I accidentally the unlocks (and wrote too much).

[LRVG]

So, it's a few days into update, and I'm wondering what your impressions of the new weapons are. General impressions so far:

Demo:
Targe - You will almost never hit anyone with the charge, but it is *very* useful for running away, or speeding past a bottleneck (think final stage dustbowl, first cap). The damage resistances also makes demos almost unkillable if you are using rockets, stickies, pipe bombs, or a flamethrower, which is pretty cheap, especially when there is a medic involved. I have had an overhealed eyelander demo stride over a patch of 14 stickies (probably eating at least 8 directly), fly forwards across half the map at the speed of sound, and come out with half health. On plus side, targe demos can't spam stickies, but the targe is probably worse news for most offensive classes. Maybe a better choice than stickies depending on class spread of other team, but also kind of gay.

Eyelander - The demo starts out with 150 health, but each kill they get (the little counter in the corner makes me chuckle) adds more health and speed. I think it caps out after four kills or so at a little over 200 health. (although kills still heal you for about 40 hp). The main benefit is the movement speed increase, which is noticeably faster than a medic's, and applies no matter what weapon you have out. This is really nice with medics, because your demo will be healed to somewhere above 300, and will be moving noticeably faster than most everything. If you can get a few kills, it becomes a very very large upgrade to bottle.

Scottish Resistance - Super sexy, endless possibilities. You can lock down *anything*. Detonating bombs is a little weird, and kind of difficult, since it depends on flicking your screen in the right direction really fast, and is hard to get the hang of. Once you do though, you can lock down entire rooms or hallways. Use some bombs as decoys, have two layers of traps, guide people into other traps, deter people, play cruel mind games, etc. My favorite one is to find some high ground, find a chokepoint, and literally just throw every single bomb on the ground, in plain sight. Excellent deterrent, easy to maintain, and mostly uber proof if spaced correctly. The .4 seconds to arming makes airblowing kills with stickies harder, although laying three or four down under someone's feet, or on a wall behind them, and then just blowing them all at once has basically the same effect, so general fighting in contested areas isn't really very affected, although you shouldn't be killing sentries with this. If you are a defensive demo like me, who shuns the normal person's demo and enjoys sitting in corners, fidgeting during long periods of complete boredom, and being kind of a dick, use this!

Soldier:
Direct Hit - Appeals more to pub players, in my opinion. Makes aiming much easier and has that satisfying oomph on single targets. Jumping people are counted as in the air, and mini crit/fly off in hilarious directions really fast when hit. The lack of splash really hurts, though. Forget about ever hitting more than one person at once, unless they are basically inside of eachother. You can't hit groups or bounce damage off of walls or around corners, and you really can't launch people who aren't jumping. People moving at a diagonal need to be close, otherwise you usually can't hit them. This thing eats heavies for lunch, but you can't hit scouts on the ground, unless they are running at you in a straight line. It is very good for 1v1 fights with other offensive classes, but I probably wouldn't take it during a comp match.

Banner - Takes shotgun's place. No more combos with juggling/shotgun, or finishing wounded people, no more secondary weapon. If you are in a large group, it is much better than a kritz. In groups, it can be very powerful. If not in a group, the mini crits to yourself are marginally useful, and probably not as useful as a shotgun.

Equalizer - Since you usually don't have the shovel out at full health, this is pretty nice. Weaker than shovel at full health, but below 25 you move almost as fast as a scout, and one hit most everything. Very good for coming back 1v1, and really lets you go out with a bang in groups if you can get two or three people before a stray bullet connects with you. Very good for running away like a little girl or running back for health, too. Also, when you have it out, medics can not heal or uber you, which is usually kind of frustrating for the medics.

Gunboats - This takes your secondary. That means no banner or shotgun, and in return you have an extra 30 or so hp after your jump. I guess they could be good for people who really, really like to rocket jump.

What are your impressions of the new weps so far? Also, which of these new, fun filled weapons would *you* like to see nerfed/buffed/obliterated/commemorated first?

TL;DR - New weapons, discuss.

[Nolan7689]

Well, my impressions so far are that Valve managed to make the demo even more overpowered. A demo with the Targe and Eyelander and a few heads under his belts is stupidly hard to kill. I've seen 6 or 7 people all trying to kill a demo at once, and the demo surviving for what seems to be far to long. I've mostly been playing Soldier though, so that probably doesn't help against the Targe. I've hit them with multiple rockets point blank...

I'm undecided on the Direct Hit, I finally got it today (since Valve fixed the unlocks) and playing on the EVGA doublecross server (32 player max) I managed to consistently keep my Kill Death ratio 1:1. I had trouble rocket jumping, and I barely managed to ever charge my Buff Banner without all the additional splash damage. I like it, but I think it'll be like the Backburner, something I switch to when I feel like changing things up.

The Equalizer is quite nice. Went on an empty server with a buddy, below 25hp I did 159 damage on a heavy. The crit rate seems to be extremely high as well. I think I've gotten more criticals with it than the Wrench or Ubersaw. The boost to speed is useful for getting places quickly as well. Tele's down, go a little emo then race a scout to the frontlines (where hopefully a medic/dispenser/medkit awaits you).

The buff banner is nice, the radius is large enough to cover a control point. The mini-crits are great if there are some heavies or sentries around. I think it also helps medics charge ubers faster, or so I've heard. You can also rack up the Assists with this.

Don't have the Gunboats or Targe yet, and haven't really played the demo since.....idk months ago.

Sidenote, the taunt achievement for Soldier is glitched, if you do damage to a soldier taunting and he blows up the kill counts as yours and counts as a grenade kill. Rumor has it that if overhealed, the taunting soldier can survive the explosion.

