Prob cuz its so easy for sniper to steal anything take a piss in it and throw that than it is to kill a medic steal his syringes and somehow draw piss from his body
The saving grace for jarate is everyone uses it selfishly. And when used that way its actually a balanced weapon that is both fun to use and fun to play against. Its only when used as a team weapon that is so OP. I really wish they would nerf it to allow airblast to remove the effect. And while they are at it airblast should remove mad milk.
@@peterisawesomeplease Nah maybe make it so the manmelter can remove those? The manmelter's whole thing is supporting teammates, but afterburn can already be removed by a flamethrower without giving up a flare or shotgun. Make it so the manmelter can remove those.
This weapon is a psychological weapon, not just because you're being injected with p1$$! But because the second someone gets hit by it and sees the yellow filter, they tend to panic and retreat
Yup, full-charge bodyshot enemy sniper with the Sleeper, and either they crumple in to a ragdoll, or are left running around like a headless chicken with piss on them at low health and miss their shot because you hit first.
I didn't even know you could shoot allies directly to extinguish them, it's the only rifle (huntsman excluded) I use because headshots are hard. Also it goes "pew"
The Sydney Sleeper is a sane man in a mad world. Applying 5 seconds of Jarate at range is useful... but the actual Jarate weapon applies it for 10 seconds in a massive AoE with good range to boot. Being unable to quickscope is more "fair" but when every other sniper can quickscope to one-shot most classes who cares about "fairness?" The Sydney Sleeper is that one anime protagonist who's holding back for "chivalry" or whatever, only you aren't so vastly overpowered to make your refusal to fight at full strength a noble act.
@@thatgoldenguy3272 unless the map has no flank routes i doubt theres nothing you can do. but if you mean hes a god lever sniper and can quickscope everybody, no matter how good their movement... yeah theres not much you can do about it. but that goes for a lot of classes besides heavy and spy.
I remember when it used to create a jarate explosion on headshot, but that got removed because they thought it was overpowered for some reason. So now it just feels kind of awkward to use without that stat.
I used to love that stat, but sadly, yeah... it was kinda absurd. Remember the Jarate video where he talked about Jarate invalidating an entire push through the throw of a single item. Jarate splash headshots were that, but at a much greater range and without a metered cooldown.
@@joedingo7022 probably for the best, think fish’s balance works WAY better. You ever die because a demo’s pill hits your teammate and you die from the splash damage? This sounds like an even worse version of that.
@@HowToMolly Honestly its not too big a deal cuz Fish isn't the one rebalancing the server. He's just the owner mostly. Its the head dev Shaker whose doing all the actual rebalance work and testing out Fish's rebalance ideas.
@@cantankerousgoblin I mean yeah but Tuffie still isn’t wrong, balancing something means you need to be objective, not biased (something this community can’t do).
You forgot to talk about the hidden stat that every Strange Killstreak version of this weapon is automatically renamed to some kind of piss-related joke.
The Sydney Sleeper is also one of the best looking Sniper primaries imo. Though admittedly, it'd be quickly beaten by the Bazaar Bargain if it had a similar scope.
I personally think that the hitman heatmaker and machina look cooler. But the sidney sleeper dose look cooler compared to the bezar baragin and classic.
I'm surprised that Fish didn't mention the fact that having Jarate with the slowing upgrade in MVM makes Sydney sleeper slow giants as well. Helps with robot scouts
It also still gets explosive headshots, which makes it actually a somewhat competent challenger for the heat maker against giants since you can stay far away and don’t hav to get close to throw jarate.
15:17 I think the reason for this is because teammate on teammate interactions have ZERO lag compensation, that's why the Diciplinary Action, another weapon that relies on hitting teammates, can also be very inconsistent.
Aye, I named my Polycount Pack (yes, I've been playing TF2 for THAT long) Sleeper "Sydney Screw You", then when I got a Strange Sleeper I switched to that and named it the "Canberra Chest Counter". It's relaxing counter-sniping Snipers on 2fort with the Sleeper and seeing them ragdoll or run around like a headless chicken with piss on them, as it means they're not focused on my teammates.
