Discuss anything about rocket launchers, a brush up:
The Rocket Launcher
https://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/thumb/f/fe/Item_icon_Rocket_Launcher.png/100px-Item_icon_Rocket_Launcher.png
Loads four rockets, might be the best weapon in the game, good damage, easy to use, all around good
The Direct Hit
https://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/thumb/e/e7/Item_icon_Direct_Hit.png/100px-Item_icon_Direct_Hit.png
Rockets travel 80% faster and do 25% more damage, and minicrits players that are airborne from explosives, but has a 70% smaller explosion
The Black Box
https://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/thumb/d/d2/Item_icon_Black_Box.png/100px-Item_icon_Black_Box.png
Rockets will heal up to 20 heath when hitting enemies, but only loads three rockets
The Rocket Jumper
https://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/thumb/5/53/Item_icon_Rocket_Jumper.png/100px-Item_icon_Rocket_Jumper.png
Identical to stock except it has three times as many reserve rockets and does no damage, great mobility tool
The Liberty Launcher
https://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/thumb/2/24/Item_icon_Liberty_Launcher.png/100px-Item_icon_Liberty_Launcher.png
Loads five rockets, rockets travel 40% faster, and blast jumps take 25% less health, but does 25% less damage to enemies as well
The Cow Mangler 5000
https://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/thumb/4/46/Item_icon_Cow_Mangler_5000.png/100px-Item_icon_Cow_Mangler_5000.png
Has infinite ammo, still only four shots though. Deals 80% less damage to buildings, and has a secondary charge fire, the fire needs and uses all four ammo charges, minicrits and ignites enemies, and disables enemy building for four seconds. Also minicrits whenever it would normally crit.
The Beggar's Bazooka
https://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/thumb/7/77/Item_icon_Beggar%27s_Bazooka.png/100px-Item_icon_Beggar%27s_Bazooka.png
Starts with no rockets loaded, and you load and fire them all at once. Loads three rockets, a fourth will detonate and hurt the user. Loaded rockets fire 70% faster, but the rockets will randomly deviate up to three degrees away from the crosshair. Also can't collect ammo from dispensers while it's out and the rockets have a 20% smaller explosion.
The Air Strike
https://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/thumb/f/f8/Item_icon_Air_Strike.png/100px-Item_icon_Air_Strike.png
Rockets deal 15% less damage, and rockets have a 10% smaller explosion, but clip size is increased on kill up to a max clip of eight. Blast jumps take 15% less health, and while airborne from a blast jump, rockets fire 65% faster, and rockets have a further 20% smaller explosion (28% smaller than stock)
direct hit should be considered a dick move if everyone is of equal skill on a server.
(actually i think that's already how it is)
Direct Hit trashes Heavy and Engineer when his stock rocket launcher already does well against both, and makes getting airshots against other Soldiers trivial. It ought to be changed in some way, though it'd probably need a name change.
I only really use the Original now-a-days... Well, Begger's and Cow Mangler on MvM as well I guess... I don't really care for the other launchers..
Well, I guess I use the direct hit when engie nests are a problem, more so when they're stacking engies for a last stand like defense and utilizing tools like the wrangler, rescue ranger and short circuit and what not. That's about the only time I use it at least. I don't generally like handi-caping myself that much lol.
Beggars really needs its reload buffed up
er no lol. It used to be a very problematic weapon because of initial reload (kinda still is but splash nerf calmed it down).
that gun just begs for a rework.
The direct hit's downside can easily be removed by spamming it as artillery from the backlines, which defeats the whole point of it being a skill weapon and just turns it into an explosive Huntsman (another supposedly "skill" primary which is most dangerous when blindly flung down the map by new players)
The fact that it punishes explosive jumping enemies is also stupid, especially since airshots kills are extremely easy with it's projectile speed and damage.
It needs to be changed a bit.
I absolutely hate the direct hit since it erases light classes at close to mid range with so much ease and its relatively hard to counter.
The Direct Hit is a perfect storm of bad design.
Faster projectiles than stock make it easier to score direct hits. Higher damage than stock means it's more likely to kill on direct hits. Smaller splash means users are seriously hobbling themselves with regard to the bread-and-butter of being a soldier, but get stupid cheap kills from point-blank shots, easier airshots, and the ability to stomp on low-skill/low-mobility targets in exchange.
I don't know how this mess can be salvaged. I'm just glad it isn't very popular to use, at least in my experience (although this also makes it easier for Valve to leave as-is).
it sort of balances itselfs out thanks to the virtual non-existant splash damage, wich makes a lot of new/unexperienced players drop it in favor of others far more forgiving.
ya it's perfectly fine in low-medium environments
but once people start to know how to lead, even the best strafing can't do much against a projectile that's like 20x faster than a player can move.
if it had stock rocket speed it would solve ALOT of its problems. Then it would just need a little something else.
