doesn't the crossbow ruin the "health counting" meta just as much because you can heal someone across the map instantly for 150?

ur other arguments seem solid though

I don't necessarily think so. This is because I think it is now easy to see, hear or tell when a player has gotten arrowed, thanks to the visual and audio cues the arrow makes when it lands on a damaged friendly, or even the fact that a player could be standing statue still in order to receive and arrow could give that away. Plus, you will always be able to tell that players who have gotten crossbowed are now at least at 100-150 health, or they are 100-150 health greater than they were before (minus any buffs).

When I say that the solemn vow ruins the health counting metagame, I mean that it makes the skill of keeping track of the enemy players' health pool that so many players have learnt and mastered completely useless now. Worse yet, teams that decide not to run a solemn vow should it be unbanned will still have to keep track of all that stuff, which no team would do, 'cos why make your job harder?

very glad someone made a video consolidating all of the reasons it is a poor weapon. Will be joining you in the ubersaw brigade this season.

i understand all the arguments you gave but i think youre exaggerating a bit, its not like this weapon changes the medics hud to show the enemies health and uber at all times.

your medic first has to have an actual line of site to the enemy, and then has to track their mouse on the enemy long enough to look at the hp/uber (which really isnt hard of course but it could take a moment). if your medic is safely able to peek because the enemy is far away, that knowledge is not particularly useful, whereas if your team is close enough to be able to take advantage of that info, then your medic is putting himself at risk getting it.

on top of all that for the most part your team should have a pretty accurate estimate of the enemies health and uber anyways. i think the opportunity to get 25% uber from a melee is arguably just as valuable as having to take a risk to maybe gather info that you might already have.

one of the other problems, however, with it that you overlooked is that a medic can immediately tell which gun the other medic has if he sees him, which could be really op if the enemy team is backing up to bait you into kritz but your medic calls it before they pop.

You do have good points in your argument, the medic absolutely does not have immediate access to the health pools of the enemy players, however, there are many situations where medics could absolutely be positioned in such a way that they are safe/not taking any risks with their positioning, but the health number they are reading out to their teammates are at that moment incredibly useful. Most obvious example is midfights. Medics stay present with their team on mid fights, and it won't be difficult for a half-decent medic to position himself safely with line of sight of his enemies at the same time. Considering how much of an impact a midfight can have on the rest of the round, I'm hard pressed to find a reason why I wouldn't run solemn vow, if at the very least to mids.

Again, it is possible that running out to peek an enemy's health could be considered a risky move, but it could also be a very safe and smart move. It depends on the situation really. However, if Solemn Vow were to get unbanned, the opportunity to get 25% uber from a melee would be considered so situational (as it already is, you could argue), that I have a hard time imagining medics perma-equipping (or switching to and from) the ubersaw for specific situations like those when they could play it safe the entire match and have constant access to the health, uber percentage and medigun of any enemies that crawl in their sights.

I don't see a problem with the Solemn Vow. It will have no impact on any high open+ match and it'll make medic a little less scary to new players trying to get into comp.

medic is the easiest class in the game

the ability to see health is good, the fact that you don't have to melee people to do it is fucking amazing

the ubersaw progressively becomes worse as you climb divs because you run out of shitty players to melee

I couldn't disagree more. Take it as someone who comes from EU, where the ruleset feels like it encourages cheesing the games and and teams do whatever they can to get a safe, boring win, rather than a risky, exciting one. I think teams that want to win will never not run it because of how much of an upgrade it is over ubersaw.

This problem will be even more present at lans/tournaments with big prize pools, where teams will risk less and less in order to secure a win.

As an "upper level" medic I strongly strongly disagree with the SV unban as well.

Below is a copy paste from the initial post whitelist meeting thread. Relevant parts underlined.

Why keep it banned: it allows low open level medics with arms and a PTT the ability to now match a certain skillset that only top medics could achieve, and even then the top medics couldn't consistently achieve it. It adds ZERO in terms of actual mechanical skill compared to the Uber Saw

The current argument for unbanning it: just cause

This is assuming that the tf2 community as a whole is unbanning weapons that are not annoying or overpowered for some end goal with valve, which has been talked about a lot in other discussions.

