I just want to add some to the Your Eternal Reward, if you are using the clock and dagger, you can change disguise while invisible and still be invisible, as long you have full clock and stand still when changing disguise, you aren't kicked out of invisibility How useful that is, don't know, just liked to point out
It's useful, but also incredibly boring as I often find myself standing still while invisible, waiting for my cloak to come back up and it doesn't combo well with the C&D's already faster cloak drain
@@Monke99_ yup, you're pretty much forced to use it if you're running C&D and YER together. Equipping the l'etranger is like putting a bandage on the place where your leg got cut-off. It's better than nothing, but it doesn't fix the problem
@@thamzhiyong3161 you can just be a useless spy too. It's like a midpoint between tryhard and hoovy. You could be a super passive spy that stabs only 5 times each match, but nobody sees it coming ever. It never carries, but you hate to lose because of a ghost
October 20, 2017 Patch #1 (Jungle Inferno Update) Changed attributes: Removed Cannot Disguise penalty. Non-kill disguises require and consume a full cloak meter. Backstab-based disguises are still free. Increased cloak drain rate by 33%. The YER wasnt able to disguise at all before jungle inerno, so it was a buff.
Imo, it kind of evened out away from being a buff back to pretty much the same effectiveness as it was before. It didn't need an extra downside from before because losing all your cloak for a disguise is a downside in of itself. The weapon was obviously painfully undertuned before, and still is
I find the cloak drain on the YER to be its primary downside. You're going to rely on the cloak to get behind the enemy and stab them far more than you will rely on the disguises to fool them. You practically need to use the L'Etranger or Cloak 'n Dagger with the YER to be effective, since otherwise you're just not going to be invis long enough to get into a good position. At which point it doesn't matter if you have a disguise or not, because the enemy team is always going to spycheck the weirdly positioned "teammate." I actually think the update that added the Cloak Drain penalty and the Manual Disguising for the YER was a pretty significant nerf because of this. The manual disguises are really only worth using if you're in spawn, because most of the time you're going to want your cloak more than you're going to want a disguise.
YER used to be my favorite spy knife until it got nerfed in jungle inferno, I really don't know why valve decided to nerf spy so hard there, imo YER could have been buffed with a lower cloak drain rate and it would have been perfect, the ability to put on disguises in spawn or by spending cloak was so dumb and really removed the fun factor for me
the manual disguises are worth using outside of spawn. you just need better cloak management and make better use of ammo boxes. it does make the gameplay slower at times, but it does really pay off. very underrated knife, just requires more thought to use (and the l'etranger).
The classic has semi unironically become my favourite Sniper weapon somehow. I named mine "The hitscan huntsman" and I love landing unscoped headshots. Tho only being able to headshot from 100% charge is a massive pain (I mean 50% would be fine IMO) you kinda get used to it and work around it. Being able to jump while charging and the far large FoV while preparing a charged shot is definetly a plus.
When I played a lot more I definitely preferred the Classic. It also annoyed people almost as much as the Huntsman because some people hate it when they die to bad weapons. I'm on the no-scoping ever train with it. The time I played for months on end almost solely using the Classic was the time I got best at Sniper since it forced me to make my shots count.
I use the Classic in a way that gets a lot of people scratching their heads, but is really fun. I use it as a support rifle. Find a weird niche sightline that overlooks the teamfight, and pump out no-charge or low-charge bodyshots. You can do around 45-60ish damage a hit, which is nothing to sneeze at in terms of suppressing fire helping a teamfight, it keeps enemy medics from being as effective due to the whole "medics heal faster if you haven't taken damage" mechanic, and you can rack up a surprising amount of assists. People also generally don't expect to take 50 damage from halfway across the map in the middle of a fight, and will generally run away more often.
Theres literally no such thing as "semi unironically". You just have no idea what youre trying to say, or no idea what youre actually saying. Now also drop the word penultimately and youre a complete conc_jump into a ceiling fan.
