Hey all! I wanna give a few notes about this video. Read on if you'd like. -I apologize in case you can hear my space heater in the background of any clips! I tried to cover it up but it may bleed through. This is what we have to do to record in New York Autumn. -I use the words "inarguably" and "facilitate" a *lot* in this video, and I apologize for that. I didn't notice how often they came up until editing, but I'll try and cut down on them in future videos. -There are a few minor pronunciation/line read flubs in this video. I recorded most of it in between 1 and 3 AM, so these things are just bound to happen. Thanks all! I hope you enjoy and I'll see you all again soon.
I wouldn't worry too much about curbing how much you use certain words. Your vernacular is part of who you are and how you present to the viewer and idiosyncrasies like that just put forth some personality into the content. It's good to look for things to improve upon but the stuff you're putting out is really good already. Anyways your videos have been a great way of stepping back into TF2 after many years away and I'm looking forward to the next video!
Comparing why people would rather be killed by a Zatoichi demoknight instead of Kunai spy made me realize spy and full on demoknight play very similar to each other. Both classes what to suprise the enemy, have to balance being in melee range of the enemy but also needing an escape route, they play around a meter Is mechanic, and they don't like pyros.
I've been trying to learn "traditional" Demoknight with the Eyelander and Targe, but for the life of me I can't put down the Zatoichi-Tide Turner combo. Trimping with full turn control and ping-ponging from target to target while sustaining myself with 100 health on each kill is like a drug. Great video!
For non traditional but still fun & effective demoknight I also recommend persian persuader & chargin targe. It makes it much easier to use charges as an escape tool, chain charges, and even take advantage of the fact that charges remove debuffs.
It really depends on enemy composition. Spies are free heads for eyelander so you can get a Jumpstart on heads and mitigate the downside. If saturated with pyro, soldiers and demos, then zatoichi sustain is a great top off. Persian on more scout and sniper heavy comps for just getting to spam charges and chasing them down. Skullcutter for more slow and tanky comp so you can crit against heavies and medics. It's really the cladimor and caber that just lack any use.
You know what gets a black box conch soldier to do something else real fast? One pyro who knows what a reflect is. Fun fact, if a pyro reflects a black box rocket, they get healed by the damage it does, not the soldier.
In an earlier era, I once asked in a server why the Half-Zatoichi didn't have the extra melee-range that other swords had and the response I got was "because Soldier can use it." And I found that excuse stupid because Soldier already had access to the Whip which has even longer melee range. So the update that took away its random crits felt justified to me. Also I agree that the Black Box's reduce clip is a big trade-off nerf, really de-insentivised careless rocket jumps for me.
Yeah, the pocket pistol’s healing capabilities are interesting, being minimal but just good enough. I would put it like this: I’ve heard people say “if you’re using X like stock instead of playing to its mechanics, you’re not using it right”, but the pocket pistol is kind of the opposite. The health on hit with it is much too little to rely on for proper healing, but if you use it like the stock pistol, pulling it out to finish off someone who didn’t quite die to your scattergun (happens quite often for me, my aim isn’t great), the healing is just enough to ensure you survive the fight. It makes the pocket pistol a more reliable stock, giving you a better chance of surviving when you need to use it. It’s saved my @$$ several times.
I don’t think it’s fair to call the back scratcher’s primary function its increased damage. I’m pretty sure its increased healthpack healing and decreased medigun / dispenser healing comes up much more often than increased melee damage on the close range sustained fire class. I feel like it would definitely fit in with the other weapons shown here since it’s mainly used for self-sustain in the absence of medics, with the extra melee damage being an afterthought 99% of the time. If you instead considered the powerjack’s health on kill to be a side function, that would be fair
Aye 100% fair. The exclusion of the Back Scratcher was primarily to keep the number of sections in this video at 5, but it was absolutely on my shortlist of honorable mentions.
I used to work for him lol. I was his editor and channel manager from June of 2020 to June of 2022. I also worked for Limes. That reference was 100% made out of respect. I'm glad someone caught it.
I was under the impression that people didnt hate the black box, they specifically hated the black box/conch combo because the fact that you only have 3 rockets as your *only* form of ranged damage forces you to play like, and this is the technical term, a little bitch, combined with the self-healing, gives rise to a playstyle that can be concisely described as "immortal coward".
The mad milk is mainly seen as op by competitive leagues of tf2, since their scouts basically dont miss and have godlike movement. In addition to being an item that can easily win coordinated team fights. Fun fact: according to wooden sleevlet, the winger is the only scout secondary unlock that isnt banned in most 6s leagues
The thing is, it's not even the kunai, or even the dead ringer the problem, but a full set, with the l'étranger on top, as they fix each other's period of weakness to turn into full strength non-stop. First the pre-backstab, normally the kunai would put you in a situation where a single shot from most weapons would kill or almost kill you. But not this Time, with one click, you can turn into a post-chocolate invisible heavy with scout's speed and anti-status. Now the Chain-stab period. Normally after even a single stab, people become far more aware of you, and suddendly you have to hide or flee to avoid certain doom. But not this time, You can not only have more health then a soldier, you can REGENERATE the hp of an entire soldier, possibly every 0.8s! That's 250hp/s, half a heavy's dps at point blank, even with a good aware player, you're not dying and even worse, you can afford to surf their damage for even more stabs, once you're started, nothing can stip you. Finnaly the post-Stab , normally you have exhausted your "escape plan" and with it's unique stat of not being rechargeable by ammo and dispenser, you're just gonna have to wait for it to recharge... BUT NOT THIS TIME as for some reason, the l'étranger can just, recharge it while every other method can't, just one, two, three shots at any distance as it gives the same +15% , and you're good to go, back to the chain-stab. It's not just a crutch, these three when put together are completely broken in a 12v12 , and you can just singlehandedly change the state of the game by yourself.
@@unlimited3680a lot of people in casual (12vs12s) can be new, turn sound off, or are listening to music, or whatever really. The kunai exploits this and no matter how much one good player tries, they are directly punished for trying to kill the spy for having bad teammates. Oh and they can get trickstabbed or facestabbed so that's fun.
@@unlimited3680oh great I turned around, then the spy used to dead ringer because he wanted me to shoot him, now I'm being punished for landing hits on the enemy team
I personally think the Black Box is fine, it rewards survivability for hitting direct/splash shots (In crowds) with the trade-off of potential mobility and damage. For me, its really the conch that pushes it over into being a bit more annoying to deal with
Even then, that missing rocket is devastating. I’m personally a full time conch user, but I never paid it with the black box, simply because I just can’t function as a soldier without that fourth rocket.
I've tried the conch and it feels like such a waste with BB. You are still susceptible to burst damage like being bombed or crits and the frequent reload basically means I could just spend my reloading downtime going to a dispenser or health kit. It's not even a replacement for a medic since neither give overheal to prevent being sniped to death. I'd rather milk the regen for nonstop harass on weapons with no ammunition issue like cow mangler or no clip issue like the beggars.
I feel like the Black Box stigma comes from a long time ago, when it would heal you for 15 health regardless of if you dealt measly splash damage or hit a direct hit. You'd see soldiers kamikaze into a crowd, fully heal off the splash, and tank half the enemy team. Valve changed the healing to scale off damage dealt years ago, and that basically fixed it. But no one forgot the dark times, and new players hear the echos and parrot the same sentiment.
My main issue with the Kunai comes from how it encourages a mindless jankstab hyper aggressive playstyle over actually utilizing the fundamentals of espionage. By design, it punishes the competent players on the opposing team for having less aware teammates, and is just incredibly lame to fight against. It’s a weapon that encourages bad habits on Spy by endlessly rewarding constant aggression, and although some of that may be the fault of the Dead Ringer, which it is religiously used with, it feels like it goes against the core design of the class.
