TF2 General Chat and Update Speculation Station - One of Several Edition - Games

[QUOTE=Annoyed Grunt;52565245]The homewrecker needs no further buffs. Either you retool it (which is ideal) or you leave it alone. It is already better than engineers at removing sappers, and it is incredibly unfair to spies. Yup, I killed the engineer and sapped the sentry, oh look just because there is a pyro in the general vicinity all my work was for naught. The other concept, meleeing buildings, is just straight up retarded.[/QUOTE] Not for a class already fighting in melee range. It can be made to work and have its burst damage be impactfull enough. Pyro has no other way of killing sentries, only walking up to them, unless we're counting sentryRocketReflects as a viable option against Engies with functioning brains. It would be ridiculous on any other class (debatable on Demo) but on Pyro it's not a bad idea, it just has horrible numbers.

[QUOTE=ikes;52565272]isnt countering the spy kinda the job of pyro though?[/QUOTE] the wrench vs sapper relationship should not be interacted with other than with their direct owners.

[QUOTE=ikes;52565272]isnt countering the spy kinda the job of pyro though?[/QUOTE] Yes, he is a counter to spy. The sapper serves one function in the game, and getting close to nests with a competent engineer, even without a pyro can be a royal pain in the ass. There's plenty of situations where I'd argue it's not even possible due building placement and level design. It forces the spy to have to often patient wait for an opening, usually created by his team to strike a nest. Now imagine you do get an opportunity, get in, kill the engineer with or without his team being present and sap his nests. Only to have a pyro come in and pretty much nullify everything you just waited for and did like you wasted your entire time even bothering and should have just gone demomen and obliterated the nest with ease. Maybe if the sappers had more function outside of engineer buildings I would have less of an issue with this. But as it stands it just feels like over kill on the spy. The engineer and his team fucked up, but the spy gets no rewards and benefits for being patient and striking intelligently because the pyro can undo his work. Just like when you tract down that annoying Dead Ringer spy again as he keeps collecting more and more metal to keep his dead ringer active so you can't kill him. I'd ask, if anything. At least make it that the homewrecker doesn't remove sappers faster then the engineer can at least.

make it so while the homewrecker is held, you take little to no sentry knockback but you move slower since it is a large heavy sledgehammer, and to make up for it, increase the damage vs buildings and maybe reduce the damage penalty vs players

[QUOTE=DrVincentWolf;52565177]How about a speedboost for the homewrecker when there are sapped friendly building in the vicinity? How about reduced knockback from enemy sentries, to make it easier to wreck sentries around corners?[/QUOTE] The homewrecker is a bad weapon and needs new stats. The ability for pyro's counter class to destroy sappers to begin with is far too powerful, against a class that's arguably the weakest in the game already and is supposed to serve a vital anti-turtling role. Homewrecker pyro guards, while teamwork-heavy, are bad for healthy class relationships and game speed as a whole. There should not be something that's a complete counter to everything * glances at sniper *, because overcoming class counters and weaknesses with teamwork, movement and DM is one of the hallmarks that makes this game such a memorable and fun experience.

A defensive pyro completely counters spy regardless of his melee weapon, the homewrecker just turns it up to 11.

[QUOTE=bananaslamma;52565406]A defensive pyro completely counters spy regardless of his melee weapon, the homewrecker just turns it up to 11.[/QUOTE] If a spy is found out before he can even get close to the sentry he's done. If he even attempts to attack he'll lose his disguise and get instantly murdered by the sentry. His only option at that point is to flee and survive and hope for another opportunity later.

It's probably time to switch class if the enemy team is paranoid enough to get a spy counter.

I guess the fact that the Blog is still getting fiddled with is proof that someone at the TF Team is there during the weekend or is fiddling with it from home - either way this issue has persisted for a while now and is rather strange

[QUOTE=C. Blades;52565392]The homewrecker is a bad weapon and needs new stats. The ability for pyro's counter class to destroy sappers to begin with is far too powerful, against a class that's arguably the weakest in the game already and is supposed to serve a vital anti-turtling role. Homewrecker pyro guards, while teamwork-heavy, are bad for healthy class relationships and game speed as a whole. There should not be something that's a complete counter to everything * glances at sniper *, because overcoming class counters and weaknesses with teamwork, movement and DM is one of the hallmarks that makes this game such a memorable and fun experience.[/QUOTE] As an example, just because medic can give uber, it doesn't make that overpowered class. Same goes with pyro and homewrecker. Yes, might be hard to take down engineers who have pyro guarding them but it's stull vulnerable to bullets. The pyros are rare that actually know how to use it properly or wear it in the first place.

