The main reason that the soda popper gets overlooked is because they see a bar and conclude that it’s a gimmick weapon. It’s the king of burst damage, and I often ignore the bar entirely-due to how quickly I get myself killed-and it still dominates.
The underlying reason behind most of those criticisms is pretty subtle: the stock Scattergun better encourages the in-and-out gameplay that Scout does best. An inexperienced Scout with the Scattergun can whiff 6 shots and know to leave. An inexperienced Scout with the Soda Popper whiffs 6 shots and keeps fighting, because it just reloads so fast, so they overcommit and die. On average, players do better with the Scattergun, but it isn't because the Soda Popper is a worse gun: it just has a subtly higher skill floor (even ignoring the Hype mechanic) based purely on knowing when you should leave a fight.
Yeah that's what I thought too. Basically, the stock Scattergun is easier to use while still being just as good as the Soda Popper, which makes it more forgiving for the less experienced players even though it's technically not the strongest Scout primary weapon for those who are more experienced.
I see a lot of people saying that the soda popper is a worse force-a-nature because it has no knockback, but in my opinion, it's better for that reason. You can't get the most damage out of the FaN in the majority cases because the knockback causes damage falloff and bullet spread, when the soda popper doesn't have that problem.
Its mostly based on your playstyle, if you are mostly airborne jumping around an enemies head like an annoying fly, then the soda popper would be better to use, BUT, if you play grounded and take "IM RUNNIN' CIRCLES AROUND YA" to heart, then the force of nature would be better because the knockback would A) give you more vertical movement so you can reach higher points to ambush from and B) the knockback makes enemies an easy target to double tap since they move in a straight direction. You would only need to position yourself a little better so you knock enemies into walls/cliffs, which isnt a big price to pay for free doubletaps and enviormental kills
I think another point about the soda-popper that was sort of covered but not fully, maybe because it is implied or known, is the huge difference between air movement from other forms of movement. Unlike rocket, sticky, or sentry jumping, the double jumps allows the ability instantly change direction mid-air multiple times. With the regular double jump already being annoying to deal with, there is a chance it can be predicted correctly. Having to predict 5 times in all the directions scout can jump towards is, in my opinion, truly completely unpredictable.
this right here, you can airstrafe all you want but you cant double jump immediately out of the way you predict a soldier or a demo to shoot a projectile, it makes you such a difficult target to track especially since you yourself have a brain to predict, and im pretty sure every experienced scout knows how busted the double jump is purely because of this reason of letting you mix up your options and make it harder for people to track your movement mid-air
seeing someone who has clearly never even equipped the soda popper and is complaining that it's punishing say "mge for 20 minutes and just get gud" is hilarious. brother the call is coming from inside the house
Not even minding the jump boost, what makes the Soda Popper so good is the fact that it's functionally the same as the Scattergun if you play perfect. What the Soda Popper doesn't have in its clipsize, it makes up for in the firing rate and reload speed. By the time a Scout has shot his third Scattergun shot, the Soda Popper has likely already reloaded and is ready to fire the third and fourth shot. Now as for why the Scattergun is just funnier to use to most? It's less stressful. The Soda Popper is extremely powerful but requires a near constant lock-on on your target thanks to how quickly you fire. Imagine Sniper's Rifle versus his SMG, that kind of stress.
Holy mother of god people who know how to use the soda popper. You have no idea how many people wait the exact firing interval of a stock scattergun to shoot people every time. Why is the 50% faster firing speed even there if you're just going to ignore it? Every time they unban this thing in a competitive league they regret it, and that's because it's the best.
I feel like we all already knew the Soda Popper and Pretty Boy's Pocket Pistol are the best primary and secondary for scout. But people don't use them because they're not "pro". There's a bit of a stigma surrounding them that makes them cheese weapons. Being good at using stock telegraphs your mastery of the base game mechanics more in my opinion. But that just shows how self-conscious most Scout mains are
Glad to see more people are agreeing with how good this weapon is. The amount of times i have survived an encounter i had zero business surviving is insane I agree with the point that it has less sustain but i really there is nothing else that makes this weapon worse than stock. Every other negative people have with it is because of the person using it and not the weapon itself, or they bring up a point that also is true for stock
Ironically, I've been out of the game long enough that I didn't know the Soda Popper no longer gave mini-crits, so a stats section would really have helped
@@Dynam_ maybe. but personally, I was thankful you skipped the stats part. I watch a lot of TF2 vids and have been playing since 2010, so from my perspective, I appreciated just diving into the discussion. The stats parts of TF2 vids always was weird to me cuz I assume nobody that doesn't play the game doesn't watch TF2 videos. Could be wrong, but I'm not watching vids of games I don't play.
I love how the last guy with the argument section essentially said “ if the enemy is better than you and you have the soda popper you lose” like brother if the enemy is better than you with almost any class and any weapon ( there are exceptions like with the pomson but that’s obvious )
Bad Weapon Academy nerfed this thing by making the Hype meter into a consumable per jump and they took away Scout's ability to double jump. That's basically it.
If there is one thing I learned from this video, it's that activating hype is like mashing taunt in pizza tower. Enemies should be able to hit you, but they can't
1:32 FUNNIEST BIT I honestly support tf2 creators so much… and to hear a joke like that? AAA Tier for sure! You’ve earned a sub man.. Haven’t played tf2 in about 10 ish years 😢 but I’ll ALWAYS support tf2 creators… keep doing you man you’re beyond amazing
I personally love the baby face blaster. The people who say its bad are the same people who have never heard of dodging, something the BFB helps you do immensely. EDIT: the war
i used to never touch the popper for familiarity reasons but in one snowycoast game, i was using the popper and accidentally face planted myself right into a revved heavy in a tight corridor and i managed to hug the ceiling using the ability like a spider and got out unscathed killing the heavy ever since then i fell in love with the weapon.