Those two weapons are a testament to what happens when you give spy options that lessen being caught out. Players get taught that getting caught with the fein or overheal makes it so escapes are easier. Why bother getting in with stealth (which cost more effort and game sense) when escaping is either easy, effective, or both. Why learn both when you can be aggressive, get a kill and get overheal or have fein and escape with minimal loss.
Wrong 😊 Having less aware teammate always punish "better player" Eyelander head,or something as simple as farm off damage ramp up random crit all does that . Casual tf2 player don't want to admit how good they are are measured by play against players below them .
@@milliondollarmistake I'll give you that, while there are easier stabs like going for a person who is in a fight or some unaware player, yeah stabs can be kinda inconsistent. But that's kinda how it's supposed to be, spy's getting caught out for bad positioning and dying is how it's meant to be. And giving spy strong escape options makes it so you're not punished as hard when caught out, and that teaches people bad lessons about the stealth based mechanics on spy. Edit: On further thought, the problems I have with dedicated escape options on spy still persist. But with the kunai at least the spy starts off weak and has to be very careful on his first stab, as for how stealthy he'll be post first stab depends on how much damage he took and other factors. But the dead ringer has no such downside, and that lack of downside ruins a spy's brain. If the resistance scaled with how little health you have that would be fine because you could actually (convincingly) fake your death instead of using it as a shield.
black box in a comp setting is fine, in fact in HL it's decent since you are often watching flanks away from a medic so the self sustain is nice. it gets used in prem HL somewhat often half-zatoichi is also good in comp since you can use it to build uber quite well without using ammo, and you shouldn't really need to rely on melee since your team should defend you. like the basher, it's downside is it's main use. even in a pub setting the building is useful when working with a pocket
Fair! I had a feeling that was the case with the Half-Zatoichi but I personally haven't used it in Comp and had no idea if it was completely outclassed by the Boston Basher in that role. I appreciate the insight tho!
@@TealOpal it's more ideal to build with basher but in cases where scouts are dead, are off classing or are running things like wrap assassin (which I've seen a few flank scouts use in recent yrs), having an extra option to build is p handy. especially since demo melee isn't super important in comp as I said fun vids btw, enjoying the channel
I wish people would give the thermal truster a chance. Its one of the most powerful pure mobility options in the game. Its hard to learn how the arc works and maximize your jump potential since there are currently none of the popular jump servers support pyro friendly jump maps. Its much better then the second banana imo.
The fixed weapon switch speed just kill every level of enthusiasm for that weapon. Might as well just use the detonator for utility and comparable mobility.
While I think FishStickOnAStick is often a little extreme in his hate, I do think he makes an excellent counterpoint to the Kunai's downside - that a caught out spy is dead 95% of the time regardless of if he has 70 hp or 125 hp.
I suggest pairing the Persian Persuader with a shield other than the Tide Turner, and with the Boots. Shouldn't be surprising, but being able to spam 195 damage crits every second is very strong, and it's something that none of the other demo melee weapons can do (not counting random crits)
Should try that out myself one of these days. Demoknight doesn’t normally click for me, a lot of times because of melee hitreg, but notably the times I had fun trying him were when I used the Persuader. That was years ago, so it could be coincidence, but perhaps having charges and mobility more often would make my damage being jank less of an issue.
23:33 because demoknight cant go invisible and or disguise to easily get behind an entire team while taking 0 damage, nor can he kill people at the speed of spy's melee attack, nor does he have a gun, nor does he have a get out of jail free card like the dead ringer. It's not "literally the exact same thing", not to mention the kunai makes spy more viable and better at what he does, while demoknight makes demo basically a different class and makes him less effective in general. Dying to a class that is meant to be a glass cannon and then seeing said glass turn into titanium as your teammates shoot at him only for him to heal back to 210 hp with the click of a button is tilting. Dying to a class that is meant to be a relatively high health and high damage class, but is instead kneecapping themselves into a melee only snowball class is far less tilting. This argument is akin to saying sniper having a mini rocket launcher secondary would be fine because soldier can do it, so why can't sniper, but that's obviously not ok because sniper should be weak at close range to balance out his long range effectiveness, similarly demoknight is strong at close range to balance out his complete lack of ranged damage. Spy is strong at close range regardless of his other weapons and thats only balanced out by him being vulnerable after a stab, which the kunai greatly reduces for little to no downside. Spy is already the least fun class to fight since you just get 1shot with no real counterplay other than shooting every teammate you see and turning around every second. The one redeeming part is that once a spy stabs you, he is extremely vulnerable and if there is an even half competent player near you he will die most of the time, making it a 1 to 1 trade that isn't fun, but it at least doesn't feel unbalanced. Now you take away that one redeeming aspect by making the spy able to tank 2 pipes, AND he can still cloak or dead ringer out, it's just too much. If a kunai spy dies soon after a single kill he did something horribly wrong(or got crited), and if a spy dies before getting a single kill, he did something wrong. Spy in general takes game knowledge and experience, but the kunai doesn't increase that requirement by much, if at all, since when you get spychecked you are most likely going to die anyway Being able to instakill any class has to be balanced with a harsh downside, all other knives do so fairly well, while the kunai doesn't: Stock: lowest stock base hp; very vulnerable after a stab Big earner: even lower hp; less vulnerable after a stab due to speed boost YER: quiet backstabs; disguise on kill; harshly punished cloak and disguise Spycicle: fire resistance; you're stabs are more obvious due to statues, and pyros can remove your main source of damage for 15 seconds Kunai: lowest hp in the game, but only until you get a stab, at which point you become the second or third highest health pool in the game Every other knife is balanced by vulnerability after getting a stab, or lack of ability to get into a position to get a stab for the YER, because that's when a spy should be the weakest and least effective, that is how the entire class is balanced. The kunai makes spy the hardest class to kill after he gets a stab*, completely flipping what spy is balanced on, which would be fine if there was a downside that made it hard enough to get the first stab, but being a 1 shot to a lot of items in the game doesn't mean anything if you have the ability to be completely invisible, have the second highest movement speed in the game, can disguise as enemies, have a get out of jail free card, and can STILL get a instakill on every class in the game. A downside that makes you easier to kill doesn't effect anything if it can be removed by getting a single kill, and you can be invisible until right before you know you can get a kill. *obviously demoknights cant have higher movement and health, but not only does it take multiple kills to get, but they also don't have invis watches or dead ringers that greatly aid in getting away. same with heavies also a weapon being designed poorly doesn't make people getting upset over it "strange", image the sniper rocker launcher mentioned above was added, people getting upset over that, even if it did exactly what was intended, wouldn't be strange, it would be expected.
