The ability to instantly self-heal an entire health bar of a light class without a medkit will always be broken. Had a spy tank two direct rockets while gunning me down because he happened to backstab a nearby player.
I think if they make it to there’s no minimum and no maximum, then the one-and-done design some propose is awesome, and the dead ringer won’t suck as hard
Another thing I like to do as spy First, the enemy team usually isn't that paranoid, so I take advantage of that Then, they are super paranoid and spychecking everywhere I switch to a different class and make sure I am seen in my new class by as many enemies as possible This lowers their paranoia, so I can strike once again as a spy
Originally you used to be able to cloak as your team, get killed (leaving a disguised corpse) then use ammo to restore the ringer. The main issue was that you could refuel this thing way too fast, leading directly into a gun spy trick stab playstyle. I'm not sure if the ringer ever blocked 100% dmg but the lack of doing that means that you always have to fake your death way before you should. It's currently not possible to fake your death at low health because you will simply die for real. I'm not sure how exactly the ringer would need to be changed but the current design does not actually cater to its intended niche. It is very much just a damage resistance escape on demand. Note that I do not hate it. Spy is the weakest class and I do respect gun spies I only hate the abuse of the strange backstab hit box.
4:25 that does sound like a health timing thing if in terms of numbers he's hit for more than healed then dead if healed a set amount per tick then there would never be an issue regardless of how much he heals for. Say the spy can heal 75 damage each second (cause I don't know tf2's frame rate) then if he's hit with more than 75 damage in a second he's dead that's one well timed and placed pipe rocket or head shots worth. It would be slightly more fair I would say that the heal speed should be probably triple that of the mediguns healing at 72 which I think is the same as a quick fix. either way the healing should not be faster than pyro's flames or the minigun but the question then is how long should spy survive those and my guess would be not longer than 2 seconds.
Is it the spy lacking offense or defense that balances his design? Cause as the weakest class theoretically a better as in less punishing design would be finding the balance between his glass cannon design and precise game play. His weakness is being exposed, having low health, having low attack except back stabs, lacking the speed of scout or safety of sniper, and being very reliant on game knowledge more than most other classes. So 150 health with stock, cloak has a consistent .5 second cloak and decloak time, and stock revolver does 45 damage max. Otherwise unchanged. Unlocks like the ambassador and diamond back have their stats rewritten to not affect their damage values. Unlocks like the kunai and big earner have their health pools unchanged. I know this isn't a class balance discussion I just thought the idea of spy is supposed to be a glass cannon made me think of this
I think playing gun spy might be good for just getting used to the gun for when you really really need to use it eight to save your life and get the kill