I feel like you should have mentioned that the Sydney Sleeper used to have explosive headshots in regular gamemodes, but instead of damage, it spread jarate. So you basically had a rapid fire jar of jarate, and valve changed it to mini crit headshots because they thought it was too overpowered. Personally I wanna see it return, it fixes a lot of problems while making the 5 second effect somewhat understandable, because you're just pumping these shots out.
I came close to mentioning it a couple of times in my script, but decided against it since the video ended up being long enough as it stands. Personally, I'm not sure if the mechanic is exactly overpowered, but I would call it frustrating if you end up being punished for your teammate being headshot, especially if you're being wary of the Sniper and hiding behind cover. If anything, I'd like to see it return as an MvM upgrade similar to Mad Milk Syringes.
I always thought the explosive jarate headshots was a really interesting idea and was sad to see it being replaced by some rather mediocre stats. Trading single target elimination for long range crowd control seemed like a good way to balance a support oriented weapon. I never got to try it out in game however, so I don't know if it was overpowered. What was everybody's experience with the weapon when it used to have explosive jarate headshots?
@@MajorKlods It was fun. Upset they removed it. Since you couldn't just instantly kill most targets it allowed you to actually fullfil a support role. Never got hit by it though. Never clumped up around teammates enough for that. That just makes you a target for the actual explosive classes. Being able to insta-kill is still better though.
@@ninjashot37 Yeah but I understand why it might be frudtrated, since not only did it punsih players dtanding in a sniper sightline, it punished teammates who were standing next to them even if thry were hiding behidn cover. Maybe make it so the people around them have 5 second jarate while the headshot person gets 10 second jarate?
@@fishstickonastick-gaming I mean its the thing that made the Rifle stand out and be actually Interesting, rather then just a straight downgrade to in the Stock rifle. Their are ways to balance it. 1. Fully Charged headshot to get the Explosion. 2. Splashed players get 5 seconds while the shot player gets the full 10 seconds just like the Jars.
My grandma had a old saying that was damn near her Catchphrase. "Better pissed off then Pissed on" I wanna a Description tag and put on my Sleeper "Better pissed off then pissed on? Well now your both
I've been waiting for this episode, and I've gotta admit, this was very insightful. The Sydney Sleeper will still be my favourite sniper overall, but sometimes it's nice to hear a truly critical opinion on it. Thank you, Fish!
@@badideagenerator2315I agree with this so much, honestly. Like seriously this thing is a good weapon that feels fun to use and fight against. But every other rifle is so good in comparison this damn thing looks terrible
The Huntsman is. Even though the Huntsman is goofy tree projectile, it's usually spam and bad luck when it does kill you at range. And being a projectile it can't kill you instantly without prefiring, it has travel time. Every other Sniper Rifle has the potential to delete you a moment after crossing into a sniper's sightline.
@@badideagenerator2315the vanilla rifle is just plain broken The bargain is a direct upgrade The heatmaker is sniper's version of the direct hit The machina is your training wheels for playing sniper The classic is just a meme weapon
When i used this weapon a lot it was because i didnt expect as much from myself in terms of impact which made me calmer and play better. Dont know if anyone else has a weapon that does this for them too, but i find their is a sweet spot where a weapon is just bad enough to calm me, but still no frustratingly terrible feeling
This, i always use out of the meat but not really bad guns in games like csgo where i run stuff lilke thompson, it doesnt tilt me when i lose because im using a silly gun but its not frustratingly bad.
Same reason I often choose to play battle engie on offense. It's deliberately sub-optimal so if I do poorly it's not a huge deal, but it's just good enough to reward smart play.
