6:27 "i think only the liberty launcher and the air strike won't be able to one shot you. Even at max ramp up." Hold it right there, buster! You forgot about the Rocket Jumper.
@@ZorotheGallade Getting to melee Scouts as a trolldier isn't as easy as it sounds. I'd seriously rather fight a Heavy because at least they don't move so erratically
This weapon helped me learn how to better dodge direct hits and explosive splash damage. It is a must use for anyone wanting to improve at playing scout. Sometimes, intentionally nerfing yourself is very important to improve at something.
What an epical weapon: not overpowered, not underpowered, just a somewhat niche yet still occasionally useful weapon. I might use it more (if I get back into TF2), thanks for really showing how it isn't just "Direct Downgrade: The Weapon" that I thought it was for the longest while. (Also, legit did not know that the health kit on kill was passive, I honestly thought you had to have used Candy Cane at least once before kill.)
I feel like this describes it best - the Candy Cane is a hard weapon to justify equipping *because* it's Scout. On a Soldier, Pyro, or Demo, this could feasibly be a good weapon, if not an off-meta pick for melee option.
Seeing the TF2 weapon that resulted in me being called "Candy" online for many years now in an episode of bad weapon academy is both amazing and painful.
Hey fishstick! I’m the guy who sent you like 40 smth scorch shots! Loved this video. Keep up the good work man. BWA or not you still make some fire stuff. Look forward to seeing more in the future!
@@lexslate2476 As much as I'd prefer to keep to the support theme (and think adding another long-range annoyance tool to Scout's arsenal would go over about as well as The Scorch Shot 2: Now With Even More Radius), the projectile should *definitely* be a chunk of fruitcake.
I remember there was a concept weapon for Sclut that was a baseball glove, it would let him grab and store ammo and health kits and give it to your teammates, i feel like this could be it's own separate weapon, rather than a redesign for a weapon that has single target elimination in mind
@@lexslate2476 I think the fruit cake should actually blind opponents, not knock them back. Because 1. That would be like the Force A Nature your throwing the enemy back when Scout uses a Scattergun, which is made for close range... So... And also the blind shouldn't be a full splat, maybe like a squid ink in the average video game kind of blind, where you can still see a little.
@@smickothesmickest I mean, letting you reposition an enemy slightly has the dual effects of letting the scout take something from them, which is what weapons are for; and not taking away the opponent's control of their character for more than an instant. A longer effect that impeded someone's ability to play would make people real angry, I suspect. Because it would either cause enough of a problem that you'd get hit once and then completely eat shit from the followup with no chance to avoid it, or it'd be trivial enough to not matter. Or someone would just quietly remove the texture of the splat from their game files and negate the splats fully.
Unlikely Synergy Moment: I have found great success when using the Candy Cane with a Back Scratcher Pyro friend. The Pyro can use the Back Scratcher to help heal himself more than usual from your healthkits, and the Pyro can also butter up targets for you and reflect explosives that you just cant deal with. The absolute sprees I have gone on with this strategy are stupid ridiculous. Also the Back Scratcher is just really strong anyways so yeah use it. Any Pyros who are reading this try out the Back Scratcher for a change, it might suprise you. The moral or the story is to give a weapon a chance even if it looks bad or inferior at first glance.
*w h a t* Honestly, up until today, I thought this weapon gave you small health kits when you killed enemies _with the candy cane._ The fact that they also drop from enemies if killed by you with any other weapon makes it _so_ much better. I thought this thing was basically pointless. And now I know that it's... Uh... Kind of ok I guess? Still a huge improvement.
We need a streak of usable bad weapons. We havent really gotten any since the enforcer video except for like the carbine. Hopefully shit like huo long heater and your eternal reward are coming up I love it when fishstick doesn't get bored of his own voice
I think just the self-overheal with packs buff would be enough to make this way more viable. Overhealing yourself would put you above the threshold to be one shot by explosives, even if its just a little. I'd say that overheal buff, paired with maybe a "overheal drains slower" buff, would be a great way to get around the downsides (think how the Kunai gets around its threshold downside in the same way). Honestly one of my favorite episodes, keep it up!
@@whatgoeshere24 It would make more sense for the sugar rush to be right click. I assume the downside of such a feature would be consuming the weapon until retrieved from a resupply cabinet. Scout eating his melee means he can't use it anymore, after all.