The Soda Popper has always been my favorite Scout primary. It'd be good even without the Hype meter but the addition of noclip tips it into insane territory. Also I feel personally called out by the "Reading stats" section lol. I mainly do it because it sets a good baseline for the weapon discussion but it goes without saying that probably every person watching TF2 videos knows what each weapon does. Either way, great video! Keep up the good work.
I do like this video, but I especially love that you mentioned how it sucks in 6’s. It’s so freaking bad but for some reason it’s banned. I want more weapons to be unbanned in comp and I feel like the bigger realization people come to that these weapons suck, the more unbans we can get. HOWEVER! You say that it’s the best people are just bad at aiming, but wouldn’t that technically make a weapon like the loose cannon on demoman his best primary? Since you’d consistently be doing 130 damage?
the soda popper hype baiting giant soldier rockets is useful because in non-two cities tours its pretty common for there to be no soldiers or medics due to them costing too much in comparison to Heavy and Sniper who are both very cheap high dps classes. The scout generally is the most important class in Gear Grinder because he distributes a ton of the health with mad milk + refill canteens (more than even a medic or conch could), and can also effectively disable projectile-based giants by holding their Agro thanks to the soda popper jumps, allowing the 3 heavies and sniper to easily shoot them down especially in combination with the fan of wars mark. This is also pretty useful in Steel Trap and Mecha Engine since they tend to have a lot of dumb projectile giants but those tours are a joke and you can win by doing basically anything
both the stock and soda popper have their own pros and cons. the stock is consistent because of its extra amount of ammo and damage, but lacks in the burst damage the soda popper has. the soda popper in the other hand is a high risk, high reward weapon that requires you to have good aim in order to reap the benefits of its burst damage. the multi-jump to me is more of an extra reward for your good aim but not the main reason why the soda popper is good. overall, it really depends on if you prefer low risk consistent damage, or high risk burst damage with a side of extra mobility.
A lot of people forget that they aren’t comp/pro player we just mess around in casual, and soda popper is one of those weapon that is very fun in casual
to me, it's hard not to use the force of nature because that gun is just so fucking funny whenever I look at the soda popper I'm like, "but what if I want to yeet them, instead of myself an additional 4 times"
as a 150+ hour soda popper scout main, i can confidently say that the soda popper was and is underrated. If you want a newer perspective from someone who started playing tf2 in 2022. I fell in love with the soda popper when it first dropped into my inventory and that's why i main scout. Funnily enough, i use the soda popper for its burst damage more then its hype meter shenanigans. In fact, i rarely use it because the other upsides are just very good imo, and the hype (for me) is just a nice bonus. Killing people in swift 2 shots or even 4 if you missed the first 2 is simply incredible and supports my main loadout of clever + soda popper with a random melee that doesn't suck. I could actually manage at times kill scouts that are better then me who are using stock. As someone who only plays casual, it's just perfect as it is, not overpowered and not worst then the stock scattergun. I do understand that it doesn't comply with many play styles and that's ok, but it doesn't derivate from scout's role (but enhances it like you said) nor feel gimmiky to use. You get what you are going to expect and arguably; the soda popper is the definition of a side grade. I give my appreciations to my favorite item in tf2. And also that jazzy guy gets it :) And yeah, sadly warpaints suck on the soda popper but i got an unusual one so that's a W.
If you want to really wreck a tank in MvM with a soda popper, if you have a medic willing to kritz you, max out your soda popper's damage, and clip, and buy reload canteens. When you unload 6 shots, you can use the canteen while critted to immediately get 6 more. You'll not be able to reuse the canteen right away, so reload, unload another 6 into the tank, reload again, and then use the canteen after you unload another fill clip, and keep repeating until dead tank. If you don't have a medic, your own krit canteens will be helpful. There are better ways to do it, but that's one of the best with scout. Especially if you enable the firing speed ghost upgrade with the upgrade station bug.
For loadouts, I find it viable and also fun to pair the popper with any of Scout's mini crit weapons. The crit a cola allows you to fill up hype faster, and hype can greatly help with working around the self mark for death. (Wow, the crit a cola having decent synergy with the gun that has it strapped on) The fan o war works in the same way as it does with the force a nature, but you trade the extra damage from the extra pellets, for being able to guarantee that second meatshot without your enemy flying away. (Wow, 2 of Scout's meta weapons in mvm still have great synergy in casual)
0:00 Yes. And I still miss it. XD Could've gave it the buff banner's charge/trigger mechanic, but they decided to wait until after they reworked it to extra jumps to add that little feature.
The way you two talk about the Soda Popper reminds me of a difficult to play but high tier fighting game character, where most average players might not get a lot out of him but you see him at top 8 in tournaments for good reason. I'm a relatively new scout main and I'm interested in giving this gun a try, but since I still suck with the scattergun I feel like I'd get absolutely shit on with this thing lmao. I'm gonna pick up a soda popper and give it a shot
Got one, war painted it all glowing green, named it " Toxic Popper ", the description is "Powered by the toxicity of all scunts in the world." I love this gun :)
I enjoy using it with the crit-o-cola because it has some synergies. Firstly the soda popper is all about burst damage so amplifying that makes some sense, it deletes anything but a heavy, it can deal up to 140 damage per shot so 280 which is just short of killing a full health heavy :( its still pretty good though. Secondly, the severity of the crit-o-cola's weaknesses are reduced when using the soda popper, being able to shoot 50% faster means that you give your opponent less time to react; With stock you might shoot your first shot then the soldier turns around and mini-crits you before you get the second shot in but the soda popper's faster firing speed might've ended the engagement in time. Then ofc you can't ignore the hype mechanic that can let you dance in the air, avoiding projectiles which is obviously even more useful when you're marked for death. There are some scenarios where the first 6 shots of sustained fire from the stock would be better but I think the synergy is pretty good and most importantly, it's fun!
