TF2's State of Specialists 

Gaspar Anticaspa sigh

Gaspar Anticaspa just a little tired of bad puns

SoundSmithTF2 👌👌👌👀

can you cover getting into competetive?

ZAPsYOU! You're right. I've heard your teammates yell at you if you don't have the META, even if you just joined and had no time to sort your weapons.

XXX_not_gigli_pro_XXX Xxx_another_xxx_xxX nice name

Slabedaskarn H

trying to greentext on youtube... fucking cancer

Hachi Roku You destroyed my heart :(

>meme arrows go back to the tf2 general

@מגיב בתגובות Honestly, I think heavy can use all the buffs he can get. Spy, Sniper and crits already hard counter him. In my opinion, heavy should be given the faster payload push, as scout is already super useful even without his 2x payload push.

@@WontSmith Even simple things like a faster movement speed when not carrying the Minigun (balanced with slower switch and spinup), a fourth weapon slot for the Sandvich, and the double payload push/control point capture would make Heavy a more useful specialist capable of turning a fight in his favor. He relies too much on teammates just to reach the fight before it ends, and that's worse than useless.

@@SamnissArandeen Agreed. In his current state, a heavy is only as good as his medic.

Samniss Arandeen sounds like cops in superhero movies

Fucker weighs 441 pounds, him sitting on it down a hill should make it go 6x as fast

he can't shoot while using the jetpack and I think the scout still has considerably higher burst so not really

lol tf2s community has a really hard time thinking sometimes This video makes it should like all generalists are actually too strong, but thats only true due to 6s format. Still they will stack these classes despite them dominating all roles in the game (taking an average of 5/6 slots on a team in 6s)

coldeed he literally says this in the video my guy. Something among the lines of “we only have this meta because the mode we play(cp) in comp makes generalists shine as they can both rotate between defense and offense without much trouble”

@@jjakkal_ that's not my point, the fact that they have class limits and bans despite the dominant nature of generalists in CP is forcing a metagame. It's counterintuitive to the purpose of bans

@@anormalstopsign74 nope the dragons fury rivals brass beast in damage output

He's predicted his own future

and yet he said he said it wasnt good

penelope xd

yeah and the artist was a lesbian

Holy shit i never thought i would see someone with a penelope icon on youtube

yeah... basically given up on the game

Aaaaaand another braindead attention-seeking idiot! Congratulations, you don't know what the difference is between "a game doesn't need updates every fucking day of the week" and "a company has abandoned the game". Oh, come on, most players are casual, and when there's an exploit they fix it, when there's something wrong they correct it and if something big happens they react in consequence. So yeah, you could just stop being a fucking victimist and learn that a big company can be balancing a whole bunch of weapons, adding hats after accused of "being in conflict with game style", unusuals that are too rare, then they make them commom but they are now too common. Oh ffs, balancing something like tf2 is hard, and if you think you can do better go ahead, enter into valve's offices and say "hey, I don't give a fuck about everything we have, I just want more big updates or you are just a bunch of assholes who don't care about the game"

@@staringgasmask finally a high iq individual, they do care

@@rinkot284 no. Because it's impossible. It's a 3rd party program and they can't do anything to detect it, dealing with aimbots is nearly impossible, and I can tell you that's not an exploit. An exploit was the one which allowed lagbots to exist, and they fixed that

@@rinkot284 he literally explained why its impossible to do anything about it

Bobby Ferg also specialises in making shit players with 0 movement salty because they're simply too bad and stubborn to gain skill

gatsan So still soldier mains?

gatsan tbh I'm a soldier main and I gotta say that soldier doesnt require much skill since you have splash damage and unlimited mobility. There simply aint a counter for soldier. Maybe Sniper or Scout but still soldier has the upper hand. All the other classes suck against him.

are you talking about pubs where everyone is horrible at the game anyways?

gatsan No. not really. I get my expirience from pugs

rip and the update we did get for Christmas is shitty as well

@@crusadr_4966 actually this was a pretty good smissmass update, of course, for smissmass it was good, 4 new maps, 8 new taunts, new cosmetic and war paint cases, just because it had wutville doesn’t mean it was bad

@@crusadr_4966 at least we have an update

@@Gojilynx wutville is just awful christmas barf turned into a map

@@cobaltdev But on the other hand, pier is an absolutely amazing map imo and stands on par with some if the best payload maps

@@WestyThaDawg Clearly you haven't played tf2 recently

@@idot3331 Actually I played yeasterday, haven't seen a spycrab in months though...

Westy we came for the memes, stayed for the gameplay

@@velarowo That's the real truth.

@@WestyThaDawg le shpeecrabs are goin extinct ;(

Ya wot m8

+Fake God damnit, this was perfect and you fucked it up...

Fake Dammit Fake

Don't you mean Jerma and star?

STRIKERFORCE2 true

Don't forget that it somewhat gives the entirely-casual community a heads up what competitive 6s is actually about. I've myself been truly frustrated by the uninformed players who think 6s is a JOKE(??)

And even a musical number!

Well said

my man you're talking about friendlies while we're talking about comp. Also the the mobility of the 6' format makes it where you dont need teleporters since soldier, demo scout and med have the best mobility of the game. And I think you just don't have any idea of comp works to say its repetitive, because the word is rather "organised". If you think that the massive clusterfuck of that a pub is, is funny because 30% of the players have no clue of what they're doing and 20% others are friendlies or just afk you just spent to much time on theses pubs rather than trying all the gamemodes that are available on this game.