Library launcher thats a good one Who remembers how op this was from 2011 - 2013, it had same dmg as stock, 3 rockets per clip, and the same faster rocket speed as now. Sounds broken cuz it was
I love how you have the spy is just being there in the thumbnail, it got me thinking that you are just going to list every spy weapon and be like it is ruined by it being on the spy
Figured that’d be more the case with Heavy, since you can put a lot more powerful stuff on the guy since he’s so damn slow. Definitely a case where the class itself is a balancing factor. The Buffalo Steak would count as a weapon ruined by this: even with the faster move speed, Heavy’s not made for melee, especially since he takes more damage. On the other hand, I recall Great Blue theorizing that the Fists of Steel would be an absolute nightmare on any other class.
Not-so-fun fact: Knockback escalates with damage dealt, and since the LL deals less damage, its knockback its actually LOWER than the rest of the rocket launchers, which means that its actually worse for combos, so your change + the one that was said before about a faster switch speed might actually be all what it needs to shine.
@@HellecticMojo apparently the RJ damage is not just straight up set to 0, but it's actually the same as the default RL but multiplied by 0 How exactly that leads to only user being affected, i don't know.
Honestly that part isn't the problem, it rewards your skill at not being hit, it's the lose boost on double jump that really hurts because you're losing out on your ability to evade incoming damage.
@@king_acceler8755the thing is, it's an effective trade off. You sacrifice vertical mobility for heightened horizontal mobility. That's what it was originally and it was considered one of Scout's best shotgun. I think it would be fine with one or the other but both at once leaves you dead in the water. You can avoid taking damage if you have double jump, or you don't need double jump if you can bail with a few scrapes. But you get the worst of both.
Honestly? I've found a pretty unique advantage that gives you. Since you lose a LOT of boost on a simple hit, if you take just a slight amount of damage, you get slowed down pretty significantly. Which is bad, EXCEPT for predicting movement. If you know how to utilize the speed loss, you can start doing some INSANE weaving, especially if you can get a solid shot or two in the middle of dodging.
@@king_acceler8755 it is not per-se but as it stands you lose it EXTREMELY quickly, like, 4 damage is enough to drain a third of your bar, its ludicrous how little damage you need to take to become effectively a sitting duck with less than 125 hp
Spy is my second most played class and, honestly, I think the Ambassador nerf was quite justified, alongside the Dead Ringer nerf in the same update. I can't comment on YER since I never use it, but old Amby and DR were outright dirty on their own, let alone together. Nowadays, they are still extremely powerful tools, but much more balanced, even in skilled hands. Now, the Diamondback not being nerfed is a whole different can of worms but I guess Valve somehow thought stored crit weapons are somehow more balanced?
Finally, someone who knows that the Amby still kicks ass even after the nerf. Why they passed up on the Diamondback for the crit range nerf, only Valve knows.
@@jblazerndrowzy The Diamondback requires that you come into melee range of an Engineer's buildings and survive the wrath of his team. Yes, the Diamondback can drop a 102 crit from across the map, but you have to get close before it'll give you that kind of power. Meanwhile, you can just walk out of spawn with the Amby and get all Counter-Strike on those oversized head hitboxes.
@RdTrler Bro, it's on backstab as well. Combine it with the kunai and the Dr and you got someone who can rack up hp and crits on new players and when the skilled ones catch up cheese their way out with hundreds of effective hitpoints
The Diamondback is one of the strangest ideas design wise. It's like if Sniper had a rifle that starts off with slightly slower charge speed but charges significantly faster as he racks up headshots. It rewards you for doing the task the class was designed to do.
@@samtricks1966 If you use l'Etranger with it, it COMPLETELY counters the cloak drain and even give you slightly more clock than usual. The TF2 wiki calculated it : while running, you have 6.6 seconds of invis with the C&D. If you equip BOTH the YER and l'Etranger, that timer actually goes UP to roughly 8 seconds.
