For a buff, I would remove the health penalty, remove the slowing efect and replacing it with a bleeding effect. And I would even decrease the base damage of the bat. Oh, wait...
i would replace the slowing with marked for death, and make the cleaver crit instead of minicrit if you want to bring back the combo, then remove the fan o war edit: ok he said this in the video lol
It was definitely better than good. Preventing people from shooting someone in an fps does wonders for your medic that was getting dove on by a soldier or demo.
lol just annoying is underselling it. It was infuriating. Walk around a corner, BAM randomly get stunned for half the round(exageration, but still it felt loooong). And add in the fact that it was The scout melee so if there's a few scouts you've got balls flying around constantly stunning people all the time. Yeh stuns mechanics in an fps are bullshit, like fish says.
What really grinds my ocd gears is how they dont at least update the achievements that were created around the base weapon… that is now entirely different to play.
Another thing to note: A new Demoknight charge cannot be started while under any kind of slow effect. (Besides the airblast's slow effect. With airblast slow, your air acceleration is 75% slower until landing instead, and this applies to charge as well) Basically, if I'm hit with a Sandman, my only real option is to try and back off until the slow wears off, or hope I manage to hit the Scout twice. Even if I wanted to do a slower charge, I cannot. But since next to nobody actually uses the Sandman, I never have to worry about it unless it's the Natascha.
@@ava5030 Nah, tf2 will outlast us all. Thousands of years from now, our ancestors will boot up tf2 using the old 2007 cds, and marvel at how we were so far ahead of our time. ;) Then they'll find a version with the sandman :(
@@The_whales It's actually possible to get that achievement with the Force-a-Nature as well. You didn't ask, but it's how I (and presumably most of the other few players who have the achievement) got it because the Force-a-Nature is actually usable in casual.
@@thewoodpeckers655 That's how you refer to the sport in Spanish, to refer to the ball itself, we just call it "Bola de béisbol" or "Pelota de béisbol" wich in English the direct translation would be "Ball of baseball"
I can't believe we went from "Why would you use the Wrap Assassin? The Sandman is so much better!" To "Why would you use the Sandman? The Wrap Assassin is so much better!"
It’s so crazy how a weapon that used to be able to stun fucking ubered players(and had an achievement for it), went from that, to still pretty much broken, to absolutely useless in the span of about 5 years. Edit: the baby face’s blaster is also god tier vs demoknights
@@januszpolak254 10 Valve releases a new interesting weapon 20 It's actually usable and capable of killing 30 People cry salty tears about it, regardless of how much it's changed or nerfed 40 Valve nerfs it into uselessness, and never thinks about it again 50 GOTO 10 I'm actually surprised Valve kept random crits in. Valve should reverse every nerf they've ever done, and create a "No more tears" game mode that's stock only, no random crits.
I remember playing TF2 for the first time, this being after Jungle Inferno. One of the first weapons I got from item drops was the Sandman, which I had heard was garbage but I still decided to use as a gag. Then I went to 2fort and, in an act that made me look way more competent than I actually was, managed to slow a lone pursuing demoknight as I got into the enemy intel room. I was then decimated by a sentry nest.
19:55 This glitch might have to do with the robot previously having an invulnerable condition applied to it as the condition for it wearing off might not apply to the Sandman on some occasions. Could happen from the MVM bots being temporarily ubered if you hit them before they pass the barrier where they begin attacking at their spawn or the frequency of uber medics on some waves.
its involved with ubercharges running out, i've seen this happen on players too. i believe cond 8 (Invulnerability expiration effect) is the reason for this, as you can easily replicate this bug on bots sv_cheats 1;bot;bot_command all addcond 8 this spawns 1 bot, commands it to addcond 8, and then the effect should be replicated. normal damage still deals damage, but sandman balls and cleavers don't hit, wrap assassin ornaments doesnt apply bleed
I have an idea for a better balance mechanic: Basically at close range (0-2,000HU) it slows, at mid range (2,001-8,000HU) it immobilizes (not disable- you can still shoot) for 1 second and allows crit cleavers for 3 seconds, at the furthest possible range it full stuns like pre-nerf, and allows crit cleavers (naturally). Sure, it'd be annoying, but I think it's a lot more balanced this way.
Unless during that 1.5 seconds they book it to a health pack or Medic. Then they're not even gonna feel it, other than being slightly more annoyed than before.
@@Eye_Of_Odin978 If they have 125 health, they'll likely and quickly die to the bleed. 150 to 200? Requires some shots from your primary. 300? They'll likely drop you first and are also most likely to have a Medic with them. This is coming from someone who uses this combo A LOT. Have a good sense of when that bleed should kill and when it won't.
You forgot about another weapon with full stun mechanics, the Holiday Punch, it’s kinda fair, limited by range, the heavies speed, and critical hits (kind of, guaranteed crits from behind).
It's definitely your fault if a heavy catches you with melee, the Holiday Punch awards good positioning which is something all good melee weapons should do.
That and you can literally spam jump around the Heavy if you want to avoid getting stunned by the Holiday Punch. Assuming you care that much about not getting stunned. Honestly, laughing all the way to getting tauntkilled is worth dying over.
I think the Sandman is a sleeper hit for Scout 1v1s. It is absolutely soul crushing getting the movement penalty while trying to out-dodge the other scout.
Personally, to keep in theme of baseball and keeping it similar to how it is in concept, I'd make a successful hit give you a speed boost instead of slowing the enemy.
@@ironprince72 (+) Alt-fire: Launches a ball that grants a speed boost upon hitting an opponent (+) Moonshots deal critical damage and greatly extend the speed boost duration (-) This weapon holsters 30% slower (-) +20% damage vulnerability from all sources while active
It goes unsaid in the video, but there's another use for the Sandman in MvM. It can still FULLY Stun Robots on a Moonshot, and because Robots move predictably, It's possible to completely STUNLOCK A Giant (assuming your ball actually does its effects due to the bug that is mentioned).
Thanks Fish, I can't wait to use your strategy irl to the people! Btw yes you forgot that the Sandman can still stun robots (even giants) with a moonshot in MvM so here's another reason to buy the "robots killed" strange part
Getting further in the vid, the Bug when the Sandman doesn’t work against a robot or anyone really I believe is caused by them getting Ubercharged. For some reason sometimes when someone gets ubered the sandman ball just doesn’t work on them even after the Uber ends. It’s weird.
that clip at 1:50 where you hit the soldier with the ball then perfectly whiff both shots either side of him then he kills himself anyways with splash damage while also somehow missing you.... chef's kiss. tf2 perfection
One buff I think could work is if the min and max debuff duration was increased and making the hit enemy highlighted and visible through walls. If valve won't give that to the spy, then scout could use the support tool
The Sandman's a good example of how VALVe doesn't quite know how to balance things. When they nerf something, they just sledgehammer it into the ground. Even when something just needs a minor adjustment assuming they get around to it.
The Sandman is my favorite Scout melee. I feel like just *equiping* it leads to an increase in skill due to having to constantly play with lower HP, and slowing or killing an enemy with The Sandman deals decent psychological damage
@@alphonyt7250 You have way less health when going up against explosive classes (which are the most common type of class in casual) then u have with the sandman. At least when u use the lather you can survive a pill or a rocket from mid range, which can't be said for the candy cane.
