visageThere is absolutely no negative downsides to one of the strongest mechanics in the game. You can obviously still take fights with player out of position on low health and win, and in the most cases you will. But every player has experienced losing a fight they should have won because of the crossbow.
I suppose it's a matter of perspective but when I see a roamer take a crossbow mid fight from a medic across the map to then win a 1v1 with 4hp remaining I see a gameplay flaw, not a fair show of skill that has been rewarded because the medic hit a nice shot, especially because of how spammable and non valuable medic arrows are.
MarxistLet me take you back to a time when you could peek badlands choke, and if you hit 2 solid rockets on the other team's pocket or demo (who would be spamming like a dummy from that choke) you could push regardless of the situation because you knew it was going to be at least 10 seconds before that guy could ever do anything productive without risking his life. Now he just stops moving and takes an arrow and all is well. The same occurs frequently with heavies on lasts. The old scenario far more interesting than the current situation where teams never to very rarely push off of somebody just getting hurt badly..
Why not nerf the crossbow by either getting rid of its Uber build rate, or actually making it take a percent or so of Uber when you use it on a player that doesn't have crit heals? I know stuff that messes with Uber charge rate is generally frowned upon, but this trade off makes sense to me. You shouldn't be able to bypass the crit heal mechanic for free.
This would make badly injuring a player during stalemates more meaningful again and make crossbows less spammable, while still keeping the power of the weapon intact.