@@fadesaway If you compare with the boring stock cloak, sure. But you really shouldn't be using the stock watch with the YER, as the C&D was MADE for the YER. If you compare with base C&D (with non-YER knife and non-Etranger revolver), it's one and a half more second of cloak. And the C&D allows you to stay cloaked while you manually disguise provided you stand still and let it fill all the way up. And if you get caught without a disguise, the C&D allows to go invisible to lose your attacker, then you go stay in a corner until it fills back up, disguise while invisible then rinse and repeat. And if you don't have any cloak meter left when spotted, just hit the enemies a two or three times with l'Etranger, then casually cloak and repeat the previous paragraph. My point is that the C&D and l'Etranger completely remove the YER downsides (or at least, circumvente them easily) while letting take full advantage of its upsides.
@@drucy.YER with CND isn't that good ngl, stabbing a target everyone just confirmed wasn't a spy already gives you enough cover and time to make a play as long as nobody saw you do it, it's designed for chain stabbing and dealing with engie nests, CND is designed for well-timed single target picks, and if it's only 1 kill then at that point just use any other knife that doesn't add on to the CND's already low mobility. L'etranger, stock watch, and YER is the best load out for it.
The amby is still really good, you make it sound like it does peashooter damage out of smelling distance which it doesn’t it only does peashooter damage from really far away
It's actually less effective overall than the revolver if you0 don't land every headshot perfectly at its furthest range, and falls behind pathetically at bodyshots only. Combined with the fact that up close the revolver's DPS very easily beats it, your only major advantage is damage thresholds at that range. So you can 2 tap light classes and your most effective range compared to stock is at the very edge of the headshot range. It's really not worth it if you want to play seriously, especially since the Enforcer covers the same important damage thresholds up close without losing out on a ton of damage. Spy still has an important team role in cleaning up enemies with his gun, after all. Being able to take a fight safely and reliably matters quite a bit. Still a fun weapon though, despite the steep range nerf
@@OmegaRC59to me the biggest problem is how hard it is to headshot with it. And you need to do it TWICE for little benefit and at a close range Just give up if the targets can survive 2 headshots since its basically roulette at that point And the funniest thing is today gun spies are way more of threat , even non competent players. Back in the day everyone uses amby but if they sucked they sucked, couldnt land a single headshot or normal shot and would look like an idiot. Today a non competent player has an easier life since they dont need to aim at the head and shoot the body
@@fangrowls6336 I feel like back then the amby's hard to land headshots weren't a problem as it didn't have crit fall off in the past, meaning you could uncloak far away from a player, and as they're unaware of a spy/sniper they'll move extremely predictable, allowing you to hit and run
@@OmegaRC59 the point of a spy revolver isn’t dps, it’s close tangle self defense and the amby thrives at this being able to 2 shot most classes instead of whittling their health down
Literally all the Classic needs is the ability to be able to fire it in the air. That's it. As someone with a Collector's Classic, not being able to fire in midair completely ruins it, since you cannot even fire it in the water. I love this gun, and being able to fire it midair would let me be able to challenge soldiers
Honestly my main appeal with the Classic is it helps a lot with tunnel vision. You can still charge your shots, but you're also able to look around rather than hope the enemy isn't too smart and doesn't send scouts or spies after you (or heck other snipers). To me the unspoken major perk is just being able to see more
I really enjoy using the Liberty Launcher with Gunboats or Mantreads and treating it like a poor mans rocket jumper, the extra rocket is really handy, it's insane that (from memory) the Cow Mangler had all it's current stats + 1 rocket to play around with. It's interesting thinking about how the Liberty went from being a faster projectile weapon -1 rocket to this monstrosity. It really feels like the "my rocket launcher has an extra rocket and it's projectiles are faster and and I take less blast damage while using it so I can rocket jump more but she lives at a different school and and and" of rocket launchers.
@@Mud-Brain I always thought the slower reload was a bug oppose to being intended but apparently that's not the case according to the wiki? Very odd. Also I heard that even today the cow mangler shoots rockets 'somewhere in-between where stock & the original' shoots rockets from although I gained that information from a random Jump Map player.