It was kinda wild reading how much of the points people had against the weapon were that you need to hit your shots. You need to do that with every scattergun anyway!
I think soda popper is good and remember liking it when I used it. However I play with stock bc I like having more sustainable longer fights and being less hit and run reliant… as well to avoid feeling decimated whenever I die at near full or full hype meter; It’s like losing frontier justice crits or losing heads with the eye lander.
If the Soda Popper DIDN'T have a hype bar, people would complain that it's a strictly better scattergun. Because for what scout wants to do, burst damage on literally any class that isn't exactly heavy or an overhealed soldier, it's just better. But because it does, and because it's easy for people new to scout to get lost in the sauce with all the jumps, the clearly superior weapon is seen as a gimmicky sidegrade at best.
I personally prefere the FaN to the soda popper, and yes I know that technically, pushing people away from you means less damage, and that scouts that use it tend to come too close to their target. But the reason why I prefere the FaN over it is that : A) The force jump is really useful. Not that the popper's jumps are bad, but they can't be pulled all the time. On this side, I view each as a personnal preference. Oh and, casuals already suck at shooting a scout that jumps over them, the force jump, if done in between double jumps lets you change directions a lot. B) Pushing people away is sometimes what you want to do, you can force a pseudo 1v1 scenario on someone by getting the target or helper away from the teammates. Or even lets you escape at times. People in your way? Yeet them away! C) You can also just push enemies into props and walls, making them sitting ducks for your second shot that will then still deal good damage since they are still close to you.
I’m a new player, only have less than 10 hours of game and play mostly as Medic, and ngl, I kinda like to see how each people play as different classes and listen to their opinions on certain weapons, it’s honestly interesting to see people’s different takes on each class and their respective weapons..
I feel it's really tedious running the Soda Popper alongside the Sandman/Wrap Assassin as right-clicking to throw the ball while holding melee will also activate the Hype meter when full when when you don't want it to, essentially pushing to use the melees less often.
one thing you forgot to mention is that the soda popper is much better for extended fights, like with stock you can fight 2-3 people before reloading. The soda popper bypasses that with its constant reloading and lets you be active more often, and much longer while applying much more pressure to the enemy team. Like if you have a good med on your team jesus christ you can make the enemy team want to kill themselves
I would've put the Mad Milk on its own tier personally 20s recharge, lowered slightly if you extinguish someone, *_60% health drain on coated enemies_* Potentially healing a medium pack's worth of health with a meatshot is Maybe a wee bit overtuned, and considering it's on a 20s Timer that refreshes on cabinets instead of being like the Conch, where you need to deal 480 damage And activate it for a *35%* health drain, it's extremely good
the regular ol force of nature absolutely shreds too, when you get good with it it's knockback basically becomes a really jarring airblast that both throws off enemies and can pin them in place making the follow up shot easy to line up. Heck, even if you miss half the time the knockback happening to you throws enemies aim up a lot too, and the extra jump you can do gets way more height way quicker than regular double jumps, without needing to wait for a meter (and again can be used as an absurdly good movement mixup). You kind of end up dancing around inbetween shots being untouchable
I think Bad Weapon Rehabilitation is the best rework of the soda popper, you can use 20% of the hype meter at any time instead of being like a banner charge and more like the BFB. But it lost the reload speed boost, and its main penalty is *removing* the passive double jump on Scout. This still gives it the niche of boosting scout's mobility and having a strong burst damage niche, but at the same time its movement is less consistent like the BFB.
"at first i thought it was god but then i remember im gay, so she probably doesn't want to see me right now" ...... theres a lot to unpack from that sentence
The soda popper would still be competitive with the scattergun if it had no passives at all. Its fast damage and fast sustain, those alone make it incredible. I think the main reason people don't fall in love with the weapon is because the time between scattegun shots is so ingrained into muscle memory that firing faster just feels incorrect and screws with your ability to aim sequential shots since its so easy to tape down M1, whiff, and be caught reloading. For similar reasons I believe the shortstop also gets neglected. Both it and the first version of baby face's blaster let scout be more exceptional at midrange harass but people tried to use them as if they were the scattergun (and still do) like sure you get damage rampup if you go in but they forget that a midrange scout can just pester people forever without getting hit too hard. Meanwhile the soda popper is directly comparable to stock in where you are meant to be engaging people, but with plain better burst potential and a dedicated middle finger button for projectiles and single shot weapons like a competent scout had a hard time with them in the first place
Soda Popper, it's like the force a nature, but with NO KNOCKBACK, so it's like, a little worse. but It makes up for it, with it's awesome jump ability. Imagine Scout, with 5 double jumps. That's how many jumps soda popper hype scout has. Can you IMAGINE? Those COOL FRAG AIRSHOTS are NAUGHT with the ULTIMATE POWER of your 5 JUMPS. Too bad you have to DEAL DAMAGE to get that HYPE POWER up. Running around and dealing damage with that pathetic little gun with no knockback is like trying to catch a stray cat- EVERYTHING KEEPS RUNNING AWAY! How are you supposed to kill everything in sight to get that SWEET SWEET purple glow if everything sees you and TURNS TAIL?! I suggest the following improvement to make Soda Popper gameplay more entertaining: "Everything stands still, so I can shoot at it." The game is easier that way. To any of you QUACKS who suggest I dare use SCOUT'S MOVEMENT to get myself CLOSER to the ENEMY, I daresay that they could DAMAGE ME IN RETURN, KILLING ME, and ENDING MY QUEST FOR SWEET SWEET PURPLE. The best way for entertainment is if EVERYONE ELSE IN THE SERVER SUDDENLY GOES AFK- PERHAPS FROM THE RAPTURE, WHERE MY SINFUL, CHARRED HIDE WILL REMAIN TO SODA POP TO MY WILDEST WISHES.
