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imo.

Weapons that are fine:

FaN (allowed before a massive nerf, banned once it’s been nerfed)
Bonk.
Crit-a-cola (almost useless, highly situational, unless paired with the new scout scattergun, then it’s OP due to the low spread on the weapon).
Fish.
Sandman (It’s been nerfed to death, it’s highly useless and situational at the expense of making a scout a 1 shot for a number of weapons). I bet if you allowed it, hardly anyone would ever use it.
Equaliser (clutch weapon, soldiers could use an escape route).
Gunboots (defines a roaming soldier role from a pocket, good addition).
All pyro unlocks. (saved a lot of writing).
Scottish res (useless).
Targe + eyelander (situational, trade damage output for survivability).
Paintrain (Makes demo’s main counter (scout) more effective against him).
Boxing gloves.
Sandvich.
All medic unlocks. (they are all fine).
All spy unlocks. (situational class, even with any amount of unlocks, it’s not going to become a mainstream class).
All sniper unlocks except for Jarate rifle.

Problematic unlocks:

TDH (Not an issue in the low divs of tf2, apparently a huge problem at the top level. Doesn’t really benefit the low divs either so might be worth a ban just to fix the issue at the top end).

Natasha (Not really suited for 6v6 play. Don’t really think it’s too powerful though. Teams are complaining about playing against a team running 2 natasha heavies. I think CL1 for heavy would be much more effective than banning the unlock. Still, community pressure here, the gun isn’t really suited to a small player number environment).

GRU (Heavy got a huge buff quite recently. Faster movement when firing, and faster spin up times have allready made the heavy a viable class. In Beta, the GRU was an amazing addition for the Heavy, but I think the GRU + the recent buffs have made the combination too powerful.

New scout scattergun (Forgot the name. Drastically changes the role of the scout. Scouts can sit at a mid range (where they are almost invunerable) and consistently hit 30’s and 40’s out. Slowdown effect doesn’t really do anything unless you are chasing a medic retreating back to his base. I think the gun is too powerful at the moment and would need quite a lot of work done to it. It’s mostly the lack of spread imo.)

Buff Banner (More chance of the winning team getting an advantage from it. Valve allready made the winning team have an advantage with faster and nearer respawns. On defence, clutching against an uber AND a buff banner when you have nothing is near impossible. At least if you are only fighting uber, you might pull something off with a bit of luck).

Reverse buff banner (forgot the name of it. I don’t think it is as bad as people make it out to be. It’s extremely quick to charge up which is why I would consider it a bit dodgey to allow. The actual damage reduction isn’t so much. A soldier still has to find the time to actually pop it. Negating Kritzkrieg might be a bit of an issue, but at the same time, it could be hillariously sexy if as a team pushes in with Kritz, a soldier pops it and they literally do nothing).

Milk (Not as bad as people make it out to be. It does take less focus off of the medic if you land a good ‘milking’. Anyone who shoots a milked player gets health right? not just the scout. I’m not sure on that, but if so, it does allow for some clutch situations when a team loses their medic. I think any weapon that allows a team to still play on without having to straight up suicide just to get their medic down, is a good thing. On the other hand, does the scout really need a weapon that potentially buffs it?).

Jarate rifle (Unlock seems a bit too powerful for my liking. You can effectively focus fire any targets you see your soldiers or demoman going for and on a body shot, your soldier will kill that target with pretty much a single hit. At least the bottle of Jarate is dodgeable. This is a hitscan weapon. In practice though, it still requires your team to run a sniper. That generally means you lose an effective DM class which could mean you get rolled on point anyway).

Mini SG (turns engineer into a DM class. Think it’s a bit too powerful though. So easy to catch a player off guard, and you can pretty much spam build the SGs over and over. Slows down the game, but then again, that’s what this class is meant to do in the first place).

Revenge krit gun for NG (Almost useless in 6v6, but still don’t want crits coming into play really now do we?).

Definate nono:

Wrangler (too powerful. If it didn’t have the shield around the gun, it would be nearly fine. But a combination of two engineers can make this gun almost unkillable. Ontop of that, you can focus players who aren’t ubered. You have unlimited range. It ccan completely destroy certain maps making them unplayable as a well positioned wrangler gun can literally be, unkillable).

Complete item sets. (Effects balance significantly. The scout set would become THE standard, as everyone would want the extra HP, people don’t mind having the milk, the fish is the same, and the new scout gun… well, everyone would switch to it).

Probably missed some out in this essay, but in summary, you could probably justify a ban on 1, or all of the problematic unlocks. One or two in the ‘weapons are fine’ could be argued against as well. It’s just my opinion though.

The sandman’s actually really easy to use to some effect on all of badlands, most of granary and probably pretty much any map. Disabling a medic/demo for a couple of seconds during a mid fight or a push isn’t useless at all, and the health loss is manageable.

Was the pyro made for comp play? Engineers? Valve didn’t know what would be the standard competitive play when they released the game. They didn’t know if it would be 2v2, 6v6 or 9v9. We didn’t even know that. The game wasn’t designed for competitive play full stop, it was designed to be a resonably balanced game. Nothing too powerful, nothing too weak. A few class limits in place, a few patches, updates and lots of 6v6 matches later and we have the standard game we play today. It’s an adaptation of what we were given to work with. Why can’t the same be done with anything new that is added? If all of these unlocks were here from the start, the standard setup would be a bit different, but I bet people would still be playing it competitively, and still enjoying it. Most of the unlock drama is people throwing their toys out the pram because they have the power to remove something they don’t like, if they complain about it enough, it will get banned. If players were forced to accept and work with most of the unlocks in this game, a few months down the line, they would just accepted it and begin enjoying the game again.