I think it'd be funny to change the effect to something like "hit players get their game resolution set to 180p for the duration of the effect." So it quasi-blinds people momentarily instead of messing with movement. I don't think it's technically possible, but it'd be interesting.
it would be very annoying, but it's possible to give a player quasi-blindness in a different way. jarate makes player's view a bit wavy. it would be possible to exaggerate that
Tbh, one idea I liked most was rechanging what its design philosophy was: The Sandman: (+) Holding right click charges your swing meter, bigger the charge the further your baseball will travel! - Greater Charge = Greater Damage, to a maximum of 80. Perfect for finishing off classes running away. - Charging the swing causes Scout to move slower, equivalent of a Huntsman draw. (+) Max swing causes the baseball to deal minor knockback (+) Moonshots with the baseball will always minicrit (120 damage) (-) -50% damage penalty (18 damage per swing) (-) -15 max health on wearer (-) 20 second baseball recharge (?) Cannot swing if there's no baseball
Also, as a dumb feature, when swung at full charge, a sound gets played on the end of the player who swung the bat, you can think of what the sound will be
@@mariustan9275 even then, it's worse than the wrap assasin. You give yourself 110 health for a ball that recharges twice as slow as the sandman, not the wrap assasin which has a 25% faster recharge rate, with the only upside being more damage,although you have to take away scouts best item-his mobility, while having a health debuff, making the ball not worth it most of the time. Lastly, the damage isnt even that far from wrap assasin's, which deals nearly 70 damage if you include bleed, for no charge at all. And if the original creator means it literally when he said you walk at the same speed as a huntsman draw, you slow yourself down by 80%
(Sips coffee) Why yes, I will risk being mocked by strangers just to revert balance changes like the Sandmam not stunning. Why wouldn't I do that, and then drastically decrease the recharge rates of it and the Guillotine, so Scout gets a limited use and high impact medium to long range combo?
20:05 @FishStickOnAStick If you are wondering about that, I remember seeing an episode of Bug Busters talking about that. If the target has been ubercharged once, for some bizarre reason the ball will just bounce right off them dealing no damage.
I don't even main scout and I want to see a restoration of the sandman/cleaver combo after playing on a server that reverts it for a bit. The only bs part was that the stun applied at relatively close range.
@@-RandomStranger- Oneshots aren't an issue as long as they are difficult enough to pull off. If the minimum distance for sandman suns was longer, it wouldn't be so easy.
you're still chucking two projectiles at a single person. it's a lot more fair than jarate bushwacka given it takes significantly more skill. and look at that, the fair one got removed while the braindead baby combo got to stay on the long range glass cannon class.
also the sandman still has the full stun on mvm for some reason if you hit a small robot they got the full stun like the old days and if you hit a giants they get locked in place(you can reset the stun by hit another moonshot again) for some reason if you stun a buster they decide to explode
There's a small problem with that balance idea: The Fan O'War exists. By putting Mini-Crits with long-range on the Sandman, you've just made the other utterly worthless
The Mark for Death change on the Sandman was almost too good at one point, being made into a flashy kill montage. Its duration has since been lowered to make it more difficult to followup on.
@@kubaGR8 not necessarily. The shortstop works better at range due to mark duration and since it makes you slightly squishier. Fan of War works better in close quarters and is easier to apply for an extended mark. For the record, we also gave the Fan of War a faster switch speed so its better for its purpose too.
@@ShakerSilver Didn't FSoaS also do another ep on the Fan of War where... basically it was just kind of pointless to apply the mark when most of the time you could just meatshot the enemy twice and get a similar htk? It does fill out the parallel of Boston Basher/Wrap Assassin and Sandman/Fan of War, though. Melee bleed/ranged bleed, melee marked for death/ranged marked for death.
As unbalanced and un-fun as being hit by the sandman's old stun was, it was thematically fantastic. The amount of voice lines, related achievements, and just being a lil shit was perfectly on-brand for Scout. Unfortunately, even if they make it balanced, make it better, make it insanely overpowered, it doesn't matter. It will never be as on-brand imo. Nothing will surpass how thematically appropriate the Boston slugger hitting someone halfway across the map with a baseball hard enough to make them stand still is. Truthfully, I would prefer the stun mechanic to return (though I have a feeling that would change after getting hit with a single stun lol) because of how fun it was to see and perform. Given TF2's more competitive nature nowadays, though, I doubt many peeps share my sentiment.
@@mariustan9275 Well, yeah. I said as much. “As unbalanced and un-fun as being hit by the sandman’s old stun was,” My argument was that it’s impossible to balance something like that while also making it thematically appropriate and fun to use for the Sandman.
Well at that point, why not make a server where all the unbalanced and op weapons are back to its glory? Tide turner + half zatoichi, old loch n load,original Natasha, original Axtinguisher, and classic ambasador
aside from mvm the fan o war is worse than the sun on a stick. even if they manage to hit someone to mark them, they would’ve killed that person already even with the crit a cola
If a bot takes damage before they drop down (and then get ubered), the Sandman ball will bounce off for the rest of their life. This applies in base game to, if you hit a previously-Ubered player with the ball, it bounces. Only resets when they die or change classes. After Breakfast's scout bugs video covers this.
The marked for death buff is a neat idea, but I think it makes it too similar to the Wrap Assassin, since now both of them fill the same roll of "Hit man with your balls in the balls for more damage", the extra damage now coming in 2 flavors, bleed or mini crits. Long story short mini-crit am fun but makes it from a stock reskin to a wrap reskin.
I mean mark for death is generally more powerful but you have a point. Maybe add a state to the cleaver to do more damage on marked enemies, maybe like 100 to incentivize somethjng.
A suggested rework, is to make the sandman's ball delete a projectile on contact, but when it does delete something, it is also removed. So, you can stop arrows, cause pills, rockets, and stickies to explode at a safe distance. In exchange you suffer a damage penalty with the weapon.
Just revert it to how it was before Jungle Inferno, it was fine. It's a casual game and always will be. Comp players ruined a lot of fun weapons before Valve stopped doing balancing.
@JeffarryLounder Your ability to actually fight back was stolen from you by an easy to land disposable ball that would allow the Scout to follow up with another easy to land and disposable projectile that would crit you while also causing bleed damage, ONTOP of dealing more damage than a melee hit. The only people who are upset about that garbage getting ground up into paste are Scout mains who rely on cheap crutches to get their kills.
@@twinzzlers Mate I could consistently topscore back when this weapon was still viable, and using it over the older version atomizer was a straight downgrade. Not only were you making yourself more vulnerable, but all the time spent trying to get hits on sandman balls and cleavers would often get you killed in contrast to if you were just using pure hitscan. Calling it a "crutch" is a blasphemous example of you knowing little about how the weapon used to really function in game. You just see "stunned players" and assume it was the worst thing in the world. The old sandman/ cleaver combo was just an alternative playstyle for Scout that put more emphasis on projectiles for a predominantly-hitscan class with a neat little combo that Valve added to encourage skilled Scouts to actually pick it up and utilise it. When Valve killed the sandman, all they did was ruin a fun alternative playstyle most Scouts would go to when they got bored of the standard hitscan-type playstyle. And in the same update, they borderline-buffed the natascha which IS a stupid weapon in contrast to the sandman by its spammability and hitscan mechanism. That's right, not only did they remove the Scout's version of counterplay to revved Heavies with nataschas, they buffed it right after too with their buff on all miniguns.
@JeffarryLounder I was litteraly playing back then, and you know what I remember? Every scout using it, and using it to great success. Cope some more, the old Sandman was bullshit.
The Holiday Punch still has the most powerful stun effect in the game and most people sleep on it. The fact that you can just roll a random crit against an ubered player to instantly ruin an uber push is fucked. And since you're the Heavy, you're going to be dealing a metric fuckton of damage anyway, so you're pretty much going to instantly hit that 50% melee critrate threshold. So, if you're ubercharged and get too close to a Holiday Punch Heavy, you most likely have a 50% chance to get stunned *on each melee swing from them* and for the uber to be wasted.
In my opinion sandman stats pre jungle inferno should be back, but with more dowsides to balance it, or just make Flying Guillotine crit on stunned enemys again lmao
If you want the old combo I don't see why mark for death would be all that different, especially if you add something like mini crits turn to crits on the guillotine or something.
