I made my judgment regarding pubs under the assumption that you're better than the vast majority of players there (and since you play competitively, that's not really an argument) This usually means that 1. Other players can't outsnipe you, making DDS mostly irrelevant, and 2. you get kills more easily than other players do, jarate notwithstanding. Helping your team by making enemies take minicrits doesn't matter when they could hardly get kills anyways. Plus sentries.

In 6s, Jarate is decent, but not amazing since teams aren't grouped up for maximum effectiveness. Other than viaduct, I don't see it being too effective because other than hail mary's you're going to be too close to 4 very mobile enemies that'll kill you as fast as you kill them with minicrits, and your damage is inconsistent anyways.

Regarding vs. cozy/jarate, there's a reason the razorback was still the most equipped secondary in HL. Good spies have field days when the sniper isn't running it. Back when I subbed for Bote last season we were able to tie KND on viaduct solely because Vipa was killing Yosh running cozy camper 24/7.

Call it what you want, but a lot of people are pretty firm in stating that banning it in HL only improves the game mode and makes snipers less dominant while requiring more skill

DDS has a lot of utility even if you aren't getting outsniped. In the pub environment where 3v1 sniper duels are common being able to eat a headshot still is useful.

Diamondback?

being better than the typical player doesnt mean literally invincible. its silly to imply that snipers pose barely any threat to a good player while saying spies do. pubs are low skill but they dont mean people are completely dysfunctional. if anything thats a better case for the smg lol.

in 6s jarate has plenty utility. like if you know theyre pushing or about to be then you can just lob it for the mere chance of it hitting someone. even pure spam with the thing will be more meaningful than discouraging backstabs against a spy in 6s.

and i know its op in highlander. i just honestly dont think HL is a good reference for general TF2 balance because a huge part of the meta is just a result of having to deal with being a class that you wouldnt be if you weren't forced to.

well i didnt think a lot of these were OP but since its on the list i will change my weapon options accordingly ty

I'd like the machina if the penetration worked regardless of charge and the damage buff was removed.

i wouidnt mind if the dmg buff stayed on headshot only bc of the fist of steel heavies or whatever but having free 173 easy bodyshots is dumb and gay

Crossbow would be fine if it lost the ubercharge on hit. It's overpowered because you are basically throwing without running it. It adds such an interesting mechanic to medic but 75 damage across map with an easy to aim weapon, and the ability to get up to ~10% ubercharge for 150 health is kinda ridiculous. Even without Ubercharge on hit, it would still be better than every other option. If you want the crossbow to probably not be ran all the time everywhere, no more passive reload would probably take it there. I'm on the belief it would probably be better to just get rid of ubercharge on health, then buffing the other syringe guns around that.

I believe the ubersaw to be overpowered just because of 25% on hit. If you change buff/nerf a weapon in valve's mind, you have to take everything into consideration. My whole ~4k hours on medic, the only time I really think the risk/reward mechanic on medic was anything of note is during my time in Invite/Prem 6s. Saws were dumb in Open, IM, Highlander, and Prem HL for me. In pubs, the weapon is absolutely ridiculous even with random crits on. I really think if it were brought down to 20% per swing instead of 25% (needing five swings instead of four), it would probably be better for all around gameplay instead of so much more punishing against players who have less idea of what they're doing.

This also just be me playing medic too much idk

This shit triggers me like no tomorrow... "It forces the spy to use his primary, and die most of the time in a competitive setting" You make it sound like using your primary as a spy is a major problem and saying that using your primary makes you die most of the time in a competitive setting is just you being bad with the primary, that's your own problem and you should improve that, spy is also by no means a weak class. In my opinion having the razorback disabled is a lot more annoying than having it enabled, just because a razorback sniper should by no means be a problem for a competent spy that can use his primary, since I run the ambassador and dead ringer 24/7 I haven't had a single scenario where I would've thought "wow the razorback is really OP" Jarate counters spies a lot harder than a silly razorback, especially dead ringer users like myself.

