Gold Belt [Heavy] [Primary]

[warped girder]

"Wrestling humans and bears has taught you a thing or two"

replaces primary with a giant gold belt that's around heavy's waist
+25% max HP on wearer (about 75)
+20% movement speed on wearer
+30% melee swing speed
+everytime you get a melee kill get a speed boost of 10% for 7 seconds (can stack)
-no primary

I like being a melee only heavy so I think there should be a primary for fat scouts and fists only heavies.
I know this is probably not balanced, but imo would be fun

[thorn raptor]

Wrestlers have belts not medals

[dark vigil]

No subclasses please and thank you

[crystal charm]

“I like being a melee Subclass.”

Can’t wait for Fat Scout to crawl out of this one.

[warped girder]

Ah sorry yes, I will change that

[warped girder]

I’m hoping for that too

[warped girder]

Why? Imo they are the best part of the game where you can play your way

Gold Belt [Heavy] [Primary]

[jagged vale]

subclasses emerge from interactions with sidegrades, forcing it makes them restrictive and a nightmare to balance

[warped girder]

Hm good point

[jagged vale]

demoknight for example is basically entirely a switch due to almost nothing that really allows you to use just one part of the kit on its own

[thorn raptor]

i think it is too focused on just the melee aspect and making heavy this fast kinda ruins his character also fat scouts would be very powerful with this

[thorn raptor]

half the melees and all the shields can be used for normal demoman

[jagged vale]

technically yes, but the shields are weak and clumsy without the booties, meanwhile the 75% draw amd holster penalty on the swords plus stuff like the scotsman's reduced speed or the halfzat's honorbound means that hybriddemo is very hard to reasonably pull off

[dark vigil]

The shields and swords on their own are pretty neat weapons

Using them with stock is very interesting

[thorn raptor]

if you struggle with the shields without booties that is simply just a skill issue

[jagged vale]

???

[thorn raptor]

and i rarely find the draw and holster on the melees a problem

[jagged vale]

im not saying i struggle with then particularly

im saying that all of demoknight is specifically designed to only be usable with demoknight

[thorn raptor]

no not really

some weapons like the booties and persian are

not all of them

but the persians downside is just straight up shit design wise anyways

the claidemhor, eylander and scottsman can all be utilized in normal demoman gamplay

[jagged vale]

-booties themselves only get the speedboost with a shield, i know why this was done but still worth it to highlight, and the charge on kill only interacts with shields
-shields are the most self contained bit, though id consider them still a bit restrictive to truly be a usable option over stickies if you're going stock demo otherwise due to the turn radius being shit
-swords all have the absurd 75% draw-holster penalty which make them clumsy at best to use if it isnt your only weapon, it's part of why the halfzat on solly is used almost never
-most of the swords have downsides that mostly impact you if you aren't running the booties, the eyelander's health penalty, the scotsman's speed penalty, the halfzat's honorbound, claymore's and persian's dependence on charge etc

like even if you can reasonably use them without each other the game is screaming at you to run them all together

[thorn raptor]

1. correct like i said
   2)they are pretty good if you are actually good at pipes unlike most demo players and the turn radius is only a problem if you use it wrong

3 and 4 are just plain wrong as example vorobey literally uses eyelander on demo and that to great effect the draw and holster penaltys are barely an issue

i am a demo main i would know

[jagged vale]

i really couldnt care that a specific very skilled player happens to be good at something, that refutes none of my points and is just saying "you have a skill issue shut up"

a sidegrade should not require a sidegrade to be usable or be incompatible practically with stock period, even if it's technically or feasibly usable on stock

[thorn raptor]

my guy more than half of the "demoknight weapons" literally are usable without any others. i never disagreed with the ones like persian and the booties but every other weapon works perfectly fine

[jagged vale]

no, they don't

as ive said why and how they don't

[thorn raptor]

as example: yes the honorbound only affects demoman but it is still a good melee for normal demoman

healing 50% of your health will always be good on a melee

[jagged vale]

honestly the bigger problem is the draw/holster penalty

[thorn raptor]

just because you don't do well when using them outside demokngith doesn't mean they aren't good for demoman

solar very often runs grenade launchers with shields and i don't think i need to tell you that he is very good at it

[jagged vale]

i mean im not going to continue this conversation if your only arguments is "skill issue" and "this absurdly skilled demoman can use it why can't you"

[thorn raptor]

you are literally saying "i don't think they are good for demoman" while other people do very well with it

what else am i supposed to say to that

[jagged vale]

actually refute my points instead of just pointing to a tf2 celebrity like that's an argument

