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getting instagibbed as med with 150 hp is no fun : ( hold me

All seems fine to me… Mostly.

The axe alone makes me want to role soldier. I love playing a 100hp soldier with that thing, unloading spam and when you are hit once, you switch to axe and run away… reload, get some health, come back etc… The other option of course is to get to about 70 hp, rocket jump towards the enemy and go in for an almost instafrag melee kill. If any of the soldier weapons were to be considered OP, then this is the one I’d choose.

The direct hit launcher… I think it’s pretty cool. The idea of the gun imo is that it’s meant to be almost _useless_, unless you hit a direct hit. It seems a lot of soldiers don’t like this idea and want it to still be effective on semi hits. If the gun is designed to be like this, then it makes sense to have it significantly better than the original rocket launcher when you do hit a direct hit. The other thing to take into account is the rocket speed. If the gun just had +damage on direct hits, but -splash radius, no one would use it. It needs something to make the directs a bit easier to hit. It’s either that, or massively slap up the direct hit damage, which would be pretty rediculous.

The flag thing… I don’t really like this one too much. I’ve not tested it personally, but i’ve seen it in publics. Being able to build up this charge based on damage, it’s going to be related to the average pub soldier’s damage on a public. Stick a competitive player behind it and he’s going to charge it rediculously quickly. A buff for the whole team… I don’t think the soldier should really have this role, it would be best suited to another class, maybe as a medic sub-weapon or for the Heavy. Saying that, while I don’t really like the idea, I don’t think it’s too imbalanced unless it’s in the hands of Dignitas on cp_well.

What these unlocks do do, is almost completely change how TF2 plays. The classes have had a complete shift in balance and it’s going to take a lot of getting used to. Soldiers are no longer just medic defenders and push tankers… They are suddenly one of the most effective damage dealers, a team buffer, an amazing combo class (as they were before) but also an extremely effective roaming class (the axe pretty much does this alone). They have more options to be offensive while retaining their defensive strengths and they have one, if not the best movement methods in the game available to them.

Does this make the soldier overpowered? Well… not really, imo, it just makes it the most powerful class. Demomen had this title for a long time, and maybe still did until this update. Scouts seemed to also have it for a while, pretty much after the demoman nerf allthough many still reguarded the demoman as the #1 key class. Now I think the crown has been passed over to the soldier. The rest of the team are the support classes now. Europe will particularly moan about this update as in general, our scouts and demomen have always been the strengths of our teams, with a few teams accelling with the heavy combos.

I’d be interested to see how this update plays, and how strategies will change with the new unlocks available. The demoman has some interesting stuff as well let’s not forget. The skill cap on the new sticky launcher is potentially huge. A demoman who masters that weapon could be rediculously effective allthough I think that won’t happen for a while, and maybe not at all if no one gives it a big enough chance.

Anyway, nice to see valve taking a few more risks. This update could destroy the game, could make it better or it could remain very similar… only time will tell.

Does this make the soldier overpowered? Well… not really, imo, it just makes it the most powerful class. Demomen had this title for a long time, and maybe still did until this update. Scouts seemed to also have it for a while, pretty much after the demoman nerf allthough many still reguarded the demoman as the #1 key class. Now I think the crown has been passed over to the soldier. The rest of the team are the support classes now. Europe will particularly moan about this update as in general, our scouts and demomen have always been the strengths of our teams, with a few teams accelling with the heavy combos.

This is kind of what I was trying to get at in my posts. If soldier does become the most influential class it doesn’t necessarily mean that new soldier updates are overpowered as the soldier has been the weakest of the three main combat classes for a long time now.

I doubt this will actually be the case but certainly it has narrowed the “versatility gap” between the key classes, mainly due to the equalizer which is an excellent upgrade, I’d go as far as to say the best one Valve has released to date. Imagine the old CC were still together for this update – Moose and Punpu ownage?

I don’t think at the moment that TDH should be made easier to hit direct hits. Give players a week or two to get accustomed to the different style of play in matches and then we’ll see if it is truly a viable weapon or not. The real strength TDH brings to the table from my perspective is that ability to convert kills from a wide range of positions that traditionally a soldier would be terrible in (e.g. fighting from a lower height position than opponent) and the ability to deal high levels of damage in a much shorter time frame. Soldier has always been a high damage class provided you can spam correctly, but the ability of soldier to deal high amounts of damage QUICKLY enough to convert into kills in mid-long range fights has always been severely lacking compared to the demoman.

Pickaxe is just brilliant, especially for the roamer, you at least have the possibility to retreat or even try to make more kills before you die; by far the best most thought through unlock Valve have ever released (it was actually a community suggestion which Valve accepted). Getting to middle, for one soldier at least, now means damage at the start, run, then fast heals just before middle, which means both soldiers should really be on 300h, which makes soldier more influential at middle, and consequently the round as a whole.

And most importantly it’s well balanced, you can’t get healed or ubered whilst using it and it barely damages the enemy if you’re not low on health.

why are you still writing? read page #2 — this update should not render in any “bans” what-so-ever.

This is kind of what I was trying to get at in my posts. If soldier does become the most influential class it doesn’t necessarily mean that new soldier updates are overpowered as the soldier has been the weakest of the three main combat classes for a long time now.

Doubt soldier has been the least influential class really, so few just have realized it’s real role and potential tbh. Punpu/hocz anyone?

I agree, soldiers are the backbone of the team. A soldiers influence is bigger than some people think.

But anyways: the mini crits needs some tweaks. Because this is bullshit (might still be processing)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQLBfG3OMVI

Oh My God, if the movie would’ve been in a good quality, that clip alone is a frag movie.

We’ll it’s still processing, should be better in a couple of minutes. Recorded it uncompressed, but I don’t have any decent video editing tool or encoders installed :P