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Another reason it's so good in casual beyond just the skill gap is how much more chaotic a 12v12 is compared to 6v6. It's just easier to find someone out of position
Also communication is available to every in competitive (and WILL used against the enemy but mostly middle finger to spy specifically), while casual voice chat is either completely silent (because f2p or don't know what to voice) or meme and rarely competitve unless future/resting member from a competitve team joined in.
Honestly, 12 vs 12 with random crits on is how the game is _meant_ to be played. While the finalists of tf2 tournaments are undoubtably good, I half wonder if the teams they beat would have difficulty winning a 12 vs 12. Take a comp team that aren't finalists, grab 6 other random guys who have lots of hour on FPS games (including tf2) to fill out the team and pit them against 12 other random guys who regularly play tf2? Would the comp team do better than 50%? Yes, but that's probably due to some of the randoms sometimes being friendly. Will they win more than 50% if no one on the server is friendly (or a cheater, casual has too many of those)? I really doubt it would be above 57.1% and it might even actually be a 50% split. Say hit to random crits. Also it's a lot easier to figure out that your "teaammate" who died is walking around when you only have 5 of them and there is a lot less visual noise in these "sterile" order leagues. At least highlander _uses _ all 9 classes and it visual noise from action isn't gone.
@@alex_zetsu The people who aren’t finalists still play tf2 consistently, and for 1000’s of hours. And they all have large amounts of hours in casual. Plus great aim, movement, and even game sense for casual.
Can't agree. The YER requiring L'entranger to just break even on cloak drain will always make it the weakest knife to don, no matter if it's casual or comp. No matter the watch, that drain is painful, and needing L'entranger can limit your offensive plays in a lot of ways over something like stock or even Enforcer, if you're having to deal with razorback snipers in plat div or that kind of stuff. It really is a case where the knife was better before the "buff" imo
@@vyor8837 that's the point. If you want to make the weapon concept balanced in competitive you need to buff it, but it's already strong in casual so the balance would be even worse there.
@@CyrogenicNation so alter it so it works. Make it like the eylander, just with a bigger 35hp jump per backstab. Go to, say, 90hp at base, first stab would be 125hp, second is 160, then 195, cap it with the fourth stab at 230hp or at stab 3's 195. When you get a stab you get a flat 40hp heal. This solves every problem with the knife.
@@vyor8837 not sure how that would look in practice, and we could end up with entirely new problems instead. 3 stabs for a permanent 195 health means that after 3 stabs Spies could play at the frontlines with more health than a demoman, which is interesting for gunspies but might also be pretty annoying paired with the dead ringer. I don't really want to argue over that rework idea tbh, to go back to the main point I just think that 12v12 and HL or 6s are too different to make weapon balancing for all formats not as easy as it sounds. Competitive runs on different rulesets and restrictions that makes certain weapons stronger or weaker in it.