Also get your Tip of the Hats hype going will ya? [t]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DHDR0PYU0AA7S79.png:large[/t]

[QUOTE=Fluury;52565417]I guess the fact that the Blog is still getting fiddled with is proof that someone at the TF Team is there during the weekend or is fiddling with it from home - either way this issue has persisted for a while now and is rather strange[/QUOTE] Isn't it automatic updates? Because TF2 is work for those guys - no way they would do it on weekends.

what bothers me most about the spy-engineer relationship is that spy is supposedly an engineer counter, but engineer has a multitude of weapons that soft or hard-counter spy with relatively little trade-offs in turn the pomson's ammo/cloak/uber drain, the short circuit allowing the engineer to track cloaked spies with an extremely generous hitbox, the southern hospitality casting a bleed effect that nullifies cloak entirely....I'd say the wrangler, too, but that at least balances out by rendering the sentry inactive after the engineer dies, giving the spy/his team more time to destroy it even without these weapons, spy is still a soft counter at best thanks to engineer's much better overall damage output- competent engineers have little trouble defeating a spy in a 1v1 engagement, especially if they're smart enough to switch straight to shotty and kill the spy immediately instead of repeatedly removing the sapper oh, and since sap time is actually kind of long, the engineer generally has more than enough time to fight off the spy. even if he doesn't, and he dies, there's always the chance for another engie or a homewrecker pyro to be around, rendering the spy's efforts completely useless. the homewrecker's bullshit. if the pyro were doing their job to begin with, I should never have gotten close enough to the nest to kill the engineer and sap his sentry. the engineer-spy relationship is already skewed greatly in the engineer's favor, and the homewrecker just makes it worse! there's no worse feeling than sacrificing yourself to take down that nest that's stopping your team from pushing...only for some fucking pyro to one-hit your sapper while you're respawning, rendering everything you just did entirely pointless.

[QUOTE=Contra132;52565876]what bothers me most about the spy-engineer relationship is that spy is supposedly an engineer counter, but engineer has a multitude of weapons that soft or hard-counter spy with relatively little trade-offs in turn the pomson's ammo/cloak/uber drain, the short circuit allowing the engineer to track cloaked spies with an extremely generous hitbox, the southern hospitality casting a bleed effect that nullifies cloak entirely....I'd say the wrangler, too, but that at least balances out by rendering the sentry inactive after the engineer dies, giving the spy/his team more time to destroy it even without these weapons, spy is still a soft counter at best thanks to engineer's much better overall damage output- competent engineers have little trouble defeating a spy in a 1v1 engagement, especially if they're smart enough to switch straight to shotty and kill the spy immediately instead of repeatedly removing the sapper oh, and since sap time is actually kind of long, the engineer generally has more than enough time to fight off the spy. even if he doesn't, and he dies, there's always the chance for another engie or a homewrecker pyro to be around, rendering the spy's efforts completely useless. the homewrecker's bullshit. if the pyro were doing their job to begin with, I should never have gotten close enough to the nest to kill the engineer and sap his sentry. the engineer-spy relationship is already skewed greatly in the engineer's favor, and the homewrecker just makes it worse! there's no worse feeling than sacrificing yourself to take down that nest that's stopping your team from pushing...only for some fucking pyro to one-hit your sapper while you're respawning, rendering everything you just did entirely pointless.[/QUOTE] you can give the best points in the world, at the end of the day the spy-hate-wagon has the final word because ~fuk spy~ :downs:

