THE RUBICON

Welcome to my Team Fortress 2 balance ideas

These are some ideas i have for balancing some of the game's many weapons, after ~6,000 hours of playtime since 2011. Note: listed are only the changes i propose, anything not included is unchanged. Also, i'm not including "No random crits" stats because ideally there wouldn't even be random critical hits or random bullet spread in the game at all in the first place.


My criteria for balancing are as follows:

  1. No weapon should be a direct upgrade to another in all situations
  2. All weapons should have the potential to be fun and viable, at least in niche situations
  3. Classes should have subclasses based on the weapons they choose to further specialize and tailor their gameplay, but avoid infringing too much on another classes' role
The Buff Banner
  • +25% primary clip size

This weapon should now be more in line with the other banners, that also have passive effects.

The Mantreads
  • +10% faster move speed on wearer

This weapon should now stand on its own as a viable mobility tool instead of being a trolldier exclusive.

The Flamethrower
  • Pyro can now press both RMB and LMB to airblast himself in the opposite direction he's aiming for 50 ammo
  • Double the normal airblast repressurization rate after self-airblast

Should make Pyro less one-dimensional and provide the class a higher skill ceiling and more opportunities for flanking.This applies to all flamethrowers, except the Phlogistinator

The Dragon's Fury
  • -50% repressurization rate on Alt-Fire only applies on misses

This makes the Alt-Fire more in line with the high risk, high reward ethos of the weapon, and makes the wielder less vulnerable against projectile spam

The Quickiebomb Launcher
  • Damage penalty also applies to you

I'm fairly certain that this weapon's damage penalty not applying to the wielder is a bug, because it's mighty stupid

The Scottish Handshake
  • Deals crits while the wielder is sticky jumping
  • 20% slower firing speed

There's no reason Demoman shouldn't have an equivalent to the Market Gardener

The Gunboats
  • -60% blast damage from sticky jumps

It has been more than a decade and a half since the WAR! update, Demoman should also have these by now

The Mantreads
  • -75% reduction in push force taken from damage
  • Deals 3x falling damage to the player you land on
  • -75% reduction in airblast vulnerability
  • 200% increased air control when blast jumping
  • +10% faster move speed on wearer

Same reasoning as The Gunboats, and also the same move speed buff the Soldier received

The Loch-n-Load
  • Mini-crits targets launched airborne by explosions, grapple hooks or rocket packs
  • This weapon has damage ramp-up

Demoman will now be able to one-shot light classes at very close range, and pop airborne ones like a balloon, just like the Direct Hit!

The Ullapool Caber
  • Increased explosion base damage from 75 to 100.

This is a partial revert of the Gun Mettle update nerf, which was very unnecessarily harsh and made the weapon useless

The Wrangler
  • The wielder no longer takes damage from his own sentries
  • The damage and repair-reducing shield is removed

This weapon offers a high reward in the form of an absurdly tanky sentry with a higher DPS for basically no risk. These changes should make it more fair to play against and more fun to play with in niche situations.

Sniper Rifle
  • 200 millisecond minimum time for a headshot after scoping removed
  • 10 ammo
  • Deals less damage at close ranges, up to being unable to one shot light classes
  • 2 seconds reload time
  • Fires tracer rounds

Sniper is no longer able to instakill targets regardless of range, and will be more reliant on his secondaries in close quarters combat. He should also have a harder time shutting down an entire sightline for extended periods of time. These changes apply to all sniper rifles

The Huntsman
  • Weapon reloads while holstered
  • Ammo carried is now 20

The wielder can now be aggressive without having to constantly look for ammo

The Razorback
  • -100% maximum overheal on wearer removed
  • Breaks after taking 50 points of damage
  • -50% damage from behind while shield is up
  • No longer blocks backstabs
  • Headshots and fully charged body-shots taken are always lethal

This weapon will no longer be able to disable another class' ability, but will still retain its shield and rearguard identity

Knife
  • Silent Killer: No scream noise from backstabs and hidden from killfeed

This applies to all other knives and should make spy more stealthy, like he should always have been

Your Eternal Reward
  • Really Silent Killer: Absolutely no noise from backstabs
  • Dead is dead: Mute victim's communications while they're dead
  • Backstabs continue the vitim's last action, such as sniper scoping, minigun revving or even the medigun beam, without actually healing
  • Can only disguise in spawn

This should make this weapon's high risk and high reward be accentuated

The Ambassador
  • Critical damage is no longer affected by range

This is a revert to pre-Jungle Inferno nerfs, which should never have happened in the first place

Disguise Kit
  • [Bindable key] switches the wilders' speed between his disguise and the Spy's default
  • Press your reload key to trigger a fake reload, regardless of the current weapon and its ammo
  • Pressing the last disguise key switches the disguise's held weapon to the wilder's and pressing it again triggers any special animations, such as sniper scoping

This should make spy's disguises more useful for fooling others