"Teams play around sniper, and he gets a lot of heals. The spy is dead before he can fire his second shot" <- This is a perfect scenario where you need to use your brain, a medic can never heal a sniper 24/7, there are always moments when the sniper is alone, doesn't have an overheal or he's on low health. Depending on what gun you use the most, you need to plan out when you're going to kill him or at least call out his position for your friendly sniper or flank to pick him off. If you're a letranger/revolver spy I can understand that it gets a bit harder to kill a sniper from long range, but at the same time it means you need to suicide for a sniper pick depending on what watch you're using and when your team is planning on moving in, you can't expect your sniper to win every fight. In most situations you're the one who is supposed to kill the sniper, never back away from a fight with one, always pressure the sniper. Oh and if you're dead before you can hit your second shot, you might want to position yourself better or run the dead ringer ;-)

I think you're crazy. Medic is the least popular but most important class in any and all game modes. If no-one already wants to, then someone one a team has to bitch up and play the dullest class in the game (at least at lower levels). The ubersaw and crossbow, as they are, do not pushish medics for playing, and give the rest of the team no excuse to bitch at the medic for using them (the value of which shouldn't be underestimated).

3 simple fixes would make the needles (which have always been the weakest of the medic's assets) stronger to compete with the crossbow:
- Needles be easier to see, maybe even give them tracers, so you can better see where you're firing.
- Needles are client-side, so your opponent first sees a needle appear a few meters from the gun if there's high ping involved, but you see it fly out from the nozzle as you clicked.
- Higher fire-rate to better saturate the air.

@Kav
It's incredibly hard to balance weapons across all game formats just given the inherent differences. It's like how Scout is decent in pubs, good in HL, and amazing in 6s. I just did a mental rating of razorback in all 3 formats on a 1-10 scale. It's subjective I know, but if you asked most platinum HL players to do the same you'll probably get the highest numbers on razorback out of any secondary. The only other two I could guess are close would be DDS and cozy camper.

Mate lol
I don't want to be mean about it but this tells me more about your spy play than actually looking up any of your competitive history

not saying the crossbow doesn't take skill, but 90% of the time people are gonna just stand still and ask for an arrow and even then medics will miss.

would people be ok with the medic's primaries trying to rival the crossbow by being better weapons with less utility? like as a hypothetical: if the medic had the shotgun as a primary (and no passive healing), would you use it? Would something at that level of practical DM be worth giving up utility for? I think that'd still be a hard call to make for a lot of players, and the shotgun is a pretty fuckin good gun, so its worth considering what exactly you'd need to actually do to the other medic primaries to make them worth using, because I don't think anyone is going to stop using the xbow as long as it has any of its 3 good attributes (ranged healing, 80 damage spam shots, ranged uber building). I also don't think most people are in the camp of saying that the xbow is bad for the game though either.

so yeah, maybe we should consider championing needle gun buffs rather than xbow nerfs, so that medic can have multiple actually interesting options rather than one that is insanely fun to use and play with and 3 that are boring as shit

unless a weapon is exceptionally strong people wont use it over the crossbow. crossbow could deal zero damage and people would still use it just because the ideal situation is having someone cover him at any time. needles either need their own new utility or xbow needs a downside besides "not needles" before more there become more options i think.

@op how are you gonna make a list of OP weapons when ur reasoning for the homewrecker being OP is that you can remove sappers but it isnt even the only unlock which can do that

also can valve please make the needle guns do plasma gun-esque heals

What? Remove the passive reload of xbow? Why?

The problem with crossbow is the random long range instant +130 hp and close range instant +75 hp. It's like a large health pack on demand.
It usually just ends up punishing a player for following up on damage which makes fights way more unpredictable and random.

Make it heal way less in close range, a bit less on medium/long range and does it over a good second or two.
Still viable for healing players not in range and to heal and build uber when there's no one in range of your medigun. All that without breaking fights and being more effective in all ways than medigun.

I've also mentioned this before

The xbow is pretty much fine, you can argue nerfs but ultimately his alternatives are what blows.

Make the Overdose's speed boost passive and boom now it can contend with the xbow

I personally would like to see a damage penalty on bodyshots alongside a (sharp?) increase in damage as you penetrate through players.

Also I personally think the crossbow is overpowered compared to the other medic primaries, but small changes could even the playing field when it comes to medic primaries. I'd much rather see the other medic primaries buffed (i.e. the overdose would gain some ubercharge on kill or something else) or even a buff to the default syringe gun to make it stand out more than the crossbow.

I'd also like to see some more weapons that could introduce healing in a bubble (similar to what the amputator does when taunting) so that all of the healing doesn't just fall on the medic despite how good some medics are at keeping their other 5 players healthy. Maybe some weapon for another class could be a potential candidate for this.

A general last change that I think should be implemented should be that any consumable/drinkable/throwable item (jarate, mad milk, sandvich, etc) be only recharged when touching a resupply cabinet. This could certainly make a few weapons less of a headache when playing against.