@@needmorebagels6217 I know that tf2 is known for its goofy, cosmetics, fun and casual part, this can't be acknowledged. But that's where the problem is. Valve has never put much effort into it, they’ve just been concentrating its efforts on the casual part for the past years and that's why 90% of the playerbase is casual. At the end it's just a question of mentality, if competitive would have been properly added from the beginning of the game, no one would be like "oh no i hate competitive, i just play tf2 for fun :DDD". Theses peoples are basically afraid to see their game change in the way they never launched it for, and that’s maybe because they had no idea that comp actually existed from the beginning. Moving on to the major point: repeatedness. Using Moba as an example: I don't think pros players plays all the heroes that are available, and that's because some of them aren't meta, such as weapons in tf2, some weapons just don't fit in the meta and kills it at some point. But you only realize that by actually playing comp, and i'm not talking about valves comp or tf2 centers lobbies that don't actually reflect what comp is. But since all the pubs players are so close minded it's only because: 1) they have no idea what they are talking about because they understand 60% of the game 2)valve didn't gave them a chance to experience what comp actually involves 3)since they never played comp they’re just viewing it from an exterior point of view Also the physics that make tf2 a great all ends on mobility factor. The better you get, the better you can move around and take advantage of your enemy. The 6’ meta is probably not the best in terms of fun for new players because they don’t anything about theses physics. The actual composition has been chosen so the game evolve in the fastest way. Hl is being the best counter example by slowing the gameplay a lot and just shows that a slow tf2 is a boring tf2 in terms of playability.

@@phillyfling0918 valve is focusing on the casual part of the game because it IS the fucking game. Comp is a useless perversion of standard gameplay that completely shits on the ethos of the original game. When you try to make a game mode and it can't be successful without cutting out 60% of the game's original content, you've completely failed. Comp players complain about every slight little thing, with no regard to balancing in any productive or meaningful way, with their leading reasoning for bans being "it isn't fun to play against", as if that's supposed to mean anything at all. They're tryhards that want a game that isn't tf2 forcibly installed into tf2, with balances catering solely to them, and to hell with the rest of us, I suppose. I'd suggest that comp be limited to completely stock, but considering that comp players can't even handle entire fucking classes being in the game without whining, I think it would probably be better to remove it entirely.

@@toastcrunch9387 Some people like playing their 'casual' game in serious environments. And since when did 6v6 cut out 60% of the game's content. All the other 5 classes are picked and run, but they aren't run full-time because they're _specialists_ Unrelated, but I also kinda dislike the term 'tryhard in general. It indirectly shames wanting you and your team to play at their best.

*Too

too*

too*

too*

two*

The whole point of a scrim is to practice. You're not going to learn anything by playing against a Pyro and Sniper, because it doesn't teach you how to fight against more 'meta' teams (which make up like 99% of teams).

SolarLight2 that argument just further highlights the fact that 6's is rigid and uninteresting to many people who enjoy the other half of the class options and how it's basically a different game from anything else in TF2. It's fine if 6's stays it's own thing, separate, but if balance changes come from working with 6's players it will most likely make pubs, 9's, 12's, etc. less balanced or make classes too similar and not unique.

One thing you have to realize is that the offclasses are just as balanced in 6s as they are in Casual/pubs. Pyro is low tier in both Casual and 6s. Pocketed Heavies are abused in Casual, because the GRU is OP. Just like 6s if they unbanned the weapon. Engineer is mostly useful on defense, regardless of whether it's 12v12 or 6v6. Sniper can either be useless or really really good, in both Casual and 6v6. Spy can rampage in Casual, but that's mainly because of the lowered skill level of the players he's stabbing. Playercount can be taken into account but the difference in skill level is the main reason. Rebalancing these classes to be better, such as reworking the Gunslinger or the Dead Ringer, isn't going to kill Casual. Funke noted that you're not going to be fighting more than six people on screen at once, even in a 12v12 server, which I think is a very good point. These balance changes would improve both 6v6 AND 12v12, and would also provide incentive for teams to practice playing against Gunslinger Engineers or something, since more teams may use them. Edit: Also, this 'teams not scrimming my team cause we're running offclasses fulltime' thing is only an issue for those who wish to run these classes in a full-on team instead of adapting, which is a small percentage of TF2 players. If you want to play Engineer in 6v6, you can do this without making a team in ETF2L. Assume Valve fixes their bloody matchmaking anyway.

HL is even more rigid

Whats funny is the amount of crying comp does nowadays. I remember when it was only shitties and kids crying about "rage heavies" Then again people look at heavy with his "speed" weakness forgetting that gru doesn't change his use. It does not make him stronger, and he is weak as hell to any pick class and smart play. Too bad 90% of snipers and spies are shit. Pyro is a support that can block demo and soldier. Rarely is a pyro player good enough to do that, and scout/sniper really shit on him. What is soldiers weakness? He has hitscan, explosive projectiles, the highest mobility, 2nd highest hp, unlocks that allow him to pick, supportive team buffs, good splash and direct damage options, Items to enhance tanking and mobility etc.

6s doesn't mean only 4 classes are used. It means 4 are used a lot of the time, with counter-picking and switching classes when they're strongest, like how a specialist should be used.

@@DiabetoDan That's the Problem. TF2 has 9 classes; and people want to be able to run them full time; because players like playing certain classes. If you main Scout, Soldier, Demo or Medic; you're fine, because you're playing meta classes who are always good in comp 6s; so you'll love comp. If you main Pyro, Heavy, Engineer, Sniper or Spy; you are a situational play at best; and absolutely useless at worst. People who enjoy playing these classes or wanna off class just for something fun? They will not be taken seriously; because the meta is spoken. 2 Scouts, 2 Soldiers a Demo and a Medic. Sometimes a Sniper is run; but most of the time; that's it. Heavy and Engineer can be run on hard defense for the last point; but Spy and Pyro? Useless; they're a surprise plan at best. Due to this, if you don't wanna main a meta class; Comp basically has no value for you. That's not even discussing weapon bans and decision making.

@@DiabetoDan Yeah no fuck you, highlander no restrictions is the only good game mode.