23:26 I think the reason people call out the Kunai more over the Half Zatoichi is because I've noticed way more spies using the kunai over demos using the Zatoichi. There is also the fact that the spy gets that health bonus by being able to one shot any class in the game with a backstab, while demo has to either use his charge or whittle you down with 65 damage a swing
I'd say that most snipers use the camper for it's healing, while the "no dmg punch" upside is great, it also actively puts you at a disadvantage if you're not running the bazaar bargain with it because being scoped in reduces your movement to 27% and your fov to like 10 or 15 making it easier for flankers to kill you (which is obviously bad), this isn't even mentioning that the healing is passive regardless of if you're scoped or not unlike the no dmg punch Conch should also be included as it's healing is also passive and the health on hit it grants when the banner is active is just as good as the speed boost
I use the blackbox as my main soldier weapon, and I’ve very rarely had anyone get mad at me for that specifically. It seems to be much more of an issue depending on what you combo it with. The bbconch gets a lot of hate, no one really cares if you use any of the boots or shotguns, and no one seems to even notice if you use either the buff banner or, like I do, the battalion’s backup, which it was intended to pair with.
honestly your spy gameplay shows the real issue with the kunai deadringer playstyle, where the other knives aid with escapes, chain stabbing or fire immunity, the kunai actively rewards you for being spotted by the enemy because the minimum healing is extremely overtuned that you're wasting healing by not taking damage and drawing fire from the enemy team. and if you do get spammed down because you have 210 health you can survive as much as a soldier, and paired with the deadringer you get a demoknight level resistance with the speed of a scout, and because the deadringer activates on hit, it actively rewards you taking damage as spy. the literal downside of the kunai is being one shot, it's the ONLY stat balancing the weapon and the deadringer combo with it turns a death sentence into the objective best decision for escaping, getting behind the enemy or even purposefully taking damage to roll out faster. i'm not saying the spy can't have self healing, reducing the max overheal so spy can't tank 2 direct pipes would be enough, maybe his max overheal is the normal health of a spy so if you're spotted the counter play is the same, but you can still trickstab to go into the next encounter at max health or have enough HP to be able to win with your revolver but not so much health you can outright ignore damage sources to run directly at someones back in the most suspicious manner possible. cause yaknow, he's a spy, he's not meant to be able to play like demoknight lol
Lmao how brainless must you be to think that dead ringer activation is "rewarding", you activate dead ringer only when you lost the fight and have no hope of recovering, there's literally no reward and post-nerf it's not even worth using dead ringer because dying with stock and respawning takes less time than recharging dead ringer and getting back into position. Dead ringer was only useful when you could recharge it with ammo packs because you could disguise as your own team and die to get behind enemy team, then go and try to go for a kill once you picked up an ammo pack, now all it does is prevent your death for 5 more seconds before inevitably a pyro with 3 working braincells w+m1's you down regardless of your health because it's trivial to do so. Pyro can't see you but he hears different flame particle sound when hitting dead ringer'd spy, and spy's speed boost doesn't help once pyro locks down where you went.
One point for the dalokohs bar would be able to survive 2 quick scopes and maybe 3 rockets/pills, but unless you can sooomehow ecape, they just kinda... need to shoot you once more. So I guess it depends on map and all that
I'm probably willing to bet people don't like the Kunai the same reason why people don't like Sniper. People will say Spy deserves the backstab while people will say a headshot is undeserved, but people REALLY hate dying to one-shots. And the Kunai is very much the MOST spammed Spy knife in the game, by far. If you see a Spy, he probably has the Kunai + Deadringer and everyones blood pressure just rises because of it. It feels bad to play against, people tend to have a bias and you see it all the time, reinforcing said bias.
TIFA'S STEPPING STOOL???????!?!??! Anyways to add to the video. The reason the Half-Zatoichi is fine and the Kunai isn't is purely on how both classes work. A demoknight running it still has ALL the problems demoknight has and largely still needs to facetank most damage to get a kill. The kunai, on the other hand, just makes Spy more insufferable to fight as it generally eliminates his main weakness, which is getting out after a backstab. Him being 70 health isn't THAT much of a detriment as if he gets caught out at 70 vs 125 he is very likely dead regardless, 70 health just means it's faster. Since Spy has tools that let him sneak around and get that 1 backstab, he's generally rewarded far more than he should be.
Idk if the Winger is a "bad" scout secondary, but it's not the most offensive one Personally I'd give it more mileage in CTF and Control points where the extra jump height on demand can help with mobility when retreating with the intel or finding a new route to the point... Overall it's not too useful in fighting and when it comes to avoiding damage it's arguably overkill since it's on the class with the best natural mobility I do think it could definitely be better though, leaning more into the jump or damage mechanics, or just removing bullet spread which would give it a niche harassing Engineers at a distance
I don’t think the problem people have with the Kuni is the Kuni but the dead ringer because it removes any of the intended downsides with no health buff by pressing right click. It wouldn’t be a problem if the dead ringer was used as intended but it almost never is leading to the spy playing in a really dumb way of walking into the enemy using the dead ringer go to the back lines and guarantee a kill on a player who is unaware
Half Zatoichi honorbound doesn’t even work entirely. You can change weapons with the Half Zatoichi if you briefly pull it out but change weapons right away. It won’t damage you.
Also the Kunai is overpowered dude. There is a reason you always see hales own kunais instead of big earners for example. The reason people give it a pass tho is because Spy is the weakest class. Also 23:33 Why do you think Spy is a light class? Why do you think a Spy that has gotten caught is a big deal? Because he's designed to NOT get caught and get damage HEAVILY if found! The Kunai throws all that away.
The Dalokosh bar was SO MUCH BETTER and interesting alternative to sandwich before Valve nerfed it into poop bar by removing overheal. Why they nerfed it? because it had an overheal exploit giving you absurd health. So instead of fixing a bug, they just ruined gameplay variety even more for class that practically lacks them, gg valve you poor indie company
29:14 You are wrong. Dragon's Fury is the best. It offers a whole new, aggressive, play style for Pyro (that is VIABLE). While Heavy only gets a side-grade for the sandvich. The new pyro weapon offers a lot more than the second bananna
But they could. Nah, for real though, it was easily the first weapon I would have included if I was willing to bump the number of sections in this video to 6. I like to keep these videos at roughly 30 minutes in length.
The black box just sucks in 6s. that 1 less rocket makes your life so much harder as either solly. since most of your bombs are very high and usually require 3-2 rockets depending on the jump your going for, 3 rocket jumps for a garden usually since you can't always reload a rocket in the air and get the sync bomb. 2 rocket jumps are for the sync bombs. The black box works fine for gardens but neuters your ability to sync bomb which is the most secure way to kill someone mostly medic and demo.
I appreciate you not crapping all over the kunai, I do hate fighting against it but I respect a Spy who can make it work, even if I am cursing their name lol
I'm a big fan of the Black Box, I almost always run the Reserve shooter with it, as I prefer shotgun soldier to gunboats. Another side note is with the Half-Zatoichi, if you run it with the conch, you can sort of get a "Banzai charge" where you build up damage with your rocket launcher, and then blow the conch and run in with the sword. It's fun, but I don't think it's competitive
I can see a demoknight and shoot him and If it hasn't changed since I last looked the tide turner reduces charge on damage. Spy appears behind your team, stabs 1 person not paying attention and can tank until he can get a face stab.
Winger bad secondary? Bro theres the crit a cola which makes you one shot against soldiers and demos, and theres bonk which literally has no uses and the time you do use it you wouldn't even be in that situation if you any other secondary equipped.
On the topic of the Half-Zatoichi vs the Kunai, I think the main issues are the focus of the class. Demoknight is meant to be a damage sponge with a shield, and his charge is meant to compensate for losing his ranged damage options. His charge is also usually restricted to a couple seconds in between, meaning if he whiffs or is countered by, say, a Pyro's airblast, he _cannot_ one hit kill _any_ class from full hp (outside of big axe) for sometimes an entire duration of a fight. So he is expected to absorb damage and pick his fights very carefully (as in, don't run into an entire team and expect to live). Which the Half-Zatoichi's stats build towards. On the other hand, the Spy is meant to avoid the front lines and pick off targets that move away from/behind their team. Yet he is still given an option that allows him to tank and potentially heal _beyond_ the Medic's overheal (a trait the Half-Zatoichi lacks), where he is punished only for being caught out _sometimes._ In a class that is given several tools to avoid being caught out rather than win 1v1s. And, like the Black Box, it isn't the Kunai itself that completely breaks the Spy. It is the combination of the Kunai giving him almost double the health of stock on most backstabs, the Dead Ringer's damage shield mostly undoing the Kunai's main drawback, and the Diamondback giving him ranged offensive presence to disuade any pursuers during what would otherwise be a moment of weakness. What you end up with is a Soldier running around the back of your team with Medic levels of speed (faster than a Half-Zatoichi Demoknight) with an always active potential insta-kill option that will greatly heal him _and_ a portable shield that gives him a movement speed buff and damage reduction as long as a single one of your teammates was more focused on the 8+ other guys on the battlefield and got shanked. For a Half-Zatoichi Demoknight, he is mainly forced to attack from the front and thus gets a share of the enemy's dps (or risk flanking and running into a Pyro with a working M2). But a Kunai Spy that gets a single backstab (of which Spies are given a lot of tools to get before or shortly after they are detected) forces your team to turn around and dedicate a good portion of their dps his way else he continues OHKOing all of your allies.