[QUOTE=Hell-met;52565898]you can give the best points in the world, at the end of the day the spy-hate-wagon has the final word because ~fuk spy~ :downs:[/QUOTE] People act like that because nobody likes getting oneshot. People act like that because when your team has 3 of them, you lose. People act like that because, even though Spy is weak, backstabbing is about the most annoying thing to fight against (you can't fight against it). And sometimes, when you try to fight against the incoming backstab, you get killed anyway even though you were staring the Spy in the face. But no, facestabs are okay because "you should never get in melee range with a Spy". No regard to the fact that I just turned around to face the Spy (something I should be rewarded for) who has put himself in my melee range, and I have to scramble to get away or else get killed by terrible hitreg that seems to consistently favor the Spy. But he's weak in competitive. He only gets one pick before being killed. As a class, Spy will never be strong in competitive and fun to fight against. Just like NOBODY likes playing against a Sniper from across the map, nobody likes fighting a Spy at melee range. People won't stop hating spy, just like people won't stop hating sniper. He's unfun to fight, even if he's weak. The original TFTeam messed up when designing him. Not sure what could be done at this point to change that.

[QUOTE=Blackavar;52565943]People act like that because nobody likes getting oneshot. People act like that because when your team has 3 of them, you lose. People act like that because, even though Spy is weak, backstabbing is about the most annoying thing to fight against (you can't fight against it). [/quote] it's literally a hundred percent positioning and situational awareness, both of which exponentially increase with skill and coordination spy is only powerful in lowest-common-denominator pubs, but even then a player of equal skill on the opposing team can probably shut him down if they put their minds to it- there's no shortage of ways to do so in this game, what with all the status effect weapons, the existence of random crits, basic voice communication, Pyro and Scout... [quote]And sometimes, when you try to fight against the incoming backstab, you get killed anyway even though you were staring the Spy in the face. But no, facestabs are okay because "you should never get in melee range with a Spy".[/quote] I've never excused facestabs as an acceptable phenomena, but yeah, you really shouldn't be using melee when most ranged weapons in this game do much higher, more reliable damage and you probably already have them equipped. Challenging the one class with a melee capable of one-hitting anything in the game to a melee fight should [I]not[/I] be your first solution to an approaching Spy- keeping your distance and firing your primary is the better, smarter solution in virtually every way. Do you disagree? [quote]No regard to the fact that I just turned around to face the Spy (something I should be rewarded for) who has put himself in my melee range, and I have to scramble to get away or else get killed by[B] terrible hitreg that seems to consistently favor the Spy[/B].[/quote] That is bullshit, and that is something that only someone who has played very little Spy could say. I would [I]conservatively[/I] estimate that I've missed out on 5 perfectly legitimate backstabs- generally with the animation playing, or, my favorite, simply butterknifing them in the back and having them turn to kill me when I do so- for every 1 bullshit facestab I've landed. [quote]But he's weak in competitive. He only gets one pick before being killed. As a class, Spy will never be strong in competitive and fun to fight against. Just like NOBODY likes playing against a Sniper from across the map, nobody likes fighting a Spy at melee range.[/QUOTE] Just like nobody likes playing against a Soldier with height advantage, or Scouts in wide-open areas with plenty of props, or Pyros/Engineers around chokes, or... Engaging Snipers or Spies at their effective range instead of closing or increasing the distance, respectively, is never a good idea. Why should it be?

spy is part of the 9 classes wheter you want him to be or not. by being part of the 9 classes, he has as much rights as the others to have good balance. Other classes fucking with sapper is not good balance. shit like ambassador/deadringer is not a valid reason to throw the entire class into the garbage bin.

[QUOTE=Contra132;52565876]what bothers me most about the spy-engineer relationship is that spy is supposedly an engineer counter, but engineer has a multitude of weapons that soft or hard-counter spy with relatively little trade-offs in turn the pomson's ammo/cloak/uber drain, the short circuit allowing the engineer to track cloaked spies with an extremely generous hitbox, the southern hospitality casting a bleed effect that nullifies cloak entirely....I'd say the wrangler, too, but that at least balances out by rendering the sentry inactive after the engineer dies, giving the spy/his team more time to destroy it even without these weapons, spy is still a soft counter at best thanks to engineer's much better overall damage output- competent engineers have little trouble defeating a spy in a 1v1 engagement, especially if they're smart enough to switch straight to shotty and kill the spy immediately instead of repeatedly removing the sapper oh, and since sap time is actually kind of long, the engineer generally has more than enough time to fight off the spy. even if he doesn't, and he dies, there's always the chance for another engie or a homewrecker pyro to be around, rendering the spy's efforts completely useless. the homewrecker's bullshit. if the pyro were doing their job to begin with, I should never have gotten close enough to the nest to kill the engineer and sap his sentry. the engineer-spy relationship is already skewed greatly in the engineer's favor, and the homewrecker just makes it worse! there's no worse feeling than sacrificing yourself to take down that nest that's stopping your team from pushing...only for some fucking pyro to one-hit your sapper while you're respawning, rendering everything you just did entirely pointless.[/QUOTE] The spy is a counter to the engineer until he gets spotted.