No knockback makes it better for damage tho? Since you want to be close to people in order to maximize damage. Knockback on the FaN is bad for damage, good for movement, but with the soda popper you get better movement anyways.
Knockback is actually the entire reason why the FaN is the worst primary for scout. It fucks with your movement and fucks with the enemy's movement. This means that you are constantly thrown off kilter everytime you try to shoot and remember, as a scout you want to be airborne while you are shooting your target to dodge. So every shot you take with the FaN knocks you out of your air strafe and makes you incredibly predictable to airshot. You are no longer moving with confidence, which is the most important aspect of scout. Further, because the target gets knockbacked, you are effectively giving them a free escape tool. One of scout's most important roles in comp is the ability to chase and giving enemies a boost in retreating is always bad. Oh let's not forget that the second shot might as well as have a 50% damage penalty because of damage fall off reducing your damage to that target that you just knocked away. What this means is that the Soda Popper is the FaN with none of the downsides and even more upsides.
![[TF2] Weapons and How to Do Counterplay](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/jHnZaXTHUqs/mqdefault.jpg)
Painful watch 👍
My baba
The pin, OF SHAME!
Painful comment 🎉🎉
bruh why'd you say that
PIN OF SHAME
counterpoint: im bad at the game
U look emo , do u fw jojos bizzare adventure
Damn
tell me something i dont know
@@meepacheep7186 damn
“I suck”
It's obvious why people can't shoot the funny purple scout. The TF2 mercs are secretly Orks, and can't see the colour purple.
Insightful!
Lazypurple is now invisible
This is canonically how spy becomes invisible
Can’t wait for the TF2 and Warhammer Crossover where the mercs fight the Ultra Marines.
Scout is just secretly a goblin instead so he can see himself
Who would've thought the weapon that gives you noclip would be broken
I thought you did?
sarcasm
@@ItJazzyy I'm not being sarcastic, I'm just confused. Didn't you talk in the video about how the soda popper was a good weapon?
@@typicalgentleman My friend, I am the one being sarcastic
@@ItJazzyy Dang, I feel pretty dumb.
The main reason that the soda popper gets overlooked is because they see a bar and conclude that it’s a gimmick weapon. It’s the king of burst damage, and I often ignore the bar entirely-due to how quickly I get myself killed-and it still dominates.
Exactly. People treat it like a crappier phlog when even without the meter, it would still be one of scout's better primaries.
Its the FaN without the annoying knockback.
It keeps enemies in place and does probably the highest burst damage dps rivaling the shortstop
The underlying reason behind most of those criticisms is pretty subtle: the stock Scattergun better encourages the in-and-out gameplay that Scout does best. An inexperienced Scout with the Scattergun can whiff 6 shots and know to leave. An inexperienced Scout with the Soda Popper whiffs 6 shots and keeps fighting, because it just reloads so fast, so they overcommit and die. On average, players do better with the Scattergun, but it isn't because the Soda Popper is a worse gun: it just has a subtly higher skill floor (even ignoring the Hype mechanic) based purely on knowing when you should leave a fight.
Yeah that's what I thought too. Basically, the stock Scattergun is easier to use while still being just as good as the Soda Popper, which makes it more forgiving for the less experienced players even though it's technically not the strongest Scout primary weapon for those who are more experienced.
The opening: “remember when it used to do mini-crit?” just hit hard.
I see a lot of people saying that the soda popper is a worse force-a-nature because it has no knockback, but in my opinion, it's better for that reason. You can't get the most damage out of the FaN in the majority cases because the knockback causes damage falloff and bullet spread, when the soda popper doesn't have that problem.
FaN takes some getting used to because of the huge knock back sometimes reducing your damage, I need to get better with it
im convinced that everyone hating on the soda popper hasn't even used it and assumes it has the same reload speed as the fan
Its mostly based on your playstyle, if you are mostly airborne jumping around an enemies head like an annoying fly, then the soda popper would be better to use, BUT, if you play grounded and take "IM RUNNIN' CIRCLES AROUND YA" to heart, then the force of nature would be better because the knockback would A) give you more vertical movement so you can reach higher points to ambush from and B) the knockback makes enemies an easy target to double tap since they move in a straight direction. You would only need to position yourself a little better so you knock enemies into walls/cliffs, which isnt a big price to pay for free doubletaps and enviormental kills
the FaN's knockback isnt usually that big of a problem bc you can just run up close to them again
Tf2 community: FaN sucks cause of knockback
Valve: Releases soda popper
Tf2 community: This shit sucks it don't got the FaN knockback!