Man, I think the speed and mobility is the greatest strength Demoknight's got going for him, and the most fun part of him, along with the gradual power rewards of collecting heads. Removing that from him would make him so much more boring in my opinion. I'd say his speed and health are adequately balanced for by the fact that _you can just shoot him._ He's melee only, hardly a power class or anything.
you cant just shoot him when he has speed close to the scouts' and can charge. the problem with him and the kunai is that these weapons make a good player suffer bc his team mates are bad. it's unfair when you are punished with having to fight very difficut enemy bc a few of your team mates got killed at the other side of the map
@@smacznykapec You can, though. The charge can only go in one direction and has a cooldown, and one can certainly shoot him when he's got similar speed to a scout, since one can also shoot scouts. I'm not saying he's horribly weak or anything, but there's a reason comp players don't just run Demoknight all the time. There are other, more viable ways to play. And I don't get the "punished for teammates being bad" argument. I might be misunderstanding you, but in a team game, if any teammate dies for any reason, you are at greater risk of defeat. That's in no way exclusive to demoknight.
@@smacznykapec Or, alternatively, you can shoot him to make him unable to run anywhere. He's got strengths, but he's also got very clear weaknesses. I see where you're coming from, but you can use the arguments you are to argue that any class in the game to be the most powerful. "Scout is impossible to hit with his mobility", "heavy has so much health and raw damage output he's unkillable", etc. etc. Demoknight clearly isn't more powerful than many other classes and playstyles in the game, among which I'd count *regular* demo (with his stickybombs being widely considered to be one of the most powerful tools in TF2). Demoknight has strong horizontal mobility and survivability, but severely lacks range and versatility, and struggles heavily against knockback. I wouldn't like to see him lose what is in my opinion everything that makes him fun to both play as and against (his mobility). Like I said, there's a reason why people don't run him in comp. There are stronger options, even just for Demoman as a class.
@@sirreginaldfishingtonxvii6149 his weakness is that he doesn't always have max heads but the problem is that when he has he is arguably the strongest until he dies and it's a bit unfair having to play against him when he's so strong just bc your team mate are bad or made some mistakes
They should make it so the Sandman's ball puts a visual swirling effect on the screen of someone it hits, creating that same sort of struggle that the original version pitched without actually removing the ability of a target to shoot back, if their aim is good enough
Sand man idea: knocking the weapon in your hands out of your hands forcing you to either fight the scout with your secondary or chase the primary on the ground
I vote for a complete reversal of the sandman stun. Yes, I am a salty scout main who loved this weapon to bits when it was still good; but that is besides the point. It was not overpowered, just annoying.
oh yeah fucking over every class at any range even if there ubered, win any fight ever and completely remove any classes ability to SHOOT IN A FIRST PERSON SHOOTER and finally instantly kill a light class with the cleaver.
@@Pyrothepyro1you forgot to mention the fact that all of this comes from the fastest class in the game, that can double jump and whose only deterrent from getting close is if you have a sentry next to you
@@Pyrothepyro1 For one the uber stun got removed after some time and didn't exist before Jungle Inferno. For two "win any fight ever" tells me you probably never played with the sandman like ever. For three, yes! That was the point of the weapon. Hit someone with a hard-to-hit small-sized projectile that would temporarily take away their ability to use a weapon. It functions like any other mechanic in the game and is inherently a fair mechanic. If you hit the enemy with the ball, you get rewarded for it. That is the basic design philosophy of quite-literally ALL FPS games.
ok yes i have not used the old sandman bc i was not there, but first you said a FULL reversion meaning the uber effect too. second off, yes you will not win ANY fight like if a sniper shoots you but you are scout you can still win those very up close fights which are the only place the sandman does not excel at, and third, no? it is not inherently fair to turn off your foes ability to fight back (mostly) before they get to react. also what do you mean ALL FPS games? name one other (fair) fps mechanic where by hitting a projectile that you always have at your disposal unless used that on hit REMOVES THERE ABILITY TO FIGHT BACK and hinders their movement (also you are the fastest class) . i do understand that the current sandman is complete dogwater but reverting it would just be a bad idea.@@JeffarryLounder
@@Pyrothepyro1 So let me get this straight: you never even played with the old sandman stun... once? And you're acting like you know what it's capable of? This ALWAYS happens. For some reason, every person I ever argue with on here that says the sandman is bad never even played with it before. How can you be so sure to judge a weapon as overpowered without even playing with it once? The sandman's initial 2009 release form was overpowered, no doubt about that. Then it was nerfed so you could still move unless you were moonshot. That was the version of the sandman we were left with for 8 long years, which nobody complained about until 2015 rolled by and a hate train for the weapon erupted due to the growing competitive influence over TF2; which was a disgrace to put it very lightly since competitive ruined the old feel and style of TF2 completely with matchmaking and ridiculous anti-fun balance changes. Basically, Valve pandered to the competitive community in MyM, which was regarded as one of the worst updates for TF2 of all time, and then even further in Jungle Inferno. Then when they realised it was all pointless and nobody liked the fact they were killing the soul of the game by removing iconic features, they turned tail and left the game in its current state til this day.
I think the Sandman would be an okay sidegrade if they removed the slowdown altogether and instead just made it a ball that does like 40 damage on impact. Something as simple as being able to start a fight with 40 damage done to an enemy might make some people happy. And if that's not enough, then they could have the scout be hyped from succesfully landing balls, by increasing his movespeed for a small duration. That would make it versatile for closing the gap or getting away. And for the sake of the Moonshot achievement, landing a max distance shot should still stun the enemy like it previously did. Also because it's a funny gimmick.
1:17 It's also worth noting that both these weapons also apply significant knockback when they stun, so really the stun just amounts to severely reduced air control, kind of like what airblast used to do. Whereas on the Scorch Shot getting stunned amounts to instant death for light classes and on the Sandman it means being severely slowed for a bit (unless you're a Heavy, in which case it does literally nothing), neither of which are fun.
Scout has a good combat ability, but not nearly as good, as soldier, demo, heavy or engie. Even sniper can outdps him, so he is more of the support role with decent dps
19:57 A note on the stun/slow not working, that was part of an old nerf. The stun used to work on Ubers, but that's bullshit. So now Ubered enemies are immune. But something, something, Spaghetti Code, enemies remain immune until the Medi-Beam breaks. It's a niche but known bug. As for why MVM robots do it.... Actually! As I think about it, it probably has to do with the hidden Uber before they drop down. If it's triggered, they become Ubered/immune. And w/o a Medi-Beam to break, that stun immunity might just linger permanently. Considering how the game tends to run, that's probably it.
I personally would've been completely fine with it just without the health penalty, not every weapon has to be "good", we can just say that it's a "direct upgrade" from stock like the 3rd degree. As long as I'm not in anymore sandman/ cleaver frags, I'm fine.
The problem with that is it would still be so incredibly situational and rare, people would still refuse to use the sandman. Moonshots were rare to hit. The best way you could get them was by throwing the baseball across the map at the start of the game to an area where the enemy team would be around (since start of round they would be packed together more than later on). And even then they would oftentimes be so far away you couldn't make it past their team to them in time anyway. Effectively it'd just be another useless gimmick in TF2.
@@JeffarryLounderI’d happily take the stun on moonshots so that they actually feel special again instead of reverting the Jungle Inferno changes. With that, the Scout can at least somewhat counter Snipers and Scorch Shot spammers
All they had to do was make the ball effect be like the scared effect. Not stunning and immobilizing the enemy, but making them dazed and confused while still being able to move.
Apparently I'm the observant one in this fanbase, But he didn't fly at the start from the scorch shot. (Shocker, I know) There was a Scottish Resistance sticky. See if you can spot it now that I mentioned it. (1:11) Edit: I mean, the lack of awareness does make sense if you think about it, FSOAS being a Sniper main and all
Maybe the Natascha is a stupidly designed weapon, but stopping a Demoknight in mid-charge and forcing him to stand there helplessly while you shred him is one of the most priceless things in the entire game. ESPECIALLY if he was trying to use the charge to run away from you.