While not really related to the main discussion of the video - in Mann vs Machine, if you get upgrades for one weapon, and hypothetically use the same weapon on another class, you can utilize the otherwise inaccessible stats on other classes. For the most part, this doesn't make much of a difference, as most of the examples are bad for MvM - with one exception in the Half-Zatoichi. As a result, it's possible to get both extra damage and Crits on Kill for Soldier - both being while impractical in serious play, a fun little thing to try out in Wave 666.
People complain about Mad Milk all the time. It generally isn't whined about in lower-skill pubs where no one can aim, but it's certainly not loved in competitive circles.
Genuinely shocked that the Winger is the Scout secondary you'd cite as the only potentially bad weapon among them. The Winger has infinitely more use cases than the Bonk! Atomic Punch and is prehaps even more versatile than the stock Pistol. I don't think any of Scout's secondaries are particularly bad, but the Winger is definitely not the worst of the bunch.
@@HellecticMojo The Pocket Pistol is really good. Both the Pocket Pistol and the Winger deal damage faster than the stock Pistol at the cost of having less damage in their clips overall before needing to reload, and both come with unique benefits to compliment this, with the Winger providing mobility and the Pocket Pistol providing some self-healing that's really nice in a pinch.
It’s a card that lets you draw two when you play it with no downsides or conditions. In a card based game, being able to draw more than you’re normally allowed to is really strong as you get more chances to pull the cards you need.
Black Box is a really popular weapon to run in pubs but I honestly think its overrated. Stock has much better direct offense and allows for more loadout flexibility. Having 3 rockets without a shotgun really sucks
I loved the video, it's very well edited and written. You repeated some facts a couple times, which tripped me up a bit, but overall a fantastic video!
I honestly find blackbox a slightly worse sidegrade to stock. You can play more aggressive and sustained and survive certain encounters but it makes deathmatching, rollouts, bombing, and damage dealing SIGNIFICANTLY worse.
personally it's a good fallback in cases like when you got pushed all the way to last on 5cp, where you'd have to quickly fend off 2 heavies and 3 soldiers with medibeams up their ass as your team scrambles to regroup, but it's not nearly as good when you're on the offensive
A lot of people go haha scout made the mad milk But I disagree. Ms. Paulibg supplies them with all their weapons. Including the mad milk, which is confirmed by the fact you can get it in cases and crates. It's not Scout's, it's Pauling's.
Heavy is genuinely good with a shotgun in some scenarios. In particular, a shotgun is essential for running the Brass Beast, as they give him a way to deal damage without suffering through the long spin-up time, the role they were initially intended to play in his kit in the first place. Over the years, Heavy has been given generally lower damage and faster spin-up as a way to make him more of a generalist class instead of a specialist, which has weakened the shotguns' utility significantly since the stock Minigun and especially the Tomislav can do their job better in a lot of cases now, but shotguns still have plenty of use cases. I'd definitely recommend playing with the Brass Beast and your shotgun of choice sometime; it harkens back to the original Heavy playstyle and is, in my opinion, much more fun than your average Heavy, since it gives you reason to thoughtfully change between which weapons you use in combat and rewards doing so correctly with some absolutely nutty damage. It's hard not to top score with the combo if you have good positioning.
I agree about the Black Box 100%, especially the Home Movies reactions. It’s fine, and to anyone still complaining I hope you understand IT WAS NERFED TO ITS CURRENT STATE! It USED TO HEAL MORE and was crazy for just brute forcing splash in team fights. 1 less rocket makes it way more balanced, especially with the 20 health cap. It’s basically useless too if you like to bomb in and out because with 3 rockets all that healing can really do is TRY to keep you alive enough to reload and jump away.
Finally someone who agrees with me regarding the Black Box, I mean I never really feel any different when using it, I mean I guess pairing with the conch kinda makes it a little annoying but I'm a medic main and seeing those green numbers makes me eurphoric so let me have my healing T-T
29:14 I incredibly disagree with you. The dragon’s fury if one of pyro’s best weapons and I even dare to call it a subclass for pyro. Better than the banana for me.
Hey all! I wanna give a few notes about this video. Read on if you'd like.
-I apologize in case you can hear my space heater in the background of any clips! I tried to cover it up but it may bleed through. This is what we have to do to record in New York Autumn.
-I use the words "inarguably" and "facilitate" a *lot* in this video, and I apologize for that. I didn't notice how often they came up until editing, but I'll try and cut down on them in future videos.
-There are a few minor pronunciation/line read flubs in this video. I recorded most of it in between 1 and 3 AM, so these things are just bound to happen.
Thanks all! I hope you enjoy and I'll see you all again soon.
I wouldn't worry too much about curbing how much you use certain words. Your vernacular is part of who you are and how you present to the viewer and idiosyncrasies like that just put forth some personality into the content. It's good to look for things to improve upon but the stuff you're putting out is really good already. Anyways your videos have been a great way of stepping back into TF2 after many years away and I'm looking forward to the next video!
ok
Comparing why people would rather be killed by a Zatoichi demoknight instead of Kunai spy made me realize spy and full on demoknight play very similar to each other. Both classes what to suprise the enemy, have to balance being in melee range of the enemy but also needing an escape route, they play around a meter Is mechanic, and they don't like pyros.
I had a friend a long time ago who said that demoknight is just angry spy
@@ChumpstickCharlie so does that make me a slightly less angry demoknight main??? Its all making sense...
@@soupcide lol perhaps
And they both act as vacc medic's weakness
The difference is one’s a job & one’s a mental illness
I've been trying to learn "traditional" Demoknight with the Eyelander and Targe, but for the life of me I can't put down the Zatoichi-Tide Turner combo. Trimping with full turn control and ping-ponging from target to target while sustaining myself with 100 health on each kill is like a drug. Great video!
For non traditional but still fun & effective demoknight I also recommend persian persuader & chargin targe. It makes it much easier to use charges as an escape tool, chain charges, and even take advantage of the fact that charges remove debuffs.
It’s funny, I can’t drop the targe and eyelander. I prefer to tank everything as I just keep swinging and swinging.
@@evansarver2989 the duality of (demo)man
It really depends on enemy composition. Spies are free heads for eyelander so you can get a Jumpstart on heads and mitigate the downside. If saturated with pyro, soldiers and demos, then zatoichi sustain is a great top off. Persian on more scout and sniper heavy comps for just getting to spam charges and chasing them down. Skullcutter for more slow and tanky comp so you can crit against heavies and medics.
It's really the cladimor and caber that just lack any use.
You know what gets a black box conch soldier to do something else real fast? One pyro who knows what a reflect is. Fun fact, if a pyro reflects a black box rocket, they get healed by the damage it does, not the soldier.
Granted, there aren't a lot of those pyros in casual.
In an earlier era, I once asked in a server why the Half-Zatoichi didn't have the extra melee-range that other swords had and the response I got was "because Soldier can use it." And I found that excuse stupid because Soldier already had access to the Whip which has even longer melee range. So the update that took away its random crits felt justified to me.
