CEVO Bans Natascha and Wrangler - Games

[QUOTE=XplodingNoggin;23843195]Sup Competitive Players, The reason you're getting so much hate is because for some silly reason, Valve listens to you and makes changes based upon what you have to say when you play that 6V6 TF2 Beta thingy. Unfortunately, the changes affect everyone, not just you, and so we are pretty annoyed with you people for influencing Valve to make changes that didn't need to be made. Just what I think, feel free to rate me boxes if the mood takes you.[/QUOTE] Sup, most (if not all) the changes due to the beta actually effected the game in a positive way and a good amount of them doesn't effect pubbers since they won't notice it. For example, in the past if you tried to sticky/rocket jump near a teammate, they may absorb the blast (but not take any damage since friendly fire isn't on), thus you would just waste ammo and end up going no where. It was a minor nuisance in comp play since at the beginning of rounds the teams are bunched together and many failed sticky/rocket jumps would result. I personally asked Robin to fixed that and he did. A good majority of public players would not even notice this fix since they don't sticky/rocket jump as much. I could go on about all the little things they changed that a lot of pubbers would not notice, so yeah the majority of the changes don't effect you guys at all.

and if they do it's in the form of fixes

[QUOTE=Cirno;23838603]I've played more competitive matches throughout the entirety of the Team Fortress series that I can't even begin to count them all. [I][B]I've played with and against more top teams in QWTF and TFC than you can even wrap your mind around.[/B][/I] I still play league matches in TFC and occasionally play with old pros(DJedi, M, AM ect) from QWTF when we can get a game started. I played in the small BOYC CPL TFC event and then next year(I think) played in the CPL TFC 2v2. Saying I'm not a competitive player is like saying Complexity is terrible...[/QUOTE] gee I wonder why nobody's responding to you reasonably

[QUOTE=NeoDement;23852831]gee I wonder why nobody's responding to you reasonably[/QUOTE] Gee, I wonder why I don't care at all... Besides, QWTF and TFC have much higher skill levels than TF2 will ever have.

two versions. comp tf2 and tf2. make shit changes to comp tf2, leave TF2. Problem solved forever. I swear this was what they were going to do. And concerning these bans, who cares. They aren't playing TF2 anymore.

[QUOTE=Cirno;23852985]Gee, I wonder why I don't care at all... Besides, QWTF and TFC have much higher skill levels than TF2 will ever have.[/QUOTE] wait what exactly are you in this thread for? purely to wave your ego around?

[QUOTE=Cloak Raider;23853585]two versions. comp tf2 and tf2. make shit changes to comp tf2, leave TF2. Problem solved forever. I swear this was what they were going to do. And concerning these bans, who cares. They aren't playing TF2 anymore.[/QUOTE] No one is playing TF2 anymore, you're all playing an Incredibles, dumbed down version of previous TF games. Back in my day TF2 was a god damn war game with squads and shit named Brotherhood of Arms.

Cirno you are either 1. a douche 2. a troll either way, stop.

[QUOTE=NeoDement;23853648]wait what exactly are you in this thread for? purely to wave your ego around?[/QUOTE] Purely to watch you pubstars complain about something that doesn't affect you at all. [editline]03:47PM[/editline] [QUOTE=Sirdangolot5;23853873]Cirno you are either 1. a douche 2. a troll either way, stop.[/QUOTE] Oh man, I'm being called out!

[QUOTE=Cirno;23838603]I've played more competitive matches throughout the entirety of the Team Fortress series that I can't even begin to count them all. I've played with and against more top teams in QWTF and TFC than you can even wrap your mind around. I still play league matches in TFC and occasionally play with old pros(DJedi, M, AM ect) from QWTF when we can get a game started. I played in the small BOYC CPL TFC event and then next year(I think) played in the CPL TFC 2v2. Saying I'm not a competitive player is like saying Complexity is terrible...[/QUOTE] and yet you also manage to play TES and WoW? How can you find the time? :allears:

[QUOTE=Sirdangolot5;23854505]and yet you also manage to play TES and WoW? How can you find the time? :allears:[/QUOTE] And Fallout, can't forget Fallout...