My suggested rework: Remove -15 max health penalty and replace it with -15 max health penalty, make the ball stun players on hit, players move slower and can't fire their weapon while stunned, even when ubercharged. And make it so that the guillotine crits stunned players for combos.
We all do buddy. We all do. Don't let everyone in the vocal minority of the TF community tell you otherwise, most players would vote to have it back again.
I have some personal Mandela effect where I remember the Sandman removing rage on hit in VSH mode. Apparently it never happened and I'm still confused about it.
When everything's fair, no fun's left. Because you no longer have a video game. You have a sport. And sports are boring. This is why when people in a group leave suggestions, each individual must be checked for mental illness before their opinion should be taken serious. Remember: you did this. Not Fish, *YOU.* I never asked for a Sandman nerf, because I don't bitch and moan everytime I die in a video game.
I don't care what anyone says, before the sandman was murdered, it was balanced. Running the sandman + guillotine was very punishing because of how squishy you became, and you had to give up something reliable like the pistol for 2 recharging projectiles, meaning you weren't nearly as consistent as you would be. 90% of the time when you stunned someone with the baseball, they would be put into the loosing animation, where they could still dodge the guillotine, meaning hitting the crit wasn't always guaranteed. If you were on the receiving end, you could usually dodge the cleaver if you knew what you were doing. If you got crit with the guillotine, then the scout usually just outplayed you. Also, to completely stun them, you had to hit a moonshot, so even then it was really hard to crit them with the guillotine since they were so far away and you didn't usually have enough time to close the gap before they would become un stunned or hit another hill mary. I'd honestly say that hitting both the sandman ball and cleaver is comparable to hitting a market garden in terms of difficulty and practicality, if you were trying for a moving target, considering the fact that you had to hit 2 projectiles on a moving target in short succession. Finally, playing the sniper scout WAS FUN AS HELL and i miss it. :c
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For a buff, I would remove the health penalty, remove the slowing efect and replacing it with a bleeding effect. And I would even decrease the base damage of the bat. Oh, wait...
i would replace the slowing with marked for death, and make the cleaver crit instead of minicrit if you want to bring back the combo, then remove the fan o war
edit: ok he said this in the video lol
KTBM gives the scout a speed boost on ball hit which I think is a fun idea
@BradynLee09 oh. really?
@BradynLee09 good job, you got the joke!
@BradynLee09 no way
In one update Sandman went from good and annoying stunning machine to weapon that is worse than stock bat in most situations.
It was definitely better than good. Preventing people from shooting someone in an fps does wonders for your medic that was getting dove on by a soldier or demo.
The Sandman Cleaver Combo 💔
lol just annoying is underselling it. It was infuriating. Walk around a corner, BAM randomly get stunned for half the round(exageration, but still it felt loooong). And add in the fact that it was The scout melee so if there's a few scouts you've got balls flying around constantly stunning people all the time. Yeh stuns mechanics in an fps are bullshit, like fish says.
Look at you who were once so proud. Go now and never return
What really grinds my ocd gears is how they dont at least update the achievements that were created around the base weapon… that is now entirely different to play.
Another thing to note: A new Demoknight charge cannot be started while under any kind of slow effect.
(Besides the airblast's slow effect. With airblast slow, your air acceleration is 75% slower until landing instead, and this applies to charge as well)
Basically, if I'm hit with a Sandman, my only real option is to try and back off until the slow wears off, or hope I manage to hit the Scout twice. Even if I wanted to do a slower charge, I cannot. But since next to nobody actually uses the Sandman, I never have to worry about it unless it's the Natascha.
The baby face is better at countering demoknights
@@rodri3702you are a problem
@@triceratroytv2292 I have had some encounters where the BFB's speed boost has allowed me to outrun even Eyelander demos.
I’ve had my steam name set to “Buff the sandman” for about 2 years now lol
At 9:43 at got foul Territory which is one of the achievements very few people have
Knowing Valve, you'll probably continue having that name till the servers shut down.
@@ava5030 Nah, tf2 will outlast us all. Thousands of years from now, our ancestors will boot up tf2 using the old 2007 cds, and marvel at how we were so far ahead of our time. ;)
Then they'll find a version with the sandman :(
@@The_whales It's actually possible to get that achievement with the Force-a-Nature as well. You didn't ask, but it's how I (and presumably most of the other few players who have the achievement) got it because the Force-a-Nature is actually usable in casual.
@@allet8107 didn’t know that lmao
Interesting how The Wrap Assassin and The Sandman switched the places from the worst and best melee weapons with a alt fire for scout.
Pretty sure the wrap assasin was the same as is, (excluding hitbox jank) just overshadowed by the sandman.
The Wrap Assassin was never the worst melee.
This exactly
@@DinnerForkTongue It never was in a vacuum, but the opportunity cost of using it over the sandman made it the worst choice
@@Kerubii22
I guess.
If I get a sandman and I have a spare name tag lying around, I’m 100% going to call it “the beisbol” because it’s so fucking funny for no reason.
it is Spanish. Maybe that's why.
people find Spanish funny
@@pancakeperson8905 no, just the way it’s spelled and the way he said it. I didn’t know I it was Spanish even.
Man that's real fckin funny!!!! Would you mind if I save this funny idea?
@@thewoodpeckers655 That's how you refer to the sport in Spanish, to refer to the ball itself, we just call it "Bola de béisbol" or "Pelota de béisbol" wich in English the direct translation would be "Ball of baseball"
@@metalslug55516 The titular ball of baseball from whence baseball deriveth its name.
I can't believe we went from "Why would you use the Wrap Assassin? The Sandman is so much better!"
To "Why would you use the Sandman? The Wrap Assassin is so much better!"
@MrFoxyzin I read it as 5D4 damage and was really confused. (between 5 and 20 damage)
@MrFoxyzin bleed stacks and it is hilariously fun to abuse
@@zookerooni1821 CAN'T TAKE THAT FLAVA
@@justafurrywithinternet317 fellow D&D nerd?
@@justafurrywithinternet317roll for damage.
Sandman + Cleaver combo being forever dead hurts
Now its just the Sadman.
And when the Cleaver combo existed the competitive community called it The Bannedman
Why not top comment
If you want to bring it back, cry us a river
@@deskslam4232 no need to bring it back, thank god i left the game when it all went down in like 2018
@agustin quiroga don't worry guys the update will come out I swear
It’s so crazy how a weapon that used to be able to stun fucking ubered players(and had an achievement for it), went from that, to still pretty much broken, to absolutely useless in the span of about 5 years.
Edit: the baby face’s blaster is also god tier vs demoknights
Valve balancing
That's the power of minorities whining, man
The Forca a nature is my demoknight remover.
@@januszpolak254 10 Valve releases a new interesting weapon
20 It's actually usable and capable of killing
30 People cry salty tears about it, regardless of how much it's changed or nerfed
40 Valve nerfs it into uselessness, and never thinks about it again
50 GOTO 10
I'm actually surprised Valve kept random crits in. Valve should reverse every nerf they've ever done, and create a "No more tears" game mode that's stock only, no random crits.
@@Psytinker Is that a BASIC reference?
Imagine if you could play baseball using the sandman and the atomizer taunt
This sandman can also do the taunt…
wasn't it was listed on wiki as being possible?
Sandman also shares the Atomizer taunt
is this reply section schizophrenic he says in the comment that the sandman can do the taunt
@@pogobod2128 oopsie poopsie
I remember playing TF2 for the first time, this being after Jungle Inferno. One of the first weapons I got from item drops was the Sandman, which I had heard was garbage but I still decided to use as a gag. Then I went to 2fort and, in an act that made me look way more competent than I actually was, managed to slow a lone pursuing demoknight as I got into the enemy intel room. I was then decimated by a sentry nest.