@@Zhasper ok let me unfold here Realistically , spy only probably gets a glimmer of overheal on respawn rolling forwards kindly ask and did get respond with crit heal . That is if you're not playing an against odd team in a competitive match , or find even one medic in casual doesn't play for their personal friend pocket/best power class available . Mechanically , clocking prevent medibeam connect to a spy to begins with . On top of within the prototype vision building the game spy is expected to be sustained by consuming enemy resource , ammo / health pack or enemy medic (much as we know fooling a enemy with disguise in a none intense game especially without threatening teammate in the same casual game isn't as viable in 2024 , let alone pass enough to soak heals or Uber besides the rare high moments)
This video explains my frustration about the kunai balance discussion so well that I might just start quoting this video from now on when people start crying about it. The biggest counter to any spy, especially kunai spy is being competent enough to remember the spy class exists when he isn't actively stabbing you
is it really a valid complaint if its literally a weakness all knifes have and the kunai can ease the blow of such encounters when you get a expanded pool of hp :7
@@Sleepy_Cabbage the kunai really does just push the risk and reward mentality more compared to other knives If you are simply just more aware of your surroundings the upside instantly gets nullified and the downside becomes extremely punishing which is exactly why the weapon is seen as a pub stomping tool against less experienced players So basically its: If you are bad you will suffer even more than normal. If you are good you will get a free spy kill every 35 seconds or so
id argue the eternal reward or big earner does risk vs reward much better since it doesnt come at the expense of the enemies teams agency, if you get caught as spy, that should be it, or the only reason you got away was threw out-witting your seekers, meanwhile ive scene many clips of a kunai spy clumsily escaping an encounter as his back gets shredded, but cause of his extra hp, this clunky method of playing spy is rewarded and creates a terrible co-dependancy for many spy mains who cant play without that extra hp to escape the enemy, by the very least the eternal reward needs you to improvise the disguse to fool nearby enemies and the eternal reward still has roomed for you to get fucked for playing like a clutz even if you have its bonus, all this to say it still leaves room for the enemy teams agency. One of Spys core principles is if you get caught, you should be fucked, which is spys general dynamic with the enemy team unless he out smarts them with his postioning and stealth. the kunai in its current state however just goes against a core principle of how spy should work by making his means of escape all the more easier with the extra hp, and then invalidating the effort of a single enemy who had every right to kill you if it werent for that extra hp.
@@Sleepy_Cabbage I understand what you mean but I don't think the spy should be instantly dead if he gets caught off. Think we both just have different thoughts on the characters playstyle. I was gonna write up another long paragraph about how the whole "spy should be just dead when he gets caught" mentality but I have seen people preach it so many times that I can't give time to argue against it anymore. The spies extra hp is earned and whenever I am fighting an overhealed spy I enjoy it because I am actually fighting another player instead of just one shotting them and getting a free point in the leaderboards
"But lowering the Kunai's overheal would ruin it in casual!" "Yes." Should have ended right there. No need for further discussion. Please for the love of god ruin this knife in casual so Spy mains actually need to develop a personality and any sense of individuality instead of defaulting to the knife that has no downsides in casual play.
I think either balance change would work, my first suggestion just cuts it down in casual play too. I did wanna show both perspectives tho cause there are a lot of people (mostly spy mains) who don’t have a problem/like the current Kunai
I disagree You see this is kind of like training wheels for everyone but that spy, it lowers their base health so that if you do find him he will die instantly but if you dont find him you will die instantly, it helps the enemy team train themselves to look for spies instead of not doing that.
0:30, I think Fish would actually agree with you, he said it in his own video, that he thought stock was superior in competitive and in other videos aswell where he admitted that snipers best rifle, isnt the best in competitive, because you die more often and have less heads to shoot.
@@asierx7047 Diamondback is also an example of a weapon that's less problematic in Competitive where the enemies know what they're doing. When it gets you in Casual, it's usually because someone on your team is feeding the enemy Spy.
@@asierx7047 Oh, you're right it is banned by UGC. I dunno, to me it feels like the kind of weapon that's less problematic the more level the playing field, but at the same time, I guess that the double crit off of a sapped teleporter might have pushed it over the edge.
Kunai was the surfing knife before the chaining knife... don't quote my bias on that hehe. As far as reasonable balance changes, you could cap the health you can steal from a player to say, 125, and make the overheal drain slower to compensate. Essentially for each stab you get, you gain the life points of a whole spy 8)
The kunai takes 36 seconds to drain from 210hp to 125hp. Over half a minute of being better off than you'd be with any other knife. It does NOT need to last any longer.
Buff/Tweak: keep overheal drain rate the same, but make being invisible slow the drain rate considerably. That way you can get a stab and have a reasonable amount of time to make a big play with the health boost
Tbh weapons like the Kunai make me realize how I feel like there’s just a lot of weapons that frankly aren’t really able to be balanced well for all levels, I feel like one point you missed is how casual has 12 players which usually makes a difference. Though tbh outside of that pretty much all snowball weapons suffer from the issue of one bad player making the other opponent stronger. Outside of that I see the opposite case a lot as well, like the Quick-Fix being kind of underwhelming in casual and banned in comp, which makes me feel like some weapons should just be designed for one side because it’s nearly impossible to make them useful for both sides without making it a different weapon entirely.
