Home Editorial Balance TF2 is Overpowered: The OP argument as applied to the TF2 classes

Overpowered is a word thrown this way and that by angry or misinformed gamers of all stripes. Sometimes the argument is legitimate, other times fueled only by anger. While almost any mechanic, character, move, color, or size of diapers might be considered OP by someone, here I’m going to break down some popular ones as they “apply” to the nine Team Fortress 2 classes.

The Scout: Shotguns are OP

Anyone who’s played an FPS knows how powerful shotguns are. One shot killing machines from miles and miles away that give no time to react. When fighting a shotgunner, you just sort of, you know, die. And Valve had the gall to make the main shotgun class fast, and they gave him a double jump. I mean, weren’t the jumpers bad enough when they only had a single jump? Now they can come from every angle imaginable, they’re faster than every other class in the game, and the model is the smallest on offer? It’s like trying to hit a gnat blindfolded, and the gnat has six shells of buckshot and a New York accent. So OP.

The Soldier: Rockets are OP

So shotguns are stupid, right? Yeah, take a rocket to the face and say that again. Play any shooter since Quake and you’ll know just how stupid OP rockets are. Oh, and he can jump with them and not blow up himself? And he can skate across the ground and move faster than the frickin’ shotgun scout? Yeah, broken as shit. On top of it all, you don’t even have to actually aim at your victims. Hit the general vicinity of anyone and BAM! Time’s up, they’re dead.

The Pyro: Fire is OP

What else do I have to say. This guy/girl has a flamethrower. You’ve heard George Carlin’s take on those things, right? It doesn’t matter how many deaths a noobie pyro racks up before he does something useful, you can’t fight the flamethrower. And the soldier’s rockets? Pfft, airblast, son! Get at me. I hear you now, “But pyros don’t airblast. W+M1 for LYFE!” Oh, have you died of afterburn lately, kid. They can get rid of that too. They’ll shoot a wad of propane-laced air at you, and suddenly the fire doesn’t get worse. It goes the fuck away.

The Demoman: Spam is OP

Back to explosives are we, now? Well, you thought four rockets and a shotgun backup was bad. Try four noob tubes and eight sticky, remotely detonated balls of broken ass shit. Are there enemies in the general area but otherwise out of your line of sight? Lob a few pills and some stickies over that there ledge, mah boy. You’ll light up the killfeed with at least three gibbed and angry twenty-five year olds. People call for a demoman nerf all over the internet. I say we just take away his guns and pop a bomb in his belly. His only attack kills him but does nothing else. OP no more.

The Heavy: Spraying is OP

He’s big, fat, and Russian. He’s got a big, fat, Russian gun with 800 bullets in it, and they’re all aimed at you. He’s got too much HP to go with that girth, and if you thought W+M1 was bad with the pyro, wait till you meet a heavy in close quarters. Gun on gun, you’re done son. Really, the heavy’s worse than the flame-bitch pyro. He doesn’t even have to move to kill you. Just hold down that mouse button and let the rounds fly. Oh, and he’s got an insta-heal ham fucking sandwich if you do manage to do any damage at all. I don’t call that balanced. I call shenanigans.

The Engineer: Camping is OP

A class built around camping? Really Valve, that’s just low. And not only does the engie camp worse than a 12-year-old CoD n00b, they give him an aimbot sentry with a rocket launcher. Just give him the code to your game, Valve, and he’ll build his own damn aimbot. Plus, he can heal the thing by whacking it with a wrench, and he’s got a “return to camp spot” teleporter and a “you can’t kill me” box that gives ammo and health? Where’s the marshmallows and chocolate, Valve. I mean, come on!

The Medic: Regeneration is OP

He can’t kill you, sure, but you can’t kill anything within a hundred feet of the bastard. He doesn’t deploy health packs, he does stab people with needles to help them. He has a magical beam of happiness and bubbles that undo all the hurt you put on his friends. To top it off, he can make anyone invincible it seems like whenever he wants to. And if you do manage to make it through the wall of meat that is his team, he has Wolverine’s healing factor. So unbelievably OP.

The Sniper: Sniping is OP

It’s not Call of Duty sniping. It’s worse. You can make it do more damage if you camp more, and the class has so little health he has to just stare at you from miles away, waiting. At least in CoD snipers have to run around in people’s faces like everyone else in the server. And don’t start talking about how “Oh, he has to get a headshot to do real damage!” ’cause if you’ve ever been bodyshotted by a Sydney Sleeper at 100 percent charge, or any rifle for that matter, then I don’t think you’ve license to talk. Plus, the Kukri’s crit percentage is like, I don’t know, every time he swings it. So close range isn’t an issue either really. Then there’s the piss, but I’ll leave that for another time.

The Spy: Knifing is OP

Marathon, Lightweight, Commando. Oh wait, no, it’s called a Disguise Kit and a Backstab. At least with the CoD knifers you see them coming. But no, Valve thought the Spy should be able to blend in. So the ten pyros on my team might now all be spies for all I know. The fact that that one’s burning means nothing to me. Everyone is a spy, and every single death I’ll have as a sniper, engineer, demoman, heavy, and scout is because someone, somewhere, thought I was a spy, or someone near me was. And really, does the knife HAVE to do six times the amount of health to kill? Would triple have been too much? Even double? Overkill, overpowered.