I mean it's less of a Homewrecker problem and more of the Sapper being weak and underwhelming.

[QUOTE=bananaslamma;52566013]The spy is a counter to the engineer until he gets spotted.[/QUOTE] Except he's not, and that's not really a counter. I can do everything right- catch the Engineer off guard, kill him, sap his shit- and still be punished if the opposing Pyro happens to have a Homewrecker equipped. All he has to do is run over to the nest and whack my Sapper once to completely nullify all of my efforts up until that point, and [I]that[/I] is completely ridiculous. How is Spy an Engineer counter if Engineer has a multitude of weapons that counter Spies, and counters Spies [I]well[/I]? How is Spy an Engineer counter if a Homewrecker Pyro is in the game, or if the Engineer's nest is generally surrounded by a other players, who are also well-equipped to deal with a Spy? I'd like a more detailed response to my points. One vague sentence doesn't explain your thoughts in any capacity, and doesn't contribute much to a counter-argument to what I've said.

if you killed the engineer, your job is done, a nest with no engie should go down in 3 seconds if your team has 1 brain cell, especially if you sapped his shit, even if a pyro removed the sapper, the building are on low enough health that a scout can take them out also, spy isn't a counter to engie, every other class except pyro, engie and sniper (and medic) are a better counter, spy has a sapper to provide a chance to fight an engie, not to be a direct counter

[QUOTE=Contra132;52565876]what bothers me most about the spy-engineer relationship is that spy is supposedly an engineer counter, but engineer has a multitude of weapons that soft or hard-counter spy with relatively little trade-offs in turn.[/QUOTE] And the pyro is supposed to be a counter to spy, the spy still has many weapons that counter the pyro. [QUOTE] the pomson's ammo/cloak/uber drain, the short circuit allowing the engineer to track cloaked spies with an extremely generous hitbox, the southern hospitality casting a bleed effect that nullifies cloak entirely....I'd say the wrangler, too, but that at least balances out by rendering the sentry inactive after the engineer dies, giving the spy/his team more time to destroy it.[/QUOTE] Deadringer, spycicle, both hardcounter flames and makes the spy incredibly difficult to pin down, let alone kill, with his semi-immortality/invincibility to the pyros primary weapon. The duration that bleed effects have and the damage they do to an invisible spy is nearly insignificant, with the damage and duration both being reduced, the southern hospitality is probably the worst wrench in terms of actual usefulness. [QUOTE] even without these weapons, spy is still a soft counter at best thanks to engineer's much better overall damage output- competent engineers have little trouble defeating a spy in a 1v1 engagement, especially if they're smart enough to switch straight to shotty and kill the spy immediately instead of repeatedly removing the sapper.[/QUOTE] what?; The spy has incredible damage output, he can use either the ambassador or the diamondback to two shot 8/9 non-overhealed classes, in combination with DR you can easily deal with an engineer with the stock revolver, even if he is humping his dispenser, and ignore an unsapped sentry, with the Spy getting to choose when he engages, he has a natural advantage, unless the pyro is doing his job and reveals the spy, in which case that's how it was intended. [QUOTE] oh, and since sap time is actually kind of long, the engineer generally has more than enough time to fight off the spy. even if he doesn't, and he dies, there's always the chance for another engie or a homewrecker pyro to be around, rendering the spy's efforts completely useless..[/QUOTE] Sap and shoot, whether it be the engineer or his sentry, you can either kill the engineer in the time it takes to remove a sapper or it can severly cripple the nest when he either has to choose to kill the spy or save his sentry, with the new disable time after removing a sapper the spy still has a generous amount of time to reapply the sapper, if there's a teammate nearby the spy would obviously be at a disadvantage regardless of class, only notable being another engineer, the pyro with homewrecker cannot repair the sentry. [QUOTE] the homewrecker's bullshit. if the pyro were doing their job to begin with, I should never have gotten close enough to the nest to kill the engineer and sap his sentry. the engineer-spy relationship is already skewed greatly in the engineer's favor, and the homewrecker just makes it worse! .[/QUOTE] The pyro's main counter to spies is his flamethrower, notably the ability to light up a spy and chase him down, unfortunately for the pyro, spies have multiple counters to this, not only are spies the most dangerous class to fight in close quarters thanks to backstabs and melee hit detection, but the DR and spycicle allow him to escape with impunity, if the spy does catch the engineer distracted, which is nearly constant defending a chokepoint, then he can easily stab and sap, and dr spycicle away without any punishment, with the homewrecker, the pyro can remove the sapper while the spy runs away, but he still cannot REPAIR the sentry, leaving it weak for the impending push, if there was a nearby engineer it wouldn't matter if the pybro was there at all. [QUOTE] there's no worse feeling than sacrificing yourself to take down that nest that's stopping your team from pushing...only for some fucking pyro to one-hit your sapper while you're respawning, rendering everything you just did entirely pointless.[/QUOTE] The spy still has the best chance as is to destroy a sentry nest solo, the only other class close would be a demoman vs a poorly placed nest, which the pyro also counters. Class counters are situational depending on loadout, and sappers are more for disabling then they are destroying, just because 1(one) other class has an optional weapon to counter that (which is a substandard weapon in literally every other situation), to counter ONE OTHER weapon in game, which is from the class that they're SUPPOSED to counter, is perfectly fine to me. And this is coming from a spy main xd