I think another point about the soda-popper that was sort of covered but not fully, maybe because it is implied or known, is the huge difference between air movement from other forms of movement. Unlike rocket, sticky, or sentry jumping, the double jumps allows the ability instantly change direction mid-air multiple times. With the regular double jump already being annoying to deal with, there is a chance it can be predicted correctly. Having to predict 5 times in all the directions scout can jump towards is, in my opinion, truly completely unpredictable.
this right here, you can airstrafe all you want but you cant double jump immediately out of the way you predict a soldier or a demo to shoot a projectile, it makes you such a difficult target to track especially since you yourself have a brain to predict, and im pretty sure every experienced scout knows how busted the double jump is purely because of this reason of letting you mix up your options and make it harder for people to track your movement mid-air
S tier weapon, with what's basically a broken force-a-nature with a soda can jammed in the reciever.
Tf2 logic, don't gotta explain jack.
You don't know what a reciever is.
@@Soapromancer Isn't the receiver the part where the hammer(s) and trigger is, on a shotgun like the Soda Popper at least?
seeing someone who has clearly never even equipped the soda popper and is complaining that it's punishing say "mge for 20 minutes and just get gud" is hilarious. brother the call is coming from inside the house
the statement 'will be able to hit an easy airshot due to the predictability of the scout's movement' shows on its own that this guy has
summary: the soda popper is the diamondback but for scout
(it rewards you just for doing your job)
Not even minding the jump boost, what makes the Soda Popper so good is the fact that it's functionally the same as the Scattergun if you play perfect.
What the Soda Popper doesn't have in its clipsize, it makes up for in the firing rate and reload speed.
By the time a Scout has shot his third Scattergun shot, the Soda Popper has likely already reloaded and is ready to fire the third and fourth shot.
Now as for why the Scattergun is just funnier to use to most? It's less stressful. The Soda Popper is extremely powerful but requires a near constant lock-on on your target thanks to how quickly you fire. Imagine Sniper's Rifle versus his SMG, that kind of stress.
5:25 rip that guy
4:34 i love this heavy's double take when he sees you
i think he was spychecking but lmao
@@dashyz3293 yeah but he turned back to the fight. medic dead, red scout in your face, yep everything seems to be in order here keep shooting
Holy mother of god people who know how to use the soda popper. You have no idea how many people wait the exact firing interval of a stock scattergun to shoot people every time. Why is the 50% faster firing speed even there if you're just going to ignore it?
Every time they unban this thing in a competitive league they regret it, and that's because it's the best.
“At first I thought it was god but then I remembered I was gay so that’s probably not the case”
😭😭😭
He has soft hands too, truly not a man of god
I feel like we all already knew the Soda Popper and Pretty Boy's Pocket Pistol are the best primary and secondary for scout. But people don't use them because they're not "pro". There's a bit of a stigma surrounding them that makes them cheese weapons. Being good at using stock telegraphs your mastery of the base game mechanics more in my opinion. But that just shows how self-conscious most Scout mains are
Soda Popper + Pretty Boy’s Pocket Pistol
“The Cooler Stock Scout”
"at first I thought it was God but then I remembered I'm gay so that's probably not the case and she probably doesn't want to see me" lmaooooo
god is a man and he is from serbia
@@dkskcjfjswwwwwws413 does he like cream cheese?
Glad to see more people are agreeing with how good this weapon is. The amount of times i have survived an encounter i had zero business surviving is insane
I agree with the point that it has less sustain but i really there is nothing else that makes this weapon worse than stock.
Every other negative people have with it is because of the person using it and not the weapon itself, or they bring up a point that also is true for stock
I started using the Soda popper solely because I liked the reload animation lmao
750 Tour here
For MvM Tank DMG, the Shortstop does more dmg, yes, but Soda Popper costs less to max out, so its still the preferred Tank DMG dealer
Even with ghost upgrades that boosts soda poppers firing speed? As said in the video, I haven't tested it personally and don't know all the numbers
@@ItJazzyy Oh yeah, i havent considered Ghost Upgrades, as i dont use them. But yeah, with the Ghost Upgrade, it absolutely outdamages Shortstop
4:56 "look at this clip in front of you. Look how bad i am playing. Look how many shots i am missing."
*Shows my best scout gameplay*
Ironically, I've been out of the game long enough that I didn't know the Soda Popper no longer gave mini-crits, so a stats section would really have helped
I stand corrected!
also apparently even current players don't realize it reloads way faster than the force of nature
@@Dynam_ also f2ps that don't know what a Soda popper is
@@Dynam_ maybe. but personally, I was thankful you skipped the stats part. I watch a lot of TF2 vids and have been playing since 2010, so from my perspective, I appreciated just diving into the discussion. The stats parts of TF2 vids always was weird to me cuz I assume nobody that doesn't play the game doesn't watch TF2 videos. Could be wrong, but I'm not watching vids of games I don't play.
I love how the last guy with the argument section essentially said “ if the enemy is better than you and you have the soda popper you lose” like brother if the enemy is better than you with almost any class and any weapon ( there are exceptions like with the pomson but that’s obvious )
That's cool. Using Story Teller as the outro song. You legit told a story. Poetic.
I forgot that running around use to give you hype. I remember how funny that. I had so much fun spamming the hype meter back then.
Bad Weapon Academy nerfed this thing by making the Hype meter into a consumable per jump and they took away Scout's ability to double jump. That's basically it.
oh hells yeag, storyteller for the outro?
you, sir, have wonderful taste and have earned a new subscriber :3
If there is one thing I learned from this video, it's that activating hype is like mashing taunt in pizza tower.
Enemies should be able to hit you, but they can't
1:32 FUNNIEST BIT I honestly support tf2 creators so much… and to hear a joke like that? AAA Tier for sure! You’ve earned a sub man..
Haven’t played tf2 in about 10 ish years 😢 but I’ll ALWAYS support tf2 creators… keep doing you man you’re beyond amazing
best video by far . i agree is underatted
I personally love the baby face blaster. The people who say its bad are the same people who have never heard of dodging, something the BFB helps you do immensely.
