Lord Krunk said:
Er-hem. The Huntsman and Backburner I respect, but the Sandman is useful (well, it was before the last couple of nerfs). I see the Razorback as a good precaution as well, but I'm always cautious enough with my SMG.
It was useful before the original nerf, when you could stun ubers and lock people down for a cheap kill. It was also slightly overpowered in a "rewarding spam" sense, while still being bad for a good scout (due to loss of double jump).
Nowadays it's junk. 95 Health is pathetic. A single shot from almost any main weapon in the game kills you, all for an item that doesn't even grant you any useful advantage in the first place. The time it takes you to throw that thing on someone would be best spent shooting them.
Lord Krunk said:
Here are the really useless items though:
The Blutsauger, Kritzkrieg,
You're a terrible medic. The blutsauger is one of the strongest, borderline overpowered weapons in the entire game. It does around 50-100 damage per second at medium range (100-150 at close range) while healing you around 30hp a second (providing you don't miss much), it's an absurdly quickly firing weapon, has giant magazines and a huge ammo count. It's a straight upgrade from the needle gun if you know what you're doing.
The Kritzkrieg is a blessing on defense, where you're mostly facing human rushes, or if you don't have a lot of sentries around. A good player can destroy sentry nests almost as easily with kritz as he can with ubers (except for pyros since they need to get close). A single kritz can clear an entire battlefield and allow your team to move up. It's a tactical choice between kritz and uber, learn to use them.
Lord Krunk said:
While I find it less efficient than the invisibility watch, it's far from useless. In the right hands it's amazing at causing the entire enemy defense to panic and waste precious time looking for you. Again, learn to use it.
Lord Krunk said:
Learn to use it. It's amazing to wear down heavies, to spam down snipers (who will either get hit, screwing their aim for several seconds, or be forced to avoid it, allowing you to move up unharmed) and particularly good in conjunction with the airblast.
"But Cali, you just did a huge post explaining how the Huntsman is a piece of useless turd. The flare gun is also a non-AoE slow projectile weapon. What's the difference?"
Number one difference being the weapon they're substituting. The rifle as a weapon is already incredibly efficient, and the huntsman's pros does not make up for all it's cons (see my other post as to why). In the pyro's case, the weapon being replaced is the shotgun. The flare can almost kill a 125 class with a single flare (around 30 damage for the flare + 60 damage afterburn, totaling 90 damage in one hit at any distance), doesn't need to charge up, can be reloaded while inactive (meaning you can fire, switch to flame thrower and fire) and it refires at a fair rate. The flare gun also has synergies with the pyro's main weapon, the flamethrower. Mini-crits do considerable damage, they can be easily landed on targets that are airblast (which are usually targets on fire, but too far to axtinguish).
It's not a straight upgrade mind you, the shotgun has it's advantages (it's a hitscan weapon, making it more reliable, does more damage to pyros that only suffer the Flare's 30 damage hit, not the afterburn, etc), but it's a sidegrade with enough pros to compensate for the cons.
Lord Krunk said:
This one actually has a crucial use, but it's just too "technical" for most pub games, requiring a coordinated team. A single bonk can distract sentry fire long enough for your team to wipe it out unharmed.
...Goodluck finding a team that coordinated in pub matches though...
Lord Krunk said:
Force-A-Nature (This requires practise to learn all its... capabilities)
The FaN is actually inferior to the scattergun. The scattergun will kill anything the FaN kills just as fast, with the advantage that it fires 6 shots while the fan Fires 2 before reloading.
It's not ENTIRELY useless since it makes individual kills easier/less reliant on player skill (since the knockback makes them easy targets), but any good Scout will get better performance out of the Scattergun. I'm saying this as an old FaN fan that simply had to face the facts. The scattergun is harder to use, but it's more advantageous.
It's a bit like the Huntsman/sniper thing, except it's not as stupidly marked. The FaN is still pretty ok in the right hands, just not as good.
Lord Krunk said:
and any Heavy, Soldier or Demoman weapon (Except the Eyelander and Chargin' Targe must be a pair at all times).
It's not so linear. Most of them are sidegrades, not upgrades. The only exception that I can think of are the KGB, since they offer no significant downside vs. the heavy's fists... And maybe...
Lord Krunk said:
Yeah that. It's not overpowered, and the shovel is not useless, but the Equalizer just doesn't have enough drawbacks to consider NOT using it. Straight upgrade IMO.