That poor weapon was top of the game, then bam, no more super damage, go run into a corner while we forget you and come back in like 3-10 years, as valve is lazy, it could take that long.
"The spy shouldn't be a long-ranged class!" The engineer shouldn't be a front-line combat class, but the Gunslinger changes that. The demoman shouldn't be a close quarters brawler, but the Targe changes that. The heavy shouldn't be a backup healer, but the Lunchbox changes that. The sniper shouldn't be a close quarters combat class, but the Huntsman changes that. The scout shouldn't be a medium/long range combat class, but the Shortstop changes that. The medic shouldn't be able to heal at long range, but the Crusader's Crossbow changes that. Why can't spy be allowed something that alters their playstyle?
The reply couldn't be closer to the truth. Remember when mini-sentries were a one-time use thing and coudn't be repaired? And how the competitive scene deemed it as balanced just the way it is? *WELL NOT THE PUB PLAYERS THEY DID NOT* We sure are glad our backbone is into a bunch of gibus morons complaining about mini-sentries on a *hightower 24/7 server* God damnit. Just God damnit. It wasn't even that hard to counter. All you had to do was to learn how to counter it. But that was too hard for them. So instead of learning... ...they complained. ... Bitches.
@@goroakechi6126 Diamondback is literally a pub-stomping weapon and nothing else. It serves no purpose in 6s and yet is untouched. While a high-skill-based Ambi is nerf simply because little Timmy over there is salty that he ran a straight line and gets sniped.
I think the saddest part about this nerf is how when I try to talk about it with others. I love how you highlighted when people started to get "nasty" with talking about the ambassador, and suddenly everyone was complaining about the weapon and using that exact same argument: "Spy isn't a long ranged class" I couldn't even talk about how I felt with some of my closest TF2 friends. Yeah, I'm biased because I mained the spy for 700 hours and stuck with the ambassador, but bias works both ways. Who benefits from the Amby nerf? Non-spy mains obviously. Trying to explain to someone who doesn't main spy about key spy elements such as cloak management and gamesense is hard. Trying to explain how hard it is to aim with the ambassador consistently in a variety of scenarios and being effective at it too is harder, especially when people conjure images of "Point and click adventure"
Someone pointed at my tiny head hitbox and hit me for 100 damage? OP, a pyro had me in his field of view and left clicked for 0.3 seconds, i guess i was just out skilled.
martin humphrey not even just spy for that matter, as soon as you let a pyro get close to you as “”most”” classes youre already dead, with very little effort on the pyros part
martin humphrey My point was, if you're a scout, run away Soldier, rocket jump away Pyro, thermal thuster away Demo, sticky jump away Heavy, you can outdamage the pyro Engi, you have a sentry Medic, your teammates should kill the pyro Sniper, you shouldn't let a pyro close to you. Spy, use dead ringer or invis watch to lose them in the chaos
Why are we still here? Just to suffer? Every Night, I feel my Headshots and my kills... The Gun that I lost, The hours that I lost, won't stop hurting It's like they're all still there You feel it too don't you? I'm going to make them give back our gun
Alright we have limited the ambassador to a mid short range play style so the spy can no longer deal significant damage from across the map! Spy players:
As someone who previously considered the amby OP, this video is amazing. It has made me consider a new way of thinking to the amby. I would always say to a friend "Well, why is it balanced if i can get X amount of kills without disguising or sneaking once?" But I never considered that I put alot of time into practicing with it to get to that point. Excellent video, very well made.
I feel like a lot of the hate about the Ambi was a combination of bandwagoning and people voicing their dislike of the class itself through the Ambi discussion (if you could even call it a discussion). Spy literally turns invisible, can look like a teammate, and has an instant-kill melee that only requires him to look at one half of your hitbox. This means that Spy inherently thrives off of the laziness and mistakes of each player. The Spy can punish players who drop their guard for only a second, so I feel like many players just plain don't like the class. The Ambi nerfs gave those people a way to voice their discontent without the obligatory "git gud" remarks and the like. I too am sad about the loss of the skill ceiling on the Spy. I main Spy, and while I've always preferred stock or the Diamondback, just having the Ambi as an option added so much more depth to the Spy. It gave Spy a way to contribute to a team without necessarily having to exclusively rely on the mistakes of his opponents. Sure, in a Highlander match, the Spy could try to take out the enemy Medic with a stab, but that comes at immense risk and is often impossible if the Medic has vigilant teammates. At least with the Ambi, the Spy could force the Medic to retreat or die to additional splash damage. I might not be able to aim to save my life, but for those that could, the Ambi provided so much depth to the class. I really think that the TF2 community needs to really reflect on what should and shouldn't be nerfed. I don't hear people talking about the changes necessary to change the stagnant 6's meta, or about making "dead" weapons useful. I've played this game since launch and have loved every step, but the longevity of the game is entirely in the hands of the community at this point. Unless we work together to make TF2 a better game, it will eventually die out. Think about that. No more Saxxy Awards, no more out-of-context voice lines used as memes, no more TF2 shorts. Let's work together to make this game last a lifetime!
"Players that are head-shot from across the map are expecting to see a Sniper in their death-cam, but they sometimes see (more often that we'd like) a Spy with a revolver" What a spectacular non-issue. Mindbogglingly poor justification for making changes to a highly skill based weapon.
Here some ways to change that quote. "Players that are killed from across the map are excepting to see a sniper in their death-cam, but they sometimes see (more often that we'd like) a Medic with a 75 dmg crossbow, a 90 dmg flare, a direct hit rocket, pipes with no falloff, a engi with a wrangled mini sentry..." "Players killed in short range are expecting to see either a pyro or spy in their death-cam, but they sometimes see (more often that we'd like) a demoman with a sword and shield, a sniper with the huntsman..."
@@justanalias5642 Players that are killed from across the map are excepting to see a sniper in their death-cam, but they sometimes see other classes due to random crits.