So nice to finally see this video. I have genuinely considered learning to make videos just to get this across to people. Many of Spys biggest issues are multiplied by peoples insistence on picking the Kunai, when you can play a supportive and helpful role if you don't go all in on the trickstab 1v1 loadout and actually use your gun (something the Kunai punishes HEAVILY)
3:18 Casual players be like: "OMG KUNAI SO BROKEN YOU CAN'T EVEN KILL SOY BEFORE HE DOES CHAINSTABS" Heavy be like: *haha, now u die* 😊 *killa spy in a second* It's WILD how people pretend Kunai is that strong
The weapon feels awful, it basically is "what if the same high risk high reward concept of the Big Earner, but instead of getting something that helps you do your job even better or get away, you become a shittier Demoknight" Big Earner makes it so you can go for chain stabs, or get more lenient strafe stabs. Or you can get away and reposition, it's perfect. But the moment the Kunai gets a stab, you are incentivized to stay in the fight because of the health draining away. Only, you are now a decloaked spy in the middle of the enemy. You're not being sneaky, you're not looking for smart decloak spots anymore. You're running into the fray with 170 HP and spy speed because if you don't get another stab immediately you're pretty much guaranteed to die. It runs contradictory to the core gameplay loop of spy
I think the problem with the kunai in casual is that it's usually paired with the dead ringer so spy becomes fast and tanky. The reason it feels annoying is that you are actively being punished for trying to punish the kunai spy. My proposed rework would be the longer overheal decay time paired with increased damage vulnerability when cloaked, which should mostly effect deadringer spy and not effect regular spy. Vulnerability would be 20% which should counteract the resistance from regular watches(which shouldn't matter since you usually die cloaked anyways) and reduce the DR to 55%, something more manageable so the spy isn't just erasing all the damage you tried to inflict. Just don't get hit when you're cloaked, you have longer overheal time so take your time.
I don't think its possible to balance for both scenes. The kunai is already super strong in casual and shouldn't accept any buffs and if it does it could end up being banned for competitive anyways, spy already plays an important role (information gathering and single picks) and being able to face tank should be a part of it. If anything, it should be nerfed, fuck competitive
12:24 I don't understand why people go melee as soon as they see a spy but I could assume it happens of the trickstabs being as dumb as in this clip. It's just not meant to be a backstab in these conditions
Love the video cyber. I think the main problem with the kunai in casual is not the max health but the gain with each stab, perhaps changing it to a 2:1 enemy health to health gained then changing the max health would be a good fix. Also sorry for being so weird last time we went against you, I was on new meds
Weird thought, what about a total rework to the Kunai? Instead of gaining health on kill, you instantly activate your cloak with no fade-out? It would go from the ultimate chain-stab knife to the ultimate getaway knife. Get a backstab and _poof_ you're gone. For balance, I'd probably go with reducing the cloak recharge speed, rather than reducing cloak duration. Thus, you have the regular amount of time being invisible, but you need to spend it more wisely. The concept could have interesting interactions with the Dead Ringer. You could make it fail to activate the DR if the watch isn't ready, _or_ be able to activate the Dead Ringer at any time, bypassing its restrictions. Both options could be balanced with some tweaks, I think, and both could be fun.
I remember playing on a custom weapon server with a knife just like that and it's very frustrating to play with. The Kunai is good at chainstabs, but it also doesn't prevent you from the option to escape. This hypothetical instant cloak knife will mess you up if you're in a good position to chainstab because you need to decloak before stabbing someone else. It's like accidentally running into a razorback in the middle of a chain. Your option to exploit a chainstab is severely discouraged, so now your playstyle is mostly limited to this one very specific stab and escape tactic.