I haven’t started the vid yet but unironically the best use I’ve found for the Sleeper is in Vs. Saxton Hale. One target to shoot at means you don’t have to hard scope, and the nature of the mode means your collective team gets way more benefit from the free minicrits than you would with just headshots. I’ve straight up carried teams with the Sleeper
I think the problem is that Sydney Sleeper is not necessarily that bad of a weapon by itself, but rather the fact that most other Sniper weapons are fairly broken. You have a class that has 1 true counter other than itself (Spy) that can sit comfortably behind the frontline, can instantly scope, deal consistently high damage regardless of range, has a large pool of ammo, in a game where most of the combat takes place at close to medium range. The game stops being fun when the enemy team (usually defend) has a full semi-competent Sniper nest and your team get choked point until the time runs out because no one can reach them
Even worse, Spy isn't even Sniper's TRUE counter. Sure, on less experienced Snipers, a Spy can get them every once in a while, but once the Sniper gains any amount of gamesense, they can hear the decloak and either 1. Instantly 150 quickscope the Spy, 2. Jarate/Bushwacka the Spy, 3. Random Crit the Spy, or 4. Put on the Razorback and force the Spy to reveal himself to the enemy team and get shredded by a sentry. Unless you have the wrecking ball that is an Ubercharge, good luck pushing into a Sniper/Sentry nest. Zesty Jesus's Sniper Tier List has a much more fleshed out preamble on why Sniper is utterly broken.
@@cowserthekhelinace from my experience, even ubercharge won't help. The uber duos usually mainly focus on the Sentry nest or vital choke point where the enemy medic heals the injured team mates near the frontline then quickly retreat once the uber runs out. Enemy snipers usually wait out and then quick scope the retreating unubered enemies. Ubered players don't usually go after snipers unless they are within reaching distance because they are literally too far away, can outrun them, and risk being wrecked by the enemy team once the uber runs out because they are way too far away from the frontline
@@quakethedoombringer YES EXACTLY THANK YOU EVEN UBERCHARGE DOESN'T COMPLETELY NEGATE A SNIPER SNIPER STRAIGHT UP NEEDS A NERF. My suggestions: 1. Minimum damage nerf to 37 (111 quickscope), requiring more hardscoping to instakill even a light class, enforcing the tunnel vision downside more. Also encourages SMG use for close range, and finishing off quickscopes. 2. 2 second hard reload, granting a higher punishment for missing your shot. Also slows the Sniper down so he doesn't keep blasting people's heads off one after another. You have to choose your targets. 3. Machina Tracers on ALL rifles. This lets people see where a Sniper is easier, so they can more easily avoid them or find them. Machina gets an extra .5 second reload to offset the "buff" (but maybe remove the "on full charge" part on the damage) 4. Reduce the ammo count to 10. Forces the Sniper to move for ammo packs more, reducing his active time, allowing for more pushes. I also have some nerfs/changes for specific weapons, but I don't have time to type them.
The sleeper is a very supportive weapon, but it just doesn’t let you KILL the bastich, rather than doing your day-to-day of making brain matter hit the wall
the sydney-sleeper combo sniper sounds really fun but the weapon just isn’t geared up for it, maybe a huntsman type weapon that applies a set time of jarate would work as a better pick, maybe even giving a switch speed boost also so you can combo stuff together more effectively
Sleeper is kind of a 'u-huh, don't advance, back off' gun as well. Because when you get covered in Jarate, you don't really want to advance into enemies. But still that is achieved better by a headshot, which either puts them on low health, making them back off to heal, or kills them outright. I guess it can help Snipers who cannot headshot reliably yet to fulfill that purpose. Such a weird gun, which sucks, because i love the design.