 

14 replies to this post
  1. To be fair, Stickies are somewhat imbalanced (which does not mean the same thing as overpowered) in that, for most non-tournament settings, there’s literally no reason to ever use anything else. They deal a crapton of damage, can lay traps, are ready to detonate as soon as they arrive at your target’s location, and there’s a ton of them both in your clip and in your reserve.

    I’m not saying they should be restricted to purely camping the same spot as every demo ever already does, but we’ve all been on the receiving end of a sticky spammer before, and it’s nothing but annoying.

    • Of all of these, I think the demo is less a joke than actual complaining. Demo is the only class that could probably use tweaking, but I don’t see it happening at any point in any future period. The best we can ask for is for server admins to limit the amount of demos per team, and hope the Pocket Medic doesn’t Kritz them every other second.

  2. This article was a real eye opener. I now clearly see that Saxton Hale desperately needs a buff. I mean, all he has is a moustache, hands and a British voice. Valve must address this serious issue ASAP.

  3. Ok first off, the scout: His scattergun is indeed a powerful weapon and can two shot most classes, but there is another weapon that can also do that, the shotgun, a secondary weapon for most classes and engineer’s primary, and it is better in the hands other other classes, heck it’s also good a mid range, the scattergun is crap at mid range at most, so it makes sense that he’s fast, but he can be easily taken down, the scout also has 125 health, even when he’s fast, he’s weak against other classes as well.

    The soldier: Ok I know where your coming from with rockets but anyways the standard rocket luncher’s projectile is kinda slow as well as other rockets (the charged cow mangler shot is much slower) but the direct hit but it has a crap splash radius, and for rocket jumping, yes you have more moblity but it will cost you some health (less with gunboats).

    The Pyro: Now the pyro, even with the airblast and the afterburn, the flamethrower has limited range, aka it’s weakness, you can pot shot the pyro with range, just don’t let him come close, if he has a flare gun like weapon, try to dodge it, he should be a problem at mid-long range, and if you think afterburn is a tough thing to go through, bleeding is it’s more powerful cousin, just be thankful that it’s fire, not bleeding.

    The Demoman: Ok yes grenade spamming is annoying, but with the lock in load, not much of a problem in that case, and when someone is nade spamming at a door, I walk away and try not to get hit.

    The heavy: the heavy is just a generic bullet shooter, and here’s a tip that is with the soldier and demoman and the pyro: don’t get in front of him, he’s a dangerous class (more dangerous with the sandvich), but he’s slow (even slower when he revs up his minigun) and that should be a problem and you can pot shot his guy from mid-long range, lot of health, yes, slow, yes, op, don’t seem like it.

    The Engineer: Now this rustles my jimmies, but 2 things 1. I know where you getting the camping idea, but really camping is just hiding in a location that has little to no tactical purpose what so ever, but engineer is a defense class, meaning he can defend points, intel, things like that, if they’re engies using sentries to defend a point or intel, I’m not like “YOU F*CKING CAMPERS!!” I know that they’re defending a point, and I respect that, at the same time think of a way to kill them, besides, heres somethings that can counter engineer nests: Soldiers, demos, heavies (under ubercharge), scouts potshoting, spy sappers, lots of things. 2. ” A class built around camping? Really Valve, that’s just low.” VALVE DIDN’T COME UP WITH TEAM FORTRESS! IF YOU WANT TO BLAME SOMEONE, BLAME THE PEOPLE WHO FIRST MADE THE QUAKE TEAM FORTRESS MOD (1997), THEY CAME UP WITH ENGINEER! VALVE MODIFIED IT!!

    The medic: They are needed to keep the team alive and running, ubercharge is ten seconds, want to prevent that? Then play as engineer with a Promson 6000, it drains medic ubercharge by 10% And they can destroy sentry nests with uber with certain classes, so yeah.

    The sniper: Now camping again, sniping and camping are different, the sniper doesn’t sit in doorways or any of that crap, they can be wide open in a space, visible to nearly every one, and there is a dot that appears where your aiming at, so when your not careful, the enemy can see where you are, the charged shots, a normal bodyshot is -50 HP per hit, normal is 150, and charged shots are using for out and open “spraying'” heavies, and rocketing soldiers, “spamming” demoman and pyros, sydney sleepier? Ok yes, but it’s not that bad, kukri crits every single time he swings? Ok that’s just going to far, jarate? Helps him become a support class better, helping him teammates.

    The spy: Disguise kits? Only use is to trick engineer “aimbots” now a days. Cloak? Ok but you can’t use your weapons, backstab? Rewarding if you sneak up on someone, but if you hate it that bad, say hello to the razorback, it stuns a spy that is trying to backstab you, making him use his revolver, at least you can escape from him or fight back if he’s stunned, and spies can’t touch scouts that easily, hou-long heaters can expose spies for your team if he a temps to backstab when you rive it up, or if your pyro, spy check often. That’s all.

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