@@TanteiRotana Never heard of it firing from a different coordinate, but it wouldn't surprise me at this point. Sometimes it's worth using just for the projectiles, since the lazers can be harder to notice on certain maps and against certain backgrounds.
@@NinjaKatzKoolWhy do you need it tho? Panic attack description says it has moooore booolets, a bit less damage and worse booolet spread, which get even worse when shooting non-stop. So, that means panic attack better in close combat and worse in medium range compared to stock. That's all information you need. Knowledge of stock and panic attack meatshot damage does from none to barely usefulness, all you need to know both can't oneshot light classes.
@@NinjaKatzKool What are other weapons that you can't understand how they work? They are all pretty much straightforward, except some of them have unlisted stats. Or wrong stats. But anyway listing 4 to 1 repair rate on rescue ranger despite it's upside compared to 3-1 wrench have, as a downside makes no difference to new player. Repair still cost metal and that part depicted accurately. Vaccinator description, yes, kinda misundersandable. It does not even states that it have 4 small ubercharges. And what are the others?
They already did nerf the Tomislav a long time ago, then boosted it back up. And the YER was once an essential enough tool while it was part of the Saharan Spy set, back when there was once a Fez that could make your cloak and decloaking noises borderline quiet, especially for the Dead Ringer back then. So imagine a world pre-nerf YER (back when it couldn't manually disguise period and didn't have the cloak drain as bad as it was) a probably post-buff or pre-buff L'tranger, and a pre-nerf Enforcer and Ambassador, and you'll get an idea of the paradise that Spies used to live in before it was all burned down to the ground until there was nothing left but today. Technically, unlike the Pomson 5000, or anything else for that matter, the Ambassador is still a reliable 3 shotting light class with the possibility of it being a 2-shot. On top of the fact that it can still pick off low-health targets reliably, at any range, and the weapon is honestly fine. In fact, I would say that the only thing that changed for Spy is that you can no longer take down the overheal off of targets as great as a sniper can.
Considering how well the liberty launcher pairs up with soldier's shotguns, I'd say the fact that the rockets are weaker is very much by design, since it trades off burst damage for DPS through comboing
Well you can just combo with stock, the liberty has nothing encouraging combos, it would be cool if it had a switch speed buff but it doesn't and never will because valve will valve
problem with the combo idea is that it inherently discards the "extra rocket in clip" advantage, which at that point, just use stock. If you aren't dumping the full load like the airstrike, what was even the point of using the LL?
Since the LL does less damage it also does less knockback so it’s worse at juggling than stock (and no one uses the reserve shooter for combos lol). Also its higher clip size doesn’t mean anything when you need 5 rockets to kill a single heavy anyway. The LL used to be a simple crutch weapon but valve just tacked on random upsides with no real direction and turned it into a monstrosity that isn’t good at anything. The direct hit shoots faster rockets and makes better use of them with its high damage allowing it to one shot light classes, and the gunboats reduces more damage from rocket jumps and doesn’t make soldier sacrifice his best damage dealing weapon. What is the actual point of the LL.
