Heavy

Thoughts On Current Design

I don't actually have much to say about the current passive effects for Heavy besides what changes I'm about to make. They should be self-explanatory.

Reasons For Changes

Does Heavy being even slower than Soldier do anything? And should Pyro (and sentries) really be allowed to ignore Heavy's passive knockback resistance? My answer to both is the same - I don't think so.

Thoughts On Current Design

I'm going to be perfectly honest - Heavy's secondary slot has had issues ever since the introduction of the Sandvich. Though there are some small scenarios where Heavy might want to pull out a shotgun, they absolutely pale in comparison to Heavy's myriad food items. The popular solution to this has always been to make Heavy have 4 slots. However, both the stock shotgun and Panic Attack are multi-class items, and can't be directly balanced on a per-class basis. This resulted in most 4-slot Heavy suggestions falling flat. Additionally, nerfing the food items to bring them down to shotgun levels of bad is an astronomically bad idea considering that the food items have proven their worth in making Heavy a more balanced class. HOWEVER. With all of that said, I'm of the belief that 4-slot Heavy is feasible with some particularly minigun-shaped changes. Let's get started, shall we?

Reasons For Changes

To give a slight sneak peek, the reason shotguns aren't good on Heavy is because the minigun DOES EVERYTHING. What if it didn't, and could synergize with shotguns while Heavy still gets his needed dose of healing from lunchboxes? Now there's an idea!

Thoughts On Current Weapon

The minigun is... notoriously boring. Sure, it is capable of dishing out a lot of pain, but it almost does its job too well. Heavy is capable of answering most problems the same way - jump rev, shoot the enemy, and hope they die before you. Its flaws rear their head when it comes to the rest of Heavy's kit. Although there are a rare few occasions where the shotgun can be used reasonably instead of the minigun, the problem lies with the fact that's the question you have to ask in the first place - is it worth using instead? Due to the spin-up time, you can't use a different weapon first and then the minigun and expect good results, and due to the spin-down preventing you from holstering your weapon (yet still allowing you to spin-up immediately) means once you start using the minigun, you're gonna continue to use it. I believe addressing this, along with the minigun's general lack of weaknesses (outside of Heavy's general helplessness stemming from low movement speed) are the key components to making the minigun more fun to use, while opening up some more defined shortcomings in preparation for a 4-slot Heavy.

Reasons For Changes

First things first, I made the spin-down animation no longer prevent weapon swaps. This is THE defining reason the minigun prevented you from synergizing it with other weapons and getting rid of that restriction will single-handedly allow for more potential options for him. The other changes allow for Heavy to have more mobility while maintaining his rev, but now have to sacrifice the damage and accuracy ramp-up to do so, making swapping to the shotgun to potentially do more damage a genuine consideration. This should maintain what Heavy players like about playing Heavy, while only adding to his potential options to make him significantly less boring to those who aren't into his admittedly dull gameplan.

Thoughts On Current Weapon

It's sad to say, but it's true. The Brass Beast is bad. Though it is capable of doing more damage and allows you to get a slight damage resistance when at lower health, the terrible spin-up speed and ungodly mobility makes these upsides never feel worthwhile as enemies can too easily take advantage of you before the upsides actually make any difference. Additionally, with the All Minigun changes taken into account, I think it's time to move on from the slowness of this minigun and replace it with something more fitting.

Reasons For Changes

While thinking about ideas for what to do with the Brass Beast, a realization came to me: why aren’t there any miniguns with a spin-down penalty? This would fit quite well in the Brass Beast’s design and opens up an opportunity to finally get rid of the downside that makes using it so awful - the movement speed penalty. With that out of the way, I decided to make the damage resistance constant so that it's a great gun for tanking and dishing out damage as long as you don't get forced to spin-down. Compared to stock, this one will keep you alive and do more damage once it's ready to fire, but it's less "at the ready" than its counterparts, especially when it comes to its downtime after stopping firing where you're completely vulnerable.