This is a certified Boston moment
On the bright side, you made a Teufort Gibus Engie very happy
I miss pre-jungle inferno sandman so much.
@@Iciclefairysame here. This is why I will never take comp players seriously ever again.
funnily enough, my first weapon drop was a wrap assassin
19:55 This glitch might have to do with the robot previously having an invulnerable condition applied to it as the condition for it wearing off might not apply to the Sandman on some occasions. Could happen from the MVM bots being temporarily ubered if you hit them before they pass the barrier where they begin attacking at their spawn or the frequency of uber medics on some waves.
I was wondering how you commented a day early, totally forgot about the patreon benefits
thanks!
its involved with ubercharges running out, i've seen this happen on players too.
i believe cond 8 (Invulnerability expiration effect) is the reason for this, as you can easily replicate this bug on bots
sv_cheats 1;bot;bot_command all addcond 8
this spawns 1 bot, commands it to addcond 8, and then the effect should be replicated. normal damage still deals damage, but sandman balls and cleavers don't hit, wrap assassin ornaments doesnt apply bleed
If it ever gets it's stun back, I wanna get a strange one and name it _"It's no use"_ and a cleaver *"Take this!"*
Ahh… I like your taste in comedy.
Silver at it again XD
Everyone that kills you is Shadow kicking you in the back
I have an idea for a better balance mechanic:
Basically at close range (0-2,000HU) it slows, at mid range (2,001-8,000HU) it immobilizes (not disable- you can still shoot) for 1 second and allows crit cleavers for 3 seconds, at the furthest possible range it full stuns like pre-nerf, and allows crit cleavers (naturally).
Sure, it'd be annoying, but I think it's a lot more balanced this way.
@@Not_interestEd- I think you don't realise how much 2k Hammer units is. Not even talking about 8k..
Honestly, wrap and clever is pretty much the new sandman clever combo except the enemy dies 1.5 seconds slower
and except enemy can move and shoot while you're using it
Unless during that 1.5 seconds they book it to a health pack or Medic.
Then they're not even gonna feel it, other than being slightly more annoyed than before.
@@Eye_Of_Odin978 If they have 125 health, they'll likely and quickly die to the bleed. 150 to 200? Requires some shots from your primary. 300? They'll likely drop you first and are also most likely to have a Medic with them.
This is coming from someone who uses this combo A LOT. Have a good sense of when that bleed should kill and when it won't.
You forgot about another weapon with full stun mechanics, the Holiday Punch, it’s kinda fair, limited by range, the heavies speed, and critical hits (kind of, guaranteed crits from behind).
It's definitely your fault if a heavy catches you with melee, the Holiday Punch awards good positioning which is something all good melee weapons should do.
*me fighting a HP heavy and continuously jumping so he's just left wearing the worst melee in the entire video game*
Just get rid of random crits on this thing and it will be fine.
That and you can literally spam jump around the Heavy if you want to avoid getting stunned by the Holiday Punch.
Assuming you care that much about not getting stunned.
Honestly, laughing all the way to getting tauntkilled is worth dying over.
@@chrisriverata1917 Random Crits are Fair and Balanced
I think the Sandman is a sleeper hit for Scout 1v1s. It is absolutely soul crushing getting the movement penalty while trying to out-dodge the other scout.
Personally, to keep in theme of baseball and keeping it similar to how it is in concept, I'd make a successful hit give you a speed boost instead of slowing the enemy.
slower holster speed and some kind of damage vulnerability would balance it quite good
@@ironprince72
(+) Alt-fire: Launches a ball that grants a speed boost upon hitting an opponent
(+) Moonshots deal critical damage and greatly extend the speed boost duration
(-) This weapon holsters 30% slower
(-) +20% damage vulnerability from all sources while active
@darthvaderbutwayshittier7054 That seems like a bit powerful. I like the max health penalty as is, balance it so it's powerful but not that powerful.
@@darthvaderbutwayshittier7054Besides a holster speed penalty doesn't affect scout that much and no-one uses their melee for that long
It goes unsaid in the video, but there's another use for the Sandman in MvM.
It can still FULLY Stun Robots on a Moonshot, and because Robots move predictably, It's possible to completely STUNLOCK A Giant (assuming your ball actually does its effects due to the bug that is mentioned).
Got video of it? I wanna see it.
I don't know what's with Valve's... _thing_ for making scout weapons unusable, but it's kinda concerning.
I like how it's the complete opposite for his secondaries.
Valve loves to use TF2 as testground for all their bad game design
Except the stock scattergun, the only scattergun left with 6 bullets in the clip. And they wonder why most scouts only use that 💀
Because stock scout is already very solid, so nerfing weapons doesn't make a huge impact to the class
@@thejedisonic67that’s the whole reason, because it deals the best damage and I like the extra chance of hitting an enemy
4:20 ...excuse me?
Thanks Fish, I can't wait to use your strategy irl to the people!
Btw yes you forgot that the Sandman can still stun robots (even giants) with a moonshot in MvM so here's another reason to buy the "robots killed" strange part
12:52
Sandman cleaver combo is still viable irl
finally someone talks about playing catch with themselves, you can technically play with 2 people because the scout can use other players baseballs
I've rewatched every episode of BWA so many times, hearing new words in Fish's voice feels bizarre.
Hey dont forget that the sandman can also stun the robots in mvm with a nice moonshot!
There is 2 million robots in mvm
Scunt: *hits one sandman shot*
Every other robot: *BUNT SIX EAR RAPE*
4:27 speaking from experience, I presume?
Getting further in the vid, the Bug when the Sandman doesn’t work against a robot or anyone really I believe is caused by them getting Ubercharged. For some reason sometimes when someone gets ubered the sandman ball just doesn’t work on them even after the Uber ends. It’s weird.
took the nerf too far, I guess.
that clip at 1:50 where you hit the soldier with the ball then perfectly whiff both shots either side of him then he kills himself anyways with splash damage while also somehow missing you.... chef's kiss. tf2 perfection
One buff I think could work is if the min and max debuff duration was increased and making the hit enemy highlighted and visible through walls. If valve won't give that to the spy, then scout could use the support tool
5:16 lol @ you tracking the medic with your mouse as you burn to death and he runs by without a care in the world
The Sandman's a good example of how VALVe doesn't quite know how to balance things. When they nerf something, they just sledgehammer it into the ground. Even when something just needs a minor adjustment assuming they get around to it.
Full revert of the sandman. Go ahead laugh at me but i want the pain.
The Sandman is my favorite Scout melee. I feel like just *equiping* it leads to an increase in skill due to having to constantly play with lower HP, and slowing or killing an enemy with The Sandman deals decent psychological damage
And once you’ve gotten all the skill you can swap to the wrap and then BEAT THEM TO DEATH WITH IT. For maximum psychological damage
@@Lh0000 Ow, my psychology.
Why not just use the candy cane then lol
@@Neoniq41 Candy cane only weakens you to explosions and it drops health kits
@@alphonyt7250 You have way less health when going up against explosive classes (which are the most common type of class in casual) then u have with the sandman. At least when u use the lather you can survive a pill or a rocket from mid range, which can't be said for the candy cane.
I think it'd be funny to change the effect to something like "hit players get their game resolution set to 180p for the duration of the effect." So it quasi-blinds people momentarily instead of messing with movement.
I don't think it's technically possible, but it'd be interesting.
it would be very annoying, but it's possible to give a player quasi-blindness in a different way. jarate makes player's view a bit wavy. it would be possible to exaggerate that
You make them play on professional settings?
@@hoonterofhoonters6588 LOL
"Yeah, it was 3 health short before"
-He says with a clip of him having 5 health left
Revert the sandman on the condition that you must headshot the enemy with the ball to stun them then the cleaver combo can work
Tbh, one idea I liked most was rechanging what its design philosophy was:
The Sandman:
(+) Holding right click charges your swing meter, bigger the charge the further your baseball will travel!