@@4lksk363 can't deny that the LL is just a smorgasboard of stats, but I feel like it sort of "fails" its way into its own niche as a utility rocket launcher, as you can bomb for as little as 20 health while still keeping your shotgun / banner (plus, you get a rocket half as fast as the Direct Hit while keeping the stock blast radius) Assuming you can hit your mark at mid range, a LL rocket will usually deal between 55-65 damage and if you aim for the ground and get at least some upward knockback, the RS can reliably deal between 80 and 120 damage with the minicrit and a 20% faster deploy In the worst case scenario that's still a reliable two-hit on light classes in less time than two stock rockets, think of it as a pyro combo on soldier
As an old head 2010 tf2 player, i wanted to note some things. The current YER is the buffed version, it used to just not let you disguise at all and was also incredibly underused as a result. I was glad to hear about the buff but why they decided to kneecap it by also introducing the faster cloak drain makes no sense. Even if it only ate half your cloak to disguise and had no other downsides, (and disabled your ability to chat for 10 sec)i think it'd still be less powerful than the other knives but at least useable and much more fun. The ambassador change needed to happen, I'm sad it got over-nerfed, but having spy be a better sniper than sniper, who didn't need to scope in or lose move speed, could get into strange positions, even behind your team, didn't have a laser sight and could invis out as soon as he got a shot would have been awful. Having the first shot be a headshot won't fix anything bc spys already would reload between every shot bc that helped time when the next headshot was ready. Maybe if it was the last shot of the clip, but remove the firing rate penalty and give it a reload speed reduction to make the spy vulnerable after getting his headshot. I'd say having the damage falloff is fine too, it just needs to be less harsh and only apply at far ranges so aggro gunspy worked but not sniperspy. Also bring back the old letrange stats where you shot people to get cloak, it eas way more fun that way.
Oh and i forgot one more thing, the diamondback wasn't just untouched, it was buffed at the same time as the ambassador nerf, when it came out it only gave crits on successful building saps, which meant it was a boring and useless weapon. I'm glad the buff gave it a more reliable way to get a damage boost that enourages getting stabs and enables a nice aggressive hybrid style, but it def needs to get brought down and only do minicrits or have a big base damage nerf
Weird idea, but what if all sniper rifles could only crit on full charge and any rifles with a damage penalty lost that penalty. That way sniper finally gets balanced. Just a thought
Honestly, if the other rifles required full charge to headshot but also had the charging while unstopped stat, Sniper would actually be kinda fun to play, at least for me I think I just like the Hunstman too much though or just really hate tunnel vision
the saddest part is the YER was given the cloak drain penalty because you could use the gun mettle dropped weapons mechanic to disguise for free, so they wanted to give it a proper downside that couldn't be exploited around. On a weapon that was barely usable even with that exploit mitingating it's only downside sometimes.
The funny thing is that the liberty launcher also makes a good escape tool for when stuff starts looking bad. Less damage done in blast jumps means you can pull off some cheeky escapes, while still having your second slot not occupied by metal boots. Course, that situation may not have been so bad if you had more damage to get those kills with, but its dependent on the scenario. If you see a freshly respawned team on the way and think 'crap, i can't handle this', the extra health saved may make the difference between regrouping with your team or seeing the respawn timer ticking down.
For the Ambassador, they should completely reverse the range fall off and make it so the enemy can only get headshot once per life from the ambassador.
16:08 if it did so much damage, use the goddamn diamondback. It gives you crits for doing what spy's main job is - backstabbing and sapping - basically meaning that an ACTUALLY good player (an ACTUAL pro who focuses on the objective and their team, not a murder-hobo) will get so many crits that they effectively have a better ambi.
I hope you talk about the Beggar's Bazooka eventually, it's a really fun weapon. I'd almost say the projectile deviation ruins it, but the ambush capabilities of it make it pretty underrated in PvP imo. And then it's also the MvM meta so it's not totally forgotten.
Beggars is a solid side grade and all of its downsides are necessary or else it would be incredibly broken. Only real thing the projectile deviation hurts is hitting air shots but it’s still possible with the BB anyways.
Beggars actually is quite strong and deviation is one thing that prevent it from being broken. For instance, beggar allows you to have continuous fire that is just a bit slower than rocket launcher but faster than reloading one rocket and immediate firming it, which mean you can literally spam your enemy with 20 rocket barrage. Another thing which is overloading mechanic is just amazing. You can use it to "rocket" jumping and bombing at the same time. You can literally close the range to your target and bomb him with rapid fire of your 2 rockets that left. It is one of the most skillful rocket launcher in game, not by landing shot on enemy, but how to utilize all the mechanics it works with. Which kinda makes it a high risk high reward weapon
Acting is the spys strongest weapon. I mean as like looking at your team shortly before an engagement, or checking if as spy is behind you with the heavy disguise?