This is very well spoken and planned out. Summarizes my feelings except without all the salt. These changes have just made Spy a way less interesting a class for me to want to play. I've been receiving a huge string of insults lately; that I never knew how to play the class properly, or as it was intended, and I've been relying on Amby and DR as a crutch for far too long. Both I and Woolen are fully aware on how to play Spy traditionally, and we both have employed it liberally at the top level. It is a very effective way to play after all at times. The point is that backstabbing was an option. An Invis-knife playstyle got you in positions to do some amazing things and literally change the whole game. The downsides are that against a good team you would be dying and not accomplishing a lot, as you often are quite predictable. Against teams where we're clearly dying more than we're achieving, it was great to go Gunspy. In those situations you could trade your assassination effectiveness in return for damage output and support at a safer distance, so long as you could hit the shots. DR made it seem cheap definitely, but that's more of a fault of the DR's balance if anything. Gunspy was the most mechanically skilled part of Spy. But that's no longer an option at all. Against teams with Pyro's that just want to spray brainlessly, which I previously could have taken advantage of, I am now forced to play into their strengths. That is what Valve's vision for the class is. Whilst it undoubtedly works great against unaware players, against great ones the Spy is the worst class to play. Now more than ever, considering the removal of his greatest skill element. I am willing to concede that perhaps Amby was a little too oppressive at long range against players who were incredible at it. I don't personally believe it, but I'd have accepted a small damage nerf in that respect. Perhaps 80 damage headshots across the board. But the current changes have made it not worth using at all. As you pointed out, I just don't get the outpour of people who have started hating on the Amby. I made a discussion video comparing it with Stock and the comments were split 50/50 on which one they liked. It was viewed as very balanced, but then all of a sudden it's hated? And again, as you've said, for very hypocritical reasons. Based on the logic of what classes shouldn't have, Spies shouldn't have Spycicle (which I agree with), Sniper shouldn't have Razorback, Pyro's shouldn't have Homewrecker, Engies shouldn't have Gunslinger, Heavies shouldn't have lunchboxes, Medics shouldn't have Crossbow, Scout's shouldn't have Shortstop etc. It goes on. The only point in running it now is to just see if you're good enough to hit headshots at close range, which is purely for fun and doesn't reward the effort put in at all. If Gunspy was ever too strong, I put that solely on the Dead Ringer being way too abusable thanks to its Gun Mettle Rework. Old DR was dumb in it's tanking capabilities, but its stats made it much harder to spam and very predictable. As you've said, Spy is entirely based around a knife playstyle now. And it's for that reason (along with its own nerf) why I think the DR isn't viable anymore either. For backstabbing purposes, DR is only good if you can get to a good position to backstab without cloak (think jumping out of Map-Room windows onto ramp, Badwater last). Otherwise you'd be killing your good positioning. DR existed for aggressive gun users, and it's just not really good for that now. Yes, the class is now much closer to what it was intended now thanks to these nerfs. But the only reason you might perceive this to be a good thing is just because you hate dealing with Spies. Sniper has always been a much more effective class than Spy in almost every respect, but I get the feeling people are fine with that because Sniper doesn't go invisible. You're now asking anybody playing Spy against great teams to just be a suicide class the whole game now. Every time you play Spy to win now, you're flipping a coin. This is what players just seem to forget. Every time you go to decloak for a stab, you are relying on a 50/50 chance that in this 1v9 scenario, none of the enemy team will spot you when you go for that instant kill. I was happy to attempt that chance when it was an option, because it was great making the active decision to go for that risky play and succeeding with a clutch pick. But at times I would prefer instead relying on my mechanics at peeling with gunplay, because I know against certain teams that'd be more effective than killing myself in risky situations over and over. But no. Now I've just got to go for backstabs the whole game really. There will be games where I stomp on everyone and there'll be no effort required on my part. And there will be games where I will achieve next to nothing with a 8-30 K/D. It's entirely down to the enemy, and the class is way less interesting because of it. It's so disappointing, and I only really feel like playing 6s now.
I'm sorry I can't write more, but thanks for the reply, I do completely agree with you It's going to make spy a very one trick class, making him a lot more boring in the long run (I used to have a lot of fun with the variety of loadouts and playstyles you could use, which now basically does just boil down to "suicide for medic picks and hope the pyro doesnt turn around")
Your entire essay only tells me “I can’t use my favorite gun, therefore I don’t like highlander.” Other people have used the stock revolver for close range dm (mentioned in the video). I’m not going to say just play knife spy, but there are other revolvers. 7 other classes live without headshots
youtube_channel.mp4 Well, what he really means is that 1 class just had its best players have 1000++ hours of effort disappear. Even that aside, it is removing a subclass based on the reasoning that skilled players doing something other than the cliche are annoying to deal with. As many people say, a nerf on the battle engie could be based on the exact same reason: his mini-sentries are a pain, an engineer should just sit on his ass and make a nest. Not fair, is it now?
almost 5 years on this is still one of my favourite videos. the script is amazing, the way you read it is incredible, the footage in the background is worthy of it's own clip dump/montage. it's things like this that made me fall in love with your channel and community. keep gaming woolen
Oh man, coming back almost 3 years later and I still feel the pain... This caused me to quit the game I think. Hope you've been doing well during these post nerfs years Woolen :)
Zender Zagato it was mostly really annoying in open areas, where pretty much any class except a strafing scout or a rocket jumping soldier is easily killed in 2 hits and they can do nothing to you.
atomizer was overpowered as hell vs soldier when it was used by a good scout,why you think they bannned it from all comp leagues? also at the averange tf2 player skill it is also overpowered when used correctly,its was a must to nerf
i do not think that a new solly at pub will have fun because a scout with 10 hrs in game he is dodging his shots cuz he smash A,D and triple jump.(of course he will die form -10 hp if he did not killed the solly at all that time). Also wtf are you saying about solly?(that applies to demo also) you are not ok that he can 2 shot ppl? cuz thats like a "cheap" or easier mechanism to kill ppl?Soldier 2 shot requires great aim and the dmg rewards you for that.Yes even the 10 hr sollies do not 2 shot ppl,they spamm 3-4 rockets at your feet if that you were thinking.Other classes like cough pyro and heavy they do not kill you like that cuz their weapons requires far less skill so instead they need many consistent shots to kill y One of comp's first "rule" is balance if not the first,so if they ban a weapon there is a 95% chance that weapon is unbalanced for some reason. Also, why to use a rocket launcher that deals literally no dmg (liberty launcher) with a shotgun.(hmm you new or something in the game?).If you wanted the faster speed bonus of liberty just take direct hit. And still atomizer is op and had to nerfed like that.(by the prespective of a less hrs scout can outplay a more hrs solly with no skill or effort)(well if that takes it a good scout it becomes nearly unkillable). I suppose that you liked the weapon and thats why you want to leave it like it was,the things are not working like that.You are playing in a multiplayer game that needs to be fun at all players not just yourself and if it is an op wep by any means it must be nerfed.(for example amby got nerfed only for the first reason,not 2 reasons taken into account).
Hey, lets keep this to the ambassador. Yes, the atomizer was really overpowered. It allowed for too much mobility without the other player knowing. But all of this is about the ambassador. The ambassador wasn't overpowered, it just required a lot of skill to use. It was pretty annoying at times I admit. I think in balancing it they made the damage falloff to big. I think it should do 50-60 dmg at long range.
