i think 4.3% away counts as 'almost'

just annoying to play against wouldn't really consider it overpowered, catch the demo in a 1 v 1 situation and he is dead generally.

I completely agree, I think it just promotes a different style of play.

The Booties are the reason I don't feel like completely killing myself when my team is losing pretty hard or the other teams scouts are just walking over my scouts.

I do feel the extra move speed they give makes them incredibly strong because before that buff happened they were pretty much never seen. I think changing the speed from +10% to plus 7% which puts demo at 100% movement speed would make them much more balanced. If the movment speed is removed completely they wouldn't see use just like before they got it

I've noticed that if one Demo uses them the other Demo is pretty much forced to use them especially on mid fights. If anything that should be the reason they are banned imo

Also is it really a bad thing if Demos top damage?

its not a bad thing for a demo to top damage its a bad thing for a demo to top damage while using a crutch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d1R2uKHQEc

please gimme what you are smoking

I don't really there is a big reason to ban them. It's Kind of like Gunboats for pocket, more mobility (and health in this case) at a cost for extra potential damage, its a style thing for me not really one thats clearly better.

edit: i do think that booties are better for alot of rollouts though granary specifically

While we are talking bans can we legalize candy cane, neon annihilator, iron bomber, warrior's spirit and eureka effect

theyre really good on certain midfights especially badlands & metalworks. could maybe say they are a must on those mids but im not completely convinced

i feel as if they give demos movement capabilities that they dont deserve. ie demos that are not known to have the greatest rollouts nor movement benefit. Demos with already great rollouts & movement dont really see the benefits

they may be ban worthy in that a demo will suffer when the other demo is using booties in certain situations. I do feel like shooting pipes & lc's at chokes is vastly underrated though. U cant really do anything with the booties when they have an ad except watch a cheeky trap

once u bring percentages into this game you are too deep in and cant be saved

At the moment this is like top notch conspiracy theorycrafting. We haven't seen a booties demoman dominate a game, never mind the top end of the scene. One could argue that we've seen demos in NA be more effective running them in Season 20 than we would have otherwise, but at no point did I watch a game with a demoman running the booties and think "god that guy is destroying!" or even having too large an impact. It has never struck me that this weapon would require a rebalance from watching every game since they have been buffed in July.

The way the NA community approaches demoman unlocks makes me think you have a grievance against the class, or want to pigeon-hole the role as a specific thing with no flexibility. Unlocks like the booties or loose cannon allow the class to be played in a different way, but in a way that other classes can exploit once they realise it.

For booties I can see no evidence for your claims that they are vastly overpowered and worthy of a ban, and I can't see how your theorycrafting is grounded in reality. There's been an NA and EU season, two LANs and 6 months since the most recent update to the weapon. I can count on one hand the amount of times I've seen booties have an impact in a top level game.

Perhaps nobody has realised how powerful they are yet, and we're about to see a shift in the meta and demoman become a truly powerhouse class again. Should the instant solution be to ban the weapon or adapt the playstyle? I would argue that in this case we should definitely let the weapon stay in, let its proponents utilise it and demonstrate how OP it is, and see how teams react. There's nothing objectively worse about having a more tanky demoman without its primary weapon, it doesn't have a detrimental effect beyond being a class to respect when taking fights.

it turns a bad demo into a good demo. there are only a few demomen who actually can comprehend that booties are gay. ban them.

it's a good weapon, but it seems silly to me to say trading a weapon slot to have 25 more hp and walk faster is "overpowered". even if it's better than stock in some places, why should we take a tool away from demo when everyone says demo isn't near as good anymore.

I don't understand how such a crutch weapon as the gunboats can be allowed in the game. The extra mobility and health in fights are just OP.

what are you even saying

It's much closer to the default speed then medic's speed

I think the question is which has a more difficult time dealing with the booties, soldiers or scouts. If booties are a bigger deal for scouts than for soldiers I think they should be kept in because it helps soldiers have more of an impact on the game in a scout dominated meta. If the opposite is true then I believe they should should be banned.

Even as a demo main who enjoys using them, they should be banned.

they are great, but I still love getting down and dirty practicing with my pipes mixed with my sticky spam. its fun on pubs, but it wont hold up in 6's, maybe Highlander.

The people who say booties are op don't know how to aim pipes. Pipes are so much better and booties by itself are not op at all lol

Pretty good unlock. Don't think it should be banned.

Gunboats make a similar opening for soldier to be played in two very different ways and most people consider 'boats to be one of the most balanced unlocks in the game.

Both grant mobility and increased hp, although gunboats just do so indirectly. The ability to buff a demo to 300 is cool but I'd say not especially amazing compared to 260. It makes demo a more specialized "mid range AOE damage dealer" and less of a generalist fragger. Of course demo is already tilted towards the former, but the ability of pipes to frag in situations that stickies are less effective in should not be discounted just because "booties make you deal more dpm".

Again on the topic the eviction notice and family business.

The eviction notice allows the heavy to run faster, not to the same degree as the gloves, but it makes the heavy slightly faster than a soldier which while it isn't much definitely makes it the obvious choice for a heavy melee.

The family business also received a tough break upgrade giving it an increased fire rate (+15%) while heavy's shotgun rarely (if ever) has an impact this seems like an obvious choice as well as its downside is a mere -15% damage for the bonus 8 shot faster shotgun

FUCK KAIDUS AND HIS FAST GULLYWASH ROLLOUT

But yeah, nobody has really proven that booties is OP yet but I could see that happening in the future.

I think that the weapon is definitely more powerful than pipes, but with matchmaking on the horizon we don't need to be banning any more borderline weapons

Honestly, the way I see the game evolving with the booties is this: I do think that they will become more used than pipes and are more versatile. This doesn't mean they're OP or fuck people who arent running them, it's more a case of I think the meta will shift towards it.

It's a similar deal to gunboats pocket. I think the booties allow the demo to play the game faster and do things with less risk, and as the pace of the game has sped up so much recently, it helps demo fit in with that as a class, by making it a bit more of a dm powerhouse who can actually get frags as opposed to a class that is mostly about denial. I do think that it will still be a choice between pipes and booties on demo than it currently is on gunboats pocket though.

This is where the whole gunboats argument that some people are thinking about collapses. If their pocket runs gunboats, you are not forced to run them to counter him. On the other hand, running the booties is kinda like what running the vita-saw would be like if it were unbanned. You are literally put at a disadvantage by not running it

rather difficult to avoid using percentages when one of the boot's biggest advantages is stated as 10% faster movement.

how do items get banned/unbanned in ESEA, speaking of? up until there's a weapon people desperately want to ban, it seems incredibly slow (pretty boy's pocket pistol is still banned, despite it being an awful secondary that cancels out its own playstyle intentions)

people just contact tri directly