[quote]Didn’t the competitive scene say that Scouts are borderline overpowered? The quote was that Scout is the only “borderline overpowered” class. This means that if a player can hit every meatshot, He is overpowered compared to any other class that can get every shot, i.e a Sniper getting headshots with every shot will not be as effective as a Scout hitting every shot. Also, for those who don’t agree with Natascha being banned, think of it like this. There are 5 combat classes on a team of 6. One of them is running Natascha. This player has begun to attack an enemy. This enemy’s mobility is now non-existent. Not only can they not escape, but they are a piss easy target for the 4 other players on a team. Competitive players aren’t like your usual pub player; we hit our shots. Therefore, imagine being the enemy when a single bullet begins a cycle of helplessness. TF2 is a game of momentum and mobility. If one player can destroy the mobility of every class on the enemy team, that team will probably take mid and gain major momentum. This is a major game breaker. Note how every class (not Medic obviously) that is standard in comp play is extremely maneuverable or has a method of gaining instant mobility. A response to “Well, can’t the enemy just use a Sniper and easily counter the Heavy using Natascha?” again from ibuprofen. OK, I’ll break it down for you to understand it better. The Sniper’s advantage is that he can eliminate targets from range. His damage does not amplify depending on distance. He is able to get “picks;” kills that allow the pushing team an advantage of having a player over them. The best “pick” is a medic pick, where a medic is eliminated from the enemy team. Snipers can do this at a range, which is why they are favorable. However, this is the only thing they are able to do; frag. Scouts can frag as well. However, Scouts move extremely fast, have a double jump, are able to outmaneuverer explosives classes and fight through spam. They can also avoid a Soldier juggle. Scouts can insert themselves into a battle, complete their objective, and remove themselves just as easily and quickly. Scouts capture at 2x the regular rate. A Sniper can do none of these things. The mid fight is very important in competitive play, because the game is about momentum, as I mentioned. However, problematically, the Sniper is always late to the mid fight, which means the team’s Scout has a 1v2 fight at mid against the other team’s scouts. He also has to protect the team’s Demo and flank the enemy Demo, both of which are at mid. If you just don’t run scouts at all, first of all, your team’s Demo is dead instantly. Second, by the time your powerhouse gets to the fight, the point is already half capped. Thirdly, the enemy Demo will have stickies up the exits, trapping the combo. The enemy scouts will also have an advantage on the flank, etc.. etc… the list goes on. So, the team’s Scout is fucked at mid when you’re running a Sniper, jeopardizing the mid fight. That’s point #1. The Sniper must be protected at all times. If a Soldier knocks him up in the air with a rocket, there is literally NOTHING the Sniper can do, as he cannot scope in nor outstrafe the extremely easily second rocket to complete the juggle. If the Sniper is ambushed from a blind spot by a Scout, he is dead before he came humanly react. Before you say, NO NO I’M A 1337 SNIPER I GET ALL THE SHOTS, keep in mind it takes 200ms for your shots to register as 150dmg headshots and not as null 50dmg bodyshots regardless. Add reaction time and lag (avg on central servers is 70ms) and you begin to realize how weak the Sniper is. The enemy team has TWO of these flanking classes, so if they ambush you at the same time, which they often do, you are dead before you can kill either. So essentially, you’re playing two classes down when you run a Sniper, since one has to babysit him. That is point #2. The Sniper can do 150dmg a pop with a quickscope. This takes out unbuffed Scouts and Medics. In less time than it takes to do this, a Scout can deal two meatshots. Therefore, in the same time, the Scout could have killed any Scout (Buffed or otherwise), a Medic, an unbuffed Soldier, an unbuffed Demo, and put a buffed Demo in red to be pistoled easily. The Sniper can charge up, however, for 450 dmg. However, this takes four seconds. In these four seconds, the Scout can have popped out much more than 450 dmg. This is point #3. Moving on to the Wrangler, here again from ibuprofen This is just typical competitive crap. Why would a competitive clan/league or whatever ban weapons that provide a TACTICAL ADVANTAGE. Nat Heavies can be damn useful in a defense. The Sandman was damn useful before it got nerfed to oblivion and The Wrangler opened up a new skillset for the Engie. This