Also I agree that the Black Box's reduce clip is a big trade-off nerf, really de-insentivised careless rocket jumps for me.
Honorable mention to the pocket pistol for existing
I'd say it's pretty good honestly
Yeah, the pocket pistol’s healing capabilities are interesting, being minimal but just good enough. I would put it like this: I’ve heard people say “if you’re using X like stock instead of playing to its mechanics, you’re not using it right”, but the pocket pistol is kind of the opposite. The health on hit with it is much too little to rely on for proper healing, but if you use it like the stock pistol, pulling it out to finish off someone who didn’t quite die to your scattergun (happens quite often for me, my aim isn’t great), the healing is just enough to ensure you survive the fight. It makes the pocket pistol a more reliable stock, giving you a better chance of surviving when you need to use it. It’s saved my @$$ several times.
I don’t think it’s fair to call the back scratcher’s primary function its increased damage. I’m pretty sure its increased healthpack healing and decreased medigun / dispenser healing comes up much more often than increased melee damage on the close range sustained fire class. I feel like it would definitely fit in with the other weapons shown here since it’s mainly used for self-sustain in the absence of medics, with the extra melee damage being an afterthought 99% of the time. If you instead considered the powerjack’s health on kill to be a side function, that would be fair
Aye 100% fair. The exclusion of the Back Scratcher was primarily to keep the number of sections in this video at 5, but it was absolutely on my shortlist of honorable mentions.
Okay that Jabroni Mike reference caught me way off guard.
I used to work for him lol. I was his editor and channel manager from June of 2020 to June of 2022. I also worked for Limes. That reference was 100% made out of respect. I'm glad someone caught it.
I was under the impression that people didnt hate the black box, they specifically hated the black box/conch combo because the fact that you only have 3 rockets as your *only* form of ranged damage forces you to play like, and this is the technical term, a little bitch, combined with the self-healing, gives rise to a playstyle that can be concisely described as "immortal coward".
correct, he, uh, didn't do any research there.
The more you torment me with Wind Up Tifa, the more I die internally.
The mad milk is mainly seen as op by competitive leagues of tf2, since their scouts basically dont miss and have godlike movement. In addition to being an item that can easily win coordinated team fights. Fun fact: according to wooden sleevlet, the winger is the only scout secondary unlock that isnt banned in most 6s leagues
Is the stock pistol banned?
@@katyusha408 no, it's not, I don't believe any stock weapons are banned
The pretty boy's pocket pistol is banned?
@@isaacargesmith8217 the healing and faster firing speed is pretty strong on good scouts
scout skill isn't the issue
click on enemy team, win team-fight is the issue
If Mad Milk is just radioactive cow milk, then how is Scout able to generate a bottle of it every 20 seconds?
Maybe Scout is a cow in a skin suit
Bonk and Crit-a-cola:
Same reason how Heavy can conjure up a Sandwich or a Banana out of nowhere.
@@Labyrinth6000 Poor heavy has to eat his own banana to stay alive.
Scout has nibbles
The thing is, it's not even the kunai, or even the dead ringer the problem, but a full set, with the l'étranger on top, as they fix each other's period of weakness to turn into full strength non-stop. First the pre-backstab, normally the kunai would put you in a situation where a single shot from most weapons would kill or almost kill you.
But not this Time, with one click, you can turn into a post-chocolate invisible heavy with scout's speed and anti-status.
Now the Chain-stab period. Normally after even a single stab, people become far more aware of you, and suddendly you have to hide or flee to avoid certain doom.
But not this time, You can not only have more health then a soldier, you can REGENERATE the hp of an entire soldier, possibly every 0.8s! That's 250hp/s, half a heavy's dps at point blank, even with a good aware player, you're not dying and even worse, you can afford to surf their damage for even more stabs, once you're started, nothing can stip you. Finnaly the post-Stab , normally you have exhausted your "escape plan" and with it's unique stat of not being rechargeable by ammo and dispenser, you're just gonna have to wait for it to recharge...
BUT NOT THIS TIME as for some reason, the l'étranger can just, recharge it while every other method can't, just one, two, three shots at any distance as it gives the same +15% , and you're good to go, back to the chain-stab. It's not just a crutch, these three when put together are completely broken in a 12v12 , and you can just singlehandedly change the state of the game by yourself.
turn around lol
@@unlimited3680 And get facestabbed due to jank hitboxes? Sure...
@@unlimited3680a lot of people in casual (12vs12s) can be new, turn sound off, or are listening to music, or whatever really. The kunai exploits this and no matter how much one good player tries, they are directly punished for trying to kill the spy for having bad teammates.
Oh and they can get trickstabbed or facestabbed so that's fun.
@@unlimited3680oh great I turned around, then the spy used to dead ringer because he wanted me to shoot him, now I'm being punished for landing hits on the enemy team
@@bubbleeater7192 Lol I am listening to this video right as I am playing Upward)
I personally think the Black Box is fine, it rewards survivability for hitting direct/splash shots (In crowds) with the trade-off of potential mobility and damage. For me, its really the conch that pushes it over into being a bit more annoying to deal with
Even then, that missing rocket is devastating. I’m personally a full time conch user, but I never paid it with the black box, simply because I just can’t function as a soldier without that fourth rocket.
I've tried the conch and it feels like such a waste with BB. You are still susceptible to burst damage like being bombed or crits and the frequent reload basically means I could just spend my reloading downtime going to a dispenser or health kit. It's not even a replacement for a medic since neither give overheal to prevent being sniped to death.
I'd rather milk the regen for nonstop harass on weapons with no ammunition issue like cow mangler or no clip issue like the beggars.
I feel like the Black Box stigma comes from a long time ago, when it would heal you for 15 health regardless of if you dealt measly splash damage or hit a direct hit. You'd see soldiers kamikaze into a crowd, fully heal off the splash, and tank half the enemy team. Valve changed the healing to scale off damage dealt years ago, and that basically fixed it. But no one forgot the dark times, and new players hear the echos and parrot the same sentiment.
As is typical with bad weapons, black box is only good on shit maps like 2fort
Love the sudden “Icarus” jumpscare
My main issue with the Kunai comes from how it encourages a mindless jankstab hyper aggressive playstyle over actually utilizing the fundamentals of espionage. By design, it punishes the competent players on the opposing team for having less aware teammates, and is just incredibly lame to fight against. It’s a weapon that encourages bad habits on Spy by endlessly rewarding constant aggression, and although some of that may be the fault of the Dead Ringer, which it is religiously used with, it feels like it goes against the core design of the class.
Those two weapons are a testament to what happens when you give spy options that lessen being caught out. Players get taught that getting caught with the fein or overheal makes it so escapes are easier. Why bother getting in with stealth (which cost more effort and game sense) when escaping is either easy, effective, or both. Why learn both when you can be aggressive, get a kill and get overheal or have fein and escape with minimal loss.
Wrong 😊
Having less aware teammate always punish "better player"
Eyelander head,or something as simple as farm off damage ramp up random crit all does that .
Casual tf2 player don't want to admit how good they are are measured by play against players below them .
@@thefatherlydecoration4629 getting a stab is very frequently a death sentence for any spy; good or bad. having options that mitigate this is fine
@@ammi5311
-says "wrong"
-agrees anyway
@@milliondollarmistake I'll give you that, while there are easier stabs like going for a person who is in a fight or some unaware player, yeah stabs can be kinda inconsistent. But that's kinda how it's supposed to be, spy's getting caught out for bad positioning and dying is how it's meant to be. And giving spy strong escape options makes it so you're not punished as hard when caught out, and that teaches people bad lessons about the stealth based mechanics on spy.