- Greater Charge = Greater Damage, to a maximum of 80. Perfect for finishing off classes running away.
- Charging the swing causes Scout to move slower, equivalent of a Huntsman draw.
(+) Max swing causes the baseball to deal minor knockback
(+) Moonshots with the baseball will always minicrit (120 damage)
(-) -50% damage penalty (18 damage per swing)
(-) -15 max health on wearer
(-) 20 second baseball recharge
(?) Cannot swing if there's no baseball
Also, as a dumb feature, when swung at full charge, a sound gets played on the end of the player who swung the bat, you can think of what the sound will be
Isnt that literally the Wrap Assasin's role, the damage-dealing version of the sandman
@@-RandomStranger-Not really since this one has a different charge nechanic and more potential damage at the cost of max health
@@mariustan9275 even then, it's worse than the wrap assasin. You give yourself 110 health for a ball that recharges twice as slow as the sandman, not the wrap assasin which has a 25% faster recharge rate, with the only upside being more damage,although you have to take away scouts best item-his mobility, while having a health debuff, making the ball not worth it most of the time. Lastly, the damage isnt even that far from wrap assasin's, which deals nearly 70 damage if you include bleed, for no charge at all. And if the original creator means it literally when he said you walk at the same speed as a huntsman draw, you slow yourself down by 80%
The new sandman is one of the those weapons that tell vavle wanted to remove, but couldn’t, so they just really neft it
neft
neft
"Good in MvM" is to TF2 weapons as "Big in Japan" is to Bands
I love the scottish resistance, it's my favourite band
Is that a TITS reference???
I didn't even know that the Sandman would Mark for Death targets on a melee swing, despite using it a bit in MVM. Thanks for the information.
1:14 Fish when he tired of the Scorch Shot to the point he doesn't care anymore
0:14 you sound like evil jerma here
17:40 WRONG, robots do infact have souls, as evidenced by the fact that killing them during halloween grants you souls
(Sips coffee)
Why yes, I will risk being mocked by strangers just to revert balance changes like the Sandmam not stunning. Why wouldn't I do that, and then drastically decrease the recharge rates of it and the Guillotine, so Scout gets a limited use and high impact medium to long range combo?
20:05 @FishStickOnAStick If you are wondering about that, I remember seeing an episode of Bug Busters talking about that. If the target has been ubercharged once, for some bizarre reason the ball will just bounce right off them dealing no damage.
I think a full on reversion of The Sandman is warranted (My kink is getting laughed at)
*scout laughing ensues*
about damn time
Man I wish Valve put back the stun effect it would really help with fighting bots
Very nice. I like the idea of making the sandman almost like jarate (except you actually need to aim with it)
The sandman should receive a complete reversal back to how it originally was
no.
no.
yea lol
hit the nail on the head
@@smacznykapec polish have no say in any matter
5:54 is the sandman incarnate. all the buildup, and none of the payof
Ikr
I don't even main scout and I want to see a restoration of the sandman/cleaver combo after playing on a server that reverts it for a bit. The only bs part was that the stun applied at relatively close range.
the bs part is the fact that it stuns at all, but ok
The only bs part was that the stun applied at all ranges, and you oneshot (if you included bleeding) 8 out of 9 classes in the game
@@-RandomStranger- Oneshots aren't an issue as long as they are difficult enough to pull off. If the minimum distance for sandman suns was longer, it wouldn't be so easy.
@@nickenchugger except you stun at all ranges, moonshots simply make the stun insanely long, so no, it is not infact too difficult to pull off
you're still chucking two projectiles at a single person. it's a lot more fair than jarate bushwacka given it takes significantly more skill. and look at that, the fair one got removed while the braindead baby combo got to stay on the long range glass cannon class.
also the sandman still has the full stun on mvm for some reason if you hit a small robot they got the full stun like the old days and if you hit a giants they get locked in place(you can reset the stun by hit another moonshot again)
for some reason if you stun a buster they decide to explode
Being honest, I'd kinda keep the sandman as it is currently, but, add the stun mechanic back, for about three seconds, but ONLY on a moonshot.
All 6 Sandman Scouts still using it "Yeah, Yeah!"
I remember taking the dumbest long range shots with the thing before just for the sound lmao.
There's a small problem with that balance idea: The Fan O'War exists. By putting Mini-Crits with long-range on the Sandman, you've just made the other utterly worthless
As if it isn't already
boston basher and wrap assassin:
you don't loose health when you equip fanowar
@@Anderson-kg5ex lmao that's the best comparison
0:21 going back after 6 years of not playing and wondering why it's not criting
The Mark for Death change on the Sandman was almost too good at one point, being made into a flashy kill montage. Its duration has since been lowered to make it more difficult to followup on.
Doesn't that make the Fan of War kind of pointless?
@@kubaGR8 not necessarily. The shortstop works better at range due to mark duration and since it makes you slightly squishier. Fan of War works better in close quarters and is easier to apply for an extended mark. For the record, we also gave the Fan of War a faster switch speed so its better for its purpose too.
@@ShakerSilver Didn't FSoaS also do another ep on the Fan of War where... basically it was just kind of pointless to apply the mark when most of the time you could just meatshot the enemy twice and get a similar htk?
It does fill out the parallel of Boston Basher/Wrap Assassin and Sandman/Fan of War, though. Melee bleed/ranged bleed, melee marked for death/ranged marked for death.
Bullied a crit hacking skull cutter demo knight with this strat, thanks fish
As unbalanced and un-fun as being hit by the sandman's old stun was, it was thematically fantastic. The amount of voice lines, related achievements, and just being a lil shit was perfectly on-brand for Scout. Unfortunately, even if they make it balanced, make it better, make it insanely overpowered, it doesn't matter. It will never be as on-brand imo. Nothing will surpass how thematically appropriate the Boston slugger hitting someone halfway across the map with a baseball hard enough to make them stand still is.
Truthfully, I would prefer the stun mechanic to return (though I have a feeling that would change after getting hit with a single stun lol) because of how fun it was to see and perform. Given TF2's more competitive nature nowadays, though, I doubt many peeps share my sentiment.
Pretty sure casual players hated being stunned just as much.
@@mariustan9275 Well, yeah. I said as much. “As unbalanced and un-fun as being hit by the sandman’s old stun was,”
My argument was that it’s impossible to balance something like that while also making it thematically appropriate and fun to use for the Sandman.
@@xxmlgdoodxx Yeah makes sense. I mean sandman is even a mythological figure which put people to sleep, AKA stun. So yeah it would be impossible.
Well at that point, why not make a server where all the unbalanced and op weapons are back to its glory? Tide turner + half zatoichi, old loch n load,original Natasha, original Axtinguisher, and classic ambasador
I usually dislike your balance suggestions but I think you nailed it this time. Impactful, fun, and brings back a combo in a less bullshit manner.
If you don't like demonights then just use the force a nature
I’m just glad I got to enjoy the original sandman, it was busted as hell and needed to change but damn it was so fun
Pretty sure the only scout weapon left is the Fan o’ war
aside from mvm the fan o war is worse than the sun on a stick. even if they manage to hit someone to mark them, they would’ve killed that person already even with the crit a cola
If a bot takes damage before they drop down (and then get ubered), the Sandman ball will bounce off for the rest of their life. This applies in base game to, if you hit a previously-Ubered player with the ball, it bounces. Only resets when they die or change classes. After Breakfast's scout bugs video covers this.
The marked for death buff is a neat idea, but I think it makes it too similar to the Wrap Assassin, since now both of them fill the same roll of "Hit man with your balls in the balls for more damage", the extra damage now coming in 2 flavors, bleed or mini crits. Long story short mini-crit am fun but makes it from a stock reskin to a wrap reskin.