First off, Sniper is already a huge balance issue. Yes, it requires a lot of skill to hit those headshots. But once the Sniper has that skill, there's nothing you can do against it. There's a sequence to Sniper engagements. 1. Sniper gets a chance to instantly win the fight. 2. Player gets to engage the Sniper. 3. Sniper gets one last chance to still win the fight. 4. Player kills the Sniper. This works out okay at lower Sniper skills, but once the Sniper is excellent, every encounter ends at step 1. And this makes the game repetitive, frustrating, broken, and empty. This game was designed around counter relationships, and there is no reliably available counter to long range hitscan instant kills. Every counter against a pro Sniper takes long amounts of time. A Spy must cloak towards him over a long distance, and might need to take out adjacent Sentries first. Uber and Battalion's Backup take a long time to build. Longer than it takes for the Sniper to respawn. During all this preparation, the Sniper is scoring his kills and conquering entire areas by just looking at them, and you're not countering him doing that. The Sniper always gets first dibs on determining how a situation goes, every other player has to wait and hope this doesn't end the game for them already. The only timely answer is another pro Sniper, which does not remove the problem because once one pro Sniper kills the other, there's still an uncounterable Sniper on the map. Your only options are to go through these slow counter methods, or move erratically and hope to get lucky, or outsnipe him. Still, in spite of how little options you have, at least you can avoid the common sightlines to not die while watching an uber bar go up and a round timer go down. This is where the Ambassador's problem comes in. The Ambassador Spy can use his huge mobility to pick any sightline he likes. Sightlines a Sniper couldn't even dream of. And then he can remove a Medic and his uber in 1 second across a huge distance. Yes, this requires skill. But like the Sniper, there is no counterplay when the Spy is good enough. The Medic can check his back as much as he likes but if that Spy decloaks in a high spot way behind him and hits his 2 clicks, the Medic loses his uber and there was no way to avoid it. You can't avoid every Ambassador sightline in the map. The problem with Spy turning into a Sniper, is that he didn't have to give up any core abilities for it. He can still instantly kill people from behind. He can still travel the entire map invisible. He can still sort of instakill Engineer nests. He can still disguise to become immune to Sentries. The base Spy class is balanced around two concepts. Extreme mobility, and extremely short range. This is why I would've liked if Valve had kept the gun's combat stats the same, but had attacked it on mobility in stead. Such as reducing cloak duration by a large percentage. Forcing the Spy to be more careful about getting in crazy places behind the enemy, because he has less ability to survive back there. There was also the Dead Ringer, which combined in an awful way with the Ambassador to create an immortal super speed long range instakiller. Sure, you can wiggle a bit and hope to get lucky, but the Spy has to do no such thing to survive your damage. He just clicks one button and launches away to long range where he has the advantage over you. This was the true nasty part of the Gun Spy. The Dead Ringer was definitely the worst part about the Ambassador. But it wasn't the only problem. Unfortunately Valve decided not to address the mobility issue at all, and in stead just went for the "slightly shuffle damage numbers compared to stock but make it overall worse" approach. Like the Back Scatter, the Shortstop, the Enforcer, the Liberty Launcher, this just makes the weapons useless. And it's sad whenever it happens. With this approach it always feels more like Valve just basically deletes a weapon until they can think of a way to make it fun and balanced.
Well spoken. I definitely agree that long sightlines are a huge issue in this game, and your potential balance proposition for the Spy having access to it is very fair in concept. In retrospect with my views and discussion on these nerfs, I've always approached it with a "Fight fire with fire" response in that "Sniper has access to this ridiculous stuff, why not I?". As someone who can't help but having bias, I actually am very impressed to see someone with such unbiased insight that I could never conceive myself. This should be pinned.
Amadeus the thing with sniper is that when the game is 12v12 or 9v9 sniper is a tier 1-2 class alongside medic but when we shrink the team size to 6v6 sniper gets down to tier 3-4. In a small team size game there are a lot of 1v1s. If I'll face a 1v1 against a sniper thats not aimbotting as a scout or a soldier, I can win the fight 95% of the time.
I can honestly empathize a lot with this video. The amby is what allowed me to pour 8 hours a day into this game when I had nothing else do do in life. Just improving that one raw mechanical skill added so much more depth to spy. This video made it dawn on me what I felt when I played tf2 after this new update for the couple of hours I could. I felt something was missing, that something just wasn't there. I now realize that it was the amby that I knew and loved before was missing. This was a very good update, and a very sad update. It's not only sad that this weapon I loved so much is fundamentally changed for the worse, but it's sad that an entire development team and an entire game's community would take to heart advice given by someone who although is very experienced at the game, is experience in the wrong parts of the game for such a change to occur.
spy got no love in this update at all. The dead ringer nerf was the only good thing that came out of spy's changes. The Amby is dead, the Diamondback is broken as shit, the skill ceiling is far lower now, the Your Eternal Reward is now basically unusable without L'étranger because they had to nerf it but adding the cloak reduction. The whole point to the YER was that it rewarded spy's that didn't need a disguise and had good positioning with instant disguising which I found often worked to fool people really well because they don't expect the teammate that was following them to suddenly kill them when they just walked through said teammate moments ago. Now they made it suck so that people that should really be playing stock until they get good with positioning are able to use it but all it's doing to those players is making it harder to manage cloak. It was a buff to bad spies but a nerf to good ones. And spy got no war paints for his unlocks. I don't even main spy (I main demo) and I know that some of these changes weren't necessary. The YER, the Spycicle, L'étranger, the Big Earner, the Kunai, and the Ambassador were fine where they were and the Dead Ringer and Diamondback needed to be nerfed. Also why wasn't the Red Tape Recorder or the Enforcer touched at all ? Those weapons suck, and wasn't this update about making non used weapons more frequently used ? They should just give the Enforcer mini-crits while disguised and it shouldn't have a damage penalty when shooting buildings, so this could be an excellent tool for taking out nests. I'm not sure what they could do with the Red Tape Recorder but I'm sure there is a way to make it usable. Like maybe holding it in your hand lets you go through teleporters both ways or something.
Sir Stanger pointed out a hidden Spy buff that was listed as a pyro nerf: the afterburn nerf in which the duration of the afterburn depends on how long you directly hit the opponent with the flamethrower. I'm not so sure if it's enough to say that Spy has been buffed overall, but it's still to be taken into consideration when talking about post-Jungle Inferno Spy.
yeah and i'm willing to bet most of them were just hopping on the hate bandwagon. Like really out side of comp how many times would you get headshotted by the ambi at mid to long range to even notice the damage.
Coming from someone who was only passable at Spy, but mained Heavy and Medic both in HL PUGs and casual pubs, I never saw the Ambassador as a problem. I watched you and other plat/prem Spies in numerous videos of matches and scrims pull all the meat out of its bones and it earned my respect as a weapon... but I never saw it as OP. Hell, even now, were the Ambassador not changed at all I would imagine the L’etranger would’ve become the pub knife of choice to assuage the new DR penalty. If the Ambassador had to get a nerf - and it could maybe have used one, maybe - I would have simply made it deal minicrits on headshot beyond 1200 HU, or further decreased the firing speed (maybe even to 1/sec, and perhaps remove the damage penalty) to maintain its use as a single-shot, precision Revolver unlike its brothers. As of now, you may as well just use the Diamondback for all the good that bellyaching about long range 102s did. I was looking forward to this video as soon as you showed the script on your Twitter and I wasn’t disappointed. You’re part of a valuable group of people who allow me to learn about and respect classes and load outs that would take me ages to get competent with. It’s just a shame they had to do this with the Ambassador...