Edit: On further thought, the problems I have with dedicated escape options on spy still persist. But with the kunai at least the spy starts off weak and has to be very careful on his first stab, as for how stealthy he'll be post first stab depends on how much damage he took and other factors. But the dead ringer has no such downside, and that lack of downside ruins a spy's brain. If the resistance scaled with how little health you have that would be fine because you could actually (convincingly) fake your death instead of using it as a shield.
Candy cane: am I a joke to you?
I should name my mad milk "Wind-Up Barbariccia" now. Thanks for the inspiration fellow FF fan.
"You can survive pretty narly shit" - teal opal as he falls off a cliff
"Jack(off) of all trades, master(bait) of none"
Congratulations, my computer screen is now covered in sandwich from my laughter
Can't believe I just got the Guilty Gear Xrd soundtrack out of my head only to watch this video and find myself singing along to Icarus
I think you're the only person who understands what that weird Jojo round intro guy said lol
black box in a comp setting is fine, in fact in HL it's decent since you are often watching flanks away from a medic so the self sustain is nice. it gets used in prem HL somewhat often
half-zatoichi is also good in comp since you can use it to build uber quite well without using ammo, and you shouldn't really need to rely on melee since your team should defend you. like the basher, it's downside is it's main use. even in a pub setting the building is useful when working with a pocket
Fair! I had a feeling that was the case with the Half-Zatoichi but I personally haven't used it in Comp and had no idea if it was completely outclassed by the Boston Basher in that role. I appreciate the insight tho!
@@TealOpal it's more ideal to build with basher but in cases where scouts are dead, are off classing or are running things like wrap assassin (which I've seen a few flank scouts use in recent yrs), having an extra option to build is p handy. especially since demo melee isn't super important in comp as I said
fun vids btw, enjoying the channel
I wish people would give the thermal truster a chance. Its one of the most powerful pure mobility options in the game. Its hard to learn how the arc works and maximize your jump potential since there are currently none of the popular jump servers support pyro friendly jump maps. Its much better then the second banana imo.
The fixed weapon switch speed just kill every level of enthusiasm for that weapon. Might as well just use the detonator for utility and comparable mobility.
Probably because it has a +50% INCREASED knockback when used.. just why.
self healing weapons have always seemed like a strange case to teal opal
While I think FishStickOnAStick is often a little extreme in his hate, I do think he makes an excellent counterpoint to the Kunai's downside - that a caught out spy is dead 95% of the time regardless of if he has 70 hp or 125 hp.
I suggest pairing the Persian Persuader with a shield other than the Tide Turner, and with the Boots. Shouldn't be surprising, but being able to spam 195 damage crits every second is very strong, and it's something that none of the other demo melee weapons can do (not counting random crits)
Should try that out myself one of these days. Demoknight doesn’t normally click for me, a lot of times because of melee hitreg, but notably the times I had fun trying him were when I used the Persuader. That was years ago, so it could be coincidence, but perhaps having charges and mobility more often would make my damage being jank less of an issue.
23:33 because demoknight cant go invisible and or disguise to easily get behind an entire team while taking 0 damage, nor can he kill people at the speed of spy's melee attack, nor does he have a gun, nor does he have a get out of jail free card like the dead ringer. It's not "literally the exact same thing", not to mention the kunai makes spy more viable and better at what he does, while demoknight makes demo basically a different class and makes him less effective in general. Dying to a class that is meant to be a glass cannon and then seeing said glass turn into titanium as your teammates shoot at him only for him to heal back to 210 hp with the click of a button is tilting. Dying to a class that is meant to be a relatively high health and high damage class, but is instead kneecapping themselves into a melee only snowball class is far less tilting. This argument is akin to saying sniper having a mini rocket launcher secondary would be fine because soldier can do it, so why can't sniper, but that's obviously not ok because sniper should be weak at close range to balance out his long range effectiveness, similarly demoknight is strong at close range to balance out his complete lack of ranged damage. Spy is strong at close range regardless of his other weapons and thats only balanced out by him being vulnerable after a stab, which the kunai greatly reduces for little to no downside.
Spy is already the least fun class to fight since you just get 1shot with no real counterplay other than shooting every teammate you see and turning around every second. The one redeeming part is that once a spy stabs you, he is extremely vulnerable and if there is an even half competent player near you he will die most of the time, making it a 1 to 1 trade that isn't fun, but it at least doesn't feel unbalanced. Now you take away that one redeeming aspect by making the spy able to tank 2 pipes, AND he can still cloak or dead ringer out, it's just too much. If a kunai spy dies soon after a single kill he did something horribly wrong(or got crited), and if a spy dies before getting a single kill, he did something wrong. Spy in general takes game knowledge and experience, but the kunai doesn't increase that requirement by much, if at all, since when you get spychecked you are most likely going to die anyway
Being able to instakill any class has to be balanced with a harsh downside, all other knives do so fairly well, while the kunai doesn't:
Stock: lowest stock base hp; very vulnerable after a stab
Big earner: even lower hp; less vulnerable after a stab due to speed boost
YER: quiet backstabs; disguise on kill; harshly punished cloak and disguise
Spycicle: fire resistance; you're stabs are more obvious due to statues, and pyros can remove your main source of damage for 15 seconds
Kunai: lowest hp in the game, but only until you get a stab, at which point you become the second or third highest health pool in the game
Every other knife is balanced by vulnerability after getting a stab, or lack of ability to get into a position to get a stab for the YER, because that's when a spy should be the weakest and least effective, that is how the entire class is balanced. The kunai makes spy the hardest class to kill after he gets a stab*, completely flipping what spy is balanced on, which would be fine if there was a downside that made it hard enough to get the first stab, but being a 1 shot to a lot of items in the game doesn't mean anything if you have the ability to be completely invisible, have the second highest movement speed in the game, can disguise as enemies, have a get out of jail free card, and can STILL get a instakill on every class in the game. A downside that makes you easier to kill doesn't effect anything if it can be removed by getting a single kill, and you can be invisible until right before you know you can get a kill.
*obviously demoknights cant have higher movement and health, but not only does it take multiple kills to get, but they also don't have invis watches or dead ringers that greatly aid in getting away. same with heavies
also a weapon being designed poorly doesn't make people getting upset over it "strange", image the sniper rocker launcher mentioned above was added, people getting upset over that, even if it did exactly what was intended, wouldn't be strange, it would be expected.
23:26 I think the reason people call out the Kunai more over the Half Zatoichi is because I've noticed way more spies using the kunai over demos using the Zatoichi. There is also the fact that the spy gets that health bonus by being able to one shot any class in the game with a backstab, while demo has to either use his charge or whittle you down with 65 damage a swing
I'd say that most snipers use the camper for it's healing, while the "no dmg punch" upside is great, it also actively puts you at a disadvantage if you're not running the bazaar bargain with it because being scoped in reduces your movement to 27% and your fov to like 10 or 15 making it easier for flankers to kill you (which is obviously bad), this isn't even mentioning that the healing is passive regardless of if you're scoped or not unlike the no dmg punch
Conch should also be included as it's healing is also passive and the health on hit it grants when the banner is active is just as good as the speed boost
I use the blackbox as my main soldier weapon, and I’ve very rarely had anyone get mad at me for that specifically. It seems to be much more of an issue depending on what you combo it with. The bbconch gets a lot of hate, no one really cares if you use any of the boots or shotguns, and no one seems to even notice if you use either the buff banner or, like I do, the battalion’s backup, which it was intended to pair with.
Been watching for years and hoping you blow up soon!
