Thread: The Polycount Pack

If they would remove the hat buffs everything would be fine.

Milk is op, but only 1v1, I think in pubs its not that bad, but in 6v6 its just stupid.

New spy stuff is obnoxious, again, but isn't overpowering.

Soldier update was meh, from what I've heard the new stuff is actually viable if you use it right, but it just doesn't fit my play style so I don't like it.

Sniper stuff needs to be completely reworked, there all awful and terrible ideas in general.

Color Coded for Convenience

~Tank Buster: Cripplingly underpowered. Combining a need for offensive, suicidal gameplay with only 3 loaded rockets is terrible. The set bonus is basically worthless because you simply lack the power to take down a sentry gun, even with a potential 55% damage reduction. Add the fourth rocket back and maybe increase the bonus and this set will be more useful.

~Black Box: Fine weapon, but not as good as the stock launcher simply because it lacks that fourth rocket. +15 HP per hit is great, especially since it multiplies per person splashed, but it isn't enough. For rebalancing, I'd say increase the reload delay in exchange for that fourth rocket.

~Battalion's Backup: Pretty decent, actually. The extra damage resistance is a lot more subtle than the Buff Banner, but it can really help with a push. It's pretty easy to charge up, too. The defining point, however, is the ability to completely cockblock a kritzkrieg.


~Gas Jockey: I love this set. The pyro really needed something like this to make offensive gameplay more viable. The increased vulnerability to bullets isn't a large issue either. 3HKOs are still 3HKOs, 2HKOs are still 2HKOs, etc. Barely noticeable drawback in exchange for increased flanking power, something I feel the pyro has desperately needed for a long time.

~Degreaser: Love it. Pretty much an upgrade over the default flamer since the drawback only hits afterburn (which is largely worthless). Lightning fast switch speed means I can flank, light up a crowd and pull out with my shotgun, or ambush an unsuspecting player and clock them over the head before they can react.

~Powerjack: Love this too. It's actually very competitive with the Axtinguisher in terms of helping the pyro live longer. Whereas the Ax prevents damage by killing people in one hit, the Jack heals damage by killing people in two hits. Really helps with increasing the damage the pyro can do.


~Milkman: Pretty dang overpowered for a couple of reasons. The health bonus, coupled with how absurd the Shortstop and Milk are, makes good scouts a monstrosity. More details below.

~The Shortstop: This gun takes all the flaws of the FaN and removes them. You've got slightly less damage per shot, but the clip is large enough to take down a soldier before he gets a second rocket off anyway. No knockback allows for a consistent target, and the reload time rewards you for spamming instead of aiming.

~Mad Milk: Coats affected players in milk, causing them to suffer a vampirism effect. Shooting them causes you to leech a whopping 75% of the damage back to your own health bar. Works really well with the Shortstop's rate of fire, allowing the scout to maintain 150 HP without any sort of medic support. Pretty absurd in smaller scale skirmishes, but doesn't really constitute a push.

~Holy Mackerel: This is by far the most overpowered item in the game. With the same swing speed and damage as the bat, it enables you to publicly humiliate your enemies completely and utterly, crippling their will to fight back as that fear-inducing kill indicator tracks the number of times they are slapped around. Should the unthinkable happen, and you slain by this weapon, the counter abruptly changes to a large, bold "FISH KILL!" in order to advertise your disgrace all the more painfully.


~Saharan Spy: Haven't really used this myself much, but the quieter decloak is definitely a factor; at the least, it lets bad spies get one shot at stabbing good players before they wise up and kill him. Good spies that can use it properly are terrifying, but manageable with regular spychecking (can be as simple as turning around every so often). I've not seen the longer blink time come in to effect a whole lot, but it does wonders for tracking some poor schmuck that gets caught in a rocket blast. All in all, a pretty balanced set.

~L'Etranger: Not a particularly useful gun. Cloak regeneration is typically better dealt with by picking up ammo or waiting out of sight, as opposed to sniping people. I can only see this being useful in a failed stab attempt, and you're likely frag meat if you can't cloak out of there immediately anyway. Needs rebalancing.

~Your Eternal Reward: A bit of an oddball. The knife is definitely not something I'd use without the full set, as the cloak noise is fairly obvious. Compounding this by not having a disguise makes it extremely difficult to use without the bonuses. The silent kill isn't much of a factor, I don't think, since you can still identify who gets stabbed by looking at kill indicators, and, at least for me, the stab noise becomes incredibly loud without the death wail.


~Croc-O-Style: I don't even want to bother with this one because it's just so crappy. It's for bad snipers so they can still have an effect on the match, but it promotes becoming an all-around worse sniper instead of getting better by removing headshot damage. Headshot immunity makes it that much harder to counter-snipe you, but you can't counter-snipe very easily either, and the Sleeper's general slowness reduces your effectiveness even more.

~Sydney Sleeper: This is the main problem with the set. It's actually a good concept, but executed poorly. It only applies jarate if you have at least 25% charge, and the duration depends on charge time, promoting 2Fort style sniping. The damage applied by a full charge sort of negates the need for jarate anyway. If noscopes could apply jarate for at least 4 seconds, or headshots applied an instant 10 second jarate, that'd be a huge improvement to this weapon. And also help it synergize with the Bushwacka.

~Darwin's Danger Shield: Eh, kinda meh. I've noticed that I need to improve my rocket aim a bit when dealing with this instead of letting the splash do all the work, but it's not a big deal. Would not trade Jarate for this myself.

~Bushwacka: This is actually a decent weapon. As far as the fire vulnerability goes, you're either crispy bacon or not currently burning to death when it comes to snipers anyway. The bonus allows you an axtinguisher effect if you use jarate, and also applies during a buff banner (though I wouldn't recommend charging along with your knife out). The problem with it is that it's supposed to play off the Sydney Sleeper's jarate effects, but the sleeper can only apply it from sniper range. Bit of a paradox that prevents it from being useful in the set.

L'Etranger is fine by me. Sadly, it helps DR spies who fail at stabbing, and may not have that full cloak yet. Hitting with it substantially increases your cloak, and instead of being +15/200, I think it is closer to +15% Max. Cloak regen?