So is stock, the bazaar bargain, the machina, the heatmaker, hell even the huntsman. It's not that it's ineffective it's that it's outclassed by every other option except for the classic (big woop)
@Turquoise It's a support gun. If you're at all familiar with Overwatch, it's kinda like the way you play Zenyatta's Discord orbs - in lower skill/uncoordinated pubs, you just look at whoever your team is most immediately attempting to beat up and shoot them so that they explode from suddenly taking minicrits, and in more coordinated teams with voice you call out who you're gonna tag so that your team can focus them down. It's great in that way for making sure that priority enemies end up dead. disclaimer that I haven't watched the video yet, in case Fish says all this lmao
@@WakiTheCroc Or... you just kill that person with a headshot with any of the other rifles or the huntsman and you achieve the exact same result more than likely faster than with the sleeper just pissing on them
Even if I die on this hill, I’ll still defend that the sydney is the most balanced rifle Edit: the reason why is because 1. no bullshit quickscopes 2. you actually weaken with proximity 3. Kills actually feel rewarding
I agree, the problem with the sleeper is that it's a balanced weapon in a broken slot, having said that it could still do with a buff to it's karate duration, as is it's simply ridiculous that the support application is so little when pretty much every way to minicrit easily is pretty cheap all things considered
I miss when this thing had the Jarate explosion. It was the entire reason I used the Sleeper, and even bought a strange one. Then Meet Your Match removed the piss-bomb effect, killing the entire reason this thing ever existed.
That's actually such a good way to balance sniper. Not one class was designed around a player having thousands of hours worth of playtime on it, and this heavily lowers the skill ceiling for most snipers, encouraging a slower and more passive playstyle
@@Soapromancer Sniper would still be the most effective class at long range. They would just be slightly less powerful. TF2 is balanced around much shorter ranged engagements than most FPS games. But sniper has the range of snipers from FPS games balanced around longer ranges for even their shortest range classes. The extreme power at range is a huge problem for map designers. Open maps are fun for high mobility classes and just in general. But you can't make super open maps because you have to balance against sniper. A little damage fall off would go a long way to fixing this issue. Again I think it would only need to be a very mild amount of fall off only applying at quite long ranges.
From the sound of things, including this video, the Sydney Sleeper is one of those weapons that's more balanced towards MvM. But one thing they should definitely do is fix the bug with the extinguish shots. It apparently also used to be the go-to for snipers who preferred bodyshots before the Machina came along.
If I was redesigning this thing, I'd go with GREATLY reduced damage balanced out by "explosive" headshots that spreads Jarate to nearby enemies. Now it's a full-blown support weapon! Or alternatively... let the rifle apply 1.5 seconds of Garate from un-scoped shots. Enough time to combo with the bushwaka, allowing Sniper to operate as a bizarre piss-based melee sublass.
I've actually gotten a ton of use of this playing class wars randomizer. Maybe its just upward but there are some great ways to bodyshot without ever being seen.
This has basically been the only sniper I use when I feel like being helpful to the team, so basically always. Also helpful since I suck at getting headshots.
You know what's funny? The Sydney Sleeper and the Classic both feel like they should have been stock weapons. The Sleeper is purely a support weapon and fills that role well... but is sadly outclassed by the Jarate when enemies are close. However, the weapon has to be fully charged to instantly drop Medics and that can still feel like a while even with the reduced charge time. The Classic needing to fully charge to crit feels like it's more fair to who ever gets on the receiving end of it because of how long you have to charge for. The point trying to be made: Snipers being able to instantly get a 150 crit upon scoping in is one of the things that makes a decent Sniper so oppressive to play against. The fact that the Sniper can get that damage at any range means even sneaking up to them is bit of a gamble if they catch you. Those other weapons having to fully charge to do high damage makes them seem more fair to play against for other players.
@@lefishe5845 At one point, had this thought: What if all of the Sniper's rifles weren't hitscan but instead just a fast moving projectile? Obviously, it'd have to be immune to airblast and the Short Circuit is fine because fast projectiles have a habit of getting through its secondary fire without getting deleted. Even if that was fixed, it'd still be fine. Also, not sure how fast. Maybe a little faster than the Huntsman's arrows? Either way, at that point it'd be possible to give a visual effect to the rounds that players can see and an audio effect when it passes by them. Both would give some form of feedback on whether what ever they did to try to throw off the Sniper's aim actually did something.