EDIT: the war
BFB is one of my favourites too!
dodging would be a lot easier if i could jump
The BFB would be so much better if either the boost reduction upon damage or double jumping was removed. Both are so severe.
"just dodge"
@@darkcat6530 you... can jump. just not double jump.
i used to never touch the popper for familiarity reasons but in one snowycoast game, i was using the popper and accidentally face planted myself right into a revved heavy in a tight corridor and i managed to hug the ceiling using the ability like a spider and got out unscathed killing the heavy ever since then i fell in love with the weapon.
I have never heard of the soda popper
12:07 Sounds like a skill issue :P
STORYTELLER ON THE END SCREEN WAS UNEXPECTED AND BASED
YOU HAVE MY LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE YOU MAN OF CULTURE
The Soda Popper has always been my favorite Scout primary. It'd be good even without the Hype meter but the addition of noclip tips it into insane territory.
Also I feel personally called out by the "Reading stats" section lol. I mainly do it because it sets a good baseline for the weapon discussion but it goes without saying that probably every person watching TF2 videos knows what each weapon does.
Either way, great video! Keep up the good work.
Why every heavy you shot on this video was carrying the brass beast?
I do like this video, but I especially love that you mentioned how it sucks in 6’s. It’s so freaking bad but for some reason it’s banned. I want more weapons to be unbanned in comp and I feel like the bigger realization people come to that these weapons suck, the more unbans we can get. HOWEVER! You say that it’s the best people are just bad at aiming, but wouldn’t that technically make a weapon like the loose cannon on demoman his best primary? Since you’d consistently be doing 130 damage?
the soda popper hype baiting giant soldier rockets is useful because in non-two cities tours its pretty common for there to be no soldiers or medics due to them costing too much in comparison to Heavy and Sniper who are both very cheap high dps classes.
The scout generally is the most important class in Gear Grinder because he distributes a ton of the health with mad milk + refill canteens (more than even a medic or conch could), and can also effectively disable projectile-based giants by holding their Agro thanks to the soda popper jumps, allowing the 3 heavies and sniper to easily shoot them down especially in combination with the fan of wars mark. This is also pretty useful in Steel Trap and Mecha Engine since they tend to have a lot of dumb projectile giants but those tours are a joke and you can win by doing basically anything
both the stock and soda popper have their own pros and cons. the stock is consistent because of its extra amount of ammo and damage, but lacks in the burst damage the soda popper has. the soda popper in the other hand is a high risk, high reward weapon that requires you to have good aim in order to reap the benefits of its burst damage. the multi-jump to me is more of an extra reward for your good aim but not the main reason why the soda popper is good.
overall, it really depends on if you prefer low risk consistent damage, or high risk burst damage with a side of extra mobility.
A lot of people forget that they aren’t comp/pro player we just mess around in casual, and soda popper is one of those weapon that is very fun in casual
to me, it's hard not to use the force of nature because that gun is just so fucking funny
whenever I look at the soda popper I'm like, "but what if I want to yeet them, instead of myself an additional 4 times"
as a 150+ hour soda popper scout main, i can confidently say that the soda popper was and is underrated. If you want a newer perspective from someone who started playing tf2 in 2022. I fell in love with the soda popper when it first dropped into my inventory and that's why i main scout. Funnily enough, i use the soda popper for its burst damage more then its hype meter shenanigans. In fact, i rarely use it because the other upsides are just very good imo, and the hype (for me) is just a nice bonus. Killing people in swift 2 shots or even 4 if you missed the first 2 is simply incredible and supports my main loadout of clever + soda popper with a random melee that doesn't suck. I could actually manage at times kill scouts that are better then me who are using stock. As someone who only plays casual, it's just perfect as it is, not overpowered and not worst then the stock scattergun. I do understand that it doesn't comply with many play styles and that's ok, but it doesn't derivate from scout's role (but enhances it like you said) nor feel gimmiky to use. You get what you are going to expect and arguably; the soda popper is the definition of a side grade. I give my appreciations to my favorite item in tf2. And also that jazzy guy gets it :)
And yeah, sadly warpaints suck on the soda popper but i got an unusual one so that's a W.
Im so happy you are producing content for this game! Keep it up and stay safe❤
Thank you! Will do!
If you want to really wreck a tank in MvM with a soda popper, if you have a medic willing to kritz you, max out your soda popper's damage, and clip, and buy reload canteens. When you unload 6 shots, you can use the canteen while critted to immediately get 6 more. You'll not be able to reuse the canteen right away, so reload, unload another 6 into the tank, reload again, and then use the canteen after you unload another fill clip, and keep repeating until dead tank.
If you don't have a medic, your own krit canteens will be helpful.
There are better ways to do it, but that's one of the best with scout. Especially if you enable the firing speed ghost upgrade with the upgrade station bug.
Interesting!
For loadouts, I find it viable and also fun to pair the popper with any of Scout's mini crit weapons.
The crit a cola allows you to fill up hype faster, and hype can greatly help with working around the self mark for death. (Wow, the crit a cola having decent synergy with the gun that has it strapped on)
The fan o war works in the same way as it does with the force a nature, but you trade the extra damage from the extra pellets, for being able to guarantee that second meatshot without your enemy flying away. (Wow, 2 of Scout's meta weapons in mvm still have great synergy in casual)
Consider this: Force-a-nature make enemy go bye bye
0:00
Yes. And I still miss it. XD
Could've gave it the buff banner's charge/trigger mechanic, but they decided to wait until after they reworked it to extra jumps to add that little feature.