I'm really enjoying these videos so far, I listen while working
honestly your spy gameplay shows the real issue with the kunai deadringer playstyle, where the other knives aid with escapes, chain stabbing or fire immunity, the kunai actively rewards you for being spotted by the enemy because the minimum healing is extremely overtuned that you're wasting healing by not taking damage and drawing fire from the enemy team.
and if you do get spammed down because you have 210 health you can survive as much as a soldier, and paired with the deadringer you get a demoknight level resistance with the speed of a scout, and because the deadringer activates on hit, it actively rewards you taking damage as spy.
the literal downside of the kunai is being one shot, it's the ONLY stat balancing the weapon and the deadringer combo with it turns a death sentence into the objective best decision for escaping, getting behind the enemy or even purposefully taking damage to roll out faster.
i'm not saying the spy can't have self healing, reducing the max overheal so spy can't tank 2 direct pipes would be enough, maybe his max overheal is the normal health of a spy so if you're spotted the counter play is the same, but you can still trickstab to go into the next encounter at max health or have enough HP to be able to win with your revolver but not so much health you can outright ignore damage sources to run directly at someones back in the most suspicious manner possible.
cause yaknow, he's a spy, he's not meant to be able to play like demoknight lol
that all said fun video despite the major disagreement lol, i did watch 20 minutes to reach that point after all lol
getting caught out while using the kunai is still very deadly
Lmao how brainless must you be to think that dead ringer activation is "rewarding", you activate dead ringer only when you lost the fight and have no hope of recovering, there's literally no reward and post-nerf it's not even worth using dead ringer because dying with stock and respawning takes less time than recharging dead ringer and getting back into position.
Dead ringer was only useful when you could recharge it with ammo packs because you could disguise as your own team and die to get behind enemy team, then go and try to go for a kill once you picked up an ammo pack, now all it does is prevent your death for 5 more seconds before inevitably a pyro with 3 working braincells w+m1's you down regardless of your health because it's trivial to do so. Pyro can't see you but he hears different flame particle sound when hitting dead ringer'd spy, and spy's speed boost doesn't help once pyro locks down where you went.
Bu-bu-but the Candy Cane's main function is healing
23:33 Because you can see and hear the Demoknight coming, whereas a good Kunai Spy won’t let themselves be spotted
One point for the dalokohs bar would be able to survive 2 quick scopes and maybe 3 rockets/pills, but unless you can sooomehow ecape, they just kinda... need to shoot you once more. So I guess it depends on map and all that
This is really a great video and I don’t even know why I watch tf2 videos I have 1 hour on the game….
0:33 nice bodyblock from that spy lmao
I'm probably willing to bet people don't like the Kunai the same reason why people don't like Sniper. People will say Spy deserves the backstab while people will say a headshot is undeserved, but people REALLY hate dying to one-shots. And the Kunai is very much the MOST spammed Spy knife in the game, by far. If you see a Spy, he probably has the Kunai + Deadringer and everyones blood pressure just rises because of it.
It feels bad to play against, people tend to have a bias and you see it all the time, reinforcing said bias.
I absolutely love that your thumbnails are color coded!
Man your videos are great thank you for making them.
The conch is a healing weapon, it's horn blow is basically mad milk, its only other mechanic is speed, it has two health mechanics. It should be here.
31:25 And that's why the SOlomn Vow is supreme.
the total war shogun weapons are definetly very polarizing
Bro is really just out here sleeping on the winger
TIFA'S STEPPING STOOL???????!?!??!
Anyways to add to the video. The reason the Half-Zatoichi is fine and the Kunai isn't is purely on how both classes work. A demoknight running it still has ALL the problems demoknight has and largely still needs to facetank most damage to get a kill. The kunai, on the other hand, just makes Spy more insufferable to fight as it generally eliminates his main weakness, which is getting out after a backstab. Him being 70 health isn't THAT much of a detriment as if he gets caught out at 70 vs 125 he is very likely dead regardless, 70 health just means it's faster. Since Spy has tools that let him sneak around and get that 1 backstab, he's generally rewarded far more than he should be.
Hmmm... me Tifa Stepping Stool.
Idk if the Winger is a "bad" scout secondary, but it's not the most offensive one
Personally I'd give it more mileage in CTF and Control points where the extra jump height on demand can help with mobility when retreating with the intel or finding a new route to the point...
Overall it's not too useful in fighting and when it comes to avoiding damage it's arguably overkill since it's on the class with the best natural mobility
I do think it could definitely be better though, leaning more into the jump or damage mechanics, or just removing bullet spread which would give it a niche harassing Engineers at a distance
Sad Pocket Pistol noises.
Oh boy i sure love playing with Black Box and Conch! I hope a certain TF2ber won't criticize this playstyle in one of the most infamous series!
5:00 "Pyro is a pretty effective kryptonite to scouts"
lolwut
Practically the opposite is true
I don’t think the problem people have with the Kuni is the Kuni but the dead ringer because it removes any of the intended downsides with no health buff by pressing right click. It wouldn’t be a problem if the dead ringer was used as intended but it almost never is leading to the spy playing in a really dumb way of walking into the enemy using the dead ringer go to the back lines and guarantee a kill on a player who is unaware
Half Zatoichi honorbound doesn’t even work entirely. You can change weapons with the Half Zatoichi if you briefly pull it out but change weapons right away. It won’t damage you.
Also the Kunai is overpowered dude. There is a reason you always see hales own kunais instead of big earners for example. The reason people give it a pass tho is because Spy is the weakest class. Also 23:33 Why do you think Spy is a light class? Why do you think a Spy that has gotten caught is a big deal? Because he's designed to NOT get caught and get damage HEAVILY if found! The Kunai throws all that away.
The Dalokosh bar was SO MUCH BETTER and interesting alternative to sandwich before Valve nerfed it into poop bar by removing overheal.
Why they nerfed it? because it had an overheal exploit giving you absurd health.
So instead of fixing a bug, they just ruined gameplay variety even more for class that practically lacks them, gg valve you poor indie company
We just gonna forget the power jack exists?
29:14 You are wrong. Dragon's Fury is the best. It offers a whole new, aggressive, play style for Pyro (that is VIABLE). While Heavy only gets a side-grade for the sandvich. The new pyro weapon offers a lot more than the second bananna
naw heavy: waht are you doing with that jar of tiny men
6:55 ✍🔥🔥🔥
No one uses the Backscratcher for the extra damage
But they could.
Nah, for real though, it was easily the first weapon I would have included if I was willing to bump the number of sections in this video to 6. I like to keep these videos at roughly 30 minutes in length.
The black box just sucks in 6s. that 1 less rocket makes your life so much harder as either solly. since most of your bombs are very high and usually require 3-2 rockets depending on the jump your going for, 3 rocket jumps for a garden usually since you can't always reload a rocket in the air and get the sync bomb. 2 rocket jumps are for the sync bombs. The black box works fine for gardens but neuters your ability to sync bomb which is the most secure way to kill someone mostly medic and demo.
If I had any nametags, I’d rename my mad milk “G L O N T C H”.
Tbf its just called a "non milk substance" doesn't mean its scouts seed, heck could be a bonk product
"Between jarate and the gas passer"... So between amazing and garbage?...
I named mine "The Other 98%"
Least-lewd joke that can be done with that item.
I appreciate you not crapping all over the kunai, I do hate fighting against it but I respect a Spy who can make it work, even if I am cursing their name lol
You forget the Gloves of Running Urgently and Dalokohs Bar combo, look it up it’s pretty busted.
I'm going to rename my Half-Zatoichi to "The Conniver's Kunai" and vice versa now. Half-Zat takes priority (I suck at spy).
I'm a big fan of the Black Box, I almost always run the Reserve shooter with it, as I prefer shotgun soldier to gunboats.