@@Kohchu 1.pyro is not a "surprise pick", it's an effective choice for last point defenses that can single handedly save a match by denying Uber 2. You're talking about 5CP specifically, other gamemodes allow for fully running specialists ex. Mini engie, pyro, and sniper on KOTH due to a lower high mobility requirement and more close quarters engagements 3. Prolander exists and is very much an option for valve 4. If you played Highlander you'd know that there's a reason not every class is ran at once in comp, Highlander (especially high level) is a fucking nightmare. The spy is basically Intel, the sniper controls the ENTIRE tempo of the match, and class usefulness varies wildly between gamemodes meaning that some forced classes are relegated to throwing themselves at the objective (like scout on any engineer centric map/gamemode or engineer on any constantly shifting/offensive gamemode like 5cp)

@@lauri1398 the 6's community refuses to play any gamemode but 5cp, they recently removed gravel pit (the only A/D map in the pool) and the only payload maps they'll play are badwater and upward, and very infrequently. Other than that you only see 5cp and thus the same 5 classes over and over again

google "no restriction 6s" also it didn't work lol

@@socks8931 except that the people playing on sigafoo's no restriction payload enjoyed it very much when it was run.

No restrictions 6s doesnt work for many reasons. The main reason is that a/d and payload have one team only defend and one team only attack. This allows the defending team to turtle and stalemate the game, which isnt fun to play or watch. Plus no class limits or weapon bans means you can use stupid strategies like running 2 medics which nullifies the skill of uber tracking or using the wrangler which allows you to defend indefinetly. Anyone who plays comp knows why we have weapon band class limits and map restrictions

@@kpzip What? I thought NR6s' payload were fun to watch and DID work. Also while A/D maps are generally not great, Steel is easily the best comp map in the entire game (as shown by Prolander). You say the defense stalemates the game but the very point of these gamemodes if for the defence to hold for as long as possible, also the respawn timers are designed to advantage the attackers. Actual stalemates in TF2 are literally non existant outside of 5CP, this is why defensive strategies ruin 5CP gameplay so much and whitelists and class limits have to be put in place. NR6 isn't the problem, 5CP is.

The problem is that stalemates are the point of the game. It encourages a very static playstyle that drags out games. The spawn advantage encourages the attacking team to constantly sack because trading players is always worth it for the offensive team. In 5cp, both teams have an incentive to push forward and you dont get a long stalemate for each point like in asymetrical maps. Also, dont you think that if there was an objectively bettet format than 6s, people would play that instead? I mean 90% of competitive players and leagues agree on 6s. Maybe they just all hate diversity and different classes and maps, or maybe 6s is just more fun and thats why they play it

Cute Pyro me too, lets be friends

Cute Pyro same

good

no one ew weeaboo

I'm British

God I hate u guys but I can massively respect when u guys btfo overzealous bombing classes. (Do feel for you due to this aimbot craze though)

@@SciRuler i had a stroke reading that

Cool70sfreak this

Cool70sfreak ...if the classes are in a state where you wouldn't be better off with a generalist class. If it was viable to run, say, a Heavy full time, I don't think people would have a problem with it, which is what Funke was trying to say. Right now, if you're running an off-class full time, you are actively putting your team at a disadvantage, which is why people aren't OK with it.

No see a team in scrims was playing engie and pyro. They where just working on their comp but everyone shunned them because they kept winning. This is where I'll say I want to play what I play the best not that the "meta" dictates.

+Inteli722 - Here is the issue there in. If you're not allowed to run off classes to experiment and see if you can use them in new, creative ways to potentially show what they can do on a competitive level; how do you adjust their situation to the point where they are acceptable and not just laughed at the second someone picks them? Imagine if all comp games did that; the meta would never change and become stale as 3 week old bread. Which is currently how the modern TF2 meta is. 2 Scouts, 2 Soldiers, Demo, Medic; potentially swapping out a Scout or Soldier for Sniper. That is all you see in Comp. It makes the game fast paced; sure, but it completely negates what makes TF2 special. The generalist classes are designed to compliment, and HELP the Specialist classes; so they can operate together and form a powerful threat. And in casual games; you can see this happen all the time. Ever wonder why final pushes are so annoying? Because the Engineer's team is working alongside him to hold the final spot and make your push inward tougher.

Hey, whatever weird fucked Up fetish you have, well, that's your choice mate and I'm not one to change it Kill me "Later..."

Prolander? Sign me up

actually thats highlander as far as i can tell

​@@joeolszewski9540 Prolander 6v6 + A/D and Payload. With normal cp or koth you'd end up running 4 generalists, a pyro and a sniper as meta 90% of the time, which is where asymmetric stopwatch gamemodes solve that.

it works in getting teams to not run the meta but am i the only one that kind of hates this solution? like the only way to get someone to play pyro full time is to literally force them to?

@@ultra2424 Good to see the 3 year old comment still stirs up conversation. To respond: unfortunatly, the game was rigged from the start. Pyro is a specialist, which are most of the time less useful than generalists. Prolander here would crush any hopes for stacking demos and such, as it is extremely unfun to play, and of course crushes diversity. Truth is, the classes were made far before anyone wanted to turn it into a viable competetive game, and it suffers as the result.

GenderPranks you're nice

SomeRandomGuy :P wait i saw you at the end of this video yeah i know you

Abd Palistine lol what

SomeRandomGuy :P look at the happy face at the end of the video

SomeRandomGuy :P 11:55 maybe he's your cousin

Me too, jose.gonzales.2010 is a menace and has to be stopped

What about scout and pyro

A lot of people in the comments seem to forget what alt fire does with pyro's primary weapon... (here's a hint; it's really, really effective against soldiers at any range)

Generalists are not OP. Specialists are just bad.

How about you play the game more before making ignorant comments? Soldier has only 4 rockets per clip and is completely defenseless once he has none left. He can't escape or do damage without his rockets (unless you're running the shotgun, in which case you're just crippling yourself, even pockets use gunboats nowadays). Also while soldier does have great mobility, it comes at the cost of health. This means he can't jump away to safety when he is about to die. Soldier also doesn't do a lot of damage on mid range and beyond, unless he decides to do a bomb (which is often suicidal).

