Outright Villainy said:
Uh, what? It's regen is Godly. If you have team mates who can protect you the syringe gun is way better. Blutsauger is for medics who like to fight or have sucky teammates and are forced to.
I've previously demonstrated (elsewhere) that there is no reason to ever use the syringe gun over the blutsauger. To put it simply, if you're playing medic there's only 2 ways you're taking damage:
- Either you're being attacked directly and without support, in which case, fighting gives you the best chance to survive. If you're fighting, both guns shoot 10 needles a second, if you hit a single needle per second (i.e.: at least 10% accuracy) you will outheal the syringe gun's passive healing.
OR
- You're taking indirect fire, in which case you REALLY shouldn't be taking enough damage to justify switching weapons. If you're getting killed by indirect fire you need to learn to move and use cover.
I will say that syringe gun could probably take the "last" (for most useful or the useless) place in that last, but still not worth it.
WolfLordAndy said:
Oh dear, this is quite a mess you have here...
Allow me to educate you in some intricacies you seem to be missing about said weapons:
WolfLordAndy said:
-Huntsman - for good combat snipers this is an evil weapon, combined with the quite crappy headshot hitboxes make it easier to hit things, especially up close.
Yes, the huntsman is nice for headshots
which you will never hit outside of melee range and/or lucky shots.
See, the Huntsman doesn't use the standard rifle's "hitscan" mechanic, instead firing a slow moving projectile. I know the projectile seems fast to the untrained eye, but remember that this means the projectile will take a certain time to fly from point A (your character) to point B (wherever you're trying to hit). This, in turn, means that other characters have enough time to dodge your shot AFTER it's shot outside of near melee range. Even spun up heavies nowadays have enough time to dodge arrows shot outside of very close range.
You can taunt "prediction" all you want, but that's just another name for luck. You can only control your aim up till the point you shoot, and unless you're playing with very close friends, you do not possess enough knowledge to predict behavioral pattern, so you're guessing. Completely, and entirely guessing. After you shoot, it's out of your hands. The sniper rifle hits instantly the moment you shoot, which means that it relies entirely on your own skill. It's IMPOSSIBLE to dodge the sniper rifle, all you can do is trick the player. A player of perfect skill with the rifle will never miss a headshot, on any target, at any distance. Conversily there's little difference between the highest and lowest skilled player using the Huntsman, because it relies entirely on luck.
Ultimately, the only way to reliably hit with the huntsman without relying on luck or stupid targets is near melee range, a range at which the rifle is also equally (or even more) effective on the hands of a really good sniper, but a range at which you're already at a monumental disadvantage. Snipers aren't frontline fighters for a reason.
Keyword here is "effective range", the range at which you CAN hit an enemy every single time relying solely on your own skill. The rifle's effective range goes from 0 to infinite. The huntsman's range goes from 0 to "slightly above melee".
And that's why the huntsman is always useless all the time. The rifle does require a far greater level of skill, but it also does
EVERYTHING better. There is nothing the huntsman can do the rifle can't. Except play "spam and pray".
WolfLordAndy said:
-Backburner - situational but not useless, in the hands of a pyro that knows the map it can kill many people very quickly, best used either defencively, or on maps where there are lots of routes to get behind the enemy (such as Granary).
Not situational, useless. A good Pyro doesn't need back crits because a good pyro KILLS any unaware enemy it catches from behind anyways. Any class does, and both spies and scouts are better fit to run around behind enemy lines.
A good Pyro doesn't need back crits anymore than a spy needs additional back crits. The pyro's problem isn't killing people it catches from behind. No classes have issues killing people from behind. Moving in, on the other hand, can be troublesome. And that's why the Backburner is useless: Because it trades you something you don't need ("overkill" from behind) for something you DO desperately need (airblast).
WolfLordAndy said:
-Direct Hit - is ultimately better then the standard rocket launcher for anyone who can aim, the quicker shots and higher damange easily make up for the reduced AOE. The fact its so effective is why alot of the leagues have banned its use.
Wrong, for the same reason the huntsman is worse than the rifle. This one is trickier, because apparently the DH is FASTER than the RL... So why am I saying that it has less effective range? The lack of AoE. See, while the RL is still NOT a long range weapon of any kind, the AoE means that it can still hit medium distance targets, because while they are fast enough to avoid the rocket, they're not fast enough to get out of the explosion zone (especially if you shoot more than one). That's one of the reasons Soldiers are so dangerous at close/medium range, because the AoE is impossibly hard to avoid in most circumstances.
While the DH does have considerably higher speed, initially raising this "effective distance" quite a lot, the monumental loss of AoE (almost entirely... the DH barely has any AoE) greatly diminuishes it's effective distance again. So we're back to "yes, it's more powerful, shame you'll never hit anything outside of lucky shots".
On top of that, there's also the grievous loss of adaptability. See, with the AoE it's possible for the soldier to damage/destroy things around corners, it's easier to bounce mobile targets, it's easier to quickly rocket jump in distance rather than in height... etc.
It's still more useful than the huntsman because unlike the sniper the soldier IS built for closer quarter encounters... But you still loose a lot of versatility for a minimal damage buff.
WolfLordAndy said:
-Chargin Targe - don't really think of this as an upgrade for the demo so much as a whole different class/playstyle. It definately takes away all ability to take down buildings, but opens up lots of fun for going on melee rampage.
The targe is very weak and inefficient as a form of attack. Heavies will outright maul you, pyros will airblast and axtinguish you, scouts will dodge then murder you with the scattergun, snipers will headshot you, Engineer's sentries will eat you alive, spies can still backstab you, and demos and soldiers will just bounce you to death.
It is a "different" playstyle, but it's poor, easy to counter, and considerably far less efficient than the normal demo at everything. Even "rushing", something which the targe is supposed to be better at, is done best by the sticky launcher, as sticky jumping is the fastest way of travel in this game outside of teleporting.
WolfLordAndy said:
-Syringe gun - while originally it was total poo, since they gave the medic a health regen buff its not pretty useful when you are working in a team and won't need to defend yourself too much, just passively regenerate.
See first part.
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