CommunityFortress

When new weapons come out, everybody gets excited until they realize that most of the weapons are utterly useless.  However, occasionally, Valve releases a balanced weapon on accident.  It is my job to look for these islands (more like small, rapidly-shrinking ice floes) of usefulness.  So, with that in mind, let's take another, closer look at the new unlocks in a 6s context and decide their pros, cons, and whether they should be banned.

Hit the jump for the full scoop!

The Phlogistinator 9000

The Phlogistinator 9000 is the new primary for the pyro. When going over the obvious attributes, you have a mmph meter that fills up, giving you full health and crits. But Steel, what’s the downside? No airblast. Most (competent) pyros will be gasping in horror at this. This turns the pyro into a W+M1 class entirely. With this this in mind, it seems like an underpowered weapon. However, pyros are only truly run on the last point of a map. Using some of the other unlisted attributes of this weapon, this weapon could become extremely useful. Let’s say you manage to get the necessary flame damage to fill up your mmph meter. As the enemy caps the point, the pyro could run on, flame everyone, and then taunt. During the taunt, damage to the pyro is reduced by 90%, as well as refilling the pyro’s health and getting him crits. This is further exacerbated by the fact that you can continue capping the point while taunting. The 90% damage reduction also comes in handy when pushing as well. Get onto the point, taunt, and start capping. If the demoman blows up his stickies, you still won’t die, and you have full health and crits to destroy anybody who steps on the point to stop you.

Verdict: BANNED. The 90% damage reduction is the big part here. Allowing you to survive 8 stickies, as well as giving crits is overpowered in last point situations.

The Manmelter

The Manmelter is the new secondary for the pyro. It is exactly the same of the flare gun with two notable changes. First, you can extinguish teammates without using an airblast (completely useless in competitive play). This also gives you a crit for the Manmelter. Second, you don’t crit burning enemies. Instead, you minicrit them. This weapon is drastically underpowered in competitive play, as it relies on there being a pyro on the opponent’s team(never gonna happen at the same time). One exploit/bug that could disqualify it in the league’s eyes is that you can crit burning enemies with this weapon if you switch to another weapon before the flare hits.

Verdict: BANNED (maybe). This weapon would be allowed, but the exploit might disqualify it.

P.S. That exploit also works with the detonator, too.

The Third Degree

The Third Degree is the new melee weapon for the pyro. The effect of this weapon is that it hits all targets connected by a heal team to your target. Most obviously, hitting a medic’s pocket would hurt the medic. This weapon would be an upgrade over the fire axe, but compared to the axtinguisher? The axtinguisher remains the only melee weapon that any decent pyro would use.

Verdict: ALLOWED. The league has never banned underpowered weapons.

Now it’s time for the Engie’s weapons. Do any of you realize that the engie has the last weapons out of all the classes? Fun fact of the day.

The Pomson 6000

This is the new primary for the Engineer. It functions almost exactly the same as the righteous bison, but it’s a primary for the engineer. However, the other attributes(more specifically, one attribute), makes this an insta ban. This weapon, can….. REMOVE UBERCHARGE PERCENTAGE!!!! Ubercharge is what the the whole game is based around, more so in competitive. Ubers are the foundation of every single push. Your team is screwed if you don’t have an uber and they do. Ubers are what make that Yaoooo! Guy raise his voice and talk excitedly. However, this weapon ruins ubers for medics. Landing one shot with this thing reduces the medic’s ubercharge percentage by 10%. With this in mind, it would be worthwhile for an engie to suicide in, get maybe two shots on the medic. The medic can’t even hide behind his teammates either, as this dastardly evil creation penetrates enemies as well. In short, this is an upgraded righteous bison, and is an insta-ban (unless Valve nerfs it).

Verdict: SUPER ULTRA FOREVER BAN. Removes Uber. That’s all I have to say.

The Eureka Effect

The Eureaka Effect is a new wrench for the engie that’s not made for hitting people. It teleports the engie back to spawn using alt-fire (as well as refilling his ammo and health). This is an … interesting weapon, to say the least. Actually, this is one of the few weapons in the Christmas update, that isn’t OMG PERMA BAN, or joined the Group of Loser Weapons(like the shovel and the flamethrower). The more astute among you may have noticed that alt-fire normally picks up buildings (doubt you did). And that is the downside to the weapon. You can’t pick up buildings. Still, this weapon could be used in several situations. The most important is on Gravelpit. Two engineers could be at B, building up everything, and one of the engineers could simply just teleport back. Or, you could troll the other team by building a lvl 3 sentry somewhere random, and when you start to feel pressured, teleport back to spawn.

Verdict: ALLOWED. The teleporting should create several new strategies for engineers.

Finally, the Community Made Weapons.

The Wrapped Assassin

The Wrapped Assassin is a new scout melee. It’s basically the exact same as the sandman, but with ball that causes bleed damage on hit. A thing to note is that the range does not seem to impact how much damage the ball does. The Sandman was banned, primarily for it’s uber stopping uses, so I think this weapon is definitely an upgrade. It’s only downside is that is does 60% less damage when you hit somebody with it. Which, BTW, is a stupid idea that no self respecting scout would do. Keeping that in mind, I still think ESEA should allow this weapon, especially when compared with some of the other OP melee weapons. *cough* equalizer*cough*

Verdict: ALLOWED. It’s an interesting sidegrade, and the 40 bleed damage isn’t particularly game breaking.

The Spy-cicle

Overpowered. End of Discussion.

In more detailed terms, the spy-cicle is a spy knife. Let’s start with the negative attributes: there are none!

How bout the pros?  First of all, stabbing an enemy is completely quiet. No excruciating scream of agony. The second advantage is that your knife melting(when a pyro lights you on fire) gives you 2 seconds of invulnerability from fire. That means you could fight a pyro straight on, using the revolver, and you should be able to kill him. Adding to this versatility is the fact that the invulnerability prevents your cloak from being lit on fire, removes fire from you if you’re already on fire, and only happens once you take your knife out. And how long does it take for your knife to reappear? 15 seconds. That’s less than the respawn time, not counting the walking time. Once the 15 seconds are up, you can go in for another backstab, without any fear of a fiery death. This, combined with the Dead Ringer, makes the spy ludicrously survivable. The DR protects against everything but fire, while the Spy-cicle protects from nothing but fire.

Verdict: BANNED. The invulnerability from pyros is ridiculous.

The Holiday Punch

I’m not sure what to say about this weapon. It seems like a complete joke. I highly doubt Valve ever intended this to be viable in actual gameplay, but then again, they did add the warrior’s spirit. Basically, it makes somebody enter the Scadenfreude taunt whenever you crit them with these gloves(mittens?), you crit from the back, and crits do no damage. However, I was playing around with these yesterday, and I found one extremely useful application of this weapon. You wanna know what this is? The weapon that makes people enter a taunt when you crit them, but does no damage is useful? Please, Steel, tell us what could possibly make these mittens useful. All right, I’ll tell you. SAXTON HALE MOD! They work wonderfully if you crit Saxton Hale.

Verdict: ALLOWED The only reason anybody would ever use this is if FoS, GRU, KGB, Warrior’s Spirit, and the fists were banned. Or Saxton Hale Mod.

Questions?  Comments?  Suggestions?  Post them below.