Saying that the unlocks aren’t designed for competitive play is a bit stupid. The GRU are designed almost solely for competitive play as the competitive community initially complained that the heavy couldn’t arrive on mid points quick enough and so therefore wasn’t used. The equaliser was asked for by the competitive community. Soldiers wanted an escape route. TDH was asked for by the competitive community. Soldiers were begging to be a more powerful class. They wanted faster rockets, they wanted to be rewarded for airshots. <— they are pretty much actual quotes off the original beta forums. Everyone said it would be a good idea. Sure, they didn't end up with _exactly_ what we meant, but they have been slowely working with us. TDH did get nerfed a bit. Our community is too stubborn though. Once someone has gotten in their head, the idea that something is too powerful, or too gay, that is it. People soon jump on the bandwagon and continue shouting about it, EVEN after changes are made, the initial impression is the only one that counts for them.

One girl screams, the rest start screaming.

Quoted from AcidReniX

imo.

New scout scattergun (Forgot the name. Drastically changes the role of the scout. Scouts can sit at a mid range (where they are almost invunerable) and consistently hit 30’s and 40’s out. Slowdown effect doesn’t really do anything unless you are chasing a medic retreating back to his base. I think the gun is too powerful at the moment and would need quite a lot of work done to it. It’s mostly the lack of spread imo.)

Jarate rifle (Unlock seems a bit too powerful for my liking. You can effectively focus fire any targets you see your soldiers or demoman going for and on a body shot, your soldier will kill that target with pretty much a single hit. At least the bottle of Jarate is dodgeable. This is a hitscan weapon. In practice though, it still requires your team to run a sniper. That generally means you lose an effective DM class which could mean you get rolled on point anyway).

Wrangler (too powerful. If it didn’t have the shield around the gun, it would be nearly fine. But a combination of two engineers can make this gun almost unkillable. Ontop of that, you can focus players who aren’t ubered. You have unlimited range. It ccan completely destroy certain maps making them unplayable as a well positioned wrangler gun can literally be, unkillable).

Complete item sets. (Effects balance significantly. The scout set would become THE standard, as everyone would want the extra HP, people don’t mind having the milk, the fish is the same, and the new scout gun… well, everyone would switch to it).

I agree with most of what you wrote, my opinion differs on the above a little

New Scatter gun – I’ve been using it a lot since the update, slightly better damage output at mid range, but at close range loses to scatter every time, it’s probably balanced (but then again so is the FaN), but it needs a lot more play time

Jarate rifle – I think it is fine, it takes ~ 2 seconds of charge before jarate effect happens, under 2 seconds charge it is a 50 damage shot. Lack of ability to snap head-shot, and with a maximum 1 shot damage output of 150 you are really relying on team work. The Jarate rifle, could be useful if you want to take down a specific target at mid/last or situational on certain maps, but probably not more so than a regular sniper.

The Wrangler and/or mini SG – Engineer limit 1 fixes this imo, the unlimited range or shield is not a problem, as when the engy dies the gun is useless for 3 seconds and easy to kill or ignore, if you can get past it (engy dead place stickies at guns feet (3 will do) wait for shield to disappear and detonate) or if you used a spy to backstabbed engy get him to sap gun.

The mini SG may surprise opponents once, after that is massively inferior to having a 2nd scout or soldier, it is fine.

Complete item sets, and the bonus I’m against them based on the fact you need the Hat, and unless valve make hats easy to craft (they have said all hats in PC pack will have a blue print) which I doubt as £11.99 for a hat doesn’t line up with an easy craft.

However apart from the scout and maybe the spy sets, none of the others are a problem
Sniper can’t get HS, but must run bushwaka + shield + jarate rifle
that is not in any way the best combo for a sniper, so the fact another sniper can’t hs him would not effect the game alot (personally i’d run sniper rifle/jarate rifle + jarate + Bushwaka or sniper rifle/jarate rifle + new shield + tribalmans shiv)

pyros pack is the same (his bonus is 10% faster speed but 10% increased bullet damage) but new flamthrower + axtinguiser is the best combo, not new mele weapon.

soldier new RL + reverse BB- for SG resistance (again is it worth it)

Scouts + 25 HP, and spys reduced unclock volume are probably enough positives to make the packs worth having.

But unless valve made them a lot easier to get the hats they can not be allowed, although i’d imagine the Hat requirement is there to stop the weapons themselves being banned from leagues, because of the bonus you’d get from using all 3

Quoted from Mitt Romney

Please stop arguing about the weapons, actually play them.
Nobody here can say for sure how unlocks “break” the game, actually go out and play them in comp matches (hello ladder, challenge FB Green!).
Only then can you say how unlocks are useless: experience > thoughts.
PLAY!

Current ladder is not suitable for the purpose of testing weapons, 1 or 2 clans that play with the unlocks will be removed by the rest that don’t, change the ladder to an allow all then see how the testing goes, just do it, till end of season 8 change the ladder to allow all weapons, then at least some testing will be done (1 night cups provide a too limited testing field imo)

p.s. learn the difference between arguing and discussing :)

Quoted from xzr

Can the shit players (tickus) please leave this thread?
Pretty please?

hate much?

Quoted from Tikcus

[…]

hate much?

bad players who are desperate to bring out their useless opinions make me rage