I feel like this weapon was designed to be a "short range scout tool". for the player that orbitates around the point but doesn't just stick on it also, pyros as you pointed out, it combos very good with multiple weapons, and even more with teamates weaponry
I like Balance Mod's take on the Candy Cane: they removed the explosive damage penalty and instead you receive less healing from medics and dispensers. Basically the Back Scratcher penalty.
I don't like this idea, simply because it would lose the identity it has. Being a back scratcher for scout that drops health packs instead of increased damage sounds boring.
In my early days, I would pair the Candy Cane with the Baby Face's Blaster. The idea was that if I could become so fast, projectiles would be less of an issue. Seemed neat in concept, but very difficult for me to pull off, and I'd just be screwed if I didn't have boost. I have gotten better at Scout and with the BFB, so maybe I should try the Candy Cane again with it or the Soda Popper.
If the enemy team has no explosive classes it's a straight upgrade, but as soon as they have one you live in fear. I was really hoping you'd suggest overheal with excess kits as that is a great buff. When I play with it myself I find that I have basically no use for a lot of the health kits. Changing the damage vulnerability from explosive to general damage also makes a lot of sense, would mean that a quickscope sniper could nearly one shot a fully overhealed scout though, but that'd be the risk of using it.
I saw this and thought, “He is gonna talk shit about my favourite weapon.” Thank god that wasn’t the case. And here is my idea for the perfect Support Scout: BFB- You can speed yourself up and rush forward to see what’s coming and warn everybody about it, making you a literal scout. Mad Milk- You have the ability to help your team by giving them chunks of health and kill the enemy. That is support to a tee. Candy Cane- Pretty much the same as the Mad Milk, except they don’t have to kill them if they are too low, and hey, with the BFB speed boost, it’s a 3-second job.
Pros of this loadout: You're The Flash Medics will have an easier time keeping everyone alive You're an actual scout Cons: Soldiers, demos and sentries will be your downfall No double jump Enemies may pick up the health kits thus prolonging fights you could've avoided prolonging
The candy cane has been an interesting weapon in my opinion. It has an interesting concept but the explosive damage weakness feels like it was just thrown in to make it have a downside. I would put an overheal penalty and also a damage penalty on it.
“All better rocket launchers than the Liberty launcher” *Scorch Shot is included* Painfully true. Travel speed of a direct hit, blast radius of the beggar’s bazooka. Edit: also, you made a joke about the Baby Face’s being “Oops all Natashas,” so would the Candy Cane be “Oops all Direct Hits?”
This really speaks volumes about the Scout that out of 20 episodes of Bad Weapon Academy, 4 of them have been for his crappy weapons. The most out of any class, even if you count the triple feature the Medic's Syringe guns got. I'd make a joke about a Sandman episode, but honestly that thing might be too garbage for even BWA at this point, given that the Wrap Assassin is almost a straight upgrade to it. Very nice episode though. Seems kind of weird to see this thing getting any use at all outside of memers or the occasional medieval mode I play.
I love using this when I decide to pretend to be a training bot, running in straight lines and following the walkable spaces like an NPC. Clubbing unsuspecting players to death as if I was some kind of soulless automaton.
I think my preferred buff would be to give it some kind of bonus to health received from health kits, like the back scratcher. Then you could capitalize on your own kills more than your enemies. Other than that I think it's pretty balanced.
A random concept I thought of on the spot is allowing the Scout to use it as a sandvich. It's a candy cane, so why not be able to drop it to people as a food item? Scout's don't use melee much anyway, so taking away access to it for on demand healing would be interesting. I wouldn't give it an eating animation, but on the other it would only be equal to a medium health kit at most. Tossing it would make it a small health kit. Finally, I would probably make its recharge duration something like 15-20 seconds. Scouts usually don't take much damage, so restoring potentially half health is a big deal. Even with the idea being fairly limiting, it still has the potential to overshadow Scout's other options. Scout just really doesn't have a good selection to choose from. EDIT: Another idea I had seen in another comment was similar to mine but fairly different. The Candy Cane would be consumable, but would provide a "sugar rush" buff, increasing speed and providing an additional buff, and whatever else. although whatever else might not be needed. The comment didn't give a cooldown, but it would ideally be a long one, or maybe even only available at a resupply locker. Still, it's only real competition would be the atomizer.