Two seconds is a long time when you're already under fire. You don't give anyone time to react, you swing trades that are already in progress I love the piss gun
I’m surprised you didn’t mention that this weapon is banned in competitive (aside from the future of BWA video from 3 years ago), and didn’t try to rebalance it to no longer be banned like the steak, parachute, and gass passer. But honestly, the only way to make it unbanned is to rework minicrits to have falloff, because removing Jarate from this gun removes the thing people use it for in the first place.
I'm pretty sure the problem with the weapon in competitive is that bodyshots are easier to get because of the charge rate and less enemy bodies to shield Medics in 6s. Plenty of the game's mechanics are not compatible with some competitive formats, and that's okay.
My opinion on the Sleeper comes down to a core playstyle shift, starting with a full reassessment of where you're putting your crosshair, yourself, and the battle you're trying to contribute to. It's solidly a support tool, unfortunately in the position of a primary and apparently means to be paired with jar and melee, but also works successfully with smgs. So positioning is limited from flanks and controlling vantages, mainly by sniper duels which you're now ill prepared for, putting you in the meat of the fight or at least hugging close to the team. Your targets won't likely be dying from you, so where you aim is shifted from tricky picks to where your team mates are already firing, namely soldier and demo but also scout. It's effectively filling that weird middle ground between huntsman and the other rifles, where you keep mobile with last second decisions but also have the slight advantage of using a hitscan. The weaknesses are exacerbated by the utility of other rifles being able to simply put down a target rather than help a stray rocket do it's job better, but its more viable at closer, harder-to-hit ranges because you're no longer reliant on just headshots. Now you rely on the team and your own game sense to keep danger at bay. Arguably you do normally anyway but that's negligible with most sniper players. Plus, it's much easier to use the paired jarate for basically anything at this mid range since you're already close enough and don't need to waste time running up on the team first.
I feel like, if they just buffed the piss duration on this thing, it would actually be a pretty good support tool on a class not generally known for its support capabilities. As it stands now though, it's just too brief for me to consider it a viable support option.
even making it so the headshots deal full duration(quickscopes and full charge included) would make the Sydney Sleeper better. Also the extinguish should be a unscoped and scoped ability. I remember the Sleeper having aOE jarate blasts, would getting that back be a good thing, as in balanced? maybe aoe on headshots?
Hey Fish thanks for uploading another bad weapon academy, your video legitimately brings me Joy even thou I don't play TF2, Maybe because I like the weapons and characters aesthetic. But regardless Keep it up man, Much love brother, Matsala.
I personally like the sydney sleeper. My favorite and most effective tactic with it, is to specifically aim at enemies in an area where they're just about to enter line of fire and then tag them with a fully-charged shot, leaving them out in the open with reduced health, and jarated, making them an instant priority target. The satisfaction I feel, seeing a full health soldier or demo FLY right into the battlefield full of confidence, suddenly become half-health and jarated, and instantly turn tail and run away, never gets old. It's also really funny baiting heavies with it.. Whenever I tag a full health or overhealed heavy with a fully-charged shot right as he enters the front lines, he will completely ignore it, and think he's fine, only for my team to immediately focus down the jarate'd heavy and show him the power of mini-crits. If you have a competent team, this gun is basically a scout-kill dispenser. A scout will realize what you're doing, and start just camping near the edge of the enemy front lines, wait for you to tag someone, and then chase them down as they run back into base for an easy kill. This weapon is definitely meant to get you almost as many assists as kills. .. I also love how hard you try to sell your point that vs other snipers the gun fails out.. You make it sound like hoping the sniper misses or is distracted is some shameful tactic only used if you've got nothing left to lose, and you make the suggestion of flanking or attacking from a different spot sound like some far-left-field last ditch tactic. Bro, those are NORMAL sniper tactics, that ALL snipers use.. I don't know who hurt you or your ego, but I've never once felt ashamed or frustrated at having to use "moving to a different spot" as a tactic to kill another sniper. You do make some good points, I'll admit.. If you have a shitty inattentive team, and don't have a great sight-line, this weapon suffers.. But honestly, I still like using it because of the challenge. I utterly detest quick-scoping, and always try to put some kind of dampener or challenge to my own playstyles to keep me both humble, and constantly seeking to increase my skill. Basically like the gaming equivalent to weight training. And in that regard, the sydney sleeper is like an alternate-universe bazaar bargain.. Because it forces you to improve by encouraging you to play very specifically.. With bazaar bargain, it encourages hard-scoping and headshots.. With sydney sleeper, it encourages keeping an eye on your environment, and finding the best location and angle to attack enemies from that will support your team if your shots don't kill, which, hey, coincidentally makes you a better sniper.. Any sniper can rack up kills and decimate an enemy team till they top-score, but that doesn't win battles.. But a sniper that works 'with' their team, takes down priority targets, and attacks the SAME targets their team is focusing to allow their team to progress more easily further, is a sniper that's actually being useful.
