TF2 Uber Update Thoughts

I'm waiting for the Uber Update to come out, so I'm going to write my thoughts about what they've previewed so far.

Soldier
Liberty Launcher
Faster Rocket Launcher, I don't really care about items that just tweak percentages a bit.

Reserve Shooter
Mini-Crits on airborne targets. Sounds great to me.

Market Gardener
Getting Crits seems pretty good, but it's impossibly difficult to get consistent melee hits when you're flying by them.

Mantreads
If anything is harder than meleeing someone in midair, it's landing on their head. From some test jumping around, it seems like the treads would do ~100 damage, tops.

Disciplinary Action
This seems to be great. Going faster is always good, and getting a Heavy to go fast is fantastic. Also, you get to whip your allies.

Pyro
Detonator
Presumably, this'll be the Detonator from the Beta, so sign me up.

Scout
Atomizer
Third jump. Sweet.

Winger
Not that exciting, just tweaking percentages. I may use it for finishing people off.

Soda Popper
Charge up Mini-Crits by running around? I guess it could be good, depends on how fast it charges up.

Sniper
Bazaar Bargain    
I'm a terrible shot, so I'm not going to use it, unless there's something we don't know about it, like it has iron sights or something.

Shahanshah
booooooooooooooooring

Demoman
Splendid Screen
Doesn't seem that great. I'd rather have more damage resistance from the regular shield than better collision damage, which I rarely get.

Persian Persuader
Weird weapon. If ammo becomes health, then you can't pick up any ammo, which means you'll run out pretty quickly. It's for a pure melee build, but I think doing it with the Grenade Launcher would be legit, if you use it sparingly.

Ali Baba's Wee Booties
Is there some thought in Valve HQ that Demomen aren't annoying enough?

Heavy
Tomislav
The "no-sound" business seems good, but no one listens to things anyway. See Spy frag vids for evidence.

Family Business
Tweaking percentages, I don't care.

Eviction Notice
Tweaking percentages, but the wrong way. Surely a set of spiked brass knuckles would do more damage. I'd have it do bleed damage too.

Spy
Enforcer
I use the revolver/L'etrange to kill people already, doing even more damage is awesome. The increased cloak length seems like it wouldn't effect the Dead Ringer at all. This thing could two-shot a low HP enemy at close range.

Big Earner
I don't think this will be that great. 100 HP max is very rough.

Made Man
Maybe it'll do something?

Says It All

From Paul Krugman:

Banning Cards

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I'll play some Magic: The Gathering every now and again. There's an interesting question in that game: how do you decide what cards to allow?

I would have three rules.

1. If a card dominates a format, where every deck is about the card, or has to be an aggressive counter to the card.
2. If a card is in every deck, regardless of what the deck is about.
3. The card makes games really boring, or makes you do a lot of work, disproportionate to its effect.

Rule number two is why I think Sol Ring should be banned in everything. Even a deck with a crazy amount of artifact hate would probably be better off running as many Sol Rings as are allowed. This is an obvious indicator that a card is too powerful.

The obvious counter argument: "If everyone has Sol Ring, it's all balanced. What's the harm?" The harm is that some people are going to draw Sol Ring, and get the huge benefits, and some won't. Every game will swing by a significant amount just by who's lucky enough to pull a Sol Ring in the early game.