Honestly while a neat idea, a scout that can heal himself for near free is basically a straight upgrade. The reason Heavy has a Sandvich is because he's big, heavy, and a massive target, but with plenty of damage. Sometimes he needs a little pick-me-up, and people gravitate around him anyways, so him giving out health makes sense. Scout, the class that typically goes off by itself to flank, having a Sandvich, in it's MELEE slot would result in it just being overpowered. I much perfer Fish's idea of a Sandman like projectile, because it keeps in the theme of Scout's mobile nature, and isn't exclusive to him.
@@MegaKH2fan Right, and that was the big issue I was concerned with. Still, nothing wrong with throwing out a questionable idea. Thinking about it, the one real way it could be balanced is to restrict it's usage to once per resupply locker. That's going overboard in the opposite direction though, since a 1 time use medium health kit isn't worth it when a good Scout will already have the speed and the knowledge to pick up health kits without much hassle. Another idea I had seen in another comment was allowing the Scout to use the Candy Cane as a consumable buff, providing a "sugar rush", increasing movement speed, an extra jump, and maybe other buffs. Even if only usable once, That might be a little much, since the only real competing melee for that ability is the Atomizer, although that does give you the choice of increased effect for a limited usage or reduced effect for unlimited usage.
The candy cane could combine perfectly with the old shortstop, since (i think) the shortstop used to give you 150 health instead of the base 125 health.
I think that enemies being able to pick up the health kit is already a big enough downside for the weapon, so I'd want them to either get rid of that or reduce the explosive penalty to like 10%.
One of my personal least favorite parts of countering Pyro with the candy cane, is that the mad milk just does the job better. Then again it’s not that important but it just leaves the Candy Cane kinda worthless in that aspect, especially because you have to scramble for the pack.
the only reason i think its as worthy as the mad milk is cause.. i do want that pistol, if you really hate pyros then go with the pocket pistol or the winger if you like mobility
I'd disagree because it can basically act as your second extinguish if you get caught by another Pyro. Mad Milk on Cooldown after saving yourself from a pyro only to get caught by another pyro makes the health pack help tremendously.
@@silverdededestruction2197 I suppose you do have a point, but if it’s a single fight, which is when you should pick up the health pack, mad milk simply does it better because you don’t have to scramble for the pack. Both are still good.
@@The___Rat I often find myself running into another Pyro after I just finished extinguishing myself from the previous one., or maybe it's the same pyro but they used any of their flare guns and hit me with the horrid afterburn. I judge most TF2 weapons based on the general chaos of a casual game and not set scenarios. So that's my reasoning for my disagreement. Like how I find great use in the Steak or Brass Beast
I think that the candy cane is one of those weapons that has a higher skill ceiling. Yes you take more damage from your class counters, but if you are good enough at avoiding explosive damage, via double jump, it’s essentially a direct upgrade.
A 10% damage penalty is still 456 damage at point blank and 200 damage at mid range. Combine that with a Scorch Shit or a Detonator Pyro and you have better damage than stock. Ammo consumption sucks but a Heavy will usually have a dispenser or a cart he can fall back on, and 200 ammo is still enough to hold for a good period of time. The flame ring itself is useless though.
4:44 I don't know if many have noticed, but to know if you have actually killed a Spy you can check on the upper bar of the screen when a teammate or enemy has been killed, it doesn't show the grey Spy image when a Spy feigns death.
I've started using the guillotine recently, the thing changes up how you play scout immediately. I consider it stronger than the pistols. It pretty much allows you to man fight heavies just like the mad milk. And landing long range ones is dopamine.
Scout just has so many melee weapons, and most of them are very interesting Also... maybe an episode on the southern hospitality? (it's not bad, but its below average)
Oh my fricking god I got in a video! I was that direct hit soldier that's me! 6:21 I am rahulneoma! Feels good man also good videos fish keep up the good work!
This brings back so many memories of my tf2 days, I used to run the baby face blaster, pocket pistol and candy cane as my main loadout and I had such a blast just popping off, those were the days :')
that "kill bind to drop a healthkit" has saved my burning teammates unreasonably often I trade my ultimately probably short life for our medic with 95 uber, that's a trade I'll always take
BUFF IDEA: Make it so that when you you kill an enemy with a crit you have a small chance of a large health kit dropping and when you kill an enemy with a mini crit you have a small chance of getting a medium health kit. The chances would be something like 20% idk If you want, reply and tell me if this would be broken or not. This would also pair well with the crit-a-cola which I know some ppl wouldn’t like
That would be busted in normal servers but really good in no-randomcrits servers. I mean, at most you'll get medium health kits pairing it with the crit-a-cola, but it also means that any med who runs kritzkrieg is gonna give you the opportunity to heal so many people
My favorite thing in the game is killing a soldier or demo by running at them and melee-WM1’ing them like a dipshit with the candy cane, the _one_ weapon in the game they hard counter. On a class where melee is the least effective. It’s so satisfying.