@מגיב בתגובות Okay, but pyro also has a shotgun, or the scorch shot which despite its reputation, is really good against people who know how to kite you. Also your name totally fucks up my comment on mobile.

Wait you disagree with the song? *yes he can*

That's true, anything spy can do sniper does better: -Sniper get banned kicker than Spy -Sniper get more bullied by scunt -Sniper is more coward than spy -And sniper die more realisticly than the spy, or even realy die...

@@cadsquade your grammer makes this even better

@@kastiyansdoromey6784 -grammer -gramer -gamer -gamerz, am I right ? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

honestly, I dont believe sniper deserves any nerfs. Because for him to be the most powerful class the play needs high skill and aiming. Sniper is just a perfect scenario of being rewarded for accuracy.

lmao

Nobody made arguments against this? What? Where are the whiners? And the squeaker-like 20 year olds?

Exactly, it seems best for them to start back at square one. Maybe Team Fortress 3, but that wont ever happen. It would be cool to see what kind of direction they would take it though.

Tf2's competitive scene reminds me of smash's competitive scene, in how different it is from the vanilla game, and how the developer has distanced themself from it as a result.

Oh look, someone with some sense. You can't suddenly decide you want to milk an esport out of a game that's established itself for a decade as a casual experience. If you have to ban unlocks and restrict classes to make a competitive mode work, maybe you should realize that TF2 isn't meant for competitive. It's incredibly simple. This game was designed to be a silly shooter, seriously why is this so hard for people to grasp.

That profile picture, though.

Glink about 2 weeks as it seems

.

Scout is kinda a power class though, he is the strongest dm class in the game, he can fight in the wide open (which demos and soldiers have a dis advantage since less splash damage), scout can fight in tight spaces, he can flank, be part of the combo, if the scout is as good as clockwork, scout can wipe out the entire team and cap the last point on badlands in less than 4 minutes.

Classic, adding on, scout is also key to building über without wasting ammo.

If Scout can be considered a generalist, then any class can. Just consider the fact that the class with bad area damage, that's bad at breaking heavy defenses, that can't deal with sentry guns, that can only function in smaller fights without Engies or Heavies in them or flanking individual classes. Is considered a generalist. And nobody questions it. The words have no actual meaning in the TF2 community except "good full time in 6s".

For Spy, I think he should be all about sabotage. Poisoned Sandwiches, Exploding ammo packs, you know, stuff to disorganize the enemy.

@@moonmelons that certainly is a take LOL. scout is incredibly versatile as another commenter has pointed out. he can take head on fights, he can play a defensive role building uber and denying bombs, he can flank, he can really just do it all. Additionally, any class can be a "pick class," you can get crucial medic picks as soldier or demo, you can detonator jump past the enemy team to take down a problematic sniper, you can even land a clutch crossbow on a scout who is trying to kill you as medic, etc. etc.

+CocoaNutCakery spies are easy as fuck to shut down as heavy. Back up against a wall and turn every 3 seconds.

FUNKe You’ve fallen into my trap, if you do that all the time, you’re bound to be locked down and destroyed by a coordinated team, eventually.

Could just use a sniper, boom headshot.

@@justanalias5642 Anything Spy can do Sniper does better

@@realdaggerman105 I mean doesn’t really matter if he gets to mid anyways heavy is subject to massive focus fire and can’t do shit about it

Oh, dear... Don't worry, puberty will be over soon.

i'm boutta' twist my upper spinal cord in an unpleasant direction after reading your comment

The fact that you think Undertale invented Get Dunked On saddens me.

They didn't say or imply Undertale made up 'Get Dunked On', the comment implied that everyone started saying it only AFTER Undertale, which is, basically (but not technically), true.

Same, didn’t expect Tyler either.

Samniss Arandeen Scout beats like, every class except maybe soldier in a fair 1 v 1... He is not a specialist, he has all the advantages of the other generalists, high damage, great mobility, and he doesn’t even have to use ammo for it. Oftentimes you see scouts not even capturing points, because they’re too busy wiping the floor with the demo-med combo.

Scout can kill every class 1v1 (except maybe soldier?) and he has free mobility. Rocket/sticky jumping takes health and ammo, scout presses w. He can capture control points, pick off enemies, or just go full aggro and only die by that one mini sentry in the corner. Yeah, what a specialist...

@@itsasecrettoevery1 he's a hyperagressive attacking class that is much worse on defense than offense. Which is why he got called a specialist here. He is an attacker to the bones, he can't just easily start being very defensive like soldier or demo.

@@realdaggerman105 (laughs in engineer)

@@realdaggerman105 i mean only if he catches them offguard, pyro is a surprisingly underrated scout counter, a heavy if he isnt caught off guard shreds scout if he has good tracking, demoknight is just good vs scout, engie with any wrench including cool robot arm completely shuts off scout, hes a specialist, but his weaknesses are non existant on 6v6

No he forgot the dark side of 6's....Play off meta and be shunned.

This aged like piss.

This aged like piss. Again.

and then 'valve my ass tf2- i mean just valve' said, "dota dota cs:go."

Wayne Kerr THE best kind of memes

nah not good i like cash me outside how bau dat XD WATER MELONEEE!!! XDD

Who gives a shit about him?

meh, there's still plenty of tf2 youtubers around. lots of different flavors.

Niichils Everyone apparently, i mean, i do

It really is a sad state of affairs when even the people who play the damn game aren't enjoyable anymore

I don't.And i don't see whay he has anything to do with this video.Imo people that think this is what damages the game.(for example: Omergerd Ster doesn't play tf2,tf2 is dead). I mean really,don't you have your own opinion? This baffles me.

If payload, KOTH, Atack/defend, would make specialists more useful. 5CP is honestly boring, repetitive, slow, and relies on generalist classes.

5cp is ok but forces fast heavy, jag engineer and you need to play stock pyro.

Scraggle So get a team and get good. Don't act like pugs are the only way to play competitively.