Completely disagree with Fish at 21:56, I don't know how he could get that wrong. Obviously, the Bazaar Bargain is the "Bazaar Weapon," not the Sydney Sleeper.
A while back, there were leaks for unused tf2 weapons that had originally been planned, one of them being a sniper rifle, with a blocky camera-like scope on it, relatively white in coloring, suggesting perhaps a supportive niche over "yet another OP sniper rifle". Having gotten into the original OG overwatch launch (RIP and good riddence) i loved Ana as a concept to play supportive sniper. I had hopes we'd maybe get another support sniper weapon for the sniper class that would work just like that (nevermind that the leaked sniper weapon supposedly was for medic?) I still very love the sydney sleeper, it is my favorite sniper rifle when i want to play more supportive.
Fish, I'm speechless. You just haaaaad to shit on the piss rifle. The one fucking thing you seemingly forgot to mention in the whole video is player skill level. Not everyone is a Pro MGE sniper main with an 85% headshot rate, as a matter of fact most snipers you have ever met in servers miss more than half their shots on average. And due to how sniper mentality pushes for scoring headshots, most don't bother bodyshoting for the most part. That's where the Sydney Sleeper shines: even if you suck at scoring headshots, you're still contributing, dealing heavy damage and scoring kills via bodyshots, which you will hit a lot of shots since you're not forced to aim for the head, but any part of the body, which in turn you'll hit a lot more shots since it's easier. Accuracy is the one stat never talked about with rifles in TF2, because it's not a stat in-game, but a stat of the player. Yes, it can be improved, but some hit walls and can't get past that level. And no, no amount of dude gymbro talk of "YOU CAN DO IT" and "BELIEVE IN YOURSELF" is gonna fix that. Everyone can run, but not everyone can run a marathon. Lesson of the day kids is to appreciate Sydney Sleeper snipers, because they may not be the best, but they are trying their best, which speaks a lot more than tryharding.
I see this weapon as a support weapon that says "I don't trust my aim so I'm picking a gun that will help my team if I can't hit my headshots. And I'm on coms"
The Sydney Sleeper is a weapon that suffers from the devs not having a clear picture of what it's supposed to do. Originally, all it did was sacrifice headshots for the ability to apply Jarate on any hit over 50% charge. It also originally could randomly crit, but that was quickly removed within just over a week of its initial release. When the Hatless Update came around, the charge rate was buffed by 25%. Gun Mettle gave this weapon another buff, removing the 50% charge requirement for the Jarate effect, and Meet Your Match gave it the Explosive Jarate effect on headshot or full charge and the ability to extinguish your teammates. And then came the March 28 2018 patch which nerfed this thing into the ground. Honestly, this was unnecessary, the Sydney Sleeper was always a weaker choice than stock simply because Sniper is more efficient when he can just eliminate targets outright, but the Sleeper did have exactly one situation where it was flat-out an upgrade - med picks in 6s, as being able to apply Jarate on an enemy medic at any range makes them easy to eliminate during a coordinated push in a high-mobility format. Honestly, the weapon was banned in 6s anyway, I don't get why VALVe catered to their demands when the 6s format has weapon banlists. So yeah... this thing went from the intended bodyshot rifle, to an actual ranged support weapon, and then to a lame duck. Honestly, the way I would fix it is to revert it back to its Meet Your Match stats and tell the 6s players to just keep it on the banlist.