This probably wouldn't be a huge game changer for the sapper, but just a little buff that could go a long way. Maybe for each second a sentry/dispenser is being sapped, the sapper also drains the ammo it has? Like it could slowly drain the sentries bullets/rockets, and quickly drain the dispenser's metal while damaging it. That way after the spy sapped a sentry nest and the homewrecker fixed it, it'll have less ammo to fire at the rest of his team, and when an engineer repairs it, it'll take up more time and metal because he'll have to restock the ammo as well and won't be getting as much metal from the dispenser.

of course a spy is going to get shredded if he's attacking an undistracted engineer, spy is supposed to strike when the enemy is distracted and already dealing with another enemy, or to open up a push on a sentry by stunning it, even if its only momentarily noone ever said spy counters engineer, he just has items that make it so he can actually combat engineers and help his team push a well placed sentry, because without the sapper spy literally would not be able to kill anything that's near a sentry if the sapper didn't exist

It would be incredibly insignificant, as the engineer returning would have full metal and be able to fix the sentry without any issues, and chances are, if it's a level three dispenser, it would already be at full metal by the time he returns. [editline]12th August 2017[/editline] Uber is still the best counter to a sentry nest, best counter to anything really. [QUOTE=Contra132;52566042] I can do everything right- catch the Engineer off guard, kill him, sap his shit- and still be punished if the opposing Pyro happens to have a Homewrecker equipped. All he has to do is run over to the nest and whack my Sapper once to completely nullify all of my efforts up until that point, and [I]that[/I] is completely ridiculous.[/QUOTE] Your efforts are not completely nullified, you picked the engi and more than likely did disable the sentry momentarily or at least did some damage even if the pyro instantly removed the sapper, the homewrecker does not repair sentries, and a lone pyro cannot defend a sentry for long. [QUOTE=TcChallenger;52566225]With all the Spy discussion going on, I now have a slight feeling that since Pyro is the hard counter to Spy, Spy is somehow going to end up getting intentionally (or un-intentionally) nerfed even more...[/QUOTE] Spy is only countered by pyro if the spy chooses to be, otherwise he's just momentarily inconvenienced.

With all the Spy discussion going on, I now have a slight feeling that since Pyro is the hard counter to Spy, Spy is somehow going to end up getting intentionally (or un-intentionally) nerfed even more in the Pyro Update...