+inteli722 the question is why you would WANT to play tf2 competitively. It's like trying to play Club Penguin competitively. They're casual games.

Dover Movement and DM more reminiscent of Quake than anything else in a team environment, with a high emphasis on mechanical skill. There are plenty of games that are more casual and less competitive than TF2 being played competitively right now. Hell, Blizzard owns two of them, a children's card game with more RNG than cards and a waifu-simulator ability-em-up that barely requires you to have functioning hands to play well.

Agreed. There aren't enough players in 6s to justify specialists, plus payload doesn't work so well with only 6 a side. I feel 12v12 payload or KOTH is far better than 6s.

I agree. I've only rarely played TF2 competitively, and as far as I'm concerned the comp and casual modes may as well be different games. Both are fun, if you have the proper resources (including, as you said, adequate team communication), but I'm personally never going to crave 6v6 TF2 the same way I crave 5v5 DOTA.

well, that's just how the game works best. Spy is pretty much useless, sniper doesn't have enough presence to push/hold objectives, pyro is very limited at combat and it's useful only when playing passively, heavy is way too slow and vulnerable to a coordinated attack and the engineer just freezes the game and prevents his team from advancing or doing anything other than protecting his sentry. Truth is, we have 4 classes that are useful at the majority of the situations and 5 classes that CAN SOMETIMES be useful in very specific situations. That's why 6s is by far the best comp format...

that's a lie, for that you better play quake, and highlander is eating the cake to 6v6 and highlander has by far much greater acceptance with the casual public, tf2 was made to be played with all classes: that's why the casules don't care about the competitive one and 6v6 in particular. 2 years later xD

@@G_Koch that's it? tf2 is at it's best when the chaos is watered down and half the classes are useless?

@@G_Koch Why is 6s the best exactly? All those classes can be run full-time in casual and nothing really happens all that much. I don't get why your reasoning that 6s is the best format here. Like, those classes are far form underpowered. They are only underpowered in the 5_CP game mode and with the 6-player limit per team.

@@dombelly3343 Yeah honestly there is a very good reason why a lot of casual players ignore or even hate the competitive scene: from their perspective all the fun and wackiness of casual and watering it down to be 100% "fair". It's like comparing a vibrant and diverse city or town to a city in 1984. Part of tf2 is the wackiness and appeal to casual players. Something is wrong with comp if the best way to play is to ignore half the classes most of the time and stick with a very specific set of classes.

PD:This video has so much work,I love it

How will you turn him into an aoe tho ? Plus he would kinda lose his "support" role

RadioWw replace the shotgun with optional molotov grenades? and yes, you're absolutely right on losing the support role, but he could support the team by blocking choke points with the molotov.

it's fucking hoxton, twats Building on your idea, if the Pyro were to receive an AOE function, I believe that his primaries should be tweaked to be able to light a small patch of ground on fire at a time, which will eventually die out in a few seconds. Imagine it as CS:GO's Molotov and Incendiary Grenade, only less damaging, and without spreading on its own.

it's fucking hoxton, twats That reminds me of how TFC and QuakeWorld TF's pyro worked. He had an incendiary cannon that shot weak rockets that cause a firey explosion lighting people on fire from a distance. Kinda like the scorch or detonator. He also had a proper molotov grenade as his special grenade that held an area on lockdown for a decent amount of time.

But what you see here, THE GAME NEEDS A META IN ORDER TO BE IN THE COMPETITIVE SCENE, its start up needs a basis in class line-ups and prolander and Highlander have enough problems of their own, 6v6 is simply, well standard and generalist.

Science, we all have bad and or wrong opinions, and that’s ok.

Switch up the meta? Bruh prolander and highlander both have 1 class limit. With 6s you can switch classes for the situation. If you need to defend, you get a heavy, sniper, pyro, and engie, and if you need to offend, scout, solly, and demo.

no satan

If you allow the GRU in competitive play, several problems arise. Mainly, the GRU doesn't have any downside to compensate for the speedboost, so you end up with an overpowered class.

yoshifan2334 Because, as Funke also points out in the video, Heavy was designed to be a powerhouse on defense but slow to move out on offense. Heavy isn't unviable, he's viable in the role he was originally intended to fulfill. By the way, Even with GRU Heavy probably isn't as viable as you think. Due to his speed, it's difficult to avoid stickies and pipes, and unless you have literally the best tracking aim ever you're going to die to 3 100-damage meatshots from scout. A lot. You're also slow to exit mid fights that aren't going well, and if you get caught rolling out by a flanking scout or Roaming soldier, you're dead. Even with the GRU, Heavy isn't quite mobile enough to be a generalist.

because you didnt watch the video and it kinda fucks with the whole generalist /specialist shit

@gatsan Why do you always sound toxic in every comment I see from you?

@@AqworldsMew11 only replying to this cuz im bored. you're right, i was way more toxic than i am now makin these comments. im not gonna rewatch the video but i imagine gru is banned cuz heavy being able to get into position fast kinda removes one of his weaknesses without pulling back a strength or something

shatterhand01 Highlander bans the ability to come up with your own team compositions. This instantly means that HL is nothing like pub TF2, an environment where you can have 2 Soldiers or 2 Scouts. Suddenly 6s seems more appropriate.

dank tf2 memes But doesn't competitive in general ban the ability to come up with a new team composition?

not really cause switching characters based on situations is one of the most important things to do in 6s. Also, highlander is too chaotic and crazy for it to be watched as an esport and every kill doesnt matter nearly as much as 6s

I'm curious - is there any official Valve source that says the classes were designed to be played in the Highlander way? I understand how "there should be 1 of every class" might be the intuitive way to think, and their animated videos often use 1 of every class for cinematic character reasons, but aside from that I've always gotten the impression the game was designed around adapting to other teams' compositions - something that there's never a need to do in Highlander because there's only ever 1 composition. I'm no huge fan of 6's myself, but if we're going to compare either comp mode to "classic" 12v12 casual TF2 then my money will be on the one that actually lets you change your team comp according to the situation.