I'd be happy for them to head super down the skill tree and make it bad as a revolver (right now you can still kind of use it for bodyshots, and i do recommend doing it, and removing that would make it v bad in close range and make you want to run stock a lot more often) thank you :>
You know, I always said this and I still stand by it. If the Team still will never revert it back to it's old ways, then give it a set range for that 102 damage with no fall off! It would still be a good sniper like gun but you would just have to be a good moderate distance to hit that 102
that's what i always say, but all it's popular now, it's people that were saying it was OP and people saying it's not that bad now, even tho they canfucking test themselves how Stock is better, because realistically no one can hit too many heads with it, and if they did it would still be just the same as stock in terms of dps
Hello! I've been pouring my soul into this lately, so I'm hoping this video will generate lots of nice conversations and discussions. If you've got any thoughts and feelings yourself this is the best place to leave them! P.S. this is officially a "do NOT bully" zone, if I catch any rude words so help me god I'm going to delay cooking with woolen 3
I’ve really do love these videos! I find that if you could branch out of Spy. The thing about the Amby: they should just set a range for crits to not be possible.
I wish more people started using the Diamonback rather than holding on to that poor Ambi. If the Diamondback had that level of saturation as the Ambi once did, we would have gotten a balance change ages ago as salty players get critshotted out of nowhere.
The ambassador is literally one of the most well designed weapons in the game. It’s VASTLY harder to hit someone in the head with this weapon than even the sniper rifle, but if you do, you deal quite a decent amount of damage. The tradeoff is that missing your shots have a much larger penalty. Perfect case of risk vs reward.
I know this is 3 years ago but jesus christ I've literally never seen anyone complain about the amby being unbalanced in all 2k hours I've played, all this change did was remove the skill ceiling on the weakest class in the game and eversince the change people defend the nerf as if every spy hits every headshot all the time.
Tf2 youtubers who hated the old amby now suddenly think it should be reverted back - gotta love that irony. (Seriously so many people got outraged at this thing but completely ignored how mechanically broken the Wrangler is * cough cough * uncle dane * cough cough *)
Valve basically listens to everyone, that's a good thing and a bad thing bc they listen to the people that dont really know much about weapon balance / jump onto bandwagons. Personally I think that they need to compare "OP" weapons to the other weapons in their category and then examine gameplay of both higher levels and lower levels.
Ambassador you walked through the door, stole our hearts like candy from a store, then one day you left, and on our hearts there was heft, until the next time we meet, iLl JuSt UsE tHe StOcK
As a pyro main I always found the dead ringer frustrating but the amby when killed by it i was never frustrated I realized the skill effort and time put into it and i never saw that it needed change if the diamondback wasnt changed at all
Most people who hated the ambi just jumped on the hate train. Like really how many times have you actually been headshotted at mid to long range by a spy out of comp.
As a sniper player, I was disappointed to see the Amby nerfed when it was. And as a sniper player, amby headshots at long ranges are harder than quick scoping as sniper, which says a lot about it. I still use the gun bc its fun, but the stock is just better. 3 years alter and its still nerfed. tragic.
Yeah I just bought an Aussie amby for 6 keys worth of items. Hopefully they revert it so I can make some money on it. I’ve been using the amby because I enjoy the challenge of headshots but in every situation I’ve found stock would be better.
I'll stick to my good old "Pocket Sniper". I don't really like Australium weapons anyway. EDIT: AAAND less than a week later I Found an Aussie Ambassador with the perfect strange parts and a Daffodil specialized killstreaker at a low price, that I couldn't resist taking up.
It's almost like you read my mind. While I AM sad about the nerfs to the DR and Ambassador, I feel like this has now started a new era for spies. You made great points about the other classes and I can see you poured your heart and soul into this video. Like I think this is my favorite Woolen video you've ever made.
I'm extremely fucking sad with you, Woolen. I've mained spy for the entirety of the time I've played tf2 and now I just don't have remotely as much fun with it anymore.
If they revert the changes then you'll have more people with the amby then ever doing NOTHING but trying to be sniper with a cloak and being ineffective.
@@Waskomsause your comment exudes ignorance. Maybe if you actually ever played spy, you would understand that nobody does that, nor did they ever do that before the ambassador was nerfed.
Does anyone remember the AMBASSADOR before the FIRST NERF? YOU DIDNT EVEN NEED TO WAIT FOR THE RETICLE TO SHRINK. Back when arena mode was new. OH, THE GOLDEN AGE
After painfully accepting that I accidently closed the Google window while writing a 1.5 hours RU-vid comment about a video game, I thought justified to spend another 1.5 hours doing the same: This is an important topic as well as an interesting one: None can ignore these changes, whether you like them or not, they might forever change the way we perceive and play Spy. Just like the Gunslinger for the Engineer or the shields for the Demoman, the Ambassador gave the Spy a different play style and allowed him (when paired with the Dead Ringer for example) to be played more aggressively. I think we can all agree that lowering the skill ceiling of one of the most skill requiring weapon of one of the weakest class in the game is a bad idea, yet we can also find some benefits to this situation. We can probably all understand why the changes were justified but we're also in right to wonder why they had to be that hard. I think Valve had to face a dilemma, let me explain myself: Team Fortress 2 is getting older, that means some players have been around for quite a while and are therefore used to playing the weapons they like on the classes they like. They have trained and learnt to play a certain way and that is definitely one of the hardest thing to face as a game developer. That means whatever Valve wants to do with their game, they can't please everyone anymore, they'll always face an opposition. And they had to make a choice. Here they have made the best choice for the game overall long term balance (and that hurts to say). I don't think anyone really complained about the Ambassador as a weapon, objectively, if you're able to hit a shot across the map, then yes you deserved the kill. But just like the Gloves of Running Urgently used to get rid of Heavy's biggest weakness, being able to get anywhere on the map AND being able to kill people from a safe distance was just not the way Valve wanted Spy to work. Here Valve made the choice not to care about whether or not it needed practice or skill, they chose against experienced players. As highlighted in the video, they lowered the skill ceiling of this weapon to force Spies playing the way it was first intended to be played. Now, training at Spy means being actually useful, and not just running around with a gun trying to do cool stuff. While I don't entirely agree with this and I didn't think the Ambassador was that much of a threat at long range in pubs and lower divisions, I can only understand their thought process. A simple example would be how Valve has so far refused to support competitive TF2: Not because it was bad at its current state, but just because they weren't happy with it., just because they had something else in mind... And It's not the first time they do such a thing: I can probably quote by heart a 5 minute speech of a Pyro main friend of mine who would constantly talk about how stupid it was to nerf the Degreaser, one of the only skill requiring weapon that Pyro had back then. And she was right, you're right Woolen, everyone is right to say that it was dumb from a player perspective. But that's also why I understand the changes, Valve seems to be placing the limits of their classes, they seem to finally know where they're going with this game, and they had to hurt some players in the process... However it's important not to confuse gameplay wise innovative weapons, and subclasses. And that's what Valve apparently did. While I stand that the Dead Ringer+Ambassador combo was a consequent subclass for Spy as it gave him more resistance and damage output (given the Spy could aim) at the cost of less mobility and pick choices, the Ambassador alone was just one of many Spy secondaries and it wasn't always the best choice when running any other Cloak than the DR. So when you think about it, the nerf of the Dead Ringer was already a significant indirect nerf to the Ambassador. I can completely understand how an infinitely spamable portable shield and speed boost provider coupled with a high damage long range gun felt slightly frustrating to play against, but never have I met someone complaining about a Spy playing Ambassador with the Stock Cloak because it was just not nearly as frustrating. While I stand that it is still important to let the TF Team know about our opinion on the current state of these weapons, Spy and Team Fortress 2 in general, I believe it is also our job to try to see the positive aspects of such a situation. As a matter of fact, Spy sounds less predictable now: The Ambassador is way weaker than it used to be, and so is the Dead Ringer, Spy doesn't really have a subclass anymore. We can then assume that a lot of people are going to stop using these weapons as often as they used to. But we might see these weapons shine where none really expected them to, we might see them being used more occasionally as a surprise factor. People will start forgetting about the Dead Ringer (Given Valve fixes the remaining glitches related to the hit and kill sounds with DR Spies) it'll then become much more effective when used at the right time, it might be more situational, So might be the Ambassador, and Spy might eventually become that class first designed to be a high value target pick class that relies heavily on close combat and psychology and not some sort of atrocity between a Scout a Heavy and a Sniper, running around and headshoting people (Although it was fun to play after a long day of work). It gives an opportunity for plays we almost didn't see anymore because of the Dead Ringer and the Ambassador respectively overshadowing the other Cloaks and Revolvers. I myself have high hopes that Valve won't let Spy down after the Pyro update and we might see incoming changes reworking weapons we once thought useless (like they did with the Big Earner) and giving our beloved Spy his proper place in the game. After all, using something less often than we used to might just translate in making it stronger for the few times we use it... PkPa
thanks for the writeup friendo! I'm sorry I can't write more of a reply, but I agree with your points, esp. about the degreaser nerf (removing combos basically removed the flare gun, which i used to find a fun unlock to practice with, but the dg nerf made the shotgun's use of "its good to run around with" even stronger) I do also think that the dr nerf was a big nerf to the amby; running invis& amby was always the "hard mode" compared to just playing stock or l'etranger, as it gave you a much harder time of short distance defence (usually you'd run the invis&amby just because the sniper had a razorback and it was pretty much required to take him out) thank you again :>
The Ambassador is me favorite weapon in the game because of how beautiful it’s design is. And it still pisses me off to no end that they changed the Crits on headshots to crits on headshots depends on the range of how close you are to your intended target!
