FLANK
MEDIC
All Syringe Guns
❗️ The current Syringe Guns range from situational to entirely useless, mainly due to the Crossbow’s ease of use and projectile speed. The Syringe Gun’s spray and pray method of use only adds to this divide; spamming 40 syringes and hoping for the best just doesn’t feel satisfying. Some level of strategy and aiming should exist.
- Now reloads automatically when not active
- Increased base damage from 10 to 12
- Increased projectile speed from 1000 HU/s to 2000 HU/s
- Now approximately the speed of a Flare
- Reduced clip size from 40 to 25
- Reduced ammo carried from 150 to 75
- Added “-50% max primary ammo” to Crusader’s Crossbow (functionality unchanged)
- Syringes can now be reflected by Airblast and destroyed by Short Circuit
Overdose
❗️ Currently the best of the non-Crusader syringe guns, the Overdose doesn’t need a rework quite as extreme as the original two options. It also suits the rapid fire stats removed above far better than the other guns, and so here it remains.
- -33% damage penalty (functionality unchanged)
- +60% clip size (functionality unchanged)
- +100% max primary ammo on wearer (functionality unchanged)
All Medi Guns
❗️ In 2016, a seemingly innocent change made the already-strongest class in the game even better at controlling the pace of the game, by running at Scout speed on rollout. For the balance of Medic, Scout, and the game as a whole, this change must be reverted.
- Removed: Allows the Medic to match the speed of their heal target
Kritzkrieg
Changes to the Vaccinator make the Kritzkrieg the only Medigun able to capture the objective while charged. This is a useful stat, and players should be made aware of it.
- Players can capture objectives while under the effects of ÜberCharge (functionality unchanged)
Quick-Fix
The current Quick-Fix is incredibly powerful when your goal is to do nothing, and the worst Medi Gun in the game if you want to play aggressively. In other words, it encourages slow play. Damage becomes meaningless if the kill isn’t instantly secured. The Quick-Fix should instead focus on fast plays and quickly capitalizing on advantages, while also forcing the opponent to play at your pace by introducing a downside to playing slow.
- Added: -50% time taken to achieve out-of-combat healing rate
- Healing rate begins increasing after 5 seconds of heal target taking no damage, and reaches critical healing after 7.5 seconds
- Allows the Medic to match the speed of their heal target (functionality unchanged)
- Removed: +40% heal rate
Vaccinator
The Vaccinator struggles to achieve balance due to the inconsistent player count of different game modes. Since you’re unlikely to face some damage types in competitive play, the Vaccinator can become overwhelmingly powerful there, despite being balanced in casual. Nerfing aspects of the weapon that affect competitive most is key.
- Heal targets can now only be given 1 resistance type at a time
- Players can no longer capture objectives while under the effects of ÜberCharge
Amputator
The current Amputator’s AOE healing is far too large of a commitment for a Medic to bother trying with such minimal reward. The reward has thus been raised by giving greater ÜberCharge gain.
- Increased ÜberCharge gained through healing from 49 HP/% to 25 HP/%
SNIPER
All Rifles
Poor team communication makes Snipers particularly difficult to track down. Seeing a Sniper’s location via subtle tracer rounds would force him into more aggressive play.
- Added: Fires tracer rounds
- Comparable to the Classic, not the Machina
Huntsman
Switching off of the Huntsman can feel clunky, yet it relies on secondaries more than most of Sniper’s arsenal. Taking inspiration from Flare Gun functionality makes the Huntsman experience just a bit smoother.
- Now reloads automatically when not active
Sydney Sleeper
❗️ The Sydney Sleeper has gone through many reworks and yet still fails to find a proper niche. Currently, the gap between the Huntsman and the rifles is massive, so a rebalanced Sleeper could make for an effective middle ground.