is what I don’t understand about competitive teams, they’re always banging on about skill yet when a weapon comes along that gives less experienced players an advantage over them, they’re quick to call for nerfs and bans as opposed to – oh I dunno… avoiding them? I talked about the Natascha early on, but on the Wrangler, it makes a lot of sense. I’m not going to go to far into it, but in competitive play, sentries exist only to make enemies pop their uber early. Picture the Badlands choke when the offensive team is pushing out from yard after losing the mid fight. They have to fight uphill (THE worst position you could ever be in) and it is a back and forth struggle to peak out and get a pick so that their team could move in. Players flank from the house and scouts sneak in from the back side to ninja cap. Now, what the team that has middle can do is they can run an Engineer and set up a level 3 sentry on the train car and wrangle it. This effectively shuts down both chokes and makes it impossible for the other team to push out. If they push out of the usual choke, they will get spammed in by a Sentry with a 66% damage reduction shield (seven stickybombs to frag) and double fire rate. If they try to push out house, the Sentry can just turn to the left and cover that too. So really, their only option is to push from valley (the area under the bridge), and this is a SEVERE disadvantage. Remember what I said about uphill fights behind the worst possible obstacle you could face? The valley is ten times more steep than the choke. Even when pushing out from here, the Sentry can still target you if you pop out. It will take literally the entire length of an ubercharge to kill a sentry. Which is not fair considering how fast the Engineer can build and maintain a sentry. Like I said, I won’t go too far into it (there are loads of other problems), but to summarize, the Wrangler makes chokes impossible to push through and the entire game becomes a steamroll for whatever team wins mid. Bellsprout, also from the UC forums, outlines the main reasons behind all three bans. The only strategies that these weapons are good for are that of stalemating the game. The game revolves around Ubers, right? The Sandman is able to stun the Medic before he can Uber meaning he’ll be die. Or it can be used to stun the Soldier while he’s building Uber leaving the Medic defenceless. I should mention that by stun in those sentences I mean the speed nerf/unable to use weapons state. The Natascha means that that an Ubered pair will go in and HAVE to focus that Heavy with 450 health, else he’ll stop any retreat. If there’s two of them then you’re just being stalemated as it is pretty much impossible to kill the two – especially if there’s a Medic with Uber. However because the team has two heavies it’s very difficult to push second. meaning stalemate. The Wrangler means that an Uber is necessary to JUST kill the sentry. If there’s another engineer with another Wrangled sentry then you will lose. Simple. Once again, pushing to second is very difficult. French Toast, one of our authors particularly well known for being part of the comp guide adds a side note about why guaranteeing that someone will die is so taboo. The issue stems from the size difference between the average pub game and the average competitive game. When I stress to say “every little thing matters 10x more in a game with half the players”, I literally mean everything. It’s hard for a player used to comparatively large games to wrap their minds around because losing one or two guys in a pub only means another filling his place. If you’re down a man in 6s, that one man you just lost means a lot more in terms of fire power and coverage. Laerin from our forums explains the “cannot move hence death” aspect a little more clearly It’s been mentioned time and time again how the Natascha’s slowdown leaves players completely at the mercy of others. The scout, soldier and demoman are used instead of say two heavies becuase of their speed and versatility. The heavy is meant to be a tank with a high DPS and large amount of health but by trading off it’s speed. But the Natascha robs other classes of their speed and manueverability; the most important thing they have over the heavy. A soldier cannot rocket jump away. A scout cannot run away – or even get close to him. In one-on-one situations, unless you are right beside a means of escape, your two options are either to kill the heavy (the class with the higher DPS and health) or die. In most cases however, you will be a sitting duck to the other classes and your set of options will have dwindled by one. This last one is from Sigma, over the CEVO forums Quote: Originally Posted by Hawkeye The Natascha ban is simply idiotic. It’s been around for a