Valve really obliterated spy 's medium-long range abilities this update but what I am even more sad about is spy got nothing this update except a YER BUFF\NERF?? HE DIDN'T EVEN GET WARPAINTS FOR HIS OTHER WEAPONS
I suspect it's to do with weapon recognition... Spy's weapons tend to have very small models (compared to other classes unlocks)... Changing their textures could potentially make it difficult for other players to identify what weapons the spy is using.
Smelly Salty Socks Yeah but spy got nerfed so hard that the afterburn changes hardly make up for shitty medium-long range capabilities, the YER sucks now and spy now has a lower skill ceiling
I just came across this video, and it got me thinking, 2-3 years ago, I was one of those people that hated to come across an amby spy. But now that I've gotten fairly good at TF2, and have been playing for a while, I really understand what you said here, and even as a someone who doesn't ever play spy (is a medic main), I agree. This was a bad nerf.
I feel like the recent ambi nerf was the decision of a bunch of salty kids tired of being headshot all the time by skilled players. and this is coming from me, a pyro-medic main with just 700 hours and who is absolutely no good with sniping. Objectively I believe that the old ambi is a really good weapon that defines a huge part of what the spy is as a class.
I haven't played TF2 in a long long time but this is really similar to the deagle in CS:GO in that a player who buys the Deagle is, most of the time, a detriment to the team. They are practicing to get the satisfying one-taps. Really good players can do really well with it, and it was essentially "Hey, you can get an AWP that costs 700 instead of 4750, you just have to hipfire the head from a mile away", essentially creating a sniper on round 1 with enough skill. In fact that applies to all 1-tap guns. AK and Scout and Deagle. Extremely good but only if you have the skill, because headshots don't come easy. I imagine if they were nerfed in a similar way to the ambassador you'd see a similar outcry. Even including all the people coming out of the woodwork to say "I always get headshot across the map from deagle, I'm glad it's nerfed" when that almost never happens, even in comp games people miss more than they hit.
Who would win: A sub-class with a high skill ceiling that takes thousands of hours to get good at? Or a handful of whiny redditors who spent 100 hours playing TF2? Valve doesn't care about rewarding skill. They care more about trying to put everyone on the same playing field, which is ludicrous considering you can't avoid being better at something than other people if you put more time and effort into perfecting your skills. As you said, the Ambassador existed for close to a decade, and people that spent a long time playing TF2 got used to it in the sense that everyone understood that it was a sidegrade to the revolver that worked situationally and IF you put enough time into practicing it. But, come to think about it, I think you can very much blame the TF2 team, for many reasons. One, they never asked for people's opinions on the Ambassador, they didn't ask for the pros opinions, the pubber's opinion. They didn't consult anyone who spent hundreds if not thousands of hours playing Spy, someone who understands the flaws in both pubs and comp. They just went on Reddit, and saw all the people whining about the ambassador. You said this was a no-bully zone, but that's really what it is, whining on Reddit doesn't improve the game, it's just a way to vent and express frustration when someone is better than you at something. The balancing they incorporate does not cater to a loyal playerbase that has not stopped playing the game when EVERYONE said it was dead. It caters to the vocal minority who speak with their emotions. The fact is that their justification never was legitimate, because if it was as much of an issue as they make it out to be, they would have rectified it YEARS ago. It's sad, I agree. When we say "Tf2 is dying", it's not to say that the game won't be played anymore. It's to say that the game is being changed into something that is very far from what it originally was. Maybe I'm just against change, I played this game for 5 thousand hours, and Valve repays people like you and me with taking a shit on what THEY made absolutely normal. And since when is the TF2 team supposed to listen to people who have barely put enough time and effort to learn Ambi spy? People who cannot appreciate the efforts it takes to reach a certain skill ceiling? That's the entire problem. Find someone who knows what they're talking, and consider what they say. Don't just bend to the will of a community that wants to tell you how to run YOUR game. If Robin Walker didn't leave for Dota 2, you wouldn't have seen stupid nerfs like this (when the TF2 team could have focused on optimizing their game and promoting the comp scene), you wouldn't have seen the sellout skins and MM taken straight out of another Valve game. This is a great video, and I'm sorry if it looks like I am venting.
oh thanks i do feel like they've been catering incredibly hard to the small but vocal minority, which i feel like makes the game instead of balancing around the majority opinion; it makes it revolve around a small group of people's opinions who then later use this to change everyone else's opinion to match theirs, after valve have shown to listen to that person
Sure, as soon as the dev team nerf your favorite crutch, they suck, and the game is dying. Whining on reddit about a weapon needing to be nerfed is no different to whining on youtube about why your weapon needs to be buffed again, you're helping the game, you're not improving it. You're just whining
Also, no they don't just randomly go to reddit and see the top 10 post and realize what are the weapons which need nerf/buff, because if they do that, things like the spy and snipers will no longer be in the game anymore. You're just mad, not constructively criticizing something. Just deal with it. Many classes got 10 times as much nerf as the spy but no-one complain about them, or call those nerf un-needed, just think of the Heavy, singlehandly receive the biggest nerfs in the history of this game, yet no-one talks about the poor russian man. You're just a pathetic baby, with invalid and unoriginal points such as "They don't listen/care about us, it's all B4nny's fault, Vovlo sucks", just like valcaron, lifemarr, Nightmare, defaulty and all those spy mains up there thinking the Amby was balanced and not OP, at all. Go suck your thumb.