+backburner
+phlog
+scorch shot

My thoughts on fixing the DDS:
change the bullet resistance to vulnerability
change the explosive vulnerability to resistance

Crossbow and ubersaw direct upgrades but aren't really problems to play against despite having practically no downsides becuase "it's just a medic and the class's downsides are still prominent in engagements"

*GRU is proposed to be added*

Wtf! Straight upgrade, practically no downsides because heavy can get to mid faster! So what if it's "still just a heavy and the heavy's downsides are still prominent in engagements" Such a flawed concept, straight upgrades are a joke!

medic is a boring class a lot of the time but has to be played because he is important AND playing him makes the game more interesting for everyone

heavy is a boring class a lot of the time that rarely has to be played and the game is more fun when he's used sparingly because of the effect he has on momentum

if you don't see how having a full time heavy affects the pace of the game in a way that's different than a full time medic you're stupid as shit

if you don't see the difference between a straight upgrade that makes a boring class more fun and a straight upgrade that makes a boring class more useful (but still boring) you're even stupider than shit

stop posting

how could anyone take a look at the whitelist and think that the only reason gru is banned is because its an upgrade lol

To Clarify, I am not against the use of ubersaw or crossbows, I'm just saying you can't use contradictory rhetoric to keep a weapon banned.

This list looks pretty close to the universal blacklist for some reason...

Some of the weapons on it aren't overpowered, though, they're just dumb concepts. Things like the sandman and natascha, and you're arguing for the homewrecker & stock sniper rifle to be in that category as well. There's a very large distinction between 'things that are so imbalanced they break the game' and 'things that shouldn't be in the game because they are based on a dumb mechanic' and conflating the two is not great.

Yeah, I put the annoying and stupid concepts in the OP category. I should have put "weapons that need tweaks" instead.

I didn't copy any whitelist for that list.

Also I don't understand some people here. I get mocked for saying Razorback is OP, because it's only really OP in HL, and some people here downvote as soon as they see "HL". I mean, the Razorback is not broken in 6s, but would it hurt to fix it for the other formats? I know that 6s is better, and all, but there is no downside to making the RB worse.

whats wrong with bonk? it breaks stalemates and if you let it in the game maybe people will start to agree with 6s even more because there will be less stalemates

The thing that I find the worst about the bonk is that it's rechargeable and can basically give a scout the perfect position to attack/flank from or pretty much get a free ticket to go behind the enemy team if they don't send someone to track you down. From there it's simply a 1 on 1 fight but it just seems like it'd be such a headache for many teams. Plus scout doesn't need anything that will make him as a class remotely better.

The bonk is just a bad idea for competitive gameplay to begin with. The only real way to make it acceptable for actual play would be to change the entire way it functions or to just remove it from the game entirely.

The only real way to "fix" it would be to either remove it entirely or rework it so much that it almost wouldn't be worth it to try it. In terms of balancing for HL, iirc ugc banned razorback to "see how teams and players would adapt to a new way of playstyle" or something along those lines. Also imo, HL balancing should be pushed off until much later when (and if) we can reach the point where careers can be made and bills can be paid off of this game.

Not saying you did, but it goes to show how much consensus there is on this issue, even if we're nitpicking about individual weapons.

Well I agree that the razorback is overpowered because it's a weapon that screws with the class counter system. Spy is meant to counter snipers focusing on faraway targets and always did until the razorback came along. Now a spy can only counter snipers if they are

a) running an unlock and
b) are close range enough to hit the follow up bodyshot even with the forced inaccuracy after firing

and that's not even taking into account the difficulty of hitting a headshot on people with competent movement in a game like this with fucked up hitboxes.

It doesn't matter for 6s because when was the last time one team had a spy while the other had a sniper? It's incredibly rare so the fight never happens. But that doesn't mean it's not broken.

Basically any balance issue that's ever existed has in my mind come from either weapons with blatantly overpowered stats, à la the reserve shooter, critacola, lnl etc or valve somehow managing to fuck up the class counter system:

Short circuit -- why the hell is engineer countering projectile classes?
gru - heavy is meant to be slow
bonk - sentries and spam are meant to deny room for scouts
whip - classes run at the speeds they do for a reason
rescue ranger - having to be close to your buildings to keep them up was always one of the downsides to being able to place a tanky aimbot

etc

My point is that if you rebalance the razorback, nothing bad can come out of it. The UGC HL ban already showed how the game improved when snipers aren't using it, so why not rebalance it, make it not worth running? It will not affect 6s in any way, but will make the game better in other formats.

Why not? Why are people so opposed to this? (their point being "lolhl you suck".)