few seasons, used, no one had issues with it, it is not over-powered otherwise we would’ve seen the Heavy/Natascha a whole lot more then on maps to fend off scouts and more teams winning maps running Natascha heavies. Natascha heavies came out on every map this season in invite (and almost every match of the lan, often doubled up). It’s to the point that even mid fights, where the heavy is traditionally terrible due to his speed, would see a heavy showing up. The increased speed + reduced spin time turned heavy from situational to crazy good. I don’t know about open or other leagues, but if players there aren’t using it it’s a result of not trying it and seeing how broken it is. Scouts pretty much cannot make any plays once a natascha heavy is spun up. They get hit by 1 bullet, are totally frozen + get directed + die. Soldiers and demomen can’t peek corners, because the bullet stream will cause them to be too slow to escape from the return spam. As a medic, you pretty much have to treat the natascha heavy as a sniper — once he slows you, you take damage from almost every rocket, so you have to stay out of LoS. If you suggest getting a heavy of your own or a sniper to counter it, sure, that works, but the game slows to a crawl and is no longer fun. On the other hand, heavies are extremely effective for creating a health advantage through sandvich use and following up pushes with the huge 450hp buff. This remains unchanged with the regular minigun (and is in fact more exciting, because the heavy exchange happens much faster). The heavy can still hold the flank 1v2, but only if he has good tracking — as opposed to the natascha version, where he can sit spun up on a corner and get a guaranteed kill on any scout that peeks it. AG used natascha heavies as much or more than the other invite teams, and all of us agree that the weapon is way too strong. By the end of the season Otter refused to use it in scrims because it was so lame, and it was so easy to use that there was no point in practicing it. Quote:Originally Posted by Bodknocks Banning Wrangler just seems really odd. I feel like it’s a huge knee-jerk reaction to the item. I don’t really know what else to say other than that, did people honestly think Engie would start being main classed and that Wrangler was going to dominate the scene? I just don’t really understand why this is supposedly overpowered in 6v6 environment, it’s definitely an upgrade from the pistol (lol) but that’s not a good reason to have it banned. It only takes a couple scrims on gpit to see what’s wrong with it. Sentries have no damage falloff. This is fine if they have limited range, but when you can put a gun in a sniper’s position and spam huge damage from long range, then pick up said gun and hide it once it (eventually) gets damaged, the attacking team has no counter. The engy can sit at spawn with his gun, get free damage on any team that decides to push through C, then pick it up, teleport to B, and put it super far away from the doors to spam more long-range damage. You can try things like double-DHing it, but you still need 6 or more rockets to bring it down (thanks to the ridiculous shield), and the engy can easily just pick it up and hide it, the shield will let it live long enough. Heck, you could even rocket jump a teleporter to the roof and teleport your gun (and team) up there (without having to deal with the old problems of taking a long time to get up and being vulnerable to snipers). Who wants to push B with a heavy, level 3 infinite range sentry, sniper, demo, med, soldier all sitting on the roof? I know I don’t. Hopefully, this helps you better understand CEVO’s decision. If not, however, let me just close with a couple of choice comments from French Toast The minute people stop thinking of competitive player as this separate group of completely foreign players, the sooner you realize that everyone plays the same game. It’s the same thing as some people liking 32 man, roll the dice servers, or other people preferring 18 man 24/7 arena servers. Competitive players are just another bunch that like to play the game the way they like, and it happens that the leagues agree that it’s the most competitive way to play, so they host tournaments for that style. It’s our little corner of the world, and the actions the leagues take are our concerns. If you can’t accept our reasoning, which has been rather beautifully laid out before you in this thread, for following certain rules, and banning the use of certain weapons, we don’t care. Why? It doesn’t affect you, it’s our little corner of the TF2 world and we enjoy it the way we have it.[/quote] [url]http://www.ubercharged.net/2010/08/07/cevo-bans-season-6/[/url] Well it makes alot more sense now from a real competitive point of view.