The Liberty Launcher is probably the best crutch weapon in the game, and I say this in a positive tone. For any player who isn't good at Soldier, or doesn't find the class appealing, the weapon gives you a lot of upsides which are still balanced by its 25% less damage per rocket, but still allows you to do as much damage as 4 regular rockets.
Not good at aiming at a player's feet? The weapon gives you one extra rocket so you can have one extra try at it and it helps players who don't keep an eye on ammo management.
Not good at rocket-jumping? The weapon has a -25% blast damage from rocket jumps attribute so your rocket jumps don't feel as wasted if you miss where you wanted to go, or to perform better rollouts thanks to the extra rocket.
Not good at airshots? The weapon has a 40% faster projectile speed, which although it still requires some prediction from the user's part, it gives the player a foot to start with in that department and allows them to chip in some damage where average players wouldn't be able to get.
All of this is meaningless for an experienced player because the Stock Rocket Launcher is generally better and not worth sacrificing damage for attributes that can be compensated by prediction skill and map knowledge for the most part, which is why I think the Liberty Launcher is good by giving new Soldier players some holding ground to start with by basically having attributes that say "this is what the Soldier is supposed to do", that being rocket jumps, airshots, spam (because of the extra rocket) because precisely they don't have those skills and knowledge experienced players have.
It has no real place in serious play, but it doesn't need it either (like the Rocket/Sticky Jumper weapons), and I think it's a good weapon and learning tool for new players, and because of that, I hope it doesn't get changed any time soon.
I've been saying the direct hit is bullshit for years only to be berated with insults about how I can't dodge a rocket that goes 20x faster than I do and evaporates any class but heavy in 1-2 clicks
Direct Hit idea, give it less/no damage rampup or falloff, to make it the long range launcher. And so that it can't instakill light classes.
The Direct Hit is fine.
It's almost never run at a high-level because while it is great for 1v1s, its utter lack of splash makes it less-than-ideal for spamming from high ground, bombing and juggling Medics to secure a kill, etc. If you're having trouble engaging a Soldier with the Direct Hit, the answer is to stop engaging them face-to-face and instead do so from high ground/behind. The Direct Hit does not benefit nearly as much from high ground as stock launcher or stickies, and while it is very powerful when used at point-blank, good movement and flanking will quickly expose its weaknesses.
I don't think any of us have any doubts about it having glaring weaknesses. That doesn't mean it's in a good spot.
It poses no real threat to high-level players, it's very fun to use, and it's easy to counter if you know what you're doing. That's the definition of a sidegrade.
it rewads aiming, wich most soldier-users lack.
I didn't exactly mean it's op, it's just annoying as fuck to play against since it's much harder to dodge and will whiff light classes with a single rocket while leaving most other classes severely crippled with little to no effort on the soldier's end if he's been using it for more than an hour
to be fair, it fucks the scout harder than anyone else
and fuck those guys
anyways I get what you mean about being annoying to play against, it's just really important to engage DH soldiers differently than you would stock soldiers. it becomes much easier to deal with after that.
if DH is nerfed in any way- which I don't support, but if it is- it should be a reduction in ramp-up. the ramp-up damage is what makes it so scary at close range, and perhaps a slight reduction in ramp-up damage would make it a little less frustrating to deal with.
That sounds more like a downgrade to me. Reducing ramp-up is a change I would support, though I think it would take more than that to make it good.
but as much as i hate it, i genuinely think its ok, because those stats only shine in the hands of competent people, wich there are not that many around to truly be worried about. in teamfights it gets really bad for the soldier as chances are he would not be able to deal with multiple targets as a regular rocket would allow him to.
what if the high-level players are the ones using it
No matter how well implemented a weapon can be implemented into the game there's still always probably going to people out there that it takes them out of their comfort zone in one way or another no matter how you swing it.
If we want to have new weapons in the game that are actually good at something, I feel to some extent people are going to have to learn to adjust to things being out of their comfort zone. Other wise we may as well erase the existance of unlockables altogether, let stock be the only useful tools and let the game eventually die due to lack of anything new and exciting to keep us playing the game.
then the better player is winning?
But a good contest of skill isn't binary. The better player should win, but doing so costs them a certain amount of time/ammo/health/what-have-you. There's room to consider that a weapon gives the better player an advantage over and above what they would or should have using stock.
I don't know if I'd make that case for the Direct Hit myself, but it's a valid line of reasoning if that is what Hell-met is saying.
it's still a dick move, otherwise nobody would have a problem with it in MGE
In MGE, you're expected to practice airshots and play 1v1s as you actually would in a comp game. Counter jumping is also heavily frowned upon because of this.
A high level player is going to win because he knows what weapon to use in the right moment and has the experience and skills to put everything in his favor, not because he's using a particular weapon. its the reason why you can dogfight critboosted phlog pyros and still win.
I feel the reason you could evade pointblank crit phlogs is because those pyros are dogshit
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