I'm not whining about the dev team nerfing a crutch. Do you know what a crutch is? The definition of a crutch is widely accepted as a weapon that helps bad players be better at the game. How was the ambi EVER a crutch when it took more skill, more time to learn how to aim it? The game isn't dying because of a weapon nerf. It's funny that you need to simplify what I said to this degree to feel like you're right. The game is dying because the devs are listening to 2% of the playerbase and aren't taking into consideration the opinions of experienced players in both pubs and comp. Whining on reddit is one thing. Me commenting on a YT video that I deem very helpful and emailing it to the TF2 dev team (which I did do) is something else. I'm whining because the dev team doesn't want to listen to people who know much about the game. I'm whining because they're killing off a sub-class that took skill. Get your head out of your ass before spewing this trash at me, thanks.
People still whine about the heavy nerf. I have the right to be mad after putting 5k hours into a game, spending hundreds of dollars and supporting the developers. There are a lot of nerfs that changed the game that proved the dev team don't even play their game. I never said they just view the top posts on reddit. They just implement shitty changes that are undocumented in reason or community feedback, and the only place they actively contact the community is on reddit. It's just that when Heavy was nerfed, the dev team wasn't "communicating" with the TF2 community, and they're still not actually doing that. I never said it was B4nny's fault. You're just trying to antagonize me because I'm criticizing a dying game. If you want to be mad when I say that the TF2 dev team are money-hungry people who don't give a shit about the actual 98k users who play their game, that's your choice. I'm not going to stoop down to your level and insult you out of respect for Woolen. If you have anything constructive to say, you're more than welcome, but I won't respond to insults and idiotic arguments that have no basis in either history or facts.
Where do I start with such an impactful video? Legitimately, I felt a whole lot of feelings with spy that I hadn't felt in several years after I had stopped maining him then eventually stopped playing tf2 while you were talking about the history of specific unlocks. These feelings are just simply a mixture of nostalgia and enjoyment from back when I used to play the class. Having these feelings made it clear to me that you really did have something to say straight from the heart and didn't half-ass any part of the discussion. I've never, ever felt the ambassador was broken pre-jungle inferno (aside from that one update that threw off the timing and animations of the reloading for all revolvers, but that's not really a nerf, but more of something else I can't quite think of the name.) Back when I used the ambassador a lot, I enjoyed the challenge it had offered. I had spent so much time on so many different kinds of servers with so many different kinds of people trying to improve on the weapon, even as far as challenging and learning from other ambassador users who were incredibly more skilled than me. I felt that was the most respected weapon spy had because it purely down to skill, no random crit bullshit, no abuse of easily exploitable mechanics, etc. About a month ago, I came back to tf2 a few days after the jungle inferno update hit, after 2 years of quitting the game. I came back with an open mind and decided to make some changes to things I was unhappy with before I quit. I wanted to just play for fun with friends, but also experience a bit of nostalgia playing classes I used to play and maybe picking them back up again. When I saw that the ambassador received such a nerf, it was just a strong bitter taste in my mouth, seeing how brutal an impactful weapon of a class got nerfed, especially since it was an extremely fair weapon. I appreciate this video you made, for giving me those feelings of nostalgia, presenting the interesting history of the weapon, and exposing how hard of a nerf this was to the weapon in hopes of creating a conversation to maybe one day revert the weapon to its prior stats. Merci et au revoir, Sleevelet.
Hey Woolen. Almost all of my 600 hours as spy was with the ambassador, I loved being a gun spy because I don't have time to do competitive so i'm stuck in pubs. every time I go in for a stab or a trickstab, I always die to random crits. The ambassador solved that problem for me, I can keep my distance so if a crit is shot at me I can move. But with the changes, I feel like you might as well try for a stab instead of going for headshots. After this update I tried to do gunspy with the revolver but I can't deal enough damage to someone in a quick enough time for it. You were the main reason why I trained to be a gunspy, I saw the amazing things you could do, taking little to no damage and that's what I worked up to be. There was always a gunspy subclass for spy but now there is no other way to play except going in for the backstab and trying to strafe out of a situation if it doesn't work. To me this put a doubt in my spy gameplay. I don't really enjoy the class as much as I used to and even though it pains me to say, I've been using the diamondback more than any other gun since the update. It's a near upgrade to the revolver if you can just land a shot after stabbing a few people and I hate it. I always choose the ambassador over the diamondback because it was better in my opinion. Well, I guess that's enough of a spy main ranting about a change. If you read through this Woolen, Thanks for the inspiration, the videos, and all the fun times.
hello one of the things which first drew me to using the amby was that i had to play on a terrible ping knife hit registration was awful, so it made playing spy really unsatisfying when i learned that the gun worked regardless of your ping it gave me something to strive for, so i could still be useful even with bad internet (like stable 300, climbing over 1000 sometimes) I'm not sure what i would do these days if i only just started playing competitive today on similar internet, since it'd probably just end up being me running around hoping to get facestabs, rather than having something to practice consistency on i do feel like they've removed a subclass from spy, it's like if they removed all the swords/shields from demo and forced him to only play the explosives class danke friendo :(
I actually agree with your statement that the dr/amby nerf are a buff as well, primarily because the actual skilled spies who know how the class works wont be bothered too much by these changes whereas the pub spies probably wont use the weapons anymore since theyre useless, decreasing spies by a lot in pubs. But lets be fair here, there are only a handful of people who can consistently hit headshots from long range (myself included) and I have never seen a regular pub spy anywhere whenever I pub (and I pub quite a lot) who could do the same as me, getting high killstreaks with the amby and hitting consecutives headshots so I still dont get where Valve draws the conclusion that amby gets spammed too much or that long range shouldnt be a feature for a close range class, but oh well I hope that theyll realise their mistake and revert it the way it was.
imho the conclusion feels like it was tilted slightly by a visitor there, i really don't feel like there's enough people running around being a nuisance with it to cause removing it for every other player
I almost felt like their previous proposed change was almost an attempt at its preservation: while their reason for changing it would have suggested that they intended to limit the gun's range, their original proposed change would have at least preserved some possibility of long range damage - at least more than the one they eventually made... To me it seems almost counter intuitive to impose "balance" in a game by polarizing ranged damage onto one class...
I miss the Thin (amby crit)....Thin....ta.... I have 2,5k hours of tf2, and 1,3k hours of spy. And in that time I've chosen the amby because of the skill required and SPECIALLY the reward. Now I'm trying the other classes and i'm getting excited with airshots and rocket jump. For me iw + revolver is too easy.
They need to revert the ambassador. Keep the dead ringer where it is and needs to be, dead in a pit, but please bring back the amby. It takes a ton of skill to use, and its not nearly as op without the dead ringer.
