Wow, you mean heavy is relevant in 6's? Finally! Thank GabeN! Looking forward to seeing 5, maybe even 6 classes in the future in 6's!

Neon Annihilator should work on jarate'd/milked opponents

Metagames evolve in extremely odd and unpredictable ways. Stuff like Duc's Spiral team being such a dominant force in the MVC2 world for a long time, but becoming gradually weaker in favor of Storm/Sentinel teams as the games life goes on are completely unpredictable. To think that during the first few years, Iceman was the best character in the game, and now he's not used at all in the high levels of play. You can't account for what will happen, you can only prepare yourself. So start practicing some vaccinator strategies, cause change will come and you will need to prepare for it.

Rental weapons will probably be a thing in this system, don't assume Valve won't help noobs get into the system by doing things like this. Don't think of Valve's problems, that's Valve's problems. Think of these things as players. Valve will figure out how to make it work.

And the retarded meta-strategy is actually pretty interesting, you would have to prioritize the Wrangler and have to ban it before banning the Pistol and Short-circuit (why are you banning the short-circuit again? seems like a waste). So you have to get one in before they get two in. That doesn't seem unreasonable, and this also is one of the first cases I've heard in this system where banning order really matters, which is pretty cool.

And read the first post. You're posting solutions. Valve does the solutions. We need to tell Valve what the problem is. Your post about Backburner is 90% solution. Please focus.

I'm pretty sure if this gets off the ground they'll use a similar matchmaking system to every other Free-to-play competitive game out there, some sort of ELO/disconnect aggregate rating that pits you against other people of similar skill and similar consideration for other competitors.

Could we please leave opinions like this out of our discussions, cause it's obvious that nobody has done the experimentation over a long period of time necessary to prove that in the long run banning such things is unhealthy for the metagame. Please refrain from such obscene speculation.

You're forgetting (or not understanding) that these bans apply to both teams. If one team bans 3 medic unlockables, then neither team can use them

I also think it should be illegal to ban the last item in a slot. If Quick-fix, medigun, and kritzkrieg are banned, then each medic is forced to run vaccinator. At this point, the vaccinator cannot be banned by either team.

Back to the topic:
Cozy Camper doesn't do enough. It's just barely not worse than having nothing in the secondary slot at all, and way worse than having jarate in the second slot.

Enforcer needs to not have a weapon speed nerf. The weapon speed nerf doesn't do anything to most competitive spies, so the weapon acts as a plain old buff most duels.

Pomson's primary problem is that the crappy little particle effect isn't enough to indicate that the most important resource is being drained from you, there should be some gigantic sound/visual effect when it causes a medic to lose uber. (sorry for the solution)

The backburner specializes the pyro too much still, and yet still not enough. I feel like the backburner gives the pyro a better roaming option slightly, but it doesn't feel like it's so much better for flanking than degreaser/axtinguisher that it would ever really be an upgrade when you're losing so much versatility by using it.

The persian persuader doesn't give you a predictable amount of health from fallen weapons/ammo crates. It used to be too much, now it's too little, and it's always an odd number of health that you gain. Also, you should be able to get ammo from dispensers and the cart, or at least get more health from those things, when you have the persian persuader equipped.

Shield's charge should be able to cancel on m2, because otherwise you have to pull out the melee to cancel the charge

The vaccinator isn't strong enough, only really helps the people you're healing. The medigun can spread around overheal to help the whole team, vaccinator does worse in that situation. On top of that, Vaccinator only is better if the person you are healing is currently taking damage. In all other cases, it's worse.

Quick-Fix has the same problem. If everybody is at full health you are not doing anything but building uber, and the benefit for it is never as good as the medigun's benefit. Mobility helps the medic only in certain edge cases, unless you specifically train for this weapon with your team.

edit: I would love to see a medigun that heals multiple people. Make it happen Valve!

Fucking with the only non-spatial advantage system in the game. geez, these posts write themselves!

In PUBs, the game is constantly changing because people join and leave and then the other team gets a great spy and you have to go pyro to keep your team safe. There's so many things going on at one time, it can get insane. When the phlog first came out, I remember several really good flank pyros trying it out on our server and it took a lot to figure out what to do to counter it. The landscape of a PUB is far more dynamic than Highlander. Especially when you get 3 snipers on your team. In my opinion, the TF2 HL meta is stagnating because all of the new weapons that COULD have an impact on competitive play get BANNED because they WOULD have an impact on competitive play, see vitasaw, phlog, pomson.

The only reason DOTA 2 keeps coming up in these discussions is because it clearly has a model that causes the competitive scene to mix with the public scene, which means bigger tournaments. It's not the MOBA aspect, it's the fact that PUBs are in the same format as the competitive players, and it works well for all. Also, there's no "behind the curtain" decisions made for the competitive community to completely exclude certain strategies/items/heroes.

But these bans are neutral. If a weapon would be used if you didn't ban it, and it would be just as good for either team, then banning it helps or hurts both teams the same amount, so it's an irrelevant/wasted ban for that team. Teams should ban weapons that the opposing team would make better use of, not weapons that helps both teams the same amount.

why is everybody so tied down to having 6 players on a team? 9 players on a team with each player locked into a single unique class seems optimal, especially to start for pubs to get used to competition.

and yes, Dota 2 is a different game. And yes, right now unlocks aren't balanced right. The unlock issue will be fixed with this system, as it grows and develops. and just because DOTA2 is a different game doesn't mean TF2 can't be as good or dynamic.

I still didn't see a reason to ban it here. Better than default is not a reason.

This is a slippery slope. Banning for a glitch, okay. But don't ban the Phlog or Pomson automatically for the same reason

This is all I had in my head the whole time I was reading these threads. All the people in these threads are talking about TF2 like it's stagnant and still the same game that was released in 200X. This is the 20XX's people, the game is changing.

The reason that Kritz, Axtinguisher, Degreaser, etc. are (perceived as) so essential for their classes is because Valve is still learning Highlander. This is their way of learning Highlander better. Once they get a better handle on what is actually going on there, we can have weapons that aren't constantly banned because they might be better than the default or might change people's strategies. We will also see people using weapons that were naysayed before.

Also, I hate all you people that come up with these banlists. "The pomson is really good and everybody would run it". Then allow it and see what happens. Let people come up with "anti-pomson" strategies. Your games is becoming stale because of you aren't willing to let it change. It's going to change now. Get ready.

I'm just hoping I'll be able to ban the stickybomb launcher, as it's the only REALLY OP item in TF2.