Good, the DR and spycicle have been making getting out of encounters with pyros way too easy.

[QUOTE=slapdown3;52566117]And the pyro is supposed to be a counter to spy, the spy still has many weapons that counter the pyro. Deadringer, spycicle, both hardcounter flames and makes the spy incredibly difficult to pin down, let alone kill, with his semi-immortality/invincibility to the pyros primary weapon. The duration that bleed effects have and the damage they do to an invisible spy is nearly insignificant, with the damage and duration both being reduced, the southern hospitality is probably the worst wrench in terms of actual usefulness.[/quote] Spy-cicle prevents the Spy from being visibly ignited, but does nothing to mitigate its damage after its initial activation. It also leaves the Spy without his most important weapon for picks for an extended amount of time. This is hardly semi-immortality/invincibility. As for the Dead Ringer...The Pyro, chasing the Spy, moves at 300 HU/s. With the Powerjack, this speed is boosted to 345 HU/s. During the first 3 seconds of the Dead Ringer's activation, the Spy is moving at a whopping 432 HU/s. On paper this may sound like an insurmountable advantage, but it's [I]not[/I]. The range of the flamethrower is somewhat variable, but the farthest I’ve seen it go is 340 HU. Even at a conservative estimate- even with the flamethrower at half of its maximum range, that’s still 170 HU. So, while the Spy’s speed is 432 HU/s during these precious few seconds...the range of the flamethrower is more than enough to make up for the 132 HU difference in speed between the two characters. Additionally, since the Pyro’s flames will still visibly and audibly make contact with the Spy during this period, the Pyro remains one of the best options for chasing the Dead Ringer Spy. Additionally, airblast exists and DR damage resist scales down more rapidly while under fire. Any Pyro that can't chase down a Dead Riniger Spy has only themselves to blame. [quote]what?; The spy has incredible damage output, he can use either the ambassador or the diamondback to two shot 8/9 non-overhealed classes, in combination with DR you can easily deal with an engineer with the stock revolver, even if he is humping his dispenser, and ignore an unsapped sentry, with the Spy getting to choose when he engages, he has a natural advantage, unless the pyro is doing his job and reveals the spy, in which case that's how it was intended.[/quote] The Shotgun is an infinitely better weapon in a close-range engagement than the Revolver or Ambassador. It's also much more easy to use than either of those options thanks to a much more forgiving fire-rate and bullet spread pattern. If an Engineer can't win a straight 1v1 with a Spy, they have only themselves to blame- the proper approach to a sapping Spy is to pull out your gun and shoot him, not continue turtling and whacking his sappers. [quote]Sap and shoot, whether it be the engineer or his sentry, you can either kill the engineer in the time it takes to remove a sapper or it can severly cripple the nest when he either has to choose to kill the spy or save his sentry, with the new disable time after removing a sapper the spy still has a generous amount of time to reapply the sapper, if there's a teammate nearby the spy would obviously be at a disadvantage regardless of class, only notable being another engineer, the pyro with homewrecker cannot repair the sentry.[/quote] Engineer has a better weapon for the fight that you outline here, and he doesn't need to "choose" between fighting the Spy or saving his sentry. Fighting the Spy is always the right option, because a long sap time ensures that you'll have time to take off the sapper after you kill him. [quote]The pyro's main counter to spies is his flamethrower, notably the ability to light up a spy and chase him down, unfortunately for the pyro, spies have multiple counters to this, not only are spies the most dangerous class to fight in close quarters thanks to backstabs and melee hit detection, but the DR and spycicle allow him to escape with impunity,[/quote] See again my Math earlier with flamethrower range and movement speed between Pyro and Spy. There are still visual and auditory cues for tracking an afterburn-invulnerable Spy with your flamethrower, as well. [quote]if the spy does catch the engineer distracted, which is nearly constant defending a chokepoint, then he can easily stab and sap, and dr spycicle away without any punishment, [/quote] Not if you're good. Engineers I've played with in Highlander very rarely keep their backs turned for long, opting to scan the environment around them regularly between repairing/upgrading their buildings. The only time an Engineer in a skilled environment is a sitting duck is usually if they're using the wrangler- since they're aiming their Sentry to the rest of my team now- but even this becomes an advantage if they happen to turn in my direction. DR Spycicle also isn't an insurmountable/unchaseable weapon combo. Pyros and Scouts are both well-equipped against DR Spies, even in pubs, and outside of pubs, in a competitive environment, these weapons will not save you. [quote]with the homewrecker, the pyro can remove the sapper while the spy runs away, but he still cannot REPAIR the sentry, leaving it weak for the impending push, if there was a nearby engineer it wouldn't matter if the pybro was there at all.[/quote] Leaving the sentry weak doesn't matter if it's in a position where the Engineer's team can guard it. In pubs, this isn't as frequent, but in skilled play sentries are often slightly behind where a team is holding, allowing them to protect it from spam and it to offer supporting fire when the offending team pushes. [quote]The spy still has the best chance as is to destroy a sentry nest solo, the only other class close would be a demoman vs a poorly placed nest, which the pyro also counters.[/quote] That is blatantly false. Demoman in general and Direct Hit Soldier are both [I]far[/I] better, more reliable solutions for taking out Sentry nests. They can even do it from range, without dying right after! [quote]Class counters are situational depending on loadout, and sappers are more for disabling then they are destroying, just because 1(one) other class has an optional weapon to counter that (which is a substandard weapon in literally every other situation), to counter ONE OTHER weapon in game, which is from the class that they're SUPPOSED to counter, is perfectly fine to me. And this is coming from a spy main xd[/QUOTE] Difference being, the Homewrecker doesn't only effect the relationship between Spy and the Pyro. It directly effects the class relationship between the Spy and the Engineer as well, and the balance in that is already in favor of any remotely-skilled Engineer player.

