Re: THIS IS THE OFFICIAL TEAM FORTRESS 2 TOPIC
They threw the scout's update in the trash because his vanilla loadout is devastating enough as it is. If the scout is played right, he isn't an annoyance and a quick flag capper. He's a fucking powerhouse on wheels. In TFC, literally all he was good for was capping flags because he could do it at the speed of sound. That's what the unlocks did. They made him more of a flag capper (force jumping for quick escapes, bonk for getting past sentries, and sandman to deter an enemy that might be following you).
The scout update WAS to add efficiency, just not efficiency in combat. If you've ever played doublecross for example, the force jump makes flag capping take about 20 seconds less. Scouts who cap by forcejumping across the main bridge in the middle can get that shit to the other base in 10 seconds or less. The scout update granted mobility, lots of it, and that's about it. The FaN is terrible for any combat situation and the scattergun is better in every way. But force jumping lets scouts basically fucking fly in some maps, and that's all that matters. That's all the FaN is for.
The sandman removes 15 hp, leaving you with 110. Which, fyi, DOES matter. A SHITLOAD. A soldier can shoot you at point blank with the normal rocket launcher and you'll be instagibbed. So the sandman, along with the FaN, removes efficiency in combat, just to add an annoyance factor. I've rarely died to a scout who's used the sandman to make his flanking more effective. Which is really fucking sad by the way. Your aim is so bad, you need be to me unable to fight back in order for your flank to succeed? Suck less.
Bonk replaces the pistol, which automatically ruins combat efficiency by quite a bit.
The scout update, by this point, is currently saying "HEY, SCOUTS! STOP TRYING TO BE EFFICIENT IN COMBAT! RUN AWAY FROM ALL OF YOUR ENEMIES, ANNOY THEM A SHITLOAD, AND CAP FLAGS INSTEAD!" That's not necessarily a bad thing. In TFC, that's what the scout was. Nothing but a flag capper. The fucking medic was more powerful than the scout was. The scout update kind of brought the scout back to his roots of being a scrawny weakling whose only use was capping the flags. Others don't view it this way, so they hate the scout update and think the scout deserves another.
He doesn't. If you're good at the scout, the vanilla loadout is more than enough to perform well. Don't touch the unlocks unless you don't think you'd ever be any good at scout and you just want to go scout in order to cap flags in a game that's been in a neverending stalemate for an hour. The scout's update doesn't need a redo.