I think the dismondback’s stored crits should be changed to stored minicrits. This still gives spy a extra damage boost as an award for doing their job but it isn’t as broken as getting full crits as an award.
@@Boomrainbownuke9608minicrits on a gun with a 15% damage penalty make it do barely anymore damage than stock. Congrats, we now have a worse enforcer.
@@Boomrainbownuke9608And then the Diamondback has no actual downside now. Should probably give it a -50% clip size then if the damage penalty’s getting removed.
You really undersold the power of the YER’s Silent Killer. This is perhaps one of the greatest stats on any unlock Spy has. Audio, the thing that almost always sells you out when going for chainstabs, becomes near impossible for the enemy team to utilize. A giant fucking instant deathscream gets replaced by a greatly delayed and likely frantic “SHXPHHSSPYMESPMYESPYSNIPER” that takes significantly more time to actually process and utilize in the heat of a battle. In effect, this buys you untold seconds to keep stabbing or to get away, in a manner far more consistent against good players than trying to jankstab them with the kunai ever will be. The problems you listed can certainly be troublesome, but I find that solid cloak management fundamentals and acting ability can really take this knife above and beyond anything else even the most unwashed of trickstabbing one-tricks can pull off.
The Ambassador wasn't even complained about until Jungle Inferno hardly at all. It was very rare to encounter a spy capable of using it on a moving target and it added to the spy's skill ceiling. Now post-jungle inferno people decided it was suddenly a good thing that it was nerfed, though over the years the community has backtracked on this sudden change of position. To little too late though I suppose. Now spy's really only got three options for revolver, none of them really skill dependent and the overall skill ceiling of spy is much much lower.
Being able to do a headshot in any range as a SPY is just horrible especially since you already have a way to instantly kill anyone from behind And just because nobody complained about it doesn't mean it didn't suck like hell look at random crits
YER got me an ubercharged chainstab from the enemy medic... poor bastard couldnt comprehend what was happening... I am a YER/Dead Ringer spy, because... yes.
You must be either new to the game or incredibly stupid to actually use YER and the dead ringer together, you lose your ability to disguise and your ability to go invisible why even taking Spy at this point?
Amby rebalance idea: Return back to base BUT , Headshots only count if you are disguised. - Shots are LOUD , - Skill is still rewarded and less " random" with falloff (no need to read distance all the time) Now you ....make yourself known ...... as an ambassador while trading in your stealth for surprise damage. This emphasises spys gameplay loop : Get in , pick, get out. If you try and overdo it like before the nerf you will die FAST, as you are easily seen and tracked throughout the map and since it is still slow to fire you cant kill 3 or 4 people at once
Couldn't disagree more with The Ambassador, it got the nerf it needed. (The Diamondback absolutely should be nerfed too) You can't even use the argument that The Ambassador gave the Spy a subclass because I can't think of any other subclass in the game that directly gives what is essentially a different classes weapon/gimmick to another class, Fat Scout for instance can be done with the stock weapons given to Heavy and isn't just a new shotgun that gives Heavy more movement speed while using it or something like that. Spy should not have been able to snipe nearly as far as he used to, and the damage falloff range doesn't even change the fact that close range *still* gets the headshot crit, thus making the only real complaint come from people who were playing Sniper as Spy.
I've had a game with a crazy agressive gun spy yesterday, and let me tell you, the ambassador doesn't feel weak in the hands of a good player. He was just critting everyone.
The jungle inferno rework for the YER was meant to make it easier to use but was ultimately a direct nerf, it's a weapon about being sneaky that makes it harder to sneak via weaker cloak use
It's at least one of the few Sniper weapons that likely won't get you hackusations when using. Hell, it's only crap because it can't do Sniper vs. Sniper duels all that well and performs better when on defense where enemies are more likely to walk into your crosshairs.