- Rework:
- +65% charging movement speed
- Charge and fire shots independent of zoom
- On fully charged hit: Apply Jarate for 5 seconds
- Headshots mini-crit
Machina
The current Machina is essentially an upgrade for a team that can act on the information communicated by their teammates without the need for a tracer. Giving it a counter in fire resistance creates a situation in which one would prefer the stock Sniper Rifle, and an out for the opposing team to avoid its extreme strength.
- On Full Charge: Projectiles set players on fire (was +15% damage per shot)
- See All Laser Weapons for more info
Classic
The current Classic is worse than the Sniper Rifle in part because it’s not all that similar to the actual Team Fortress Classic rifle. Removing its most arbitrary downside is a simple change that keeps the gun fun while making it both stronger and more authentic.
- Removed: -10% damage on body shot
Cleaner’s Carbine
❗️ Being forced to use your secondary weapon to charge a meter is excessively limiting. A secondary should reward good primary play.
- Dealing damage with your primary fills charge meter (was “Dealing damage [with your secondary] fills charge meter”)
Tribalman’s Shiv
The current Shiv is… bad, in large part due to its huge downside; the bleed doesn’t even make up for the damage penalty. Its sole purpose is spy tracking, which itself got nerfed as a concept.
- Reduced damage penalty from -50% to -25%
SPY
❗️ Disguise as Medic to report Übercharge, get behind enemy lines to report offclasses, desperately throw yourself at the enemy to get one kill at most, then switch back to a good class (or wallow in sorrow if you’re playing Highlander). The current one-dimensionality of competitive Spy is grueling. Giving the Spy more info could add to his teamplay and even give him more pick potential if used effectively.
- Enemies glow when below 30% of their max health
Ambassador
The nerf to the Ambassador turned a very strong but not overpowered weapon into a mediocre one, since its sole upside was crippled.
- Added: -20% cloak duration
- Removed: Critical damage is affected by range
Enforcer
Clearly meant to be a damage-dealing revolver but misguided in its direction, the Enforcer still doesn’t even pierce every resistance type, and even functional pierce wouldn’t be enough to make it worthwhile. It needs something to compensate for the big buff though, and reverting the classwide decloak buff listed earlier fits the weapon perfectly.
- Added: 0.5 second increase in time taken to cloak and decloak
- Also affects cloak blink time
- +20% damage bonus now applies regardless of disguise
- Added sapped sentry gun damage resistance to pierce attribute
Diamondback
If the Ambassador is already controversial for offering skill-based crits, then the Diamondback’s free crits for sapping out-of-place buildings just isn’t fair.
- On backstab: 5 seconds of 100% mini-crits (was one guaranteed critical hit and included buildings destroyed)
Your Eternal Reward
This knife was “buffed” in Jungle Inferno to help low-level players by allowing them to disguise in exchange for their cloak, but with this came a massive nerf to cloak drain rate. Creating a best of both worlds version of the knife, by reverting this nerf and replacing it with an old stat, could revitalize it.
- Added: -25% cloak regen rate
- Removed: +33% cloak drain rate
All Invis Watches
It takes 1 second to cloak, yet nearly 2 seconds to decloak. These are weird discrepancies, and though the time difference is small, Spy is the most black-and-white class in the game; every frame counts.
- Decreased time taken to decloak from 1.8 to 1.5 seconds
Dead Ringer
The Dead Ringer is in a weird place right now, being one of the few true crutches in the game; if you put yourself in a bad situation, you can escape fairly easily, but for good players it’s just not that useful. Reverting some of the biggest changes from Gun Mettle is a surprisingly effective answer.
- -50% cloak from ammo packs and dispensers (was hidden stat “cannot replenish cloak meter”)
- Removed: Temporarily gain speed boost on taking damage
Red-Tape Recorder
The only purpose the Recorder serves right now is annoying Gunslinger engineers by preventing them from rebuilding for a small period of time. That’s a terribly small niche to fill, but expanding this “disabling buildings” use case seems workable.
- Added: 200% increase to building disable time after sapper is destroyed
Team Fortress Wave 3 