 Thoughts On Current Weapon

The Huo-Long Heater's downside of chewing through ammo is interesting on paper, and maybe with the right upsides, it could work out. As one might guess from needing to mention that, the current upsides do not make the weapon work. The fire ring only applies to enemies who are already in Heavy's near-instant kill range, and the damage bonus (which is already hard to achieve without direct help from another Pyro) is greatly hindered by the innate damage penalty. This makes it very, very hard to justify using when stock is usually just a tad bit better in damage and doesn't have that ammo penalty.

IDEA #1 - Flaming Bullets

Reasons For Changes (Idea #1)

Having a damage bonus that is only possible to activate by yourself by walking in range of a fire ring or needing a Pyro on your team is pretty unreliable, especially since you're the slowest class in the game. Thus, I decided to give a chargeable meter that removes this reliance. The rest of the changes followed suit from there.

IDEA #2 - Firework Cannon

Reasons For Changes (Idea #2)

A firework cannon is something that makes complete sense for the Huo-Long Heater design-wise, and it also happens to fix a lot of the problems it has stat-wise. Now you'll have a reliable and consistent way to ignite players on your own, but deal less damage otherwise. Great!

Thoughts On Current Weapon

Though the Natascha can serve a purpose of being useful against Scouts, Spies, Pyros, or really any fast-approaching enemy, nobody likes slowing mechanics, end of story. This one’s going to need a near complete rehaul if it’s going to be an acceptable and viable minigun.

IDEA #1 - Health As Ammo Minigun

Reasons For Changes (Idea #1)

Heavy, being the class with the most health by far, seemed like the best class to do a design like this for. Essentially, you can do what the Widowmaker does, except on a minigun at the cost of damage, health from other sources, and the requirement to be doing enough damage at all times to sustain the health cost of firing the gun. With proper positioning and timing, this gun can single-handedly make Heavy a super tank that requires people to get out of the line of fire to stop healing the beast while being a huge hinderance otherwise.

IDEA #2 - Team-Focused Minigun

Reasons For Changes (Idea #2)

This new design keeps the support role the original was meant to encompass while being a lot more fair and much less annoying to fight. It’s prioritized on keeping your team alive by healing them for every hit (which is made much easier due to double bullets) and giving everyone a speed boost for kills and assists. However, it deals less damage than stock despite the massive bullet count and still spins up slower, so make sure you stick with your team to get the most this gun has to offer.

Thoughts On Current Weapon

The Tomislav is extremely close to being balanced, but the accuracy bonus really has ruined the way that the weapon works. As long as you’re not point blank, it makes more of your bullets land, directly going against the downside of firing less bullets. If you're at point blank range, the Tomislav is oftentimes better still since you can start doing damage earlier due to the spin-up speed. Let's make some adjustments.

Reasons For Changes

This essentially reverts the weapon back to one of its previous variants that wasn’t at all unbalanced. At the time, this was the new Tomislav right after initial release (which was incredibly busted), and opinions still lingered about it being overpowered, and resulted in further nerfs. However, with that stigma gone, this version allows the Tomislav to still play to its strengths well, but doesn't have the accuracy bonus that takes away the downside's purpose.

Thoughts On Current Weapon

For the few class-specific shotguns, their stats pair up with the class that has it and their abilities. Not the Family Business, though. Its stats not only have nothing to do with Heavy specifically, but they are in complete clash with each other. As a result, the Family Business is the tiniest upgrade to stock with a bit of Soviet branding. However, seeing as we're now working with a 4-slot Heavy where the shotguns no longer have to hold themselves to the unreasonable standard of the lunchboxes' utility, the Family Business now has more freedom than ever to become Heavy's shotgun.

Reasons For Changes

Though simple, this new version of the Family Business is here for Heavies who like to mix up their minigun and shotgun frequently, granting a speed bonus for 3 seconds if you deploy it during the spin-down. However, it halves your minigun ammo and forces you to keep it deployed for 3 seconds, meaning you have to make usage of it count - doing so rewards you with a large ammo pack to make the ammo penalty sting less.

