CommunityFortress

The addition of new content has obviously been a major factor in keeping Team Fortress 2 fresh. This article aims to analyze the balance of four other non-standard weapons: the Gunboats, the Dalokohs Bar, the Homewrecker, and the Pain Train.

The Gunboats

The Gunboats, a replacement for the Soldier's secondary slot, reduce the amount of damage taken when rocket jumping.

Why use this weapon? Rocket-jumping is a major tool in a Soldier's arsenal. Getting above the enemy is crucial, especially against faster targets such as Scouts. Oftentimes the ground is the only nearby surface to shoot rockets onto, unless you aim for a direct hit.

Rocket-jumping normally deals in the neighborhood of 30-50 damage, depending on the type of jump you're attempting. However, the Gunboats reduce damage by 75%. This means that you'll be doing, at the most, about 12 damage to yourself when rocket-jumping.

It occupies a passive slot, meaning that you can't switch to it. It's a lost weapon slot. You now have your rockets and your Equalizer (you are using the Equalizer, aren't you?). Kind of limiting, especially when everything runs out of ammo. Your biggest opponents will be enemies you can't hit with the rockets reliably - the aforementioned Scouts. The advantage you have with Gunboats? You can jump above them without suffering too much damage and pound them from midair.

But is it really worth all that? Is the lack of a hitscan weapon too much to bear for the Soldier? Shotgun blasts are for more than Scouts, after all - basically anytime you run out of rockets and the enemy is closing, a good Soldier switches to the Shotgun and tries to get a couple meatshots off. With the Gunboats equipped, all you can do is reload and pray.

So, while the Gunboats are a blast to play around with, they simply remove too much damage output from the Soldier's arsenal. Not balanced for competitive play.

[Further comments on this topic have revealed a major benefit when rolling with the Gunboats: the ability to push to mid faster on 5-CP maps. It also makes pushes that much faster since health is less of a problem.  However, the meat of the article still stands, though the Gunboats are indeed better than I had originally reckoned.]

The Dalokohs Bar

The Dalokohs Bar (pronounced da-LOCK-uss) is a weapon occupying the Heavy's secondary slot. It is an edible device similar to the Sandvich, but only heals for 60 HP. However, it provides a new total health of 350 for the Heavy instead of the default 300, a semi-permanent overheal lasting 30 seconds.

Why use this weapon? It's like a Sandvich, only worse, right? 60 health? Why, I could eat that four times and still not be at full health!

But wait.

You can directly overheal yourself! You, as a Heavy, the class with the most HP in the game, now have even more. Why not use it?

There are a few catches, though. For one: the "only 60 health" thing. If you were at less than 60 health, you'd have to eat one five times to bring yourself back to health. Given that the eating time is roughly 4.5 seconds, that's an entire 22.5 seconds. Now by this time you'd probably get healed by a Medic or find a resupply cabinet or a health pack, but that's not the point. There's no instant gratification. You can't even help the Medic that's healing you in a tight spot, since you can't drop the Dalokohs Bar! Your self-centered ass can't even heal yourself quickly in a fight because of this!

Now don't get me wrong, the Dalokohs Bar isn't all bad. Running Heavy isn't something teams do most of the time, so the extra 50 health can't hurt. But when the Medic does catch up to you, he can't overheal you past 450... in which case the Dalokohs was useless in the first place.

Verdict? Perfectly fine for pub play, where Medics are scarce. But in the competitive scene, where the Heavy is usually the focus of the action whenever he's used, the Dalokohs Bar is not at all useful.

The Homewrecker

A replacement for the Pyro's melee slot, the Homewrecker deals massive damage to an enemy Engineer's buildings and can remove enemy Sappers from friendly buildings in one hit. However, it deals 3/4 damage to players.

Why use this weapon? You mean besides the fact that it looks badass?

Well, the Pyro is perhaps the least-used class in competitive TF2. But that doesn't stop me from analyzing it!

The Homewrecker is focused on Engineers. It can defend the fort from enemy Spies that happen to dispatch the Engineer, as well as destroy any full-health Engineer building in two hits. But Spies don't come a-calling very often in comp TF2, and Spies in combination with Engineers happen even less, in my experience.

The extra damage function for this weapon essentially relies on a Medic's Ubercharge to take out a Sentry gun if need be... but why not uber a Demoman and save the trouble? And enemy sappers are generally the last of your worries when a friendly Engineer is holding down the fifth point.

This weapon is useless in competitive play. It doesn't see too much play in pub games, either. It's just a dud.

The Pain Train

The Pain Train is a replacement for the melee slot of the Soldier and the Demoman. It makes the user capture points as two people, but the user takes an additional 10% damage from any bullet-firing weapon.

Why use this weapon? It makes Soldiers and Demomen act as Scouts when capturing a point. Useful, right?

But that's not the only factor of the weapon. The added damage from any non-exploding weapon means that any enemy Scouts that come barreling onto middle at the same time as the Demo or the roaming Soldier will be able to do that much more damage.

It sure comes in handy during backcaps, though. A stickyjump onto last or a roaming Soldier being sneaky can grab points twice as quickly now. And because of the very nature of the sneaky backcap tactic, they're not in any danger.

This weapon is the biggest toss-up on the list. On capture maps, it's only a benefit unless you die. And if you die faster than usual, failing to take out a target that would normally be dead, well, that's a big grey area. Certainly it's of most importance to the Demo, who doesn't have a super-melee like the Equalizer to save him.

This weapon, at least in my somewhat limited views, is balanced for competitive play.

Conclusions

Perhaps the biggest shake-up to the default loadouts of the competitive classes is the Pain Train. The Gunboats, while fun, aren't useful enough, and the Homewrecker and Dalokohs Bar border on useless for the competitive scene.