Stock grenades:
- No falloff; roughly 100 damage whenever you hit a direct
- Can make temporary hotspots for zoning purposes with rollers
- Can use for long range spam at places people are likely to be standing
- Effective against sentries
- Bad for close range combat because of self damage
Stock stickies:
- Special falloff mechanics
- Incredibly powerful as a damage dealing weapon
- Can make traps, incredible zoning potential
- Pissant at close range unless you dedicate all your attention to kiting your enemy into breadcrumbs
Loose canon (status quo; after the charge length shortening)
- Cannot be used for long range spam
- Capable of dealing higher burst damage than grenades, but need to be primed
- Lower donking DPS the closer your target is to you due to charge mechanics
- No necessary self damage at close range combat, but lower damage per hit
- Faster
- Can use rollers but nowhere near as effectively because of damage reduction
- Hueg
The way I see it the loose canon is a more appropriate sidearm to the stock sticky launcher than grenades, but it's significantly more iffy in the ways that it can be used effectively. The ways that it can be better than grenades in all have little tradeoffs attached to them.