Call me a pub noob, but I'm not too fond of competitive players, with any game.

This makes me want to use Natasha more. I can never seem to hit those damn Scouts, it stops Demoknight charging, Pyro wm1'ing, and makes it easier for teammates to hit those you are shooting at, and is good for runaway targets. I see no reason not to use it, except for the fact going up against default minigun Heavies, in which case you are fucked, unless you get at them without them noticing.

[QUOTE=Akasolidus;23931253][url]http://www.ubercharged.net/2010/08/07/cevo-bans-season-6/[/url] Well it makes alot more sense now from a real competitive point of view.[/QUOTE] His reasons for not going sniper were strange. A sniper would be perfect for killing the heavy, and the sniper could change class right after. Yet his reasoning for not going sniper is that the scout can run faster? If the classes you're using aren't getting the job done then [I]change class.[/I] He's treating the "competetive team" (2 scoot, 2 solly, demo, medic) as sacred and should never be changed. I'm awful at this game and even I know if something, say the heavy, is constantly killing my current class then the wise thing to do would be to switch classes.

[QUOTE=Shibbey;23935594]His reasons for not going sniper were strange. A sniper would be perfect for killing the heavy, and the sniper could change class right after. Yet his reasoning for not going sniper is that the scout can run faster? If the classes you're using aren't getting the job done then [I]change class.[/I] He's treating the "competetive team" (2 scoot, 2 solly, demo, medic) as sacred and should never be changed. I'm awful at this game and even I know if something, say the heavy, is constantly killing my current class then the wise thing to do would be to switch classes.[/QUOTE] What he's saying is that Scouts play so many crucial roles in competitive play that it's a waste (and, for the person playing, unfun) to have to sacrifice all the benefits of the Scout just to take out a Heavy.

Snipers aren't the perfect counter for a heavy. Theres a situation and time for every class.

[QUOTE=DLMan;23851991] A good majority of public players would not even notice this fix since they don't sticky/rocket jump as much.[/QUOTE] nope.

[QUOTE=DLMan;23851991]A good majority ofmostly lack of medics keep public players would not even notice this fix since they don't sticky/rocket jump as much. I could go on about all the little things they changed that a lot of pubbers would not notice, so yeah the majority of the changes don't effect you guys at all.[/QUOTE] Any pubber worth their salt uses jumps. Mostly lack of medics keeps pubs from having sky battles

[QUOTE=Cirno;23852985]Gee, I wonder why I don't care at all... Besides, QWTF and TFC have much higher skill levels than TF2 will ever have.[/QUOTE] "[i]hey look at me concjumping and getting the flag and concjumping back oh wait the other team's doing it it too shit there's too much skill that everybody does the same thing[/i]"

People seem to care an awful lot about a bunch of players they never deal with. It still suprises me how people get angry at them when they tweak the game to have fun in another way. It's like pub players. Some players like 24/7 2Fort. Some like nocrit payload. Can't everyone just accept it's ALL TF2, and people enjoy themselves in different ways?

[QUOTE=MRTW113;23944174]Any pubber worth their salt uses jumps. Mostly lack of medics keeps pubs from having sky battles[/QUOTE] The vast majority of pubs I join have most people walking to mid. Even if your team doesn't have a medic, getting to mid a few seconds faster with 50-75% health is a huge advantage, but I rarely see any pubbers do this.

[QUOTE=DLMan;23947831]The vast majority of pubs I join have most people walking to mid. Even if your team doesn't have a medic, getting to mid a few seconds faster with 50-75% health is a huge advantage, but I rarely see any pubbers do this.[/QUOTE] The developers put medium health pack at places like Badlands and Granary, and getting there faster allows you to set up traps, flank, or start a capture.

Mjeh, until the shield is nerfed, I feel the Wrangler ban is pretty justified. I don't mind any of the other parts of it, but the shield just makes it ridiculously overpowered.

[QUOTE=Simski;23968448]Mjeh, until the shield is nerfed, I feel the Wrangler ban is pretty justified. I don't mind any of the other parts of it, but the shield just makes it ridiculously overpowered.[/QUOTE] I want 60% resistance, not 66%, that would be good enough right? [editline]11:03PM[/editline] I just did some calculating 150(a level 1 sentry's health)-60%=60 150-66%=51 180(a level 2 sentry's health)-60%=72 180-66%=61.2 216(a level 3 sentry's health)-60%=86.4 216-66%=73.44 So if the shield was reduced to -60% damage taken, you would do around 9 more damage if you shot a sentry that would normally 1-hit it.

[QUOTE=NuckChorris;23970773]I want 60% resistance, not 66%, that would be good enough right?[/QUOTE] Sounds like a barely noticeable change. Who knows though, maybe.

Look at my edit.

It's like Final Destination.

[QUOTE=NuckChorris;23970880]Look at my edit.[/QUOTE] Mjeh, my statement stands. Sounds like it might be a barely noticeable change that wouldn't change much of how insane the shield is. I think that if the Targe's explosive reduction could be reduced to 40% rather than 65% even though most people considered it a downgrade from he sticky launcher, then I most definitely think that the Wrangler that almost every body considers an upgrade could do with some serious nerfing to its shield.

[QUOTE=Overseer No. 2;23947485]People seem to care an awful lot about a bunch of players they never deal with. It still suprises me how people get angry at them when they tweak the game to have fun in another way. It's like pub players. Some players like 24/7 2Fort. Some like nocrit payload. Can't everyone just accept it's ALL TF2, and people enjoy themselves in different ways?[/QUOTE] Because when competitive players change something, VALVe changes it for everyone, so it affects everyone, not just the competitive players.