I have near 50k kills on my amby but 100% not bias to it The real game breaking part about the amby is that you can no longer take out bad stale mate creating engis or razor snipers hiding around sentry's. You needed the extra amby range and obscure location to do that when backstabbing is a sure no. I agree with everybody's other reasoning's for nerfing the amby but the game is far worse off now on account of the indirect engi/sniper buff this has given way to. I'd settle for conditional 102 head shots only on snipers and engis. Those are the kills you really, really want spy to be getting for everybody's gain.
I never really had a problem with the amby as it was before the nerf. No spy was very good at hitting their shots, but when they would I would not complain. But I sure will miss seeing those damn beautiful headshots on full uber meds and rocket jumping soldiers in comp.
I totally agree especially as an expensive looking spy main I only really ran the ambassador because it was gold and when I hit the headshot it was really satisfying and they have almost removed that aspect completely and I am currently learning how to play spy in a completely different way now using the clock and dagger the kunni and the letranger
I hope valve does the amby like they did the phlog after they buffed that to hell and change it the amby back to previous design like in a few weeks and not in the next rebalance (which will prob be many many many months away) because I liked being able to pick out of 3 revolvers instead of 2. All I can do is hope :^)
taxi "in a few weeks..." HAAHAHAHAHH HHHHSHSAHH XXDDGAHAHAHAHXBSNXCNCJJCNCNDJJDJ List my mind when I got good wtih amby then bought astralium one and then got "scammed" cause they nerfed it.
"The carving on the surface does not improve effectiveness in any shape or form, despite that those attempts at harming via fire-arms was of some adequate skill" - Nude Anaconda
I honestly never had much of a problem with the ambassador, I've played the game off and on for years, and honestly wasn't aware of the ambassador's nerf before watching this video. For me it always felt fair when I got sniped by an ambassador spy, much like a sniper or a direct hit soldier when I got hit by an ambassador it was a combination of my mistakes mixed with their skill which gave them a powerful punish tool in exchange for lackluster performance everywhere else.
The Ambi has both a higher skill floor (minimum skill/effort required to be effective) and a higher skill ceiling (maximum effectiveness that can be acheived); it's a weapon that rewarded a very good player with increased dps and attack range. The raised skill floor acts as a balancing tool -- it decreases the frequency of this super-effective scenario for Spy. The issue with balancing a weapon by way of a raised skill floor is that it doesn't always do much to alleviate enemy frustration or confusion. For example, let's say that an Ambi snipe is very rare, and Revolver random crits are made similarly rare. Landing that across-the-map shot that kills the enemy will feel very unfair and unpredictable to said enemy, even though from the Spy's perspective, one was clearly a much more deserved kill than the other. What this teaches is that balancing a weapon with a high skill floor may bring more satisfaction to players who use it effectively, and may increase the rarity of the event, but that doesn't stop the event from potentially being seen as "overpowered" or "unpredictable". A random lightning-storm event that will kill a person on the cart once every 1000 games will still feel broken to that one guy who gets killed by it. So then, the first question to be asked is not whether Ambi sniping required a sufficient amount of skill to balance out the ability, but rather if the ability should be possible in the first place. It's very similar to the Sandman situation in that regard (although less skill and more luck is involved with the ball). You point out a few similar situations where close- or mid-range classes are given weapons with long-range abilities, and that's a fairly good argument. Why can't Spy have a long-range weapon? I suppose the simple answer is that Spy's general concept has always been one of proximity to targets -- doing what is necessary to get in close for a kill, and using what you have to back out when needed. I do agree there are some other long-range weapons that are far too powerful, though (Crossbow). The other issue is the sheer amount of damage the Ambi did at long-range -- it's more than any of the other examples you gave, and is from a hit-reg weapon rather than a visible, dodge-able/blockable projectile. So, I do tentatively side with the idea that Ambi shouldn't be able to do long-range 102's (nor should the Diamondback), but i really don't think the crits fall-off was necessary. Ah, you know what? Have Ambi do 102 dmg headshots all the way to, say, 1500 hu, then only 68 dmg (200%) beyond that. Then, nerf the Diamondback to have 30 base damage instead of 34 (90 crit instead of 102), and/or give it crit fall-off.
imho the strongest argument for it being balanced, is that even at the top level of play people would still switch off to it / not ever run it at all (if it was clearly the strongest, like the degreaser, you'd be seeing everyone use it) i also feel like, while it sounds odd, an amby shot was easier to dodge than a fast projectile - moving would make it much harder for the spy to hit, while the projectile already has a hitbox of its own, which needs to hit an even larger hitbox on you (proj hitbox is bigger than hitscan by quite a bit), making (i think) dodging a bad amby spy much easier than a bad medic randomly throwing arrows at you db really should have been changed too tbh
This hate towards spies is as you said Woolen, what affected me the most. Despite finding the ambi's changes ridiculous, that massive amount of rage from the community is really painful. To complete the opinion about the ambassador, this weapon was also a "chance" for spy to win a fight against a more powerful class or more agile despite his low health. Now that the ambi can't make a 102 damage expect from being literally face to face with the enemy, makes it even more useless. I spend a while training on it too. Feels really sad.
Spy isn't allowed to have a weapon that takes months to master ,but engineer should have an unlock that triples the amount of health of your sentry in 1 push of a button, sure
Preach woolen preach 👏 this video was so emotional. all 28 minutes of it. all those points you brought up were so true.all those hours wasted,its very saddening 😭
I only just discovered "gun spy," and I'm swearing by the stock Revolver. The Enforcer has potential, I think, but stock is much better. My biggest gripe is that they don't at all cater to a subclass of a spy serving as a "gunslinger." Gun spy is an established archetype, like a much more diminutive corollary to Demo Knight. The difference is that one of these subclasses has been encouraged by the three guys at Valve working part time on TF2, while the other has been actively discouraged. I would love if there were options for a good Gun Spy build focusing on close range rapid fire engagement that deemphasized both the melee option and disguise, while favoring the revolver and the cloak (or an alternative to the cloak, like a teleport or temporary resistances). Playing spy as a pistolero seems to have both a place in the game, in the lore, for the character, and adds additional depth to what seems to be a comparatively underdeveloped class. Spy deserves much more that just "spooky man shove pointy stick in bad guy's back." He should be able to do recon (possibly a tool to replace the sapper or even the cloak), gunfight, hinder, you know....spy stuff. He needs more guns (I'd personally love an semi-automatic option for him...perhaps a Mateba to keep with the wheel-gun theme), more gear options, and more playstyles. As someone kinda just seeing the surface of the class, he just seems shallow compared to the likes of Sniper, Soldier, Demo, hell even Scout has more playstyles, and I find this disheartening out of the gate. Here's hoping that Valve shows the spooky boi some love beyond more knives or guns meant by designed not to be used.
The funny thing is that valve says " you would often see a spy instead of a sniper sniping you " yet one of the funniest and rather rare thing you would see in TF2 pub's was a script kiddy using the amby instead of a sniper rifle to get head shot after headshot. These are the only time I've ever been suprised to see a spy with an amby instead of a sniper on a kill cam, and any other time Iv simply been impressed by the difficult shot.