James Gardner Valve didn't design TF2 to be a comp game.

haha imagine wanting to play 6's lol - Highlander should be the default comp gamemode

@@ChrisJones-rd4wb while I love highlander, it would be too hard to have it as the main comp mode. Needing 9 players on either team, and those 9 players have to each pick diffetent classes.

Classic (including long queue times and flying 18 people for tournaments BECAUSE THATS WHAT COMP IS FOR THIS GAME AINT GONNA STAY ALIVE FROM DEAD MEMES)

@@justanalias5642Simply make the matchmaker by class you want to play. A monkey could program that, but maybe valve really can't

Baby face blaster wasn’t even nerfed because of comp

Dead ringer wasn't nerfed because Comp

a lot of those are valves fault cuz they suck at balancing, just make the caber not kill medics in one hit and it's all good, so like around 130/125. also the ambassador wasn't nerfed cuz of comp anyways, no even back then complained about that weapon neither in causal or comp

@@G.N.F462 It was nerfed for comp, people did complain but it was comp players, and valve looked at how comp players used it.

What i dislike about competitive is how fast it goes. Where is careful planning and execution? No, we go for fast reflexes and aiming on the run. *plays benny hill music*

ceu160193 6s has planning and execution, though. Most of the time it occurs with popping ubers to break a position. However, if fast reflexes and aiming on the run don't work for you, you might want to try a different game. Counter-Strike, maybe.

FreeToPlay Scout but is not fun to watch, which is the deal breaker (besides people actually playing) for any game that wants to become an e-sport

FreeToPlay Scout yea valve mm is horrible surprise but real 6v6 (faceit, mixchamp, tf2c, leagues etc.) is way better

gatsan, I don't disagree but its really damn hard to stick to the schedules for scrims. It already feels like a job I have to make time for, but I also have school, homework, work, and Krav Maga on the side. It would be just nice to, in my down time, join a game with experienced and communicative players and just scrim when I feel like it. And then discovering that I spent all that time and planning only to get my ass kicked and called a scrub REALLY makes the TF2 comp scene a bitch to get into.

It's because people shun people who don't play meta in 6's. Even if they are winning because of it.

it seems the game just isnt balanced for 6v6

@@onepants6081 indeed, I believe the 6v6 format was just a compromise because people had a hard time getting abigger team together. Now we're stuck with it, even tho we have modern formats like highlander.

@@BrokenSymetry Also it makes way less sense to try and balance around sixes when you take time to think about how different the game mode is compared to casual. Like you already have the numbers cut in half in terms of team size and player count so obviously some weapons become more powerful in sixes that would otherwise be perfectly fine in casual and on top of that spy is strait up useless in sixes (or so I've been told by comp players thus far). Also how do they expect to get the rest of the community into it when the meta revolves around only four of the classes? What if you main one of the five non-meta classes? No, you do not need to follow the meta but from my understanding it is expected a lot of the time or people tend to stick to it pretty well on the most played maps which are often control points. I don't dislike sixes, I think its a very interesting and original game mode that just simply isn't for everyone. I just don't think it makes much sense to balance the whole game around. Now 9v9 on the other hand would make a lot more sense to balance around due to it being a better middle ground in terms of structure rather than sixes.

@@brutalbob842 a few points to go through: "obviously some weapons become more powerful in sixes that would otherwise be perfectly fine in casual and on top of that spy is strait up useless in sixes (or so I've been told by comp players thus far)" well, not really, remember the players are much more competent than on casual, they are able to handle most weapons that could be "stronger" and the weapons that are outright broken or unfun to play against even on casual (like the vac or natasha) are already banned, there are some cases where some weapons that are banned even though in casual are niche at best like the B.A.S.E jumper, but that was more of how comp players can, and are able to abuse some weapons in order to give themselves an advantage, going back to the base jumper example, a lot of people frowned due the "unnecesary nerf" because not many people know about its potential or how to use the weapon effectively, but on the comp side, even that nerf didnt guarrant the unban of the weapon, because still allowed it to be a weapon that allowed the soldier and demo to be almost untouchable on the skies, and made bombing easier. Also Spy ITS usefull and used because its played on its intended role: surprise attacks when the enemy doesnt expect him and single target elimination (mostly medics and demos) in situations where not even sniper can get a shot, of course it has its risks, but it is still used. "when the meta revolves around only four of the classes? What if you main one of the five non-meta classes? No, you do not need to follow the meta but from my understanding it is expected a lot of the time or people tend to stick to it pretty well on the most played maps which are often control points." The classes do still see use, but under their inteded role, as funke said it: engineer, pyro and heavy are more meant to park the bus, but they do still see usage on last holds, sniper and spy as well due their roles to break stalemates, a lot of people FAILS to understand that classes have roles and limitations and while on casual you can run whatever and still win, on competitive, trying to run a full time, lets say spy, its detrimental for your team (mostly due how the class works and how basic awareness screws him up), you have to pick the right class for the job unless you want to get boned by the enemy team which wouldnt hesitate on exploit any weakness your team has "Now 9v9 on the other hand would make a lot more sense to balance around due to it being a better middle ground in terms of structure rather than sixes." No, unless you want the game balanced around sniper duels, you can bitch whatever you want about 6s problems, since those are due the gamemode is chosen to play (5cp), and most of the 6s community recognizes those problems, but i see that not many casual players take in consideration the clusterfuck that is highlander, and since most of them hate sniper, it is a very sour surprise when they realize that in a high level, the games are mostly a glorified sniper duel (due the team protecting their respective sniper, the only thing that can take out a sniper is: the enemy sniper or a very coordinated push which itself its a gamble if the sniper takes out a key target like the medic), outside that, some classes are straight up not fun to play when forced to be run full time, like scout or engie on offense payload which are limited to be the cart bitch and the teleporter/dispenser bitch in their respective cases, or pyro who is mostly an airblast machine to deny the enemy uber and spy check, or spy who is forced to be run against a team that will be always expecting him and ready to deal with him with a pyro/heavy. i do remember a phrase that represents this perfectly: "6s has problems due the gamemode is chosen to play, but highlander has problems related to the format itself" which doesnt make it less fun, but it makes it a nightmare to balance around

“Eliminated?” No, they just don’t work in most situations. Some classes are better than others.