It was a long time coming, Fish, but I'm glad you took your time with this one. I'd say the change you proposed (and currently implemented on your server) is a very reasonable one. I do have a side question, though. At one point, the Sydney Sleeper was able to do something similar to explosive headshots and coat everyone nearby in Jarate, not just the target. I'm guessing the reason it was removed was because it was too strong of a buff, effectively rendering Jarate itself obsolete - do you agree, or is there more to it than that? And have you considered implementing the same thing on your server? P.S.: Bison next, maybe?
The faster charge time, no tracers, and means to mark enemies is perfect in ONE scenario: when paired with the cozy camper, you become the most EVIL person on any KotH_Slasher for being able to camp the underworld.
The only thing the Sydney Sleeper desperately needs is to be able to quickscope opposing Snipers; making the weapon always start at 50% charge with a 37% charge rate penalty would allow it to quickscope kill normal Snipers with a mini-crit headshot for at most 135 damage while still taking the same amount of time to fully charge a shot, trading the ability to quickscope medics, two-quickshot soldiers and one-shot overhealed heavies for the ability to extinguish teammates and tag enemies with Jarate on hit, which l'd also extend the max duration to 8 seconds -- albeit without the insta-full duration on headshot you proposed. Also, make the mini-crit headshot kills on the weapon actually count as headshot kills, with the kill tally and score bonus included.
Honestly i was worried how you were going to do this video. I know you love headshoting and despise bodyshots a lot in streams so i was worried you were going to be like, this gun sucks! However i was wrong, you showed you kept your bias at bay. I honestly thought you were going to be like, this weapon does this OR you can just headshot them with the regular sniper file and just kill them. This weapon also does this, OR you can just headshot them with the regular sniper rifle and just kill them. I'm honestly happy to see you broke down this weapon logically, went through its ups and down, and you even showed moments of genuinely having fun with it in the sniper combo part which says hey this weapon is bad but you can still have fun. Overall this video was well done, high quality and I found it very enjoyable to watch, good job fish.
This belongs in an "Overshadowed Weapon Academy" series. You know, like Spy's knives, Medic's syringe guns -- good weapons that aren't Kunai/Crossbow. Because I say: the Sydney Sleeper is the best Sniper Rifle because it has reduced kick rates.
Imo, the Machina could so easily be ballanced with a small tweak: make it so the damage bonus ONLY applies when you hit a collateral, and ONLY on the 2nd+ targets, not the first Edit: another simple idea to ballance Sniper as a whole would be to add a magazine to it. 5 in the mag, 20 reserve. Just a short ~3 sec to force the sniper off his line, so he cant just LOCK THE MAP DOWN FOREVER( when near a dispenser)
As someone who routinely uses the Sydney Sniper, I have a few points; 1) I find it pairs much better with Jarate than you give it credit for. Yes, Jarate is better at being Jarate, but it's also on a long cooldown and you'll want it in a large number of situations. Having a weapon that can decrease said cooldown while simultaneously adding support ability from well outside the Jarate's effective range is very helpful. 2) The Sydney Sleeper isn't the weapon for Snipers who can't headshot so much as it's the weapon for Snipers who can't quickscope. If you're used to hardscoping regardless, the increase in charge rate makes a big difference, and the minicrit headshots can still drop most classes. 3) The Sleeper really shines when used to counter Sentry Guns. The extra charge rate lets you tear down sentries much faster, and the normal downsides are completely negated since sentries can't be headshot regardless.
10:16 "some of them are so good you may as well pick a different class." in that case, you'd be better off finding a new server. you're gonna have a bad time going against a good enemy sniper.
![[TF2] Bad Weapon Academy: Sydney Sleeper](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