The way you two talk about the Soda Popper reminds me of a difficult to play but high tier fighting game character, where most average players might not get a lot out of him but you see him at top 8 in tournaments for good reason. I'm a relatively new scout main and I'm interested in giving this gun a try, but since I still suck with the scattergun I feel like I'd get absolutely shit on with this thing lmao. I'm gonna pick up a soda popper and give it a shot
i used to think this was a bad gun until ive seen videos like this thank you for explaining this to people
im subbing
Got one, war painted it all glowing green, named it " Toxic Popper ", the description is "Powered by the toxicity of all scunts in the world." I love this gun :)
1:34 is the reason I am now subbed to you
limp wristing in the woods is how you draw aggro(lust) from elves
I enjoy using it with the crit-o-cola because it has some synergies. Firstly the soda popper is all about burst damage so amplifying that makes some sense, it deletes anything but a heavy, it can deal up to 140 damage per shot so 280 which is just short of killing a full health heavy :( its still pretty good though. Secondly, the severity of the crit-o-cola's weaknesses are reduced when using the soda popper, being able to shoot 50% faster means that you give your opponent less time to react; With stock you might shoot your first shot then the soldier turns around and mini-crits you before you get the second shot in but the soda popper's faster firing speed might've ended the engagement in time. Then ofc you can't ignore the hype mechanic that can let you dance in the air, avoiding projectiles which is obviously even more useful when you're marked for death. There are some scenarios where the first 6 shots of sustained fire from the stock would be better but I think the synergy is pretty good and most importantly, it's fun!
Holy shit, gunter's fucking cracked
Soda popper Mfs when the soldier pulls out the Direct Hit:
Jokes on you im already 5 meters above your head
@@necrolord5799 DAYUM!!! Mini Crit! -152
@@Moon_GUY_number_1 you don’t get mini crits for that
It was kinda wild reading how much of the points people had against the weapon were that you need to hit your shots. You need to do that with every scattergun anyway!
0:50 “Everyone knows what the weapon does” My ass watching the this after my second session of tf2 😅
Bby
11:30 this is literally every scout matchup
> watches this video
> equips soda popper
> still bad
> back to FaN
Now that's a skill issue right here
just soda pop better mr SeaRavioli-TF2 smh
i literally watched yoour flanking video before watching this lmao
I think soda popper is good and remember liking it when I used it. However I play with stock bc I like having more sustainable longer fights and being less hit and run reliant… as well to avoid feeling decimated whenever I die at near full or full hype meter; It’s like losing frontier justice crits or losing heads with the eye lander.
If the Soda Popper DIDN'T have a hype bar, people would complain that it's a strictly better scattergun. Because for what scout wants to do, burst damage on literally any class that isn't exactly heavy or an overhealed soldier, it's just better.
But because it does, and because it's easy for people new to scout to get lost in the sauce with all the jumps, the clearly superior weapon is seen as a gimmicky sidegrade at best.
I personally prefere the FaN to the soda popper, and yes I know that technically, pushing people away from you means less damage, and that scouts that use it tend to come too close to their target. But the reason why I prefere the FaN over it is that :
A) The force jump is really useful. Not that the popper's jumps are bad, but they can't be pulled all the time. On this side, I view each as a personnal preference. Oh and, casuals already suck at shooting a scout that jumps over them, the force jump, if done in between double jumps lets you change directions a lot.
B) Pushing people away is sometimes what you want to do, you can force a pseudo 1v1 scenario on someone by getting the target or helper away from the teammates. Or even lets you escape at times. People in your way? Yeet them away!
C) You can also just push enemies into props and walls, making them sitting ducks for your second shot that will then still deal good damage since they are still close to you.
Thank you for not talking about the fucking stats
I’m a new player, only have less than 10 hours of game and play mostly as Medic, and ngl, I kinda like to see how each people play as different classes and listen to their opinions on certain weapons, it’s honestly interesting to see people’s different takes on each class and their respective weapons..
I feel it's really tedious running the Soda Popper alongside the Sandman/Wrap Assassin as right-clicking to throw the ball while holding melee will also activate the Hype meter when full when when you don't want it to, essentially pushing to use the melees less often.
I’m not sure why you’re getting this issue? The soda popper must be the active weapon to use the hype meter
@@Dynam_ Not for me, no.
It will activate regardless of the equipped weapon.
I love the Soda Popper, but was convinced not to use it (due to my piss-poor aim lmao),
But now I've been convinced to use it again, lol
Thanks man!
one thing you forgot to mention is that the soda popper is much better for extended fights, like with stock you can fight 2-3 people before reloading. The soda popper bypasses that with its constant reloading and lets you be active more often, and much longer while applying much more pressure to the enemy team. Like if you have a good med on your team jesus christ you can make the enemy team want to kill themselves
New tf2 youtuber with fun and long explanatory documentaries as content! Hell ye!
Jesus goated also W vid it was a fun watch
"probably God, but im gay, he musta be pretty mad rn, probably sum else" 😭😭😭
Now that after 900 hours, I have the aim to use the soda popper.
_I’m so fucking going to pub stomp_
Just today:
I got my first hackusation
If I ever saw a scout fling like that to kill me I not even gonna get mad
I would've put the Mad Milk on its own tier personally
20s recharge, lowered slightly if you extinguish someone, *_60% health drain on coated enemies_*
Potentially healing a medium pack's worth of health with a meatshot is Maybe a wee bit overtuned, and considering it's on a 20s Timer that refreshes on cabinets instead of being like the Conch, where you need to deal 480 damage And activate it for a *35%* health drain, it's extremely good
It’s absolutely fantastic
the regular ol force of nature absolutely shreds too, when you get good with it it's knockback basically becomes a really jarring airblast that both throws off enemies and can pin them in place making the follow up shot easy to line up. Heck, even if you miss half the time the knockback happening to you throws enemies aim up a lot too, and the extra jump you can do gets way more height way quicker than regular double jumps, without needing to wait for a meter (and again can be used as an absurdly good movement mixup). You kind of end up dancing around inbetween shots being untouchable
The FaN is a weapon I need to really put some time into!