Before scrimming with the solemn vow I thought the same thing, seeing all of the enemies' health is super overpowered and removes a key aspect of the game: keeping track of ubers and health.

But after scrimming with the solemn vow for a few days now, it does not nearly have the same impact as you are describing. First off, you said that teams can be 100% sure of whether they can take a fight or not and the meta game of teams trying to keep track of enemy health will be discarded almost completely. There are very few times, not including stalemates where it can be assumed that enemies are fully buffed, where the medic calling out an enemies health will be beneficial. If there is fighting going on, the medic's main job, usually, would be healing his teammates for as much as possible, arrowing whenever possible. To do this the medic must be looking at his teammates very frequently through switching heal targets, arrowing, and buffing the people behind, so the medic's only opportunity to see enemies' health is when he is in the middle of healing a teammate moving forward. The medic must also be in a position to see an enemies health, which granted they would be fighting, isn't usually too difficult. So let's say the medic does get an opportunity to see the enemies' health. He would be able to see maybe 3 enemies' health at max. In a fast moving fight, the health is constantly changing and by the time you are able to call out someone is lit, a teammate should have called their damage - or at least some sort of damage call - and a teammate would already be prioritizing their shots on that specific enemy. So, in fast moving fights the solemn vow is very rarely viable except when determining enemy medic's ubercharge, which in higher level play, you should already have an idea of, and in lower level play the medic should be more focused on keeping teammates alive as it is usually very overwhelming to keep track of your teammates health. But lets say that in higher level play you do happen to lose track of ubers and the enemy team has ad. To get a sight line on the enemy med, your team must first clear traps, and then you would be able to peek out to spot their med. This would rarely be able to happen because the enemy team with ad will see you guys moving up and while your team is playing close, they will uber on you and completely fuck your team even if you do somehow spot there med. In very few spots in very few maps would a team with ad not be playing close enough to uber on you if you do get the call, but in those cases, yes, the solemn vow would be useful. So the solemn vow is not effective during most fights and trying to call out uber advantage.

However, the solemn vow is effective when fights are starting to close and there are fewer people you have to keep track of, so you are able to see enemies' health which your team probably does not know as it is the end of the fight and a lot of damage/heals has been traded. Also, seeing if the enemy is running kritz (disregarding quick-fix as that weapon is likely gonna get banned) is super powerful, but very rarely happens as they will likely have used kritz (if they have it, which they should because the enemy should only really run kritz if they would have ad) by the time you are able to see the med because if they were pushing, they would have used around the choke, and if you were pushing would have used while your combing was pushing through the choke. The solemn vow is also effective when getting chased so you could determine how to fight the enemy, but I would say the ubersaw is just as effective, although possibly more effective but higher risk.

Overall, since the med would very rarely be able to effectively help his team call damage during most fights, it is not nearly as overpowered as you are describing it, and, although slightly better than the ubersaw, should remain unbanned as it is not really annoying or overpowered. (It does however, slightly lower the skill cap of med as he no longer has to keep near as much track of enemies health as before)

Pros: meds are encouraged to peek more aggressively, keep the pressure up and a sight line on the other medic
MEd could see a small ad potentially resolving more fights and moving the game forward

Cons: pretty dum mechanic, , can't bluff or hide your lack of building or health
Forces the other medic to run it in almost all situations
Med is even easier to play

people are way too worried about this

it's unbanned in HL (yet nobody uses it because the ubersaw) and spies also have access to health pool info, and it makes very little difference to the game because most of that information is already implicit with > silver level gamesense

Though I don't really mind the solemn vow unban that much your argument doesn't work for 6s

HL is a clusterfuck. More people on the enemy team + messy comms from 9 people make having a med maincaller that can call 1 person's health each time less valuable

Having a spy to call hp doesn't apply to 6s