Oddly, I've barely seen anyone using the Scottish Resistance. Maybe one or two players.

Targe/Eyelander need to be nerfed, Soldier update seems to be about right. A little large radius for DH splash would be nice but really doubtful. Knowing Valve.....I expect the demo to be buffed the Equalizer to get nerfed.


I do think this is the best update so far.

[Outboard]

Rage (I play lots of heavy and medic so woo). direct hit can almost kill a heavy before his gun starts shooting, so thats cool. But i do enjoy demo's thinking they are invincible with their shields and charging me while I play heavy.

[Jagerbomb]

Targe: I never got mine , No comment
Sword: Success
Resistance: Success

Direct Hit: Success
Equalizer: MAJOR success
Banner: Will NEVER use, but I love when a teammate has one
Gunboats: Epic FAIL

[Ninjaaaa]

Targe- Most annoying weapon since the Backburner, if you play soldier, demo, or pyro (soldier, demo, and pyro being my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th most played classes.) Valve gives me a nice flare gun buff that makes me want to use it, then they buff the demo's resistance to fire so now I have to switch to shotgun to counter several targe demomen. Same with Soldier, I like the banner/boots but don't use them out of fear of targe demo's bumrushing me.

Eyelander- Fine, if it wasn't for the targe =(

Scottish Resistance- NIce unlock. Not really seen much use (Aside from camping a multi-entrance tunnel, where it's pretty useful) but I'm sure for patient demomen it's good.

Direct Hit- Initally loved, started to hate. I'm not sure whether I'm going to use it regularly or not. I like instant killing pyros, non-targe demo's, medics, and all the 125hp classes, but I hate being medic'd with it, as I feel like I'm useless because I can't kill two people rushing me (whereas with the original I could fire between them, weakening them enough so they retreat or I can finish them off) Overall I'd say remove the mini-crit bonus on airshots (Since it's MUCH easier to airshot with it anyways, and it counts jumping as "airshots") and make it reload a tad faster, or hold one more shot, but it's decent enough as is.

Buff Banner- I love it, though I don't use it. Having one on your team can help a lot in some situations, as a mini-critzing uber'd demo, pyro, heavy, or soldier can still kill many more people than one not minicrit'sd. Overall I like it, neat idea that seems to work out pretty well.

Gunboats- I LOVE these things. A lot of people hate them, but when solo-soldiering, they are invaluable. Being able to rocket jump with 45 health left, while on fire, to a health pack is something that many people overlook. It makes retreating to health packs WAY more useful. It's not for soldier's who don't want to risk dieing, but for those of you like me, who like to take the chance of rocket jumping to a health pack and not losing my forward position, it's wonderful. Some maps it's not as useful, though.

Equalizer- Kinda overpowered, really. Seeing soldier's running around with 10 health one shotting everything that isn't a soldier is a bit much. It's become pretty reasonable in pubs especially to hurt yourself to around 10 health after sneaking behind the enemy, then doing a spy-like stab streak, only not worrying about them turning around, and being MUCH faster. Maybe nerf the damage a bit, but overall a cool unlock.

If they'd fix the Targe, I'd be happy.

[Fox Mulder]

I think they need to change the targe and sword combo. It really defeats the purpose of the DEMOLITIONS man in my opinion.

I want the Scottish resistance. I could care less about the other unlocks. Gunboats sound good, but they should have gone to the Demoman.

I like the equalizer, but I don't like how you can't be healed using it.

I'm still waiting for the engie weapons

[Owls]

Demo sword is gay

Everything else is fine. And by fine I mean, 100% of Soldiers use Equalizer and 100% of Soldiers DON'T use gunboats (secret: it's cuz they suck)

As far as the Scottish Resistance goes, I almost never see anybody use it.

Tl;Dr: DEMO SWORD IS REALLY GAY

[CAKEOSAURUS]

Demo got totally ass raped by the update.

Eyelander= Moderately effective melee switch in that there is some potential to gain back some health if you do get into a close combat down and dirty situation. HOWEVER the initial health cost (150 as opposed to 175) pretty much nullifies this since you can't get in close and honestly how often do you bother trying to go for melee kills in a REAL game? That is unless you use....

Chargin Targe=USELESS! The only reason you would use this weapon is when you just want to run around and try to chop off heads with a big fuck long sword. While I do admit that this can be amusing at times, the loss of your sticky bomb launcher is just retarded. Using the Targe and Eyelander together (and they are both useless unless you use them together) completely defeats the purpose of the demo and more importantly Targe/Eyelander demos DO NOT BENEFIT THE TEAM! Also, if you are playing against anyone with any skill you most likely won't be able to touch them because you are running around with a fucking sword while they are shooting you in the face.

Scottish Resistance=TEN POUND PIECE OF SHIT! Well I don't know it's real weight but whatever, it is just a big hunk of scrap metal. (IDEA! Smelt em all down into scrap metal then make something useful out of it!) While being able to lay 139586139587 stickies sounds like a nice idea, it isn't. You can hold points just as easily with the regular sticky launcher while still being able to play offensively. The cool down time is retarded and makes this gun one that would be used only by noob ass campers who miss their detonations when you run around the corner and blast them in the face anyways. THE ONLY time that this weapon comes in handy is when you are on offense and there are like 50 demos sticking spamming a cap point, cause one SR sticky will most likely destroy them all, allowing your team to push in. But be aware, you need a good team with you for this strategy to be effective.

ANNNNND THE SOLLY GETS...

the gun boats=take em or leave em.

THE DIRECT HIT=OP!

THE BUFF BANNER=OP!

THE EUQUALIZER=OP!

[Fox Mulder]

The Targe and sword are stupid ideas. The sword would be cool on its own with out the shield. I think that they should've given the demo a new pipe launcher.