I mean mark for death is generally more powerful but you have a point. Maybe add a state to the cleaver to do more damage on marked enemies, maybe like 100 to incentivize somethjng.
A suggested rework, is to make the sandman's ball delete a projectile on contact, but when it does delete something, it is also removed. So, you can stop arrows, cause pills, rockets, and stickies to explode at a safe distance. In exchange you suffer a damage penalty with the weapon.
Just revert it to how it was before Jungle Inferno, it was fine. It's a casual game and always will be. Comp players ruined a lot of fun weapons before Valve stopped doing balancing.
Hell no, doesn't matter that this is casual, the old Sandman was boring and obnoxious, and also unfair.
@@twinzzlers Unfair how? You were hit with a small projectile by a weaker version of the Scout and you were punished in some way, and he was rewarded?
@JeffarryLounder Your ability to actually fight back was stolen from you by an easy to land disposable ball that would allow the Scout to follow up with another easy to land and disposable projectile that would crit you while also causing bleed damage, ONTOP of dealing more damage than a melee hit.
The only people who are upset about that garbage getting ground up into paste are Scout mains who rely on cheap crutches to get their kills.
@@twinzzlers Mate I could consistently topscore back when this weapon was still viable, and using it over the older version atomizer was a straight downgrade. Not only were you making yourself more vulnerable, but all the time spent trying to get hits on sandman balls and cleavers would often get you killed in contrast to if you were just using pure hitscan. Calling it a "crutch" is a blasphemous example of you knowing little about how the weapon used to really function in game. You just see "stunned players" and assume it was the worst thing in the world.
The old sandman/ cleaver combo was just an alternative playstyle for Scout that put more emphasis on projectiles for a predominantly-hitscan class with a neat little combo that Valve added to encourage skilled Scouts to actually pick it up and utilise it. When Valve killed the sandman, all they did was ruin a fun alternative playstyle most Scouts would go to when they got bored of the standard hitscan-type playstyle. And in the same update, they borderline-buffed the natascha which IS a stupid weapon in contrast to the sandman by its spammability and hitscan mechanism. That's right, not only did they remove the Scout's version of counterplay to revved Heavies with nataschas, they buffed it right after too with their buff on all miniguns.
@JeffarryLounder I was litteraly playing back then, and you know what I remember? Every scout using it, and using it to great success. Cope some more, the old Sandman was bullshit.
The Holiday Punch still has the most powerful stun effect in the game and most people sleep on it. The fact that you can just roll a random crit against an ubered player to instantly ruin an uber push is fucked. And since you're the Heavy, you're going to be dealing a metric fuckton of damage anyway, so you're pretty much going to instantly hit that 50% melee critrate threshold. So, if you're ubercharged and get too close to a Holiday Punch Heavy, you most likely have a 50% chance to get stunned *on each melee swing from them* and for the uber to be wasted.
In my opinion sandman stats pre jungle inferno should be back, but with more dowsides to balance it, or just make Flying Guillotine crit on stunned enemys again lmao
No, unfun as fruck to play agaisnt
@@pogobod2128 depends, it should have some more debuffs etc. but it's still fun mechanic
If you want the old combo I don't see why mark for death would be all that different, especially if you add something like mini crits turn to crits on the guillotine or something.
0:40 ragdoll sniper judo kick
Man, I think the speed and mobility is the greatest strength Demoknight's got going for him, and the most fun part of him, along with the gradual power rewards of collecting heads. Removing that from him would make him so much more boring in my opinion.
I'd say his speed and health are adequately balanced for by the fact that _you can just shoot him._ He's melee only, hardly a power class or anything.
you cant just shoot him when he has speed close to the scouts' and can charge. the problem with him and the kunai is that these weapons make a good player suffer bc his team mates are bad. it's unfair when you are punished with having to fight very difficut enemy bc a few of your team mates got killed at the other side of the map
@@smacznykapec You can, though.
The charge can only go in one direction and has a cooldown, and one can certainly shoot him when he's got similar speed to a scout, since one can also shoot scouts.
I'm not saying he's horribly weak or anything, but there's a reason comp players don't just run Demoknight all the time. There are other, more viable ways to play.
And I don't get the "punished for teammates being bad" argument. I might be misunderstanding you, but in a team game, if any teammate dies for any reason, you are at greater risk of defeat. That's in no way exclusive to demoknight.
@@sirreginaldfishingtonxvii6149 but he can run away with that speed and health he has and wait for the charge
@@smacznykapec Or, alternatively, you can shoot him to make him unable to run anywhere. He's got strengths, but he's also got very clear weaknesses.
I see where you're coming from, but you can use the arguments you are to argue that any class in the game to be the most powerful. "Scout is impossible to hit with his mobility", "heavy has so much health and raw damage output he's unkillable", etc. etc.
Demoknight clearly isn't more powerful than many other classes and playstyles in the game, among which I'd count *regular* demo (with his stickybombs being widely considered to be one of the most powerful tools in TF2). Demoknight has strong horizontal mobility and survivability, but severely lacks range and versatility, and struggles heavily against knockback. I wouldn't like to see him lose what is in my opinion everything that makes him fun to both play as and against (his mobility).
Like I said, there's a reason why people don't run him in comp. There are stronger options, even just for Demoman as a class.
@@sirreginaldfishingtonxvii6149 his weakness is that he doesn't always have max heads but the problem is that when he has he is arguably the strongest until he dies and it's a bit unfair having to play against him when he's so strong just bc your team mate are bad or made some mistakes
14:09
I have no idea why Valve designed a sub class around TF2 melee jank
They should make it so the Sandman's ball puts a visual swirling effect on the screen of someone it hits, creating that same sort of struggle that the original version pitched without actually removing the ability of a target to shoot back, if their aim is good enough
First time I've ever heard anyone cry about the Eyelander lmao
I mean, it is quite the meta for a LONG time, it almost always has overshadowed the other options
Sand man idea: knocking the weapon in your hands out of your hands forcing you to either fight the scout with your secondary or chase the primary on the ground
Idea done in Fistful Of Frags with the Brass Knuckles and EWWWWWWWWW IT'S AWFUL TO FIGHT AGAINST.
Contender for best perk in the game btw
What if you change it so they can't pick the weapon up for a couple of seconds? That way you implement the distance mechanic in
Yes but the game would implode if you did that to a Demo Knight
@@godofmediocrity7582Maybe it would knock his shoes off
Oh the Sandman, how I miss the you that you used to be.
6:08 *the beizbul*
As a person who has never played tf2 in their life, bring back the old sandman.
why are you watching this video then? or a better question would be, why haven't you played tf2 yet?
@@smacznykapec 1 because entertainment, 2 I don't have a PC
@@smacznykapec and I didn't realize that only people who played tf2 were allowed to watch tf2 videos
@@smacznykapec i used to watch tf2 videos all the time before i sat down and played the game
@@starmaker0556 i'm not saying you're not allowed. it just suprised me so i asked
I vote for a complete reversal of the sandman stun. Yes, I am a salty scout main who loved this weapon to bits when it was still good; but that is besides the point. It was not overpowered, just annoying.
oh yeah fucking over every class at any range even if there ubered, win any fight ever and completely remove any classes ability to SHOOT IN A FIRST PERSON SHOOTER and finally instantly kill a light class with the cleaver.
@@Pyrothepyro1you forgot to mention the fact that all of this comes from the fastest class in the game, that can double jump and whose only deterrent from getting close is if you have a sentry next to you
@@Pyrothepyro1 For one the uber stun got removed after some time and didn't exist before Jungle Inferno.
For two "win any fight ever" tells me you probably never played with the sandman like ever.