[QUOTE=ics;52565423]As an example, just because medic can give uber, it doesn't make that overpowered class. Same goes with pyro and homewrecker. Yes, might be hard to take down engineers who have pyro guarding them but it's stull vulnerable to bullets. The pyros are rare that actually know how to use it properly or wear it in the first place.[/QUOTE] I'm not sure you understand. "Teamwork beats it" or "it still technically has weaknesses" are cop-outs and fallacies used to defend the use class relationship-breaking items. Speaking of class breaking items, yours is the same argument sniper mains used to decry the razorback nerf: an overhealed razorback sniper still technically has vulnerabilities. Weapons shouldn't require an unreasonable amount of effort or teamwork to counterplay, if they themselves don't require all that much to use. And valve agrees, that's why the dead ringer, razorback are being nerfed, while ubercharge is remaining untouched. Contrary to claims, homewrecker pyro isn't particularly difficult to play or use to effect- you simply putter around waiting for spies to attack. Or worse, you come across an engineer who fair and square lost the encounter with a spy, and his stuff has been sapped, only for you to negate that class counter by pressing m1 on a stationary target. Yet the effect it has on the the class relationship is meta breaking, and slows the game down with engineer nest proliferation.

[QUOTE=Contra132;52566240]Spy-cicle prevents the Spy from being visibly ignited, but does nothing to mitigate its damage after its initial activation. It also leaves the Spy without his most important weapon for picks for an extended amount of time. This is hardly semi-immortality/invincibility. As for the Dead Ringer...The Pyro, chasing the Spy, moves at 300 HU/s. With the Powerjack, this speed is boosted to 345 HU/s. During the first 3 seconds of the Dead Ringer's activation, the Spy is moving at a whopping 432 HU/s. On paper this may sound like an insurmountable advantage, but it's [I]not[/I] The range of the flamethrower is somewhat variable, but the farthest I’ve seen it go is 340 HU. Even at a conservative estimate- even with the flamethrower at half of its maximum range, that’s still 170 HU. So, while the Spy’s speed is 432 HU/s during these precious few seconds...the range of the flamethrower is more than enough to make up for the 132 HU difference in speed between the two characters. Additionally, since the Pyro’s flames will still visibly and audibly make contact with the Spy during this period, the Pyro remains one of the best options for chasing the Dead Ringer Spy. Additionally, airblast exists and DR damage resist scales down more rapidly while under fire. Any Pyro that can't chase down a Dead Riniger Spy has only themselves to blame.[/quote] He's still invisible and unless the pyro has any external advantages, can be extremely difficult to predict, could easily and likely just run back to his team, or put the pyro in a disadvantageous situation which also requires the pyro to abandon the nest, in which case the spy has succesfully picked the engineer and allow his team to deal with the nest. [quote] The Shotgun is an infinitely better weapon in a close-range engagement than the Revolver or Ambassador. It's also much more easy to use than either of those options thanks to a much more forgiving fire-rate and bullet spread pattern. If an Engineer can't win a straight 1v1 with a Spy, they have only themselves to blame- the proper approach to a sapping Spy is to pull out your gun and shoot him, not continue turtling and whacking his sappers. Engineer has a better weapon for the fight that you outline here, and he doesn't need to "choose" between fighting the Spy or saving his sentry. Fighting the Spy is always the right option, because a long sap time ensures that you'll have time to take off the sapper after you kill him. [/quote] That's correct, in a one on one face to face fight that is but, the spy chooses [I]when[/I] he engages the engineer, not the other way around, the spy has plenty of time to get the first shot in, an amby headshot puts the engineer at a -102 health disadvantage and the spy can always just dedicate his final moments to killing the sentry with his revolver. [quote] See again my Math earlier with flamethrower range and movement speed between Pyro and Spy. There are still visual and auditory cues for tracking an afterburn-invulnerable Spy with your flamethrower, as well. [/quote] Unreliable flames hardly make it any easier to find a dr.spycicle spy. [quote] Not if you're good.