As always people hate on pyro...

@@AqworldsMew11 Good.

@@TheTheThe_ bet you play heavy.

Bananas_on_Bread or joining a game the last minute or when it's already ended

bro it only takes like 7 seconds to get in a match in EU

Blobux Blobux yeah I have all gamemodes and maps selected

@Bananas_on_Bread Nor would I, pretending to be a new player, appreciate being matched into a 27 vs 1 Freak Fortress server and not knowing wat the hell to do.

It wasn't designed to be a hot mess, it was just designed for a format that was smaller than 12v12 but bigger than 6v6. Then they changed servers to be bigger. And now they're changing them to be smaller. You can keep the insanity of high playercounts and no limits but to have a fun competitive variant things have to be tweaked. And right now, the reason people don't like competitive is because the game isn't balanced to make it fun. If that was fixed, interests could shift. There's no reason to pigeon hole the game into being a casual mess when you can branch it out too.

Why isn't competitive 9v9 where both team is required to have one of each class?

Because the 9 classes are not remotely equal to each other in significance. 3-4 players depending on the map are basically insignificant relative to how much impact others have. Furthermore, the quality and 'skill' required in the play of some classes simply isn't conductive to competitive/professional play no matter how viable they are or are not.

I wasn't around before Valve servers and 24 player servers so I was just assuming considering the dozens of unlocks and no class limits that the game was designed to be very casual. 6's players seem to hate anything that slows the game down but personally I don't find it boring to watch or play with all classes being played. I'm not saying that hl is a better option but 6's meta doesn't seem quite tf2 to me. You ought to have to deal with pick classes and roadblocks and to me it makes the strategies more interesting.

What is boring is ultimately subjective. I do believe that many players who play 6s are so used to playing 6s that they believe that is how the game was intended to be played when Valve has made it painfully clear it isn't. This doesn't make them wrong for wanting to play this way, nobody is wrong here, it's all subjective taste but when they start talking about 'balance' and generalist and specialist in this sort of fashion and to the extents at which they stretch it, it makes me lose faith in their opinion and reinforces my belief that they've forgotten they are playing an alternate rule set. The people who play 6s want fast paced, twitch based action and victory decided on snap decisions and fast reflexes. Realistically it's pretty hard to make an argument that any other known format beats 6s in terms of what the 'ideal' is for competitive play since the alternatives involve large amounts of spam and insignificant players which is the opposite of ideal for competitive play. The problem with picks and roadblocks as you put it, is that Spy (in terms of picks) is disgustingly outclassed by Scout and Sniper and so the only reason you use him is because you are forced to by the rule set (Highlander). Roadblocks are the same, you would run Demoman over any of the 'road blocks' normally because Demoman can do a similar job (if not better in most cases) as well as having offensive potential but the only reason you don't is because the rules forbid it. Realistically there's no ideal and any chance of an ideal format being created has been lost because Valve sat on their hands for way too long and the 6s format has been entrenched into the minds of many talented players as being 'the norm' rather than being an 'alternate' game mode.

+Lewis Cant you just use casual MM and get a match with players

hard to compare these two games

The difference is TF2's classes are actually fun to play.

Ah yes. Cs:Co

Counter strike Company offense

Maybe coffee offensive

Classic offensive

Cocaine orbiter

I mean it not that fair since technically the soldier is going up against 2 player at once so why not bring a demoman or a medic into the mix eh?

The Grandmaster The current world champion 6s team won the Sigafoo cup, and there were plenty of Invite players in it, so I literally have no clue what you're talking about as far as it going under the radar or the community being unwilling to try it. The general consensus was that it was like Prolander but worse due to the extra player, and Prolander was dropped because it wasn't as good as normal 6s. Sigafoo also tried to do too much, adding an extra player AND restricting it to Highlander class limits. If the cup only added a player, then we might be playing 7s. But then again, the 7th player would likely just be a full-time Sniper, and a Sniper out for your Medic's blood AND two Scouts ready to wipe your team if you leave a flank open isn't very fun. Right now to run Sniper you have to give up a better general class which makes it a risk. You can't take the "best" of HL (as if that atrocity has anything you could consider "best". I guess you mean the single-class limit) and mix it with the best of 6s. 6s is fun and works because every class is played to its strengths at all times.

The Grandmaster 6s is the best way cuz its what is established now, we dont need another stupid fucking "meta revolution" from pubbers with 4 hours because people who are actually good at the game have tested and tested for years whats best

learn to paragraph pls

Desantti Agreed. :p

MisterGunpowder HL is a fucking stupid comp game mode and go look up why or do research I won't bother explaining

gatsan "That game mode is dumb because I say so and I won't tell you why because giving actual reasons is dumb too and I'm too lazy to explain them." Good argument.

I've always loved the concept of highlander, and when I get my main it is fun, but alot of times on TF2 Center I'm stuck either playing a different class or not having a medic, though this might just be me personally.

1) too complex for tf team to pull off correctly 2) learn to play other classes u casual 3) HL is not the gamemode they want to support

1: Not a matter of complexity, just a matter of whether or not they wouldn't be too lazy to do it. 2: Oh, sure, I'll just go play Pyro or Engineer. Oh, wait, they don't use those in 6s. Hmm...it's almost like a significant amount of content is ignored in 6s. 3: Even though that's clearly the case, it certainly feels a lot closer to the game they made.

It still wouldn’t work well with average esports arenas, split up fights due to larger player count = fucked up viewing, and lack of utter options in pushes rather than in 6v6, I.e. a class down = push is ok on 6v6, but if it’s just a spy on highlander, well....