Thoughts On Current Weapon

Heavy, like a decent chunk of the classes in the game, simply does not have a good stock melee weapon. "Why?" boils down to three reasons. 1.) Heavy is the slowest class in the game, and he cannot force anyone to fight him at melee range. 2.) His primary weapon doesn't have a clip size nor a way to cleanly switch off of it while using it to combo with other weapons. 3.) Unlocks offer strong utility (GRU and FoS) or incredible upsides (KGB and Holiday Punch), often with little to no downside. Issue 2 has been resolved already, but with the remaining two ponderables in mind, I think it's time to make the stock fists enforce a higher standard.

Reasons For Changes

Besides giving the fists the ability to, well, act like two fists like you'd expect, the Running Start ability is an ability meant to give Heavy the almost-essential ability to get from the spawn room to where he's needed. 20% movement speed bonus combined with upping Heavy's base movement speed to 80% means that with Running Start in effect, he'll be moving minorly faster than Demo, yet just a little slower than the average speed of 100% (Pyro, Engineer, and Sniper). It also gives the Heavy to dish out some extra mini-crit damage with melee during the effects. Neat!

Thoughts On Current Weapon

The story of the Eviction Notice is a sad one, and after all the changes it's gotten, it's now just a diet version of the Gloves Of Running Urgently. Not only does it give you less speed for having them out while still draining your health, it even deals less damage than the GRU does, even if you hit every punch! What a rip-off!

Reasons For Changes

The existing stats were really not good candidates for a working, unique Heavy melee, meaning it was best to cut them and start from scratch. This allowed me to give it the damage bonus it deserves, being brass knuckles and all, and give it a new upside that any Heavy can find use for: permanent faster move speed. It does require killing enemies with your melee first, but it’s definitely possible to do if you set your mind to it - especially since you can now swap off the minigun more cleanly and have improved damage and attack speed. However, it always costs max health to have them, so it's never a straight upgrade.

Thoughts On Current Weapon

The Fists Of Steel have generally stood up with the GRU as the only other solid Heavy melee for quite some time. Their ability to nearly double Heavy's health for having them deployed is a strong effect in the right situation. However, I do think they're a little more exploitable than intended so I'll be patching some of those spots, in addition to making sure they don't benefit as much from Running Start.

Reasons For Changes

Considering that the holster speed will now actually work rather than being entirely avoidable, I made the overheal penalty universal to fix its related jank and made all damage that isn't directly melee be resisted. I also made it have only the mini-crits from Running Start so that it doesn't outclass stock. This should keep the weapon strong while allowing the previously underpowered option have a fair shot at being used.

Thoughts On Current Weapon

The GRU has always been a solid choice for any Heavy, and today it stands as the most balanced it has been in its lifetime if you ignore stock. So... let's not ignore stock this time!

Reasons For Changes

These changes make it function the same as before, but now the downside is something to actively consider. Rather than the speed bonus being directly tied to your health and being able to have some other weapon deployed if you needed to avoid it, Running Start means that you will need your melee deployed if you want to get to the frontlines quickly. Compared to stock, GRU will be able to get you there a tiny bit faster and be helpful for general repositioning + escapes, but your first trip from spawn is going to cost you max health if you want the speed.

Thoughts On Current Weapon

The Holiday Punch in general is extremely reliant on random crits to be effective, and with them being removed, it'll end up being... a really boring unlock. Also, it's plainly better than stock. Let's delve into that, yeah?

Reasons For Changes

This will make it so that the Holiday Punch is not plainly better than stock fists but is capable of causing enemies to laugh without relying on random crits. It may lack the full speed from stock's Running Start, but do note that Running Start gives mini-crits, which now become critical hits and cause laughter... so go nuts! Oh, I also tacked on the Dueler status in spirit of the guaranteed crits against other Holiday Punch users to improve the mischief.

Thoughts On Current Weapon

The KGB has slid on by, being plainly better than the stock fists for a really, really long time now, and only because the stock fists were accepted by Valve as complete garbage. Those days are over! Let's make some adjustments.

Reasons For Changes

It’s not really rocket science with this one. It's basically the same as before (without the slower attack speed), but you're now capable of moving around with your melees infinitely with the crits before switching weapons to utilize them. However, since it lacks the main benefit of Running Start, stock now has a chance.