In my opinion it's a pretty neat side-grade: you lose survivability against explosions in return for more survivability against everything else. It's kinda like Fists of Steel on Heavy, only it takes roughly two or three hits to kill FoS Heavy while the Scout dies to a single pipe and the FoS pros and cons work only when the weapon itself is active.
Man, its amazing how many playstyles tf2 has surrounding 1 weapon, it only takes a single melee, primary, or secondary to either ruin or complete a perfect or viable setup
Candy cane upsides: it drops a health pack Candy cane downsides: it drops a health pack Seriously i cant count how many times ive saved an enemy im fighting by giving them a health pack still love this thing tho
missed opportunity to say merry fishmas. i thought tf2 was full of funnymen, smh my head irl for real. the healthkit on suicide thing actually gives you some insight into how killbinds work. if you ever wanted that. based off the "drop health on kill" buff, you can assume that killbinds are you killing yourself; it doesn't just work by killing you, but it actually goes through the motions of treating a killbind like a regular old kill, just with you filling both roles.
A quick thought I had for rebalancing it; what if only you (the scout) could pick up the health kit (and maybe only one who could see it as well) but you could only pick it up when the candy cane is active. Then make the explosive weakness active only when the weapon is active as well This change does little if anything to rebalance the weapon, but it does make it less punishing to pick it in the first place.
Honestly, I've been going back and forth on what melee I want to use for my "Support Loadout" for Scout. On one hand, I can use the Candy Cane & Mad Milk to help heal my team, or I could use the Wrap Assassin with the Mad Milk for Spy-Checking. I guess it would depend on how good I am at dodging?
Idea for a rework: Have the Explosive Damage be amplified only when you have in your hand a weapon OTHER than the Candy Cane. Like your primary or secondary. In other words, if you need to escape from a gaggle of explosive classes, put the Melee in your hand and GTFO. Since you never want to use the Candy Cane in almost any scenario, this turns it into something like a mini escape-plan. You don’t actually get any more speed, but by switching to it as you run away from your biggest counter, it covers it up its own weakness temporarily, in exchange for horrible Melee damage. Idk, I don’t really play TF2, but I love these videos and wanted to share my thoughts.
I have some ideas on how the sandman could be buff, I have no idea how to utilize it cause it seems shit First remove bring the Scout back to 125 obviously Second, I want it so if the Scout doesn't throw his ball he's bat is also special. It will act as a sort of airblast meaning it can reflect projectiles. Also the bonk taunt can reflect projectiles. And the ball, many things can be done with the ball to be honest. I could go where it feels like the Scout is actually trying to be a batter with it, or just go ape shit on the idea. Batter Scout: The ball is kinda like a reverse direct hit, it barely does damage on a direct hit but has big splash damage (More damage the explosion is). When the ball lands on the ground, it will explode doing big damage. But if the ball hits a player or a building, it won't explode and instead make the Scout lose 1/3 of his health (Not being able to kill him) (Also a little meter in the right hand corner) (The ball can be a tiny bit slower in mid-air). The ball hitting a player would be like a strike for Scout punishing him for the pitcher catching the ball. Now you could heal yourself if you get 3 strikes but if you continue to bat you'll be marked for death and the ball won't explode (If the ball hits an enemy the scout will no longer lose health, it basically becomes the regular sandman lmao). A good downside to this is that Scout's second jump is reduced by like idk, %25, this is because the explosion on impact can allow Scout to do a Ball jump. You might be asking "Why would you let the ball even get near the enemy?" SO it can do greater explosion damage to them but it also risks you get a strike. + When thrown, ball will explode on ground + If the bat is used without ball, if reflect projectiles on hit + %33 resistance to your own ball + Has small chance to bleed for 1 second if the bat hits a player (splinter) - If ball hits an enemy or enemy building, ball will not explode - If ball hits an enemy or enemy building, Scout will lose 40 health (Cannot kill Scout) - After ball hits an enemy or enemy building 3 times, ball will not explode on ground - After ball hits an enemy enemy building 3 times, scout will be marked for death - Double jump decreased by %25 cause I don't know anything about these percentages My idea of Sandman: Let the ball do fire damage. Literally only 1 weapon outside of Pyro does fire damage. When the ball is thrown, Scout bats it so hard it cartoonishly lights on fire setting people on fire. A downside to this bs idk, having being holstered slower with no random crits ig this makes scout a gun pyro, cool + If the bat is used without ball, if reflect projectiles on hit + Has small chance to bleed for 1 second if the bat hits a player (splinter) + Ball when thrown gives enemy afterburn + Weapon is holstered ??% slower + no Random crits, bad random crits