Trickstab only work when the enemy doesn’t expect it, and beside the intended spy gameplay isn’t trickstabbing it only a small part in your entire spy gameplays while a sniper quick scope is important in both hardscope and roaming sniper play styles.

micspam timestamp??

Chrono ESA* sorry cause the esea league is different

Ther is also an ESEA league for tf2 also

highlander.

Hmmm... why do people use the best and strongest class.. *thinking* OH YEAH! It's because they're the best and strongest! Huh, didn't realize that!

AstorStar took a long hard think to figure out that competitive isn't casual

Eddie Still, some other classes can fit better for specific situations.

Other games don't cut the team size in half.

Adwagon 22 Highlander exists

Plague Bomber I think he meant Highlander should be the default competitive format Why am I commenting here years late

@@JonLucy_downunder the youtube experience includes finding yourself replying to month-old replies to year-old comments

I agree.

prolander is pretty much what you described, 6v6 1 class limit. People dont really play it that much though since scout and soldier do be pretty fun. Also valve comp has payload maps in the map pool and maybe a few A/D maps iirc

When people that don't even play the game anymore still watch video of a certain youtuber on that same game you know that youtuber is good

Not in my case though, you can check if you're still skeptical, steamcommunity.com/id/commiesado/

why not join back? There's nothing wrong with TF2 rn

Desantti i wish i could but i already sold my unusuals and items to buy games a long time ago.

senseicrank kk. I understand

Assuming you're being serious- While I play and enjoy highlander, it is a very messy format. It can become very boring and tedious to spectate, 9v9 is an extremely unviably high playercount to try and herd for LAN events, and above all else (as i say many times in this video) some classes are not meant to be run at all times. It was within valve's own design that classes switch based on the situation. A format which has them active at all times goes against that design, regardless of whitelist balance. 6s is objectively more viable as an esport, and deserves dev focus above highlander.

the best way to play tf2 is in highlander UGC night combat top 10

Bryan Sodenkamp imagine a 9v9 where there is a 1 class per person limit (so you have all 9 classes on your team) that would be interest it but you wouldn't be able to change classes so it wouldn't work.

Doctor Meem thats exactly how Highlander (9v9) works :D

It's your opinion man, and you are in the minority.

Me neither. And i do hope that valve doesn't balance the game around 6s. Because if they do, we will have a lot of dead weapons. I wouldn't want to use the whip anymore if they nerfed it to the ground.

Keep crying, you can’t undo the 6s meta, boo hoo valve lost one player what shall they do?

@@g2ltt733 Your shitty gamemode is more dead than MvM. In fact we thank you for making community servers popular again

I've been thinking similarly. It makes sense to me that the lower your playercount, the less viable specialist classes will be. (Spy is a fantastic example of this. I'm not sure how you'd balance him for a 6v6). Funke says that the 6's format is the result of a long time of experimentation, so I'm wondering what specific issues they ran into in the past when trying to run games with higher player counts. (Is it enjoyable and coherent to watch? Are there long, drawn out stalemates or lines of defense?)

9v9 is a mess 6s has proven to be the best format for competitive, deal with it Valve just needs to follow it instead of trying to reinvent the wheel and miserably failing

If we are going to take Funke's suggestion and balance the game around competitive (while not "sacrificing" casual, so to speak), ideally, each class should have some place in the game. They don't need to be "viable" in that not every class needs to be versatile, but there should at least be some specialty that the class can fulfill. This seems to be Valve's attitude as well, at least if the Valve quotes from 2011 in the video are still reliable. As Funke outlined in the video, balancing the spy for 6s so that his playstyle and specialty is "viable" would be extremely difficult. The player count is low enough that his disguises are far less effective, and he struggles to fulfill a niche that the sniper cannot (according to Funke, anyhow). As I've said earlier, the lower the player count, the instances in which specialist classes are useful grow smaller and smaller.

Joy im seafching for a game... still seafching... I would be out

Perhaps HL's class limits could be modified so that there's at least some wiggle room without allowing teams to stack 3 heavies. A different limit per class could help with that. Anyway, do you mean that playing those classes is mind numbingly boring, or too frustrating?

Have you ever actually tried to organize yourself and 11 other people to schedule things together and meet up in a reliable manner? Because that's half of a _single_ theoretical 12v12 match. Something small like an 8 team tournament would involve organizing _96_ people, and keep in mind, that really is small to the point where the most likely minimum for an event that matter would be 16 teams at _192_. Not to mention that it would be about as difficult to follow as the average pub TF2 game, so it'd be hell to develop a spectator base for. A small scale version would probably work as like a showmatch or an even in Tip of the Hats ( in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they've already done something like that in TotH ) but Highlander is already difficult enough to organize players for, and while 12v12 with no limits would probably be easy to matchmake for than Highlander ( due to not requiring a player specifically of each class ), it'd be even more vulnerable to a team picking up a ragequitter and stuff like that. There's some pretty significant reasons why competitive games tend to cap off at 6 players per team, and usually have even fewer.

@@hi-i-am-atan Sports teams have more than 6 people on a team all the time. Look at American football.

​@@Spanishdog17 Well, yes, a lot of the problems with the idea go right out the window when you pay each player a seasonal salary of millions of dollars.

en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/opinion

The argument is that 6's is entertaining to watch, also an opinion. So good job kiddo, no one watches tf2 still; because its the popular opinion is it boring.

No one watches it because it isn't backed and is community developed.

Game that are backed already had a huge following before they got real support. Dota was pulling more views as a mod then comp tf2 then and now.

A lot of people watch the majors for SSBM. Smash4 had more viewers today and melee was a highlighted item on the twitch front page for a tournament. There was no smash 4 tournament. Melee is a meme game like MvC3 and is not what a healthy competitive scene looks like.

*3 Scunts, 4 Soldiers, 1 Demo, 1 Medic.* M E T A bullsh@t could get even into Highlander...

Smiley123 You can swear online mom isn’t reading.