Thoughts On Current Weapon

The Warrior’s Spirit makes you deal and take 30% more damage, but you also get health for killing people! ...Safe to say, outside of medieval mode, the extra damage taken is more significant than the upsides, which make them arguably even worse than stock. Let’s try and fix that!

Reasons For Changes

Combined with my changes to the Buffalo Steak Sandvich (the secondary in the item set), the two would make a great pair to go wrestle with the enemy team with your “bear” hands while also still being good for dispatching those pesky lunchtime attackers/reposition with other lunchbox items - something that the Brass Beast (the primary in the item set) really likes to do. However, you will want to watch out for the renamed Honorbound stat - having that Warrior's Spirit within you means not getting kills with your melee will cost you 50 health, which may cut some of the health you just got from your food!

Thoughts On Current Weapon

With lunchboxes being in their own slot, Heavy is in a better spot... though there are some small things that still bother me. Namely, I think sharing could use some adjustments.

Reasons For Changes

It's my opinion that the food items have needed a nerf to their support throwing for a while now, and being that Heavy is being allowed to do more via 4 slots, it's a decent time to put that into action as seen here. I also removed the ability to refill the recharge meter by picking up health packs while at full health, as this not only felt awkward and unnecessary, but it especially made throwing packs to your Medic while picking up small health kits yourself far more effective than it should have been.

Thoughts On Current Weapon

Man, the Buffalo Steak is super bad. It forces the slowest class in the game to use their melee and even makes you take more damage during the effects. Considering Demoknight is a thing in the same game, it's going to need to do more than that. The new Running Start effect comes to mind...

Reasons For Changes

This new Buffalo Steak works in tandem with the stock Fist changes, allowing the user to quickly regain a stronger version of their melee's Running Start effect in trade for only healing the user for 100 health on use. This will allow for similar antics to take place, but allow for significantly more freedom when you want to cancel the effects and especially no longer get punished with a damage vulnerability. Neat for repositioning over longer distances and to allow you to get melee kills easier for the weapons that need them, and especially works well with the reworked Warrior's Spirit to dish out some real hurt.

Thoughts On Current Weapon

Even if the in-game tips say otherwise, the extra health the Dalokohs Bar provides is not all that advantageous in battle. The only time it does is when you pair it up with the Fists Of Steel to tank tons of damage, but even that's situational at best since you need to spend the time eating. Though, despite that, it manages to also lack any sort of indication when its effects are in play, so you can't even be sure if a Heavy you're fighting has 350 health or not. Yikes!

Reasons For Changes

Making the health gained from the Dalokohs Bar go into overheal will boost its power while keeping the current purpose. It also allows enemies to see that you have extra health via the overheal particles. In turn, I increased the recharge to a little longer than the Sandvich and upped it to a medium health pack + potential overheal for throwing as well.

Thoughts On Current Weapon

The weapon surprisingly ended up being the best weapon introduced in Jungle Inferno despite being the consolation prize offered to Heavy for not winning. In fact... it's WAY better than it was originally pitched to be. Granting 200 health instead of 150 and only needing a 10 second recharge instead of 15. Admittedly, it does only output a small health kit for teammates, but even then this can outclass the Sandvich sometimes due to offering more frequent afterburn and bleed cures and outputting 60% max health healed per 30 seconds vs the Sandvich's 50%. It's also available pretty much immediately after a fight (10 seconds recharge - 4 seconds spent eating = 6 second effective recharge!) while healing enough health to continue fighting. Let's tone it down.

Reasons For Changes

This slower recharge aims to make the Second Banana not be ready again so fast to where it will consistently be available after every single scrap you get yourself in, making you the slightest bit more reliant on alternative health sources, in addition to now outputting less health over time than the regular Sandvich for teammates. However, as compensation, I also gave it the ability to be consumed in approximately 2 seconds rather than 4, which will let a roaming Heavy who is most inclined to equip the Second Banana get back into the fight all that much faster.