I think I can rework the candy cane a little bit better than what you've done Negatives: -20% swing speed -25% draw speed -15% damage against explosives when active instead of the -25% before -20% damage penalty When active you lose double jump ability only able to jump once All status effects besides burn last for 50% longer on wearer not just when active all the time Positive: Ability to overhill when picking up the small medkit but only if the medkit came from the candy cane Ability to drop candy cane as a small med kit for friends and can be eaten by user as well but on the candy cane is on cool down the -15% explosive damage is active until candy cane is back and can't be regained unless from Spawn cabinet also must use eating animation to consume candy cane which will stun lock you in one place for a certain amount of time until animation is over also when candy cane is on cool down you lose your double jump ability as well only one jump
I find this weapon hilarious at home many times I've killed burning Scouts going for their health kits. The funny thing is that most of the time they have enough health to survive the afterburn. Even when I'm playing not as an explsoive class, 7/8 times I see someone use this, it's a downgrade for the Scout if there is a Pyro on my team that is even remotely competent because I get them kill after kill when the Pyro dies (or when the Scout kills an ally after running away from the Pyro). Arguably this downside can be mitigated by the Scout player making sure the health kit is safe. I mean one time one of them just straight up ran straight into my Scattter gun and died even though they should have been able to see me. One time I even got fancy and got some KGB kills on this guy who I killed 7 times in one round just by watching a teammate die and moving behind an obstacle (so he couldn't hit me with his pistol). Logically, he should have ran past the obstacle and shot me or just decide it wasn't worth it in case I revved up but instead he went for the health kit. I do something similar with medium health and large health kits, but the times I get this opportunity just aren't so many as with candy cane uses. Oddly, this trick usually doesn't work well with small map placed health kits even though they work wonders for candy cane kits and map placed medium ones. Maybe the small health kits just aren't placed in good places for this trick.
I find the concept of the Candy Cane for Sniper really funny like "Oh you just dropped our Medic but at least I'll still get some of my health back so thanks."
my NEW candy cane On kill with any weapon: Drops a small health kit Damages enemy if they pick up the health kit Small health kits overheal the user when picked up %25 Explosive Damage vulnerability
Idea for what the "Cheer attack" could do if it hits an enemy: It deals minor damage and puts a mark on them that makes it so if they die in the next, say, thirty seconds they're guaranteed to drop a health kit regardless of who killed them. Alternatively, in the same way the Wrap Assassin is diet Guillotine, we could make the Candy Cane diet Mad Milk. No damage nor splash and the lifesteal percentage is reduced to, maybe, 40-45%, but it still highlights the target and rewards teammates for shooting at them
the fact that the health kit drops from dead enemies always bothered me. how about: killing an enemy with any weapon charges a "cheer" meter. can hold up to 3 charges. alt-fire to expend a charge and throw a small health kit. 15% damage vulnerability the health kit counts as a projectile. if it hits an enemy, it deals small damage and breaks. if it hits a teammate, it heals them like normal. if it hits the ground, it becomes a small health pack.
i get to say it again! ScoutKnight! candy cane as your main weapon for health on kill, mad milk for damage sponging or helping teammates, and the FaN for extra mobility and sentry chipping.
if it also spawned health packs when you get an assist it could be a better support tool, especialy when combined with mad milk. this could open new interesting playstyles, with a heavy downside attached to keep it balanced (or not, might just make support scout too good to pass on).
Rework Remove the explosive damage penalty. Scout can gain overhead from health pick ups. All health pick ups only heal the same amount as a small health kit.
I think that this weapon is extremely underrated. I use it all the time and honestly I don't run into the vulnerability that much, and the health pack really helps?
While the spy dead ringer thing is handy, I find it easier to either track my kills to see if it actually was a kill, or just look at the top bar to see if he’s dead.
![[TF2] Bad Weapon Academy: Candy Cane](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