I think those weapons would be better if: - The Classic: Needs either full or at least half charge to headshot on no-scope only. (Also adding a hud meter to allow the player to see the charge when not scoping.) - Your Eternal Reward: Remove the increased drain. - The Ambassador: Remove the damage falloff, keep the range limit. If it still OP, either reduce the range or decrease the fire rate. - The Liberty Launcher: Maybe a longer damage falloff threshold? Or Teal Opal's suggestion.
Nitpick - "spy me" is a useless callout in pub. It's useless because of the simple question: Who are you? In comp that might not be a problem. In casuals game it is a thing. The most important peace of info for calling out a spy is class disguise. I like to say "spy as me as soldy" for example. So teammates know to look for a soldier with my name. Which they'd know my name because they read my callout. Even if you only call out the disguise, it's more useful to know to look out for a soldier than to look out for Bob, whom you know nothing about.
To be honest, The YER is my favorite knife. the silent kill is so useful, and it great for dealing with engies. my load out is Dimond back, YER, and the cloak and dagger. the YER's cloak drain does make the Cloak and daggers cloak really short, but becuase you can stand still to regain charge, you can just wait and manually disguise while staying invisible the whole time.
I'm a very shotgun reliant soldier who generally plays on the front line or close on flanks, and the liberty launcher is unfathomably stupid. It gives me the mobility to manage the flank with one of the most devastating 1v1 capabilities when combined with the panic attack. Without a pocket medic, it's pretty much your best option for managing flank because you have the mobility to contest boots soldiers and can easily make up for your lack of damage with your insane ability to stay in prolonged fights. The lack of damage is easily made up for by its ability to stay in a fight for so much longer.
I want to mention that, in Team Fortress Classic, the Classic Sniper had completely different stats. He COULD headshot with uncharged shots, but his headshot multiplier was only 2x instead of 3x. They ruined The Classic for basically no reason
spends 5 minutes explaining to precharge their rifle before engaging in a fight proceeds to complain that you cant secure kills without being fully charged
YER+Cloak'n'dagger is actually a synergy. you can disguise while cloaked, provided you're stationary and out-of-the-way. Picture the roof above the point on Suijin
It does useful stuff when there are 99 engies on last. You wont destroy their stuff but they have to upgrade back to max wasting ammo and most importantly shifting their full focus on turtling the sentry making your team have a window to find the sentry unnattended and gun it down
YER's upsides don't mean shit when enemy hits u and types "spy as me using YER". That's why I think that enemies screaming and so on is stupid. People never spycheck and don't turn around, so none of these things matter. POV: you're healing a heavy, suddenly a spy pops up, you hit Spy! keybind, stop healing heavy and pull out your ubersaw, you hit the spy but it's not a crit so heavy dies.
I think the ambassador is still good, it’s basically trading consistent damage overtime with high burst damage and the old strategy of hiding in a corner to headshot people across the map was not the core strength of the gun, you’re not using any other revolver (except the diamond back) that way, even if the it doesn’t have the utility of the l’tranger I think it’s good alternative to the stock (if you can hit your headshots which is easy with some practice). Also I think diamond back doesn’t overshadow the ambassador because the only reason you’re bringing your gun out is if you miss a stab or getting caught before you get a chance to sap a building or stab someone which you have to be close to your opponent for it to happen which invalidates the headshot damage fall of.
Now, you said how the diamond back was ignored and all that but here’s the thing, the diamond back rewards you for playing the class the way valve imagined
Forgetting the 30% fire vulnerability on wearer. You proved its boring and the worst wrench by yourself. Couldn't even remember the only real downside ir has. And yes it is boring and useless. Bleed is a bad mechanic that doesn't do anything but help you track spies. Which the pistol does better if you can track shots. Plus, why pick the SH when you can be running stock or the jag? Those are the best wrenches
TF2 community on ambassador: This weapon is bad! It have a ton of negative stats and only 1 positive stat compared to stock! Same TF2 community on liberty launcher: This weapon is bad! It have a ton of positive stats and only 1 negative stat compared to stock!