BIG W. ITS FINALLY OUT!!!
bro has never heard of the scattergun
I think Bad Weapon Rehabilitation is the best rework of the soda popper, you can use 20% of the hype meter at any time instead of being like a banner charge and more like the BFB.
But it lost the reload speed boost, and its main penalty is *removing* the passive double jump on Scout.
This still gives it the niche of boosting scout's mobility and having a strong burst damage niche, but at the same time its movement is less consistent like the BFB.
1:32. i usually don't give subs out like that but that single god dam joke made me insta sub
wow i expected you to have more subscribers, great video bro
Alright, I’ll watch an 18 minute video about the soda popper
Soda popper can out dps the short stop with ghost upgrades in mvm and is the best scout primary in mvm
whats up dynation welcome back to another BANGER video. get ready to FUCKING EXPLODE from this absolute BANGER of a video from dynam tf2
My insides are all over the place after watching this video
New fav tf2ber just dropped wow
Subbed
I mean, the scatter gun is definitely “better” but the soda popper is so much fun
"at first i thought it was god but then i remember im gay, so she probably doesn't want to see me right now"
......
theres a lot to unpack from that sentence
please DO NOT shoot me, im trying to eat my sandvich you scary, purple,.,. thing
Clicked the video becouse Jazz man is in it. Left with immense soda popper knowledge. Thank you sir.
The soda popper would still be competitive with the scattergun if it had no passives at all. Its fast damage and fast sustain, those alone make it incredible.
I think the main reason people don't fall in love with the weapon is because the time between scattegun shots is so ingrained into muscle memory that firing faster just feels incorrect and screws with your ability to aim sequential shots since its so easy to tape down M1, whiff, and be caught reloading.
For similar reasons I believe the shortstop also gets neglected. Both it and the first version of baby face's blaster let scout be more exceptional at midrange harass but people tried to use them as if they were the scattergun (and still do) like sure you get damage rampup if you go in but they forget that a midrange scout can just pester people forever without getting hit too hard. Meanwhile the soda popper is directly comparable to stock in where you are meant to be engaging people, but with plain better burst potential and a dedicated middle finger button for projectiles and single shot weapons like a competent scout had a hard time with them in the first place
Soda Popper, it's like the force a nature, but with NO KNOCKBACK, so it's like, a little worse. but It makes up for it, with it's awesome jump ability. Imagine Scout, with 5 double jumps. That's how many jumps soda popper hype scout has. Can you IMAGINE? Those COOL FRAG AIRSHOTS are NAUGHT with the ULTIMATE POWER of your 5 JUMPS. Too bad you have to DEAL DAMAGE to get that HYPE POWER up. Running around and dealing damage with that pathetic little gun with no knockback is like trying to catch a stray cat- EVERYTHING KEEPS RUNNING AWAY! How are you supposed to kill everything in sight to get that SWEET SWEET purple glow if everything sees you and TURNS TAIL?! I suggest the following improvement to make Soda Popper gameplay more entertaining: "Everything stands still, so I can shoot at it." The game is easier that way. To any of you QUACKS who suggest I dare use SCOUT'S MOVEMENT to get myself CLOSER to the ENEMY, I daresay that they could DAMAGE ME IN RETURN, KILLING ME, and ENDING MY QUEST FOR SWEET SWEET PURPLE. The best way for entertainment is if EVERYONE ELSE IN THE SERVER SUDDENLY GOES AFK- PERHAPS FROM THE RAPTURE, WHERE MY SINFUL, CHARRED HIDE WILL REMAIN TO SODA POP TO MY WILDEST WISHES.
Soda Popper also has a more fast reload speed then the Force a Nature
No knockback makes it better for damage tho? Since you want to be close to people in order to maximize damage. Knockback on the FaN is bad for damage, good for movement, but with the soda popper you get better movement anyways.
Knockback is actually the entire reason why the FaN is the worst primary for scout. It fucks with your movement and fucks with the enemy's movement. This means that you are constantly thrown off kilter everytime you try to shoot and remember, as a scout you want to be airborne while you are shooting your target to dodge. So every shot you take with the FaN knocks you out of your air strafe and makes you incredibly predictable to airshot. You are no longer moving with confidence, which is the most important aspect of scout.
Further, because the target gets knockbacked, you are effectively giving them a free escape tool. One of scout's most important roles in comp is the ability to chase and giving enemies a boost in retreating is always bad.
Oh let's not forget that the second shot might as well as have a 50% damage penalty because of damage fall off reducing your damage to that target that you just knocked away.
What this means is that the Soda Popper is the FaN with none of the downsides and even more upsides.
Ofc we all know the baby face blaster is best with its ability to be shat on by a mini sentry 😪
I hate that I love the BfB
I just love the backscatter, but I do swap with the soda popper if I can't get beside the enemy team
i am in this video 10/10 invest in dynam stocks now😎
Thank you!
I just like yeeting people off of cliffs as Scout
ok NOW i gotta go look up what the soda popper does cause i dont play this game but people make such interesting videos on it GODDAMMIT
0:45 I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT DOES TELL ME!
*Laughs in Force of Nature*
A great weapon also!