Considered by many to be among the least useful guns in the game, the single bullet weapons all have a debilitating spread… aside from their first shot. Making this perfect shot easier to attain feels necessary, though it’s easy to do too much so we’re starting small.

Decreased spread recovery time from 1.25s to 1s

All Throwable Substances

The Gas Passer’s patented mix of time- and damage-based throwable recovery is innovative and, well, worth stealing. Sorry to all fans of non-milk substances and jar-based karate.

Increased extinguishment cooldown reduction on Jarate and Mad Milk from 20% to 50%
Meter now builds with damage done and/or time (40s and/or 600 damage total)
Meter starts empty and empties on death

Gas

Giving the Gas Passer’s cloud greater area denial and cutting down its recharge time keeps the threat of it on the enemy’s mind from the first time they see a cloud. Synergy with the Neon Annihilator is among the first use cases many envisioned for the Gas Passer upon announcement, so bringing that in creates a great combo tool.

Increased gas cloud duration from 5s to 8s
Players coated with gas are now considered wet

Milk

Even with the universal changes to throwables, milk itself is still an overwhelmingly strong ability for such a generalist class.

Reduced healing from 60% to 50% of the damage done to an enemy covered with milk

Concheror

❗️ The last of the Soldier’s banners, the Concheror also feels the least connected to the him. The other banners are directly tied to him both through item sets and military theming, and tied to each other through their dueling impacts on crits. The Concheror, meanwhile is a promotional item with speed and vampirism effects, as well as a unique requirement to charge its effect. This design feels much more open-ended, and, frankly, there’s another class who would benefit greatly.

Now equippable by the Pyro

All Melee Weapons

To counteract the hit melee weapons take from the removal of random crits, the Gunslinger’s hit streak mechanic has been added to most melee weapons; you can now kill a full health Heavy in 3 swings, if you have the skill to earn it.

Third successful hit in a row always crits
Added “No guaranteed crit on three successful hits in a row” to Bushwacka, Market Gardener, Killing Gloves of Boxing, Postal Pummeler, Neon Annihilator, and swords
- Added unlisted attribute to bats
Removed “Third successful punch in a row always crits” from Gunslinger item description (functionality unchanged)

Pain Train

❗️ The Pain Train is a direct downgrade in six of the game’s modes, including core modes in Capture the Flag and Player Destruction. Just as weapons shouldn’t be limited by game mode, weapons should go to any class that can use them, and the Pain Train plays well into the Pyro’s flanking skills.

Added: Gain a speed boost while carrying the objective
Capture rate bonus now applies to pickup score rate
Now equippable by the Pyro

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