Another side note is with the Half-Zatoichi, if you run it with the conch, you can sort of get a "Banzai charge" where you build up damage with your rocket launcher, and then blow the conch and run in with the sword. It's fun, but I don't think it's competitive
I can see a demoknight and shoot him and If it hasn't changed since I last looked the tide turner reduces charge on damage. Spy appears behind your team, stabs 1 person not paying attention and can tank until he can get a face stab.
Ah, the iconic Private International Security team, amazing choice for the thumbnail.
Winger bad secondary? Bro theres the crit a cola which makes you one shot against soldiers and demos, and theres bonk which literally has no uses and the time you do use it you wouldn't even be in that situation if you any other secondary equipped.
On the topic of the Half-Zatoichi vs the Kunai, I think the main issues are the focus of the class. Demoknight is meant to be a damage sponge with a shield, and his charge is meant to compensate for losing his ranged damage options. His charge is also usually restricted to a couple seconds in between, meaning if he whiffs or is countered by, say, a Pyro's airblast, he _cannot_ one hit kill _any_ class from full hp (outside of big axe) for sometimes an entire duration of a fight. So he is expected to absorb damage and pick his fights very carefully (as in, don't run into an entire team and expect to live). Which the Half-Zatoichi's stats build towards.
On the other hand, the Spy is meant to avoid the front lines and pick off targets that move away from/behind their team. Yet he is still given an option that allows him to tank and potentially heal _beyond_ the Medic's overheal (a trait the Half-Zatoichi lacks), where he is punished only for being caught out _sometimes._ In a class that is given several tools to avoid being caught out rather than win 1v1s. And, like the Black Box, it isn't the Kunai itself that completely breaks the Spy. It is the combination of the Kunai giving him almost double the health of stock on most backstabs, the Dead Ringer's damage shield mostly undoing the Kunai's main drawback, and the Diamondback giving him ranged offensive presence to disuade any pursuers during what would otherwise be a moment of weakness. What you end up with is a Soldier running around the back of your team with Medic levels of speed (faster than a Half-Zatoichi Demoknight) with an always active potential insta-kill option that will greatly heal him _and_ a portable shield that gives him a movement speed buff and damage reduction as long as a single one of your teammates was more focused on the 8+ other guys on the battlefield and got shanked.
For a Half-Zatoichi Demoknight, he is mainly forced to attack from the front and thus gets a share of the enemy's dps (or risk flanking and running into a Pyro with a working M2). But a Kunai Spy that gets a single backstab (of which Spies are given a lot of tools to get before or shortly after they are detected) forces your team to turn around and dedicate a good portion of their dps his way else he continues OHKOing all of your allies.
While not really related to the main discussion of the video - in Mann vs Machine, if you get upgrades for one weapon, and hypothetically use the same weapon on another class, you can utilize the otherwise inaccessible stats on other classes.
For the most part, this doesn't make much of a difference, as most of the examples are bad for MvM - with one exception in the Half-Zatoichi.
As a result, it's possible to get both extra damage and Crits on Kill for Soldier - both being while impractical in serious play, a fun little thing to try out in Wave 666.
People complain about Mad Milk all the time. It generally isn't whined about in lower-skill pubs where no one can aim, but it's certainly not loved in competitive circles.
Found your channel again! Glad to see you back👍
Genuinely shocked that the Winger is the Scout secondary you'd cite as the only potentially bad weapon among them. The Winger has infinitely more use cases than the Bonk! Atomic Punch and is prehaps even more versatile than the stock Pistol. I don't think any of Scout's secondaries are particularly bad, but the Winger is definitely not the worst of the bunch.
Is the pretty boy pocket pistol good now? I swear that thing has zero consensus.
@@HellecticMojo The Pocket Pistol is really good. Both the Pocket Pistol and the Winger deal damage faster than the stock Pistol at the cost of having less damage in their clips overall before needing to reload, and both come with unique benefits to compliment this, with the Winger providing mobility and the Pocket Pistol providing some self-healing that's really nice in a pinch.
6:50 Man really had to write that in a script and record himself saying it. 💀
6:40
I just got a heart attack
The mad milk is labeled as non-milk, so I doubt buy the cow milk claim. My jar is named Rainbow Dash
11:23 bro backstabbed with sniper
24:00 that engineer got facestabbed so hard he probably uninstalled after that one
Every class actually has a way toheal themself without any other class's help nor resupply
Am quite surprised that noone pointed out the "Jack off all trades masturbait of non" which is one of the funniest jokes i've ever heard ngl
8:41 What does Pot of Greed do?
it has a big description box and a very tiny actual description
You draw one card.
Thats it, no more, no less. Banned from Yugioh for reasons other nerds that know about it can explain.
It’s a card that lets you draw two when you play it with no downsides or conditions. In a card based game, being able to draw more than you’re normally allowed to is really strong as you get more chances to pull the cards you need.
Personally, I would name my mad milk: “Insane Lotion Launcher”
Speachts imbendinent
In my 8 years of playing TF2 I'm now just finding out that mad milk heals you... (I have like 15 hours on scout btw)
Black Box is a really popular weapon to run in pubs but I honestly think its overrated. Stock has much better direct offense and allows for more loadout flexibility. Having 3 rockets without a shotgun really sucks
I loved the video, it's very well edited and written. You repeated some facts a couple times, which tripped me up a bit, but overall a fantastic video!
I honestly find blackbox a slightly worse sidegrade to stock. You can play more aggressive and sustained and survive certain encounters but it makes deathmatching, rollouts, bombing, and damage dealing SIGNIFICANTLY worse.
personally it's a good fallback in cases like when you got pushed all the way to last on 5cp, where you'd have to quickly fend off 2 heavies and 3 soldiers with medibeams up their ass as your team scrambles to regroup, but it's not nearly as good when you're on the offensive
nice video man
3:05
Nice.
😉
I'm glad I came here :D
A lot of people go haha scout made the mad milk
But I disagree. Ms. Paulibg supplies them with all their weapons. Including the mad milk, which is confirmed by the fact you can get it in cases and crates. It's not Scout's, it's Pauling's.
Heavy is genuinely good with a shotgun in some scenarios. In particular, a shotgun is essential for running the Brass Beast, as they give him a way to deal damage without suffering through the long spin-up time, the role they were initially intended to play in his kit in the first place. Over the years, Heavy has been given generally lower damage and faster spin-up as a way to make him more of a generalist class instead of a specialist, which has weakened the shotguns' utility significantly since the stock Minigun and especially the Tomislav can do their job better in a lot of cases now, but shotguns still have plenty of use cases. I'd definitely recommend playing with the Brass Beast and your shotgun of choice sometime; it harkens back to the original Heavy playstyle and is, in my opinion, much more fun than your average Heavy, since it gives you reason to thoughtfully change between which weapons you use in combat and rewards doing so correctly with some absolutely nutty damage. It's hard not to top score with the combo if you have good positioning.
I agree about the Black Box 100%, especially the Home Movies reactions. It’s fine, and to anyone still complaining I hope you understand IT WAS NERFED TO ITS CURRENT STATE! It USED TO HEAL MORE and was crazy for just brute forcing splash in team fights. 1 less rocket makes it way more balanced, especially with the 20 health cap. It’s basically useless too if you like to bomb in and out because with 3 rockets all that healing can really do is TRY to keep you alive enough to reload and jump away.
Winger? Bad? Didn't expect that tbh
Finally someone who agrees with me regarding the Black Box, I mean I never really feel any different when using it, I mean I guess pairing with the conch kinda makes it a little annoying but I'm a medic main and seeing those green numbers makes me eurphoric so let me have my healing T-T
Also the Kunai definitely requires some sort of skill, I often see Kunai spies get annihilated, people just hate when it works
29:14 I incredibly disagree with you. The dragon’s fury if one of pyro’s best weapons and I even dare to call it a subclass for pyro. Better than the banana for me.