this is why it's impossible to talk about this rationally, you're acting like I'm in denial that it's a straight upgrade- I literally made a post explaining why I don't believe in banning weapons just for being an upgrade!

wait, so the issue now is lack of intent? like the problem isn't whether ot not the weapon is broken, the problem is whether there's a 'reason' for it to be better? what does that even mean? what if I say "they nerfed demo massively and buffed medic and scout, which unbalanced 6s, so any help the demo class can get is worthwhile"? is that enough of a reason, or does it have to have the valve-intended seal of approval?

again, suspecting there was a hidden stat is not the same as the weapon being OP. OP is short for 'overpowered', and it refers to things that are gamebreaking, uncounterable, unbalanced, etc. just saying the iron bomber is better than stock pipes has nothing to do with any of these things.

ok, same with the demo nerf and the med speed buff, let's revert both. matter of fact, I always hear the 'ban crossbow' crowd say 'just because everyone is used to it, doesn't mean we should accept it'. I guess that means they must be correct!

or maybe we could have a valid discussion about whether or not it's stupid that the weapon does that.

I don't know when I entered this bizarro world where we went from "iron bomber pipes are slightly easier to hit" to "bro they're literally hitscan, you can't miss, the class is so dumbed down lol"

if they were as dumbed down as you're saying then anyone would be able to just 2 pipe their way into invite, with scouts being totally helpless against a demo. need I remind you that the scout class has a double jump, and that the iron bomber is still a projectile??

it feels like scout mains remember some time where the pipe didn't look like it was gonna hit them and still did (which can also be caused by latency, or be a pipe that was going to hit them whether stock or iron bomber but hit 'earlier' because of the hitbox), and silently stewed until people found an actual gameplay bug that explains the issue. I'm sorry, the fact that literally no one was clamoring for this until the bug was found shows that the weapon was not considered overpowered. if you go with the zesty argument and say you don't like buggy or unpolished things in the game, then sure. but don't try to tell me that the thing that makes a weapon go from balanced to OP in peoples' minds is not a player who's sick at exploiting it, not months of anecdotal evidence, but literally reading a forum thread.

also I was talking about when EU had 2 shotgun soldiers for like 4 years longer than anyone else, but if you want to go back to that meta by all means please do

if euros had to play against b4nny slemnish and arekk every day, they would be clutching their iron bomber tighter than ever

https://i0.wp.com/post.healthline.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Crooked-bottom-teeth-1296x728-gallery_slide1.jpg?w=1155

p.s. would also settle for banning all scout mains from commenting on game balance forever

here's the situation amigos

there are four main lines of argumentation that people use to argue that unlocks should be banned, in order from least to most restrictive:

1. the weapon is overpowered/gamebreaking- pretty much everyone agrees on this one

2. the weapon makes the game significantly less fun- this one is much more hotly contested but it's understandable why people would want to keep the game fast-paced and skill-expressive

3. the weapon is a straight upgrade- this reasoning is stupid, because a) we have accepted so many upgrades over stock weapons already, and b) it says nothing about the weapon's actual effect on the game. some people even try to change this to a related point, that 'everyone uses' the weapon, so it 'reduces diversity of options'- ok what about sticky bombs, or the rocket launcher, or medigun? in terms of unlocks, what about gunboats, basher, xbow, etc.? such a stupid argument

4. the weapon doesn't 'add anything to the game'- this is the final nail in the coffin, because it leads to sidegrades or even downgrades being banned BECAUSE people don't use them (like the sun on a stick or some bullshit). this and argument #3 were what lead EU to have their stoneage vanilla + med unlocks whitelist for so long despite it making their tf2 a total joke compared to NA.

beforehand, reasons #3 and 4 were confined mostly to dribblers on the ETF2L forums. now, we all must be exposed to this nonsense. I tested my theory with a post saying 'ban euros from tftv', which is currently sitting at -15 frags. because no self-respecting na tf2 player would ever -frag such a post, we can conclude that there are significantly more euros interacting with this thread than yanks. does this mean tftv itself is majority euro, or merely that euros are drawn to threads whinging about unlocks like moths to a flame? either way, I don't like it. we must band together and repel their invading hordes, and maintain the sanctity of our game!

how about instead we ban euros from tftv

https://twitter.com/WorldWideWob/status/1303838387837833223

what a game

kyle lowry with the heart of a champion

oh yeah what ever happened to that dr1p guy

I'm looking to play demo in invite this upcoming season

not really super confident in my soldier anymore, and I'm currently banned from mainclassing div 1, so I suppose invite only

would consider HELPING to build a team but I don't wanna do it all myself because it's so stressful

not necessarily expecting to get a ton of good offers bc there are a lot of good demos out there and I can't bring myself to tryhard when I'm not on a team so it prolly would be weird to pick up a guy who hasn't been playing pugs and stuff, but I'm confident in my ability to get back to a good level if given tryout offers (I think I did so last offseason, within a couple weeks I was matching up decently into mid invite demos)

wait is that phife??

lemme get in for a cast or two this season m8s :)

let's hope he's more like steve kerr than like jason kidd