Sniper/Spy Update Thoughts (With Graphs!)

When I saw that Sniper was going to get updated, I wasn't particularly excited. The Huntsman and the Razorback didn't interest me either. I was much more interested once the Spy was revealed to be part of the dual update. Yet I find myself playing more sniper than spy, and it's largely because of the Huntsman. It really transforms the way I play Sniper. Instead of being separated from the game, I feel more integrated into the team and the action. Of course, the Jarate is totally awesome as well.

You may remember the time Valve showed off this graph:

The important part here is that stickies, like most weapons, do less damage over a distance. You may not know that critical hits do the same damage regardless of distance. A critical rocket always does 270 damage.

Now, Jarate does "mini crits". They only boost attacks by 35% instead of 200%. However, they also eliminate the loss of damage over distance. Let's look at the same graph, with Jarate damage included. (By me)

At close range, Jarate only increases damage by 35%, but you can tell that, at a distance, Jarate increases damage by 400%. This is pretty cool, particularly for soldiers and demomen.

The only spy item that really interests me is the Dead Ringer, which is a strange mix of awesome and inconvienient. The attack that causes the feign death has a massive damage reduction. So much so that you can survive any known attack, including the train and a backstab. Since there's a significant amount of time between uses, I think it's mainly useful for escaping once you've attacked;you'll have to use your skills to get into position now.

My prediction for the remaining updates: Soldier is next (Hallelujah) and then a dual Demoman/Engineer update.

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