[thorn raptor]

1. the booties i agree they are designed just to be for demoknight
2. yes you have lower turn but you still get massive damage resistances and hight mobility that doesn't cost health + a 195 dmg melee attack

about the comment about soldier never using it. that is more because he is slow and has no trouble defending himself up close and if you need health there already are 2 other weapons that do exactly that for less risk

and again for the downsides for only demoman. out of the non demoknight weapons the only one that falls into that catagory is the half zatoichi. the eyelander and skullcutter have the same downsides on both

[jagged vale]

"out of the non demoknight weapons"?

sorry can you rephrase

[thorn raptor]

the ones that require a shield

persian and claid

claid can still be used in hybrid knight tho

[jagged vale]

yeah cause you have the shield

[jagged vale]

wait wait the eyelander and the skullcutter doesnt have the same downside ?

[thorn raptor]

sry punctuation

[jagged vale]

as in, similar downsides or?

[thorn raptor]

that it almost only affect demoman

as you said they did in that statement above

[jagged vale]

ahh

well no my point is that theyre significantly reduced by the boots

[thorn raptor]

25 health is painful for both

the only actually bad thing it does is one shot from uncharged hs

but when you get a single kill it's already gone

[jagged vale]

the speed debuff is offset by having the shield in the first place as well as the booties' speed increase, the health penalty just brings you down to 175 which admittedly is a small price to pay for the best melee in the game

[thorn raptor]

eyelander is not the best melee

it is the best for pub stomping

the best demokngiht melee is easily zatoichi

[jagged vale]

but it's worth noting since again that makes it incentivize you away from equipping just it

[jagged vale]

im operating from a casual level so it's a close 1st/2nd

depends what you're doing admittedly

[thorn raptor]

when one team is much worse than the other ofc you gonna do better with a snowball weapon

[jagged vale]

i mean the snowball weapons in general are badly designed but that's a seperate topic

[thorn raptor]

if you judge a weapon on how good it is based on unfair ballanced teams idk what your idea of ballance is

but when you collect heads for normal demoman you might even be more powerful that a full health demoknight

higher risk higher reward

[thorn raptor]

and that is just an opinion

[jagged vale]

n, no it's how they're designed

[jagged vale]

im not??

dude

[thorn raptor]

well that you said "i was operating on a casual level" made it sound like to me you were refering to how easy it is to pubstomp in casual due to lackluster teams

[jagged vale]

im operating from the level of a 12v12 match with no class limits with players that on average vary the range from "moderately incompetent" to "surprisingly cracked", i know that the halfzat is meta in comp

[thorn raptor]

halfzat is meta when the teams are ballanced. not stricktly comp

when the enemy team is competent you will rarely get many heads

[jagged vale]

well not really, if it's not dustbowl you can pick off enough people to gain more benefits than the halfzat

really depends if you want more multikills or killstreaks

[thorn raptor]

dustbowl is a clusterfuck that abomination shouldn't be brought up in ballance

easy to spawncamp, spam, backcap etc

just a mess

[jagged vale]

well it's part of the game so idk if it should be excluded, my point is that if you have enough flanks then theyre both usable

[thorn raptor]

yea ofc it's usable but when the team is competent you will usually not get many heads or at least you get 6 heads in the entire round bc you sit in the back so you don't loose your heads bc it's too risky

[jagged vale]

not necessarily? maybe i played too much spy but being confident usually nets me more

[thorn raptor]

spy doesn't really have sth comparable to eyelander

[jagged vale]

well no but my point is that ive learned to be more confident than not

-# though kinda unironically demoknight functions as a better spy sometimes

[thorn raptor]

well the problem is when you go in with full head demoknight you risk the chance with loosing then and the more competent the enemy team is the higher the risk is so you will end up being more passive. keeping your heads for long but not doing much in return

people who are actually good don't struggle with dealing with a demoknight in most cases

[jagged vale]

it feels like we're going off into a tangent

[thorn raptor]

....yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

https://tenor.com/view/dead-my-honest-reaction-damn-skull-skeleton-gif-15885937969029652188

[jagged vale]

backtracking a bit, demoknight is poorly designed because it's screaming at you to turn it on or off which makes his sidegrade's design poor since most of them presume you'll be running booties and shield which at best makes them clumsy to use on normal demoman
backtracking even more, subclasses are mostly discovered rather than specifically designed, having One sidegrade that beomes a subclass is probably a bad idea design wise