I think the Kunai is the perfect example of "Everything is good against bad players". Like, yea, a spy can do a lot with it in casual because your team will feed them backs like no tomorrow. But even if your team is decent they will make that first stab not worth much.
counterpoint: this still gives a benefit, meanwhile the YER is invalidated by talking to each other. leaving you with shittier cloak for nothing. "YER Spy me" and suddenly the weapons gimmick doesnt matter
I think that with this weapon you can see why the competitive format (mainly 6v6) and the casual format are incompatible, both would have to be extremely medicated to do it
Finally a good take on the kunai. Not only is the knife bad in comp, it is bad in casual against decent players for the exact same reasons. Whenever I see spy frag videos where a kunai spy is just racking up dozens of kills, I think, "Are these children they are fighting against?" Because no one acts this stupid in the games I play in." Nowadays once I've got about a 10+ kill streak, the paranoia always ratchets up to levels that make spy near worthless. I've got 30+ kill streaks on record, but they were from years ago when players just weren't as good. People get hung up on how things were years ago and act like they are still that way. Like pretending the DR, Amby, or Black Box are still good. They were a years ago, but not now. Same thing with the kunai, the only difference is the kunai didn't get nerfed, the player base just got better, making it a husk of it's former self.
I predict this, when Spy Mains realise how good Big Earner is(or kunai gets nerfed by Valve...) you'll atart seeing Tf2ubers suddenly think "Omg, is Big Earner OP?!? WHY DO WE GIVE SPY SCOUT'S SPEED?!?!? THAT'S OP!1!1!1!1! 😱😱😱"
I thought a fun way to balance the Kunai would be to emphasize the Conniver in Conniver's Kunai by having you place a mark on an enemy that only you can see from any range via the Reload Key while holding it. At default you'd take half an enemy's health as overheal, but if you place a mark on them and wait, you can get up to 100% of their health as overheal. It's not like an idea I'm super proud of, but has been a fun thought experiment for me. Personally, if I was introducing the Kunai into TF2 back when it was first designed, I would've given it the ability to be throwable with a rope attached to it that can be used to climb walls and hit players from afar, but Valve had an idea for a theme gimmick where Japanese style melee weapons would give overheal, which is 2 weapons in total. Sadly, Scout doesn't get Nunchucks and Heavy doesn't get Sai's or Batons to encourage use of their Melee, and Soldiers just have better melee options than the Half-Zat. A struggle in balancing the Kunai is it's simplicity, and disrupting that simplicity could have major reactions from all kinds of people, which is probably why Valve didn't really touch the thing, and probably wouldn't want to even if they didn't develop an allergy to TF2.
the problem with the kunai i feel like isnt really the kunai itself, but really the lack of a proper mmr system in tf2. If tf2 matches queued equally skilled players with each other the kunai would be an acceptable sidegrade in casual
Sorry to be That Guy, but you're missing "#5 thirsty - Dedf1sh (Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion)" from your song list before Driftveil. (Only mentioning it because I was watching and suddently realized, "Wait, why am I hearing Splatoon in my TF2?") Nitpick aside, I enjoyed the video. It's always fun to see how a weapon could be great in pubs but horrible in competitive in any game.
The Kunai has always been a situational weapon in Casual and Competitive - it all depends on your individual skill, luck, and the player's skill-level.