For three, yes! That was the point of the weapon. Hit someone with a hard-to-hit small-sized projectile that would temporarily take away their ability to use a weapon. It functions like any other mechanic in the game and is inherently a fair mechanic. If you hit the enemy with the ball, you get rewarded for it. That is the basic design philosophy of quite-literally ALL FPS games.
ok yes i have not used the old sandman bc i was not there, but first you said a FULL reversion meaning the uber effect too. second off, yes you will not win ANY fight like if a sniper shoots you but you are scout you can still win those very up close fights which are the only place the sandman does not excel at, and third, no? it is not inherently fair to turn off your foes ability to fight back (mostly) before they get to react. also what do you mean ALL FPS games? name one other (fair) fps mechanic where by hitting a projectile that you always have at your disposal unless used that on hit REMOVES THERE ABILITY TO FIGHT BACK and hinders their movement (also you are the fastest class) . i do understand that the current sandman is complete dogwater but reverting it would just be a bad idea.@@JeffarryLounder
@@Pyrothepyro1 So let me get this straight: you never even played with the old sandman stun... once? And you're acting like you know what it's capable of?
This ALWAYS happens. For some reason, every person I ever argue with on here that says the sandman is bad never even played with it before. How can you be so sure to judge a weapon as overpowered without even playing with it once?
The sandman's initial 2009 release form was overpowered, no doubt about that. Then it was nerfed so you could still move unless you were moonshot. That was the version of the sandman we were left with for 8 long years, which nobody complained about until 2015 rolled by and a hate train for the weapon erupted due to the growing competitive influence over TF2; which was a disgrace to put it very lightly since competitive ruined the old feel and style of TF2 completely with matchmaking and ridiculous anti-fun balance changes. Basically, Valve pandered to the competitive community in MyM, which was regarded as one of the worst updates for TF2 of all time, and then even further in Jungle Inferno. Then when they realised it was all pointless and nobody liked the fact they were killing the soul of the game by removing iconic features, they turned tail and left the game in its current state til this day.
i think the sandman sums up the scout perfectly: weak as a fart yet super annoying and loves his ball
Ball fondlers
I miss the stun mechanic, it was the best way to stop an uberpair that wasn’t air blast. Damn you competitive players!
Casual players also hated it. It wasn't just competitive players.
I think the Sandman would be an okay sidegrade if they removed the slowdown altogether and instead just made it a ball that does like 40 damage on impact. Something as simple as being able to start a fight with 40 damage done to an enemy might make some people happy. And if that's not enough, then they could have the scout be hyped from succesfully landing balls, by increasing his movespeed for a small duration. That would make it versatile for closing the gap or getting away.
And for the sake of the Moonshot achievement, landing a max distance shot should still stun the enemy like it previously did. Also because it's a funny gimmick.
Bro i miss the old sandman so much
1:17 It's also worth noting that both these weapons also apply significant knockback when they stun, so really the stun just amounts to severely reduced air control, kind of like what airblast used to do.
Whereas on the Scorch Shot getting stunned amounts to instant death for light classes and on the Sandman it means being severely slowed for a bit (unless you're a Heavy, in which case it does literally nothing), neither of which are fun.
For the last time, scout is not JUST a support class in MVM, but a combat one too!
Scout has a good combat ability, but not nearly as good, as soldier, demo, heavy or engie. Even sniper can outdps him, so he is more of the support role with decent dps
19:57 A note on the stun/slow not working, that was part of an old nerf.
The stun used to work on Ubers, but that's bullshit. So now Ubered enemies are immune. But something, something, Spaghetti Code, enemies remain immune until the Medi-Beam breaks. It's a niche but known bug.
As for why MVM robots do it.... Actually! As I think about it, it probably has to do with the hidden Uber before they drop down. If it's triggered, they become Ubered/immune. And w/o a Medi-Beam to break, that stun immunity might just linger permanently. Considering how the game tends to run, that's probably it.
I personally would've been completely fine with it just without the health penalty, not every weapon has to be "good", we can just say that it's a "direct upgrade" from stock like the 3rd degree.
As long as I'm not in anymore sandman/ cleaver frags, I'm fine.
I think the full stun (sandman cleaver combo) should make a return, but only on max range baseball shots.
The problem with that is it would still be so incredibly situational and rare, people would still refuse to use the sandman. Moonshots were rare to hit. The best way you could get them was by throwing the baseball across the map at the start of the game to an area where the enemy team would be around (since start of round they would be packed together more than later on). And even then they would oftentimes be so far away you couldn't make it past their team to them in time anyway. Effectively it'd just be another useless gimmick in TF2.
@@JeffarryLounderI’d happily take the stun on moonshots so that they actually feel special again instead of reverting the Jungle Inferno changes. With that, the Scout can at least somewhat counter Snipers and Scorch Shot spammers
All they had to do was make the ball effect be like the scared effect. Not stunning and immobilizing the enemy, but making them dazed and confused while still being able to move.
That was one of the nerfs it got once and it was still considered frustrating
Apparently I'm the observant one in this fanbase,
But he didn't fly at the start from the scorch shot. (Shocker, I know)
There was a Scottish Resistance sticky. See if you can spot it now that I mentioned it.
(1:11)
Edit: I mean, the lack of awareness does make sense if you think about it, FSOAS being a Sniper main and all
no I think the scorch shot made him do an entire jump map in 1 hit
The old sandman would be balanced if you just had to deal damage to get the ball and cant pick your ball back up.
Maybe the Natascha is a stupidly designed weapon, but stopping a Demoknight in mid-charge and forcing him to stand there helplessly while you shred him is one of the most priceless things in the entire game. ESPECIALLY if he was trying to use the charge to run away from you.
13:49 nice name, medic.
My suggested rework: Remove -15 max health penalty and replace it with -15 max health penalty, make the ball stun players on hit, players move slower and can't fire their weapon while stunned, even when ubercharged. And make it so that the guillotine crits stunned players for combos.
I miss the old Sandman so much...
We all do buddy. We all do. Don't let everyone in the vocal minority of the TF community tell you otherwise, most players would vote to have it back again.
@@JeffarryLounderThen why were there so many forums back then where people hated the stun
I have some personal Mandela effect where I remember the Sandman removing rage on hit in VSH mode. Apparently it never happened and I'm still confused about it.
When everything's fair, no fun's left.
Because you no longer have a video game. You have a sport. And sports are boring.
This is why when people in a group leave suggestions, each individual must be checked for mental illness before their opinion should be taken serious.
Remember: you did this. Not Fish, *YOU.* I never asked for a Sandman nerf, because I don't bitch and moan everytime I die in a video game.
How about blaming the devs for implementing the dumbest nerfs possible instead of playerbase?
This is such a bad take it's insane
Casual reminder that people started calling the sandman broken *after* the guillotine was added.
what рills did you take while making this comment
Funny how when i was listening to metalicas enter sandman this video just came out
I miss the cleaver combo. I want it. I need it!
I don't care what anyone says, before the sandman was murdered, it was balanced. Running the sandman + guillotine was very punishing because of how squishy you became, and you had to give up something reliable like the pistol for 2 recharging projectiles, meaning you weren't nearly as consistent as you would be. 90% of the time when you stunned someone with the baseball, they would be put into the loosing animation, where they could still dodge the guillotine, meaning hitting the crit wasn't always guaranteed. If you were on the receiving end, you could usually dodge the cleaver if you knew what you were doing. If you got crit with the guillotine, then the scout usually just outplayed you. Also, to completely stun them, you had to hit a moonshot, so even then it was really hard to crit them with the guillotine since they were so far away and you didn't usually have enough time to close the gap before they would become un stunned or hit another hill mary. I'd honestly say that hitting both the sandman ball and cleaver is comparable to hitting a market garden in terms of difficulty and practicality, if you were trying for a moving target, considering the fact that you had to hit 2 projectiles on a moving target in short succession. Finally, playing the sniper scout WAS FUN AS HELL and i miss it. :c