[/quote] This can be said about tons of things, for any class, if the spy is good then the engineer isn't a problem either. [quote] Engineers I've played with in Highlander very rarely keep their backs turned for long, opting to scan the environment around them regularly between repairing/upgrading their buildings. The only time an Engineer in a skilled environment is a sitting duck is usually if they're using the wrangler- since they're aiming their Sentry to the rest of my team now- but even this becomes an advantage if they happen to turn in my direction. [/quote] Trying to backstab an aware engineer isn't ideal, it's much better to just shoot them, in the case of an extremely paranoid engineer it's the only thing you can do, trying to get up close to a class that nearly always has his melee out around his sentry is just silly. [quote] DR Spycicle also isn't an insurmountable/unchaseable weapon combo. Pyros and Scouts are both well-equipped against DR Spies, even in pubs, and outside of pubs, in a competitive environment, these weapons will not save you. [/quote] They're not insurmountable but they give a very clear advantage to any spy attempting to deal with the pyro. Mad milk and jarate being two outlier weapons from separate classes, if we're talking about homewrecker being an unfair class advantage between counters, neither of these make too much sense either, but yet again they're optional unlocks for dealing with a specific situation that both have their own advantages and disadvantages. [quote] Leaving the sentry weak doesn't matter if it's in a position where the Engineer's team can guard it. In pubs, this isn't as frequent, but in skilled play sentries are often slightly behind where a team is holding, allowing them to protect it from spam and it to offer supporting fire when the offending team pushes. [/quote] Protect it from spam? It's a stationary target that while the team can "guard it" they cannot repair it, and it is incredibly likely for it to be destroyed. [quote] That is blatantly false. Demoman in general and Direct Hit Soldier are both [I]far[/I] better, more reliable solutions for taking out Sentry nests. They can even do it from range, without dying right after! [/quote] And both are countered by pyros, in the same situation, engineers still have the option to move their buildings out of the line of sight that allows both of those classes to hit him from range, sappers do not, with the disadvantage that sappers must be applied in melee range. And I can guarantee that a demoman or soldier are going to be supported by a medic, making it a 2v1 fight against an engineer. And if we are talking about a remotely-skilled engineer, they would have just as much difficulty dealing with a demo/soldier as they would a spy. i.e. not getting their sentry destroyed by either of those classes due to poor placement, sapper works regardless of where the engineer has decided to hole up. [quote] Difference being, the Homewrecker doesn't only effect the relationship between Spy and the Pyro. It directly effects the class relationship between the Spy and the Engineer as well, and the balance in that is already in favor of any remotely-skilled Engineer player.[/QUOTE] This is the homewreckers intended purpose, if the fight is engineer>spy then why is the homewrecker to blame? [editline]12th August 2017[/editline] Security guard work is boring and this is currently my only outlet haha