I really dont mind the kunai in casual, and my main reason is that if a spy heals off my team, thats my teams fault, that spy cant kill me unless im bad and let them trickstab me, which is my fault. Kunai is only a issue for people who arent aware (which is spys main target lol)
I never liked Kunai, I don't use it even though I play Spy more than other classes. If I could suggest a nerf I have 2 ideas: 1.- Revert the state of the Kunai to before the Jungle Inferno BUFF. Previously this knife only stole enemies' health up to 195. Now it allows you to accumulate 210 points and at least heals 75hp per stab. 2.- Much more risky. Allow the spy to accumulate up to 300 health points, but your speed decreases if you exceed 175hp, to the point that reaching 300hp leaves you at the speed of a Heavy. But the big problem with the Kunai is the Dead Ringer. The Dead Ringer desperately needs a rework and I have 1 proposal. Dead Ringer (REWORK) It can be activated manually by pressing M2. This deploys the Dead Ringer for 0.80 seconds while emitting a small golden glow. During that period you gain 90% resistance. If you take damage during the 0.80 seconds: - You become invisible for 15 seconds and without resistance. - You leave a fake corpse and box. - your life bar is restored to the value you spawn with. - You do not become visible when colliding. - Hides all negative effects from enemy sight, but does not remove them immediately. - You make a gigantic noise when you uncloack (slightly reduced from the original). If you take no damage within 0.80 seconds: You cloack regularly like the other watches. - You become invisible immediately for 7 seconds and without leaving any fake corpses. - The ability to fake your death is blocked for 20 seconds. - You still do not become visible when colliding, but the negative effects do become visible. - Cloack and uncloack make a different sound than the original dead ringer. The Dead Ringer takes 15 seconds to fully recharge and cannot be recharged with metal. It also doesn't allow you to fake your death until 5 more seconds have passed.
i prefer the first rebalance, the kunai is absolutely broken in casual due to the massively increased player numbers and skill gap of players, in fact i would even say scrap the minimum buff to encourage kunai spys to kill specifically high health targets as opposed to simply running into other peoples fire fights and gaining 55 health from a nearly dead enemy especially if the overheal drain is entirely removed.
10:40 it doesn't fix infinite health with infinite chainstabs problem. Yeah having it take approx 1 second to fill would make spy being hard focused cause a lot of attention more fair.
Kunai buff: Upon backstab, instantly cloaks you in a millisecond instead of a gradual fade + 1 granted insta uncloak for each kill (similar to diamondback or frontier justice revenge crits system). Side note: Feature not compatible with Dead Ringer.
9:40 Just cause it's situational doesn't mean it's not broken thought either. The kunai follows the same issues as other snowballing weapons in tf2 the difference being the kunai is as you said more punishing. I'd say it's flawed design is similar to that of the baby's face and bazaar bargain. It's punished hard for situations out of the players control and very powerful for highly skilled players.
I think that balancing the Kunai like the Eyelander and Bazaar Bargain would be the best way to change it. Something like: Pros: +25 hp and max hp on kill up to 200. Cons: Default hp set at 75. Capping at 5 kills just like the Eyelander.
One thing that could be done is make it so the Deadringer removes all your overheal if you still have any when it activates. Kunai's strongest with the Deadringer because it removes the vulnerability of having 70hp.
To summarize : Kunai bad in competitive because when the enemy team doesnt have stupid people the spy can't farm stabs and be immortal like he usually is in casual with the kunai
I hard agree the Big Earner is the best knife in lobbies, I'd say it's the best knife period, and it's been my go-to for a very long time in casual and on TF2Center for great results. BUT I hard disagree on you saying the YER being better than the Kunai against an aware team. Even if voice chat doesn't give you away instantly, there are other ways to pick it up on your own in all gamemodes: - First, the weapon drop will not dissapear in any ways, telling everybody wich class you are. - Second, the HUD on the top of the screen will show the stabs, even if the killfeed doesn't. - Third, certain cosmetics just won't dissapear when the person dies. - Fourth, the stab "thck" sound can still be heard, even with default sound settings it's still very noticeable. The Kunai's healing provides about enough to get away safely. Not nearly as efficient as the Big Earner for sure, but it works. And this comes from someone that adores the YER benefits, and if they could do 2 changes to TF2, one of them would be to make the benefits of the YER universal (the other would be to give every Medigun the ability to copy blast jumps, in case someone is wondering). Of course, all that assumes the other team isn't using the multitude of Spy scripts that make this already near joke of a class even more awful and useless than usual. As for fixes, I disagree with NOT buffing the weapon directly. Casual is trash, and no matter how many weapons you balance around it, it will remain trash until they day they put an actual matchmaker that no longer pits fresh installs against me and wichever 10k hour power class I am currently pocketing, and god forbid I get more than one of those at the same time. Even when I run the Quick-Fix in those situations (the weakest medigun by a mile, even if I adore jumping with it) instead of my go-to the Vaccinator, I can guarantee this will be an utter massacre.
