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I would say that having played every main class in the game extensively, I found demoman to be the one which scales best with overall skill level and understanding of the game. It takes a lot longer to get to a level where you can play demo proficiently than it does to play for instance, scout, sniper or soldier.

Each class has intricacies that you have to learn but the demo has the most. Success on a demo relies far more on gamesense than the other classes, that being spatial and situational awareness skills and a complex understanding of how to predict what your team and the opponents team are doing.

Using pipes and stickies to kill in open areas while dueling can often be a lot tougher to manage than other classes weapons, while equally it can be a lot easier. Its all situational, hence the point above about situational awareness.

The issue that most seem to fail to address is how the use of one or two demomen impacts on the overall gameplay and the team, not whether or not the demo is overpowered on his own. My personal standpoint on this matter is in favour of DL1, for a few reasons:

Watching matches and playing matches using DL2 is less enjoyable. Use of 2 demomen tends to slow down the pace of gameplay, makes it less interesting to view and more frustrating to play, with a net effect of most people having less fun. This is something to consider for the future of TF2 outside of matches too.

Think about the prospect of the CGS taking on TF2 as the team based FPS in the future. Clearly, their target is to gain higher viewer ratings, and so they will naturally be concerned with how enjoyable viewing the matches are in the 6v6 format. They will likely come to the same conclusion, that DL1 makes for more open and constant gameplay, so if we decide to employ DL2 just now then CGS picks up the game, teams are going to have to adapt to DL1 format if they want to compete in drafts for the chance of getting into a franchise.

The Demoman on his own is not overpowered in my opinion, but 2 Demo’s as part of a well organised team are. I mean, you can argue that playing 2 demo’s makes you more exposed to scouts ripping it up, but really in a well organised team it’s been shown that it doesnt. The Demo is only at considerable risk if he splits off from the rest of the team to an extent that he can be forced into a 1v1/1v2/1v3 duel with scouts/sollys etc with nobody on his team to back him up. Otherwise, he has the PERFECT defensive weapon in stickies for denying scouts access to him and can easily retreat to medic or cover from the rest of the team.

Demo’s are weak in 1v1 duel scenarios against scouts, but it’s so easily countered by having other players in the team back him up, including the other demo. Stickies vs an opponent that is pre-occupied and distracted fighting someone else are pure filth in terms of how effective they are, even against scouts.

Taking wotr as an example, they’ve shown the strength of two demo’s time and again recently with good teamwork. Granted, their team is composed of players with exceptional skill which obviously helps a lot, but following the simple format of having both scouts guard one or both demo’s they can quickly lock down a control point, particularly central points before the slower classes like medic, soldier, heavy of the other team can get there to back them up. Add that the potential damage output of 2 demo’s targeting a single player on the other team is rediculously high, and the prospect of pipe spam into areas over objects (such as granary mid crates or badlands trains as examples) which other classes simply can’t do makes for a setup that is rediculously hard to counter on offense.

On defence DL2 has even greater favourability, able to lock down doors and chokepoints with 16 stickies between them. This naturally forces the attacking team to either uber before crossing the sticky traps (at the expense of valuable uber time) or use a class that can harass or kill one of the demo’s to remove the trap, which is basically limited to scout, sniper or spy.

The former can have an exceptionally difficult time finding a weakness in the defence of a well structured team through which he can move and harass without getting owned, and the latter two classes are comparitively weak allrounders and relatively easy to counter. Using either sniper or spy to an extent reduces the attack on a point to 5v5, because neither are any good on a push for control of an area besides getting an initial pick. Add to this that in many scenarios the sniper and spy have extremely limited ability to contribute to the team effort and we have a position where playing 2 demo’s has forced the opposing team to change their setup to one which leaves them almost 1 player down in parts of the map compared to the 2 demo setup which is useful everywhere.

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Its worth considering the time element aswell. With DL2 on badlands the demo’s can get to mid point much quicker than soldiers, indeed if they sticky jump right they will reach the doorway from house onto mid about 2 seconds after the scouts, giving them an extra early presence on the point and time to spam off a few pipes or stickies before any other class even reaches middle.

I think that the only acceptable nerf for the demo is to prolong the time from then you launch the stickys until you can detonate them, as now it is to easy to detonate them beside your enemy in the air.
And no, its not easy to defend yourself 1on1, and it shouldnt be, thats what other classes should do.

As a scout i agree with byte, one sticky shouldnt kill me but for the limit of 1 it sucks. The reason is there are Teams with 2 good demos and their only way to actually compete is to play with them instead of forcing one of the Demos to go play soldier.

EDIT..

perhaps some people should have their scouts going for either one of the enemy demo’s instead of having them sit in their canyon, that’s what most teams seem to do =)