The classic is an example of how I personally think all of the snipers primarys (bar the huntsman) should have been based around. Slow with little freedom that promotes a sly and defensive play style. If you look at anyone who is good with a stock sniper rifle or god forbid the bizarre bargain then you will usually see them in the mid lines being very aggressive and getting head shots every second to anyone who dares appose them. The classics inability to headshot without a charge means you gotta wait longer and not quickscope your way to victory and if you are caught with your trousers down you are at a severe disadvantage.
To be fair about the Amby, it was also perceived and joked about in the community as being comically overused by every Spy main in existence to the point where its alternatives (yes, even the Diamondback) were overlooked because they _simply weren't the Ambassador._ Was the nerf warranted? I dunno, I don't play Spy, but from what I can tell it's still fairly effective if you've got good aim, it's just not diet Sniper anymore, which was absolutely the intention of the nerf as stated by Valve in the Jungle Inferno patchnotes. The Diamondback probably could use a nerf, though, but it does at least encourage actually playing the class well. The Dead Ringer absolutely needed to be nerfed, though, no question.
I feel that with the ambassador, I remember being a baby child and playing TF2 and seeing people use it and wanting to use it myself, and because of that feeling I still wanna use it despite its obvious downsides.
when i was just starting to play the game back in 2015-2016 i remember thinking the bazaar bargain was a straight downgrade to the stock sniper rifle bc it only had red and white text in its stats, and at the time I thought the white text meant nothing, so no blue text = bad weapon
The reserve shooter is actually just straight up worse than the regular shotty with the liberty launcher as one of the downsides to it's lower damage means people get juggled lower and less often. The banner or just gunboats for almost no self damage is much better to run imo. It's so hard to use when you jump a medic and then rocket him 3 times and he walks away laughing while you get mowed down. The time to kill is much more of a hinderance than just the lower damage. It just compounds everything about it with one downside.
The ambassador still has its niche uses against snipers who are wearing razorback, since they are mostly going to be still for those easy-to-hit headshots. It takes a headshot and one bodyshot to kill an unaware sniper using the razorback. Other than that, you probably want to be using spy's arsenal of knives for maximum efficiency anyway.
Honestly, the Classic is good. It's just that sniper mains get really pissy when they do 81273 damage instead 81274 from halfway across the map with perfectly accurate hitscan that has the closest thing this game has to aim assist. Sniper has no bad primaries, Sniper doesn't have a playstyle that takes more than 2 braincells to execute. The class is more brainless to play than WM1 Pyro and the overpowered weapons in his kit way outnumber the balanced ones.
I feel like the liberty launcher would see more play if Valve did the math right and made it -20% damage. 4 shots at 100% damage = 4 1+1+1+1 5 shots at 75% damage = 3.75 0.75+0.75+0.75+0.75+0.75 Meanwhile, if you decrease the buff to -20%, you get that lost firepower back, but it would still be distributed into one extra rocket. This feels much more satisfying, but I’m sure the given back 5% would come in clutch
I feel people overstate the impact of the Ambassador nerf as a final killing blow to the Ambassador being good. Yes, it's outclassed by the Diamondback, but it still can be used effectively. It's no longer the rapid fire crit machine, but instead is an revolver requiring patience for the ability to two tap at mid range. If you try using it like you would the Diamondback, you will not land your crits due to random bullet deviation. But if you reload after every shot, you'll be able to consistently recenter your revolver for the next crit.
My fix for the liberty launcher: Increase it's knockback so you can use it with the reserve shooter more effectively and maybe increase it's max base damage to 70 so you can 1 shot kunai spies.
ie this is a thing from TF Classic, The Classic Sniper Rifle can also slow down enemies with body shots to the legs, let that sink in for just a second.
Using liberty prime as a joke for the liberty launcher is pretty funny. Since the Liberty launcher is far away not nearly as much of a difference maker that Liberty prime was in the Fallout series
![[TF2] Weapons Ruined by One Stat](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