I think an even more evil change would be interesting. Like this : Keep everything but. *Remove max hp limit from backstabs but no overheal from medic* . What do you think? Its pretty much more risk more reward.
The Kunai sucks because spy as a class sucks in comp, it relies on deceit (lack of communication) and sound queues to not be notice by players for Spy to be effective, two things any good player (even in casual) actually has
I still have my pipe dream of a 12v12 competitive match without weapon restrictions but class limits. No, UncleTopia doesn't count as that isn't a group of 24 players coming together to specifically play with a competitive mindset. Uncletopia is just a bunch of competitive minded casual players randomly getting thrown at each other.
yes, but this paper in here says you're wrong so... jk, it's always nice to see a spy analysis (even tho I don't even touch spy and main pyro) and one focused on the sub niche of competitive, where spy is even less played than my total playtime with the class.
good video idk if i would say its spies worst weapon in comp, or that its bad in comp, but i agree with your ideas, and i really think the best change to the weapon, is just not changing it, people will complain about it in casual, but the same issues happen with top level players of any class
The nerf it needs to is the minimum heal being removed. Currently the Kunai has a minimum heal of +75 HP. This used to be lower at +20 HP, but Valve buffed it in the Blue Moon update to +75. Do that nerf, and it makes the knife much less consistent in casual, and forces spies to avoid damaging stab targets before stabbing them unless they want far less health from the stab. To help Competitive, any of the buff you suggested would be fine. More base HP, slower overheal drain, whatever. The knife needs a rework. A flat buff, or nerf will not be the correct direction for it.
Honestly the best idea I've heard for a change to the kunai is just give it a downside that doesn't interact with the health steal like idk make it so you take longer to cloak and decloak (don't take that stat seriously it's just what I thought up first) it's the same problem with the eyelander it's downside is completely negated after a certain point (although I do concede that the kunais benefits aren't permanent)
I've been playing spy since 2015 or 2016 (I joined 2015), I've mainly used stock my entire team fortress 2 career, with an occasional Yer mixed in from time to time. Once Jungle inferno released changing the stats on the Yer, I started using it more. I completely agree that the Yer is NOT A BAD WEAPON. It's pretty good but what I don't like is the -33% drainrate. To use that knife it need the le'tranger. That's my biggest beef with it, any other revolver is just not good with the yer. I started to branch out last year on using the big earner and the kunai, I didn't like either knife. That reduce max health is very punishing for both of these knives. Epsecially the Kunai, when I started to try it, I got the exact same mindset that you spoke in this video. The only upside to this knife is the constant health on kill. 210 health is not very much and with the health drain rate, you'll be at 200 or below 185 soon enough. Here's the thing. Scouts will still two shot you if they are up close, soldiers will have an easier time two shotin' you because the max rampu up can go above 105 from ranges where the soilder may not take any damage, and even (this goes for scout too) the drainrate will make you two shottable within a few seconds to go below 105. Demoman will most of the time (if using pipes) will two shot you; because 10 health on a drain rate is not that long. A heavy still mows down a solider at point blank range in under a second, the time it will take to kill a full health overhead junai spy will only be barley any longer. Sniper won't be able to quick scope you, but if he sees you, he can just charge up a shot to 200-210 or even less, because in reality as you said, the kunai is still loud. People will just instantly shoot you taking your overhead away unless you're getting stab after stab. These are my problems with the kunai. My brain is a bit autisitic, I do not understand trcikstabs very well for all the years I've played. I understand be on their back and click m1. Which has been the way I play spy, I have accidentally gotten trickstabs but not on purpose. Unless someone is a God at abusing the melee hit reg and hitboxes, this knife is not good. As state at the top, the only way that knife will be good, is if you can constantly get stabs to heal yourself.