Here some ways to change that quote. "Players that are killed from across the map are excepting to see a sniper in their death-cam, but they sometimes see (more often that we'd like) a Medic with a 75 dmg crossbow, a 90 dmg flare, a direct hit rocket, pipes with no falloff, a engi with a wrangled mini sentry..." "Players killed in short range are expecting to see either a pyro or spy in their death-cam, but they sometimes see (more often that we'd like) a demoman with a sword and shield, a sniper with the huntsman..."
Saddest part is, all the spy weapon changes are basically permanent. We’re never getting another balance patch, those days are over. Just bi-annual cosmetic crates and that’s it. It’s sad.
In all honesty, I feel like I kinda made this nerf happen. I used to be a cheeky spy on badwater, headshotting people from the rocks near point A when they were coming out of Blu's forward spawn. Though I still don't feel like that was over powered, since in the 3 cases were I was on fire and was hitting those incredibly difficult headshots, normally someone would either just come in to close the distance or go sniper and shoot me in the head with much less difficulty since they have a scope. So I feel for you Sleeve, and I hope they revert this change like they did on the Claymore. Otherwise I think the Amby's gonna go on the same shelf the Short circuit used to be on for most of TF2's lifetime.
The problem with the nerf isn't that they reduced the effective range. That was a worthy goal. No, I never had a problem with it. However, when you really look at it, the argument can be made that Spy shouldn't be able to do that. And that's fine. No, the problem with the nerf is that it was done without a corresponding buff. The weapon was irritating (really? :/) or 'not designed right', rather than overpowered, so it needed the nerf to be matched. The Amby is currently exceeded in power for less skill inside the new crit range. So the solution isn't to give it back all the range. It's to allow those thousands of hours to pay off in the new range. Stock for consistency. Ambassador for greater skill rewards. What they need to do is decrease the headshot cooldown, make the falloff less severe, increase the headshot damage, or any number of other things to achieve this. Again, problem isn't the nerf. It's the lack of a corresponding buff to give the weapon a new purpose.
Old video, I know, but my 2c; I agree with the whole "we already have a sniper class" argument but I also want to see the Spy getting any kind of boosts to, well, being a spy. I would have loved it if, along with nerfing the ambassador, they also introduced some new invisi watch or whatnot to give the spy more options when it comes to sneaking about or disguising, etc. I think the counterpoint to Medic's crossbow / Pyro's flaregun is that those are projectile weapons and thus you can dodge them a good bit easier, especially at longer ranges. Also I believe there was always a good bit of annoyance regarding ambassador spies, though that's purely anecdotal, and i myself havent actually witnessed a rise of anger at the weapon since this patch but again, purely anecdotal. Great video and script, keep it up! :)
Just bought a festive amby, this nerf is not stopping me from putting it to use. I am a strong INDEPENDENT SPY AND I WILL GET THAT FRAG VIDEO! But, in all seriousness, this was one of your best TF2 videos, simply because of how much detail and background information you provided for this. Well done Woolen, hopefully Valve will reconsider sometime in the future.
I still can't believe they changed it. I never used it because I never liked spy but it was definitely not as broken as some whiny bitches make it seem. I'm just using sniper to put into perspective because I've sunk so many hours into that class and a nerf that changes mechanics that are ingrained in people's minds through thousands of hours of dedicated practice is bizarre to say the least. It's like if they changed weapon spray patterns in csgo because they were tired of people getting sprayed by rifles and not smgs.
I can't believe you mentioned Solid, and Lenny!! I was influenced and in short contact with Solid when I discovered that I wasn't the only Spy to be moving into Gunspy. It was a very exciting time because instead of learning and studying the hitboxes and latency mechanics to get the trick stabs, you could take the control back by using your -primary- weapon instead of relying on (sometimes) suicidal knife-picks. You could coop with your team/scout, and boy I'll tell you guys that with just 1 more team mate besides me an Amby spy because a true glass cannon, especially when you need to defend your medic or last point... Overall it was fun because it gave us the control back and NOT to rely on our knife skills as much! Which is a WELL DESEREVED break out of all the focus on knifing people...
If it gets buffed then it would likely be to its bodyshot damage, not headshot damage. A slower firing rate and no bodyshot damage reduction then it had before would have been nice, as well as having things setup for mid range max damage.
I have probably 500 hours as spy right now 100 of which were spent trying to learn how to use the ambassador effectively. I got fairly consistent, being able to headshot scouts and pyro's that we're chasing me with a quick backwards flick. Now after this update I've only been using the revolver. I too feel that all those hours have been wasted. I know it's really not a spy's job to get long range picks, but it felt really rewarding when I pulled them off.
I myself had no problems with the amby I only had problems with hackers using it. the diamondback on the other hand is the one that deserved a nerf. now I believe valve needs to increase the range of crit damage on the ambi to about twice of what it is and remove the crit falloff and add that stat instead to the diamondback
Tho the diamondback is op in the right hands, just like the amby. It actually rewards for spy gameplay. How nice right? A spy weapon that rewards for spy gameplay :O Tho the amby nerfs are really unbearable..
Being rewarded for stabbing one person with an instant kill revolver shot is not a balanced design man. 102 damage headshots or bodyshots are far too much on a class designed around single shot kill backstabs.
I feel like dead ringer should get it’s old nerf from gun mettle. The requirement of skill should be an argument; however, many people say it is not the spies job to snipe from the ridiculous range. Many unlocks have changed classes such as gunboats, med crossbow, rescue ranger, beggars, and wrangler. I feel like these unlocks make these classes who they are to this day. Medics able to skill shot from a range instead of healing from up close, the “sigafoo save” which smarter engineers use, the rescue ranger showing skills for aiming with it, and finally the big thing imo is that soldiers were not supposed to be one o the fast classes with gunboats. I feel like the gunboats changed soldier hell even made the roamer role prominent. The gunboats require skill with hours of practice on jumping. The ambassador takes hours of time to get consistent. Many jumpers practice rollouts same for ambassador with aim practice. I feel like the argument of “he wasn’t made to that” should look at each weapon and realize that many weapons in tf2 change every class, change skill caps, and finally reward those who put their time. Idk it’s my rambling.
They nerf the weapon that requires you to hit a tiny moving head and you also have to compensate for how fast he’s going, the direction, how far he is... It’s like trying to put in co-ordinates of a fucking missile. The diamondback that deals more damage than the amby and only requires you to do your thing and doesn’t even have damage fall off and you only need to aim for a tiny ass head. I don’t know what stuff Valve is smoking right now. The only reason people got headshot across the map was because they were standing still like fucking idiots.
I've been split about this change. On one hand, I find it a little annoying because it can be really unfun to play against a good amby spy. However, I never felt like it was an undeserved kill since the spy's skill at aiming should indeed be rewarded. I also think that a similar thing should be done to the diamondback since it is essentially a better ambassador now.
This is sad really, I mean yes when you did occasionally fight an exceptional spy who was good with the amby, it was very annoying but that doesn't mean it should have been nerfed. I now find spies more prominent and are generally more effective and higher up on leader boards. I do hope valve realises their mistake and reverts the nerf. Also what are you guys' opinions on the pyro nerf, as in the afterburn proportional to flamer contact time.
