TF2 Australian Christmas 2011

This is a repost of something I put up on the Steam forums in response to the news of tonight's impending Australian Christmas update to Team Fortress 2. If you're a TF2 player, let me know what you think of the new weapons in the comments below!



Here are the stats again:

Engineer

The Pomson 6000
Level 10 Indivisible Particle Smasher
Does not require ammo
Projectile penetrates enemy targets
Projectile cannot be deflected
On Hit: Victim loses 10% Medigun charge
On Hit: Victim loses 20% cloak

The Eureka Effect
Level 20 Wrench
On Alt-Fire: Teleport to spawn
Cannot carry buildings

My analysis:

The Pomson 6000's balance will be entirely dependent on how much damage it deals. It's got some very powerful and awesome attributes, which will be far too powerful if the gun deals enough damage. I'm hoping for damage along the lines of the Righteous Bison, given that the Engie's Shotgun is actually a secondary for three of the other classes. If the damage is reasonable, the Pomson 6000 will likely join the Widowmaker and Frontier Justice as viable Shotgun sidegrades. Plus, Dead Ringer Spies will have a much harder time escaping!
And as a side note: the lack of listed damage bonus/penalty doesn't mean it does no damage, since the Righteous Bison also doesn't list any damage numbers. It's just too different from the standard shotgun to make a fair comparison.

The Eureka Effect is simple and brilliant. Essentially you play as old-school Engineer with a bonus: you can pop back to spawn if things get to hairy. It looks like a great emergency escape weapon. It might help a bit during setup, if you build your teleporter first, pop back to spawn, grab more metal, and teleport back up, but that function won't be very useful if there are large ammo crates where you're building. I think the Eureka Effect is pretty much perfect.

Pyro

The Phlogistinator
Level 10 Flame Thrower
All fire damage increases 'Mmmph', activate to refill your health and crit for several seconds
No airblast
No random critical hits

The Manmelter 3600 ZX
Level 30 Indivisible Particle Smasher
Does not require ammo
Projectiles cannot be deflected
Gives one guaranteed critical hit for each teammate extinguished by this weapon
No random critical hits

The Third Degree
Level 10 Fire Axe
Damage transfers to all players connected by Medic beams

My analysis:

The Phlogistinator is probably pretty balanced. No airblast is a HUGE downside -- the Pyro sacrifices a lot of teamwork benefit for an offensive bonus. I foresee a lot of people whining about W+M1 with this thing, but on the bright side, at least the Pyro has to charge up that secondary, which means that suicidal morons will have a hard time filling it up. I guess the main balancing factor will be how long it takes to charge the secondary, which we won't know until later today.

Although:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matt6767 you still become a suicidal moron once you get the crits.

The Manmelter 3600 ZX is also probably pretty balanced, in the same way that no one really complained about the Righteous Bison -- especially since the Manmelter doesn't penetrate targets. As such it'll probably deal a bit more damage per shot than the Bison. And since it seems able to extinguish allies, it's best used with the Phlogistinator. The combination of the two could potentially be too strong, since the Manmelter removes one of the Phlogistinator's downsides... but I guess we'll see.

The Third Degree is simply badass. I love the model and the concept. It looks like any and all enemies connected by Medibeam get hit. So if you hit a Heavy being healed, both him and his Medic get hit. If you hit a Medic healing a Medic healing a Medic (etc) they all get hit. Pretty awesome if you ask me. Yes, it's a straight upgrade over the fire axe, but on the other hand, it's still not the Axtinguisher, so I doubt it'll see very extensive play. And surprisingly, I think that the No Random Crits attribute might actually be needed here for balance purposes -- if you crit one target, you crit all of them.

The Holiday Punch
Level 10 Fists
Critical hit forces victim to laugh
Always critical hit from behind
On Hit: Force enemies to laugh who are also wearing this item
Critical Hits do no damage

This item seems like it would be a lot more useful on ANY OTHER CLASS than the Heavy. It's nice that you can freeze enemies in place for a few seconds but it's really not that useful on such a slow class. Doubt we'll see it used much.

The Wrap Assassin
Level 15 Bat
Alt-Fire: Launches a festive ornament that shatters causing bleed
-70% damage penalty

An interesting variant of the Sandman. Potentially pretty good, since it's a ranged option in the melee slot that's actually decently strong. The damage penalty is a drag, but it's really no big deal for the Scout, who shouldn't be using his melee too often anyway.

The Spy-cicle
Level 1 Knife
Backstab turns victim to ice
Silent Killer: No attack noise from backstabs
On Hit by Fire: Become fireproof for 2 seconds
Melts in fire, regenerates after 15 seconds

A surprisingly powerful knife variant. The fireproof attribute finally shows up in-game, if only for 2 seconds. Silent stab is nice, and the victim freezing will be pretty fun, although a Spy with this weapon equipped becomes HUGELY vulnerable to Pyros: no knife for 15 whole seconds. A Spy who's on fire isn't too likely to be scoring many backstabs anyway, but 15 seconds is longer than afterburn and will persist for a few seconds even if you do manage to escape. Plus, you can't use it for a last-ditch suicidal stab if you're caught in the act. Pyros aren't present all the time, of course, so this could end up being an interesting sidegrade.